Selections From The Poems And Plays Of Robert Browning Part 27

No! This other, on returning Homeward, prize in hand, Satisfied his bosom's yearning (Sir, I hope you understand!) 70 --Said, "Some record there must be Of this cricket's help to me!"

So, he made himself a statue: Marble stood, life-size; On the lyre he pointed at you 75 Perched his partner in the prize; Never more apart you found Her, he throned, from him, she crowned.

That's the tale--its application?

Somebody I know 80 Hopes one day for reputation Through his poetry that's--oh, All so learned and so wise And deserving of a prize!

If he gains one, will some ticket, 85 When his statue's built, Tell the gazer, "'Twas a cricket Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low, when strength usurped Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped? 90

"For as victory was nighest, While I sang and played-- With my lyre at lowest, highest, Right alike--one string that made 'Love' sound soft was snapped in twain, 95 Never to be heard again--

"Had not a kind cricket fluttered, Perched upon the place Vacant left, and duly uttered, 'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the ba.s.s 100 Asked the treble to atone For its somewhat somber drone."

But you don't know music! Wherefore Keep on casting pearls To a--poet? All I care for 105 Is--to tell him that a girl's "Love" comes aptly in when gruff Grows his singing. (There, enough!)

PHEIDIPPIDES

[Greek: Chairete, nikomen.]

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock!

G.o.ds of my birthplace, daemons and heroes, honor to all!

Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, coequal in praise --Aye, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the aegis and spear!

Also ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer, 5 Now, henceforth and forever--O latest to whom I upraise Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock!

Present to help, potent to save, Pan--patron I call!

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return!

See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no specter that speaks! 10 Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you, "Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid!

Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your command I obeyed, Ran and raced; like stubble, some field which a fire runs through, Was the s.p.a.ce between city and city. Two days, two nights did 15 I burn Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

Into their midst I broke; breath served but for "Persia has come!

Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth; Razed to the ground is Eretria--but Athens, shall Athens sink, Drop into dust and die--the flower of h.e.l.las utterly die, 20 Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by?

Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink?

How--when? No care for my limbs!--there's lightning in all and some-- Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!"

O my Athens--Sparta love thee? Did Sparta respond? 25 Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust, Malice--each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate!

Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood Quivering--the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood-- "Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate? 30 Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them 'Ye must'!"

No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at last!

"Has Persia come--does Athens ask aid--may Sparta befriend?

Nowise precipitate judgment--too weighty the issue at stake! 35 Count we no time lost time which lags through respect to the G.o.ds!

Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take Full circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast: Athens must wait, patient as we--who judgment suspend." 40

Athens--except for that sparkle--thy name, I had moldered to as.h.!.+

That sent a blaze through my blood; off, off and away was I back, --Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!

Yet "O G.o.ds of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rus.h.i.+ng past them again, 45 "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you erewhile?

Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!

"Oak and olive and bay--I bid you cease to enwreathe Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's foot, 50 You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave!

Rather I hail thee, Parnes--trust to thy wild waste tract!

Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave No deity deigns to drape with verdure? At least I can breathe, 55 Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!"

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge; Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way.

Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across: 60 "Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?

Athens to aid? Though the dive were through Erebos, thus I obey-- Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge Better!"--when--ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he--majestical Pan! 65 Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cus.h.i.+oned his hoof; All the great G.o.d was good in the eyes grave-kindly--the curl Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe, As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw.

"Halt, Pheidippides!"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl. 70 "Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?" he gracious began; "How is it--Athens, only in h.e.l.las, holds me aloof?

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!

Wherefore? Than I what G.o.ds.h.i.+p to Athens more helpful of old?

Aye, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me! 75 Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-G.o.d saith: When Persia--so much as strews not the soil--is cast in the sea, Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least, Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and 80 the bold!'

"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!'"

(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear --Fennel--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode) "While, as for thee" ... But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto-- Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but 85 flew.

Parnes to Athens--earth no more, the air was my road; Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge!

Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!

Then spoke Miltiades. "And thee, best runner of Greece, Whose limbs did duty indeed--what gift is promised thyself? 90 Tell it us straightway--Athens the mother demands of her son!"

Rosily blushed the youth; he paused; but, lifting at length His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength Into the utterance--"Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou hast done Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release 95 From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'

"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind!

Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow-- Pound--Pan helping us--Persia to dust, and, under the deep, Whelm her away forever; and then--no Athens to save-- 100 Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave-- Hie to my house and home; and, when my children shall creep Close to my knees--recount how the G.o.d was awful yet kind, Promised their sire reward to the full--rewarding him--so!"

Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day; 105 So, when Persia was dust, all cried, "To Akropolis!

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!

'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his s.h.i.+eld, Ran like fire once more; and the s.p.a.ce 'twixt the Fennel-field And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through, 110 Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay, Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.

So is Pheidippides happy forever--the n.o.ble strong man 115 Who could race like a G.o.d, bear the face of a G.o.d, whom a G.o.d loved so well; He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began, So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute: "Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his 120 meed.

MULeYKEH

If a stranger pa.s.sed the tent of Hoseyn, he cried, "A churl's!"

Or haply, "G.o.d help the man who has neither salt nor bread!"

--"Nay," would a friend exclaim, "he needs nor pity nor scorn More than who spends small thought on the sh.o.r.e-sand, picking pearls, --Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears instead 5 On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of night makes morn.

"What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of Sinan?

They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand camels the due, Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old.