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JOCOSERIA 
 
JOCOSERIA 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 1883 
 
 [All rights reserved^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Wanting is— what? i 
 
 Donald . . 5 
 
 Solomon and Balkis . 25 
 
 Cristina and Monaldeschi 33 
 
 Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli .... 45 
 
 Adam, Lilith, and Eve . . . . . . , 51 
 
 IxiON . . . . . . ' . . . .55 
 
 JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH 7 1 
 
 Never the Time and the Place 133 
 
 Pambo 137 
 
WANTING IS— WHAT? 
 
 /' 
 
Wanting is — what ? 
 
 Summer redundant, 
 
 Blueness abundant, 
 
 — Where is the spot ? 
 
 Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same, 
 
 — Framework which waits for a picture to frame : 
 
 What of the leafage, what of the flower ? 
 
 Roses embowering with nought they embower ! 
 
 Come then, complete incompletion, O comer, 
 
 Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer ! 
 
 Breathe but one breath 
 
 Rose-beauty above, 
 
 And all that was death 
 
 Grows life, grows love, 
 
 Grows love ! 
 
DONALD. 
 
DONALD. 
 
 '* Will you hear my story also, 
 
 — Huge Sport, brave adventure in plenty ? " 
 The boys were a band from Oxford, 
 
 The oldest of whom was twenty 
 
 The bothy we held carouse in 
 Was bright with fire and candle ; 
 
 Tale followed tale like a merry-go-round 
 Whereof Sport turned the handle. 
 
yOCOSERIA, 
 
 In our eyes and noses — turf-smoke : 
 In our ears a tune from the trivet, 
 
 Whence "Boiling, boiling," the kettle sang, 
 "And ready for fresh Glenlivet." 
 
 So, feat capped feat, with a vengeance : 
 Truths, though, — the lads were loyal : 
 
 " Grouse, five score brace to the bag ! 
 Deer, ten hours' stalk of the Royal ! " 
 
 Of boasting, not one bit, boys ! 
 
 Only there seemed to settle 
 Somehow above your curly heads, 
 
 — Plain through the singing kettle, 
 
 Palpable through the cloud. 
 
 As each new-puffed Havanna 
 Rewarded the teller's well-told tale,; — 
 
 This vaunt " To Sport — Hosanna ! 
 
DONALD. 
 
 " Hunt, fish, shoot, 
 
 Would a man fulfil life's duty ! 
 Not to the bodily frame alone 
 
 Does Sport give strength and beauty, 
 
 " But character gains in — courage ? 
 
 Ay, Sir, and much beside it ! 
 You don't sport, more 's the pity : 
 
 You soon would find, if you tried it, 
 
 " Good sportsman means good fellow, 
 Sound-hearted he, to the centre ; 
 
 Your mealy-mouthed mild milksops 
 — There's where the rot can enter ! 
 
 " There 's where the dirt will breed. 
 The shabbiness Sport would banish ! 
 
 Oh no. Sir, no ! In your honoured case 
 All such objections vanish. 
 
yOCOSERIA. 
 
 " ' T is known how hard you studied : 
 A Double-First — what, the jigger ! 
 
 Give me but half your Latin and Greek, 
 I '11 never again touch trigger ! 
 
 *' Still, tastes are tastes, allow me ! 
 
 Allow, too, w^here there 's keenness 
 For Sport, there's little likelihood 
 
 Of a man's displaying meanness ! " 
 
 So, put on my mettle, I interposed. 
 
 " Will you hear my story ? " quoth I. 
 *' Never mind how long since it happed, 
 
 I sat, as we sit, in a bothy ; 
 
 " With as merry a band of mates, too, 
 
 Undergrads all on a level : 
 (One's a Bishop, one's gone to the Bench, 
 
 And one's gone — well, to the Devil.) 
 
DONALD, 
 
 "When, lo, a scratching and tapping ! 
 
 In hobbled a ghastly visitor. 
 Listen to just what he told us himself 
 
 — No need of our playing inquisitor ! " 
 
 Do you happen to know in Ross-shire 
 Mount Ben . . . but the name scarce matters 
 
 Of the naked fact I am sure enough, 
 Though I clothe it in rags and tatters. 
 
 You may recognise Ben by description ; 
 
 Behind him — a moor's immenseness ; 
 Up goes the middle mount of a range, 
 
 Fringed with its firs in denseness. 
 
JOCOSERIA. 
 
 Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind ! 
 
 For an edge there is, though narrow ; 
 From end to end of the range, a stripe 
 
 Of path runs straight as an arrow. 
 
 And the mountaineer who takes that path 
 Saves himself miles of journey 
 
 He has to plod if he crosses the moor 
 Through heather, peat and burnie. 
 
 But a mountaineer he needs must be, 
 For, look you, right in the middle 
 
 Projects bluff Ben — with an end in ich — 
 Why planted there, is a riddle : 
 
 Since all Ben's brothers little and big 
 Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder, 
 
 And only this burliest out must bulge 
 Till it seems — to the beholder 
 
DONALD, 13 
 
 From down in the gully, — as if Ben's breast, 
 
 To a sudden spike diminished. 
 Would signify to the boldest foot 
 
 " All further passage finished ! " 
 
 Yet the mountaineer who sidles on 
 
 And on to the very bending, 
 Discovers, if heart and brain be proof. 
 
 No necessary ending. 
 
 Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt 
 
 Having trod, he, there arriving. 
 Finds — what he took for a point was breadth, 
 
 A mercy of Nature's contriving. 
 
 So, he rounds what, when 't is reached, proves 
 straight. 
 
 From one side gains the other : 
 The wee path widens — resume the march. 
 
 And he foils you, Ben my brother ! 
 
14 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 But Donald — (that name, I hope, will do) — 
 I wrong him if I call " foiling " 
 
 The tramp of the callant, whistling the while 
 As blithe as our kettle 's boiling. 
 
 He had dared the danger from boyhood up. 
 And now, — when perchance was waiting 
 
 A lass at the brig below, — 'twixt mount 
 And moor would he stand debating ? 
 
 Moreover this Donald was twenty-five, 
 
 A glory of bone and muscle : 
 Did a fiend dispute the right of way, 
 
 Donald would try a tussle. 
 
 Lightsomely marched he out of the broad 
 On to the narrow and narrow ; 
 
 A step more, rounding the angular rock. 
 Reached the front straight as an arrow. 
 
DONALD, 15 
 
 He Stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood, 
 
 When — whom found he full-facing ? 
 What fellow in courage and wariness too, 
 
 Had scouted ignoble pacing, 
 
 And left low safety to timid mates, 
 And made for the dread dear danger, 
 
 And gained the height where — who could guess 
 He would meet with a rival ranger ? 
 
 'T was a gold-red stag that stood and stared, 
 
 Gigantic and magnific, 
 By the wonder — ay, and the peril — struck 
 
 Intelligent and pacific : 
 
 For a red deer is no fallow deer 
 
 Grown cowardly through park-feeding ; 
 
 He batters you like a thunderbolt 
 If you brave his haunts unheeding. 
 
i6 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 I doubt he could hardly perform volte-face 
 
 Had valour advised discretion : 
 You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a rope 
 
 No Blondin makes profession. 
 
 Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit, 
 Though pride ill brooks retiring : 
 
 Each eyed each — mute man, motionless beast — 
 Less fearing than admiring. 
 
 These are the moments when quite new sense, 
 
 To meet some need as novel, 
 Springs up in the brain : it inspired resource : 
 
 — " Nor advance nor retreat but — grovel ! ". 
 
 And slowly, surely, never a whit 
 
 Relaxing the steady tension 
 Of eye-stare which binds man to beast, — 
 
 By an inch and inch declension. 
 
DONALD. 17 
 
 Sank Donald sidewise down and down : 
 
 Till flat, breast upwards, lying 
 At his six-foot length, no corpse more still, 
 
 — " If he cross me ! The trick's worth trying." 
 
 Minutes were an eternity ; 
 
 But a new sense was created 
 In the stag's brain too ; he resolves ! Slow, sure, 
 
 With eye-stare unabated, 
 
 Feelingly he extends a foot 
 
 Which tastes the way ere it touches 
 Earth's solid and just escapes man's soft, 
 
 Nor hold of the same unclutches 
 
 Till its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk, 
 
 Lands itself no less finely : 
 So a mother removes a fly from the face 
 
 Of her babe asleep supinely. 
 
1 8 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 And now 't is the haunch and hind foot's turn 
 — That 's hard : can the beast quite raise it ? 
 
 Yes, traversing half the prostrate length, 
 His hoof-tip does not graze it. 
 
 Just one more lift ! But Donald, you see, 
 Was sportsman first, man after : 
 
 A fancy lightened his caution through, 
 — He well-nigh broke into laughter 
 
 " It were nothing short of a miracle ! 
 
 Unrivalled, unexampled — 
 All sporting feats with this feat matched 
 
 Were down and dead and trampled ! " 
 
 The last of the legs as tenderly 
 
 Follows the rest : or never 
 Or now is the time ! His knife in reach, 
 
 And his right-hand loose — how clever ! 
 
DONALD, 19 
 
 For this can stab up the stomach's soft, 
 While the left-hand grasps the pastern. 
 
 A rise on the elbow, and— now 's the time 
 Or never : this turn 's the last turn ! 
 
 I shall dare to place myself by God 
 Who scanned — for He does— each feature 
 
 Of the face thrown up in appeal to Him 
 By the agonizing creature. 
 
 Nay, I hear plain words : " Thy gift brings this ! " 
 
 Up he sprang, back he staggered. 
 Over he fell, and with him our friend 
 
 —At following game no laggard. 
 
 Yet he was not dead when they picked next day 
 From the gully's depth the wreck of him ; 
 
 His fall had been stayed by the stag beneath 
 Who cushioned and saved the neck of him. 
 
yOCOSERIA, 
 
 But the rest of his body — why, doctors said, 
 Whatever could break was broken ; 
 
 Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toast 
 In a tumbler of port-wine soaken. 
 
 " That your life is left you, thank the stag 1 " 
 Said they when — the slow cure ended — 
 
 They opened the hospital-door, and thence 
 — Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended. 
 
 And minor damage left wisely alone, — 
 Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled. 
 
 Out — what went in a Goliath well-nigh, — 
 Some half of a David hobbled. 
 
 "You must ask an alms from house to house : 
 
 Sell the stag's head for a bracket. 
 With its grand twelve tines— I'd buy it myself- 
 
 And use the skin for a jacket ! " 
 
DONALD. 
 
 He was wiser, made both head and hide 
 His win-penny : hands and knees on, 
 
 Would manage to crawl — poor crab — by the roads 
 In the misty stalking-season. 
 
 And if he discovered a bothy like this, 
 Why, harvest was sure : folks listened. 
 
 He told his tale to the lovers of Sport : 
 
 Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened. 
 
 And when he had come to the close, and spread 
 
 His spoils for the gazers' wonder, 
 With " Gentlemen, here's the skull of the stag 
 
 I was over, thank God, not under ! " — 
 
 The company broke out in applause ; 
 
 " By Jingo, a lucky cripple ! 
 Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread. 
 
 And a tug, besides, at our tipple ! " 
 
JOCOSERIA. 
 
 And "There 's my pay for your pluck !" cried This, 
 
 '' And mine for your jolly story ! " 
 Cried That, while 'T other — but he was drunk — 
 
 Hicupped '' A trump, a Tory ! " 
 
 I hope I gave twice as much as the rest ; 
 
 For, as Homer would say, " within grate 
 Though teeth kept tongue," my whole soul growled 
 
 " Rightly rewarded, — Ingrate ! " 
 
SOLOMON AND BALKIS. 
 
SOLOMON AND BALKIS, 
 
 Solomon King of the Jews and the Queen of Sheba, 
 
 Balkis, 
 Talk on the ivory throne, and we well may conjecture 
 
 their talk is 
 Solely of things sublime : why else has she sought Mount 
 
 Zion, ' 
 
 Climbed the six golden steps, and sat betwixt lion and 
 
 lion ? 
 
26 yOCOSERIA. 
 
 She proves him with hard questions : before she has 
 
 reached the middle 
 He smiUng suppHes the end, straight solves them riddle 
 
 by riddle ; 
 Until, dead-beaten at last, there is left no spirit in 
 
 her, 
 And thus would she close the game whereof she was first 
 
 beginner : 
 
 " O wisest thou of the wise, world's marvel and well-nigh 
 
 monster, 
 One crabbed question more to construe or vulgo 
 
 conster ! 
 Who are those, of all mankind, a monarch of perfect 
 
 wisdom 
 Should open to, when they knock at spheteron ^<?— that's, 
 
 his dome ? " 
 
SOLOMON AND BALKIS, 27 
 
 The King makes tart reply : " Whom else but the wise 
 his equals 
 
 Should he welcome with heart and voice ? — since, king 
 though he be, such weak walls 
 
 Of circumstance — power and pomp — divide souls each 
 from other 
 
 That whoso proves kingly in craft I needs must acknow- 
 ledge my brother. 
 
 " Come poet, come painter, come sculptor, come builder 
 
 — whate'er his condition. 
 Is he prime in his art ? We are peers ! My insight has 
 
 pierced the partition 
 And hails — for the poem, the picture, the statue, the 
 
 building — my fellow ! 
 Gold 's gold though dim in the dust : court-polish soon 
 
 turns it yellow. 
 
28 . JOCOSERIA, 
 
 *^But tell me in turn, O thou to thy weakling sex 
 superior, 
 
 That for knowledge hast travelled so far yet seemest no 
 whit the wearier, — 
 
 Who are those, of all mankind, a queen like thyself, con- 
 summate 
 
 In wisdom, should call to her side with an affable ^ Up 
 hither, come, m.ate ! ' " 
 
 " The Good are my mates — how else ? Why doubt it ? " 
 
 the Queen upbridled : 
 " Sure even above the Wise, — or in travel my eyes have 
 
 idled, — 
 I see the Good stand plain : be they rich, poor, shrewd 
 
 or simple, 
 If Good they only are. . . . Permit me to drop my 
 
 wimple ! " 
 
SOLOMON AND BALKIS. 29 
 
 And, in that bashful jerk of her body, she — peace, thou 
 
 scoffer ! — 
 Jostled the King's right-hand stretched courteously help 
 
 to proffer, 
 And so disclosed a portent : all unaware the Prince 
 
 eyed 
 The Ring which bore the Name — turned outside now 
 
 from inside ! 
 
 The truth-compelling Name ! — and at once " I greet the 
 
 Wise— Oh, 
 Certainly welcome such to my court — with this 
 
 proviso : 
 The building must be my temple, my person stand forth 
 
 the statue. 
 The picture my portrait prove, and the poem my praise — 
 
 you cat, you ! " 
 
30 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 But Solomon nonplussed ? Nay ! "Be truthful in 
 
 turn ! " so bade he : 
 " See the Name, obey its hest ! " And at once subjoins 
 
 the lady 
 — " Provided the Good are the young, men strong and 
 
 tall and proper, 
 Such servants I straightway enlist, — which means ..." 
 
 but the blushes stop her. 
 
 " Ah, Soul," the Monarch sighed, "that wouldst soar yet 
 ever crawlest, 
 
 How comes it thou canst discern the greatest yet choose 
 the smallest, 
 
 Unless because heaven is far, where wings find fit expan- 
 sion, 
 
 While creeping on all-fours suits, suffices the earthly 
 mansion ? 
 
SOLOMON AND BALKIS. 31 
 
 ''Aspire to the Best ! But which ? There are Bests and 
 
 Bests so many, 
 With a habitat each for each, earth's Best as much Best 
 
 as any ! 
 On Lebanon roots the cedar — soil lofty, yet stony and 
 
 sandy — 
 While hyssop, of worth in its way, on the wall grows low 
 
 but handy. 
 
 "Above may the Soul spread wing, spurn body and 
 sense beneath her ; 
 
 Below she must condescend to plodding unbuoyed by 
 aether. 
 
 In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else in- 
 anity ; 
 
 On earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools — that's 
 Vanity. 
 
32 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 " It is nought, it will go, it can never presume above to 
 
 trouble me ; 
 But here, — why, it toys and tickles and teazes, howe'er I 
 
 redouble me 
 In a doggedest of endeavours to play the indifferent. 
 
 Therefore, 
 Suppose we resume discourse ? Thou hast travelled thus 
 
 far : but wherefore ? 
 
 "Solely for Solomon's sake, to see whom earth styles 
 
 Sagest ? " 
 Through her blushes laughed the Queen. "For the 
 
 sake of a Sage ? The gay jest ! 
 On high, be communion with Mind — there, Body concerns 
 
 not Balkis : 
 Down here, — do I make too bold? Sage Solomon, — 
 
 one fool's small kiss ! " 
 
CRISTINA AND 
 MONALDESCHI. 
 
CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHL 
 
 Ah, but how each loved each, Marquis ! 
 Here 's the gallery they trod 
 Both together, he her god, 
 She his idol, — lend your rod, 
 
 Chamberlain ! — ay, there they are — " Quis 
 Separabit ? " — plain those two 
 Touching words come into view, 
 Apposite for me and you ! 
 
36 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 Since they witness to incessant 
 
 Love like ours : King Francis, he- 
 Diane the adored one, she — 
 Prototypes of you and me. 
 
 Everywhere is carved her Crescent 
 With his Salamander-sign — 
 Flame-fed creature : flame benign 
 To itself or, if malign, 
 
 Only to the meddling curious, 
 
 — So, be warned. Sir ! Where 's my head ? 
 
 How it wanders ! What I said 
 
 Merely meant — the creature, fed 
 Thus on flame, was scarce injurious 
 
 Save to fools who woke its ire, 
 
 Thinking fit to play with fire. 
 
 T is the Crescent you admire ? 
 
CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHI. 37 
 
 Then, be Diane ! I '11 be Francis. 
 
 Crescents change, — true ! — wax and wane. 
 
 Woman-like : male hearts retain 
 
 Heat nor, once warm, cool again. 
 So, we figure — such our chance is — 
 
 I as man and you as. . . What ? 
 
 Take offence ? My Love forgot 
 
 He plays woman, I do not ? 
 
 I — the woman? See my habit. 
 Ask my people ! Anyhow, 
 Be we what we may, one vow 
 Binds us, male or female. Now, — 
 
 Stand, Sir ! Read ! " Quis separabit ? " 
 Half a mile of pictured way 
 Past these palace-walls to-day 
 Traversed, this I came to say. 
 
38 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 You must needs begin to love me ; 
 First I hated, then, at best, 
 — Have it so !— I acquiesced ; 
 Pure compassion did the rest. 
 
 From below thus raised above me. 
 
 Would you, step by step, descend, 
 Pity me, become my friend. 
 Like me, like less, loathe at end ? 
 
 That 's the ladder's round you rose by ! 
 
 That — my own foot kicked away, 
 
 Having raised you : let it stay. 
 
 Serve you for retreating ? Nay . 
 Close to me you climbed : as close by, 
 
 Keep your station, though the peak 
 
 Reached proves somewhat bare and bleak ! 
 
 Woman 's strong if man is weak. 
 
CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHL 39 
 
 Keep here, loving me forever ! 
 
 Love's look, gesture, speech, I claim ; 
 Act love, lie love, all the same — 
 Play as earnest were our game 1 
 
 Lonely I stood long : 't was clever 
 
 When you climbed, before men's eyes, 
 Spurned the earth and scaled the skies. 
 Gained my peak and grasped your prize. 
 
 Here you stood, then, to men's wonder ; 
 Here you tire of standing ? Kneel ! 
 Cure what giddiness you feel, 
 This way ! Do your senses reel ? 
 
 Not unlikely ! What rolls under ? 
 Yawning death in yon abyss 
 Where the waters whirl and hiss 
 Round more frightful peaks than this. 
 
40 JOCOSERTA. 
 
 Should my buffet dash you thither. . . . 
 But be sage ! No watery grave 
 Needs await you : seeming brave 
 Kneel on safe, dear timid slave ! 
 
 You surmised, when you climbed hither, 
 Just as easy were retreat 
 Should you tire, conceive unmeet 
 Longer patience at my feet ? 
 
 Me as standing, you as stooping, — 
 
 Who arranged for each the pose ? 
 
 Lest men think us friends turned foes, 
 
 Keep the attitude you chose ! 
 Men are used to this same grouping — 
 
 I and you like statues seen. 
 
 You and I, no third between. 
 
 Kneel and stand ! That makes the scene. 
 
CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHI. 41 
 
 Mar it — and one buffet . . . Pardon ! 
 
 Needless warmth — wise words in waste ! 
 
 'T was prostration that replaced 
 
 Kneeling, then ? A proof of taste. 
 Crouch, not kneel, while I mount guard on 
 
 Prostrate love — become no waif, 
 
 No estray to waves that chafe 
 
 Disappointed — love so safe ! 
 
 Waves that chafe ? The idlest fancy ! 
 Peaks that scare ? I think we know 
 Walls enclose our sculpture : so 
 Grouped, we pose in Fontainebleau. 
 
 Up now ! Wherefore hesitancy ? 
 
 Arm in arm and cheek by cheek, 
 Laugh with me at waves and peak ! 
 Silent still ? Why, pictures speak. 
 
42 JOCOSERIA, 
 
 See, where Juno strikes Ixion, 
 
 Primatice speaks plainly ! Pooh — 
 Rather, Florentine Le Roux ! 
 I Ve lost head for who is who — 
 
 So it swims and wanders ! Fie on 
 
 What still proves me female ! Here, 
 By the staircase ! — for we near 
 That dark "Gallery of the Deer." 
 
 Look me in the eyes once ! Steady ! 
 Are you faithful now as erst 
 On that eve when we two first 
 Vowed at Avon, blessed and cursed 
 
 Faith and falsehood ? Pale already ? 
 Forward ! Must my hand compel 
 Entrance — this way? Exit — well. 
 Somehow, somewhere. Who can tell ? 
 
CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHI. 43 
 
 What if to the self-same place in 
 Rustic Avon, at the door 
 Of the village church once more, 
 Where a tombstone paves the floor 
 
 By that holy-water basin 
 
 You appealed to — "As, below, 
 This stone hides its corpse, e'en so 
 I your secrets hide " ? What ho ! 
 
 Friends, my four ! You, Priest, confess him ! 
 I have judged the culprit there : 
 Execute my sentence ! Care 
 For no mail such cowards wear ! 
 
 Done, Priest ? Then, absolve and bless him ! 
 Now — you three, stab thick and fast, 
 Deep and deeper ! Dead at last ? 
 Thanks, friends — Father, thanks ! Aghast ? 
 
44 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 What one word of his confession 
 
 Would you tell me, though 1 lured 
 With that royal crown abjured 
 Just because its bars immured 
 
 Love too much ? Love burst compression, 
 Fled free, finally confessed 
 All its secrets to that breast 
 Whence ... let Avon tell the rest ! 
 
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT 
 AND FUSELI. 
 
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT AND FUSELL 
 
 O BUT is it not hard, Dear ? 
 
 Mine are the nerves to quake at a mouse : 
 If a spider drops I shrink with fear : 
 
 I should die outright in a haunted house ; 
 While for you — did the danger dared bring help— 
 From a lion's den I could steal his whelp, 
 With a serpent round me, stand stock-still, 
 Go sleep in a churchyard, — so would will 
 Give me the power to dare and do 
 Valiantly — ^just for you ! 
 
JOCOSERIA. 
 
 Much amiss in the head, Dear, 
 
 I toil at a language, tax my brain 
 Attempting to draw — the scratches here ! 
 I play, play, practise and all in vain : 
 But for you — if my triumph brought you pride, 
 I would grapple with Greek Plays till I died. 
 Paint a portrait of you — who can tell ? 
 Work my fingers off for your " Pretty well : " 
 Language and painting and music too, 
 Easily done — for you ! 
 
 Strong and fierce in the heart. Dear, 
 
 With — more than a will — what seems a jDower 
 To pounce on my prey, love outbroke here 
 
 In flame devouring and to devour. 
 Such love has laboured its best and worst 
 To win me a lover ; yet, last as first, 
 
MA/^V WOLLSTONECRAFT AND FUSELL 49 
 
 I have not quickened his pulse one beat, 
 Fixed a moment's fancy, bitter or sweet : 
 Yet the strong fierce heart's love's labour's due, 
 Utterly lost, was — you ! 
 
ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE. 
 
ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE. 
 
 One day, it thundered and lightened. 
 
 Two women, fairly frightened. 
 
 Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed, 
 
 At the feet of the man who sat betwixt ; 
 
 And " Mercy ! " cried each — " if I tell the truth 
 
 Of a passage in my youth ! " 
 
 Said This : " Do you mind the morning 
 I met your love with scorning ? 
 As the worst of the venom left my lips, 
 I thought ' If, despite this lie, he strips 
 The mask from my soul with a kiss — I crawl 
 His slave, — soul, body and all ! ' " 
 
54 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 Said That : " We stood to be married ; 
 
 The priest, or someone, tarried ; 
 
 * If Paradise-door prove locked ? ' smiled you. 
 
 I thought, as I nodded, smiUng too, 
 
 'Did one, that's away, arrive — nor late 
 
 Nor soon should unlock Hell's gate ! ' 
 
 It ceased to lighten and thunder. 
 
 Up started both in wonder, 
 
 Looked round and saw that the sky was clear, 
 
 Then laughed " Confess you believed us. Dear ! " 
 
 " I saw through the joke ! " the man replied 
 
 They re-seated themselves beside. 
 
IXION. 
 
IXION. 
 
 High in the dome, suspended, of Hell, sad triumph, 
 behold us ! 
 Here the revenge of a God, there the amends of a 
 Man. 
 Whirling forever in torment, flesh once mortal, im- 
 mortal 
 Made — for a purpose of hate — able to die and revive. 
 Pays to the uttermost pang, then, newly for payment 
 replenished, 
 Doles out — old yet young — agonies ever afresh ; 
 Whence the result above me : torment is bridged by a 
 rainbow, — 
 
58 JOCOSERIA, 
 
 Tears, sweat, blood, — each spasm, ghastly once, glori- 
 fied now. 
 Wrung, by the rush of the wheel ordained my place of 
 reposing, 
 Oif in a sparklike spray, — flesh become vapour thro' 
 pain, — 
 Flies the bestowment of Zeus, soul'^ vaunted bodily 
 vesture. 
 Made that his feats observed gain the approval of 
 Man,— 
 Flesh that he fashioned with sense of the earth and the 
 sky and the ocean. 
 Framed should pierce to the star, fitted to pore on the 
 plant, — 
 All, for a purpose of hate, re-framed, re-fashioned, re- 
 fitted 
 Till, consummate at length, — lo, the employment of 
 sense ! 
 
IXION. 59 
 
 Pain's mere minister now to the soul, once pledged to 
 her pleasure — 
 Soul, if untrammeled by flesh, unapprehensive of 
 pain ! 
 Body, professed soul's slave, which serving beguiled and 
 betrayed her. 
 Made things false seem true, cheated thro' eye and 
 thro' ear, 
 Lured thus heart and brain to believe in the lying re- 
 ported, — 
 Spurn but the traitrous slave, uttermost atom, away. 
 What should obstruct soul's rush on the real, the only 
 apparent ? 
 Say I have erred, — how else ? Was I Ixion or Zeus ? 
 Foiled by my senses I dreamed ; I doubtless awaken in 
 wonder : 
 This proves shine, that — shade ? Good was the evil 
 that seemed ? 
 
6o • JOCOSERIA. 
 
 Shall I, with sight thus gained, by torture be taught I 
 was blind once ? 
 Sisuphos, teaches thy stone — Tantalos, teaches thy 
 thirst 
 Aught which unaided sense, purged pure, less plainly 
 demonstrates ? 
 No, for the past was dream : now that the dreamers 
 awake, 
 Sisuphos scouts low fraud, and to Tantalos treason is 
 folly. 
 Ask of myself, whose form melts on the murderous 
 wheel, 
 What is the sin which throe and throe prove sin to the 
 sinner ! 
 Say the false charge was true, — thus do I expiate, 
 say, 
 Arrogant thought, word, deed, — mere man who conceited 
 me godlike. 
 
IXION. 6 1 
 
 Sat beside Zeus, my friend — knelt before Here, my love ! 
 What were the need but of pitying power to touch and 
 disperse it, 
 Film- work — eye's and ear's — all the distraction of 
 sense ? 
 How should the soul not see, not hear, — perceive and as 
 plainly 
 Render, in thought, word, deed, back again truth — 
 not a lie ? 
 *' Ay, but the pain is to punish thee ! " Zeus, once more 
 for a pastime. 
 Play the familiar, the frank ! Speak and have speech 
 in return ! 
 I was of Thessaly king, there ruled and a people obeyed 
 me : 
 Mine to establish the law, theirs to obey it or die : 
 Wherefore ? Because of the good to the people, because 
 of the honour 
 
62 JOCOSEKIA. 
 
 Thence accruing to me, king, the king's law was 
 supreme. 
 What of the weakling, the ignorant criminal ? Not who, 
 excuseless. 
 Breaking my law braved death, knowing his deed and 
 its due — 
 Nay, but the feeble and foolish, the poor transgressor, of 
 purpose 
 No whit more than a tree, born to erectness of bole, 
 Palm or plane or pine, we laud if lofty, columnar — 
 Loathe if athwart, askew, — leave to the axe and the 
 flame ! 
 Where is the vision may penetrate earth and beholding 
 acknowledge 
 Just one, pebble at root ruined the straightness of. 
 stem ? 
 Whose fine vigilance follows the sapling, accounts for the 
 failure, 
 
IXION, 63 
 
 — Here blew wind, so it bent : there the snow lodged, 
 so it broke ? 
 Also the tooth of the beast, bird's bill, mere bite of the 
 insect 
 Gnawed, gnarled, warped their worst : passive it lay to 
 offence. 
 King — I was man, no more : what I recognised faulty I 
 punished. 
 Laying it prone : be sure, more than a man had I 
 proved. 
 Watch and ward o'er the sapling at birthtime had saved 
 it, nor simply 
 Owned the distortion's excuse, — hindered it wholly : 
 nay, more — 
 Even a man, as I sat in my place to do judgment, and 
 pallid 
 Criminals passing to doom shuddered away at my 
 foot, 
 
64 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 Could I have probed thro' the face to the heart, read 
 plain a repentance, 
 Crime confessed fools' play, virtue ascribed to the 
 wise, 
 Had I not stayed the consignment to doom, not dealt 
 the renewed ones 
 Life to retraverse the past, light to retrieve the mis- 
 deed? 
 Thus had I done, and thus to have done much more it 
 behoves thee, 
 Zeus who madest man — flawless or faulty, thy work ! 
 What if the charge were true, as thou mouthest, — Ixion 
 
 the cherished 
 Minion of Zeus grew vain, vied with the godships and 
 
 fell, 
 
 Forfeit thro' arrogance ? Stranger ! I clothed, with the 
 
 grace of our human. 
 
 Inhumanity — gods, natures I likened to ours. 
 
IXION. 65 
 
 Man among men I had borne me till gods forsooth must 
 regard me] 
 — Nay, must approve, applaud, claim as a comrade at 
 last. 
 Summoned to enter their circle, I sat — their equal, how- 
 other ? 
 Love should be absolute love, faith is in fulness or 
 nought. 
 " I am thy friend, be mine ! " smiled Zeus : " If Here 
 attract thee," 
 Blushed the imperial cheek, " then — as thy heart may 
 suggest ! " 
 Faith in me sprang to the faith, my love hailed love as 
 its fellow, 
 '^Zeus, we are friends — how fast ! Here, my heart 
 for thy heart ! " 
 Then broke smile into fury of frown, and the thunder of 
 " Hence, fool I " 
 
66 - JOCOSERIA. 
 
 Then thro' the kiss laughed scorn '' Limbs or a cloud 
 was to clasp ? " 
 Then from Olumpos to Erebos, then from the rapture 
 to torment, 
 Then from the fellow of gods — misery's mate, to the 
 man ! 
 — Man henceforth and forever, who lent from the glow 
 of his nature 
 Warmth to the cold, with light coloured the black and 
 the blank. 
 So did a man conceive of your passion, you passion-pro- 
 testers ! 
 So did he trust, so love — being the truth of your lie ! 
 You to aspire to be Man ! Man made you who vainly 
 would ape him : 
 You are the hollowness, he — filling you, falsifies void. 
 Even as — witness the emblem. Hell's sad triumph sus- 
 pended, 
 
IXION. 67 
 
 Born of my tears, sweat, blood — bursting to vapour 
 above — 
 Arching my torment, an iris ghostlike startles the dark- 
 ness. 
 Cold white — jewelry quenched — justifies, glorifies 
 pain. 
 Strive, my kind, though strife endure thro' endless ob- 
 struction. 
 Stage after stage, each rise marred by as certain a fall ! 
 Baffled forever — yet never so baffled but, e'en in the 
 baffling. 
 When Man's strength proves weak, checked in the body 
 or soul — 
 Whatsoever the medium, flesh or essence, — Ixion 's 
 
 Made for a purpose of hate, — clothing the entity Thou, 
 — Medium whence that entity strives for the Not-Thou 
 beyond it, 
 Fire elemental, free, frame unencumbered, the All, — 
 
68 JOCOSERIA, 
 
 Never so baffled but — when, on the verge of an alien ex- 
 istence, 
 Heartened to press, by pangs burst to the infinite Pure, 
 Nothing is reached but the ancient weakness still that 
 arrests strength, 
 Circumambient still, still the poor human array. 
 Pride and revenge and hate and cruelty — all it has burst 
 through. 
 Thought to escape, — fresh formed, found in the fashion 
 it fled,— 
 Never so baffled but — when Man pays the price of 
 endeavour. 
 Thunderstruck, downthrust, Tartaros-doomed to the 
 wheel, — 
 Then, ay, then, from the tears and sweat and blood of 
 his torment. 
 E'en from the triumph of Hell, up let him look and 
 rejoice ! 
 
IXION, 69 
 
 What is the influence, high o'er Hell, that turns to a 
 rapture 
 Pain — and despair's murk mists blends in a rainbow of 
 hope ? 
 What is beyond the obstruction, stage by stage tho' it 
 baffle? 
 Back must I fall, confess " Ever the weakness I fled " ? 
 No, for beyond, far, far is a Purity all-unobstructed ! 
 Zeus was Zeus — not Man : wrecked by his weakness, I 
 whirl. 
 Out of the wreck I rise — past Zeus to the Potency o'er 
 him ! 
 I — to have hailed him my friehd ! I — to have clasped 
 her — my love ! 
 Pallid birth of my pain, — where light, where light is, 
 aspiring 
 Thither I rise, whilst thou — Zeus, keep the godship 
 and sink ! 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 
 
 " This now, this other story makes amends 
 And justifies our Mishna," quoth the Jew 
 Aforesaid. " Tell it, learnedest of friends !" 
 
 A certain morn broke beautiful and blue 
 
 O'er Schiphaz city, bringing joy and mirth, 
 
 — So had ye deemed ; while the reverse was true, 
 
 Since one small house there gave a sorrow birth 
 In such black sort that, to each faithful eye. 
 Midnight, not morning settled on the earth. 
 
74 yOCOSERIA. 
 
 How else, when it grew certain thou wouldst die 
 Our much-enlightened master, Israel's prop, 
 Eximious Jochanan Ben Sabbathai ? 
 
 Old, yea but, undiminished of a drop. 
 
 The vital essence pulsed through heart and brain ; 
 
 Time left unsickled yet the plenteous crop 
 
 On poll and chin and cheek, whereof a skein 
 Handmaids might weave — hairs silk-soft, silver-white, 
 Such as the wool-plant's ; none the less in vain 
 
 Had Physic striven her best against the spite 
 Of fell disease : the Rabbi must succumb ; 
 And, round the couch whereon in piteous plight 
 
 He lay a-dying, scholars, — awe-struck, dumb 
 Throughout the night-watch, — roused themselves and 
 
 spoke 
 One to the other : " Ere death's touch benumb 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH, 75 
 
 " His active sense, — while yet 'neath Reason's yoke 
 Obedient toils his tongue, — befits we claim 
 The fruit of long experience, bid this oak 
 
 *'Shed us an acorn which may, all the same. 
 Grow to a temple-pillar, — dear that day ! — 
 When Israel's scattered seed finds place and name 
 
 " Among the envious nations. Lamp us, pray. 
 Thou the Enlightener ! Partest hence in peace ? 
 Hailest without regret — much less, dismay — 
 
 " The hour of thine approximate release 
 
 From fleshly bondage soul hath found obstruct ? 
 
 Calmly envisagest the sure increase 
 
 " Of knowledge ? Eden's tree must hold unplucked 
 Some apple, sure, has never tried thy tooth. 
 Juicy with sapience thou hast sought, not sucked ? 
 
76 JOCOSERIA, 
 
 " Say, does age acquiesce in vanished youth ? 
 
 Still towers thy purity above — as erst — 
 
 Our pleasant follies ? Be thy last word — truth ! " 
 
 The Rabbi groaned ; then, grimly, ^' Last as first 
 The truth speak I — in boyhood who began 
 Striving to live an angel, and, amerced 
 
 " For such presumption, die now hardly man. 
 What have I proved of life ? To live, indeed. 
 That much I learned : but here lies Jochanan 
 
 " More luckless than stood David when, to speed 
 His flighting with the Philistine, they brought 
 Saul's harness forth : whereat, ' x\lack, I need 
 
 *' Armour to arm me, but have never fought 
 With sword and spear, nor tried to manage shield, 
 Proving arms' use, as well-trained warrior ought 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 77 
 
 "Only a sling and pebbles can I wield ! ' 
 So he : while I, contrariwise, ' No trick 
 Of weapon helpful on the battle-field 
 
 " Comes unfamiliar to my theoric : 
 
 But, bid me put in practice what I know, 
 
 Give me a sword — it stings like Moses' stick, 
 
 " A serpent I let drop apace.' E'en so, 
 I^ — able to comport me at each stage 
 Of human life as never here below 
 
 «" Man played his part, — since mine the heritage 
 
 Of wisdom carried to that perfect pitch, 
 
 Ye rightly praise, — I, therefore, who, thus sage, 
 
 " Could sure act man triumphantly, enrich 
 Life's annals with example how I played 
 Lover, Bard, Soldier, Statist, — (all of which 
 
78 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 " Parts in presentment failing, cries invade 
 
 The world's ear — ^ Ah, the Past, the pearl-gift thrown 
 
 To hogs, time's opportunity we made 
 
 " So light of, only recognised when flown ! 
 
 Had we been wise ! ') — in fine, I — wise enough, — 
 
 What profits brings me wisdom never shown 
 
 " Just when its showing would from each rebuff 
 Shelter weak virtue, threaten back to bounds 
 Encroaching vice, tread smooth each track too rough 
 
 " For youth's unsteady footstep, climb the rounds 
 
 Of life's long ladder, one by slippery one. 
 
 Yet make no stumble ? Me hard fate confounds 
 
 " With that same crowd of wallers I outrun 
 
 By promising to teach another cry 
 
 Of more hilarious mood than theirs, the sun 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 79 
 
 '^ I look my last at is insulted by. 
 
 What cry, — ye ask ? Give ear on every side ! 
 
 Witness yon Lover ! ' How entrapped am I ! 
 
 " Methought, because a virgin's rose-lip vied 
 With ripe Khubbezleh's, needs must beauty mate 
 With meekness and discretion in a bride : 
 
 " Bride she became to me who wail — too late — 
 Unwise I loved!'' That 's one cry. ^Mind 's my 
 
 gift: 
 I might have loaded me with lore, full weight 
 
 " Pressed down and running over at each rift 
 
 O' the brain-bag where the famished clung and 
 
 fed. 
 I filled it with what rubbish ! — would not sift 
 
8o JOCOSERIA. 
 
 "The wheat from chaff, sound grain from musty — 
 
 shed 
 Poison abroad as oft as nutriment — 
 And sighing say but as my fellows said, 
 
 " Unwise I learned ! ' That 's two. * In dwarfs-play 
 
 spent 
 Was giant's prowess : warrior all unversed 
 In war's right waging, I struck brand, was lent 
 
 " For steel's fit service, on mere stone — and cursed 
 Alike the shocked limb and the shivered steel, 
 Seeing too late the blade's true use which erst 
 
 " How was I blind to ! My cry swells the peal — 
 Unwise I fought ! ' That 's three. But wherefore 
 
 waste 
 Breath on the wailings longer ? Why reveal 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 8i 
 
 " A root of bitterness whereof the taste 
 
 Is noisome to Humanity at large ? 
 
 First we get Power, but Power absurdly placed 
 
 " In Folly's keeping, who resigns her charge 
 
 To Wisdom when all Power grows nothing worth : 
 
 Bones marrowless are mocked with helm and targe 
 
 " When, like your Master's, soon below the earth 
 With worms shall warfare only be. Farewell, 
 Children ! I die a failure since my birth 1 " 
 
 " Not so ! " arose a protest as, pell-mell. 
 They pattered from his chamber to the street, 
 Bent on a last resource. Our Targums tell 
 
 That such resource there is. Put case, there meet 
 The Nine Points of Perfection — rarest chance- 
 Within some saintly teacher whom the fleet 
 
 G 
 
82 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 Years, in their blind implacable advance, 
 O 'ertake before fit teaching born of these 
 Have magnified his scholars' countenance, — 
 
 If haply folk compassionating please 
 To render up — according to his store, 
 Each one — a portion of the life he sees 
 
 Hardly worth saving when 't is set before 
 Earth's benefit should the Saint, Hakkadosh, 
 Favoured thereby, attain to full fourscore — 
 
 If such contribute (Scoffer, spare thy " Bosh ! ") 
 A year, a month, a day, an hour — to eke 
 Life out, — in him away the gift shall wash 
 
 That much of ill-spent time recorded, streak 
 
 The twilight of the so-assisted sage 
 
 With a new sunrise : truth, though strange to speak ! 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 83 
 
 Quick to the door-way, then, where youth and age. 
 
 All Israel, thronging, waited for the last 
 
 News of the loved one. " 'T is the final stage : 
 
 " Art's utmost done, the Rabbi's feet tread fast 
 The way of all flesh ! " So announced that apt 
 Olive-branch Tsaddik : " Yet, O Brethren, cast 
 
 " No eye to earthward ! Look where heaven has clapped 
 Morning's extinguisher — yon ray-shot robe 
 Of sun-threads — on the constellation mapped 
 
 "And mentioned by our Elders, — yea, from Job 
 Down to Satam, — as figuring forth — what? 
 Perpend a mystery ! Ye call it Dob^ 
 
 " '- The Bear ' : I trow, a wiser name than that 
 
 Were Aish — ' The Bier ' : a corpse those four stars hold. 
 
 Which — are not those Three Daughters weeping at, 
 
 G 2 
 
84 yOCOSERIA. 
 
 " Banoth ? I judge so : list while I unfold 
 The reason. As in twice twelve hours this Bier 
 Goes and returns, about the east-cone rolled, 
 
 " So may a setting luminary here 
 
 Be rescued from extinction, rolled anew 
 
 Upon its track of labour, strong and clear, 
 
 ^' About the Pole — that Salem, every Jew 
 
 Helps to build up when thus he saves some Saint 
 
 Ordained its architect. Ye grasp the clue 
 
 " To all ye seek ? The Rabbi's lamp-flame faint 
 Sinks : would ye raise it ? Lend then life from yours, 
 Spare each his oil-drop ! Do I need acquaint 
 
 " The Chosen how self-sacrifice ensures 
 
 Ten-fold requital ? — urge ye emulate 
 
 The fame of those Old Just Ones death procures 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 85 
 
 " Such praise for, that 't is now men's sole debate 
 Which of the Ten, who volunteered at Rome 
 To die for glory to our Race, was great 
 
 " Beyond his fellows ? Was it thou — the comb 
 
 Of iron carded, flesh from bone, away. 
 
 While thy lips sputtered thro' their bloody foam 
 
 " Without a stoppage (O brave Akiba !) 
 
 ' Hear, Israel, our Lord God is One ' ? Or thou, 
 
 Jischab ? — who smiledst, burning, since there lay, 
 
 " Burning along with thee, our Law ! I trow. 
 Such martyrdom might tax flesh to afford : 
 While that for which I make petition now, 
 
 *' To what amounts it ? Youngster, wilt thou hoard 
 
 Each minute of long years thou look'st to spend 
 
 In dalliance with thy spouse ? Hast thou so soared. 
 
86 yOCOSERIA. 
 
 " Singer of songs, all out of sight of friend 
 And teacher, warbling like a woodland bird, 
 There 's left no Selah, ' twixt two psalms, to lend 
 
 " Our late-so-tuneful quirist ? Thou, averred 
 
 The fighter born to plant our lion-flag 
 
 Once more on Zion's mount,— doth, all-unheard, 
 
 " My pleading fail to move thee ? Toss some rag 
 Shall staunch our wound, some minute never missed 
 From swordsman's lustihood like thine ! Wilt lag 
 
 " In liberal bestowment, show close fist 
 
 When open palm we look for, — thou, wide-known 
 
 For state-craft ? whom, 't is said, an if thou list, 
 
 " The Shah himself would seat beside his throne. 
 So valued were advice from thee " . . . But here 
 He stopped short : such a hubbub ! Not alone 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH, S7 
 
 From those addressed, but far as well as near 
 
 The crowd broke into clamour : " Mine, mine, mine — 
 
 Lop from my life the excrescence, never fear ! 
 
 " At me thou lookedst, markedst me ! Assign 
 
 To me that privilege of granting life — 
 
 Mine, mine ! " Then he : " Be patient ! I combine 
 
 " The needful portions only, wage no strife 
 With Nature's law nor seek to lengthen out 
 The Rabbi's day unduly. 'T is the knife 
 
 " I stop, — would cut its thread too short. About 
 
 As much as helps life last the proper term, 
 
 The appointed Fourscore,— that I crave, and scout 
 
 " A too-prolonged existence. Let the worm 
 Change at fit season to the butterfly ! 
 And here a story strikes me, to confirm 
 
8 JOCOSERIA, 
 
 " This judgment. Of our worthies, none ranks high 
 
 As Perida who kept the famous school : 
 
 None rivaled him in patience : none ! For why ? 
 
 " In lecturing it was his constant rule, 
 
 Whatever he expounded, to repeat 
 
 — Ay, and keep on repeating, lest some fool 
 
 " Should fail to understand him fully — (feat 
 
 Unparalleled, Uzzean !) — do ye mark ? — 
 
 Five hundred times ! So might he entrance beat 
 
 *' For knowledge into howsoever dark 
 
 And dense the brain-pan. -Yet it happed, at close 
 
 Of one especial lecture, not one spark 
 
 " Of light was found to have illumed the rows 
 Of pupils round their pedagogue. ' What, still 
 Impenetrable to me ? Then — here goes ! ' 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSfl. 89 
 
 " And for a second time he sets the rill 
 
 Of knowledge running, and five hundred times 
 
 More re-repeats the matter — and gains nil. 
 
 " Out broke a voice from heaven : 'Thy patience climbs 
 Even thus high. Choose ! Wilt thou, rather, quick 
 Ascend to bliss — or, since thy zeal sublimes 
 
 " Such drudgery, will thy back still bear its crick. 
 Bent o'er thy class, — thy voice drone spite of drouth, — 
 Five hundred years more at thy desk wilt stick ? ' 
 
 " ' To heaven with me !' was in the good man's mouth, 
 When all his scholars, — cruel-kind were they ! — 
 Stopped utterance, from East, West, North and South, 
 
 '' Rending the welkin with their shout of ^Nay — 
 No heaven as yet for our instructor 1 Grant 
 Five hundred years on earth for Perida ! ' 
 
90 yOCOSERIA, 
 
 " And so long did he keep instructing ! Want 
 Our Master no such misery ! I but take 
 Three months of life marital. Ministrant 
 
 "Be thou of so much, Poet ! Bold I make, 
 Swordsman, with thy frank offer ! — and conclude. 
 Statist, with thine ! One year, — ye will not shake 
 
 " My purpose to accept no more. So rude ? 
 The very boys and girls, forsooth, must press 
 And proffer their addition ? Thanks ! The mood 
 
 " Is laudable, but I reject, no less. 
 
 One month, week, day of life more. Leave my gown, 
 
 Ye overbold ones ! Your life's gift, you guess, 
 
 " Were good as any? Rudesby, get thee down ! 
 Set my feet free, or fear my staff ! Farewell, 
 Seniors and saviours, sharers of renown 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 91 
 
 " With Jochanan henceforward ! " Straightway fell 
 Sleep on the sufferer ; who awoke in health, 
 Hale everyway, so potent was the spell. 
 
 O the rare Spring-time ! Who is he by stealth 
 Approaches Jochanan ? — embowered that sits 
 Under his vine and figtree mid the wealth 
 
 Of garden-sights and sounds, since intermits 
 Never the turtle's coo, nor stays nor stints 
 The rose her smell. In homage that befits 
 
 The musing Master, Tsaddik, see, imprints 
 A kiss on the extended foot, low bends 
 Forehead to earth, then, all-obsequious, hints 
 
92 JOCOSERIA, 
 
 " What if it should be time ? A period ends — 
 That of the Lover's gift — his quarter-y6ar 
 Of lustihood : 'tis just thou make amends-, 
 
 *' Return that loan with usury : so, here 
 
 Come I, of thy Disciples delegate. 
 
 Claiming our lesson from thee. Make appear 
 
 " Thy profit from experience ! Plainly state 
 
 How men should Love ! " Thus he : and to him thus 
 
 The Rabbi : '' Love, ye call it ? — rather, Hate ! 
 
 " What wouldst thou ? Is it needful I discuss 
 Wherefore new sweet wine, poured in bottles caked 
 With old strong wine's deposit, offers us 
 
 *' Spoilt liquor we recoil from, thirst-unslaked ? 
 
 Like earth-smoke from a crevice, influence wound — ' 
 
 Languors and yearnings : not a sense but ached 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 93 
 
 " Weighed on by fancied form and feature, sound 
 
 Of silver word and sight of sunny smile : 
 
 No beckoning of a flower-branch, no profound 
 
 " Purple of noon-oppression, no light wile 
 
 O' the West wind, but transformed itself till — brief — 
 
 Before me stood the phantasy ye style 
 
 " Youth's love, the joy that shall not come to grief, 
 Born to endure, eternal, unimpaired 
 By custom the accloyer, time the thief 
 
 " Had Age's hard cold knowledge only spared 
 That ignorance of Youth ! But now the dream, 
 Fresh as from Paradise, alighting fared 
 
 " As fares the pigeon, finding what may seem 
 Her nest's safe hollow holds a snake inside 
 Coiled to enclasp her. See, Eve stands supreme 
 
94 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 " In youth and beauty ! Take her for thy bride ! 
 What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew 
 Morn set a-sparkle, but which noon has dried 
 
 " While Youth bent gazing at its red and blue 
 Supposed perennial, — never dreamed the sun 
 Which kindled the display would quench it too. 
 
 *' Graces of shape and colour — everyone 
 
 With its appointed period of decay 
 
 When ripe to purpose ! ' Still, these dead and done, 
 
 " Survives the woman-nature — the soft sway 
 
 Of undefinable omnipotence 
 
 O'er our strong male-stuff, we of Adam's clay,' 
 
 *^ Ay, if my physics taught not why and whence 
 The attraction ! Am I like the simple steer 
 Who, from his pasture lured inside the fence 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 95 
 
 " Where yoke and goad await him, holds that mere 
 Kindliness prompts extension of the hand 
 Hollowed for barley, which drew near and near 
 
 " His nose — in proof that, of the horned band. 
 The farmer best affected him ? Beside, 
 Steer, long since calf hood, got to understand 
 
 " Farmers a many in the world so wide 
 
 Were ready with a handful just as choice 
 
 Or choicer — maize and cummin, treats untried. 
 
 " Shall I wed wife, and all my days rejoice 
 
 I gained the peacock ? 'Las me, round I look. 
 
 And lo — ^ With me thou wouldst have blamed no voice 
 
 " Like hers that daily deafens like a rook : 
 I am the phoenix ! ' — 'I, the lark, the dove, 
 — The owl,' for aught knows he who blindly took 
 
96 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 *' Peacock for partner, while the vale, the grove, 
 The plain held bird-mates in abundance. There ! 
 Youth, try fresh capture ! Age has found out Love 
 
 *' Long ago. War seems better worth man's care. 
 But leave me ! Disappointment finds a balm 
 Haply in slumber." " This first step o' the stair 
 
 '' To knowledge fails me, but the victor's palm 
 
 Lies on the next to tempt him overleap 
 
 A stumbling-block experience. Gather calm, 
 
 " Thou excellence of Judah, cured by sleep 
 Which ushers in the Warrior, to replace 
 The Lover ! At due season I shall reap 
 
 " Fruit of my planting ! " So, with lengthened face, 
 Departed Tsaddik : and three moons more waxed 
 And waned, and not until the summer-space 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 97 
 
 Waned likewise, any second visit taxed 
 
 The Rabbi's patience. But at three months' end, 
 
 Behold, supine beneath a rock, relaxed 
 
 The sage lay musing till the noon should spend 
 Its ardour. Up comes Tsaddik, who but he. 
 With " Master, may I warn thee, nor offend, 
 
 " That time comes round again ? We look to see 
 Sprout from the old branch — not the youngling twig — 
 But fruit of sycamine : deliver me, 
 
 " To share among my fellows, some plump fig, 
 Juicy as seedy ! That same man of war. 
 Who, with a scantling of his store, made big 
 
 " Thy starveling nature, caused thee, safe from scar, 
 To share his gains by long acquaintanceship 
 With bump and bruise and all the knocks that are 
 
 H 
 
I . yOCOSERIA, 
 
 " Of battle dowry : therefore, loose thy lip, 
 Explain the good of battle ! Since thou know'st. 
 Let us know likewise ! Fast the moments slip, 
 
 " Moreneed that we improve them ! " — " Ay, we boast, 
 We warriors in our youth, that with the sw^ord 
 Man goes the swiftliest to the uttermost — 
 
 " Takes the straight way thro' lands yet unexplored 
 To absolute Right and Good, — may so obtain 
 God's glory and man's weal too long ignored, 
 
 " Too late attained by preachments all in vain, — 
 The passive process. Knots get tangled worse 
 By toying with : does cut cord close again ? 
 
 " Moreover there is blessing in the curse 
 Peace-praisers call war. What so sure evolves 
 All the capacities of soul, proves nurse 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 99 
 
 ^' Of that self-sacrifice in men which solves 
 The riddle — Wherein differs Man from beast 'i 
 Foxes boast cleverness and courage wolves : 
 
 " Nowhere but in mankind is found the least 
 Touch of an impulse ' To our fellows — good 
 I' the highest ! — not diminished but increased 
 
 " By the condition plainly understood 
 
 — Such good shall be attained at price of hurt 
 
 I' the highest to ourselves ! ' Fine sparks, that brood 
 
 " Confusedly in Man, 't is war bids spurt 
 Forth into flame : as fares the meteor-mass, 
 Whereof no particle but holds inert 
 
 ** Some seed of light and heat, however crass 
 The enclosure, yet avails not to discharge 
 Its radiant birth before there come to pass 
 
 H 2 
 
K> JOCOSERIA. 
 
 " Some push external, — strong to set at large 
 Those dormant fire-seeds, whirl them in a trice 
 Through heaven and light up earth from marge to 
 marge : 
 
 "Since force by motion makes — what erst was ice — 
 
 Crash into fervency and so expire, 
 
 Because some Djinn has hit on a device . 
 
 " For proving the full prettiness of fire ! 
 Ay, thus we prattle — young : but old — why, first. 
 Where 's that same Right and Good — (the wise en- 
 quire) — 
 
 " So absolute, it warrants the outburst 
 
 Of blood, tears, all war's woeful consequence, 
 
 That comes of the fine flaring ? Which plague cursed 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 
 
 " The more your benefitted Man — offence, 
 
 Or what suppressed the offender ? Say it did — 
 
 Show us the evil cured by violence, 
 
 "Submission cures not also ! Lift the lid 
 From the maturing crucible, we find 
 Its slow sure coaxing-out of virtue, hid 
 
 '^ In that same meteor-mass, hath uncombined 
 
 Those particles and, yielding for result 
 
 Gold, not mere flame, by so much leaves behind 
 
 " The heroic product. E'en the simple cult 
 Of Edom's children wisely bids them turn 
 Cheek to the smiter with ^ Sic Jesus vult.^ 
 
 " Say there 's a tyrant by whose death we earn 
 Freedom, and justify a war to wage : 
 Good ! — were we only able to discern 
 
02 yOCOSERIA, 
 
 " Exactly how to reach and catch and cage 
 Him only and no innocent beside ! 
 Whereas the folk whereon war wreaks its rage 
 
 " — How shared they his ill-doing ? Far and wide 
 The victims of our warfare strew the plain, 
 Ten thousand dead, whereof not one but died 
 
 '^ In faith that vassals owed their suzerain 
 
 Life : therefore each paid tribute, — honest soul, — 
 
 To that same Right and Good ourselves are fain 
 
 "To claim exclusively our end. From bole 
 (Since ye accept in me a sycamine) 
 Pluck, eat, digest a fable — yea, the sole 
 
 " Fig I afford you ! * Dost thou dwarf my vine ? ' 
 
 (So did a certain husbandman address 
 
 The tree which faced his field) ' Receive condign 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH, 103 
 
 " Punishment, prompt removal by the stress 
 Of axe I forthwith lay unto thy root ! ' 
 Long did he hack and hew, the root no less 
 
 "As long defied him, for its tough strings shoot 
 As deep down as the boughs above aspire : 
 All that he did was — shake to the tree's foot 
 
 " Leafage and fruitage, things we most require 
 For shadow and refreshment : which good deed 
 Thoroughly done, behold the axe-haft tires 
 
 " His hand, and he desisting leaves unfreed 
 
 The vine he hacked and hewed for. Comes a frost, 
 
 One natural night's-work, and there 's little need 
 
 " Of hacking, hewing : lo, the tree 's a ghost ! 
 Perished it starves, black death from topmost bough 
 To farthest-reachinoj fibre ! Shall I boast 
 
104 yOCOSERIA. 
 
 " My rough work, — warfare, — helped more ? Loving, 
 
 now — 
 That, by comparison, seems wiser, since 
 The loving fool was able to avow 
 
 " He could effect his purpose, just evince 
 
 Love's willingness, — once ware of what she lacked, 
 
 His loved one, — to go work for that, nor wince 
 
 ' At self-expenditure : he neither hacked 
 Nor hewed, but when the lady of his field 
 Required defence because the sun attacked, 
 
 " He, failing to obtain a fitter shield, 
 Would interpose his body, and so blaze. 
 Blest in the burning. Ah, were mine to wield 
 
 " The intellectual weapon — poet-lays, — 
 
 How preferably had I sung one song 
 
 Which . . . but my sadness sinks me : go your ways I 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH, 105 
 
 " I sleep out disappointment." " Come along, 
 Never lose heart ! There 's still as much again 
 Of our bestowment left to right the wrong 
 
 " Done by its earlier moiety — explain 
 
 Wherefore, who may ! The Poet's mood comes next. 
 
 Was he not wishful the poetic vein 
 
 " Should pulse within him ? Jochanan, thou reck'st 
 Little of what a generous flood shall soon 
 Float thy clogged spirit free and unperplexed 
 
 *' Above dry dubitation ! Song 's the boon 
 Shall make amends for my untoward mistake 
 That Joshua-like thou couldst bid sun and moon — 
 
 ** Fighter and Lover, — which for most men make 
 All they descry in heaven, — stand both stock-still 
 And lend assistance. Poet shalt thou wake ! " 
 
io6 yOCOSERIA. 
 
 Autumn brings Tsaddik. " Ay, there speeds the rill 
 Loaded with leaves : a scowling sky, beside : 
 The wind makes olive-trees up yonder hill 
 
 " Whiten and shudder — symptoms far and wide 
 Of gleaning-time's approach ; and glean good store 
 May I presume to trust we shall, thou tried 
 
 " And ripe experimenter ! Three months more 
 Have ministered to growth of Song : that graft 
 Into thy sterile stock has found at core 
 
 " Moisture, I warrant, hitherto unquaffed 
 
 By boughs, however florid, wanting sap 
 
 Of prose-experience which provides the draught 
 
 " Mere song-sprouts, wanting, wither : vain we tap 
 A youngling stem all green and immature 
 Experience must secrete the stuff, our hap 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 107 
 
 " Will be to quench Man's thirst with, glad and sure 
 That fancy wells up through corrective fact : 
 Wanting which test of truth, though flowers allure 
 
 " The goodman's eye with promise, soon the pact 
 Is broken, and 't is flowers, — mere words, — he finds 
 When things, — that 's fruit, — he looked for. Well, once 
 cracked 
 
 " The nut, how glad my tooth the kernel grinds ! 
 Song may henceforth boast substance ! Therefore, 
 
 hail 
 Proser and poet, perfect in both kinds ! 
 
 " Thou from whose eye hath dropped the envious scale 
 Which hides the truth of things and substitutes 
 Deceptive show, unaided optics fail 
 
io8 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 " To transpierce, — hast entrusted to the lute's 
 Soft but sure guardianship some unrevealed 
 Secret shall lift mankind above the brutes 
 
 " As only knowledge can ? " "A fount unsealed" 
 (Sighed Jochanan) " should seek the heaven in leaps 
 To die in dew-gems — not find death, congealed 
 
 " By contact with the cavern's nether deeps, 
 Earth's secretest foundation where, enswathed 
 In dark and fear, primaeval mystery sleeps — 
 
 " Petrific fount wherein my fancies bathed 
 
 And straight turned ice. My dreams of good and fair 
 
 In soaring upwards had dissolved, unscathed 
 
 " By any influence of the kindly air, 
 
 Singing, as each took flight, ' The Future — that 's 
 
 Our destination, mists turn rainbows there. 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 109 
 
 " Which sink to fog, confounded in the flats 
 
 O' the Present ! Day 's the song-time for the lark, 
 
 Night for her music boasts but owls and bats. 
 
 " And what 's the Past but night — the deep and dark 
 Ice-spring I speak of, corpse-thicked with its drowned 
 Dead fancies which no sooner touched the mark 
 
 " They aimed at — fact — than all at once they found 
 Their film-wings freeze, henceforth unfit to reach 
 And roll in aether, revel — robed and crowned 
 
 " As truths confirmed by falsehood all and each — 
 
 Sovereign and absolute and ultimate ! 
 
 Up with them, skyward, Youth, ere Age impeach 
 
 *^ Thy least of promises to re-instate 
 Adam in Eden ! Sing on, ever sing. 
 Chirp till thou burst ! — the fool cicada's fate, 
 
lo JOCOSERIA, 
 
 " Who holds that after Summer next comes Spring, 
 Than Summer's self sun-warmed, spice-scented more. 
 Fighting was better ! There, no fancy- fling 
 
 " Pitches you past the point was reached of yore 
 By Sampsons, Abners, Joabs, Judases, 
 The mighty men of valour who, before 
 
 " Our little day, did wonders none profess 
 To doubt were fable and not fact, so trust 
 By fancy-flights to emulate much less. 
 
 " AVere I a Statesman, now ! Why, that were just 
 To pinnacle my soul, mankind above, 
 A-top the universe : no vulgar lust 
 
 " To gratify — fame, greed, at this remove 
 Looked down upon so far — or over-looked 
 So largely, rather — that mine eye should rove 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. in 
 
 " World-wide and rummage earth, the many-nooked, 
 Yet find no unit of the human flock 
 Caught straying but straight comes back hooked and 
 crooked 
 
 " By the strong shepherd who, from out his stock 
 Of aids proceeds to treat each ailing fleece. 
 Here stimulate to growth, curtail and dock 
 
 " There, baldness or excrescence, — that, with grease, 
 This, with up-grubbing of the bristly patch 
 Born of the tick-bite. How supreme a peace 
 
 " Steals o'er the Statist, — while, in wit, a match 
 For shrewd Ahithophel, in wisdom . . . well. 
 His name escapes me — somebody, at watch 
 
2 JOCOSERIA, 
 
 " And ward, the fellow of Ahithophel 
 
 In guidance of the Chosen ! " — at which word 
 
 Eyes closed and fast asleep the Rabbi fell. 
 
 " Cold weather ! " shivered Tsaddik. "Yet the hoard 
 Of the sagacious ant shows garnered grain, 
 Ever abundant most when fields afford 
 
 " Least pasture, and alike disgrace the plain 
 Tall tree and lowly shrub. 'T is so with us 
 Mortals : our age stores wealth ye seek in vain 
 
 " While busy youth culls just what we discuss 
 At leisure in the last days : and the last 
 Truly are these for Jochanan, whom thus 
 
 " I make one more appeal to ! Thine amassed 
 Experience, now or never, let escape 
 Some portion of ! For I perceive aghast 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. IT3 
 
 "The end approaches, while they jeer and jape, 
 These sons of Shimei : ' Justify your boast ! 
 What have ye gained from Death by twelve months' 
 rape ? ' 
 
 " Statesman, what cure hast thou for — least and most- 
 Popular grievances ? What nostrum, say. 
 Will make the Rich and Poor, expertly dosed, 
 
 " Forget disparity, bid each go gay 
 
 That, with his bauble,— with his burden, this? 
 
 Propose an alkahest shall melt away 
 
 " Men's lacquer, show by prompt analysis 
 Which is the metal, which the make-believe, 
 So that no longer brass shall find, gold miss 
 I 
 
114 JOCOSERIA, 
 
 " Coinage and currency ? Make haste, retrieve 
 The precious moments, Master ! " Whereunto 
 There snarls an " Ever laughing in thy sleeve, 
 
 "Pert Tsaddik? Youth indeed sees plain a clue 
 To guide man where life's wood is intricate : 
 How shall he fail to thrid its thickest through 
 
 " When every oak-trunk takes the eye ? Elate 
 He goes from bole to brushwood, plunging finds — 
 Smothered in briars — that the small 's the great ! 
 
 " All men are men : I would all minds were minds ! 
 Whereas 't is just the many's mindless mass 
 That most needs helping : labourers and hinds 
 
 " We legislate for — not the cultured class 
 Which law-makes for itself nor needs the whip 
 And bridle, — proper help for mule and ass. 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. ii5 
 
 ^^ Did the brutes know ! In vain our statesmanship 
 Strives at contenting the rough multitude : 
 Still the ox cries ^ 'T is me thou shouldst equip 
 
 " With equine trappings ! ' or, in humbler mood, 
 * Cribful of corn for me ! and, as for work — 
 Adequate rumination o'er my food ! ' 
 
 " Better remain a Poet ! Needs it irk 
 Such an one if light, kindled in his sphere, 
 Fail to transfuse the Mizraim cold and murk 
 
 " Round about Goshen ? Though light disappear. 
 Shut inside, — temporary ignorance 
 Got outside of, lo, light emerging clear 
 
 " Shows each astonished starer the expanse 
 
 Of heaven made bright with knowledge ! That 's the way, 
 
 The only way — I see it at a glance — 
 
.1X6 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 " To legislate for earth ! As poet. . . . Stay ! 
 What is ... I would that . . . were it ... I had 
 
 been . . . 
 O sudden change, as if my arid clay 
 
 " Burst into bloom ! . . ." " A change indeed, I ween, 
 And change the last ! " sighed Tsaddik as he kissed 
 The closing eyelids. "Just as those serene 
 
 " Princes of Night apprised me ! Our acquist 
 
 Of life is spent, since corners only four 
 
 Hath Aisch, and each in turn was made desist 
 
 " In passage round the Pole (O Mishna's lore- 
 Little it profits here !) by strenuous tug 
 Of friends who eked out thus to full fourscore 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH, 117 
 
 " The Rabbi's years. I see each shoulder shrug ! 
 What have we gained ? Away the Bier may roll ! 
 To-morrow, when the Master's grave is dug, 
 
 " In with his body I may pitch the scroll 
 
 I hoped to glorify with, text and gloss. 
 
 My Science of Man's Life : one blank 's the whole ! 
 
 " Love, war, song, statesmanship— no gain, all loss. 
 The stars' bestowment ! We on our return 
 To-morrow merely find — not gold but dross. 
 
 " The body not the soul. Come, friends, we learn 
 At least thus much by our experiment — 
 That — that . . . well, find what, whom it may con- 
 cern ! " 
 
ii8 yOCQSERIA. 
 
 But next day thirough the city rumours went 
 
 Of a new persecution ; so, they fled 
 
 All Israel, each man, — this time, — from his tent, 
 
 Tsaddik among the foremost. When, the dread 
 
 Subsiding, Israel ventured back again 
 
 Some three months after, to the cave they sped 
 
 Where lay the Sage, — a reverential train ! 
 Tsaddik first enters. " What is this I view ? 
 The Rabbi still alive ? No stars remain 
 
 " Of Aisch to stop within their courses. True, 
 I mind me, certain gamesome boys must urge 
 Their offerings on me : can it be — one threw 
 
 " Life at him and it stuck ? There needs the scourge 
 To teach that urchin manners ! Prithee, grant 
 Forgiveness if we pretermit thy dirge 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 119 
 
 " Just to explain no friend was ministrant, 
 This time, of life to thee ! Some jackanapes, 
 I gather, has presumed to foist his scant 
 
 " Scurvy unripe existence— wilding grapes 
 Grass-green and sorrel-sour — on that grand wine, 
 Mighty as mellow, which my fancy shapes 
 
 " May fitly image forth this life of thine 
 
 Fed on the last low fattening lees — condensed 
 
 Elixir, no milk-mildness of the vine ! 
 
 " Rightly with Tsaddik wert thou now incensed 
 Had he been witting of the mischief wrought 
 When, for elixir, verjuice he dispensed ! " 
 
 And slowly woke, — like Shushan's flower besought 
 
 By over-curious handling to unloose 
 
 The curtained secrecy wherein she thought 
 
:o JOCOSERIA. 
 
 Her captive bee, mid store of sweets to choose, 
 Would loll in gold, pavilioned lie unteazed. 
 Sucking on, sated never, — whose, O whose 
 
 Might seem that countenance, uplift, all eased 
 Of old distraction and bewilderment. 
 Absurdly happy ? " How ye have appeased 
 
 *' The strife within me, bred this whole content, 
 This utter acquiescence in my past 
 Present and future life, — by whom was lent 
 
 " The power to work this miracle at last, — 
 Exceeds my guess. Though — ignorance confirmed 
 By knowledge sounds like paradox, I cast 
 
 " Vainly about to tell you — fitlier termed — 
 This calm struck by encountering opposites, 
 Each nullifying either ! Henceforth wormed 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 121 
 
 '' From out my heart is every snake that bites 
 
 The dove that else would brood there : doubt, which 
 
 kills 
 With hiss of * What if sorrows end delights ? ' 
 
 " Fear which stings ease with ^ Work the Master wills ! ' 
 Experience which coils round and strangles quick 
 Each hope with * Ask the Past if hoping skills 
 
 '' To work accomplishment, or proves a trick 
 Wiling thee to endeavour ! Strive, fool, stop 
 Nowise, so live, so die — that 's law ! why kick 
 
 " Against the pricks ? ' All out-wormed ! Slumber, 
 
 drop 
 Thy films once more and veil the bliss within ! 
 Experience strangle hope ? Hope waves a-top 
 
52 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 " Her wings triumphant ! Come what will, I win, 
 Whoever loses ! Every dream's assured 
 Of soberest fulfilment. There 's no sin 
 
 " Except in doubting that the light, which lured 
 
 The unwary into darkness, did no wrong 
 
 Had I but marched on bold, nor paused immured 
 
 " By mists I should have pressed thro', passed along 
 My way henceforth rejoicing ! Not the boy's 
 Passionate impulse he conceits so strong, 
 
 " Which, at first touch, truth, bubble-like, destroys,— 
 Not the man's slow conviction * Vanity 
 Of vanities — alike my griefs and joys ! ' 
 
 '* Ice ! — thawed (look up) each bird, each insect by- 
 (Look round) by all the plants that break in bloom, 
 (Look down) by every dead friend's memory 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 123 
 
 " That smiles ' Am I the dust within my tomb ? ' 
 Not either, but both these — amalgam rare — 
 Mix in a product, not from Nature's womb, 
 
 " But stuff which He the Operant — who shall dare 
 Describe His operation ? — strikes alive 
 And thaumaturgic. I nor know nor care 
 
 " How from this tohu-bohu — hopes which dive, 
 
 And fears which soar — faith, ruined through and through 
 
 By doubt, and doubt, faith treads to dust — revive 
 
 " In some surprising sort, — as see, they do ! — 
 Not merely foes no longer but fast friends — 
 What does it mean unless — O strange and new 
 
 " Discovery ! — this life proves a wine-press — blends 
 Evil and good, both fruits of Paradise, 
 Into a novel drink which — who intends 
 
124 yOCOSERIA, 
 
 " To quaff, must bear a brain for ecstasies 
 Attempered, not this all-inadequate 
 Organ which, quivering within me, dies 
 
 " — Nay, lives ! — what, how, — too soon, or else too 
 
 late— 
 I was— lam . . ." ('' He babbleth ! "Tsaddik mused) 
 " O Thou Almighty who canst re-instate 
 
 " Truths in their primal clarity, confused 
 
 By man's perception, which is man's and made 
 
 To suit his service, — how, once disabused 
 
 " Of reason which sees light half shine half shade, 
 Because of flesh, the medium that adjusts 
 Purity to his visuals, both an aid 
 
 " And hindrance, — how to eyes earth's air encrusts. 
 When purged and perfect to receive truth's beam 
 Pouring itself on the new sense it trusts 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 125 
 
 " With all its plenitude of power, — how seem 
 Then, the intricacies of shade and shine, 
 Oppugnant natures — Right and Wrong, we deem 
 
 " Irreconcilable ? O eyes of mine, 
 Freed now of imperfection, ye avail 
 To see the whole sight, nor may uncombine 
 
 " Henceforth what, erst divided, caused you quail — 
 So huge the chasm between the false and true. 
 The dream and the reality ! All hail, 
 
 " Day of my soul's deliverance — day the new, 
 The never-ending ! What though every shape 
 Whereon I wreaked my yearning to pursue 
 
 " Even to success each semblance of escape 
 From my own bounded self to some all-fair 
 All-wise external fancy, proved a rape . 
 
126 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 " Like that old giant's, feigned of fools — on air, 
 Not solid flesh ? How otherwise ? To love — 
 That lesson was to learn not here — but there — 
 
 " On earth, not here ! T is there we learn, — there 
 
 prove 
 Our parts upon the stuff we needs must spoil, 
 Striving at mastery, there bend above 
 
 " The spoiled clay potsherds, many a year of toil 
 Attests the potter tried his hand upon. 
 Till sudden he arose, wiped free from soil 
 
 " His hand, cried ^So much for attempt — anon 
 Performance ! Taught to mould the living vase. 
 What matter the cracked pitchers dead and gone ? ' 
 
 " Could I impart and could thy mind embrace 
 The secret, Tsaddik ! " ^^ Secret none to me ! " 
 Quoth Tsaddik, as the glory on the face 
 
yOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 127 
 
 Of Jochanan was quenched. *' The truth I see 
 Of what that excellence of Judah wrote, 
 Doughty Halaphta. This a case must be 
 
 "Wherein, though the last breath have passed the 
 
 throat. 
 So that * The man is dead ' we may pronounce. 
 Yet is the Ruach — (thus do we denote 
 
 " The imparted Spirit) — in no haste to bounce 
 From its entrusted Body, — some three days 
 Lingers ere it relinquish to the pounce 
 
 " Of hawk-clawed Death his victim. Further says 
 Halaphta, ' Instances have been, and yet 
 Again may be, when saints, whose earthly ways 
 
 "Tend to perfection, very nearly get 
 
 To heaven while still on earth : and, as a fine 
 
 Interval shows where waters pure have met 
 
128 JOCOSRRIA. 
 
 " Waves brackish, in a mixture, sweet with brine. 
 That 's neither sea nor river but a taste 
 Of both — so meet the earthly and divine 
 
 " And each is either. Thus I hold him graced — 
 
 Dying on earth, half inside and half out, 
 
 Wholly in heaven, who knows ? My mind embraced 
 
 " Thy secret, Jochanan, how dare I doubt ? 
 
 Follow thy Ruach, let earth, all it can, 
 
 Keep of the leavings ! " Thus was brought about 
 
 The sepulture of Rabbi Jochanan 
 
 Thou hast him, — sinner-saint, live-dead, boy-man, — 
 
 Schiphaz, on Bendimir, in Farzistan ! 
 
JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. 129 
 
 Note. This story can have no better authority than that of the 
 treatise, existing dispersedly in fragments of Rabbinical writing, 
 Dnn D**!"! ?^ *]C^D> fj^o"^ which I might have helped myself more 
 liberally. Thus, instead of the simple reference to *' Moses' stick," 
 — but what if I make amends by attempting three illustrations, when 
 some thirty might be composed on the same subject, equally justify- 
 ing that pithy proverb nt^DD Dp X^ HtJ^D ny yWOC- 
 
 Moses the Meek was thirty cubits high, 
 
 The staff he strode with — thirty cubits long ; 
 
 And when he leapt, so muscular and strong 
 Was Moses that his leaping neared the sky 
 By thirty cubits more : we learn thereby 
 
 He reached full ninety cubits — am I wrong ? — 
 
 When, in a fight slurred o'er by sacred song, 
 With staff out-stretched he took a leap to try 
 The just dimensions of the giant Og. 
 
 And yet he barely touched— this marvel lacked 
 Posterity to crown earth's catalogue 
 
 Of marvels — barely touched— to be exact — 
 The giant's ancle-bone, remained a frog 
 
 That fain would match an ox in stature : fact ! 
 
I30 JOCOSEKIA. 
 
 And this same fact has met with unbelief ! 
 
 How saith a certain traveller ? *' Young, I chanced 
 
 To come upon an object — if thou can'st, 
 Guess me its name and nature ! 'T was, in brief, 
 White, hard, round, hollow, of such length, in chief, 
 
 — And this is what especially enhanced 
 
 My wonder — that it seemed, as I advanced. 
 Never to end. Bind up within thy sheaf 
 Of marvels, this — Posterity ! I walked 
 
 From end to end, — four hours walked I, who go 
 A goodly pace, — and found — I have not balked 
 
 Thine expectation. Stranger ? Ay or No ? — 
 'T was but Og's thigh-bone, all the while, I stalked 
 
 Alongside of : respect to Moses, though ! 
 
 Og's thigh-bone — if ye deem its measure strange, 
 Myself can witness to much length of shank 
 Even in birds. Upon a water's bank 
 
 Once halting, I was minded to exchange 
 
 Noon heat for cool. Quoth I *' On many a grange 
 I have seen storks perch — legs both long and lank ; 
 
 , Yon stork's must touch the bottom of this tank, 
 
JOCHANAN- IIAKKADOSH. 131 
 
 Since on its top doth wet no plume derange 
 
 Of the smooth breast. I'll bathe there ! " " Do not so ! " 
 
 Warned me a voice from heaven. " A man let drop 
 His axe into that shallow rivulet — 
 
 As thou accountest— seventy years ago : 
 It fell and fell and still without a stop 
 
 Keeps falling, nor has reached the bottom yet. " 
 
NEVER THE TIME AND 
 THE PLACE. 
 
NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE. 
 
 Never the time and the place 
 And the loved one all together ! 
 
 This path — how soft to pace ! 
 This May — what magic weather ! 
 
 Where is the loved one's face ? 
 
 In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, 
 But the house is narrow, the place is bleak 
 
 Where, outside, rain and wind combine 
 With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak. 
 With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek. 
 
136 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 With a malice that marks each word, each sign ! 
 
 O enemy sly and serpentine, 
 
 Uncoil thee from the waking man ! 
 Do I hold the Past 
 Thus firm and fast 
 Yet doubt if the Future hold I can ? 
 This path so soft to pace shall lead 
 Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed ! 
 Or narrow if needs the house must be, 
 Outside are the storms and strangers : we — 
 Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she, 
 — I and she ! 
 
PAMBO. 
 
PAMBO. 
 
 Suppose that we part (work done, comes play) 
 With a grave tale told in crambo 
 
 — As our hearty sires were wont to say — 
 Whereof the hero is Pambo ? 
 
 Do you happen to know who Pambo was ? 
 
 Nor I — but this much have heard of him : 
 He entered one day a college-class, 
 
 And asked — was it so absurd of him ? — 
 
140 JOCOSERIA. 
 
 "May Pambo learn wisdom ere practise it ? 
 
 In wisdom I fain would ground me : 
 Since wisdom is centred in Holy Writ, 
 
 Some psalm to the purpose expound me ! ' 
 
 " That psalm," the Professor smiled, " shall be 
 Untroubled by doubt which dirtieth 
 
 Pellucid streams when an ass like thee 
 Would drink there — the Nine-and-thirtieth. 
 
 " Verse First : I said I will look to my ways 
 
 That I with my tongue offend not. 
 How now ? Why stare ? Art struck in amaze ? 
 
 Stop, stay ! The smooth line hath an end 
 knot I 
 
PAMBO. 141 
 
 '' He 's gone ! — disgusted my text should prove 
 
 Too easy to need explaining ? 
 Had he waited, the blockhead might find I move 
 
 To matter that pays remaining ! " 
 
 Long years went by, when — " Ha, who 's this ? 
 
 Do I come on the restif scholar 
 I had driven to Wisdom's goal, I wis, 
 
 But that he slipped the collar ? 
 
 " What ? Arms crossed, brow bent, thought- 
 immersed ? 
 
 A student indeed ! Why scruple 
 To own that the lesson proposed him first 
 
 Scarce suited so apt a pupil ? 
 
142 JOCOSE RIA. 
 
 "Comeback! From the beggarly elements 
 
 To a more recondite issue 
 We pass till we reach, at all events, 
 
 Some point that may puzzle . . . Why ' pish ' 
 you?" 
 
 From the ground looked piteous up the head ; 
 
 " Daily and nightly. Master, 
 Your pupil plods thro' that text you read, 
 
 Yet gets on never the faster. • 
 
 "At the self-same stand, — now old, then young ! 
 
 / will look to my ways — were doing 
 As easy as saying ! — that I with my tongue 
 
 Offend not — and 'scape pooh-poohing 
 
PAMBO. 143 
 
 " From sage and simple, doctor and dunce ? 
 
 Ah, nowise ! Still doubts so muddy 
 The stream I would drink at once, — but once ! 
 
 That — thus I resume my study ! " 
 
 Brother, brother, I share the blame, 
 
 Arcades su7nus umbo / 
 Darkling, I keep my sunrise-aim, 
 
 Lack not the critic's flambeau, 
 And look to viy ways, yet, much the same, 
 
 Offend With my tongue — like Pambo ! 
 
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