Men and Women (Browning)/Volume 2/A Grammarian's Funeral
A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL.
[Time—Shortly after the revival of learning in Europe.]
Let us begin and carry up this corpse,Singing together.Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,Each in its tetherSleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,Cared-for till cock-crow.Look out if yonder's not the day againRimming the rock-row!That's the appropriate country—there, man's thought,Rarer, intenser,Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,Chafes in the censer! Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;Seek we sepultureOn a tall mountain, citied to the top,Crowded with culture!All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;Clouds overcome it;No, yonder sparkle is the citadel'sCircling its summit!Thither our path lies—wind we up the heights—Wait ye the warning?Our low life was the level's and the night's;He's for the morning!Step to a tune, square chests, erect the head,'Ware the beholders!This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,Borne on our shoulders.
Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,Safe from the weather! He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,Singing together,He was a man born with thy face and throat,Lyric Apollo!Long he lived nameless: how should spring take noteWinter would follow?Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!Cramped and diminished,Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!My dance is finished?"No, that's the world's way! (keep the mountain-side,Make for the city.)He knew the signal, and stepped on with prideOver men's pity;Left play for work, and grappled with the worldBent on escaping:"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?Shew me their shaping,Theirs, who most studied man, the bard and sage,—Give!"—So he gowned him, Straight got by heart that book to its last page:Learned, we found him!Yea, but we found him bald too—eyes like lead,Accents uncertain:"Time to taste life," another would have said,"Up with the curtain!"This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?Patience a moment!Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,Still, there's the comment.Let me know all. Prate not of most or least,Painful or easy:Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,Ay, nor feel queasy!"Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,When he had learned it,When he had gathered all books had to give;Sooner, he spurned it!Image the whole, then execute the parts—Fancy the fabric Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,Ere mortar dab brick!
(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the marketplaceGaping before us.)Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace(Hearten our chorus)Still before living he'd learn how to live—No end to learning.Earn the means first—God surely will contriveUse for our earning.Others mistrust and say—"But time escapes,—"Live now or never!"He said, "What's Time? leave Now for dogs and apes!Man has For ever."Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head;Calculus racked him:Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead;Tussis attacked him. "Now, Master, take a little rest!"—not he!(Caution redoubled!Step two a-breast, the way winds narrowly.)Not a whit troubled,Back to his studies, fresher than at first,Fierce as a dragonHe, (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)Sucked at the flagon.Oh, if we draw a circle premature,Heedless of far gain,Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure,Bad is our bargain!Was it not great? did not he throw on God,(He loves the burthen)—God's task to make the heavenly periodPerfect the earthen?Did not he magnify the mind, shew clearJust what it all meant?He would not discount life, as fools do here,Paid by instalment! He ventured neck or nothing—heaven's successFound, or earth's failure:"Wilt thou trust death or not?" he answered "Yes."Hence with life's pale lure!"That low man seeks a little thing to do,Sees it and does it:This high man, with a great thing to pursue,Dies ere he knows it.That low man goes on adding one to one,His hundred's soon hit:This high man, aiming at a million,Misses an unit.That, has the world here—should he need the next,Let the world mind him!This, throws himself on God, and unperplextSeeking shall find Him.So, with the throttling hands of Death at strife,Ground he at grammar;Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife.While he could stammer He settled Hoti's business—let it be!—Properly based Oun—Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,Dead from the waist down.Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place.Hail to your purlieusAll ye highfliers of the feathered race,Swallows and curlews!Here's the top-peak! the multitude belowLive, for they can there.This man decided not to Live but Know—Bury this man there?Here—here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,Lightnings are loosened,Stars come and go! let joy break with the storm—Peace let the dew send!Lofty designs must close in like effects:Loftily lying,Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects,Living and dying.