Apparent Failure
By Robert Browning
We shall soon lose a celebrated building.
- Paris Newspaper.
I.
No, for I ll save it! Seven years since,
I passed through Paris, stopped a day
To see the baptism of your Prince;
Saw, made my bow, and went my way
Walking the heat and headache off,
I took the Seine-side, you surmise,
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,
Cavours appeal and Buols replies,
So sauntered till what met my eyes?
II.
Only the Doric little Morgue!
The dead-house where you show your drowned
Petrarchs Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,
Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.
One pays ones debt in such a case;
I plucked up heart and entered, stalked,
Keeping a tolerable face
Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked
Let them! No Britons to be baulked!
III.
First came the silent gazers; next,
A screen of glass, were thankful for;
Last, the sights self, the sermons text,
The three men who did most abhor
Their life in Paris yesterday,
So killed themselves: and now, enthroned
Each on his copper couch, they lay
Fronting me, waiting to be owned.
I thought, and think, their sins atoned.
IV.
Poor men, God made, and all for that!
The reverence struck me; oer each head
Religiously was hung its hat,
Each coat dripped by the owners bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
His bounds, his proper place of rest,
Who last night tenanted on earth
Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,
Unless the plain asphalte seemed best.
V.
How did it happen, my poor boy?
You wanted to be Buonaparte
And have the Tuileries for toy,
And could not, so it broke your heart?
You, old one by his side, I judge,
Were red as blood, a socialist.
A leveller! Does the Empire grudge
Youve gained what no Republic missed?
Be quiet, and unclench your fist!
VI.
And this why, he was red in vain,
Or black, poor fellow that is blue!
What fancy was it turned your brain?
Oh, women were the prize for you!
Money gets women, cards and dice
Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of water oer your bust,
The right thing to extinguish lust!
VII.
Its wiser being good than bad;
Its safer being meek than fierce:
Its fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, cant end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.