Selections From The Poems And Plays Of Robert Browning Part 16

Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure Bad is our bargain! 100 Was it not great? did not he throw on G.o.d, (He loves the burthen)-- G.o.d's task to make the heavenly period Perfect the earthen?

Did not he magnify the mind, show clear 105 Just what it all meant?

He would not discount life, as fools do here, Paid by installment.

He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success Found, or earth's failure: 110 "Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered, "Yes!

Hence with life's pale lure!"

That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it: This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 115 Dies ere he knows it.

That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred's soon hit: This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. 120 That, has the world here--should he need the next, Let the world mind him!

This, throws himself on G.o.d, and unperplexed Seeking shall find him.

So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, 125 Ground he at grammar; Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled _Hoti's_ business--let it be!-- Properly based _Oun_-- 130 Gave us the doctrine of the enc.l.i.tic _De_, Dead from the waist down.

Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers of the feathered race, 135 Swallows and curlews!

Here's the top-peak; the mult.i.tude below Live, for they can, there: This man decided not to Live but Know-- Bury this man there? 140 Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm, Peace let the dew send!

Lofty designs must close in like effects: 145 Loftily lying, Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying.

"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"

(See Edgar's song in _Lear_)

My first thought was, he lied in every word, That h.o.a.ry cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored 5 Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?

What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare All travelers who might find him posted there, And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh 10 Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

If at his counsel I should turn aside Into the ominous tract which, all agree, Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly 15 I did turn as he pointed: neither pride Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, So much as gladness that some end might be.

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, What with my search drawn out through years, my hope 20 Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring, I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

As when a sick man very near to death 25 Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end The tears, and takes the farewell of each friend, And hears one bid the other go, draw breath Freelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith, "And the blow fallen no grieving can amend"); 30

While some discuss if near the other graves Be room enough for this, and when a day Suits best for carrying the corpse away, With care about the banners, scarves, and staves; And still the man hears all, and only craves 35 He may not shame such tender love and stay.

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest, Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among "The Band"--to wit, The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed 40 Their steps--that just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?

So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, That hateful cripple, out of his highway Into the path he pointed. All the day 45 Had been a dreary one at best, and dim Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.

For mark! no sooner was I fairly found Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, 50 Than, pausing to throw backward a last view O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round: Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.

I might go on; naught else remained to do.

So, on I went. I think I never saw 55 Such starved ign.o.ble nature; nothing throve; For flowers--as well expect a cedar grove!

But c.o.c.kle, spurge, according to their law Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, You'd think; a bur had been a treasure-trove. 60

No! penury, inertness, and grimace, In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly, "It nothing skills; I cannot help my case; 'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place, 65 Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."

If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk 70 All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk Pas.h.i.+ng their life out, with a brute's intents.

As for the gra.s.s, it grew as scant as hair In leprosy; thin dry blades p.r.i.c.ked the mud Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. 75 One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, Stood stupefied, however he came there; Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, 80 And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane; Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. 85 As a man calls for wine before he fights, I asked one draft of earlier, happier sights, Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.

Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art; One taste of the old time sets all to rights. 90

Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face Beneath its garniture of curly gold, Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold An arm in mine to fix me to the place, That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace! 95 Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.

Giles then, the soul of honor--there he stands Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.

What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.

Good--but the scene s.h.i.+fts--faugh! what hangman hands 100 Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and cursed!

Better this present than a past like that; Back therefore to my darkening path again!

No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain. 105 Will the night send a howlet or a bat?

I asked; when something on the dismal flat Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.

A sudden little river crossed my path As unexpected as a serpent comes. 110 No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.

So petty yet so spiteful! All along, 115 Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it; Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit Of mute despair, a suicidal throng; The river which had done them all the wrong, Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. 120

Which, while I forded--good saints, how I feared To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!

It may have been a water-rat I speared, 125 But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.

Glad was I when I reached the other bank.

Now for a better country. Vain presage!

Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--

The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.

What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?

No footprint leading to that horrid mews, 135 None out of it. Mad brewage set to work Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.

And more than that--a furlong on--why, there!

What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, 140 Or brake, not wheel--that harrow fit to reel Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware, Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood, 145 Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth Desperate and done with--so a fool finds mirth, Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood Changes and off he goes!--within a rood, Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth. 150

Now blotches rankling, colored gay and grim, Now patches where some leanness of the soil's Broke into moss or substances like boils; Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim 155 Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

And just as far as ever from the end!

Naught in the distance but the evening, naught To point my footstep further! At the thought, A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, 160 Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place All round to mountains--with such name to grace 165 Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.

How thus they had surprised me--solve it, you!

How to get from them was no clearer case.

Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick Of mischief happened to me, G.o.d knows when-- 170 In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, Progress this way. When, in the very nick Of giving up, one time more, came a click As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den!

Burningly it came on me all at once, 175 This was the place! those two hills on the right, Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for the sight! 180

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?

The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counterpart In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf Points to the s.h.i.+pman thus the unseen shelf 185 He strikes on, only when the timbers start.