Introduction to Robert Browning [131]
him to live So long as God please, and just how God please. [210] He even seeketh not to please God more (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be, Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do: How can he give his neighbor the real ground, His own conviction? Ardent as he is -- Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old "Be it as God please" re-assureth him. I probed the sore as thy disciple should: [220] "How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march To stamp out like a little spark thy town, Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?" He merely looked with his large eyes on me. The man is apathetic, you deduce? Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, Able and weak, affects the very brutes And birds -- how say I? flowers of the field -- As a wise workman recognizes tools [230] In a master's workshop, loving what they make. Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin -- An indignation which is promptly curbed: As when in certain travel I have feigned To be an ignoramus in our art According to some preconceived design, And happed to hear the land's practitioners Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, [240] Prattle fantastically on disease, Its cause and cure -- and I must hold my peace!
Thou wilt object -- Why have I not ere this Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, Conferring with the frankness that befits? Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech Perished in a tumult many years ago, Accused, -- our learning's fate, -- of wizardry, Rebellion, to the setting up a rule [250] And creed prodigious as described to me. His death, which happened when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss To occult learning in our lord the sage Who lived there in the pyramid alone), Was wrought by the mad people -- that's their wont! On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, To his tried virtue, for miraculous help -- How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! The other imputations must be lies: [260] But take one, though I loath to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man's fame. (And after all, our patient Lazarus Is stark mad; should we count on what he says? Perhaps not: though in writing to a leech 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.) This man so cured regards the curer, then, As -- God forgive me! who but God himself, Creator and sustainer of the world, That came and dwelt in flesh on it a while! [270] -- 'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, And yet was. . .what I said nor choose repeat, And must have so avouched himself, in fact, In hearing of this very Lazarus Who saith -- but why all this of what he saith? Why write of trivial matters, things of price Calling at every moment for remark? I noticed on the margin of a pool [280] Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!
Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, Which, now that I review it, needs must seem Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth! Nor I myself discern in what is writ Good cause for the peculiar interest And awe indeed this man has touched me with. Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus: [290] I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came A moon made like a face with certain spots Multiform, manifold, and menacing: Then a wind rose behind me. So we met In this old sleepy town at unaware, The man and I. I send thee what is writ. Regard it as a chance, a matter risked To this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose, Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. [300] Jerusalem's repose shall make amends For time
Thou wilt object -- Why have I not ere this Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, Conferring with the frankness that befits? Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech Perished in a tumult many years ago, Accused, -- our learning's fate, -- of wizardry, Rebellion, to the setting up a rule [250] And creed prodigious as described to me. His death, which happened when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss To occult learning in our lord the sage Who lived there in the pyramid alone), Was wrought by the mad people -- that's their wont! On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, To his tried virtue, for miraculous help -- How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! The other imputations must be lies: [260] But take one, though I loath to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man's fame. (And after all, our patient Lazarus Is stark mad; should we count on what he says? Perhaps not: though in writing to a leech 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.) This man so cured regards the curer, then, As -- God forgive me! who but God himself, Creator and sustainer of the world, That came and dwelt in flesh on it a while! [270] -- 'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, And yet was. . .what I said nor choose repeat, And must have so avouched himself, in fact, In hearing of this very Lazarus Who saith -- but why all this of what he saith? Why write of trivial matters, things of price Calling at every moment for remark? I noticed on the margin of a pool [280] Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!
Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, Which, now that I review it, needs must seem Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth! Nor I myself discern in what is writ Good cause for the peculiar interest And awe indeed this man has touched me with. Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus: [290] I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came A moon made like a face with certain spots Multiform, manifold, and menacing: Then a wind rose behind me. So we met In this old sleepy town at unaware, The man and I. I send thee what is writ. Regard it as a chance, a matter risked To this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose, Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. [300] Jerusalem's repose shall make amends For time