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Robert Browning - Bishop Blougram`s Apology
Work rating: Medium

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Breathe one such syllable, smile one such smile, 
Before the chaplain who reflects myself— 
My shade`s so much more potent than your flesh. 
What`s your reward, self-abnegating friend? 
Stood you confessed of those exceptional 
And privileged great natures that dwarf mine— 
A zealot with a mad ideal in reach, 
A poet just about to print his ode, 
A statesman with a scheme to stop this war, 
An artist whose religion is his art— 
             
I should have nothing to object: such men 
Carry the fire, all things grow warm to them, 
Their drugget`s worth my purple, they beat me. 
But you,—you`re just as little those as I— 
You, Gigadibs, who, thirty years of age, 
Write statedly for Blackwood`s Magazine, 
Believe you see two points in Hamlet`s soul 
Unseized by the Germans yet—which view you`ll print— 
Meantime the best you have to show being still 
That lively lightsome article we took 
Almost for the true Dickens,—what`s its name? 
"The Slum and Cellar, or Whitechapel life 
"Limned after dark!" it made me laugh, I know, 
And pleased a month, and brought you in ten pounds. 
—Success I recognize and compliment, 
And therefore give you, if you choose, three words 
(The card and pencil-scratch is quite enough) 
Which whether here, in Dublin or New York, 
Will get you, prompt as at my eyebrow`s wink, 
Such terms as never you aspired to get 
In all our own reviews and some not ours. 
Go write your lively sketches! be the first 
"Blougram, or The Eccentric Confidence"— 
Or better simply say, "The Outward-bound." 
Why, men as soon would throw it in my teeth 
As copy and quote the infamy chalked broad 
About me on the church-door opposite. 
                           
You will not wait for that experience though, 
I fancy, howsoever you decide, 
To discontinue—not detesting, not 
Defaming, but at least—despising me! 

Over his wine so smiled and talked his hour 
Sylvester Blougram, styled in partibus 
Episcopus, nec non —(the deuce knows what 
It`s changed to by our novel hierarchy) 
With Gigadibs the literary man, 
Who played with spoons, explored his plate`s design, 
And ranged the olive-stones about its edge, 
While the great bishop rolled him out a mind 
Long crumpled, till creased consciousness lay smooth. 

For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke. 
The other portion, as he shaped it thus 
For argumentatory purposes, 
He felt his foe was foolish to dispute. 
Some arbitrary accidental thoughts 
That crossed his mind, amusing because new, 
He chose to represent as fixtures there, 
Invariable convictions (such they seemed 
Beside his interlocutor`s loose cards 
Flung daily down, and not the same way twice) 
 
While certain hell deep instincts, man`s weak tongue 
Is never bold to utter in their truth 
Because styled hell-deep (`t is an old mistake 
To place hell at the bottom of the earth) 
He ignored these,—not having in readiness 
Their nomenclature and philosophy: 
He said true things, but called them by wrong names. 
"On the whole," he thought, "I justify myself 
"On every point where cavillers like this 
"Oppugn my life: he tries one kind of fence, 
"I close, he`s worsted, that`s enough for him. 
"He`s on the ground: if ground should break away 
"I take my stand on, there`s a firmer yet 
"Beneath it, both of us may sink and reach. 
"His ground was over mine and broke the first: 
"So, let him sit with me this many a year!" 

He did not sit five minutes. Just a week 
Sufficed his sudden healthy vehemence. 
Something had struck him in the "Outward-bound" 
Another way than Blougram`s purpose was: 
And having bought, not cabin-furniture 
But settler`s-implements (enough for three) 
And started for Australia—there, I hope, 
By this time he has tested his first plough, 
And studied his last chapter of St. John.
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