Selections From The Poems And Plays Of Robert Browning Part 7

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned: "Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice 35 earned.

The soul, doubtless, is immortal--where a soul can be discerned.

"Yours for instance; you know physics, something of geology, Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree; b.u.t.terflies may dread extinction--you'll not die, it cannot be!

"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop, 40 Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop; What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.

Dear dead women, with such hair, too--what's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown 45 old.

OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE

The morn when first it thunders in March, The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say; As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch Of the villa-gate this warm March day, No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled 5 In the valley beneath where, white and wide And washed by the morning water-gold, Florence lay out on the mountain-side.

River and bridge and street and square Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, 10 Through the live translucent bath of air, As the sights in a magic crystal ball.

And of all I saw and of all I praised, The most to praise and the best to see Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised; 15 But why did it more than startle me?

Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, Could you play me false who loved you so?

Some slights if a certain heart endures Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know! 20 I' faith, I perceive not why I should care To break a silence that suits them best, But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear When I find a Giotto join the rest.

On the arch where olives overhead 25 Print the blue sky with twig and leaf (That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed) 'Twixt the aloes, I used to lean in chief, And mark through the winter afternoons, By a gift G.o.d grants me now and then, 30 In the mild decline of those suns like moons, Who walked in Florence, besides her men.

They might chirp and chaffer, come and go For pleasure or profit, her men alive-- My business was hardly with them, I trow, 35 But with empty cells of the human hive-- With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, The church's apsis, aisle, or nave, Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch, Its face set full for the sun to shave. 40

Wherever a fresco peels and drops, Wherever an outline weakens and wanes Till the latest life in the painting stops, Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains; One, wishful each sc.r.a.p should clutch the brick, 45 Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, --A lion who dies of an a.s.s's kick, The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.

For oh, this world and the wrong it does!

They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, 50 The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz Round the works of, you of the little wit!

Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope, Now that they see G.o.d face to face, And have all attained to be poets, I hope? 55 'Tis their holiday now, in any case.

Much they reck of your praise and you!

But the wronged great souls--can they be quit Of a world where their work is all to do, Where you style them, you of the little wit, 60 Old Master This and Early the Other, Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows: A younger succeeds to an elder brother, Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.

And here where your praise might yield returns, 65 And a handsome word or two give help, Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns And the puppy pack of poodles yelp.

What, not a word for Stefano there, Of brow once prominent and starry, 70 Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair For his peerless painting? (See Vasari.)

There stands the Master. Study, my friends, What a man's work comes to! So he plans it, Performs it, perfects it, makes amends 75 For the toiling and moiling, and then, _sic transit_!

Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor, With upturned eye while the hand is busy, Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbor!

'Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy. 80

"If you knew their work you would deal your dole."

May I take upon me to instruct you?

When Greek Art ran and reached the goal, Thus much had the world to boast _in fructu_-- The Truth of Man, as by G.o.d first spoken, 85 Which the actual generations garble, Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken) And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.

So you saw yourself as you wished you were, As you might have been, as you cannot be; 90 Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there: And grew content in your poor degree With your little power, by those statues' G.o.dhead, And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway, And your little grace, by their grace embodied, 95 And your little date, by their forms that stay.

You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am?

Even so, you will not sit like Theseus.

You would prove a model? The Son of Priam Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. 100 You're wroth--can you slay your snake like Apollo?

You're grieved--still Niobe's the grander!

You live--there's the Racers' frieze to follow: You die--there's the dying Alexander.

So, testing your weakness by their strength, 105 Your meager charms by their rounded beauty, Measured by Art in your breadth and length, You learned--to submit is a mortal's duty.

--When I say "you" 'tis the common soul, The collective, I mean--the race of Man 110 That receives life in parts to live in a whole, And grow here according to G.o.d's clear plan.

Growth came when, looking your last on them all, You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day And cried with a start--What if we so small 115 Be greater and grander the while than they?

Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature?

In both, of such lower types are we Precisely because of our wider nature; For time, theirs--ours, for eternity. 120

Today's brief pa.s.sion limits their range; It seethes with the morrow for us and more.

They are perfect--how else? they shall never change; We are faulty--why not? we have time in store.

The Artificer's hand is not arrested 125 With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished; They stand for our copy, and, once invested With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished.

'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven-- The better! What's come to perfection perishes. 130 Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven: Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes.

Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto!

Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) "O!" 135 Thy great Campanile is still to finish.

Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter, But what and where depend on life's minute?

Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter Our first step out of the gulf or in it? 140 Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, Man's face, have no more play and action Than joy which is crystallized forever, Or grief, an eternal petrifaction?

On which I conclude, that the early painters, 145 To cries of "Greek Art and what more wish you?"-- Replied, "To become now self-acquainters, And paint man, man, whatever the issue!

Make new hopes s.h.i.+ne through the flesh they fray, New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters: 150 To bring the invisible full into play!

Let the visible go to the dogs--what matters?"

Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory For daring so much, before they well did it.

The first of the new, in our race's story, 155 Beats the last of the old; 'tis no idle quiddit.

The worthies began a revolution, Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge, Why, honor them now! (ends my allocution) Nor confer your degree when the folk leave college. 160

There's a fancy some lean to and others hate-- That, when this life is ended, begins New work for the soul in another state, Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins: Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries, 165 Repeat in large what they practiced in small, Through life after life in unlimited series; Only the scale's to be changed, that's all.

Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen By the means of Evil that Good is best, 170 And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene-- When our faith in the same has stood the test-- Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, The uses of labor are surely done; There remaineth a rest for the people of G.o.d; 175 And I have had troubles enough, for one.

But at any rate I have loved the season Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy; My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan, My painter--who but Cimabue? 180 Nor ever was a man of them all indeed, From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, Could say that he missed my critic-meed.

So, now to my special grievance--heigh-ho!

Their ghosts still stand, as I said before, 185 Watching each fresco flaked and rasped, Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o'er: --No getting again what the church has grasped!

The works on the wall must take their chance; "Works never conceded to England's thick clime!" 190 (I hope they prefer their inheritance Of a bucketful of Italian quicklime.)

When they go at length, with such a shaking Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly Each master his way through the black streets taking, 195 Where many a lost work breathes though badly-- Why don't they bethink them of who has merited?

Why not reveal while their pictures dree Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted?

Why is it they never remember me? 200

Not that I expect the great Bigordi, Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose; Nor the wronged Lippino; and not a word I Say of a sc.r.a.p of Fra Angelico's; But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, 205 To grant me a taste of your intonaco, Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye?

Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco?

Could not the ghost with the close red cap, My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman, 210 Save me a sample, give me the hap Of a muscular Christ that shows the draftsman?