Classic Poem

Dipsychus

And I half yielded—oh, unthinking I!
Oh weak, weak fool! Alas, how quietly
Out of our better into our worse selves,
Out of a true world which our reason knew
Into a false world which our fancies make
Down the swift spiral opening still the same
We slide and never notice. Oh weak fool!

Spirit

Well, well—I may have been a little strong,
Of course, I wouldn't have you do what's wrong.
But we who've lived out in the world, you know,
Don't see these little things precisely so.
You feel yourself—to shrink and yet be fain,
And still to move and still draw back again,
Is a proceeding wholly without end.
If the plebeian street don't suit my friend,
Why he must try the drawing room, one fancies,
And he shall run to concerts and to dances!
And, with my aid, go into good society.
Life little loves, 'tis true, this peevish piety;
E'en they with whom it thinks to be securest—
Your most religious, delicatest, purest—
Discern, and show as pious people can
Their feeling that you are not quite a man.
Still the thing has its place; and with sagacity,
Much might be done by one of your capacity.
A virtuous attachment formed judiciously
Would come, one sees, uncommonly propitiously:
Turn you but your affections the right way,
And what mayn't happen none of us can say;
For in despite of devils and of mothers,
Your good young men make catches, too, like others.
Oh yes; into society we go;
At worst, 'twill teach you much you ought to know.

Dipsychus

To herd with people that one owns no care for;
Friend it with strangers that one sees but once;
To drain the heart with endless complaisance;
To warp the unfashioned diction on the lip,
And twist one's mouth to counterfeit; enforce
Reluctant looks to falsehood; base-alloy
The ingenuous golden frankness of the past;
To calculate and plot; be rough and smooth,
Forward and silent; deferential, cool,
Not by one's humour, which is the safe truth,
But on consideration—

Spirit

That is, act
On a dispassionate judgement of the fact;
Look all your data fairly in the face,
And rule your conduct simply by the case.

Dipsychus

On vile consideration. At the best,
With pallid hotbed courtesies forestall
The green and vernal spontaneity,
And waste the priceless moments of the man
In regulating manner. Whether these things
Be right, I do not know: I only know 'tis
To lose one's youth too early. Oh, not yet,
Not yet I make this sacrifice.

Spirit

Du tout!
To give up nature's just what wouldn't do.
By all means keep your sweet ingenuous graces,
And use them at the proper times and places.
For work, for play, for business, talk, and love,
I own as wisdom truly from above
That scripture of the serpent and the dove;
Nor's aught so perfect for the world's affairs
As the old parable of wheat and tares;
What we all love is good touched up with evil—
Religion's self must have a spice of devil.

Dipsychus

Let it be enough
That in our needful mixture with the world,
On each new morning with the rising sun
Our rising heart, fresh from the seas of sleep,
Scarce o'er the level lifts his purer orb
Ere lost and sullied with polluting smoke—
A noonday coppery disk. Lo, scarce come forth,
Some vagrant miscreant meets, and with a look
Transmutes me his, and for a whole sick day
Lepers me.

Spirit

Why the one thing, I assure you,
From which good company can't but secure you.
About the individuals 't'an't so clear,
But who can doubt the general atmosphere?

Dipsychus

Ay truly, who at first? But in a while—

Spirit

O really, your discernment makes me smile—
Do you pretend to tell me you can see
Without one touch of melting sympathy
Those lovely, stately flowers, that fill with bloom
The brilliant season's gay parterre -like room,
Moving serene yet swiftly through the dances;
Those graceful forms and perfect countenances,
Whose every fold and line in all their dresses
Something refined and exquisite expresses?
To see them smile and hear them talk so sweetly
In me destroys all grosser thoughts completely.
I really seem without exaggeration
To experience the True Regeneration;
One's own dress too, one's manner, what one's doing
And saying, all assist to one's renewing—
I love to see in these their fitting places
The bows, and forms, and all you call grimaces.
I heartily could wish we'd kept some more of them,
However much they talk about the bore of them.
Fact is, your awkward parvenus are shy at it,
Afraid to look like waiters if they try at it.
'Tis sad to what democracy is leading;
Give me your Eighteenth Century for high breeding.
Though I can put up gladly with the present,
And quite can think our modern parties pleasant.
One shouldn't analyse the thing too nearly;
The main effect is admirable clearly.
Good manners, said our great aunts, next to piety;
And so, my friend, hurrah for good society.
For, mind you, if you don't do this, you still
Have got to tell me what it is you will.

Scene IV—I N A G ONDOLA

Dipsychus

Per ora. To the Grand Canal.
Afterwards e'en as fancy shall.

Afloat; we move. Delicious! Ah,
What else is like the gondola?
This level floor of liquid glass
Begins beneath it swift to pass.
It goes as though it went alone
By some impulsion of its own.
How light it moves, how softly! Ah,
Were all things like the gondola!

How light it moves, how softly! Ah,
Could life, as does our gondola,
Unvexed with quarrels, aims, and cares,
And moral duties and affairs,
Unswaying, noiseless, swift, and strong,
For ever thus—thus glide along!
How light we move, how softly! Ah,
Were all things like the gondola!

With no more motion than should bear
A freshness to the languid air;
With no more effort than exprest
The need and naturalness of rest,
Which we beneath a grateful shade
Should take on peaceful pillows laid—
How light we move, how softly! Ah,
Were all things like the gondola!

In one unbroken passage borne
To closing night from opening morn,
Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark
Some palace front, some passing bark;
Through windows catch the varying shore,
And hear the soft turns of the oar—

How light we move, how softly! Ah,
Were all things like the gondola!

So live, nor need to call to mind
Our slaving brother set behind!

Spirit

Pooh! Nature meant him for no better
Than our most humble menial debtor;
Who thanks us for his day's employment,
As we our purse for our enjoyment.

Dipsychus

To make one's fellow-man an instrument—

Spirit

Is just the thing that makes him most content.

Dipsychus

Our gaieties, our luxuries,
 Our pleasures and our glee,
Mere insolence and wantonries,
 Alas! they feel to me.

How shall I laugh and sing and dance?
 My very heart recoils,
While here to give my mirth a chance
 A hungry brother toils.

The joy that does not spring from joy
 Which I in others see,
How can I venture to employ,
 Or find it joy for me?

Spirit

Oh come, come, come! By Him that set us here,
Who's to enjoy at all, pray let us hear?
You won't; he can't! Oh, no more fuss!
What's it to him, or he to us?
Sing, sing away, be glad and gay,
And don't forget that we shall pay.
How light we move, how softly! Ah,
Tra lal la la, the gondola!

Dipsychus

Yes, it is beautiful ever, let foolish men rail at it never.
Yes, it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly.
Wise are ye others that choose it, and happy ye all that can use it.
Life it is beautiful wholly, and could we eliminate only
This interfering, enslaving, o'ermastering demon of craving,
This wicked tempter inside us to ruin still eager to guide us,
Life were beatitude, action a possible pure satisfaction.

Spirit

(Hexameters, by all that's odious,
Beshod with rhyme to run melodious!)

Dipsychus

All as I go on my way I behold them consorting and coupling
Faithful, it seemeth, and fond; very fond, very possibly faithful;
All as I go on my way with a pleasure sincere and unmingled.
Life it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly;
But for perfection attaining is one method only, abstaining;
Let us abstain, for we should so, if only we thought that we could so.

Spirit

(Bravo, bravissimo! this time though
You rather were run short for rhyme though;
Not that on that account your verse
Could be much better or much worse.)

Dipsychus

O let me love my love unto myself alone,
And know my knowledge to the world unknown;
No witness to the vision call,
Beholding, unbeheld of all;
And worship thee, with thee withdrawn, apart,
Whoe'er, whate'er thou art,
Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart.

Better it were, thou sayest, to consent,
Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent;
Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure,
The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure;
In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll,
And lose in action, Passion, Talk, the soul.

Nay, better far to mark off thus much air
And call it heaven, place bliss and glory there;
Fix perfect homes in the unsubastantial sky,
And say, what is not, will be by-and-by;
What here exists not, must exist elsewhere.
But play no tricks upon thy soul, O man;
Let fact be fact, and life the thing it can.

Spirit

To these remarks so sage and clerkly,
Worthy of Malebranche or Berkeley,
I trust it won't be deemed a sin
If I too answer ‘with a grin.’

These juicy meats, this flashing wine,
 May be an unreal mere appearance;
Only—for my inside, in fine,
 They have a singular coherence.

This lovely creature's glowing charms
 Are gross illusion, I don't doubt that;
But when I pressed her in my arms
 I somehow didn't think about that.

This world is very odd, we see;
 We do not comprehend it;
But in one fact can all agree
 God won't, and we can't mend it.

Being common sense, it can't be sin
 To take it as we find it;
The pleasure to take pleasure in;
 The pain, try not to mind it.

Dipsychus

Where are the great, whom thou would'st wish to praise thee?
Where are the pure, whom thou would'st choose to love thee?
Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee,
Whose high commands would rouse, whose chiding raise thee?
 Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find
 In the stones, bread; and life in the blank mind.

  (Written in London, standing in the Park,
  An evening in July, just before dark.)

Spirit

As I sat at the café, I said to myself,
They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking,
But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking
 How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 How pleasant it is to have money.

I sit at my table en grand seigneur ,
And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor;
Not only the pleasure, one's self, of good living,
But also the pleasure of now and then giving.
 So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 So pleasant it is to have money.

It was but last winter I came up to Town,
But already I'm getting a little renown;
I make new acquaintance where'er I appear;
I am not too shy, and have nothing to fear.
 So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 So pleasant it is to have money.

I drive through the streets, and I care not a d—mn;
The people they stare, and they ask who I am;
And if I should chance to run over a cad,
I can pay for the damage if ever so bad.
 So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 So pleasant it is to have money.

We stroll to our box and look down on the pit,
And if it weren't low should be tempted to spit;
We loll and we talk until people look up,
And when it's half over we go out and sup.
 So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 So pleasant it is to have money.

The best of the tables and best of the fare—
And as for the others, the devil may care;
It isn't our fault if they dare not afford
To sup like a prince and be drunk as a lord.
 So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 So pleasant it is to have money.

We sit at our tables and tipple champagne;
Ere one bottle goes, comes another again;
The waiters they skip and they scuttle about,
And the landlord attends us so civilly out.
 So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 So pleasant it is to have money.

It was but last winter I came up to town,
But already I'm getting a little renown;
I get to good houses without much ado,
Am beginning to see the nobility too.
 So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 So pleasant it is to have money.

O dear! what a pity they ever should lose it!
For they are the gentry that know how to use it;
So grand and so graceful, such manners, such dinners,
But yet, after all, it is we are the winners.
 So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 So pleasant it is to have money.

Thus I sat at my table en grand seigneur ,
And when I had done threw a crust to the poor;
Not only the pleasure, one's self, of good eating,
But also the pleasure of now and then treating.
 So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 So pleasant it is to have money.

They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
And how one ought never to think of one's self,
And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking—
My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking
 How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 How pleasant it is to have money.

(Written in Venice, but for all parts true,
'Twas not a crust I gave him, but a sous.)
A gondola here, and a gondola there,
'Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air.
To right and to left; stop, turn, and go yonder,
And let us repeat, o'er the tide as we wander,
 How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 How pleasant it is to have money.

  Come, leave your Gothic, worn-out story,
  San Giorgio and the Redemptore;
  I from no building, gay or solemn,
  Can spare the shapely Grecian column.
  'Tis not, these centuries four, for nought
  Our European world of thought
  Hath made familiar to its home
  The classic mind of Greece and Rome;
  In all new work that would look forth
  To more than antiquarian worth,
  Palladio's pediments and bases,
  Or something such, will find their places:
  Maturer optics don't delight
  In childish dim religious light,
  In evanescent vague effects
  That shirk, not face, one's intellects;
  They love not fancies fast betrayed,
  And artful tricks of light and shade,
  But pure form nakedly displayed,
  And all things absolutely made.
  The Doge's palace though, from hence,
  In spite of Ruskin's d——d pretence,
  The tide now level with the quay,
  Is certainly a thing to see.
  We'll turn to the Rialto soon;
  One's told to see it by the moon.

A gondola here, and a gondola there,
'Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air.
To right and to left; stop, turn, and go yonder,
And let us repeat, o'er the flood as we wander,
 How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
 How pleasant it is to have money.

Dipsychus

How light we go, how soft we skim,
And all in moonlight seem to swim!
The south side rises o'er our bark,
A wall impenetrably dark;
The north the while profusely bright.
The water—is it shade or light?
Say, gentle moon, which conquers now
The flood, those massy hulls, or thou?
How light we go, how softly! Ah,
Were life but as the gondola!
How light we go, how soft we skim,
And all in moonlight seem to swim!
In moonlight is it now,—or shade?
In planes of sure division made,
By angles sharp of palace walls
The clear light and the shadow falls;
O sight of glory, sight of wonder!
Seen, a pictorial portent, under,
O great Rialto, the vast round
Of thy thrice-solid arch profound!
How light we go, how softly! Ah,
Life should be as the gondola!

How light we go, how softly—

Spirit

Nay;
'Fore heaven, enough of that to-day:
I'm deadly weary of your tune,
And half- ennuyé with the moon;
The shadows lie, the glories fall,
And are but moonshine after all.
It goes against my conscience really
To let myself feel so ideally.
Make me repose no power of man shall
In things so deucèd unsubstantial.
Come, for the Piazzetta steer;
'Tis nine o'clock or very near.
These airy blisses, skiey joys
Of vague romantic girls and boys,
Which melt the heart and the brain soften,
When not affected, as too often
They are, remind me, I protest,
Of nothing better at the best
Than Timon's feast to his ancient lovers,
Warm water under silver covers;
‘Lap, dogs!’ I think I hear him say;
And lap who will, so I'm away.

Dipsychus

How light we go, how soft we skim,
And all in open moonlight swim!
Bright clouds against, reclined I mark
The white dome now projected dark,
And, by o'er-brilliant lamps displayed,
The Doge's columns and arcade;
Over still waters mildly come
The distant laughter and the hum.
How light we go, how softly! Ah,
Life should be as the gondola!

Spirit

The Devil! we've had enough of you,
Quote us a little Wordsworth, do!
Those lines that are so just, they say:
‘A something far more deeply’ eh?
‘Interfused’—what is it they tell us?
Which and the sunset are bedfellows.

Dipsychus

How light we go, how soft we skim,
And all in open moonlight swim!
Ah, gondolier, slow, slow, more slow!
We go; but wherefore thus should go?
Ah, let not muscle all too strong
Beguile, betray thee to our wrong!
On to the landing, onward. Nay,
Sweet dream, a little longer stay!
On to the landing; here. And, ah,
Life is not as the gondola!

Spirit

Tre ore . So. The Parthenone,
Is it, you haunt for your limone?
Let me induce you to join me
In gramolata persici .