Men and Women. Robert Browning

have worn it, though none did:

      The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads,

      Had purpose, and the ruff, significance.

      He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane,

      Scenting the

      world, looking it full in face,

      An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels.

      They turned up, now, the alley by the church,

      That leads nowhither; now, they breathed themselves

      On the main promenade just at the wrong time:

      You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat

      Making a peaked shade blacker than itself

      Against the single window spared some house

      Intact yet with its mouldered Moorish work—

      Or else surprise the ferret of his stick

      Trying the

      mortar's temper 'tween the chinks

      Of some new shop a-building, French and fine.

      He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade,

      The man who slices lemons into drink,

      The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys

      That volunteer to help him turn its winch.

      He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye,

      And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string,

      And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall.

      He took such cognizance of men and things,

      If any beat a horse, you felt he saw;

      If any cursed a woman, he took note;

      Yet stared at nobody—you stared at him,

      And found, less to your pleasure than surprise,

      He seemed to know you and expect as much.

      So, next time that a neighbor's tongue was loosed,

      It marked the shameful and notorious fact,

      We had among us, not so much a spy,

      As a recording chief-inquisitor,

      The town's true master if the town but knew

      We merely kept a governor for form,

      While this man walked about and took account

      Of all thought, said and acted, then went home,

      And wrote it fully to our Lord the King

      Who has an itch to know things, he knows why,

      And reads them in his bedroom of a night.

      Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch,

      A tang of . . . well, it was not wholly ease

      As back into your mind the man's look came.

      Stricken in years a little—such a brow

      His eyes had to live under!—clear as flint

      On either side the formidable nose

      Curved, cut and colored like an eagle's claw,

      Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate?

      When altogether old B. disappeared

      And young C. got his mistress, was't our friend,

      His letter to the King, that did it all?

      What paid the Woodless man for so much pains?

      Our Lord the King has favorites manifold,

      And shifts his ministry some once a month;

      Our city gets new governors at whiles—

      But never word or sign, that I could hear,

      Notified to this man about the streets

      The King's approval of those letters conned

      The last thing duly at the dead of night.

      Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord,

      Exhorting when none heard—"Beseech me not!

      Too far above my people—beneath me!

      I set the watch—how should the people know?

      Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!"

      Was some such understanding 'twixt the two?

      I found no truth in one report at least—

      That if you tracked him to his home, down lanes

      Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace,

      You found he ate his supper in a room

      Blazing with lights, four Titians4 on the wall,

      And twenty naked girls to change his plate!

      Poor man, he lived another kind of life

      In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge,

      Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise!

      The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat,

      Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back,

      Playing a decent cribbage with his maid

      (Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheese

      And fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears,

      Or treat of radishes in April. Nine,

      Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he.

      My father, like the man of sense he was,

      Would point him out to me a dozen times;

      "'St—'St," he'd whisper, "the Corregidor!"5

      I had been used to think that personage

      Was one with lacquered breeches, lustrous belt,

      And feathers like a forest in his hat,

      Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news,

      Announced the bull-fights, gave each church its turn,

      And memorized the miracle in vogue!

      He had a great observance from us boys;

      We were in error; that was not the man.

      I'd like now, yet had happy been afraid,

      To have just looked, when this man came to die,

      And seen who lined the clean gay garret-sides

      And stood about the neat low truckle-bed,

      With the heavenly manner of relieving guard.

      Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief,

      Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death,

      Doing the King's work all the dim day long,

      In his old coat and up to knees in mud,

      Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust,

      And, now the day was won, relieved at once!

      No further show or need for that old coat,

      You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the while

      How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I!

      A second, and the angels alter that.

      Well, I could never write a verse—could you?

      Let's to the Prado and make the most of time.

NOTES

      "How it Strikes a Contemporary" is a portrait of the Poet as the unpoetic gossiping public of his day sees him. It is humorously colored by the alien point of view of the speaker, who suspects without understanding either the greatness of the poet's spiritual personality and mission, or the nature of his life, which is withdrawn from

4

Titian: pictures by the Venetian, Tiziano Vecellio (1477-1576), glowing in color, presumably of large golden-haired women like his famous Venus.

5

Corregidor: the Spanish title for a magistrate, literally, a corrector, from corregir, to correct.