XV

And he began it by observing How reason dictated that men Should rectify the natural swerving, By a reversion, now and then, To the well-heads of knowledge, few And far away, whence rolling grew The life-stream wide whereat we drink, Commingled, as we needs must think, With waters alien to the source; To do which, aimed this eve's discourse; Since, where could be a fitter time For tracing backward to its prime This Christianity, this lake, This reservoir, whereat we slake, From one or other bank, our thirst? So, he proposed inquiring first Into the various sources whence This Myth of Christ is derivable; Demanding from the evidence, (Since plainly no such life was liveable) How these phenomena should class? Whether 'twere best opine Christ was, Or never was at all, or whether He was and was not, both together— It matters little for the name, So the idea be left the same. Only, for practical purpose's sake, 'Twas obviously as well to take The popular story,—understanding How the ineptitude of the time, And the penman's prejudice, expanding Fact into fable fit for the clime, Had, by slow and sure degrees, translated it Into this myth, this Individuum,— Which, when reason had strained and abated it Of foreign matter, left, for residuum, A man!—a right true man, however, Whose work was worthy a man's endeavor: Work, that gave warrant almost sufficient To his disciples, for rather believing He was just omnipotent and omniscient, As it gives to us, for as frankly receiving His word, their tradition,—which, though it meant Something entirely different From all that those who only heard it, In their simplicity thought and averred it, Had yet a meaning quite as respectable: For, among other doctrines delectable, Was he not surely the first to insist on The natural sovereignty of our race?— Here the lecturer came to a pausing-place. And while his cough, like a drouthy piston, Tried to dislodge the husk that grew to him, I seized the occasion of bidding adieu to him, The vesture still within my hand.

XVI

I could interpret its command. This time he would not bid me enter The exhausted air-bell of the Critic. Truth's atmosphere may grow mephitic When Papist struggles with Dissenter, Impregnating its pristine clarity, —One, by his daily fare's vulgarity, Its gust of broken meat and garlic; —One, by his soul's too-much presuming To turn the frankincense's fuming And vapors of the candle starlike Into the cloud her wings she buoys on. Each, that thus sets the pure air seething, May poison it for healthy breathing— But the Critic leaves no air to poison; Pumps out with ruthless ingenuity Atom by atom, and leaves you—vacuity. Thus much of Christ does he reject? And what retain? His intellect? What is it I must reverence duly? Poor intellect for worship, truly, Which tells me simply what was told (If mere morality, bereft Of the God in Christ, be all that's left) Elsewhere by voices manifold; With this advantage, that the stater Made nowise the important stumble Of adding, he, the sage and humble, Was also one with the Creator. You urge Christ's followers' simplicity: But how does shifting blame, evade it? Have wisdom's words no more felicity? The stumbling-block, his speech—who laid it? How comes it that for one found able To sift the truth of it from fable, Millions believe it to the letter? Christ's goodness, then—does that fare better? Strange goodness, which upon the score Of being goodness, the mere due Of man to fellow-man, much more To God,—should take another view Of its possessor's privilege, And bid him rule his race! You pledge Your fealty to such rule? What, all— From heavenly John and Attic Paul, And that brave weather-battered Peter, Whose stout faith only stood completer For buffets, sinning to be pardoned, As, more his hands hauled nets, they hardened,— All, down to you, the man of men, Professing here at Goettingen, Compose Christ's flock! They, you and I, Are sheep of a good man! And why? The goodness,—how did he acquire it? Was it self-gained, did God inspire it? Choose which; then tell me, on what ground Should its possessor dare propound His claim to rise o'er us an inch? Were goodness all some man's invention, Who arbitrarily made mention What we should follow, and whence flinch,— What qualities might take the style Of right and wrong,—and had such guessing Met with as general acquiescing As graced the alphabet erewhile, When A got leave an Ox to be, No Camel (quoth the Jews) like G, For thus inventing thing and title Worship were that man's fit requital. But if the common conscience must Be ultimately judge, adjust Its apt name to each quality Already known,—I would decree Worship for such mere demonstration And simple work of nomenclature, Only the day I praised, not nature, But Harvey, for the circulation. I would praise such a Christ, with pride And joy, that he, as none beside, Had taught us how to keep the mind God gave him, as God gave his kind, Freer than they from fleshly taint: I would call such a Christ our Saint, As I declare our Poet, him Whose insight makes all others dim: A thousand poets pried at life, And only one amid the strife Rose to be Shakespeare: each shall take His crown, I'd say, for the world's sake— Though some objected—"Had we seen The heart and head of each, what screen Was broken there to give them light, While in ourselves it shuts the sight, We should no more admire, perchance, That these found truth out at a glance, Than marvel how the bat discerns Some pitch-dark cavern's fifty turns, Led by a finer tact, a gift He boasts, which other birds must shift Without, and grope as best they can." No, freely I would praise the man,— Nor one whit more, if he contended That gift of his, from God descended. Ah friend, what gift of man's does not? No nearer something, by a jot, Rise an infinity of nothings Than one: take Euclid for your teacher: Distinguish kinds: do crownings, clothings, Make that creator which was creature? Multiply gifts upon man's head, And what, when all's done, shall be said But—the more gifted he, I ween! That one's made Christ, this other, Pilate, And this might be all that has been,— So what is there to frown or smile at? What is left for us, save, in growth Of soul, to rise up, far past both, From the gift looking to the giver, And from the cistern to the river, And from the finite to infinity, And from man's dust to God's divinity?

XVII

Take all in a word: the truth in God's breast Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed: Though he is so bright and we so dim, We are made in his image to witness him: And were no eye in us to tell, Instructed by no inner sense, The light of heaven from the dark of hell, That light would want its evidence,— Though justice, good and truth were still Divine, if, by some demon's will, Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed Law through the worlds, and right misnamed. No mere exposition of morality Made or in part or in totality, Should win you to give it worship, therefore: And, if no better proof you will care for, —Whom do you count the worst man upon earth? Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more Of what right is, than arrives at birth In the best man's acts that we bow before: This last knows better—true, but my fact is, 'Tis one thing to know, and another to practise. And thence conclude that the real God-function Is to furnish a motive and injunction For practising what we know already. And such an injunction and such a motive As the God in Christ, do you waive, and "heady, High-minded," hang your tablet-votive Outside the fane on a finger-post? Morality to the uttermost, Supreme in Christ as we all confess, Why need we prove would avail no jot To make him God, if God he were not? What is the point where himself lays stress? Does the precept run "Believe in good, In justice, truth, now understand For the first time?"—or, "Believe in me, Who lived and died, yet essentially Am Lord of Life?" Whoever can take The same to his heart and for mere love's sake Conceive of the love,—that man obtains A new truth; no conviction gains Of an old one only, made intense By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.

XVIII

Can it be that he stays inside? Is the vesture left me to commune with? Could my soul find aught to sing in tune with Even at this lecture, if she tried? Oh, let me at lowest sympathize With the lurking drop of blood that lies In the desiccated brain's white roots Without throb for Christ's attributes, As the lecturer makes his special boast! If love's dead there, it has left a ghost. Admire we, how from heart to brain (Though to say so strike the doctors dumb) One instinct rises and falls again, Restoring the equilibrium. And how when the Critic had done his best, And the pearl of price, at reason's test, Lay dust and ashes levigable On the Professor's lecture-table,— When we looked for the inference and monition That our faith, reduced to such condition, Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole,— He bids us, when we least expect it, Take back our faith,—if it be not just whole, Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it, Which fact pays damage done rewardingly, So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly! "Go home and venerate the myth I thus have experimented with— This man, continue to adore him Rather than all who went before him, And all who ever followed after!"— Surely for this I may praise you, my brother! Will you take the praise in tears or laughter? That's one point gained: can I compass another? Unlearned love was safe from spurning— Can't we respect your loveless learning? Let us at least give learning honor! What laurels had we showered upon her, Girding her loins up to perturb Our theory of the Middle Verb; Or Turk-like brandishing a scimitar O'er anapaests in comic-trimeter; Or curing the halt and maimed 'Iketides,' While we lounged on at our indebted ease: Instead of which, a tricksy demon Sets her at Titus or Philemon! When ignorance wags his ears of leather And hates God's word, 'tis altogether; Nor leaves he his congenial thistles To go and browse on Paul's Epistles. —And you, the audience, who might ravage The world wide, enviably savage, Nor heed the cry of the retriever, More than Herr Heine (before his fever),— I do not tell a lie so arrant As say my passion's wings are furled up, And, without plainest heavenly warrant, I were ready and glad to give the world up— But still, when you rub brow meticulous, And ponder the profit of turning holy If not for God's, for your own sake solely, —God forbid I should find you ridiculous! Deduce from this lecture all that eases you, Nay, call yourselves, if the calling pleases you, "Christians,"—abhor the deist's pravity,— Go on, you shall no more move my gravity Than, when I see boys ride a-cockhorse, I find it in my heart to embarrass them By hinting that their stick's a mock horse, And they really carry what they say carries them.

XIX

So sat I talking with my mind. I did not long to leave the door And find a new church, as before, But rather was quiet and inclined To prolong and enjoy the gentle resting From further tracking and trying and testing. "This tolerance is a genial mood!" (Said I, and a little pause ensued). "One trims the bark 'twixt shoal and shelf, And sees, each side, the good effects of it, A value for religion's self, A carelessness about the sects of it. Let me enjoy my own conviction, Not watch my neighbor's faith with fretfulness, Still spying there some dereliction Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness! Better a mild indifferentism, Teaching that both our faiths (though duller His shine through a dull spirit's prism) Originally had one color! Better pursue a pilgrimage Through ancient and through modern times To many peoples, various climes, Where I may see saint, savage, sage Fuse their respective creeds in one Before the general Father's throne!"

XX

—'Twas the horrible storm began afresh! The black night caught me in his mesh, Whirled me up, and flung me prone. I was left on the college-step alone. I looked, and far there, ever fleeting Far, far away, the receding gesture, And looming of the lessening vesture!— Swept forward from my stupid hand, While I watched my foolish heart expand In the lazy glow of benevolence, O'er the various modes of man's belief. I sprang up with fear's vehemence. Needs must there be one way, our chief Best way of worship: let me strive To find it, and when found, contrive My fellows also take their share! This constitutes my earthly care: God's is above it and distinct. For I, a man, with men am linked And not a brute with brutes; no gain That I experience, must remain Unshared: but should my best endeavor To share it, fail—subsisteth ever God's care above, and I exult That God, by God's own ways occult, May—doth, I will believe—bring back All wanderers to a single track. Meantime, I can but testify God's care for me—no more, can I— It is but for myself I know; The world rolls witnessing around me Only to leave me as it found me; Men cry there, but my ear is slow: Their races flourish or decay —What boots it, while yon lucid way Loaded with stars divides the vault? But soon my soul repairs its fault When, sharpening sense's hebetude, She turns on my own life! So viewed, No mere mote's-breadth but teems immense With witnessings of providence: And woe to me if when I look Upon that record, the sole book Unsealed to me, I take no heed Of any warning that I read! Have I been sure, this Christmas-Eve, God's own hand did the rainbow weave, Whereby the truth from heaven slid Into my soul? I cannot bid The world admit he stooped to heal My soul, as if in a thunder-peal Where one heard noise, and one saw flame, I only knew he named my name: But what is the world to me, for sorrow Or joy in its censure, when to-morrow It drops the remark, with just-turned head Then, on again, "That man is dead"? Yes, but for me—my name called,—drawn As a conscript's lot from the lap's black yawn, He has dipt into on a battle-dawn: Bid out of life by a nod, a glance,— Stumbling, mute-mazed, at nature's chance,— With a rapid finger circled round, Fixed to the first poor inch of ground To fight from, where his foot was found; Whose ear but a minute since lay free To the wide camp's buzz and gossipry— Summoned, a solitary man To end his life where his life began, From the safe glad rear, to the dreadful van! Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held By the hem of the vesture!—

XXI

And I caught At the flying robe, and unrepelled Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught With warmth and wonder and delight, God's mercy being infinite. For scarce had the words escaped my tongue, When, at a passionate bound, I sprung, Out of the wandering world of rain, Into the little chapel again.

He finds himself back in the chapel, all that has occurred having been a vision. His conclusions have that broadness of view which belongs only to those most advanced in thought. He has learned that not only must there be the essential truth behind every sincere effort to reach it, but that even his own vision of the truth is not necessarily the final way of truth but is merely the way which is true for him. The jump from the attitude of mind that persecutes those who do not believe according to one established rule to such absolute toleration of all forms because of their symbolizing an eternal truth gives the measure of growth in religious thought from the days of Wesley to Browning. The Wesleys and their fellow-helpers were stoned and mobbed, and some died of their wounds in the latter part of the eighteenth century, while in 1850, when "Christmas-Eve" was written, an Englishman could express a height of toleration and sympathy for religions not his own, as well as taking a religious stand for himself so exalted that it is difficult to imagine a further step in these directions. Perhaps we are suffering to-day from over-toleration, that is, we tolerate not only those whose aspiration takes a different form, but those whose ideals lead to degeneracy. It seems as though all virtues must finally develop their shadows. What, however, is a shadow but the darkness occasioned by the approach of some greater light.

XXII

How else was I found there, bolt upright On my bench, as if I had never left it? —Never flung out on the common at night, Nor met the storm and wedge-like cleft it, Seen the raree-show of Peter's successor, Or the laboratory of the Professor! For the Vision, that was true, I wist, True as that heaven and earth exist. There sat my friend, the yellow and tall, With his neck and its wen in the selfsame place; Yet my nearest neighbor's cheek showed gall. She had slid away a contemptuous space: And the old fat woman, late so placable, Eyed me with symptoms, hardly mistakable, Of her milk of kindness turning rancid. In short, a spectator might have fancied That I had nodded, betrayed by slumber, Yet kept my seat, a warning ghastly, Through the heads of the sermon, nine in number, And woke up now at the tenth and lastly. But again, could such disgrace have happened? Each friend at my elbow had surely nudged it; And, as for the sermon, where did my nap end? Unless I heard it, could I have judged it? Could I report as I do at the close, First, the preacher speaks through his nose: Second, his gesture is too emphatic: Thirdly, to waive what's pedagogic, The subject-matter itself lacks logic: Fourthly, the English is ungrammatic. Great news! the preacher is found no Pascal, Whom, if I pleased, I might to the task call Of making square to a finite eye The circle of infinity, And find so all-but-just-succeeding! Great news! the sermon proves no reading Where bee-like in the flowers I bury me, Like Taylor's the immortal Jeremy! And now that I know the very worst of him, What was it I thought to obtain at first of him? Ha! Is God mocked, as he asks? Shall I take on me to change his tasks, And dare, despatched to a river-head For a simple draught of the element, Neglect the thing for which he sent, And return with another thing instead?— Saying, "Because the water found Welling up from underground, Is mingled with the taints of earth, While thou, I know, dost laugh at dearth, And couldst, at wink or word, convulse The world with the leap of a river-pulse,— Therefore I turned from the oozings muddy, And bring thee a chalice I found, instead: See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy! One would suppose that the marble bled. What matters the water? A hope I have nursed: The waterless cup will quench my thirst." —Better have knelt at the poorest stream That trickles in pain from the straitest rift! For the less or the more is all God's gift, Who blocks up or breaks wide the granite-seam. And here, is there water or not, to drink? I then, in ignorance and weakness, Taking God's help, have attained to think My heart does best to receive in meekness That mode of worship, as most to his mind, Where earthly aids being cast behind, His All in All appears serene With the thinnest human veil between, Letting the mystic lamps, the seven, The many motions of his spirit, Pass, as they list, to earth from heaven. For the preacher's merit or demerit, It were to be wished the flaws were fewer In the earthen vessel, holding treasure Which lies as safe in a golden ewer; But the main thing is, does it hold good measure? Heaven soon sets right all other matters!— Ask, else, these ruins of humanity, This flesh worn out to rags and tatters, This soul at struggle with insanity, Who thence take comfort—can I doubt?— Which an empire gained, were a loss without. May it be mine! And let us hope That no worse blessing befall the Pope, Turned sick at last of to-day's buffoonery, Of posturings and petticoatings, Beside his Bourbon bully's gloatings In the bloody orgies of drunk poltroonery! Nor may the Professor forego its peace At Goettingen presently, when, in the dusk Of his life, if his cough, as I fear, should increase, Prophesied of by that horrible husk— When thicker and thicker the darkness fills The world through his misty spectacles, And he gropes for something more substantial Than a fable, myth or personification,— May Christ do for him what no mere man shall, And stand confessed as the God of salvation! Meantime, in the still recurring fear Lest myself, at unawares, be found, While attacking the choice of my neighbors round, With none of my own made—I choose here! The giving out of the hymn reclaims me; I have done: and if any blames me, Thinking that merely to touch in brevity The topics I dwell on, were unlawful,— Or worse, that I trench, with undue levity, On the bounds of the holy and the awful,— I praise the heart, and pity the head of him, And refer myself to THEE, instead of him, Who head and heart alike discernest, Looking below light speech we utter, When frothy spume and frequent sputter Prove that the soul's depths boil in earnest! May truth shine out, stand ever before us! I put up pencil and join chorus To Hepzibah Tune, without further apology, The last five verses of the third section Of the seventeenth hymn of Whitfield's Collection, To conclude with the doxology.

In "Easter-Day" the interest is purely personal. It is a long and somewhat intricate discussion between two friends upon the basis of belief and gives no glimpses of the historical progress of belief. In brief, the poem discusses the relation of the finite life to the infinite life. The first speaker is not satisfied with the different points of view suggested by the second speaker. First, that one would be willing to suffer martyrdom in this life if only one could truly believe it would bring eternal joy. Or perhaps doubt is God's way of telling who are his friends, who are his foes. Or perhaps God is revealed in the law of the universe, or in the shows of nature, or in the emotions of the human heart. The first speaker takes the ground that the only possibility satisfying modern demands is an assurance that this world's gain is in its imperfectness surety for true gain in another world. An imaginatively pictured experience of his own soul is next presented, wherein he represents himself at the Judgment Day as choosing the finite life instead of the infinite life. As a result, he learns there is nothing in finite life except as related to infinite life. The way opened out toward the infinite through love is that which gives the light of life to all the good things of earth which he desired—all beauties, that of nature and art, and the joy of intellectual activity.

EASTER-DAY

. . . . . . .

XV

And as I said This nonsense, throwing back my head With light complacent laugh, I found Suddenly all the midnight round One fire. The dome of heaven had stood As made up of a multitude Of handbreadth cloudlets, one vast rack Of ripples infinite and black, From sky to sky. Sudden there went, Like horror and astonishment, A fierce vindictive scribble of red Quick flame across, as if one said (The angry scribe of Judgment) "There— Burn it!" And straight I was aware That the whole ribwork round, minute Cloud touching cloud beyond compute, Was tinted, each with its own spot Of burning at the core, till clot Jammed against clot, and spilt its fire Over all heaven, which 'gan suspire As fanned to measure equable,— Just so great conflagrations kill Night overhead, and rise and sink, Reflected. Now the fire would shrink And wither off the blasted face Of heaven, and I distinct might trace The sharp black ridgy outlines left Unburned like network—then, each cleft The fire had been sucked back into, Regorged, and out it surging flew Furiously, and night writhed inflamed, Till, tolerating to be tamed No longer, certain rays world-wide Shot downwardly. On every side Caught past escape, the earth was lit; As if a dragon's nostril split And all his famished ire o'erflowed; Then, as he winced at his lord's goad, Back he inhaled: whereat I found The clouds into vast pillars bound, Based on the corners of the earth, Propping the skies at top: a dearth Of fire i' the violet intervals, Leaving exposed the utmost walls Of time, about to tumble in And end the world.

XVI

I felt begin The Judgment-Day: to retrocede Was too late now. "In very deed," (I uttered to myself) "that Day!" The intuition burned away All darkness from my spirit too: There, stood I, found and fixed, I knew, Choosing the world. The choice was made; And naked and disguiseless stayed, And unevadable, the fact. My brain held all the same compact Its senses, nor my heart declined Its office; rather, both combined To help me in this juncture. I Lost not a second,—agony Gave boldness: since my life had end And my choice with it—best defend, Applaud both! I resolved to say, "So was I framed by thee, such way I put to use thy senses here! It was so beautiful, so near, Thy world,—what could I then but choose My part there? Nor did I refuse To look above the transient boon Of time; but it was hard so soon As in a short life, to give up Such beauty: I could put the cup Undrained of half its fulness, by; But, to renounce it utterly, —That was too hard! Nor did the cry Which bade renounce it, touch my brain Authentically deep and plain Enough to make my lips let go. But Thou, who knowest all, dost know Whether I was not, life's brief while, Endeavoring to reconcile Those lips (too tardily, alas!) To letting the dear remnant pass, One day,—some drops of earthly good Untasted! Is it for this mood, That Thou, whose earth delights so well, Hast made its complement a hell?"

XVII

A final belch of fire like blood, Overbroke all heaven in one flood Of doom. Then fire was sky, and sky Fire, and both, one brief ecstasy, Then ashes. But I heard no noise (Whatever was) because a voice Beside me spoke thus, "Life is done, Time ends, Eternity's begun, And thou art judged for evermore."

XVIII

I looked up; all seemed as before; Of that cloud-Tophet overhead No trace was left: I saw instead The common round me, and the sky Above, stretched drear and emptily Of life. 'Twas the last watch of night, Except what brings the morning quite; When the armed angel, conscience-clear, His task nigh done, leans o'er his spear And gazes on the earth he guards, Safe one night more through all its wards, Till God relieve him at his post. "A dream—a waking dream at most!" (I spoke out quick, that I might shake The horrid nightmare off, and wake.) "The world gone, yet the world is here? Are not all things as they appear? Is Judgment past for me alone? —And where had place the great white throne? The rising of the quick and dead? Where stood they, small and great? Who read The sentence from the opened book?" So, by degrees, the blood forsook My heart, and let it beat afresh; I knew I should break through the mesh Of horror, and breathe presently: When, lo, again, the voice by me!

XIX

I saw.... Oh brother, 'mid far sands The palm-tree-cinctured city stands, Bright-white beneath, as heaven, bright-blue, Leans o'er it, while the years pursue Their course, unable to abate Its paradisal laugh at fate! One morn,—the Arab staggers blind O'er a new tract of death, calcined To ashes, silence, nothingness,— And strives, with dizzy wits, to guess Whence fell the blow. What if, 'twixt skies And prostrate earth, he should surprise The imaged vapor, head to foot, Surveying, motionless and mute, Its work, ere, in a whirlwind rapt It vanished up again?—So hapt My chance. HE stood there. Like the smoke Pillared o'er Sodom, when day broke,— I saw Him. One magnific pall Mantled in massive fold and fall His head, and coiled in snaky swathes About His feet: night's black, that bathes All else, broke, grizzled with despair, Against the soul of blackness there. A gesture told the mood within— That wrapped right hand which based the chin, That intense meditation fixed On His procedure,—pity mixed With the fulfilment of decree. Motionless, thus, He spoke to me, Who fell before His feet, a mass, No man now.

XX

"All is come to pass. Such shows are over for each soul They had respect to. In the roll Of judgment which convinced mankind Of sin, stood many, bold and blind, Terror must burn the truth into: Their fate for them!—thou hadst to do With absolute omnipotence, Able its judgments to dispense To the whole race, as every one Were its sole object. Judgment done, God is, thou art,—the rest is hurled To nothingness for thee. This world, This finite life, thou hast preferred, In disbelief of God's plain word, To heaven and to infinity. Here the probation was for thee, To show thy soul the earthly mixed With heavenly, it must choose betwixt. The earthly joys lay palpable,— A taint, in each, distinct as well; The heavenly flitted, faint and rare, Above them, but as truly were Taintless, so, in their nature, best. Thy choice was earth: thou didst attest 'Twas fitter spirit should subserve The flesh, than flesh refine to nerve Beneath the spirit's play. Advance No claim to their inheritance Who chose the spirit's fugitive Brief gleams, and yearned, 'This were to live Indeed, if rays, completely pure From flesh that dulls them, could endure,— Not shoot in meteor-light athwart Our earth, to show how cold and swart It lies beneath their fire, but stand As stars do, destined to expand, Prove veritable worlds, our home!' Thou saidst,—'Let spirit star the dome Of sky, that flesh may miss no peak, No nook of earth,—I shall not seek Its service further!' Thou art shut Out of the heaven of spirit; glut Thy sense upon the world: 'tis thine For ever—take it!"

XXI

"How? Is mine, The world?" (I cried, while my soul broke Out in a transport.) "Hast Thou spoke Plainly in that? Earth's exquisite Treasures of wonder and delight, For me?"

XXII

The austere voice returned,— "So soon made happy? Hadst thou learned What God accounteth happiness, Thou wouldst not find it hard to guess What hell may be his punishment For those who doubt if God invent Better than they. Let such men rest Content with what they judged the best. Let the unjust usurp at will: The filthy shall be filthy still: Miser, there waits the gold for thee! Hater, indulge thine enmity! And thou, whose heaven self-ordained Was, to enjoy earth unrestrained, Do it! Take all the ancient show! The woods shall wave, the rivers flow, And men apparently pursue Their works, as they were wont to do, While living in probation yet. I promise not thou shalt forget The past, now gone to its account; But leave thee with the old amount Of faculties, nor less nor more, Unvisited, as heretofore, By God's free spirit, that makes an end. So, once more, take thy world! Expend Eternity upon its shows, Flung thee as freely as one rose Out of a summer's opulence, Over the Eden-barrier whence Thou art excluded. Knock in vain!"

XXIII

I sat up. All was still again. I breathed free: to my heart, back fled The warmth. "But, all the world!"—I said. I stooped and picked a leaf of fern, And recollected I might learn From books, how many myriad sorts Of fern exist, to trust reports, Each as distinct and beautiful As this, the very first I cull. Think, from the first leaf to the last! Conceive, then, earth's resources! Vast Exhaustless beauty, endless change Of wonder! And this foot shall range Alps, Andes,—and this eye devour The bee-bird and the aloe-flower?

XXIV

Then the voice, "Welcome so to rate The arras-folds that variegate The earth, God's antechamber, well! The wise, who waited there, could tell By these, what royalties in store Lay one step past the entrance-door. For whom, was reckoned, not so much, This life's munificence? For such As thou,—a race, whereof scarce one Was able, in a million, To feel that any marvel lay In objects round his feet all day; Scarce one, in many millions more, Willing, if able, to explore The secreter, minuter charm! —Brave souls, a fern-leaf could disarm Of power to cope with God's intent,— Or scared if the south firmament With north-fire did its wings refledge! All partial beauty was a pledge Of beauty in its plenitude: But since the pledge sufficed thy mood, Retain it! plenitude be theirs Who looked above!"

XXV

Though sharp despairs Shot through me, I held up, bore on. "What matter though my trust were gone From natural things? Henceforth my part Be less with nature than with art! For art supplants, gives mainly worth To nature; 'tis man stamps the earth— And I will seek his impress, seek The statuary of the Greek, Italy's painting—there my choice Shall fix!"

XXVI

"Obtain it!" said the voice, "—The one form with its single act, Which sculptors labored to abstract, The one face, painters tried to draw, With its one look, from throngs they saw. And that perfection in their soul, These only hinted at? The whole, They were but parts of? What each laid His claim to glory on?—afraid His fellow-men should give him rank By mere tentatives which he shrank Smitten at heart from, all the more, That gazers pressed in to adore! 'Shall I be judged by only these?' If such his soul's capacities, Even while he trod the earth,—think, now, What pomp in Buonarroti's brow, With its new palace-brain where dwells Superb the soul, unvexed by cells That crumbled with the transient clay! What visions will his right hand's sway Still turn to forms, as still they burst Upon him? How will he quench thirst, Titanically infantine, Laid at the breast of the Divine? Does it confound thee,—this first page Emblazoning man's heritage?— Can this alone absorb thy sight, As pages were not infinite,— Like the omnipotence which tasks Itself to furnish all that asks The soul it means to satiate? What was the world, the starry state Of the broad skies,—what, all displays Of power and beauty intermixed, Which now thy soul is chained betwixt,— What else than needful furniture For life's first stage? God's work, be sure, No more spreads wasted, than falls scant! He filled, did not exceed, man's want Of beauty in this life. But through Life pierce,—and what has earth to do, Its utmost beauty's appanage, With the requirement of next stage? Did God pronounce earth 'very good'? Needs must it be, while understood For man's preparatory state; Nought here to heighten nor abate; Transfer the same completeness here, To serve a new state's use,—and drear Deficiency gapes every side! The good, tried once, were bad, retried. See the enwrapping rocky niche, Sufficient for the sleep in which The lizard breathes for ages safe: Split the mould—and as light would chafe The creature's new world-widened sense, Dazzled to death at evidence Of all the sounds and sights that broke Innumerous at the chisel's stroke,— So, in God's eye, the earth's first stuff Was, neither more nor less, enough To house man's soul, man's need fulfil. Man reckoned it immeasurable? So thinks the lizard of his vault! Could God be taken in default, Short of contrivances, by you,— Or reached, ere ready to pursue His progress through eternity? That chambered rock, the lizard's world, Your easy mallet's blow has hurled To nothingness for ever; so, Has God abolished at a blow This world, wherein his saints were pent,— Who, though found grateful and content, With the provision there, as thou, Yet knew he would not disallow Their spirit's hunger, felt as well,— Unsated,—not unsatable, As paradise gives proof. Deride Their choice now, thou who sit'st outside!"

XXVII

I cried in anguish, "Mind, the mind, So miserably cast behind, To gain what had been wisely lost! Oh, let me strive to make the most Of the poor stinted soul, I nipped Of budding wings, else now equipped For voyage from summer isle to isle! And though she needs must reconcile Ambition to the life on ground, Still, I can profit by late found But precious knowledge. Mind is best— I will seize mind, forego the rest, And try how far my tethered strength May crawl in this poor breadth and length. Let me, since I can fly no more, At least spin dervish-like about (Till giddy rapture almost doubt I fly) through circling sciences, Philosophies and histories Should the whirl slacken there, then verse, Fining to music, shall asperse Fresh and fresh fire-dew, till I strain Intoxicate, half-break my chain! Not joyless, though more favored feet Stand calm, where I want wings to beat The floor. At least earth's bond is broke!"

XXVIII

Then, (sickening even while I spoke) "Let me alone! No answer, pray, To this! I know what Thou wilt say! All still is earth's,—to know, as much As feel its truths, which if we touch With sense, or apprehend in soul, What matter? I have reached the goal— 'Whereto does knowledge serve!' will burn My eyes, too sure, at every turn! I cannot look back now, nor stake Bliss on the race, for running's sake. The goal's a ruin like the rest!— And so much worse thy latter quest," (Added the voice) "that even on earth— Whenever, in man's soul, had birth Those intuitions, grasps of guess, Which pull the more into the less, Making the finite comprehend Infinity,—the bard would spend Such praise alone, upon his craft, As, when wind-lyres obey the waft, Goes to the craftsman who arranged The seven strings, changed them and rechanged— Knowing it was the South that harped. He felt his song, in singing, warped; Distinguished his and God's part: whence A world of spirit as of sense Was plain to him, yet not too plain, Which he could traverse, not remain A guest in:—else were permanent Heaven on the earth its gleams were meant To sting with hunger for full light,— Made visible in verse, despite The veiling weakness,—truth by means Of fable, showing while it screens,— Since highest truth, man e'er supplied, Was ever fable on outside. Such gleams made bright the earth an age; Now the whole sun's his heritage! Take up thy world, it is allowed, Thou who hast entered in the cloud!"

XXIX

Then I—"Behold, my spirit bleeds, Catches no more at broken reeds,— But lilies flower those reeds above: I let the world go, and take love! Love survives in me, albeit those I love be henceforth masks and shows, Not living men and women: still I mind how love repaired all ill, Cured wrong, soothed grief, made earth amends With parents, brothers, children, friends! Some semblance of a woman yet With eyes to help me to forget, Shall look on me; and I will match Departed love with love, attach Old memories to new dreams, nor scorn The poorest of the grains of corn I save from shipwreck on this isle, Trusting its barrenness may smile With happy foodful green one day, More precious for the pains. I pray,— Leave to love, only!"

XXX

At the word, The form, I looked to have been stirred With pity and approval, rose O'er me, as when the headsman throws Axe over shoulder to make end— I fell prone, letting Him expend His wrath, while thus the inflicting voice Smote me. "Is this thy final choice? Love is the best? 'Tis somewhat late! And all thou dost enumerate Of power and beauty in the world, The mightiness of love was curled Inextricably round about. Love lay within it and without, To clasp thee,—but in vain! Thy soul Still shrunk from Him who made the whole, Still set deliberate aside His love!—Now take love! Well betide Thy tardy conscience! Haste to take The show of love for the name's sake, Remembering every moment Who, Beside creating thee unto These ends, and these for thee, was said To undergo death in thy stead In flesh like thine: so ran the tale. What doubt in thee could countervail Belief in it? Upon the ground 'That in the story had been found Too much love! How could God love so?' He who in all his works below Adapted to the needs of man, Made love the basis of the plan,— Did love, as was demonstrated: While man, who was so fit instead To hate, as every day gave proof,— Man thought man, for his kind's behoof, Both could and did invent that scheme Of perfect love: 'twould well beseem Cain's nature thou wast wont to praise, Not tally with God's usual ways!"

XXXI

And I cowered deprecatingly— "Thou Love of God! Or let me die, Or grant what shall seem heaven almost! Let me not know that all is lost, Though lost it be—leave me not tied To this despair, this corpse-like bride! Let that old life seem mine—no more— With limitation as before, With darkness, hunger, toil, distress: Be all the earth a wilderness! Only let me go on, go on, Still hoping ever and anon To reach one eve the Better Land!"

XXXII

Then did the form expand, expand— I knew Him through the dread disguise As the whole God within His eyes Embraced me.

XXXIII

When I lived again, The day was breaking,—the grey plain I rose from, silvered thick with dew. Was this a vision? False or true? Since then, three varied years are spent, And commonly my mind is bent To think it was a dream—be sure A mere dream and distemperature— The last day's watching: then the night,— The shock of that strange Northern Light Set my head swimming, bred in me A dream. And so I live, you see, Go through the world, try, prove, reject, Prefer, still struggling to effect My warfare; happy that I can Be crossed and thwarted as a man, Not left in God's contempt apart, With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, Tame in earth's paddock as her prize. Thank God, she still each method tries To catch me, who may yet escape, She knows,—the fiend in angel's shape! Thank God, no paradise stands barred To entry, and I find it hard To be a Christian, as I said! Still every now and then my head Raised glad, sinks mournful—all grows drear Spite of the sunshine, while I fear And think, "How dreadful to be grudged No ease henceforth, as one that's judged. Condemned to earth for ever, shut From heaven!" But Easter-Day breaks! But Christ rises! Mercy every way Is infinite,—and who can say?

This poem has often been cited as a proof of Browning's own belief in historical Christianity. It can hardly be said to be more than a doubtful proof, for it depends upon a subjective vision of which the speaker, himself, doubts the truth. The speaker in this poem belongs in the same category with Bishop Blougram. A belief in infinite Love can come to him only through the dogma of the incarnation, he therefore holds to that, no matter how tossed about by doubts. The failure of all human effort to attain the Absolute and, as a consequence, the belief in an Absolute beyond this life is a dominant note in Browning's own philosophy. The nature of that Absolute he further evolves from the intellectual observation of power that transcends human comprehension, and the even more deep-rooted sense of love in the human heart.

Much of his thought resembles that of the English scientist, Herbert Spencer. The relativity of knowledge and the relativity of good and evil are cardinal doctrines with both of them. Herbert Spencer's mystery behind all phenomena and Browning's failure of human knowledge are identical—the negative proof of the absolute,—but where Spencer contents himself with the statement that though we cannot know the Absolute, yet it must transcend all that the human mind has conceived of perfection, Browning, as we have already seen, declares that we can know something of the nature of that Absolute through the love which we know in the human heart as well as the power we see displayed in Nature.

In connection with this subject, which for lack of space can merely be touched on in the present volume, it will be instructive to round out Browning's presentations of his own contributions to nineteenth-century thought with two quotations, one from "The Parleyings:" "With Bernard de Mandeville," and one from a poem in his last volume "Reverie." In the first, human love is symbolized as the image made by a lens of the sun, which latter symbolizes Divine Love.

BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE

. . . . . . .

IX

Boundingly up through Night's wall dense and dark, Embattled crags and clouds, outbroke the Sun Above the conscious earth, and one by one Her heights and depths absorbed to the last spark His fluid glory, from the far fine ridge Of mountain-granite which, transformed to gold, Laughed first the thanks back, to the vale's dusk fold On fold of vapor-swathing, like a bridge Shattered beneath some giant's stamp. Night wist Her work done and betook herself in mist To marsh and hollow there to bide her time Blindly in acquiescence. Everywhere Did earth acknowledge Sun's embrace sublime Thrilling her to the heart of things: since there No ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew, No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grew Glad through the inrush—glad nor more nor less Than, 'neath his gaze, forest and wilderness, Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread, The universal world of creatures bred By Sun's munificence, alike gave praise— All creatures but one only: gaze for gaze, Joyless and thankless, who—all scowling can— Protests against the innumerous praises? Man, Sullen and silent.

Stand thou forth then, state Thy wrong, thou sole aggrieved—disconsolate— While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gay And glad acknowledges the bounteous day!

X

Man speaks now:—"What avails Sun's earth-felt thrill To me? Sun penetrates the ore, the plant— They feel and grow: perchance with subtler skill He interfuses fly, worm, brute, until Each favored object pays life's ministrant By pressing, in obedience to his will, Up to completion of the task prescribed, So stands and stays a type. Myself imbibed Such influence also, stood and stand complete— The perfect Man,—head, body, hands and feet, True to the pattern: but does that suffice? How of my superadded mind which needs —Not to be, simply, but to do, and pleads For—more than knowledge that by some device Sun quickens matter: mind is nobly fain To realize the marvel, make—for sense As mind—the unseen visible, condense —Myself—Sun's all-pervading influence So as to serve the needs of mind, explain What now perplexes. Let the oak increase His corrugated strength on strength, the palm Lift joint by joint her fan-fruit, ball and balm,— Let the coiled serpent bask in bloated peace,— The eagle, like some skyey derelict, Drift in the blue, suspended glorying,— The lion lord it by the desert-spring,— What know or care they of the power which pricked Nothingness to perfection? I, instead, When all-developed still am found a thing All-incomplete: for what though flesh had force Transcending theirs—hands able to unring The tightened snake's coil, eyes that could outcourse The eagle's soaring, voice whereat the king Of carnage couched discrowned? Mind seeks to see, Touch, understand, by mind inside of me, The outside mind—whose quickening I attain To recognize—I only. All in vain Would mind address itself to render plain The nature of the essence. Drag what lurks Behind the operation—that which works Latently everywhere by outward proof— Drag that mind forth to face mine? No! aloof I solely crave that one of all the beams Which do Sun's work in darkness, at my will Should operate—myself for once have skill To realize the energy which streams Flooding the universe. Above, around, Beneath—why mocks that mind my own thus found Simply of service, when the world grows dark, To half-surmise—were Sun's use understood, I might demonstrate him supplying food, Warmth, life, no less the while? To grant one spark Myself may deal with—make it thaw my blood And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise That somehow secretly is operant A power all matter feels, mind only tries To comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt 'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries At source why probe into? Enough: display, Make demonstrable, how, by night as day, Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all's informed Equally by Sun's efflux!—source from whence If just one spark I drew, full evidence Were mine of fire ineffably enthroned— Sun's self made palpable to Man!"

XI

Thus moaned Man till Prometheus helped him,—as we learn,— Offered an artifice whereby he drew Sun's rays into a focus,—plain and true, The very Sun in little: made fire burn And henceforth do Man service—glass-conglobed Though to a pin-point circle—all the same Comprising the Sun's self, but Sun disrobed Of that else-unconceived essential flame Borne by no naked sight. Shall mind's eye strive Achingly to companion as it may The supersubtle effluence, and contrive To follow beam and beam upon their way Hand-breadth by hand-breadth, till sense faint—confessed Frustrate, eluded by unknown unguessed Infinitude of action? Idle quest! Rather ask aid from optics. Sense, descry The spectrum—mind, infer immensity! Little? In little, light, warmth, life are blessed— Which, in the large, who sees to bless? Not I More than yourself: so, good my friend, keep still Trustful with—me? with thee, sage Mandeville!

The second "Reverie" has the effect of a triumphant swan song, especially the closing stanzas, the poem having been written very near the end of the poet's life.

"In a beginning God Made heaven and earth." Forth flashed Knowledge: from star to clod Man knew things: doubt abashed Closed its long period.

Knowledge obtained Power praise. Had Good been manifest, Broke out in cloudless blaze, Unchequered as unrepressed, In all things Good at best—

Then praise—all praise, no blame— Had hailed the perfection. No! As Power's display, the same Be Good's—praise forth shall flow Unisonous in acclaim!

Even as the world its life, So have I lived my own— Power seen with Love at strife, That sure, this dimly shown, —Good rare and evil rife.

Whereof the effect be—faith That, some far day, were found Ripeness in things now rathe, Wrong righted, each chain unbound, Renewal born out of scathe.

Why faith—but to lift the load, To leaven the lump, where lies Mind prostrate through knowledge owed To the loveless Power it tries To withstand, how vain! In flowed

Ever resistless fact: No more than the passive clay Disputes the potter's act, Could the whelmed mind disobey Knowledge the cataract.

But, perfect in every part, Has the potter's moulded shape, Leap of man's quickened heart, Throe of his thought's escape, Stings of his soul which dart

Through the barrier of flesh, till keen She climbs from the calm and clear, Through turbidity all between, From the known to the unknown here, Heaven's "Shall be," from Earth's "Has been"?

Then life is—to wake not sleep, Rise and not rest, but press From earth's level where blindly creep Things perfected, more or less, To the heaven's height, far and steep,

Where, amid what strifes and storms May wait the adventurous quest, Power is Love—transports, transforms Who aspired from worst to best, Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms'.

I have faith such end shall be: From the first, Power was—I knew. Life has made clear to me That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see.

When see? When there dawns a day, If not on the homely earth, Then yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, And Power comes full in play.



CHAPTER VI

ART CRITICISM INSPIRED BY THE ENGLISH MUSICIAN, AVISON

In the "Parleying" "With Charles Avison," Browning plunges into a discussion of the problem of the ephemeralness of musical expression. He hits upon Avison to have his colloquy with because a march by this musician came into his head, and the march came into his head for no better reason than that it was the month of March. Some interest would attach to Avison if it were only for the reason that he was organist of the Church of St. Nicholas in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In the earliest accounts St. Nicholas was styled simply, "The Church of Newcastle-upon-Tyne," but in 1785 it became a Cathedral. This was after Avison's death in 1770. All we know about the organ upon which Avison performed is found in a curious old history of Newcastle by Brand. "I have found," he writes, "no account of any organ in this church during the times of popery though it is very probable there has been one. About the year 1676, the corporation of Newcastle contributed L300 towards the erection of the present organ. They added a trumpet stop to it June 22d, 1699."

The year that Avison was born, 1710, it is recorded further that "the back front of this organ was finished which cost the said corporation L200 together with the expense of cleaning and repairing the whole instrument."

June 26, 1749, the common council of Newcastle ordered a sweet stop to be added to the organ. This was after Avison became organist, his appointment to that post having been in 1736. So we know that he at least had a "trumpet stop" and a "sweet stop," with which to embellish his organ playing.

The church is especially distinguished for the number and beauty of its chantries, and any who have a taste for examining armorial bearings will find two good-sized volumes devoted to a description of those in this church, by Richardson. Equal distinction attaches to the church owing to the beauty of its steeple, which has been called the pride and glory of the Northern Hemisphere. According to the enthusiastic Richardson it is justly esteemed on account of its peculiar excellency of design and delicacy of execution one of the finest specimens of architectural beauty in Europe. This steeple is as conspicuous a feature of Newcastle as the State House Dome is of Boston, situated, as it is, almost in the center of the town. Richardson gives the following minute description of this marvel. "It consists of a square tower forty feet in width, having great and small turrets with pinnacles at the angles and center of each front tower. From the four turrets at the angles spring two arches, which meet in an intersecting direction, and bear on their center an efficient perforated lanthorne, surmounted by a tall and beautiful spire: the angles of the lanthorne have pinnacles similar to those on the turrets, and the whole of the pinnacles, being twelve in number, and the spire, are ornamented with crockets and vanes."

There is a stirring tradition in regard to this structure related by Bourne to the effect that in the time of the Civil Wars, when the Scots had besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at first from taking it, the general sent a messenger to the mayor of the town, and demanded the keys, and the delivering up of the town, or he would immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas. The mayor and aldermen upon hearing this, immediately ordered a certain number of the chiefest of the Scottish prisoners to be carried up to the top of the tower, the place below the lanthorne and there confined. After this, they returned the general an answer to this purpose,—that they would upon no terms deliver up the town, but would to the last moment defend it: that the steeple of St. Nicholas was indeed a beautiful and magnificent piece of architecture, and one of the great ornaments of the town; but yet should be blown into atoms before ransomed at such a rate: that, however, if it was to fall, it should not fall alone, that the same moment he destroyed the beautiful structure he should bathe his hands in the blood of his countrymen who were placed there on purpose either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with it. This message had the desired effect. The men were there kept prisoners during the whole time of the siege and not so much as one gun fired against it.

Avison, however, had other claims to distinction, besides being organist of this ancient church. He was a composer, and was remembered by one of his airs, at least, into the nineteenth century, namely "Sound the Loud Timbrel." He appears not to be remembered, however, by his concertos, of which he published no less than five sets for a full band of stringed instruments, nor by his quartets and trios, and two sets of sonatas for the harpsichord and two violins. All we have to depend on now as to the quality of his music are the strictures of a certain Dr. Hayes, an Oxford Professor, who points out many errors against the rules of composition in the works of Avison, whence he infers that his skill in music is not very profound, and the somewhat more appreciative remarks of Hawkins who says "The music of Avison is light and elegant, but it wants originality, a necessary consequence of his too close attachment to the style of Geminiani which in a few particulars only he was able to imitate."

Geminiani was a celebrated violin player and composer of the day, who had come to England from Italy. He is said to have held his pupil, Avison, in high esteem and to have paid him a visit at Newcastle in 1760. Avison's early education was gained in Italy; and in addition to his musical attainments he was a scholar and a man of some literary acquirements. It is not surprising, considering all these educational advantages that he really made something of a stir upon the publication of his "small book," as Browning calls it, with, we may add, its "large title."

AN ESSAY ON MUSICAL EXPRESSION BY CHARLES AVISON Organist in NEWCASTLE With ALTERATIONS and Large ADDITIONS

To which is added, A LETTER to the AUTHOR concerning the Music of the ANCIENTS and some Passages in CLASSIC WRITERS relating to the Subject.

LIKEWISE Mr. AVISON'S REPLY to the Author of Remarks on the Essay on MUSICAL EXPRESSION In a Letter from Mr. Avison to his Friend in London

THE THIRD EDITION LONDON Printed for LOCKYER DAVIS, in Holborn. Printer to the ROYAL SOCIETY. MDCCLXXV.

The author of the "Remarks on the Essay on Musical Expression" was the aforementioned Dr. W. Hayes, and although the learned doctor's pamphlet seems to have died a natural death, some idea of its strictures may be gained from Avison's reply. The criticisms are rather too technical to be of interest to the general reader, but one is given here to show how gentlemanly a temper Mr. Avison possessed when he was under fire. His reply runs "His first critique, and, I think, his masterpiece, contains many circumstantial, but false and virulent remarks on the first allegro of these concertos, to which he supposes I would give the name of fugue. Be it just what he pleases to call it I shall not defend what the public is already in possession of, the public being the most proper judge. I shall only here observe, that our critic has wilfully, or ignorantly, confounded the terms fugue and imitation, which latter is by no means subject to the same laws with the former.



"Had I observed the method of answering the accidental subjects in this allegro, as laid down by our critic in his remarks, they must have produced most shocking effects; which, though this mechanic in music, would, perhaps, have approved, yet better judges might, in reality, have imagined I had known no other art than that of the spruzzarino." There is a nice independence about this that would indicate Mr. Avison to be at least an aspirant in the right direction in musical composition. His criticism of Handel, too, at a time when the world was divided between enthusiasm for Handel and enthusiasm for Buononcini, shows a remarkably just and penetrating estimate of this great genius.

"Mr. Handel is, in music, what his own Dryden was in poetry; nervous, exalted, and harmonious; but voluminous, and, consequently, not always correct. Their abilities equal to every thing; their execution frequently inferior. Born with genius capable of soaring the boldest flights; they have sometimes, to suit the vitiated taste of the age they lived in, descended to the lowest. Yet, as both their excellencies are infinitely more numerous than their deficiencies, so both their characters will devolve to latest posterity, not as models of perfection, yet glorious examples of those amazing powers that actuate the human soul."

On the whole, Mr. Avison's "little book" on Musical Expression is eminently sensible as to the matter and very agreeable in style. He hits off well, for example, the difference between "musical expression" and imitation.

"As dissonances and shocking sounds cannot be called Musical Expression, so neither do I think, can mere imitation of several other things be entitled to this name, which, however, among the generality of mankind hath often obtained it. Thus, the gradual rising or falling of the notes in a long succession is often used to denote ascent or descent; broken intervals, to denote an interrupted motion; a number of quick divisions, to describe swiftness or flying; sounds resembling laughter, to describe laughter; with a number of other contrivances of a parallel kind, which it is needless here to mention. Now all these I should chuse to style imitation, rather than expression; because it seems to me, that their tendency is rather to fix the hearer's attention on the similitude between the sounds and the things which they describe, and thereby to excite a reflex act of the understanding, than to affect the heart and raise the passions of the soul.

"This distinction seems more worthy our notice at present, because some very eminent composers have attached themselves chiefly to the method here mentioned; and seem to think they have exhausted all the depths of expression, by a dextrous imitation of the meaning of a few particular words, that occur in the hymns or songs which they set to music. Thus, were one of these gentlemen to express the following words of Milton,

—Their songs Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heav'n:

it is highly probable, that upon the word divide, he would run a division of half a dozen bars; and on the subsequent part of the sentence, he would not think he had done the poet justice, or risen to that height of sublimity which he ought to express, till he had climbed up to the very top of his instrument, or at least as far as the human voice could follow him. And this would pass with a great part of mankind for musical expression; instead of that noble mixture of solemn airs and various harmony, which indeed elevates our thoughts, and gives that exquisite pleasure, which none but true lovers of harmony can feel." What Avison calls "musical expression," we call to-day "content." And thus Avison "tenders evidence that music in his day as much absorbed heart and soul then as Wagner's music now." It is not unlikely that this very passage may have started Browning off on his argumentative way concerning the question: how lasting and how fundamental are the powers of musical expression.

The poet's memory goes back a hundred years only to reach "The bands-man Avison whose little book and large tune had led him the long way from to-day."

CHARLES AVISON

. . . . . . .

And to-day's music-manufacture,—Brahms, Wagner, Dvorak, Liszt,—to where—trumpets, shawms, Show yourselves joyful!—Handel reigns—supreme? By no means! Buononcini's work is theme For fit laudation of the impartial few: (We stand in England, mind you!) Fashion too Favors Geminiani—of those choice Concertos: nor there wants a certain voice Raised in thy favor likewise, famed Pepusch Dear to our great-grandfathers! In a bush Of Doctor's wig, they prized thee timing beats While Greenway trilled "Alexis." Such were feats Of music in thy day—dispute who list— Avison, of Newcastle organist!

V

And here's your music all alive once more— As once it was alive, at least: just so The figured worthies of a waxwork-show Attest—such people, years and years ago, Looked thus when outside death had life below, —Could say "We are now," not "We were of yore," —"Feel how our pulses leap!" and not "Explore— Explain why quietude has settled o'er Surface once all-awork!" Ay, such a "Suite" Roused heart to rapture, such a "Fugue" would catch Soul heavenwards up, when time was: why attach Blame to exhausted faultlessness, no match For fresh achievement? Feat once—ever feat! How can completion grow still more complete? Hear Avison! He tenders evidence That music in his day as much absorbed Heart and soul then as Wagner's music now. Perfect from center to circumference— Orbed to the full can be but fully orbed: And yet—and yet—whence comes it that "O Thou"— Sighed by the soul at eve to Hesperus— Will not again take wing and fly away (Since fatal Wagner fixed it fast for us) In some unmodulated minor? Nay, Even by Handel's help!

Having stated the problem that confronts him, namely, the change of fashion in music, the poet boldly goes on to declare that there is no truer truth obtainable by man than comes of music, because it does give direct expression to the moods of the soul, yet there is a hitch that balks her of full triumph, namely the musical form in which these moods are expressed does not stay fixed. This statement is enriched by a digression upon the meaning of the soul.

VI

I state it thus: There is no truer truth obtainable By Man than comes of music. "Soul"—(accept A word which vaguely names what no adept In word-use fits and fixes so that still Thing shall not slip word's fetter and remain Innominate as first, yet, free again, Is no less recognized the absolute Fact underlying that same other fact Concerning which no cavil can dispute Our nomenclature when we call it "Mind"— Something not Matter)—"Soul," who seeks shall find Distinct beneath that something. You exact An illustrative image? This may suit.

VII

We see a work: the worker works behind, Invisible himself. Suppose his act Be to o'erarch a gulf: he digs, transports, Shapes and, through enginery—all sizes, sorts, Lays stone by stone until a floor compact Proves our bridged causeway. So works Mind—by stress Of faculty, with loose facts, more or less, Builds up our solid knowledge: all the same, Underneath rolls what Mind may hide not tame, An element which works beyond our guess, Soul, the unsounded sea—whose lift of surge, Spite of all superstructure, lets emerge, In flower and foam, Feeling from out the deeps Mind arrogates no mastery upon— Distinct indisputably. Has there gone To dig up, drag forth, render smooth from rough Mind's flooring,—operosity enough? Still the successive labor of each inch, Who lists may learn: from the last turn of winch That let the polished slab-stone find its place, To the first prod of pick-axe at the base Of the unquarried mountain,—what was all Mind's varied process except natural, Nay, easy, even, to descry, describe, After our fashion? "So worked Mind: its tribe Of senses ministrant above, below, Far, near, or now or haply long ago Brought to pass knowledge." But Soul's sea,—drawn whence, Fed how, forced whither,—by what evidence Of ebb and flow, that's felt beneath the tread, Soul has its course 'neath Mind's work over-head,— Who tells of, tracks to source the founts of Soul? Yet wherefore heaving sway and restless roll This side and that, except to emulate Stability above? To match and mate Feeling with knowledge,—make as manifest Soul's work as Mind's work, turbulence as rest, Hates, loves, joys, woes, hopes, fears, that rise and sink Ceaselessly, passion's transient flit and wink, A ripple's tinting or a spume-sheet's spread Whitening the wave,—to strike all this life dead, Run mercury into a mould like lead, And henceforth have the plain result to show— How we Feel, hard and fast as what we Know— This were the prize and is the puzzle!—which Music essays to solve: and here's the hitch That balks her of full triumph else to boast.

Then follows his explanation of the "hitch," which necessitates a comparison with the other arts. His contention is that art adds nothing to the knowledge of the mind. It simply moulds into a fixed form elements already known which before lay loose and dissociated, it therefore does not really create. But there is one realm, that of feeling, to which the arts never succeed in giving permanent form though all try to do it. What is it they succeed in getting? The poet does not make the point very clear, but he seems to be groping after the idea that the arts present only the phenomena of feeling or the image of feeling instead of the reality. Like all people who are appreciative of music, he realizes that music comes nearer to expressing the spiritual reality of feeling than the other arts, and yet music of all the arts is the least permanent in its appeal.

VIII

All Arts endeavor this, and she the most Attains thereto, yet fails of touching: why? Does Mind get Knowledge from Art's ministry? What's known once is known ever: Arts arrange, Dissociate, re-distribute, interchange Part with part, lengthen, broaden, high or deep Construct their bravest,—still such pains produce Change, not creation: simply what lay loose At first lies firmly after, what design Was faintly traced in hesitating line Once on a time, grows firmly resolute Henceforth and evermore. Now, could we shoot Liquidity into a mould,—some way Arrest Soul's evanescent moods, and keep Unalterably still the forms that leap To life for once by help of Art!—which yearns To save its capture: Poetry discerns, Painting is 'ware of passion's rise and fall, Bursting, subsidence, intermixture—all A-seethe within the gulf. Each Art a-strain Would stay the apparition,—nor in vain: The Poet's word-mesh, Painter's sure and swift Color-and-line-throw—proud the prize they lift! Thus felt Man and thus looked Man,—passions caught I' the midway swim of sea,—not much, if aught, Of nether-brooding loves, hates, hopes and fears, Enwombed past Art's disclosure. Fleet the years, And still the Poet's page holds Helena At gaze from topmost Troy—"But where are they, My brothers, in the armament I name Hero by hero? Can it be that shame For their lost sister holds them from the war?" —Knowing not they already slept afar Each of them in his own dear native land. Still on the Painter's fresco, from the hand Of God takes Eve the life-spark whereunto She trembles up from nothingness. Outdo Both of them, Music! Dredging deeper yet, Drag into day,—by sound, thy master-net,— The abysmal bottom-growth, ambiguous thing Unbroken of a branch, palpitating With limbs' play and life's semblance! There it lies, Marvel and mystery, of mysteries And marvels, most to love and laud thee for! Save it from chance and change we most abhor! Give momentary feeling permanence, So that thy capture hold, a century hence, Truth's very heart of truth as, safe to-day, The Painter's Eve, the Poet's Helena, Still rapturously bend, afar still throw The wistful gaze! Thanks, Homer, Angelo! Could Music rescue thus from Soul's profound, Give feeling immortality by sound, Then were she queenliest of Arts! Alas— As well expect the rainbow not to pass! "Praise 'Radaminta'—love attains therein To perfect utterance! Pity—what shall win Thy secret like 'Rinaldo'?"—so men said: Once all was perfume—now, the flower is dead— They spied tints, sparks have left the spar! Love, hate, Joy, fear, survive,—alike importunate As ever to go walk the world again, Nor ghost-like pant for outlet all in vain Till Music loose them, fit each filmily With form enough to know and name it by For any recognizer sure of ken And sharp of ear, no grosser denizen Of earth than needs be. Nor to such appeal Is Music long obdurate: off they steal— How gently, dawn-doomed phantoms! back come they Full-blooded with new crimson of broad day— Passion made palpable once more. Ye look Your last on Handel? Gaze your first on Gluck! Why wistful search, O waning ones, the chart Of stars for you while Haydn, while Mozart Occupies heaven? These also, fanned to fire, Flamboyant wholly,—so perfections tire,— Whiten to wanness, till ... let others note The ever-new invasion!

The poet makes no attempt to give any reason why music should be so ephemeral in its appeal. He merely refers to the development of harmony and modulation, nor does it seem to enter his head that there can be any question about the appeal being ephemeral. He imagines the possibility of resuscitating dead and gone music with modern harmonies and novel modulations, but gives that up as an irreverent innovation. His next mood is a historical one; dead and gone music may have something for us in a historical sense, that is, if we bring our life to kindle theirs, we may sympathetically enter into the life of the time.

IX

I devote Rather my modicum of parts to use What power may yet avail to re-infuse (In fancy, please you!) sleep that looks like death With momentary liveliness, lend breath To make the torpor half inhale. O Relfe, An all-unworthy pupil, from the shelf Of thy laboratory, dares unstop Bottle, ope box, extract thence pinch and drop Of dusts and dews a many thou didst shrine Each in its right receptacle, assign To each its proper office, letter large Label and label, then with solemn charge, Reviewing learnedly the list complete Of chemical reactives, from thy feet Push down the same to me, attent below, Power in abundance: armed wherewith I go To play the enlivener. Bring good antique stuff! Was it alight once? Still lives spark enough For breath to quicken, run the smouldering ash Red right-through. What, "stone-dead" were fools so rash As style my Avison, because he lacked Modern appliance, spread out phrase unracked By modulations fit to make each hair Stiffen upon his wig? See there—and there! I sprinkle my reactives, pitch broadcast Discords and resolutions, turn aghast Melody's easy-going, jostle law With license, modulate (no Bach in awe), Change enharmonically (Hudl to thank), And lo, up-start the flamelets,—what was blank Turns scarlet, purple, crimson! Straightway scanned By eyes that like new lustre—Love once more Yearns through the Largo, Hatred as before Rages in the Rubato: e'en thy March, My Avison, which, sooth to say—(ne'er arch Eyebrows in anger!)—timed, in Georgian years The step precise of British Grenadiers To such a nicety,—if score I crowd, If rhythm I break, if beats I vary,—tap At bar's off-starting turns true thunder-clap, Ever the pace augmented till—what's here? Titanic striding toward Olympus!

X

Fear No such irreverent innovation! Still Glide on, go rolling, water-like, at will— Nay, were thy melody in monotone, The due three-parts dispensed with!

XI

This alone Comes of my tiresome talking: Music's throne Seats somebody whom somebody unseats, And whom in turn—by who knows what new feats Of strength,—shall somebody as sure push down, Consign him dispossessed of sceptre, crown, And orb imperial—whereto?—Never dream That what once lived shall ever die! They seem Dead—do they? lapsed things lost in limbo? Bring Our life to kindle theirs, and straight each king Starts, you shall see, stands up, from head to foot No inch that is not Purcell! Wherefore? (Suit Measure to subject, first—no marching on Yet in thy bold C Major, Avison, As suited step a minute since: no: wait— Into the minor key first modulate— Gently with A, now—in the Lesser Third!)

The really serious conclusion of the poem amounts to a doctrine of relativity in art and not only in art but in ethics and religion. It is a statement in poetry of the prevalent thought of the nineteenth century, of which the most widely known exponent was Herbert Spencer. The form in which every truth manifests itself is partial and therefore will pass, but the underlying truth, the absolute which unfolds itself in form after form is eternal. Every manifestation in form, according to Browning, however, has also its infinite value in relation to the truth which is preserved through it.

XII

Of all the lamentable debts incurred By Man through buying knowledge, this were worst: That he should find his last gain prove his first Was futile—merely nescience absolute, Not knowledge in the bud which holds a fruit Haply undreamed of in the soul's Spring-tide, Pursed in the petals Summer opens wide, And Autumn, withering, rounds to perfect ripe,— Not this,—but ignorance, a blur to wipe From human records, late it graced so much. "Truth—this attainment? Ah, but such and such Beliefs of yore seemed inexpugnable.

"When we attained them! E'en as they, so will This their successor have the due morn, noon, Evening and night—just as an old-world tune Wears out and drops away, until who hears Smilingly questions—'This it was brought tears Once to all eyes,—this roused heart's rapture once?' So will it be with truth that, for the nonce, Styles itself truth perennial: 'ware its wile! Knowledge turns nescience,—foremost on the file, Simply proves first of our delusions."

XIII

Now— Blare it forth, bold C Major! Lift thy brow, Man, the immortal, that wast never fooled With gifts no gifts at all, nor ridiculed— Man knowing—he who nothing knew! As Hope, Fear, Joy, and Grief,—though ampler stretch and scope They seek and find in novel rhythm, fresh phrase,— Were equally existent in far days Of Music's dim beginning—even so, Truth was at full within thee long ago, Alive as now it takes what latest shape May startle thee by strangeness. Truths escape Time's insufficient garniture; they fade, They fall—those sheathings now grown sere, whose aid Was infinite to truth they wrapped, saved fine And free through March frost: May dews crystalline Nourish truth merely,—does June boast the fruit As—not new vesture merely but, to boot, Novel creation? Soon shall fade and fall Myth after myth—the husk-like lies I call New truth's corolla-safeguard: Autumn comes, So much the better!

As to the questions why music does not give feeling immortality through sound, and why it should be so ephemeral in its appeal, there are various things to be said. It is just possible that it may soon come to be recognized that the psychic growth of humanity is more perfectly reflected in music than any where else. Ephemeralness may be predicated of culture-music more certainly than of folk-music, why? Because culture-music often has occupied itself more with the technique than with the content, while folk-music, being the spontaneous expression of feeling must have content. Folk-music, it is true, is simple, but if it be genuine in its feeling I doubt whether it ever loses its power to move. Therefore, in folk-music is possibly made permanent simple states of feeling. Now in culture-music, the development has constantly been in the direction of the expression of the ultimate spiritual reality of emotions. Music is now actually trying to accomplish what Browning demands of it:

"Dredging deeper yet, Drag into day,—by sound, thy master-net,— The abysmal bottom-growth, ambiguous thing Unbroken of a branch, palpitating With limbs' play and life's semblance! There it lies, Marvel and mystery, of mysteries And marvels, most to love and laud thee for! Save it from chance and change we most abhor."

This is true no matter what the emotion may be. Hate may have its "eidolon" as well as love. Above all arts, music has the power of raising evil into a region of the artistically beautiful. Doubt, despair, passion, become blossoms plucked by the hand of God when transmuted in the alembic of the brain of genius—which is not saying that he need experience any of these passions himself. In fact, it is his power of perceiving the eidolon of beauty in modes of passion or emotion not his own that makes him the great genius.

It is doubtless true that whenever in culture-music there has really been content aroused by feeling, no matter what the stage of technique reached, that music retains its power to move. It is also highly probably that in the earlier objective phases of music, even the contemporary audiences were not moved in the sense that we should be moved to-day. The audiences were objective also and their enthusiasm may have been aroused by merely the imitative aspects of music as Avison called them. It is certainly a fact that content and form are more closely linked in music than in any other art. Suppose, however, we imagine the development of melody, counterpoint, harmony, modulation, etc., to be symbolized by a series of concrete materials like clay bricks, silver bricks, gold bricks, diamond bricks; a beautiful thought might take as exquisite a form in bricks of clay as it would in diamond bricks, or diamond bricks might be flung together without any informing thought so that they would attract only the thoughtless by their glitter. But it also follows that, with the increase in the kinds of bricks, there is an increase in the possibilities for subtleties in psychic expression, therefore music to-day is coming nearer and nearer to the spiritual reality of feeling. It requires the awakened soul that Maeterlinck talks about, that is, the soul alive to the spiritual essences of things to recognize this new realm which composers are bringing to us in music.

There are always, at least three kinds of appreciators of music, those who can see beauty only in the masters of the past, those who can see beauty only in the last new composer, and those who ecstatically welcome beauty past, present and to come. These last are not only psychically developed themselves, but they are able to retain delight in simpler modes of feeling. They may be raised to a seventh heaven of delight by a Bach fugue played on a clavichord by Mr. Dolmetsch, feeling as if angels were ministering unto them, or to a still higher heaven of delight by a Tschaikowsky symphony or a string quartet of Grieg, feeling that here the seraphim continually do cry, or they may enter into the very presence of the most High through some subtly exquisite and psychic song of an American composer, for some of the younger American composers are indeed approaching "Truth's very heart of truth," in their music.

On the whole, one gets rather the impression that the poet has here tackled a problem upon which he did not have great insight. He passes from one mood to another, none of which seem especially satisfactory to himself, and concludes with one of the half-truths of nineteenth-century thought. It is true as far as it goes that forms evolve, and it is a good truth to oppose to the martinets of settled standards in poetry, music and painting; it is also true that the form is a partial expression of a whole truth, but there is the further truth that, let a work of art be really a work of genius, and the form as well as the content touches the infinite; that is, we have as Browning says in a poem already quoted, "Bernard de Mandeville," the very sun in little, or as he makes Abt Vogler say of his music, the broken arc which goes to the formation of the perfect round, or to quote still another poem of Browning's, "Cleon," the perfect rhomb or trapezoid that has its own place in a mosaic pavement.



The poem closes in a rolicking frame of mind, which is not remarkably consistent with the preceding thought, except that the poet seems determined to get all he can out of the music of the past by enlivening it with his own jolly mood. To this end he sets a patriotic poem to the tune of Avison's march, in honor of our old friend, Pym. It is a clever tour de force for the words are made to match exactly in rhythm and quantity the notes of the march. Truth to say, the essential goodness of the tune comes out by means of these enlivening words.

XIV

Therefore—bang the drums, Blow the trumpets, Avison! March-motive? that's Truth which endures resetting. Sharps and flats, Lavish at need, shall dance athwart thy score When ophicleide and bombardon's uproar Mate the approaching trample, even now Big in the distance—or my ears deceive— Of federated England, fitly weave March-music for the Future!

XV

Or suppose Back, and not forward, transformation goes? Once more some sable-stoled procession—say, From Little-ease to Tyburn—wends its way, Out of the dungeon to the gallows-tree Where heading, hacking, hanging is to be Of half-a-dozen recusants—this day Three hundred years ago! How duly drones Elizabethan plain-song—dim antique Grown clarion-clear the while I humbly wreak A classic vengeance on thy March! It moans— Larges and Longs and Breves displacing quite Crotchet-and-quaver pertness—brushing bars Aside and filling vacant sky with stars Hidden till now that day returns to night.

XVI

Nor night nor day: one purpose move us both, Be thy mood mine! As thou wast minded, Man's The cause our music champions: I were loth To think we cheered our troop to Preston Pans Ignobly: back to times of England's best! Parliament stands for privilege—life and limb Guards Hollis, Haselrig, Strode, Hampden, Pym, The famous Five. There's rumor of arrest. Bring up the Train Bands, Southwark! They protest: Shall we not all join chorus? Hark the hymn, —Rough, rude, robustious—homely heart a-throb, Harsh voises a-hallo, as beseems the mob! How good is noise! what's silence but despair Of making sound match gladness never there? Give me some great glad "subject," glorious Bach, Where cannon-roar not organ-peal we lack! Join in, give voice robustious rude and rough,— Avison helps—so heart lend noise enough!

Fife, trump, drum, sound! and singers then, Marching, say "Pym, the man of men!" Up, head's, your proudest—out, throats, your loudest— "Somerset's Pym!"

Strafford from the block, Eliot from the den, Foes, friends, shout "Pym, our citizen!" Wail, the foes he quelled,—hail, the friends he held, "Tavistock's Pym!"

Hearts prompt heads, hands that ply the pen Teach babes unborn the where and when —Tyrants, he braved them,— Patriots, he saved them— "Westminster's Pym."

Another English musician, Arthur Chappell, was the inspiration of a graceful little sonnet written by the poet in an album which was presented to Mr. Chappell in recognition of his popular concerts in London. Browning was a constant attendant at these. It gives a true glimpse of the poet in a highly appreciative mood:

THE FOUNDER OF THE FEAST

1884

"Enter my palace," if a prince should say— "Feast with the Painters! See, in bounteous row, They range from Titian up to Angelo!" Could we be silent at the rich survey? A host so kindly, in as great a way Invites to banquet, substitutes for show Sound that's diviner still, and bids us know Bach like Beethoven; are we thankless, pray?

Thanks, then, to Arthur Chappell,—thanks to him Whose every guest henceforth not idly vaunts "Sense has received the utmost Nature grants, My cup was filled with rapture to the brim, When, night by night,—ah, memory, how it haunts!— Music was poured by perfect ministrants, By Halle, Schumann, Piatti, Joachim."

* * * * *



Transcriber Notes

Typographical inconsistencies have been changed and are listed below.

Archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation are preserved.

Author's punctuation style is preserved, except where noted.

Some illustrations moved to one page later.

Passages in italics indicated by underscores.

Passages in bold indicated by equal signs.

Emphasized words within italics indicated by plus emphasis.

Transcriber Changes

The following changes were made to the original text:

Page 10: Removed extra quote after Keats (What porridge had John Keats?)

Page 21: Was 'blurrs' (Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings)

Page 49: Paragraph continued, no quote needed (Tibullus gives Virgil equal credit for having in his writings touched with telling truth)

Page 53: Was 'Shakesspeare' (Jonson wrote for the First Folio edition of Shakespeare printed in 1623)

Page 53: Was 'B. I.' (B. J.)

Page 53: Added single quotes (Shakespeare's talk in "At the 'Mermaid'" grows out of the supposition)

Page 69: Was 'Shakepeare's' (He thinks the opening Sonnets are to the Earl of Southampton, known to be Shakespeare's patron)

Page 81: Added comma after Strafford (not Pym, the leader of the people, but Strafford, the supporter of the King.)

Page 85: Added end quote (some half-dozen years of immunity to the 'fretted tenement' of Strafford's 'fiery soul')

Page 91: Capitalized King (The King, upon his visit to Scotland, had been shocked)

Page 100: Was 'Finnees' (Hampden, Hollis, the younger Vane, Rudyard, Fiennes and many of the Presbyterian Party)

Page 136: Removed extra start quote ("Be my friend Of friends!"—My King! I would have....)

Page 137: Was 'brillance' (The else imperial brilliance of your mind)

Page 137: Was 'you way' (If Pym is busy,—you may write of Pym.)

Page 140: Capitalized King (the King, therefore, summoned it to meet on the third of November.)

Page 142: Matching the original: leaving it hyphenated (the greatest in England would have stood dis-covered.')

Page 172: Was 'Partiot' (The Patriot Pym, or the Apostate Strafford!)

Page 174: Was 'perfers' (The King prefers to leave the door ajar)

Page 178: Was 'her's' (I am hers now, and I will die.)

Page 193: Was 'Bethrothal' (Till death us do join past parting—that sounds like Betrothal indeed!)

Page 200: Was 'canonade' (Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of cannonade: 'Tis when foes are foiled and fighting's finished that vile rains invade)