Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 57

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning


  For no one entered there but I;

  The sheep looked in, the grass to espy,

  And passed it ne’ertheless.

  The trees were interwoven wild,

  And spread their boughs enough about

  To keep both sheep and shepherd out,

  But not a happy child.

  Adventurous joy it was for me!

  I crept beneath the boughs, and found

  A circle smooth of mossy ground

  Beneath a poplar tree.

  Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,

  Bedropt with roses waxen-white

  Well satisfied with dew and light

  And careless to be seen.

  Long years ago it might befall,

  When all the garden flowers were trim,

  The grave old gardener prided him

  On these the most of all.

  Some lady, stately overmuch,

  Here moving with a silken noise,

  Has blushed beside them at the voice

  That likened her to such.

  And these, to make a diadem,

  She often may have plucked and twined,

  Half-smiling as it came to mind

  That few would look at them .

  Oh, little thought that lady proud,

  A child would watch her fair white rose,

  When buried lay her whiter brows,

  And silk was changed for shroud!

  Nor thought that gardener, (full of scorns

  For men unlearned and simple phrase,)

  A child would bring it all its praise

  By creeping through the thorns!

  To me upon my low moss seat,

  Though never a dream the roses sent

  Of science or love’s compliment,

  I ween they smelt as sweet.

  It did not move my grief to see

  The trace of human step departed:

  Because the garden was deserted,

  The blither place for me!

  Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken

  Has childhood ‘twixt the sun and sward;

  We draw the moral afterward,

  We feel the gladness then.

  And gladdest hours for me did glide

  In silence at the rose-tree wall:

  A thrush made gladness musical

  Upon the other side.

  Nor he nor I did e’er incline

  To peck or pluck the blossoms white;

  How should I know but roses might

  Lead lives as glad as mine?

  To make my hermit-home complete,

  I brought clear water from the spring

  Praised in its own low murmuring,

  And cresses glossy wet.

  And so, I thought, my likeness grew

  (Without the melancholy tale)

  To “gentle hermit of the dale,”

  And Angelina too.

  For oft I read within my nook

  Such minstrel stories; till the breeze

  Made sounds poetic in the trees,

  And then I shut the book.

  If I shut this wherein I write

  I hear no more the wind athwart

  Those trees, nor feel that childish heart

  Delighting in delight.

  My childhood from my life is parted,

  My footstep from the moss which drew

  Its fairy circle round: anew

  The garden is deserted.

  Another thrush may there rehearse

  The madrigals which sweetest are;

  No more for me! myself afar

  Do sing a sadder verse.

  Ah me, ah me! when erst I lay

  In that child’s-nest so greenly wrought,

  I laughed unto myself and thought

  “The time will pass away.”

  And still I laughed, and did not fear

  But that, whene’er was past away

  The childish time, some happier play

  My womanhood would cheer.

  I knew the time would pass away,

  And yet, beside the rose-tree wall,

  Dear God, how seldom, if at all,

  Did I look up to pray!

  The time is past; and now that grows

  The cypress high among the trees,

  And I behold white sepulchres

  As well as the white rose, —

  When graver, meeker thoughts are given,

  And I have learnt to lift my face,

  Reminded how earth’s greenest place

  The colour draws from heaven, —

  It something saith for earthly pain,

  But more for Heavenly promise free,

  That I who was, would shrink to be

  That happy child again.

  MY DOVES.

  “O Weisheit! Du red’st wie eine Taube!”

  — Goethe.

  My little doves have left a nest

  Upon an Indian tree

  Whose leaves fantastic take their rest

  Or motion from the sea;

  For, ever there the sea-winds go

  With sunlit paces to and fro.

  The tropic flowers looked up to it,

  The tropic stars looked down,

  And there my little doves did sit

  With feathers softly brown,

  And glittering eyes that showed their right

  To general Nature’s deep delight.

  And God them taught, at every close

  Of murmuring waves beyond

  And green leaves round, to interpose

  Their choral voices fond,

  Interpreting that love must be

  The meaning of the earth and sea.

  Fit ministers! Of living loves

  Theirs hath the calmest fashion,

  Their living voice the likest moves

  To lifeless intonation,

  The lovely monotone of springs

  And winds and such insensate things.

  My little doves were ta’en away

  From that glad nest of theirs

  Across an ocean rolling grey

  And tempest-clouded airs:

  My little doves, who lately knew

  The sky and wave by warmth and blue.

  And now, within the city prison,

  In mist and chillness pent,

  With sudden upward look they listen

  For sounds of past content,

  For lapse of water, swell of breeze,

  Or nut-fruit falling from the trees.

  The stir without the glow of passion,

  The triumph of the mart,

  The gold and silver as they clash on

  Man’s cold metallic heart,

  The roar of wheels, the cry for bread, —

  These only sounds are heard instead.

  Yet still, as on my human hand

  Their fearless heads they lean,

  And almost seem to understand

  What human musings mean,

  (Their eyes with such a plaintive shine

  Are fastened upwardly to mine!) —

  Soft falls their chant as on the nest

  Beneath the sunny zone;

  For love that stirred it in their breast

  Has not aweary grown,

  And ‘neath the city’s shade can keep

  The well of music clear and deep.

  And love, that keeps the music, fills

  With pastoral memories;

  All echoings from out the hills,

  All droppings from the skies,

  All flowings from the wave and wind,

  Remembered in their chant, I find.

  So teach ye me the wisest part,

  My little doves! to move

  Along the city-ways with heart

  Assured by holy love,

  And vocal with such songs as own

  A fountain to the world unknown.

  ‘Twas hard to sing by Babel’s stream —

  More hard, in Babel’s street:

  But if the soulless creatures de
em

  Their music not unmeet

  For sunless walls — let us begin,

  Who wear immortal wings within!

  To me, fair memories belong

  Of scenes that used to bless,

  For no regret, but present song

  And lasting thankfulness,

  And very soon to break away,

  Like types, in purer things than they.

  I will have hopes that cannot fade,

  For flowers the valley yields;

  I will have humble thoughts instead

  Of silent, dewy fields:

  My spirit and my God shall be

  My seaward hill, my boundless sea.

  HECTOR IN THE GARDEN.

  I

  Nine years old! The first of any

  Seem the happiest years that come:

  Yet when I was nine, I said

  No such word! I thought instead

  That the Greeks had used as many

  In besieging Ilium.

  II

  Nine green years had scarcely brought me

  To my childhood’s haunted spring;

  I had life, like flowers and bees,

  In betwixt the country trees,

  And the sun the pleasure taught me

  Which he teacheth every thing.

  III

  If the rain fell, there was sorrow:

  Little head leant on the pane,

  Little finger drawing down it

  The long trailing drops upon it,

  And the “Rain, rain, come to-morrow,”

  Said for charm against the rain.

  IV

  Such a charm was right Canidian,

  Though you meet it with a jeer!

  If I said it long enough,

  Then the rain hummed dimly off,

  And the thrush with his pure Lydian

  Was left only to the ear;

  V

  And the sun and I together

  Went a-rushing out of doors:

  We our tender spirits drew

  Over hill and dale in view,

  Glimmering hither, glimmering thither

  In the footsteps of the showers.

  VI

  Underneath the chestnuts dripping,

  Through the grasses wet and fair,

  Straight I sought my garden-ground

  With the laurel on the mound,

  And the pear-tree oversweeping

  A side-shadow of green air.

  VII

  In the garden lay supinely

  A huge giant wrought of spade!

  Arms and legs were stretched at length

  In a passive giant strength, —

  The fine meadow turf, cut finely,

  Round them laid and interlaid.

  VIII

  Call him Hector, son of Priam!

  Such his title and degree.

  With my rake I smoothed his brow,

  Both his cheeks I weeded through,

  But a rhymer such as I am,

  Scarce can sing his dignity.

  IX

  Eyes of gentianellas azure,

  Staring, winking at the skies:

  Nose of gillyflowers and box;

  Scented grasses put for locks,

  Which a little breeze at pleasure

  Set a-waving round his eyes:

  X

  Brazen helm of daffodillies,

  With a glitter toward the light;

  Purple violets for the mouth,

  Breathing perfumes west and south;

  And a sword of flashing lilies,

  Holden ready for the fight:

  XI

  And a breastplate made of daisies,

  Closely fitting, leaf on leaf;

  Periwinkles interlaced

  Drawn for belt about the waist;

  While the brown bees, humming praises,

  Shot their arrows round the chief.

  XII

  And who knows (I sometimes wondered)

  If the disembodied soul

  Of old Hector, once of Troy,

  Might not take a dreary joy

  Here to enter — if it thundered,

  Rolling up the thunder-roll?

  XIII

  Rolling this way from Troy-ruin,

  In this body rude and rife

  Just to enter, and take rest

  ‘Neath the daisies of the breast —

  They, with tender roots, renewing

  His heroic heart to life?

  XIV

  Who could know? I sometimes started

  At a motion or a sound!

  Did his mouth speak — naming Troy

  With an ?

  Did the pulse of the Strong-hearted

  Make the daisies tremble round?

  XV

  It was hard to answer, often:

  But the birds sang in the tree,

  But the little birds sang bold

  In the pear-tree green and old,

  And my terror seemed to soften

  Through the courage of their glee.

  XVI

  Oh, the birds, the tree, the ruddy

  A d white blossoms sleek with rain!

  Oh, my garden rich with pansies!

  Oh, my childhood’s bright romances!

  All revive, like Hector’s body,

  And I see them stir again.

  XVII

  And despite life’s changes, chances,

  And despite the deathbell’s toll.

  They press on me in full seeming

  Help, some angel! stay this dreaming!

  As the birds sang in the branches,

  Sing God’s patience through my soul!

  XVIII

  That no dreamer, no neglecter

  Of the present’s work unsped,

  I may wake up and he doing,

  Life’s heroic ends pursuing,

  Though my past is dead as Hector,

  And though Hector is twice dead.

  SLEEPING AND WATCHING.

  I.

  Sleep on, baby, on the floor,

  Tired of all the playing:

  Sleep with smile the sweeter for

  That, you dropped away in.

  On your curls’ full roundness stand

  Golden lights serenely;

  One cheek, pushed out by the hand

  Folds the dimple inly:

  Little head and little foot

  Heavy laid for pleasure,

  Underneath the lids half shut

  Slants the shining azure.

  Open-soul in noonday sun,

  So you lie and slumber:

  Nothing evil having done,

  Nothing can encumber.

  II.

  I, who cannot sleep as well,

  Shall I sigh to view you?

  Or sigh further to foretell

  All that may undo you?

  Nay, keep smiling, little child,

  Ere the sorrow neareth:

  I will smile too! patience mild

  Pleasure’s token weareth.

  Nay, keep sleeping before loss:

  I shall sleep though losing!

  As by cradle, so by cross,

  Sure is the reposing.

  III.

  And God knows who sees us twain,

  Child at childish leisure,

  I am near as tired of pain

  As you seem of pleasure.

  Very soon too, by His grace

  Gently wrapt around me,

  Shall I show as calm a face,

  Shall I sleep as soundly.

  Differing in this, that you

  Clasp your playthings, sleeping,

  While my hand shall drop the few

  Given to my keeping:

  Differing in this, that I

  Sleeping shall be colder,

  And in waking presently,

  Brighter to beholder:

  Differing in this beside —

  (Sleeper, have you heard me?

  Do you move, and open wide
<
br />   Eyes of wonder toward me?) —

  That while you I thus recall

  From your sleep, I solely,

  Me from mine an angel shall,

  With reveillie holy.

  SOUNDS.

  From Æschylus.

  I.

  Hearken , hearken!

  The rapid river carrieth

  Many noises underneath

  The hoary ocean:

  Teaching his solemnity

  Sounds of inland life and glee

  Learnt beside the waving tree

  When the winds in summer prank

  Toss the shades from bank to bank,

  And the quick rains, in emotion

  Which rather gladdens earth than grieves,

  Count and visibly rehearse

  The pulses of the universe

  Upon the summer leaves —

  Learnt among the lilies straight

  When they bow them to the weight

  Of many bees whose hidden hum

  Seemeth from themselves to come —

  Learnt among the grasses green

  Where the rustling mice are seen

  By the gleaming, as they run,

  Of their quick eyes in the sun;

  And lazy sheep are browsing through

  With their noses trailed in dew;

  And the squirrel leaps adown

  Holding fast the filbert brown;

  And the lark, with more of mirth

  In his song than suits the earth,

  Droppeth some in soaring high,

  To pour the rest out in the sky;

  While the woodland doves apart

  In the copse’s leafy heart,

  Solitary, not ascetic,

  Hidden and yet vocal, seem

  Joining, in a lovely psalm,

  Man’s despondence, nature’s calm,

  Half mystical and half pathetic,

  Like a singing in a dream.

 

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