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Pomegranates from an English Garden. Robert Browning
Читать онлайн.Название Pomegranates from an English Garden
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Автор произведения Robert Browning
Жанр Зарубежная классика
Издательство Public Domain
On his heap of slain, lay stretched Kallimachos Polemarch?
Did the steady phalanx falter? To the rescue, at the need,
The clown was ploughing Persia, clearing Greek earth of weed,
As he routed through the Sakian and rooted up the Mede.
But the deed done, battle won, – nowhere to be descried
On the meadow, by the stream, at the marsh, – look far and wide
From the foot of the mountain, no, to the last blood-plashed sea-side, —
Not anywhere on view blazed the large limbs thonged and brown,
Shearing and clearing still with the share before which – down
To the dust went Persia’s pomp, as he ploughed for Greece, that clown!
How spake the Oracle? “Care for no name at all!
Say but just this: We praise one helpful whom we call
The Holder of the Ploughshare. The great deed ne’er grows small.”
Not the great name! Sing – woe for the great name Míltiadés,
And its end at Paros isle! Woe for Themistokles —
Satrap in Sardis court! Name not the clown like these!
The name, Echetlos, is derived from ἐχέτλη, a plough handle. It is not strictly a proper name, but an appellative, meaning “the Holder of the Ploughshare.” The story is found in Pausanias, author of the “Itinerary of Greece” (1, 15, 32). Nothing further is necessary in order to understand this little poem and appreciate its rugged strength than familiarity with the battle of Marathon, and some knowledge of Miltiades and Themistocles, the one known as the hero of Marathon, and the other as the hero of Salamis. The lesson of the poem (“The great deed ne’er grows small, not the great name!”) is taught in a way not likely to be forgotten. One is reminded of another, who wished to be nameless, heard only as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness!”
The ellipsis in thought between the eighth and ninth stanzas is so easily supplied that it is noticed here only as a simple illustration of what is sometimes the occasion of difficulty (see Introduction, p. iii). It would only have lengthened the poem and weakened it to have inserted a stanza telling in so many words that when the hero could not be found, a message was sent to the Oracle to enquire who it could be.
As a companion to “Echetlos” may be read the stirring poem of “Hervé Riel.”
HELEN’S TOWER
Who hears of Helen’s Tower, may dream perchance,
How the Greek Beauty from the Scæan Gate
Gazed on old friends unanimous in hate,
Death-doom’d because of her fair countenance.
Hearts would leap otherwise, at thy advance,
Lady, to whom this Tower is consecrate:
Like hers, thy face once made all eyes elate,
Yet, unlike hers, was bless’d by every glance.
The Tower of Hate is outworn, far and strange:
A transitory shame of long ago,
It dies into the sand from which it sprang:
But thine, Love’s rock-built Tower, shall fear no change:
God’s self laid stable Earth’s foundations so,
When all the morning-stars together sang.
The tower is one built by Lord Dufferin, in memory of his mother Helen, Countess of Gifford, on one of his estates in Ireland. “The Greek Beauty” is, of course, Helen of Troy, and the reference in the alternative heading is apparently to that fine passage in the third book of the “Iliad,” where Helen meets the Trojan chiefs at the Scæan Gate (see line 154, which speaks of “Helen at the Tower”).
On the last two lines, founded of course on the well-known passage in Job (xxxviii. 4-7), compare Dante:
“E il sol montava in su con quelle stelle
Ch’eran con lui, quando l’Amor Divino
Mosse da prima quelle cose belle.”
“Aloft the sun ascended with those stars
That with him rose, when Love Divine first moved
Those its fair works.”
– Inferno I. 38-40.
SHOP
So, friend, your shop was all your house!
Its front, astonishing the street,
Invited view from man and mouse
To what diversity of treat
Behind its glass – the single sheet!
What gimcracks, genuine Japanese:
Gape-jaw and goggle-eye, the frog;
Dragons, owls, monkeys, beetles, geese;
Some crush-nosed human-hearted dog:
Queer names, too, such a catalogue!
I thought “And he who owns the wealth
“Which blocks the window’s vastitude,
“ – Ah, could I peep at him by stealth
“Behind his ware, pass shop, intrude
“On house itself, what scenes were viewed!
“If wide and showy thus the shop,
“What must the habitation prove?
“The true house with no name a-top —
“The mansion, distant one remove,
“Once get him off his traffic groove!
“Pictures he likes, or books perhaps;
“And as for buying most and best,
“Commend me to these city chaps.
“Or else he’s social, takes his rest
“On Sundays, with a Lord for guest.
“Some suburb-palace, parked about
“And gated grandly, built last year:
“The four-mile walk to keep off gout;
“Or big seat sold by bankrupt peer:
“But then he takes the rail, that’s clear.
“Or, stop! I wager, taste selects
“Some out o’ the way, some all-unknown
“Retreat: the neighbourhood suspects
“Little that he who rambles lone
“Makes Rothschild tremble on his throne!”
Nowise! Nor Mayfair residence
Fit to receive and entertain, —
Nor Hampstead villa’s kind defence
From noise and crowd, from dust and drain, —
Nor country-box was soul’s domain!
Nowise! At back of all that spread
Of merchandize, woe’s me, I find
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