The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume IV Part 8

Three hundred years his patient statues wait In that small chapel of the dim Saint Lawrence: Day's eyes are breaking bold and pa.s.sionate Over his shoulder, and will flash abhorrence On darkness and with level looks meet fate, When once loose from that marble film of theirs; The Night has wild dreams in her sleep, the Dawn Is haggard as the sleepless, Twilight wears A sort of horror; as the veil withdrawn 'Twixt the artist's soul and works had left them heirs Of speechless thoughts which would not quail nor fawn, Of angers and contempts, of hope and love: For not without a meaning did he place The princely Urbino on the seat above With everlasting shadow on his face, While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove The ashes of his long-extinguished race Which never more shall clog the feet of men.

I do believe, divinest Angelo, That winter-hour in Via Larga, when They bade thee build a statue up in snow[4]

And straight that marvel of thine art again Dissolved beneath the sun's Italian glow, Thine eyes, dilated with the plastic pa.s.sion, Thawing too in drops of wounded manhood, since, To mock alike thine art and indignation, Laughed at the palace-window the new prince,-- ("Aha! this genius needs for exaltation, When all's said and however the proud may wince, A little marble from our princely mines!") I do believe that hour thou laughedst too For the whole sad world and for thy Florentines, After those few tears, which were only few!

That as, beneath the sun, the grand white lines Of thy snow-statue trembled and withdrew,-- The head, erect as Jove's, being palsied first, The eyelids flattened, the full brow turned blank, The right-hand, raised but now as if it cursed, Dropt, a mere s...o...b..ll, (till the people sank Their voices, though a louder laughter burst From the royal window)--thou couldst proudly thank G.o.d and the prince for promise and presage, And laugh the laugh back, I think verily, Thine eyes being purged by tears of righteous rage To read a wrong into a prophecy, And measure a true great man's heritage Against a mere great-duke's posterity.

I think thy soul said then, "I do not need A princedom and its quarries, after all; For if I write, paint, carve a word, indeed, On book or board or dust, on floor or wall, The same is kept of G.o.d who taketh heed That not a letter of the meaning fall Or ere it touch and teach His world's deep heart, Outlasting, therefore, all your lords.h.i.+ps, sir!

So keep your stone, beseech you, for your part, To cover up your grave-place and refer The proper t.i.tles; _I_ live by my art.

The thought I threw into this snow shall stir This gazing people when their gaze is done; And the tradition of your act and mine, When all the snow is melted in the sun, Shall gather up, for unborn men, a sign Of what is the true princedom,--ay, and none Shall laugh that day, except the drunk with wine."

Amen, great Angelo! the day's at hand.

If many laugh not on it, shall we weep?

Much more we must not, let us understand.

Through rhymers sonneteering in their sleep And archaists mumbling dry bones up the land And sketchers lauding ruined towns a-heap,-- Through all that drowsy hum of voices smooth, The hopeful bird mounts carolling from brake, The hopeful child, with leaps to catch his growth, Sings open-eyed for liberty's sweet sake: And I, a singer also from my youth, Prefer to sing with these who are awake, With birds, with babes, with men who will not fear The baptism of the holy morning dew, (And many of such wakers now are here, Complete in their anointed manhood, who Will greatly dare and greatlier persevere,) Than join those old thin voices with my new, And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh Cooped up in music 'twixt an oh and ah,-- Nay, hand in hand with that young child, will I Go singing rather, "_Bella liberta_,"

Than, with those poets, croon the dead or cry "_Se tu men bella fossi, Italia!_"

"Less wretched if less fair." Perhaps a truth Is so far plain in this, that Italy, Long trammelled with the purple of her youth Against her age's ripe activity, Sits still upon her tombs, without death's ruth But also without life's brave energy.

"Now tell us what is Italy?" men ask: And others answer, "Virgil, Cicero, Catullus, Caesar." What beside? to task The memory closer--"Why, Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarca,"--and if still the flask Appears to yield its wine by drops too slow,-- "Angelo, Raffael, Pergolese,"--all Whose strong hearts beat through stone, or charged again The paints with fire of souls electrical, Or broke up heaven for music. What more then?

Why, then, no more. The chaplet's last beads fall In naming the last saints.h.i.+p within ken, And, after that, none prayeth in the land.

Alas, this Italy has too long swept Heroic ashes up for hour-gla.s.s sand; Of her own past, impa.s.sioned nympholept!

Consenting to be nailed here by the hand To the very bay-tree under which she stept A queen of old, and plucked a leafy branch; And, licensing the world too long indeed To use her broad phylacteries to staunch And stop her b.l.o.o.d.y lips, she takes no heed How one clear word would draw an avalanche Of living sons around her, to succeed The vanished generations. Can she count These oil-eaters with large live mobile mouths Agape for macaroni, in the amount Of consecrated heroes of her south's Bright rosary? The pitcher at the fount, The gift of G.o.ds, being broken, she much loathes To let the ground-leaves of the place confer A natural bowl. So henceforth she would seem No nation, but the poet's pensioner, With alms from every land of song and dream, While aye her pipers sadly pipe of her Until their proper breaths, in that extreme Of sighing, split the reed on which they played: Of which, no more. But never say "no more"

To Italy's life! Her memories undismayed Still argue "evermore;" her graves implore Her future to be strong and not afraid; Her very statues send their looks before.

We do not serve the dead--the past is past.

G.o.d lives, and lifts His glorious mornings up Before the eyes of men awake at last, Who put away the meats they used to sup, And down upon the dust of earth outcast The dregs remaining of the ancient cup, Then turn to wakeful prayer and worthy act.

The Dead, upon their awful 'vantage ground, The sun not in their faces, shall abstract No more our strength; we will not be discrowned As guardians of their crowns, nor deign transact A barter of the present, for a sound Of good so counted in the foregone days.

O Dead, ye shall no longer cling to us With rigid hands of desiccating praise, And drag us backward by the garment thus, To stand and laud you in long-drawn virelays!

We will not henceforth be oblivious Of our own lives, because ye lived before, Nor of our acts, because ye acted well.

We thank you that ye first unlatched the door, But will not make it inaccessible By thankings on the threshold any more.

We hurry onward to extinguish h.e.l.l With our fresh souls, our younger hope, and G.o.d's Maturity of purpose. Soon shall we Die also! and, that then our periods Of life may round themselves to memory As smoothly as on our graves the burial-sods, We now must look to it to excel as ye, And bear our age as far, unlimited By the last mind-mark; so, to be invoked By future generations, as their Dead.

'T is true that when the dust of death has choked A great man's voice, the common words he said Turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked Like horses, draw like griffins: this is true And acceptable. I, too, should desire, When men make record, with the flowers they strew, "Savonarola's soul went out in fire Upon our Grand-duke's piazza,[5] and burned through A moment first, or ere he did expire, The veil betwixt the right and wrong, and showed How near G.o.d sat and judged the judges there,--"

Upon the self-same pavement overstrewed To cast my violets with as reverent care, And prove that all the winters which have snowed Cannot snow out the scent from stones and air, Of a sincere man's virtues. This was he, Savonarola, who, while Peter sank With his whole boat-load, called courageously "Wake Christ, wake Christ!"--who, having tried the tank Of old church-waters used for baptistry Ere Luther came to spill them, swore they stank; Who also by a princely deathbed cried, "Loose Florence, or G.o.d will not loose thy soul!"

Then fell back the Magnificent and died Beneath the star-look shooting from the cowl, Which turned to wormwood-bitterness the wide Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul To grudge Savonarola and the rest Their violets: rather pay them quick and fres.h.!.+

The emphasis of death makes manifest The eloquence of action in our flesh; And men who, living, were but dimly guessed, When once free from their life's entangled mesh, Show their full length in graves, or oft indeed Exaggerate their stature, in the flat, To n.o.ble admirations which exceed Most n.o.bly, yet will calculate in that But accurately. We, who are the seed Of buried creatures, if we turned and spat Upon our antecedents, we were vile.

Bring violets rather. If these had not walked Their furlong, could we hope to walk our mile?

Therefore bring violets. Yet if we self-baulked Stand still, a-strewing violets all the while, These moved in vain, of whom we have vainly talked.

So rise up henceforth with a cheerful smile, And having strewn the violets, reap the corn, And having reaped and garnered, bring the plough And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn, And plant the great Hereafter in this Now.

Of old 't was so. How step by step was worn, As each man gained on each securely!--how Each by his own strength sought his own Ideal,-- The ultimate Perfection leaning bright From out the sun and stars to bless the leal And earnest search of all for Fair and Right Through doubtful forms by earth accounted real!

Because old Jubal blew into delight The souls of men with clear-piped melodies, If youthful Asaph were content at most To draw from Jubal's grave, with listening eyes, Traditionary music's floating ghost Into the gra.s.s-grown silence, were it wise?

And was 't not wiser, Jubal's breath being lost, That Miriam clashed her cymbals to surprise The sun between her white arms flung apart, With new glad golden sounds? that David's strings O'erflowed his hand with music from his heart?

So harmony grows full from many springs, And happy accident turns holy art.

You enter, in your Florence wanderings, The church of Saint Maria Novella. Pa.s.s The left stair, where at plague-time Machiavel[6]

Saw One with set fair face as in a gla.s.s, Dressed out against the fear of death and h.e.l.l, Rustling her silks in pauses of the ma.s.s, To keep the thought off how her husband fell, When she left home, stark dead across her feet,-- The stair leads up to what the Orgagnas save Of Dante's daemons; you, in pa.s.sing it, Ascend the right stair from the farther nave To muse in a small chapel scarcely lit By Cimabue's Virgin. Bright and brave, That picture was accounted, mark, of old: A king stood bare before its sovran grace,[7]

A reverent people shouted to behold The picture, not the king, and even the place Containing such a miracle grew bold, Named the Glad Borgo from that beauteous face Which thrilled the artist, after work, to think His own ideal Mary-smile should stand So very near him,--he, within the brink Of all that glory, let in by his hand With too divine a rashness! Yet none shrink Who come to gaze here now; albeit 't was planned Sublimely in the thought's simplicity: The Lady, throned in empyreal state, Minds only the young Babe upon her knee, While sidelong angels bear the royal weight, Prostrated meekly, smiling tenderly Oblivion of their wings; the Child thereat Stretching its hand like G.o.d. If any should, Because of some stiff draperies and loose joints, Gaze scorn down from the heights of Raffaelhood On Cimabue's picture,--Heaven anoints The head of no such critic, and his blood The poet's curse strikes full on and appoints To ague and cold spasms for evermore.

A n.o.ble picture! worthy of the shout Wherewith along the streets the people bore Its cherub-faces which the sun threw out Until they stooped and entered the church door.

Yet rightly was young Giotto talked about, Whom Cimabue found among the sheep,[8]

And knew, as G.o.ds know G.o.ds, and carried home To paint the things he had painted, with a deep And fuller insight, and so overcome His chapel-Lady with a heavenlier sweep Of light: for thus we mount into the sum Of great things known or acted. I hold, too, That Cimabue smiled upon the lad At the first stroke which pa.s.sed what he could do, Or else his Virgin's smile had never had Such sweetness in 't. All great men who foreknew Their heirs in art, for art's sake have been glad, And bent their old white heads as if uncrowned, Fanatics of their pure Ideals still Far more than of their triumphs, which were found With some less vehement struggle of the will.

If old Margheritone trembled, swooned And died despairing at the open sill Of other men's achievements (who achieved, By loving art beyond the master), he Was old Margheritone, and conceived Never, at first youth and most ecstasy, A Virgin like that dream of one, which heaved The death-sigh from his heart. If wistfully Margheritone sickened at the smell Of Cimabue's laurel, let him go!

For Cimabue stood up very well In spite of Giotto's, and Angelico The artist-saint kept smiling in his cell The smile with which he welcomed the sweet slow Inbreak of angels (whitening through the dim That he might paint them), while the sudden sense Of Raffael's future was revealed to him By force of his own fair works' competence.

The same blue waters where the dolphins swim Suggest the tritons. Through the blue Immense Strike out, all swimmers! cling not in the way Of one another, so to sink; but learn The strong man's impulse, catch the freshening spray He throws up in his motions, and discern By his clear westering eye, the time of day.

Thou, G.o.d, hast set us worthy gifts to earn Besides Thy heaven and Thee! and when I say There's room here for the weakest man alive To live and die, there's room too, I repeat, For all the strongest to live well, and strive Their own way, by their individual heat,-- Like some new bee-swarm leaving the old hive, Despite the wax which tempts so violet-sweet.

Then let the living live, the dead retain Their grave-cold flowers!--though honour's best supplied By bringing actions, to prove theirs not vain.

Cold graves, we say? it shall be testified That living men who burn in heart and brain, Without the dead were colder. If we tried To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure The future would not stand. Precipitate This old roof from the shrine, and, insecure, The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate.

How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer!

The tall green poplars grew no longer straight Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight For Athens, and not swear by Marathon?

Who dared build temples, without tombs in sight?

Or live, without some dead man's benison?

Or seek truth, hope for good, and strive for right, If, looking up, he saw not in the sun Some angel of the martyrs all day long Standing and waiting? Your last rhythm will need Your earliest key-note. Could I sing this song, If my dead masters had not taken heed To help the heavens and earth to make me strong, As the wind ever will find out some reed And touch it to such issues as belong To such a frail thing? None may grudge the Dead Libations from full cups. Unless we choose To look back to the hills behind us spread, The plains before us sadden and confuse; If orphaned, we are disinherited.

I would but turn these lachrymals to use, And pour fresh oil in from the olive-grove, To furnish them as new lamps. Shall I say What made my heart beat with exulting love A few weeks back?-- The day was such a day As Florence owes the sun. The sky above, Its weight upon the mountains seemed to lay, And palpitate in glory, like a dove Who has flown too fast, full-hearted--take away The image! for the heart of man beat higher That day in Florence, flooding all her streets And piazzas with a tumult and desire.

The people, with acc.u.mulated heats And faces turned one way, as if one fire Both drew and flushed them, left their ancient beats And went up toward the palace-Pitti wall To thank their Grand-duke who, not quite of course, Had graciously permitted, at their call, The citizens to use their civic force To guard their civic homes. So, one and all, The Tuscan cities streamed up to the source Of this new good at Florence, taking it As good so far, presageful of more good,-- The first torch of Italian freedom, lit To toss in the next tiger's face who should Approach too near them in a greedy fit,-- The first pulse of an even flow of blood To prove the level of Italian veins Towards rights perceived and granted. How we gazed From Casa Guidi windows while, in trains Of orderly procession--banners raised, And intermittent bursts of martial strains Which died upon the shout, as if amazed By gladness beyond music--they pa.s.sed on!

The Magistracy, with insignia, pa.s.sed,-- And all the people shouted in the sun, And all the thousand windows which had cast A ripple of silks in blue and scarlet down (As if the houses overflowed at last), Seemed growing larger with fair heads and eyes.

The Lawyers pa.s.sed,--and still arose the shout, And hands broke from the windows to surprise Those grave calm brows with bay-tree leaves thrown out.

The Priesthood pa.s.sed,--the friars with worldly-wise Keen sidelong glances from their beards about The street to see who shouted; many a monk Who takes a long rope in the waist, was there: Whereat the popular exultation drunk With indrawn "vivas" the whole sunny air, While through the murmuring windows rose and sunk A cloud of kerchiefed hands,--"The church makes fair Her welcome in the new Pope's name." Ensued The black sign of the "Martyrs"--(name no name, But count the graves in silence). Next were viewed The Artists; next, the Trades; and after came The People,--flag and sign, and rights as good-- And very loud the shout was for that same Motto, "Il popolo." IL POPOLO,-- The word means dukedom, empire, majesty, And kings in such an hour might read it so.

And next, with banners, each in his degree, Deputed representatives a-row Of every separate state of Tuscany: Siena's she-wolf, bristling on the fold Of the first flag, preceded Pisa's hare, And Ma.s.sa's lion floated calm in gold, Pienza's following with his silver stare, Arezzo's steed pranced clear from bridle-hold,-- And well might shout our Florence, greeting there These, and more brethren. Last, the world had sent The various children of her teeming flanks-- Greeks, English, French--as if to a parliament Of lovers of her Italy in ranks, Each bearing its land's symbol reverent; At which the stones seemed breaking into thanks And rattling up the sky, such sounds in proof Arose; the very house-walls seemed to bend; The very windows, up from door to roof, Flashed out a rapture of bright heads, to mend With pa.s.sionate looks the gesture's whirling off A hurricane of leaves. Three hours did end While all these pa.s.sed; and ever in the crowd, Rude men, unconscious of the tears that kept Their beards moist, shouted; some few laughed aloud, And none asked any why they laughed and wept: Friends kissed each other's cheeks, and foes long vowed More warmly did it; two-months' babies leapt Right upward in their mother's arms, whose black Wide glittering eyes looked elsewhere; lovers pressed Each before either, neither glancing back; And peasant maidens smoothly 'tired and tressed Forgot to finger on their throats the slack Great pearl-strings; while old blind men would not rest, But pattered with their staves and slid their shoes Along the stones, and smiled as if they saw.

O heaven, I think that day had n.o.ble use Among G.o.d's days! So near stood Right and Law, Both mutually forborne! Law would not bruise Nor Right deny, and each in reverent awe Honoured the other. And if, ne'ertheless, That good day's sun delivered to the vines No charta, and the liberal Duke's excess Did scarce exceed a Guelf's or Ghibelline's In any special actual righteousness Of what that day he granted, still the signs Are good and full of promise, we must say, When mult.i.tudes approach their kings with prayers And kings concede their people's right to pray Both in one suns.h.i.+ne. Griefs are not despairs, So uttered, nor can royal claims dismay When men from humble homes and ducal chairs Hate wrong together. It was well to view Those banners ruffled in a ruler's face Inscribed, "Live freedom, union, and all true Brave patriots who are aided by G.o.d's grace!"

Nor was it ill when Leopoldo drew His little children to the window-place He stood in at the Pitti, to suggest _They_ too should govern as the people willed.

What a cry rose then! some, who saw the best, Declared his eyes filled up and overfilled With good warm human tears which unrepressed Ran down. I like his face; the forehead's build Has no capacious genius, yet perhaps Sufficient comprehension,--mild and sad, And careful n.o.bly,--not with care that wraps Self-loving hearts, to stifle and make mad, But careful with the care that shuns a lapse Of faith and duty, studious not to add A burden in the gathering of a gain.

And so, G.o.d save the Duke, I say with those Who that day shouted it; and while dukes reign, May all wear in the visible overflows Of spirit, such a look of careful pain!

For G.o.d must love it better than repose.

And all the people who went up to let Their hearts out to that Duke, as has been told-- Where guess ye that the living people met, Kept tryst, formed ranks, chose leaders, first unrolled Their banners?

In the Loggia? where is set Cellini's G.o.dlike Perseus, bronze or gold, (How name the metal, when the statue flings Its soul so in your eyes?) with brow and sword Superbly calm, as all opposing things, Slain with the Gorgon, were no more abhorred Since ended?

No, the people sought no wings From Perseus in the Loggia, nor implored An inspiration in the place beside From that dim bust of Brutus, jagged and grand, Where Buonarroti pa.s.sionately tried From out the close-clenched marble to demand The head of Rome's sublimest homicide, Then dropt the quivering mallet from his hand, Despairing he could find no model-stuff Of Brutus in all Florence where he found The G.o.ds and gladiators thick enough.

Nor there! the people chose still holier ground: The people, who are simple, blind and rough, Know their own angels, after looking round.

Whom chose they then? where met they?

On the stone Called Dante's,--a plain flat stone scarce discerned From others in the pavement,--whereupon He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned To Brunelleschi's church, and pour alone The lava of his spirit when it burned: It is not cold to-day. O pa.s.sionate Poor Dante who, a banished Florentine, Didst sit austere at banquets of the great And muse upon this far-off stone of thine And think how oft some pa.s.ser used to wait A moment, in the golden day's decline, With "Good night, dearest Dante!"--well, good night!

_I_ muse now, Dante, and think verily, Though chapelled in the byeway out of sight, Ravenna's bones would thrill with ecstasy, Couldst know thy favourite stone's elected right As tryst-place for thy Tuscans to foresee Their earliest chartas from. Good night, good morn, Henceforward, Dante! now my soul is sure That thine is better comforted of scorn, And looks down earthward in completer cure Than when, in Santa Croce church forlorn Of any corpse, the architect and hewer Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb.[9]

For now thou art no longer exiled, now Best honoured: we salute thee who art come Back to the old stone with a softer brow Than Giotto drew upon the wall, for some Good lovers of our age to track and plough[10]

Their way to, through time's ordures stratified, And startle broad awake into the dull Bargello chamber: now thou'rt milder-eyed,-- Now Beatrix may leap up glad to cull Thy first smile, even in heaven and at her side, Like that which, nine years old, looked beautiful At May-game. What do I say? I only meant That tender Dante loved his Florence well, While Florence, now, to love him is content; And, mark ye, that the piercingest sweet smell Of love's dear incense by the living sent To find the dead, is not accessible To lazy livers--no narcotic,--not Swung in a censer to a sleepy tune,-- But trod out in the morning air by hot Quick spirits who tread firm to ends foreshown, And use the name of greatness unforgot, To meditate what greatness may be done.

For Dante sits in heaven and ye stand here, And more remains for doing, all must feel, Than trysting on his stone from year to year To s.h.i.+ft processions, civic toe to heel, The town's thanks to the Pitti. Are ye freer For what was felt that day? a chariot-wheel May spin fast, yet the chariot never roll.

But if that day suggested something good, And bettered, with one purpose, soul by soul,-- Better means freer. A land's brotherhood Is most puissant: men, upon the whole, Are what they can be,--nations, what they would.

Will therefore, to be strong, thou Italy!

Will to be n.o.ble! Austrian Metternich Can fix no yoke unless the neck agree; And thine is like the lion's when the thick Dews shudder from it, and no man would be The stroker of his mane, much less would p.r.i.c.k His nostril with a reed. When nations roar Like lions, who shall tame them and defraud Of the due pasture by the river-sh.o.r.e?

Roar, therefore! shake your dewlaps dry abroad: The amphitheatre with open door Leads back upon the benches who applaud The last spear-thruster.

Yet the Heavens forbid That we should call on pa.s.sion to confront The brutal with the brutal and, amid This ripening world, suggest a lion-hunt And lion's-vengeance for the wrongs men did And do now, though the spears are getting blunt.

We only call, because the sight and proof Of lion-strength hurts nothing; and to show A lion-heart, and measure paw with hoof, Helps something, even, and will instruct a foe As well as the onslaught, how to stand aloof: Or else the world gets past the mere brute blow Or given or taken. Children use the fist Until they are of age to use the brain; And so we needed Caesars to a.s.sist Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain G.o.d's counsel, when a point was nearly missed, Until our generations should attain Christ's stature nearer. Not that we, alas, Attain already; but a single inch Will raise to look down on the swordsman's pa.s.s.

As knightly Roland on the coward's flinch: And, after chloroform and ether-gas, We find out slowly what the bee and finch Have ready found, through Nature's lamp in each, How to our races we may justify Our individual claims and, as we reach Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply The children's uses,--how to fill a breach With olive-branches,--how to quench a lie With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek With Christ's most conquering kiss. Why, these are things Worth a great nation's finding, to prove weak The "glorious arms" of military kings.

And so with wide embrace, my England, seek To stifle the bad heat and flickerings Of this world's false and nearly expended fire!

Draw palpitating arrows to the wood, And tw.a.n.g abroad thy high hopes and thy higher Resolves, from that most virtuous alt.i.tude!

Till nations shall unconsciously aspire By looking up to thee, and learn that good And glory are not different. Announce law By freedom; exalt chivalry by peace; Instruct how clear calm eyes can overawe, And how pure hands, stretched simply to release A bond-slave, will not need a sword to draw To be held dreadful. O my England, crease Thy purple with no alien agonies, No struggles toward encroachment, no vile war!

Disband thy captains, change thy victories, Be henceforth prosperous as the angels are, Helping, not humbling.

Drums and battle-cries Go out in music of the morning-star-- And soon we shall have thinkers in the place Of fighters, each found able as a man To strike electric influence through a race, Unstayed by city-wall and barbican.