'^hA LA SAISIAZ: THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. C. K. OGDEN LA SAISIAZ : THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC: BY ROBERT BROWNING. LONDON : SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 1878. [All rights reserved.] T TT>"" A TD Y UNIVERS-TTY ny TAUFORNIA SANTA BARBAEA 1818 DEDICATED TO MRS SUTHERLAND ORR CONTENTS. PAGE La Saisiaz . . . • . . i The Two Poets of Croisic . . . -83 LA SAISIAZ Good, to forgive ; Best, to forget ! Living, we fret ; Dying, we live. Fretless and free, Soul, clap thy pinion ! Earth have dominion, Body, o'er thee ! 2. Wander at will, Day after day, — Wander away, Wandering still — LA SAJSJAZ. Soul that canst soar ! Body may slumber : Body shall cumber Soul-flight no more. 3- Waft of soul's wing ! What lies above ? Sunshine and Love, Skyblue and Spring ! Body hides — where ? Ferns of all feather, Mosses and heather, Yours be the care ! LA SAISIAZ. A. E. S. September 14, 1877. Dared and done : at last I stand upon the summit, Dear and True ! Singly dared and done ; the climbing both of us were bound to do. Petty feat and yet prodigious : every side my glance was bent O'er the grandeur and the beauty lavished through the whole ascent. 6 LA SAISIAZ. Ledge by ledge, out broke new marvels, now minute and now immense : Earth's most exquisite disclosure, heaven's own God in evidence ! And no berry in its hiding, no blue space in its out- spread, Pleaded to escape my footstep, challenged my emerging head, (As I climbed or paused from climbing, now o'erbranched by shrub and tree. Now built round by rock and boulder, now at just a turn set free, Stationed face to face with — Nature ? rather with Infinitude) — No revealment of them all, as singly I my path pursued. LA SAISIAZ. 7 But a bitter touched its sweetness, for the thought stung " Even so Both of us had loved and wondered just the same, five days ago ! " Five short days, sufficient hardly to entice, from out its den Splintered in the slab, this pink perfection of the cyclamen ; Scarce enough to heal and coat with amber gum the sloe-tree's gash, Bronze the clustered wilding apple, redden ripe the mountain-ash : Yet of might to place between us — Oh the barrier ! Yon Profound Shrinks beside it, proves a pin-point : barrier this, with- out a bound ! 8 LA SAISIAZ. Boundless though it be, I reach you : somehow seem to have you here — Who are there. Yes, there you dwell now, plain the four low walls appear ; Those are vineyards, they enclose from ; and the little spire which points — That's CoUonge, henceforth your dwelling ! All the same, howe'er disjoints Past from present, no less certain you are here, not there : have dared. Done the feat of mountain-climbing, — five days since, we both prepared Daring, doing, arm in arm, if other help should haply fail. For you asked, as forth we sallied to see sunset from the vale, LA SAISIAZ. 9 " Why not try for once the mountain, — take a foretaste, snatch by stealth Sight and sound, some unconsidered fragment of the hoarded wealth ? Six weeks at its base, yet never once have we together won Sight or sound by honest climbing : let us two have dared and done Just so much of twilight journey as may prove to- morrow's jaunt Not the only mode of wayfare — wheeled to reach the eagle's haunt ! " So, we turned from the low grass-path you were pleased to call " your own," Set our faces to the rose-bloom o'er the summit's front of stone IC LA SAISIAZ. Where Salevc obtains, from Jura and the sunken sun she hides, Due return of blushing " Good Night," rosy as a borne-off bride's, For his masculine " Good Morrow " when, with sunrise still in hold, Gay he hails her, and, magnific, thrilled her black length burns to gold. Up and up we went, how careless — nay, how joyous ! All was new. All was strange. " Call progress toilsome ? that were just insulting you ! How the trees must temper noontide ! Ah, the thicket's sudden break ! What will be the morning glory, when at dusk thus gleams the lake ? LA SAISIAZ. II Light by light puts forth Geneva : what a land — and, of the land, Can there be a lovelier station than this spot where now we stand? Is it late, and wrong to linger? True, to-morrow makes amends. Toilsome progress ? child's play, call it — specially when one descends ! There, the dread descent is over — hardly our adventure, though ! Take the vale where late we left it, pace the grass-path, ' mine,' you know ! Proud completion of achievement ! " And we paced it, praising still That soft tread on velvet verdure as it wound through hill and hill ; 12 LA SAISIAZ. And at very end there met us, coming from Collonge, the pair — All our people of the Chalet — two, enough and none to spare. So, we made for home together, and we reached it as the stars One by one came lamping — chiefly that prepotency of Mars — And your last word was " I owe you this enjoyment ! " — met with " Nay : With yourself it rests to have a month of morrows like to-day ! " Then the meal, with talk and laughter, and the news of that rare nook Yet untroubled by the tourist, touched on by no travel- book, LA SAISIAZ. 13 All the same — though latent — patent, hybrid birth of land and sea, And (our travelled friend assured you) — if such miracle might be — Comparable for completeness of both blessings — all around Nature, and, inside her circle, safety from world's sight and sound — Comparable to our Saisiaz. " Hold it fast and guard it well! Go and see and vouch for certain, then come back and never tell Living soul but us ; and haply, prove our sky from cloud as clear, There may we four meet, praise fortune just as now, another year ! " 14 LA SAISIAZ. Thus you charged him on departure : not without the final charge " Mind to-morrow's early meeting ! We must leave our journey marge Ample for the wayside wonders : there's the stoppage ai the inn Three-parts up the mountain, where the hardships of the track begin ; There's the convent worth a visit ; but, the triumph crowning all — There's Sal^ve's own platform facing glory which strikes greatness small, — Blanc, supreme above his earth-brood, needles red and white and green. Horns of silver, fangs of crj-stal set on edge in his demesne. LA SAISIAZ. 15 So, some three weeks since, we saw them : so, to-morrow we intend You shall see them likewise ; therefore Good Night till to-morrow, friend ! " Last, the nothings that extinguish embers of a vivid day : " What might be the Marshal's next move, what Gam- betta's counter-play " Till the landing on the staircase saw escape the latest spark : " Sleep you well ! " " Sleep but as well, you ! " — lazy love quenched, all was dark. Nothing dark next day at sundawn ! Up I rose and forth I fared : Took my plunge within the bath-pool, pacified the watch-dog scared, l6 LA SAISIAZ. Saw proceed the transmutation —Jura's black to one gold glow, Trod your level path that let me drink the morning deep and slow, Reached the little (juarry— ravage recompensed by shrub and fern — Till the overflowing ardours told me time was for return. So, return I did, and gaily. But, for once, from no far mound Waved salute a tall white figure. " Has her sleep been so profound ? Foresight, rather, prudent saving strength for day's ex- penditure ! Ay, the chamber- window's open : out and on the terrace, sure ! " LA SAISIAZ. 17 No, the terrace showed no figure, tall, white, leaning through the wreaths, Tangle-twine of leaf and bloom that intercept the air one breathes, Interpose between one's love and Nature's loving, hill and dale Dowm to where the blue lake's wrinkle marks the river's inrush pale — Mazy Arve : whereon no vessel but goes sliding white and plain, Not a steam-boat pants from harbour but one hears pulsate amain. Past the city's congregated peace of homes and pomp of spires — Man's mild protest that there's something more than Nature, man requires, l8 LA SAISIAZ. And that, useful as is Nature to attract the tourist's foot, Quiet slow sure money-making proves the matter's very root, — Need for body, — while the spirit also needs a comfort reached By no help of lake or mountain, but the texts whence Calvin preached. " Here's the veil withdrawn from landscape : up to Jura and beyond, All awaits us ranged and ready; yet she violates the bond, Neither leans nor looks nor listens : why is this ? " A turn of eye Took the whole sole answer, gave the undisputed reason " why ! " LA SAISIAZ. »9 This dread way you had your summons ! No premoni- tory touch, As you talked and laughed ('tjs told me) scarce a minute ere the clutch Captured you in cold forever. Cold ? nay, warm you were as life When I raised you, while the others used, in passionate poor strife. All the means that seemed to promise any aid, and all in vain. Gone you were, and I shall never see that earnest face again Grow transparent, grow transfigured with the sudden light that leapt. At the first word's provocation, from the heart-deeps where it slept. 20 LA SAISMZ. Therefore, jx-iying ])ite()us duty, what seemed you have we consigned Peacefully to — what I think were, of all earth-beds, to your mind Most the choice for quiet, yonder : low walls stop the vines' approach, Lovingly Sal^ve protects you ; village-sports will ne'er encroach On the stranger lady's silence, whom friends bore so kind and well Thither "just for love's sake," — such their own word was : and who can tell ? You supposed that few or none had known and loved you in the world : May be ! flower that's full-blown tempts the butterfly, not flower that's furled. LA SAISIAZ. 21 But more learned sense unlocked you, loosed the sheath and let expand Bud to bell and outspread flower-shape at the least warm touch of hand — ]\Iay be, throb of heart, beneath which, — quickening farther than it knew, — Treasure oft was disembosomed, scent all strange and unguessed hue. Disembosomed, re-embosomed, — must one memory suf- fice, Prove I knew an Alpine-rose which all beside named Edelweiss ? Rare thing, red or white, you rest now : two days slum- bered through ) and since One day more will see me rid of this same scene whereat I wince, 22 LA SAISIAZ. Tetchy at all sights and sounds and pettish at each idle charm Proffered me who pace now singly where we two went arm in arm, — I have turned upon my weakness : asked " And what, forsooth, prevents That, this latest day allowed me, I fulfil of her intents One she had the most at heart — that we should thus again survey From Salfeve Mont Blanc together ? " Therefore, — dared and done to-day Climbing, — here I stand : but you — where ? If a spirit of the place Broke the silence, bade me question, promised answer, — what dissjace LA SAISIAZ. 23 Did I stipulate " Provided answer suit my hopes, not fears ! " Would I shrink to learn my life-time's limit — days, weeks, months or years ? Would I shirk assurance on each point whereat I can but guess — " Does the soul survive the body ? Is there God's self, no or yes ? " If I know my mood, 't were constant — come in whatso'er uncouth Shape it should, nay, formidable — so the answer were but truth. Well, and wherefore shall it daunt me, when 't is I myself am tasked. When, by weakness weakness questioned, weakly answers — weakly asked ? 24 LA SAISIAZ. Weakness never needs be falseness : truth is truth in each degree — Thunderpealed by God to Nature, whispered by my soul to me. Nay, the weakness turns to strength and triumphs in a truth beyond : " Mine is but man's truest answer — how were it did God respond ? " I shall no more dare to mimic such response in futile speech, Pass off human lisp as echo of the sphere-song out ot reach. Than, — because it well may happen yonder, where the far snows blanch Mute Mont Blanc, that who stands near them sees and hears an avalanche, — LA SAISIAZ. 25 I shall pick a clod and throw, — cry " Such the sight and such the sound ! What though I nor see nor hear them ? Others do, the proofs abound ! " Can I make my eye an eagle's, sharpen ear to recog- nize Sound o'er league and league of silence ? Can I know, who but surmise ? If I dared no self-deception Avhen, a week since, I and you Walked and talked along the grass-path, passing lightly in review What seemed hits and what seemed misses in a certain fence-play, — strife Sundry minds of mark engaged in " On the Soul and Future Life," — 26 LA SAISIAZ. If I ventured estimating what was come of parried thrust, Subtle stroke, and, rightly, wrongly, estimating could be just — Just, though life so seemed abundant in the form which moved by mine, I might well have played at feigning, fooling, — laughed "What need opine Pleasure must succeed to pleasure else past pleasure turns to pain, And this first life claims a second, else I count its good no gain ? " — Much less have I heart to palter when the matter to decide Now becomes " Was ending ending once and always, when you died ? " LA SAISIAZ. 27 Did the face, the fomi I Ufted as it lay, reveal the loss Not alone of life but soul ? A tribute to yon flowers and moss, A^Hiat of you remains beside ? A memory ! Easy to attest " Certainly from out the world that one believes who knew her best Such was good in her, such fair, which fair and good were great perchance Had but fortune favored, bidden each shy faculty advance ; After all — who knows another? Only as I know, I speak." So much of you lives ^vithin me while I live my year or week. 28 LA SAISIAZ. Then my fellow takes the tale up, not unwilling to aver Duly in his turn " I knew him best of all, as he knew her : Such he was, and such he was not, and such other might have been But that somehow every actor, somewhere in this earthly scene, Fails." And so both memories dwindle, yours and mine together linked, Till there is but left for comfort, when the last spark proves extinct, This — that somewhere new existence led by men and women new Possibly attains perfection coveted by me and you 3 LA SAISIAZ. 29 While ourselves, the only witness to what work our life evolved, Only to ourselves proposing problems proper to be solved By ourselves alone, — who working ne'er shall know if work bear fruit Others reap and garner, heedless how produced by stalk and root, — We who, darkling, timed the day's birth, — struggling, testified to peace, — Earned, by dint of failure, triumph, — we, creative thought, must cease In created word, thought's echo, due to impulse long since sped ! Why repine ? There's ever someone lives although our- selves be dead ! 30 LA SAISFAZ. Well, what signifies repugnance? Truth is truth howe'er it strike. Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear alike. Stalwart body idly yoked to stunted spirit, powers, that fain Else would soar, condemned to grovel, groundlings through the fleshly chain, — Help that hinders, hindrance proved but help disguised when all too late, — Hindrance is the fact acknowledged, howso'er explained as Fate, Fortune, Providence : we bear, own life a burthen more or less. Life thus owned unhappy, is there supplemental happi- ness LA SAISIAZ. 31 Possible and probable in life to come? or must we count Life a curse and not a blessing, summed-up in its whole amount, Help and hindrance, joy and sorrow? Why should I want courage here ? I will ask and have an answer, — with no favour, with no fear, — From myself. How much, how little, do I inwardly believe True that controverted doctrine ? Is it fact to which I cleave, Is it fancy I but cherish, when I take upon my lips Phrase the solemn Tuscan fashioned, and declare the soul's eclipse 32 LA SA/S/AZ. Not the soul's extinction ? take his " I believe and I declare — Certain am I — from this life I pass into a better, there Where that lady lives of whom enamoured was my soul " — where this Other lady, my companion dear and true, she also is ? I have questioned and am answered. Question, answer presuppose Two points : that the thing itself which questions, answers, — is, it knows ; As it also knows the thing perceived outside itself, — a force Actual ere its own beginning, operative through its course. LA SAISIAZ. 33 Unaffected by its end, — that this thing hkewise needs must be ; Call this — God, then, call that — soul, and both — the only facts for me. Prove them facts? that they o'erpass my power of proving, proves them such : Fact it is I know I know not something which is fact as much. What before caused all the causes, what effect of all effects Haply follows, — these are fancy. Ask the rush if it suspects Whence and how the stream which floats it had a rise, and where and how Falls or flows on still ! What answer makes the rush except that now D 34 lA SAISIAZ. Certainly it floats and is, and, no less certain than itself. Is the everyway external stream that now through shoal and shelf Floats it onward, leaves it — may be — wrecked at last, or lands on shore There to root again and grow and flourish stable evermore. — May be ! mere surmise not knowledge ; much con- jecture styled belief, What the rush conceives the stream means through the voyage blind and brief. Why, because I doubtless am, shall I as doubtless be ? " Because God seems good and wise." Yet under this our life's apparent laws LA SAISIAZ. 35 Reigns a wrong which, righted once, would give quite other laws to life. " He seems potent." Potent here, then : why are right and wrong at strife ? Has in life the \\Tong the better? Happily life ends so soon ! Right predominates in life ? Then why two lives and double boon ? " Anyhow, we want it : wherefore want ? " Because, with- out the want, Life, now human, would be brutish : just that hope, how- ever scant, Makes the actual life worth leading ; take the hope therein away, All we have to do is surely not endure another day. 36 LA SAISIAZ. This life has its hopes for this life, hopes that promise joy : life done — Out of all the hopes, how many had complete fulfilment ? none. " But the soul is not the body : " and the breath is not the flute ; Both together make the music : either marred and all is mute. Tnice to such old sad contention whence, according as we shape Most of hope or most of fear, we issue in a half- escape : "We believe" is sighed. I take the cup of comfort proffered thus, Taste and try each soft ingredient, sweet infusion, and discuss LA SAISIAZ. 37 What their blending may accomphsh for the cure of doubt, till — slow, Sorrowful, but how decided ! needs must I o'erturn it — so ! Cause before, effect behind me — blanks ! The midway point I am, Caused, itself — itself efficient : in that narrow space must cram All experience — out of which there crowds conjecture manifold, But, as knowledge, this comes only — things may be as I behold, Or may not be, but, without me and above me, things there are ; I myself am what I know not — ignorance which proves no bar 38 LA SAISIAZ. To the knowledge that I am, and, since I am, can recognize What to me is pain and pleasure : this is sure, the rest — surmise. If my fellows are or are not, what may please them and what pain, — Mere surmise : my own experience — that is knowledge, once again ! I have lived, then, done and suffered, loved and hated, learnt and taught This — there is no reconciling wisdom with a world dis- traught, Goodness with triumphant evil, power with failure in the aim. If — (to my own sense, remember ! though none other feel the same !) — LA SAISIAZ. 39 If you bar me from assuming earth to be a pupil's place, And life, time, — with all their chances, changes, — ^just probation-space. Mine, for me. But those apparent other mortals — theirs, for them ? Knowledge stands on my experience : all outside its narrow hem, Free surmise may sport and welcome ! Pleasures, pains affect mankind Just as they affect myself? Why, here's my neighbour colour-blind, Eyes like mine to all appearance : "green as grass " do I affirm ? " Red as grass " he contradicts me — which employs the proper term ? 40 LA SAISIAZ. Were we two the earth's sole tenants, with no third for referee, How should I distinguish ? Just so, God must judge 'twixt man and me. To each mortal peradventure earth becomes a new machine, Pain and pleasure no more tally in our sense than red and green ; Still, without what seems such mortal's pleasure, pain, my life were lost — Life, my whole sole chance to prove — although at man's apparent cost — What is beauteous and what ugly, right to strive for, right to shun, Fit to help and fit to hinder, — prove my forces ever)- one. LA SAISIAZ. 41 Good and evil, — learn life's lesson, hate of evil, love of good, As 't is set me, understand so much as may be under- stood — Solve the problem : " From thine apprehended scheme of things, deduce Praise or blame of its contriver, shown a niggard or profuse In each good or evil issue ! nor miscalculate alike Counting one the other in the final balance, which to strike, Soul was born and life allotted : ay, the show of things unfurled For thy summing-up and judgment, — thine, no other mortal's world ! " 42 LA SAISIAZ. What though fancy scarce may grapple with the complex and immense — " His own world for every mortal ? " Postulate om- nipotence ! Limit power, and simple grows the complex : shrunk to atom size, That which loomed immense to fancy low before my reason lies. — I survey it and pronounce it work like other work : success Here and there, the workman's glory, — here and there, his shame no less. Failure as conspicuous. Taunt not " Human work ape work divine ? " As the power, expect performance ! God's be God's as mine is mine ! LA SAISIAZ. 43 God whose power made man and made man's wants, and made, to meet those wants, Heaven and earth which, through the body, prove the spirit's ministrants, Excellently all, — did he lack power or was the will in fault When he let blue heaven be shrouded o'er by vapours of the vault. Gay earth drop her garlands shrivelled at the first infecting breath Of the serpent pains which herald, swarming in, the dragon death ? What, no way but this that man may learn and lay to heart how rife Life were with delights would only death allow their taste to life ? 44 LA SAI^IAZ. Must the rose sigh " Pkick — I perish ! " must the eve weep '' Gaze — I fade ! " — Every sweet warn " 'Ware my bitter ! " everj' shine bid " Wait my shade ? " Can we love but on condition, that the thing we love must die ? Needs there groan a world in anguish just to teach us sympathy — Multitudinously wretched that we, wretched too, may guess What a preferable state were universal happi- ness? Hardly do I so conceive the outcome of that power which went To the making of the worm there in yon clod its tenement, LA SAISIAZ. 45 Any more than I distinguish aught of that which, wise and good, Framed the leaf, its plain of pasture, dropped the dew, its fineless food. Nay, were fancy fact, were earth and all it holds illusion mere, Only a machine for teaching love and hate and hope and fear To myself, the sole existence, single trath mid falsehood, —well ! If the harsh throes of the prelude die not off into the swell Of that perfect piece they sting me to become a-strain for, — if Roughness of the long rock-clamber lead not to the last of cliff, 46 LA SAISIAZ. First of level country where is sward my pilgrim -foot can ])rize, — I'lainlier ! if this life's conception new life fail to realize, — Though earth burst and proved a bubble glassing hues of hell, one huge Reflex of the devil's doings — God's work by no subter- fuge— (So death's kindly touch informed me as it broke the glamour, gave Soul and body both release from life's long nightmare in the grave) Still, — with no more Nature, no more Man as riddle to be read. Only my own joys and sorrows now to reckon real instead, — LA SAISIAZ. 47 I must say — or choke in silence — "Howsoever came my fate, Sorrow did and joy did nowise,— life well weighed, — preponderate." By necessity ordained thus ? I shall bear as best I can ; By a cause all-good, all-wise, all-potent? No, as I am man ! Such were God : and was it goodness that the good within my range Or had evil in admixture or grew evil's self by change ? Wisdom— that becoming wise meant making slow and sure advance . From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged ignorance ? Power? 't is just the main assumption reason most revolts at ! power Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour, 48 LA SAISIAZ. Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and reach- ing aim, So much passion, — no defect there, no excess, but still the same, — As what constitutes existence, pure perfection bright as brief For yon worm, man's fellow-creature, on yon happier world — its leaf ! No, as I am man, I mourn the poverty I must impute : Goodness, wisdom, power, all bounded, each a human attribute ! But, O world outspread beneath me ! only for myself I speak, Nowise dare to play the spokesman for my brothers strong and weak, LA SAISIAZ. 49 Full and empty, wise and foolish, good and bad, in every age, Every clime, I turn my eyes from, as in one or other stage Of a torture writhe they, Job-like couched on dung and crazed with blains — ^Vhe^efore? whereto? ask the whirlwind what the dread voice thence explains ! I shall " vindicate no way of God's to man," nor stand apart, " Laugh, be candid," while I watch it traversing the human heart ! Traversed heart must tell its story uncommented on : no less Mine results in " Only grant a second life, I acquiesce E 50 LA SAISIAZ. In this present life as failure, count misfortune's worst assaults Triumpli, not defeat, assured that loss so much the more exalts Gain about to be. For at what moment did I so advance Near to knowledge as when frustrate of escape from ignorance ? Did not beauty prove most precious when its opposite obtained Rule, and truth seem more than ever potent because false- hood reigned ? While for love — Oh how but, losing love, does whoso loves succeed By the death-pang to the birth-throe — learning what is love indeed ? LA SAISIAZ. 51 Only grant my soul may carry high through death her cup unspilled, Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss drop by drop distilled, I shall boast it mine — the balsam, bless each kindly \\Tench that \\Tung From life's tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root whence pleasure spmng. Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the berry, left all grace Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place ! Witness, Dear and True, how little I was 'ware of — not your worth — That I knew, my heart assures me — but of what a shade on earth 52 LA SAISIAZ. Would the passage from my presence of the tall white figure throw O'er the ways we walked together ! Somewhat narrow, somewhat slow, Used to seem the ways, the walking : narrow ways are well to tread When there's moss beneath the footstep, honeysuckle overhead : Walking slow to beating bosom surest solace soonest gives, Liberates the brain o'erloaded — best of all restora- tives. Nay, do I forget the open vast where soon or late con- verged W^ays though winding? — world-wide heaven-high sea where music slept or surged LA SAISIAZ. 53 As the angel had ascendant, and Beethoven's Titau mace Smote the immense to storm, Mozart would by a finger's lifting chase ? Yes, I knew — but not with knowledge such as thrills me while I view Yonder precinct which henceforward holds and hides the Dear and True. , Grant me (once again) assurance we shall each meet each some day, Walk — but with how bold a footstep ! on a way — but what a way ! — Worst were best, defeat were triumph, utter loss were. utmost gain. Can it be, and must, and will it ? Silence ! Out of fact's domain, 54 ^A SAISIAZ. Just surmise i)rcpared to mutter hope, and also fear — dispute Fact's inexorable ruling " Outside fact, surmise be mute I" Well! Ay, well and best, if fact's self I may force the answer from ! 'T is surmise I stop the mouth of ! Not above in yonder dome All a rapture with its rose-glow, — not around, where pile and peak Strainingly await the sun's fall, — not beneath, where crickets creak. Birds assemble for their bed-time, soft the tree-top swell subsides, — No, nor yet within my deepest sentient self the know- leda:e hides ! LA SAISIAZ. 55 Aspiration, reminiscence, plausibilities of trust — Now the ready " Man were wronged else," now the rash " and God unjust " — None of these I need ! Take thou, my soul, thy solitary stand. Umpire to the champions Fancy, Reason, as on either hand Amicable war they wage and play the foe in thy behoof ! Fancy thrust and Reason parry ! Thine the prize who stand aloof ! FANCY. I concede the thing refused : henceforth no certainty more plain Than this mere surmise that after body dies soul lives again. 56 LA SAISIAZ. Two, the only facts acknowledged late, are now increased to three — God is, and the soul is, and, as certain, after death shall be. Put this third to use in life, the time for using fact ! REASON. I do : Find it promises advantage, coupled with the other two. Life to come will be improvement on the life that's now : destroy Body's thwartings, there's no longer screen betwixt soul and souVs joy. Why should we expect new hindrance, novel tether ? In this first Life, I see the good of evil, why our world began at worst : LA SAISIAZ. 57 Since time means amelioration, tardily enough dis- played, Yet a mainly onward moving, never wholly retro- grade. We know more though we know little, we grow stronger though still weak. Partly see though all too purblind, stammer though we cannot speak. There is no such grudge in God as scared the ancient Greek, no fresh Substitute of trap for dragnet, once a breakage in the mesh. Dragons were, and serpents are, and blindworms will be : ne'er emerged Any new-created Python for man's plague since earth was purged. 58 LA SAISIAZ. Failing proof, then, of invented trouble to replace the old. O'er this life the next presents advantage much and manifold : Which advantage — in the absence of a fourth and farther fact Now conceivably surmised, of harm to follow from the act — I pronounce for man's obtaining at this moment. Why delay? Is he happy ? happiness will change : anticipate the day! Is he sad ? there's ready refuge : of all sadness death's prompt cure ! Is he both, in mingled measure ? cease a burthen to endure ! LA SAISIAZ. 59 Pains with sorry compensations, pleasures stinted in the dole, Power that sinks and pettiness that soars, all halved and nothing whole. Idle hopes that lure man onward, forced back by as idle fears — What a load he stumbles under through his glad sad seventy years, When a touch sets right the turmoil, lifts his spirit where, flesh-freed, Knowledge shall be rightly named so, all that seems be truth indeed ! Grant his forces no accession, nay, no faculty's increase, Only let what now exists continue, let him prove in peace Power whereof the interrupted unperfected play enticed 6o LA SAISIAZ. Man through darkness, which to hghten any spark of hope sufficed, — What shall then deter his dying out of darkness into light ? Death itself perchance, brief pain that's pang, condensed and infinite ? But at worst, he needs must brave it one day, while, at best, he laughs — Drops a drop within his chalice, sleep not death his science quaffs ! Any moment claims more courage when, by crossing cold and gloom, Manfully man quits discomfort, makes for the provided room Where the old friends want their fellow, where the new acquaintance wait, Probably for talk assembled, possibly to sup in state ! LA SAISIAZ. 6 1 I affirm and re-affirm it therefore : only make as plain As that man now lives, that after dying man will live again, — Make as plain the absence, also, of a law to contravene Voluntary passage from this life to that by change of scene, — And I bid him — at suspicion of first cloud athwart his sky, Flower's departure, frost's arrival — never hesitate, but die! FANCY. Then I double my concession : grant, along with new life sure, This same law found lacking now : ordain that, whether rich or poor 62 /..'/ SAISIAZ. Present life is judged in aught man counts advantage — 1)C it hope, Be it fear that brightens, blackens most or least his horoscope, — He, by absolute compulsion such as made him live at all, Go on living to the fated end of life whate'er be- fall. What though, as on earth he darkling grovels, man descry the sphere. Next life's — call it, heaven of freedom, close above and crystal-clear ? He shall find — say, hell to punish who in aught curtails the term. Fain would act the butterfly before he has played out the worm ! - LA SAISIAZ. 63 God, soul, earth, heaven, hell, — five facts now : what is to desiderate? REASON. Nothing ! Henceforth man's existence bows to the monition " Wait ! Take the joys and bear the sorrows — neither with extreme concern ! Living here means nescience simply: 'tis next life that helps to learn. Shut those eyes, next life will open, — stop those ears, next life •will teach Hearing's office, — close those lips, next life will give the power of speech ! Or, if action more amuse thee than the passive at- titude, 64 I.A SAISIAZ. Bravely bustle through thy being, busy thee for ill or good, Reap this life's success or failure ! Soon shall things be unperplexed And tlic right and wrong, now tangled, lie unravelled in the next." FANCY. Not so fast ! Still more concession ! not alone do I declare Life must needs be borne, — I also will that man become aware Life has worth incalculable, every moment that he spends So much gain or loss for that next life which on this life depends. LA SAISIAZ. 65 Good, done here, be there rewarded, — evil, worked here, there amerced ! Six facts now, and all established, plain to man the last as first. REASON. There was good and evil, then, defined to man by this decree ? Was — for at its promulgation both alike have ceased to be. Prior to this last announcement "Certainly as God exists. As he made man's soul, as soul is quenchless by the deathly mists. Yet is, all the same, forbidden premature escape from time To eternity's provided purer air and brighter clime, — F 66 LA SAJSIAZ. Just so certainly depends it on the use to which man turns Earth, the good or evil done there, whether after death he earns Life eternal, — heaven, the phrase be, or eternal death, — say, hell. As his deeds, so proves his portion, doing ill or doing well ! " — Prior to this last announcement, earth was man's probation-place : Liberty of doing evil gave his doing good a grace ; Once lay down the law, with Nature's simple " Such effects succeed Causes such, and heaven or hell depends upon man's earthly deed LA SAISIAZ. 67 Just as surely as depends the straight or else the crooked line On his making point meet point or with or else without incline," — Thenceforth neither good nor evil does man, doing what he must. Lay but down that law as stringent " Would'st thou live again, be just ! " As this other " Would'st thou live now, regularly draw thy breath ! For, suspend the operation, straight law's breach results in death—" And (provided always, man, addressed this mode, be sound and sane) Prompt and absolute obedience, never doubt, will law obtain ! F 2 68 LA SAISIAZ. Tell not me " Look round us ! nothing each side but acknowledged law, Now styled God's — now, Nature's edict ! " Where's obedience without flaw Paid to eitlier? What's the adage rife in man's mouth? Why, •' The best I both see and praise, the worst I follow " — which, despite professed Seeing, praising, all the same he follows, since he dis- believes In the heart of him that edict which for truth his head receives. There's evading and persuading and much making law amends Somehow, there's the nice distinction 'twixt fast foes and faulty friends, LA SAISIAZ. 69 — Any consequence except inevitable death when " Die, Whoso breaks our law ! " they publish, God and Nature equally. Law that's kept or broken — subject to man's will and pleasure ! Whence ? How comes law to bear eluding ? Not because of im- potence : Cert I in laws exist already which to hear means to obey ; Therefore not without a purpose these man must, while those man may Keep and, for the keeping, haply gain approval and reward. Break through this last superstmcture, all is empty air — no sward 70 LA SAISIAZ. rirm like my first fact to stand on " God there is, and soul there is," An.l soul's earthly life-allotment: wherein, by hypothesis, Soul is bound to pass probation, prove its powers, and exercise Sense and thought on fact, and then, from fact educing fit surmise, Ask itself, and of itself have solely answer, " Does the scope Earth affords of fact to judge by warrant future fear or hope ? " Thus have we come back full circle : fancy's footsteps one by one Go their round conducting reason to the point where they begim, LA SAISIAZ. 71 Left where we were left so lately, Dear and True ! When, half a week Since, we walked and talked and thus I told you, how suffused a cheek You had turned me had I sudden brought the blush into the smile By some word like " Idly argued ! you know better all the while ! " Now, from me — Oh not a blush but, how much more, a joyous glow. Laugh triumphant, would it strike did your " Yes, better I do know " Break, my warrant for assurance ! which assurance may not be If, supplanting hope, assurance needs must change this life to me. 72 LA SAISIAZ. So, I hope — no more than hope, but hope — no less than hope, because I can fathom, by no plumb-line sunk in life's apparent laws, How I may in any instance fix where change should meetly fall Nor involve, by one revisal, abrogation of them all — Which again involves as utter change in life thus law- released, Whence the good of goodness vanished when the ill of evil ceased. Whereas, life and laws apparent re-instated, — all we know, All we know not, — o'er our heaven again cloud closes, until, lo — LA SAISIAZ. 73 Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its gloom, compelled By a power and by a purpose which, if no one else beheld, I behold in life, so — hope ! Sad summing-up of all to say ! Athanasius contra inwidiivi, why should he hope more than they ? So are men made notwithstanding, such magnetic virtue darts From each head their fancy haloes to their unresisting hearts ! Here I stand, methinks a stone's throw from yon village I this morn Traversed for the sake of looking one last look at its forlorn 74 I^A SAISIAZ. Tenement's ignoble fortune : through a crevice, plain its floor Piled with provender for cattle, while a dung-heap blocked the door. In that sc^ualid Bossex, under that obscene red roof, arose, Like a fiery flying serpent from its egg, a soul — Rousseau's. Turn thence ! Is it Diodati joins the glimmer of the lake? There I plucked a leaf, one week since, — i\y, plucked for Byron's sake. Famed unfortunates ! And yet, because of that phos- phoric fame Swathing blackness' self with brightness till putridity looked flame, LA SAISIAZ. 75 All the world was witched : and wherefore ? what could lie beneath, allure Heart of man to let corruption serve man's head as cyno- sure? Was the magic in the dictum " All that's good is gone and past ; Bad and worse still grows the present, and the worst of all comes last : Which believe — for I believe it ? " So preached one his gospel-news ; Wliile melodious moaned the other " Dying day with dolphin-hues ! Storm, for loveliness and darkness like a woman's eye ! Ye mounts Where I climb to 'scape my fellow, and thou sea wherein he counts 76 LA SAISIAZ. Not one inch of vile dominion ! What were your especial worth Failed ye to enforce the maxim ' Of all objects found on earth Man is meanest, much too honored when compared with — what by odds Beats him — any dog : so, let him go a-howling to his gods ! ' Which believe — for I believe it ! " such the comfort man received Sadly since perforce he must : for why ? the famous bard believed ! Fame ! Then, give me fame, a moment ! As I gather at a glance Human glory after glory vivifying yon expanse, LA S/ilSIAZ. 77 Let me grasp them altogether, hold on high and brandish well Beacon-like above the rapt world ready, whether heaven or hell Send the dazzling summons downward, to submit itself the same, Take on trust the hope or else despair flashed full on face by — Fame ! Thanks, thou pine-tree of Makistos, wide thy giant torch I wave ! Know ye whence I plucked the pillar, late -with sky for architrave ? This the trunk, the central solid Knowledge, kindled core, began - Tugging earth-deeps, trying heaven-heights, rooted yonder at Lausanne. 78 /.A SAISIAZ. This wliich fiits and spits, the aspic, — sparkles in and out the boughs Now, and nov. condensed, the python, coiHng round and round allows Scarce the bole its due effulgence, dulled by flake on flake of Wit- Laughter so bejewels . Learning, — what but Ferney nourished it ? Nay, nor fear — since every resin feeds the flame — that I dispense With yon Bossex terebinth-tree's all-explosive Elo- quence : No, be sure ! nor, any more than thy resplendency, Jean- Jacques, Dare I want thine, Diodati 1 \Vhat though monkeys and macaques LA SAISIAZ. 79 Gibber •' Byron ? " Byron's ivy rears a branch beyond the crew, Green for ever, no deciduous trash macaques and mon- keys chew ! As Rousseau, then, eloquent, as Byron prime in poet's power, — Detonations, fulgurations, smiles — the rainbow, tears — the shower, — Lo, I lift the corruscating marvel — Fame ! and, famed, declare — Learned for the nonce as Gibbon, witty as wit's self Voltaire . . . O the sorriest of conclusions to whatever man of sense Mid the millions stands the unit, takes no flare for evidence ! 8o I. A SAISIAZ. Yet the millions have their portion, live their calm or troublous day, Find significance in fireworks : so, by help of mine, they may Confidently lay to heart and lock in head their life long — this : " He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o'er night's forlorn abyss, Crowned by prose and verse ; and wielding, with Wit's bauble, Learning's rod . . . Well ? Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God! LA SAISIAZ. 8 1 So the poor smile played, that evening : pallid smile long since extinct Here in London's mid-November ! Not so loosely thoughts were linked, Six weeks since as I, descending in the sunset from Saleve, Found the chain, I seemed to forge there, flawless till it reached your grave, — Not so filmy was the texture, but I bore it in my breast Safe thus far. And since I found a something in me would not rest Till I, link by link, unravelled any tangle of the chain, — Here it lies, for much or little ! I have lived all o'er again That last pregnant hour : I saved it, just as I could save a root 82 /.A SAISIAZ. Disinterred for re-interment wlicn the time best helps to shoot. Life is stocked with germs of torpid Hfe ; but may I never wake Those of mine whose resurrection could not be without earthquake ! Rest all such, unraised forever ! Be this, sad yet sweet, the sole Memory evoked from slumber ! Least part this : then what the whole? November (), 1S77. THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC Such a starved bank of moss Till, that May-morn, Blue ran the flash across : Violets were born ! Sky — what a scowl of cloud Till, near and far, Ray on ray split the shroud : Splendid, a star ! 86 TJIE TWO POETS OF CROJSJC. 3- World — how it walled about Life with disgrace Till (lod's own smile came out : That was thy face ! THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 87 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. " Fame ! " Yes, I said it and you read it. First, Praise the good log-fire ! Winter howls without. Crowd closer, let us ! Ha, the secret nursed Inside yon hollow, crusted roundabout With copper where the clamp was, — how the burst Vindicates flame the stealthy feeder ! Spout Thy splendidest — a minute and no more ? So soon again all sobered as before ? 88 rilK TWO rOETS OF CROISIC. 2. Nay, for I need to see your face ! One stroke Adroitly dealt, and lo, the pomp revealed ! Fire in his pandemonium, heart of oak Palatial, where he wrought the works concealed Beneath the solid seeming roof I broke, As redly up and out and off they reeled Like disconcerted imps, those thousand sparks From fire's slow tunnelling of vaults and arcs ! 3- Up, out, and off, see ! Were you never used, — You now, in childish days or rather nights, — As I was, to watch sparks fly ? not amused By that old nurse-taught game which gave the sprites Each one his title and career. — confused THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 89 Belief 't was all long over with the flights From earth to heaven of hero, sage and bard, And bade them once more strive for Fame's award ? 4- New long bright life ! and happy chance befell — ■ That I know — when some prematurely lost Child of disaster bore away the bell From some too-pampered son of fortune, crossed Never before my chimney broke the spell ! Octogenarian Keats gave up the ghost, While — never mind Who was it cumbered earth — Sank stifled, span -long brightness, in the birth. 5- Well, try a ^•ariation of the game ! Our log is old ship-timber, broken bulk. 90 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. There's sea-brine spirits up the brimstone flame, That crimson-curly spiral proves the hulk Was saturate with — ask the chloride's name From somebody who knows ! I shall not sulk If yonder greenish tonguelet licked from brass Its life, I thought was fed on copperas. 6. Anyhow, there they flutter ! What may be The style and prowess of that purple one ? Who is the hero other eyes shall see Than yours and mine ? That yellow, deep to dun- Conjecture how the sage glows, whom not we But those unborn are to get warmth by 1 Son O' the coal, — as Job and Hebrew name a spark, — What bard, in thy red soaring, scares the dark ? THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 91 7- Oh and the lesser lights, the dearer still That they elude a vulgar eye, give ours The glimpse repaying astronomic skill Which searched sky deeper, passed those patent powers Constellate proudly, — swords, scrolls, harps, that fill The vulgar eye to surfeit, — found best flowers Hid deepest in the dark, — named unplucked grace Of soul, ungathered beauty, form or face ! Up with thee, mouldering ash men never knew, But I know ! flash thou forth, and figure bold, Calm and columnar as yon flame I view ! Oh and I bid thee, — to whom fortune doled Scantly all other gifts out — bicker blue, 92 THE TWO rOETS OE CRO/S/C. Beauty for all to see, zinc's uncontrolled Flake-brilliance ! Not my fault if these were shown, Grandeur and beauty both, to me alone. 9- No ! as the first was boy's play, this proves mere Stripling's amusement : manhood's sport be grave ! Choose rather sparkles quenched in mid career, True boldness and true brightness could not save (In some old night of lime on some lone drear Sea-coast, monopolized by crag or cave) — Save from ignoble exit into smoke. Silence, oblivion, all death-damps that choke ! Launched by our ship-wood, float we, once adrift. In fancy to that land-strip waters wash, THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 93 We both know well ! Where uncouth tribes made shift Long since to keep the life in billows dash Right over ; still they shudder at each lift Of the old tyrant tempest's whirlwind-lash Though they have built the serviceable town Tempests but teaze now, billows drench, not drown. Croisic, the spit of sandy rock which juts Spitefully northward, bears nor tree nor shrub To tempt the ocean, show what Guerande shuts Behind her, past wild Batz whose Saxons grub The ground for crystals grown where ocean gluts Their promontory's breadth with salt : all stub Of rock and stretch of sand, the land's last strife To rescue just a remnant for dear life. 94 THE TWO POETS OE CROISIC. 12. And what life ! Here was, from the world to choose, The Druids' (hosen chief of homes : they reared — Only their women, ^ — mid the slush and ooze Of yon low islet, — to their sun, revered In strange stone giiise, — a temple. May-dawn dews Saw the old structure levelled ; when there peered May's earliest eve-star, high and wide once more Up towered the new pile perfect as before : 13- Seeing that priestesses — and all were such — Unbuilt and then rebuilt it every May, Each alike helping — well, if not too much ! For, mid their eagerness to outstrip day And get work done, if any loosed her clutch THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 95 And let a single stone drop, straight a prey Herself fell, torn to pieces, limb from limb. By sisters in full chorus glad and grim. 14. And still so much remains of that grey cult, That even now, of nights, do women steal To the sole Menhir standing, and insult The antagonistic church-spire by appeal To power discrowned in vain, since each adult Believes the gruesome thing she clasps may heal Whatever plague no priestly help can cure : Kiss but the cold stone, the event is sure ! 15- Nay more : on May-morns, that primeval rite Of temple-building, with its punishment 96 rill: T[VO POETS OF CKOJSIC. For rash precipitation, lingers, spite Of all remonstrance ; vainly are they shent, Those girls who form a ring and, dressed in white, Dance round it, till some sister's strength be spent Touch but the Menhir, straight the rest turn roughs From gentles, fall on her with fisticuffs. i6. Oh and, for their part, boys from door to door Sing unintelligible words to tunes As obsolete : " scraps of Uruidic lore," Sigh scholars, as each pale man importunes Vainly the mumbling to speak plain once more. Enough of this old worship, rounds and runes ! They serve my purpose, which is just to show Croisic to-day and Croisic long ago. THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 97- 17- What have we sailed to see, then, wafted there By fancy from the log that ends its days Of much adventure 'neath skies foul or fair, On waters rough or smooth, in this good blaze We two crouch round so closely, bidding care Keep outside with the snow-storm ? Something says " Fit time for story-telHng ! " I begin — Why not at Croisic, port we first put in ? 18. Anywhere serves : for point me out the place Wherever man has made himself a home, And there I find the story of our race In little, just at Croisic as at Rome. What matters the degree? the kind I trace. 9'. Who chides THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 115 Henceforth the unchilded monarch shall be trounced For irreligion : since the fool derides Plain miracle by which this prophet pounced Exactly on the moment I should lift Like Simeon, in my arms, a babe, ' God's gift ! ' 46. " So call the boy ! and call this bard and seer By a new title ! him I raise to rank Of ' Royal Poet : ' poet without peer ! Whose fellows only have themselves to thank If humbly they must follow in the rear My Rene. He's the master : they must clank Their chains of song, confessed his slaves ; for why ? They poetize, while he can prophesy ! " Il6 TJII-: TWO POETS OF CKOISIC. 47- So said, so done ; our Rene rose august, " The Royal Poet ; " straightway put in type His poem-prophecy, and (fair and just Procedure) added, — now that time was ripe For proving /riejids did well his word to trust, — Those attestations, tuned to lyre or pipe. Which friends broke out with when he dared foretell The Dauphin's birth : friends trusted, and did well ! 48. Moreover he got painted by Du Pr^, Engraved by Daret also ; and prefixed The portrait to his book : a crown of bay THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 117 Circled his brows, with rose and myrtle mixed ; And Latin verses, lovely in their way. Described him as " the biforked hill betwixt : Since he hath scaled Parnassus at one jump, Joining the Delphic quill and Getic trump." 49. Whereof came . . . What, it lasts, our spirt, thus long — The red fire ? That's the reason must excuse My letting flicker Rene's prophet-song No longer ; for its pertinacious hues Must fade before its fellow joins the throng Of sparks departed up the chimney, dues To dark oblivion. At the word, it winks, Rallies, relapses, dwindles, dwindles, sinks ! Il8 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 50. So does our poet. All this burst of fame, Fury of favour, Royal Poetship, Prophetship, book, verse, picture — thereof came — Nothing ! That's why I would not let outstrip Red his green rival flamelet : just the same Ending in smoke waits both ! In vain we rip The past, no further faintest trace remains Of Rene to reward our pious pains. 51- Somebody saw a portrait framed and glazed At Croisic. " Who may be this glorified Mortal unheard-of hitherto ? " amazed THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 119 That person asked the owner by his side, Who proved as ignorant. The question raised Provoked enquiry ; key by key was tried On Croisic's portrait-puzzle, till back flew The wards at one key's touch, which key was — Who 52- The other famous poet ! Wait thy turn, Thou green, our red's competitor ! Enough Just now to note 't was he that itched to learn (A hundred years ago) how fate could puff Heaven-high (a hundred years before) then spurn To suds so big a bubble in some huff : Since green too found red's portrait, — having heard Hitherto of red's rare self not one word. I20 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. And he with zeal addressed him to the task Of hunting out, by all and any means, — Who might the brilliant bard be, born to bask Butterfly-like in shine which kings and queens And baby-dauphins shed ? Much need to ask ! Is fame so fickle that what perks and preens The eyed wing, one imperial minute, dips Next sudden moment into blind eclipse ? 54. After a vast expenditure of pains, Our second poet found the prize he sought : Urged in his search by something that restrains THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. From undue triumph famed ones who have fought, Or simply, poetizing, taxed their brains : Something that tells such — dear is triumph bought If it means only basking in the midst Of fame's brief sunshine, as thou, Rene', didst ! 55- For, what did searching find at last but this ? Quoth somebody " I somehow somewhere seem To think I heard one old De Chevaye is Or was possessed of Rene's works ! " which gleam • Of light from out the dark proved not amiss To track, by correspondence on the theme ; And soon the twilight broadened into day, For thus to question answered De Chevaye. 122 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC, 56. " True it is, I did once possess the works You want account of — works — to call them so,- Comprised in one small book : the volume lurks (Some fifty leaves in duodecimo) 'Neath certain ashes which my soul it irks Still to remember, because long ago That and my other rare shelf-occupants Perished by burning of my house at Nantes. 57- " Yet of that book one strange particular Still stays in mind with me " — and thereupon Followed the stor)-. " Few the poems are ; THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 123 The book was two-thirds filled up with this one, And sundry witnesses from near and far That here at least was prophesying done By prophet, so as to preclude all doubt, Before the thing he prophesied about." 58. That's all he knew, and all the poet learned, And all that you and I are like to hear Of Rene ; since not only book is burned But memory extinguished, — nay, I fear. Portrait is gone too : nowhere I discerned A trace of it at Croisic. " Must a tear Needs fall for that ? " you smile. " How fortune fares With such a mediocrity, who cares ? " 124 THE TWO POUTS OF CKOISIC. 59- Well, I care — intimately care to have Experience how a human creature felt In after-life, who bore the burden grave Of certainly believing God had dealt For once directly with him : did not rave — A maniac, did not find his reason melt — An idiot, but went on, in peace or strife. The world's way, lived an ordinary life. 60. How many problems that one fact would solve ! An ordinary soul, no more, no less, About whose life earth's common sights revolve, THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC, 125 On whom is brought to bear, by thunder-stress, This fact — God tasks him, and will not absolve Task's negligent performer ! Can you guess How such a soul, — the task performed to point, — Goes back to life nor finds things out of joint ? 61. Does he stand stock -like henceforth ? or proceed Dizzily, yet with course straight-forward still, Down -trampling vulgar hindrance? — as the reed Is crushed beneath its tramp when that blind will Hatched in some old-world beast's brain bids it speed Where the sun wants brute-presence to fulfil Life's purpose in a new far zone, ere ice Enwomb the pasture-tract its fortalice. 126 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 62. I think no such direct plain truth consists With actual sense and thought and what they take To be the solid walls of life : mere mists — How such would, at that truth's first piercing, break Into the nullity they are ! — slight lists Wherein the puppet-champions wage, for sake Of some mock-mistress, mimic war : laid low At trumpet-blast, there's shown the world, one foe ! 63. No, we must play the pageant out, observe The tourney-regulations, and regard Success — to meet the blunted spear nor swer%'e, THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 127 Failure — to break no bones yet fall on sward ; Must prove we have — not courage? well then, — nerve ! And, at the day's end, boast the crown's award — Be warranted as promising to wield Weapons, no sham, in a true battle-field. 64. Meantime, our simulated thunderclaps Which tell us counterfeited truths — these same Are — sound, when music storms the soul, perhaps ? — Sight, beauty, every dart of every aim That touches just, then seems, by strange relapse. To fall effectless from the soul it came As if to fix its own, but simply smote And startled to vague beauty more remote ? 128 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 65. So do we gain enough — yet not too much — Acquaintance with that outer element Wherein there's operation (call it such !) Quite of another kind than we the pent On earth are proper to receive. Our hutch Lights up at the least chink : let roof be rent- How inmates huddle, blinded at first spasm, Cognizant of the sun's self through the chasm ! 66. •Therefore, who knows if this our Rene"s quick Subsidence from as sudden noise and glare Into oblivion was impolitic ? THE TWO POETS OF CR0I2IC. 129 No doubt his soul became at once aware That, after prophecy, the rhyming- trick Is poor employment : human praises scare Rather than soothe ears all a-tingle yet With tones few hear and live, but none forget. 67. There's our first famous poet ! Step thou forth Second consummate songster ! See, the tongue Of fire that typifies thee, owns thy worth In yellow, purple mixed its green among. No pure and simple resin from the North, But composite with virtues that belong To Southern culture ! Love not more than hate Helped to a blaze . . .but I anticipate. K I30 THE TIVO POETS OF CROISIC. 68. Prepare to witness a combustion rich And riotously splendid, far beyond Poor Rene's lambent little streamer which Only played candle to a Court grown fond By baby-birth : this soared to such a pitch, Alternately such colours doffed and donned. That when 1 say it dazzled Paris — please Know that it brought Voltaire upon his knees ! 69. Who did it, was a dapper gentleman, Paul Desforges Maillard, Croisickese by birth, Whose birth that century ended which began THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 131 By similar bestowment on our earth Of the aforesaid Rene. Cease to scan The ways of Providence ! See Croisic's dearth — Not Paris in its plenitude — suffice To furnish France with her best poet twice ! 70. Till he was thirty years of age, the vein Poetic yielded rhyme by drops and spirts : In verses of society had lain His talent chiefly ; but the Muse asserts Privilege most by treating with disdain P^pics the bard mouths out, or odes he blurts Spasmodically forth. Have people time And patience now-a-days for thought in rhyme ? 132 rnii 1 wo POKTs of croisic. 71- So, his achievements were the quatrain's inch Of homage, or at most the sonnet's ell Of admiration : welded lines with clinch Ot ending word and word, to every belle In Croisic's bounds ; these, brisk as any finch, He twittered till his fame had reached as well Gue'rande as Batz ; but there fame stopped, for — curse On fortune — outside lay the universe ! 72. That's Paris. Well, — why not break bounds, and send Song onward till it echo at the gates Of Paris whither all ambitions tend, THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 133 And end too, seeing that success there sates The soul which hungers most for fame ? Why spend A minute in deciding, while, by Fate's Decree, there happens to be just the prize Proposed there, suiting souls that poetize ? 73- A prize indeed, the Academy's own self Proposes to what bard shall best indite A piece describing how, through shoal and shelf, The Art of Navigation, steered aright, Has, in our last king's reign, — the lucky elf, — Reached, one may say, Perfection's haven quite, And there cast anchor. At a glance one sees The subject's crowd of capabilities ! 134 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 74. Neptune and Amphitrite ! Thetis, who Is either Tethys or as good — both tag ! Triton can shove along a vessel too : It 's Virgil ! Then the winds that blow or lag, — De Maille, Vendome, Vermandois ! Toulouse blew Longest, we reckon : he must puff the flag To fullest outflare ; while our lacking nymph Be Anne of Austria, Regent o'er the lymph ! 75- Promised,'performed ! Since irritabilis gens Holds of the feverish impotence that strives To stay an itch by prompt resource to pen's THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 135 Scratching itself on paper ; placid lives, Leisurely works mark the divinior mens : Bees brood above the honey in tneir hives ; Gnats are the busy bustlers. Splash and scrawl, — Completed lay thy piece, swift penman Paul ! 76. To Paris with the product ! This despatched, One had to wait the Forty's slow and sure Verdict, as best one might. Our penman scratched Away perforce the itch that knows no cure But daily paper-friction : more than matched His first feat by a second — tribute pure And heartfelt to the Forty when their voice Should peal with one accord " Be Paul our choice ! " 136 THE TIVO POETS OF CROISIC. 77- Scratch, scratch went much laudation of that sane And sound Tribunal, delegates august Of Phoebus and the Muses' sacred train — Whom every poetaster tries to thrust From where, high-throned, they dominate the Seine Fruitless endeavour, — fail it shall and must ! Whereof in witness have not one and all The Forty voices pealed " Our choice be Paul ? " 78. Thus Paul discounted his applause. Alack For human expectation ! Scarcely ink Was dry when, lo, the perfect piece came back THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 137 Rejected, shamed ! Some other poet's clink " Thetis and Tethys " had seduced the pack Of pedants to declare perfection's pink A singularly poor production. " Whew ! The Forty are stark fools, I always knew ! " 79- First fury over (for Paul's race — to-wit, Brain- vibrios — wriggle clear of protoplasm Into minute Hfe that's one fury-fit), "These fools shall find a bard's enthusiasm Comports with what should counterbalance it — Some knowledge of the world ! No doubt, orgasm Effects the birth of verse which, born, demands Prosaic ministration, swaddUng-bands ! 138 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 80. " Verse must be cared for at this early stage, Handled, nay dandled even. I should play Their game indeed if, till it grew of age, I meekly let these dotards frown away My bantling from the rightful heritage Of smiles and kisses ! Let the public say If it be worthy praises or rebukes, My poem, from these Forty old perukes ! " 8.1. So, by a friend, who boasts himself in grace With no less than the Chevalier La Roque,- P^minent in those days for pride of place, THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 139 Seeing he had it in his power to block The way or smooth the road to all the race Of literators trudging up to knock At Fame's exalted temple-door — for why ? He edited the Paris " Mercury : " — 82. By this friend's help the ChevaUer receives Paul's poem, prefaced by the due appeal To Caesar from the Jews. As duly heaves A sigh the Chevalier, about to deal With case so customary — turns the leaves, Finds nothing there to borrow, beg or steal- Then brightens up the critic's brow deep-lined. " The thing may be so cleverly declined ! " I40 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 83- Down to desk, out with paper, up with quill, Dip and indite ! " Sir, gratitude immense For this true draught from the Pierian rill ! Our Academic clodpoles must be dense Indeed to stand unirrigated still. No less, we critics dare not give offence To grandees like the Forty : while we mock, We grin and bear. So, here's your piece ! La Roque." 84. ** There now ! " cries Paul : " the fellow can't avoid Confessing that my piece deserves the palm ; And yet he dares not grant me space enjoyed THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 141 By every scribbler he permits embalm His crambo in the Journal's corner ! Cloyed With stuff like theirs, no wonder if a qualm Be caused by verse like mine : though that's no cause For his defraudmg me of just applause. 85. " Aha, he fears the Forty, this poltroon ? First let him fear me! Change smooth speech to rough ! I'll speak my mind out, show the fellow soon Who is the foe to dread : insist enough On my own merits till, as clear as noon, He sees I am no man to take rebuff As patiently as scribblers may and must ! Quick to the onslaught, out sword, cut and thrust ! " 142 THE 7W0 POETS OF CRO/SIC. 86. And thereupon a fierce epistle flings Its challenge in the critic's face. Alack ! Our bard mistakes his man ! The gauntlet rings On brazen visor proof against attack. Prompt from his editorial throne up springs The insulted magnate, and his mace falls, thwack, On Paul's devoted brainpan, — quite away From common courtesies of fencing-play ! 87. " Sir, will you have the truth ? This piece of yours Is simply execrable past belief. I shrank from saying so ; but, since nought cures THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 143 Conceit but truth, truth's at your service ! Brief, Just so long as ' The Mercury ' endures, So long are you excluded by its Chief From corner, nay, from cranny ! Play the cock O' the roost, henceforth, at Croisic ! " wrote La Roque. Paul yellowed, whitened, as his wrath from red Waxed incandescent. Now, this man of rhyme Was merely foolish, faulty in the head Not heart of him : conceit 's a venial crime. " Oh by no means malicious ! " cousins said : Fussily feeble, — harmless all the time, Piddling at so-called satire — well-advised He held in most awe whom he satirized. 144 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 89. Accordingly his kith and kin — removed From emulation of the poet's gift By power and will — these rather liked, nay, loved The man who gave his family a lift Out of the Croisic level ; disapproved Satire so trenchant, — still oiir poet sniffed Home-incense, — though too churlish to unlock " The Mercury's " box of ointment proved La Roque. 90. But when Paul's visage grew from red to white, And from his lips a sort of mumbling fell Of who was to be kicked, — " And serve him nght ! " THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 145 A soft voice interposed " did kicking well Answer the purpose ! Only — if I might Suggest as much — a far more potent spell Lies in another kind of treatment. Oh, Women are ready at resource, you know ! 91. *' Talent should minister to genius ! good : The proper and superior smile returns. Hear me with patience ! Have you understood The only method whereby genius earns His guerdon now-a-days? In knightly mood You entered lists with visor up ; one learns Too late that, had you mounted Roland's crest, '■ Room ! ' they had roared — La Roque with all the rest ! 146 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 92. " Why did you first of all transmit your piece To those same priggish Forty unprepared "Whether to rank you with the swans or geese By friendly intervention ? If they dared Count you a cackler, — wonders never cease ! I think it still more wondrous that you bared Your brow (my earlier image) as if praise Were gained by simple fighting now-a-days ! 93- " Your next step showed a touch of the true means Whereby desert is crow-ned : not force but wile Came to the rescue. ' Get behind the scenes ! ' THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 147 Your friend advised : he wTites, sets forth your style And title, to such purpose intervenes That you get velvet-compliment three-pile \ And, though 'The Mercury ' said ' nay,' nor stock Nor stone did his refusal prove La Roque. 94. " Why must you needs revert to the high hand, Imperative procedure — what you call ' Taking on merit your exclusive stand ? ' Stand, with a vengeance ! Soon you went to wall, You and your merit ! Only fools command When folks are free to disobey them, Paul ! You 've learnt your lesson, found out what 's o'clock, By this uncivil answer of La Roque. L 2 148 rilE TWO POETS OF CRO/S/C. 95- " Now let iTie counsel ! Lay this piece on shelf — Masterpiece though it be ! From out your desk Hand me some lighter sample, verse the elf Cupid inspired you with, no god grotesque Presiding o'er the Navy ! I myself Hand-write what 's legible yet picturesque ; I '11 copy fair and femininely frock Your poem masculine that courts La Roque ! 96. " Dei'damia he — Achilles thou ! Ha, ha, these ancient stories come so apt ! My sex, my youth, my rank I next avow THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 149 In a neat prayer for kind perusal. Sapped I see the walls which stand so stoutly now ! I see the toils about the game entrapped By honest cunning ! Chains of lady's-smock, Not thorn and thistle, tether fast La Roque ! " 97. Now, who might be the speaker sweet and arch That laughed above Paul's shoulder as it heaved With the indignant heart ? — bade steal a march And not continue charging ? Who conceived This plan which set our Paul, like pea you parch On fire-shovel, skipping, of a load relieved, From arm-chair moodiness to escritoire Sacred to Phoebus and the tuneful choir? ISO THE TWO POETS OF CROISfC. 98. Who but Paul's sister ! named of course like him " Desforges " ; but, mark you, in those days a queer Custom obtained, — who knows whence grew the whim ?- That people could not read their title clear To reverence till their own true names, made dim By daily mouthing, pleased to disappear, Replaced by brand-new bright ones : Arouet, For instance, grew Voltaire, Desforges — Malcrais. 99. " Demoiselle Malcrais de la Vigne " — because The family possessed at Brederac A vineyard, — few grapes, many hips and haws, — THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. Still a nice Breton name. As breast and back Of this vivacious beauty gleamed through gauze, So did her sprightly nature nowise lack Lustre when draped, the fashionable way, In " Malcrais de la Vicjne " — more short, " Malcrais." 151 Out from Paul's escritoire behold escape The hoarded treasure ! verse falls thick and fast. Sonnets and songs of every size and shape. The lady ponders on her prize ; at last Selects one which — Oh angel and yet ape ! — Her malice thinks is probably surpassed In badness by no fellow of the flock, Copies it fair, and " Now for my La Roque ! " 152 THE TWO POETS OE CROISIC. lor. So, to him goes, with the neat manuscript, The soft petitionary letter. " Grant A fledgeling novice that with wing unclipt She soar her little circuit, habitant Of an old manor ; buried in which crypt, How can the youthful chatelaine but pant For disemprisonment by one ad hoc Appointed ' Mercury's ' Editor, La Roque ? " 'T was an epistle that might move the Turk ! More certainly it moved our middle-aged Pen-driver drudging at his weary work, THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 15: Raked the old ashes up and disengaged The sparks of gallantry which always lurk Somehow in literary breasts, assuaged In no degree by compliments on style ; Are Forty wagging beards worth one girl's smile ? • 103. In trips the lady's poem, takes its place Of honor in the gratified Gazette, With due acknowledgment of power and grace ; Prognostication, too, that higher yet The Breton Muse will soar : fresh youth, high race, Beauty and wealth have amicably met That Demoiselle Malcrais may fill the chair Left vacant by the loss of Deshoulieres. 154 THE TIVO POETS OE CROISIC. 104. " There ! " cried the lively lady '' Who 'vas right — You in the dumps, or I the merry maid Who know a trick or two can baffle spite Tenfold the force of this old fool's? Afraid Of Editor La Ro(}ue ? But come ! next flight Shall outsoar — Deshoulieres alone ? My blade, Sappho herself shall you confess outstript ! Quick, Paul, another dose of manuscript ! " 105. And so, once well a-foot, advanced the game ; More and more verses, corresponding gush On gush of praise, till ever}'where acclaim THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 155 Rose to the pitch of uproar. " Sappho ? Tush ! Sure ' Malcrais on her Parrot ' puts to shame Deshouheres' pastorals, clay not worth a rush Beside this find of treasure, gold in crock, Unearthed in Brittany, — nay, ask La Roque ! " 106. Such was the Paris tribute. " Yes," you sneer, " Ninnies stock Xoodledom, but folks more sage Resist contagious folly, never fear ! " Do they? Permit me to detach one page From the huge Album which from far and near Poetic praises blackened in a rage Of rapture ! and that page shall be — who stares Confounded now, I ask you ? — just Voltaire's ! 156 THE TWO rOETS OF CROISIC. 107. Ay, shari)est shrewdest steel that ever stabbed To death Imposture through the armour-joints ! How did it hajjpen that gross Humbug grabbed Thy weapons, gouged thine eyes out ? Fate appoints That pride shall have a fall, or I had blabbed Hardly that Humbug, whom thy soul aroints, Could thus cross-buttock thee caught unawares, And dismalest of tumbles proved — Voltaire's ! 108. See his epistle extant yet, wherewith " Henri " in verse and " Charles '" in prose he sent To do her suit and service ! Here's the pith THE TWO FOETS OF CROISIC. 157 Of half a dozen stanzas — stones which went To build that simulated monolith — Sham love in due degree with homage blent As cham — which in the vast of volumes scares The traveller still : '* That stucco-heap — Voltaire's ? " 109. " Oh thou, whose clarion-voice has overflown The wilds to startle Paris that's one ear ! Thou who such strange capacity hast shown For joining all that 's grand with all that 's dear, Knowledge with power to please — Deshoulieres grown Learned as Dacier in thy person ! mere Weak fruit of idle hours, these crabs of mine 1 dare lay at thy feet, O Muse divine ! 158 THE TWO rOETS 01- CROISIC. " Charles was my task-work only ; Henri trod My hero forth, and now, my heroine — she Shall be thyself ! True — is it true, great God ? Certainly love henceforward must not be ! Yet all the crowd of Fine Arts fail — how odd I — Tried turn by turn, to fill a void in me ! The e 's no replacing love with these, alas ! Yet all I can 1 do to prove no ass. " I labour to amuse my freedom \ but Should any sweet young creature slavery pfeach, And — borrowing thy vivacious charm, the slut ! — THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 159 Make me, in thy engaging words, a speech, Soon should I see myself in prison shut With all imaginable pleasure." Reach The washhand-basin for admirers ! There's A stomach-moving tribute — and Voltaire's ! Suppose it a fantastic billet-doux, Adulatory flourish, not worth frown ! What say you to the Fathers of Tre'voux? These in their Dictionary have her down Under the heading " Author " : " Malcrais, too, Is 'Author' of much verse that claims renown." While Jean-Baptiste Rousseau . . . but why proceed ? Enough of this — something too much, indeed ! i6o THE TWO POETS OF CKOISIC. "3- At last La Roque, unwilling to be left Behindhand in the rivalry, broke bounds Of figurative passion ; hilt and heft, Plunged his huge downright love through what surrounds The literary female bosom ; reft Away its veil of coy reserve with " Zounds ! I love thee, Breton Beauty ! All 's no use ! Body and soul I love, — the big word 's loose ! " 114. He ^s greatest now and to dc-stnic-ti-on Aearcst. Attend the solemn word I quote, Oh Paul 1 There 's no pause at per-fec-ti-oti. Thy knell thus knolls the Doctor's bronzed throat ! THE TiVO POETS OF CROISIC. i6i Greatness a period hath, no sta-ti-on ! Better and truer verse none ever Avrote (Despite the antique outstretched a-i-on) Than thou, revered and magisterial Donne ! 115- Flat on his face, La Roque, and, — pressed to heart His dexter hand, — Voltaire with bended knee ! Paul sat and sucked-in triumph ; just apart Leaned over him his sister. " Well ? " smirks he, And " Well ? '' she answers, smiling — woman's art To let a man's own mouth, not hers, decree What shall be next move which decides the game : Success ? She said so. Failure ? His tne blame. i62 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. ii6. " Well ! " this time forth affirmatively comes With smack of lip, and long-drawn sigh through teeth Close clenched o'er satisfaction, as the gums Were tickled by a sweetmeat teazed beneath Palate by lubricating tongue : " Well ! crums Of comfort these, undoubtedly I no death Likely from famine at Fame's feast ! 't is clear I may put claim in for my pittance, Dear ! 117. " La Roque, Voltaire, my lovers ? Then disguise Has served its turn, grows idle ; let it drop ! I shall to Paris, flaunt there in men's eyes THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 163 My proper manly garb and mount a-top The pedestal that waits me, take the prize Awarded Hercules ! He threw a sop To Cerberus who let him pass, you know, Then, following, licked his heels : exactly so ! 118. " I like the prospect — their astonishment, Confusion : wounded vanity, no doubt, Mixed motives ; how I see the brows quick bent ! * What, sir, yourself, none other, brought about This change of estimation ? Phoebus sent His shafts as from Diana ? Critic pout Turns courtier smile : ' Lo, him we took for her ! Pleasant mistake ! You bear no malice, sir ? ' l64 THE rWO POETS OF CROISIC. TTQ. " Eh, my Diana?" But Diana kept Smilingly silent with fixed needle-sharp Much-meaning eyes that seemed to intercept Paul's very thoughts ere they had time to warp From earnest Into sport the words they leapt To life with — changed as when maltreated harp Renders in tinkle what some player- prig Means for a grave tune though it pro\es a jig. " What, Paul, and are ni)- pains thus thrown away, My lessons perfect loss ? " at length fall slow The pitying syllables, her lips allay THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 165 The satire of by keeping in full flow, Above their coral reef, bright smiles at play : " Can it be, Paul thus fails to rightly know And altogether estimate applause As just so many asinine he-haws ? " I thought to show you " , . . " Show me," Paul in- broke " My poetry is rubbish, and the world That rings with my renown a sorry joke ! What fairer test of worth than that, form furled, I entered the arena ? Yet you croak Just as if Phoebe and not Phcebus hurled The dart and struck the Python ! What, he crawls Humbly in dust before your feet, not Paul's ? 1 66 THE TWO POETS OE CROISIC. " Nay, 't is no laughing matter though absurd If there's an end of honesty on earth ! T-a Roque sends letters, lying every word ! Voltaire makes verse, and of himself makes mirth To the remotest age ! Rousseau's the third Who, driven to despair amid such dearth Of people that want i)raising, finds no one More fit to praise than Paul the simpleton ! 123. " Somebody says — if a man writes at all It is to show the writer's kith and kin He was unjustly thought a natural ; THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 167 And truly, sister, I have yet to win Your favourable word, it seems, for Paul Whose poetry you count not worth a pin Thoagli well enough esteemed by these Voltaires, Rousseaus and suchlike : let them quack, who cares ? " 124. '• — To Paris with you, Paul ! Not one word's waste Further : my scrupulosity was vain ! Go triumph ! Be my foolish fears effaced From memor}''s record ! Go, to come again ^^'ith glory crowned, — by sister re-embraced. Cured of that strange delusion of her brain Which led her to suspect that Paris gloats On male limbs mostly when in petticoats ! " 1 68 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 125. So laughed her last word, with the little touch Of malice proj)er to the outraged i)ride Of any artist in a work too much Shorn of its merits. " By all means, be tried The opposite procedure ! Cast your crutch Away, no longer crippled, nor di\ade The credit of your march to the World's Fair With sister Cheiry-cheeks who helped you there ! " 126. Crippled, forsooth ! what courser sprightlier pranced Paris-ward than did Paul ? Nay, dreams lent wings He flew, or seemed to fly, by dreams entranced. THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. ' 169 Dreams ? wide-awake realities : no things Dreamed merely were the missives that advanced The claim of Malcrais to consort with kings Crowned by Apollo — not to say with queens Cinctured by Venus for Idalian scenes. 127. Soon he arrives, forthwith is found before The outer gate of glory. Bold tic-toe Announces there's a giant at the door. " Ay, sir, here dwells the Chevalier La Roque." " Lackey ! Malcrais, — mind, no word less nor more ! — Desires his presence. I've unearthed the brock : Now, to transfix him ! " There stands Paul erect, Inched out his uttermost, for more effect. I70 TlIK riVO POETS 01- CROISIC. A hustling entrance : " Idol of my flame I Can it be that my heart attains at last Its longing ? that you stand, the very same As in my visions ? . . . Ha ! hey, how ? " aghast Stops short the rapture. " Oh, my boy's to blame ! You merely are the messenger ! Too fast My fancy rushed to a conclusion. Pooh ! Well, sir, the lady's substitute is — who ? " T29. Then Paul's smirk grows inordinate. '' Shake hands ! Friendship not love awaits you, master mine, Though nor Malcrais nor any mistress stands THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 171 To meet your ardour ! So, you don't divine Who wrote the verses wherewith ring the land's Whole length and breadth ? Just he whereof no line Had ever leave to blot your Journal — eh? Paul Desforges Maillard — otherwise Malcrais ! ' I'?0. And there the two stood, stare confronting smirk, Awhile uncertain which should yield the/rt'j". In vain the Chevalier beat brain for quirk To help in this conjuncture ; at length " Bah ! Boh ! Since I've made myself a fool, why shirk The punishment of folly ? Ha, ha, ha, Let me return your handshake ! " Comic sock For tragic buskin prompt thus changed La Roque. I 172 TJIE TIVO POETS OF CROISIC, " I'm nobody — a wren- like journalist ; You've flown at higher game and winged your bird, The golden eagle ! That's the grand acquist ! Voltaire's sly Muse, the tiger-cat, has purred Prettily round your feet ; but if she missed Priority of stroking, soon were stirred The dormant spit-fire. To Voltaire I away, Paul Desforges Maillard, otherwise Malcrais ! " 132. Whereupon, arm in arm, and head in air. The two begin their journey. Need I say, La Roque had felt the talon of Voltaire, THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 173 Had a long-standing little debt to pay, And pounced, you may depend, on such a rare Occasion for its due discharge ? So, gay And grenadier-like, marching to assault, They reach the enemy's abode, there halt. \ " I'll be announcer ! " quoth La Roque : "I know, Better than you, perhaps, my Breton bard, How to procure an audience ! He's not slow To smell a rat, this scamp Voltaire ! Discard The petticoats too soon, — you'll never show Your haiit-de-chausses and all they've made or marred In your true person. Here's his servant. Pray, Will the great man see Demoiselle Malcrais ? '' 174 J'H^ 'I^^O J'OEIS OF C/ OISIC. 134. Now, the great man was also, no whit less, The man of self-respect. — more great man he ! And bowed to social usage, dressed the dress, And decorated to the fit degree His person ; 't was enough to bear the stress Of battle in the field, without, when free From outside foes, inviting friends' attack By — sword in hand ? No, ill-made coat on back. 135- And, since the announcement of his visitor Surprised him at his toilet,— never glass Had such solicitation ! " Black, now — or THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 175 Brown be the killing wig to wear? Alas, Where's the rouge gone, this cheek were better for A tender touch of? Melted to a mass, All my pomatum ! There's at all events A devil — for he's got among my scents ! " 136. So, " barbered ten times o'er," as Antony Paced to his Cleopatra, did at last Voltaire proceed to the fair presence : high In colour, proud in port, as if a blast Of trumpet bade the world " Take note ! draws nigh To Beauty, Power ! Behold the Iconoclast, The Poet, the Philosopher, the Rod Of iron for imposture ! Ah my God I " 176 7//A 77F6) POE'IS OF CKUJSIC. 137- For there stands smirking Paul, and — what lights fierce The situation as with sulphur flash — There grinning stands La Roque ! No carte-and-tierce Observes the grinning fencer, but, full dash From breast to shoulderblade, the thrusts transpierce That armour against which so idly clash The swords of priests and pedants I Victors there, ■ Two smirk and tirin who have befooled — Voltaire ! 138. A moment's horror ; then quick turn-about On high-heeled shoe, — flurry of mfiies, flounce Of wig-ties and of coat-tails, — and so out THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 177 Of door banged wrathfully behind, goes — bounce^ Voltaire in tragic exit ! vows, no doubt, Vengeance upon the couple. Did he trounce Either, in point of fact ? His anger's flash Subsided if a culprit craved his cash. 139. As for La Roque, he having laughed his laugh To heart's content, — the joke defunct at once, Dead in the birth, you see,- — its epitaph Was sober earnest. " Well, sir, for the nonce, You've gained the laurel ; never hope to graff A second sprig of triumph there ! Ensconce Yourself again at Croisic : let it be Enough you mastered both Voltaire and — me ! N I7S THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 140. " Don't linger here in Paris to parade Your victory, and have the very boys Point at you ! ' There's the httle mouse which made BeHeve those two big Hons that its noise, Nibbhng away behind the hedge, conveyed IntelUgence that— portent which destroys All courage in the lion's heart, with horn That's fable — there lay couched the unicorn ! ' 141. " Beware us, now we've found who fooled us ! Quick To cover ! ' In proportion to men's fright. Expect their fright's revenge ! ' quoth politic THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 179 Old Macchiavelli. As for me, — all's right : I'm but a journalist- But no pin's prick The tooth leaves when Voltaire is roused to bite ! ' So, keep your counsel, I advise ! Adieu ! Good journey ! Ha, ha, ha, Malcrais was — you ! " 142. " —Yes, I'm Malcrais, and somebody beside. You snickering monkey ! " thus winds up the tale Our hero, safe at home, to that black-eyed Cherry-cheeked sister, as she soothes the pale Mortified poet. " Let their worst be tried, I'm their match henceforth — very man and male ! Don't talk to me of knocking-under ! man , And male must end what petticoats began ! N 2 i8o TllK TWO rOETS OF CROISIC. 143 " How woman-like it is to apprehend The world will eat its words ! why, words transfixed To stone, they stare at you in print, — at end. Each writer's style and title ! Choose betwixt Fool and knave for his name, who should intend To perpetrate a baseness so unmixed With prospect of advantage ! What is writ Is writ : they've praised me, there's an end of it ! 144. " No, Dear, allow me ! I shall print these same Pieces, with no omitted line, as Paul's. Malcrais no longer, let me see folks blame THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. i8i What they — praised simply ? — placed on pedestals, Each piece a statue in the House of Fame ! Fast will they stand there, though their presence galls The envious crew : such show their teeth, perhaps, And snarl, but never bite ! I know the chaps ! " 145^ Oh Paul, oh piteously deluded ! Pace Thy sad sterility of Croisic flats, Watch, from their southern edge, the foamy race Of high-tide as it heaves the drowning mats Of yellow-berried web-growth from their place, The rock-ridge, when, rolling as far as Batz, One broadside crashes on it, and the crags. That needle under, stream with weedy rags ! 1 82 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 146. Or, if thou wilt, at inland Bergerac, Rude heritage but recognized domain, Do as two here are doing : make hearth crack With logs until thy chimney roar again Jolly with fire-glow ! Let its angle lack No grace of Cherr}'-cheeks thy sister, fain To do a sister's office and laugh smooth Thy corrugated brow — that scowls forsooth ! 147- Wherefore? Who does not know how these La Roques, Voltaires, can say and unsay, praise and blame, Prove black white, white black, play at paradox THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 183 And, when they seem to lose it, win the game ? Care not thou what this badger, and that fox. His fellow in rascality, call " fame ! " Fiddlepin's end ! Thou hadst it, — quack, quack, quack ! Have quietude from geese at Bergerac ! Quietude ! For, be very sure of this ! A twelvemonth hence, and men shall know or care As much for what to-day they clap or hiss As for the fashion of the wigs they wear, Then wonder at. There's fame which, bale or bliss,— Got by no gracious word of great Voltaire Or not-so-great La Roque, — is taken back B}' neither, any more than Bergerac ! 1 84 THE TWO POETS OF C KOI SIC. 149. Too true ! or rather, true as ought to be ! No more of Paul the man, Malcrais the maid, Thenceforth for ever ! One or two, I see. Stuck by their poet : who the longest stayed Was Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, and even he Seemingly saddened as perforce he paid A rhyming tribute " After death, survive — He hoped he should : and died while yet alive ! " ISO- No, he hoped nothing of the kind, or held His peace and died in silent good old age. Him it was, cuiiosity impelled THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 185 To seek if there were extant still some page Of his great predecessor, rat who belled The cat once, and would never deign engage In after-combat with mere mice, — saved from More sonnetteering, — Rene Gentilhomme. 151- Paul's story furnished forth that famous play Of Piron's " Me'tromanie " : there you'll find He's Francaleu, while Demoiselle Malcrais Is Demoiselle No-end-of-names-behind ! As for Voltaire, he's Damis. Good and gay The plot and dialogue, and all's designed To spite Voltaire : at " Something " such the laugh Of simply " Nothing ! " (see his epitaph.) 1 86 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 152. But truth, truth, that's the gold I and all the good I find in fancy is, it serves to set Gold's inmost glint free, gold which comes up rude And rayless from the mine. All fume and fret Of artistry beyond this point pursued Brings out another sort of burnish : yet Always the ingot has its xoxy own Value, a sparkle struck from truth alone. 153. Now, take this sparkle and the other spirt Of fitful flame, — twin births of our grey brand That's sinking fast to ashes ! I assert, THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 187 As sparkles want but fuel to expand Into a conflagration no mere squirt Will quench too quickly, so might Croisic strand, Had Fortune pleased posterity to chowse, Boast of her brace of beacons luminous. 154- Did earlier Agamemnons lack their bard ? But later bards lacked Agamemnon too ! How often frustrate they of fame's award Just because Fortune, as she listed, blew Some slight bark's sails to bellying, mauled and marred And forced to put about the First-rate ! True, Such tacks but for a time : still — small-craft ride At anchor, rot while Beddoes breasts the tide ! l88 7'JIE TWO POETS Ol- CROISIC. 155. Dear, shall I tell you ? There's a simple test Would serve, wlien people take on them to weigh The worth of poets, " Who was better, best. This, that, the other bard ? " (bards none gainsay As good, observe ! no matter for the rest) " What quality preponderating may Turn the scale as it trembles?" End the strife By asking " Which one led a happy life ? " ^56. If one did, over his antagonist That yelled or shrieked or sobbed or wept or wailed Or simply had the dumps, — dispute who list, — THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. I count him victor. "Where his fellow failed, Mastered by his own means of might, — acquist Of necessary' sorrows, — he prevailed, A strong since joyful man who stood distinct Above slave-sorrows to his chariot linked. 157- Was not his lot to feel more ? "What meant " feel " Unless to suffer ! Not, to see more ? Sight — What helped it but to watch the drunken reel Of vice and folly round him, left and right, One dance of imps and idiots ! Not, to deal More with things lovely ? What provoked the spite Of filth incarnate, like the poet's need Of other nutriment than strife and greed ! igo TllK TWO POETS OF CKOISJC. 158. Who knows most, doubts most ; entertaining hope, Means recognizing fear \ the keener sense Of all comprised within our actual scope Recoils from aught beyond earth's dim and dense. Who, grown familiar with the sk)^, will grope Henceforward among groundlings ? That's offence Just as indubitably : stars abound O'erhead, but then — what tiowers make glad the ground ! 159- So, force is sorrow, and each sorrow, force : What then ? since Swiftness gives the charioteer The palm, his hope be in the vivid horse THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 191 Whose neck God clothed with thunder, not the steer Sluggish and safe ! Yoke Hatred, Crime, Remorse, Despair : but ever mid the whirling fear. Let, through the tumult, break the poet's face Radiant, assured his wild slaves win the race ! 160, Therefore I say . . . no, shall not say, but think, And save my breath for better purpose. White From grey our log has burned to : just one blink That quivers, loth to leave it, as a sprite The outworn body. Ere your eyelids' wink Punish who sealed so deep into the night Your mouth up, for two poets dead so long, — Here pleads a live pretender : right your wrong ! THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 193 What a pretty tale you told me Once upon a time — Said you found it somewhere (scold me !) Was it prose or was it rhyme, Greek or Latin ? Greek, you said, While your shoulder propped my head. Anyhow there 's no forgetting This much if no more. That a poet (pray, no petting !) Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, Went where suchlike used to go. Singing for a prize, you know. o 194 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 3- Well, he had to sing, nor merely Sing but play the lyre ; Playing was important clearly Quite as singing : I desire, Sir, you keep the fact in mind For a purpose that 's behind. There stood he, while deep attention Held the judges round, — Judges able, I should mention, To detect the slightest sound Sung or played amiss : such ears Had old judges, it appears ! THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 195 5- None the less he sang out boldly, Played in time and tune, Till the judges, weighing coldly Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon, Sure to smile " In vain one tries Picking faults out : take the prize ! " 6. When, a mischief ! Were they seven Strings the lyre possessed ? Oh, and afterwards eleven, Thank you ! Well, sir, — who had guessed Such ill luck in store ? — it happed One of those same seven strings snapped. 196 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 7- All was lost, then ! No ! a cricket (What " cicada " ? Pooh!) — Some mad thing that left its thicket For mere love of music — flew With its litde heart on fire, Lighted on the crippled lyre. 8. So that when (Ah joy !) our singer For his truant string Feels with disconcerted finger, What does cricket else but fling Fiery heart forth, sound the note Wanted by the throbbing throat ? THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 197 9- Ay and, ever to the ending, Cricket chirps at need, Executes the hand's intending, Promptly, perfectly, — indeed Saves the singer from defeat With her chirrup low and sweet. Till; at ending, all the judges Cry with one assent " Take the prize — a prize who grudges Such a voice and instrument ? Why, we took your lyre for harp, So it shrilled us forth F sharp ! " 198 THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. II. Did the conqueror spurn the creature, Once its service done ? That 's no such uncommon feature In the- case when Music's son •l^inds his Lotte's power too spent For aiding soul-development. 12. No ! This other, on returning Homeward, prize in hand, Satisfied his bosom's yearning : (Sir, I hope you understand !) — Said " Some record there must be Of this cricket's help to me ! " THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 199 13- So, he made himself a statue : Marble stood, life-size ; On the lyre, he pointed at you, Perched his partner in the prize ; Never more apart you found Her, he throned, from him, she crowned. 14. That 's the tale : its application ? Somebody I know Hopes one day for reputation Through his poetry that 's — Oh, All so learned and so wise And deserving of a pri^e ! THE TWO POETS OF CKOISIC. IS- If he gains one, will some ticket, When his statue 's built. Tell the gazer " 'T was a cricket Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low, when strength usurped Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped ? 1 6. " For as victor}' was nighest, While I sang and played, — With my lyre at lowest, highest. Right alike,^ — one string that made ' Love ' sound soft was snapt in twain, Never to be heard again, — THE TWO PORTS OF CROISIC. 17- " Had not a kind cricket fluttered, Perched upon the place Vacant left, and duly uttered ' I-ove, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass Asked the treble to atone For its somewhat sombre drone." But you don't know music ! Wherefore Keep on casting pearls To a — poet? All I care for Is — to tell him that a girl's " Love " comes aptly in when gruff Grows his singing. (There, enough !) January 15, 1878. LONDON : PRINTED BV SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET POEMS BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. POEMS BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. Five vols. Ninth Edition, with Portrait. Crown 8vo. 30^. AURORA LEIGH. With Portrait. Eleventh Edition. Crown 8vo. 7^-. 6d. Gilt edges, ?>s. 6d. A SELECTION FROM THE POETRY OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. With Portrait and Vignette. Crown 8vo. "js. 6d. Gilt edges, Sj. 6d. 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