Introduction to Robert Browning [152]
God nor mistake himself; I point to the immediate consequence And say, by such confession straight he falls [575] Into man's place, a thing nor God nor beast, Made to know that he can know and not more: Lower than God who knows all and can all, Higher than beasts which know and can so far As each beast's limit, perfect to an end, [580] Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more; While man knows partly but conceives beside, Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact, And in this striving, this converting air Into a solid he may grasp and use, [585] Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are, Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. Such progress could no more attend his soul Were all it struggles after found at first [590] And guesses changed to knowledge absolute, Than motion wait his body, were all else Than it the solid earth on every side, Where now through space he moves from rest to rest. Man, therefore, thus conditioned, must expect [595] He could not, what he knows now, know at first; What he considers that he knows to-day, Come but to-morrow, he will find misknown; Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns Because he lives, which is to be a man, [600] Set to instruct himself by his past self: First, like the brute, obliged by facts to learn, Next, as man may, obliged by his own mind, Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned to law. God's gift was that man should conceive of truth, [605] And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake, As midway help till he reach fact indeed. The statuary ere he mould a shape Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and next The aspiration to produce the same; [610] So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout, Cries ever `Now I have the thing I see': Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought, From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself. How were it had he cried `I see no face, [615] No breast, no feet i' the ineffectual clay?' Rather commend him that he clapped his hands, And laughed, `It is my shape and lives again!' Enjoyed the falsehood, touched it on to truth, Until yourselves applaud the flesh indeed [620] In what is still flesh-imitating clay. Right in you, right in him, such way be man's! God only makes the live shape at a jet. Will ye renounce this pact of creatureship? The pattern on the Mount subsists no more, [625] Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness; But copies, Moses strove to make thereby, Serve still and are replaced as time requires: By these, make newest vessels, reach the type! If ye demur, this judgment on your head, [630] Never to reach the ultimate, angels' law, Indulging every instinct of the soul There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing! "Such is the burthen of the latest time. I have survived to hear it with my ears, [635] Answer it with my lips: does this suffice? For if there be a further woe than such, Wherein my brothers struggling need a hand, So long as any pulse is left in mine, May I be absent even longer yet, [640] Plucking the blind ones back from the abyss, Though I should tarry a new hundred years!"
But he was dead: 'twas about noon, the day Somewhat declining: we five buried him That eve, and then, dividing, went five ways, [645] And I, disguised, returned to Ephesus.
By this, the cave's mouth must be filled with sand. Valens is lost, I know not of his trace; The Bactrian was but a wild childish man, And could not write nor speak, but only loved: [650] So, lest the memory of this go quite, Seeing that I to-morrow fight the beasts, I tell the same to Phoebas, whom believe! For many look again to find that face, Beloved John's to whom I ministered, [655] Somewhere in life about the world; they err: Either mistaking what was darkly spoke At ending of his book, as he relates, Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose. [660] Believe ye will not see him any more About the world with his
But he was dead: 'twas about noon, the day Somewhat declining: we five buried him That eve, and then, dividing, went five ways, [645] And I, disguised, returned to Ephesus.
By this, the cave's mouth must be filled with sand. Valens is lost, I know not of his trace; The Bactrian was but a wild childish man, And could not write nor speak, but only loved: [650] So, lest the memory of this go quite, Seeing that I to-morrow fight the beasts, I tell the same to Phoebas, whom believe! For many look again to find that face, Beloved John's to whom I ministered, [655] Somewhere in life about the world; they err: Either mistaking what was darkly spoke At ending of his book, as he relates, Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose. [660] Believe ye will not see him any more About the world with his