Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 62

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning


  Have they loved back thy love, and when strangers approached thee with blame,

  Have they covered thy fault with their kisses, and loved thee the same?

  But she shrunk and said

  “God, over my head,

  Must sweep in the wrath of His judgment-seas,

  If He shall deal with me sinning, but only indeed the same

  And no gentler than these.”

  LOVED ONCE.

  I

  I classed , appraising once,

  Earth’s lamentable sounds, — the welladay,

  The jarring yea and nay,

  The fall of kisses on unanswering clay,

  The sobbed farewell, the welcome mournfuller, —

  But all did leaven the air

  With a less bitter leaven of sure despair

  Than these words— “I loved once .”

  II

  And who saith “I loved once “?

  Not angels, — whose clear eyes, love, love foresee,

  Love, through eternity,

  And by To Love do apprehend To Be.

  Not God, called Love , His noble crown-name casting,

  A light too broad for blasting:

  The great God, changing not from everlasting,

  Saith never “I loved once .”

  III

  Oh, never is “Loved once “

  Thy word, Thou Victim-Christ, misprizèd friend!

  Thy cross and curse may rend,

  But having loved Thou lovest to the end.

  This is man’s saying — man’s: too weak to move

  One spherèd star above,

  Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love

  By his No More, and Once.

  IV

  How say ye “We loved once,”

  Blasphemers? Is your earth not cold enow,

  Mourners, without that snow?

  Ah friends, and would ye wrong each other so?

  And could ye say of some whose love is known,

  Whose prayers have met your own,

  Whose tears have fallen for you, whose smiles have shone

  So long,— “We loved them once “?

  V

  Could ye “We loved her once”

  Say calm of me, sweet friends, when out of sight?

  When hearts of better right

  Stand in between me and your happy light?

  Or when, as flowers kept too long in the shade,

  Ye find my colours fade,

  And all that is not love in me decayed?

  Such words — Ye loved me once!

  VI

  Could ye “We loved her once”

  Say cold of me when further put away

  In earth’s sepulchral clay,

  When mute the lips which deprecate today?

  Not so! not then — least then! When life is shriven

  And death’s full joy is given, —

  Of those who sit and love you up in heaven

  Say not “We loved them once.”

  VII

  Say never ye loved once :

  God is too near above, the grave beneath,

  And all our moments breathe

  Too quick in mysteries of life and death,

  For such a word. The eternities avenge

  Affections light of range.

  There comes no change to justify that change,

  Whatever comes — Loved once!

  VIII

  And yet that same word once

  Is humanly acceptive. Kings have said,

  Shaking a discrowned head,

  “We ruled once,” — dotards, “We once taught and led,”

  Cripples once danced i’ the vines, and bards approved,

  Were once by scornings moved:

  But love strikes one hour — love! Those never loved

  Who dream that they loved once .

  THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS.

  I

  I would build a cloudy House

  For my thoughts to live in,

  When for earth too fancy-loose,

  And too low for heaven:

  Hush! I talk my dream aloud,

  I build it bright to see, —

  I build it on the moonlit cloud

  To which I looked with thee .

  II

  Cloud-walls of the morning’s grey,

  Faced with amber column,

  Crowned with crimson cupola

  From a sunset solemn:

  May-mists, for the casements, fetch,

  Pale and glimmering,

  With a sunbeam hid in each

  And a smell of spring.

  III

  Build the entrance high and proud,

  Darkening and then brightening,

  Of a riven thunder-cloud,

  Veinèd by the lightning:

  Use one with an iris-stain

  For the door so thin,

  Turning to a sound like rain

  As I enter in.

  IV

  Build a spacious hall thereby

  Boldly, never fearing;

  Use the blue place of the sky

  Which the wind is clearing:

  Branched with corridors sublime,

  Flecked with winding stairs,

  Such as children wish to climb

  Following their own prayers.

  V

  In the mutest of the house

  I will have my chamber;

  Silence at the door shall use

  Evening’s light of amber,

  Solemnising every mood,

  Softening in degree,

  Turning sadness into good

  As I turn the key.

  VI

  Be my chamber tapestried

  With the showers of summer,

  Close, but soundless, glorified

  When the sunbeams come here —

  Wandering harpers, harping on

  Waters stringed for such,

  Drawing colour, for a tune,

  With a vibrant touch.

  VII

  Bring a shadow green and still

  From the chestnut-forest,

  Bring a purple from the hill,

  When the heat is sorest;

  Spread them out from wall to wall,

  Carpet-wove around,

  Whereupon the foot shall fall

  In light instead of sound.

  VIII

  Bring fantastic cloudlets home

  From the noontide zenith,

  Ranged for sculptures round the room,

  Named as Fancy weeneth;

  Some be Junos, without eyes,

  Naiads, without sources,

  Some be birds of paradise,

  Some, Olympian horses.

  IX

  Bring the dews the birds shake off

  Waking in the hedges, —

  Those too perfumed, for a proof,

  From the lilies’ edges:

  From our England’s field and moor,

  Bring them calm and white in,

  Whence to form a mirror pure

  For Love’s self-delighting.

  X

  Bring a grey cloud from the east

  Where the lark is singing,

  (Something of the song at least

  Unlost in the bringing):

  That shall be a morning-chair,

  Poet-dream may sit in

  When it leans out on the air,

  Unrhymed and unwritten.

  XI

  Bring the red cloud from the sun,

  While he sinketh catch it;

  That shall be a couch, — with one

  Sidelong star to watch it, —

  Fit for poet’s finest thought

  At the curfew-sounding;

  Things unseen being nearer brought

  Than the seen, around him.

  XII

  Poet’s thought, — not poet’s sigh.

  ‘Las, they come together!

  Cloudy walls divide and fly

  As in April weather.


  Cupola and column proud,

  Structure bright to see,

  Gone! except that moonlit cloud

  To which I looked with thee .

  XIII

  Let them! Wipe such visionings

  From the fancy’s cartel:

  Love secures some fairer things,

  Dowered with his immortal.

  The sun may darken, heaven be bowed,

  But still unchanged shall be, —

  Here, in my soul, — that moonlit cloud

  To which I looked with thee!

  A SABBATH MORNING AT SEA.

  I

  The ship went on with solemn face;

  To meet the darkness on the deep,

  The solemn ship went onward:

  I bowed down weary in the place,

  For parting tears and present sleep

  Had weighed mine eyelids downward.

  II

  Thick sleep which shut all dreams from me,

  And kept my inner self apart

  And quiet from emotion,

  Then brake away and left me free,

  Made conscious of a human heart

  Betwixt the heaven and ocean.

  III

  The new sight, the new wondrous sight!

  The waters round me, turbulent,

  The skies impassive o’er me,

  Calm in a moonless, sunless light,

  Half glorified by that intent

  Of holding the day-glory!

  IV

  Two pale thin clouds did stand upon

  The meeting line of sea and sky,

  With aspect still and mystic:

  I think they did foresee the sun,

  And rested on their prophecy

  In quietude majestic,

  V

  Then flushed to radiance where they stood,

  Like statues by the open tomb

  Of shining saints half risen.

  The sun! — he came up to be viewed,

  And sky and sea made mighty room

  To inaugurate the vision.

  VI

  I oft had seen the dawnlight run

  As red wine through the hills, and break

  Through many a mist’s inurning;

  But, here, no earth profaned the sun:

  Heaven, ocean, did alone partake

  The sacrament of morning.

  VII

  Away with thoughts fantastical!

  I would be humble to my worth,

  Self-guarded as self-doubted:

  Though here no earthly shadows fall,

  I, joying, grieving without earth,

  May desecrate without it.

  VIII

  God’s sabbath morning sweeps the waves;

  I would not praise the pageant high

  Yet miss the dedicature:

  I, carried toward the sunless graves

  By force of natural things, — should I

  Exult in only Nature?

  IX

  And could I bear to sit alone

  ‘Mid Nature’s fixed benignities,

  While my warm pulse was moving?

  Too dark thou art, O glittering sun,

  Too strait ye are, capacious seas,

  To satisfy the loving!

  X

  It seems a better lot than so,

  To sit with friends beneath the beech,

  And feel them dear and dearer;

  Or follow children as they go

  In pretty pairs, with softened speech,

  As the church-bells ring nearer.

  XI

  Love me, sweet friends, this sabbath day!

  The sea sings round me while ye roll

  Afar the hymn unaltered,

  And kneel, where once I knelt to pray,

  And bless me deeper in the soul,

  Because the voice has faltered.

  XII

  And though this sabbath comes to me

  Without the stolèd minister

  Or chanting congregation,

  God’s Spirit brings communion,

  He

  Who brooded soft on waters drear,

  Creator on creation.

  XIII

  Himself, I think, shall draw me higher

  Where keep the saints with harp and song

  An endless sabbath morning,

  And on that sea commixed with fire

  Oft drop their eyelids, raised too long

  To the full Godhead’s burning.

  A FLOWER IN A LETTER.

  I

  My lonely chamber next the sea

  Is full of many flowers set free

  By summer’s earliest duty:

  Dear friends upon the garden-walk

  Might stop amid their fondest talk

  To pull the least in beauty.

  II

  A thousand flowers, each seeming one

  That learnt by gazing on the sun

  To counterfeit his shining;

  Within whose leaves the holy dew

  That falls from heaven has won anew

  A glory, in declining.

  III

  Red roses, used to praises long,

  Contented with the poet’s song,

  The nightingale’s being over;

  And lilies white, prepared to touch

  The whitest thought, nor soil it much,

  Of dreamer turned to lover.

  IV

  Deep violets, you liken to

  The kindest eyes that look on you,

  Without a thought disloyal;

  And cactuses a queen might don

  If weary of a golden crown,

  And still appear as royal.

  V

  Pansies for ladies all, — I wis

  That none who wear such brooches miss

  A jewel in the mirror;

  And tulips, children love to stretch

  Their fingers down, to feel in each

  Its beauty’s secret nearer.

  VI

  Love’s language may be talked with these;

  To work out choicest sentences,

  No blossoms can be meeter;

  And, such being used in Eastern bowers,

  Young maids may wonder if the flowers

  Or meanings be the sweeter.

  VII

  And such being strewn before a bride,

  Her little foot may turn aside,

  Their longer bloom decreeing,

  Unless some voice’s whispered sound

  Should make her gaze upon the ground

  Too earnestly for seeing.

  VIII

  And such being scattered on a grave,

  Whoever mourneth there may have

  A type which seemeth worthy

  Of that fair body hid below,

  Which bloomed on earth a time ago,

  Then perished as the earthy.

  IX

  And such being wreathed for worldly feast,

  Across the brimming cup some guest

  Their rainbow colours viewing

  May feel them, with a silent start,

  The covenant, his childish heart

  With nature made, renewing.

  X

  No flowers our gardened England hath

  To match with these, in bloom and breath,

  Which from the world are hiding

  In sunny Devon moist with rills, —

  A nunnery of cloistered hills,

  The elements presiding.

  XI

  By Loddon’s stream the flowers are fair

  That meet one gifted lady’s care

  With prodigal rewarding:

  (For Beauty is too used to run

  To Mitford’s bower — to want the sun

  To light her through the garden).

  XII

  But here, all summers are comprised,

  The nightly frosts shrink exorcised

  Before the priestly moonshine;

  And every wind with stolèd feet

  I
n wandering down the alleys sweet

  Steps lightly on the sunshine.

  XIII

  And (having promised Harpocrate

  Among the nodding roses that

  No harm shall touch his daughters)

  Gives quite away the rushing sound

  He dares not use upon such ground

  To ever-trickling waters.

  XIV

  Yet, sun and wind! what can ye do

  But make the leaves more brightly show

  In posies newly gathered?

  I look away from all your best

  To one poor flower unlike the rest,

  A little flower half-withered.

  XV

  I do not think it ever was

  A pretty flower, — to make the grass

  Look greener where it reddened;

  And now it seems ashamed to be

  Alone, in all this company,

  Of aspect shrunk and saddened.

  XVI

  A chamber-window was the spot

  It grew in, from a garden-pot,

  Among the city shadows:

  If any, tending it, might seem

  To smile, ‘twas only in a dream

  Of nature in the meadows.

  XVII

  How coldly on its head did fall

  The sunshine, from the city wall

  In pale refraction driven!

  How sadly plashed upon its leaves

  The raindrops, losing in the eaves

  The first sweet news of heaven!

  XVIII

  And those who planted, gathered it

  In gamesome or in loving fit,

 

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