Browning's Shorter Poems Part 22

Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, 120 Now sharply, now with sorrow,--told the case,-- He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.

And that's a sample how his years must go.

Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, Should find a treasure,--can he use the same With straitened habits and with tastes starved small, And take at once to his impoverished brain The sudden element that changes things, 130 That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand, And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?

Is he not such an one as moves to mirth-- Warily parsimonious, when no need, Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times?

All prudent counsel as to what befits The golden mean, is lost on such an one: The man's fantastic will is the man's law.

So here--we call the treasure knowledge, say, Increased beyond the fleshly faculty-- 140 Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven: The man is witless of the size, the sum, The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or be much.

Discourse to him of prodigious armaments a.s.sembled to besiege his city now, And of the pa.s.sing of a mule with gourds-- 'Tis one! Then take it on the other side, Speak of some trifling fact,--he will gaze rapt 150 With stupor at its very littleness, (Far as I see) as if in that indeed He caught prodigious import, whole results.

And so will turn to us the bystanders In ever the same stupor (note this point) That we too see not with his opened eyes.

Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, Preposterously, at cross purposes.

Should his child sicken unto death,--why, look For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, 160 Or pretermission of the daily craft!

While a word, gesture, glance from that same child At play or in the school or laid asleep, Will startle him to an agony of fear, Exasperation, just as like. Demand The reason why--"'tis but a word," object-- "A gesture"--he regards thee as our lord Who lived there in the pyramid alone, Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young We both would unadvisedly recite 170 Some charm's beginning, from that book of his, 171 Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst All into stars, as suns grown old are wont.

Thou and the child have each a veil alike Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know! 177 He holds on firmly to some thread of life (It is the life to lead perforcedly) Which runs across some vast distracting orb 180 Of glory on either side that meagre thread, Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet-- The spiritual life around the earthly life: The law of that is known to him as this, His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.

So is the man perplext with impulses Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, Proclaiming what is right and wrong across, And not along, this black thread thro' the blaze-- "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be." 190 And oft the man's soul springs into his face As if he saw again and heard again His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise.

Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within Admonishes: then back he sinks at once To ashes, who was very fire before, In sedulous recurrence to his trade Whereby he earneth him the daily bread; And studiously the humbler for that pride, Professedly the faultier that he knows 200 G.o.d's secret, while he holds the thread of life.

Indeed the especial marking of the man Is p.r.o.ne submission to the heavenly will-- Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.

'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last For that same death, which must restore his being To equilibrium, body loosening soul Divorced even now by premature full growth: He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live So long as G.o.d please, and just how G.o.d please. 210 He even seeketh not to please G.o.d more (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as G.o.d please.

Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be, Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do: How can he give his neighbour the real ground, His own conviction? Ardent as he is-- Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old "Be it as G.o.d please" rea.s.sureth him.

I probed the sore as thy disciple should: 220 "How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march To stamp out like a little spark thy town, Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?"

He merely looked with his large eyes on me, The man is apathetic, you deduce?

Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, Able and weak, affects the very brutes And birds--how say I? flowers of the field-- As a wise workman recognizes tools 230 In a master's workshop, loving what they make.

Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin-- An indignation which is promptly curbed: As when in certain travel I have feigned To be an ignoramus in our art According to some preconceived design, And happed to hear the land's pract.i.tioners Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, 240 Prattle fantastically on disease, Its cause and cure--and I must hold my peace!

Thou wilt object--Why have I not ere this Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, Conferring with the frankness that befits?

Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech Perished in a tumult many years ago, Accused--our learning's fate--of wizardry, Rebellion, to the setting up a rule 250 And creed prodigious as described to me.

His death, which happened when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss To occult learning in our lord the sage Who lived there in the pyramid alone), 255 Was wrought by the mad people--that's their wont!

On vain recourse, as I conjecture it.

To his tried virtue, for miraculous help-- How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way!

The other imputations must be lies: 260 But take one, tho' I loathe to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man's fame.

(And after all, our patient Lazarus Is stark mad; should we count on what he says?

Perhaps not: tho' in writing to a leech 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.) This man so cured regards the curer, then, As--G.o.d forgive me! who but G.o.d Himself, Creator and sustainer of the world, 269 That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile. 270 --'Sayeth that such an one was born, and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, Then died; with Lazarus by, for aught I know, And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat, And must have so avouched himself, in fact, In hearing of this very Lazarus Who saith--but why all this of what he saith?

Why write of trivial matters, things of price Calling at every moment for remark?

I noticed on the margin of a pool 280 Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!

Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, Which, now that I review it, needs must seem Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth!

Nor I myself discern in what is writ Good cause for the peculiar interest And awe indeed this man has touched me with.

Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus: 290 I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came A moon made like a face with certain spots Multiform, manifold, and menacing: Then a wind rose behind me. So we met In this old sleepy town at unaware, The man and I. I send thee what is writ.

Regard it as a chance, a matter risked To this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose, Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. 300 Jerusalem's repose shall make amends For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine; Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!

The very G.o.d! think, Abib; dost thou think?

So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too-- So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here!

Face, my hands fas.h.i.+oned, see it in myself!

Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 310 And thou must love me who have died for thee!"

The madman saith He said so; it is strange.

SAUL

I

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak.

Kiss my cheek, wish me well!" Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek.

And he, "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent, Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent Thou return with the joyful a.s.surance the King liveth yet, Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.

For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a s.p.a.ce of three days, Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise, To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife, And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life. 10

II

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! G.o.d's child with his dew On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat Were now raging to torture the desert!"

III

Then I, as was meet, Knelt down to the G.o.d of my fathers, and rose on my feet, And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped; I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped; Hands and knees on the slippery gra.s.s-patch, all withered and gone, That extends to the second enclosure. I groped my way on Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I prayed, 20 And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice replied.

At the first I saw naught but the blackness; but soon I descried A something more black than the blackness--the vast, the upright Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all.

Then a sunbeam, that burst thro' the tent roof, showed Saul.

IV

He stood erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side; He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his pangs 30 And waiting his change, the king serpent all heavily hangs, Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come With the spring-time,--so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb.

V

Then I tuned my harp,--took off the lilies we twine round its chords Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide--those sunbeams like swords!

And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one, So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done.

They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed Where the long gra.s.ses stifle the water within the stream's bed; And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star 40 Into eve and the blue far above us,--so, blue and so far!

VI

--Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate Till for boldness they fight one another: and then, what has weight To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house-- There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse!

G.o.d made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.

VII

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friends.h.i.+p, and great hearts expand 50 And grow one in the sense of this world's life.--And then, the last song When the dead man is praised on his journey--"Bear, bear him along With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets!" Are balm-seeds not here To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier.

"Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!"--And then, the glad chaunt Of the marriage,--first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.--And then, the great march Wherein man runs to man to a.s.sist him and b.u.t.tress an arch Naught can break; who shall harm them, our friends?--Then, the chorus intoned As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. 60 But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned.

VIII

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart; And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered: and sparkles 'gan dart From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a start, All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart.

So the head: but the body still moved not, still hung there erect.