Dipsychus - Part II

Scene I.     The interior Arcade of the Doges Palace.     Sp. Thunder and rain! O dear, O dear!     But see, a noble shelter here,     This grand arcade where our Venetian     Has formed of Gothic and of Grecian     A combination strange, but striking,     And singularly to my liking!     Let moderns reap where ancients sowed,     I at least make it my abode.     And now lets hear your famous Ode:     Through the great sinful how. did it go on?     For principles of Art and so on     I care perhaps about three curses,     But hold myself a judge of verses.     Di. My brain was lightened when my tongue had said,     Christ is not risen.     . . . . .     Sp. Well, now its anything but clear     What is the tone thats taken here:     What is your logic? what s your theology?     Is it, or is it not, neology?     Thats a great fault; youre this and that,     And here and there, and nothing flat;     Yet writings golden word what is it,     But the three syllables explicit?     Say, if you cannot help it, less,     But what you do put, put express.     I fear that rule wont meet your feeling:     You think half showing, half concealing,     Is Gods own method of revealing.     Di. To please my own poor mind! to find repose:     To physic the sick soul; to furnish vent     To diseased humours in the moral frame!     Sp. A sort of seton, I suppose,     A moral bleeding at the nose     Hm; and the tone too after all,     Something of the ironical?     Sarcastic, say; or were it fitter     To style it the religious bitter?     Di. Interpret it I cannot, I but wrote it.     Sp. Perhaps; but none that read can doubt it,     There is a strong Strauss-smell about it.     Heavens! at your years your time to fritter     Upon a critical hair-splitter!     Take larger views (and quit your Germans)     From the Analogy and sermons;     I fancied you must doubtless know     Butler had proved an age ago,     That in religious as profane things     Twas useless trying to explain things;     Mens business-wits, the only sane things,     These and compliance are the main things.     God, Revelation, and the rest of it,     Bad at the best, we make the best of it.     Like a good subject and wise man,     Believe whatever things you can.     Take your religion as twas found you,     And say no more of it, confound you!     And now I think the rain has ended;     And the less said, the soonest mended.     SCENE II. In a Gondola.     Sp. Per ora. To the Grand Canal.     Afterwards een as fancy shall.     Di. Afloat; we move. Delicious! Ah,     What else is like the gondola?     This level floor of liquid glass     Begins beneath us swift to pass.     It goes as though it went alone     By some impulsion of its own.     (How light it moves, how softly! Ah,     Were all things like the gondola!)     How light it moves, how softly! Ah,     Could life, as does our gondola,     Unvexed with quarrels, aims and cares,     And moral duties and affairs,     Unswaying, noiseless, swift and strong,     For ever thus thus glide along!     (How light we move, how softly! Ah,     Were life but as the gondola!)     With no more motion than should bear     A freshness to the languid air;     With no more effort than exprest     The need and naturalness of rest,     Which we beneath a grateful shade     Should take on peaceful pillows laid!     (How light we move, how softly! Ah,     Were life but as the gondola!)     In one unbroken passage borne     To closing night from opening morn,     Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark     Some palace front, some passing bark;     Through windows catch the varying shore,     And hear the soft turns of the oar!     (How light we move, how softly! Ah,     Were life but as the gondola!)     So live, nor need to call to mind     Our slaving brother here behind!     Sp. Pooh! Nature meant him for no better     Than our most humble menial debtor;     Who thanks us for his days employment     As we our purse for our enjoyment.     Di. To make ones fellow-man an instrument     Sp. Is just the thing that makes him most content.     Di. Our gaieties, our luxuries,      Our pleasures and our glee,      Mere insolence and wantonness,      Alas! they feel to me.      How shall I laugh and sing and dance!      My very heart recoils,      While here to give my mirth a chance      A hungry brother toils.      The joy that does not spring from joy      Which I in others see,      How can I venture to employ,      Or find it joy for me?     Sp. Oh come, come, come! By Him that sent us here,     Whos to enjoy at all, pray let us hear?     You wont; he cant! Oh, no more fuss!     Whats it to him, or he to us?     Sing, sing away, be glad and gay,     And dont forget that we shall pay.     Di. Yes, it is beautiful ever, let foolish men rail at it never.     Yes, it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly.     Wise are ye others that choose it, and happy ye all that can use it.     Life it is beautiful wholly, and could we eliminate only     This interfering, enslaving, oermastering demon of craving,     This wicked tempter inside us to ruin still eager to guide us,     Life were beatitude, action a possible pure satisfaction.     Sp. (Hexameters, by all thats odious,     Beshod with rhyme to run melodious!)     Di. All as I go on my way I behold them consorting and coupling;     Faithful it seemeth, and fond; very fond, very possibly faithful;     All as I go on my way with a pleasure sincere and unmingled.     Life it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly;     But for perfection attaining is one method only, abstaining;     Let us abstain, for we should so, if only we thought that we could so.     Sp. Bravo, bravissimo! this time though     You rather were run short for rhyme though;     Not that on that account your verse     Could be much better or much worse.     This world is very odd we see,     We do not comprehend it;     But in one fact we all agree,     God wont, and we cant mend it.     Being common sense, it cant be sin     To take it as I find it;     The pleasure to take pleasure in;     The pain, try not to mind it.     Di. O let me love my love unto myself alone,     And know my knowledge to the world unknown;     No witness to the vision call,     Beholding, unbeheld of all;     And worship thee, with thee withdrawn, apart,     Whoeer, whateer thou art,     Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart.     Better it were, thou sayest, to consent,     Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent;     Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure,     The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure;     In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll,     And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul.     Nay, better far to mark off thus much air,     And call it heaven; place bliss and glory there;     Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky,     And say, what is not, will be by-and-by;     What here exists not must exist elsewhere.     But play no tricks upon thy soul, O man;     Let fact be fact, and life the thing it can.     Sp. To these remarks so sage and clerkly,     Worthy of Malebranche or Berkeley,     I trust it wont be deemed a sin     If I too answer with a grin.     These juicy meats, this flashing wine,     Maybe an unreal mere appearance;     Only for my inside, in fine,     They have a singular coherence.     Oh yes, my pensive youth, abstain;     And any empty sick sensation,     Remember, anything like pain     Is only your imagination.     Trust me, Ive read your German sage     To far more purpose eer than you did;     You find it in his wisest page,     Whom God deludes is well deluded.     Di. Where are the great, whom thou wouldst wisl to praise thee?     Where are the pure, whom thou wouldst choose to love thee?     Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee,     Whose high commands would cheer, whose chiding, raise thee?     Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find     In the stones, bread, and life in the blank mind.     (Written in London, standing in the Park,     One evening in July, just before dark.)     Sp. As I sat at the caf, I said to myself,     They may talk as they please about what they call pelf     They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking     But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking,     How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     How pleasant it is to have money.     I sit at my table en grand seigneur,     And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor;     Not only the pleasure, ones self, of good living,     But also the pleasure of now and then giving.     So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     So pleasant it is to have money.     It was but last winter I came up to town,     But already Im getting a little renown;     I make new acquaintance whereer I appear;     I am not too shy, and have nothing to fear.     So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     So pleasant it is to have money.     I drive through the streets, and I care not a d n;     The people they stare, and they ask who I am;     And if I should chance to run over a cad,     I can pay for the damage if ever so bad.     So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     So pleasant it is to have money.     We stroll to our box and look down on the pit,     And if it werent low should be tempted to spit;     We loll and we talk until people look up,     And when its half over we go out to sup.     So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     So pleasant it is to have money.     The best of the tables and the best of the fare     And as for the others, the devil may care;     It isnt our fault if they dare not afford     To sup like a prince and be drunk as a lord.     So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     So pleasant it is to have money.     We sit at our tables and tipple champagne;     Ere one bottle goes, comes another again;     The waiters they skip and they scuttle about,     And the landlord attends us so civilly out.     So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     So pleasant it is to have money.     It was but last winter I came up to town,     But already Im getting a little renown;     I get to good houses without much ado,     Am beginning to see the nobility too.     So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     So pleasant it is to have money.     O dear! what a pity they ever should lose it!     For they are the gentry that know how to use it;     So grand and so graceful, such manners, such dinners,     But yet, after all, it is we are the winners.     So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     So pleasant it is to have money.     Thus I sat at my table en grand seigneur,     And when I had done threw a crust to the poor;     Not only the pleasure, ones self, of good eating.     But also the pleasure of now and then treating,     So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho     So pleasant it is to have money.     They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,     And how one ought never to think of ones self,     And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking     My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking     How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     How pleasant it is to have money.     (Written in Venice, but for all parts true,     Twas not a crust I gave him, but a sous.)     A gondola here, and a gondola there,     Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air.     To right and to left; stop, turn, and go yonder,     And let us repeat, oer the tide as we wander,     How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     How pleasant it is to have money.     Come, leave your Gothic, worn-out story,     San Giorgio and the Redentore;     I from no building, gay or solemn,     Can spare the shapely Grecian column.     Tis not, these centuries four, for nought     Our European world of thought     Hath made familiar to its home     The classic mind of Greece and Rome;     In all new work that would look forth     To more than antiquarian worth,     Palladios pediments and bases,     Or something such, will find their places:     Maturer optics dont delight     In childish dim religious light,     In evanescent vague effects     That shirk, not face ones intellects;     They love not fancies just betrayed,     And artful tricks of light and shade,     But pure form nakedly displayed,     And all things absolutely made.     The Doges palace though, from hence,     In spite of doctrinaire pretence,     The tide now level with the quay,     Is certainly a thing to see.     Well turn to the Rialto soon;     Ones told to see it by the moon.     A gondola here, and a gondola there,     Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air.     To right and to left; stop, turn, and go yonder,     And let us reflect, oer the flood as we wander,     How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!     How pleasant it is to have money.     Di. How light we go, how soft we skim,     And all in moonlight seems to swim!     The south side rises oer our bark,     A wall impenetrably dark;     The north is seen profusely bright;     The water, is it shade or light?     Say, gentle moon, which conquers now     The flood, those massy hulls, or thou?     (How light we go, how softly! Ah,     Were life but as the gondola!)     How light we go, how soft we skim!     And all in moonlight seem to swim.     In moonlight is it now, or shade?     In planes of sure division made,     By angles sharp of palace walls     The clear light and the shadow falls;     O sight of glory, sight of wonder!     Seen, a pictorial portent, under,     O great Rialto, the vast round     Of thy thrice-solid arch profound!     (How light we go, how softly! Ah,     Life should be as the gondola!)     How light we go, how softly     Sp. Nay;     Fore heaven, enough of that to-day     Im deadly weary of your tune,     And half-ennuy with the moon;     The shadows lie, the glories fall,     And are but moonshine after all.     It goes against my conscience really     To let myself feel so ideally.     Come, for the Piazzetta steer;     Tis nine oclock or very near.     These airy blisses, skiey joys     Of vague romantic girls and boys,     Which melt the heart and the brain soften,     When not affected, as too often     They are, remind me, I protest,     Of nothing better at the best     Than Timons feast to his ancient lovers,     Warm water under silver covers;     Lap, dogs! I think I hear him say;     And lap who will, so Im away.     Di. How light we go, how soft we skim!     And all in moonlight seem to swim;     Against bright clouds projected dark,     The white dome now, reclined I mark,     And, by oer-brilliant lamps displayed,     The Doges columns and arcade;     Over still waters mildly come     The distant waters and the hum.     (How light we go, how softly! Ah,     Life should be as the gondola!)     How light we go, how soft we skim,     And all in open moonlight swim     Ah, gondolier, slow, slow, more slow     We go; but wherefore thus should go?     Ah, let not muscle all too strong     Beguile, betray thee to our wrong!     On to the landing, onward. Nay,     Sweet dream, a little longer stay!     On to the landing; here. And, ah!     Life is not as the gondola.     Sp. Tre ore. So. The Parthenone     Is it? you haunt for your limone.     Let me induce you to join me,     In gramolate persiche.     SCENE III. The Academy at Venice.     Di. A modern daub it was, perchance,     I know not: but the connoisseur     From Titians hues, I dare be sure,     Had never turned one kindly glance,     Where Byron, somewhat drest-up, draws     His sword, impatient long, and speaks     Unto a tribe of motley Greeks     His fealty to their good cause.     Not far, assumed to mystic bliss,     Behold the ecstatic Virgin rise!     Ah, wherefore vainly, to fond eyes     That melted into tears for this?     Yet if we must live, as would seem,     These peremptory heats to claim,     Ah, not for profit, not for fame,     And not for pleasures giddy dream,     And not for piping empty reeds,     And not for colouring idle dust;     If live we positively must,     Gods name be blest for noble deeds.     Verses! well, they are made, so let them go;     No more if I can help. This is one way     The procreant heat and fervour of our youth     Escapes, in puff, in smoke, and shapeless words     Of mere ejaculation, nothing worth,     Unless to make maturer years content     To slave in base compliance to the world.     I have scarce spoken yet to this strange follower     Whom I picked up ye great gods, tell me where!     And when! for I remember such long years,     And yet he seems new come. I commune with myself;     He speaks, I hear him, and resume to myself;     Whateer I think, he adds his comments to;     Which yet not interrupts me. Scarce I know     If ever once directly I addressed him:     Let me essay it now; for I have strength.     Yet what he wants, and what he fain would have,     Oh, I know all too surely; not in vain     Although unnoticed, has he dogged my ear.     Come, well be definite, explicit, plain;     I can resist, I know; and twill be well     For colloquy to have used this manlier mood,     Which is to last, ye chances say how long?     How shall I call him? Mephistophiles?     Sp. I come, I come.     Di. So quick, so eager; ha!     Like an eaves-dropping menial on my thought,     With something of an exultation too, methinks,     Out-peeping in that springy, jaunty gait.     I doubt about it. Shall I do it? Oh! oh!     Shame on me! come! Shall I, my follower,     Should I conceive (not that at all I do,     Tis curiosity that prompts my speech)     But should I form, a thing to be supposed,     A wish to bargain for your merchandise,     Say what were your demands? what were your terms     What should I do? what should I cease to do?     What incense on what altars must I burn?     And what abandon? what unlearn, or learn?     Religion goes, I take it.     Sp. Oh,     Youll go to church of course, you know;     Or at the least will take a pew     To send your wife and servants to.     Trust me, I make a point of that;     No infidelity, thats flat.     Di. Religion is not in a pew, say some;     Cucullus, you hold, facit monachum.     Sp. Why, as to feelings of devotion,     I interdict all vague emotion;     But if you will, for once and all     Compound with ancient Juvenal     Orandum est, one perfect prayer     For savoir-vivre and savoir-faire.     Theology dont recommend you,     Unless, turned lawyer, heaven should send you     In your professions way a case     Of Baptism and prevenient grace;     But thats not likely. Im inclined,     All circumstances borne in mind,     To think (to keep you in due borders)     Youd better enter holy orders.     Di. On that, my friend, youd better not insist.     Sp. Well, well, tis but a good thing missd.     The items optional, no doubt;     But how to get you bread without?     Youll marry; I shall find the lady.     Make your proposal, and be steady.     Di. Marry, ill spirit! and at your sole choice?     Sp. De rigueur! cant give you a voice.     What matter? Oh, trust one who knows you,     Youll make an admirable sposo.     Di. Enough. But action look to that well, mind me;     See that some not unworthy work you find me;     If man I be, then give the man expression.     Sp. Of course youll enter a profession;     If not the Church, why then the Law.     By Jove, well teach you how to draw!     Besides, the best of the concern is     Im hand and glove with the attorneys.     With them and me to help, dont doubt     But in due season youll come out;     Leave Kelly, Cockburn, in the lurch.     But yet, do think about the Church.     Di. Tis well, ill spirit, I admire your wit;     As for your wisdom, I shall think of it.     And now farewell.     SCENE IV. In St. Marks. Dipsyehus alone.     The Law! twere honester, if twere genteel,     To say the dung-cart. What! shall I go about,     And like the walking shoeblack roam the flags     To see whose boots are dirtiest? Oh the luck     To stoop and clean a pair!     Religion, if indeed it be in vain     To expect to find in this more modern time     That which the old world styled, in old-world phrase,     Walking with God. It seems His newer will     We should not think of Him at all, but trudge it,     And of the world He has assigned us make     What best we can.      Then love: I scarce can think     That these be-maddening discords of the mind     To pure melodious sequence could be changed,     And all the vext conundrums of our life     Solved to all time by this old pastoral     Of a new Adam and a second Eve     Set in a garden which no serpent seeks.     And yet I hold heart can beat true to heart:     And to hew down the tree which bears this fruit,     To do a thing which cuts me off from hope,     To falsify the movement of Loves mind,     To seat some alien trifler on the throne     A queen may come to claim that were ill done.     What! to the close hand of the clutching Jew     Hand up that rich reversion! and for what?     This would be hard, did I indeed believe     Twould ever fall. That love, the large repose     Restorative, not to mere outside needs     Skin-deep, but throughly to the total man,     Exists, I will believe, but so, so rare,     So doubtful, so exceptional, hard to guess;     When guessed, so often counterfeit; in brief,     A thing not possibly to be conceived     An item in the reckonings of the wise.     Action, that staggers me. For I had hoped,     Midst weakness, indolence, frivolity,     Irresolution, still had hoped; and this     Seems sacrificing hope. Better to wait:     The wise men wait; it is the foolish haste,     And ere the scenes are in the slides would play,     And while the instruments are tuning, dance.     I see Napoleon on the heights intent     To arrest that one brief unit of loose time     Which hands high Victorys thread; his marshals fret,     His soldiers clamour low: the very guns     Seem going off of themselves; the cannon strain     Like hell-dogs in the leash. But he, he waits;     And lesser chances and inferior hopes     Meantime go pouring past. Men gnash their teeth;     The very faithful have begun to doubt;     But they molest not the calm eye that seeks     Midst all this huddling silver little worth     The one thin piece that comes, pure gold; he waits.     O me, when the great deed een now has broke     Like a mans hand the horizons level line,     So soon to fill the zenith with rich clouds;     O, in this narrow interspace, this marge,     This list and salvage of a glorious time,     To despair of the great and sell unto the mean!     O thou of little faith, what hast thou done?     Yet if the occasion coming. should find us     Undexterous, incapable? In light things     Prove thou the arms thou longst to glorify,     Nor fear to work up from the lowest ranks     Whence come great Natures Captains. And high deeds     Haunt not the fringy edges of the fight,     But the pell-mell of men. Oh, what and if     Een now by lingering here I let them slip,     Like an unpractised spyer through a glass,     Still pointing to the blank, too high. And yet,     In dead details to smother vital ends     Which would give life to them; in the deft trick     Of prentice-handling to forget great art,     To base mechanical adroitness yield     The Inspiration and the Hope a slave!     Oh, and to blast that Innocence which, though     Here it may seem a dull unopening bud,     May yet bloom freely in celestial clime!     Were it not better done, then, to keep off     And see, not share, the strife; stand out the waltz     Which fools whirl dizzy in? Is it possible?     Contamination taints the idler first;     And without base compliance, een that same     Which buys bold hearts free course, Earth lends not these     Their pent and miserable standing-room.     Life loves no lookers-on at his great game,     And with boys malice still delights to turn     The tide of sport upon the sitters-by,     And set observers scampering with their notes.     Oh, it is great to do and know not what,     Nor let it eer be known. The dashing stream     Stays not to pick his steps among the rocks,     Or let his water-breaks be chronicled.     And though the hunter looks before he leap,     Tis instinct rather than a shaped-out thought     That lifts him his bold way. Then, instinct, hail;     And farewell hesitation. If I stay,     I am not innocent; nor if I go     Een should I fall beyond redemption lost.     Ah, if I had a course like a full stream,     If life were as the field of chase! No, no;     The life of instinct has, it seems, gone by,     And will not be forced back. And to live now     I must sluice out myself into canals,     And lose all force in ducts. The modern Hotspur     Shrills not his trumpet of To Horse, To Horse!     But consults columns in a Railway Guide;     A demigod of figures; an Achilles     Of computation;     A verier Mercury, express come down     To do the world with swift arithmetic.     Well, one could bear with that, were the end ours,     Ones choice and the correlative of the soul;     To drudge were then sweet service. But indeed     The earth moves slowly, if it move at all,     And by the general, not the single force     Of the linkd members of the vast machine.     In all these crowded rooms of industry.     No individual soul has loftier leave     Than fiddling with a piston or a valve.     Well, one could bear that also: one would drudge     And do ones petty part, and be content     In base manipulation, solaced still     By thinking of the leagued fraternity,     And of co-operation, and the effect     Of the great engine. If indeed it work,     And is not a mere treadmill! which it may be.     Who can confirm it is not? We ask action,     And dream of arms and conflict; and string up     All self-devotions muscles; and are set     To fold up papers. To what end I we know not.     Other folks do so; it is always done;     And it perhaps is right. And we are paid for it,     For nothing else we can be. He that eats     Must serve; and serve as other servants do:     And don the lacqueys livery of the house.     Oh, could I shoot my thought up to the sky,     A column of pure shape, for all to observe!     But I must slave, a meagre coral-worm,     To build beneath the tide with excrement     What one day will be island, or be reef,     And will feed men, or wreck them. Well, well, well.     Adieu, ye twisted thinkings. I submit: it must be.     Action is what one must get, it is clear;     And one could dream it better than one finds,     In its kind personal, in its motive not;     Not selfish as it now is, nor as now     Maiming the individual. If we had that,     It would cure all indeed. Oh, how would then     These pitiful rebellions of the flesh,     These caterwaulings of the effeminate heart,     These hurts of self-imagined dignity,     Pass like the seaweed from about the bows     Of a great vessel speeding straight to sea!     Yes, if we could have that; but I suppose     We shall not have it, and therefore I submit!     Sp. (from within). Submit, submit!     Tis common sense, and human wit     Can claim no higher name than it.     Submit, submit!     Devotion, and ideas, and love,     And beauty claim their place above;     But saint and sage and poets dreams     Divide the light in coloured streams,     Which this alone gives all combined,     The siccum lumen of the mind     Called common sense: and no high wit     Gives better counsel than does it.     Submit, submit!     To see things simply as they are     Here at our elbows, transcends far.     Trying to spy out at midday     Some bright particular star, which may,     Or not, be visible at night,     But clearly is not in daylight;     No inspiration vague outweighs     The plain good common sense that says,     Submit, submit!     Tis common sense, and human wit     Can ask no higher name than it.     Submit, submit!     SCENE V. The Piazza at Eight.     Di. There have been times, not many, but enough     To quiet all repinings of the heart;     There have been times, in which my tranquil soul,     No longer nebulous, sparse, errant, seemed     Upon its axis solidly to move,     Centred and fast: no mere elastic blank     For random rays to traverse unretained,     But rounding luminous its fair ellipse     Around its central sun. Ay, yet again,     As in more faint sensations I detect,     With it too, round an Inner, Mightier orb,     Maybe with that too this I dare not say     Around, yet more, more central, more supreme,     Whateer, how numerous soeer they be,     I am and feel myself, whereer I wind,     What vagrant chance soeer I seem to obey,     Communicably theirs.      O happy hours!     O compensation ample for long days     Of what impatient tongues call wretchedness!     O beautiful, beneath the magic moon,     To walk the watery way of palaces!     O beautiful, oervaulted with gemmed blue,     This spacious court, with colour and with gold,     With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points,     And crosses multiplex, and tips and balls     (Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix,     Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused);     Fantastically perfect this low pile     Of Oriental glory; these long ranges     Of classic chiselling, this gay flickering crowd,     And the calm Campanile. Beautiful!     O, beautiful! and that seemed more profound,     This morning by the pillar when I sat     Under the great arcade, at the review,     And took, and held, and ordered on my brain     The faces, and the voices, and the whole mass     O the motley facts of existence flowing by!     O perfect, if twere all! But it is not;     Hints haunt me ever of a more beyond:     I am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete,     Of a completion over soon assumed,     Of adding up too soon. What we call sin,     I could believe a painful opening out     Of paths for ampler virtue. The bare field,     Scant with lean ears of harvest, long had mocked     The vext laborious farmer; came at length     The deep plough in the lazy undersoil     Down-driving; with a cry earths fibres crack,     And a few months, and to! the golden leas,     And autumns crowded shocks and loaded wains.     Let us look back on life; was any change,     Any now blest expansion, but at first     A pang, remorse-like, shot to the inmost seats     Of moral being? To do anything,     Distinct on any one thing to decide,     To leave the habitual and the old, and quit     The easy-chair of use and wont, seems crime     To the weak soul, forgetful how at first     Sitting down seemed so too. And, oh! this womans heart,     Fain to be forced, incredulous of choice,     And waiting a necessity for God.     Yet I could think, indeed, the perfect call     Should force the perfect answer. If the voice     Ought to receive its echo from the soul,     Wherefore this silence? If it should rouse my being,     Why this reluctance? Have I not thought oermuch     Of other men, and of the ways of the world?     But what they are, or have been, matters not.     To thine own self be true, the wise man says.     Are then my fears myself? O double self!     And I untrue to both? Oh, there are hours,     When love, and faith, and dear domestic ties,     And converse with old friends, and pleasant walks,     Familiar faces, and familiar books,     Study, and art, upliftings unto prayer,     And admiration of the noblest things,     Seem all ignoble only; all is mean,     And nought as I would have it. Then at others,     My mind is in her rest; my heart at home     In all around; my soul secure in place,     And the vext needle perfect to her poles.     Aimless and hopeless in my life I seem     To thread the winding byways of the town,     Bewildered, baffled, hurried hence and thence,     All at cross-purpose even with myself,     Unknowing whence or whither. Then at once,     At a step, I crown the Campaniles top,     And view all mapped below; islands, lagoon,     A hundred steeples and a million roofs,     The fruitful champaign, and the cloud-capt Alps,     And the broad Adriatic. Be it enough;     If I lose this, how terrible! No, no,     I am contented, and will not complain.     To the old paths, my soul! Oh, be it so!     I bear the workday burden of dull life     About these footsore flags of a weary world,     Heaven knows how long it has not been; at once,     Lo! I am in the spirit on the Lords day     With John in Patmos. Is it not enough,     One day in seven? and if this should go,     If this pure solace should desert my mind,     What were all else I I dare not risk this loss.     To the old paths, my soul!     Sp. O yes.     To moon about religion; to inhume     Your ripened age in solitary walks,     For self-discussion; to debate in letters     Vext points with earnest friends; past other men     To cherish natural instincts, yet to fear them     And less than any use them; oh, no doubt,     In a corner sit and mope, and be consoled     With thinking one is clever, while the room     Rings through with animation and the dance.     Then talk of old examples; to pervert     Ancient real facts to modern unreal dreams,     And build up baseless fabrics of romance     And heroism upon historic sand;     To burn, forsooth, for action, yet despise     Its merest accidence and alphabet;     Cry out for service, and at once rebel     At the application of its plainest rules     This you call life, my friend, reality;     Doing your duty unto God and man     I know not what. Stay at Venice, if you will;     Sit musing in its churches hour on hour     Cross-kneed upon a bench; climb up at whiles     The neighbouring tower, and kill the lingering day     With old comparisons; when night succeeds,     Evading, yet a little seeking, what     You would and would not, turn your doubtful eyes     On moon and stars to help morality;     Once in a fortnight say, by lucky chance     Of happier-tempered coffee, gain (great Heaven!)     A pious rapture: is it not enough?     Di. Tis well: thou cursed spirit, go thy way!     I am in higher hands than yours. Tis well;     Who taught you menaces? Who told you, pray,     Because I asked you questions, and made show     Of hearing what you answered, therefore     Sp. Oh,     As if I didnt know!     Di. Come, come, my friend,     I may have wavered, but I have thought better.     Well say no more of it.     Sp. Oh, I dare say:     But as you like; tis your own loss; once more,     Beware!     Di. (alone). Must it be then? So quick upon my thought     To follow the fulfilment and the deed?     I counted not on this; I counted ever     To hold and turn it over in my hands     Much longer, much I took it up indeed,     For speculation rather; to gain thought,     New data. Oh, and now to be goaded on     By menaces, entangled among tricks;     That I wont suffer. Yet it is the law;     Tis this makes action always. But for this     We neer should act at all; and act we must.     Why quarrel with the fashion of a fact     Which, one way, must be, one time, why not now?     Sp. Submit, submit!     For tell me then, in earths great laws     Have you found any saving clause,     Exemption special granted you     From doing what the rest must do?     Of common sense who made you quit,     And told you, youd no need of it,     Nor to submit?     To move on angels wings were sweet;     But who would therefore scorn his feet?     It cannot walk up to the sky;     It therefore will lie down and die.     Rich meats it dont obtain at call;     It therefore will not eat at all.     Poor babe, and yet a babe of wit!     But common sense, not much of it,     Or twould submit.     Submit, submit!     As your good father did before you,     And as the mother who first bore you.     O yes! a chid of heavenly birth!     But yet it was born too on earth.     Keep your new birth for that far day     When in the grave your bones you lay,     All with your kindred and connection,     In hopes of happy resurrection.     But how meantime to live is fit,     Ask common sense; and what says it?     Submit, submit!     SCENE VI. On a Bridge.     Di. Tis gone, the fierce inordinate desire,     The burning thirst for action-utterly;     Gone, like a ship that passes in the night     On the high seas: gone, yet will come again     Gone, yet expresses something that exists.     Is it a thing ordained, then? is it a clue     For my lifes conduct? is it a law for me     That opportunity shall breed distrust,     Not passing until that pass? Chance and resolve,     Like two loose comets wandering wide in space,     Crossing each others orbits time on time,     Meet never. Void indifference and doubt     Let through the present boon, which neer turns back     To await the after sure-arriving wish.     How shall I then explain it to myself,     That in blank thought my purpose lives?     The uncharged cannon mocking still the spark     When come, which ere come it had loudly claimed.     Am I to let it be so still? For truly     The need exists, I know; the wish but sleeps     (Sleeps, and anon will wake and cry for food);     And to put by these unreturning gifts,     Because the feeling is not with me now,     Seems folly more than merest babyhoods.     But must I then do violence to myself,     And push on nature, force desire (thats ill),     Because of knowledge? which is great, but works     By rules of large exception; to tell which     Nought is more fallible than mere caprice.     What need for action yet? I am happy now,     I feel no lack what cause is there for haste?     Am I not happy I is not that enough?     Depart!     Sp. O yes! you thought you had escaped, no doubt,     This worldly fiend that follows you about,     This compound of convention and impiety,     This mongrel of uncleanness and propriety.     What else were bad enough? but, let me say,     I too have my grandes manires in my way;     Could speak high sentiment as well as you,     And out-blank-verse you without much ado;     Have my religion also in my kind,     For dreaming unfit, because not designed.     What! you know not that I too can be serious,     Can speak big words, and use the tone imperious;     Can speak, not honiedly, of love and beauty,     But sternly of a something much like duty.     Oh, do you look surprised? were never told,     Perhaps, that all that glitters is not gold.     The Devil oft the Holy Scripture uses,     But God can act the Devil when He chooses.     Farewell! But, verbum sapienti satis     I do not make this revelation gratis.     Farewell: beware!     Di. Ill spirits can quote holy books I knew;     What will they not say? what not dare to do?     Sp. Beware, beware!     Di. What, loitering still? Still, O foul spirit, there?     Go hence, I tell thee, go! I will beware.     (Alone). It must be then. I feel it in my soul;     The iron enters, sundering flesh and bone,     And sharper than the two-edged sword of God.     I come into deep waters help, oh help!     The floods run over me.     Therefore, farewell! a long and last farewell,     Ye pious sweet simplicities of life,     Good books, good friends, and holy moods, and all     That lent rough life sweet Sunday-seeming rests,     Making earth heaven like. Welcome, wicked world,     The hardening heart, the calculating brain     Narrowing its doors to thought, the lying lips,     The calm-dissembling eyes; the greedy flesh,     The world, the Devil welcome, welcome, welcome!     Sp. (from within). This stern necessity of things     On every side our being rings;     Our sallying eager actions fall     Vainly against that iron wall.     Where once her finger points the way,     The wise thinks only to obey;     Take life as she has ordered it,     And come what may of it, submit,     Submit, submit!     Who take implicitly her will,     For these her vassal chances still     Bring store of joys, successes, pleasures;     But whoso ponders, weighs, and measures,     She calls her torturers up to goad     With spur and scourges on the road;     He does at last with pain whateer     He spurned at first. Of such, beware,     Beware, beware!     Di. O God, O God! The great floods of the soul     Flow over me! I come into deep waters     Where no ground is!     Sp. Dont be the least afraid;     Theres not the slightest reason for alarm;     I only meant by a perhaps rough shake     To rouse you from a dreamy, unhealthy sleep.     Up, then up, and be going: the large world,     The throngd life waits us.      Come, my pretty boy,     You have been making mows to the blank sky     Quite long enough for good. Well put you up     Into the higher form. Tis time you learn     The Second Reverence, for things around.     Up, then, and go amongst them; dont be timid;     Look at them quietly a bit; by and by     Respect will come, and healthy appetite.     So let us go.      How now! not yet awake?     Oh, you will sleep yet, will you! Oh, you shirk,     You try and slink away! You cannot, eh?     Nay now, what follys this? Why will you fool yourself?     Why will you walk about thus with your eyes shut?     Treating for facts the self-made hues that flash     On tight-pressed pupils, which you know are not facts.     To use the undistorted light of the sun     Is not a crime; to look straight out upon     The big plain things that stare one in the face     Does not contaminate; to see pollutes not     What one must feel if one wont see, what is,     And will be too, howeer we blink, and must     One way or other make itself observed.     Free walkings better than being led about; and     What will the blind man do, I wonder, if     Some one should cut the string of his dog? Just think!     What could you do, if I should go away?     Oh, you have paths of your own before you, have you?     What shall it take to? literature, no doubt?     Novels, reviews? or poems! if you please!     The strong fresh gale of life will feel, no doubt,     The influx of your mouthful of soft air.     Well, make the most of that small stock of knowledge     Youve condescended to receive from me;     Thats your best chance. Oh, you despise that! Oh,     Prate then of passions you have known in dreams,     Of huge experience gathered by the eye;     Be large of aspiration, pure in hope,     Sweet in fond longings, but in all things vague;     Breathe out your dreamy scepticism, relieved     By snatches of old songs. People will like that, doubtless.     Or will you write about philosophy     For a waste far-off maybe overlooking     The fruitful is close by, live in metaphysic,     With transcendental logic fill your stomach,     Schematize joy, effigiate meat and drink;     Or, let me see, a mighty work, a volume,     The Complemental of the inferior Kant,     The Critic of Pure Practice, based upon     The Antinomies of the Moral Sense: for, look you,     We cannot act without assuming x,     And at the same time y, its contradictory;     Ergo, to act. People will buy that, doubtless.     Or youll perhaps teach youth (I do not question     Some downward turn you may find, some evasion     Of the broad highways glaring white ascent);     Teach youth, in a small way, that is, always,     So as to have much time left you for yourself;     This you cant sacrifice, your leisures precious.     Heartily you will not take to anything;     Whatever happen, dont I see you still,     Living no life at all? Even as now     An oergrown baby, sucking at the dugs     Of instinct, dry long since. Come, come, you are old enough     For spoon-meat surely.      Will you go on thus     Until death end you? if indeed it does.     For what it does, none knows. Yet as for you,     Youll hardly have the courage to die outright;     Youll somehow halve even it. Methinks I see you,     Through everlasting limbos of void time,     Twirling and twiddling ineffectively,     And indeterminately swaying for ever.     Come, come, spoon-meat at any rate.      Well, well,     I will not persecute you more, my friend.     Only do think, as I observed before,     What can you do, if I should go away?     Di. Is the hour here, then? Is the minute come     The irreprievable instant of stern time?     O for a few, few grains in the running glass,     Or for some power to hold them! O for a few     Of all that went so wastefully before!     It must be then, een now.     Sp. (from within). It must, it must.     Tis common sense! and human wit     Can claim no higher name than it.     Submit, submit!     Necessity! and who shall dare     Bring to her feet excuse or prayer?     Beware, beware!     We must, we must.     Howeer we turn, and pause and tremble     Howeer we shrink, deceive, dissemble     Whateer our doubting, grief, disgust,     The hand is on us, and we must,     We must, we must.     Tis common sense, and human wit     Can find no better name than it.     Submit, submit!     SCENE VII. At Torcello. Dipsychus alone.     Di. I had a vision; was it in my sleep?     And if it were, what then? But sleep or wake,     I saw a great light open oer my head;     And sleep or wake, uplifted to that light,     Out of that light proceeding heard a voice     Uttering high words, which, whether sleep or wake,     In me were fixed, and in me must abide.     When the enemy is near thee,     Call on us!     In our hands we will upbear thee,     He shall neither scathe nor scare thee,     He shall fly thee, and shall fear thee.     Call on us!     Call when all good friends have left thee,     Of all good sights and sounds bereft thee;     Call when hope and heart are sinking,     And the brain is sick with thinking,     Help, O help!     Call, and following close behind thee     There shall haste, and there shall find thee,     Help, sure help.     When the panic comes upon thee,     When necessity seems on thee,     Hope and choice have all foregone thee,     Fate and force are closing oer thee,     And but one way stands before thee     Call on us     O, and if thou dost not call,     Be but faithful, that is all.     Go right on, and close behind thee     There shall follow still and find thee,     Help, sure help.     SCENE VIII. In the Piazza.     Di. Not for thy service, thou imperious fiend     Not to do thy work, or the like of thine;     Not to please thee, O base and fallen spirit!     But One Most High, Most True, whom without thee     It seems I cannot.      O the misery     That one must truck and pactise with the world     To gain the vantage-ground to assail it from;     To set upon the Giant one must first,     O perfidy! have eat the Giants bread.     If I submit, it is but to gain time     And arms and stature: tis but to lie safe     Until the hour strike to arise and slay;     Tis the old story of the adders brood     Feeding and nestling till the fangs be grown.     Were it not nobler done, then, to act fair,     To accept the service with the wages, do     Frankly the devils work for the devils pay?     O, but another my allegiance holds     Inalienably his. How much soeer     I might submit, it must be to rebel.     Submit then sullenly, thats no dishonour.     Yet I could deem it better too to starve     And die untraitored. O, who sent me, though?     Sent me, and to do something O hard master     To do a treachery. But indeed tis done;     I have already taken of the pay     And curst the payer; take I must, curse too.     Alas! the little strength that I possess     Derives, I think, of him. So still it is,     The timid child that clung unto her skirts,     A boy, will slight his mother, and, grown a man,     His father too. Theres Scripture too for that!     Do we owe fathers nothing mothers nought?     Is filial duty folly? Yet He says,     He that loves father, mother, more than me;     Yea, and the man his parents shall desert,     The Ordinance says, and cleave unto his wife.     O man, behold thy wife, the hard naked world;     Adam, accept thy Eve.      So still it is,     The tree exhausts the soil; creepers kill it,     Their insects them: the lever finds its fulcrum     On what it then oerthrows; the homely spade     In labours hand unscrupulously seeks     Its first momentum on the very clod     Which next will be upturned. It seems a law.     And am not I, though I but ill recall     My happier age, a kidnapped child of heaven,     Whom these uncircumcised Philistines     Have by foul play shorn, blinded, maimed, and kept     For what more glorious than to make them sport?     Wait, then, wait, O my soul! grow, grow, ye locks!     Then perish they, and if need is, I too.     Sp. (aside). A truly admirable proceeding!     Could there be finer special pleading     When scruples would be interceding?     Theres no occasion I should stay;     He is working out, his own queer way.     The sum I set him; and this day     Will bring it, neither less nor bigger,     Exact to my predestined figure.     SCENE IX. In the Public Garden.     Di. Twenty-one past twenty-five coming on;     One-third of life departed, nothing done.     Out of the mammon of unrighteousness     That we make friends, the Scripture is express,     My Spirit, come, we will agree;     Content, youll take a moiety.     Sp. A moiety, ye gods, he, he!     Di. Three-quarters then? O griping beast!     Leave me a decimal at least.     Sp. Oh, one of ten! to infect the nine     And make the devil a one be mine!     Oh, one! to jib all day, God wot,     When all the rest would go full trot!     One very little one, eh? to doubt with,     Just to pause, think, and look about with?     In course! you counted on no less     You thought it likely Id say yes!     Di. Be it then thus since that it must, it seems.     Welcome, O world, henceforth; and farewell dreams     Yet know, Mephisto, know, nor you nor I     Can in this matter either sell or buy;     For the fee simple of this trifling lot     To you or me, trust me, pertaineth not.     I can but render what is of my will,     And behind it somewhat remaineth still.     O, your sole chance was in the childish mind     Whose darkness dreamed that vows like this could bind;     Thinking all lost, it made all lost, and brought     In fact the ruin which had been but thought.     Thank Heaven (or you) thats past these many years,     And we have knowledge wiser than our fears.     So your poor bargain take, my man,     And make the best of it you can.     Sp. With reservations! oh, how treasonable!     When I had let you off so reasonable.     However, I dont fear; be it so!     Brutus is honourable, I know;     So mindful of the dues of others,     So thoughtful for his poor dear brothers,     So scrupulous, considerate, kind     He wouldnt leave the devil behind     If he assured him he had claims     For his good company to hell-flames!     No matter, no matter, the bargains made;     And I for my part will not be afraid.     With reservations! oh! ho, ho!     But time, my friend, has yet to show     Which of us two will closest fit     The proverb of the Biter Bit.     Di. Tell me thy name, now it is over.     Sp. Oh!     Why, Mephistophiles, you know     At least youve lately called me so.     Belial it was some days ago.     But take your pick; Ive got a score     Never a royal baby more.     For a brass plate upon a door     What think you of Cosmocrator?     Di. ???? ????????????? ??? ?????? ??????.     And that you are indeed, I do not doubt you.     Sp. Ephesians, aint it? near the end     You dropt a word to spare your friend.     What follows, too, in application     Would be absurd exaggeration.     Di. The Power of this World! hateful unto God.     Sp. Cosmarchons shorter, but sounds odd:     One wouldnt like, even if a true devil,     To be taken for a vulgar Jew devil.     Di. Yet in all these things we tis Scripture too     Are more than conquerors, even over you.     Sp. Come, come, dont maunder any longer.     Time tests the weaker and the stronger;     And we, without procrastination,     Must set, you know, to our vocation.     O goodness! wont you find it pleasant     To own the positive and present;     To see yourself like people round,     And feel your feet upon the ground! (Exeunt.)     END OF DIPSYCHUS.