The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

129 2 / ROBERT BROWNING For see, how he takes up the after-life. The man�it is one Lazarus a Jew, Sanguine,0 proportioned, fifty years of age, The body's habit wholly laudable,0As much, indeed, beyond the common health As he were made and put aside to show. Think, could we penetrate by any drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,0Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, Now sharply, now with sorrow,�told the case,� He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool. And that's a sample how his years must go. Look, if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, Should find a treasure,�can he use the same With straitened habits and with tastes starved small, And take at once to his impoverished brain The sudden element that changes things, That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? Is he not such an one as moves to mirth"� Warily parsimonious, when no need, Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? All prudent counsel as to what befits The golden mean, is lost on such an one: The man's fantastic will is the man's law. So here�we call the treasure knowledge, say, Increased beyond the fleshly faculty� Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven: The man is witless0 of the size, the sum, The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or be much. Discourse to him of prodigious armaments Assembled to besiege his city now, And of the passing of a mule with gourds� 'Tis one! Then take it on the other side, Speak of some trifling fact,�he will gaze rapt With stupor at its very littleness (Far as I see), as if in that indeed He caught prodigious import, whole results; And so will turn to us the bystanders In ever the same stupor (note this point) That we too see not with his opened eyes. Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, Preposterously, at cross-purposes. Should his child sicken unto death,�why, look robust healthy say at first makes us laugh unknowing

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KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN / 129 3

160 For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,

Or pretermission" of the daily craft!

interruption

While a word, gesture, glance from that same child

At play or in the school or laid asleep,

Will startle him to an agony of fear,

165 Exasperation, just as like. Demand

The reason why�" 'tis but a word," object�

"A gesture"�he regards thee as our lord8

Who lived there in the pyramid alone,

Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young,

170 We both would unadvisedly recite

Some charm's beginning, from that book of his,

Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst

All into stars, as suns grown old are wont.

Thou and the child have each a veil alike

175 Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both

Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match

Over a mine of Greek fire,9 did ye know!

He holds on firmly to some thread of life�

(It is the life to lead perforcedly)

i8o Which runs across some vast distracting orb

Of glory on either side that meager thread,

Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet�

The spiritual life around the earthly life:

The law of that is known to him as this,1

185 His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.

So is the man perplexed with impulses

Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,

Proclaiming what is right and wrong across,

And not along, this black thread through the blaze�

190 "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be."

And oft the man's soul springs into his face

As if he saw again and heard again

His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise.

Something, a word, a tick o' the blood0 within beat

pulse

195 Admonishes: then back he sinks at once

To ashes, who was very fire before,

In sedulous recurrence to his trade

Whereby he earneth him the daily bread;

And studiously the humbler for that pride,

200 Professedly the faultier that0 he knows because

God's secret, while he holds the thread of life.

Indeed the especial marking of the man

Is prone submission to the heavenly will�

Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.

205 'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last

For that same death which must restore his being

To equilibrium, body loosening soul

Divorced even now by premature full growth:

8. A magician or wise man under whom Karshish I. I.e., he knows the law of the spiritual life as well and Abib had studied. as that of the earthly life. 9. Weapon made of sulfur, naphtha, and saltpeter.

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129 4 / ROBERT BROWNING

He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live

210 So long as God please, and just how God please. He even seeketh not to please God more (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. Hence, I perceive not he affects0 to preach aspires The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be,