CLEON.

The soul now climbs it just to perish there!
For thence we have discovered ('tis no dream-
We know this, which we had not else perceived)
That there's a world of capability

For joy, spread round about us, meant for us,
Inviting us; and still the soul craves all,

And still the flesh replies, "Take no jot more
"Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad!
"Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought
"Deduction to it." We struggle fain to enlarge
Our bounded physical recipiency,

Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,
Repair the waste of age and sickness: no,
It skills not! life's inadequate to joy,
As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take.
They praise a fountain in my garden here
Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow
Thin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise.
What if I told her, it is just a thread
From that great river which the hills shut up,
And mock her with my leave to take the same?
The artificer has given her one small tube
Past power to widen or exchange—what boots
To know she might spout oceans if she could?
She cannot lift beyond her first thin thread:
And so a man can use but a man's joy
While he sees God's. Is it for Zeus to boast
"See, man, how happy I live, and despair—
"That I may be still happier-for thy use!"
If this were so, we could not thank our Lord,
As hearts beat on to doing: 'tis not so-
Malice it is not. Is it carelessness?
Still, no. If care-where is the sign? I ask,
And get no answer, and agree in sum,
O king, with thy profound discouragement,
Who seest the wider but to sigh the more.
Most progress is most failure: thou sayest well.

309

The last point now:-thou dost except a caseHolding joy not impossible to one

With artist-gifts-to such a man as I
Who leave behind me living works indeed;
For, such a poem, such a painting lives.
What? dost thou verily trip upon a word,
Confound the accurate view of what joy is
(Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine)
With feeling joy? confound the knowing how
And showing how to live (my faculty)
With actually living?-Otherwise

Where is the artist's vantage o'er the king?

Because in my great epos I display

How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act—
Is this as though I acted? if I paint,

Carve the young Phœbus, am I therefore young?
Methinks I'm older that I bowed myself

The many years of pain that taught me art!
Indeed, to know is something, and to prove
How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more:
But, knowing nought, to enjoy is something too.
Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there,
Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I.

I can write love-odes: thy fair slave's an ode.
I get to sing of love, when grown too grey
For being beloved she turns to that young man,
The muscles all a-ripple on his back.

I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king!

"But," sayest thou-(and I marvel, I repeat, To find thee tripping on a mere word) "what “Thou writest, paintest, stays; that does not die: "Sappho survives, because we sing her songs, "And Eschylus, because we read his plays!" Why, if they live still, let them come and take Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup,

CLEON.

Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive?
Say rather that my fate is deadlier still,

In this, that every day my sense of joy
Grows more acute, my soul (intensified

By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen;
While every day my hairs fall more and more,
My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase—
The horror quickening still from year to year,
The consummation coming past escape,

When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy-
When all my works wherein I prove my worth,
Being present still to mock me in men's mouths,
Alive still, in the phrase of such as thou,
I-I-the feeling, thinking, acting man,
The man who loved his life so over-much,
Shall sleep in my urn. It is so horrible,
I dare at times imagine to my need
Some future state revealed to us by Zeus,
Unlimited in capability

For joy, as this is in desire for joy,

To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us,

That, stung by straitness of our life-made strait
On purpose to make prized the life at large-
Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death,
We burst there as the worm into the fly,

Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no!
Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas,
He must have done so, were it possible!

Live long and happy, and in that thought die,
Glad for what was! Farewell. And for the rest,
I cannot tell thy messenger aright

Where to deliver what he bears of thine
To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame
Indeed, if Christus be not one with him—
I know not, nor am troubled much to know.

311

Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew,
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised,
Hath access to a secret shut from us?
Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king,
In stooping to inquire of such an one,
As if his answer could impose at all!

He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write.

Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves

Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ; And (as I gathered from a bystander)

Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.

R. Browning.

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.

313

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.

THE blessèd damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;

She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary's gift,
For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Her seemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.

(To one, it is ten years of years.
Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o'er me—her hair