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Poetry by George Eliot.
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Contents
- The Spanish Gypsy. (1868)
- The Legend of Jubal, and Other Poems (1874)
- Miscellaneous Poems
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The Spanish Gypsy. (1868)
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In a page or two, one gets a clue; George Eliot sets out to write about a time of great upheavals in life of Europe and of Spain. She begins by painting beautiful portrayal of Spain, and of the struggle between two religions, before she mentions Columbus. Is that what it's about? Doesn't explain the title though. It takes a while, some dozen or so pages, before one begins to guess - when a soldier reports that it isn't his opinion that the duke is marrying beneath him, it's the padre who says she won't confess - it is about inquisition, and a young bride caught between her heritage and the force of church, apart from racism.
The epic is divided in five books, and the story, the tragedy is not only budding, it's already set, unfolding, by the end of book I.
Book I is the beautiful introduction- of the story, and before that, of the time and space throat the story is set in; it takes us through the characters, main or others, and having established a love story, reveals a secret, and leaves us at a turn at once filled with suspense, sadness, and also relief. Book II takes it from there, a prior intent on breaking up a marriage and burning the bride alive, if she's found; a bridegroom aware of this, yet intent on defying the prior, finding and marrying her, although subconsciously fearing if the friar is right.
Book III is, in more than one sense, heart of the story, with surprise twists; the scene of confrontation between the three representing different elements - proud Gypsy chieftain, Spanish nobility, and she who is young womanhood that's love, life and joy, but is asked to sacrifice for her people.
An interesting detail, is that a poem titled "Roses", included in the Delphi collection of complete works of George Eliot, is an excerpt from Book III.
Book IV brings, not scenes of battle, but aftermath thereof, grief.
Book V is farewell, almost silent - after words of repentance and forgiveness - that makes one wish the author hadn't ended it thus, that it was turned to an embrace of love and a new life. But the two represent their people, and the author is portraying history through them.
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Book I.
Book II
Book III
Book IV
Book V
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Book I
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"’T is the warm South, where Europe spreads her lands
"Like fretted leaflets, breathing on the deep:
"Broad-breasted Spain, leaning with equal love
"(A calm earth-goddess crowned with corn and vines)
"On the Mid Sea that moans with memories
"And on the untravelled Ocean whose vast tides
"Pant dumbly passionate with dreams of youth
"This river, shadowed by the battlements
"And gleaming silvery towards the northern sky,
"Feeds the famed stream that waters
"Andalus And loiters, amorous of the fragrant air,
"By Córdova and Seville to the bay
"Fronting Algarva and the wandering flood
"Of Guadiana. This deep mountain gorge
"Slopes widening on the olive-plumed plains
"Of fair Granáda: one far-stretching arm
"Points to Elvira, one to eastward heights
"Of Alpujarras where the new-bathed Day
"With oriflamme uplifted o’er the peaks
"Saddens the breasts of northward-looking snows
"That loved the night, and soared with soaring stars;
"Flashing the signals of his nearing swiftness
"From Almeria’s purple-shadowed bay
"On to the far-off rooks that gaze and glow—
"On to Alhambra, strong and ruddy heart
"Of glorious Morisma, gasping now,
"A maimed giant in his agony.
"This town that dips its feet within the stream,
"And seems to sit a tower-crowned Cybele,
"Spreading her ample robe adown the rocks.
"Is rich Bedmár: ’t was Moorish long ago,
"But now the Cross is sparkling on the Mosque,
"And bells make Catholic the trembling air.
"The fortress gleams in Spanish sunshine now
"(’T is south a mile before the rays are Moorish),—
"Hereditary jewel, agraffe bright
"On all the many-titled privilege
"Of young Duke Silva. No Castilian knight
"That serves Queen Isabel has higher charge;
"For near this frontier sits the Moorish king,
"Not Boabdil the waverer, who usurps
"A throne he trembles in, and fawning licks
"The feet of conquerors, but that fierce lion
"Grisly El Zagal, who has made his lair
"In Guadix’ fort, and rushing thence with strength,
"Half his own fierceness, half the untainted heart
"Of mountain bands that fight for holiday,
"Wastes the fair lands that lie by Alcala,
"Wreathing his horse’s neck with Christian heads."
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"To keep the Christian frontier—such high trust
"Is young Duke Silva’s; and the time is great.
"(What times are little? To the sentinel
"That hour is regal when he mounts on guard)
"The fifteenth century since the Man Divine
"Taught and was hated in Capernaum
"Is near its end—is falling as a husk
"Away from all the fruit its years have ripened.
"The Moslem faith, now flickering like a torch
"In a night struggle on this shore of Spain,
"Glares, a broad column of advancing flame,
"Along the Danube and the Illyrian shore
"Far into Italy, where eager monks,
"Who watch in dreams and dream the while they watch,
"See Christ grow paler in the baleful light,
"Crying again the cry of the forsaken.
"But faith, the stronger for extremity,
"Becomes prophetic, hears the far-off tread
"Of western chivalry, sees downward sweep
"The archangel Michael with the gleaming sword,
"And listens for the shriek of hurrying fiends
"Chased from their revels in God’s sanctuary.
"So trusts the monk, and lifts appealing eyes
"To the high dome, the Church’s firmament,
"Where the blue light-pierced curtain, rolled away,
"Reveals the throne and Him who sits thereon.
"So trust the men whose best hope for the world
"Is ever that, the world is near its end:
"Impatient of the stars that keep their course
"And make ho pathway for the coming Judge."
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"But other futures stir the world’s great heart
"Europe is come to her majority,
"And enters on the vast inheritance
"Won from the tombs of mighty ancestors,
"The seeds, the gold, the gems, the silent harps
"That lay deep buried with the memories
"Of old renown. No more, as once in sunny Avignon,
"The poet-scholar spreads the Homeric page,
"And gazes sadly, like the deaf at song;
"For now the old epic voices ring again
"And vibrate with the beat and melody
"Stirred by the warmth of old Ionian days.
"The martyred sage, the Attic orator,
"Immortally incarnate, like the gods,
"In spiritual bodies, winged words
"Holding a universe impalpable,
"Find a new audience. Forevermore,
"With gander resurrection than was feigned
Gander seems like a mistake; didn't she mean grander?
Now, is this racist?
"Of Attila’s fierce Huns, the soul of Greece
"Conquers the bulk of Persia.
So it's soul of Greece vs bulk of Persia? George Eliot couldn't imagine Persia had a civilisation, a spirit, a soul?
Moreover, she's talking about Islamic forces at war against those of europe; but then, it's Arabic, not Persian! For Persian civilisation and culture, population and language suffered atrocious onslaught from Islamic invasion from Arabs, who massacred people and burnt hundreds of thousands of manuscripts; Persian script was lost and population illiterate in a century.
Which is why India is hated by them - butchering went on for over a millennium, and yet, India's civilisation lives, unlike Persia and Egypt and other lands that were completely converted within a century.
"The maimed form
"Of calmly joyous beauty, marble-limbed,
"Yet breathing with the thought that shaped its lips,
"Looks mild reproach from out its open grave
"At creeds of terror; and the vine-wreathed god
"Fronts the pierced Image with the crown of thorns.
"The soul of man is widening towards the past:
"No longer hanging at the breast of life
"Feeding in blindness to bin parentage,—
"Quenching all wonder with Omnipotence,
"Praising a name with indolent piety—
"He spells the record of his long descent,
"More largely conscious of the life that was."
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"And from the height that shows where morning shone
"On far-off summits pale and gloomy now,
"The horizon widens round him, and the west
"Looks vast with untracked waves whereon his gaze
"Follows the flight of the swift-vanished bird
"That like the sunken sun is mirrored still
"Upon the yearning soul within the eye."
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"And so in Córdova through patient nights
"Columbus watches, or he sails in dreams
"Between the setting stars and finds new day;
"Then wakes again to the old weary days,
"Girds on the cord and frock of pale Saint Francis,
"And like him zealous pleads with foolish men.
"“I ask but for a million maravedis:
"Give me three caravels to find a world."
George Eliot here speaks of Columbus asking to win more worlds for the cross. Were they then unaware about his Jewish roots, and his attempting to find India so as to help several hundred Jews to escape the persecution thereby?
India was, has always been, a refuge from religious persecution that various people experienced elsewhere, with freedom of thought and freedom of worship, and more; until Israel came into being again in 1948, Jews of India, who had been in India for centuries, had had no reason to leave, and many made the choice even then to stay. One of the first acts of the Knesset of Israel was to pass an official resolution thanking India.
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"The sacred places shall be purged again,
"The Turk converted, and the Holy Church,
"Like the mild Virgin with the outspread robe,
"Shall fold all tongues and nations lovingly
"But since God works by armies, who shall be
"The modern Cyrus?"
No purge as such, nor conversion of Turk took place, but Turkey did get carved. George Eliot, however, doesn't see the contradictions there, or did she? When she says "Like the mild Virgin with the outspread robe, Shall fold all tongues and nations lovingly, But since God works by armies" - is she being devout and matter-of-fact, in the way church adherents do when dealing with colonial imperialism or slavery? Or had she discovered her son of God was, in fact, a warrior for freedom of Jews, against Romans?
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"The silver cross Glitters o’er Malaga and streams dread light
"On Moslem galleys, turning all their stores
"From threats to gifts. What Spanish knight is he
"Who, living now, holds it not shame to live
"Apart from that hereditary battle
"Which needs his sword? Castilian gentlemen
"Choose not their task—they choose to do it well."
It's rare indeed for adherents of church to admit openly that the cross is intended as a threat!
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"See now with soldiers in his front and rear
"He winds at evening through the narrow streets
"That toward the Castle gate climb devious:
"His charger, of fine Andalusian stock,
"An Indian beauty black but delicate,
"Is conscious of the herald trumpet note,
"The gathering glances, and familiar ways
"That lead fast homeward: she forgets fatigue,
"And at the light touch of the master’s spur
"Thrills with the zeal to bear him royally,
"Arches her neck and clambers up the stones
"As if disdainful of the difficult steep."
"Night-black the charger, black the rider’s plume,
"But all between is bright with morning hues—
"Seems ivory and gold and deep blue gems,
"And starry flashing steel and pale vermilion,
"All set in jasper: on his surcoat white
"Glitter the sword-belt and the jewelled hilt,
"Red on the back and breast the holy cross,
"And ’twixt the helmet and the soft-spun white
"Thick tawny wavelets like the lion’s mane
"Turn backward from his brow, pale, wide, erect.
"Shadowing blue eyes,—blue as the rain-washed sky
"That braced the early stem of Gothic kings
"He claims for ancestry. A goodly knight,
"A noble caballero, broad of chest
"And long of limb. So much the August sun,
"Now in the west but shooting half its beams
"Past a dark rocky profile toward thy plain,
"At winding opportunities across the slope
"Makes suddenly luminous for all who see:
"For women smiling from the terraced roofs;
"For boys that prone on trucks with head up-propped,
"Lazy and curious, stare irreverent;
For men who make obeisance with degrees
"Of good-will shading towards servility,
Where good-will ends and secret fear begins
"And curses, too, low-muttered through the teeth,
"Explanatory to the God of Shem.
"Five, grouped within a whitened tavern court
"Of Moorish fashion, where the trellised vines
"Purpling above their heads make odorous shade,
"Note through the open door the passers-by,
"Getting some rills of novelty to speed
"The lagging stream of talk and help the wine.
"’T is Christian to drink wine: whoso denies
"His flesh at bidding save of Holy Church,
"Let him beware and take to Christian sins
"Lest he be taxed with Moslem sanctity."
Was it as simple? "’T is Christian to drink wine: whoso denies His flesh at bidding save of Holy Church, Let him beware and take to Christian sins Lest he be taxed with Moslem sanctity."?
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Author describes five men at the tavern, whose conversation carries the tale forward. George Eliot is really good here in that she's writing this epic as play in verse, but the conversation is natural, not stilted, and for this to be achieved when it's not conversation between learned poets, just ordinary men, is no mean feat.
"Like Juan there, the spare man with the lute,
"Who makes you dizzy with his rapid tongue,
"Whirring athwart your mind with comment swift
"On speech you would have finished by and by,
"Shooting your bird for you while you are loading,
"Cheapening your wisdom as a pattern known
"And spun by any shuttle on demand."
"Most like the Fauns that roamed in days of old
"About the listening whispering woods, and shared
"The subtler sense of sylvan ears and eyes
"Undulled by scheming thought, yet joined the rout
"Of men and women on the festal days,
"And played the syrinx too, and knew love’s pains,
"Turning their anguish into melody.
"For Juan was a minstrel still, in times
"When minstrelsy was held a thing outworn.
"Spirits seem buried and their epitaph
"Is writ in Latin by severest pens,
"Yet still they flit above the trodden grave
"And find new bodies, animating them
"In quaint and ghostly way with antique souls.
"So Juan was a troubadour revived,
"Freshening life’s dusty road with babbling rills
"Of wit and song, living ’mid harnessed men
"With limbs ungalled by armour, ready so
"To soothe them weary, and to cheer them sad.
"Guest at the board, companion in the camp,
"A crystal mirror to the life around,
"Flashing the comment keen of simple fact
"Defined in words; lending brief lyric voice
"To grief and sadness; hardly taking note
"Of difference betwixt his own and others’;
"But rather singing as a listener
"To the deep moans, the cries, the wild strong joys
"Of universal Nature, old yet young.
"Such Juan, the third talker, shimmering bright
"As butterfly or bird with quickest life."
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"Host.
"Best treat your wasp with delicate regard;
"When the right moment comes say, “By your leave,’
"Use your heel—so! and make an end of him.
"That’s if we talked of wasps; but our young Duke,—
"Spain holds not a more gallant gentleman.
"Live, live, Duke Silva! ’T is a rare smile he has,
"But seldom seen.
"Juan.
"A true hidalgo’s smile,
"That gives much favor, but beseeches none.
"His smile is sweetened by his gravity:
"It comes like dawn upon Sierra snows,
"Seeming more generous for the coldness gone;
"Breaks from the calm—a sudden opening flower
"On dark deep waters: one moment shrouded close,
"A mystic shrine, the next a full-rayed star,
"Thrilling, pulse-quickening as a living word.
"I’ll make a song of that. Host. Prithee, not now.
"You’ll fall to staring like a wooden saint,
"And wag your head as it were set on wires.
"Here’s fresh sherbet Sit, be good company.
"(To Blasco) You are a stranger, sir, and cannot know
"How our Duke’s nature suits his princely frame.
"Blasco.
"Nay, but I marked his spurs—chased cunningly!
"A duke should know good gold and silver plate;
"Then he will know the quality of mine.
"I’ve ware for tables and for altars too,
"Our Lady in all sizes, crosses, bells:
"He’ll need such weapons full as much as swords
"If he would capture any Moorish town.
"For, let me tell you, when a mosque is cleansed . . .
"Juan.
"The demons fly so thick from sound of bells
"And smell of incense, you may see the air
"Streaked as with smoke. Why, they are spirits:
"You may well think how crowded they must be
"To make a sort of haze."
"Blasco.
"I knew not that.
"Still, they’re of smoky nature, demons are;
"And since you say so—well, it proves the more
"The need of bells and censers. Ay, your Duke
"Sat well: a true hidalgo. I can judge—
"Of harness specially. I saw the camp,
"The royal camp at Velez Malaga.
"’T was like the court of heaven,—such liveries!
"And torches carried by the score at night
"Before the nobles. Sirs, I made a dish
"To set an emerald in would fit a crown,
"For Don Alonzo, lord of Aguilar.
"Your Duke’s no whit behind him in his mien
"Or harness either. But you seem to say
"The people love him not."
"Host.
"They’ve naught against him.
"But certain winds will make men’s temper bad.
"When the Solano blows hot venomed breath,
"It acts upon men’s knives: steel takes to stabbing
"Which else, with cooler winds, were honest steel,
"Cutting but garlick. There’s a wind just now
"Blows right from Seville—"
"Blasco.
"Ay, you mean the wind….
"Yes, yes, a wind that’s rather hot…."
"Juan.
"A wind that suits not with oar townsmen’s blood
"Abram, ’t is said, objected to be scorched,
"And, as the learned Arabs vouch, he gave
"The antipathy, in full to Ishmael.
"’T is true, these patriarchs had their oddities."
This reference to Abraham and Ishmael might be significant, indicating that we are to infer that thereby Arabs have had the secret of keeping cool, which Europe lacks.
Now cones George Eliot's exposing the attitude of general crass public regarding persecution during inquisition.
"Blasco.
"Oddities? I’m of their mind, I know.
"Though, as to Abraham and Ishmael,
"I'm an old Christian, and owe naught to them
"Or any Jew among them. But I know
"We made a stir in Saragossa—we:
"The men of Aragon ring hard,—ttrue metal.
"Sirs, I’m no friend to heresy, but then
"A Christian’s money is not safe. As how?
"A lapsing Jew or any heretic
"May owe me twenty ounces: suddenly
"He’s prisoned, suffers penalties,—’t is well:
"If men will not believe, ’t is good to make them,
"But let the penalties fall on them alone.
"The Jew is stripped, his goods are confiscate;
"Now, where, I pray you, go my twenty ounces?
"God knows, and perhaps the King may, but not I.
"And more, my son may lose his young wife’s dower
"Because ’t was promised since her father’s soul
"Fell to wrong thinking. How was I to know?
"I could but use my sense and cross myself.
"Christian is Christian—I give in,—but still
"Taxing is taxing, though you call it holy.
"We Saragossans liked not this new tax
"They call the—nonsense, I’m from Aragon!
"I speak too bluntly. But, for Holy Church,
"No man believes more."
There was no sympathy for those persecuted, only an annoyance about not getting ones dues! Hence the power amassed by those who would persecute, torture and kill - no opposition. And heres clearer depiction of the onlookers, not averse to watching such procedures, and asserting their sympathy with the inquisitors.
"I speak my mind about the penalties, But, look you,
"I’m against assassination. You know my meaning—
"Master Arbuès, The grand Inquisitor in Aragon.
"I knew naught,—paid no copper towards the deed.
"But I was there, at prayers, within the church.
"How could I help it? Why, the saints were there,
"And looked straight on above the altars. I . . . .
"Juan.
"Looked carefully another way.
"Blasco. Why, at my beads.
"’T was after midnight, and the canons all
"Were chanting matins. I was not in church
"To gape and stare. I saw the martyr kneel:
"I never liked the look of him alive,—
"He was no martyr then. I thought he made
"An ugly shadow as he crept athwart
"The bands of light, then passed within the gloom
"By the broad pillar. ’T was in our great Seo,
"At Saragossa. The pillars tower so large
"You cross yourself to see them, lest white
"Death Should hide behind their dark.
"And so it was. I looked away again and told my beads
"Unthinkingly; but still a man has ears;
"And right across the chanting came a sound
"As if a tree had crashed above the roar
"Of some great torrent. So it seemed to me;
"For when yon listen long and shut your eyes
"Small sounds get thunderous. And he’d a shell
"Like any lobster: a good iron suit
"From top to toe beneath the innocent serge.
"That made the telltale sound. But then came shrieks.
"The chanting stopped and tamed to rushing feet,
"And in the midst lay Master Arbuès,
"Felled like an ox. ’T was wicked butchery.
"Some honest men had hoped it would have scared
"The Inquisition out of Aragon.
"’T was money thrown away,—I would say, crime,—
"Clean thrown away.
"Host.
"That was a pity now.
"Next to a missing thrust, what irks me most
"Is a neat well-aimed stroke that kills your man,
"Yet ends in mischief,—as in Aragon.
"It was a lesson to our people here.
"Else there’s a monk within our city walls,
"A holy, high-born, stern Dominican,
"They might have made the great mistake to kill.
"Blasco.
"What! Is he?….
"Host.
"Yes; a Master Arbuès Of finer quality.
"The Prior here And uncle to our Duke.
"Blasco.
"He will want plate: A holy pillar or a crucifix.
"But, did you say, he was like Arbuès?
"Juan.
"As a black eagle with gold beak and claws
"Is like a raven. Even in his cowl,
"Covered from head to foot, the Prior is known
"From all the black herd round. When he uncovers
"And stands white-frocked, with ivory face, his eyes
"Black-gleaming, black his crown of hair
"Like shredded jasper, he seems less a man
"With struggling aims than pure incarnate
"Will, Fit to subdue rebellious nations, nay,
"That human flesh he breathes in, charged with passion
"Which quivers in his nostril and his lip,
"But disciplined by long in-dwelling will
"To silent labor in the yoke of law.
"A truce to thy comparisons, Lorenzo!
"Thine is no subtle nose for difference;
"’T is dulled by feigning and civility."
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Blasco clarifies further, in case someone didn't get it.
"Look you, I’m dutiful, obey the Church
"When there’s no help for it: I mean to say,
"When Pope and Bishop and all customers
"Order alike. But there be bishops now,
"And were aforetime, who have held it wrong,
"This hurry to convert the Jews. As, how?
"Your Jew pays tribute to the bishop, say.
"That’s good, and must please God, to see the Church
"Maintained in ways that ease the Christian’s purse.
"Convert the Jew, and where’s the tribute, pray?
"He lapses, too: ’t is slippery work, conversion:
"And then the holy taxing carries off
"His money at one sweep. No tribute more!
"He’s penitent or burnt, and there’s an end.
"Now guess which pleases God….
"Juan.
"Whether he likes
"A well-burnt Jew or well-fed bishop best.
"[While Juan put this problem theologic
"Entered, with resonant step, another, guest,—
"A soldier: all his keenness in his sword,
"His eloquence in scars upon his cheek,
"His virtue in much slaying of the Moor:
"With brow well-creased in horizontal folds
"To save the space, as having naught to do:
"Lips prone to whistle whisperingly,—no tune,
"But trotting rhythm: meditative eyes,
"Most often fixed upon his legs and spurs:
"Invited much and held good company:
"Styled Captain Lopez.]"
"Lopez.
"’T is bad. We make no sally:
"We sit still here and wait whate’er the
"Moor Shall please to do.
"Host.
"Some townsmen will be glad.
"Lopez.
"Glad, will they be? But I’m not glad, not I,
"Nor any Spanish soldier of clean blood.
"But the Duke’s wisdom is to wait a siege
"Instead of laying one. Therefore—meantime—
"He will be married straightway."
....
"Some say, ’t was letters’ changed the Duke’s intent:
"From Malaga, says Blas. From Rome, says Quintin.
"From spies at Guadix, says Sebastian.
"Some say, ’t is all a pretext,—say, the
"Duke Is but a lapdog hanging on a skirt,
"Turning his eyeballs upward like a monk:
"’T was Don Diego said that,—so says Blas;
"Last week, he said…."
"Juan.
"O do without the “said”!
"Open thy mouth and pause in lieu of it.
"1 had as lief be pelted with a pea
"Irregularly in the selfsame spot
"As hear such iteration without rule,
"Such torture of uncertain certainty.
"Lopez.
"Santiago! Juan, thou art hard to please.
"I speak not for my own delighting, I.
"I can be silent, I.
"Blasco.
"Nay, sir, speak on!
"I like your matter well; I deal in plate.
"This wedding touches me. Who is the bride?
And here's a fine distinction of who's the real knight, of mind and heart and spirit.
"Lopez.
"One that some say the Duke does ill to wed;
"One that his mother reared—God rest her soul!—
"Duchess Diana,—she who died last year.
"A bird picked up away from any nest.
"Her name—the Duchess gave it—is Fedalma.
"No harm in that. But the Duke stoops, they say,
"In wedding her. And that’s the simple truth.
"Juan.
"Thy simple truth is but a false opinion:
"The simple truth of asses who believe
"Their thistle is the very best of food.
"Fie, Lopez, thou a Spaniard with a sword
"Dreamest a Spanish noble ever stoops
"By doing honour to the maid he loves!
"He stoops alone when he dishonors her.
"Lopez.
"Nay, I said naught against her.
"Juan.
"Better not.
"Else I would challenge thee to fight with wits,
"And spear thee through and through ere thou couldst draw
"The bluntest word. Yes, yes, consult thy spurs:
"Spurs are a sign of knighthood, and should tell thee
"That knightly love is blent with reverence
"As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue,
"Don Silva’s heart beats to a loyal tune;
"He wills no highest-born Castilian dame,
"Betrothed to highest noble, should be held
"More sacred than Fedalma. He enshrines
"Her virgin image for the general worship
"And for his own,—will guard her from the world,
"Nay, his profaner self, lest he should lose,
"The place of his religion. He does well.
"Naught can come closer to the poet’s strain."
Ah, here's a clue to the heart of the epic poem.
"Lopez.
"By making ditties, singing with round mouth
"Likest a crowing cock? Thou meanest that?
"Juan.
"Lopez, take physic, thou art getting ill,
"Growing descriptive; ’t is unnatural.
"I mean, Don Silva’s love expects reward,
"Kneels with a heaven to come; but the poor poet
"Worships without reward, nor hopes to find
"A heaven save in his worship. He adores
"The sweetest woman for her sweetness’ sake,
"Joys in the love that was not born for him,
"Because ’t is lovingness, as beggars joy,
"Warming their naked limbs on wayside walls,
"To hear a tale of princes and their glory.
"There’s a poor poet (poor, I mean, in coin)
"Worships Fedalma with so true a love
"That if her silken robe were changed for rags,
"And she were driven out to stony wilds
"Barefoot, a scorned wanderer, he would kiss
"Her ragged garment’s edge, and only ask
"For leave to be her slave. Digest that, friend,
"Or let it lie upon thee as a weight
"To check light thinking of Fedalma."
"Lopez.
"I? I think no harm of her; I thank the saints
"I wear a sword and peddle not in thinking.
"’T is Father Marcos says she’ll not confess
"And loves not holy water; says her blood
"Is infidel; says the Duke’s wedding her
Is union of light with darkness."
Oh, one hears distinct thunder of a tragedy coming on! And here it comes.
"Host.
"I’ll get this juggler, if he quits him well,
"An audience here as choice as can be lured.
"For me, when a poor devil does his best,
"’T is my delight to soothe his soul with praise.
"What though the best be bad? remains the good
"Of throwing food to a lean hungry dog.
"I’d give up the best jugglery in life
"To see a miserable juggler pleased.
"But that’s my humour. Crowds are malcontent,
"And cruel as the Holy…. Shall we go?
"All of us now together?
"Lopez.
"Well, not I.
"I may be there anon, but first I go
"To the lower prison. There is strict command
"That all our gypsy prisoners shall to-night
"Be lodged within the fort. They’ve forged enough
"Of balls and bullets,—used up all the metal.
"At morn to-morrow they must carry stones
"Up the south tower. ’T is a fine stalwart band,
"Fit for the hardest tasks. Some say, the queen
"Would have the Gypsies banished with the Jews.
"Some say, ’t were better harness them for work.
"They’d feed on any filth and save the Spaniard.
"Some say—but I must go. ’T will soon be time
"To head the escort. We shall meet again."
................................................................................................
One can see the roots of final solution and the crass argument - in the dialogues of the plate trader - against it, here.
Where did George Eliot get it all ? Was this argued in England too in her time? Or is it historic and she read most of it?
"Blasco.
"Go sir, with God (exit Lopez).
"A very popular man, And soldierly.
"But, for this banishment
"Some men are hot on, it ill pleases me.
"The Jews, now (sirs, if any Christian here
"Had Jews, for ancestors, I blame him not;
"We cannot all be Goths of Aragon),—
"Jews are not fit heaven, but on earth
"They are most useful. ’T is the same with mules,
"Horses, or oxen, or with any pig
"Except Saint Anthony’s. They are useful here
"(The Jews, I mean) though they may go to hell.
"And, look you, useful sins,—why Providence
"Sends Jews to do ‘em, saving Christian souls.
"The very Gypsies, curbed and harnessed well,
"Would make draught cattle, feed on vermin too,
"Cost less than grazing brutes, and turn bad food
"To handsome carcasses; sweat at the forge
"For little wages, and well drilled and flogged
"Might work like slaves, some Spaniards looking on.
"I deal in plate, and am no priest to say
"What God may mean, save when he means plain sense;
"But when he sent the Gypsies wandering
"In punishment because they sheltered not
"Our Lady and Saint Joseph (and no doubt
"Stole the small ass they fled with into Egypt),
"Why send them here? ’T is plain he saw the use
"They’d be to Spaniards. Shall we banish them,
"And tell God we know better? ’T is a sin.
"They talk of vermin; but, sirs, vermin large
"Were made to eat the small, or else to eat
"The noxious rubbish, and picked Gypsy men
"Might serve in war to climb, be killed, and fall,
"To make an easy ladder. Once I saw
"A Gypsy sorcerer, at a spring and grasp
"Kill one who came to seize him: talk of strength!
"Nay, Swiftness too, for while we crossed ourselves
"He vanished like,—say, like ..
"Juan.
"A swift black snake, Or like a living arrow fledged with will.
"Blasco.
"Why, did you see him, pray?
"Juan.
"Not then, but now,
"As painters see the many in the one.
"We have a Gypsy in Bedmár whose frame
"Nature compacted with such fine selection,
"’T would yield a dozen types: all Spanish knights,
"From him who slew Rolando at the pass
"Up to the mighty Cid; all deities,
"Thronging Olympus in fine attitudes;
"Or all hell’s heroes whom the poet saw
"Tremble like lions, writhe like demigods.
"Host.
"Pause not yet, Juan,—more hyperbole!
"Shoot upward still and flare -in meteors
"Before thou sink to earth in dull brown fact.
"Blasco.
"Nay, give me fact, high shooting suits not me.
"I never stare to look for soaring larks. What is this Gypsy?
"Host.
"Chieftain of a band,
"The Moor’s allies, whom full a month ago,
"Our Duke surprised and brought as captives home.
"He needed smiths, and doubtless the brave Moor
"Has missed some useful scouts and archers too.
"Juan’s fantastic pleasure is to watch
"These Gypsies forging, and to hold discourse
"With this great chief, whom he transforms at will
"To sage or warrior, and like the sun
"Plays daily at fallacious alchemy,
"Turns sand to gold and dewy spider-webs
"To myriad rainbows. Still the sand is sand,
"And still in sober shade you see the web.
"’T is so, I’ll wager, with his Gypsy chief,—
"A piece of stalwart cunning, nothing more."
................................................................................................
Is this the explanation of the title?
"Juan.
"No! My invention had been all too poor
"To frame this Zarca as I saw him first.
"’T was when they stripped him. In his chieftain’s gear,
"Amidst his men he seemed a royal barb
"Followed by. Wild-maned Andalusion colts.
"He had a necklace of a strange device
"In finest gold of unknown workmanship,
"But delicate as Moorish, fit to kiss
"Fedalma’s neck, and play in shadows there.
"He wore fine mail, a rich-wrought sword and belt,
"And on surcoat black a broidered torch,
"A pine-branch flaming, grasped by two dark hands.
"But when they stripped him of his ornaments
"It was the bawbles lost their grace, not he.
"His eyes, his mouth, his nostril, all inspired
"With scorn that mastered utterance of scorn,
"With power to check all rage until it turned
"To ordered force, unleashed on chosen prey,—
"It seemed the soul within him made his limbs
"And made them grand. The bawbles were well gone.
"He stood the more a king, when bared to man."
"Blasco.
"Maybe. But nakedness is bad for trade,
"And is not decent. Well-wrought metal, sir,
"Is not a bawble. Had you seen the camp,
"The royal camp at Velez Malaga,
"Ponce de Leon and the other dukes.
"The king himself and all his thousand knights
"For body-guard, ’t would not have left you breath
"To praise a Gypsy thus. A man’s a man;
"But when you see a king, you see the work
"Of many, thousand men. King Ferdinand
"Bears a fine presence, and hath proper limbs;
"But what though he were shrunken as a relic?
"You’d see the gold and gems that cased him o’er,
"And all the pages round him in brocade,
"And all the lords, themselves a sort of kings,
"Doing him reverence. That strikes an awe
"Into a common man,—especially A judge of plate.
"Host.
"Faith very wisely said.
"Purge thy speech, Juan. It is over-full
"Of this same Gypsy. Praise the Catholic King.
"And come now, let us see the juggler’s skill."
................................................................................................
"’T is daylight still, but now the golden cross
"Uplifted by the angel on the dome
"Stands rayless in calm color clear-defined
"Against the northern blue; from turrets high
"The flitting splendor sinks with folded wing
"Dark-hid till morning, and the battlements
"Wear soft relenting whiteness mellowed o’er
"By summers generous and winters bland.
"Now in the east the distance casts its veil,
"And gazes with a deepening earnestness.
"The old rain-fretted mountains in their robes
"Of shadow-broken gray; the rounded hills
"Reddened with blood of Titans, whose huge limbs
"Entombed within, feed full the hardy flesh
"Of cactus1 green and blue, broad-sworded aloes;
"The cypress soaring black above the lines
"Of white court-walls; the jointed sugar-canes
"Pale-golden with their feathers motionless
"In the warm quiet;—all thought-teaching form
"Utters itself in firm unshimmering hues.
"For the great rock has screened the westering sun
"That still on plains beyond streams vaporous gold
"Among their branches; and within Bedmár
"Has come the time of sweet serenity
"When colour glows unglittering, and the soul
"Of visible things shows silent happiness,
"As that of lovers trusting though apart.
"The ripe-cheeked fruits, the crimson-petalled flowers;
"The winged life that pausing seems a gem
"Cunningly carven on the dark green leaf;"
....
"The Plaça widens in the passive air,—
"The Plaça Santiago, where the church,
"A mosque converted, shows an eyeless face
"Red-checkered, faded, doing penance still,—
"Bearing with Moorish arch the imaged saint,
"Apostle, baron, Spanish warrior,
"Whose charger’s hoofs trample the turbaned dead,
"Whose banner with the Cross, the bloody sword,
"Flashes athwart the Moslem’s glazing eye,
"And mocks his trust in Allah who forsakes."
....
"Maids with arched eyebrows, delicate-pencilled, dark,
"Fold their round arms below the kerchief full;
"Men shoulder little girls; and grandames gray,
"But muscular still, hold babies on their arms;
"While mothers keep the stout-legged boys in front
"Against their skirts, as the Greek pictures old
"Show the Chief Mother with the Boy divine.
"Youths keep the places for themselves, and roll
"Large lazy eyes, and call recumbent dogs
"(For reasons deep below the reach of thought).
"The old men cough with purpose, wish to hint
"Wisdom within that cheapens jugglery,
"Maintain a neutral air, and knit their brows
"In observation. None are quarrelsome,
"Noisy, or very merry; for their blood
"Moves, slowly into fervor,—they rejoice
"Like those dark birds that sweep with heavy wing,
"Cheering their mates with melancholy cries."
....
"Lorenzo knits the crowd
"Into one family by showing all
"Good-will and recognition. Juan casts
"His large and rapid-measuring glance around;
"But—with faint quivering, transient as a breath
"Shaking a flame—his eyes make sudden pause
"Where by the jutting angle of a street
"Castle-ward leading, stands a female form,
"A kerchief pale square-drooping o’er the brow,
"About her shoulders dim brown serge,—in garb
"Most like a peasant woman from the vale,
"Who might have lingered after marketing
"To see the show. What thrill mysterious,
"Ray-borne from orb to orb of conscious eyes,
"The swift observing sweep of Juan’s glance
"Arrests an instant, then with prompting fresh
"Diverts it lastingly? He turns at once
"To watch the gilded balls, and nod and smile
"At little round Pepíta, blondest maid
"In all Bedmár,—Pepíta, fair yet flecked,
"Saucy of lip and nose, of hair as red
"As breasts of robins stepping on the snow,—
"Who stands in front with little tapping feet,
"And baby-dimpled hands that hide enclosed
"Those sleeping crickets, the dark castanets."
....
"The long notes linger on the trembling air,
"With subtle penetration enter all
"The myriad corridors of the passionate soul,
"Message-like spread, and answering action rouse.
"Not angular jigs that warm the chilly limbs
"In hoary northern mists, but action curved
"To soft andante strains pitched plaintively.
"Vibrations sympathetic stir all limbs:
"Old men live backward in their dancing prime,
"And move in memory; small legs and arms
"With pleasant agitation purposeless
"Go up and down like pretty fruits in gales.
"All long in common for the expressive act
"Yet wait for it; as in the olden time
"Men waited for the bard to tell their thought.
"“The dance! the dance!” is shouted all around.
"Now Pablo lifts the bow, Pepíta now,
"Ready as bird that sees the sprinkled corn,
"When Juan nods and smiles, puts forth her foot
"And lifted her arm to wake the castanets.
"Juan advances, too, from out the ring
"And bends to quit his lute; for now the scene
"Is empty; Roldan, weary, gathers pence,
"Followed by Annibal with purse and stick.
"The carpet lies a colored isle untrod,
"Inviting feet: “The dance, the dance,” resounds,
"The bow entreats with slow melodic strain,
"And all the air with expectation yearns.
"Sudden, with gliding motion like a flame
"That through dim vapor makes a path of glory,
"A figure lithe, all white and saffron-robed,
"Flashed right across the circle, and now stood
"With ripened arms uplift and regal head,
"Like some tall flower whose dark and intense heart
"Lies half within a tulip-tinted cup.
"Juan stood fixed and pale; Pepíta stepped
"Backward within the ring: the voices fell
"From shouts insistent to more passive tones
"Half meaning welcome, half astonishment.
"“Lady Fedalma!—will she dance for us?”"
................................................................................................
"The exquisite hour, the ardor of the crowd,
"The strains more plenteous, and the gathering might
"Of action passionate where no effort is,
"But self’s poor gates open to rushing power
"That blends the inward ebb and outward vast,—
"All gathering influences culminate
"And urge Fedalma. Earth and heaven seem one,"
................................................................................................
"But sudden, at one point, the exultant throng
"Is pushed and hustled, and then thrust apart:
"Something approaches,—something cuts the ring
"Of jubilant idlers,—startling as a streak
"From alien wounds across the blooming flesh
"Of careless sporting childhood,
"’T is the band Of Gypsy prisoners. Soldiers lead the van
"And make sparse flanking guard, aloof surveyed
"By gallant Lopez, stringent in command.
"The Gypsies chained in couples, all save one,
"Walk in dark file with grand bare legs and arms
"And savage melancholy in their eyes
"That star-like gleam from out black clouds of hair;
"Now they are full in sight, now stretch
"Right to the centre of the open space.
"Fedalma now, with gentle wheeling sweep
"Returning, like the loveliest of the Hours
"Strayed from her sisters, truant lingering,
"Faces again the centre, swings again
"The uplifted tambourine…. When lo! with sound
"Stupendous throbbing, solemn as a voice
"Sent by the invisible choir of all the dead,
"Tolls the great passing bell that calls to prayer
"For souls departed: at the mighty beat
"It seems the light sinks awe-struck,—’t is the note
"Of the sun’s burial; speech and action pause;"
....
"The soldiers pray; the Gypsies stand unmoved
"As pagan statues with proud level gaze.
"But he who wears a solitary chain
"Heading the file, has turned to face Fedalma.
"She motionless, with arm uplifted, guards
"The tambourine aloft (lest, sudden-lowered,
"Its trivial jingle mar the duteous pause),"
"Reveres the general prayer, but prays not, stands
"With level glance meeting that Gypsy’s eyes,
"That seem to her the sadness of the world
"Rebuking her, the great bell’s hidden thought
"Now first unveiled,—the sorrows unredeemed
"Of races outcast, scorned, and wandering.
"Why does he look at her? why she at him?
"As if the meeting light between their eyes
"Made permanent union? Hist deep-knit brow,
"Inflated nostril, scornful lip compressed,
"Seem a dark hieroglyph of coming fate
"Written before her. Father Isidor
"Had terrible eyes and was her enemy;
"She knew it and defied him; all her soul
"Rounded and hardened in its separateness
"When they encountered. But this prisoner,—
"This Gypsy, passing, gazing casually,—
"Was he her enemy too? She stood all quelled,
"The impetuous joy that hurried in her veins
"Seemed backward rushing turned to chillest awe,
"Uneasy wonder, and a vague self-doubt.
"The minute brief stretched measureless, dream-filled
"By a dilated new-fraught consciousness.
"Now it was gone; the pious murmur ceased,
"The Gypsy band moved onward at command
"And careless noises blent confusedly.
"But the ring closed again, and many ears
"Waited for Pablo’s music, many eyes
"Turned towards the carpet: it lay bare and dim,
"Twilight was there,—the bright Fedalma gone."
................................................................................................
The priest here plays almost exactly the role of the villain in Othello, except for the Frank arrogance that differed from the play character, and the open attempt to terrorise the knight.
"Don Silva.
"Perhaps. I seek to justify my public acts
"And not my private joy. Before the world
"Enough if I am faithful in command,
"Betray not by my deeds, swerve from no task
"My knightly vows constrain me to: herein
"I ask all men to test me.
"Prior.
"Knightly vows?
"Is it by their constraint that you must marry?
"Don Silva.
"Marriage is not a breach of them.
"I use A sanctioned liberty…. your pardon, father,
"I need not teach you what the Church decrees.
"But facts may weaken texts, and so dry up
"The fount of eloquence. The Church relaxed
"Our Order’s rule before I took the vows.
"Prior.
"Ignoble liberty! you snatch your rule
"From what God tolerates, not what he loves?—
"Inquire what lowest offering may suffice,
"Cheapen it meanly to an obolus,
"Then buy and count the coin left in your purse
"For your debauch?—Measure obedience
"By scantest powers of feeble brethren
"Whom Holy Church indulges?—Ask great Law,
"The rightful Sovereign of the human soul,
"For what it pardons, not what it commands?
"O fallen knighthood, penitent of high vows,
"Asking a charter to degrade itself!
"Such poor apology of rules relaxed
"Blunts not suspicion of that doubleness
"Your enemies tax you with."
"Don Silva.
"Pause there! Leave unsaid
"Aught that will match that text.
"More were too much,
"Even from holy lips. I own no love
"But such as guards my honor, since it guards
"Hers whom I love! I suffer no foul words
"To stain the gift I lay before her feet;
"And, being hers, my honor is more safe."
"Prior.
"Verse-makers’ talk! fit for a world of rhymes,
"Where facts are feigned to tickle idle ears,
"Where good and evil play at tournament
"And end in amity,—a world of lies,—
"A carnival of words where every year
"Stale falsehoods serve fresh men. Your honor safe?
"What honor has a man with double bonds?
"Honor is shifting as the shadows are
"To souls that turn their passions into laws.
"A Christian knight who weds an infidel….
"Don Silva
"(fiercely). An Infidel!
Prior.
"May one day spurn the Cross,
"And call that honor!—one day find his sword
"Stained with his brother’s blood, and call that honor!
"Apostates’ honour?—harlots’ chastity!
"Renegades’ faithfulness?—Iscariot’s!
"Don Silva.
"Strong words and burning; but they scorch not me.
"Fedalma is a daughter of the Church,—
"Has been baptised and nurtured in the faith.
"Prior.
"Ay, as a thousand Jewesses, who yet
"Are brides of Satan in a robe of flames.
"Don Silva.
"Fedalma is no Jewess, bears no marks
"That tell of Hebrew blood.
"Prior.
"She bears the marks
"Of races unbaptized, that never bowed
"Before the holy signs, were never moved
"By stirrings of the sacramental gifts.
"Don Silva (scornfully).
"Holy accusers practise palmistry,
"And, other witness lacking, read the skin.
"Prior.
"I read a record deeper than the skin.
"What! Shall the trick of nostrils and of lips
"Descend through generations, and the soul
"That moves within our frame like God in worlds-
"Convulsing, urging, melting, withering—
"Imprint no record, leave no documents,
"Of her great history? Shall men bequeath
"The fancies of their palate to their sons,
"And shall the shudder of restraining awe,
"The slow-wept tears of contrite memory,
"Faith’s prayerful labor, and the food divine
"Of fasts ecstatic,—shall these pass away
"Like wind upon the waters, tracklessly?
"Shall the mere curl of eyelashes remain
"And god-enshrining symbols leave no trace
"Of tremors reverent?—That maiden’s blood
"Is as unchristian as the leopard’s.
"Don Silva.
"Say, Unchristian as the Blessed Virgin’s blood
"Before the angel spoke the word, “All hail!”
"Prior
"(smiling bitterly) Said I not truly? See, your passion weaves
"Already blasphemies!
"Don Silva.
"’T is you provoke them.
"Prior.
"I strive, as still the Holy Spirit strives,
"To move the will perverse. But failing this,
"God commands other means to save our blood,
"To save Castilian glory,—nay, to save
"The name of Christ from blot of traitorous deeds.
"Don Silva.
"Of traitorous deeds! Age, kindred, and your cowl,
"Give an ignoble licence to your tongue.
"As for your threats, fulfil them at your peril.
"’T is you, not I, will gibbet our great name
"To rot in infamy. If I am strong
"In patience now, trust me, I can be strong
"Then in defiance.
"Prior. Miserable man!
"Your strength will turn to anguish, like the strength
"Of fallen angels. Can you change your blood?
"You are a Christian, with the Christian awe
"In every vein. A Spanish noble, born
"To serve your people and your people’s faith.
"Strong, are you? Turn your back upon the Cross,—
"Its shadow is before you. Leave your place:
"Quit the great ranks of knighthood: you will walk
"Forever with a tortured double self,
"A self that will be hungry while yon feast,
"Will blush with shame while you are glorified,
"Will feel the ache and chill of desolation,
"Even in the very bosom of your love.
"Mate yourself with this woman, fit for what?
"To make the sport of Moorish palaces,
"A lewd Herodias….
"Don Silva.
"Stop! no other man,
"Priest though he were had had his throat left free
"For passage of those words. I would have clutched
"His serpent’s neck, and flung him out to hell!
"A monk must needs defile the name of love:
"He knows it but as tempting devils paint it.
"You think to scare my love from its resolve
"With arbitrary consequences, strained
"By rancorous effort from the thinnest motes
"Of possibility?—cite hideous lists
"Of sins irrelevant, to frighten me
"With bugbears’ names, as women fright a child?
"Poor pallid wisdom, taught by inference
"From blood-drained life, where phantom terrors rule,
"And all achievement is to leave undone!
"Paint the day dark, make sunshine cold to me,
"Abolish the earth’s fairness, prove it all
"A fiction of my eyes,—then, after that, Profane Fedalma.
"Prior.
"O, there is no need:
"She has profaned herself. Go, raving man,
"And see her dancing now. Go, see your bride
"Flaunting her beauties grossly in the gaze
"Of vulgar idlers,—eking out the show
"Made in the Plaça by a mountebank.
"I hinder you no farther.
"Don Silva.
"It is false!
"Prior. Go, prove it false, then."
................................................................................................
"If he spoke truth!
"To know were wound enough,—to see the truth
"Were fire upon the wound. It must be false!
"His hatred saw amiss, or snatched mistake
"In other men’s report. I am a fool!
"But where can she be gone? gone secretly?
"And in my absence? O, she meant no wrong!
"I am a fool!—But, where can she be gone?
"With only Inez? O, she meant no wrong!
"I swear she never meant it. There’s no wrong
"But she would make it momentary right
"By innocence in doing it…. And yet,
"What is our certainty? Why, knowing all
"That is not secret. Mighty confidence!"
....
"[As Perez oped the door,
"Then moved aside for passage of the Duke,
"Fedalma entered, cast away the cloud
"Of serge and linen, and outbeaming bright,
"Advanced a pace towards Silva,—but then paused,
"For he had started and retreated; she,
"Quick and responsive as the subtle air
"To change in him, divined that she must wait
"Until they were alone: they stood and looked.
"Within the Duke was struggling confluence
"Of feelings manifold,—pride, anger, dread,
"Meeting in stormy rush with sense secure
"That she was present, with the satisfied thirst
"Of gazing love, with trust inevitable
"As in beneficent virtues of the light
"And all earth’s sweetness, that Fedalma’s soul
"Was free from blemishing purpose. Yet proud wrath
"Leaped in dark flood above the purer stream
"That strove to drown it: Anger seeks its prey,—
"Something to tear with sharp-edged tooth and claw,
"Likes not to go off hungry, leaving Love
"To feast on milk and honeycomb at will."
"Fedalma
"(advancing a step towards him with a sudden look of anxiety).
"Are you angry?
"Don Silva
"(smiling bitterly). Angry?
"A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain
"To feel much anger.
"Fedalma
"(still more anxiously).
"You—deep-wounded?
"Don Silva.
"Yes! Have I not made your place and dignity
"The very heart of my ambition? You,—
"No enemy could do it,—you alone
"Can strike it mortally.
"Fedalma.
"Nay, Silva, nay. Has some one told you false? I only went
"To see the world with Inez,—see the town,
"The people, everything. It was no harm.
"I did not mean to dance: it happened so
"At last . . . .
"Don Silva.
"O God, it’s true then!—true that you,
"A maiden nurtured as rare flowers are,
"The very air of heaven sifted fine
"Lest motes should mar your purity,
"Have flung yourself out on the dusty way
"For common eyes to see your beauty soiled!
"You own it true,—you danced upon the Plaça?
"Fedalma
"(proudly). Yes, it is true. I was not wrong to dance.
"The air was filled with music, with a song
"That seemed the voice of the sweet eventide,—
"The glowing light entering through eye and ear,—
"That seemed our love,—mine, yours—they are but one,—
"Trembling through all my limbs, as fervent words
"Tremble within my soul and must be spoken.
"And all the people felt a common joy
"And shouted for the dance. A brightness soft
"As of the angels moving down to see
"Illumined the broad space. The joy, the life
"Around, within me, were one heaven: I longed
"To blend them visibly: I longed to dance
"Before the people,—be as mounting flame
"To all that burned within them! Nay, I danced;
"There was no longing: I but did the deed
"Being moved to do it.
(As Fedalma speaks she and Don Silva are gradually drawn nearer to each other.)
"O, I seemed new-waked
"To life in unison with a multitude,—
"Feeling my soul upborne by all their souls,
"Floating within their gladness! Soon I lost
"All sense of separateness: Fedalma died
"As a star dies, and melts into the light.
"I was not, but joy was, and love and triumph.
"Nay, my dear lord, I never could do aught
"But I must feel you present. And once done,
"Why, you must love it better than your wish.
"I pray you, say so,—say, it was not wrong!
(While Fedalma has been making this last appeal, they have gradually come close together, and at last embrace.)
"Don Silva
:(holding her hands). Dangerous rebel! if the world without
"Were pure as that within . .. . but ’t is a book
"Wherein you only read the poesy
"And miss all wicked meanings. Hence the need
"For trust—obedience,—call it what you will,—
"Towards him whose life will be your guard,—towards me
"Who now am soon to be your husband.
"Fedalma.
"Yes! That very thing that when I am your wife
"I shall be something different,—shall be
"I know not what, a Duchess with new thoughts,—
"For nobles never think like common men,
"Nor wives like maidens (O, you wot not yet
"How much I note, with all my ignorance),—
"That very thing has made me more resolve
"To have my will before I am your wife.
"How can the Duchess ever satisfy
"Fedalma’s unwed eyes? and so to-day
"I scolded Inez till she cried and went."
....
"Don Silva.
"It will be different when this war has ceased.
"You, wedding me, will make it different,
"Making one life more perfect.
"Fedalma.
"That is true! And I shall beg much kindness at your hands
"For those who are less happy than ourselves.—
"(Brightening.) O, I shall rule you! ask for many things
"Before the world, which you will not deny
"For very pride, lest men should say,
"“The Duke Holds lightly by his Duchess; he repents
"His humble choice.”"
....
"Don Silva.
"Fear not, my Duchess!
"Some knight who loves may say his lady-love
"Is fairer, being fairest. None can say
"Don Silva’s bride might better fit her rank.
"You will make rank seem natural as kind,
"As eagle’s plumage or the lion’s might.
"A crown upon your brow would seem God-made."
....
"Fedalma.
"Do you worship me?
"Don Silva.
"Ay, with that best of worship which adores Goodness adorable.
"Fedalma
"(archly). Goodness obedient, Doing your will, devoutest worshipper?
"Don Silva.
"Yes,—listening to this prayer.
This very night I shall go forth. And you will rise with day
"And wait for me?
"Fedalma.
"Yes.
"Don Silva.
"I shall surely come. And then we shall be married. Now I go
"To audience fixed in Abderahman’s tower.
"Farewell, love!
(They embrace.)
"Fedalma.
"Some chill dread possesses me!
"Don Silva.
"O, confidence has oft been evil augury,
"So dread may hold a promise. Sweet, farewell!
"I shall send tendance as I pass, to bear
"This casket to your chamber.—One more kiss.
(Exit.)
................................................................................................
"The saints were cowards who stood by to see
" Christ crucified: they should have flung themselves
"Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain,—
"The grandest death, to die in vain,—for love
"Greater than sways the forces of the world."
"Silva, sole love,—he came,—my father came.
"I am the daughter of the Gypsy chief
"Who means to be the Savior of our tribe.
"He calls on me to live for his great end.
"To live? Nay, die for it. Fedalma dies
"In leaving Silva: all that lives henceforth Is the Zincala."
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October 05, 2021 - October 06, 2021.
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Book II.
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Book II proceeds from where Book I left off, with Dule Silva informed by his friend of the prior intent on inquisition of the bride, who's left a note to Silva before her flight. Silva, grieving yet not giving up, makes plans.
Here George Eliot introduces the chief element of inquisition, the Jews persecuted and intent on saving, not only their own selves, but the race. However, she has them describe themselves in terms one cannot imagine them even thinking of!
"Conceive, with all the vulgar, that we Jews
"Must hold ourselves God’s outlaws, and defy
"All good with blasphemy, because we hold
"Your good is evil; think we must turn pale
"To see our portraits painted in your hell,
"And sin the more for knowing we. are lost."
Now why would anyone accept themselves God's outlaws, or that they hold the other God evil, just because their enemies accuse them thereof? This isn't true characterisation, it's silly! Jews are more likey to hold gentiles ridiculous for imagining that one of their own sons was - not only a God, but - the only one, and then proceeding to kill his blood relatives in his name. They are far more likely to keep silent, if not exposing this hypocrisy outright, as racist persecution of Jews by Rome, cloaking itself as holy for the purpose.
But it's not all - George Eliot has Book II end in yet a few more twists, delivered swift one upon another, after the exquisite descriptions of grieving Silva and his plans set in motion for rescue of his love, from both, the Gypsy father of the bride as well as, subsequently, the prior.
And here, she gives way to yet another prejudice - that of a gypsy being treacherous, of his being in cahoots against Christendom and selling them out to their enemies in crusades, for his own gains.
................................................................................................
"Sephardo.
"The Unnamable made not the search for truth
"To suit hidalgos’ temper. I abide
"By that wise spirit of listening reverence
"Which marks the boldest doctors of our race.
"For truth, to us, is like a living child
"Born of two parents: if the parents part
"And will divide the child, how shall it live?
"Or, I will rather say: Two angels guide
"The path of man, both aged and yet young,
"As angels are, ripening through endless years.
"On one he leans: some call her Memory,
"And some, Tradition; and her voice is sweet,
"With deep mysterious accords: the other,
"Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams
"A light divine and searching on the earth,
"Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields,
"Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew
"Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp
"Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked
"But for Tradition; we walk evermore
"To higher paths, by brightening Reason’s lamp.
"Still we are purblind, tottering. I hold less
"Than Aben-Ezra, of that aged lore
"Brought by long centuries from Chaldæan plains;
"The Jew-taught Florentine rejects it all."
....
"I weary your sick soul. Go now with me
"Into the turret. We will watch the spheres,
"And see the constellations bend and plunge
"Into a depth of being where our eyes
"Hold them no more. We’ll quit ourselves and be
"Red Aldebaran or bright Sirius,
"And sail as in a solemn voyage, bound
"On some great quest we know not.
"Don Silva.
"Let us go. She may be watching too, and thought of her
"Sways me, as if she knew, to every act
"Of pure allegiance.
"Sephardo.
"That is love’s perfection,—
"Tuning the soul to all her harmonies
"So that no chord can jar. Now we will mount."
................................................................................................
"Lorenzo.
"Well met, friend.
"Blasco.
"Ay, for we are soon to part,
:And I would see you at the hostelry,
"To take my reckoning. I go forth to-day.
"Lorenzo.
"’T is grievous parting with good company.
"I would I had the gold to pay such guests
"For all my pleasure in their talk.
"Blasco.
"Why, yes; A solid-headed man of Aragon
"Has matter in him that you Southerners lack.
"You like my company,—’t is natural.
"But, look you, I have done my business well,
"Have sold and ta’en commissions. I come straight
"From—you know who—I like not naming him.
"I’m a thick man: you reach not my backbone
"With any tooth-pick. But I tell you this:
"He reached it with his eye, right to the marrow!
"It gave me heart that I had plate to sell,
"For, saint or no saint, a good silversmith
"Is wanted for God’s service; and my plate—
"He judged it well—bought nobly.
"Lorenzo.
"A great man, And holy! Blasco. Yes, I’m glad I leave to-day.
"For there are stories give a sort of smell,—
"One’s nose has fancies. A good trader, sir,
"Likes not this plague of lapsing in the air,
"Most caught by men with funds. And they do say
"There’s a great terror here in Moors and Jews,
"I would say., Christians of unhappy blood.
"’T is monstrous, sure, that men of substance lapse,
"And risk their property. I know I’m sound.
"No heresy was ever bait to me.
"Whate’er Is the right faith, that I believe,—naught else.
"Lorenzo.
"Ay, truly, for the flavor of true faith
"Once known must sure be sweetest to the taste.
"But an uneasy mood is now abroad
"Within the town; partly, for that the Duke
"Being sorely sick, has yielded the command
"To Don Diego, a most valiant man,
"More Catholic than the Holy Father’s self,
"Half chiding God that he will tolerate
"A Jew or Arab; though ’t is plain they’re made
"For profit of good Christians. And weak heads—
"Panic will knit all disconnected facts—
"Draw hence belief in evil auguries,
"Rumors of accusation and arrest,
"All air-begotten. Sir, you need not go.
"But if it must be so, I’ll follow you
"In fifteen minutes,—finish marketing,
"Then be at home to speed you on your way.
"Blasco.
"Do so. I’ll back to Saragossa straight.
"The court and nobles are retiring now
"And wending northward. There’ll be fresh demand
"For bells and images against the Spring,
"When doubtless our great Catholic sovereigns
"Will move to conquest of these eastern part,
"And cleanse Granáda from the infidel.
"Stay, sir, with God, until we meet again!"
................................................................................................
"Lorenzo.
"Good day, my mistress. How’s your merchandise?
"Fit for a host to buy? Your apples now,
"They have fair cheeks; how are they at the core?
"Market-Woman.
"Good, good, sir! Taste and try.
"See, here is one Weighs a man’s head.
"The best are bound with tow:
"They’re worth the pains, to keep the peel from splits.
"(She takes out an apple bound with tow, and, as she puts it into Lorenzo’s hand, speaks in a lower tone.)
"’T is called the Miracle. You open it. And find it full of speech."
"Lorenzo.
"Ay, give it me, I’ll take it to the Doctor in the tower.
"He feeds on fruit, and if he likes the sort
"I’ll buy them for him. Meanwhile, drive your ass
"Round to my hostelry. I’ll straight be there.
"You’ll not refuse some barter?
"Market-Woman.
"No, not I. Feathers and skins.
"Lorenzo.
"Good, till we meet again.
................................................................................................
"A Letter.
“Zarca, the chieftain of the Zincali, greets
"The King El Zagal. Let the force be sent
"With utmost swiftness to the Pass of Luz.
"A good five hundred added to my bands
"Will master all the garrison: the town
"Is half with us, and will not lift an arm
"Save on our side. My scouts have found a way
"Where once we thought the fortress most secure:
"Spying a man upon the height, they traced,
"By keen conjecture piecing broken sight,
"His downward path, and found its issue.
"There A file of us can mount, surprise the fort
"And give the signal to our friends within
"To ope the gates for our confederate bands,
"Who will lie eastward ambushed by the rocks,
"Waiting the night. Enough; give me command,
"Bedmár is yours. Chief Zarca will redeem
"His pledge of highest service to the Moor:
"Let the Moor too be faithful and repay
"The Gypsy with the furtherance he needs
"To lead his people over Bahr el Scham
"And plant them on the shore of Africa.
"So may the King El Zagal live as one
"Who, trusting Allah will be true to him,
"Maketh himself as Allah true to friends.”"
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October 06, 2021 - October 07, 2021.
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Book III.
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George Eliot begins with a description of the journey into Moorish controlled parts of Spain, but errs when she describes gypsy lives, in saying "little swarthy tents Such as of old perhaps on Asian plains,"!
Asian plains? Tents are common to all nomadic life, which naturally includes shepherds of central Asia, but they characterise mainly Arab and Mongolian landscapes - and, contiguously, Siberian and Lapland nomadic life. Asia is far from dominated by plains, or by tents. It isn't only Himaalayan ranges that belong to Asia, but many, many more. And architecture such as that of India has boggled minds of all invaders, who sought chiefly to destroy it and wipe out all possible signs thereof, so as to lie about it and insist that it was they who brought building to India.
George Eliot moreover, consciously or otherwise, goes with the biblical, abrahmic, culminating in islamic prejudice about soul and spirit being exclusively male, while females contributing only the body of progeny, in saying "father’s light Flashing in coal-black eyes, the mother’s blood With bounteous elements feeding their young limbs."! Shouldn't she have known better? What with being not only not brought up as a Muslim- and thereby escaping being taught she had no soul - she was herself, not only an intediligent woman, but an intellectual one; did she believe she'd received everything only from her male ancestry, while females gave only body? Did she believe she'd give nothing of her mind, spirit and soul, to her children? Did she really buy into this flesh and blood oven theory of womanhood?
An interesting detail, is that a poem titled "Roses", included in the Delphi collection of complete works of George Eliot, is an excerpt from Book III.
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"Quit now the town, and with a journeying dream
"Swift as the wings of sound yet seeming slow
"Through multitudinous compression of stored sense
"And spiritual space, see walls and towers
"Lie in the silent whiteness of a trance,
"Giving no sign of that warm life within
"That moves and murmurs through their hidden heart.
"Pass o’er the mountain, wind in sombre shade,
"Then wind into the light and see the town
"Shrunk to white crust upon the darker rock.
"Turn east and south, descend, then rise again
"’Mid smaller mountains ebbing towards the plain:
"Scent the fresh breath of the height-loving herbs
"That, trodden by the pretty parted hoofs
"Of nimble goats, sigh at the innocent bruise,
"And with a mingled difference exquisite
"Pour a sweet burden on the buoyant air.
"Pause now and be all ear. Far from the south,
"Seeking the listening silence of the heights,
"Comes a slow-dying sound,—the Moslems’ call
"To prayer in afternoon. Bright in the sun
"Like tall white sails on a green shadowy sea
"Stand Moorish watch-towers: ‘neath that eastern sky
"Couches unseen the strength of Moorish Baza;
"Where the meridian bends lies Guadix, hold
"Of brave El Zagal. This is Moorish land,
"Where Allah lives unconquered in dark breasts
"And blesses still the many-nourishing earth
"With dark-armed industry. See from the steep
"The scattered olives hurry in grey throngs
"Down towards the valley, where the little stream
"Parts a green hollow ’twixt the gentler slopes;
"And in that hollow, dwellings: not white homes
"Of building Moors, but little swarthy tents
"Such as of old perhaps on Asian plains,
"Or wending westward past the Caucasus,
"Our fathers raised to rest in."
....
"These are the brood of Zarca’s Gypsy tribe;
"Most like an earth-born race bred by the Sun
"On some rich tropic soil, the father’s light
"Flashing in coal-black eyes, the mother’s blood
"With bounteous elements feeding their young limbs.
"The stalwart men and youths are at the wars
"Following their chief, all save a trusty band
"Who keep strict watch along the northern heights."
................................................................................................
"Hinda.
"Queen, a branch of roses,— So sweet, you’ll love to smell them.
"’T was the last. I climbed the bank to get it before Tralla,
"And slipped and scratched my arm.
"But I don’t mind. You love the roses,—so do I.
"I wish The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
"From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
"Then all the valley would be pink and white
"And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
"As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
"Like sleeping and yet waking, all at once!
"Over the sea, Queen, where we soon shall go,
"Will it rain roses?
"Fedalma.
"No, my prattler, no!
"It never will rain roses: when we want
"To have more roses we must plant more trees.
"But you want nothing, little one,—the world
"Just suits you as it suits the tawny squirrels.
"Come, you want nothing.
"Hinda.
"Yes, I want more berries,—
"Red ones,—to wind about my neck and arms
"When I am married,—on my ankles too
"I want to wind red berries, and on my head.
"Fedalma.
"Who is it you are fond of? Tell me, now.
"Hinda.
"O Queen, yon know! It could be no one else
"But Ismaël. He catches birds,—no end!
"Knows where the speckled fish are, scales the rocks,
"And sings and dances with me when I like.
"How should I marry and not marry him?
"Fedalma.
"Should you have loved him, had he been a Moor,
"Or white Castilian?
"Hinda
"(starting to her feet, then kneeling again).
"Are you angry, Queen?
"Say why you will think shame of your poor Hinda?
"She’d sooner be a rat and hang on thorns
"To parch until the wind had scattered her,
"Than be an outcast, spit at by her tribe.
"Fedalma.
"Hinda, I know you are a good Zincala.
"But would you part from Ismaël? leave him now
"If your chief bade you,—said it was for good
"To all your tribe that you must part from him?
"Hinda
"(giving a sharp cry). Ah, will he say so?
"Fedalma
"(almost fierce in her earnestness). Nay, child, answer me.
"Could you leave Ismaël? get into a boat
"And see the waters widen ’twixt you two
"Till all was water and you saw him not,
"And knew that you would never see him more?
"If ’t was your chiefs command, and if he said
"Your tribe would all be slaughtered, die of plague.
"Of famine,—madly drink each other’s blood….
"Hinda
"(trembling). O Queen, if it is so, tell Ismaël.
"Fedalma.
"You would obey, then? part from him for ever?
"Hinda.
"How could we live else? With our brethren lost?—
"No marriage feast? The day would turn to dark.
"Zincala cannot live without their tribe.
"I must obey! Poor Ismaël—poor Hinda!
"But will it ever be so cold and dark?
"O, I would sit upon the rocks and cry,
"And cry so long that I could cry no more:
"Then I should go to sleep.
"Fedalma.
"No, Hinda. no!
"Thou never shalt be called to part from him.
"I will have berries for thee, red and black,
"And I will be so glad to see thee glad,
"That earth will seem to hold enough of joy
"To outweigh all the pangs of those who part.
"Be comforted, bright eyes. See, I will tie
"These roses in a crown, for thee to wear."
................................................................................................
"Fedalma (alone).
"She has the strength I lack. Within her world
"The dial has not stirred since first she woke:
"No changing light has made the shadows die,
"And taught her trusting soul sad difference.
"For her, good, right, and law are all summed up
"In what is possible; life is one web
"Where love, joy, kindred, and obedience
"Lie fast and even, in one warp and woof
"With thirst and drinking, hunger, food, and sleep.
"She knows no struggles, sees no double path:
"Her fate is freedom, for her will is one
"With the Zincalo’s law, the only law
"She ever knew. For me—O, I have fire within,
"But on my will there falls the chilling snow
"Of thoughts that come as subtly as soft flakes,
"Yet press at last with hard and icy weight.
"I could be firm, could give myself the wrench
"And walk erect, hiding my life-long wound,
"If I but saw the fruit of all my pain
"With that strong vision which commands the soul,
"And makes great awe the monarch of desire.
"But now I totter, seeing no far goal:
"I tread the rocky pass, and pause and grasp,
"Guided by flashes. When my father comes,
"And breathes into my soul his generous hope,—
"By his own greatness making life seem great,
"As the clear heavens bring sublimity.
"And show earth larger, spanned by that blue vast,—
"Resolve is strong: I can embrace my sorrow,
"Nor nicely weigh the fruit; possessed with need
"Solely to do the noblest, though it failed,—
"Though lava streamed upon my breathing deed
"And buried it in night and barrenness.
"But soon the glow dies out, the warriors music
"That vibrated as strength through all my limbs
"Is heard no longer; over the wide scene
"There’s naught but chill grey silence, or the hum
"And fitful discord of a vulgar world.
"Then I sink helpless,—sink into the arms
"Of all sweet memories, and dream of bliss:
"See looks that penetrate like tones; hear tones
"That flash looks with them. Even now I feel
"Soft airs enwrap me, as if yearning rays
"Of some far presence touched me with their warmth
"And brought a tender murmuring
"[While she mused, A figure came from out the olive trees
"That bent close-whispering ’twixt the parted hills
"Beyond the crescent of thick cactus: paused
"At sight of her; then slowly forward moved
"With careful footsteps, saying in softest tones, “Fedalma!”
"Fearing lest fancy had enslaved her sense,
"She quivered, rose, but turned not.
"Soon again: “Fedalma, it is Silva!” Then she turned.
"He, with bared head and arms entreating, beamed
"Like morning on her. Vision held her still
"One moment, then with gliding motion swift,
"Inevitable as the melting stream’s,
"She found her rest within his circling arms.]
"Fedalma.
"O love, you are living, and believe in me!
"Don Silva.
"Once more we are together. Wishing dies,— Stifled with bliss.
"Fedalma.
"You did not hate me, then,—
"Think me an ingrate,—think my love was small
"That I forsook you?
"Don Silva.
"Dear, I trusted you
"As holy men trust God. You could do naught
"That was not pure and loving,—though the deed
"Might pierce me unto death. You had less trust,
"Since you suspected mine. ’T was wicked doubt.
"Fedalma.
"Nay, when I saw you hating me the blame
"Seemed in my lot alone,—the poor Zincala’s,—her
"On whom you lavished all your wealth of love
"As price of naught but sorrow. Then I said,
"“’T is better so. He will be Happier!”
"But soon that thought, struggling to be a hope,
"Would end in tears.
"Don Silva.
"It was a cruel thought. Happier! True misery is not begun
"Until I cease to love thee."
................................................................................................
"Fedalma
(retreating a little, but keeping his hand).
"Silva, if now between us came a sword,
"Severed my arm, and left our two hands clasped.
"This poor maimed arm would feel the clasp till death.
"What parts us is a sword….
"(Zarca has been advancing in the background. He has drawn his sword and now thrusts the naked blade between them. Silva lets go Fedalma’s hand, and grasps his sword. Fedalma, startled at first, stands firmly, as if prepared to interpose between her Father and the Duke.)
"Zarca.
"Ay, ’t is a sword
"That parts the Spaniard and the Zincala:
"A sword that was baptised in Christian blood,
"When once a band, cloaking with Spanish law
"Their brutal rapine, would have butchered us,
"And then outraged our women.
(Resting the point of his sword on the ground.)
"My lord Duke, I was a guest within your fortress once
"Against my will; had entertainment too,—
"Much like a galley-slave’s. Pray, have you sought
"The poor Zincalo’s camp, to find a fit return
"For that Castilian courtesy? or rather
"To make amends for all our prisoned toil
"By this great honor of your unasked presence?
"Don Silva.
"Chief I have brought no scorn to meet your scorn.
"I came because love urged me,—that deep love
"I bear to her whom you call daughter,—her W
"hom I reclaim as my betrothed bride.
"Zarca.
"Doubtless yon bring for final argument
"Your men-at-arms who will escort your bride?
"Don Silva.
"I came alone. The only force I bring
"Is tenderness. Nay, I will trust besides
"In all the pleadings of a father’s care
"To wed his daughter as her nurture bids.
"And for your tribe,—whatever purposed good
"Your thoughts may cherish, I will make secure
"With the strong surety of a noble’s power:
"My wealth shall be your treasury.
"Zarca
"(with irony).
"My thanks! To me you offer liberal price; for her
"Your love’s beseeching will be force supreme.
"She will go with you as a willing slave,
"Will give a word of parting to her father,
"Wave farewells to her tribe, then turn and say:
"“Now, my lord, I am nothing but your bride;
"I am quite culled, have neither root nor trunk,
"Now wear me with your plume!”
"Don Silva.
"Yours is the wrong
"Feigning in me one thought of her below
"The highest homage. I would make my rank
"The pedestal of her worth; a noble’s sword,
"A noble’s honor, her defence; his love
"The life-long sanctuary of her womanhood.
"Zarca.
"I tell you, were you King of Aragon,
"And won my daughter’s hand, your higher rank
"Would blacken her dishonor. ’T were excuse
"If you were beggared, homeless, spit upon,
"And so made even with her people’s lot;
"For then she would be lured by want, not wealth,
"To be a wife amongst an alien race
"To whom her tribe owes curses.
"Don Silva.
"Such blind hate Is fit for beasts of prey, but not for men.
"My hostile acts against you, should but count
"As ignorant strokes against a friend unknown;
"And for the wrongs inflicted on your tribe
"By Spanish edicts or the cruelty
"Of Spanish vassals, am I criminal?
"Love comes to cancel all ancestral hate,
"Subdues all heritage, proves that in mankind
"There is a union deeper than division.
"Zarca.
"Ay, Such love is common: I have seen it oft,—
"Seen many women rend the sacred ties
"That bind them in high fellowship with men,
"Making them mothers of a people’s virtue:
"Seen them so levelled to a handsome steed
"That yesterday was Moorish property,
"To-day is Christian,—wears new-fashioned gear
"Neighs to new feeders, and will prance alike
"Under all banners, so the banner be
"A master’s who caresses. Such light change
"You call conversion; but we Zincali call
"Conversion infamy. Our people’s faith
"Is faithfulness; not the rote-learned belief
"That we are heaven’s highest favorites,
"But the resolve that, being most forsaken
"Among the sons of men, we will be true
"Each to the other, and our common lot.
"You Christians burn men for their heresy:
"Our vilest heretic is that Zincala
"Who, choosing ease, forsakes her people’s woes.
"The dowry of my daughter is to be
"Chief woman of her tribe, and rescue it.
"A bride with such a dowrv has no match
"Among the subjects of that Catholic Queen
"Who would have Gypsies swept into the sea
"Or else would have them gibbeted.
"Don Silva.
"And you, Fedalma’s father ,—you who claim the dues
"Of fatherhood,—will offer up her youth
"To mere grim idols of your fantasy!
"Worse than all Pagans, with no oracle
"To bid you, no sure good to win,
"Will sacrifice your daughter,—to no god,
"But to a hungry fire within your soul,
"Mad hopes, blind hate, that like possessing fiends
"Shriek at a name! This sweetest virgin, reared
"As garden flowers, to give the sordid world
"Glimpses of perfectness, you snatch and thrust
"On dreary wilds; in visions mad, proclaim
"Semiramis of Gypsy wanderers;
"Doom, with a broken arrow in her heart,
"To wait for death ’mid squalid savages:
"For what? You would be savior of your tribe;
"So said Fedalma’s letter; rather say,
"You have the will to save by ruling men.
"But first to rule; and with that flinty will
"You cut your way, though the first cut you give
"Gash your child’s bosom.
"(While Silva has been speaking, with growing passion, Fedalma has placed herself between him and her father.)
"Zarca
"(with calm irony).
"You are loud, my lord!
"You only are the reasonable man;
"You have a heart, I none. Fedalma’s’ good
"Is what you see, you care for; while I seek
"No good, not even my own, urged on by naught
"But hellish hunger, which must still be fed
"Though in the feeding it I suffer throes.
"Fume at your own opinion, as you will:
"I speak not now to you, but to my daughter.
"If she still calls it good to mate with you,
"To be a Spanish duchess, kneel at court,
"And hope her beauty is excuse to men
"When women whisper, “She was a Zincala”;
"If she still calls it good to take a lot
"That measures joy for her as she forgets
"Her kindred and her kindred’s misery,
"Nor feel the softness of her downy couch
"Marred by remembrance that she once forsook
"The place that she was born to,—let her go!
"If life for her still lies in alien love,
"That forces her to shut her soul from truth
"As men in shameful pleasures shut out day;
"And death, for her, is to do rarest deeds,
"Which, even failing, leave new faith to men,
"The faith in human hearts,—then, let her go!
"She is my only offspring; in her veins
"She bears the blood her tribe has trusted in;
"Her heritage is their obedience,
"And if I died, she might still lead them forth
"To plant the race her lover now reviles
"Where they may make a nation, and may rise
"To grander manhood than his race can show;
"Then live a goddess, sanctifying oaths,
"Enforcing right, and ruling consciences,
"By law deep-graven in exalting deeds,
"Through the long ages of her people’s life.
"If she can leave that lot for silken shame,
"For kisses honeyed by oblivion,—
"The bliss of drunkards or the blank of fools,—
"Then let her go! You Spanish Catholics,
"When you are cruel, base, and treacherous,
"For ends not pious, tender gifts to God,
"And for men’s wounds offer much oil to churches:
"We have no altars for such healing gifts
"As soothe the heavens for outrage done on earth.
"We have no priesthood and no creed to teach
"That the Zincala who might save her race
"And yet abandons it, may cleanse that blot,
"And mend the curse her life has been to men,
"By saving her own soul. Her one base choice
"Is wrong unchangeable, is poison shed
"Where men must drink, shed by her poisoning will.
"Now choose, Fedalma!
"[But her choice was made.
"Slowly, while yet her father spoke, she moved
"From where oblique with deprecating arms
"She stood between the two who swayed her heart:
"Slowly she moved to choose sublimer pain;
"Yearning, yet shrinking; wrought upon by awe,
"Her own brief life seeming a little isle
"Remote through visions of a wider world
"With fates close-crowded; firm to slay her joy
"That cut her heart with smiles beneath the knife,
"Like a sweet babe foredoomed by prophecy.
"She stood apart, yet near her father: stood
"Hand clutching hand, her limbs all tense with will
"That strove against her anguish, eyes that seemed a soul
"Yearning in death towards him she loved and left.
"He faced her, pale with passion and a will
"Fierce to resist whatever might seem strong
"And ask him to submit: he saw one end,—
"He must be conqueror; monarch of his lot
"And not its tributary. But she spoke
"Tenderly, pleadingly.]
"Fedalma.
"My lord, farewell!
"’T was well we met once more; now we must part.
"I think we had the chief of all love’s joys
"Only in knowing that we loved each other.
"Silva.
"I thought we loved with love that clings till death,
"Clings as brute mothers bleeding to their young,
"Still sheltering, clutching it, though it were dead;
"Taking the death-wound sooner than divide.
"I thought we loved so.
"Fedalma.
"Silva, it is fate.
"Great Fate has made me heiress of this woe.
"You must forgive Fedalma all her debt:
"She is quite beggared: if she gave herself,
"’T would be a self corrupt with stifled thoughts
"Of a forsaken better. It is truth
"My father speaks: the Spanish noble’s wife
"Would be false Zincala. I will bear
"The heavy trust of my inheritance.
"See, ’t was my people’s life that throbbed in me;
"An unknown need stirred darkly in my soul,
"And made me restless even in my bliss.
"O, all my bliss was in our love; but now
"I may not taste it: some deep energy
"Compels me to choose hunger.
"Dear, farewell! I must go with my people.
"[She stretched forth
"Her tender hands, that oft had lain in his,
"The hands he knew so well, that sight of them
"Seemed like their touch. But he stood still as death;
"Locked motionless by forces opposite:
"His frustrate hopes still battled with despair;
"His will was prisoner to the double grasp
"Of rage and hesitancy. All the travelled way
"Behind him, he had trodden confident,
"Ruling munificently in his thought
"This Gypsy father. Now the father stood
"Present and silent and unchangeable
"As a celestial portent. Backward lay
"The traversed road, the town’s forsaken wall,
"The risk, the daring; all around him now
"Was obstacle, save where the rising flood
"Of love close pressed by anguish of denial
"Was sweeping him resistless; save where she
"Gazing stretched forth her tender hands, that hurt
"Like parting kisses. Then at last he spoke.]
"Don Silva.
"No, I can never take those hands in mine,
"Then let them go for ever!
"Fedalma.
"It must be.
"We may not make this world a paradise
"By walking it together hand in hand,
"With eyes that meeting feed a double strength.
"We must be only joined by pains divine
"Of spirits blent in mutual memories.
"Silva, our joy is dead.
"Don Silva.
"But love still lives,
"And has a safer guard in wretchedness.
"Fedalma, women know no perfect love:
"Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong;
"Man clings because the being whom he loves
"Is weak and needs him. I can never turn
"And leave you to your difficult wandering;
"Know that you tread the desert, bear the storm,
"Shed tears, see terrors, faint with weariness,
"Yet live away from you, I should feel naught
"But your imagined pains: in my own steps
"See your feet bleeding, taste your silent tears,
"And feel no presence but your loneliness.
"No, I will never leave you!
"Zarca.
"My lord Duke, I have been patient, given room for speech,
"Bent not to move my daughter by command,
"Save that of her own faithfulness. But now,
"All further words are idle elegies
"Unfitting times of action. You are here
"With the safe-conduct of that trust you showed
"Coming alone to the Zincolo camp.
"I would fain meet all trust with courtesy
"As well as honor; but my utmost power
"Is to afford you Gypsy guard to-night
"Within the tents that keep the northward lines,
"And for the morrow, escort on your way
"Back to the Moorish bounds.
"Don Silva.
"What if my words
"Were meant for deeds, decisive as a leap
"Into the current? It is not my wont
"To utter hollow words, and speak resolves
"Like verses bandied in a madrigal.
"I spoke in action first: I faced all risks
"To find Fedalma. Action speaks again
"When I, a Spanish noble, here declare
"That I abide with her, adopt her lot,
"Claiming alone fulfilment of her vows
"As my betrothed wife.
"Fedalma
(wresting herself from him and standing opposite with a look of terror).
"Nay, Silva, nay!
"You could not live so; spring from your high place….
"Don Silva.
"Yes, I have said it. And you, chief, are bound
"By her strict vows, no stronger fealty
"Being left to cancel them."
"Zarca.
"Strong words, my lord!
"Sounds fatal as the hammer-strokes that shape
"The glowing metal: they must shape your life.
"That you will claim my daughter is to say
"That you will leave your Spanish dignities,
"Your home, your wealth, your people, to become
"A true Zincalo: share your wanderings,
"And be a match meet for my daughter’s dower
"By living for her tribe; take the deep oath
"That binds you to us; rest within our camp,
"Show yourself no more in the Spanish ranks,
"And keep my orders. See, my lord, you lock
"A chain of many links,—a heavy chain.
"Don Silva.
"I have but one resolve: let the rest follow.
"What is my rank? To-morrow it will be filled
"By one who eyes it like a carrion bird,
"Waiting for death. I shall be no more missed
"Than waves are missed that leaping on the rock
"Find there a bed and rest? Life’s a vast sea
"That does its mighty errand without fail,
"Panting in unchanged strength though waves are changing.
"And I have said it. She shall be my people,
"And where she gives her life I will give mine.
"She shall not live alone, nor die alone.
"I will elect my deeds, and be the liege,
"Not of my birth, but of that good alone
"I have discerned and chosen.
"Zarca.
"Our poor faith
"Allows not rightful choice, save of the right
"Our birth has made for us. And you, my lord,
"Can still defer your choice, for some day’s space.
"I march perforce to-night; you, if you will,
"Under Zincalo guard, can keep the heights
"With silent Time that slowly opes the scroll
"Of change inevitable; can reserve your oath
"Till my accomplished task leave me at large
"To see you keep your purpose or renounce it.
"Don Silva.
"Chief, do I hear amiss, or does your speech
"Ring with a doubleness which I had held
"Most alien to you? You would put me off,
"And cloak evasion with allowance?
"No! We will complete our pledges.
"I will take That oath which binds not me alone, but you,
"To join my life for ever with Fedalma’s.
"Zarca. Enough. I wrangle not,—time presses.
"But the oath Will leave you that same post upon the heights;
"Pledged to remain there while my absence lasts.
"You are agreed, my lord? Don Silva. Agreed to all.
"Zarca.
"Then I will give the summons to our camp.
"We will adopt you as a brother now,
"In the Zincalo’s fashion.
"[Exit Zarca. (Silva takes Fedalma’s hands.)
"Fedalma.
"O my lord! 1 think the earth is trembling: naught is firm.
"Some terror chills me with a shadowy grasp.
"Am I about to wake, or do you breathe
"Here in this valley? Did the outer air
"Vibrate to fatal words, or did they shake
"Only my dreaming soul? You a Zincalo?
"Don Silva.
"Is then your love too faint to raise belief Up to that height?
"Fedalma.
"Silva, had you but said
"That you would die,—that were an easy task
"For you who oft have fronted death in war.
"But so to live for me,—you, used to rule,—
"You could not breathe the air my father breathes:
"His presence is subjection. Go, my lord!
"Fly, while there yet is time. Wait not to speak.
"I will declare that I refused your love,—
"Would keep no vows to you
"Don Silva.
"It is too late.
"You shall not thrust me back to seek a good
"Apart from you. And what good? Why, to face
"Your absence,—all the want that drove me forth
"To work the will of a more tyrannous friend
"Than any uncowled father. Life at least
"Gives choice of ills; forces me to defy,
"But shall not force me to a weak defiance.
"The power that threatened you, to master me,
"That scorches like a cave-hid dragon’s breath,
"Sure of its victory in spite of hate,
"Is what I last will bend to,—most defy.
"Your father has a chieftain’s ends, befitting
"A soldier’s eye and arm: were he as strong
"As the Moors’ prophet, yet the prophet too
"Had younger captains of illustrious fame
"Among the infidels. Let him command,
"For when your father speaks, I shall hear you.
"Life were no gain if you were lost to me:
"I would straight go and seek the Moorish walls,
"Challenge their bravest, and embrace swift death.
"The Glorious Mother and her pitying
"Son Are not Inquisitors, else their heaven were hell.
"Perhaps they hate their cruel worshippers,
"And let them feed on lies. I’ll rather trust
"They love you and have sent me to defend you.
"Fedalma.
"I made my creed so, just to suit my mood
"And smooth all hardship, till my father came
"And taught my soul by ruling it. Since then
"I cannot weave a dreaming happy creed
"Where our love’s happiness is not accursed.
"My father shook my soul awake. And you,—
"What the Zincala may not quit for you,
"I cannot joy that you should quit for her.
"Don Silva.
"O, Spanish men are not a petty band
"Where one deserter makes a fatal breach.
"Men, even nobles, are more plenteous
"Than steeds and armor; and my weapons left
"Will find new hands to wield them. Arrogance
"Makes itself champion of mankind, and holds
"God’s purpose maimed for one hidalgo lost.
"See where your father comes and brings a crowd
"Of witnesses to hear my oath of love;
"The low red sun glows on them like a fire;
"This seems a valley in some strange new world,
"Where we have found each other, my Fedalma."
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October 07, 2021 - October 07, 2021.
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Book IV.
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"Now twice the day bad sunk from off the hills
"While Silva kept his watch there, with the band
"Of strong Zincali. When the sun was high
"He slept, then, waking, strained impatient eyes
"To catch the promise of some moving form
"That might be Juan,—Juan who went and came
"To soothe two hearts, and claimed naught for his own:
"Friend more divine than all divinities,
"Quenching his human thirst in others’ joy."
....
"But the third day, though Silva southward gazed
"Till all the shadows slanted towards him, gazed
"Till all the shadows died, no Juan came.
"Now in his stead came loneliness, and thought
"Inexorable, fastening with firm chain
"What is to what hath been. Now awful Night,
"Ancestral mystery of mysteries, came down
"Past all the generations of the stars,
"And visited his soul with touch more close
"Than when he kept that younger, briefer watch
"Under the church’s roof beside his arms,
"And won his knighthood."
....
"Thought played him double; seemed to wear the yoke
"Of sovereign passion in the noon-day height
"Of passion’s prevalence; but served anon
"As tribune to the larger soul which brought
"Loud-mingled cries from every human need
"That ages had instructed into life. He could not grasp
"Night’s black blank mystery
"And wear it for a spiritual garb
"Creed-proof: he shuddered at its passionless touch
"On solitary souls, the universe
"Looks down inhospitable; the human heart
"Finds nowhere shelter but in human kind."
....
"Now the former life
"Of close-linked fellowship, the life that made
"His full-formed self, as the impregnant sap
"Of years successive frames the full-branched tree,—
"Was present in one whole; and that great trust
"His deed had broken turned reproach on him
"From faces of all witnesses who heard
"His uttered pledges; saw him take high place
"Centring reliance; use rich privilege
"That bound him like a victim-nourished god
"To bless; assume the Cross and take his knightly oath
"Mature, deliberate: faces human all,
"And some divine as well as human: His
"Who hung supreme, the suffering Man divine
"Above the altar; Hers, the Mother pure
"Whose glance informed his masculine tenderness
"With deepest reverence; the Archangel armed,
"Trampling man’s enemy: all heroic forms
"That fill the world of faith with voices, hearts,
"And high companionship, to Silva now
"Made but one inward and insistent world
"With faces of his peers, with court and hall
"And deference, and reverent vassalage
"And filial pieties,—one current strong,
"The warmly mingled life-blood of his mind,
"Sustaining him even when he idly played
"With rules, beliefs, charges, and ceremonies
"As arbitrary fooling. Such revenge
"Is wrought by the long travail of mankind
"On him who scorns it, and would shape his life
"Without obedience.
"But his warrior’s pride
"Would take no wounds save on the breast.
"He faced The fatal crowd: ‘“I never shall repent!
"If I have sinned my sin was made for me
"By men’s perverseness. There’s no blameless life
"Save for the passionless, no sanctities
"But have the selfsame roof and props with crime,
"Or have their roots close interlaced with vileness.
"If I had loved her less, been more a craven,
"I had kept my place and had the easy praise
"Of a true Spanish noble. But I loved,
"And, loving, dared,—not Death the warrior
"But Infamy that binds and strips and holds
"The brand and lash. I have dared all for her.
"She was my good,—what other men call heaven.
"And for the sake of it bear penances;
"Nay, some of old were baited, tortured, flayed
"To win their heaven. Heaven was their good,
"She, mine. And I have braved for her all fires
"Certain or threatened; for I go away
"Beyond the reach of expiation,—far away
"From sacramental blessing. Does God bless
"No outlaw? Shut his absolution fast In human breath?
"Is there no God for me Save Him whose cross
"I have forsaken?—Well, I am forever exiled,—but with her."
................................................................................................
"With these new comrades of his future,—he
"Who had been wont to have his wishes feared
"And guessed at as a hidden law for men.
"Even the passive silence of the night.
"That left these howlers mastery, even the moon,
"Rising and staring with a helpless face;
"Angered him. He was ready now to fly
"At some loud throat, and give the signal so
"For butchery of himself. But suddenly
"The sounds that travelled towards no foreseen close
"Were torn right off and fringed into the night;
"Sharp Gypsy ears had caught the onward strain
"Of kindred voices joining in the chant.’
"All started to their feet and mustered close,
"Auguring long-waited summons. It was come:
"The summons to set forth and join their chief.
"Fedalma had been called already, and was gone
"Under safe escort, Juan following her:
"The camp—the women, children, and old men—
"Were moving slowly southward on the way
"To Almeria. Silva learned no more.
"He marched perforce; what other goal was his
"Than where Fedalma was? And so he marched
"Through the dim passes and o’er rising hills,
"Not knowing whither, till the morning came."
................................................................................................
"Zarca.
"Welcome, Doctor; see
"With that small task I did but beckon you
"To graver work. You know these corpses?
"Sephardo.
"Yes. I would they were not corpses. Storms will lay
"The fairest trees and leave the withered stumps.
"This Alvar and the Duke were of one age,
"And very loving friends. I minded not
"The sight of Don Diego’s corpse, for death
"Gave him some gentleness, and had he lived
"I had still hated him. But this young Alvar
"Was doubly noble, as a gem that holds
"Rare virtues in its lustre, and his death
"Will pierce Don Silva with a poisoned dart.
"This fair and curly youth was Arias,
"A son of the Pachecos; this dark face—
"Zarca.
"Enough! you know their names. I had divined
"That they were near the Duke, most like had served
"My daughter, were her friends. So rescued them
"From being flung upon the heap of slain.
"Beseech you, Doctor, if you owe me aught
"As having served your people, take the pains
"To see these bodied buried decently.
"And let their names be writ above their graves,
"As those of brave young Spaniards who died well.
"I needs must bear this womanhood in my heart,—
"Bearing my daughter there. For once she prayed,—
"’T was at our parting,—“When you see fair hair
"Be pitiful.” And I am forced to look
"On fair heads living and be pitiless.
"Your service, Doctor, will be done to her.
"Sephardo.
"A service doubly dear. For these young dead,
"And one less happy Spaniard who still lives,
"Are offering which I wrenched from out my heart,
"Constraint by cries of Israel: while my hands
"Rendered the victims at command, my eyes
"Closed themselves vainly, as if vision lay
"Through those poor loopholes only. I will go
"And see the graves dug by some cypresses.
"Zarca. Meanwhile the bodies shall rest here.
"Farewell.
"(Exit Sephardo.)
"Nay, ’t is no mockery. She keeps me so
"From hardening with the hardness of my acts.
"This Spaniard shrouded in her love,—I would
"He lay here too that I might pity him.."
................................................................................................
"Don Silva.
"Chief, you are treacherous, cruel, devilish,—
"Relentless as a curse that once let loose
"From lips of’ wrath, lives bodiless to destroy,
"And darkly traps a man in nets of guilt
"Which could not weave themselves in open day
"Before his eyes. ‘O, it was bitter wrong
"To hold this knowledge locked within your mind,
"To stand with waking eyes in broadest light,
"And see me, dreaming, shed my kindred’s blood.
"’T is’ horrible that men with hearts and hands
"Should smile in silence like the firmament
"And see a fellow-mortal draw a lot
"On which themselves have written agony!
"Such injury has no redress, no healing
"Save what may lie in stemming further ill.
"Poor balm for maiming! Yet I come to claim it.
"Zarca.
"First prove your wrongs, and I will hear your claim.
"Mind, you are not commander of Bedmár,
"Nor duke, nor knight, nor anything for me,
"Save one Zincalo, one of my subject tribe,
"Over whose deeds my will is absolute.
"You chose that lot, and would have railed at me
"Had I refused it you: I warned you first
"What oaths you had to take …
"Don Silva.
"You never warned me
"That you had linked yourself with Moorish men
"To take this town and fortress of Bedmár,—
"Slay my near kinsman, him who held my place,
"Our house’s heir and guardian,—slay my friend, . .
"My chosen brother,—desecrate the church
"Where once my mother held me in her arms, .
"Making the holy chrism holier
"With tears of joy that fell upon my brow!
"You never warned….
"Zarca.
"I warned you of your oath.
"You shrank not, we’re resolved, were sure your place
"Would never miss you, and you had your will.
"I am no priest, and keep no consciences:
"I keep my own place and my own command.
"Don Silva.
"I said my place would never miss me—yes!
"A thousand Spaniards died on that same day
"And were not missed; their garments clothed the backs
"That else were bear
"Zarca.
"But you were just the one
"Above the thousand, had you known the die
"That fate was throwing then.
"Don Silva.
"You knew it,—you!
"With fiendish knowledge, smiling at the end.
"You knew what snares had made my flying steps
"Murderous; you let me lock my soul with oaths
"Which your acts made a hellish sacrament.
"I say, you knew this as a fiend would know it,
"And let me damn myself.
"Zarca.
"The deed was done
"Before you took your oath, or reached our camp,—
"Done when you slipped in secret from the post
"’T was yours to keep, and not to meditate
"If others might not fill it. For your oath,
"What man is he who brandishes a sword
"In darkness, kills his friends, and rages then
"Against the night that kept him ignorant?
"Should I, for one unstable Spaniard, quit
"My steadfast ends as father and as chief;
"Renounce my daughter and my people’s hope,
"Lest a deserter should be made ashamed?
"Don Silva.
"Your daughter,—O great God! I vent but madness.
"The past will never change. I come to stem
"Harm that may yet be hindered. Chief—this stake—
"Tell me who is to die! Are you not bound
"Yourself to him you took in fellowship?
"The town is yours; let me but save the blood
"That still is warm in men who were my….
"Zarca.
"Peace! They bring the prisoner"
....
"The prisoner was Father Isidor:
"The man whom once he fiercely had accused
"As author of his misdeeds,—whose designs
"Had forced him into fatal secrecy.
"The imperious and inexorable Will
"Was yoked, and he who had been pitiless
"To Silva’s love, was led to pitiless death.
"O hateful victory of blind wishes,—prayers
"Which hell had overheard and swift fulfilled!
"The triumph was a torture, turning all
"The strength of passion into strength of pain.
"Remorse was born within him, that dire birth
"Which robs all else of nurture,—cancerous,
"Forcing each pulse to feed its anguish, changing
"All sweetest residues of a healthy life
"To fibrous clutches of slow misery.
"Silva had but rebelled,—he was not free;
"And all the subtle cords that bound his soul
"Were tightened by the strain of one rash leap
"Made in defiance. He accused no more,
"But dumbly shrank before accusing throngs
"Of thoughts, the impetuous recurrent rush
"Of all his past-created, unchanged self."
................................................................................................
"The young bright morning cast athwart white walls
"Her shadows blue, and with their clear-cut line,
"Mildly inexorable as the dial-hand’s
"Measured the shrinking future of an hour
"Which held a. shrinking hope. And all the while
"The silent beat of time in each man’s soul
"Made aching pulses. But the cry, “She comes!”
"Parted the crowd like waters: and she came.
"Swiftly as once before, inspired with joy,
"She flashed across the space and made new light,
"Glowing upon the glow of evening,
"So swiftly now she came, inspired with woe,
"Strong with the strength of all her father’s pain,
"Thrilling her as with fire of rage divine
"And battling energy. She knew,—saw all:
"The stake with Silva bound,—her father pierced,—
"To this she had been born: the second time
"Her father called her to the task of life.
"She knelt beside him. Then he raised himself,
"And on her face there flashed from his the light
"As of a star that waned and flames anew
"In mighty dissolution: ’t was the flame
"Of a surviving trust, in agony.
"He spoke the parting prayer that was command,
"Must sway her will, and reign invisibly.]
"Zarca.
"My daughter, you have promised,—you will live
"To save our people. In my garments here
"I carry written pledges from the Moor:
"He will keep faith in Spain and Africa.
"Your weakness may be stronger than my strength,
"Winning more love. I cannot tell the end.
"I held my people’s good within my breast.
"Behold, now, I deliver it to you.
"See, it still breathes unstrangled,—if it dies,
"Let not your failing will be murderer.
"Rise, And tell our people now I wait in pain,—
"I cannot die until I hear them say
"They will obey you."
....
"Zarca.
"Let loose the Spaniard! give him back his sword;
"He cannot move to any vengeance more,—
"His soul is locked ’twixt two opposing crimes.
"I charge you let him go unharmed and free
"Now through your midst"
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October 07, 2021 - October 08, 2021.
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Book V.
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"The eastward rooks of Almeria’s bay
"Answer long farewells of the travelling sun
"With softest glow as from an inward pulse
"Changing and flushing: all the Moorish ships
"Seem conscious too, and shoot out sudden shadows;
"Their black hulls snatch a glory, and their sails
"Show variegated radiance, gently stirred
"Like broad wings poised."
....
"Motionless she stood,
"Black-crowned with wreaths of many-shadowed hair;
"Black-robed, but bearing wide upon her breast
"Her father’s golden necklace and his badge.
"Her limbs were motionless but in her eyes
"And in her breathing lip’s soft tremulous curve
"Was intense motion as of prisoned fire
"Escaping subtly in outleaping thought.
"She watches anxiously, and yet she dreams:
"The busy moments now expand, now shrink
"To narrowing swarms within the refluent space
"Of changeful consciousness. For in her thought
"Already she has left the fading shore,
"Sails with her people, seeks an unknown land,
"And bears the burning length of of weary days
"That parching fall upon her father’s hope,
"Which she must plant and see it wither only,—
"Wither and die. She saw the end begun.
"Zincali hearts were not unfaithful: she
"Was centre to the savage loyalty
"Which vowed obedience to Zarca dead.
"But soon their natures missed the constant stress
"Of his command, that, while it fired, restrained
"By urgency supreme, and left no play
"To fickle impulse scattering desire.
"They loved their Queen, trusted in Zarca’s child,
"Would bear her o’er the desert on their arms
"And think the weight a gladsome victory;
"But that great force which knit them into one,
"The invisible passion of her father’s soul,
"That wrought them visibly into its will,
"And would have bound their lives with permanence,
"Was gone."
....
"In a little while, the tribe
"That was to be the ensign of the race,
"And draw it into conscious union,
"Itself would break in small and scattered bands
"That, living on scant prey, would still disperse
"And propagate forgetfulness. Brief years,
"And that great purpose fed with vital fire
"That might have glowed for half a century,
"Subduing, quickening, shaping, like a sun,—
"Would be a faint tradition, flickering low
"In dying memories, fringing with dim light
"The nearer dark.
"Far, far the future stretched
"Beyond the busy present on the quay,
"Far her straight path beyond it. Yet she watched
"To mark the growing hour, and yet in dream
"Alternate she beheld another track,
"And felt herself unseen pursuing it
"Close to a wanderer, who with haggard gaze
"Looked out on loneliness. The backward years—
"O she would not forget them—would not drink
"Of waters that brought rest, while he far off
"Remembered “Father, I renounced the joy,—
"You must forgive the sorrow.”
"So she stood,
"Her struggling life compressed into that hour,
"Yearning, resolving, conquering; though she seemed
Still as a tutelary image sent
"To guard her people and to be the strength
"Of some rock citadel."
"But emerging now
"From eastward fringing lines of idling men
"Quick Juan lightly sought the upward steps
"Behind Fedalma, and two paces off,
"With head uncovered, said in gentle tones,
"“Lady Fedalma!”—(Juan’s password now
"Used by no other,) and Fedalma turned,
"Knowing who sought her. He advanced a step,
"And meeting straight her large calm questioning gaze,
"Warned her of some grave purport by a face
"That told of trouble. Lower still he spoke."
"Juan.
"Look from me, lady, towards a moving form
"That quits the crowd and seeks the lonelier strand,—
"A tall and gray-clad pilgrim….
"[Solemnly His low tones fell on her, as if she passed
"Into religious dimness among tombs
"And trod on names in everlasting rest.
"Lingeringly she looked, and then with with voice
"Deep and yet soft, like notes from some long chord
"Responsive to thrilled air, said:]"
"Fedalma.
"It is he!
"[Juan kept silence for a little space,
"With reverent caution, lest his lighter grief
"Might seem a wanton touch upon her pain.
"But time was urging him with visible flight,
"Changing the shadows: he must, utter all.]
"Juan.
"That man was young when last I pressed his hand,—
"In that dread moment when he left Bedmár.
"He has aged since: the week has made him gray.
"And yet I knew him,—knew the white-streaked hair
"Before I saw his face, as I should know
"The tear-dimmed writing of a friend. See now,—
"Does he not linger,—pause?—perhaps except….
"[Juan plead timidly: Fedalma’s eyes
"Flashed; and through all her frame there ran the shock
"Of some sharp-wounding joy, like his who hastes
"And dreads to come too late, and comes in time
"To press a loved hand dying. She was mute
"And made no gesture: all her being paused
"In resolution, as some leonine wave
"That makes a moment’s silence ere it leaps.]
"Juan.
"He came from Cathagena, in a boat
"Too slight for safety; yon small two-oared boat
"Below the rock; the fisher-boy within
"Awaits his signal. But the pilgrim waits….
"Fedalma.
"Yes, I will go!—Father, I owe him this,
"For loving he made all his misery.
"And we will look once more,—will say farewell
"As in a solemn rite to strengthen us
"For our eternal parting. Juan, stay
"Here in my place, to warn me were there need.
"And, Hinda, follow me!"
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"[He did not say “Farewell.”
"But neither knew that he was silent. She,
"For one long moment, moved not. They knew naught
"Save that they parted.; for their mutual gaze
"As with their soul’s full speech forbade their hands
"To seek each other,—those oft-clasping hands
"Which had a memory of their own, and went."
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"It was night
"Before the ships weighed anchor and gave sail:
"Fresh Night emergent in her clearness, lit
"By the large crescent moon, with Hesperus,
"And those great stars that lead the eager host.
"Fedalma stood and watched the little bark
"Lying jet-black upon moon-whitened waves.
"Silva was standing too. He too divined
"A steadfast form that held him with its thought,
"And eyes that sought him vanishing: he saw
"The waters widen slowly, till at last
"Straining he gazed, and knew not if he gazed
"On aught but blackness overhung by stars. ]"
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October 05, 2021 - October 08, 2021.
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The Legend of Jubal, and Other Poems (1874)
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The Legend of Jubal
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When one has finished, one grows aware of the story George Eliot wished to tell (- that of the worshipped son of God who, if he were to return, could very well find himself not only ignored, but very likely persecuted, again, by the very ones who swear faith and call themselves in his name; of Europe that, seemingly converted to a creed of brotherhood and kindness, of meek inheriting heaven and of doing unto others as you would have them do into you, yet follows hypocrisy of paying obeisance to the creed, weekly, and goes to war for looting others lands -) yet finds the conflict in herself too great, having been outspoken about pride of an ancestry of invaders, and of righteousness of England in punishing India and China for resisting the domination of England - and so she dared not, but instead tells here the story of Jubal who discovered music and gave this great gift to humanity.
She combines it with his sojourn to find greatest mountains South, and having discovered great ocean thereafter, returning home, only to be beaten in his own name.
Which is the greater story, that of followers of a God assaulting him if he appears? Or the sojourner who cannot return home to recognition and love and peace, but is assaulted and humiliated instead?
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Interesting, that usually there's a pretence in abrahmic faiths about non existence of Gods, other than one admitted and demanded faith to; but in history and mythology of Greece, Rome, Egypt and even of West Asia, other Gods are not only mentioned, they are well described and characterised.
George Eliot begins with mention of them, and quickly covers up with ascribing them only to imagination of Cain, but bible itself is a matter of faith according to church dogma and not admitted as history of the region; and yet, she then goes on to indicate Cain possibly going yo India.
This last is merely another infliction of contempt on India, of course, by someone of colonial empire rulers; India has very rich treasure of knowledge, branded mythology by West, but since much proven true history by science of West - including, for example, history of rising of Himaalayan ranges from ocean, and too, evolution theory that parallels Dashaavataara of India's traditional lore.
But India has no memory, no tradition of any tale, whatsoever, of even a Cain (or anyone arriving from West across what was prehistorically an ocean - hence the name, Sindhu, literally meaning ocean, for the river called Indus by west), much less of a whole Aaryan race that is foundation of civilisation of India. Tradition of India reaches prehistory of Indian subcontinent, and has no whiff of arriving from across Sindhu. It has, instead, memories of Himaalayan ranges rising out of the ocean, and of Gangaa being brought down to earth by efforts of a single man, Bhagieratha.
So Cain going East, of Eden - presumably from West Asia - might have reached, say, western borders of the region known as Central Asia.
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It isn't just that George Eliot- daughter of a clergyman - mentions other Gods, before covering it up as his lack of doubt in their existence, and seeing them mirrored there - so church could easily brand it all as thinking of a fallen one who murdered hus brother, even though history really point at flesh consumers and monotheist conversionists as perpetrators of massacres on humongous scale, not vegetarians of a happy land inhabited by Gods.
It also that the author says, "When Cain was driven from Jehovah’s land ", so, not only he did not leave of his own volition, not only he was ordered to leave, but was "driven out"; what's more, "driven from Jehovah’s land", and "He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand, Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings"! So concept within Eden is of a god who "owns" that land, whik e others are "ruled" by other Gods; moreover, the owner of Eden asked for offerings, which, Cain hoped, those other Gods elsewhere were kind enough not to ask!
And yet, church fraudulently demands exclusive faith in one who so demands, and more, denial of all others, not denial of offerings, but of their very existence!
"When Cain was driven from Jehovah’s land
"He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand
"Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings
"Save pure field-fruits, as aromatic things,
"To feed the subtler sense of frames divine
"That lived on fragrance for their food and wine:
"Wild joyous gods, who winked at faults and folly,
"And could be pitiful and melancholy.
"He never had a doubt that such gods were;
"He looked within, and saw them mirrored there.
"Some think he came at last to Tartary,
"And some to Ind; but, howsoe’er it be,
"His staff he planted where sweet waters ran,
"And in that home of Cain the Arts began."
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Beautiful content and beautifully flow the verses -
"Man’s life was spacious in the early world:
"It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled
"Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled;
"Beheld the slow star-paces of the skies,
"And grew from strength to strength through centuries;
"Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs,
"And heard a thousand times the sweet birds’ marriage hymns."
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And it reverts to memory of terror -
"In Cain’s young city none had heard of
"Death Save him, the founder; and it was his faith
"That here, away from harsh Jehovah’s law,
"Man was immortal, since no halt or flaw
"In Cain’s own frame betrayed six hundred years,
"But dark as pines that autumn never sears
"His locks thronged backward as he ran, his frame
"Rose like the orbed sun each morn the same,
"Lake-mirrored to his gaze; and that red brand,
"The scorching impress of Jehovah’s hand,
"Was still clear-edged to his unwearied eye,
"Its secret firm in time-fraught memory."
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Here's a clue to location of Eden-
"He said, “My happy offspring shall not know
"That the red life from out a man may flow
"When smitten by his brother.” True, his race
"Bore each one stamped upon his new-born face
"A copy of the brand no whit less clear;
"But every mother held that little copy dear.
"Thus generations in glad idlesse throve,
"Nor hunted prey, nor with each other strove;
"For clearest springs were plenteous in the land,
"And gourds for cups; the ripe fruits sought the hand,
"Bending the laden boughs with fragrant gold;
"And for their roofs and garments wealth untold
"Lay everywhere in grasses and broad leaves:
"They labored gently, as a maid who weaves
"Her hair in mimic mats, and pauses oft
"And strokes across her hand the tresses soft,
"Then peeps to watch the poised butterfly,
"Or little burthened ants that homeward hie."
That "maid who weaves Her hair in mimic mats" evokes Africa, where braiding of hair isn't the simple one or two braids the rest of the world is content with; so if thus is the subconscious memory, Eden must gave been therein, or an island off African coast, if not Africa itself. The continent still bears innocence of an Eden with species wild abounding and humans living in harmony, except where spoiled by colonial rulers from Europe, and their heritage.
Recent discoveries under ocean speak of another continent off East coast of Africa, now mostly submerged, that smaller islands of Seychelles and Madagascar and so on are a clue to; and Tamil lore speaks of a continent (that they originated from, migrating to India some time as continents travelled, submerged, and more?), named Kumaarikhanda. Was this Eden?
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Then it changes, and again, there's the motif of connection of an angry god of Cain's past land, evoked by death that was unknown to his descendents, bringing memories of a curse!
"Time was but leisure to their lingering thought,
"There was no’ need for haste to finish aught;
"But sweet beginnings were repeated still
"Like infant babblings that no task fulfil;
"For love, that loved not change, constrained the simple will.
"Till, hurling stones in mere athletic joy,
"Strong Lamech struck and killed his fairest boy,
"And tried to wake him with the tenderest cries,
"And fetched and held before the glazed eyes
"The things they best had loved to look upon;
"But never glance or smile or sigh he won.
"The generations stood around those twain
"Helplessly gazing, till their father
"Cain Parted the press, and said, “He will not wake;
"This is the endless sleep, and we must make
"A bed deep down for him beneath the sod;
"For know, my sons, there is a mighty God
"Angry with all man’s race, but most with me."
This is the memory carried by Cain, of "a mighty God, Angry with all man’s race, but most with me." Nothing godly about this one, unless he's merely one of the Gods, and not one of the greater ones.
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And more - it isn't merely memory, or fear, but a certainty, of persecution, and of wrath, but more, of extermination -
"I fled from out His land in vain!—’tis
"He Who came and slew the lad; for
"He has found This home of ours, and we shall all be bound
"By the harsh bands of His most cruel will,
"Which any moment may some dear one kill.
"Nay, though we live for countless moons, at last
"We and all ours shall die like summers past.
"This is Jehovah’s will, and He is strong;
"I thought the way I travelled was too long
"For Him to follow me: my thought was vain!
"He walks unseen, but leaves a track of pain,
"Pale Death His footprint is, and He will come again!”"
What is mirrored here seems far more a memory of a persecution of a race, that has gone on for well over centuries before two millennia that they were driven from their homeland. So one wonders, did George Eliot write this based on bible, and therefore was the twentieth century culminating in genocide something that mirrored a past memory that's recorded in the bible, with what's called a god only a mighty and terrible Lord of a land?
The flight of Cain from Eden, is that really the migration East that's visible in the obvious connection between populations of Africa, Australia, Fiji, Andaman and Nicobar, and , not all, but a large section of, Tamil people of India?
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"And a new spirit from that hour came o’er
"The race of Cain: soft idlesse was no more,
"But even the sunshine had a heart of care,
"Smiling with hidden dread-a mother fair
"Who folding to her breast a dying child
"Beams with feigned joy that but makes sadness mild.
"Death was now lord of Life, and at his word
"Time, vague as air before, new terrors stirred,
"With measured wing now audibly arose
"Throbbing through all things to some unknown close."
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"Now glad Content by clutching Haste was torn,
"And Work grew eager, and Device was born.
"It seemed the light was never loved before,
"Now each man said, “Twill go and come no more.”
"No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,
"No form, no shadow, but new dearness took
"From the one thought that life must have an end;
"And the last parting now began to send
"Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss,
"Thrilling them into finer tenderness.
"Then Memory disclosed her face divine,
"That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine
"Within the soul, and shows the sacred graves,
"And shows the presence that no sunlight craves,
"No space, no warmth, but moves among them all;
"Gone and yet here, and coming at each call,
"With ready voice and eyes that understand,
"And lips that ask a kiss, and dear responsive hand.
"Thus to Cain’s race death was tear-watered seed
"Of various life and action-shaping need.
"But chief ‘the sons of Lamech felt the stings
"Of new ambition, and the force that springs
"In passion beating on the shores of fate. They said,
"“There comes a night when all too late
"The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand,
"The eager thought behind closed portals stand,
"And the last wishes to the mute lips press
"Buried ere death in silent helplessness.
"Then while the soul its way with sound can cleave,
"And while the arm is strong to strike and heave,
"Let soul and arm give shape that will abide
"And rule above our graves, and power divide
"With that great god of day, whose rays must bend
"As we shall make the moving shadows tend.
"Come, let us. fashion acts that are to be,
"When we shall lie in darkness silently,
"As our young brother doth, whom yet we see
"Fallen and slain, but reigning in our will
"By that one image of him pale and still.”
"For Lamech’s sons were heroes of their race:
"Jabal, the eldest, bore upon his face
"The look of that calm river-god, the Nile,
"Mildly secure in power that needs not guile.
Interesting - the name of Jabal occurs in Indian Flores of past, in a very different context, very different story; but names common to India and West asia are rare until the islamic invasions, and Jabal was long before.
Also interesting, mention of Nile - or is that omly the author? Sojourn to egypt was long after time of Cain, wasn't it?
"But Tubal-Cain was restless as the fire
"That glows and spreads and leaps from high to higher
"Where’er is aught to seize or to subdue;
"Strong as a storm he lifted or o’erthrew,
"His urgent limbs like rounded granite grew,
"Such granite as the plunging torrent wears
"And roaring rolls around through countless years.
"But strength that still on movement must be fed,
"Inspiring thought of change, devices bred,
"And urged his mind through earth and air to rove
"For force that he could conquer if he strove,
"For lurking forms that might new tasks fulfil
"And yield unwilling to his stronger-will."
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George Eliot describes each brother by turn - Jabal the shepherd with magic handling of all animals, till he reared canines domesticated from wild wolves, and Tubal-Cain the handler of tools who crafted things from earth.
"Such Tubal-Cain. But Jubal had a frame
"Fashioned to finer senses, which became
"A yearning for some hidden soul of things,
"Some outward touch complete on inner springs
"That vaguely moving bred a lonely pain,
"A want that did but stronger grow with gain
"Of all good else, as spirits might be sad
"For lack of speech to tell us they are glad."
....
"Jubal, too, watched the hammer, till his eyes,
"No longer following its fall or rise,
"Seemed glad with something that they could not see,
"But only listened to—some melody,
"Wherein dumb longings inward speech had found,
"Won from the common store of struggling sound.
"Then, as the metal shapes more various grew,
"And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew,
"Each gave new tones, the revelations dim
"Of some external soul that spoke for him:
"The hollow vessel’s clang, the clash, the boom,
"Like light that makes wide spiritual room
"And skyey spaces in the spaceless thought,
"To Jubal such enlarged passion brought,
"That love, hope, rage, and all experience,
"Were fused in vaster being, fetching thence
"Concords and discords, cadences and cries
"That seemed from some world-shrouded soul to rise,
"Some rapture more intense, some mightier rage,
"Some living sea that burst the bounds of man’s brief age."
Story of Jubal is that of discovery of an inner realm, that of music, as told by George Eliot.
"Then with such blissful trouble and glad care
"For growth. within unborn as mothers bear,
"To the far woods he wandered, listening,
"And heard the birds their little stories sing
"In notes whose rise and fall seem melted speech—
"Melted with tears, smiles, glances—that can reach
"More quickly through our frame’s deep-winding night,
"And without thought raise thought’s best fruit, delight.
"Pondering, he sought his home again and heard
"The fluctuant changes of the spoken word:
"The deep remonstrance and the argued want,
"Insistent first in close monotonous chant,
"Next leaping upward to defiant stand
"Or downward beating like the resolute hand;
"The mother’s call, the children’s answering cry,
"The laugh’s light cataract tumbling from on high;
"The suasive repetitions Jabal taught,
"That timid browsing cattle homeward brought:
"The clear-winged fugue of echoes vanishing;
"And through them all the hammer’s rhythmic ring.
"Jubal sat lonely, all around was dim,
"Yet his face glowed with light revealed to him:
"For as the delicate stream of odor wakes
"The thought-wed sentience, and some image makes
"From out the mingled fragments of the past,
"Finely compact in wholeness that will last,
"So streamed as from the body of each sound
"Subtler pulsations, swift as warmth, which found
"All prisoned germs and all their powers unbound,
"Till thought self-luminous flamed from memory,
"And in creative vision wandered free.
"Then Jubal, standing, rapturous arms upraised,
"And on the dark with eager eyes he gazed,
"As had some manifested god been there."
"Such patience have the heroes who begin,
"Sailing the first toward lands which others win.
"Jubal must dare as great beginners dare,
"Strike form’s first way in matter rude and bare,
"And, yearning vaguely toward the plenteous choir
"Of the world’s harvest, make one poor small lyre.
"He made it, and from out its measured frame
"Drew the harmonic soul, whose answers came
"With guidance sweet and lessons of delight
"Teaching to ear and hand the blissful Right,
"Where strictest law is gladness to-the sense,
"And all desire bends toward obedience.
"Then Jubal poured his triumph in a song—
"The rapturous word that rapturous notes prolong
"As radiance streams from smallest things that burn,
"Or thought of loving into love doth turn.
"And still his lyre gave companionship
"In sense-taught concert as of lip with lip."
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Here shows bias of West, again - literally, for West. This is strange, considering Nordic latitudes hunger for the light and warmth they need, and it's brought by sun sun that rises East- but this glory of West viewed each evening, however beautiful, only brings the dreaded darkness and cold, especially dreadful for the dark Nordic latitudes.
"He who had lived through twice three centuries,
"Whose months monotonous, like trees on trees
"In hoary forests, stretched a backward maze,
"Dreamed himself dimly through the travelled days
"Till in clear light he paused, and felt the sun
"That warmed him when he was a little one;
"Knew that true heaven, the recovered past,
"The dear small Known amid the Unknown vast,
"And in that heaven wept. But younger limbs
"Thrilled toward the future, that bright land which swims
"In western glory, isles and streams and bays,
"Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze."
No, it's not primitive natural instinct, this glorification of West - it has to be about a prehistoric migration East and a nostalgic memory if West, thus recounted in Cain being driven East of Eden.
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"The sun had sunk, but music still was there,
"And when this ceased, still triumph filled the air:
"It seemed the stars were shining with delight
"And that no night was ever like this night."
"“Hearing myself,” he said, “I hems in my life,
"And I will get me to some far-off land,
"Where higher mountains under heaven stand
"And touch the blue at rising of the stars,
"Whose song they hear where no rough mingling mars
"The great clear voices. Such lands there must be,
"Where varying forms make varying symphony
"Where other thunders roll amid the hills,
"Some mightier wind a mightier forest fills
"With other strains through other-shapen boughs;
"Where bees and birds and beasts that hunt or browse
"Will teach me songs I know not. Listening there,
"My life shall grow like trees both tall and fair
"That rise and spread and bloom toward fuller fruit each year.”
"He took a raft, and travelled with the stream
"Southward for many a league, till he might deem
"He saw at last the pillars of the sky,
"Beholding mountains whose white majesty
"Rushed through him as new awe, and made new song
"That swept with fuller wave the chords along,
"Weighting his voice with deep religious chime,.
"The iteration of slow chant sublime.
"It was the region long inhabited
"By all the race of Seth; and Jubal said,
"“Here have I found my thirsty soul’s desire,
"Eastward the hills touch heaven, and evening’s fire
"Flames through deep waters, I will take my rest,
"And feed anew from my great mother’s breast,
"The sky-clasped Earth, whose voices nurture me
"As the flowers’ sweetness doth the honey-bee.”
"He lingered wandering for many an age,
"And, sowing music, made high heritage
"For generations far beyond the Flood
"For the poor late-begotten human brood
"Born to life’s weary brevity and perilous good.
"And ever as he travelled he would climb
"The farthest mountain, yet the heavenly chime,
"The mighty tolling of the far-off spheres
"Beating their pathway, never touched his ears.
"But wheresoe’er he rose, the heavens rose,
"And the far-gazing mountain could disclose
"Nought but a wider earth; until one height
"Showed him the ocean stretched in liquid light,
"And he could hear its multitudinous roar,
"Its plunge and hiss upon the pebbled shore:
"Then Jubal silent sat, and touched his lyre no more.
"He thought, “The world is great, but I am weak,
"And where the sky bends is no solid peak
"To give me footing, but instead, this main
"Like myriad maddened horses thundering o’er the plain."
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"The way was weary. Many a date-palm grew,
"And shook out clustered gold against the blue,
"While Jubal, guided by the steadfast spheres,
"Sought the dear home of those first eager years,
"When, with fresh vision fed, the fuller will
"Took living outward shape in pliant skill;
"For still he hoped to find the former things,
"And the warm gladness recognition brings.
"His footsteps erred among the mazy woods
"And long illusive sameness of the floods,
"Winding and wandering. Through far regions, strange
"With Gentile homes and faces, did he range,
"And left his music in their memory,
"And left at last, when nought besides would free
"His homeward steps from clinging hands and cries,
"The ancient lyre. And now in ignorant eyes
"No sign remained of Jubal, Lamech’s son,
"That mortal frame wherein was first begun
"The immortal life of song. His withered brow
"Pressed over eyes that held no lightning now,
"His locks streamed whiteness on the hurrying air,
"The unresting soul had worn itself quite bare
"Of beauteous token, as the outworn might
"Of oaks slow dying, gaunt in summer’s light.
"His full deep voice toward thinnest treble ran:
"He was the rune-writ story of a man."
"And so at last he neared the well-known land,
"Could see the hills in ancient order stand
"With friendly faces whose familiar gaze
"Looked through the sunshine of his childish days;
"Knew the deep-shadowed folds of hanging woods,
"And seemed to see the selfsame insect broods
"Whirling and quivering o’er the flowers—to hear
"The selfsame cuckoo making distance near.
"Yea, the dear Earth, with mother’s constancy,
"Met and embraced him, and said, “Thou art he!
"This was thy cradle, here my breast was thine,
"Where feeding, thou didst all thy life intwine
"With my skly-wedded life in heritage divine.”"
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"The word was “Jubal!”.. “Jubal” filled the air,
"And seemed to ride aloft, a spirit there,
"Creator of the choir, the full-fraught strain
"That grateful rolled itself to him again.
"The aged man adust upon the bank—
"Whom no eye saw—at first with rapture drank
"The bliss of music, then, with swelling heart,
"Felt, this was his own being’s greater part,
"The universal joy once born in him."
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"His voice’s penury of tones long spent,
"He felt not; all his being leaped in flame
"To meet his kindred as they onward came
"Slackening and wheeling toward the temple’s face:
"He rushed before them to the glittering space,
"And, with a strength that was but strong desire,
"Cried, “I am Jubal, I! . . . I made the lyre!”"
"The tones amid a lake of silence fell
"Broken and strained, as if a feeble bell
"Had tuneless pealed the triumph of a land
"To listening crowds in expectation spanned.
"Sudden came showers of laughter on that lake;
"They spread along the train from front to wake
"In one great storm of merriment, while he
"Shrank doubting whether he could Jubal be,
"And not a dream of Jubal, whose rich vein
"Of passionate music came with that dream-pain,
"Wherein the sense slips off from each loved thing,
"And all appearance is mere vanishing."
....
"Two rushed upon him: two, the most devout
"In honor of great Jubal, thrust him out,
"And beat him with their flutes. ’Twas little need;
"He strove not, cried not, but with tottering speed,
"As if the scorn and howls were driving wind
"That urged his body, serving so the mind
"Which could but shrink and yearn, he sought the screen
"Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen.
"The immortal name of Jubal filled the sky,
"While Jubal lonely laid him down to die.
"He said within his soul, “This is the end:
"O’er all the earth to where the heavens bend
"And hem men’s travel, I have breathed my soul:
"I lie here now the remnant of that whole,
"The embers of a life, a lonely pain;
"As far-off rivers to my thirst were vain,
"So of my mighty years nought comes to me again."
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"Because thou shinest in man’s soul, a god,
"Who found and gave new passion and new joy
"That nought but Earth’s destruction can destroy.
"Thy gifts to give was thine of men alone:
"’Twas but in giving that thou couldst atone
"For too much wealth amid their poverty.”—"
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October 05, 2021 - October 05, 2021.
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Other Poems
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Agatha.
Armgart. : I. II. III. IV. V.
How Lisa Loved the King.
A Minor Prophet.
Brother and Sister.
Stradivarius.
A College Breakfast-Party.
Two Lovers.
Self and Life.
“Sweet Endings Come and Go, Love.”
The Death of Moses.
Arion.
“O May I Join the Choir Invisible.”
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Agatha,
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This poem would be sweet for anyone familiar with the region, and as reverent about catholicism as needed. Or one could just enjoy the local colour provided.
Did George Eliot write this when visiting the region?
But which region is it? She mentions France seen West across Rhine, ocean visible from hills green! Such a view may be possible from a plane, but not from earth - where France is visible in distance West across Rhine, ocean is too far to be visible, and if one is close to ocean to see it from a hill above Rhine, it isn't France but Low Countries, Benelux, immediately West, not collectively small enough to see France across them.
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"Come with me to the mountain, not where rocks
"Soar harsh above the troops of hurrying pines,
"But where the earth spreads soft and rounded breasts
"To feed her children; where the generous hills
"Lift a green isle betwixt the sky and plain
"To keep some Old World things aloof from change."
Is she talking of hills when she says mountains? She speaks of earth spreading soft and hills being a green isle, but mountains are so labeled or defined only above a certain height, and in Nordic latitudes, that's alpine, unless it's in U.K. warmed by the gulf stream. Or tropics, where alpine scenery is at a far higher altitude than in Europe.
But the next few lines clear up one part- the location isn't tropical.
"Here too ’t is hill and hollow: new-born streams
"With sweet enforcement, joyously compelled
"Like laughing children, hurry down the steeps,
"And make a dimpled chase athwart the stones;
"Pine woods are black upon the heights, the slopes
"Are green with pasture, and the bearded corn
"Fringes the blue above the sudden ridge:
"A little world whose round horizon cuts
"This isle of hills with heaven for a sea,"
So, pines, and sea, in close proximity. And then she writes -
"Save in clear moments when south westward gleams
"France by the Rhine, melting anon to haze."
There are mountains where France can be seen westward across Rhine, but close to sea? That should be easily located!
Here is the heart of George Eliot that never left her breeding, as a clergyman's daughter, behind, even though her intellectual growth did so - so she was distanced from her family, not just father who partially reconciled upon her acceptance of his condition of outward compliance, but siblings too.
"The monks of old chose here their still retreat,
"And called it by the Blessed Virgin’s name,
"Sancta Maria, which the peasant’s tongue,
"Speaking from out the parent’s heart that turns
"All loved things into little things, has made
"Sanct Margen—Holy little Mary, dear
"As all the sweet home things she smiles upon,
"The children and the cows, the apple-trees,
"The cart, the plough, all named with that caress
"Which feigns them little, easy to be held,
"Familiar to the eyes and hand and heart.
"What though a Queen? She puts her crown away
"And with her little Boy wears common clothes,
"Caring for common wants, remembering
"That day when good Saint Joseph left his work
"To marry her with humble trust sublime."
When they thus wax poetic, do they not realise that it was West Asia, where the persona of two millennia past whom they worship, lived - if it were indeed history and not stories made up about them by church for power - and they had lived among orange groves and pines of a warm desert of Asia, with dark eyed and dark haired people, not Apple orchards with blue eyed, blond children frolicking?
"The monks are gone, their shadows fall no more
"Tall-frocked and cowled athwart the evening fields
"At milking-time; their silent corridors
"Are turned to homes of bare-armed, aproned men,
"Who toil for wife and children. But the bells,
"Pealing on high from two quaint convent towers,
"Still ring the Catholic signals, summoning
"To grave remembrance of the larger life
"That bears our own, like perishable fruit
"Upon its heaven-wide branches. ... "
Spiritual life, perishable fruit? What was she thinking? Spiritual life, persons devoted to it, aren't they all far more akin to the non-deciduous evergreens that grow taller than all else around, survive alpine heights, and live long unless cut down by humans or struck by calamities such as lightening or meteors? Fruits and perishable vegetation is of earthly life, delighting in flowering and scents, fruits and seeds, all symbolising youth, change of life that parallels change if seasons, reproduction.
"At their sound
"The shepherd boy far off upon the hill,
"The workers with the saw and at the forge,
"The triple generation round the hearth—
"Grandames and mothers and the flute-voiced girls—
"Fall on their knees, and send forth prayerful cries
"To the kind Mother with the little Boy,
"Who pleads for helpless men against the storm,
"Lightning and plagues and all terrific shapes Of power supreme."
The last two lines explain much about the superstition imposed by Rome being accepted by those then powerless against much, but George Eliot did live in Germany, did she never hear about maultascen and how they were invented, even if she never lived in Switzerland and so never heard of history of cheese, of second milking, or more along the line?
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And now, for the not so generic -
"Within the prettiest hollow of these hills,
"Just as you enter it, upon the slope
"Stands a low cottage neighboured cheerily
"By running water, which, at farthest end
"Of the same hollow, turns a heavy mill,
"And feeds the pasture for the miller’s cows,
"Blanchi and Nageli, Veilchen and the rest,
"Matrons with faces as Griselda mild,
"Coming at call. And on the farthest height
"A little tower looks out above the pines
"Where mounting you will find a sanctuary
"Open and still; without, the silent crowd
"Of heaven-planted, incense-mingling flowers;
"Within, the altar where the Mother sits
"’Mid votive tablets hung from far-off years
"By peasants succored in the peril of fire,
"Fever, or floods who thought that Mary’s love,
"Willing but not omnipotent, had stood
"Between their lives and that dread power which slew
"Their neighbor at their side. The chapel bell
"Will melt to gentlest music ere it reach
"That cottage on the slope, whose garden gate
"Has caught the rose-tree boughs and stands ajar;
"So does the door, to let the sunbeams in;
"For in the slanting sunbeams angels come
"And visit Agatha who dwells within—
"Old Agatha, whose cousins Kate and Nell
"Are housed by her in Love and Duty’s name,
"They being feeble, with small withered wits,
"And she believing that the higher gift
"Was given to be shared. So Agatha
"Shares her one room, all neat on afternoons,
"As if same memory were sacred there
"And everything within the-four low waIls
"An honored relic."
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Here's far more of quintessential George Eliot -
"One long summer’s day
"An angel entered at the rose-hung gate,
"With skirts pale blue, a brow to quench the pearl,
"Hair soft and blonde as infants’, plenteous
"As hers who made the wavy lengths once speak
"The grateful worship of a rescued soul.
"The angel paused before the open door
"To give good day. “Come in,” said Agatha.
"I followed close, and watched and listened there.
"The angel was a lady, noble, young,
"Taught in all the seemliness that fits the court,
"All lore that shapes the mind to delicate use,
"Yet quiet, lowly, as a meek white dove
"That with its presence teaches gentleness.
"Men called her Countess Linda; little girls
"In Freiburg town, orphans whom she caressed,
"Said Mamma Linda: yet her years were few,
"Her outward beauties all in budding time,
"Her virtues the aroma of the plant
"That dwells in all its being, root, stem, leaf.
"And waits not ripeness."
Oh, Freiburg!
That's nowhere close to ocean, though!
But notice how angels of George Eliot always gave red-gold or blond hair, and of course a higher breeding, even though they don't escape travails, but only must deal with them as best as they possibly could - Dorothea, Romola, even Gwendolyn - while the lesser mortal have blue eyes - Tessa, Rosamond - and the exalted virtuous have dark eyes and hair, shared by the not so exalted - Mirah, Lisa?
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Turns out, Countess Linda is visiting from Freiburg, for reasons not explained.
"Fair Countess Linda sat upon the bench,
"Close fronting the old knitter, and they talked
"With sweet antiphony of young and old.
"Agatha.
"You like our valley, lady? I am glad
"You thought it well to come again. But rest—
"The walk is long from Master Michael’s inn.
"Countess Linda.
"Yes, but no walk is prettier.
"Agatha.
"It is true:
"There lacks no blessing here, the waters all
"Have virtues like the garments of the Lord,
"And heal much sickness; then, the crops and cows
"Flourish past speaking, and the garden flowers,
"Pink, blue, and purple, ’t is a joy to see
"How they yield honey for the singing bees.
"I would the whole world were as good a home.
"Countess Linda.
"And you are well off, Agatha?—your friends
"Left you a certain bread: is it not so?
"Agatha.
"Not so at all, dear lady. I had naught,
"Was a poor orphan; but I came to tend
"Here in this house, an old afflicted pair,
"Who wore out slowly; and the last who died,
"Full thirty years ago, left me this roof
"And all the household stuff. It was great wealth;
"And so I had a home for Kate and Nell.
"Countess Linda.
"But how, then, have you earned your daily bread
"These thirty years?
"Agatha.
"O, that is easy earning.
"We help the neighbors, and our bit and sup.
"Is never failing; they have work for us
"In house and field, all sorts of odds and ends,
"Patching and mending, turning o’er the hay,
"Holding sick children,—there is always work;
"And they are very good,—the neighbors are:
"Weigh not our bits of work with weight and scale,
"But glad themselves with giving us good shares
"Of meat and drink; and in the big farm-house
"When cloth comes home from weaving, the good wife
"Cuts me a piece,—this very gown,—and says:
"“Here, Agatha, you old maid, you have time
"To pray for Hans who is gone soldiering:
"The saints might help him, and they have much to do,
"’T were well they were besought to think of him.”
"She spoke half jesting, but I pray,
"I pray For poor young Hans. I take it much to heart
"That other people are worse off than I,—
"I ease my soul with praying for them all.
"Countess Linda.
"That is your way of singing, Agatha;
"Just as the nightingales pour forth sad songs,
"And when they reach men’s ears they make men’s hearts
"Feel the more kindly."
................................................................................................"Countess Linda.
"When you go southward in your pilgrimage,
"Come to see me in Freiburg, Agatha.
"Where you have friends you should not go to inns.
"Agatha.
"Yes, I will gladly come to see you, lady.
"And you will give me sweet hay for a bed,
"And in the morning I shall wake betimes
"And start when all the birds begin to sing.
"Countess Linda.
"You wear your smart clothes on the pilgrimage,
"Such pretty clothes as all the women here
"Keep by them for their best: a velvet cap
"And collar golden-broidered? They look well
"On old and young alike,
"Agatha.
"Nay, I have none,—
"Never had better clothes than those you see.
"Good clothes are pretty, but one sees them best
"When others wear them, and I somehow thought
"’T was not worth while. I had so many things
"More than some neighbors, I was partly shy
"Of wearing better clothes than they, and now
"I am so old and custom is so strong
"’T would hurt me sore to put on finery.
"Countess Linda.
"Your gray hair is a crown, dear Agatha.
"Shake hands; good-by. The sun is going down
"And I must see the glory from the hill."
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October 04, 2021 - October 04, 2021.
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Armgart
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An idle curiosity to begin with - prompted by the startling realisation that Armgart is supposed to be a name of a young woman, not a castle or village or a post in military! Apart from the fact that one never heard of it, despite being familiar with Germany after residence of years and several visits - Hildegard, yes, but Armgart, no - one has to wonder why George Eliot picks these weird names for her characters. Casaubon, Bulstrode, Lydgate, and now Armgart?!
But coming to the soul and substance of this play in verse, one has to wonder if Ingmar Bergman conceived his Autumn Sonata inspired by this. The dialogue in scene two, between the Graf and Armgart, seem to have inspired the tacit condemnation, almost crucifixion that Bergman had the senior woman go through, confronted by her daughter.
I recall the argument between three students after watching the film, where two argued and one stayed quiet, able to comprehend other two. The younger male repeated his plea about the film being good because it was artistic; the young woman, older than other two, denounced it for the treatment of any woman with a superlative capability, as a bad wife and mother who neglects a home, husband and children.
In a country where a mom calling is a joke, understood in the sense of her being a bore tolerated reluctantly by the males, there is no winning for any females - there's only the ever racing for popularity until one is "pinned", can flash a ring - bigger the stone, better, even if the guy is idiot insufferable - and and proceeds post a white wedding to a career of housekeeping, children, and keeping oneself in latest fadhion, always fearing the straying of glances of the male owner.
And if she does dare to excel at anything - other than Apple pies, of course - she must, at all costs, be stopped; girls are told - not only in U.S., but Europe too - that science is unfeminine, one can't be good at it if one is not a dyke, and final word, one won't be 'popular', i.e., won't find a mate; next, there's harassment of every kind, by male colleagues and female sisterhood left behind, to bend one to their will, in every way possible, with lies if necessary.
Final condemnation is in the form it takes in this play, of course, in scene three - adapted in some form or another in most films and t.v. serials of U.S. and even Indian films - whereby a successful woman is depicted either as a terrible person, or merely ambitious but incapable, crashing in her career, and of course, weeping!
Yes, careers can and do fail; but it's only made into a moral lesson inflicted on females; males can crash and fail too, but are depicted - if not just to turn round and succeed, to be applauded - with sympathy, and often enough to be seen as victims of some woman's fault, if not worse.
Some of the Indian adaptations of Autumn Sonata - one in Hindi, and before that, Unique April in Bengali - are better, in softening the condemnation if any, to a personal grievance by the daughter(s), with the maternal response in the latter bonding the two, and in the former, a discussion in the former awakening the daughter in to understanding, with the mother niw abke to accept responsibility and care of the younger daughter, freeing the elder to her own life.
George Eliot here avoids the condemnation, but scene three has the confrontation between the two women - which Ingmar Bergman turned into accusation spree by daughter against mother - much more real, sympathetic, and focused on a crash suffered by one flying high, rather than heaping on her sins of omission, of not having been perfect in caring for everyone around. George Eliot, to begin with, has her refrain from marrying, and giving up the security of being a Grafina, rather than give up a career - while Ingmar Bergman turned it into a saga about a wife (of an accountant and a mother of two daughters) and a brilliant concert pianist who neglects the home, husband and children, throughout life.
Armgart ends well, with the Graf going to India, leaving the question about a future together postponed, while Armgart decides to rake up teaching as her own teacher did to devote himself to her talent, and going to Freiburg for the purpose. Author explains it for the play, but what was George Eliot's fascination for Freiburg, used in two of the poems, Agatha and Armgart, in this collection, The Legend of Jubal?
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October 04, 2021 - October 04, 2021.
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How Lisa Loved the King,
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Really sweet story, and for another rare instance, told sweetly by George Eliot, whose lines flow much better than her norm.
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"Six hundred years ago, in Dante’s time,
"Before his cheek was furrowed by deep rhyme;
"When Europe, fed afresh from Eastern story,
"Was like a garden tangled with the glory
"Of flowers hand-planted and of flowers air-sown,
"Climbing and trailing, budding and full-blown,
"Where purple bells are tossed amid pink stars,"
....
"Six hundred years ago, Palermo town Kept holiday.
"A deed of great renown, A high revenge, had freed it from the yoke
"Of hated Frenchmen; and from Calpe’s rock
"To where the Bosporus caught the earlier sun,
"’Twas told that Pedro, King of Aragon,
"Was welcomed master of all Sicily,—
"A royal knight, supreme as kings should be
"In strength and gentleness that make high chivalry.
"Spain was the favorite home of knightly grace,
"Where generous men rode steeds of generous race;
"Both Spanish, yet half Arab; both inspired
"By mutual spirit, that each motion fired
"With beauteous response, like minstrelsy
"Afresh fulfilling fresh expectancy."
....
"And in all eyes King Pedro was the king
"Of cavaliers; as in a full-gemmed ring
"The largest ruby, or as that bright star
"Whose shining shows us where the Hyads are.
"His the best genet, and he sat it best;
"His weapon, whether tilting or in rest,
"Was worthiest watching; and his face, once seen,
"Gave to the promise of his royal mien
"Such rich fulfilment as the opened eyes
"Of a loved sleeper, or the long-watched rise
"Of vernal day, whose joy o’er stream and meadow flies."
....
"Whose passion is but worship of that Best
"Taught by the many-mingled creed of each young breast?
"’Twas gentle Lisa, of no noble line,
"Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine,
"Who from his merchant-city hither came
"To trade in drugs; yet kept an honest fame,
"And had the virtue not to try and sell
"Drugs that had none. He loved his riches well,
"But loved them chiefly for his Lisa’s sake,
"Whom with a father’s care he sought to make
"The bride of some true honorable man,—
"Of Perdicone (so the rumor ran),
"Whose birth was higher than his fortunes were,
"For still your trader likes a mixture fair
"Of blood that hurries to some higher strain
"Than reckoning money’s loss and money’s gain.
"And of such mixture good may surely come:
"Lord’s scions so may learn to cast a sum,
"A trader’s grandson bear a well-set head,
"And have less conscious manners, better bred;
"Nor, when he tries to be polite, be rude instead.
"’Twas Perdicone’s friends made overtures
"To good Bernardo; so one dame assures
"Her neighbor dame, who notices the youth
"Fixing his eyes on Lisa; and, in truth,
"Eyes that could see her on this summer day
"Might find it hard to turn another way.
"She had a pensive beauty, yet not sad;
"Rather like minor cadences that glad
"The hearts of little birds amid spring boughs:
"And oft the trumpet or the joust would rouse
"Pulses that gave her cheek a finer glow,
"Parting her lips that seemed a mimic bow
"By chiselling Love for play in coral wrought,
"Then quickened by him with the passionate thought,
"The soul that trembled in the lustrous night
"Of slow long eyes. Her body was so slight,
"It seemed she could have floated in the sky,
"And with the angelic choir made symphony;
"But in her cheek’s rich tinge, and in the dark
"Of darkest hair and eyes, she bore a mark
"Of kinship to her generous mother-earth,
"The fervid land that gives the plumy palm-trees birth.
"She saw not Perdicone; her young mind
"Dreamed not that any man had ever pined
"For such a little simple maid as she:
"She had but dreamed how heavenly it would be
"To love some hero noble, beauteous, great,
"Who would live stories worthy to narrate,"
....
"Who conquered every thing beneath the sun,
"And somehow, some time, died at Babylon
"Fighting the Moors. For heroes all were good
"And fair as that archangel who withstood
"The Evil One, the author of all wrong,—
"That Evil One who made the French so strong;
"And now the flower of heroes must he be
"Who drove those tyrants from dear Sicily,
"So that her maids might walk to vespers tranquilly.
"Young Lisa saw this hero in the king;
"And as wood-lilies that sweet odors bring
"Might dream the light that opes their modest eyne
"Was lily-odored; and as rites divine,
"Round turf-laid altars, or ’neath roofs of stone,
"Draw sanctity from out the heart alone
"That loves and worships: so the miniature
"Perplexed of her soul’s world, all virgin pure,
"Filled with heroic virtues that bright form,
"Raona’s royalty, the finished norm
"Of horsemanship, the half of chivalry;
"For how could generous men avengers be,
"Save as God’s messengers on coursers fleet?—
"These, scouring earth, made Spain with Syria meet
"In one self-world where the same right had sway,
"And good must grow as grew the blessed day.
"No more: great Love his essence had endued
"With Pedro’s form, and, entering, subdued
"The soul of Lisa, fervid and intense,
"Proud in its choice of proud obedience
"To hardship glorified by perfect reverence.
"Sweet Lisa homeward carried that dire guest,
"And in her chamber, through the hours of rest,
"The darkness was alight for her with sheen
"Of arms, and plumèd helm; and bright between
"Their commoner gloss, like the pure living spring
"’Twixt porphyry lips, or living bird’s bright wing
"’Twixt golden wires, the glances of the king
"Flashed on her soul, and waked vibrations there
"Of known delights love-mixed to new and rare:
"The impalpable dream was turned to breathing flesh,
"Chill thought of summer to the warm close mesh
"Of sunbeams held between the citron-leaves,
"Clothing her life of life. Oh! she believes
"That she could be content if he but knew
"(Her poor small self could claim no other due)
"How Lisa’s lowly love had highest reach
"Of wingèd passion, whereto wingèd speech
"Would be scorched remnants left by mounting flame."
....
"She watched all day that she might see him pass
"With knights and ladies; but she said, “Alas!
"Though he should see me, it were all as one
"He saw a pigeon sitting on the stone
"Of wall or balcony: some colored spot
"His eye just sees, his mind regardeth not.
"I have no music-touch that could bring nigh
"My love to his soul’s hearing. I shall die,
"And he will never know who Lisa was,—
"The trader’s child, whose soaring spirit rose
"As hedge-born aloe-flowers that rarest years disclose.
"“For were I now a fair deep-breasted queen
"A-horseback, with blonde hair, and tunic green,
"Gold-bordered, like Costanza, I should need
"No change within to make me queenly there:
"For they the royal-hearted women are
"Who nobly love the noblest, yet have grace;
"For needy suffering lives in lowliest place,
"Carrying a choicer sunlight in their smile,
"The heavenliest ray that pitieth the vile.
"My love is such, it cannot choose but soar
"Up to the highest; yet forevermore,
"Though I were happy, throned beside the king,
"I should be tender to each little thing
"With hurt warm breast, that had no speech to tell
"Its inward pang; and I would soothe it well
"With tender touch, and with a low soft moan
"For company: my dumb love-pang is lone,
"Prisoned as topaz-beam within a rough-garbed stone.”
"So, inward-wailing, Lisa passed her days.
"Each night the August moon with changing phase
"Looked broader, harder, on her unchanged pain;
"Each noon the heat lay heavier again
"On her despair, until her body frail
"Shrank like the snow that watchers in the vale
"See narrowed on the height each summer morn;
"While her dark glance burnt larger, more forlorn,"
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"Father and mother saw with sad dismay
"The meaning of their riches melt away;
"For without Lisa what would sequins buy?
"What wish were left if Lisa were to die?
"Through her they cared for summers still to come,
"Else they would be as ghosts without a home
"In any flesh that could feel glad desire.
"They pay the best physicians, never tire
"Of seeking what will soothe her, promising
"That aught she longed for, though it were a thing
"Hard to be come at as the Indian snow,
"Or roses that on Alpine summits blow,
"It should be hers. She answers with low voice,
"She longs for death alone—death is her choice;
"Death is the king who never did think scorn,
"But rescues every meanest soul to sorrow born."
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"“What is it, Lisa?”—“Father, I would see
"Minuccio, the great singer; bring him me.”
"For always, night and day, her unstilled thought,
"Wandering all o’er its little world, had sought
"How she could reach, by some soft pleading touch,
"King Pedro’s soul, that she who loved so much,"
....
"Minuccio, entreated, gladly came.
"(He was a singer of most gentle fame,
"A noble, kindly spirit, not elate
"That he was famous, but that song was great;
"Would sing as finely to this suffering child
"As at the court where princes on him smiled.)
"Gently he entered and sat down by her,
"Asking what sort of strain she would prefer,—
"The voice alone, or voice with viol wed;
"Then, when she chose the last, he preluded
"With magic hand, that summoned from the strings
"Ærial spirits, rare yet palpable wings
"That fanned the pulses of his listener,
"And waked each sleeping sense with blissful stir.
"Her cheek already showed a slow, faint blush;
"But soon the voice, in pure, full, liquid rush,
"Made all the passion, that till now she felt,
"Seem but as cooler waters that in warmer melt.
"Finished the song, she prayed to be alone
"With kind Minuccio; for her faith had grown
"To trust him as if missioned like a priest
"With some high grace, that, when his singing ceased,
"Still made him wiser, more magnanimous,
"Than common men who had no genius.
"So, laying her small hand within his palm,
"She told him how that secret, glorious harm
"Of loftiest loving had befallen her;
"That death, her only hope, most bitter were,
"If, when she died, her love must perish too
"As songs unsung, and thoughts unspoken do,
"Which else might live within another breast."
....
"He sought a poet-friend, a Siennese,
"And “Mico, mine,” he said, “full oft to please
"Thy whim of sadness I have sung thee strains
"To make thee weep in verse: now pay my pains,
"And write me a canzòn divinely sad,
"Sinlessly passionate, and meekly mad
"With young despair, speaking a maiden’s heart
"Of fifteen summers, who would fain depart
"From ripening life’s new-urgent mystery,—
"Love-choice of one too high her love to be,—
"But cannot yield her breath till she has poured
"Her strength away in this hot-bleeding word,
"Telling the secret of her soul to her soul’s lord.”
"Said Mico, “Nay, that thought is poesy,
"I need but listen as it sings to me.
"Come thou again to-morrow.” The third day,
"When linked notes had perfected the lay,
"Minuccio had his summons to the court,
"To make, as he was wont, the moments short
"Of ceremonious dinner to the king.
"This was the time when he had meant to bring
"Melodious message of young Lisa’s love;
"He waited till the air had ceased to move
"To ringing silver, till Falernian wine
"Made quickened sense with quietude combine;
"And then with passionate descant made each ear incline."
.....
"Love, thou didst see me, light as morning’s breath,
"Roaming a garden in a joyous error,
"Laughing at chases vain, a happy child,
"Till of thy countenance the alluring terror
"In majesty from out the blossoms smiled,"
....
"Tell him, O Love, I am a lowly maid,
"No more than any little knot of thyme
"That he with careless foot may often tread;
"Yet lowest fragrance oft will mount sublime
"And cleave to things most high and hallowèd,
"As doth the fragrance of my life’s springtime,
"My lowly love, that, soaring, seeks to climb
"Within his thought, and make a gentle bliss,
"More blissful than if mine, in being his:
"So shall I live in him, and rest in Death."
"The strain was new. It seemed a pleading cry,
"And yet a rounded, perfect melody,
"Making grief beauteous as the tear-filled eyes
"Of little child at little miseries.
"Trembling at first, then swelling as it rose,
"Like rising light that broad and broader grows,
"It filled the hall, and so possessed the air,
"That not one living, breathing soul was there,
"Though dullest, slowest, but was quivering
"In Music’s grasp, and forced to hear her sing.
"But most such sweet compulsion took the mood
"Of Pedro (tired of doing what he would)."
....
"He called Minuccio, and bade him tell
"What poet of the day had writ so well;
"For, though they came behind all former rhymes,
"The verses were not bad for these poor times.
"“Monsignor, they are only three days old,”
"Minuccio said; “but it must not be told
"How this song grew, save to your royal ear.”
"Eager, the king withdrew where none was near,
"And gave close audience to Minuccio,
"Who meetly told that love-tale meet to know."
....
"He answered without pause, “So sweet a maid,
"In Nature’s own insignia arrayed,
"Though she were come of unmixed trading blood
"That sold and bartered ever since the flood,
"Would have the self-contained and single worth
"Of radiant jewels born in darksome earth.
"Raona were a shame to Sicily,
"Letting such love and tears unhonored be:
"Hasten, Minuccio, tell her that the king
"To-day will surely visit her when vespers ring.”
"Joyful, Minuccio bore the joyous word,
"And told at full, while none but Lisa heard,"
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"She listened till the draughts of pure content
"Through all her limbs like some new being went—
"Life, not recovered, but untried before,
"From out the growing world’s unmeasured store
"Of fuller, better, more divinely mixed."
....
"She asked to have her soft white robe and band
"And coral ornaments; and with her hand
"She gave her long dark locks a backward fall,
"Then looked intently in a mirror small,
"And feared her face might, perhaps, displease the king:
"“In truth,” she said, “I am a tiny thing:
"I was too bold to tell what could such visit bring.”
"Meanwhile the king, revolving in his thought
"That innocent passion, was more deeply wrought
"To chivalrous pity; and at vesper-bell,
"With careless mien which hid his purpose well,
"Went forth on horseback, and, as if by chance
"Passing Bernardo’s house, he paused to glance
"At the fine garden of this wealthy man,
"This Tuscan trader turned Palermitan;
"But, presently dismounting, chose to walk
"Amid the trellises, in gracious talk
"With this same trader, deigning even to ask
"If he had yet fulfilled the father’s task
"Of marrying that daughter, whose young charms
"Himself, betwixt the passages of arms,
"Noted admiringly. “Monsignor, no,
"She is not married: that were little woe,
"Since she has counted barely fifteen years;
"But all such hopes of late have turned to fears;
"She droops and fades, though, for a space quite brief,—
"Scarce three hours past,—she finds some strange relief.”
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"And that same day, ere the sun lay too warm
"On southern terraces, a messenger
"Informed Bernardo that the royal pair
"Would straightway visit him, and celebrate
"Their gladness at his daughter’s happier state,
"Which they were fain to see. Soon came the king
"On horseback, with his barons, heralding
"The advent of the queen in courtly state;
"And all, descending at the garden gate,
"Streamed with their feathers, velvet, and brocade,
"Through the pleached alleys, till they, pausing, made
"A lake of splendor ’mid the aloes gray;
"When, meekly facing all their proud array,
"The white-robed Lisa with her parents stood,
"As some white dove before the gorgeous brood
"Of dapple-breasted birds born by the Colchian flood.
"The king and queen, by gracious looks and speech,
"Encourage her, and thus their courtiers teach
"How, this fair morning, they may courtliest be,
"By making Lisa pass it happily.
"And soon the ladies and the barons all
"Draw her by turns, as at a festival
"Made for her sake, to easy, gay discourse,
"And compliment with looks and smiles enforce;
"A joyous hum is heard the gardens round;
"Soon there is Spanish dancing, and the sound
"Of minstrel’s song, and autumn fruits are pluckt;
"Till mindfully the king and queen conduct
"Lisa apart to where a trellised shade
"Made pleasant resting. Then King Pedro said,—
"“Excellent maiden, that rich gift of love
"Your heart hath made us hath a worth above
"All royal treasures, nor is fitly met
"Save when the grateful memory of deep debt
"Lies still behind the outward honors done:
"And as a sign that no oblivion
"Shall overflood that faithful memory,
"We while we live your cavalier will be;"
....
"But there still rests the outward honor meet
"To mark your worthiness; and we entreat
"That you will turn your ear to proffered vows
"Of one who loves you, and would be your spouse
"We must not wrong yourself and Sicily
"By letting all your blooming years pass by
"Unmated: you will give the world its due
"From beauteous maiden, and become a matron true.”
"Then Lisa, wrapt in virgin wonderment
"At her ambitious love’s complete content,
"Which left no further good for her to seek
"Than love’s obedience, said, with accent meek,—
"“Monsignor, I know well that were it known
"To all the world how high my love had flown,
"There would be few who would not deem me mad,
"Or say my mind the falsest image had
"Of my condition and your loftiness.
"But Heaven has seen that for no moment’s space
"Have I forgotten you to be the king,
"Or me myself to be a lowly thing—
"A little lark, enamoured of the sky,
"That soared to sing, to break its breast, and die.
"But, as you better know than I, the heart
"In choosing chooseth not its own desert,
"But that great merit which attracteth it:
"’Tis law, I struggled, but I must submit,
"And having seen a worth all worth above,
"I loved you, love you, and shall always love."
"But that doth mean, my will is ever yours,
"Not only when your will my good insures,
"But if it wrought me what the world calls harm:
"Fire, wounds, would wear from your dear will a charm.
"That you will be my knight is full content,
"And for that kiss,—I pray, first, for the queen’s consent.”
"Her answer, given with such firm gentleness,
"Pleased the queen well, and made her hold no less
"Of Lisa’s merit than the king had held.
"And so, all cloudy threats of grief dispelled,
"There was betrothal made that very morn
"’Twixt Perdicone, youthful, brave, well-born,
"And Lisa whom he loved; she loving well
"The lot that from obedience befell.
"The queen a rare betrothal ring on each
"Bestowed, and other gems, with gracious speech.
"And, that no joy might lack, the king, who knew
"The youth was poor, gave him rich Ceffalù
"And Cataletta,—large and fruitful lands,—
"Adding much promise when he joined their hands.
"At last he said to Lisa, with an air
"Gallant yet noble, “Now we claim our share
"From your sweet love, a share which is not small;
"For in the sacrament one crumb is all.”
"Then, taking her small face his hands between,
"He kissed her on the brow with kiss serene,—
"Fit seal to that pure vision her young soul had seen.
"And many witnessed that King Pedro kept
"His royal promise. Perdicone stept
"To many honors honorably won,
"Living with Lisa in true union.
"Throughout his life, the king still took delight
"To call himself fair Lisa’s faithful knight;
"And never wore in field or tournament
"A scarf or emblem, save by Lisa sent.
"Such deeds made subjects loyal in that land;
"They joyed that one so worthy to command,
"So chivalrous and gentle, had become
"The king of Sicily, and filled the room
"Of Frenchmen, who abused the Church’s trust,
"Till, in a righteous vengeance on their lust,
"Messina rose, with God, and with the dagger’s thrust."
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October 03, 2021 - October 03, 2021.
Purchased January 21, 2021.
Kindle Edition, 58 pages
Published March 24th 2011
(first published 1869)
Original Title
How Lisa Loved The King
ASIN:- B004TRGU5E
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A Minor Prophet
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Where and how would George Eliot even hear of a vegetarian?
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One doesn't know if George Eliot is trying to be outlandish, satirical, or just trying to write humour, but it isn't funny in the opening line.
"I have a friend, a vegetarian seer,
"By name Elias Baptist Butterworth,
A harmless, bland, disinterested man,
"Whose ancestors in Cromwell’s day believed
"The Second Advent certain in five years,
"But when King Charles the Second came instead,
"Revised their date and sought another world:
"I mean—not heaven but—America.
"A fervid stock, whose generous hope embraced
"The fortunes of mankind, not stopping short
"At rise of leather, or the fall of gold,
"Nor listening to the voices of the time
"As housewives listen to a cackling hen,
"With wonder whether she has laid her egg
"On their own nest-egg. Still they did insist
"Somewhat too wearisomely on the joys
"Of their Millennium, when coats and hats
"Would all be of one pattern, books and songs
"All fit for Sundays, and the casual talk
"As good as sermons preached extempore."
Nowhere could a European have even heard of anyone vegetarian, except in India, during the lifetime of George Eliot or before - it's Beatles who made India and yoga fashionable, and until then attitude towards India varied from fraud a la Macaulay to contempt a la most racist colonial invaders to reverence a la some evolved souls including a few of the great German authors - so her opening line is nothing but contempt of an ignorant racist for an ancient culture far more evolved, and rich in treasure of knowledge, than she and her nation could have imagined. And until central heating, hot water and greater ease of shipping came in, which wasn't until middle of twentieth century, a vegetarian diet wasn't possible in Europe; it would have been very difficult in most parts of U.S., too.
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And she continues ridiculing things far beyond grasp of most of West-
"So the Thought-atmosphere is everywhere:
"High truths that glimmered under other names
"To ancient sages, whence good scholarship
"Applied to Eleusinian mysteries—
"The Vedas—Tripitaka—Vendidad—
"Might furnish weaker proof for weaker minds
"That Thought was rapping in the hoary past,
"And might have edified the Greeks by raps
"At the greater Dionysia, if their ears
"Had not been filled with Sophoclean verse.
"And when all Earth is vegetarian—
"When, lacking butchers, quadrupeds die out,
"And less Thought-atmosphere is reabsorbed
"By nerves of insects parasitical,
"Those higher truths, seized now by higher minds
"But not expressed (the insects hindering),
"Will either flash out into eloquence,
"Or better still, be comprehensible
"By rappings simply, without need of roots."
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Funny how things reverse, and what she thought once funny has now come to be dead serious, but in a very different way.
"’T is on this theme—the vegetarian world—
"That good Elias willingly expands:
"He loves to tell in mildly nasal tones
"And vowels stretched to suit the widest views,
"The future fortunes of our infant Earth—
"When it will be too full of human kind
"To have the room for wilder animals.
"Saith he, Sahara will be populous
"With families of gentlemen retired
"From commerce in more Central Africa,
"Who order coolness as we order coal,
"And have a lobe anterior strong enough
"To think away the sand-storms. Science thus
"Will leave no spot on this terraqueous globe
"Unfit to be inhabited by man,
"The chief of animals: all meaner brutes
"Will have been smoked or elbowed out of life."
Well, ordering cool in Sahara isn't that different from routinely air conditioned homes, offices and cars, across Southern U.S.- especially Texas. And feeding humans, environmental science tells us, will be better and cheaper with a more vegetarian diet, if not completely vegetarian one. Meat industry is laying oceans waste, apart from other concerns.
"No lions then shall lap Caffrarian pools,
"Or shake the Atlas with their midnight roar:
"Even the slow, slime-loving crocodile,
"The last of animals to take a hint,
"Will then retire forever from a scene
"Where public feeling strongly sets against him.
"Fishes may lead carnivorous lives obscure,"
Well, several species have gone extinct, beginning during era of colonial expansion, from Dodo onwards; concern about this turned matters around for whales, but thanks to British, lions of India are in fact on verge of extinction.
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"Imagination in that distant age,
"Aiming at fiction called historical,
"Will vainly try to reconstruct the times
"When it was man’s preposterous delight
"To sit astride live horses, which consumed
"Materials for incalculable cakes;
"When there were milkmaids who drew milk from cows
"With udders kept abnormal for that end
"Since the rude mythopoeic period
"Of Aryan dairymen who did not blush
"To call their milkmaid and their daughter one—
"Helplessly gazing at the Milky Way,
"Nor dreaming of the astral cocoa-nuts
"Quite at the service of posterity."
Well, it isn't quite fable yet, but it's almost there. Riding horses is far more expensive than driving, especially in U.S.; dairies In most of industrial world use machines for milking. And what she meant by astral cocoa-nuts, who knows!
"By dint of diet vegetarian
"All will be harmony of hue and line,
"Bodies and minds all perfect, limbs well-turned,
"And talk quite free from aught erroneous.
"Thus far Elias in his seer’s mantle:
"But at this climax in his prophecy
"My sinking spirits, fearing to be swamped,
"Urge me to speak.
“High prospects, these, my friend,
"Setting the weak carnivorous brain astretch;
"We will resume the thread another day.”
"“To-morrow,” cries Ellas, “at this hour?”
"“No, not to-morrow—I shall have a cold—
"At least I feel some soreness—this endemic—
"Good-by.”"
After this, George Eliot's verses flow.
"For purest pity is the eye of love
"Melting at sight of sorrow; and to grieve
"Because it sees no sorrow, shows a love
"Warped from its truer nature, turned to love
"Of merest habit, like the miser’s greed.
"But I am Colin still: my prejudice
"Is for the flavour of my daily food.
"Not that I doubt the world is growing still
"As once it grew from Chaos and from Night;
"Or have a soul too shrunken for the hope
"Which dawned in human breasts, a double morn,
"With earliest watchings of the rising light
"Chasing the darkness; and through many an age
"Has raised the vision of a future time
"That stands an Angel with a face all mild
"Spearing the demon. I too rest in faith
"That man’s perfection is the crowning flower,
"Toward which the urgent sap in life’s great tree
"Is pressing—seen in puny blossoms now,
"But in the world’s great morrows to expand
"With broadest petal and with deepest glow."
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"Yet, see the patched and plodding citizen
"Waiting upon the pavement with the throng
"While some victorious world-hero makes
"Triumphal entry, and the peal of shouts
"And flush of faces ‘neath uplifted hats
"Run like a storm of joy along the streets!
"He says, “God bless him!” almost with a sob,
"As the great hero passes; he is glad
"The world holds mighty men and mighty deeds;
"The music stirs his pulses like strong wine,
"The moving splendour touches him with awe—
"’T is glory shed around the common weal,
"And he will pay his tribute willingly,
"Though with the pennies earned by sordid toil.
"Perhaps the hero’s deeds have helped to bring
"A time when every honest citizen
"Shall wear a coat unpatched. And yet he feels
"More easy fellowship with neighbours there
"Who look on too; and he will soon relapse
"From noticing the banners and the steeds
"To think with pleasure there is just one bun
"Left in his pocket, that may serve to tempt
"The wide-eyed lad, whose weight is all too much
"For that young mother’s arms: and then he falls
"To dreamy picturing of sunny days
"When he himself was a small big-cheeked lad
"In some far village where no heroes came,
"And stood a listener ’twixt his father’s legs
"In the warm fire-light while the old folk talked
"And shook their heads and looked upon the floor;
"And he was puzzled, thinking life was fine—
"The bread and cheese so nice all through the year
"And Christmas sure to come! Oh that good time!
"He, could he choose, would have those days again
"And see the dear old-fashioned things once more.
"But soon the wheels and drums have all passed by
"And tramping feet are heard like sudden rain:
"The quiet startles our good citizen;
"He feels the child upon his arms, and knows
"He is with the people making holiday
"Because of hopes for better days to come.
"But Hope to him was like the brilliant west
"Telling of sunrise in a world unknown.
"And from that dazzling curtain of bright hues
"He turned to the familiar face of fields
"Lying all clear in the calm morning land.
"Maybe ’t is wiser not to fix a lens
"Too scrutinizing on the glorious times
"When Barbarossa shall arise and shake
"His mountain, good King Arthur come again.
"And all the heroes of such giant soul
"That, living once to cheer mankind with hope,
"They had to sleep until the time was ripe
"For greater deeds to match their greater thought.
"Yet no! the earth yields nothing more Divine
"Than high prophetic vision—than the Seer
"Who fasting from man’s meaner joy beholds
"The paths of beauteous order, and constructs
"A fairer type to shame our low content.
"But prophecy is like potential sound
"Which turned to music seems a voice sublime
"From out the soul of light; but turns to noise
"In scrannel pipes, and makes all ears averse."
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"Presentiment of better things on earth
"Sweeps in with every force that stirs our souls
"To admiration, self-renouncing love,
"Or thoughts, like light, that bind the world in one,—
"Sweeps like the sense of vastness, when at night
"We hear the roll and dash of waves that break
"Nearer and nearer with the rushing tide,
"Which rises to the level of the cliff
"Because the wide Atlantic rolls behind,
"Throbbing respondent to the far-off orbs."
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October 04, 2021 - October 04, 2021.
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Brother and Sister
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Even right at the beginning, one cannot help marvelling about how much better these verses are, compared to most of her work, poetry or prose - for once, she's writing from her heart, not caring about impressing anyone, and her verses flow so very smooth, as a brook would in a bed of its own, undisturbed!
"I cannot choose but think upon the time
"When our two lives grew like two buds that kiss
"At lightest thrill from the bee’s swinging chime,
"Because the one so near the other is.
"He was the elder and a little man
"Of forty inches, bound to show no dread,
"And I the girl that puppy-like now ran,
"Now lagged behind my brother’s larger tread.
"I held him wise, and when he talked to me
"Of snakes and birds, and which God loved the best,
"I thought his knowledge marked the boundary
"Where men grew blind, though angels knew the rest.
"If he said Hush! I tried to hold my breath;
"Wherever he said Come! I stepped in faith."
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"Long years have left their writing on my brow,
"But yet the freshness and the dew-fed beam
"Of those young mornings are about me now,
"When we two wandered toward the far-off stream
"With rod and line. Our basket held a store
"Baked for us only, and I thought with joy
"That I should have my share, though he had more,
"Because he was the elder and a boy.
"The firmaments of daisies since to me
"Have had those mornings in their opening eyes,
"The bunchèd cowslip’s pale transparency
"Carries that sunshine of sweet memories,
"And wild-rose branches take their finest scent
"From those blest hours of infantine content."
................................................................................................"Our mother bade us keep the trodden ways,
"Stroked down my tippet, set my brother’s frill,
"Then with the benediction of her gaze
"Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still
"Across the homestead to the rookery elms,
"Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound,
"So rich for us, we counted them as realms
"With varied products: here were earth-nuts found,
"And here the Lady-fingers in deep shade;
"Here sloping toward the Moat the rushes grew,
"The large to split for pith, the small to braid;
"While over all the dark rooks cawing flew,
"And made a happy strange solemnity,
"A deep-toned chant from life unknown to me."
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"Our meadow-path had memorable spots:
"One where it bridged a tiny rivulet,
"Deep hid by tangled blue Forget-me-nots;
"And all along the waving grasses met
"My little palm, or nodded to my cheek,
"When flowers with upturned faces gazing drew
"My wonder downward, seeming all to speak
"With eyes of souls that dumbly heard and knew.
"Then came the copse, where wild things rushed unseen,
"And black-scathed grass betrayed the past abode
"Of mystic gypsies, who still lurked between
"Me and each hidden distance of the road.
"A gypsy once had startled me at play,
"Blotting with her dark smile my sunny day."
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Here she's suddenly old, wise, especially at the ending line of this verse.
"Thus rambling we were schooled in deepest lore,
"And learned the meanings that give words a soul,
"The fear, the love, the primal passionate store,
"Whose shaping impulses make manhood whole.
"Those hours were seed to all my after good;
"My infant gladness, through eye, ear, and touch,
"Took easily as warmth a various food
"To nourish the sweet skill of loving much.
"For who in age shall roam the earth and find
"Reasons for loving that will strike out love
"With sudden rod from the hard year-pressed mind?
"Were reasons sown as thick as stars above,
"’Tis love must see them, as the eye sees light:
"Day is but Number to the darkened sight."
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What a serene portrayal here, bringing her depiction alive along with ones own hours of youth, however little the two had in common.
"Our brown canal was endless to my thought;
"And on its banks I sat in dreamy peace,
"Unknowing how the good I loved was wrought,
"Untroubled by the fear that it would cease.
"Slowly the barges floated into view
"Rounding a grassy hill to me sublime
"With some Unknown beyond it, whither flew
"The parting cuckoo toward a fresh spring time.
"The wide-arched bridge, the scented elder-flowers,
"The wondrous watery rings that died too soon,
"The echoes of the quarry, the still hours
"With white robe sweeping-on the shadeless noon,
"Were but my growing self, are part of me,
"My present Past, my root of piety."
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And here, a moment of young years captured, where vision of a child suddenly widens to a vast, taking in universe, for ever remembered.
"Those long days measured by my little feet
"Had chronicles which yield me many a text;
"Where irony still finds an image meet
"Of full-grown judgments in this world perplext.
"One day my brother left me in high charge,
"To mind the rod, while he went seeking bait,
"And bade me, when I saw a nearing barge,
"Snatch out the line lest he should come too late.
"Proud of the task, I watched with all my might
"For one whole minute, till my eyes grew wide,
"Till sky and earth took on a strange new light
"And seemed a dream-world floating on some tide—
"A fair pavilioned boat for me alone
"Bearing me onward through the vast unknown."
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Typical, of sisters who grow up with a brother slightly older. The last line, again, is from that vast vision capturing the child of one's past being, and widening view to the universal.
"His sorrow was my sorrow, and his joy
"Sent little leaps and laughs through all my frame;
"My doll seemed lifeless and no girlish toy
"Had any reason when my brother came.
"I knelt with him at marbles, marked his fling
"Cut the ringed stem and make the apple drop,
"Or watched him winding close the spiral string
"That looped the orbits of the humming top.
"Grasped by such fellowship my vagrant thought
"Ceased with dream-fruit dream-wishes to fulfil;
"My aëry-picturing fantasy was taught
"Subjection to the harder, truer skill
"That seeks with deeds to grave a thought-tracked line,
"And by What is, What will be to define."
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"School parted us; we never found again
"That childish world where our two spirits mingled
"Like scents from varying roses that remain
"One sweetness, nor can evermore be singled.
"Yet the twin habit of that early time
"Lingered for long about the heart and tongue:
"We had been natives of one happy clime
"And its dear accent to our utterance clung.
"Till the dire years whose awful name is
"Change Had grasped our souls still yearning in divorce,
"And pitiless shaped them in two forms that range
"Two elements which sever their life’s course.
"But were another childhood-world my share,
"I would be born a little sister there.”"
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October 04, 2021 - October 04, 2021.
Kindle Edition, 11 pages
Published October 15th 2014
by The Perfect Library
ASIN:- B00OL0RAMQ
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October 04, 2021 - October 04, 2021.
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Stradivarius.
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STRADIVARIUS.
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The two separate poems, STRADIVARIUS and GOD NEEDS ANTONIO, have the same thene; it isn't clear if George Eliot was unsatisfied with an earlier version, and wrote the other. Neither is as belaboured as most of her work, they both flow well, although the concept is of a dialogue between two very different artistes of which one is much less known. West, though, might not label Stradivarius an artist. Still, it's a poem where honesty of one's application to ones vocation is lauded as highest spiritual level of life, and as such, it's more India in spirit than abrahmic or West.
In a later generation, Galsworthy wrote eulogies to this unity, between an artist or craftsman, and his work, where the man or woman gives one's best to the work; his short story about a poor bootmaker, unknown but for those using his boots, was a eulogy to the worker and to the era, as was the piece about old hansom cabs. But his Man of Property (titled so later after the first title - Forsyte Saga, later extended to Forsyte Chronicles - was extended to the series of books) was a subtle eulogy to the highest offered by the poor young architect to his work, forever immortalised subtly by the tale, the saga.
"Your soul was lifted by the wings to-day
"Hearing the master of the violin:
"You praised him, praised the great Sebastian too
"Who made that fine Chaconne; but did you think
"Of old Antonio Stradivari ?—him
"Who a good century and half ago
"Put his true work in that brown instrument
"And by the nice adjustment of its frame
"Gave it responsive life, continuous
"With the master’s finger-tips and perfected
"Like them by delicate rectitude of use.
"Not Bach alone, helped by fine precedent
"Of genius alone before, nor Joachim
"Who holds the strain afresh incorporate
"By inward hearing and notation strict
"Of nerve and muscle, made our joy to-day:
"Another soul was living in the air
"And swaying it to true deliverance
"Of high invention and responsive skill:—
"That plain white-aproned man who stood at work
"Patient and accurate full fourscore years,
"Cherished his sight and touch by temperance,
"And since keen sense is love of perfectness
"Made perfect violins, the needed paths
"For inspiration and high mastery.
"No simpler man than he: he never cried,
"“Why was I born to this monotonous task
"Of making violins ?” or flung them down
"To suit with hurling act a well-hurled curse
"At labour on such perishable stuff.
"Hence neighbours in Cremona held him dull,
"Called him a slave, a mill-horse, a machine,
"Begged him to tell his motives or to lend
"A few gold pieces to a loftier mind.
"Yet he had pithy words full fed by fact;
"For fact, well-trusted, reasons and persuades,
"Is gnomic, cutting, or ironical,
"Draws tears, or is a tocsin to arouse—
"Can hold all figures of the orator
"In one plain sentence; has her pauses too—
"Eloquent silence at the chasm abrupt
"Where knowledge ceases. Thus Antonio
"Made answers as Fact willed, and made them strong"
"“I like the gold—well, yes—but not for meals.
"And as my stomach, so my eye and hand,
"And inward sense that works along with both,
"Have hunger that can never feed on coin.
"Who draws a line and satisfies his soul,
"Making it crooked where it should be straight? An idiot with an oyster-shell may draw
"His lines along the sand, all wavering,
"Fixing no point or pathway to a point;
"An idiot one remove may choose his line,
"Straggle and be content; but God be praised,
"Antonio Stradivari has an eye
"That winces at false work and loves the true,
"With hand and arm that play upon the tool
"As willingly as any singing bird
"Sets him to sing his morning roundelay,
"Because he likes to sing and likes the song.”"
"“’Twere purgatory here to make them ill;
"And for my fame—when any master holds
"’Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine,
"He will be glad that Stradivari lived,
"The masters only know whose work is good:
"They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill
"I give them instruments to play upon,
"God choosing me to help Him.”"
"“Why, many hold Giuseppi’s violins
"As good as thine.”
"“May be: they are different.
"His quality declines: he spoils his hand
"With over-drinking. But were his the best,
"He could not work for two. My work is mine,
"And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked
"I should rob God—since He is fullest good—
"Leaving a blank instead of violins.
"I say, not God Himself can make man’s best
"Without best men to help Him. I am one best
"Here in Cremona, using sunlight well
"To fashion finest maple till it serves
"More cunningly than throats, for harmony.
"’Tis rare delight: I would not change my skill
"To be the Emperor with bungling hands,
"And lose my work, which comes as natural
"As self at waking.”
"“Thou art little more
"Than a deft potter’s wheel, Antonio;
"Turning out work by mere necessity
"And lack of varied function. Higher arts
"Subsist on freedom—eccentricity—
"Uncounted aspirations—influence
"That comes with drinking, gambling, talk turned wild,
"Then moody misery and lack of food—
"With every dithyrambic fine excess:
"These make at last a storm which flashes out
"In lightning revelations. Steady work
"Turns genius to a loom; the soul must lie
"Like grapes beneath the sun till ripeness comes
"And mellow vintage. I could paint you now
"The finest Crucifixion; yesternight
"Returning home I saw it on a sky
"Blue-black, thick-starred.
"I want two louis d’ors
"To buy the canvas and the costly blues—
"Trust me for a fortnight.”
"“Where are those last two
"I lent thee for thy Judith?—her thou saw’st
"In saffron gown, with Holofernes’ head
"And beauty all complete ?”
"“She is but sketched:
"I lack the proper model—and the mood.
"A great idea is an eagle’s egg,
"Craves time for hatching; while the eagle sits
"Feed her.”
"“If thou wilt call thy pictures eggs
"I call the hatching, Work. ’Tis God gives skill,
"But not without men’s hands; He could not make
"Antonio Stradivari’s violins
"Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel.”"
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October 01, 2021 - October 02, 2021.
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A College Breakfast-Party.
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A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY
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The idea is certainly amusing, Hamlet and Horatio and others at a college breakfast. Anybody else would mark a hilarious skit, whether prose or verse. George Eliot makes it a long discussion of philosophy, eighteen pages long, daunting enough to anyone unfamiliar with her long, twisted, convoluted sentences that can only get more difficult. To those finished with her prose and also with a massive heart attack in midst thereof, it requires extra courage to proceed. But kindle has mistakenly branded all those collections of her works "read", and attempt to undo that has resulted in listing one - Delphi - as not to be counted, but still read! So one is going to plod through and delay pleasure of reading other, lighter stuff.
Characters here may borrow their names from literature, but one may wonder if this group discussing philosophy at breakfast was modeled on her own groups, either friends and visitors at home of the Bray family, or later that of the Lewes family.
Hamlet's dialogue after departure of the priest pinpoints precisely what's wrong with church, if the priest's own didn't make it clear already - it's the imposition of church ordering faith as alternative to thought, and the only choice when faced with mystery.
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"Young Hamlet, not the hesitating Dane,
"But one named after him, who lately strove
"For honours at our English Wittenberg,—
"Blonde, metaphysical, and sensuous,
"Questioning all things and yet half convinced
"Credulity were better; held inert
"’Twixt fascinations of all opposites,
"And half suspecting that the mightiest soul
"(Perhaps his own?) was union of extremes,
"Having no choice but choice of everything:
"As, drinking deep to-day for love of wine,
And here's the racist, ignorant author, familiar from the last offering in Impressions of Theophrastus Such -
"To-morrow half a Brahmin, scorning life
"As mere illusion, yearning for that
"True Which has no qualities; another day
"Finding the fount of grace in sacraments.
"And purest reflex of the light divine
"In gem-bossed pyx and broidered chasuble,
Shes mixing what little she's heard about India - from likes of Macaulay who were derisive and contemptuous as colonising invaders would be to those they looted, just as males are towards females not protected by males more powerful - but without thinking, with concepts from abrahmic faiths, and making a Complete mess, of course! Fortunately that is that, and she proceeds with what she knows -
"Resolved to wear no stockings and to fast
"With arms extended, waiting ecstasy;
"But getting cramps instead, and needing change,
"A would-be pagan next:
"Young Hamlet sat
"A guest with five of somewhat riper age
"At breakfast with Horatio, a friend
"With few opinions, but of faithful heart,
"Quick to detect the fibrous spreading roots
"Of character that feed men’s theories,
"Yet cloaking weaknesses with charity
"And ready in all service save rebuke."
"With ebb of breakfast and the cider-cup
"Came high debate: the others seated there
"Were Osric, spinner of fine sentences,
"A delicate insect creeping over life
"Feeding on molecules of floral breath,
"And weaving gossamer to trap the sun;
"Laertes ardent, rash, and radical;
"Discursive Rosencranz, grave Guildenstern,
"And he for whom the social meal was made—
"The polished priest, a tolerant listener,
"Disposed to give a hearing to the lost,
"And breakfast with them ere they went below.
"From alpine metaphysic glaciers first
"The talk sprang copious; the themes were old,
"But so is human breath, so infant eyes,
"The daily nurslings of creative light.
"Small words held mighty meanings:
"Matter, Force, Self, Not-self,
"Being, Seeming, Space and Time—
"Plebeian toilers on the dusty road
"Of daily traffic, turned to Genii
"And cloudy giants darkening sun and moon.
"Creation was reversed in human talk:
"None said, “Let Darkness be,” but Darkness was;
"And in it weltered with Teutonic ease,
"An argumentative Leviathan,
"Blowing cascades from out his element,
"The thunderous Rosencranz, till
"“Truce, I beg!”
"Said Osric, with nice accent. “I abhor
"That battling of the ghosts, that strife of terms
"For utmost lack of colour, form, and breath.
"That tasteless squabbling called
"Philosophy As if a blue-winged butterfly afloat
"For just three days above the Italian fields,
"Poising in sunshine, fluttering toward its bride,
"Should fast and speculate, considering
"What were if it were not?” or what now is
"Instead of that which seems to be itself?
"Its deepest wisdom surely were to be
"A sipping, marrying, blue-winged butterfly;
"Since utmost speculation on itself
"Were but a three days’ living of worse sort—
"A bruising struggle all within the bounds
"Of butterfly existence.”
"“I protest,”
"Burst in Laertes, “against arguments
"That start with calling me a butterfly,
"A bubble, spark, or other metaphor
"Which carries your conclusions as a phrase
"In quibbling law will carry property."
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....
"Why, rhetoric brings within your easy reach
"Conclusions worthy of—a butterfly.
"The universe, I hold, is no charade,
"No acted pun unriddled by a word,
"Nor pain a decimal diminishing
"With hocus-pocus of a dot or nought.
"For those who know it, pain is solely pain:
"Not any letters of the alphabet
"Wrought syllogistically pattern-wise,
"Nor any cluster of fine images,
"Nor any missing of their figured dance
"By blundering molecules. Analysis
"May show you the right physic for the ill,
"Teaching the molecules to find their dance,
"Instead of sipping at the heart of flowers.
"But spare me your analogies, that hold
"Such insight as the figure of a crow
"And bar of music put to signify A crowbar.”
"Said the Priest, “There I agree—"
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"I—nay, the Church objects nought, is content:
"Reason has reached its utmost negative,
"Physic and metaphysic meet in the inane
"And backward shrink to intense prejudice,
"Making their absolute and homogene
"A loaded relative, a choice to be
"Whatever is—supposed, a What is not."
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"Though fed and clad by dissoluble waves
"Has antecedent quality, and rules
"By veto or consent the strife of thought,
"Making arbitrament that we call faith.”"
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"Laertes granting, I will put your case
"In analogic form: the doctors hold
"Hunger which gives no relish—save caprice
"That tasting venison fancies mellow pears—
"A symptom of disorder, and prescribe
"Strict discipline. Were I physician here
"I would prescribe that exercise of soul
"Which lies in full obedience: you ask,
"Obedience to what? The answer lies
"Within the word itself; for how obey
"What has no rule, asserts no absolute claim?
"Take inclination, taste—why that is you,
"No rule above you. Science, reasoning
"On nature’s order—they exist and move
"Solely by disputation, hold no pledge
"Of final consequence, but push the swing
"Where Epicurus and the Stoic sit
"In endless see-saw. One authority,
"And only one, says simply this.
"Obey: Place yourself in that current (test it so!)
"Of spiritual order where at least
"Lies promise of a high communion,"
"A Head informing members, Life that breathes
"With gift of forces over and above
"The plus of arithmetic interchange.
"‘The Church too has a body,’ you object,
"‘Can be dissected, put beneath the lens
"And shown the merest continuity
"Of all existence else beneath the sun.’
"I grant you; but the lens will not disprove
"A presence which eludes it. Take your wit,
"Your highest passion, widest-reaching thought:
"Show their conditions if you will or can,
"But though you saw the final atom-dance
"Making each molecule that stands for sign
"Of love being present, where is still your love?
"How measure that, how certify its weight?
"And so I say, the body of the Church
"Carries a Presence, promises and gifts
"Never disproved—whose argument is found
"In lasting failure of the search elsewhere
"For what it holds to satisfy man’s need.
"But I grow lengthy: my excuse must be
"Your question, Hamlet, which has probed right through
"To the pith of our belief. And I have robbed
"Myself of pleasure as a listener.
"’T is noon, I see; and my appointment stands
"For half-past twelve with Voltimand. Good-by.”"
"Brief parting, brief regret—sincere, but quenched
"In fumes of best Havana, which consoles
"For lack of other certitude. Then said,
"Mildly sarcastic, quiet Guildenstern:
"“I marvel how the Father gave new charm
"To weak conclusions: I was half convinced
"The poorest reasoner made the finest man,
"And held his logic lovelier for its limp.”"
"“I fain would hear,” said Hamlet, “how you find
"A stronger footing than the Father gave.
"How base your self-resistance save on faith
"In some invisible Order, higher Right
"Than changing impulse. What does Reason bid?
"To take a fullest rationality
"What offers best solution: so the Church.
"Science, detecting hydrogen aflame
"Outside our firmament, leaves mystery
"Whole and untouched beyond; nay, in our blood
"And in the potent atoms of each germ
"The Secret lives—envelops, penetrates
"Whatever sense perceives or thought divines.
"Science, whose soul is explanation, halts
"With hostile front at mystery. The Church
"Takes mystery as her empire, brings its wealth
"Of possibility to fill the void
"’Twixt contradictions—warrants so a faith
"Defying sense and all its ruthless train
"Of arrogant ‘Therefores.’ Science with her lens
"Dissolves the Forms that made the other half
"Of all our love, which thenceforth widowed lives
"To gaze with maniac stare at what is not.
"The Church explains not, governs—feeds resolve
"By vision fraught with heart-experience
"And human yearning.”"
"“Ay,” said Guildenstern,
"With friendly nod, “the Father, I can see,
"Has caught you up in his air-chariot.
"His thought takes rainbow-bridges, out of reach
"By solid obstacles, evaporates
"The coarse and common into subtilties.
"Insists that what is real in the Church
"Is something out of evidence, and begs
"(Just in parenthesis) you’ll never mind
"What stares you in the face and bruises you.
"Why, by his method I could justify
"Each superstition and each tyranny
"That ever rode upon the back of man,
"Pretending fitness for his sole defence
"Against life’s evil. How can aught subsist
"That holds no theory of gain or good?
"Despots with terror in their red right hand
"Must argue good to helpers and themselves,
"Must let submission hold a core of gain
"To make their slaves choose life.
"Their theory, Abstracting inconvenience of racks,
"Whip-lashes, dragonnades and all things coarse
"Inherent in the fact or concrete mass,
"Presents the pure idea—utmost good
"Secured by Order only to be found
"In strict subordination, hierarchy
"Of forces where, by nature’s law, the strong
"Has rightful empire, rule of weaker proved
"Mere dissolution. What can you object?
"The Inquisition—if you turn away
"From narrow notice how the scent of gold
"Has guided sense of damning heresy—
"The Inquisition is sublime, is love
"Hindering the spread of poison in men’s souls:
"The flames are nothing: only smaller pain
"Te hinder greater, or the pain of one
"To save the many, such as throbs at heart
"Of every system born into the world.
"So of the Church as high communion
"Of Head with members, fount of spirit force
"Beyond the calculus, and carrying proof
"In her sole power to satisfy man’s need:
"That seems ideal truth as clear as lines
"That, necessary though invisible, trace
"The balance of the planets and the sun—
"Until I find a hitch in that last claim."
....
"I argue not against yon. Who can prove
"Wit to be witty when the deeper ground
"Dullness intuitive declares wit dull?
"If life is worthless to you—why, it is."
....
"I am no optimist whose fate must hang
"On hard pretence that pain is beautiful
"And agony explained for men at ease
"By virtue’s exercise in pitying it.
"But this I hold: that he who takes one gift
"Made for him by the hopeful work of man,
"Who tastes sweet bread, walks where he will unarmed,
"His shield and warrant the invisible law,
"Who owns a hearth and household charities,
"Who clothes his body and his sentient soul
"With skill and thoughts of men, and yet denies
"A human good worth toiling for, is cursed
"With worse negation than the poet feigned
"In Mephistopheles. The Devil spins
"His wire-drawn argument against all good
"With sense of brimstone as his private lot,
"And never drew a solace from the Earth.”"
"Laertes fuming paused, and Guildenstern
"Took up with cooler skill the fusillade:
"“I meet your deadliest challenge, Rosencranz—"
....
"Do Boards and dirty-handed millionaires
"Govern the planetary system?—sway
"The pressure of the Universe?—decide
"That man henceforth shall retrogress to ape,
"Emptied of every sympathetic thrill
"The All has wrought up in him? dam up henceforth
"The flood of human claims as private force
"To turn their wheels and make a private hell
"For fish-pond to their mercantile domain?
"What are they but a parasitic growth
"On the vast real and ideal world
"Of man and nature blent in one divine?
"Why, take your closing dirge—say evil grows
"And good is dwindling; science mere decay,
"Mere dissolution of ideal wholes
"Which through the ages past alone have made
"The earth and firmament of human faith;
"Say, the small arc of Being we call man
"Is near its mergence, what seems growing life
"Nought but a hurrying change toward lower types,
"The ready rankness of degeneracy.
"Well, they who mourn for the world’s dying good
"May take their common sorrows for a rock,
"On it erect religion and a church,
"A worship, rites, and passionate piety—
"The worship of the Rest though crucified
"And God-forsaken in its dying pangs;
"The sacramental rites of fellowship
"In common woe; visions that purify
"Through admiration and despairing love
"Which keep their spiritual life intact
"Beneath the murderous clutches of disproof
"And feed a martyr-strength.”
"“Religion high!”
"(Rosencranz here) “but with communicants
"Few as the cedars upon Lebanon—
"A child might count them.
"What the world demands
"Is faith coercive of the multitude.”
"“Tush, Guildenstern, you granted him too much,”
"Burst in Laertes; “I will never grant
"One inch of law to feeble blasphemies
"Which hold no higher ratio to life—
"Full vigorous human life that peopled earth
"And wrought and fought and loved and bravely died—
"Than the sick morning glooms of debauchees."
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"Each now said “Good-by.”
"Such breakfast, such beginning of the day
"Is more than half the whole. The sun was hot
"On southward branches of the meadow elms,
"The shadows slowly farther crept and veered
"Like changing memories, and
"Hamlet strolled Alone and dubious on the empurpled path
"Between the waving grasses of new June
"Close by the stream where well-compacted boats
"Were moored or moving with a lazy creak
"To the soft dip of oars. All sounds were light
"As tiny silver bells upon the robes
"Of hovering silence. Birds made twitterings
"That seemed but Silence self o’erfull of love.
’T was invitation all to sweet repose;
"And Hamlet, drowsy with the mingled draughts
"Of cider and conflicting sentiments,
"Chose a green couch and watched with half-closed eyes
"The meadow-road, the stream and dreamy lights,
"Until they merged themselves in sequence strange
"With undulating ether, time, the soul,
"The will supreme, the individual claim,
"The social Ought, the lyrist’s liberty,
"Democritus, Pythagoras, in talk
"With Anselm, Darwin, Comte, and Schopenhauer,
"The poets rising slow from out their tombs
"Summoned as arbiters—that border-world
"Of dozing, ere the sense is fully locked.
"And then he dreamed a dream so luminous
"He woke (he says) convinced; but what it taught
"Withholds as yet. Perhaps those graver shades
"Admonished him that visions told in haste
"Part with their virtues to the squandering lips
"And leave the soul in wider emptiness."
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October 02, 2021 - October 03, 2021.
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Two Lovers.
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TWO LOVERS
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George Eliot paints a life of togetherness of two lovers, wedding, home, children and then alone together in old age. But again, it's laboured. She lacks the facility of ease, and the words aren't in a flow through her as much as gathered and nailed together to construct a verse.
"Two wedded from the portal stept:
The bells made happy carolings,
"The air was soft as fanning wings,
"White petals on the pathway slept.
"O pure-eyed bride!
"O tender pride!"
White petals "slept" on their path, not strewn?
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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Self and Life.
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Could have been better, for it does have flashes - but, over and over, George Eliot returns to plodding instead of flight.
"Self.
"Changeful comrade, Life of mine,
"Before we two must part,
" I will tell thee, thou shalt say,
"What thou hast been and art.
"Ere I lose my hold of thee
"Justify thyself to me."
And her first, instinctive, response is all too right, completely good.
"Life.
I was thy warmth upon thy mother’s knee
"When light and love within her eyes were one;
"We laughed together by the laurel-tree,"
....
"Where the trellised woodbines grew,
"And all the summer afternoon
"Mystic gladness o’er thee threw.
"Was it person? Was it thing?
"Was it touch or whispering?
"It was bliss and it was I:
"Bliss was what thou knew’st me by."
But then she has to digress; for formality of her philosophy? She returns, though, over and over, to good and correct response.
"Life.
"But all thy anguish and thy discontent
"Was growth of mine, the elemental strife
"Toward feeling manifold with vision blent
"To wider thought: I was no vulgar life"
....
"Life.
"But then I brought a love that wrote within
"The law of gratitude, and made thy heart
"Beat to the heavenly tune of seraphin
"Whose only joy in having is, to impart:"
....
"Self.
"Yea, I embrace thee, changeful Life!
"Far-sent, unchosen mate!
"Self and thou, no more at strife,
"Shall wed in hallowed state.
"Willing spousals now shall prove
"Life is justified by love."
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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.
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“Sweet Endings Come and Go, Love.”
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SWEET ENDINGS COME AND GO, LOVE
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A theme not unfamiliar, about evening of life together.
"Sweet evenings come and go, love,
"They came and went of yore:
"This evening of our life, love,
"Shall go and come no more.
"When we have passed away, love,
"All things will keep their name;
"But yet no life on earth, love,
"With ours will be the same.
"The daisies will be there, love,
"The stars in heaven will shine:
"I shall not feel thy wish, love,
"Nor thou my hand in thine.
But the last one is unclear.
"A better time will come, love,
"And better souls be born:
"I would not be the best, love,
"To leave thee now forlorn."
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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The Death of Moses.
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Suddenly, here, George Eliot is home, and her language easy, her verse flows.
"Moses, who spake with God as with his friend,
"And ruled his people with the twofold power
"Of wisdom that can dare and still be meek,
"Was writing his last word, the sacred name
"Unutterable. of that Eternal Will ... "
Here's a huge, major characteristic chasm between abrahmic vs India - naming, calling God - in any form of ones choice or preference, or without; any God or Godess oe The ultimate Divine - is not only permitted, name utterable, but is done so any time, by anyone, and children named after too, routinely. Concept of fear of god doesn't exist, it's ridiculous to India unaffected by invaders conversion drives over a millennium and half; and God, whether image or thought, may inspire reverence, but it is just as often Love. Fear is from ones own deeds, ones own possible turning to wrong; but Gods aren't stooping to meeting out punishment, they are at most amused, as might be a parent at a baby.
"Which was and is and evermore shall be.
"Yet was his task not finished, for the flock
"Needed its shepherd and the life-taught sage
"Leaves no successor; but to chosen men,
"The rescuers and guides of Israel,
"A death was given called the Death of Grace,
"Which freed them. from the burden of the flesh
"But left them rulers of the multitude
"And loved companions of the lonely. This
"Was God’s last gift to Moses, this the hour
"When soul must part from self and be but soul."
Now, George Eliot is at once gentle, loving, maternal - but racist.
"God spake to Gabriel, the messenger
"Of mildest death that draws the parting life
"Gently, as when a little rosy child
"Lifts up its lips from off the bowl of milk
"And so draws forth a curl that dipped its gold
And then, she's back to being earthbound, making an Archangel sound like a human!
"In the soft white—thus Gabriel draws the soul.
"“Go bring the soul of Moses unto me!”
"And the awe-stricken ung’el answered, “Lord,
"How shall I dare to take his life who lives
"Sole of his kind, not to be likened once
"In all the generations of the earth?”"
For heaven's sake! It's a conversation between an archangel and his boss, not a kings minion fearing separation of a great man's body from soul!
And she repeats it too, with other archangel.
"Then God called Michael, him of pensive brow
"Snow-vest and flaming sword, who knows and acts:
"“Go bring the spirit of Moses unto me!”
"But Michael with such grief as angels feel,
"Loving the mortals whom they succour, pled:
“Almighty, spare me; it was I who taught
"Thy servant Moses; he is part of me
"As I of thy deep secrets, knowing them.”
"Then God called Zamael, the terrible,
"The angel of fierce death, of agony
"That comes in battle and in pestilence
"Remorseless, sudden or with lingering throes.
"And Zamael, his raiment and broad wings
"Blood-tinctured, the dark lustre of his eyes
"Shrouding the red, fell like the gathering night
"Before the prophet. But that radiance
"Won from the heavenly presence in the mount
"Gleamed on the prophet’s brow and dazzling pierced
"Its conscious opposite: the angel turned
"His murky gaze aloof and inly said:
"“An angel this, deathless to angel’s stroke.”"
Greeks knew better, informing us that those loved by Gods die young! India of course knew better - for example, amongst the heavenly creatures, who are sent to earth as humans, for a sin committed up there, those who live longer do so to expiate their sins and work out their repentance before retuning back above.
The poem, though, proceeds in the strain, imposing human thought and emotion on creatures of non physical material, instead of opening a human consciousness to Light.
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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.
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Arion.
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Arion.
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Amazing, and yet, as always, George Eliot must choose tragic for the brilliant, the good!
"Arion, whose melodic soul
"Taught the dithyramb to roll
"Like forest fires, and sing
"Olympian suffering,
"Had carried his diviner lore
"From Corinth to the sister shore
"Where Greece could largelier be,
"Branching o’er Italy.
"Then weighted with his glorious name
"And bags of gold, aboard he came
"’Mid harsh seafaring men
"To Corinth bound again.
"The sailors eyed the bags and thought:
"“The gold is good, the man is naught—
"And who shall track the wave
"That opens for his grave?”
"With brawny arms and cruel eyes
"They press around him where he lies
"In sleep beside his lyre,
"Hearing the Muses quire,
"He waked and saw this wolf-faced Death
"Breaking the dream that filled his breath
"With inspiration strong
"Of yet unchanted song.
"“Take, take my gold and let me live!”
"He prayed, as kings do when they give
"Their all with royal will,
"Holding born kingship still.
"To rob the living they refuse,
"One death or other he must choose,
"Either the watery pall
"Or wounds and burial.
"“My solemn robe then let me don,
"Give me high space to stand upon,
"That dying I may pour
"A song unsung before.”
"It pleased them well to grant this prayer,
"To hear for naught how it might fare .
"With men who paid their gold
"For what a poet sold.
"In flowing stole, his eyes aglow
"With inward fire, he neared the prow
"And took his god-like stand,
"The cithara in hand.
"The wolfish men all shrank aloof,
"And feared this singer might be proof
"Against their murderous power,
"After his lyric hour.
But he, in liberty of song,
"Fearless of death or other wrong,
"With full spondaic toll
"Poured forth his mighty soul:
"Poured forth the strain his dream had taught,
A nome with lofty passion fraught
"Such as makes battles won
"On fields of Marathon.
"The last long vowels trembled then
"As awe within those wolfish men:
"They said, with mutual stare,
"Some god was present there.
"But lo! Arion leaped on high,
"Ready, his descant done, to die
"Not asking, “Is it well?”
"Like a pierced eagle fell."
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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.
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“O May I Join the Choir Invisible.”
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O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!
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She begins well,
"O may I join the choir invisible
"Of those immortal dead who live again
"In minds made better by their presence; live
"In pulses stirred to generosity,
"In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
"Of miserable aims that end with self,
"In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
"And with their mild persistence urge men’s minds
"To vaster issues."
- but then gets belaboured after the first stanza.
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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Miscellaneous Poems
by George Eliot.
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This is a look at various small poems of George Eliot.
Reading them to begin with, it s clear at the outset that most of it's not written for a readership as much as for herself, most of it. This becomes clear within a few lines of the opening poem. Much of it is laboured more than a flow pouring with ease and that doesn't make for good poetry.
Here the set is gleaned from various complete collections of works of George Eliot, which follow very different orders, and hence here the order is mixed in the latter half; the first part follows order as given in four separate publications.
It's a few minutes before one realises that two separate poems, GOD NEEDS ANTONIO and STRADIVARIUS, not only share a theme and a thought, a feeling - they are identical. It's the same poem, given under two separate titles! Other than Delphi, no other collection includes it, so perhaps it's Delphi making up!
Funnily enough, HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX kept appearing in the review formats I had prepared for reviews of George Eliot works, and it came to notice when, while reviewing the poetry, I couldn't find such a title, or a poem with thus title, in any of the (over half a dozen) collections of works of George Eliot on the kindle - so how was it on the reviews, where i had cooied the list from contents of the books?
Then I saw it among the contents undoubtedly copied from Delphi, and realised I'd got it from there! It was corrected by kindle some time between my beginning the reviews, and noticing this, about a ten moths or so of the gap. I am keeping that original list as copied then, although, of course, not reviewing that poem.
Another one that was included, at least in the contents list, was TO THE SKYLARK. Again, it was not to be found! The mystery got solved when I found it in the book titled O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!, which includes that poem by George Eliot, but is in fact a collection of poems, favourite of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, by various poets. Needless to say, that's kept in the contents, too. But not reviewed.
Whether to include or not A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY was a difficult choice - it fits with the various other poems with college themes, such as
LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION THAT
IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS IN NOVEMBER
AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT,
LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE,
and
A VISION OF A WRANGLER, OF A UNIVERSITY,
OF PEDANTRY, AND OF PHILOSOPHY,
but - at over eighteen pages - is quite long. And it's more in line with her philosophy themed work, unlike the three mentioned above. Do we include it here, as college residence theme?
Theme wins!
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Contents
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In order
On Being Called a Saint.
Farewell.
Sonnet.
Question and Answer.
“’Mid my Gold-Brown Curls.”
“’Mid the Rich Store.”
“As Tu Va la Lune se Lever.”
In A London Drawing Room.
Arms! To Arms!
Ex Oriente Lux.
In the South.
Will Ladislaw’s Song.
Erinna.
“I Grant you Ample Leave.”
Mordecai’s Hebrew Verses.
Count that Day Lost.
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Not necessarily in the same order as followed in any one particular collection of works of George Eliot.
GOD NEEDS ANTONIO
ROSES
I COME AND STAND AT EVERY DOOR
LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION
THAT IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS
IN NOVEMBER AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT
MOTHER AND POET.
NATURE’S LADY.
LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE
A VISION OF A WRANGLER, OF A UNIVERSITY,
OF PEDANTRY, AND OF PHILOSOPHY
A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY
Self and Life.
Making Life Worth While
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Reviews
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On Being Called a Saint.
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It's not written for a readership as much as for herself, most of it. This becomes clear within a few lines of the opening poem.
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It's not written for a readership as much as for herself, most of it. This becomes clear within a few lines of the opening lines.
"A Saint! O would that I could claim
"The privileg’d, the honour’d name
"And confidently take my stand
"Though lowest in the saintly band!
"Would though it were in scorn applied
"That term the test of truth could bide
"The kingly salutations given
"In mockery to the King of Heaven."
Her religious fervour isn't unfamiliar after one has read Romola and Daniel Deronda. Still, it's quite startling when she writes -
"Oh for an interest in that name
"When hell shall ope its jaws of flame
"And sinners to their doom be hurl’d
"While scorned saints ‘shall judge this world.’"
One thought she disdained those - such as the evangelical Cummins who she wrote critically of - who were gung ho about precisely this enthusiasm!
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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.
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Farewell. ................................................................................................
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Was this one of her last poems? From being only second in this collection, it woukdnt seem so. But when she writes
"Thou sun, to whose parental beam
"I owe All that has gladden’d me while here below—
"Moon, stars, and covenant confirming bow,
"Farewell!
"Ye verdant meads, fair blossoms, stately trees,
"Sweet song of birds, and soothing hum of bees—
"Refreshing odours, wafted on the breeze,
"Farewell! "
It definitely isn't about saying goodnight, or a journey she expects to return from, however hazardous journeys were in her days.
Its pretty, no doubt. And touching.
"Books that have been to me as chest of gold,
"Which, miser like, I secretly have told,
"And for them love, health, friendship, peace have sold,
"Farewell! "
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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.
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Sonnet. ................................................................................................
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Tad mysterious.
"If, haply, conscious of the present scene,
"I’ve marked before me some untraversed spot
"The setting sunbeams had foresaken not,
"Whose turf appeared more velvet-like and green
"Than that I walked and fitter for repose:
"But ever, at the wished-for place arrived,
"I’ve found it of those seeming charms deprived
"Which from the mellowing power of distance rose:
"To my poor thought, an apt though simple trope
"Of life’s dull path and earth’s deceitful hope"
Unless it's about passage of time, and inability to return.
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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.
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Question and Answer. ................................................................................................
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Religious more than essence of experience of life, one suspects, when she goes -
"“Where blooms, O my Father, a thornless rose?”
"“That can I not tell thee, my child;
"Not one on the bosom of earth e’er grows,
"But wounds whom its charms have beguiled.”
"“Would I’d a rose on my bosom to lie!
"But I shrink from the piercing thorn;
"I long, but dare not its point defy,
"I long, and I gaze forlorn.”
"“Not so, O my child, round the stem again
"Thy resolute fingers entwine---
"Forego not the joy for its sister pain,
"Let the rose, the sweet rose, be thine!”"
After all, being a clergyman's daughter and later married to someone in trade, middle class at all times, her life couldn't be said to have been of strife against poverty, exactly, much less of battling against odds such as those faced by Irish, or other colonial subjects, or even the settlers in the new world who built log cabins and did everything else depending on no workers as such.
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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.
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“’Mid my Gold-Brown Curls.” ................................................................................................
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It's a rare admission of vanity from George Eliot!
"’Mid my gold-brown curls
"There twined a silver hair:
"I plucked it idly out
"And scarcely knew ’twas there.
"Coiled in my velvet sleeve it lay
"And like a serpent hissed:
"“Me thou canst pluck & fling away,
"One hair is lightly missed;
"But how on that near day
"When all the wintry army muster in array?”"
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September 29, 2021 - September 29, 2021.
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“’Mid the Rich Store.” ................................................................................................
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"So man His miniature resemblance gives
"To matter’s every form a speaking soul,"
She stops at the border of spiritual, unwilling to leave her bringing up behind, like an earthbound spirit afraid of flight and chained to its cage.
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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“As Tu Va la Lune se Lever.” ................................................................................................
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"Have you seen the moon rise in an azure sky without a veil?" Begins this, and goes on to attempt a spiritual connection - but, alas, not freely, but only within framework of her background of restrictions by church!
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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In A London Drawing Room. ................................................................................................
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Facts of her description are not in dispute, but the overall effect is of a dull, dismal place.
"The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.
"For view there are the houses opposite
"Cutting the sky with one long line of wall
"Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch
"Monotony of surface & of form
"Without a break to hang a guess upon.
"No bird can make a shadow as it flies,
"For all is shadow, as in ways o’erhung
"By thickest canvass, where the golden rays
"Are clothed in hemp. ... "
So far, it's dismal enough. But next, it's as if she's made up her mind to paint it negative.
"No figure lingering
"Pauses to feed the hunger of the eye
"Or rest a little on the lap of life.
"All hurry on & look upon the ground,
"Or glance unmarking at the passers by ... "
We've all experienced the loneliness resulting from being in a strange place, especially a city that is in a hurry. But it's the city that is friendlier, too, than the small village that ignores strangers who are clearly waiting, politely, for a glance, a greeting before they can ask for an address and be on the way!
But she gets worse.
"The wheels are hurrying too, cabs, carriages
"All closed, in multiplied identity. ... "
Why wouldn't the carriages be closed, what with dust flying to splash as it's driven? It isn't a stroll of a summer's afternoon in the cold Nordic latitudes.
"The world seems one huge prison-house & court
"Where men are punished at the slightest cost,
"With lowest rate of colour, warmth & joy."
One moment, isn't the title A London Drawing Room? Not a lonely waiting at a bus stop?
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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Arms! To Arms! ................................................................................................
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It's mystifying when one reads
" ... But at last the watchman posted
"Darkly like the stars at noon ... "
One doesa double take - what? Watchman, like stars at noon? Is he invisible? Or did George Eliot see stars at noon, does anyone, except during an eclipse? Is it ever that dark below arctic circle latitudes?
But then it becomes clearer- she's being racist.
"Now the gates of morn are open
"And the Christians ope their gates;
"Meet the Moor at half a league thence,
"Clashing weapons, clashing hates."
Incidentally, it's those that live in the Nordic darkness that have no chance of allowing nature's heat to affect their skins, and so nature brings them out of wombs and keeps them at the rare level; as opposed to the tanned members of the same who move to, say, California.
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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Ex Oriente Lux. ................................................................................................
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When she sees Asia as East, close to Sun at first dawn -
"When first the earth broke from her parent ring
"Trembling an instant ere her separate life
"Had found the unfailing pulse of night and day,
"Her inner half that met the effusive Sun
"Had earlier largesse of his rays and thrilled
"To the celestial music of the dawn
"While yet the western half was cold and sad,
"Shivering beneath the whisper of the stars.
"So Asia was the earliest home of light:
"The little seeds first germinated there,
"Birds first made bridals, and the year first knew Autumnal ripeness.
"Ever wandering sound
"That dumbly throbbed within the homeless vast
"Took sweet imprisonment in song and speech—
"Like light more beauteous for shattering,
"Parted melodious in the trembling throat
"Of the first matin bird; made utterance
"From the full-rounded lips of that young race
"Who moved by the omnipresent Energy
"Dividing towards sublimer union,
"Clove sense & image subtilly in twain,
"Then wedded them, till heavenly
"Thought was born."
is she aware that Asia isn't just West Asia, that Asia includes the India and China that she wrote disdainfully of as "punished by England" for daring to oppose British domination?
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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In the South. ................................................................................................
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If poet goes on a vacation in autumn sojourning South where its palms and ocean - Mediterranean? - then obviously, as happy as she's to paint olives and apples,
"O gentle brightness of late Autumn morns!
"The dear Earth like a patient matron left
"By all she loved and reared, still smiles and loves.
"The fields low-shorn gleam with a paler gold,
"The olives stretch their shadows; on the vines
"Forgotten bunches breathe out mellowness,
"And little apples poised upon their stems
"Laugh sparkling high above the mounting sun.
"Each delicate blade and bossy arching leaf
"Is silvered with the dew; the plough overturns
"The redolent earth, and with slow-broadening belt
"Of furrowed brownness, makes mute prophecy.
"The far off rocks take breathing colours, bathed
"In the aërial ocean of clear blue;
"The palm soars in the silence, and the towers
"And scattered villages seem still to sleep
"In happy morning dreams."
- she's missing Autumn glory!
Try New England!
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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Will Ladislaw’s Song. ................................................................................................
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Frugal, indeed!
"O me, O me, what frugal cheer
"My love doth feed upon!
"A touch, a ray, that is not here,
"A shadow that is gone:
"A dream of breath that might be near,
"An inly-echoed tone,
"The thought that one may think me dear,
"The place where one was known,
"The tremor of a banished fear,
"An ill that was not done—
"O me, O me, what frugal cheer
"My love doth feed upon!"
George Eliot's prose in Middlemarch was much more poetic in portraying Will and Dorothea, individually and in their relationship.
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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Erinna. ................................................................................................
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"“Erinna died in early youth when chained by her mother to the spinning-wheel. She had as yet known the charm of existence in imagination alone. Her poem called ‘The Spindle—Ηλακάτη—containing only 300 hexameter verses, in which she probably expressed the restless & aspiring thoughts which crowded on her youthful mind as she pursued her monotonous work, has been deemed by many of the ancients of such high poetic merit as to entitle it to a place beside the epics of Homer.” Muller, Hist. Gr. Lit} Four lines of the ηλακάτη are extant. The dialect is a mixture of Doric and Æolic spoken at Rhodes where Erinna was born; the date about B.C. 612:"
First few verses make one wonder if these are by Erinna, but then it's clear they are about her, by George Eliot.
"’Twas in the isle that Helios saw
"Uprising from the sea a flower-tressed bride
"To meet his kisses—Rhodes, the filial pride
"Of god-taught craftsmen who gave Art its law:
"She held the spindle as she sat,
"Erinna with the thick-coiled mat
"Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes,
"Gazing with a sad surprise
"At surging visions of her destiny
"To spin the byssus drearily
"In insect labour, while the throng
"Of gods and men wrought deeds that poets wrought in song."
And yet, has much changed, for an average woman, even one of middle class? Whatever her achievements, whatever vast space her mind, however vast soul, her being on earth is still subject to being asked if she spends her time housekeeping.
If she's lucky!
"Hark, the passion in her eyes
"Changes to melodic cries
"Lone she pours her lonely pain.
"Song unheard is not in vain:
"The god within us plies
"His shaping power and moulds in speech
"Harmonious a statue of our sorrow,
"Till suffering turn beholding and we borrow,
"Gazing on Self apart, the wider reach
"Of solemn souls that contemplate
"And slay with full-beamed thought the darkling
"Dragon Hate."
Else, it isn't asking, it's being told, "if you aren't "working ", you must be a housekeeper!"!
And yet
"But Pallas, thou dost choose and bless
"The nobler cause, thy maiden height
"And terrible beauty marshalling the fight
"Inspire weak limbs with stedfastness.
"Thy virgin breast uplifts
"The direful aegis, but thy hand
"Wielded its weapon with benign command
"In rivalry of highest gifts
"With strong Poseidon whose earth-shaking roll
"Matched not the delicate tremors of thy spear
"Piercing Athenian land and drawing thence
"With conquering beneficence
"Thy subtly chosen dole
"The sacred olive fraught with light and plenteous cheer.
"What, though thou pliest the distaff and the loom?
"Counsel is thine, to sway the doubtful doom
"Of cities with a leaguer at their gate;
"Thine the device that snares the hulk elate
"Of purblind force and saves the hero or the State."
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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“I Grant you Ample Leave.”
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On verge of spiritual discovery, she steps back!
"“I grant you ample leave To use the hoary formula ‘I am’
"Naming the emptiness where thought is not;
"But fill the void with definition, ‘I’
"Will be no more a datum than the words
"You link false inference with, the ‘Since’ & ‘so’
"That, true or not, make up the atom-whirl.
"Resolve your ‘Ego’, it is all one web
"With vibrant ether clotted into worlds:
"Your subject, self, or self-assertive ‘I’
"Turns nought but object, melts to molecules,
"Is stripped from naked Being with the rest
"Of those rag-garments named the Universe.
"Or if, in strife to keep your ‘Ego’ strong
"You make it weaver of the etherial light,
"Space, motion, solids & the dream of Time—
"Why, still ’tis Being looking from the dark,
"The core, the centre of your consciousness,
"That notes your bubble-world: sense, pleasure, pain,
"What are they but a shifting otherness,
"Phantasmal flux of moments?—”"
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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Mordecai’s Hebrew Verses. ................................................................................................
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George Eliot's image of Judaism has no joy in it, no space for love; it's all sombre, denying love, laughter. And this, root of her own upbringing, defines spirituality for her, whereas one sees Fiddler On The Roof for another, joyous view of life thats jewish life through millennia, despite all the striving against poverty and much, much more! What isn't joy, cheer, is all forced and inflicted - from outsiders.
"“Away from me the garment of forgetfulness,
"Withering the heart;
"The oil and wine from presses of the Goyim,
"Poisoned with scorn.
"Solitude is on the sides of Mount Nebo,
"In its heart a tomb:
"There the buried ark and golden cherubim
"Make hidden light:
"There the solemn faces gaze unchanged,
"The wings are spread unbroken:
"Shut beneath in silent awful speech
"The Law lies graven.
"Solitude and darkness are my covering,
"And my heart a tomb;
"Smite and shatter it, O Gabriel!
"Shatter it as the clay of the founder
"Around the golden image.”"
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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Count that Day Lost.................................................................................................
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Simple!
"If you sit down at set of sun
"And count the acts that you have done,
"And, counting, find
"One self-denying deed, one word
"That eased the heart of him who heard,
"One glance most kind
"That fell like sunshine where it went—
"Then you may count that day well spent.
"But if, through all the livelong day,
"You’ve cheered no heart, by yea or nay—
"If, through it all
"You’ve nothing done that you can trace
"That brought the sunshine to one face—
"No act most small
"That helped some soul and nothing cost—
"Then count that day as worse than lost."
And yet - if one does a reckoning, then it wasn't a good deed, it was an attempt to earn a good deed!
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September 30, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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September 29, 2021 - September 30, 2021.
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GOD NEEDS ANTONIO
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The two separate poems, STRADIVARIUS and GOD NEEDS ANTONIO, have the same thene; it isn't clear if George Eliot was unsatisfied with an earlier version, and wrote the other. Neither is as belaboured as most of her work, they both flow well, although the concept is of a dialogue between two very different artistes of which one is much less known. West, though, might not label Stradivarius an artist. Still, it's a poem where honesty of one's application to ones vocation is lauded as highest spiritual, and as such, it's more India in spirit than abrahmic or West.
In a later generation, Galsworthy wrote eulogies to this unity, between an artist or craftsman, and his work, where the man or woman gives one's best to the work; his short story about a poor bootmaker, unknown but for those using his boots, was a eulogy to the worker and to the era, as was the piece about old hansom cabs. But his Man of Property (titled so later after the first title - Forsyte Saga, later extended to Forsyte Chronicles - was extended to the series of books) was a subtle eulogy to the highest offered by the poor young architect to his work, forever immortalised subtly by the tale, the saga.
"Your soul was lifted by the wings to-day
"Hearing the master of the violin:
"You praised him, praised the great Sebastian too
"Who made that fine Chaconne; but did you think
"Of old Antonio Stradivari ?—him
"Who a good century and half ago
"Put his true work in that brown instrument
"And by the nice adjustment of its frame
"Gave it responsive life, continuous
"With the master’s finger-tips and perfected
"Like them by delicate rectitude of use.
"Not Bach alone, helped by fine precedent
"Of genius alone before, nor Joachim
"Who holds the strain afresh incorporate
"By inward hearing and notation strict
"Of nerve and muscle, made our joy to-day:
"Another soul was living in the air
"And swaying it to true deliverance
"Of high invention and responsive skill:—
"That plain white-aproned man who stood at work
"Patient and accurate full fourscore years,
"Cherished his sight and touch by temperance,
"And since keen sense is love of perfectness
"Made perfect violins, the needed paths
"For inspiration and high mastery.
"No simpler man than he: he never cried,
"“Why was I born to this monotonous task
"Of making violins ?” or flung them down
"To suit with hurling act a well-hurled curse
"At labour on such perishable stuff.
"Hence neighbours in Cremona held him dull,
"Called him a slave, a mill-horse, a machine,
"Begged him to tell his motives or to lend
"A few gold pieces to a loftier mind.
"Yet he had pithy words full fed by fact;
"For fact, well-trusted, reasons and persuades,
"Is gnomic, cutting, or ironical,
"Draws tears, or is a tocsin to arouse—
"Can hold all figures of the orator
"In one plain sentence; has her pauses too—
"Eloquent silence at the chasm abrupt
"Where knowledge ceases. Thus Antonio
"Made answers as Fact willed, and made them strong"
"“I like the gold—well, yes—but not for meals.
"And as my stomach, so my eye and hand,
"And inward sense that works along with both,
"Have hunger that can never feed on coin.
"Who draws a line and satisfies his soul,
"Making it crooked where it should be straight? An idiot with an oyster-shell may draw
"His lines along the sand, all wavering,
"Fixing no point or pathway to a point;
"An idiot one remove may choose his line,
"Straggle and be content; but God be praised,
"Antonio Stradivari has an eye
"That winces at false work and loves the true,
"With hand and arm that play upon the tool
"As willingly as any singing bird
"Sets him to sing his morning roundelay,
"Because he likes to sing and likes the song.”"
"“’Twere purgatory here to make them ill;
"And for my fame—when any master holds
"’Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine,
"He will be glad that Stradivari lived,
"The masters only know whose work is good:
"They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill
"I give them instruments to play upon,
"God choosing me to help Him.”"
"“Why, many hold Giuseppi’s violins
"As good as thine.”
"“May be: they are different.
"His quality declines: he spoils his hand
"With over-drinking. But were his the best,
"He could not work for two. My work is mine,
"And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked
"I should rob God—since He is fullest good—
"Leaving a blank instead of violins.
"I say, not God Himself can make man’s best
"Without best men to help Him. I am one best
"Here in Cremona, using sunlight well
"To fashion finest maple till it serves
"More cunningly than throats, for harmony.
"’Tis rare delight: I would not change my skill
"To be the Emperor with bungling hands,
"And lose my work, which comes as natural
"As self at waking.”
"“Thou art little more
"Than a deft potter’s wheel, Antonio;
"Turning out work by mere necessity
"And lack of varied function. Higher arts
"Subsist on freedom—eccentricity—
"Uncounted aspirations—influence
"That comes with drinking, gambling, talk turned wild,
"Then moody misery and lack of food—
"With every dithyrambic fine excess:
"These make at last a storm which flashes out
"In lightning revelations. Steady work
"Turns genius to a loom; the soul must lie
"Like grapes beneath the sun till ripeness comes
"And mellow vintage. I could paint you now
"The finest Crucifixion; yesternight
"Returning home I saw it on a sky
"Blue-black, thick-starred.
"I want two louis d’ors
"To buy the canvas and the costly blues—
"Trust me for a fortnight.”
"“Where are those last two
"I lent thee for thy Judith?—her thou saw’st
"In saffron gown, with Holofernes’ head
"And beauty all complete ?”
"“She is but sketched:
"I lack the proper model—and the mood.
"A great idea is an eagle’s egg,
"Craves time for hatching; while the eagle sits
"Feed her.”
"“If thou wilt call thy pictures eggs
"I call the hatching, Work. ’Tis God gives skill,
"But not without men’s hands; He could not make
"Antonio Stradivari’s violins
"Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel.”"
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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ROSES
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A child's dream.
"You love the roses - so do I. I wish
"The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
"From off the shaken bush.
"Why will it not?
"Then all the valley would be pink and white
"And soft to tread on.
"They would fall as light
"As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
"Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!"
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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I COME AND STAND AT EVERY DOOR
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Was Hiroshima known to England in time of George Eliot?
"I come and stand at every door
"But no one hears my silent tread
"I knock and yet remain unseen
"For I am dead, for I am dead.
"I’m only seven although
"I died In Hiroshima long ago
"I’m seven now as I was then
"When children die they do not grow.
"My hair was scorched by swirling flame
"My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind
"Death came and turned my bones to dust
"And that was scattered by the wind.
"I need no fruit, I need no rice
"I need no sweet, nor even bread
"I ask for nothing for myself
"For I am dead, for I am dead.
"All that I ask is that for peace
"You fight today, you fight today
"So that the children of this world
"May live and grow and laugh and play."
This poem is included in her poetry in the Delphi collection, so presumably it wasn't mistakenly included.
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION
THAT IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS
IN NOVEMBER AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT
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Again, did George Eliot really write this? It's very unlike her other verses, but it's included in the Delphi collection of her works.
"In the sad November time,
"When the leaf has left the lime,
"And the Cam, with sludge and slime,
"Plasters his ugly channel,
"While, with sober step and slow,
"Round about the marshes low,
"Stiffening students stumping go
"Shivering through their flannel."
....
"“Those that fix their eager eyes
"Ever on the nearest prize
"Well may venture to despise
"Loftier aspirations.
"Pedantry is in demand!
"Buy it up at second-hand,
"Seek no more to understand
"Profitless speculations.”"
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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MOTHER AND POET.
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"Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the east,
"And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
"Dead! both my boys!
"When you sit at the feast
"And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
"Let none look at me!
"Yet I was a poetess only last year,
"And good at my art for a woman, men said,
"But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
"The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
"Forever instead."
....
"Both boys dead! but that’s out of nature. We all
"Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.
"‘Twere imbecile hewing out roads to a wall,
"And when Italy’s made, for what end is it done
"If we have not a son?
.....
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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NATURE’S LADY.
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"Three years she grew in sun and shower,
"Then Nature said, "“A lovelier flower
"On earth was never sown;
"This child I to myself will take,
"She shall be mine, and
"I will make A lady of my own."
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE
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Again, it's very unlike her work! But it's included in the Delphi collection of her works.
"Professor Chrschtschonovitsch, Ph.D., “On the C. G. S. system of Units.
"”Remarks submitted to the Lecturer by a student.
"Prim Doctor of Philosophy
"Front academic Heidelberg!
"Your sum of vital energy
"Is not the millionth of an erg.
"Your liveliest motion might be reckoned
"At one-tenth metre in a second.
"“The air,”you said, in language fine,
"Which scientific thought expresses,
"“The air -- which with a megadyne,
"On each square centimetre presses --
"The air, and I may add the ocean,
"Are nought but molecules in motion.”
"Atoms, you told me, were discrete,
"Than you they could not be discreter,
"Who know how many Millions meet
"Within a cubic millimetre.
"They clash together as they fly,
"But you! -- you cannot tell me why.
"And when in tuning my guitar
"The interval would not come right,
"“This string,”you said, “is strained too far,
"‘Tis forty dynes, at least too tight!”
"And then you told me, as I sang,
"What overtones were in my clang."
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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A VISION OF A WRANGLER, OF A UNIVERSITY,
OF PEDANTRY, AND OF PHILOSOPHY
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One, did she really write this?
It sounds like written by someone doing a Wranglers at Cambridge, and she couldn't have resided.
Two, is this poem exchanged with another, titled
LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION THAT IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS IN NOVEMBER AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT
by mistake by Delphi?
"Deep St. Mary’s bell had sounded,
"And the twelve notes gently rounded
"Endless chimneys that surrounded
"My abode in Trinity. (Letter G, Old Court, South Attics),
"I shut up my mathematics,
"That confounded hydrostatics —
"Sink it in the deepest sea!
"In the grate the flickering embers
"Served to show how dull November’s
"Fogs had stamped my torpid members,
"Like a plucked and skinny goose.
"And as I prepared for bed,
"I Asked myself with voice unsteady,
"If of all the stuff I read, I
"Ever made the slightest use."
"Thus I muttered, very seedy,
"Husky was my throat, and reedy;
"And no wonder, for indeed I
"Now had caught a dreadful cold.
"Thickest fog had settled slowly
"Round the candle, burning lowly,
"Round the fire, where melancholy
"Traced retreating hills of gold.
"Still those papers lay before me —
"Problems made express to bore me,
"When a silent change came o’er me,
"In my hard uneasy chair.
"Fire and fog, and candle faded,
"Spectral forms the room invaded,
"Little creatures, that paraded
"On the problems lying there."
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October 01, 2021 - October 01, 2021.
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Making Life Worth While
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It's a good thought, philosophy, good attitude.
"Every soul that touches yours -
"Be it the slightest contact -
"Get there from some good;
"Some little grace; one kindly thought;
"One aspiration yet unfelt;
"One bit of courage
"For the darkening sky;
"One gleam of faith
"To brave the thickening ills of life;
"One glimpse of brighter skies -
"To make this life worthwhile
"And heaven a surer heritage."
And it's far more worthy if, instead of person, one uses this philosophy for whole cultures, across time and around the world.
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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.
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TO THE CHIEF MUSICIAN UPON NABLA: A TYNDALLIC ODE
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It's perhaps the most thrilling of poetry of George Eliot, because not only she conveys that she's thrilled with studies of sciences, she manages to convey that thrill, however imperfectly, however imperfect her verses.
"I.
"I come from fields of fractured ice,
"Whose wounds are cured by squeezing,
"Melting they cool, but in a trice,
"Get warm again by freezing.
"Here, in the frosty air, the sprays
"With fernlike hoar-frost bristle,
"There, liquid stars their watery rays
"Shoot through the solid crystal.
"II.
"I come from empyrean fires --
"From microscopic spaces,
"Where molecules with fierce desires,
"Shiver in hot embraces.
"The atoms clash, the spectra flash,
"Projected on the screen,
"The double D, magnesian b,
"And Thallium’s living green.
"III.
"We place our eye where these dark rays
"Unite in this dark focus,
"Right on the source of power we gaze,
"Without a screen to cloak us.
"Then where the eye was placed at first,
"We place a disc of platinum,
"It glows, it puckers! will it burst?
"How ever shall we flatten him!
"IV.
"This crystal tube the electric ray
"Shows optically clean,
"No dust or haze within, but stay!
"All has not yet been seen.
"What gleams are these of heavenly blue?
"What air-drawn form appearing,
"What mystic fish, that, ghostlike, through
"The empty space is steering?
"V.
"I light this sympathetic flame,
"My faintest wish that answers,
"I sing, it sweetly sings the same,
"It dances with the dancers.
"I shout, I whistle, clap my hands,
"And stamp upon the platform,
"The flame responds to my commands,
"In this form and in that form.
"VI.
"What means that thrilling, drilling scream,
"Protect me! ‘tis the siren:
"Her heart is fire, her breath is steam,
"Her larynx is of iron.
"Sun! dart thy beams! in tepid streams,
"Rise, viewless exhalations!
"And lap me round, that no rude sound
"May max my meditations.
"VII.
"Here let me pause. --
"These transient facts,
"These fugitive impressions,
"Must be transformed by mental acts,
"To permanent possessions.
"Then summon up your grasp of mind,
"Your fancy scientific,
"Till sights and sounds with thought combined,
"Become of truth prolific.
"VIII.
"Go to! prepare your mental bricks,
"Fetch them from every quarter,
"Firm on the sand your basement fix
"With best sensation mortar.
"The top shall rise to heaven on high --
"Or such an elevation,
"That the swift whirl with which we fly
"Shall conquer gravitation."
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October 02, 2021 - October 02, 2021.
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The Complete Shorter Poetry Of George Eliot
(Pickering Masters)
by George Eliot,
William Baker
Hardcover
Published August 18th 2015
by Routledge
(first published January 1st 2005)
Original Title
The Complete Shorter Poetry
Of George Eliot (Pickering Masters)
ISBN:- 1851967966
(ISBN13: 9781851967964)
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Order from a Complete Collection of Works of George Eliot
Stradivarius.
A College Breakfast-Party.
Two Lovers.
Self and Life.
“Sweet Endings Come and Go, Love.”
Arion.
“O May I Join the Choir Invisible.”
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LIST OF THE POEMS
(FROM DELPHI COLLECTION OF WORKS OF GEORGE ELIOT)
THE LEGEND OF JUBAI.
AGATHA.
ARMGART
HOW LISA LOVED THE KING.
A MINOR PROPHET.
BROTHER AND SISTER.
STRADIVARIUS.
A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY
THE DEATH OF MOSES.
ARION
“O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE.”
THE SPANISH GYPSY.
I COME AND STAND AT EVERY DOOR
LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION THAT IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS IN NOVEMBER AFTER ONE’S FIRE IS OUT
LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE
TO THE CHIEF MUSICIAN UPON NABLA: A TYNDALLIC ODE
A VISION OF A WRANGLER, OF A UNIVERSITY, OF PEDANTRY, AND OF PHILOSOPHY
MID MY GOLD-BROWN CURLS
IN A LONDON DRAWINGROOM
COUNT THAT DAY LOST
I GRANT YOU AMPLE LEAVE
SWEET ENDINGS COME AND GO, LOVE
TWO LOVERS
GOD NEEDS ANTONIO
ROSES
O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!
HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX.
MOTHER AND POET.
NATURE’S LADY.
TO A SKYLARK.
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September 29, 2021 - October 08, 2021.
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Poems of George Eliot, A Classic Collection Book
Paperback, 374 pages
Published December 23rd 2019
by Lulu.com
ISBN:- 0244547556
(ISBN13: 9780244547554)
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LIST OF THE POEMS
(FROM DELPHI COLLECTION OF WORKS OF GEORGE ELIOT)
THE LEGEND OF JUBAI.
AGATHA.
ARMGART
HOW LISA LOVED THE KING.
A MINOR PROPHET.
BROTHER AND SISTER.
STRADIVARIUS.
A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY
THE DEATH OF MOSES.
ARION
THE SPANISH GYPSY.
I COME AND STAND AT EVERY DOOR
LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE CONVICTION THAT IT IS NOT WISE TO READ MATHEMATICS IN NOVEMBER AFTER ONE'S FIRE IS OUT
LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE
TO THE CHIEF MUSICIAN UPON NABLA: A TYNDALLIC ODE
A VISION OF A WRANGLER, OF A UNIVERSITY, OF PEDANTRY, AND OF PHILOSOPHY
MID MY GOLD-BROWN CURLS
IN A LONDON DRAWINGROOM
COUNT THAT DAY LOST
I GRANT YOU AMPLE LEAVE
SWEET ENDINGS COME AND GO, LOVE
TWO LOVERS
GOD NEEDS ANTONIO
ROSES
O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!
HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX.
MOTHER AND POET.
NATURE’S LADY.
TO A SKYLARK.
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Poems (Kindle Edition)
by George Eliot
Kindle Edition, 320 pages
Published November 16th 2017
by Jazzybee Verlag
ASIN:- B077J4Q9XX
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Poems of George Eliot,
A Classic Collection Book
by Debbie Brewer
Paperback, 374 pages
Published December 23rd 2019
by Lulu.com
ISBN:- 0244547556
(ISBN13: 9780244547554)
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The Poetry of George Eliot
by George Eliot
Kindle Edition, 36 pages
Published September 24th 2013
by Portable Poetry
ASIN:- B00GGJTZ50
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Collected Poems (Paperback)
by George Eliot
Paperback, 488 pages
Published December 1st 1989
by Skoob Books (GB)
(first published 1989)
Original Title
Collected Poems
ISBN:- 1871438403
(ISBN13: 9781871438406)
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The Complete Poetical Works of George Eliot:
Containing the Legend of Jubal;
Other Poems, Old and New;
The Spanish Gypsy
(Hardcover)
by George Eliot
Hardcover, 358 pages
Published September 10th 2010
by Kessinger Publishing
ISBN:- 1163497010
(ISBN13: 9781163497012)
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The Spanish Gypsy: The Legend of Jubal,
and Other Poems,
Old and New
(Classic Reprint)
by George Eliot
Hardcover, 690 pages
Published October 18th 2018
by Forgotten Books
ISBN:- 1396805583
(ISBN13: 9781396805585)
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The Complete Poetical Works of George Eliot:
Containing the Legend of Jubal;
Other Poems, Old and New;
The Spanish Gypsy (Hardcover)
by George Eliot
Hardcover, 358 pages
Published September 10th 2010
by Kessinger Publishing
ISBN:- 1163497010
(ISBN13: 9781163497012)
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The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems,
Old and New.
the Spanish Gypsy (Paperback)
by Anonymous
Paperback, 374 pages
Published February 19th 2018
by Palala Press
ISBN:- 1378035631
(ISBN13: 9781378035634)
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The Spanish Gypsy:
The Legend of Jubal and
Other Poems, Old and New
by George Eliot
Paperback, 700 pages
Published September 5th 2003
by University Press of the Pacific
Original Title
The Spanish gypsy. A poem.
By George Eliot.
ISBN:- 1410208117
(ISBN13: 9781410208118)
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