Part 12 (1/2)
X Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!
Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance, Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.
Never dares the man put off the prophet.
XI Did he love one face from out the thousands, 100 (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, Were she but the Ethiopian bondslave), He would envy yon dumb patient camel, Keeping a reserve of scanty water Meant to save his own life in the desert; Ready in the desert to deliver (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) h.o.a.rd and life together for his mistress.
XII I shall never, in the years remaining, Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, 110 Make you music that should all-express me; So it seems: I stand on my attainment.
This of verse alone, one life allows me; Verse and nothing else have I to give you.
Other heights in other lives, G.o.d willing; All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!
XIII Yet a semblance of resource avails us-- Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.
Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, Lines I write the first time and the last time. 120 He who works in fresco, steals a hair brush, Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, Makes a strange art of an art familiar, Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets.
He who blows thro' bronze, may breathe thro' silver, Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.
He who writes, may write for once as I do.
XIV Love, you saw me gather men and women, Live or dead or fas.h.i.+oned by my fancy, 130 Enter each and all, and use their service, Speak from every mouth--the speech, a poem.
Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, Hopes and tears, belief and disbelieving: I am mine and yours--the rest be all men's, Kars.h.i.+sh, Cleon, Norbert and the fifty.
Let me speak this once in my true person, Not as Lippo, Roland or Andrea, Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence; Pray you, look on these my men and women, 140 Take and keep my fifty poems finished; Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!
Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.
Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!
Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.
Curving on a sky imbrued with color, Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.
Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 150 Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, Perfect till the nightingales applauded.
Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, Hard to greet, she traverses the houseroofs, Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.
XVI What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?
Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), 160 She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman-- Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even!
Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal-- When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better!
Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the s.h.i.+p it founders, 170 Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?
Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?
Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu Climbed and saw the very G.o.d, the Highest, Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.
Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, When they ate and drank and saw G.o.d also!
XVII What were seen? None knows, none ever shall know. 180 Only this is sure--the sight were other, Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, Dying now impoverished here in London.
G.o.d be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her!
XVIII This I say of me, but think of you, Love!
This to you--yourself my moon of poets!