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Robert Browning - The Ring And The Book - Chapter X - The Pope
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A shrug o’ the shoulder, a facetious word
Or wink, traditional with Tuscan wits,
To Guido in the doorway. Laud to law!
The wife is pushed back to the husband, he
Who knows how these home-squabblings persecute
People who have the public good to mind,
And work best with a silence in the court! 

Ah, but I save my word at least for thee,
Archbishop, who art under me in the Church,
As I am under God,—thou, chosen by both
To do the shepherd’s office, feed the sheep—
How of this lamb that panted at thy foot
While the wolf pressed on her within crook’s reach?
Wast thou the hireling that did turn and flee?
With thee at least anon the little word! 

Such denizens o’ the cave now cluster round
And heat the furnace sevenfold: time indeed
A bolt from heaven should cleave roof and clear place,
Transfix and show the world, suspiring flame,
The main offender, scar and brand the rest
Hurrying, each miscreant to his hole: then flood
And purify the scene with outside day—
Which yet, in the absolutest drench of dark,
Ne’er wants a witness, some stray beauty-beam
To the despair of hell. 

                                    First of the first,
Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now
Perfect in whiteness—stoop thou down, my child,
Give one good moment to the poor old Pope
Heart-sick at having all his world to blame—
Let me look at thee in the flesh as erst,
Let me enjoy the old clean linen garb,
Not the new splendid vesture! Armed and crowned,
Would Michael, yonder, be, nor crowned nor armed,
The less pre-eminent angel? Everywhere
I see in the world the intellect of man,
That sword, the energy his subtle spear,
The knowledge which defends him like a shield—
Everywhere; but they make not up, I think,
The marvel of a soul like thine, earth’s flower
She holds up to the softened gaze of God!
It was not given Pompilia to know much,
Speak much, to write a book, to move mankind,
Be memorised by who records my time.
Yet if in purity and patience, if
In faith held fast despite the plucking fiend,
Safe like the signet-stone with the new name
That saints are known by,—if in right returned
For wrong, most pardon for worst injury,
If there be any virtue, any praise,—
Then will this woman-child have proved—who knows?—
Just the one prize vouchsafed unworthy me,
Ten years a gardener of the untoward ground,
I till,—this earth, my sweat and blood manure
All the long day that barrenly grows dusk:
At least one blossom makes me proud at eve
Born ’mid the briers of my enclosure! Still
(Oh, here as elsewhere, nothingness of man!)
Those be the plants, imbedded yonder South
To mellow in the morning, those made fat
By the master’s eye, that yield such timid leaf,
Uncertain bud, as product of his pains!
While—see how this mere chance-sown, cleft-nursed seed,
That sprang up by the wayside ’neath the foot
Of the enemy, this breaks all into blaze,
Spreads itself, one wide glory of desire
To incorporate the whole great sun it loves
From the inch-height whence it looks and longs! My flower,
My rose, I gather for the breast of God,
This I praise most in thee, where all I praise,
That having been obedient to the end
According to the light allotted, law
Prescribed thy life, still tried, still standing test,—
Dutiful to the foolish parents first,
Submissive next to the bad husband,—nay,
Tolerant of those meaner miserable
That did his hests, eked out the dole of pain,—
Thou, patient thus, couldst rise from law to law,
The old to the new, promoted at one cry
O’ the trump of God to the new service, not
To longer bear, but henceforth fight, be found
Sublime in new impatience with the foe!
Endure man and obey God: plant firm foot
On neck of man, tread man into the hell
Meet for him, and obey God all the more!
Oh child that didst despise thy life so much
When it seemed only thine to keep or lose,
How the fine ear felt fall the first low word
“Value life, and preserve life for My sake!”
Thou didst . . . how shall I say? . . . receive so long
The standing ordinance of God on earth,
What wonder if the novel claim had clashed
With old requirement, seemed to supersede
Too much the customary law? But, brave,
Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,
Accept the obligation laid on thee,
Mother elect, to save the unborn child,
As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly,
Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant
And flower o’ the field, all in a common pact
To worthily defend that trust of trusts,
Life from the Ever Living:—didst resist—
Anticipate the office that is mine—
And with his own sword stay the upraised arm,
The endeavour of the wicked, and defend
Him who,—again in my default,—was there
For visible providence: one less true than thou
To touch, i’ the past, less practised in the right,
Approved so far in all docility
To all instruction,—how had such an one
Made scruple “Is this motion a decree?”
It was authentic to the experienced ear
O’ the good and faithful servant. Go past me
And get thy praise,—and be not far to seek
Presently when I follow if I may! 

And surely not so very much apart
Need I place thee, my warrior-priest,—in whom
What if I gain the other rose, the gold.
We grave to imitate God’s miracle,
Greet monarchs with, good rose in its degree?
Irregular noble scapegrace—son the same!
Faulty—and peradventure ours the fault
Who still misteach, mislead, throw hook and line
Thinking to land leviathan forsooth,
Tame the scaled neck, play with him as a bird,
And bind him for our maidens! Better bear
The King of Pride go wantoning awhile,
Unplagued by cord in nose and thorn in jaw,
Through deep to deep, followed by all that shine,
Churning the blackness hoary: He who made
The comely terror, He shall make the sword
To match that piece of netherstone his heart,
Ay, nor miss praise thereby; who else shut fire
I’ the stone, to leap from mouth at sword’s first stroke,
In lamps of love and faith, the chivalry
That dares the right and disregards alike
The yea and nay o’ the world? Self-sacrifice,—
What if an idol took it? Ask the Church
Why she was wont to turn each Venus here,—
Poor Rome perversely lingered round, despite
Instruction, for the sake of purblind love,—
Into Madonna’s shape, and waste no whit
Of aught so rare on earth as gratitude!
All this sweet savour was not ours but thine,
Nard of the rock, a natural wealth we name
Incense, and treasure up as food for saints,
When flung to us—whose function was to give
Not find the costly perfume. Do I smile?
Nay, Caponsacchi, much I find amiss,
Blameworthy, punishable in this freak
Of thine, this youth prolonged though age was ripe,
This masquerade in sober day, with change
Of motley too,—now hypocrite’s-disguise,
Now fool’s-costume: which lie was least like truth,
Which the ungainlier, more discordant garb
With that symmetric soul inside my son,
The churchman’s or the worldling’s,—let him judge,
Our Adversary who enjoys the task!
I rather chronicle the healthy rage,—
When the first moan broke from the martyr-maid
At that uncaging of the beasts,—made bare
My athlete on the instant, gave such good
Great undisguised leap over post and pale
Right into the mid-cirque, free fighting-place.
There may have been rash stripping—every rag
Went to the winds,—infringement manifold
Of laws prescribed pudicity, I fear,
In this impulsive and prompt self-display!
Ever such tax comes of the foolish youth;
Men mulct the wiser manhood, and suspect
No veritable star swims out of cloud:
Bear thou such imputation, undergo
The penalty I nowise dare relax,—
Conventional chastisement and rebuke.
But for the outcome, the brave starry birth
Conciliating earth with all that cloud,
Thank heaven as I do! Ay, such championship
Of God at first blush, such prompt cheery thud
Of glove on ground that answers ringingly
The challenge of the false knight,—watch we long,
And wait we vainly for its gallant like
From those appointed to the service, sworn
His body-guard with pay and privilege—
White-cinct, because in white walks sanctity,
Red-socked, how else proclaim fine scorn of flesh,
Unchariness of blood when blood faith begs?
Where are the men-at-arms with cross on coat?
Aloof, bewraying their attire: whilst thou
In mask and motley, pledged to dance not fight,
Sprang’st forth the hero! In thought, word and deed,
How throughout all thy warfare thou wast pure,
I find it easy to believe: and if
At any fateful moment of the strange
Adventure, the strong passion of that strait,
Fear and surprise, may have revealed too much,—
As when a thundrous midnight, with black air
That burns, rain-drops that blister, breaks a spell,
Draws out the excessive virtue of some sheathed
Shut unsuspected flower that hoards and hides
Immensity of sweetness,—so, perchance,
Might the surprise and fear release too much
The perfect beauty of the body and soul
Thou savedst in thy passion for God’s sake,
He who is Pity: was the trial sore?
Temptation sharp? Thank God a second time!
Why comes temptation but for man to meet
And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
And so be pedestalled in triumph? Pray
“Lead us into no such temptations, Lord!”
Yea, but, O Thou whose servants are the bold,
Lead such temptations by the head and hair,
Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight,
That so he may do battle and have praise!
Do I not see the praise?—that while thy mates
Bound to deserve i’ the matter, prove at need
Unprofitable through the very pains
We gave to train them well and start them fair,—
Are found too stiff, with standing ranked and ranged,
For onset in good earnest, too obtuse
Of ear, through iteration of command,
For catching quick the sense of the real cry,—
Thou, whose sword-hand was used to strike the lute,
Whose sentry-station graced some wanton’s gate,
Thou didst push forward and show mettle, shame
The laggards, and retrieve the day. Well done!
Be glad thou hast let light into the world,
Through that irregular breach o’ the boundary,—see
The same upon thy path and march assured,
Learning anew the use of soldiership,
Self-abnegation, freedom from all fear,
Loyalty to the life’s end! Ruminate,
Deserve the initiatory spasm,—once more
Work, be unhappy but bear life, my son!
And troop you, somewhere ’twixt the best and worst,
Where crowd the indifferent product, all too poor
Makeshift, starved samples of humanity!
Father and mother, huddle there and hide!
A gracious eye may find you! Foul and fair,
Sadly mixed natures: self-indulgent,—yet
Self-sacrificing too: how the love soars,
How the craft, avarice, vanity and spite
Sink again! So they keep the middle course,
Slide into silly crime at unaware,
Slip back upon the stupid virtue, stay
Nowhere enough for being classed, I hope
And fear. Accept the swift and rueful death,
Taught, somewhat sternlier than is wont, what waits
The ambiguous creature,—how the one black tuft
Steadies the aim of the arrow just as well
As the wide faultless white on the bird’s breast.
Nay, you were punished in the very part
That looked most pure of speck,—the honest love
Betrayed you,—did love seem most worthy pains,
Challenge such purging, as ordained survive
When all the rest of you was done with? Go!
Never again elude the choice of tints!
White shall not neutralise the black, nor good
Compensate bad in man, absolve him so:
Life’s business being just the terrible choice. 

So do I see, pronounce on all and some
Grouped for my judgment now,—profess no doubt
While I pronounce: dark, difficult enough
The human sphere, yet eyes grow sharp by use,
I find the truth, dispart the shine from shade,
As a mere man may, with no special touch
O’ the lynx-gift in each ordinary orb:
Nay, if the popular notion class me right,
One of well nigh decayed intelligence,—
What of that? Through hard labour and good will,
And habitude that gives a blind man sight
At the practised finger-ends of him, I do
Discern, and dare decree in consequence,
Whatever prove the peril of mistake.
Whence, then, this quite new quick cold thrill,—cloud-like,
This keen dread creeping from a quarter scarce
Suspected in the skies I nightly scan?
What slacks the tense nerve, saps the wound-up spring
Of the act that should and shall be, sends the mount
And mass o’ the whole man’s-strength,—conglobed so late—
Shudderingly into dust, a moment’s work?
While I stand firm, go fearless, in this world,
For this life recognise and arbitrate,
Touch and let stay, or else remove a thing,
Judge “This is right, this object out of place,”
Candle in hand that helps me and to spare,—
What if a voice deride me, “Perk and pry!
“Brighten each nook with thine intelligence!
“Play the good householder, ply man and maid
“With tasks prolonged into the midnight, test
“Their work and nowise stint of the due wage
“Each worthy worker: but with gyves and whip
“Pay thou misprision of a single point
“Plain to thy happy self who lift’st the light,
“Lament’st the darkling,—bold to all beneath!
“What if thyself adventure, now the place
“Is purged so well? Leave pavement and mount roof,
“Look round thee for the light of the upper sky,
“The fire which lit thy fire which finds default
“In Guido Franceschini to his cost!
“What if, above in the domain of light,
“Thou miss the accustomed signs, remark eclipse?
“Shalt thou still gaze on ground nor lift a lid,—
“Steady in thy superb prerogative,
“Thy inch of inkling,—nor once face the doubt
“I’ the sphere above thee, darkness to be felt?” 

Yet my poor spark had for its source, the sun;
Thither I sent the great looks which compel
Light from its fount: all that I do and am
Comes from the truth, or seen or else surmised,
Remembered or divined, as mere man may:
I know just so, nor otherwise. As I know,
I speak,—what should I know, then, and how speak
Were there a wild mistake of eye or brain
In the recorded governance above?
If my own breath, only, blew coal alight
I called celestial and the morning-star?
I, who in this world act resolvedly,
Dispose of men, the body and the soul,
As they acknowledge or gainsay this light
I show them,—shall I too lack courage?—leave
I, too, the post of me, like those I blame?
Refuse, with kindred inconsistency,
Grapple with danger whereby souls grow strong?
I am near the end; but still not at the end;
All till the very end is trial in life:
At this stage is the trial of my soul
Danger to face, or danger to refuse?
Shall I dare try the doubt now, or not dare? 

O Thou,—as represented here to me
In such conception as my soul allows,—
Under Thy measureless my atom width!—
Man’s mind—what is it but a convex glass
Wherein are gathered all the scattered points
Picked out of the immensity of sky,
To reunite there, be our heaven on earth,
Our known unknown, our God revealed to man?
Existent somewhere, somehow, as a whole;
Here, as a whole proportioned to our sense,—
There, (which is nowhere, speech must babble thus!)
In the absolute immensity, the whole
Appreciable solely by Thyself,—
Here, by the little mind of man, reduced
To littleness that suits his faculty,
Appreciable too in the degree;
Between Thee and ourselves—nay even, again,
Below us, to the extreme of the minute,
Appreciable by how many and what diverse
Modes of the life Thou makest be! (why live
Except for love,—how love unless they know?)
Each of them, only filling to the edge,
Insect or angel, his just length and breadth,
Due facet of reflection,—full, no less,
Angel or insect, as Thou framedst things,—
I it is who have been appointed here
To represent Thee, in my turn, on earth,
Just as, if new philosophy know aught,
This one earth, out of all the multitude
Of peopled worlds, as stars are now supposed,—
Was chosen, and no sun-star of the swarm,
For stage and scene of Thy transcendent act
Beside which even the creation fades
Into a puny exercise of power.
Choice of the world, choice of the thing I am,
Both emanate alike from the dread play
Of operation outside this our sphere
Where things are classed and counted small or great,—
Incomprehensibly the choice is Thine!
I therefore bow my head and take Thy place.
There is, beside the works, a tale of Thee
In the world’s mouth which I find credible:
I love it with my heart: unsatisfied,
I try it with my reason, nor discept
From any point I probe and pronounce sound.
Mind is not matter nor from matter, but
Above,—leave matter then, proceed with mind:
Man’s be the mind recognised at the height,—
Leave the inferior minds and look at man.
Is he the strong, intelligent and good
Up to his own conceivable height? Nowise.
Enough o’ the low,—soar the conceivable height,
Find cause to match the effect in evidence,
Works in the world, not man’s, then God’s; leave man:
Conjecture of the worker by the work:
Is there strength there?—enough: intelligence?
Ample: but goodness in a like degree?
Not to the human eye in the present state,
This isoscele deficient in the base.
What lacks, then, of perfection fit for God
But just the instance which this tale supplies
Of love without a limit? So is strength,
So is intelligence; then love is so,
Unlimited in its self-sacrifice:
Then is the tale true and God shows complete.
Beyond the tale, I reach into the dark,
Feel what I cannot see, and still faith stands:
I can believe this dread machinery
Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else,
Devised,—all pain, at most expenditure
Of pain by Who devised pain,—to evolve,
By new machinery in counterpart,
The moral qualities of man—how else?—
To make him love in turn and be beloved,
Creative and self-sacrificing too,
And thus eventually God-like, (ay,
“I have said ye are Gods,”—shall it be said for nought?)
Enable man to wring, from out all pain,
All pleasure for a common heritage
To all eternity: this may be surmised,
The other is revealed,—whether a fact,
Absolute, abstract, independent truth,
Historic, not reduced to suit man’s mind,—
Or only truth reverberate, changed, made pass
A spectrum into mind, the narrow eye,—
The same and not the same, else unconceived—
Though quite conceivable to the next grade
Above it in intelligence,—as truth
Easy to man were blindness to the beast
By parity of procedure,—the same truth
In a new form, but changed in either case:
What matter so the intelligence be filled?
To the child, the sea is angry, for it roars;
Frost bites, else why the tooth-like fret on face?
Man makes acoustics deal with the sea’s wrath,
Explains the choppy cheek by chymic law,—
To both, remains one and the same effect
On drum of ear and root of nose, change cause
Never so thoroughly: so our heart be struck,
What care I,—by God’s gloved hand or the bare?
Nor do I much perplex me with aught hard,
Dubious in the transmitting of the tale,—
No, nor with certain riddles set to solve.
This life is training and a passage; pass,—
Still, we march over some flat obstacle
We made give way before us; solid truth
In front of it, were motion for the world?
The moral sense grows but by exercise.
’Tis even as man grew probatively
Initiated in Godship, set to make
A fairer moral world than this he finds,
Guess now what shall be known hereafter. Thus,
O’ the present problem: as we see and speak,
A faultless creature is destroyed, and sin
Has had its way i’ the world where God should rule.
Ay, but for this irrelevant circumstance
Of inquisition after blood, we see
Pompilia lost and Guido saved: how long?
For his whole life: how much is that whole life?
We are not babes, but know the minute’s worth,
And feel that life is large and the world small,
So, wait till life have passed from out the world. 

Neither does this astonish at the end,
That, whereas I can so receive and trust,
Men, made with hearts and souls the same as mine,
Reject and disbelieve,—subordinate
The future to the present,—sin, nor fear.
This I refer still to the foremost fact,
Life is probation and this earth no goal
But starting-point of man: compel him strive,
Which means, in man, as good as reach the goal,—
Why institute that race, his life, at all?
But this does overwhelm me with surprise,
Touch me to terror,—not that faith, the pearl,
Should be let lie by fishers wanting food,—
Nor, seen and handled by a certain few
Critical and contemptuous, straight consigned
To shore and shingle for the pebble it proves,—
But that, when haply found and known and named
By the residue made rich for evermore,
These,—ay, these favoured ones, should in a trice
Turn, and with double zest go dredge for whelks,
Mud-worms that make the savoury soup. Enough
O’ the disbelievers, see the faithful few!
How do the Christians here deport them, keep
Their robes of white unspotted by the world?
What is this Aretine Archbishop, this
Man under me as I am under God,
This champion of the faith, I armed and decked,
Pushed forward, put upon a pinnacle,
To show the enemy his victor,—see!
What’s the best fighting when the couple close?
Pompilia cries, “Protect me from the fiend!”
“No, for thy Guido is one heady, strong,
“Dangerous to disquiet: let him bide!
“He needs some bone to mumble, help amuse
“The darkness of his den with: so, the fawn
“Which limps up bleeding to my foot and lies,
“—Come to me, daughter,—thus I throw him back!”
Have we misjudged here, over-armed the knight,
Given gold and silk where the plain steel serves best,
Enfeebled whom we sought to fortify,
Made an archbishop and undone a saint?
Well then, descend these heights, this pride of life,
Sit in the ashes with the barefoot monk
Who long ago stamped out the worldly sparks.
Fasting and watching, stone cell and wire scourge,
—No such indulgence as unknits the strength—
These breed the tight nerve and tough cuticle,
Let the world’s praise or blame run rillet-wise
Off the broad back and brawny breast, we know!
He meets the first cold sprinkle of the world
And shudders to the marrow, “Save this child?
“Oh, my superiors, oh, the Archbishop here!
“Who was it dared lay hand upon the ark
“His betters saw fall nor put finger forth?
“Great ones could help yet help not: why should small?
“I break my promise: let her break her heart!”
These are the Christians not the wordlings, not
The sceptics, who thus battle for the faith!
If foolish virgins disobey and sleep,
What wonder? But the wise that watch, this time
Sell lamps and buy lutes, exchange oil for wine,
The mystic Spouse betrays the Bridegroom here.
To our last resource, then! Since all flesh is weak,
Bind weaknesses together, we get strength:
The individual weighed, found wanting, try
Some institution, honest artifice
Whereby the units grow compact and firm:
Each props the other, and so stand is made
By our embodied cowards that grow brave.
The Monastery called of Convertites,
Meant to help women because these helped Christ,—
A thing existent only while it acts,
Does as designed, else a nonentity,
For what is an idea unrealised?—
Pompilia is consigned to these for help.
They do help; they are prompt to testify
To her pure life and saintly dying days.
She dies, and lo, who seemed so poor, proves rich!
What does the body that lives through helpfulness
To women for Christ’s sake? The kiss turns bite,
The dove’s note changes to the crow’s cry: judge!
“Seeing that this our Convent claims of right
“What goods belong to those we succour, be
“The same proved women of dishonest life,—
“And seeing that this Trial made appear
“Pompilia was in such predicament,—
“The Convent hereupon pretends to said
“Succession of Pompilia, issues writ,
“And takes possession by the Fisc’s advice.”
Such is their attestation to the cause
Of Christ, who had one saint at least, they hoped:
But, is a title-deed to filch, a corpse
To slander, and an infant-heir to cheat?
Christ must give up his gains then! They unsay
All the fine speeches,—who was saint is whore.
Why, scripture yields no parallel for this!
The soldiers only threw dice for Christ’s coat;
We want another legend of the Twelve
Disputing if it was Christ’s coat at all,
Claiming as prize the woof of price—for why?
The Master was a thief, purloined the same,
Or paid for it out of the common bag!
Can it be this is end and outcome, all
I take with me to show as stewardship’s fruit,
The best yield of the latest time, this year
The seventeen-hundredth since God died for man?
Is such effect proportionate to cause?
And still the terror keeps on the increase
When I perceive . . . how can I blink the fact?
That the fault, the obduracy to good,
Lies not with the impracticable stuff
Whence man is made, his very nature’s fault,
As if it were of ice, the moon may gild
Not melt, or stone, ’twas meant the sun should warm
Not make bear flowers,—nor ice nor stone to blame:
But it can melt, that ice, and bloom, that stone,
Impassible to rule of day and night!
This terrifies me, thus compelled perceive
Whatever love and faith we looked should spring
At advent of the authoritative star,
Which yet lie sluggish, curdled at the source,—
These have leapt forth profusely in old time,
These still respond with promptitude to-day,
At challenge of—what unacknowledged powers
O’ the air, what uncommissioned meteors, warmth
By law, and light by rule should supersede?
For see this priest, this Caponsacchi, stung
At the first summons,—“Help for honour’s sake,
“Play the man, pity the oppressed!”—no pause,
How does he lay about him in the midst,
Strike any foe, right wrong at any risk,
All blindness, bravery and obedience!—blind?
Ay, as a man would be inside the sun,
Delirious with the plenitude of light
Should interfuse him to the finger-ends—
Let him rush straight, and how shall he go wrong?
Where are the Christians in their panoply?
The loins we girt about with truth, the breasts
Righteousness plated round, the shield of faith,
The helmet of salvation, and that sword
O’ the Spirit, even the word of God,—where these?
Slunk into corners! Oh, I hear at once
Hubbub of protestation! “What, we monks
“We friars, of such an order, such a rule,
“Have not we fought, bled, left our martyr-mark
“At every point along the boundary-line
“’Twixt true and false, religion and the world,
“Where this or the other dogma of our Church
“Called for defence?” And I, despite myself,
How can I but speak loud what truth speaks low,
“Or better than the best, or nothing serves!
“What boots deed, I can cap and cover straight
“With such another doughtiness to match,
“Done at an instinct of the natural man?”
Immolate body, sacrifice soul too,—
Do not these publicans the same? Outstrip!
Or else stop race, you boast runs neck and neck,
You with the wings, they with the feet,—for shame!
Oh, I remark your diligence and zeal!
Five years long, now, rounds faith into my ears,
“Help thou, or Christendom is done to death!”
Five years since, in the Province of To-kien,
Which is in China as some people know,
Maigrot, my Vicar Apostolic there,
Having a great qualm, issues a decree.
Alack, the converts use as God’s name, not
Tien-chu but plain Tien or else mere Shang-ti,
As Jesuits please to fancy politic,
While, say Dominicans, it calls down fire,—
For Tien means heaven, and Shang-ti, supreme prince,
While Tien-chu means the lord of heaven: all cry,
“There is no business urgent for despatch
“As that thou send a legate, specially
“Cardinal Tournon, straight to Pekin, there
“To settle and compose the difference!”
So have I seen a potentate all fume
For some infringement of his realm’s just right,
Some menace to a mud-built straw-thatched farm
O’ the frontier, while inside the mainland lie,
Quite undisputed-for in solitude,
Whole cities plague may waste or famine sap:
What if the sun crumble, the sands encroach,
While he looks on sublimely at his ease?
How does their ruin touch the empire’s bound? 

And is this little all that was to be?
Where is the gloriously-decisive change,
The immeasurable metamorphosis
Of human clay to divine gold, we looked
Should, in some poor sort, justify the price?
Had a mere adept of the Rosy Cross
Spent his life to consummate the Great Work,
Would not we start to see the stuff it touched
Yield not a grain more than the vulgar got
By the old smelting-process years ago?
If this were sad to see in just the sage
Who should profess so much, perform no more,
What is it when suspected in that Power
Who undertook to make and made the world,
Devised and did effect man, body and soul,
Ordained salvation for them both, and yet . . . 
Well, is the thing we see, salvation?
                                                        I
Put no such dreadful question to myself,
Within whose circle of experience burns
The central truth, Power, Wisdom, Goodness,—God:
I must outlive a thing ere know it dead:
When I outlive the faith there is a sun,
When I lie, ashes to the very soul,—
Someone, not I, must wail above the heap,
“He died in dark whence never morn arose.”
While I see day succeed the deepest night—
How can I speak but as I know?—my speech
Must be, throughout the darkness, “It will end:”
“The light that did burn, will burn!” Clouds obscure—
But for which obscuration all were bright?
Too hastily concluded! Sun-suffused,
A cloud may soothe the eye made blind by blaze,—
Better the very clarity of heaven:
The soft streaks are the beautiful and dear.
What but the weakness in a faith supplies
The incentive to humanity, no strength
Absolute, irresistible, comports?
How can man love but what he yearns to help?
And that which men think weakness within strength,
But angels know for strength and stronger yet—
What were it else but the first things made new,
But repetition of the miracle,
The divine instance of self-sacrifice
That never ends and aye begins for man?
So, never I miss footing in the maze,
No,—I have light nor fear the dark at all. 

But are mankind not real, who pace outside
My petty circle, the world measured me?
And when they stumble even as I stand,
Have I a right to stop ears when they cry,
As they were phantoms, took the clouds for crags,
Tripped and fell, where the march of man might move?
Beside, the cry is other than a ghost’s,
When out of the old time there pleads some bard,
Philosopher, or both and—whispers not,
But words it boldly. “The inward work and worth
“Of any mind, what other mind may judge
“Save God who only knows the thing He made,
“The veritable service He exacts?
“It is the outward product men appraise.
“Behold, an engine hoists a tower aloft:
“‘I looked that it should move the mountain too!”
“Or else ‘Had just a turret toppled down,
“Success enough!’—may say the Machinist
“Who knows what less or more result might be:
“But we, who see that done we cannot do,
“‘A feat beyond man’s force,’ we men must say.
“Regard me and that shake I gave the world!
“I was born, not so long before Christ’s birth,
“As Christ’s birth haply did precede thy day,—
“But many a watch, before the star of dawn:
“Therefore I lived,—it is thy creed affirms,
“Pope Innocent, who art to answer me!—
“Under conditions, nowise to escape,
“Whereby salvation was impossible.
“Each impulse to achieve the good and fair,
“Each aspiration to the pure and true,
“Being without a warrant or an aim,
“Was just as sterile a felicity
“As if the insect, born to spend his life
“Soaring his circles, stopped them to describe
“(Painfully motionless in the mid-air)
“Some word of weighty counsel for man’s sake,
“Some ‘Know thyself’ or ‘Take the golden mean!’
“—Forwent his happy dance and the glad ray,
“Died half an hour the sooner and was dust.
“I, born to perish like the brutes, or worse,
“Why not live brutishly, obey my law?
“But I, of body as of soul complete,
“A gymnast at the games, philosopher
“I’ the schools, who painted, and made music,—all
“Glories that met upon the tragic stage
“When the Third Poet’s tread surprised the Two,—
“Whose lot fell in a land where life was great
“And sense went free and beauty lay profuse,
“I, untouched by one adverse circumstance,
“Adopted virtue as my rule of life,
“Waived all reward, and loved for loving’s sake,
“And, what my heart taught me, I taught the world,
“And have been teaching now two thousand years.
“Witness my work,—plays that should please, forsooth!
“‘They might please, they may displease, they shall teach,
“‘For truth’s sake,’ so I said, and did, and do.
“Five hundred years ere Paul spoke, Felix heard,—
“How much of temperance and righteousness,
“Judgment to come, did I find reason for,
“Corroborate with my strong style that spared
“No sin, nor swerved the more from branding brow
“Because the sinner was called Zeus and God?
“How nearly did I guess at that Paul knew?
“How closely come, in what I represent
“As duty, to his doctrine yet a blank?
“And as that limner not untruly limns
“Who draws an object round or square, which square
“Or round seems to the unassisted eye,
“Though Galileo’s tube display the same
“Oval or oblong,—so, who controverts
“I rendered rightly what proves wrongly wrought
“Beside Paul’s picture? Mine was true for me.
“I saw that there are, first and above all,
“The hidden forces, blind necessities,
“Named Nature, but the thing’s self unconceived:
“Then follow,—how dependent upon these,
“We know not, how imposed above ourselves,
“We well know,—what I name the gods, a power
“Various or one; for great and strong and good
“Is there, and little, weak and bad there too,
“Wisdom and folly: say, these make no God,—
“What is it else that rules outside man’s self?
“A fact then,—always, to the naked eye,—
“And, so, the one revealment possible
“Of what were unimagined else by man.
“Therefore, what gods do, man may criticise,
“Applaud, condemn,—how should he fear the truth?
“But likewise have in awe because of power,
“Venerate for the main munificence,
“And give the doubtful deed its due excuse
“From the acknowledged creature of a day
“To the Eternal and Divine. Thus, bold
“Yet self-mistrusting, should man bear himself,
“Most assured on what now concerns him most—
“The law of his own life, the path he prints,—
“Which law is virtue and not vice, I say,—
“And least inquisitive where least search skills,
“I’ the nature we best give the clouds to keep.
“What could I paint beyond a scheme like this
“Out of the fragmentary truths where light
“Lay fitful in a tenebrific time?
“You have the sunrise now, joins truth to truth,
“Shoots life and substance into death and void;
“Themselves compose the whole we made before:
“The forces and necessity grow God,—
“The beings so contrarious that seemed gods,
“Prove just His operation manifold
“And multiform, translated, as must be,
“Into intelligible shape so far
“As suits our sense and sets us free to feel:
“What if I let a child think, childhood-long,
“That lightning, I would have him spare his eye,
“Is a real arrow shot at naked orb?
“The man knows more, but shuts his lids the same:
“Lightning’s cause comprehends nor man nor child
“Why then, my scheme, your better knowledge broke,
“Presently readjusts itself, the small
“Proportioned largelier, parts and whole named new:
“So much, no more two thousand years have done!
“Pope, dost thou dare pretend to punish me,
“For not descrying sunshine at midnight,
“Me who crept all-fours, found my way so far—
“While thou rewardest teachers of the truth,
“Who miss the plain way in the blaze of noon,—
“Though just a word from that strong style of mine,
“Grasped honestly in hand as guiding-staff,
“Had pricked them a sure path across the bog,
“That mire of cowardice and slush of lies
“Wherein I find them wallow in wide day?” 

How should I answer this Euripides?
Paul,—’tis a legend,—answered Seneca,
But that was in the day-spring; noon is now
We have got too familiar with the light.
Shall I wish back once more that thrill of dawn?
When the whole truth-touched man burned up, one fire?
—Assured the trial, fiery, fierce, but fleet,
Would, from his little heap of ashes, lend
Wings to the conflagration of the world
Which Christ awaits ere He make all things new—
So should the frail become the perfect, rapt
From glory of pain to glory of joy; and so,
Even in the end,—the act renouncing earth,
Lands, houses, husbands, wives and children here,—
Begin that other act which finds all, lost,
Regained, in this time even, a hundredfold,
And, in the next time, feels the finite love
Blent and embalmed with its eternal life.
So does the sun ghastlily seem to sink
In those north parts, lean all but out of life,
Desist a dread mere breathing-stop, then slow
Reassert day, begin the endless rise.
Was this too easy for our after-stage?
Was such a lighting-up of faith, in life,
Only allowed initiate, set man’s step
In the true way by help of the great glow?
A way wherein it is ordained he walk,
Bearing to see the light from heaven still more
And more encroached on by the light of earth,
Tentatives earth puts forth to rival heaven,
Earthly incitements that mankind serve God
For man’s sole sake, not God’s and therefore man’s,
Till at last, who distinguishes the sun
From a mere Druid fire on a far mount?
More praise to him who with his subtle prism
Shall decompose both beams and name the true.
In such sense, who is last proves first indeed;
For how could saints and martyrs fail see truth
Streak the night’s blackness? Who is faithful now,
Untwists heaven’s pure white from the yellow flare
O’ the world’s gross torch, without a foil to help
Produce the Christian act, so possible
When in the way stood Nero’s cross and stake,—
So hard now that the world smiles “Rightly done!
“It is the politic, the thrifty way,
“Will clearly make you in the end returns
“Beyond our fool’s sport and improvidence:
“We fools go thro’ the cornfield of this life,
“Pluck ears to left and right and swallow raw,
“—Nay, tread, at pleasure, a sheaf underfoot,
“To get the better at some poppy-flower,—
“Well aware we shall have so much wheat less
“In the eventual harvest: you meantime
“Waste not a spike,—the richlier will you reap!
“What then? There will be always garnered meal
“Sufficient for our comfortable loaf,
“While you enjoy the undiminished prize!”
Is it not this ignoble confidence,
Cowardly hardihood, that dulls and damps,
Makes the old heroism impossible?
Unless . . . what whispers me of times to come?
What if it be the mission of that age,
My death will usher into life, to shake
This torpor of assurance from our creed,
Re-introduce the doubt discarded, bring
The formidable danger back, we drove
Long ago to the distance and the dark?
No wild beast now prowls round the infant camp;
We have built wall and sleep in city safe:
But if the earthquake try the towers, that laugh
To think they once saw lions rule outside,
Till man stand out again, pale, resolute,
Prepared to die,—that is, alive at last?
As we broke up that old faith of the world,
Have we, next age, to break up this the new—
Faith, in the thing, grown faith in the report—
Whence need to bravely disbelieve report
Through increased faith in thing reports belie?
Must we deny,—do they, these Molinists,
At peril of their body and their soul,—
Recognised truths, obedient to some truth
Unrecognised yet, but perceptible?—
Correct the portrait by the living face,
Man’s God, by God’s God in the mind of man?
Then, for the few that rise to the new height,
The many that must sink to the old depth,
The multitude found fall away! A few,
E’en ere the new law speak clear, keep the old,
Preserve the Christian level, call good good
And evil evil (even though razed and blank
The old titles stand), thro’ custom, habitude,
And all they may mistake for finer sense
O’ the fact than reason warrants,—as before,
They hope perhaps, fear not impossibly.
Surely some one Pompilia in the world
Will say “I know the right place by foot’s feel,
“I took it and tread firm there; wherefore change?”
But what a multitude will fall, perchance,
Quite through the crumbling truth subjacent late,
Sink to the next discoverable base,
Rest upon human nature, take their stand
On what is fact, the lust and pride of life!
The mass of men, whose very souls even now
Seem to need re-creating,—so they slink
Worm-like into the mud light now lays bare,—
Whose future we dispose of with shut eyes
“They are baptised,—grafted, the barren twigs,
“Into the living stock of Christ: may bear
“One day, till when they lie death-like, not dead,”—
Those who with all the aid of Christ lie thus,
How, without Christ, whither unaided, sink?
What but to this rehearsed before my eyes?
Do not we end, the century and I?
The impatient antimasque treads close on kibe
O’ the very masque’s self it will mock,—on me,
Last lingering personage, the impatient mime
Pushes already,—will I block the way?
Will my slow trail of garments ne’er leave space
For pantaloon, sock, plume, and castanet?
Here comes the first experimentalist
In the new order of things,—he plays a priest;
Does he take inspiration from the Church,
Directly make her rule his law of life?
Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man—
Happily sometimes, since ourselves admit
He had danced, in gaiety of heart, i’ the main
The right step in the maze we bade him foot.
What if his heart had prompted to break loose
And mar the measure? Why, we must submit
And thank the chance that brought him safely through.
Will he repeat the prodigy? Perhaps.
Can he teach others how to quit themselves,
Prove why this step was right, while that were wrong?
How should he? “Ask your hearts as I asked mine,
“And get discreetly through the morrice so;
“If your hearts misdirect you,—quit the stage,
“And make amends,—be there amends to make.”
Such is, for the Augustine that was once,
This Canon Caponsacchi we see now.
“And my heart answers to another tune,”
Puts in the Abate, second in the suite,
“I have my taste too, and tread no such step!
“You choose the glorious life, and may, for me,
“Who like the lowest of life’s appetites,—
“What you judge,—but the very truth of joy
“To my own apprehension which must judge.
“Call me knave and you get yourself called fool!
“I live for greed, ambition, lust, revenge;
“Attain these ends by force, guile: hypocrite,
“To-day, perchance to-morrow recognised
“The rational man, the type of commonsense.”
There’s Loyola adapted to our time!
Under such guidance Guido plays his part,
He also influencing in due turn
These last clods where I track intelligence
By any glimmer, those four at his beck
Ready to murder any, and, at their own,
As ready to murder him,—these are the world!
And, first effect of the new cause of things,
There they lie also duly,—the old pair
Of the weak head and not so wicked heart,
And the one Christian mother, wife and girl,
—Which three gifts seem to make an angel up,—
The first foot of the dance is on their heads! 

Still, I stand here, not off the stage though close
On the exit: and my last act, as my first,
I owe the scene, and Him who armed me thus
With Paul’s sword as with Peter’s key. I smite
With my whole strength once more, then end my part,
Ending, so far as man may, this offence.
And when I raise my arm, what plucks my sleeve?
Who stops me in the righteous function,—foe
Or friend? O, still as ever, friends are they
Who, in the interest of outraged truth
Deprecate such rough handling of a lie!
The facts being proved and incontestable,
Source
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