Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 29
Like a vibrant music-string
Stretched from mountain-peak to sky;
And the platan did expand
Slow and gradual, branch and head;
And the cedar’s strong black shade
Fluttered brokenly and grand:
Grove and wood were swept aslant
In emotion jubilant.
Voice of the same, but softer.
Which divine impulsion cleaves
In dim movements to the leaves
Dropt and lifted, dropt and lifted,
In the sunlight greenly sifted, —
In the sunlight and the moonlight
Greenly sifted through the trees.
Ever wave the Eden trees
In the nightlight and the noonlight,
With a ruffling of green branches
Shaded off to resonances,
Never stirred by rain or breeze.
Fare ye well, farewell!
The sylvan sounds, no longer audible,
Expire at Eden’s door.
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some murmur which ye heard before.
Farewell! the trees of Eden
Ye shall hear nevermore.
River Spirits.
Hark! the flow of the four rivers —
Hark the flow!
How the silence round you shivers,
While our voices through it go,
Cold and clear.
A softer Voice.
Think a little, while ye hear,
Of the banks
Where the willows and the deer
Crowd in intermingled ranks,
As if all would drink at once
Where the living water runs! —
Of the fishes’ golden edges
Flashing in and out the sedges;
Of the swans on silver thrones,
Floating down the winding streams
With impassive eyes turned shoreward
And a chant of undertones, —
And the lotos leaning forward
To help them into dreams!
Fare ye well, farewell!
The river-sounds, no longer audible,
Expire at Eden’s door.
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some murmur which ye heard before.
Farewell! the streams of Eden
Ye shall hear nevermore.
Bird Spirit.
I am the nearest nightingale
That singeth in Eden after you;
And I am singing loud and true,
And sweet, — I do not fail.
I sit upon a cypress bough,
Close to the gate, and I fling my song
Over the gate and through the mail
Of the warden angels marshalled strong, —
Over the gate and after you.
And the warden angels let it pass,
Because the poor brown bird, alas,
Sings in the garden, sweet and true.
And I build my song of high pure notes,
Note over note, height over height,
Till I strike the arch of the Infinite,
And I bridge abysmal agonies
With strong, clear calms of harmonies, —
And something abides, and something floats,
In the song which I sing after you.
Fare ye well, farewell!
The creature-sounds, no longer audible,
Expire at Eden’s door.
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some cadence which ye heard before.
Farewell! the birds of Eden,
Ye shall hear nevermore.
Flower Spirits.
We linger, we linger,
The last of the throng,
Like the tones of a singer
Who loves his own song.
We are spirit-aromas
Of blossom and bloom.
We call your thoughts home, — as
Ye breathe our perfume, —
To the amaranth’s splendour
Afire on the slopes;
To the lily-bells tender,
And grey heliotropes;
To the poppy-plains keeping
Such dream-breath and blee
That the angels there stepping
Grew whiter to see:
To the nook, set with moly,
Ye jested one day in,
Till your smile waxed too holy
And left your lips praying:
To the rose in the bower-place,
That dripped o’er you sleeping;
To the asphodel flower-place,
Ye walked ankle-deep in.
We pluck at your raiment,
We stroke down your hair,
We faint in our lament
And pine into air.
Fare ye well, farewell!
The Eden scents, no longer sensible,
Expire at Eden’s door.
Each footstep of your treading
Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before.
Farewell! the flowers of Eden,
Ye shall smell nevermore.
[There is silence. ADAM and EVE fly on, and never look back. Only a
colossal shadow, as of the dark Angel passing quickly, is cast upon
the Sword-glare.
* * * * *
SCENE. — The extremity of the Sword-glare.
Adam. Pausing a moment on this outer edge
Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light
The dark exterior desert, — hast thou strength,
Beloved, to look behind us to the gate?
Eve. Have I not strength to look up to thy face?
Adam. We need be strong: yon spectacle of cloud
Which seals the gate up to the final doom,
Is God’s seal manifest. There seem to lie
A hundred thunders in it, dark and dead;
The unmolten lightnings vein it motionless;
And, outward from its depth, the self-moved sword
Swings slow its awful gnomon of red fire
From side to side, in pendulous horror slow,
Across the stagnant ghastly glare thrown flat
On the intermediate ground from that to this.
The angelic hosts, the archangelic pomps,
Thrones, dominations, princedoms, rank on rank,
Rising sublimely to the feet of God,
On either side and overhead the gate,
Show like a glittering and sustained smoke
Drawn to an apex. That their faces shine
Betwixt the solemn clasping of their wings
Clasped high to a silver point above their heads, —
We only guess from hence, and not discern.
Eve. Though we were near enough to see them shine,
The shadow on thy face were awfuller,
To me, at least, — to me — than all their light.
Adam. What is this, Eve? thou droppest heavily
In a heap earthward, and thy body heaves
Under the golden floodings of thine hair!
Eve. O Adam, Adam! by that name of Eve —
Thine Eve, thy life — which suits me little now,
Seeing that I now confess myself thy death
And thine undoer, as the snake was mine, —
I do adjure thee, put me straight away,
Together with my name! Sweet, punish me!
O Love, be just! and, ere we pass beyond
The light cast outward by the fiery sword,
Into the dark which earth must be to us,
Bruise my head with thy foot, — as the curse said
My seed shall the first tempter’s! strike with curse,
As God struck in the garden! and as HE,
Being satisfied with justice and with wrath,
Did roll his thunder gentler at the close, —
Thou, peradventure, mayst at last recoil
To some soft need of mercy. Strike, my lord
!
I, also, after tempting, writhe on the ground,
And I would feed on ashes from thine hand,
As suits me, O my tempted!
Adam. My beloved,
Mine Eve and life — I have no other name
For thee or for the sun than what ye are,
My utter life and light! If we have fallen,
It is that we have sinned, — we: God is just;
And, since his curse doth comprehend us both,
It must be that his balance holds the weights
Of first and last sin on a level. What!
Shall I who had not virtue to stand straight
Among the hills of Eden, here assume
To mend the justice of the perfect God,
By piling up a curse upon his curse,
Against thee — thee?
Eve. For so, perchance, thy God,
Might take thee into grace for scorning me;
Thy wrath against the sinner giving proof
Of inward abrogation of the sin:
And so, the blessed angels might come down
And walk with thee as erst, — I think they would, —
Because I was not near to make them sad
Or soil the rustling of their innocence.
Adam. They know me. I am deepest in the guilt,
If last in the transgression.
Eve. Thou!
Adam. If God,
Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world
Both unto thee and me, — gave thee to me,
The best gift last, the last sin was the worst,
Which sinned against more complement of gifts
And grace of giving. God! I render back
Strong benediction and perpetual praise
From mortal feeble lips (as incense-smoke,
Out of a little censer, may fill heaven),
That thou, in striking my benumbed hands
And forcing them to drop all other boons
Of beauty and dominion and delight, —
Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this life
Within life, this best gift between their palms,
In gracious compensation!
Eve. Is it thy voice?
Or some saluting angel’s — calling home
My feet into the garden?
Adam. O my God!
I, standing here between the glory and dark, —
The glory of thy wrath projected forth
From Eden’s wall, the dark of our distress
Which settles a step off in that drear world —
Lift up to thee the hands from whence hath fallen
Only creation’s sceptre, — thanking thee
That rather thou hast cast me out with her
Than left me lorn of her in Paradise,
With angel looks and angel songs around
To show the absence of her eyes and voice,
And make society full desertness
Without her use in comfort!
Eve. Where is loss?
Am I in Eden? can another speak
Mine own love’s tongue?
Adam. Because with her, I stand
Upright, as far as can be in this fall,
And look away from heaven which doth accuse,
And look away from earth which doth convict,
Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow
Out of her love, and put the thought of her
Around me, for an Eden full of birds,
And lift her body up — thus — to my heart,
And with my lips upon her lips, — thus, thus, —
Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath
Which cannot climb against the grave’s steep sides
But overtops this grief.
Eve. I am renewed.
My eyes grow with the light which is in thine;
The silence of my heart is full of sound.
Hold me up — so! Because I comprehend
This human love, I shall not be afraid
Of any human death; and yet because
I know this strength of love, I seem to know
Death’s strength by that same sign. Kiss on my lips,
To shut the door close on my rising soul, —
Lest it pass outwards in astonishment
And leave thee lonely!
Adam. Yet thou liest, Eve,
Bent heavily on thyself across mine arm,
Thy face flat to the sky.
Eve. Ay, and the tears
Running, as it might seem, my life from me,
They run so fast and warm. Let me lie so,
And weep so, as if in a dream or prayer,
Unfastening, clasp by clasp, the hard tight thought
Which clipped my heart and showed me evermore
Loathed of thy justice as I loathe the snake,
And as the pure ones loathe our sin. To-day,
All day, beloved, as we fled across
This desolating radiance cast by swords
Not suns, — my lips prayed soundless to myself,
Striking against each other— “O Lord God!”
(‘Twas so I prayed) “I ask Thee by my sin,
“And by thy curse, and by thy blameless heavens,
“Make dreadful haste to hide me from thy face
“And from the face of my beloved here
“For whom I am no helpmeet, quick away
“Into the new dark mystery of death!
“I will lie still there, I will make no plaint,
“I will not sigh, nor sob, nor speak a word,
“Nor struggle to come back beneath the sun
“Where peradventure I might sin anew
“Against thy mercy and his pleasure. Death,
“O death, whatever it be, is good enough
“For such as I am: while for Adam here,
“No voice shall say again, in heaven or earth,
“It is not good for him to be alone.”
Adam. And was it good for such a prayer to pass,
My unkind Eve, betwixt our mutual lives?
If I am exiled, must I be bereaved?
Eve. ‘Twas an ill prayer: it shall be prayed no more;
And God did use it like a foolishness,
Giving no answer. Now my heart has grown
Too high and strong for such a foolish prayer,
Love makes it strong and since I was the first
In the transgression, with a steady foot
I will be first to tread from this sword-glare
Into the outer darkness of the waste, —
And thus I do it.
Adam. Thus I follow thee,
As erewhile in the sin. — What sounds! what sounds!
I feel a music which comes straight from heaven,
As tender as a watering dew.
Eve. I think
That angels — not those guarding Paradise, —
But the love-angels, who came erst to us,
And when we said ‘GOD,’ fainted unawares
Back from our mortal presence unto God,
(As if he drew them inward in a breath)
His name being heard of them, — I think that they
With sliding voices lean from heavenly towers,
Invisible but gracious. Hark — how soft!
CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS.
Faint and tender.
Mortal man and woman,
Go upon your travel!
Heaven assist the human
Smoothly to unravel
All that web of pain
Wherein ye are holden.
Do ye know our voices
Chanting down the Golden?
Do ye guess our choice is,
Being unbeholden,
To be hearkened by you yet again?
This pure door of opal
God hath shut between us, —
Us, his shining people,
You, who once have seen us
And are blinded new!
>
Yet, across the doorway,
Past the silence reaching,
Farewells evermore may,
Blessing in the teaching,
Glide from us to you.
First Semichorus.
Think how erst your Eden,
Day on day succeeding,
With our presence glowed.
We came as if the Heavens were bowed
To a milder music rare.
Ye saw us in our solemn treading,
Treading down the steps of cloud,
While our wings, outspreading
Double calms of whiteness,
Dropped superfluous brightness
Down from stair to stair.
Second Semichorus.
Or oft, abrupt though tender,
While ye gazed on space,
We flashed our angel-splendour
In either human face.
With mystic lilies in our hands,
From the atmospheric bands
Breaking with a sudden grace,
We took you unaware!
While our feet struck glories
Outward, smooth and fair,
Which we stood on floorwise,
Platformed in mid-air.
First Semichorus.
Or oft, when Heaven-descended,
Stood we in our wondering sight
In a mute apocalypse
With dumb vibrations on our lips
From hosannas ended,
And grand half-vanishings
Of the empyreal things
Within our eyes belated,
Till the heavenly Infinite
Falling off from the Created,
Left our inward contemplation
Opened into ministration.
Chorus.
Then upon our axle turning
Of great joy to sympathy,
We sang out the morning
Broadening up the sky,
Or we drew
Our music through
The noontide’s hush and heat and shine,
Informed with our intense Divine:
Interrupted vital notes
Palpitating hither, thither,
Burning out into the aether,
Sensible like fiery motes.
Or, whenever twilight drifted
Through the cedar masses,
The globed sun we lifted,
Trailing purple, trailing gold
Out between the passes
Of the mountains manifold,
To anthems slowly sung:
While he, — aweary, half in swoon
For joy to hear our climbing tune