Part 26 (2/2)

Fair play's a jewel! leave friends in the lurch?

Stand on a line ere you start for the church.

Higgledy, piggledy, packed we lie, Rats in a hamper, swine in a stye, Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve, Worms in a carcase, fleas in a sleeve.

Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs And buzz for the bishop--here he comes.

And after similar nice remarks for a church, the edified congregation concludes:

But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock, And the rest sit silent and count the clock, Since forced to muse the appointed time On these precious facts and truths sublime,-- Let us fitly employ it, under our breath, In saying Ben Ezra's Song of Death.

For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died, Called sons and sons' sons to his side, And spoke, 'This world has been harsh and strange; Something is wrong: there needeth a change.

But what, or where? at the last, or first?

In one point only we sinned, at worst.

'The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, And again in his border see Israel set.

When Judah beholds Jerusalem, The stranger-seed shall be joined to them: To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave, So the Prophet saith and his sons believe.

'Ay, the children of the chosen race Shall carry and bring them to their place: In the land of the Lord shall lead the same, Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o'er The oppressor triumph for evermore?

'G.o.d spoke, and gave us the word to keep, Bade never fold the hands nor sleep 'Mid a faithless world,--at watch and ward, Till Christ at the end relieve our guard.

By His servant Moses the watch was set: Though near upon c.o.c.k-crow, we keep it yet.

'Thou! if Thou wast He, who at mid-watch came, By the starlight, naming a dubious Name!

And if, too heavy with sleep--too rash With fear--O Thou, if that martyr-gash Fell on Thee coming to take Thine own, And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne--

'Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus.

But, the judgement over, join sides with us!

Thine too is the cause! and not more Thine Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine, Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed, Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed!

'We withstood Christ then? be mindful how At least we withstand Barabbas now!

Was our outrage sore? But the worst we spared, To have called these--Christians, had we dared!

Let defiance to them pay mistrust of Thee, And Rome make amends for Calvary!

'By the torture, prolonged from age to age, By the infamy, Israel's heritage, By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace, By the badge of shame, by the felon's place, By the branding-tool, the b.l.o.o.d.y whip, And the summons to Christian fellows.h.i.+p,--

'We boast our proof that at least the Jew Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew.

Thy face took never so deep a shade But we fought them in it, G.o.d our aid!

A trophy to bear, as we march, Thy band, South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land!'

It is very natural that a poet whose wishes incline, or whose genius conducts him to a grotesque art, should be attracted towards mediaeval subjects. There is no age whose legends are so full of grotesque subjects, and no age where real life was so fit to suggest them. Then, more than at any other time, good principles have been under great hards.h.i.+ps. The vestiges of ancient civilization, the germs of modern civilization, the little remains of what had been, the small beginnings of what is, were buried under a c.u.mbrous ma.s.s of barbarism and cruelty. Good elements hidden in horrid accompaniments are the special theme of grotesque art, and these mediaeval life and legends afford more copiously than could have been furnished before Christianity gave its new elements of good, or since modern civilization has removed some few at least of the old elements of destruction. A _buried_ life like the spiritual mediaeval was Mr.

Browning's natural element, and he was right to be attracted by it.

His mistake has been, that he has not made it pleasant; that he has forced his art to topics on which no one could charm, or on which he, at any rate, could not; that on these occasions and in these poems he has failed in fascinating men and women of sane taste.

We say 'sane' because there is a most formidable and estimable _insane_ taste. The will has great though indirect power over the taste, just as it has over the belief. There are some horrid beliefs from which human nature revolts, from which at first it shrinks, to which, at first, no effort can force it. But if we fix the mind upon them they have a power over us just because of their natural offensiveness. They are like the sight of human blood: experienced soldiers tell us that at first men are sickened by the smell and newness of blood almost to death and fainting, but that as soon as they harden their hearts and stiffen their minds, as soon as they _will_ bear it, then comes an appet.i.te for slaughter, a tendency to gloat on carnage, to love blood, at least for the moment, with a deep eager love. It is a principle that if we put down a healthy instinctive aversion, nature avenges herself by creating an unhealthy insane attraction. For this reason the most earnest truth-seeking men fall into the worst delusions; they will not let their mind alone; they force it towards some ugly thing, which a crotchet of argument, a conceit of intellect recommends, and nature punishes their disregard of her warning by subjection to the ugly one, by belief in it. Just so the most industrious critics get the most admiration. They think it unjust to rest in their instinctive natural horror: they overcome it, and angry nature gives them over to ugly poems and marries them to detestable stanzas.

Mr. Browning possibly, and some of the worst of Mr. Browning's admirers certainly, will say that these grotesque objects exist in real life, and therefore they ought to be, at least may be, described in art. But though pleasure is not the end of poetry, pleasing is a condition of poetry. An exceptional monstrosity of horrid ugliness cannot be made pleasing, except it be made to suggest--to recall--the perfection, the beauty, from which it is a deviation. Perhaps in extreme cases no art is equal to this; but then such self-imposed problems should not be worked by the artist; these out-of-the-way and detestable subjects should be let alone by him. It is rather characteristic of Mr. Browning to neglect this rule. He is the most of a realist, and the least of an idealist of any poet we know. He evidently sympathizes with some part at least of Bishop Blougram's apology. Anyhow this world exists. 'There _is_ good wine--there _are_ pretty women--there _are_ comfortable benefices--there _is_ money, and it is pleasant to spend it. Accept the creed of your age and you get these, reject that creed and you lose them. And for what do you lose them? For a fancy creed of your own, which no one else will accept, which hardly any one will call a ”creed”, which most people will consider a sort of unbelief.' Again, Mr. Browning evidently loves what we may call the realism, the grotesque realism, of orthodox christianity. Many parts of it in which great divines have felt keen difficulties are quite pleasant to him. He must _see_ his religion, he must nave an 'object-lesson' in believing. He must have a creed that will _take_, which wins and holds the miscellaneous world, which stout men will heed, which nice women will adore. The spare moments of solitary religion--the 'obdurate questionings', the high 'instincts', the 'first affections', the 'shadowy recollections',

Which, do they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day-- Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

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