An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 53

3.

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished, Laid with care on our own shelf!

With a fire-new spoon we're furnished, And a goblet for ourself, Rinsed like something sacrificial Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps-- Marked with L. for our initial!

(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

4.

SAINT, forsooth! While brown Dolores Squats outside the Convent bank With Sanchicha, telling stories, Steeping tresses in the tank, Blue-black, l.u.s.trous, thick like horse-hairs, --Can't I see his dead eye glow, Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?

(That is, if he'd let it show!)

5.

When he finishes refection, Knife and fork he never lays Cross-wise, to my recollection, As do I, in Jesu's praise.

I the Trinity ill.u.s.trate, Drinking watered orange-pulp-- In three sips the Arian frustrate; While he drains his at one gulp.

-- St. 5. the Arian: a follower of Arius (died 336 A.D.), who denied that the Son was co-essential and co-eternal with the Father.

6.

Oh, those melons? If he's able We're to have a feast! so nice!

One goes to the Abbot's table, All of us get each a slice.

How go on your flowers? None double?

Not one fruit-sort can you spy?

Strange!--And I, too, at such trouble, Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

7.

There's a great text in Galatians, Once you trip on it, entails Twenty-nine distinct d.a.m.nations, One sure, if another fails: If I trip him just a-dying, Sure of heaven as sure can be, Spin him round and send him flying Off to h.e.l.l, a Manichee?

-- St. 7. text in Galatians: chap. 5, vv. 19-21, where are enumerated "the works of the flesh". There are seventeen named; he uses twenty-nine indefinitely; it's common in French to use trente-six (36) for any pretty big number.

If I trip him: What if I; and so in next stanza.

a Manichee: a follower of Mani, who aimed to unite Pa.r.s.eeism, or Parsism, with Christianity.

8.

Or, my scrofulous French novel On gray paper with blunt type!

Simply glance at it, you grovel Hand and foot in Belial's gripe: If I double down its pages At the woful sixteenth print, When he gathers his greengages, Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

9.

Or, there's Satan!--one might venture Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave Such a flaw in the indenture As he'd miss till, past retrieve, Blasted lay that rose-acacia We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine. . .

'St, there's Vespers! Plena gratia Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r--you swine!

-- St. 9. Hy, Zy, Hine: represent the sound of the vesper bell.

Holy-Cross Day.

On which the Jews were forced to attend an Annual Christian Sermon in Rome.

-- * "By a bull of Gregory XIII. in the year 1584, all Jews above the age of twelve years were compelled to listen every week to a sermon from a Christian priest; usually an exposition of some pa.s.sages of the Old Testament, and especially those relating to the Messiah, from the Christian point of view. This burden is not yet wholly removed from them; and to this day, several times in the course of a year, a Jewish congregation is gathered together in the church of S. Angelo in Pescheria, and constrained to listen to a homily from a Dominican friar, to whom, unless his zeal have eaten up his good feelings and his good taste, the ceremony must be as painful as to his hearers.

In the same spirit of vulgar persecution, there is upon the gable of a church, opposite one of the gates of the Ghetto, a fresco painting of the Crucifixion, and, underneath, an inscription in Hebrew and Latin, from the 2d and 3d verses of the 65th chapter of Isaiah-- 'I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; a people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face.'"

--George S. Hillard's Six Months in Italy. (1853.) --

{"Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in the merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb, at least, from her conspicuous table here in Rome, should be, though but once yearly, cast to the famis.h.i.+ng dogs, under-trampled and bespitten-upon beneath the feet of the guests.

And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of the besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish Hebrews! now maternally brought --nay (for He saith, 'Compel them to come in'), haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace. What awakening, what striving with tears, what working of a yeasty conscience! Nor was my lord wanting to himself on so apt an occasion; witness the abundance of conversions which did incontinently reward him: though not to my lord be altogether the glory."--Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600.}

What the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was rather to this effect:--

1.

Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak!

Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week.

Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough, Stinking and savory, smug and gruff, Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime Gives us the summons--'tis sermon-time!

2.

Boh, here's Barnabas! Job, that's you?

Up stumps Solomon--bustling too?

Shame, man! greedy beyond your years To handsel the bishop's shaving-shears?

Fair play's a jewel! Leave friends in the lurch?

Stand on a line ere you start for the church!

3.

Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie, Rats in a hamper, swine in a sty, Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve, Worms in a carca.s.s, fleas in a sleeve.

Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs And buzz for the bishop--here he comes.

4.

Bow, wow, wow--a bone for the dog!

I liken his Grace to an acorned hog.

What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a la.s.s, To help and handle my lord's hour-gla.s.s!

Didst ever behold so lithe a chine?

His cheek hath laps like a fresh-singed swine.