Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (29 page)

Well, accept this too, – seek the fruit of it

Not in enjoyment, proved a dream on earth,

But knowledge, useful for a second chance,

Another life, – you’ve lost this world – you’ve gained

Its knowledge for the next. What knowledge, sir,

Except that you know nothing? Nay, you doubt

Whether ’twere better have made you man or brute,

If aught be true, if good and evil clash.

[1390] No foul, no fair, no inside, no outside,

There’s your world!

                 Give it me! I slap it brisk

With harlequin’s pasteboard sceptre: what’s it now?

Changed like a rock-flat, rough with rusty weed,

At first wash-over o’ the returning wave!

All the dry dead impracticable stuff

Starts into life and light again; this world

Pervaded by the influx from the next.

I cheat, and what’s the happy consequence?

You find full justice straightway dealt you out,

[1400] Each want supplied, each ignorance set at ease,

Each folly fooled. No life-long labour now

As the price of worse than nothing! No mere film

Holding you chained in iron, as it seems,

Against the outstretch of your very arms

And legs i’ the sunshine moralists forbid!

What would you have? Just speak and, there, you see!

You’re supplemented, made a whole at last,

Bacon advises, Shakespeare writes you songs,

And Mary Queen of Scots embraces you.

[1410] Thus it goes on, not quite like life perhaps,

But so near, that the very difference piques,

Shows that e’en better than this best will be –

This passing entertainment in a hut

Whose bare walls take your taste since, one stage more,

And you arrive at the palace: all half real,

And you, to suit it, less than real beside,

In a dream, lethargic kind of death in life,

That helps the interchange of natures, flesh

Transfused by souls, and such souls! Oh, ’tis choice!

[1420] And if at whiles the bubble, blown too thin,

Seem nigh on bursting, – if you nearly see

The real world through the false, – what
do
you see?

Is the old so ruined? You find you’re in a flock

O’ the youthful, earnest, passionate – genius, beauty,

Rank and wealth also, if you care for these:

And all depose their natural rights, hail you,

(That’s me, sir) as their mate and yoke-fellow,

Participate in Sludgehood – nay, grow mine,

I veritably possess them – banish doubt,

[1430] And reticence and modesty alike!

Why, here’s the Golden Age, old Paradise

Or new Eutopia! Here’s true life indeed,

And the world well won now, mine for the first time!

And all this might be, may be, and with good help

Of a little lying shall be: so, Sludge lies!

Why, he’s at worst your poet who sings how Greeks

That never were, in Troy which never was,

Did this or the other impossible great thing!

He’s Lowell – it’s a world (you smile applause),

[1440]
Of his own invention – wondrous Longfellow,

Surprising Hawthorne! Sludge does more than they,

And acts the books they write: the more his praise!

But why do I mount to poets? Take plain prose –

Dealers in common sense, set these at work,

What can they do without their helpful lies?

Each states the law and fact and face o’ the thing

Just as he’d have them, finds what he thinks fit,

Is blind to what missuits him, just records

What makes his case out, quite ignores the rest.

[1450] It’s a History of the world, the Lizard Age,

The Early Indians, the Old Country War,

Jerome Napoleon, whatsoever you please,

All as the author wants it. Such a scribe

You pay and praise for putting life in stones,

Fire into fog, making the past your world.

There’s plenty of ‘How did you contrive to grasp

The thread which led you through this labyrinth?

How build such solid fabric out of air?

How on so slight foundation found this tale,

[1460] Biography, narrative?’ or, in other words,

‘How many lies did it require to make

The portly truth you here present us with?’

‘Oh,’ quoth the penman, purring at your praise,

‘’Tis fancy all; no particle of fact:

I was poor and threadbare when I wrote that book

“Bliss in the Golden City.” I, at Thebes?

We writers paint out of our heads, you see!’

‘– Ah, the more wonderful the gift in you,

The more creativeness and godlike craft!’

[1470] But I, do I present you with my piece,

It’s ‘What, Sludge? When my sainted mother spoke

The verses Lady Jane Grey last composed

About the rosy bower in the seventh heaven

Where she and Queen Elizabeth keep house, –

You made the raps? ’Twas your invention that?

Cur, slave and devil!’ – eight fingers and two thumbs

Stuck in my throat!

                       Well, if the marks seem gone

’Tis because stiffish cocktail, taken in time,

Is better for a bruise than arnica.

[1480] There, sir! I bear no malice: ’tisn’t in me.

I know I acted wrongly: still, I’ve tried

What I could say in my excuse, – to show

The devil’s not all devil … I don’t pretend,

He’s angel, much less such a gentleman

As you, sir! And I’ve lost you, lost myself,

Lost all-l-l-l- …

                       No – are you in earnest, sir?

O yours, sir, is an angel’s part! I know

What prejudice prompts, and what’s the common course

Men take to soothe their ruffled self-conceit:

[1490] Only you rise superior to it all!

No, sir, it don’t hurt much; it’s speaking long

That makes me choke a little: the marks will go!

What? Twenty V-notes more, and outfit, too,

And not a word to Greeley? One – one kiss

O’ the hand that saves me! You’ll not let me speak,

I well know, and I’ve lost the right, too true!

But I must say, sir, if She hears (she does)

Your sainted … Well, sir, – be it so! That’s, I think,

My bed-room candle. Good night! Bl-l-less you, sir!

[1500] R-r-r, you brute-beast and blackguard! Cowardly scamp!

I only wish I dared burn down the house

And spoil your sniggering! Oh what, you’re the man?

You’re satisfied at last? You’ve found out Sludge?

We’ll see that presently: my turn, sir, next!

I too can tell my story: brute, – do you hear? –

You throttled your sainted mother, that old hag,

In just such a fit of passion: no, it was …

To get this house of hers, and many a note

Like these … I’ll pocket them, however … five,

[1510] Ten, fifteen … ay, you gave her throat the twist,

Or else you poisoned her! Confound the cuss!

Where was my head? I ought to have prophesied

He’ll the in a year and join her: that’s the way.

I don’t know where my head is: what had I done?

How did it all go? I said he poisoned her,

And hoped he’d have grace given him to repent,

Whereon he picked this quarrel, bullied me

And called me cheat: I thrashed him, – who could help?

He howled for mercy, prayed me on his knees

[1520] To cut and run and save him from disgrace:

I do so, and once off, he slanders me.

An end of him! Begin elsewhere anew!

Boston’s a hole, the herring-pond is wide,

V-notes are something, liberty still more.

Beside, is he the only fool in the world?

Apparent Failure

‘We shall soon lose a celebrated building.’
Paris Newspaper

I

No, for I’ll save it! Seven years since,

I passed through Paris, stopped a day

To see the baptism of your Prince;

Saw, made my bow, and went my way:

Walking the heat and headache off,

I took the Seine-side, you surmise,

Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,

Cavour’s appeal and Buol’s replies,

So sauntered till – what met my eyes?

II

[10] Only the Doric little Morgue!

The dead-house where you show your drowned:

Petrarch’s Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,

Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.

One pays one’s debt in such a case;

I plucked up heart and entered, – stalked,

Keeping a tolerable face

Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:

Let them! No Briton’s to be balked!

III

First came the silent gazers; next,

[20] A screen of glass, we’re thankful for;

Last, the sight’s self, the sermon’s text;

The three men who did most abhor

Their life in Paris yesterday,

So killed themselves: and now, enthroned

Each on his copper couch, they lay

Fronting me, waiting to be owned.

I thought, and think, their sin’s atoned.

IV

Poor men, God made, and all for that!

The reverence struck me; o’er each head

[30] Religiously was hung its hat,

Each coat dripped by the owner’s bed,

Sacred from touch: each had his berth,

His bounds, his proper place of rest,

Who last night tenanted on earth

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast, –

Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.

V

How did it happen, my poor boy?

You wanted to be Buonaparte

And have the Tuileries for toy,

[40] And could not, so it broke your heart?

You, old one by his side, I judge,

Were, red as blood, a socialist,

A leveller! Does the Empire grudge

You’ve gained what no Republic missed?

Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

VI

And this – why, he was red in vain,

Or black, – poor fellow that is blue!

What fancy was it turned your brain?

Oh, women were the prize for you!

[50] Money gets women, cards and dice

Get money, and ill-luck gets just

The copper couch and one clear nice

Cool squirt of water o’er your bust,

The right thing to extinguish lust!

VII

It’s wiser being good than bad;

It’s safer being meek than fierce:

It’s fitter being sane than mad.

My own hope is, a sun will pierce

The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;

[60] That, after Last, returns the First,

Though a wide compass round be fetched;

That what began best, can’t end worst,

Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

Epilogue
[
to
Dramatis Personae]

First Speaker
, as David

I

On the first of the Feast of Feasts,

The Dedication Day,

When the Levites joined the Priests

At the Altar in robed array,

Gave signal to sound and say, –

II

When the thousands, rear and van,

Swarming with one accord

Became as a single man

(Look, gesture, thought and word)

[10] In praising and thanking the Lord, –

III

When the singers lift up their voice,

And the trumpets made endeavour,

Sounding, ‘In God rejoice!’

Saying, ‘In Him rejoice

Whose mercy endureth for ever!’ –

IV

Then the Temple filled with a cloud,

Even the House of the Lord;

Porch bent and pillar bowed:

For the presence of the Lord,

[20] In the glory of His cloud,

Had filled the House of the Lord.

Second Speaker
, as Renan

Gone now! All gone across the dark so far,

Sharpening fast, shuddering ever, shutting still,

Dwindling into the distance, dies that star

Which came, stood, opened once! We gazed our fill

With upturned faces on as real a Face

That, stooping from grave music and mild fire,

Took in our homage, made a visible place

Through many a depth of glory, gyre on gyre,

[30] For the dim human tribute. Was this true?

Could man indeed avail, mere praise of his,

To help by rapture God’s own rapture too,

Thrill with a heart’s red tinge that pure pale bliss?

Why did it end? Who failed to beat the breast,

And shriek, and throw the arms protesting wide,

When a first shadow showed the star addressed

Itself to motion, and on either side

The rims contracted as the rays retired;

The music, like a fountain’s sickening pulse,

[40] Subsided on itself; awhile transpired

Some vestige of a Face no pangs convulse,

No prayers retard; then even this was gone,