Pippa Passes: Part II: Noon

Scene. Over Orcana. The house of Jules, who crosses its threshold with Phene: she is silent, on which Jules begins     Do not die, Phene! I am yours now, you     Are mine now; let fate reach me how she likes,     If you'll not die: so, never die! Sit here     My work-room's single seat. I over-lean     This length of hair and lustrous front; they turn     Like an entire flower upward: eyes, lips, last     Your chin no, last your throat turns: 't is their scent     Pulls down my face upon you. Nay, look ever     This one way till I change, grow you I could     Change into you, beloved!     You by me,     And I by you; this is your hand in mine,     And side by side we sit: all's true. Thank God!     I have spoken: speak you!     O my life to come!     My Tydeus must be carved that's there in clay;     Yet how be carved, with you about the room?     Where must I place you? When I think that once     This room-full of rough block-work seemed my heaven     Without you! Shall I ever work again,     Get fairly into my old ways again,     Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait,     My hand transfers its lineaments to stone?     Will my mere fancies live near you, their truth     The live truth, passing and repassing me,     Sitting beside me?     Now speak!     Only first,     See, all your letters! Was't not well contrived?     Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe; she keeps     Your letters next her skin: which drops out foremost?     Ah, this that swam down like a first moonbeam     Into my world!     Again those eyes complete     Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow,     Of all my room holds; to return and rest     On me, with pity, yet some wonder too:     As if God bade some spirit plague a world,     And this were the one moment of surprise     And sorrow while she took her station, pausing     O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy!     What gaze you at? Those? Books, I told you of;     Let your first word to me rejoice them, too:     This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red     Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribe     Read this line . . . no, shame Homer's be the Greek     First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl!     This Odyssey in coarse black vivid type     With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and page,     To mark great places with due gratitude;     "He said, and on Antinous directed     "A bitter shaft" . . . a flower blots out the rest!     Again upon your search? My statues, then!     Ah, do not mind that better that will look     When cast in bronze an Almaign Kaiser, that,     Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip.     This, rather, turn to! What, unrecognized?     I thought you would have seen that here you sit     As I imagined you, Hippolyta,     Naked upon her bright Numidian horse.     Recall you this then? "Carve in bold relief"     So you commanded "carve, against I come,     "A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was,     "Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free,     "Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch.     "'Praise those who slew Hipparchus!' cry the guests,     "'While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle waves     "'As erst above our champion: stand up, all!'"     See, I have laboured to express your thought.     Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms,     (Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides,     Only consenting at the branch's end     They strain toward) serves for frame to a sole face,     The Praiser's, in the centre: who with eyes     Sightless, so bend they back to light inside     His brain where visionary forms throng up,     Sings, minding not that palpitating arch     Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine     From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast off,     Violet and parsley crowns to trample on     Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve,     Devoutly their unconquerable hymn.     But you must say a "well" to that say "well!"     Because you gaze am I fantastic, sweet?     Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble marbly     Even to the silence! Why, before I found     The real flesh Phene, I inured myself     To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff     For better nature's birth by means of art:     With me, each substance tended to one form     Of beauty to the human archetype.     On every side occurred suggestive germs     Of that the tree, the flower or take the fruit,     Some rosy shape, continuing the peach,     Curved beewise o'er its bough; as rosy limbs,     Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just     From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang.     But of the stuffs one can be master of,     How I divined their capabilities!     From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk     That yields your outline to the air's embrace,     Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom;     Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure     To cut its one confided thought clean out     Of all the world. But marble! 'neath my tools     More pliable than jelly as it were     Some clear primordial creature dug from depths     In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself,     And whence all baser substance may be worked;     Refine it off to air, you may, condense it     Down to the diamond; is not metal there,     When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips?     Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach,     Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep?     Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised     By the swift implement sent home at once,     Flushes and glowings radiate and hover     About its track?     Phene? what why is this?     That whitening cheek, those still dilating eyes!     Ah, you will die I knew that you would die!     Phene begins, on his having long remained silent.     Now the end's coming; to be sure, it must     Have ended sometime! Tush, why need I speak     Their foolish speech? I cannot bring to mind     One half of it, beside; and do not care     For old Natalia now, nor any of them.     Oh, you what are you? if I do not try     To say the words Natalia made me learn,     To please your friends, it is to keep myself     Where your voice lifted me, by letting that     Proceed: but can it? Even you, perhaps,     Cannot take up, now you have once let fall,     The music's life, and me along with that     No, or you would! We'll stay, then, as we are:     Above the world.     You creature with the eyes!     If I could look for ever up to them,     As now you let me, I believe, all sin,     All memory of wrong done, suffering borne,     Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth     Whence all that's low comes, and there touch and stay     Never to overtake the rest of me,     All that, unspotted, reaches up to you,     Drawn by those eyes! What rises is myself,     Not me the shame and suffering; but they sink,     Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so,     Above the world!     But you sink, for your eyes     Are altering altered! Stay "I love you, love" . . .     I could prevent it if I understood:     More of your words to me: was't in the tone     Or the words, your power?     Or stay I will repeat     Their speech, if that contents you! Only change     No more, and I shall find it presently     Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up.     Natalia threatened me that harm should follow     Unless I spoke their lesson to the end,     But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you.     Your friends, Natalia said they were your friends     And meant you well, because, I doubted it,     Observing (what was very strange to see)     On every face, so different in all else,     The same smile girls like me are used to bear,     But never men, men cannot stoop so low;     Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile,     That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit     Which seems to take possession of the world     And make of God a tame confederate,     Purveyor to their appetites . . . you know!     But still Natalia said they were your friends,     And they assented though they smiled the more,     And all came round me, that thin Englishman     With light lank hair seemed leader of the rest;     He held a paper "What we want," said he,     Ending some explanation to his friends     "Is something slow, involved and mystical,     "To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste     "And lure him on until, at innermost     "Where he seeks sweetness' soul, he may find this!     " As in the apple's core, the noisome fly:     "For insects on the rind are seen at once,     "And brushed aside as soon, but this is found     "Only when on the lips or loathing tongue."     And so he read what I have got by heart:     I'll speak it, "Do not die, love! I am yours."     No is not that, or like that, part of words     Yourself began by speaking? Strange to lose     What cost such pains to learn! Is this more right?     I am a painter who cannot paint;     In my life, a devil rather than saint;     In my brain, as poor a creature too:     No end to all I cannot do!     Yet do one thing at least I can     Love a man or hate a man     Supremely: thus my lore began.     Through the Valley of Love I went,     In the lovingest spot to abide,     And just on the verge where I pitched my tent,     I found Hate dwelling beside.     (Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter meant,     Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride!)     And further, I traversed Hate's grove,     In the hatefullest nook to dwell;     But lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love     Where the shadow threefold fell.     (The meaning those black bride's-eyes above,     Not a painter's lip should tell!)     "And here," said he, "Jules probably will ask,     "'You have black eyes, Love, you are, sure enough,     "'My peerless bride, then do you tell indeed     "'What needs some explanation! What means this?'"     And I am to go on, without a word     So, I grew wise in Love and Hate,     From simple that I was of late.     Once, when I loved, I would enlace     Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form and face     Of her I loved, in one embrace     As if by mere love I could love immensely!     Once, when I hated, I would plunge     My sword, and wipe with the first lunge     My foe's whole life out like a sponge     As if by mere hate I could hate intensely!     But now I am wiser, know better the fashion     How passion seeks aid from its opposite passion:     And if I see cause to love more, hate more     Than ever man loved, ever hated before     And seek in the Valley of Love,     The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove,     Where my soul may surely reach     The essence, nought less, of each,     The Hate of all Hates, the Love     Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove,     I find them the very warders     Each of the other's borders.     When I love most, Love is disguised     In Hate; and when Hate is surprised     In Love, then I hate most: ask     How Love smiles through Hate's iron casque,     Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask,     And how, having hated thee,     I sought long and painfully     To reach thy heart, nor prick     The skin but pierce to the quick     Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight     By thy bride how the painter Lutwyche can hate!     Jules interposes     Lutwyche! Who else? But all of them, no doubt,     Hated me: they at Venice presently     Their turn, however! You I shall not meet:     If I dreamed, saying this would wake me.     Keep     What's here, the gold we cannot meet again,     Consider! and the money was but meant     For two years' travel, which is over now,     All chance or hope or care or need of it.     This and what comes from selling these, my casts     And books and medals, except . . . let them go     Together, so the produce keeps you safe     Out of Natalia's clutches! If by chance     (For all's chance here) I should survive the gang     At Venice, root out all fifteen of them,     We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide.     [From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing ]     Give her but a least excuse to love me!     When where     How can this arm establish her above me,     If fortune fixed her as my lady there,     There already, to eternally reprove me?     ("Hist!" said Kate the Queen;     But "Oh!" cried the maiden, binding her tresses,     "'T is only a page that carols unseen,     "Crumbling your hounds their messes!")     Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honour,     My heart!     Is she poor? What costs it to be styled a donor?     Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.     But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!     ("Nay, list!" bade Kate the Queen;     And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,     "'T is only a page that carols unseen,     "Fitting your hawks their jesses!")     [Pippa passes]     Jules resumes     What name was that the little girl sang forth?     Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced     The crown of Cyprus to be lady here     At Asolo, where still her memory stays,     And peasants sing how once a certain page     Pined for the grace of her so far above     His power of doing good to, "Kate the Queen     "She never could be wronged, be poor," he sighed,     "Need him to help her!"     Yes, a bitter thing     To see our lady above all need of us;     Yet so we look ere we will love; not I,     But the world looks so. If whoever loves     Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper,     The blessing or the blest one, queen or page,     Why should we always choose the page's part?     Here is a woman with utter need of me,     I find myself queen here, it seems!     How strange!     Look at the woman here with the new soul,     Like my own Psyche, fresh upon her lips     Alit, the visionary butterfly.     Waiting my word to enter and make bright,     Or flutter off and leave all blank as first.     This body had no soul before, but slept     Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free     From taint or foul with stain, as outward things     Fastened their image on its passiveness:     Now, it will wake, feel, live or die again!     Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff     Be Art and further, to evoke a soul     From form be nothing? This new soul is mine!     Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do? save     A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death     Without me, from their hooting. Oh, to hear     God's voice plain as I heard it first, before     They broke in with their laughter! I heard them     Henceforth, not God.     To Ancona Greece some isle!     I wanted silence only; there is clay     Everywhere. One may do whate'er one likes     In Art: the only thing is, to make sure     That one does like it which takes pains to know.     Scatter all this, my Phene this mad dream!     Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends,     What the whole world except our love my own,     Own Phene? But I told you, did I not,     Ere night we travel for your land some isle     With the sea's silence on it? Stand aside     I do but break these paltry models up     To begin Art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, I     And save him from my statue meeting him?     Some unspected isle in the far seas!     Like a god going through his world, there stands     One mountain for a moment in the dusk,     Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow:     And you are ever by me while I gaze     Are in my arms as now as now as now!     Some unsuspected isle in the far seas!     Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas!     Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from Orcana to the Turret. Two or three of the Austrian Police loitering with Bluphocks, an English vagabond, just in view of the Turret.     Bluphocks     So, that is your Pippa, the little girl who passed us singing? Well, your Bishop's Intendant's money shall be honestly earned: now, don't make me that sour face because I bring the Bishop's name into the business; we know he can have nothing to do with such horrors: we know that he is a saint and all that a bishop should be, who is a great man beside. Oh were but every worm a maggot, Every fly a grig, Every bough a Christmas faggot, Every tune a jig! In fact, I have abjured all religions; but the last I inclined to, was the Armenian: for I have travelled, do you see, and at Koenigsberg, Prussia Improper (so styled because there's a sort of bleak hungry sun there), you might remark over a venerable house-porch, a certain Chaldee inscription; and brief as it is, a mere glance at it used absolutely to change the mood of every bearded passenger. In they turned, one and all; the young and lightsome, with no irreverent pause, the aged and decrepit, with a sensible alacrity: 't was the Grand Rabbi's abode, in short. Struck with curiosity, I lost no time in learning Syriac    (these are vowels, you dogs, follow my stick's end in the mud Celarent, Darii, Ferio!) and one morning presented myself, spelling-book in hand, a, b, c, I picked it out letter by letter, and what was the purport of this miraculous posy? Some cherished legend of the past, you'll say "How Moses hocus-pocussed Egypt's land with fly and locust," or, "How to Jonah sounded harshish, Get thee up and go to Tarshish," or, "How the angel meeting Balaam, Straight his ass returned a salaam," In no wise! "Shackabrack Boach somebody or other    Isaach, Re-cei-ver, Pur-cha-ser and Ex-chan-ger of Stolen Goods! " So, talk to me of the religion of a bishop! I have renounced all bishops save Bishop Beveridge mean to live so and die As some Greek dog-sage, dead and merry, Hellward bound in Charon's wherry, With food for both worlds, under and upper, Lupine-seed and Hecate's supper, And never an obolus . . . (Though thanks to you, or this Intendant through you, or this Bishop through his Intendant I possess a burning pocketful of zwanzigers) . . . To pay the Stygian Ferry!     1st Policeman     There is the girl, then; go and deserve them the moment you have pointed out to us Signor Luigi and his mother. [To the rest.]     I have been noticing a house yonder, this long while: not a shutter unclosed since morning!     2nd Policeman     Old Luca Gaddi's, that owns the silkmills here: he dozes by the hour, wakes up, sighs deeply, says he should like to be Prince Metternich, and then dozes again, after having bidden young Sebald, the foreigner, set his wife to playing draughts. Never molest such a household, they mean well.     Bluphocks     Only, cannot you tell me something of this little Pippa, I must have to do with? One could make something of that name. Pippa that is, short for Felippa    rhyming to Panurge consults Hertrippa Believest thou, King Agrippa? Something might be done with that name.     2nd Policeman     Put into rhyme that your head and a ripe musk-melon would not be dear at half a zwanziger! Leave this fooling, and look out; the afternoon's over or nearly so.     3rd Policeman     Where in this passport of Signor Luigi does our Principal instruct you to watch him so narrowly? There? What's there beside a simple signature? (That English fool's busy watching.)     2nd Policeman     Flourish all round "Put all possible obstacles in his way;" oblong dot at the end "Detain him till further advices reach you;" scratch at bottom    "Send him back on pretence of some informality in the above;" ink-spirt on right-hand side (which is the case here) "Arrest him at once." Why and wherefore, I don't concern myself, but my instructions amount to this: if Signor Luigi leaves home to-night for Vienna    well and good, the passport deposed with us for our visa is really for his own use, they have misinformed the Office, and he means well; but let him stay over to-night there has been the pretence we suspect, the accounts of his corresponding and holding intelligence with the Carbonari are correct, we arrest him at once, to-morrow comes Venice, and presently Spielberg. Bluphocks makes the signal, sure enough! That is he, entering the turret with his mother, no doubt.