Ferishtah's Fancies by Robert Browning — Read

"Ay, but, Ferishtah," -- a disciple smirked, -- / "That verse of thine 'How twinks thine eye, my Love, / Blue as yon star-beam! ' much arrides myself / Who haply may obtain a kiss therewith / This eve from Laila where the palms abound -- / My youth, my warrant -- so the palms be close! / Suppose when thou art earnest in discourse / Concerning high and holy things, -- abrupt / I out with -- 'Laila's lip, how honey-sweet! ' -- / What say'st thou, were it scandalous or no? / I feel thy shoe sent flying at my mouth / For daring -- prodigy of impudence -- / Publish what, secret, were permissible. / Well, -- one slide further in the imagined slough, -- / Knee-deep therein, (respect thy reverence! ) -- / Suppose me well aware thy very self / Stooped prying through the palm-screen, while I dared / Solace me with caressings all the same? / Unutterable, nay -- unthinkable, / Undreamable a deed of shame! Alack, / How will it fare shouldst thou impress on me / That certainly an Eye is over all / And each, to mark the minute's deed, word, thought, / As worthy of reward or punishment? / Shall I permit my sense an Eye-viewed shame, / Broad daylight perpetration, -- so to speak, -- / I had not dared to breathe within the Ear, / With black night's help about me? Yet I stand / A man, no monster, made of flesh not cloud: / Why made so, if my making prove offence / To Maker's eye and ear?"

"Thou wouldst not stand / Distinctly Man," -- Ferishtah made reply, / "Not the mere creature, -- did no limit-line / Round thee about, apportion thee thy place / Clean-cut from out and off the illimitable, -- / Minuteness severed from immensity. / All of thee for the Maker, -- for thyself, / Workings inside the circle that evolve / Thine all, -- the product of thy cultured plot. / So much of grain the ground's lord bids thee yield: / Bring sacks to granary in Autumn! spare / Daily intelligence of this manure, / That compost, how they tend to feed the soil: / There thou art master sole and absolute / -- Only, remember doomsday! Twit'st thou me / Because I turn away my outraged nose / Shouldst thou obtrude thereon a shovelful / Of fertilizing kisses? Since thy sire / Wills and obtains thy marriage with the maid, / Enough! Be reticent, I counsel thee, / Nor venture to acquaint him, point by point, / What he procures thee. Is he so obtuse? / Keep thy instruction to thyself! My ass -- / Only from him expect acknowledgment, / The while he champs my gift, a thistle-bunch, / How much he loves the largess: of his love / I only tolerate so much as tells / By wrinkling nose and inarticulate grunt, / The meal, that heartens him to do my work, / Tickles his palate as I meant it should."