Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 34
And firmamental waters, — and the noise
Of the broad, fluent strata of pure airs, —
All these flow onward in the intervals
Of that reiterated sound of — GOD!
Which WORD innumerous angels straightway lift
Wide on celestial altitudes of song
And choral adoration, and then drop
The burden softly, shutting the last notes
In silver wings. Howbeit in the noon of time
Eternity shall wax as dumb as Death,
While a new voice beneath the spheres shall cry,
“God! why hast thou forsaken me, my God?”
And not a voice in Heaven shall answer it.
[The transfiguration is complete in sadness.
Adam. Thy speech is of the Heavenlies, yet, O Christ,
Awfully human are thy voice and face!
Eve. My nature overcomes me from thine eyes.
CHRIST. In the set noon of time shall one from Heaven,
An angel fresh from looking upon God,
Descend before a woman, blessing her
With perfect benediction of pure love,
For all the world in all its elements,
For all the creatures of earth, air, and sea,
For all men in the body and in the soul,
Unto all ends of glory and sanctity.
Eve. O pale, pathetic Christ — I worship thee!
I thank thee for that woman!
CHRIST. Then, at last,
I, wrapping round me your humanity,
Which, being sustained, shall neither break nor burn
Beneath the fire of Godhead, will tread earth,
And ransom you and it, and set strong peace
Betwixt you and its creatures. With my pangs
I will confront your sins; and since those sins
Have sunken to all Nature’s heart from yours,
The tears of my clean soul shall follow them
And set a holy passion to work clear
Absolute consecration. In my brow
Of kingly whiteness shall be crowned anew
Your discrowned human nature. Look on me!
As I shall be uplifted on a cross
In darkness of eclipse and anguish dread,
So shall I lift up in my pierced hands,
Not into dark, but light — not unto death,
But life, — beyond the reach of guilt and grief,
The whole creation. Henceforth in my name
Take courage, O thou woman, — man, take hope!
Your grave shall be as smooth as Eden’s sward,
Beneath the steps of your prospective thoughts,
And, one step past it, a new Eden-gate
Shall open on a hinge of harmony
And let you through to mercy. Ye shall fall
No more, within that Eden, nor pass out
Any more from it. In which hope, move on,
First sinners and first mourners! Live and love, —
Doing both nobly because lowlily!
Live and work, strongly because patiently!
And, for the deed of death, trust it to God
That it be well done, unrepented of,
And not to loss! And thence, with constant prayers,
Fasten your souls so high, that constantly
The smile of your heroic cheer may float
Above all floods of earthly agonies,
Purification being the joy of pain!
[The vision of CHRIST vanishes. ADAM and EVE stand in an ecstasy. The
Earth-zodiac pales away shade by shade, as the stars, star by star,
shine out in the sky; and the following chant from the two Earth
Spirits (as they sweep back into the Zodiac and disappear with it)
accompanies the process of change.
Earth Spirits.
By the mighty word thus spoken
Both for living and for dying,
We our homage-oath, once broken,
Fasten back again in sighing,
And the creatures and the elements renew their covenanting.
Here, forgive us all our scorning;
Here, we promise milder duty:
And the evening and the morning
Shall re-organize in beauty
A sabbath day of sabbath joy, for universal chanting.
And if, still, this melancholy
May be strong to overcome us,
If this mortal and unholy
We still fail to cast out from us,
If we turn upon you, unaware, your own dark influences, —
If ye tremble when surrounded
By our forest pine and palm trees,
If we cannot cure the wounded
With our gum trees and our balm trees,
And if your souls all mournfully sit down among your senses, —
Yet, O mortals, do not fear us!
We are gentle in our languor;
Much more good ye shall have near us
Than any pain or anger,
And our God’s refracted blessing in our blessing shall be given.
By the desert’s endless vigil
We will solemnize your passions,
By the wheel of the black eagle
We will teach you exaltations,
When he sails against the wind, to the white spot up in heaven.
Ye shall find us tender nurses
To your weariness of nature,
And our hands shall stroke the curse’s
Dreary furrows from the creature,
Till your bodies shall lie smooth in death and straight and slumberful.
Then, a couch we will provide you
Where no summer heats shall dazzle,
Strewing on you and beside you
Thyme and rosemary and basil,
And the yew-tree shall grow overhead to keep all safe and cool.
Till the Holy Blood awaited
Shall be chrism around us running,
Whereby, newly-consecrated,
We shall leap up in God’s sunning,
To join the spheric company which purer worlds assemble:
While, renewed by new evangels,
Soul-consummated, made glorious,
Ye shall brighten past the angels,
Ye shall kneel to Christ victorious,
And the rays around his feet beneath your sobbing lips shall tremble.
[The phantastic Vision has all passed; the Earth-zodiac has broken like
a belt, and is dissolved from the Desert. The Earth Spirits vanish,
and the stars shine out above.
CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS,
while ADAM and EVE advance into the Desert, hand in hand.
Hear our heavenly promise
Through your mortal passion!
Love, ye shall have from us,
In a pure relation.
As a fish or bird
Swims or flies, if moving,
We unseen are heard
To live on by loving.
Far above the glances
Of your eager eyes,
Listen! we are loving.
Listen, through man’s ignorances —
Listen, through God’s mysteries —
Listen down the heart of things,
Ye shall hear our mystic wings
Murmurous with loving.
Through the opal door
Listen evermore
How we live by loving!
First Semichorus.
When your bodies therefore
Reach the grave their goal,
Softly will we care for
Each enfranchised soul.
Softly and unlothly
Through the door of opal
Toward the heavenly people,
Floated on a minor fine
Into the full chant divine,
We will draw you smoothly, —
While the human in the minor
Makes the harmony diviner.
<
br /> Listen to our loving!
Second Semichorus.
There, a sough of glory
Shall breathe on you as you come,
Ruffling round the doorway
All the light of angeldom.
From the empyrean centre
Heavenly voices shall repeat,
“Souls redeemed and pardoned, enter,
For the chrism on you is sweet!”
And every angel in the place
Lowlily shall bow his face,
Folded fair on softened sounds,
Because upon your hands and feet
He images his Master’s wounds.
Listen to our loving!
First Semichorus.
So, in the universe’s
Consummated undoing,
Our seraphs of white mercies
Shall hover round the ruin.
Their wings shall stream upon the flame
As if incorporate of the same
In elemental fusion;
And calm their faces shall burn out
With a pale and mastering thought,
And a steadfast looking of desire
From out between the clefts of fire, —
While they cry, in the Holy’s name,
To the final Restitution.
Listen to our loving!
Second Semichorus.
So, when the day of God is
To the thick graves accompted,
Awaking the dead bodies,
The angel of the trumpet
Shall split and shatter the earth
To the roots of the grave —
Which never before were slackened —
And quicken the charnel birth
With his blast so clear and brave
That the Dead shall start and stand erect,
And every face of the burial-place
Shall the awful, single look reflect
Wherewith he them awakened.
Listen to our loving!
First Semichorus.
But wild is the horse of Death!
He will leap up wild at the clamour
Above and beneath.
And where is his Tamer
On that last day,
When he crieth Ha, ha!
To the trumpet’s blare,
And paweth the earth’s Aceldama?
When he tosseth his head,
The drear-white steed,
And ghastlily champeth the last moon-ray —
What angel there
Can lead him away,
That the living may rule for the Dead?
Second Semichorus.
Yet a TAMER shall be found!
One more bright than seraph crowned,
And more strong than cherub bold,
Elder, too, than angel old,
By his grey eternities.
He shall master and surprise
The steed of Death.
For He is strong, and He is fain.
He shall quell him with a breath,
And shall lead him where He will,
With a whisper in the ear,
Full of fear,
And a hand upon the mane,
Grand and still.
First Semichorus.
Through the flats of Hades where the souls assemble
He will guide the Death-steed calm between their ranks,
While, like beaten dogs, they a little moan and tremble
To see the darkness curdle from the horse’s glittering flanks.
Through the flats of Hades where the dreary shade is,
Up the steep of heaven will the Tamer guide the steed, —
Up the spheric circles, circle above circle,
We who count the ages shall count the tolling tread —
Every hoof-fall striking a blinder blanker sparkle
From the stony orbs, which shall show as they were dead.
Second Semichorus.
All the way the Death-steed with tolling hoofs shall travel,
Ashen-grey the planets shall be motionless as stones,
Loosely shall the systems eject their parts coaeval,
Stagnant in the spaces shall float the pallid moons:
Suns that touch their apogees, reeling from their level,
Shall run back on their axles, in wild low broken tunes.
Chorus.
Up against the arches of the crystal ceiling,
From the horse’s nostrils shall steam the blurting breath:
Up between the angels pale with silent feeling
Will the Tamer calmly lead the horse of Death.
Semichorus.
Cleaving all that silence, cleaving all that glory,
Will the Tamer lead him straightway to the Throne:
“Look out, O Jehovah, to this I bring before Thee,
With a hand nail-pierced, I who am thy Son.”
Then the Eye Divinest, from the Deepest, flaming,
On the mystic courser shall look out in fire:
Blind the beast shall stagger where It overcame him,
Meek as lamb at pasture, bloodless in desire.
Down the beast shall shiver, — slain amid the taming, —
And, by Life essential, the phantasm Death expire.
Chorus.
Listen, man, through life and death,
Through the dust and through the breath,
Listen down the heart of things!
Ye shall hear our mystic wings
Murmurous with loving.
A Voice from below. Gabriel, thou Gabriel!
A Voice from above. What wouldst thou with me?
First Voice. I heard thy voice sound in the angels’ song,
And I would give thee question.
Second Voice. Question me!
First Voice. Why have I called thrice to my Morning Star
And had no answer? All the stars are out,
And answer in their places. Only in vain
I cast my voice against the outer rays
Of my Star shut in light behind the sun.
No more reply than from a breaking string,
Breaking when touched. Or is she not my star?
Where is my Star — my Star? Have ye cast down
Her glory like my glory? Has she waxed
Mortal, like Adam? Has she learnt to hate
Like any angel?
Second Voice. She is sad for thee.
All things grow sadder to thee, one by one.
Angel Chorus.
Live, work on, O Earthy!
By the Actual’s tension,
Speed the arrow worthy
Of a pure ascension!
From the low earth round you,
Reach the heights above you:
From the stripes that wound you,
Seek the loves that love you!
God’s divinest burneth plain
Through the crystal diaphane
Of our loves that love you.
First Voice. Gabriel, O Gabriel!
Second Voice. What wouldst thou with me?
First Voice. Is it true, O thou Gabriel, that the crown
Of sorrow which I claimed, another claims?
That HE claims THAT too?
Second Voice. Lost one, it is true.
First Voice. That HE will be an exile from his heaven,
To lead those exiles homeward?
Second Voice. It is true.
First Voice. That HE will be an exile by his will,
As I by mine election?
Second Voice. It is true.
First Voice. That I shall stand sole exile finally, —
Made desolate for fruition?
Second Voice. It is true.
First Voice. Gabriel!
Second Voice. I hearken.
First Voice. Is it true besides —
Aright true — that mine orient Star will give
Her name of “Bright and Morning-Star” to HIM, —
And take the fairness of his virtue back
To cover loss and sadness?
Second Voice. It is true.
First Voice. UNtrue, UNtrue! O Morning Star, O MINE,
Who sittest secret in a veil of light
Far up the starry spaces, say — Untrue!
Speak but so loud as doth a wasted moon
To Tyrrhene waters. I am Lucifer.
[A pause. Silence in the stars.
All things grow sadder to me, one by one.
Angel Chorus.
Exiled human creatures,
Let your hope grow larger!
Larger grows the vision
Of the new delight.
From this chain of Nature’s
God is the Discharger,
And the Actual’s prison
Opens to your sight.
Semichorus.
Calm the stars and golden
In a light exceeding:
What their rays have measured
Let your feet fulfil!
These are stars beholden
By your eyes in Eden,
Yet, across the desert,
See them shining still!
Chorus.
Future joy and far light
Working such relations,
Hear us singing gently
Exiled is not lost!
God, above the starlight,
God, above the patience,
Shall at last present ye
Guerdons worth the cost.
Patiently enduring,
Painfully surrounded,
Listen how we love you,
Hope the uttermost!
Waiting for that curing
Which exalts the wounded,
Hear us sing above you —
EXILED, BUT NOT LOST!
[The stars shine on brightly while ADAM and EVE pursue their way into
the far wilderness. There is a sound through the silence, as of the
falling tears of an angel.
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS
FROM THE GREEK OF BION
I.
I mourn for Adonis — Adonis is dead,
Fair Adonis is dead and the Loves are lamenting.
Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed: