Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 57
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.