Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 36

But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?

Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that, What knows,--the something over Setebos That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought, Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.

There may be something quiet o'er His head, Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief, Since both derive from weakness in some way.

I joy because the quails come; would not joy Could I bring quails here when I have a mind: This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.

'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch, But never spends much thought nor care that way.

It may look up, work up,--the worse for those It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos The many-handed as a cuttle-fish, Who, making Himself feared through what He does, Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar To what is quiet and hath happy life; Next looks down here, and out of very spite Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real, These good things to match those as hips do grapes.

'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.

Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle: Vexed, 'st.i.tched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words; Has peeled a wand and called it by a name; Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe The eyed skin of a supple oncelot; And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye, And saith she is Miranda and my wife: 'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge; Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared, Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame, And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban; A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.

'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way, Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.

His dam held that the Quiet made all things Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.

Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex, Had He meant other, while His hand was in, Why not make h.o.r.n.y eyes no thorn could p.r.i.c.k, Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow, Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint, Like an orc's armour? Ay,--so spoil His sport!

He is the One now: only He doth all.

'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.

Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?

'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose, But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.

Also it pleaseth Setebos to work, Use all His hands, and exercise much craft, By no means for the love of what is worked.

'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world When all goes right, in this safe summer-time, And he wants little, hungers, aches not much, Than trying what to do with wit and strength.

'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs, And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk, And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each, And set up endwise certain spikes of tree, And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top, Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.

No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake; 'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.

'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!

One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.

He hath a spite against me, that I know, Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why?

So it is, all the same, as well I find.

'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave, Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck, Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue, And licked the whole labour flat: so much for spite.

'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies) Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade: Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!

'Dug up a newt He may have envied once And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone.

Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does?

Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He!

There is the sport: discover how or die!

All need not die, for of the things o' the isle Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees; Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice!

Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.

You must not know His ways, and play Him off, Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself: 'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears But steals the nut from underneath my thumb, And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence: 'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, Curls up into a ball, pretending death For fright at my approach: the two ways please.

But what would move my choler more than this, That either creature counted on its life To-morrow and next day and all days to come, Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart, "Because he did so yesterday with me, And otherwise with such another brute, So must he do henceforth and always."--Ay?

Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means!

'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.

'Conceiveth all things will continue thus, And we shall have to live in fear of Him So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change, If He have done His best, make no new world To please Him more, so leave off watching this,-- If He surprise not even the Quiet's self Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it As grubs grow b.u.t.terflies: else, here are we, And there is He, and nowhere help at all.

'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.

His dam held different, that after death He both plagued enemies and feasted friends: Idly! He doth His worst in this our life, Giving just respite lest we die through pain, Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end.

Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself, Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink, Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.

'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball On head and tail as if to save their lives: Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.

Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose This Caliban strives hard and ails no less, And always, above all else, envies Him; Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights, Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh, And never speaks his mind save housed as now: Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here, O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?"

'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off, Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best, Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree, Or push my tame beast for the ore to taste: While myself lit a fire, and made a song And sung it, "_What I hate, be consecrate To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate For Thee; what see for envy in poor me_"?

Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend, Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime, That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch And conquer Setebos, or likelier He Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.

[What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!

Crickets stop hissing; not a bird--or, yes, There scuds His raven that has told Him all!

It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze-- A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there, His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!

Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!

'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]

In the great poem _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, a quite different reason from that of Caliban's is suggested for the drawbacks and sufferings of life. They are a part of the divine machinery employed by infinite wisdom to further human development, to make us ultimately fit to see His face. There can be no true progress without obstacles: no enjoyment without its opposite: no vacation without duties: no virtue without sin.

The second line of the poem is startling in its direct contradiction of the language and lamentation of conventional poetry. Regret for lost youth and terror before old age are stock ideas in poetry, and in human meditation; but here we are invited to look forward to old age as the best time of life. Not to grow old gracefully, in resignation, but to grow old eagerly, in triumph--this is the Rabbi's suggestion. There is not the slightest doubt that he is right, provided one lives a mental, rather than an animal existence. A short time ago, Mr. Joseph H. Choate was addressing a large company in New York: he said, "Unquestionably the best period of life is the time between seventy and eighty years of age: and I advise you all to hurry up and get there as soon as you can."

G.o.d loveth whom He chasteneth. Our doubts and fears, our sorrows and pains, are spurs, stimulants to advance; rejoice that we have them, for they are proofs that we are alive and moving!

In the seventh stanza comes an audacious but cheering thought. Many thinkers regard the deepest sorrow of life as rising from the disparity between our ideals and our achievement; Schiller, in his poem, _Das Ideal und das Leben_, has expressed this cause of woe in beautiful language. Browning says boldly,

What I aspired to be, And was not, _comforts_ me:

This paradox, which comforts while it mocks, means, "My achievements are ridiculously small in comparison with my hopes, my ambitions, my dreams: thank G.o.d for all this! Thank G.o.d I was not content with low aims, thank G.o.d I had my aspirations and have them still: they point to future development."

In the twenty-third, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth stanzas, Browning suddenly returns to this idea: in the apprais.e.m.e.nt of the human soul, efforts, which if unsuccessful, count for nothing in worldly estimation, pay an enormous ultimate dividend, and must therefore be rated high. The reason why the world counts only things done and not things attempted, is because the world's standards are too coa.r.s.e: they are adapted only for gross and obvious results. You can not weigh diamonds on hay scales: the indicator would show precisely nothing. And yet one diamond, too fine for these huge scales, might be of more value than thousands of tons of hay.

From the twenty-sixth stanza to the end, Browning takes up the figure of the Potter, the Wheel, and the Clay. I think that he was drawn to use this metaphor, not from Scripture, but as a protest against the use of it in Fitzgerald's _Omar Khayyam_. Fitzgerald published his translation in 1859; and although it attracted no public attention, it is certainly possible that Browning saw it. He would have enjoyed its melodious beauty, but the philosophy of the poem would have been to him detestable and abhorrent. Much is made there of the Potter, meaning blind destiny: and the moral is, "Drink! the Past gone, seize To-day!" Browning explicitly rejects and scorns this teaching: it is propounded by fools for the benefit of other fools.

Fool! all that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and G.o.d stand sure: What entered into thee, _That_ was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

In Browning's metaphor, the Potter is G.o.d: the Wheel is the whirling course of life's experiences: the Clay is man. G.o.d holds us on the wheel to turn us into the proper shape. Owing to our flaws, the strain is sometimes too great, and some of us are warped and twisted by this stern discipline: other characters, made of better material, constantly grow more beautiful and more serviceable under the treatment. Browning had suffered the greatest sorrow of his life when he wrote this poem, and yet he had faith enough to say in the thirty-first stanza, that _not even while the whirl was worst_, did he, bound dizzily to the terrible wheel of life, once lose his belief that he was in G.o.d's hands and that the deep cuttings were for his ultimate benefit.

In the making of a cup, the Potter engraved around the base lovely images of youth and pleasure, and near the rim skulls and signs of death: but what is a cup for? It is meant for the Master's lips. The nearer therefore we approach to death, the nearer we are to G.o.d's presence, who is making us fit to slake His thirst. Finished at last, we are done forever with life's wheel: we come to the banquet, the festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, the glorious appearance of the Master.

RABBI BEN EZRA

1864

I

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust G.o.d: see all nor be afraid!"

II

Not that, ama.s.sing flowers, Youth sighed "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall?"

Not that, admiring stars, It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"

III