Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Something of life in spirit and blood,

  Something of nature’s fair and good:

  And while it sounded, those great souls

  Did thrill as racers at the goals

  And burn in all their aureoles;

  But she the lady, as vapour-bound,

  Stood calmly in the joy of sound,

  Like Nature with the showers around:

  And when it ceased, the blood which fell

  Again, alone grew audible,

  Tolling the silence as a bell.

  The sovran angel lifted high

  His hand, and spake out sovranly:

  “Tried poets, hearken and reply!

  “Give me true answers. If we grant

  That not to suffer, is to want

  The conscience of the jubilant, —

  “If ignorance of anguish is

  But ignorance, and mortals miss

  Far prospects, by a level bliss, —

  “If, as two colours must be viewed

  In a visible image, mortals should

  Need good and evil, to see good, —

  “If to speak nobly, comprehends

  To feel profoundly, — if the ends

  Of power and suffering, Nature blends, —

  “If poets on the tripod must

  Writhe like the Pythian to make just

  Their oracles and merit trust, —

  “If every vatic word that sweeps

  To change the world must pale their lips

  And leave their own souls in eclipse, —

  “If to search deep the universe

  Must pierce the searcher with the curse,

  Because that bolt (in man’s reverse)

  “Was shot to the heart o’ the wood and lies

  Wedged deepest in the best, — if eyes

  That look for visions and surprise

  “From influent angels, must shut down

  Their eyelids first to sun and moon,

  The head asleep upon a stone, —

  “If ONE who did redeem you back,

  By His own loss, from final wrack,

  Did consecrate by touch and track

  “Those temporal sorrows till the taste

  Of brackish waters of the waste

  Is salt with tears He dropt too fast, —

  “If all the crowns of earth must wound

  With prickings of the thorns He found, —

  If saddest sighs swell sweetest sound, —

  “What say ye unto this? — refuse

  This baptism in salt water? — choose

  Calm breasts, mute lips, and labour loose?

  “Or, O ye gifted givers! ye

  Who give your liberal hearts to me

  To make the world this harmony,

  “Are ye resigned that they be spent

  To such world’s help?”

  The Spirits bent

  Their awful brows and said “Content.”

  Content! it sounded like Amen

  Said by a choir of mourning men;

  An affirmation full of pain

  And patience, — ay, of glorying

  And adoration, as a king

  Might seal an oath for governing.

  Then said the angel — and his face

  Lightened abroad until the place

  Grew larger for a moment’s space, —

  The long aisles flashing out in light,

  And nave and transept, columns white

  And arches crossed, being clear to sight

  As if the roof were off and all

  Stood in the noon-sun,— “Lo, I call

  To other hearts as liberal.

  “This pedal strikes out in the air:

  My instrument has room to bear

  Still fuller strains and perfecter.

  “Herein is room, and shall be room

  While Time lasts, for new hearts to come

  Consummating while they consume.

  “What living man will bring a gift

  Of his own heart and help to lift

  The tune? — The race is to the swift.”

  So asked the angel. Straight the while,

  A company came up the aisle

  With measured step and sorted smile;

  Cleaving the incense-clouds that rise,

  With winking unaccustomed eyes

  And love-locks smelling sweet of spice.

  One bore his head above the rest

  As if the world were dispossessed,

  And one did pillow chin on breast,

  Right languid, an as he should faint;

  One shook his curls across his paint

  And moralized on worldly taint;

  One, slanting up his face, did wink

  The salt rheum to the eyelid’s brink,

  To think — O gods! or — not to think.

  Some trod out stealthily and slow,

  As if the sun would fall in snow

  If they walked to instead of fro;

  And some, with conscious ambling free,

  Did shake their bells right daintily

  On hand and foot, for harmony;

  And some, composing sudden sighs

  In attitudes of point-device,

  Rehearsed impromptu agonies.

  And when this company drew near

  The spirits crowned, it might appear

  Submitted to a ghastly fear;

  As a sane eye in master-passion

  Constrains a maniac to the fashion

  Of hideous maniac imitation

  In the least geste — the dropping low

  O’ the lid, the wrinkling of the brow,

  Exaggerate with mock and mow, —

  So mastered was that company

  By the crowned vision utterly,

  Swayed to a maniac mockery.

  One dulled his eyeballs, as they ached

  With Homer’s forehead, though he lacked

  An inch of any; and one racked

  His lower lip with restless tooth,

  As Pindar’s rushing words forsooth

  Were pent behind it; one his smooth

  Pink cheeks did rumple passionate

  Like AEschylus, and tried to prate

  On trolling tongue of fate and fate;

  One set her eyes like Sappho’s — or

  Any light woman’s; one forbore

  Like Dante, or any man as poor

  In mirth, to let a smile undo

  His hard-shut lips; and one that drew

  Sour humours from his mother, blew

  His sunken cheeks out to the size

  Of most unnatural jollities,

  Because Anacreon looked jest-wise;

  So with the rest: it was a sight

  A great world-laughter would requite,

  Or great world-wrath, with equal right

  Out came a speaker from that crowd

  To speak for all, in sleek and proud

  Exordial periods, while he bowed

  His knee before the angel— “Thus,

  O angel who hast called for us,

  We bring thee service emulous,

  “Fit service from sufficient soul,

  Hand-service to receive world’s dole,

  Lip-service in world’s ear to roll

  “Adjusted concords soft enow

  To hear the wine-cups passing, through,

  And not too grave to spoil the show:

  “Thou, certes, when thou askest more,

  O sapient angel, leanest o’er

  The window-sill of metaphor.

  “To give our hearts up? fie! that rage

  Barbaric antedates the age;

  It is not done on any stage.

  “Because your scald or gleeman went

  With seven or nine-stringed instrument

  Upon his back, — must ours be bent?

  “We are not pilgrims, by your leave;

  No, nor yet martyrs; if we grieve,

  It is to rhyme to — summer eve:

  “And if we labour, it sh
all be

  As suiteth best with our degree,

  In after-dinner reverie.”

  More yet that speaker would have said,

  Poising between his smiles fair-fed

  Each separate phrase till finished;

  But all the foreheads of those born

  And dead true poets flashed with scorn

  Betwixt the bay leaves round them worn,

  Ay, jetted such brave fire that they,

  The new-come, shrank and paled away

  Like leaden ashes when the day

  Strikes on the hearth. A spirit-blast,

  A presence known by power, at last

  Took them up mutely: they had passed.

  And he our pilgrim-poet saw

  Only their places, in deep awe,

  What time the angel’s smile did draw

  His gazing upward. Smiling on,

  The angel in the angel shone,

  Revealing glory in benison;

  Till, ripened in the light which shut

  The poet in, his spirit mute

  Dropped sudden as a perfect fruit;

  He fell before the angel’s feet,

  Saying, “If what is true is sweet,

  In something I may compass it:

  “For, where my worthiness is poor,

  My will stands richly at the door

  To pay shortcomings evermore.

  “Accept me therefore: not for price

  And not for pride my sacrifice

  Is tendered, for my soul is nice

  “And will beat down those dusty seeds

  Of bearded corn if she succeeds

  In soaring while the covey feeds.

  “I soar, I am drawn up like the lark

  To its white cloud — so high my mark,

  Albeit my wing is small and dark.

  “I ask no wages, seek no fame:

  Sew me, for shroud round face and name,

  God’s banner of the oriflamme.

  “I only would have leave to loose

  (In tears and blood if so He choose)

  Mine inward music out to use:

  “I only would be spent — in pain

  And loss, perchance, but not in vain —

  Upon the sweetness of that strain;

  “Only project beyond the bound

  Of mine own life, so lost and found,

  My voice, and live on in its sound;

  “Only embrace and be embraced

  By fiery ends, whereby to waste,

  And light God’s future with my past.”

  The angel’s smile grew more divine,

  The mortal speaking; ay, its shine

  Swelled fuller, like a choir-note fine,

  Till the broad glory round his brow

  Did vibrate with the light below;

  But what he said I do not know.

  Nor know I if the man who prayed,

  Rose up accepted, unforbade,

  From the church-floor where he was laid, —

  Nor if a listening life did run

  Through the king-poets, one by one

  Rejoicing in a worthy son:

  My soul, which might have seen, grew blind

  By what it looked on: I can find

  No certain count of things behind.

  I saw alone, dim, white and grand

  As in a dream, the angel’s hand

  Stretched forth in gesture of command

  Straight through the haze. And so, as erst,

  A strain more noble than the first

  Mused in the organ, and outburst:

  With giant march from floor to roof

  Rose the full notes, now parted off

  In pauses massively aloof

  Like measured thunders, now rejoined

  In concords of mysterious kind

  Which fused together sense and mind,

  Now flashing sharp on sharp along

  Exultant in a mounting throng,

  Now dying off to a low song

  Fed upon minors, wavelike sounds

  Re-eddying into silver rounds,

  Enlarging liberty with bounds:

  And every rhythm that seemed to close

  Survived in confluent underflows

  Symphonious with the next that rose.

  Thus the whole strain being multiplied

  And greatened, with its glorified

  Wings shot abroad from side to side,

  Waved backward (as a wind might wave

  A Brocken mist and with as brave

  Wild roaring) arch and architrave,

  Aisle, transept, column, marble wall, —

  Then swelling outward, prodigal

  Of aspiration beyond thrall,

  Soared, and drew up with it the whole

  Of this said vision, as a soul

  Is raised by a thought. And as a scroll

  Of bright devices is unrolled

  Still upward with a gradual gold,

  So rose the vision manifold,

  Angel and organ, and the round

  Of spirits, solemnized and crowned;

  While the freed clouds of incense wound

  Ascending, following in their track,

  And glimmering faintly like the rack

  O’ the moon in her own light cast back.

  And as that solemn dream withdrew,

  The lady’s kiss did fall anew

  Cold on the poet’s brow as dew.

  And that same kiss which bound him first

  Beyond the senses, now reversed

  Its own law and most subtly pierced

  His spirit with the sense of things

  Sensual and present. Vanishings

  Of glory with AEolian wings

  Struck him and passed: the lady’s face

  Did melt back in the chrysopras

  Of the orient morning sky that was

  Yet clear of lark and there and so

  She melted as a star might do,

  Still smiling as she melted slow:

  Smiling so slow, he seemed to see

  Her smile the last thing, gloriously

  Beyond her, far as memory.

  Then he looked round: he was alone.

  He lay before the breaking sun,

  As Jacob at the Bethel stone.

  And thought’s entangled skein being wound,

  He knew the moorland of his swound,

  And the pale pools that smeared the ground;

  The far wood-pines like offing ships;

  The fourth pool’s yew anear him drips,

  World’s cruelty attaints his lips,

  And still he tastes it, bitter still;

  Through all that glorious possible

  He had the sight of present ill.

  Yet rising calmly up and slowly

  With such a cheer as scorneth folly,

  A mild delightsome melancholy,

  He journeyed homeward through the wood

  And prayed along the solitude

  Betwixt the pines, “O God, my God!”

  The golden morning’s open flowings

  Did sway the trees to murmurous bowings,

  In metric chant of blessed poems.

  And passing homeward through the wood,

  He prayed along the solitude,

  “THOU, Poet-God, art great and good!

  “And though we must have, and have had

  Right reason to be earthly sad,

  THOU, Poet-God, art great and glad!”

  CONCLUSION.

  Life treads on life, and heart on heart;

  We press too close in church and mart

  To keep a dream or grave apart:

  And I was ‘ware of walking down

  That same green forest where had gone

  The poet-pilgrim. One by one

  I traced his footsteps. From the east

  A red and tender radiance pressed

  Through the near trees, until I guessed

  The sun behind shone full and round;

  While
up the leafiness profound

  A wind scarce old enough for sound

  Stood ready to blow on me when

  I turned that way, and now and then

  The birds sang and brake off again

  To shake their pretty feathers dry

  Of the dew sliding droppingly

  From the leaf-edges and apply

  Back to their song: ‘twixt dew and bird

  So sweet a silence ministered,

  God seemed to use it for a word,

  Yet morning souls did leap and run

  In all things, as the least had won

  A joyous insight of the sun,

  And no one looking round the wood

  Could help confessing as he stood,

  This Poet-God is glad and good.

  But hark! a distant sound that grows,

  A heaving, sinking of the boughs,

  A rustling murmur, not of those,

  A breezy noise which is not breeze!

  And white-clad children by degrees

  Steal out in troops among the trees,

  Fair little children morning-bright,

  With faces grave yet soft to sight,

  Expressive of restrained delight.

  Some plucked the palm-boughs within reach,

  And others leapt up high to catch

  The upper boughs and shake from each