BERTHA IN THE LANE.
I.
Put the broidery-frame away,
For my sewing is all done:
The last thread is used to-day,
And I need not join it on.
Though the clock stands at the noon
I am weary. I have sewn,
Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown.
II.
Sister, help me to the bed,
And stand near me, Dearest-sweet.
Do not shrink nor be afraid,
Blushing with a sudden heat!
No one standeth in the street? —
By God’s love I go to meet,
Love I thee with love complete.
III.
Lean thy face down; drop it in
These two hands, that I may hold
‘Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin,
Stroking back the curls of gold:
‘T is a fair, fair face, in sooth —
Larger eyes and redder mouth
Than mine were in my first youth.
IV.
Thou art younger by seven years —
Ah! — so bashful at my gaze,
That the lashes, hung with tears,
Grow too heavy to upraise?
I would wound thee by no touch
Which thy shyness feels as such.
Dost thou mind me, Dear, so much?
V.
Have I not been nigh a mother
To thy sweetness — tell me, Dear?
Have we not loved one another
Tenderly, from year to year,
Since our dying mother mild
Said with accents undefiled,
“Child, be mother to this child”!
VI.
Mother, mother, up in heaven,
Stand up on the jasper sea,
And be witness I have given
All the gifts required of me, —
Hope that blessed me, bliss that crowned,
Love that left me with a wound,
Life itself that turneth round!
VII.
Thou art standing in the room,
In a molten glory shrined
That rays off into the gloom!
But thy smile is bright and bleak
Like cold waves — I cannot speak,
I sob in it, and grow weak.
VIII.
Ghostly mother, keep aloof
One hour longer from my soul,
For I still am thinking of
Earth’s warm-beating joy and dole!
On my finger is a ring
Which I still see glittering
When the night hides everything.
IX.
Little sister, thou art pale!
Ah, I have a wandering brain —
But I lose that fever-bale,
And my thoughts grow calm again.
Lean down closer — closer still!
I have words thine ear to fill,
And would kiss thee at my will.
X.
Dear, I heard thee in the spring,
Thee and Robert — through the trees, —
When we all went gathering
Boughs of May-bloom for the bees.
Do not start so! think instead
How the sunshine overhead
Seemed to trickle through the shade.
XI.
What a day it was, that day!
Hills and vales did openly
Seem to heave and throb away
At the sight of the great sky:
And the silence, as it stood
In the glory’s golden flood,
Audibly did bud, and bud.
XII.
Through the winding hedgerows green,
How we wandered, I and you,
With the bowery tops shut in,
And the gates that showed the view!
How we talked there; thrushes soft
Sang our praises out, or oft
Bleatings took them from the croft:
XIII.
Till the pleasure grown too strong
Left me muter evermore,
And, the winding road being long,
I walked out of sight, before,
And so, wrapt in musings fond,
Issued (past the wayside pond)
On the meadow-lands beyond.
XIV.
I sate down beneath the beech
Which leans over to the lane,
And the far sound of your speech
Did not promise any pain;
And I blessed you full and free,
With a smile stooped tenderly
O’er the May-flowers on my knee.
XV.
But the sound grew into word
As the speakers drew more near —
Sweet, forgive me that I heard
What you wished me not to hear.
Do not weep so, do not shake,
Oh, — I heard thee, Bertha, make
Good true answers for my sake.
XVI.
Yes, and HE too! let him stand
In thy thoughts, untouched by blame.
Could he help it, if my hand
He had claimed with hasty claim?
That was wrong perhaps — but then
Such things be — and will, again.
Women cannot judge for men.
XVII.
Had he seen thee when he swore
He would love but me alone?
Thou wast absent, sent before
To our kin in Sidmouth town.
When he saw thee who art best
Past compare, and loveliest.
He but judged thee as the rest.
XVIII.
Could we blame him with grave words,
Thou and I, Dear, if we might?
Thy brown eyes have looks like birds
Flying straightway to the light:
Mine are older. — Hush! — look out —
Up the street! Is none without?
How the poplar swings about!
XIX.
And that hour — beneath the beech,
When I listened in a dream,
And he said in his deep speech
That he owed me all esteem, —
Each word swam in on my brain
With a dim, dilating pain,
Till it burst with that last strain.
XX.
I fell flooded with a dark,
In the silence of a swoon.
When I rose, still cold and stark,
There was night; I saw the moon
And the stars, each in its place,
And the May-blooms on the grass,
Seemed to wonder what I was.
XXI.
And I walked as if apart
From myself, when I could stand,
And I pitied my own heart,
As if I held it in my hand —
Somewhat coldly, with a sense
Of fulfilled benevolence,
And a “Poor thing” negligence.
XXII.
And I answered coldly too,
When you met me at the door;
And I only heard the dew
Dripping from me to the floor:
And the flowers, I bade you see,
Were too withered for the bee, —
As my life, henceforth, for me.
XXIII.
Do not weep so — Dear, — heart-warm!
All was best as it befell.
If I say he did me harm,
I speak wild, — I am not well.
All his words were kind and good —
He esteemed me. Only, blood
Runs so faint in womanhood!
XXIV.
Then I always was too grave, —
Liked the saddest ballad sung, —
With that look, besides, we have
In our faces, who die young.
I had died, Dear, all the same;
Life’s long, joyous, jostling game
Is to
o loud for my meek shame.
XXV.
We are so unlike each other,
Thou and I, that none could guess
We were children of one mother,
But for mutual tenderness.
Thou art rose-lined from the cold,
And meant verily to hold
Life’s pure pleasures manifold.
XXVI.
I am pale as crocus grows
Close beside a rose-tree’s root;
Whosoe’er would reach the rose,
Treads the crocus underfoot.
I, like May-bloom on thorn-tree,
Thou, like merry summer-bee, —
Fit that I be plucked for thee!
XXVII.
Yet who plucks me? — no one mourns,
I have lived my season out,
And now die of my own thorns
Which I could not live without.
Sweet, be merry! How the light
Comes and goes! If it be night,
Keep the candles in my sight.
XXVIII.
Are there footsteps at the door?
Look out quickly. Yea, or nay?
Some one might be waiting for
Some last word that I might say.
Nay? So best! — so angels would
Stand off clear from deathly road,
Not to cross the sight of God.
XXIX.
Colder grow my hands and feet.
When I wear the shroud I made,
Let the folds lie straight and neat,
And the rosemary be spread,
That if any friend should come,
(To see thee, Sweet!) all the room
May be lifted out of gloom.
XXX.
And, dear Bertha, let me keep
On my hand this little ring,
Which at nights, when others sleep,
I can still see glittering!
Let me wear it out of sight,
In the grave, — where it will light
All the dark up, day and night.
XXXI.
On that grave drop not a tear!
Else, though fathom-deep the place,
Through the woollen shroud I wear
I shall feel it on my face.
Rather smile there, blessed one,
Thinking of me in the sun,
Or forget me — smiling on!
XXXII.
Art thou near me? nearer! so —
Kiss me close upon the eyes,
That the earthly light may go
Sweetly, as it used to rise
When I watched the morning-grey
Strike, betwixt the hills, the way
He was sure to come that day.
XXXIII.
So, — no more vain words be said!
The hosannas nearer roll.
Mother, smile now on thy Dead,
I am death-strong in my soul.
Mystic Dove alit on cross,
Guide the poor bird of the snows
Through the snow-wind above loss!
XXXIV.
Jesus, Victim, comprehending
Love’s divine self-abnegation,
Cleanse my love in its self-spending,
And absorb the poor libation!
Wind my thread of life up higher,
Up, through angels’ hands of fire!
I aspire while I expire.
LADY GERALDINE’S COURTSHIP:
A ROMANCE OF THE AGE.
A Poet writes to his Friend. PLACE — A Room in Wycombe Hall.
TIME — Late in the evening.
I.
Dear my friend and fellow-student, I would lean my spirit o’er you!
Down the purple of this chamber tears should scarcely run at will.
I am humbled who was humble. Friend, I bow my head before you:
You should lead me to my peasants, but their faces are too still.
II.
There’s a lady, an earl’s daughter, — she is proud and she is noble,
And she treads the crimson carpet and she breathes the perfumed air,
And a kingly blood sends glances up, her princely eye to trouble,
And the shadow of a monarch’s crown is softened in her hair.
III.
She has halls among the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers,
She has farms and she has manors, she can threaten and command:
And the palpitating engines snort in steam across her acres,
As they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of the land.
IV.
There are none of England’s daughters who can show a prouder presence;
Upon princely suitors’ praying she has looked in her disdain.
She was sprung of English nobles, I was born of English peasants;
What was I that I should love her, save for competence to pain?
V.
I was only a poor poet, made for singing at her casement,
As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other things.
Oh, she walked so high above me, she appeared to my abasement,
In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel clad in wings!
VI.
Many vassals bow before her as her carriage sweeps their doorways;
She has blest their little children, as a priest or queen were she:
Far too tender, or too cruel far, her smile upon the poor was,
For I thought it was the same smile which she used to smile on me.
VII.
She has voters in the Commons, she has lovers in the palace,
And, of all the fair court-ladies, few have jewels half as fine;
Oft the Prince has named her beauty ‘twixt the red wine and the
chalice:
Oh, and what was I to love her? my beloved, my Geraldine!
VIII.
Yet I could not choose but love her: I was born to poet-uses,
To love all things set above me, all of good and all of fair.
Nymphs of mountain, not of valley, we are wont to call the Muses;
And in nympholeptic climbing, poets pass from mount to star.
IX.
And because I was a poet, and because the public praised me,
With a critical deduction for the modern writer’s fault,
I could sit at rich men’s tables, — though the courtesies that raised
me,
Still suggested clear between us the pale spectrum of the salt.
X.
And they praised me in her presence— “Will your book appear this
summer?”
Then returning to each other— “Yes, our plans are for the moors.”
Then with whisper dropped behind me— “There he is! the latest comer.
Oh, she only likes his verses! what is over, she endures.
XI.
“Quite low-born, self-educated! somewhat gifted though by nature,
And we make a point of asking him, — of being very kind.
You may speak, he does not hear you! and, besides, he writes no
satire, —
All these serpents kept by charmers leave the natural sting behind.”
XII.
I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as I stood up there among them,
Till as frost intense will burn you, the cold scorning scorched my
brow;
When a sudden silver speaking, gravely cadenced, over-rung them,
And a sudden silken stirring touched my inner nature through.
XIII.
I looked upward and beheld her: with a calm and regnant spirit,
Slowly round she swept her eyelids, and said clear before them all —
“Have you such superfluous honour, sir, that able to confer it
You will come down, Mister Bertram, as my guest to Wycombe Hall?”
XIV.
Here she paused; she had been paler at the first word of her speaking,
But, bec
ause a silence followed it, blushed somewhat, as for shame:
Then, as scorning her own feeling, resumed calmly— “I am seeking
More distinction than these gentlemen think worthy of my claim.
XV.
“Ne’ertheless, you see, I seek it — not because I am a woman,”
(Here her smile sprang like a fountain and, so, overflowed her mouth)
“But because my woods in Sussex have some purple shades at gloaming
Which are worthy of a king in state, or poet in his youth.
XVI.
“I invite you, Mister Bertram, to no scene for worldly speeches —
Sir, I scarce should dare — but only where God asked the thrushes first:
And if you will sing beside them, in the covert of my beeches,
I will thank you for the woodlands, — for the human world, at worst.”
XVII.
Then she smiled around right childly, then she gazed around right
queenly,
And I bowed — I could not answer; alternated light and gloom —
While as one who quells the lions, with a steady eye serenely,
She, with level fronting eyelids, passed out stately from the room.
XVIII.
Oh, the blessed woods of Sussex, I can hear them still around me,
With their leafy tide of greenery still rippling up the wind!
Oh, the cursed woods of Sussex! where the hunter’s arrow found me,
When a fair face and a tender voice had made me mad and blind!
Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 48