Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  And at her pleasure did he turn and wend;

  Seeing she never granted to this lover

  A single grace he could sing ‘Ios’ over.

  XXVIII

  She drove him forth — she scarcely deigned to know

  That he was servant to her ladyship:

  But, lest he should be proud, she kept him low,

  Nor paid his service from a smiling lip:

  She sent him now to land, and now to ship;

  And giving him all danger to his fill,

  She thereby had him at her sovereign will.

  XXIX

  Be taught of this, ye prudent women all,

  Warn’d by Annelida and false Arcite:

  Because she chose, himself, ‘dear heart’ to call

  And be so meek, he loved her not aright.

  The nature of man’s heart is to delight

  In something strange — moreover, (may Heaven save

  The wrong’d) the thing they cannot, they would have.

  XXX

  Now turn we to Annelida again,

  Who pinèd day by day in languishment.

  But when she saw no comfort met her pain,

  Weeping once in a woeful unconstraint,

  She set herself to fashion a complaint,

  Which with her own pale hand she ‘gan to write,

  And sent it to her lover, to Arcite.

  THE COMPLAINT OF ANNELIDA TO FALSE ARCITE.

  I.

  The sword of sorrow, whetted sharp for me

  On false delight, with point of memory

  Stabb’d so mine heart, bliss-bare and black of hue,

  That all to dread is turn’d my dance’s glee,

  My face’s beauty to despondency —

  For nothing it availeth to be true —

  And, whosoever is so, she shall rue

  Obeying love, and cleaving faithfully

  Alway to one, and changing for no new.

  II.

  I ought to know it well as any wight,

  For I loved one with all my heart and might,

  More than myself a hundred-thousand fold,

  And callèd him my heart’s dear life, my knight,

  And was all his, as far as it was right;

  His gladness did my blitheness make of old,

  And in his least disease my death was told;

  Who, on his side, had plighted lovers’ plight,

  Me, evermore, his lady and love to hold.

  III.

  Now is he false — alas, alas! — although

  Unwronged! and acting such a ruthless part,

  That with a little word he will not deign

  To bring the peace back to my mournful heart.

  Drawn in, and caught up by another’s art,

  Right as he will, he laugheth at my pain;

  While I — I cannot my weak heart restrain

  From loving him — still, aye; yet none I know

  To whom of all this grief I can complain.

  IV.

  Shall I complain (ah, piteous and harsh sound!)

  Unto my foe, who gave mine heart a wound,

  And still desireth that the harm be more?

  Now certes, if I sought the whole earth round,

  No other help, no better leach were found!

  My destiny hath shaped it so of yore —

  I would not other medicine, nor yet lore.

  I would be ever where I once was bound;

  And what I said, would say for evermore.

  V.

  Alas! and where is gone your gentillesse?

  Where gone your pleasant words, your humbleness?

  Where your devotion full of reverent fear,

  Your patient loyalty, your busy address

  To me, whom once you callèd nothing less

  Than mistress, sovereign lady, i’ the sphere

  O’ the world? Ah me! no word, no look of cheer,

  Will you vouchsafe upon my heaviness!

  Alas your love! I bought it all too dear.

  VI.

  Now certes, sweet, howe’er you be

  The cause so, and so causelessly,

  Of this my mortal agony,

  Your reason should amend the failing!

  Your friend, your true love, do you flee,

  Who never in time nor yet degree

  Grieved you: so may the all-knowing he

  Save my lorn soul from future wailing.

  VII.

  Because I was so plain, Arcite,

  In all my doings, your delight

  Seeking in all things, where I might

  In honour, — meek and kind and free;

  Therefore you do me such despite.

  Alas! howe’er through cruelty

  My heart with sorrow’s sword you smite,

  You cannot kill its love. — Ah me!

  VIII.

  Ah, my sweet foe, why do you so

  For shame?

  Think you that praise, in sooth, will raise

  Your name,

  Loving anew, and being untrue

  For aye?

  Thus casting down your manhood’s crown

  In blame,

  And working me adversity,

  The same

  Who loves you most — (O God, thou know’st!)

  Alway?

  Yet turn again — be fair and plain

  Some day;

  And then shall this, that seems amiss,

  Be game,

  All being forgiv’n, while yet from heav’n

  I stay.

  IX.

  Behold, dear heart, I write this to obtain

  Some knowledge, whether I should pray or ‘plaine:

  Which way is best to force you to be true?

  For either I must have you in my chain,

  Or you, sweet, with the death must part us twain;

  There is no mean, no other way more new:

  And, that Heaven’s mercy on my soul may rue

  And let you slay me outright with this pain,

  The whiteness in my cheeks may prove to you.

  X.

  For hitherto mine own death have I sought;

  Myself I murder with my secret thought,

  In sorrow and ruth of your unkindnesses!

  I weep, I wail, I fast — all helpeth nought,

  I flee all joy (I mean the name of aught),

  I flee all company, all mirthfulness —

  Why, who can make her boast of more distress

  Than I? To such a plight you have me brought,

  Guiltless (I need no witness) ne’ertheless.

  XI.

  Shall I go pray and wail my womanhood?

  Compared to such a deed, death’s self were good.

  What! ask for mercy, and guiltless — where’s the need?

  And if I wailed my life so, — that you would

  Care nothing, is less feared than understood:

  And if mine oath of love I dared to plead

  In mine excuse, — your scorn would be its meed.

  Ah, love! it giveth flowers instead of seed —

  Full long ago I might have taken heed.

  XII.

  And though I had you back to-morrow again,

  I might as well hold April from the rain

  As hold you to the vows you vowed me last.

  Maker of all things, and truth’s sovereign,

  Where is the truth of man, who hath it slain,

  That she who loveth him should find him fast

  As in a tempest is a rotten mast?

  Is that a tame beast which is ever fain

  To flee us when restraint and fear are past?

  XIII.

  Now mercy, sweet, if I mis-say; —

  Have I said aught is wrong to-day?

  I do not know — my wit’s astray —

  I fare as doth the song of one who weepeth;

  For now I ‘plaine, and now I play —

  I am so ‘mazed, I die away —
>
  Arcite, you have the key for aye

  Of all my world, and all the good it keepeth.

  XIV.

  And in this world there is not one

  Who walketh with a sadder moan,

  And bears more grief than I have done;

  And if light slumbers overcome me,

  Methinks your image, in the glory

  Of skiey azure, stands before me,

  Re-vowing the old love you bore me,

  And praying for new mercy from me.

  XV.

  Through the long night, this wondrous sight,

  Bear I,

  Which haunteth still, the daylight, till

  I die:

  But nought of this, your heart, I wis,

  Can reach.

  Mine eyes down-pour, they nevermore

  Are dry,

  While to your ruth, and eke your truth,

  I cry —

  But, weladay, too far be they

  To fetch.

  Thus destiny is holding me —

  Ah, wretch!

  And when I fain would break the chain,

  And try —

  Faileth my wit (so weak is it)

  With speech.

  XVI.

  Therefore I end thus, since my hope is o’er —

  I give all up both now and evermore;

  And in the balance ne’er again will lay

  My safety, nor be studious in love-lore.

  But like the swan who, as I heard of yore,

  Singeth life’s penance on his deathly day,

  So I sing here my life and woes away, —

  Ay, how you, cruel Arcite, wounded sore,

  With memory’s point, your poor Annelida.

  XVII.

  After Annelida, the woeful queen,

  Had written in her own hand in this wise,

  With ghastly face, less pale than white, I ween,

  She fell a-swooning; then she ‘gan arise,

  And unto Mars voweth a sacrifice

  Within the temple, with a sorrowful bearing,

  And in such phrase as meets your present hearing.

  A VISION OF POETS

  O Sacred Essence, lighting me this hour,

  How may I lightly stile thy great power?

  Echo. Power.

  Power! but of whence? under the greenwood spraye?

  Or liv’st in Heaven? saye.

  Echo. In Heavens aye.

  In Heavens aye! tell, may I it obtayne

  By alms, by fasting, prayer, — by paine?

  Echo. By paine

  Show me the paine, it shall be undergone.

  I to mine end will still go on.

  Echo. Go on.

  Britannia’s Pastorals.

  A VISION OF POETS.

  A poet could not sleep aright,

  For his soul kept up too much light

  Under his eyelids for the night.

  And thus he rose disquieted

  With sweet rhymes ringing through his head,

  And in the forest wandered

  Where, sloping up the darkest glades,

  The moon had drawn long colonnades

  Upon whose floor the verdure fades

  To a faint silver: pavement fair,

  The antique wood-nymphs scarce would dare

  To foot-print o’er, had such been there,

  And rather sit by breathlessly,

  With fear in their large eyes, to see

  The consecrated sight. But HE —

  The poet who, with spirit-kiss

  Familiar, had long claimed for his

  Whatever earthly beauty is,

  Who also in his spirit bore

  A beauty passing the earth’s store, —

  Walked calmly onward evermore.

  His aimless thoughts in metre went,

  Like a babe’s hand without intent

  Drawn down a seven-stringed instrument:

  Nor jarred it with his humour as,

  With a faint stirring of the grass,

  An apparition fair did pass.

  He might have feared another time,

  But all things fair and strange did chime

  With his thoughts then, as rhyme to rhyme.

  An angel had not startled him,

  Alighted from heaven’s burning rim

  To breathe from glory in the Dim;

  Much less a lady riding slow

  Upon a palfrey white as snow,

  And smooth as a snow-cloud could go.

  Full upon his she turned her face,

  “What ho, sir poet! dost thou pace

  Our woods at night in ghostly chase

  “Of some fair Dryad of old tales

  Who chants between the nightingales

  And over sleep by song prevails?”

  She smiled; but he could see arise

  Her soul from far adown her eyes,

  Prepared as if for sacrifice.

  She looked a queen who seemeth gay

  From royal grace alone. “Now, nay,”

  He answered, “slumber passed away,

  “Compelled by instincts in my head

  That I should see to-night, instead

  Of a fair nymph, some fairer Dread.”

  She looked up quickly to the sky

  And spake: “The moon’s regality

  Will hear no praise; She is as I.

  “She is in heaven, and I on earth;

  This is my kingdom: I come forth

  To crown all poets to their worth.”

  He brake in with a voice that mourned;

  “To their worth, lady? They are scorned

  By men they sing for, till inurned.

  “To their worth? Beauty in the mind

  Leaves the hearth cold, and love-refined

  Ambitions make the world unkind.

  “The boor who ploughs the daisy down,

  The chief whose mortgage of renown,

  Fixed upon graves, has bought a crown —

  “Both these are happier, more approved

  Than poets! — why should I be moved

  In saying, both are more beloved?”

  “The south can judge not of the north,”

  She resumed calmly; “I come forth

  To crown all poets to their worth.

  “Yea, verily, to anoint them all

  With blessed oils which surely shall

  Smell sweeter as the ages fall.”

  “As sweet,” the poet said, and rung

  A low sad laugh, “as flowers are, sprung

  Out of their graves when they die young;

  “As sweet as window-eglantine,

  Some bough of which, as they decline,

  The hired nurse gathers at their sign:

  “As sweet, in short, as perfumed shroud

  Which the gay Roman maidens sewed

  For English Keats, singing aloud.”

  The lady answered, “Yea, as sweet!

  The things thou namest being complete

  In fragrance, as I measure it.

  “Since sweet the death-clothes and the knell

  Of him who having lived, dies well;

  And wholly sweet the asphodel

  “Stirred softly by that foot of his,

  When he treads brave on all that is,

  Into the world of souls, from this.

  “Since sweet the tears, dropped at the door

  Of tearless Death, and even before:

  Sweet, consecrated evermore.

  “What, dost thou judge it a strange thing

  That poets, crowned for vanquishing,

  Should bear some dust from out the ring?

  “Come on with me, come on with me,

  And learn in coming: let me free

  Thy spirit into verity.”

  She ceased: her palfrey’s paces sent

  No separate noises as she went;

  ‘Twas a bee’s hum, a little spent.

  And while the poet seemed to tread

  Along t
he drowsy noise so made,

  The forest heaved up overhead

  Its billowy foliage through the air,

  And the calm stars did far and spare

  O’erswim the masses everywhere

  Save when the overtopping pines

  Did bar their tremulous light with lines

  All fixed and black. Now the moon shines

  A broader glory. You may see

  The trees grow rarer presently;

  The air blows up more fresh and free:

  Until they come from dark to light,

  And from the forest to the sight

  Of the large heaven-heart, bare with night,

  A fiery throb in every star,

  Those burning arteries that are

  The conduits of God’s life afar, —

  A wild brown moorland underneath,

  And four pools breaking up the heath

  With white low gleamings, blank as death.

  Beside the first pool, near the wood,

  A dead tree in set horror stood,

  Peeled and disjointed, stark as rood;

  Since thunder-stricken, years ago,

  Fixed in the spectral strain and throe

  Wherewith it struggled from the blow:

  A monumental tree, alone,

  That will not bend in storms, nor groan,

  But break off sudden like a stone.

  Its lifeless shadow lies oblique

  Upon the pool where, javelin-like,

  The star-rays quiver while they strike.

  “Drink,” said the lady, very still —

  “Be holy and cold.” He did her will

  And drank the starry water chill.

  The next pool they came near unto

  Was bare of trees; there, only grew