The Testament of Beauty - A Poem in Four Books

Robert Bridges

• Publisher: Addison Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781408629413
• eBook ISBN: 9781528761543
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

THE TESTAMENT
OF BEAUTY

BOOK IV

Ethick

BEAUTY, the eternal Spouse of the Wisdom of God
and Angel of his Presence thru’ all creation,
fashioning her new love-realm in the mind of man,
attempteth every mortal child with influences
of her divine supremacy . . . ev’n as in a plant
when the sap mounteth secretly and its wintry stalk
breaketh out in the prolific miracle of Spring,
or as the red blood floodeth into a beating heart
to build the animal body comely and strong; so she
in her transcendant rivalry would flush his spirit10
with pleasurable ichor of heaven: and where she hath found
responsiv faculty in some richly favour’d soul—
L’anima vaga delle cose belle, as saith
the Florentine,—she wil inaugurate her feast
of dedication, and even in thatt earliest onset,
when yet infant Desire hath neither goal nor clue
to fix the dream, ev’n then, altho’ it graspeth nought
and passeth in its airy vision away, and dieth
out of remembrance, ’tis in its earnest of life
and dawn of bliss purer and hath less of earthly tinge20
than any other after-attainment of the understanding:
for all man’s knowledge kenneth also of toil and flaw,
and even his noblest works, tho’ they illume the dark
with individual consummation, are cast upon
by the irrelevant black shadows of time and fate.

Hence is the fascination of amateurs in art,
who renouncing accomplishment attain the prize
of their humbler devotion,—as Augustin saith,
that fools may come at holiness where wise men miss,
Facit enim hoc quaedam etiam stoliditas,—30
arriving by short-coming, like to homely birds
of passage, nesting on the roofs of the workshops.
And tho’ of secret knowledge man’s art is compáct,
yet not the loving study of any master-work,
nor longest familiarity can ever efface
its birthday of surprisal; and great music to me
is glorify’d by memory of one timeless hour
when all thought fled scared from me in my bewilderment.

See then the boy in first encounter with beauty,
his nativ wonder awaken’d by the motion of love;40
as when live air, breathing upon a smother’d fire,
shooteth the smouldering core with tiny flames—so he
kindleth at heart with eternal expectancies,
and the dream within him looketh out at his eyes.

’Twas thru’ worship of Christ that this thing came to men,
whereat, when art achieved portrayal of tenderness,
the christian painters throng’d their heav’n with cherubims,
little amorini, who with rebel innocence
dispossess’d the tall angels; and Mary’s young babe
cast-off his swaddling bands, and stood-up on her lap50
in grace of naked childhood for the image of God.

But as ’tis with the Race, for which our hope draweth
the only assurance of its high nobility
from rare examples, holy men and wise, revered
ev’n by the common folk, that none the less pursue
their common folly interminably, and more
and more pamper despair that is the giant sorrow of earth—
so in the child this glimpse or touch of immanence,
being a superlativ brief moment of glory,
is too little to leaven the inveterate lump of life;60
and the instincts whose transform’d vitality should lust
after spiritual things, return to their vomit
and wallow in the mire of their animal ruts.

Nature hath something truly of her promise in all:
yet, in the infinit disposition of random seeds,
her full potency is rare; as in the end of his book
that maketh the old school-benches yet to sprout in green,
Aristotle confesseth: where the teacher saith
virtue cannot be taught to a mind not well disposed
by natur, and he that hath thatt rarest excelence,70
διά τιvας θγίας αὶτίας, may be above all men
styled truly fortunat; and with those four Greek words
hath proudly prick’d to virtue many a sluggard soul.

Forsooth the need of Fortune stayeth not here, alas!
Ther is no assurance of stability or fair growth,
unless she stand by faithfully and foster the soul,
fending from all evil and encompassing with good,
the while these intimations come to be understood
and harmonized by Reason in the conduct of life.

Now as Reason matured to the power of manhood,80
tutor’d by disciplin of natur, and ordering
the accumulated scrutiny of physical flux
in various sciences, so education of spirit,
in the dignity of its creativ enthusiasms
and honorable intelligence of Goddes gifts,
mapp’d out its own science of conduct, aligning
a pathway of happiness thru’ the valley of death:
and thatt science, call’d Ethick, dealing with the skill
and manage of the charioteer in Plato’s myth,
rangeth up here in place for the parley of this book.90

Since all Ethick implyeth a sense of Duty in man,
’tis first to enquire whence that responsible OUGHT arose;
a call so universal and plain-spoken that some
hav abstracted a special faculty, distinct
from animal bias and underivable,
whereby the creature kenneth the creator’s Will,
that, in stillness of sound speaking to gentle souls,
dowereth all silence with the joy of his presence;
but to men savage or superstitious a voice
of horror, maleficent, inescapable,100
hounding them with fearful conviction of sin, as when
Adam in Eden hid from the scour of God’s eye.
Which old tale of displeasur is true to life: because
the imperativ obligation cannot be over-summ’d,
being in itself the self-conscience of thatt Essence
which is no other indeed than the prime ordinance
that we call Law of Nature,—in its grade the same
with the determin’d habit of electrons, the same
with the determining instinct of unreasoning life,
NECESSITY become conscient in man—whereto110
all insubordination is imperfection in kind.

Reality appeareth in forms to man’s thought
as several links interdependent of a chain
that circling returneth upon itself, as doth
the coil’d snake that in art figureth eternity.

From Universal Mind the first-born atoms draw
their function, whose rich chemistry the plants transmute
to make organic life, whereon animals feed
to fashion sight and sense and give service to man,
who sprung from them is conscient in his last degree120
of ministry unto God, the Universal Mind,
whither all effect returneth whence it first began.

The Ring in its repose is Unity and Being:
Causation and Existence are the motion thereof.
Thru’out all runneth Duty, and the conscience of it
is thatt creativ faculty of animal mind
that, wakening to self-conscience of all Essences,
closeth the full circle, where the spirit of man
escaping from the bondage of physical Law
re-entereth eternity by the vision of God.130

This absolution of Reason is not for all to see:
But any man may picture how Duty was born,
and trace thereafter its passage in the ethick of man.

Ther is a young black ouzel, now building her nest
under the Rosemary on the wall, suspiciously
shunning my observation as I sit in the porch,
intentiv with my pencil as she with her beak:
Coud we discourse together, and wer I to ask for-why
she is making such pother with thatt rubbishy straw,
her answer would be surely: ‘I know not, but I MUST.’140
Then coud she take persuasion of Reason to desist
from a purposeless action, in but a few days hence
when her eggs wer to hatch, she would look for her nest;
and if another springtide found us here again,
with memory of her fault, she would know a new word,
having made conscient passage from the MUST to the OUGHT.

I halt not then nor stumble at how the duteous call
was gotten in course of nature, rather it lieth to show
how it was after-shapen in man from physical
to moral ends, and came no longer only to affirm150
but sometimes even to oppose the bidding of instinct,
positing beside OUGHT the equivalent OUGHT NOTS,
the stern forbiddances of those tables of stone
that Moses fetch’d out of the thunder of Sinai.

And since we see how man’s judgment of Right and Wrong
varieth with education—and thatt without effect
to strengthen or weaken Duty—, we conclude therefrom
that education shapeneth our moralities.
And when and whereas Conscience transfigureth the Instincts
—to affection, as aforesaid, from motherly selfhood,160
and to spiritual love from lust of breed—, we find
Duty therewith extended in the moral field.
Thus ’tis (as missionaries tell) that head-hunters
who seek relish in refinement of cruelty,
wil yet to soft feelings respond at gentle appeal:
my dog would do as well, coud he understand my speech.
Yet tho’ we see how birds in catering for their young
stint not their self-devotion, and punctiliously observe
distributiv justice; and that dutiful dogs
urged by conflicting calls wil stand awhile perplex’d170
in dumb deliberation—ne’ertheless, because
the true spiritual combat is unknown to brutes,
moralists teaching virtue as an end-in-itself
repudiate any sanction from motivs engaged
on animal welfare, and make utility
a cant term of reproach; tho’ on their higher plane
spiritual conduct also is utilitarian:
For virtue subserveth the soul’s comfort and joy,
therewithal no less useful, nay more requisit
than is material comfort to our full happiness180
in se...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• I Introduction
• II Selfhood
• III Breed
• IV Ethick