Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 38

Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

XXII

Now, who shall arbitrate?

Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me: we all surmise, They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?

XXIII

Not on the vulgar ma.s.s Called "work," must sentence pa.s.s, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

XXIV

But all, the world's coa.r.s.e thumb And finger failed to plumb, So pa.s.sed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

XXV

Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could ever be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to G.o.d, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

XXVI

Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why pa.s.sive lies our clay,-- Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"

XXVII

Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and G.o.d stand sure: What entered into thee, _That_ was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

XXVIII

He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circ.u.mstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

XXIX

What though the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press?

What though, about thy rim, Scull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

x.x.x

Look not thou down but up!

To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow!

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel?

x.x.xI

But I need, now as then, Thee, G.o.d, who mouldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I,--to the wheel of life With shapes and colours rife, Bound dizzily,--mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

x.x.xII

So, take and use Thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!

My times be in Thy hand!

Perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Browning wrote four remarkable poems dealing with music: _A Toccata of Galuppi's_, _Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha_, _Abt Vogler_, and _Charles Avison_. In _Abt Vogler_ the miracle of extemporisation has just been accomplished. The musician sits at the keys, tears running down his face: tears of weakness, because of the storm of divine inspiration that has pa.s.sed through him: tears of sorrow, because he never can recapture the fine, careless rapture of his unpremeditated music: tears of joy, because he knows that on this particular day he has been the channel chosen by the Infinite G.o.d.

If he had only been an architect, his dream would have remained in a permanent form. The armies of workmen would have done his will, and the world would have admired it for ages. If he had only been a poet or a painter, his inspiration would have taken the form of fixed type or enduring shape and color: but in the instance of music, the armies of thoughts that have worked together in absolute harmony to elevate the n.o.ble building of sound, which has risen like an exhalation, have vanished together with the structure they animated.

It has gone like the wonderful beauty of some fantastic cloud.

His sorrow at this particular irreparable loss gives way to rapture as he reflects on the source whence came the inspiration. He could not possibly have _constructed_ such wonderful music: it was the G.o.d welling up within him: for this past hour divine inspiration has spoken through him. He has had one glimpse at the Celestial Radiance.

How can he now think that the same G.o.d who expanded his heart lacks the power to fill it? The Source from whence this river came must be inexhaustible, and it was vouchsafed to him to feel for a short time its infinite richness. The broken arcs on earth are the earnest of the perfect round in heaven.

Abt Vogler says that the philosophers may each make his guess at the meaning of this earthly scheme of weal and woe: but the musicians, the musicians who have felt in their own bosoms the presence of the Divine Power and heard its marvellous voice,--why, the philosophers may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know!

ABT VOGLER

(AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORISING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION)

1864

I

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, h.e.l.l-deep removed,-- Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!

II

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!

Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!

And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to h.e.l.l, Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things, Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.

III