Introduction to Robert Browning [122]
the miracle in vogue! He had a great observance from us boys; We were in error; that was not the man.
I'd like now, yet had haply been afraid, To have just looked, when this man came to die, [100] And seen who lined the clean gay garret sides, And stood about the neat low truckle-bed, With the heavenly manner of relieving guard. Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief, Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death, Doing the King's work all the dim day long, In his old coat and up to knees in mud, Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust, -- And, now the day was won, relieved at once! No further show or need of that old coat, [110] You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the while How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I! A second, and the angels alter that. Well, I could never write a verse, -- could you? Let's to the Prado and make the most of time.
"Transcendentalism":
A Poem in Twelve Books.
-- * Transcendentalism: a poem in twelve books. It must be understood that the poet addressed has written a long poem under this title, and a brother-poet, while admitting that it contains "true thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treasure up", raises the objection that they are naked, instead of being draped, as they should be, in sights and sounds. --
Stop playing, poet! May a brother speak? 'Tis you speak, that's your error. Song's our art: Whereas you please to speak these naked thoughts Instead of draping them in sights and sounds. -- True thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treasure up! But why such long prolusion and display, Such turning and adjustment of the harp, And taking it upon your breast, at length, Only to speak dry words across its strings? Stark-naked thought is in request enough: [10] Speak prose and hollo it till Europe hears! The six-foot Swiss tube, braced about with bark, Which helps the hunter's voice from Alp to Alp -- Exchange our harp for that, -- who hinders you? But here's your fault; grown men want thought, you think; Thought's what they mean by verse, and seek in verse; Boys seek for images and melody, Men must have reason -- so, you aim at men. Quite otherwise! Objects throng our youth, 'tis true; We see and hear and do not wonder much: [20] If you could tell us what they mean, indeed! As German Boehme never cared for plants Until it happed, a-walking in the fields, He noticed all at once that plants could speak, Nay, turned with loosened tongue to talk with him. That day the daisy had an eye indeed -- Colloquized with the cowslip on such themes! We find them extant yet in Jacob's prose. But by the time youth slips a stage or two While reading prose in that tough book he wrote, [30] (Collating and emendating the same And settling on the sense most to our mind) We shut the clasps and find life's summer past. Then, who helps more, pray, to repair our loss -- Another Boehme with a tougher book And subtler meanings of what roses say, -- Or some stout Mage like him of Halberstadt, John, who made things Boehme wrote thoughts about? He with a "look you!" vents a brace of rhymes, And in there breaks the sudden rose herself, [40] Over us, under, round us every side, Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all, -- Buries us with a glory, young once more, Pouring heaven into this shut house of life. So come, the harp back to your heart again! You are a poem, though your poem's naught. The best of all you showed before, believe, Was your own boy-face o'er the finer chords Bent, following the cherub at the top [50] That points to God with his paired half-moon wings.
-- 22. German Boehme: Jacob Boehme (or Behmen), a shoemaker and a famous theosophist, b. 1575, at Old Seidenberg, a village near Goerlitz; d. 1624. The 24th verse of the poem, "He noticed all at once that plants could speak", may refer to a remarkable experience of Boehme, related in Dr. Hans Lassen Martensen's `Jacob Boehme: his life and teaching, or studies in theosophy:
I'd like now, yet had haply been afraid, To have just looked, when this man came to die, [100] And seen who lined the clean gay garret sides, And stood about the neat low truckle-bed, With the heavenly manner of relieving guard. Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief, Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death, Doing the King's work all the dim day long, In his old coat and up to knees in mud, Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust, -- And, now the day was won, relieved at once! No further show or need of that old coat, [110] You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the while How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I! A second, and the angels alter that. Well, I could never write a verse, -- could you? Let's to the Prado and make the most of time.
"Transcendentalism":
A Poem in Twelve Books.
-- * Transcendentalism: a poem in twelve books. It must be understood that the poet addressed has written a long poem under this title, and a brother-poet, while admitting that it contains "true thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treasure up", raises the objection that they are naked, instead of being draped, as they should be, in sights and sounds. --
Stop playing, poet! May a brother speak? 'Tis you speak, that's your error. Song's our art: Whereas you please to speak these naked thoughts Instead of draping them in sights and sounds. -- True thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treasure up! But why such long prolusion and display, Such turning and adjustment of the harp, And taking it upon your breast, at length, Only to speak dry words across its strings? Stark-naked thought is in request enough: [10] Speak prose and hollo it till Europe hears! The six-foot Swiss tube, braced about with bark, Which helps the hunter's voice from Alp to Alp -- Exchange our harp for that, -- who hinders you? But here's your fault; grown men want thought, you think; Thought's what they mean by verse, and seek in verse; Boys seek for images and melody, Men must have reason -- so, you aim at men. Quite otherwise! Objects throng our youth, 'tis true; We see and hear and do not wonder much: [20] If you could tell us what they mean, indeed! As German Boehme never cared for plants Until it happed, a-walking in the fields, He noticed all at once that plants could speak, Nay, turned with loosened tongue to talk with him. That day the daisy had an eye indeed -- Colloquized with the cowslip on such themes! We find them extant yet in Jacob's prose. But by the time youth slips a stage or two While reading prose in that tough book he wrote, [30] (Collating and emendating the same And settling on the sense most to our mind) We shut the clasps and find life's summer past. Then, who helps more, pray, to repair our loss -- Another Boehme with a tougher book And subtler meanings of what roses say, -- Or some stout Mage like him of Halberstadt, John, who made things Boehme wrote thoughts about? He with a "look you!" vents a brace of rhymes, And in there breaks the sudden rose herself, [40] Over us, under, round us every side, Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all, -- Buries us with a glory, young once more, Pouring heaven into this shut house of life. So come, the harp back to your heart again! You are a poem, though your poem's naught. The best of all you showed before, believe, Was your own boy-face o'er the finer chords Bent, following the cherub at the top [50] That points to God with his paired half-moon wings.
-- 22. German Boehme: Jacob Boehme (or Behmen), a shoemaker and a famous theosophist, b. 1575, at Old Seidenberg, a village near Goerlitz; d. 1624. The 24th verse of the poem, "He noticed all at once that plants could speak", may refer to a remarkable experience of Boehme, related in Dr. Hans Lassen Martensen's `Jacob Boehme: his life and teaching, or studies in theosophy: