Sitting by my side,
At my feet,
So he breathed but air I breathed,
Satisfied!
At my feet,
So he breathed but air I breathed,
Satisfied!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v05 - Bro to Cai
that was music!
good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!
Then they left you for their pleasure; till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well
undone,
Death stepped tacitly, and took them where they never see the sun.
But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
In you come with your cold music till I creep through every nerve.
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned.
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice
earned.
The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be discerned.
« Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction,- you'll not die, it cannot be !
“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the
crop;
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop ?
“Dust and ashes! So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what's become of all the
gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
## p. 2573 (#133) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2573
CONFESSIONS
WHAT
HAT is he buzzing in my ears?
« Now that I come to die
Do I view the world as a vale of tears ? »
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
What I viewed there once, what I viewed again
Where the physic bottles stand
On the table's edge,- is a suburb lane,
With a wall to my bedside hand.
That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry
O'er the garden wall: is the curtain blue,
Or green to a healthy eye?
To mine, it serves for the old June weather
Blue above lane and wall;
And that farthest bottle labeled Ether »
Is the house o'ertopping all.
At a terrace, somewhat near the stopper,
There watched for me, one June,
A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
My poor mind's out of tune.
Only, there was a way — you crept
Close by the side, to dodge
Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
They styled their house “The Lodge. ”
What right had a lounger up their lane ?
But by creeping very close,
With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to O's,
Yet never catch her and me together,
As she left the attic there,
By the rim of the bottle labeled “Ether,”
And stole from stair to stair,
And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir - used to meet :
How sad and bad and mad it was—
But then, how it was sweet!
## p. 2574 (#134) ###########################################
2574
ROBERT BROWNING
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
WHERE
THERE the quiet-colored end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles,
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half asleep
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop-
Was the site once of a city great and gay
(So they say);
Of our country's very capital, its prince,
Ages since,
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
Now,-- the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see;
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to (else they run
Into one).
Where the domed and daring palace shot in spires
Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
Twelve abreast.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as this summer-time o'erspreads
And imbeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone –
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
Now,- the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
## p. 2575 (#135) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2575
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks —
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
And I know — while thus the quiet-colored eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray
Melt away
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
[dumb,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless,
Till I come.
But he looked upon the city every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,- and then,
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force -
Gold, of course.
O heart! O blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns
## p. 2576 (#136) ###########################################
2576
ROBERT BROWNING
For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL
SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE
L
Et us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,
Each in its tether,
Sleeping safe in the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels:
Clouds overcome it;
No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights!
Wait ye the warning ?
Our low life was the level's and the night's:
He's for the morning.
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.
Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
Safe from the weather!
He whom we convoy to his grave aloft, -
Singing together,
He was a man born with thy face and throat,
Lyric Apollo!
## p. 2577 (#137) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2577
Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow ?
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,
Moaned he, “New measures, other feet anon!
My dance is finished” ?
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain side,
Make for the city! )
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping:
“What's in the scroll,” quoth he, “thou keepest furled ?
Show me their shaping,
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, -
Give! ) so he gowned him,
Straight got by heart that book to its last page;
Learned, we found him.
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
Accents uncertain :
« Time to taste life,” another would have said,
«Up with the curtain ! »
This man said rather, “Actual life comes next?
Patience a moment!
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
Still there's the comment.
Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
Painful or easy!
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
Ay, nor feel queasy. "
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts —,
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!
(Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market-place
Gaping before us. )
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace:
(Hearten our chorus! )
That before living he'd learn how to live -
No end to learning :
V-162
## p. 2578 (#138) ###########################################
2578
ROBERT BROWNING
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
Others mistrust and say, “But time escapes !
Live now or never ! »
He said, “What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever. ”
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head;
Calculus racked him;
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead;
Tussis attacked him.
“Now, master, take a little rest! » -- not he!
(Caution redoubled !
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly! )
Not a whit troubled,
Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
Bad is our bargain!
Was it not great ? did not he throw on God
(He loves the burthen)-
God's task to make the heavenly period.
Perfect the earthen ?
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant ?
He would not discount life, as fools do here
Paid by installment.
He ventured neck or nothing - heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
“Wilt thou trust death or not? ” He answered, “ Yes!
Hence with life's pale lure! ”
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million, ,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here - should he need the next.
Let the world mind him!
## p. 2579 (#139) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2579
Looking as if she were alive. I call
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer
He settled Hoti's business — let it be! -
Properly based Oun -
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,
Dead from the waist down.
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below
Live, for they can, there:
This man decided not to Live but Know-
Bury this man there?
Here - here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects:
Loftily lying,
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and dying.
MY LAST DUCHESS
FERRARA
Hat's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design: for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I),
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
## p. 2580 (#140) ###########################################
2580
ROBERT BROWNING
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrists too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat;” such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart — how shall I say? —too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace,- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good! but thanked
Somehow — I know not how- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech (which I have not) to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark, ” — and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop.
O sir! she smiled, no doubt,
When'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
## p. 2581 (#141) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2581
UP AT A VILLA - DOWN IN THE CITY
H
(As DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY)
AD I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!
Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least !
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.
Well, now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! -
I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.
But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses! Why!
They are stone-faced, white as a curd; there's something to take the
eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.
What of a villa ? Though winter be over in March by rights,
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the
heights;
You've the brown-plowed land before, where the oxen steam and
wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive-trees.
Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.
Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and
pash
Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash,
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort
of sash.
All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger.
## p. 2582 (#142) ###########################################
2582
ROBERT BROWNING
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on
the hill.
[chill.
Enough of the seasons,— 1 spare you the months of the fever and
Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin;
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.
By and by there's the traveling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws
teeth,
Or the Pulcinella-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
At the post-office such a scene picture — the new play, piping hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes,
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of
the Duke's!
Or a sonnet with Aowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero,
« And moreover” (the sonnet goes rhyming), “the skirts of St. Paul
has reached,
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever
he preached. ”
Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling
and smart,
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her
heart!
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife;
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.
But bless you, it's dear -- it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate;
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing
the gate
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still - ah, the pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and
sandals,
And then penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow
candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention
of scandals:
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife,
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!
## p. 2583 (#143) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2583
IN THREE DAYS
SO
o, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, — but nights are short,-
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come, unchanged, unworn
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,-
Only a touch and we combine!
Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights — at least the nights are short.
As night shows where her one moon is,
A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss,
So, life's night gives my lady birth
And my eyes hold her! What is worth
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?
O loaded curls, release your store
Of warmth and scent, as once before
The tingling hair did, lights and darks
Outbreaking into fairy sparks
When under curl and curl I pried
After the warmth and scent inside,
Through lights and darks how manifold -
The dark inspired, the light controlled!
As early Art embrowned the gold.
What great fear — should one say, « Three days
That change the world might change as well
Your fortune; and if joy delays,
Be happy that no worse befell. ”
What small fear – if another says,
« Three days and one short night beside
May throw no shadow on your ways;
But years must teem with change untried,
With chance not easily defied,
With an end somewhere undescried. ”
No fear! — or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night,- now the nights are short, —
Then just two hours, and that is morn.
## p. 2584 (#144) ###########################################
2584
ROBERT BROWNING
IN A YEAR
NY
EVER any more,
While I live,
Need I hope to see his face
As before.
Once his love grown chill,
Mine may strive:
Bitterly we re-embrace,
Single still.
Was it something said,
Something done,
Vexed him ? was it touch of hand,
Turn of head?
Strange! that very way
Love begun:
I as little understand
Love's decay.
When I sewed or drew,
I recall
How he looked as if I sung,
Sweetly too.
If I spoke a word,
First of all
Up his cheek the color sprung,
Then he heard.
Sitting by my side,
At my feet,
So he breathed but air I breathed,
Satisfied!
I, too, at love's brim
Touched the sweet:
I would die if death bequeathed
Sweet to him.
“Speak, I love thee best! )
He exclaimed:
Let thy love my own foretell! »
I confessed:
« Clasp my heart on thine
Now unblamed,
Since upon thy soul as well
Hangeth mine! ”
## p. 2585 (#145) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2585
Was it wrong to own,
Being truth?
Why should all the giving prove
His alone ?
I had wealth and ease,
Beauty, youth:
Since my lover gave me love,
I gave these.
That was all I meant,-
To be just,
And the passion I had raised
To content.
Since he chose to change
Gold for dust,
If I gave him what he praised
Was it strange?
Would he loved me yet,
On and on,
While I found some way undreamed-
Paid my debt!
Gave more life and more,
Till all gone,
He should smile — "She never seemed
Mine before.
«What, she felt the while,
Must I think?
Love's so different with us men!
He should smile:
“Dying for my sake -
White and pink!
Can't we touch these bubbles then
But they break ? »
Dear, the pang is brief,
Do thy part,
Have thy pleasure! How perplexed
Grows belief!
Well, this cold clay clod
Was man's heart:
Crumble it, and what comes next?
Is it God?
## p. 2586 (#146) ###########################################
2586
ROBERT BROWNING
EVELYN HOPE
B
EAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed :
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass :
Little has yet been changed, I think;
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew.
And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told ?
We were fellow inortals, naught beside ?
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few;
Much is to learn, much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
But the time will come,- at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red -
## p. 2587 (#147) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2587
And what would you do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead?
I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue ? let us see!
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!
My heart seemed full as it could hold;
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So hush,- I will give you this leaf to keep;
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
PROSPICE
F
EAR death ? — to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch-Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
## p. 2588 (#148) ###########################################
2588
ROBERT BROWNING
And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
THE PATRIOT
AN OLD STORY
I"
T WAS roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, “Good folk, mere noise repels-
But give me your sun from yonder skies!
They had answered, “And afterward, what else ? »
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep!
Naught man could do have I left undone;
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.
There's nobody on the housetops now —
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.
I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fing, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.
Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
«Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
Me? ” -- God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
## p. 2589 (#149) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2589
ONE WORD MORE
To E. B. B.
London, September, 1855
HERE they are, my fifty men and women,
T'kaming me the fifty y puerns einished
Take them, Love, the book and me together:
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
Raphael made a century of sonnets,
Made and wrote them in a certain volume
Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil
Else he only used to draw Madonnas:
These, the world might view — but one, the volume.
Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.
Did she live and love it all her lifetime?
Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets,
Die and let it drop beside her pillow,
Where it lay in place of Raphael's glory,
Raphael's cheek so duteous and so loving -
Cheek the world was wont to hail a painter's,
Raphael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's ?
You and I would rather read that volume
(Taken to his beating bosom by it),
Lean and list the bosom-beats of Raphael,
Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas
Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno,
Her, that visits Florence in a vision,
Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre –
Seen by us and all the world in circle.
You and I will never read that volume.
Guido Reni like his own eye's apple
Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it.
Guido Reni dying, all Bologna
Cried, and the world cried too, “Ours the treasure ! »
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
Dante once prepared to paint an angel:
Whom to please ? You whisper “Beatrice. ”
While he mused and traced it and retraced it,
(Peradventure with a pen corroded
Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for
When, his left hand i' the hair o' the wicked,
Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma,
## p. 2590 (#150) ###########################################
2590
ROBERT BROWNING
Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment,
Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle,
Let the wretch go festering through Florence) -
Dante, who loved well because he hated,
Hated wickedness that hinders loving,
Dante standing, studying his angel-
In there broke the folk of his Inferno.
Says he - "Certain people of importance
(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to)
«Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet. ”
Says the poet - «Then I stopped my painting. ”
You and I would rather see that angel
Painted by the tenderness of Dante -
Would we not ? -- than read a fresh Inferno.
You and I will never see that picture.
While he mused on love and Beatrice,
While he softened o'er his outlined angel,
In they broke, those people of importance ;
We and Bice bear the loss forever.
What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture ?
This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not
Once, and only once, and for one only;
(Ah, the prize! ) to find his love a language
Fit and fair and simple and sufficient
Using nature that's an art to others,
Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.
Ay, of all the artists living, loving,
None but would forego his proper dowry.
Does he paint ? he fain would write a poem;
Does he write ? he fain would paint a picture:
Put to proof art alien to the artist's,
Once, and only once, and for one only,
So to be the man and leave the artist,
Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.
Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement !
He who smites the rock and spreads the water,
Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him,
Even he the minute makes immortal
Proves perchance but mortal in the minute,
Desecrates belike the deed in doing.
While he smites, how can he but remember
So he smote before, in such a peril,
## p. 2591 (#151) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2591
When they stood and mocked—“Shall smiting help us? ”
When they drank and sneered—“A stroke is easy! »
When they wiped their mouths and went their journey,
Throwing him for thanks –“But drought was pleasant. ”
Thus old memories mar the actual triumph;
Thus the doing savors of disrelish;
Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat;
O’er-importuned brows becloud the mandate,
Carelessness or consciousness — the gesture.
For he bears an ancient wrong about him,
Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces,
Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude —
“How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us ? »
Guesses what is like to prove the sequel –
«Egypt's flesh-pots -- nay, the drought was better. ”
Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!
Theirs the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance,
Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.
Never dares the man put off the prophet.
Did he love one face from out the thousands
(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely,
Were she but the Æthiopian bondslave),
He would envy yon dumb patient camel,
Keeping a reserve of scanty water
Meant to save his own life in the desert;
Ready in the desert to deliver
(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened)
Hoard and life together for his mistress.
I shall never, in the years remaining,
Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues,
Make you music that should all-express me;
So it seems: I stand on my attainment.
This of verse alone, one life allows me;
Verse and nothing else have I to give you.
Other heights in other lives, God willing :
All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!
Yet a semblance of resource avails us —
Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.
Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly,
Lines I write the first time and the last time.
He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush,
Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,
## p. 2592 (#152) ###########################################
2592
ROBERT BROWNING
Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,
Makes a strange art of an art familiar,
Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets.
He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver,
Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.
He who writes may write for once as I do.
Love, you saw me gather men and women,
Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy,
Enter each and all, and use their service,
Speak from every mouth, — the speech a poem.
Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,
Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving:
I am mine and yours — the rest be all men's,
Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty.
Let me speak this once in my true person,
Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea,
Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence:
Pray you, look on these, my men and women,
Take and keep my fifty poems finished;
Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!
Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.
Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!
Here in London, yonder late in Florence,
Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.
Curving on a sky imbrued with color,
Drifted over Fiesole by twilight,
Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.
Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato,
Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder,
Perfect till the nightingales applauded.
Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished,
Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs,
Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver,
Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.
What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy ?
Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,
Use to charm him (so to fit a fancy),
All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos),
She would turn a new side to her mortal,
Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman
Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace,
Blind to Galileo on his turret,
## p. 2593 (#153) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2593
Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even!
Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal —
When she turns round, comes again in heaven,
Opens out anew for worse or better!
Proves she like some portent of an iceberg
Swimming full upon the ship it founders,
Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals ?
Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire
Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain ?
Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu
Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest,
Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.
Like the bodied heaven in his clearness
Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work,
When they ate and drank and saw God also!
What were seen ? None knows, none ever shall know.
Only this is sure — the sight were other,
Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence,
Dying now impoverished here in London.
God be thanked, the meanest of his cteatures
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her!
This I say of me, but think of you, Love!
This to you — yourself my moon of poets!
Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder;
Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!
There, in turn I stand with them and praise you —
Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.
But the best is when I glide from out them,
Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,
Come out on the other side, the novel
Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,
Where I hush and bless myself with silence.
Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,
Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno,
Wrote one song - and in my brain I sing it,
Drew one angel – borne, see, on my bosom!
R. B.
VI-163
## p. 2594 (#154) ###########################################
2594
ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON
(1803-1876)
was
KRESTES BROWNSON, in his time, was a figure of striking origi-
nality and influence in American literature and American
political, philosophical, and religious discussion. His career
an exceptional one; for he was connected with some of the
most important contemporaneous movements of thought, and passed
through several distinct phases: Presbyterianism, Universalism, Social-
ism — of a mild and benevolent kind, not to be confused with the
later fiery and destructive socialism of “the Reds”; afterward sym-
pathizing somewhat with the aims and
tendencies of the New England Transcend-
entalists; a close intellectual associate of
Ralph Waldo Emerson; then the apostle of
a «new Christianity”; — finally becoming a
Roman Catholic.
Coming of old Connecticut stock on his
father's side, he was born in Vermont, Sep-
tember 16th, 1803; and, notwithstanding
that he was brought up in poverty on a
farm with small opportunity for education,
contrived in later years to make himself
ORESTES BROWNSON
a thorough scholar in various directions,
mastering several languages, acquiring a
wide knowledge of history, reading deeply in philosophy, and devel-
oping marked originality in setting forth new philosophical views.
His bent in childhood was strongly religious; and he even believed,
at that period of his life, that he held long conversations with the
sacred personages of Holy Scripture. Yet while in manhood he
devoted many years and much of his energy to preaching, his
character was aggressive and his tone controversial, he however
revealed many traits of real gentleness and humility, and the
mixture of rugged strength and tenderness in his character and his
work won him a large following in whatever position he took.
He performed the remarkable feat, when the support of American
letters was slight, of founding and conducting almost single-handed,
from 1838 to 1843, his famous Quarterly Review, which was a power
in the land. He started it again in 1844 as Brownson's Quarterly
Review,' and resumed it thirty years later in still a third series.
## p. 2595 (#155) ###########################################
ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON
2595
He died in 1876 at Detroit, much of his active career having been
passed in Boston, and some of his later years at Seton Hall, New
Jersey.
His various changes of belief have often been taken as an index
of vacillation; but a simple and candid study of his writings shows
that such changes were merely the normal progress of an intensely
earnest and sincere mind, which never hesitated to avow its honest
convictions nor to admit its errors. This is the quality which gives
Brownson his vitality as a mind and an author; and he will be found
to be consistent with conscience throughout.
His writings are forceful, eloquent, and lucid in style, with a
Websterian massiveness that does not detract from their charm.
They fill twenty volumes, divided into groups of essays on Civiliza-
tion, Controversy, Religion, Philosophy, Scientific Theories, and Popu-
lar Literature, which cover a great and fascinating variety of topics
in detail. Brownson was an intense and patriotic American, and his
national quality comes out strongly in his extended treatise (The
American Republic) (1865). The best known of his other works is
a candid, vigorous, and engaging autobiography entitled “The Con-
vert) (1853).
SAINT-SIMONISM
From "The Convert )
I"
F I drew my doctrine of Union in part from the eclecticism
of Cousin, I drew my views of the Church and of the re-
organization of the race from the Saint-Simonians,-a philo-
sophico-religious or a politico-philosophical sect that sprung up in
France under the Restoration, and figured largely for a year
or two under the monarchy of July. Their founder was Claude
Henri, Count de Saint-Simon, a descendant of the Duc de Saint-
Simon, well known as the author of the Memoirs. He was
born in 1760, entered the army at the age of seventeen, and the
year after came to this country, where he served with distinction
in our Revolutionary War under Bouillié. After the peace of
1783 he devoted two years to the study of our people and insti-
tutions, and then returned to France. Hardly had he returned
before he found himself in the midst of the French Revolution,
which he regarded as the practical application of the principles
or theories adopted by the reformers of the sixteenth century
and popularized by the philosophers of the eighteenth. He
looked upon that revolution, we are told, as having only a
## p. 2596 (#156) ###########################################
2596
ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON
even
destructive mission - necessary, important, but inadequate to the
wants of humanity; and instead of being carried away by it as
were most of the young men of his age and his principles, he
set himself at work to amass materials for the erection of a
new social edifice on the ruins of the old, which should stand
and improve in solidity, strength, grandeur, and beauty forever.
The way he seems to have taken to amass these materials
was to engage with a partner in some grand speculations for the
accumulation of wealth, — and speculations too, it is said, not of
the most honorable or the most honest character. His
plans succeeded for a time, and he became very rich, as did
many others in those troublous times; but he finally met with
reverses, and lost all but the wrecks of his fortune. He then
for a number of years plunged into all manner of vice, and
indulged to excess in every species of dissipation; not, we are
told, from love of vice, any inordinate desire, or any impure
affection, but for the holy purpose of preparing himself by his
experience for the great work of redeeming man and securing
for him a Paradise on earth. Having gained all that expe-
rience could give him in the department of vice, he then pro-
ceeded to consult the learned professors of L'École Polytechnique
for seven or ten years, to make himself master of science, litera-
ture, and the fine arts in all their departments, and to place
himself at the level of the last attainments of the race. Thus
qualified to be the founder of a new social organization, he
wrote several books, in which he deposited the germs of his
ideas, or rather the germs of the future; most of which have
hitherto remained unpublished.
But now that he was so well qualified for his work he found
himself a beggar, and had as yet made only a single disciple.
He was reduced to despair and attempted to take his own life;
but failed, the ball only grazing his sacred forehead. His faith-
ful disciple was near him, saved him, and aroused him into life
and hope. When he recovered he found that he had fallen into
a gross error. He had been a materialist, an atheist, and had
discarded all religious ideas as long since outgrown by the
human race. He had proposed to organize the human race with
materials furnished by the senses alone, and by the aid of pos-
itive science. He owns his fault, and conceives and brings forth
a new Christianity, consigned to a small pamphlet entitled Nou-
veau Christianisme,' which was immediately published. This
## p. 2597 (#157) ###########################################
ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON
2597
done, his mission was ended, and he died May 19th, 1825, and I
suppose was buried.
Saint-Simon, the preacher of a new Christianity, very soon
attracted disciples, chiefly from the pupils of the Polytechnic
School; ardent and lively young men, full of enthusiasm, brought
up without faith in the gospel and yet unable to live without
religion of some sort. Among the active members of the sect
were at one time Pierre Leroux, Jules and Michel Chevalier,
Lerininier, [and] my personal friend Dr. Poyen, who initiated me
and so many others in New England into the mysteries of ani-
mal magnetism. Dr. Poyen was, I believe, a native of the
island of Guadeloupe; a man of more ability than he usually had
credit for, of solid learning, genuine science, and honest inten-
tions. I knew him well and esteemed him highly. When I
knew him his attachment to the new religion was much weak-
ened, and he often talked to me of the old Church, and assured
me that he felt at times that he must return to her bosom. I
owe him many hints which turned my thoughts toward Catholic
principles, and which, with God's grace, were of much service to
me. These and many others were in the sect; whose chiefs,
after the death of its founder, were — Bazard, a Liberal and a
practical man, who killed himself; and Enfantin, who after the
dissolution of the sect sought employment in the service of the
Viceroy of Egypt, and occupies now some important post in con-
nection with the French railways.
The sect began in 1826 by addressing the working classes;
but their success was small. In 1829 they came out of their
narrow circle, assumed a bolder tone, addressed themselves to the
general public, and became in less than eighteen months a
Parisian mode. In 1831 they purchased the Globe newspaper,
made it their organ, and distributed gratuitously five thousand
copies daily.
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!
Then they left you for their pleasure; till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well
undone,
Death stepped tacitly, and took them where they never see the sun.
But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
In you come with your cold music till I creep through every nerve.
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned.
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice
earned.
The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be discerned.
« Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction,- you'll not die, it cannot be !
“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the
crop;
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop ?
“Dust and ashes! So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what's become of all the
gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
## p. 2573 (#133) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2573
CONFESSIONS
WHAT
HAT is he buzzing in my ears?
« Now that I come to die
Do I view the world as a vale of tears ? »
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
What I viewed there once, what I viewed again
Where the physic bottles stand
On the table's edge,- is a suburb lane,
With a wall to my bedside hand.
That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry
O'er the garden wall: is the curtain blue,
Or green to a healthy eye?
To mine, it serves for the old June weather
Blue above lane and wall;
And that farthest bottle labeled Ether »
Is the house o'ertopping all.
At a terrace, somewhat near the stopper,
There watched for me, one June,
A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
My poor mind's out of tune.
Only, there was a way — you crept
Close by the side, to dodge
Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
They styled their house “The Lodge. ”
What right had a lounger up their lane ?
But by creeping very close,
With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to O's,
Yet never catch her and me together,
As she left the attic there,
By the rim of the bottle labeled “Ether,”
And stole from stair to stair,
And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir - used to meet :
How sad and bad and mad it was—
But then, how it was sweet!
## p. 2574 (#134) ###########################################
2574
ROBERT BROWNING
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
WHERE
THERE the quiet-colored end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles,
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half asleep
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop-
Was the site once of a city great and gay
(So they say);
Of our country's very capital, its prince,
Ages since,
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
Now,-- the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see;
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to (else they run
Into one).
Where the domed and daring palace shot in spires
Up like fires
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
Twelve abreast.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as this summer-time o'erspreads
And imbeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone –
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
Now,- the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
## p. 2575 (#135) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2575
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks —
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
And I know — while thus the quiet-colored eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray
Melt away
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
[dumb,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless,
Till I come.
But he looked upon the city every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,- and then,
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force -
Gold, of course.
O heart! O blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns
## p. 2576 (#136) ###########################################
2576
ROBERT BROWNING
For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL
SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE
L
Et us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,
Each in its tether,
Sleeping safe in the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels:
Clouds overcome it;
No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights!
Wait ye the warning ?
Our low life was the level's and the night's:
He's for the morning.
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.
Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
Safe from the weather!
He whom we convoy to his grave aloft, -
Singing together,
He was a man born with thy face and throat,
Lyric Apollo!
## p. 2577 (#137) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2577
Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow ?
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,
Moaned he, “New measures, other feet anon!
My dance is finished” ?
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain side,
Make for the city! )
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping:
“What's in the scroll,” quoth he, “thou keepest furled ?
Show me their shaping,
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, -
Give! ) so he gowned him,
Straight got by heart that book to its last page;
Learned, we found him.
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
Accents uncertain :
« Time to taste life,” another would have said,
«Up with the curtain ! »
This man said rather, “Actual life comes next?
Patience a moment!
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
Still there's the comment.
Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
Painful or easy!
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
Ay, nor feel queasy. "
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts —,
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!
(Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market-place
Gaping before us. )
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace:
(Hearten our chorus! )
That before living he'd learn how to live -
No end to learning :
V-162
## p. 2578 (#138) ###########################################
2578
ROBERT BROWNING
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
Others mistrust and say, “But time escapes !
Live now or never ! »
He said, “What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever. ”
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head;
Calculus racked him;
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead;
Tussis attacked him.
“Now, master, take a little rest! » -- not he!
(Caution redoubled !
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly! )
Not a whit troubled,
Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
Bad is our bargain!
Was it not great ? did not he throw on God
(He loves the burthen)-
God's task to make the heavenly period.
Perfect the earthen ?
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant ?
He would not discount life, as fools do here
Paid by installment.
He ventured neck or nothing - heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
“Wilt thou trust death or not? ” He answered, “ Yes!
Hence with life's pale lure! ”
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million, ,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here - should he need the next.
Let the world mind him!
## p. 2579 (#139) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2579
Looking as if she were alive. I call
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer
He settled Hoti's business — let it be! -
Properly based Oun -
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,
Dead from the waist down.
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below
Live, for they can, there:
This man decided not to Live but Know-
Bury this man there?
Here - here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects:
Loftily lying,
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and dying.
MY LAST DUCHESS
FERRARA
Hat's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design: for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I),
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
## p. 2580 (#140) ###########################################
2580
ROBERT BROWNING
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrists too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat;” such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart — how shall I say? —too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace,- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good! but thanked
Somehow — I know not how- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech (which I have not) to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark, ” — and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop.
O sir! she smiled, no doubt,
When'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
## p. 2581 (#141) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2581
UP AT A VILLA - DOWN IN THE CITY
H
(As DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY)
AD I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!
Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least !
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.
Well, now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! -
I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.
But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses! Why!
They are stone-faced, white as a curd; there's something to take the
eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.
What of a villa ? Though winter be over in March by rights,
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the
heights;
You've the brown-plowed land before, where the oxen steam and
wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive-trees.
Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.
Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and
pash
Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash,
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort
of sash.
All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger.
## p. 2582 (#142) ###########################################
2582
ROBERT BROWNING
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on
the hill.
[chill.
Enough of the seasons,— 1 spare you the months of the fever and
Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin;
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.
By and by there's the traveling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws
teeth,
Or the Pulcinella-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
At the post-office such a scene picture — the new play, piping hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes,
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of
the Duke's!
Or a sonnet with Aowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero,
« And moreover” (the sonnet goes rhyming), “the skirts of St. Paul
has reached,
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever
he preached. ”
Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling
and smart,
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her
heart!
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife;
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.
But bless you, it's dear -- it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate;
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing
the gate
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still - ah, the pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and
sandals,
And then penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow
candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention
of scandals:
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife,
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!
## p. 2583 (#143) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2583
IN THREE DAYS
SO
o, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, — but nights are short,-
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come, unchanged, unworn
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,-
Only a touch and we combine!
Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights — at least the nights are short.
As night shows where her one moon is,
A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss,
So, life's night gives my lady birth
And my eyes hold her! What is worth
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?
O loaded curls, release your store
Of warmth and scent, as once before
The tingling hair did, lights and darks
Outbreaking into fairy sparks
When under curl and curl I pried
After the warmth and scent inside,
Through lights and darks how manifold -
The dark inspired, the light controlled!
As early Art embrowned the gold.
What great fear — should one say, « Three days
That change the world might change as well
Your fortune; and if joy delays,
Be happy that no worse befell. ”
What small fear – if another says,
« Three days and one short night beside
May throw no shadow on your ways;
But years must teem with change untried,
With chance not easily defied,
With an end somewhere undescried. ”
No fear! — or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night,- now the nights are short, —
Then just two hours, and that is morn.
## p. 2584 (#144) ###########################################
2584
ROBERT BROWNING
IN A YEAR
NY
EVER any more,
While I live,
Need I hope to see his face
As before.
Once his love grown chill,
Mine may strive:
Bitterly we re-embrace,
Single still.
Was it something said,
Something done,
Vexed him ? was it touch of hand,
Turn of head?
Strange! that very way
Love begun:
I as little understand
Love's decay.
When I sewed or drew,
I recall
How he looked as if I sung,
Sweetly too.
If I spoke a word,
First of all
Up his cheek the color sprung,
Then he heard.
Sitting by my side,
At my feet,
So he breathed but air I breathed,
Satisfied!
I, too, at love's brim
Touched the sweet:
I would die if death bequeathed
Sweet to him.
“Speak, I love thee best! )
He exclaimed:
Let thy love my own foretell! »
I confessed:
« Clasp my heart on thine
Now unblamed,
Since upon thy soul as well
Hangeth mine! ”
## p. 2585 (#145) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2585
Was it wrong to own,
Being truth?
Why should all the giving prove
His alone ?
I had wealth and ease,
Beauty, youth:
Since my lover gave me love,
I gave these.
That was all I meant,-
To be just,
And the passion I had raised
To content.
Since he chose to change
Gold for dust,
If I gave him what he praised
Was it strange?
Would he loved me yet,
On and on,
While I found some way undreamed-
Paid my debt!
Gave more life and more,
Till all gone,
He should smile — "She never seemed
Mine before.
«What, she felt the while,
Must I think?
Love's so different with us men!
He should smile:
“Dying for my sake -
White and pink!
Can't we touch these bubbles then
But they break ? »
Dear, the pang is brief,
Do thy part,
Have thy pleasure! How perplexed
Grows belief!
Well, this cold clay clod
Was man's heart:
Crumble it, and what comes next?
Is it God?
## p. 2586 (#146) ###########################################
2586
ROBERT BROWNING
EVELYN HOPE
B
EAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed :
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass :
Little has yet been changed, I think;
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew.
And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told ?
We were fellow inortals, naught beside ?
No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few;
Much is to learn, much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.
But the time will come,- at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red -
## p. 2587 (#147) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2587
And what would you do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead?
I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue ? let us see!
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!
My heart seemed full as it could hold;
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So hush,- I will give you this leaf to keep;
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
PROSPICE
F
EAR death ? — to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch-Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
## p. 2588 (#148) ###########################################
2588
ROBERT BROWNING
And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
THE PATRIOT
AN OLD STORY
I"
T WAS roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, “Good folk, mere noise repels-
But give me your sun from yonder skies!
They had answered, “And afterward, what else ? »
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep!
Naught man could do have I left undone;
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.
There's nobody on the housetops now —
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.
I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fing, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.
Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
«Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
Me? ” -- God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
## p. 2589 (#149) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2589
ONE WORD MORE
To E. B. B.
London, September, 1855
HERE they are, my fifty men and women,
T'kaming me the fifty y puerns einished
Take them, Love, the book and me together:
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
Raphael made a century of sonnets,
Made and wrote them in a certain volume
Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil
Else he only used to draw Madonnas:
These, the world might view — but one, the volume.
Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.
Did she live and love it all her lifetime?
Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets,
Die and let it drop beside her pillow,
Where it lay in place of Raphael's glory,
Raphael's cheek so duteous and so loving -
Cheek the world was wont to hail a painter's,
Raphael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's ?
You and I would rather read that volume
(Taken to his beating bosom by it),
Lean and list the bosom-beats of Raphael,
Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas
Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno,
Her, that visits Florence in a vision,
Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre –
Seen by us and all the world in circle.
You and I will never read that volume.
Guido Reni like his own eye's apple
Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it.
Guido Reni dying, all Bologna
Cried, and the world cried too, “Ours the treasure ! »
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
Dante once prepared to paint an angel:
Whom to please ? You whisper “Beatrice. ”
While he mused and traced it and retraced it,
(Peradventure with a pen corroded
Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for
When, his left hand i' the hair o' the wicked,
Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma,
## p. 2590 (#150) ###########################################
2590
ROBERT BROWNING
Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment,
Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle,
Let the wretch go festering through Florence) -
Dante, who loved well because he hated,
Hated wickedness that hinders loving,
Dante standing, studying his angel-
In there broke the folk of his Inferno.
Says he - "Certain people of importance
(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to)
«Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet. ”
Says the poet - «Then I stopped my painting. ”
You and I would rather see that angel
Painted by the tenderness of Dante -
Would we not ? -- than read a fresh Inferno.
You and I will never see that picture.
While he mused on love and Beatrice,
While he softened o'er his outlined angel,
In they broke, those people of importance ;
We and Bice bear the loss forever.
What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture ?
This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not
Once, and only once, and for one only;
(Ah, the prize! ) to find his love a language
Fit and fair and simple and sufficient
Using nature that's an art to others,
Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.
Ay, of all the artists living, loving,
None but would forego his proper dowry.
Does he paint ? he fain would write a poem;
Does he write ? he fain would paint a picture:
Put to proof art alien to the artist's,
Once, and only once, and for one only,
So to be the man and leave the artist,
Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.
Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement !
He who smites the rock and spreads the water,
Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him,
Even he the minute makes immortal
Proves perchance but mortal in the minute,
Desecrates belike the deed in doing.
While he smites, how can he but remember
So he smote before, in such a peril,
## p. 2591 (#151) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2591
When they stood and mocked—“Shall smiting help us? ”
When they drank and sneered—“A stroke is easy! »
When they wiped their mouths and went their journey,
Throwing him for thanks –“But drought was pleasant. ”
Thus old memories mar the actual triumph;
Thus the doing savors of disrelish;
Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat;
O’er-importuned brows becloud the mandate,
Carelessness or consciousness — the gesture.
For he bears an ancient wrong about him,
Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces,
Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude —
“How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us ? »
Guesses what is like to prove the sequel –
«Egypt's flesh-pots -- nay, the drought was better. ”
Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!
Theirs the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance,
Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.
Never dares the man put off the prophet.
Did he love one face from out the thousands
(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely,
Were she but the Æthiopian bondslave),
He would envy yon dumb patient camel,
Keeping a reserve of scanty water
Meant to save his own life in the desert;
Ready in the desert to deliver
(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened)
Hoard and life together for his mistress.
I shall never, in the years remaining,
Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues,
Make you music that should all-express me;
So it seems: I stand on my attainment.
This of verse alone, one life allows me;
Verse and nothing else have I to give you.
Other heights in other lives, God willing :
All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!
Yet a semblance of resource avails us —
Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.
Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly,
Lines I write the first time and the last time.
He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush,
Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,
## p. 2592 (#152) ###########################################
2592
ROBERT BROWNING
Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,
Makes a strange art of an art familiar,
Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets.
He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver,
Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.
He who writes may write for once as I do.
Love, you saw me gather men and women,
Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy,
Enter each and all, and use their service,
Speak from every mouth, — the speech a poem.
Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,
Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving:
I am mine and yours — the rest be all men's,
Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty.
Let me speak this once in my true person,
Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea,
Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence:
Pray you, look on these, my men and women,
Take and keep my fifty poems finished;
Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!
Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.
Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!
Here in London, yonder late in Florence,
Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.
Curving on a sky imbrued with color,
Drifted over Fiesole by twilight,
Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.
Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato,
Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder,
Perfect till the nightingales applauded.
Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished,
Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs,
Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver,
Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.
What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy ?
Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,
Use to charm him (so to fit a fancy),
All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos),
She would turn a new side to her mortal,
Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman
Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace,
Blind to Galileo on his turret,
## p. 2593 (#153) ###########################################
ROBERT BROWNING
2593
Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even!
Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal —
When she turns round, comes again in heaven,
Opens out anew for worse or better!
Proves she like some portent of an iceberg
Swimming full upon the ship it founders,
Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals ?
Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire
Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain ?
Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu
Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest,
Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.
Like the bodied heaven in his clearness
Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work,
When they ate and drank and saw God also!
What were seen ? None knows, none ever shall know.
Only this is sure — the sight were other,
Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence,
Dying now impoverished here in London.
God be thanked, the meanest of his cteatures
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her!
This I say of me, but think of you, Love!
This to you — yourself my moon of poets!
Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder;
Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!
There, in turn I stand with them and praise you —
Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.
But the best is when I glide from out them,
Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,
Come out on the other side, the novel
Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,
Where I hush and bless myself with silence.
Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,
Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno,
Wrote one song - and in my brain I sing it,
Drew one angel – borne, see, on my bosom!
R. B.
VI-163
## p. 2594 (#154) ###########################################
2594
ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON
(1803-1876)
was
KRESTES BROWNSON, in his time, was a figure of striking origi-
nality and influence in American literature and American
political, philosophical, and religious discussion. His career
an exceptional one; for he was connected with some of the
most important contemporaneous movements of thought, and passed
through several distinct phases: Presbyterianism, Universalism, Social-
ism — of a mild and benevolent kind, not to be confused with the
later fiery and destructive socialism of “the Reds”; afterward sym-
pathizing somewhat with the aims and
tendencies of the New England Transcend-
entalists; a close intellectual associate of
Ralph Waldo Emerson; then the apostle of
a «new Christianity”; — finally becoming a
Roman Catholic.
Coming of old Connecticut stock on his
father's side, he was born in Vermont, Sep-
tember 16th, 1803; and, notwithstanding
that he was brought up in poverty on a
farm with small opportunity for education,
contrived in later years to make himself
ORESTES BROWNSON
a thorough scholar in various directions,
mastering several languages, acquiring a
wide knowledge of history, reading deeply in philosophy, and devel-
oping marked originality in setting forth new philosophical views.
His bent in childhood was strongly religious; and he even believed,
at that period of his life, that he held long conversations with the
sacred personages of Holy Scripture. Yet while in manhood he
devoted many years and much of his energy to preaching, his
character was aggressive and his tone controversial, he however
revealed many traits of real gentleness and humility, and the
mixture of rugged strength and tenderness in his character and his
work won him a large following in whatever position he took.
He performed the remarkable feat, when the support of American
letters was slight, of founding and conducting almost single-handed,
from 1838 to 1843, his famous Quarterly Review, which was a power
in the land. He started it again in 1844 as Brownson's Quarterly
Review,' and resumed it thirty years later in still a third series.
## p. 2595 (#155) ###########################################
ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON
2595
He died in 1876 at Detroit, much of his active career having been
passed in Boston, and some of his later years at Seton Hall, New
Jersey.
His various changes of belief have often been taken as an index
of vacillation; but a simple and candid study of his writings shows
that such changes were merely the normal progress of an intensely
earnest and sincere mind, which never hesitated to avow its honest
convictions nor to admit its errors. This is the quality which gives
Brownson his vitality as a mind and an author; and he will be found
to be consistent with conscience throughout.
His writings are forceful, eloquent, and lucid in style, with a
Websterian massiveness that does not detract from their charm.
They fill twenty volumes, divided into groups of essays on Civiliza-
tion, Controversy, Religion, Philosophy, Scientific Theories, and Popu-
lar Literature, which cover a great and fascinating variety of topics
in detail. Brownson was an intense and patriotic American, and his
national quality comes out strongly in his extended treatise (The
American Republic) (1865). The best known of his other works is
a candid, vigorous, and engaging autobiography entitled “The Con-
vert) (1853).
SAINT-SIMONISM
From "The Convert )
I"
F I drew my doctrine of Union in part from the eclecticism
of Cousin, I drew my views of the Church and of the re-
organization of the race from the Saint-Simonians,-a philo-
sophico-religious or a politico-philosophical sect that sprung up in
France under the Restoration, and figured largely for a year
or two under the monarchy of July. Their founder was Claude
Henri, Count de Saint-Simon, a descendant of the Duc de Saint-
Simon, well known as the author of the Memoirs. He was
born in 1760, entered the army at the age of seventeen, and the
year after came to this country, where he served with distinction
in our Revolutionary War under Bouillié. After the peace of
1783 he devoted two years to the study of our people and insti-
tutions, and then returned to France. Hardly had he returned
before he found himself in the midst of the French Revolution,
which he regarded as the practical application of the principles
or theories adopted by the reformers of the sixteenth century
and popularized by the philosophers of the eighteenth. He
looked upon that revolution, we are told, as having only a
## p. 2596 (#156) ###########################################
2596
ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON
even
destructive mission - necessary, important, but inadequate to the
wants of humanity; and instead of being carried away by it as
were most of the young men of his age and his principles, he
set himself at work to amass materials for the erection of a
new social edifice on the ruins of the old, which should stand
and improve in solidity, strength, grandeur, and beauty forever.
The way he seems to have taken to amass these materials
was to engage with a partner in some grand speculations for the
accumulation of wealth, — and speculations too, it is said, not of
the most honorable or the most honest character. His
plans succeeded for a time, and he became very rich, as did
many others in those troublous times; but he finally met with
reverses, and lost all but the wrecks of his fortune. He then
for a number of years plunged into all manner of vice, and
indulged to excess in every species of dissipation; not, we are
told, from love of vice, any inordinate desire, or any impure
affection, but for the holy purpose of preparing himself by his
experience for the great work of redeeming man and securing
for him a Paradise on earth. Having gained all that expe-
rience could give him in the department of vice, he then pro-
ceeded to consult the learned professors of L'École Polytechnique
for seven or ten years, to make himself master of science, litera-
ture, and the fine arts in all their departments, and to place
himself at the level of the last attainments of the race. Thus
qualified to be the founder of a new social organization, he
wrote several books, in which he deposited the germs of his
ideas, or rather the germs of the future; most of which have
hitherto remained unpublished.
But now that he was so well qualified for his work he found
himself a beggar, and had as yet made only a single disciple.
He was reduced to despair and attempted to take his own life;
but failed, the ball only grazing his sacred forehead. His faith-
ful disciple was near him, saved him, and aroused him into life
and hope. When he recovered he found that he had fallen into
a gross error. He had been a materialist, an atheist, and had
discarded all religious ideas as long since outgrown by the
human race. He had proposed to organize the human race with
materials furnished by the senses alone, and by the aid of pos-
itive science. He owns his fault, and conceives and brings forth
a new Christianity, consigned to a small pamphlet entitled Nou-
veau Christianisme,' which was immediately published. This
## p. 2597 (#157) ###########################################
ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON
2597
done, his mission was ended, and he died May 19th, 1825, and I
suppose was buried.
Saint-Simon, the preacher of a new Christianity, very soon
attracted disciples, chiefly from the pupils of the Polytechnic
School; ardent and lively young men, full of enthusiasm, brought
up without faith in the gospel and yet unable to live without
religion of some sort. Among the active members of the sect
were at one time Pierre Leroux, Jules and Michel Chevalier,
Lerininier, [and] my personal friend Dr. Poyen, who initiated me
and so many others in New England into the mysteries of ani-
mal magnetism. Dr. Poyen was, I believe, a native of the
island of Guadeloupe; a man of more ability than he usually had
credit for, of solid learning, genuine science, and honest inten-
tions. I knew him well and esteemed him highly. When I
knew him his attachment to the new religion was much weak-
ened, and he often talked to me of the old Church, and assured
me that he felt at times that he must return to her bosom. I
owe him many hints which turned my thoughts toward Catholic
principles, and which, with God's grace, were of much service to
me. These and many others were in the sect; whose chiefs,
after the death of its founder, were — Bazard, a Liberal and a
practical man, who killed himself; and Enfantin, who after the
dissolution of the sect sought employment in the service of the
Viceroy of Egypt, and occupies now some important post in con-
nection with the French railways.
The sect began in 1826 by addressing the working classes;
but their success was small. In 1829 they came out of their
narrow circle, assumed a bolder tone, addressed themselves to the
general public, and became in less than eighteen months a
Parisian mode. In 1831 they purchased the Globe newspaper,
made it their organ, and distributed gratuitously five thousand
copies daily.
