Of the heaven-life on the whole,
While we hear the forests budding
To the music of the soul —
Yet is it tuned in vain?
Infant Voices passing.
Rock us softly,
Lest it be all in vain.
Philosophic Voices passing.
O we live, O we live —
And this life that we perceive
Is a great thing and a grave
Which for others’ use we have,
Duty-laden to remain.
We are helpers, fellow-creatures,
Of the right against the wrong;
We are earnest-hearted teachers
Of the truth which maketh strong —
Yet do we teach in vain?
Infant Voices passing.
Rock us softly,
Lest it be all in vain.
Revel Voices passing.
O we live, O we live —
And this life that we reprieve
Is a low thing and a light,
Which is jested out of sight
And made worthy of disdain!
Strike with bold electric laughter
The high tops of things divine —
Turn thy head, my brother, after,
Lest thy tears fall in my wine!
For is all laughed in vain?
Infant Voices passing.
Rock us softly,
Lest it be all in vain.
Eve. I hear a sound of life — of life like ours —
Of laughter and of wailing, of grave speech,
Of little plaintive voices innocent,
Of life in separate courses flowing out
Like our four rivers to some outward main.
I hear life — life!
Adam. And, so, thy cheeks have snatched
Scarlet to paleness, and thine eyes drink fast
Of glory from full cups, and thy moist lips
Seem trembling, both of them, with earnest doubts
Whether to utter words or only smile.
Eve. Shall I be mother of the coming life?
Hear the steep generations, how they fall
Adown the visionary stairs of Time
Like supernatural thunders — far, yet near, —
Sowing their fiery echoes through the hills.
Am I a cloud to these — mother to these?
Earth Spirits. And bringer of the curse upon all these.
[EVE sinks down again.
Poet Voices passing.
O we live, O we live —
And this life that we conceive
Is a noble thing and high,
Which we climb up loftily
To view God without a stain;
Till, recoiling where the shade is,
We retread our steps again,
And descend the gloomy Hades
To resume man’s mortal pain.
Shall it be climbed in vain?
Infant Voices passing.
Rock us softly,
Lest it be all in vain.
Love Voices passing.
O we live, O we live —
And this life we would retrieve,
Is a faithful thing apart
Which we love in, heart to heart,
Until one heart fitteth twain.
“Wilt thou be one with me?”
“I will be one with thee.”
“Ha, ha! — we love and live!”
Alas! ye love and die.
Shriek — who shall reply?
For is it not loved in vain?
Infant Voices passing.
Rock us softly,
Though it be all in vain.
Aged Voices passing.
O we live, O we live —
And this life we would survive,
Is a gloomy thing and brief,
Which, consummated in grief,
Leaveth ashes for all gain.
Is it not all in vain?
Infant Voices passing.
Rock us softly,
Though it be all in vain.
[Voices die away.
Earth Spirits. And bringer of the curse upon all these.
Eve. The voices of foreshown Humanity
Die off; — so let me die.
Adam. So let us die,
When God’s will soundeth the right hour of death.
Earth Spirits. And bringer of the curse upon all these.
Eve. O Spirits! by the gentleness ye use
In winds at night, and floating clouds at noon,
In gliding waters under lily-leaves,
In chirp of crickets, and the settling hush
A bird makes in her nest with feet and wings, —
Fulfil your natures now!
Earth Spirits. Agreed, allowed!
We gather out our natures like a cloud,
And thus fulfil their lightnings! Thus, and thus!
Hearken, oh hearken to us!
First Spirit.
As the storm-wind blows bleakly from the norland,
As the snow-wind beats blindly on the moorland,
As the simoom drives hot across the desert,
As the thunder roars deep in the Unmeasured.
As the torrent tears the ocean-world to atoms,
As the whirlpool grinds it fathoms below fathoms,
Thus, — and thus!
Second Spirit.
As the yellow toad, that spits its poison chilly,
As the tiger, in the jungle crouching stilly,
As the wild boar, with ragged tusks of anger,
As the wolf-dog, with teeth of glittering clangour,
As the vultures, that scream against the thunder,
As the owlets, that sit and moan asunder,
Thus, — and thus!
Eve. Adam! God!
Adam. Cruel, unrelenting Spirits!
By the power in me of the sovran soul
Whose thoughts keep pace yet with the angel’s march,
I charge you into silence — trample you
Down to obedience. I am king of you!
Earth Spirits.
Ha, ha! thou art king!
With a sin for a crown,
And a soul undone!
Thou, the antagonized,
Tortured and agonized,
Held in the ring
Of the zodiac!
Now, king, beware!
We are many and strong
Whom thou standest among, —
And we press on the air,
And we stifle thee back,
And we multiply where
Thou wouldst trample us down
From rights of our own
To an utter wrong —
And, from under the feet of thy scorn,
O forlorn,
We shall spring up like corn,
And our stubble be strong.
Adam. God, there is power in thee! I make appeal
Unto thy kingship.
Eve. There is pity in THEE,
O sinned against, great God! — My seed, my seed,
There is hope set on THEE — I cry to thee,
Thou mystic Seed that shalt be! — leave us not
In agony beyond what we can bear,
Fallen in debasement below thunder-mark,
A mark for scorning — taunted and perplext
By all these creatures we ruled yesterday,
Whom thou, Lord, rulest alway! O my Seed,
Through the tempestuous years that rain so thick
Betwixt my ghostly vision and thy face,
Let me have token! for my soul is bruised
Before the serpent’s head is.
[A vision of CHRIST appears in the midst of the Zodiac, which pales
before the heavenly light. The Earth Spirits grow greyer and fainter.
CHRIST. I AM HERE!
Adam. This is God! — Curse us not, God, any more!
Eve. But gazing so — so — with omnific eyes,
Lift my soul up
ward till it touch thy feet!
Or lift it only, — not to seem too proud, —
To the low height of some good angel’s feet,
For such to tread on when he walketh straight
And thy lips praise him!
CHRIST. Spirits of the earth,
I meet you with rebuke for the reproach
And cruel and unmitigated blame
Ye cast upon your masters. True, they have sinned;
And true their sin is reckoned into loss
For you the sinless. Yet, your innocence
Which of you praises? since God made your acts
Inherent in your lives, and bound your hands
With instincts and imperious sanctities
From self-defacement. Which of you disdains
These sinners who in falling proved their height
Above you by their liberty to fall?
And which of you complains of loss by them,
For whose delight and use ye have your life
And honour in creation? Ponder it!
This regent and sublime Humanity,
Though fallen, exceeds you! this shall film your sun,
Shall hunt your lightning to its lair of cloud,
Turn back your rivers, footpath all your seas,
Lay flat your forests, master with a look
Your lion at his fasting, and fetch down
Your eagle flying. Nay, without this law
Of mandom, ye would perish, — beast by beast
Devouring, — tree by tree, with strangling roots
And trunks set tuskwise. Ye would gaze on God
With imperceptive blankness up the stars,
And mutter, “Why, God, hast thou made us thus?”
And pining to a sallow idiocy
Stagger up blindly against the ends of life,
Then stagnate into rottenness and drop
Heavily — poor, dead matter — piecemeal down
The abysmal spaces — like a little stone
Let fall to chaos. Therefore over you
Receive man’s sceptre! — therefore be content
To minister with voluntary grace
And melancholy pardon, every rite
And function in you, to the human hand!
Be ye to man as angels are to God,
Servants in pleasure, singers of delight,
Suggesters to his soul of higher things
Than any of your highest! So at last,
He shall look round on you with lids too straight
To hold the grateful tears, and thank you well,
And bless you when he prays his secret prayers,
And praise you when he sings his open songs
For the clear song-note he has learnt in you
Of purifying sweetness, and extend
Across your head his golden fantasies
Which glorify you into soul from sense.
Go, serve him for such price! That not in vain
Nor yet ignobly ye shall serve, I place
My word here for an oath, mine oath for act
To be hereafter. In the name of which
Perfect redemption and perpetual grace,
I bless you through the hope and through the peace
Which are mine, — to the Love, which is myself.
Eve. Speak on still, Christ! Albeit thou bless me not
In set words, I am blessed in hearkening thee —
Speak, Christ!
CHRIST. Speak, Adam! Bless the woman, man!
It is thine office.
Adam. Mother of the world,
Take heart before this Presence! Lo, my voice,
Which, naming erst the creatures, did express
(God breathing through my breath) the attributes
And instincts of each creature in its name,
Floats to the same afflatus, — floats and heaves
Like a water-weed that opens to a wave, —
A full leaved prophecy affecting thee,
Out fairly and wide. Henceforward, arise, aspire
To all the calms and magnanimities,
The lofty uses and the noble ends,
The sanctified devotion and full work,
To which thou art elect for evermore,
First woman, wife, and mother!
Eve. And first in sin.
Adam. And also the sole bearer of the Seed
Whereby sin dieth. Raise the majesties
Of thy disconsolate brows, O well-beloved,
And front with level eyelids the To-come,
And all the dark o’ the world! Rise, woman, rise
To thy peculiar and best altitudes
Of doing good and of enduring ill,
Of comforting for ill, and teaching good,
And reconciling all that ill and good
Unto the patience of a constant hope, —
Rise with thy daughters! If sin came by thee,
And by sin, death, — the ransom-righteousness,
The heavenly life and compensative rest
Shall come by means of thee. If woe by thee
Had issue to the world, thou shalt go forth
An angel of the woe thou didst achieve,
Found acceptable to the world instead
Of others of that name, of whose bright steps
Thy deed stripped bare the hills. Be satisfied;
Something thou hast to bear through womanhood,
Peculiar suffering answering to the sin, —
Some pang paid down for each new human life,
Some weariness in guarding such a life,
Some coldness from the guarded, some mistrust
From those thou hast too well served, from those beloved
Too loyally some treason; feebleness
Within thy heart, and cruelty without,
And pressures of an alien tyranny
With its dynastic reasons of larger bones
And stronger sinews. But, go to! thy love
Shall chant itself its own beatitudes
After its own life-working. A child’s kiss
Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad;
A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich;
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Of service which thou renderest. Such a crown
I set upon thy head, — Christ witnessing
With looks of prompting love — to keep thee clear
Of all reproach against the sin forgone,
From all the generations which succeed.
Thy hand which plucked the apple I clasp close,
Thy lips which spake wrong counsel I kiss close,
I bless thee in the name of Paradise
And by the memory of Edenic joys
Forfeit and lost, — by that last cypress tree,
Green at the gate, which thrilled as we came out,
And by the blessed nightingale which threw
Its melancholy music after us, —
And by the flowers, whose spirits full of smells
Did follow softly, plucking us behind
Back to the gradual banks and vernal bowers
And fourfold river-courses. — By all these,
I bless thee to the contraries of these,
I bless thee to the desert and the thorns,
To the elemental change and turbulence,
And to the roar of the estranged beasts,
And to the solemn dignities of grief, —
To each one of these ends, — and to their END
Of Death and the hereafter.
Eve. I accept
For me and for my daughters this high part
Which lowly shall be counted. Noble work
Shall hold me in the place of garden-rest,
And in the place of Eden’s lost delight
Worthy endurance of permitted pain;
While on my longest patience there shall wait
&
nbsp; Death’s speechless angel, smiling in the east,
Whence cometh the cold wind. I bow myself
Humbly henceforward on the ill I did,
That humbleness may keep it in the shade.
Shall it be so? shall I smile, saying so?
O Seed! O King! O God, who shalt be seed, —
What shall I say? As Eden’s fountains swelled
Brightly betwixt their banks, so swells my soul
Betwixt thy love and power!
And, sweetest thoughts
Of forgone Eden! now, for the first time
Since God said “Adam,” walking through the trees,
I dare to pluck you as I plucked erewhile
The lily or pink, the rose or heliotrope
So pluck I you — so largely — with both hands,
And throw you forward on the outer earth,
Wherein we are cast out, to sweeten it.
Adam. As thou, Christ, to illume it, holdest Heaven
Broadly over our heads.
[The CHRIST is gradually transfigured, during the following phrases of
dialogue, into humanity and suffering.
Eve. O Saviour Christ,
Thou standest mute in glory, like the sun!
Adam. We worship in Thy silence, Saviour Christ!
Eve. Thy brows grow grander with a forecast woe, —
Diviner, with the possible of death.
We worship in Thy sorrow, Saviour Christ!
Adam. How do Thy clear, still eyes transpierce our souls,
As gazing through them toward the Father-throne
In a pathetical, full Deity,
Serenely as the stars gaze through the air
Straight on each other!
Eve. O pathetic Christ,
Thou standest mute in glory, like the moon!
CHRIST. Eternity stands alway fronting God;
A stern colossal image, with blind eyes
And grand dim lips that murmur evermore
God, God, God! while the rush of life and death,
The roar of act and thought, of evil and good,
The avalanches of the ruining worlds
Tolling down space, — the new worlds’ genesis
Budding in fire, — the gradual humming growth
Of the ancient atoms and first forms of earth,
The slow procession of the swathing seas
Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 33