"WHAT have I earned for all that work,' I said,
'For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defaned,
The reputation of his lifetime lost
Between the night and morning. I might have lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where every day my footfall Should have lit
In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;
Or climbed among the images of the past —
The unperturbed and courtly images —
Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino
To where the Duchess and her people talked
The stately midnight through until they stood
In their great window looking at the dawn;
I might have had no friend that could not mix
Courtesy and passion into one like those
That saw the wicks grow yellow in the dawn;
I might have used the one substantial right
My trade allows: chosen my company,
And chosen what scenery had pleased me best.
Thereon my phoenix answered in reproof,
"The drunkards, pilferers of public funds,
All the dishonest crowd I had driven away,
When my luck changed and they dared meet my face,
Crawled from obscurity, and set upon me
Those I had served and some that I had fed;
Yet never have I, now nor any time,
Complained of the people.'
All I could reply
Was: "You, that have not lived in thought but deed,
Can have the purity of a natural force,
But I, whose virtues are the definitions
Of the analytic mind, can neither close
The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.'
And yet, because my heart leaped at her words,
I was abashed, and now they come to mind
After nine years, I sink my head abashed.
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In some ways this poem made me think of Robert Burns' "Man is Made to Mourn". This poem begins with regrets and bitterness. A public servant is angry that he works with common folk that are "unmannerly" and yet fail to acknowledge all of his hard work on their behalf. Yet, this very servant abused his position and we learn that nine years later, whatever that abuse was still haunts him. The ownership of "my phoenix" as the image of the conscience works in this poem. The conscience is renewed with time. At first, the servant offers a good rebuke to the phoenix for his behavior, "You, that have not lived in thought but deed,/Can have the purity of a natural force,/But I, whose virtues are the definitions of the analytic mind...". There is something to be said about those that have not experience human fraility (in this case the phoenix/righteous conscience), yet, for this servant, the rebuke does not hold water. He is confronted by his actions by his mind and realizes that he is still "abashed" after nine years. How odd that the term abased is repeated twice and in so close proximity. I also find some irony with the phoenix's reply that it found no fault with the people. I read this in two ways: 1) "To whom much is given, much is required"--the people did not choose to serve in public office, therefore they are not at fault. He was trusted to serve in a just manner; it should not matter to him how "unmannerly" the people were; he had a job to do. 2) He can not blame others. Face what has been done. Blame is no excuse. Tough medicine!
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