University of Virginia Library

I turn the puzzle over, side by side
Set all its myriad facets to the light,
State and re-state it. Still the clue eludes.
Who can work nature out in diagrams?
Or cast the fluid essence volatile
Of human motive flawless into moulds
Of statist theory? Clear flows the stuff,
Till meeting with a sand-grain all runs wrong,
Spoilt in an instant, ruined by a hair;
And we bend grimly to our toil again.
There's my solution written clean and clear,
No letter wrong, not one erasure seen,
The periods flowing as a rill of oil.
Shut in my desk it seems a perfect thing:
Put it in action, and some wretched fly
Tangles himself against it for a whim,
And all goes out of gear. It worked so smooth
Till some fool-passion touched the intricate wheels
And wrecked itself and them. Man still eludes
Logic and computation like weak cloud.
He will not be consistent, this poor beast;
And I complain, that on no certain plan
Will he ordain existence. Virtue's well,
And Vice affords some grist to nature's mill.
So, man, be good or evil once for all.
Each scheme of life presents peculiar charm.
But, being evil, why slide back to saint,
Or being saint, relapse to sinner's ways?
That's what this fatuous human nature does.
Man, ever-veering, fails in either part;
Makes quite a sorry milk-and-water fiend,
Or drapes himself in paltry angel plumes,
And snuffs for carrion in the nearest hedge.
Who can put rule to such a thing as he?
Could I not master with an easy hand
A devil legion true to devil law,
Or sweet obedient seraph-birds of heaven?
But this thing looking both ways, going none,
Remorseful in his murder, tyrannous
In his best loving; false as hell to a wife,
And constant to a harlot as a dove.
Merry at church, and in a wine-vault sad,
How shall I build a science of his soul?

There's one type here and there I understand.
Take this lean kneeling monk, who scores his knees
Into a gristle with the sharpest flints
Pegged close as mussel-bed between the tides,
Who gauges saintship by lean flesh and dirt.
And there's some burning purpose in that other,
Who takes and sucks the orange of all sin
Clean dry in spite of thunder, and makes mouths
At the big eyes of the indignant priests.
Oh, I could frame a science of the world
Time-proof and out of shot of accident,
If only and if always men as these
Were black and white about it; but confound
These neutral greys unfit for heaven or hell.

Here am I, statist and philosopher,
Just paid enough to wrap my bones and feed.
Who pull the strings of this great booby duke,
Manage the nobles, give the mob their cue,
When they may roar for charters with success.
Rule this small realm by balancing the three
Against each other with a wary thumb,
Being an unseen providence almost
To all and each, but reaping thanks of none.
Thus in the game of government play men,
Like chess, except your pieces won't keep still,
Stir of themselves, if you but turn your head,
Will not be passive. Why should this pert knight
Move, no word given, within the castle's reach,
And suicidal, rush upon his doom?
He saw one yard around him in the smoke,
Having no glimpse how fared the outer fight,
Where the foe queen lay helpless 'twixt a pawn
And her poor king's exposure. Much he knew:
While the whole battle-plan beneath mine eyes
Lay mapped and meted like a pasture plain.
Or state my troubles in another view—
Mankind is here in that weak infant stage
When it just totters but can't go alone;
Is fractious if you aid it, wails the more
If, when the stumble comes, your arm don't catch
And interpose at the instant. You look on,
Preaching of balance, how to plant the feet,
Till, using your tuition to escape,
Some weary hour souse goes the sullen child
Into the nearest horse-pond; chokes and roars
To you, who pull it out and cleanse its rags,
And curse the pains you took to get it in;
Since in its crawling state it always kept
A dry skin till you taught it.

A sweet life!
And sweetly grateful service, you may say;
And surely sweet example they assume,
These many masters mine, to imitate
The licence of the shoaling forest-flies;
Who cloud your head, and with your moving move,
And madden you with droning undersong
And feeble sting. My legion rulers these;
My Lord in chief another, that's the Duke,
Whom 'tis my gracious duty to direct
From a state-paper to a love-affair;
That vacuous thing, arch-dotard of the herd,
That most uncertain blockhead, “Charlemagne
In council and in bravery Roland.”
So ran the late address, a birthday thing,
Presented by the council of the town,
Phrased somewhat neatly. I composed it all,
And taught them how to speak it end to end.
As, in a ducal and less flowing style,
I wrote the answer of our gracious Lord;
Which in the reading he was pleased to change
To dismal nonsense. Well, that audience done,
The crassest alderman must pluck my robe.
Draws down a serious mouth and whispers me,
To this effect; “I meddle over-much,
Clerk as I am of no degree and mean,
Between the people and the awful throne;
Let me beware.” His neighbour caught the cry
To the same tune: another civic light
Snorted approval, stared with oozy eyes
Glazed over with a weak malevolence;
Essayed to speak, but only gurgles came
From that throat eloquent; and all this coil
Arose, because one pushing alderman
Wished to intrude his daughter, Lammas last,
About the duchess as a tiring-wench.
And I, who read this daughter at a glance,
Brewer of mischief, in suave sort declined,
In our o'erstocked menagerie of cats,
To introduce another of the breed,
So promising already in the rough.
Well, to return, I listen, rub my hands;
Bow to the burghers; hope I know my place,
Smile as I watch them stumbling down the stairs,
Muse for a space. Another taps my sleeve,
The audience usher, the dude waits, I go,
Knowing the leader of his people sends
Most graciously intending, in his turn,
To wipe his sacred buskins for an hour
Upon the trivial carcase of his slave.
Which comes to pass exactly as I said;
His Highness rates me with a heated face;
The burghers' speech has rubbed him the wrong way,
Seems less effusive than last birthday's one,
When our grain crops were beaten less by scuds,
And native woolens beat the Flemish looms.
Then one seditious rumour frets his soul,
Was ever worthy ruler plagued as he?
The thing was nothing, a mere contretemps,
About a damsel he had noticed once.
Such things will happen—noticed, mind, I say;
No further. But thereon the silly child
Must choose to wail and moan about our streets,
And utter, Lord knows what, best left unsaid.
The weaker sort caught up her idle tale,
And spread it, till one trivial accident
Had made men's loyal feelings limp and lean.
The duke was pleased to vent all this on me,
Blameable somehow for his merry hours;
I stood a-shiver, like a coatless man
Caught in a good ripe drench of harvest rain
Upon a treeless common. He stormed on
Merrily, till it ended; all must end.
I stumble backwards from the inner shrine
Dazed with the thunder of this royal Jove.
Crossing the ante-room I'm caught again,
The Countess Emma wants a word with me,
Will take denial none. I needs must go;
Because our duke esteems her ladyship,
Consults her much—of course on state affairs—
In short, you'd best be well with her just now.
Tho' perhaps a month or two shall change all that.
Well, there's a tedious tale of when and how,
Of ways and tears and means. These female scrapes
Disgust me most. They're so illogical.
I could instruct them, if they'd come to me,
How to be twice as bad at half the risk,
And still to sin with some consistency
About their scheme of sinning. As it seems,
Some distant cousin of her countess-ship,
The sex is immaterial to the tale—
Must have at any price relays of cash.
She tries her teasing ways upon the duke.
But his exchequer runs at grievous ebb;
Until one certain evening, having dined,
More to be rid of her than anything,
He gave her, or allowed her to divest,
Certain crown-jewels that he happed to wear.
The case lay sweetly in a nutshell thus.
No goldsmith in this loyal burgh would buy;
He dared not melt and could not sell the gear.
Besides his Highness might not well recall
The details of their giving: who would deal
In wares that savoured of the axe and cord?
One thing was certain. Money must be found.
And blood is much, tho' distant be the kin.
She ends in weeping as a thing of course.
Then in one instant I discern my way.
This trash must fall or my court days are done.
This tangle must disroot herself or me.
Hail! thou great glow of conflict, action hail!
My blood warms for the first time in the day.
Here is a thing to do, a road to tread,
As clear as noon-light. Exquisite and clean
This action with a precipice all round
But one way. Forward in sweet confidence!
The doubts that vex our science are as dead
As Saint Paul's viper.

I don't push her out
Of any malice, mind. She is as well
As she will be who treads into her shoes.
But she has woven a knot I dare not break;
Therefore I know she will hate me, plan my fall;
So my resolve is taken, I decline
To intermeddle with her jewel sales.
She weeps, entreats, and threatens finally,
As I expected. Then I speak indeed
My word of power and quell her at one blow
Within an hour his Highness must be taught
Who battens on the jewels of his crown.
As for herself, all harvest hence is spoiled.
Let her pack up her bundles and begone,
A cheated jealous Jove is apt to flash
In formidable ire, unmerciful.
Might it not peril her smooth neck to stay?
And one hour's law I even gave her then,
Gave her this space to outwit me, if she dared
Being curious on the surmise, if she could
Summon the needful courage. I believe.
I love the sciences political
Beyond my personal danger. Not at all;
She is a low poor creature, fierce enough
With the game hers, but prostrate at a blow.
She flies. We hang the cousin out of hand;
And, out of sheer compassion, I procure
A pension for her. Tho' the duke storms out,
That I am false to ask it for the jade,
But finally concedes it. Off she goes
To her castle in the vineyards; where she milks
Two cows and goes to chapel twice a day,
And takes her serving-maids on stipulation
That they should see no sweethearts. R. I. P.,
As they say in the grave-yards.

To my task,
I am grown garrulous indeed to-night.
I think at seasons I am ageing fast.
What! midnight chimes, and with the morning comes
The knavish envoy of the neighbour throne.
And I must have my wits in sweetest gear;
His cormorant kingdom snatches at our land,
And preys upon our matches half-way round,
Would quarrel on a nutshell if she could.
She is strong and we are crafty. Let her come;
I can subdue her in a paper war
And drive her from the field with argument.
Suppose it comes to fighting. Well, that goes
Beyond my province. I've philosophy
To face the issue; cosmopolitan,
I have no land, my science is the world.