The Two Poets of Croisic

by Robert Browning

Prologue

I

Such a starved bank of moss
    Till that May-morn,
Blue ran the flash across:
    Violets were born!

II

Sky—what a scowl of cloud
    Till, near and far,
Ray on ray split the shroud:
    Splendid, a star!

III
 
World—how it walled about
    Life with disgrace
Till God's own smile came out:
    That was thy face!

The Two Poets of Croisic

I

"Fame!" Yes, I said it and you read it. First,
    Praise the good log-fire! Winter howls without.
Crowd closer, let us! Ha, the secret nursed
    Inside yon hollow, crusted roundabout
With copper where the clamp was,—how the burst
    Vindicates flame the stealthy feeder! Spout
Thy splendidest—a minute and no more?
So soon again all sobered as before?

II

Nay, for I need to see your face! One stroke
    Adroitly dealt, and lo, the pomp revealed!
Fire in his pandemonium, heart of oak
    Palatial, where he wrought the works concealed
Beneath the solid seeming roof I broke,
    As redly up and out and off they reeled
Like disconcerted imps, those thousand sparks
From fire's slow tunnelling of vaults and arcs!

III

Up, out, and off, see! Were you never used,—
    You now, in childish days or rather nights,—
As I was, to watch sparks fly? not amused
    By that old nurse-taught game which gave the sprites
Each one his title and career,—confused
    Belief 'twas all long over with the flights
From earth to heaven of hero, sage and bard,
And bade them once more strive for Fame's award?

IV

New long bright life! and happy chance befell—
    That I know—when some prematurely lost
Child of disaster bore away the bell
    From some too-pampered son of fortune, crossed
Never before my chimney broke the spell!
    Octogenarian Keats gave up the ghost,
While—never mind Who was it cumbered earth—
Sank stifled, span-long brightness, in the birth.

V

Well, try a variation of the game!
    Our log is old ship-timber, broken bulk.
There's sea-brine spirits up the brimstone flame,
    That crimson-curly spiral proves the hulk
Was saturate with—ask the chloride's name
    From somebody who knows! I shall not sulk
If yonder greenish tonguelet licked from brass
Its life, I thought was fed on copperas.

VI

Anyhow, there they flutter! What may be
    The style and prowess of that purple one?
Who is the hero other eyes shall see
    Than yours and mine? That yellow, deep to dun—
Conjecture how the sage glows, whom not we
    But those unborn are to get warmth by! Son
O' the coal,—as Job and Hebrew name a spark,—
What bard, in thy red soaring, scares the dark?

VII

Oh and the lesser lights, the dearer still
    That they elude a vulgar eye, give ours
The glimpse repaying astronomic skill
    Which searched sky deeper, passed those patent powers
Constellate proudly,—swords, scrolls, harps, that fill
    The vulgar eye to surfeit,—found best flowers
Hid deepest in the dark,—named unplucked grace
Of soul, ungathered beauty, form or face!

VIII

Up with thee, mouldering ash men never knew,
    But I know! flash thou forth, and figure bold,
Calm and columnar as yon flame I view!
    Oh and I bid thee,—to whom fortune doled
Scantly all other gifts out—bicker blue,
    Beauty for all to see, zinc's uncontrolled
Flake-brilliance! Not my fault if these were shown,
Grandeur and beauty both, to me alone.

IX

No! as the first was boy's play, this proves mere
    Stripling's amusement: manhood's sport be grave!
Choose rather sparkles quenched in mid career,
    Their boldness and their brightness could not save
(In some old night of time on some lone drear
    Sea-coast, monopolized by crag or cave)
—Save from ignoble exit into smoke,
Silence, oblivion, all death-damps that choke!

X

Launched by our ship-wood, float we, once adrift,
    In fancy to that land-strip waters wash,
We both know well! Where uncouth tribes made shift
    Long since to keep life in, billows dash
Nigh over folk who shudder at each lift
    Of the old tyrant tempest's whirlwind-lash
Though they have built the serviceable town
Tempests but tease now, billows drench, not drown.

XI

Croisic, the spit of sandy rock which juts
    Spitefully northward, bears nor tree nor shrub
To tempt the ocean, show what Guérande shuts
    Behind her, past wild Batz whose Saxons grub
The ground for crystals grown where ocean gluts
    Their promontory's breadth with salt: all stub
Of rock and stretch of sand, the land's last strife
To rescue just a remnant for dear life.

XII

And what life! Here was, from the world to choose,
    The Druids' chosen chief of homes: they reared
—Only their women,—mid the slush and ooze
    Of yon low islet,—to their sun, revered
In strange stone guise,—a temple. May-dawn dews
    Saw the old structure levelled; when there peered
May's earliest eve-star, high and wide once more
Up towered the new pile perfect as before:

XIII

Seeing that priestesses—and all were such—
    Unbuilt and then rebuilt it every May,
Each alike helping—well, if not too much!
    For, mid their eagerness to outstrip day
And get work done, if any loosed her clutch
    And let a single stone drop, straight a prey
Herself fell, torn to pieces, limb from limb,
By sisters in full chorus glad and grim.

XIV

And still so much remains of that grey cult,
    That even now, of nights, do women steal
To the sole Menhir standing, and insult
    The antagonistic church-spire by appeal
To power discrowned in vain, since each adult
    Believes the gruesome thing she clasps may heal
Whatever plague no priestly help can cure:
Kiss but the cold stone, the event is sure!

XV

Nay more: on May-morns, that primeval rite
    Of temple-building, with its punishment
For rash precipitation, lingers, spite
    Of all remonstrance; vainly are they shent,
Those girls who form a ring and, dressed in white,
    Dance round it, till some sister's strength be spent:
Touch but the Menhir, straight the rest turn roughs
From gentles, fall on her with fisticuffs.

XVI

Oh and, for their part, boys from door to door
    Sing unintelligible words to tunes
As obsolete: "scraps of Druidic lore,"
    Sigh scholars, as each pale man importunes
Vainly the mumbling to speak plain once more.
    Enough of this old worship, rounds and runes!
They serve my purpose, which is but to show
Croisic to-day and Croisic long ago.

XVII
 
What have we sailed to see, then, wafted there
    By fancy from the log that ends its days
Of much adventure 'neath skies foul or fair,
    On waters rough or smooth, in this good blaze
We two crouch round so closely, bidding care
    Keep outside with the snow-storm? Something says
"Fit time for story-telling!" I begin—
Why not at Croisic, port we first put in?

XVIII

Anywhere serves: for point me out the place
    Wherever man has made himself a home,
And there I find the story of our race
    In little, just at Croisic as at Rome.
What matters the degree? the kind I trace.
    Druids their temple, Christians have their dome:
So with mankind; and Croisic, I'll engage,
With Rome yields sort for sort, in age for age.

XIX

No doubt, men vastly differ: and we need
    Some strange exceptional benevolence
Of nature's sunshine to develop seed
    So well, in the less-favoured clime, that thence
We may discern how shrub means tree indeed
    Though dwarfed till scarcely shrub in evidence.
Man in the ice-house and the hot-house ranks
With beasts or gods: stove-forced, give warmth the thanks!

XX

While, is there any ice-checked? Such shall learn
    I am thankworthy, who propose to slake
His thirst for tasting how it feels to turn
    Cedar from hyssop-on-the-wall. I wake
No memories of what is harsh and stern
    In ancient Croisic-nature, much less rake
The ashes of her last warmth till out leaps
Live Hervé Riel, the single spark she keeps.

XXI

Take these two, see, each outbreak,—spirt and spirt
    Of fire from our brave billet's either edge
Which—call maternal Croisic ocean-girt!
    These two shall thoroughly redeem my pledge.
One flames fierce gules, its feebler rival—vert,
    Heralds would tell you: heroes, I allege,
They both were: soldiers, sailors, statesmen, priests,
Lawyers, physicians—guess what gods or beasts!

XXII

None of them all, but—poets, if you please!
    "What, even there, endowed with knack of rhyme,
Did two among the aborigines
    Of that rough region pass the ungracious time
Suiting, to rumble-tumble of the sea's,
    The songs forbidden a serener clime?
Or had they universal audience—that's
To say, the folk of Croisic, ay and Batz?"

XXIII
 
Open your ears! Each poet in his day
    Had such a mighty moment of success
As pinnacled him straight, in full display,
    For the whole world to worship—nothing less!
Was not the whole polite world Paris, pray?
    And did not Paris, for one moment—yes,
Worship these poet-flames, our red and green,
One at a time, a century between?

XXIV

And yet you never heard their names! Assist,
    Clio, Historic Muse, while I record
Great deeds! Let fact, not fancy, break the mist
    And bid each sun emerge, in turn play lord
Of day, one moment! Hear the annalist
    Tell a strange story, true to the least word!
At Croisic, sixteen hundred years and ten
Since Christ, forth flamed yon liquid ruby, then.

XXV

Know him henceforth as René Gentilhomme
    —Appropriate appellation! noble birth
And knightly blazon, the device wherefrom
    Was "Better do than say"! In Croisic's dearth
Why prison his career while Christendom
    Lay open to reward acknowledged worth?
He therefore left it at the proper age
And got to be the Prince of Condé's page.

XXVI

Which Prince of Conde, whom men called "The Duke,"
    —Failing the king, his cousin, of an heir,
(As one might hold would hap, without rebuke,
    Since Anne of Austria, all the world was 'ware,
Twenty-three years long sterile, scarce could look
    For issue)—failing Louis of so rare
A godsend, it was natural the Prince
Should hear men call him "Next King" too, nor wince.

XXVII

Now, as this reasonable hope, by growth
    Of years, nay, tens of years, looked plump almost
To bursting,—would the brothers, childless both,
    Louis and Gaston, give but up the ghost—
Condé, called "Duke" and "Next King," nothing loth
    Awaited his appointment to the post,
And wiled away the time, as best he might,
Till providence should settle things aright.

XXVIII

So, at a certain pleasure-house, withdrawn
    From cities where a whisper breeds offence,
He sat him down to watch the streak of dawn
    Testify to first stir of Providence;
And, since dull country life makes courtiers yawn,
    There wanted not a poet to dispense
Song's remedy for spleen-fits all and some,
Which poet was Page René Gentilhomme.

XXIX

A poet born and bred, his very sire
    A poet also, author of a piece
Printed and published, "Ladies—their attire":
    Therefore the son, just born at his decease,
Was bound to keep alive the sacred fire,
    And kept it, yielding moderate increase
Of songs and sonnets, madrigals, and much
Rhyming thought poetry and praised as such.

XXX

Rubbish unutterable (bear in mind!)
    Rubbish not wholly without value, though,
Being to compliment the Duke designed
    And bring the complimenter credit so,—
Pleasure with profit happily combined.
    Thus René Gentilhomme rhymed, rhymed till—lo,
This happened, as he sat in an alcove
Elaborating rhyme for "love"—not "dove."

XXXI

He was alone: silence and solitude
    Befit the votary of the Muse. Around,
Nature—not our new picturesque and rude,
    But trim tree-cinctured stately garden-ground—
Breathed polish and politeness. All-imbued
    With these, he sat absorbed in one profound
Excogitation "Were it best to hint
Or boldly boast 'She loves me,—Araminte'?"

XXXII

When suddenly flashed lightning, searing sight
    Almost, so close his eyes; then, quick on flash,
Followed the thunder, splitting earth downright
    Where René sat a-rhyming: with huge crash
Of marble into atoms infinite—
    Marble which, stately, dared the world to dash
The stone-thing proud, high-pillared, from its place:
One flash, and dust was all that lay at base.

XXXIII

So, when the horrible confusion loosed
    Its wrappage round his senses, and, with breath,
Seeing and hearing by degrees induced
    Conviction what he felt was life, not death—
His fluttered faculties came back to roost
    One after one, as fowls do: ay, beneath,
About his very feet there, lay in dust
Earthly presumption paid by heaven's disgust.

XXXIV

For, what might be the thunder-smitten thing
    But, pillared high and proud, in marble guise,
A ducal crown—which meant "Now Duke: Next, King"?
    Since such the Prince was, not in his own eyes
Alone, but all the world's. Pebble from sling
    Prostrates a giant; so can pulverize
Marble pretension—how much more, make moult
A peacock-prince his plume—God's thunderbolt.

XXXV

That was enough for René, that first fact
    Thus flashed into him. Up he looked: all blue
And bright the sky above; earth firm, compact
    Beneath his footing, lay apparent too;
Opposite stood the pillar: nothing lacked
    There, but the Duke's crown: see, its fragments strew
The earth,—about his feet lie atoms fine
Where he sat nursing late his fourteenth line!

XXXVI

So, for the moment, all the universe
    Being abolished, all 'twixt God and him,—
Earth's praise or blame, its blessing or its curse,
    Of one and the same value,—to the brim
Flooded with truth for better or for worse,—
    He pounces on the writing-paper, prim
Keeping its place on table: not a dint
Nor speck had damaged "Ode to Araminte."

XXXVII

And over the neat crowquill calligraph
    His pen goes blotting, blurring, as an ox
Tramples a flower-bed in a garden,—laugh
    You may!—so does not he, whose quick heart knocks
Audibly at his breast: an epitaph
    On earth's break-up, amid the falling rocks,
He might be penning in a wild dismay,
Caught with his work half-done on Judgment Day.

XXXVIII

And what is it so terribly he pens,
    Ruining "Cupid, Venus, wile and smile,
Hearts, darts," and all his day's divinior mens
    Judged necessary to a perfect style?
Little recks René, with a breast to cleanse,
    Of Rhadamanthine law that reigned erewhile:
Brimful of truth, truth's outburst will convince
(Style or no style) who bears truth's brunt—the Prince.

XXXIX

"Condé, called 'Duke,' be called just 'Duke,' not more,
    To life's end! 'Next King' thou forsooth wilt be?
Ay, when this bauble, as it decked before
    Thy pillar, shall again, for France to see,
Take its proud station there! Let France adore
    No longer an illusive mock-sun—thee—
But keep her homage for Sol's self, about
To rise and put pretenders to the rout!

XL

"What? France so God-abandoned that her root
    Regal, though many a Spring it gave no sign,
Lacks power to make the bole, now branchless, shoot
    Greenly as ever? Nature, though benign,
Confuses the ambitious and astute.
    In store for such is punishment condign:
Sure as thy Duke's crown to the earth was hurled,
So sure, next year, a Dauphin glads the world!"

XLI

Which penned—some forty lines to this effect—
    Our René folds his paper, marches brave
Back to the mansion, luminous, erect,
    Triumphant, an emancipated slave.
There stands the Prince. "How now? My Duke's crown wrecked?
    What may this mean?" The answer René gave
Was handing him the verses, with the due
Incline of body: "Sir, God's word to you!"

XLII

The Prince read, paled, was silent; all around,
    The courtier-company, to whom he passed
The paper, read, in equal silence bound.
    René grew also by degrees aghast
At his own fit of courage—palely found
    Way of retreat from that pale presence: classed
Once more among the cony-kind. "Oh, son,
It is a feeble folk!" saith Solomon.

XLIII

Vainly he apprehended evil: since,
    When, at the year's end, even as foretold,
Forth came the Dauphin who discrowned the Prince
    Of that long-craved mere visionary gold,
'Twas no fit time for envy to evince
    Malice, be sure! The timidest grew bold:
Of all that courtier-company not one
But left the semblance for the actual sun.

XLIV

And all sorts and conditions that stood by
    At René's burning moment, bright escape
Of soul, bore witness to the prophecy.
    Which witness took the customary shape
Of verse; a score of poets in full cry
    Hailed the inspired one. Nantes and Tours agape,
Soon Paris caught the infection; gaining strength,
How could it fail to reach the Court at length?

XLV

"O poet!" smiled King Louis, "and besides,
    O prophet! Sure, by miracle announced,
My babe will prove a prodigy. Who chides
    Henceforth the unchilded monarch shall be trounced
For irreligion: since the fool derides
    Plain miracle by which this prophet pounced
Exactly on the moment I should lift
Like Simeon, in my arms, a babe, 'God's gift!'

XLVI

"So call the boy! and call this bard and seer
    By a new title! him I raise to rank
Of 'Royal Poet': poet without peer!
    Whose fellows only have themselves to thank
If humbly they must follow in the rear
    My René. He's the master: they must clank
Their chains of song, confessed his slaves; for why?
They poetize, while he can prophesy!"

XLVII

So said, so done; our René rose august,
    "The Royal Poet"; straightway put in type
His poem-prophecy, and (fair and just
    Procedure) added,—now that time was ripe
For proving friends did well his word to trust,—
    Those attestations, tuned to lyre or pipe,
Which friends broke out with when he dared foretell
The Dauphin's birth: friends trusted, and did well.

XLVIII

Moreover he got painted by Du Pré,
    Engraved by Daret also; and prefixed
The portrait to his book: a crown of bay
    Circled his brows, with rose and myrtle mixed;
And Latin verses, lovely in their way,
    Described him as "the biforked hill betwixt:
Since he hath scaled Parnassus at one jump,
Joining the Delphic quill and Getic trump."

XLIX

Whereof came ... What, it lasts, our spirt, thus long
    —The red fire? That's the reason must excuse
My letting flicker René's prophet-song
    No longer; for its pertinacious hues
Must fade before its fellow joins the throng
    Of sparks departed up the chimney, dues
To dark oblivion. At the word, it winks,
Rallies, relapses, dwindles, deathward sinks!

L

So does our poet. All this burst of fame,
    Fury of favour, Royal Poetship,
Prophetship, book, verse, picture—thereof came
    —Nothing! That's why I would not let outstrip
Red his green rival flamelet: just the same
    Ending in smoke waits both! In vain we rip
The past, no further faintest trace remains
Of René to reward our pious pains.

LI

Somebody saw a portrait framed and glazed
    At Croisic. "Who may be this glorified
Mortal unheard-of hitherto?" amazed
    That person asked the owner by his side,
Who proved as ignorant. The question raised
    Provoked inquiry; key by key was tried
On Croisic's portrait-puzzle, till back flew
The wards at one key's touch, which key was—Who

LII

The other famous poet! Wait thy turn,
    Thou green, our red's competitor! Enough
Just now to note 'twas he that itched to learn
    (A hundred years ago) how fate could puff
Heaven-high (a hundred years before) then spurn
    To suds so big a bubble in some huff:
Since green too found red's portrait,—having heard
Hitherto of red's rare self not one word.

LIII

And he with zeal addressed him to the task
    Of hunting out, by all and any means,
—Who might the brilliant bard be, born to bask
    Butterfly-like in shine which kings and queens
And baby-dauphins shed? Much need to ask!
    Is fame so fickle that what perks and preens
The eyed wing, one imperial minute, dips
Next sudden moment into blind eclipse?

LIV

After a vast expenditure of pains,
    Our second poet found the prize he sought:
Urged in his search by something that restrains
    From undue triumph famed ones who have fought,
Or simply, poetizing, taxed their brains:
    Something that tells such—dear is triumph bought
If it means only basking in the midst
Of fame's brief sunshine, as thou, René, didst!

LV

For, what did searching find at last but this?
    Quoth somebody "I somehow somewhere seem
To think I heard one old De Chevaye is
    Or was possessed of René's works!" which gleam
Of light from out the dark proved not amiss
    To track, by correspondence on the theme;
And soon the twilight broadened into day,
For thus to question answered De Chevaye.

LVI

"True it is, I did once possess the works
    You want account of—works—to call them so,—
Comprised in one small book: the volume lurks
    (Some fifty leaves in duodecimo)
'Neath certain ashes which my soul it irks
    Still to remember, because long ago
That and my other rare shelf-occupants
Perished by burning of my house at Nantes.

LVII

"Yet of that book one strange particular
    Still stays in mind with me"—and thereupon
Followed the story. "Few the poems are;
    The book was two-thirds filled up with this one,
And sundry witnesses from near and far
    That here at least was prophesying done
By prophet, so as to preclude all doubt,
Before the thing he prophesied about."

LVIII

That's all he knew, and all the poet learned,
    And all that you and I are like to hear
Of René; since not only book is burned
    But memory extinguished,—nay, I fear,
Portrait is gone too: nowhere I discerned
    A trace of it at Croisic. "Must a tear
Needs fall for that?" you smile. "How fortune fares
With such a mediocrity, who cares?"

LIX

Well, I care—intimately care to have
    Experience how a human creature felt
In after-life, who bore the burden grave
    Of certainly believing God had dealt
For once directly with him: did not rave
    —A maniac, did not find his reason melt
—An idiot, but went on, in peace or strife,
The world's way, lived an ordinary life.

LX

How many problems that one fact would solve!
    An ordinary soul, no more, no less,
About whose life earth's common sights revolve,
    On whom is brought to bear, by thunder-stress,
This fact—God tasks him, and will not absolve
    Task's negligent performer! Can you guess
How such a soul,—the task performed to point,—
Goes back to life nor finds things out of joint?

LXI

Does he stand stock-like henceforth? or proceed
    Dizzily, yet with course straight-forward still,
Down-trampling vulgar hindrance?—as the reed
    Is crushed beneath its tramp when that blind will
Hatched in some old-world beast's brain bids it speed
    Where the sun wants brute-presence to fulfil
Life's purpose in a new far zone, ere ice
Enwomb the pasture-tract its fortalice.

LXII

I think no such direct plain truth consists
    With actual sense and thought and what they take
To be the solid walls of life: mere mists—
    How such would, at that truth's first piercing, break
Into the nullity they are!—slight lists
    Wherein the puppet-champions wage, for sake
Of some mock-mistress, mimic war: laid low
At trumpet-blast, there's shown the world, one foe!

LXIII

No, we must play the pageant out, observe
    The tourney-regulations, and regard
Success—to meet the blunted spear nor swerve,
    Failure—to break no bones yet fall on sward;
Must prove we have—not courage? well then,—nerve!
    And, at the day's end, boast the crown's award—
Be warranted as promising to wield
Weapons, no sham, in a true battle-field.

LXIV

Meantime, our simulated thunderclaps
    Which tell us counterfeited truths—these same
Are—sound, when music storms the soul, perhaps?
    —Sight, beauty, every dart of every aim
That touches just, then seems, by strange relapse,
    To fall effectless from the soul it came
As if to fix its own, but simply smote
And startled to vague beauty more remote?

LXV

So do we gain enough—yet not too much—
    Acquaintance with that outer element
Wherein there's operation (call it such!)
    Quite of another kind than we the pent
On earth are proper to receive. Our hutch
    Lights up at the least chink: let roof be rent—
How inmates huddle, blinded at first spasm,
Cognizant of the sun's self through the chasm!

LXVI

Therefore, who knows if this our René's quick
    Subsidence from as sudden noise and glare
Into oblivion was impolitic?
    No doubt his soul became at once aware
That, after prophecy, the rhyming-trick
    Is poor employment: human praises scare
Rather than soothe ears all a-tingle yet
With tones few hear and live, but none forget.

LXVII

There's our first famous poet! Step thou forth,
    Second consummate songster! See, the tongue
Of fire that typifies thee, owns thy worth
    In yellow, purple mixed its green among,
No pure and simple resin from the North,
    But composite with virtues that belong
To Southern culture! Love not more than hate
Helped to a blaze ... But I anticipate.

LXVIII

Prepare to witness a combustion rich
    And riotously splendid, far beyond
Poor René's lambent little streamer which
    Only played candle to a Court grown fond
By baby-birth: this soared to such a pitch,
    Alternately such colours doffed and donned,
That when I say it dazzled Paris—please
Know that it brought Voltaire upon his knees!

LXIX

Who did it, was a dapper gentleman,
    Paul Desforges Maillard, Croisickese by birth,
Whose birth that century ended which began
    By similar bestowment on our earth
Of the aforesaid René. Cease to scan
    The ways of Providence! See Croisic's dearth—
Not Paris in its plenitude—suffice
To furnish France with her best poet twice!

LXX

Till he was thirty years of age, the vein
    Poetic yielded rhyme by drops and spirts:
In verses of society had lain
    His talent chiefly; but the Muse asserts
Privilege most by treating with disdain
    Epics the bard mouths out, or odes he blurts
Spasmodically forth. Have people time
And patience nowadays for thought in rhyme?

LXXI

So, his achievements were the quatrain's inch
    Of homage, or at most the sonnet's ell
Of admiration: welded lines with clinch
    Of ending word and word, to every belle
In Croisic's bounds; these, brisk as any finch,
    He twittered till his fame had reached as well
Guérande as Batz; but there fame stopped, for—curse
On fortune—outside lay the universe!

LXXII

That's Paris. Well,—why not break bounds, and send
    Song onward till it echo at the gates
Of Paris whither all ambitions tend,
    And end too, seeing that success there sates
The soul which hungers most for fame? Why spend
    A minute in deciding, while, by Fate's
Decree, there happens to be just the prize
Proposed there, suiting souls that poetize?

LXXIII

A prize indeed, the Academy's own self
    Proposes to what bard shall best indite
A piece describing how, through shoal and shelf,
    The Art of Navigation, steered aright,
Has, in our last king's reign,—the lucky elf,—
    Reached, one may say, Perfection's haven quite,
And there cast anchor. At a glance one sees
The subject's crowd of capabilities!

LXXIV

Neptune and Amphitrite! Thetis, who
    Is either Tethys or as good—both tag!
Triton can shove along a vessel too:
    It's Virgil! Then the winds that blow or lag,—
De Maille, Vendôme, Vermandois! Toulouse blew
    Longest, we reckon: he must puff the flag
To fullest outflare; while our lacking nymph
Be Anne of Austria, Regent o'er the lymph!

LXXV

Promised, performed! Since irritabilis gens
    Holds of the feverish impotence that strives
To stay an itch by prompt resource to pen's
    Scratching itself on paper; placid lives,
Leisurely works mark the divinior mens:
    Bees brood above the honey in their hives;
Gnats are the busy bustlers. Splash and scrawl,—
Completed lay thy piece, swift penman Paul!

LXXVI

To Paris with the product! This despatched,
    One had to wait the Forty's slow and sure
Verdict, as best one might. Our penman scratched
    Away perforce the itch that knows no cure
But daily paper-friction: mere than matched
    His first feat by a second—tribute pure
And heartfelt to the Forty when their voice
Should peal with one accord "Be Paul our choice!"

LXXVII

Scratch, scratch went much laudation of that sane
    And sound Tribunal, delegates august
Of Phœbus and the Muses' sacred train—
    Whom every poetaster tries to thrust
From where, high-throned, they dominate the Seine:
    Fruitless endeavour,—fail it shall and must!
Whereof in witness have not one and all
The Forty voices pealed "Our choice be Paul?"

LXXVIII

Thus Paul discounted his applause. Alack
    For human expectation! Scarcely ink
Was dry when, lo, the perfect piece came back
    Rejected, shamed! Some other poet's clink
"Thetis and Tethys" had seduced the pack
    Of pedants to declare perfection's pink
A singularly poor production. "Whew!
The Forty are stark fools, I always knew."

LXXIX

First fury over (for Paul's race—to-wit,
    Brain-vibrous—wriggle clear of protoplasm
Into minute life that's one fury-fit),
    "These fools shall find a bard's enthusiasm
Comports with what should counterbalance it—
    Some knowledge of the world! No doubt, orgasm
Effects the birth of verse which, born, demands
Prosaic ministration, swaddling-bands!

LXXX

"Verse must be cared for at this early stage,
    Handled, nay dandled even. I should play
Their game indeed if, till it grew of age,
    I meekly let these dotards frown away
My bantling from the rightful heritage
    Of smiles and kisses! Let the public say
If it be worthy praises or rebukes,
My poem, from these Forty old perukes!"

LXXXI

So, by a friend, who boasts himself in grace
    With no less than the Chevalier La Roque,—
Eminent in those days for pride of place,
    Seeing he had it in his power to block
The way or smooth the road to all the race
    Of literators trudging up to knock
At Fame's exalted temple-door—for why?
He edited the Paris "Mercury":—

LXXXII

By this friend's help the Chevalier receives
    Paul's poem, prefaced by the due appeal
To Cæsar from the Jews. As duly heaves
    A sigh the Chevalier, about to deal
With case so customary—turns the leaves,
    Finds nothing there to borrow, beg or steal—
Then brightens up the critic's brow deep-lined.
"The thing may be so cleverly declined!"

LXXXIII

Down to desk, out with paper, up with quill,
    Dip and indite! "Sir, gratitude immense
For this true draught from the Pierian rill!
    Our Academic clodpoles must be dense
Indeed to stand unirrigated still.
    No less, we critics dare not give offence
To grandees like the Forty: while we mock,
We grin and bear. So, here's your piece! La Roque."

LXXXIV

"There now!" cries Paul: "the fellow can't avoid
    Confessing that my piece deserves the palm;
And yet he dares not grant me space enjoyed
    By every scribbler he permits embalm
His crambo in the Journal's corner! Cloyed
    With stuff like theirs, no wonder if a qualm
Be caused by verse like mine: though that's no cause
For his defrauding me of just applause.

LXXXV

"Aha, he fears the Forty, this poltroon?
    First let him fear me! Change smooth speech to rough!
I'll speak my mind out, show the fellow soon
    Who is the foe to dread: insist enough
On my own merits till, as clear as noon,
    He sees I am no man to take rebuff
As patiently as scribblers may and must!
Quick to the onslaught, out sword, cut and thrust!"

LXXXVI

And thereupon a fierce epistle flings
    Its challenge in the critic's face. Alack!
Our bard mistakes his man! The gauntlet rings
    On brazen visor proof against attack.
Prompt from his editorial throne up springs
    The insulted magnate, and his mace falls, thwack,
On Paul's devoted brainpan,—quite away
From common courtesies of fencing-play!

LXXXVII

"Sir, will you have the truth? This piece of yours
    Is simply execrable past belief.
I shrank from saying so; but, since nought cures
    Conceit but truth, truth's at your service! Brief,
Just so long as 'The Mercury' endures,
    So long are you excluded by its Chief
From corner, nay, from cranny! Play the cock
O' the roost, henceforth, at Croisic!" wrote La Roque.

LXXXVIII

Paul yellowed, whitened, as his wrath from red
    Waxed incandescent. Now, this man of rhyme
Was merely foolish, faulty in the head
    Not heart of him: conceit's a venial crime.
"Oh by no means malicious!" cousins said:
    Fussily feeble,—harmless all the time,
Piddling at so-called satire—well-advised
He held in most awe whom he satirized.

LXXXIX

Accordingly his kith and kin—removed
    From emulation of the poet's gift
By power and will—these rather liked, nay, loved
    The man who gave his family a lift
Out of the Croisic level; "disapproved
    Satire so trenchant." Thus our poet sniffed
Home-incense, though too churlish to unlock
"The Mercury's" box of ointment was La Roque.

XC

But when Paul's visage grew from red to white,
    And from his lips a sort of mumbling fell
Of who was to be kicked,—"And serve him right"—
    A soft voice interposed—"did kicking well
Answer the purpose! Only—if I might
    Suggest as much—a far more potent spell
Lies in another kind of treatment. Oh,
Women are ready at resource, you know!

XCI

"Talent should minister to genius! good:
    The proper and superior smile returns.
Hear me with patience! Have you understood
    The only method whereby genius earns
Fit guerdon nowadays? In knightly mood
    You entered lists with visor up; one learns
Too late that, had you mounted Roland's crest,
'Room!' they had roared—La Roque with all the rest!

XCII

"Why did you first of all transmit your piece
    To those same priggish Forty unprepared
Whether to rank you with the swans or geese
    By friendly intervention? If they dared
Count you a cackler,—wonders never cease!
    I think it still more wondrous that you bared
Your brow (my earlier image) as if praise
Were gained by simple fighting nowadays!

XCIII

"Your next step showed a touch of the true means
    Whereby desert is crowned: not force but wile
Came to the rescue. 'Get behind the scenes!'
    Your friend advised: he writes, sets forth your style
And title, to such purpose intervenes
    That you get velvet-compliment three-pile;
And, though 'The Mercury' said 'nay,' nor stock
Nor stone did his refusal prove La Roque.

XCIV

"Why must you needs revert to the high hand,
    Imperative procedure—what you call
'Taking on merit your exclusive stand'?
    Stand,with a vengeance! Soon you went to wall,
You and your merit! Only fools command
    When folk are free to disobey them, Paul!
You Ve learnt your lesson, found out what's o'clock,
By this uncivil answer of La Roque.

XCV

"Now let me counsel! Lay this piece on shelf
    —Masterpiece though it be! From out your desk
Hand me some lighter sample, verse the elf
    Cupid inspired you with, no god grotesque
Presiding o'er the Navy! I myself
    Hand-write what's legible yet picturesque;
I'll copy fair and femininely frock
Your poem masculine that courts La Roque!

XCVI

"Deidamia he—Achilles thou!
    Ha, ha, these ancient stories come so apt!
My sex, my youth, my rank I next avow
    In a neat prayer for kind perusal. Sapped
I see the walls which stand so stoutly now!
    I see the toils about the game entrapped
By honest cunning! Chains of lady's-smock,
Not thorn and thistle, tether fast La Roque!"

XCVII

Now, who might be the speaker sweet and arch
    That laughed above Paul's shoulder as it heaved
With the indignant heart?—bade steal a march
    And not continue charging? Who conceived
This plan which set our Paul, like pea you parch
    On fire-shovel, skipping, of a load relieved,
From arm-chair moodiness to escritoire
Sacred to Phœbus and the tuneful choir?

XCVIII

Who but Paul's sister! named of course like him
    "Desforges"; but, mark you, in those days a queer
Custom obtained,—who knows whence grew the whim?—
    That people could not read their title clear
To reverence till their own true names, made dim
    By daily mouthing, pleased to disappear,
Replaced by brand-new bright ones: Arouet,
For instance, grew Voltaire; Desforges—Malcrais.

XCIX

"Demoiselle Malcrais de la Vigne"—because
    The family possessed at Brederac
A vineyard,—few grapes, many hips-and-haws,—
    Still a nice Breton name. As breast and back
Of this vivacious beauty gleamed through gauze,
    So did her sprightly nature nowise lack
Lustre when draped, the fashionable way,
In "Malcrais de la Vigne"—more short, "Malcrais."

C

Out from Paul's escritoire behold escape
    The hoarded treasure! verse falls thick and fast,
Sonnets and songs of every size and shape.
    The lady ponders on her prize; at last
Selects one which—Oh angel and yet ape!—
    Her malice thinks is probably surpassed
In badness by no fellow of the flock,
Copies it fair, and "Now for my La Roque!"

CI

So, to him goes, with the neat manuscript,
    The soft petitionary letter. "Grant
A fledgeling novice that with wing unclipt
    She soar her little circuit, habitant
Of an old manor; buried in which crypt,
    How can the youthful châtelaine but pant
For disemprisonment by one ad hoc
Appointed 'Mercury's' Editor, La Roque?"

CII

'Twas an epistle that might move the Turk!
    More certainly it moved our middle-aged
Pen-driver drudging at his weary work,
    Raked the old ashes up and disengaged
The sparks of gallantry which always lurk
    Somehow in literary breasts, assuaged
In no degree by compliments on style;
Are Forty wagging beards worth one girl's smile?

CIII

In trips the lady's poem, takes its place
    Of honour in the gratified Gazette,
With due acknowledgment of power and grace;
    Prognostication, too, that higher yet
The Breton Muse will soar: fresh youth, high race,
    Beauty and wealth have amicably met
That Demoiselle Malcrais may fill the chair
Left vacant by the loss of Deshoulières.

CIV

"There!" cried the lively lady. "Who was right—
    You in the dumps, or I the merry maid
Who know a trick or two can baffle spite
    Tenfold the force of this old fool's? Afraid
Of Editor La Roque? But come! next flight
    Shall outsoar—Deshoulières alone? My blade,
Sappho herself shall you confess outstript!
Quick, Paul, another dose of manuscript!"

CV

And so, once well a-foot, advanced the game:
    More and more verses, corresponding gush
On gush of praise, till everywhere acclaim
    Rose to the pitch of uproar. "Sappho? Tush!
Sure 'Malcrais on her Parrot' puts to shame
    Deshoulières' pastoral, clay not worth a rush
Beside this find of treasure, gold in crock,
Unearthed in Brittany,—nay, ask La Roque!"

CVI

Such was the Paris tribute. "Yes," you sneer,
    "Ninnies stock Noodledom, but folks more sage
Resist contagious folly, never fear!"
    Do they? Permit me to detach one page
From the huge Album which from far and near
    Poetic praises blackened in a rage
Of rapture! and that page shall be—who stares
Confounded now, I ask you?—just Voltaire's!

CVII

Ay, sharpest shrewdest steel that ever stabbed
    To death Imposture through the armour-joints!
How did it happen that gross Humbug grabbed
    Thy weapons, gouged thine eyes out? Fate appoints
That pride shall have a fall, or I had blabbed
    Hardly that Humbug, whom thy soul aroints,
Could thus cross-buttock thee caught unawares,
And dismalest of tumbles proved—Voltaire's!

CVIII

See his epistle extant yet, wherewith
    "Henri" in verse and "Charles" in prose he sent
To do her suit and service! Here's the pith
    Of half a dozen stanzas—stones which went
To build that simulated monolith—
    Sham love in due degree with homage blent
As sham—which in the vast of volumes scares
The traveller still: "That stucco-heap—Voltaire's?"

CIX

"Oh thou, whose clarion-voice has overflown
    The wilds to startle Paris that's one ear!
Thou who such strange capacity hast shown
    For joining all that's grand with all that's dear,
Knowledge with power to please—Deshoulières grown
    Learned as Dacier in thy person! mere
Weak fruit of idle hours, these crabs of mine
I dare lay at thy feet, O Muse divine!

CX

"Charles was my taskwork only; Henri trod
    My hero erst; and now, my heroine—she
Shall be thyself! True—is it true, great God?
    Certainly love henceforward must not be!
Yet all the crowd of Fine Arts fail—how odd!—
    Tried turn by turn, to fill a void in me!
The e 's no replacing love with these, alas!
Yet all I can I do to prove no ass.

CXI

"I labour to amuse my freedom; but
    Should any sweet young creature slavery preach,
And—borrowing thy vivacious charm, the slut!—
    Make me, in thy engaging words, a speech,
Soon should I see myself in prison shut
    With all imaginable pleasure." Reach
The washhand-basin for admirers! There's
A stomach-moving tribute—and Voltaire's!

CXII

Suppose it a fantastic billet-doux,
    Adulatory flourish, not worth frown!
What say you to the Fathers of Trévoux?
    These in their Dictionary have her down
Under the heading "Author": "Malcrais, too,
    Is 'Author' of much verse that claims renown."
While Jean-Baptiste Rousseau ... but why proceed?
Enough of this—something too much, indeed!

CXIII

At last La Roque, unwilling to be left
    Behindhand in the rivalry, broke bounds
Of figurative passion; hilt and heft,
    Plunged his huge downright love through what surrounds
The literary female bosom; reft
    Away its veil of coy reserve with "Zounds!
I love thee, Breton Beauty! All's no use!
Body and soul I love,—the big word's loose!"

CXIV

He's greatest now and to de-struc-ti-on
    Nearest. Attend the solemn word I quote,
Oh Paul! There's no pause at per-fec-ti-on.
    Thus knolls thy knell the Doctor's bronzed throat!
Greatness a period hath, no sta-ti-on!
    Better and truer verse none ever wrote
(Despite the antique outstretched a-i-on)
Than thou, revered and magisterial Donne!

CXV

Flat on his face, La Roque, and,—pressed to heart
    His dexter hand,—Voltaire with bended knee!
Paul sat and sucked-in triumph; just apart
    Leaned over him his sister. "Well?" smirks he,
And "Well?" she answers, smiling—woman's art
    To let a man's own mouth, not hers, decree
What shall be next move which decides the game:
Success? She said so. Failure? His the blame.

CXVI

"Well!" this time forth affirmatively comes
    With smack of lip, and long-drawn sigh through teeth
Close clenched o'er satisfaction, as the gums
    Were tickled by a sweetmeat teased beneath
Palate by lubricating tongue: "Well! crumbs
    Of comfort these, undoubtedly! no death
Likely from famine at Fame's feast! 'tis clear
I may put claim in for my pittance, Dear!

CXVII

"La Roque, Voltaire, my lovers! Then disguise
    Has served its turn, grows idle; let it drop!
I shall to Paris, flaunt there in men's eyes
    My proper manly garb and mount a-top
The pedestal that waits me, take the prize
    Awarded Hercules! He threw a sop
To Cerberus who let him pass, you know,
Then, following, licked his heels: exactly so!

CXVIII

"I like the prospect—their astonishment,
    Confusion: wounded vanity, no doubt,
Mixed motives; how I see the brows quick bent!
    'What, sir, yourself, none other, brought about
This change of estimation? Phœbus sent
    His shafts as from Diana?' Critic pout
Turns courtier smile: 'Lo, him we took for her!
Pleasant mistake! You bear no malice, sir?'

CXIX

"Eh, my Diana?" But Diana kept
    Smilingly silent with fixed needle-sharp
Much-meaning eyes that seemed to intercept
    Paul's very thoughts ere they had time to warp
From earnest into sport the words they leapt
    To life with—changed as when maltreated harp
Renders in tinkle what some player-prig
Means for a grave tune though it proves a jig.

CXX

"What, Paul, and are my pains thus thrown away,
    My lessons perfect loss?" at length fall slow
The pitying syllables, her lips allay
    The satire of by keeping in full flow,
Above their coral reef, bright smiles at play:
    "Can it be, Paul thus fails to rightly know
And altogether estimate applause
As just so many asinine hee-haws?

CXXI

"I thought to show you" ... "Show me," Paul in-broke
    "My poetry is rubbish, and the world
That rings with my renown a sorry joke!
    What fairer test of worth than that, form furled,
I entered the arena? Yet you croak
    Just as if Phœbé and not Phœbus hurled
The dart and struck the Python! What, he crawls
Humbly in dust before your feet, not Paul's?

CXXII

"Nay, 'tis no laughing matter though absurd
    If there's an end of honesty on earth!
La Roque sends letters, lying every word!
    Voltaire makes verse, and of himself makes mirth
To the remotest age! Rousseau's the third
    Who, driven to despair amid such dearth
Of people that want praising, finds no one
More fit to praise than Paul the simpleton!

CXXIII

"Somebody says—if a man writes at all
    It is to show the writer's kith and kin
He was unjustly thought a natural;
    And truly, sister, I have yet to win
Your favourable word, it seems, for Paul
    Whose poetry you count not worth a pin
Though well enough esteemed by these Voltaires,
Rousseaus and suchlike: let them quack, who cares?"

CXXIV

"—To Paris with you, Paul! Not one word's waste
    Further: my scrupulosity was vain!
Go triumph! Be my foolish fears effaced
    From memory's record! Go, to come again
With glory crowned,—by sister re-embraced,
    Cured of that strange delusion of her brain
Which led her to suspect that Paris gloats
On male limbs mostly when in petticoats!"

CXXV

So laughed her last word, with the little touch
    Of malice proper to the outraged pride
Of any artist in a work too much
    Shorn of its merits. "By all means be tried
The opposite procedure! Cast your crutch
    Away, no longer crippled, nor divide
The credit of your march to the World's Fair
With sister Cherry-cheeks who helped you there!"

CXXVI

Crippled, forsooth! what courser sprightlier pranced
    Paris-ward than did Paul? Nay, dreams lent wings:
He flew, or seemed to fly, by dreams entranced.
    Dreams? wide-awake realities: no things
Dreamed merely were the missives that advanced
    The claim of Malcrais to consort with kings
Crowned by Apollo—not to say with queens
Cinctured by Venus for Idalian scenes.

CXXVII

Soon he arrives, forthwith is found before
    The outer gate of glory. Bold tic-toc
Announces there's a giant at the door.
    "Ay, sir, here dwells the Chevalier La Roque."
"Lackey! Malcrais,—mind, no word less nor more!—
    Desires his presence. I've unearthed the brock:
Now, to transfix him!" There stands Paul erect,
Inched out his uttermost, for more effect.

CXXVIII

A bustling entrance: "Idol of my flame!
    Can it be that my heart attains at last
Its longing? that you stand, the very same
    As in my visions? ... Ha! hey, how?" aghast
Stops short the rapture. "Oh, my boy's to blame!
    You merely are the messenger! Too fast
My fancy rushed to a conclusion. Pooh!
Well, sir, the lady's substitute is—who?"

CXXIX

Then Paul's smirk grows inordinate. "Shake hands!
    Friendship not love awaits you, master mine,
Though nor Malcrais nor any mistress stands
    To meet your ardour! So, you don't divine
Who wrote the verses wherewith ring the land's
    Whole length and breadth? Just he whereof no line
Had ever leave to blot your Journal—eh?
Paul Desforges Maillard—otherwise Malcrais!"

CXXX

And there the two stood, stare confronting smirk,
    Awhile uncertain which should yield the pas.
In vain the Chevalier beat brain for quirk
    To help in this conjuncture; at length "Bah!
Boh! Since I've made myself a fool, why shirk
    The punishment of folly? Ha, ha, ha,
Let me return your handshake!" Comic sock
For tragic buskin prompt thus changed La Roque.

CXXXI

"I'm nobody—a wren-like journalist;
    You've flown at higher game and winged your bird,
The golden eagle! That's the grand acquist!
    Voltaire's sly Muse, the tiger-cat, has purred
Prettily round your feet; but if she missed
    Priority of stroking, soon were stirred
The dormant spit-fire. To Voltaire! away,
Paul Desforges Maillard, otherwise Malcrais!"

CXXXII

Whereupon, arm in arm, and head in air,
    The two begin their journey. Need I say,
La Roque had felt the talon of Voltaire,
    Had a long-standing little debt to pay,
And pounced, you may depend, on such a rare
    Occasion for its due discharge? So, gay
And grenadier-like, marching to assault,
They reach the enemy's abode, there halt.

CXXXIII

"I'll be announcer!" quoth La Roque: "I know,
    Better than you, perhaps, my Breton bard,
How to procure an audience! He's not slow
    To smell a rat, this scamp Voltaire! Discard
The petticoats too soon,—you'll never show
    Your haut-de-chausses and all they've made or marred
In your true person. Here's his servant. Pray,
Will the great man see Demoiselle Malcrais?"

CXXXIV

Now, the great man was also, no whit less,
    The man of self-respect,—more great man he!
And bowed to social usage, dressed the dress,
    And decorated to the fit degree
His person; 'twas enough to bear the stress
    Of battle in the field, without, when free
From outside foes, inviting friends' attack
By—sword in hand? No,—ill-made coat on back!

CXXXV

And, since the announcement of his visitor
    Surprised him at his toilet,—never glass
Had such solicitation! "Black, now—or
    Brown be the killing wig to wear? Alas,
Where's the rouge gone, this cheek were better for
    A tender touch of? Melted to a mass,
All my pomatum! There's at all events
A devil—for he's got among my scents!"

CXXXVI

So, "barbered ten times o'er," as Antony
    Paced to his Cleopatra, did at last
Voltaire proceed to the fair presence: high
    In colour, proud in port, as if a blast
Of trumpet bade the world "Take note! draws nigh
    To Beauty, Power! Behold the Iconoclast,
The Poet, the Philosopher, the Rod
Of iron for imposture! Ah my God!"

CXXXVII

For there stands smirking Paul, and—what lights fierce
    The situation as with sulphur flash—
There grinning stands La Roque! No carte-and-tierce
    Observes the grinning fencer, but, full dash
From breast to shoulderblade, the thrusts transpierce
    That armour against which so idly clash
The swords of priests and pedants! Victors there,
Two smirk and grin who have befooled—Voltaire!

CXXXVIII

A moment's horror; then quick turn-about
    On high-heeled shoe,—flurry of ruffles, flounce
Of wig-ties and of coat-tails,—and so out
    Of door banged wrathfully behind, goes—bounce—
Voltaire in tragic exit! vows, no doubt,
    Vengeance upon the couple. Did he trounce
Either, in point of fact? His anger's flash
Subsided if a culprit craved his cash.

CXXXIX

As for La Roque, he having laughed his laugh
    To heart's content,—the joke defunct at once,
Dead in the birth, you see,—its epitaph
    Was sober earnest. "Well, sir, for the nonce,
You've gained the laurel; never hope to graff
    A second sprig of triumph there! Ensconce
Yourself again at Croisic: let it be
Enough you mastered both Voltaire and—me!

CXL

"Don't linger here in Paris to parade
    Your victory, and have the very boys
Point at you! 'There's the little mouse which made
    Believe those two big lions that its noise,
Nibbling away behind the hedge, conveyed
    Intelligence that—portent which destroys
All courage in the lion's heart, with horn
That's fable—there lay couched the unicorn!'

CXLI

"Beware us, now we've found who fooled us! Quick
    To cover! 'In proportion to men's fright,
Expect their fright's revenge!' quoth politic
    Old Macchiavelli. As for me,—all's right:
I'm but a journalist. But no pin's prick
    The tooth leaves when Voltaire is roused to bite!
So, keep your counsel, I advise! Adieu!
Good journey! Ha, ha, ha, Malcrais was—you!"

CXLII

"—Yes, I'm Malcrais, and somebody beside,
    You snickering monkey!" thus winds up the tale
Our hero, safe at home, to that black-eyed
    Cherry-cheeked sister, as she soothes the pale
Mortified poet. "Let their worst be tried,
    I'm their match henceforth—very man and male!
Don't talk to me of knocking-under! man
And male must end what petticoats began!

CXLIII

"How woman-like it is to apprehend
    The world will eat its words! why, words transfixed
To stone, they stare at you in print,—at end,
    Each writer's style and title! Choose betwixt
Fool and knave for his name, who should intend
    To perpetrate a baseness so unmixed
With prospect of advantage! What is writ
Is writ: they've praised me, there's an end of it!

CXLIV

"No, Dear, allow me! I shall print these same
    Pieces, with no omitted line, as Paul's.
Malcrais no longer, let me see folk blame
    What they—praised simply?—placed on pedestals,
Each piece a statue in the House of Fame!
    Fast will they stand there, though their presence galls
The envious crew: such show their teeth, perhaps,
And snarl, but never bite! I know the chaps!"

CXLV

Oh Paul, oh piteously deluded! Pace
    Thy sad sterility of Croisic flats,
Watch, from their southern edge, the foamy race
    Of high-tide as it leaves the drowning mats
Of yellow-berried web-growth from their place,
    The rock-ridge, when, rolling as far as Batz,
One broadside crashes on it, and the crags,
That needle under, stream with weedy rags!

CXLVI

Or, if thou wilt, at inland Bergerac,
    Rude heritage but recognized domain,
Do as two here are doing: make hearth crack
    With logs until thy chimney roar again
Jolly with fire-glow! Let its angle lack
    No grace of Cherry-cheeks thy sister, fain
To do a sister's office and laugh smooth
Thy corrugated brow—that scowls forsooth!

CXLVII

Wherefore? Who does not know how these La Roques,
    Voltaires, can say and unsay, praise and blame,
Prove black white, white black, play at paradox
    And, when they seem to lose it, win the game?
Care not thou what this badger, and that fox,
    His fellow in rascality, call "fame!"
Fiddlepin's end! Thou hadst it,—quack, quack, quack!
Have quietude from geese at Bergerac!

CXLVIII

Quietude! For, be very sure of this!
    A twelvemonth hence, and men shall know or care
As much for what to-day they clap or hiss
    As for the fashion of the wigs they wear,
Then wonder at. There's fame which, bale or bliss,—
    Got by no gracious word of great Voltaire
Or not-so-great La Roque,—is taken back
By neither, any more than Bergerac!

CXLIX

Too true! or rather, true as ought to be!
    No more of Paul the man, Malcrais the maid,
Thenceforth for ever! One or two, I see,
    Stuck by their poet: who the longest stayed
Was Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, and even he
    Seemingly saddened as perforce he paid
A rhyming tribute "After death, survive—
He hoped he should; and died while yet alive!"

CL

No, he hoped nothing of the kind, or held
    His peace and died in silent good old age.
Him it was, curiosity impelled
    To seek if there were extant still some page
Of his great predecessor, rat who belled
    The cat once, and would never deign engage
In after-combat with mere mice,—saved from
More sonnetteering,—René Gentilhomme.

CLI

Paul's story furnished forth that famous play
    Of Piron's "Métromanie": there you'll find
He's Francaleu, while Demoiselle Malcrais
    Is Demoiselle No-end-of-names-behind!
As for Voltaire, he's Damis. Good and gay
    The plot and dialogue, and all's designed
To spite Voltaire: at "Something" such the laugh
Of simply "Nothing!" (see his epitaph).

CLII

But truth, truth, that's the gold! and all the good
    I find in fancy is, it serves to set
Gold's inmost glint free, gold which comes up rude
    And rayless from the mine. All fume and fret
Of artistry beyond this point pursued
    Brings out another sort of burnish: yet
Always the ingot has its very own
Value, a sparkle struck from truth alone.

CLIII

Now, take this sparkle and the other spirt
    Of fitful flame,—twin births of our grey brand
That's sinking fast to ashes! I assert,
    As sparkles want but fuel to expand
Into a conflagration no mere squirt
    Will quench too quickly, so might Croisic strand,
Had Fortune pleased posterity to chowse,
Boast of her brace of beacons luminous.

CLIV

Did earlier Agamemnons lack their bard?
    But later bards lacked Agamemnon too!
How often frustrate they of fame's award
    Just because Fortune, as she listed, blew
Some slight bark's sails to bellying, mauled and marred
    And forced to put about the First-rate! True,
Such tacks but for a time: still—small-craft ride
At anchor, rot while Beddoes breasts the tide!

CLV

Dear, shall I tell you? There's a simple test
    Would serve, when people take on them to weigh
The worth of poets, "Who was better, best,
    This, that, the other bard?" (bards none gainsay
As good, observe! no matter for the rest)
    "What quality preponderating may
Turn the scale as it trembles?" End the strife
By asking "Which one led a happy life?"

CLVI

If one did, over his antagonist
    That yelled or shrieked or sobbed or wept or wailed
Or simply had the dumps,—dispute who list,—
    I count him victor. Where his fellow failed,
Mastered by his own means of might,—acquist
    Of necessary sorrows,—he prevailed,
A strong since joyful man who stood distinct
Above slave-sorrows to his chariot linked.

CLVII

Was not his lot to feel more? What meant "feel"
    Unless to suffer! Not, to see more? Sight—
What helped it but to watch the drunken reel
    Of vice and folly round him, left and right,
One dance of imps and idiots! Not, to deal
    More with things lovely? What provoked the spite
Of filth incarnate, like the poet's need
Of other nutriment than strife and greed!

CLVIII

Who knows most, doubts most; entertaining hope,
    Means recognizing fear; the keener sense
Of all comprised within our actual scope
    Recoils from aught beyond earth's dim and dense.
Who, grown familiar with the sky, will grope
    Henceforward among groundlings? That's offence
Just as indubitably: stars abound
O'erhead, but then—what flowers make glad the ground!

CLIX

So, force is sorrow, and each sorrow, force:
    What then? since Swiftness gives the charioteer
The palm, his hope be in the vivid horse
    Whose neck God clothed with thunder, not the steer
Sluggish and safe! Yoke Hatred, Crime, Remorse,
    Despair: but ever mid the whirling fear,
Let, through the tumult, break the poet's face
Radiant, assured his wild slaves win the race!

CLX

Therefore I say ... no, shall not say, but think,
    And save my breath for better purpose. White
From grey our log has burned to: just one blink
    That quivers, loth to leave it, as a sprite
The outworn body. Ere your eyelids' wink
    Punish who sealed so deep into the night
Your mouth up, for two poets dead so long,—
Here pleads a live pretender: right your wrong!

Epilogue

I

What a pretty tale you told me
    Once upon a time
—Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)
    Was it prose or was it rhyme,
Greek or Latin? Greek, you said,
While your shoulder propped my head.

II

Anyhow there's no forgetting
    This much if no more,
That a poet (pray, no petting!)
    Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore,
Went where suchlike used to go,
Singing for a prize, you know,

III

Well, he had to sing, nor merely
    Sing but play the lyre;
Playing was important clearly
    Quite as singing: I desire,
Sir, you keep the fact in mind
For a purpose that's behind.

IV

There stood he, while deep attention
    Held the judges round,
—Judges able, I should mention,
    To detect the slightest sound
Sung or played amiss: such ears
Had old judges, it appears!

V

None the less he sang out boldly,
    Played in time and tune,
Till the judges, weighing coldly
    Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon,
Sure to smile "In vain one tries
Picking faults out: take the prize!"

VI

When, a mischief! Were they seven
    Strings the lyre possessed?
Oh, and afterwards eleven,
    Thank you! Well, sir,—who had guessed
Such ill luck in store?—it happed
One of those same seven strings snapped.

VII

All was lost, then! No! a cricket
    (What "cicada"? Pooh!)
—Some mad thing that left its thicket
    For mere love of music—flew
With its little heart on fire,
Lighted on the crippled lyre.

VIII

So that when (ah joy!) our singer
    For his truant string
Feels with disconcerted finger,
    What does cricket else but fling
Fiery heart forth, sound the note
Wanted by the throbbing throat?

IX

Ay and, ever to the ending,
    Cricket chirps at need,
Executes the hand's intending,
    Promptly, perfectly,—indeed
Saves the singer from defeat
With her chirrup low and sweet.

X

Till, at ending, all the judges
    Cry with one assent
"Take the prize—a prize who grudges
    Such a voice and instrument?
Why, we took your lyre for harp,
So it shrilled us forth F sharp!"

XI

Did the conqueror spurn the creature,
    Once its service done?
That 's no such uncommon feature
    In the case when Music's son
Finds his Lotte's power too spent
For aiding soul-development.

XII

No! This other, on returning
    Homeward, prize in hand,
Satisfied his bosom's yearning:
    (Sir, I hope you understand!)
—Said "Some record there must be
Of this cricket's help to me!"

XIII

So, he made himself a statue:
    Marble stood, life-size;
On the lyre, he pointed at you,
    Perched his partner in the prize;
Never more apart you found
Her, he throned, from him, she crowned.

XIV

That 's the tale: its application?
    Somebody I know
Hopes one day for reputation
    Through his poetry that's—Oh,
All so learned and so wise
And deserving of a prize!

XV

If he gains one, will some ticket,
    When his statue's built,
Tell the gazer "'Twas a cricket
    Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt
Sweet and low, when strength usurped
Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped?

XVI

"For as victory was nighest,
    While I sang and played,—
With my lyre at lowest, highest,
    Right alike,—one string that made
'Love' sound soft was snapt in twain,
Never to be heard again,—
 
XVII

"Had not a kind cricket fluttered,
    Perched upon the place
Vacant left, and duly uttered
    'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass
Asked the treble to atone
For its somewhat sombre drone."

XVIII

But you don't know music! Wherefore
    Keep on casting pearls
To a—poet? All I care for
    Is—to tell him that a girl's
"Love" comes aptly in when gruff
Grows his singing. (There, enough!)