Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 40
“Poor heart!” he cried, “it vainly tried
The distant heart to reach.
XIV.
“And thou, O distant, sinful heart
That climbest up so high
To wrap and blind thee with the snows
That cause to dream and die,
What blessing can, from lips of man,
Approach thee with his sigh?
XV.
“Ay, what from earth — create for man
And moaning in his moan?
Ay, what from stars — revealed to man
And man-named one by one?
Ay, more! what blessing can be given
Where the Spirits seven do show in heaven
A MAN upon the throne?
XVI.
“A man on earth HE wandered once,
All meek and undefiled,
And those who loved Him said ‘He wept’ —
None ever said He smiled;
Yet there might have been a smile unseen,
When He bowed his holy face, I ween,
To bless that happy child.
XVII.
“And now HE pleadeth up in heaven
For our humanities,
Till the ruddy light on seraphs’ wings
In pale emotion dies.
They can better bear their Godhead’s glare
Than the pathos of his eyes.
XVIII.
“I will go pray our God to-day
To teach thee how to scan
His work divine, for human use
Since earth on axle ran, —
To teach thee to discern as plain
His grief divine, the blood-drop’s stain
He left there, MAN for man.
XIX.
“So, for the blood’s sake shed by Him
Whom angels God declare,
Tears like it, moist and warm with love,
Thy reverent eyes shall wear
To see i’ the face of Adam’s race
The nature God doth share.”
XX.
“I heard,” the poet said, “thy voice
As dimly as thy breath:
The sound was like the noise of life
To one anear his death, —
Or of waves that fail to stir the pale
Sere leaf they roll beneath.
XXI.
“And still between the sound and me
White creatures like a mist
Did interfloat confusedly,
Mysterious shapes unwist:
Across my heart and across my brow
I felt them droop like wreaths of snow,
To still the pulse they kist.
XXII.
“The castle and its lands are thine —
The poor’s — it shall be done.
Go, man, to love! I go to live
In Courland hall, alone:
The bats along the ceilings cling,
The lizards in the floors do run,
And storms and years have worn and reft
The stain by human builders left
In working at the stone.”
PART THE THIRD.
SHOWING HOW THE VOW WAS KEPT.
I.
He dwelt alone, and sun and moon
Were witness that he made
Rejection of his humanness
Until they seemed to fade;
His face did so, for he did grow
Of his own soul afraid.
II.
The self-poised God may dwell alone
With inward glorying,
But God’s chief angel waiteth for
A brother’s voice, to sing;
And a lonely creature of sinful nature
It is an awful thing.
III.
An awful thing that feared itself;
While many years did roll,
A lonely man, a feeble man,
A part beneath the whole,
He bore by day, he bore by night
That pressure of God’s infinite
Upon his finite soul.
IV.
The poet at his lattice sate,
And downward looked he.
Three Christians wended by to prayers,
With mute ones in their ee;
Each turned above a face of love
And called him to the far chapelle
With voice more tuneful than its bell:
But still they wended three.
V.
There journeyed by a bridal pomp,
A bridegroom and his dame;
He speaketh low for happiness,
She blusheth red for shame:
But never a tone of benison
From out the lattice came.
VI.
A little child with inward song,
No louder noise to dare,
Stood near the wall to see at play
The lizards green and rare —
Unblessed the while for his childish smile
Which cometh unaware.
PART THE FOURTH.
SHOWING HOW ROSALIND FARED BY THE KEEPING OF THE VOW.
I.
In death-sheets lieth Rosalind
As white and still as they;
And the old nurse that watched her bed
Rose up with “Well-a-day!”
And oped the casement to let in
The sun, and that sweet doubtful din
Which droppeth from the grass and bough
Sans wind and bird, none knoweth how —
To cheer her as she lay.
II.
The old nurse started when she saw
Her sudden look of woe:
But the quick wan tremblings round her mouth
In a meek smile did go,
And calm she said, “When I am dead,
Dear nurse it shall be so.
III.
“Till then, shut out those sights and sounds,
And pray God pardon me
That I without this pain no more
His blessed works can see!
And lean beside me, loving nurse,
That thou mayst hear, ere I am worse,
What thy last love should be.”
IV.
The loving nurse leant over her,
As white she lay beneath;
The old eyes searching, dim with life,
The young ones dim with death,
To read their look if sound forsook
The trying, trembling breath.
V.
“When all this feeble breath is done,
And I on bier am laid,
My tresses smoothed for never a feast,
My body in shroud arrayed,
Uplift each palm in a saintly calm,
As if that still I prayed.
VI.
“And heap beneath mine head the flowers
You stoop so low to pull,
The little white flowers from the wood
Which grow there in the cool,
Which he and I, in childhood’s games,
Went plucking, knowing not their names,
And filled thine apron full.
VII.
“Weep not! I weep not. Death is strong,
The eyes of Death are dry!
But lay this scroll upon my breast
When hushed its heavings lie,
And wait awhile for the corpse’s smile
Which shineth presently.
VIII.
“And when it shineth, straightway call
Thy youngest children dear,
And bid them gently carry me
All barefaced on the bier;
But bid them pass my kirkyard grass
That waveth long anear.
IX.
“And up the bank where I used to sit
And dream what life would be,
Along the brook with its sunny look
Akin to living glee, —
O’er the windy hill, through the forest still
,
Let them gently carry me.
X.
“And through the piny forest still,
And down the open moorland
Round where the sea beats mistily
And blindly on the foreland;
And let them chant that hymn I know,
Bearing me soft, bearing me slow,
To the ancient hall of Courland.
XI.
“And when withal they near the hall,
In silence let them lay
My bier before the bolted door,
And leave it for a day:
For I have vowed, though I am proud,
To go there as a guest in shroud,
And not be turned away.”
XII.
The old nurse looked within her eyes
Whose mutual look was gone;
The old nurse stooped upon her mouth,
Whose answering voice was done;
And nought she heard, till a little bird
Upon the casement’s woodbine swinging
Broke out into a loud sweet singing
For joy o’ the summer sun:
“Alack! alack!” — she watched no more,
With head on knee she wailed sore,
And the little bird sang o’er and o’er
For joy o’ the summer sun.
PART THE FIFTH.
SHOWING HOW THE VOW WAS BROKEN.
I.
The poet oped his bolted door
The midnight sky to view;
A spirit-feel was in the air
Which seemed to touch his spirit bare
Whenever his breath he drew;
And the stars a liquid softness had,
As alone their holiness forbade
Their falling with the dew.
II.
They shine upon the steadfast hills,
Upon the swinging tide,
Upon the narrow track of beach
And the murmuring pebbles pied:
They shine on every lovely place,
They shine upon the corpse’s face,
As it were fair beside.
III.
It lay before him, humanlike,
Yet so unlike a thing!
More awful in its shrouded pomp
Than any crowned king:
All calm and cold, as it did hold
Some secret, glorying.
IV.
A heavier weight than of its clay
Clung to his heart and knee:
As if those folded palms could strike
He staggered groaningly,
And then o’erhung, without a groan,
The meek close mouth that smiled alone,
Whose speech the scroll must be.
* * * * *
THE WORDS OF ROSALIND’S SCROLL.
“I left thee last, a child at heart,
A woman scarce in years.
I come to thee, a solemn corpse
Which neither feels nor fears.
I have no breath to use in sighs;
They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes
To seal them safe from tears.
“Look on me with thine own calm look:
I meet it calm as thou.
No look of thine can change this smile,
Or break thy sinful vow:
I tell thee that my poor scorned heart
Is of thine earth — thine earth, a part:
It cannot vex thee now.
“But out, alas! these words are writ
By a living, loving one,
Adown whose cheeks, the proofs of life
The warm quick tears do run:
Ah, let the unloving corpse control
Thy scorn back from the loving soul
Whose place of rest is won.
“I have prayed for thee with bursting sob
When passion’s course was free;
I have prayed for thee with silent lips,
In the anguish none could see:
They whispered oft, ‘She sleepeth soft’ —
But I only prayed for thee.
“Go to! I pray for thee no more:
The corpse’s tongue is still,
Its folded fingers point to heaven,
But point there stiff and chill:
No farther wrong, no farther woe
Hath license from the sin below
Its tranquil heart to thrill.
“I charge thee, by the living’s prayer,
And the dead’s silentness,
To wring from out thy soul a cry
Which God shall hear and bless!
Lest Heaven’s own palm droop in my hand,
And pale among the saints I stand,
A saint companionless.”
* * * * *
V.
Bow lower down before the throne,
Triumphant Rosalind!
He boweth on thy corpse his face,
And weepeth as the blind:
‘Twas a dread sight to see them so,
For the senseless corpse rocked to and fro
With the wail of his living mind.
VI.
But dreader sight, could such be seen,
His inward mind did lie,
Whose long-subjected humanness
Gave out its lion-cry,
And fiercely rent its tenement
In a mortal agony.
VII.
I tell you, friends, had you heard his wail,
‘Twould haunt you in court and mart,
And in merry feast until you set
Your cup down to depart —
That weeping wild of a reckless child
From a proud man’s broken heart.
VIII.
O broken heart, O broken vow,
That wore so proud a feature!
God, grasping as a thunderbolt
The man’s rejected nature,
Smote him therewith i’ the presence high
Of his so worshipped earth and sky
That looked on all indifferently —
A wailing human creature.
IX.
A human creature found too weak
To bear his human pain —
(May Heaven’s dear grace have spoken peace
To his dying heart and brain!)
For when they came at dawn of day
To lift the lady’s corpse away,
Her bier was holding twain.
X.
They dug beneath the kirkyard grass,
For born one dwelling deep;
To which, when years had mossed the stone,
Sir Roland brought his little son
To watch the funeral heap:
And when the happy boy would rather
Turn upward his blithe eyes to see
The wood-doves nodding from the tree,
“Nay, boy, look downward,” said his father,
“Upon this human dust asleep.
And hold it in thy constant ken
That God’s own unity compresses
(One into one) the human many,
And that his everlastingness is
The bond which is not loosed by any:
That thou and I this law must keep,
If not in love, in sorrow then, —
Though smiling not like other men,
Still, like them we must weep.”
THE ROMAUNT OF MARGRET.
Can my affections find out nothing best,
But still and still remove?
QUARLES.
I.
I plant a tree whose leaf
The yew-tree leaf will suit:
But when its shade is o’er you laid,
Turn round and pluck the fruit.
Now reach my harp from off the wall
Where shines the sun aslant;
The sun may shine and we be cold!
O hearken, loving hearts and bold,
Unto my wild romaunt.
Margret, Margret.
II.
/> Sitteth the fair ladye
Close to the river side
Which runneth on with a merry tone
Her merry thoughts to guide:
It runneth through the trees,
It runneth by the hill,
Nathless the lady’s thoughts have found
A way more pleasant still
Margret, Margret.
III.
The night is in her hair
And giveth shade to shade,
And the pale moonlight on her forehead white
Like a spirit’s hand is laid;
Her lips part with a smile
Instead of speakings done:
I ween, she thinketh of a voice,
Albeit uttering none.
Margret, Margret.
IV.
All little birds do sit
With heads beneath their wings:
Nature doth seem in a mystic dream,
Absorbed from her living things:
That dream by that ladye
Is certes unpartook,
For she looketh to the high cold stars
With a tender human look
Margret, Margret.
V.
The lady’s shadow lies
Upon the running river;
It lieth no less in its quietness,
For that which resteth never:
Most like a trusting heart
Upon a passing faith,
Or as upon the course of life
The steadfast doom of death.
Margret, Margret.
VI.
The lady doth not move,
The lady doth not dream,
Yet she seeth her shade no longer laid
In rest upon the stream: