Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (32 page)

Take the will, not the deed! Our gibbet’s handy close:

Forestall Last Judgement-Day! Be kindly, not morose!

There wants no earthly judge-and-jurying: here we stand –

[250] Sentence our guilty selves: so, hang us out of hand!

Make haste for pity’s sake! A single moment’s loss

Means – Satan’s lord once more: his whisper shoots across

All singing in my heart, all praying in my brain,

“It comes of heat and beer!” – hark how he guffaws plain!

“Tomorrow you’ll wake bright, and, in a safe skin, hug

Your sound selves, Tab and you, over a foaming jug!

You’ve had such qualms before, time out of mind!” He’s right!

Did not we kick and cuff and curse away, that night

When home we blindly reeled and left poor humpback Joe

[260] I’ the lurch to pay for what … somebody did, you know!

Both of us maundered then “Lame humpback, – never more

Will he come limping, drain his tankard at our door!

He’ll swing, while – somebody …” Says Tab, “No, for I’ll peach!”

“I’m for you, Tab,” cries I, “there’s rope enough for each!”

So blubbered we, and bussed, and went to bed upon

The grace of Tab’s good thought: by morning, all was gone!

We laughed – “What’s life to him, a cripple of no account?”

Oh, waves increase around – I feel them mount and mount!

Hang us! Tomorrow brings Tom Bearward with his bears:

[270] One new black-muzzled brute beats Sackerson, he swears:

(Sackerson, for my money!) And, baiting o’er, the Brawl

They lead on Turner’s Patch, – lads, lasses, up tails all, –

I’m i’ the thick o’ the throng! That means the Iron Cage,

– Means the Lost Man inside! Where’s hope for such as wage

War against light? Light’s left, light’s here, I hold light still,

So does Tab – make but haste to hang us both! You will?’

I promise, when he stopped you might have heard a mouse

Squeak, such a death-like hush sealed up the old Mote House.

But when the mass of man sank meek upon his knees,

[280] While Tab, alongside, wheezed a hoarse ‘Do hang us, please!’

Why, then the waters rose, no eye but ran with tears,

Hearts heaved, heads thumped, until, paying all past arrears

Of pity and sorrow, at last a regular scream out broke

Of triumph, joy and praise.

                        My Lord Chief Justice spoke,

First mopping brow and cheek, where still, for one that budged,

Another bead broke fresh: ‘What Judge, that ever judged

Since first the world began, judged such a case as this?

Why, Master Bratts, long since, folk smelt you out, I wis!

I had my doubts, i’ faith, each time you played the fox

[290] Convicting geese of crime in yonder witness-box –

Yea, much did I misdoubt, the thief that stole her eggs

Was hardly goosey’s self at Reynard’s game, i’ feggs!

Yet thus much was to praise – you spoke to point, direct –

Swore you heard, saw the theft: no jury could suspect –

Dared to suspect, – I’ll say, – a spot in white so clear:

Goosey was throttled, true: but thereof godly fear

Came of example set, much as our laws intend;

And, though a fox confessed, you proved the Judge’s friend.

What if I had my doubts? Suppose I gave them breath,

[300] Brought you to bar: what work to do, ere “Guilty, Death,” –

Had paid our pains! What heaps of witnesses to drag

From holes and corners, paid from out the County’s bag!

Trial three dog-days long!
Amicus Curiae
– that’s

Your title, no dispute – truth-telling Master Bratts!

Thank you, too, Mistress Tab! Why doubt one word you say?

Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day!

The tinker needs must be a proper man. I’ve heard

He lies in Gaol long since: if Quality’s good word

Warrants me letting loose, – some householder, I mean –

[310] Freeholder, better still, – I don’t say but – between

Now and next Sessions … Well! Consider of his case,

I promise to, at least: we owe him so much grace.

Not that – no, God forbid! – I lean to think, as you,

The grace that such repent is any goal-bird’s due:

I rather see the fruit of twelve years’ pious reign –

Astraea Redux, Charles restored his rights again!

– Of which, another time! I somehow feel a peace

Stealing across the world. May deeds like this increase!

So, Master Sheriff, stay that sentence I pronounced

[320] On those two dozen odd: deserving to be trounced

Soundly, and yet … well, well, at all events dispatch

This pair of – shall I say, sinner-saints? – ere we catch

Their gaol-distemper too. Stop tears, or I’ll indite

All weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!’

So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur,

Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur?

And happily hanged were they, – why lengthen out my tale? –

Where Bunyan’s Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.

Clive

I and Clive were friends – and why not? Friends! I think you laugh, my lad.

Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives – egad,

England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak –

‘Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades –’ with a tongue thrust in your cheek!

Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world’s eyes, Clive was man,

I was, am and ever shall be – mouse, nay, mouse of all its clan

Sorriest sample, if you take the kitchen’s estimate for fame;

While the man Clive – he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign game,

Conquered and annexed and Englished!

                       Never mind! As o’er my punch

[10] (You away) I sit of evenings, – silence, save for biscuit-crunch,

Black, unbroken, – thought grows busy, thrids each pathway of old years,

Notes this forthright, that meander, till the long-past life appears

Like an outspread map of country plodded through, each mile and rood,

Once, and well remembered still: I’m startled in my solitude

Ever and anon by – what’s the sudden mocking light that breaks

On me as I slap the table till no rummer-glass but shakes

While I ask – aloud, I do believe, God help me! – ‘Was it thus?

Can it be that so I faltered, stopped when just one step for us –’

[20]
(Us, – you were not born, I grant, but surely some day born would be)

‘– One bold step had gained a province’ (figurative talk, you see)

‘Got no end of wealth and honour, – yet I stood stock still no less?’

– ‘For I was not Clive,’ you comment: but it needs no Clive to guess

Wealth were handy, honour ticklish, did no writing on the wall

Warn me ‘Trespasser, ’ware man-traps!’ Him who braves that notice – call

Hero! none of such heroics suit myself who read plain words,

Doff my hat, and leap no barrier. Scripture says the land’s the Lord’s:

Louts then – what avail the thousand, noisy in a smock-frocked ring,

All-agog to have me trespass, clear the fence, be Clive their king?

[30] Higher warrant must you show me ere I set one foot before

T’other in that dark direction, though I stand for evermore

Poor as Job and meek as Moses. Evermore? No! By-and-by

Job grows rich and Moses valiant, Clive turns out less wise than I.

Don’t object ‘Why call him friend, then?’ Power is power, my boy, and still

Marks a man, – God’s gift magnific, exercised for good or ill.

You’ve your boot now on my hearth-rug, tread what was a tiger’s skin:

Rarely such a royal monster as I lodged the bullet in!

True, he murdered half a village, so his own death came to pass;

Still, for size and beauty, cunning, courage – ah, the brute he was!

[40] Why, that Clive, – that youth, that greenhorn, that quill-driving clerk, in fine, –

He sustained a siege in Arcot … But the world knows! Pass the wine.

Where did I break off at? How bring Clive in? Oh, you mentioned ‘fear’!

Just so: and, said I, that minds me of a story you shall hear.

We were friends then, Clive and I: so, when the clouds, about the orb

Late supreme, encroaching slowly, surely, threatened to absorb

Ray by ray its noontide brilliance, – friendship might, with steadier eye

Drawing near, bear what had burned else, now no blaze – all majesty.

Too much bee’s-wing floats my figure? Well, suppose a castle’s new:

None presume to climb its ramparts, none find foothold sure for shoe

’Twixt those squares and squares of granite plating the impervious pile

[50] As his scale-mail’s warty iron cuirasses a crocodile.

Reels that castle thunder-smitten, storm-dismantled? From without

Scrambling up by crack and crevice, every cockney prates about

Towers – the heap he kicks now! turrets – just the measure of his cane!

Will that do? Observe moreover – (same similitude again) –

Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of cannonade:

’Tis when foes are foiled and fighting’s finished that vile rains invade,

Grass o’ergrows, o’ergrows till night-birds congregating find no holes

Fit to build in like the topmost sockets made for banner-poles.

So Clive crumbled slow in London – crashed at last.

                                    A week before,

[60] Dining with him, – after trying churchyard-chat of days of yore, –

Both of us stopped, tired as tombstones, head-piece, foot-piece, when they lean

Each to other, drowsed in fog-smoke, o’er a coffined Past between.

As I saw his head sink heavy, guessed the soul’s extinguishment

By the glazing eyeball, noticed how the furtive fingers went

Where a drug-box skulked behind the honest liquor, – ‘One more throw

Try for Clive!’ thought I: ‘Let’s venture some good rattling question!’ So –

‘Come, Clive, tell us’ – out I blurted – ‘what to tell in turn, years hence,

When my boy – suppose I have one – asks me on what evidence

[70] I maintain my friend of Plassy proved a warrior every whit

Worth your Alexanders, Caesars, Marlboroughs and – what said Pitt? –

Frederick the Fierce himself! “Clive told me once” – I want to say –

“Which feat out of all those famous doings bore the bell away

– In his own calm estimation, mark you, not the mob’s rough guess –

Which stood foremost as evincing what Clive called courageousness!”

Come! what moment of the minute, what speck-centre in the wide

Circle of the action saw your mortal fairly deified?

(Let alone that filthy sleep-stuff, swallow bold this wholesome Port!)

If a friend has leave to question, – when were you most brave, in short?’

[80] Up he arched his brows o’ the instant – formidably Clive again.

‘When was I most brave? I’d answer, were the instance half as plain

As another instance that’s a brain-lodged crystal – curse it! – here

Freezing when my memory touches – ugh! – the time I felt most fear.

Ugh! I cannot say for certain if I showed fear – anyhow,

Fear I felt, and, very likely, shuddered, since I shiver now.’

‘Fear!’ smiled I. ‘Well, that’s the rarer: that’s a specimen to seek,

Ticket up in one’s museum,
Mind-Freaks, Lord Clive’s Fear, Unique!
’

Down his brows dropped. On the table painfully he pored as though

Tracing, in the stains and streaks there, thoughts encrusted long ago.

When he spoke ’twas like a lawyer reading word by word some will,

[90] Some blind jungle of a statement, – beating on and on until

Out there leaps fierce life to fight with.

                              ‘This fell in my factor-days.

Desk-drudge, slaving at Saint David’s, one must game, or drink, or craze.

I chose gaming: and, – because your high-flown gamesters hardly take

Umbrage at a factor’s elbow if the factor pays his stake, –

I was winked at in a circle where the company was choice,

Captain This and Major That, men high of colour, loud of voice,

Yet indulgent, condescending to the modest juvenile

Who not merely risked but lost his hard-earned guineas with a smile.

‘Down I sat to cards, one evening, – had for my antagonist

[100] Somebody whose name’s a secret – you’ll know why – so, if you list,

Call him Cock o’ the Walk, my scarlet son of Mars from head to heel!

Play commenced: and, whether Cocky fancied that a clerk must feel

Quite sufficient honour came of bending over one green baize,

I the scribe with him the warrior, – guessed no penman dared to raise

Shadow of objection should the honour stay but playing end

More or less abruptly, – whether disinclined he grew to spend

Practice strictly scientific on a booby born to stare

At – not ask of – lace-and-ruffles if the hand they hide plays fair, –

[110] Anyhow, I marked a movement when he bade me “Cut!”

                               ‘I rose.

“Such the new manoeuvre, Captain? I’m a novice: knowledge grows.

What, you force a card, you cheat, Sir?”

‘Never did a thunder-clap

Cause emotion, startle Thyrsis locked with Chloe in his lap,

As my word and gesture (down I flung my cards to join the pack)

Fired the man of arms, whose visage, simply red before, turned black.

‘When he found his voice, he stammered “That expression once again!”

‘“Well, you forced a card and cheated!”

                                ‘“Possibly a factor’s brain,

Busied with his all-important balance of accounts, may deem