Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 50
LXXI.
Oh, she fluttered like a tame bird, in among its forest-brothers
Far too strong for it; then drooping, bowed her face upon her hands;
And I spake out wildly, fiercely, brutal truths of her and others:
I, she planted in the desert, swathed her, windlike, with my sands.
LXXII.
I plucked up her social fictions, bloody-rooted though leaf-verdant,
Trod them down with words of shaming, — all the purple and the gold.
All the “landed stakes” and lordships, all that spirits pure and ardent
Are cast out of love and honour because chancing not to hold.
LXXIII.
“For myself I do not argue,” said I, “though I love you, madam,
But for better souls that nearer to the height of yours have trod:
And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God.
LXXIV.
“Yet, O God,” I said, “O grave,” I said, “O mother’s heart and bosom,
With whom first and last are equal, saint and corpse and little child!
We are fools to your deductions, in these figments of heart-closing;
We are traitors to your causes, in these sympathies defiled.
LXXV.
“Learn more reverence, madam, not for rank or wealth — that needs no
learning:
That comes quickly, quick as sin does, ay, and culminates to sin;
But for Adam’s seed, MAN! Trust me, ‘t is a clay above your scorning,
With God’s image stamped upon it, and God’s kindling breath within.
LXXVI.
“What right have you, madam, gazing in your palace mirror daily,
Getting so by heart your beauty which all others must adore,
While you draw the golden ringlets down your fingers, to vow gaily
You will wed no man that’s only good to God, and nothing more?
LXXVII.
“Why, what right have you, made fair by that same God, the sweetest
woman
Of all women He has fashioned, with your lovely spirit-face
Which would seem too near to vanish if its smile were not so human,
And your voice of holy sweetness, turning common words to grace, —
LXXVIII.
“What right can you have, God’s other works to scorn, despise, revile
them
In the gross, as mere men, broadly — not as noble men, forsooth, —
As mere Pariahs of the outer world, forbidden to assoil them
In the hope of living, dying, near that sweetness of your mouth?
LXXIX.
“Have you any answer, madam? If my spirit were less earthly,
If its instrument were gifted with a better silver string,
I would kneel down where I stand, and say — Behold me! I am worthy
Of thy loving, for I love thee. I am worthy as a king.
LXXX.
“As it is — your ermined pride, I swear, shall feel this stain upon her,
That I, poor, weak, tost with passion, scorned by me and you again,
Love you, madam, dare to love you, to my grief and your dishonour,
To my endless desolation, and your impotent disdain!”
LXXXI.
More mad words like these — mere madness! friend, I need not write them
fuller,
For I hear my hot soul dropping on the lines in showers of tears.
Oh, a woman! friend, a woman! why, a beast had scarce been duller
Than roar bestial loud complaints against the shining of the spheres.
LXXXII.
But at last there came a pause. I stood all vibrating with thunder
Which my soul had used. The silence drew her face up like a call.
Could you guess what word she uttered? She looked up, as if in wonder,
With tears beaded on her lashes, and said— “Bertram!” — It was all.
LXXXIII.
If she had cursed me, and she might have, or if even, with queenly
bearing
Which at need is used by women, she had risen up and said,
“Sir, you are my guest, and therefore I have given you a full hearing:
Now, beseech you, choose a name exacting somewhat less, instead!” —
LXXXIV.
I had borne it: but that “Bertram” — why, it lies there on the paper
A mere word, without her accent, and you cannot judge the weight
Of the calm which crushed my passion: I seemed drowning in a vapour;
And her gentleness destroyed me whom her scorn made desolate.
LXXXV.
So, struck backward and exhausted by that inward flow of passion
Which had rushed on, sparing nothing, into forms of abstract truth,
By a logic agonizing through unseemly demonstration,
And by youth’s own anguish turning grimly grey the hairs of youth, —
LXXXVI.
By the sense accursed and instant, that if even I spake wisely
I spake basely — using truth, if what I spake indeed was true,
To avenge wrong on a woman — her, who sate there weighing nicely
A poor manhood’s worth, found guilty of such deeds as I could do! —
LXXXVII.
By such wrong and woe exhausted — what I suffered and occasioned, —
As a wild horse through a city runs with lightning in his eyes,
And then dashing at a church’s cold and passive wall, impassioned,
Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops and dies —
LXXXVIII.
So I fell, struck down before her — do you blame me, friend, for
weakness?
‘T was my strength of passion slew me! — fell before her like a stone;
Fast the dreadful world rolled from me on its roaring wheels of
blackness:
When the light came I was lying in this chamber and alone.
LXXXIX.
Oh, of course she charged her lacqueys to bear out the sickly burden,
And to cast it from her scornful sight, but not beyond the gate;
She is too kind to be cruel, and too haughty not to pardon
Such a man as I; ‘t were something to be level to her hate.
XC.
But for me — you now are conscious why, my friend, I write this letter,
How my life is read all backward, and the charm of life undone.
I shall leave her house at dawn; I would to-night, if I were better —
And I charge my soul to hold my body strengthened for the sun.
XCI.
When the sun has dyed the oriel, I depart, with no last gazes,
No weak moanings (one word only, left in writing for her hands),
Out of reach of all derision, and some unavailing praises,
To make front against this anguish in the far and foreign lands.
XCII.
Blame me not. I would not squander life in grief — I am abstemious.
I but nurse my spirit’s falcon that its wing may soar again.
There’s no room for tears of weakness in the blind eyes of a Phemius:
Into work the poet kneads them, and he does not die till then.
CONCLUSION.
I.
Bertram finished the last pages, while along the silence ever
Still in hot and heavy splashes fell the tears on every leaf.
Having ended, he leans backward in his chair, with lips that quiver
From the deep unspoken, ay, and deep unwritten thoughts of grief.
II.
Soh! how still the lady standeth! ‘T is a dream — a dream of mercies!
‘Twixt the purple lattice-curtains how she standeth still and pale!
‘T is a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to softe
n his self curses,
Sent to sweep a patient quiet o’er the tossing of his wail.
III.
“Eyes,” he said, “now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo
me?
Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone!
Underneath that calm white forehead are ye ever burning torrid
O’er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone?”
IV.
With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air the purple curtain
Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows,
While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise for ever
Through the open casement whitened by the moonlight’s slant repose.
V.
Said he— “Vision of a lady! stand there silent, stand there steady!
Now I see it plainly, plainly now I cannot hope or doubt —
There, the brows of mild repression — there, the lips of silent passion,
Curved like an archer’s bow to send the bitter arrows out.”
VI.
Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,
And approached him slowly, slowly, in a gliding measured pace;
With her two white hands extended as if praying one offended,
And a look of supplication gazing earnest in his face.
VII.
Said he— “Wake me by no gesture, — sound of breath, or stir of vesture!
Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to its divine!
No approaching — hush, no breathing! or my heart must swoon to death in
The too utter life thou bringest, O thou dream of Geraldine!”
VIII.
Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,
But the tears ran over lightly from her eyes and tenderly: —
“Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me? Is no woman far above me
Found more worthy of thy poet-heart than such a one as I?”
IX.
Said he— “I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that river,
Flowing ever in a shadow greenly onward to the sea!
So, thou vision of all sweetness, princely to a full completeness
Would my heart and life flow onward, deathward, through this dream of
THEE!”
X.
Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,
While the silver tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks;
Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly told him,
“Bertram, if I say I love thee, ... ‘t is the vision only speaks.”
XI.
Softened, quickened to adore her, on his knee he fell before her,
And she whispered low in triumph, “It shall be as I have sworn.
Very rich he is in virtues, very noble — noble, certes;
And I shall not blush in knowing that men call him lowly born.”
THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM’S POINT.
I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim’s bended knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,
And God was thanked for liberty.
I have run through the night, my skin is as dark,
I bend my knee down on this mark:
I look on the sky and the sea.
II.
O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you!
I see you come proud and slow
From the land of the spirits pale as dew
And round me and round me ye go.
O pilgrims, I have gasped and run
All night long from the whips of one
Who in your names works sin and woe!
III.
And thus I thought that I would come
And kneel here where ye knelt before,
And feel your souls around me hum
In undertone to the ocean’s roar;
And lift my black face, my black hand,
Here, in your names, to curse this land
Ye blessed in freedom’s, evermore.
IV.
I am black, I am black,
And yet God made me, they say:
But if He did so, smiling back
He must have cast his work away
Under the feet of his white creatures,
With a look of scorn, that the dusky features
Might be trodden again to clay.
V.
And yet He has made dark things
To be glad and merry as light:
There’s a little dark bird sits and sings,
There’s a dark stream ripples out of sight,
And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass,
And the sweetest stars are made to pass
O’er the face of the darkest night.
VI.
But we who are dark, we are dark!
Ah God, we have no stars!
About our souls in care and cark
Our blackness shuts like prison-bars:
The poor souls crouch so far behind
That never a comfort can they find
By reaching through the prison-bars.
VII.
Indeed we live beneath the sky,
That great smooth Hand of God stretched out
On all His children fatherly,
To save them from the dread and doubt
Which would be if, from this low place,
All opened straight up to His face
Into the grand eternity.
VIII.
And still God’s sunshine and His frost,
They make us hot, they make us cold,
As if we were not black and lost;
And the beasts and birds, in wood and fold,
Do fear and take us for very men:
Could the whip-poor-will or the cat of the glen
Look into my eyes and be bold?
IX.
I am black, I am black!
But, once, I laughed in girlish glee,
For one of my colour stood in the track
Where the drivers drove, and looked at me,
And tender and full was the look he gave —
Could a slave look so at another slave? —
I look at the sky and the sea.
X.
And from that hour our spirits grew
As free as if unsold, unbought:
Oh, strong enough, since we were two,
To conquer the world, we thought.
The drivers drove us day by day;
We did not mind, we went one way,
And no better a freedom sought.
XI.
In the sunny ground between the canes,
He said “I love you” as he passed;
When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains,
I heard how he vowed it fast:
While others shook he smiled in the hut,
As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut
Through the roar of the hurricanes.
XII.
I sang his name instead of a song,
Over and over I sang his name,
Upward and downward I drew it along
My various notes, — the same, the same!
I sang it low, that the slave-girls near
Might never guess, from aught they could hear,
It was only a name — a name.
XIII.
I look on the sky and the sea.
We were two to love, and two to pray:
Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee,
Though nothing didst Thou say!
Coldly Thou sat’st behind the sun:
And now I cry who am but one,
Thou wilt not speak to-day.
XIV.
We were black, we were black,
We had no claim to love and bliss,
What marvel if each went to wrack?
They wrung my cold han
ds out of his,
They dragged him — where? I crawled to touch
His blood’s mark in the dust ... not much,
Ye pilgrim-souls, though plain as this!
XV.
Wrong, followed by a deeper wrong!
Mere grief’s too good for such as I:
So the white men brought the shame ere long
To strangle the sob of my agony.
They would not leave me for my dull
Wet eyes! — it was too merciful
To let me weep pure tears and die.
XVI.
I am black, I am black!
I wore a child upon my breast,
An amulet that hung too slack,
And, in my unrest, could not rest:
Thus we went moaning, child and mother,
One to another, one to another,
Until all ended for the best.
XVII.
For hark! I will tell you low, low,
I am black, you see, —
And the babe who lay on my bosom so,
Was far too white, too white for me;
As white as the ladies who scorned to pray
Beside me at church but yesterday,
Though my tears had washed a place for my knee.
XVIII.
My own, own child! I could not bear
To look in his face, it was so white;
I covered him up with a kerchief there,