Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (26 page)

Suiting itself from his imperfect stock!’

Don’t talk of gratitude to me! For what?

[600] For being treated as a showman’s ape,

Encouraged to be wicked and make sport,

Fret or sulk, grin or whimper, any mood

So long as the ape be in it and no man –

Because a nut pays every mood alike.

Curse your superior, superintending sort,

Who, since you hate smoke, send up boys that climb

To cure your chimney, bid a ‘medium’ lie

To sweep you truth down! Curse your women too,

Your insolent wives and daughters, that fire up

[610] Or faint away if a male hand squeeze theirs,

Yet, to encourage Sludge, may play with Sludge

As only a ‘medium,’ only the kind of thing

They must humour, fondle … oh, to misconceive

Were too preposterous! But I’ve paid them out!

They’ve had their wish – called for the naked truth,

And in she tripped, sat down and bade them stare:

They had to blush a little and forgive!

‘The fact is, children talk so; in next world

All our conventions are reversed, – perhaps

[620] Made light of: something like old prints, my dear!

The Judge has one, he brought from Italy,

A metropolis in the background, – o’er a bridge,

A team of trotting roadsters, – cheerful groups

Of wayside travellers, peasants at their work,

And, full in front, quite unconcerned, why not?

Three nymphs conversing with a cavalier,

And never a rag among them: “fine,” folk cry –

And heavenly manners seem not much unlike!

Let Sludge go on; we’ll fancy it’s in print!’

[630] If such as came for wool, sir, went home shorn,

Where is the wrong I did them? ’Twas their choice;

They tried the adventure, ran the risk, tossed up

And lost, as some one’s sure to do in games;

They fancied I was made to lose, – smoked glass

Useful to spy the sun through, spare their eyes:

And had I proved a red-hot iron plate

They thought to pierce, and, for their pains, grew blind,

Whose were the fault but theirs? While, as things go,

Their loss amounts to gain, the more’s the shame!

[640] They’ve had their peep into the spirit-world,

And all this world may know it! They’ve fed fat

Their self-conceit which else had starved: what chance

Save this, of cackling o’er a golden egg

And compassing distinction from the flock,

Friends of a feather? Well, they paid for it,

And not prodigiously; the price o’ the play,

Not counting certain pleasant interludes,

Was scarce a vulgar play’s worth. When you buy

The actor’s talent, do you dare propose

[650] For his soul beside? Whereas my soul you buy!

Sludge acts Macbeth, obliged to be Macbeth,

Or you’ll not hear his first word! Just go through

That slight formality, swear himself’s the Thane,

And thenceforth he may strut and fret his hour,

Spout, spawl, or spin his target, no one cares!

Why hadn’t I leave to play tricks, Sludge as Sludge?

Enough of it all! I’ve wiped out scores with you –

Vented your fustian, let myself be streaked

Like tom-fool with your ochre and carmine,

[660] Worn patchwork your respectable fingers sewed

To metamorphose somebody, – yes, I’ve earned

My wages, swallowed down my bread of shame,

And shake the crumbs off – where but in your face?

As for religion – why, I served it, sir!

I’ll stick to that! With my
phenomena

I laid the atheist sprawling on his back,

Propped up Saint Paul, or, at least, Swedenborg!

In fact, it’s just the proper way to balk

These troublesome fellows – liars, one and all,

[670]
Are not these sceptics? Well, to baffle them,

No use in being squeamish: lie yourself!

Erect your buttress just as wide o’ the line,

Your side, as they build up the wall on theirs;

Where both meet, midway in a point, is truth

High overhead: so, take your room, pile bricks,

Lie! Oh, there’s titillation in all shame!

What snow may lose in white, snow gains in rose!

Miss Stokes turns – Rahab, – nor a bad exchange!

Glory be on her, for the good she wrought,

[680] Breeding belief anew ’neath ribs of death,

Browbeating now the unabashed before,

Ridding us of their whole life’s gathered straws

By a live coal from the altar! Why, of old,

Great men spent years and years in writing books

To prove we’ve souls, and hardly proved it then:

Miss Stokes with her live coal, for you and me!

Surely, to this good issue, all was fair –

Not only fondling Sludge, but, even suppose

He let escape some spice of knavery, – well,

[690] In wisely being blind to it! Don’t you praise

Nelson for setting spy-glass to blind eye

And saying … what was it – that he could not see

The signal he was bothered with? Ay, indeed!

I’ll go beyond: there’s a real love of a lie,

Liars find ready-made for lies they make,

As hand for glove, or tongue for sugar-plum.

At best, ’tis never pure and full belief;

Those furthest in the quagmire, – don’t suppose

They strayed there with no warning, got no chance

[700] Of a filth-speck in their face, which they clenched teeth,

Bent brow against! Be sure they had their doubts,

And fears, and fairest challenges to try

The floor o’ the seeming solid sand! But no!

Their faith was pledged, acquaintance too apprised,

All but the last step ventured, kerchiefs waved,

And Sludge called ‘pet’: ’twas easier marching on

To the promised land, join those who, Thursday next,

Meant to meet Shakespeare; better follow Sludge –

Prudent, oh sure! – on the alert, how else? –

[710] But making for the mid-bog, all the same!

To hear your outcries, one would think I caught

Miss Stokes by the scruff o’ the neck, and pitched her flat,

Foolish-face-foremost! Hear these simpletons,

That’s all I beg, before my work’s begun,

Before I’ve touched them with my finger-tip!

Thus they await me (do but listen, now!

It’s reasoning, this is, – I can’t imitate

The baby voice, though) ‘In so many tales

Must be some truth, truth though a pin-point big,

[720] Yet, some: a single man’s deceived, perhaps –

Hardly, a thousand: to suppose one cheat

Can gull all these, were more miraculous far

Than aught we should confess a miracle’ –

And so on. Then the Judge sums up – (it’s rare)

Bids you respect the authorities that leap

To the judgement-seat at once, – why don’t you note

The limpid nature, the unblemished life,

The spotless honour, indisputable sense

Of the first upstart with his story? What –

[730] Outrage a boy on whom you ne’er till now

Set eyes, because he finds raps trouble him?

Fools, these are: ay, and how of their opposites

Who never did, at bottom of their hearts,

Believe for a moment? – Men emasculate,

Blank of belief, who played, as eunuchs use,

With superstition safely, – cold of blood,

Who saw what made for them i’ the mystery,

Took their occasion, and supported Sludge

– As proselytes? No, thank you, far too shrewd!

[740]
– But promisers of fair play, encouragers

O’ the claimant; who in candour needs must hoist

Sludge up on Mars’ Hill, get speech out of Sludge

To carry off, criticize, and cant about!

Didn’t Athens treat Saint Paul so? – at any rate,

It’s ‘a new thing’ philosophy fumbles at.

Then there’s the other picker-out of pearl

From dung-heaps, – ay, your literary man,

Who draws on his kid gloves to deal with Sludge

Daintily and discreetly, – shakes a dust

[750] O’ the doctrine, flavours thence, he well knows how,

The narrative or the novel, – half-believes,

All for the book’s sake, and the public’s stare,

And the cash that’s God’s sole solid in this world!

Look at him! Try to be too bold, too gross

For the master! Not you! He’s the man for muck;

Shovel it forth, full-splash, he’ll smooth your brown

Into artistic richness, never fear!

Find him the crude stuff; when you recognize

Your lie again, you’ll doff your hat to it,

[760] Dressed out for company! ‘For company,’

I say, since there’s the relish of success:

Let all pay due respect, call the lie truth,

Save the soft silent smirking gentleman

Who ushered in the stranger: you must sigh

‘How melancholy, he, the only one

Fails to perceive the bearing of the truth

Himself gave birth to!’ – There’s the triumph’s smack!

That man would choose to see the whole world roll

I’ the slime o’ the slough, so he might touch the tip

[770] Of his brush with what I call the best of browns –

Tint ghost-tales, spirit-stories, past the power

Of the outworn umber and bistre!

                         Yet I think

There’s a more hateful form of foolery –

The social sage’s, Solomon of saloons

And philosophic diner-out, the fribble

Who wants a doctrine for a chopping-block

To try the edge of his faculty upon,

Prove how much common sense he’ll hack and hew

I’ the critical minute ’twixt the soup and fish!

[780]
These were my patrons: these, and the like of them

Who, rising in my soul now, sicken it, –

These I have injured! Gratitude to these?

The gratitude, forsooth, of a prostitute

To the greenhorn and the bully – friends of hers,

From the wag that wants the queer jokes for his club,

To the snuff-box-decorator, honest man,

Who just was at his wits’ end where to find

So genial a Pasiphae! All and each

Pay, compliment, protect from the police:

[790] And how she hates them for their pains, like me!

So much for my remorse at thanklessness

Toward a deserving public!

                           But, for God?

Ay, that’s a question! Well, sir, since you press –

(How you do tease the whole thing out of me!

I don’t mean you, you know, when I say ‘them’:

Hate you, indeed! But that Miss Stokes, that Judge!

Enough, enough – with sugar: thank you, sir!)

Now, for it, then! Will you believe me, though?

You’ve heard what I confess; I don’t unsay

[800] A single word: I cheated when I could,

Rapped with my toe-joints, set sham hands at work,

Wrote down names weak in sympathetic ink,

Rubbed odic lights with ends of phosphor-match,

And all the rest; believe that: believe this,

By the same token, though it seem to set

The crooked straight again, unsay the said,

Stick up what I’ve knocked down; I can’t help that.

It’s truth! I somehow vomit truth today.

This trade of mine – I don’t know, can’t be sure

[810] But there was something in it, tricks and all!

Really, I want to light up my own mind.

They were tricks, – true, but what I mean to add

Is also true. First, – don’t it strike you, sir?

Go back to the beginning, – the first fact

We’re taught is, there’s a world beside this world,

With spirits, not mankind, for tenantry;

That much within that world once sojourned here,

That all upon this world will visit there,

And therefore that we, bodily here below,

[820] Must have exactly such an interest

In learning what may be the ways o’ the world

Above us, as the disembodied folk

Have (by all analogic likelihood)

In watching how things go in the old home

With us, their sons, successors, and what not.

Oh yes, with added powers probably,

Fit for the novel state, – old loves grown pure,

Old interests understood aright, – they watch!

Eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to help,

[830] Proportionate to advancement: they’re ahead,

That’s all – do what we do, but noblier done –

Use plate, whereas we eat our meals off delf,

(To use a figure).

             Concede that, and I ask

Next what may be the mode of intercourse

Between us men here, and those once-men there?

First comes the Bible’s speech; then, history

With the supernatural element, – you know –

All that we sucked in with our mothers’ milk,

Grew up with, got inside of us at last,

[840] Till it’s found bone of bone and flesh of flesh.

See now, we start with the miraculous,

And know it used to be, at all events:

What’s the first step we take, and can’t but take,

In arguing from the known to the obscure?

Why this: ‘What was before, may be today.

Since Samuel’s ghost appeared to Saul, of course

My brother’s spirit may appear to me.’

Go tell your teacher that! What’s his reply?

What brings a shade of doubt for the first time

[850] O’er his brow late so luminous with faith?

‘Such things have been,’ says he, ‘and there’s no doubt

Such things may be: but I advise mistrust

Of eyes, ears, stomach, and, more than all, your brain,

Unless it be of your great-grandmother,

Whenever they propose a ghost to you!’

The end is, there’s a composition struck;

’Tis settled, we’ve some way of intercourse

Just as in Saul’s time; only, different: