Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (34 page)

For, look you, right in the middle

Projects bluff Ben – with an end in
ich
–

[80] Why planted there, is a riddle:

Since all Ben’s brothers little and big

Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder,

And only this burliest out must bulge

Till it seems – to the beholder

From down in the gully, – as if Ben’s breast,

To a sudden spike diminished,

Would signify to the boldest foot

‘All further passage finished!’

Yet the mountaineer who sidles on

[90] And on to the very bending,

Discovers, if heart and brain be proof,

No necessary ending.

Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt

Having trod, he, there arriving,

Finds – what he took for a point was breadth,

A mercy of Nature’s contriving.

So, he rounds what, when ’tis reached, proves straight,

From one side gains the other:

The wee path widens – resume the march,

[100] And he foils you, Ben my brother!

But Donald – (that name, I hope, will do) –

I wrong him if I call ‘foiling’

The tramp of the callant, whistling the while

As blithe as our kettle’s boiling.

He had dared the danger from boyhood up,

And now, – when perchance was waiting

A lass at the brig below, – ’twixt mount

And moor would he stand debating?

Moreover this Donald was twenty-five,

[110] A glory of bone and muscle:

Did a fiend dispute the right of way,

Donald would try a tussle.

Lightsomely marched he out of the broad

On to the narrow and narrow;

A step more, rounding the angular rock,

Reached the front straight as an arrow.

He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood,

When – whom found he full-facing?

What fellow in courage and wariness too,

[120] Had scouted ignoble pacing,

And left low safety to timid mates,

And made for the dread dear danger,

And gained the height where – who could guess

He could meet with a rival ranger?

’Twas a gold-red stag that stood and stared,

Gigantic and magnific,

By the wonder – ay, and the peril – struck

Intelligent and pacific:

For a red deer is no fallow deer

[130] Grown cowardly through park-feeding;

He batters you like a thunderbolt

If you brave his haunts unheeding.

I doubt he could hardly perform
volte-face

Had valour advised discretion:

You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a rope

No Blondin makes profession.

Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit,

Though pride ill brooks retiring:

Each eyed each – mute man, motionless beast –

[140] Less fearing than admiring.

These are the moments when quite new sense,

To meet some need as novel,

Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource:

– ‘Nor advance nor retreat but – grovel!’

And slowly, surely, never a whit

Relaxing the steady tension

Of eye-stare which binds man to beast, –

By an inch and inch declension,

Sank Donald sidewise down and down:

[150] Till flat, breast upwards, lying

At his six-foot length, no corpse more still,

– ‘If he cross me! The trick’s worth trying.’

Minutes were an eternity;

But a new sense was created

In the stag’s brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure,

With eye-stare unabated,

Feelingly he extends a foot

Which tastes the way ere it touches

Earth’s solid and just escapes man’s soft,

[160] Nor hold of the same unclutches

Till its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk,

Lands itself no less finely:

So a mother removes a fly from the face

Of her babe asleep supinely.

And now ’tis the haunch and hind foot’s turn

– That’s hard: can the beast quite raise it?

Yes, traversing half the prostrate length,

His hoof-tip does not graze it.

Just one more lift! But Donald, you see,

[170] Was sportsman first, man after:

A fancy lightened his caution through,

– He well-nigh broke into laughter.

‘It were nothing short of a miracle!

Unrivalled, unexampled –

All sporting feats with this feat matched

Were down and dead and trampled!’

The last of the legs as tenderly

Follows the rest: or never

Or now is the time! His knife in reach,

[180] And his right-hand loose – how clever!

For this can stab up the stomach’s soft,

While the left-hand grasps the pastern.

A rise on the elbow, and – now’s the time

Or never: this turn’s the last turn!

I shall dare to place myself by God

Who scanned – for He does – each feature

Of the face thrown up in appeal to Him

By the agonizing creature.

Nay, I hear plain words: ‘Thy gift brings this!’

[190] Up he sprang, back he staggered,

Over he fell, and with him our friend

– At following game no laggard.

Yet he was not dead when they picked next day

From the gully’s depth the wreck of him;

His fall had been stayed by the stag beneath

Who cushioned and saved the neck of him.

But the rest of his body – why, doctors said,

Whatever could break was broken;

Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toast

[200] In a tumbler of port-wine soaken.

‘That your life is left you, thank the stag!’

Said they when – the slow cure ended –

They opened the hospital door, and thence

– Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended,

And minor damage left wisely alone, –

Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled,

Out – what went in a Goliath well-nigh, –

Some half of a David hobbled.

‘You must ask an alms from house to house:

[210] Sell the stag’s head for a bracket,

With its grand twelve tines – I’d buy it myself –

And use the skin for a jacket!’

He was wiser, made both head and hide

His win-penny: hands and knees on,

Would manage to crawl – poor crab – by the roads

In the misty stalking-season.

And if he discovered a bothy like this,

Why, harvest was sure: folk listened.

He told his tale to the lovers of Sport:

[220] Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened.

And when he had come to the close, and spread

His spoils for the gazers’ wonder,

With ‘Gentlemen, here’s the skull of the stag

I was over, thank God, not under!’ –

The company broke out in applause;

‘By Jingo, a lucky cripple!

Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread,

And a tug, besides, at our tipple!’

And ‘There’s my pay for your pluck!’ cried This,

[230] ‘And mine for your jolly story!’

Cried That, while T’other – but he was drunk –

Hiccupped ‘A trump, a Tory!’

I hope I gave twice as much as the rest;

For, as Homer would say, ‘within gate

Though teeth kept tongue,’ my whole soul growled

‘Rightly rewarded, – Ingrate!’

Never the Time and the Place

Never the time and the place

     And the loved one all together!

This path – how soft to pace!

     This May – what magic weather!

Where is the loved one’s face?

In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,

But the house is narrow, the place is bleak

Where, outside, rain and wind combine

With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,

[10] With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,

With a malice that marks each word, each sign!

O enemy sly and serpentine,

Uncoil thee from the waking man!

     Do I hold the Past

     Thus firm and fast

Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?

This path so soft to pace shall lead

Through the magic of May to herself indeed!

[20] Or narrow if needs the house must be,

Outside are the storms and strangers: we –

Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,

– I and she!

The Names

Shakespeare! – to such name’s sounding, what succeeds

Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell, –

Act follows word, the speaker knows full well,

Nor tampers with its magic more than needs.

Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads

With his soul only; if from lips it fell,

Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell,

Would own ‘Thou didst create us!’ Naught impedes

We voice the other name, man’s most of might,

[10] Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love

Mutely await their working, leave to sight

All of the issue as – below – above –

Shakespeare’s creation rises: one remove,

Though dread – this finite from that infinite.

Now

Out of your whole life give but a moment!

All of your life that has gone before,

All to come after it, – so you ignore,

So you make perfect the present, – condense,

In a rapture of rage, for perfection’s endowment,

Thought and feeling and soul and sense –

Merged in a moment which gives me at last

You around me for once, you beneath me, above me –

Me – sure that despite of time future, time past, –

[10] This tick of our life-time’s one moment you love me!

How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet –

The moment eternal – just that and no more –

When ecstasy’s utmost we clutch at the core

While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!

Beatrice Signorini

This strange thing happened to a painter once:

Viterbo boasts the man among her sons

Of note, I seem to think: his ready tool

Picked up its precepts in Cortona’s school –

That’s Pietro Berretini, whom they call

Cortona, these Italians: greatish-small,

Our painter was his pupil, by repute

His match if not his master absolute,

Though whether he spoiled fresco more or less,

[10] And what’s its fortune, scarce repays your guess.

Still, for one circumstance, I save his name

– Francesco Romanelli: do the same!

He went to Rome and painted: there he knew

A wonder of a woman painting too –

For she, at least, was no Cortona’s drudge:

Witness that ardent fancy-shape – I judge

A semblance of her soul – she called ‘Desire’

With starry front for guide, where sits the fire

She left to brighten Buonarroti’s house.

[20] If you see Florence, pay that piece your vows,

Though blockhead Baldinucci’s mind, imbued

With monkish morals, bade folk ‘Drape the nude

And stop the scandal!’ quoth the record prim

I borrow this of: hang his book and him!

At Rome, then, where these fated ones met first,

The blossom of his life had hardly burst

While hers was blooming at full beauty’s stand:

No less Francesco – when half-ripe he scanned

Consummate Artemisia – grew one want

[30] To have her his and make her ministrant

With every gift of body and of soul

To him. In vain. Her sphery self was whole –

Might only touch his orb at Art’s sole point.

Suppose he could persuade her to enjoint

Her life – past, present, future – all in his

At Art’s sole point by some explosive kiss

Of love through lips, would love’s success defeat

Artistry’s haunting curse – the Incomplete?

Artists no doubt they both were, – what beside

[40] Was she? who, long had felt heart, soul spread wide

Her life out, knowing much and loving well,

On either side Art’s narrow space where fell

Reflection from his own speck: but the germ

Of individual genius – what we term

The very self, the God-gift whence had grown

Heart’s life and soul’s life, – how make that his own?