Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 66
For if I do not hear thy foot,
The frozen river is as mute,
The flowers have dried down to the root:
And why, since these be changed since May,
Shouldst thou change less than they.
And slow, slow as the winter snow
The tears have drifted to mine eyes;
And my poor cheeks, five months ago
Set blushing at thy praises so,
Put paleness on for a disguise.
Ah, Sweet, be free to praise and go!
For if my face is turned too pale,
It was thine oath that first did fail, —
It was thy love proved false and frail, —
And why, since these be changed enow,
Should I change less than thou.
THAT DAY.
I
I stand by the river where both of us stood,
And there is but one shadow to darken the flood;
And the path leading to it, where both used to pass,
Has the step but of one, to take dew from the grass, —
One forlorn since that day.
II
The flowers of the margin are many to see;
None stoops at my bidding to pluck them for me.
The bird in the alder sings loudly and long, —
My low sound of weeping disturbs not his song,
As thy vow did, that day.
III
I stand by the river, I think of the vow;
Oh, calm as the place is, vow-breaker, be thou!
I leave the flower growing, the bird unreproved;
Would I trouble thee rather than them , my beloved, —
And my lover that day?
IV
Go, be sure of my love, by that treason forgiven;
Of my prayers, by the blessings they win thee from Heaven;
Of my grief — (guess the length of the sword by the sheath’s)
By the silence of life, more pathetic than death’s!
Go, — be clear of that day!
A REED.
I AM no trumpet, but a reed;
No flattering breath shall from me lead
A silver sound, a hollow sound:
I will not ring, for priest or king,
One blast that in re-echoing
Would leave a bondsman faster bound.
I am no trumpet, but a reed, —
A broken reed, the wind indeed
Left flat upon a dismal shore;
Yet if a little maid or child
Should sigh within it, earnest-mild
This reed will answer evermore. ‘
I am no trumpet, but a reed;
Go, tell the fishers, as they spread
Their nets along the river’s edge,
I will not tear their nets at all,
Nor pierce their hands, if they should fall:
Then let them leave me in the sedge.
THE DEAD PAN.
I
Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas,
Can ye listen in your silence?
Can your mystic voices tell us
Where ye hide? In floating islands,
With a wind that evermore
Keeps you out of sight of shore?
Pan, Pan is dead.
II
In what revels are ye sunken
In old Æthiopia?
Have the Pygmies made you drunken,
Bathing in mandragora
Your divine pale lips that shiver
Like the lotus in the river?
Pan, Pan is dead.
III
Do ye sit there still in slumber,
In gigantic Alpine rows?
The black poppies out of number
Nodding, dripping from your brows
To the red lees of your wine,
And so kept alive and fine?
Pan, Pan is dead.
IV
Or lie crushed your stagnant corses
Where the silver spheres roll on,
Stung to life by centric forces
Thrown like rays out from the sun? —
While the smoke of your old altars
Is the shroud that round you welters?
Great Pan is dead.
V
“Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas”
Said the old Hellenic tongue, —
Said the hero-oaths, as well as
Poets’ songs the sweetest sung:
Have ye grown deaf in a day?
Can ye speak not yea or nay,
Since Pan is dead?
VI
Do ye leave your rivers flowing
All alone, O Naiades,
While your drénchèd locks dry slow in
This cold feeble sun and breeze?
Not a word the Naiads say,
Though the rivers run for aye;
For Pan is dead.
VII
From the gloaming of the oak-wood,
O ye Dryads, could ye flee?
At the rushing thunderstroke, would
No sob tremble through the tree?
Not a word the Dryads say,
Though the forests wave for aye;
For Pan is dead.
VIII
Have ye left the mountain places,
Oreads wild, for other tryst?
Shall we see no sudden faces
Strike a glory through the mist?
Not a sound the silence thrills
Of the everlasting hills:
Pan, Pan is dead.
IX
O twelve gods of Plato’s vision,
Crowned to starry wanderings,
With your chariots in procession
And your silver clash of wings!
Very pale ye seem to rise,
Ghosts of Grecian deities,
Now Pan is dead!
X
Jove, that right hand is unloaded
Whence the thunder did prevail,
While in idiocy of godhead
Thou art staring the stars pale!
And thine eagle, blind and old,
Roughs his feathers in the cold.
Pan, Pan is dead.
XI
Where, O Juno, is the glory
Of thy regal look and tread?
Will they lay, for evermore, thee
On thy dim, strait, golden bed?
Will thy queendom all lie hid
Meekly under either lid?
Pan, Pan is dead
XII
Ha, Apollo! floats his golden
Hair all mist-like where he stands,
While the Muses hang enfolding
Knee and foot with faint wild hands?
‘Neath the clanging of thy bow,
Niobe looked lost as thou!
Pan, Pan is dead.
XIII
Shall the casque with its brown iron
Pallas’ broad blue eyes eclipse,
And no hero take inspiring
From the god-Greek of her lips?
‘Neath her olive dost thou sit,
Mars the mighty, cursing it?
Pan, Pan is dead.
XIV
Bacchus, Bacchus! on the panther
He swoons, bound with his own vines;
And his Mænads slowly saunter,
Head aside, among the pines,
While they murmur dreamingly
“Evohe! — ah — evohe! —
Ah, Pan is dead!”
XV
Neptune lies beside the trident,
Dull and senseless as a stone;
And old Pluto deaf and silent
Is cast out into the sun:
Ceres smileth stern thereat,
“We all now are desolate —
Now Pan is dead.”
XVI
Aphrodite! dead and driven
As thy native foam thou art;
With the cestus long done heaving
On the white calm of thine heart!
Ai Ad
onis! at that shriek
Not a tear runs down her cheek —
Pan, Pan is dead.
XVII
And the Loves, we used to know from
One another, huddled lie,
Frore as taken in a snow-storm,
Close beside her tenderly;
As if each had weakly tried
Once to kiss her as he died.
Pan, Pan is dead.
XVIII
What, and Hermes? Time enthralleth
All thy cunning, Hermes, thus,
And the ivy blindly crawleth
Round thy brave caduceus?
Hast thou no new message for us,
Full of thunder and Jove-glories?
Nay, Pan is dead.
XIX
Crownèd Cybele’s great turret
Rocks and crumbles on her head;
Roar the lions of her chariot
Toward the wilderness, unfed:
Scornful children are not mute, —
“Mother, mother, walk afoot,
Since Pan is dead!”
XX
In the fiery-hearted centre
Of the solemn universe,
Ancient Vesta, — who could enter
To consume thee with this curse?
Drop thy grey chin on thy knee,
O thou palsied Mystery!
For Pan is dead.
XXI
Gods, we vainly do adjure you, —
Ye return nor voice nor sign!
Not a votary could secure you
Even a grave for your Divine:
Not a grave, to show thereby
Here these grey old gods do lie.
Pan, Pan is dead.
XXII
Even that Greece who took your wages
Calls the obolus outworn;
And the hoarse, deep-throated ages
Laugh your godships unto scorn:
And the poets do disclaim you,
Or grow colder if they name you —
And Pan is dead.
XXIII
Gods bereavèd, gods belated,
With your purples rent asunder!
Gods discrowned and desecrated,
Disinherited of thunder!
Now, the goats may climb and crop
The soft grass on Ida’s top —
Now Pan is dead.
XXIV
Calm, of old, the bark went onward,
When a cry more loud than wind
Rose up, deepened, and swept sunward
From the pilèd Dark behind;
And the sun shrank and grew pale,
Breathed against by the great wail —
“Pan, Pan is dead.”
XXV
And the rowers from the benches
Fell, each shuddering on his face,
While departing Influences
Struck a cold back through the place;
And the shadow of the ship
Reeled along the passive deep —
“Pan, Pan is dead.”
XXVI
And that dismal cry rose slowly
And sank slowly through the air,
Full of spirit’s melancholy
And eternity’s despair!
And they heard the words it said —
Pan is dead — Great Pan is dead —
Pan, Pan is dead.
XXVII
‘Twas the hour when One in Sion
Hung for love’s sake on a cross;
When His brow was chill with dying
And His soul was faint with loss;
When His priestly blood dropped downward
And His kingly eyes looked throneward —
Then, Pan was dead.
XXVIII
By the love, He stood alone in,
His sole Godhead rose complete,
And the false gods fell down moaning
Each from off his golden seat;
All the false gods with a cry
Rendered up their deity —
Pan, Pan was dead.
XXIX
Wailing wide across the islands,
They rent, vest-like, their Divine;
And a darkness and a silence
Quenched the light of every shrine;
And Dodona’s oak swang lonely
Henceforth, to the tempest only:
Pan, Pan was dead.
XXX
Pythia staggered, feeling o’er her
Her lost god’s forsaking look;
Straight her eyeballs filmed with horror
And her crispy fillets shook
And her lips gasped, through their foam,
For a word that did not come.
Pan, Pan was dead.
XXXI
O ye vain false gods of Hellas,
Ye are silent evermore!
And I dash down this old chalice
Whence libations ran of yore.
See, the wine crawls in the dust
Wormlike — as your glories must,
Since Pan is dead.
XXXII
Get to dust, as common mortals,
By a common doom and track!
Let no Schiller from the portals
Of that Hades call you back,
Or instruct us to weep all
At your antique funeral.
Pan, Pan is dead.
XXXIII
By your beauty, which confesses
Some chief Beauty conquering you, —
By our grand heroic guesses
Through your falsehood at the True, —
We will weep not! earth shall roll
Heir to each god’s aureole —
And Pan is dead.
XXXIV
Earth outgrows the mythic fancies
Sung beside her in her youth,
And those debonair romances
Sound but dull beside the truth.
Phoebus’ chariot-course is run:
Look up, poets, to the sun!
Pan, Pan is dead.
XXXV
Christ hath sent us down the angels;
And the whole earth and the skies
Are illumed by altar-candles
Lit for blessèd mysteries;
And a Priest’s hand through creation
Waveth calm and consecration:
And Pan is dead.
XXXVI
Truth is fair: should we forgo it?
Can we sigh right for a wrong?
God Himself is the best Poet,
And the Real is His song.
Sing His truth out fair and full,
And secure His beautiful!
Let Pan be dead!
XXXVII
Truth is large: our aspiration
Scarce embraces half we be.
Shame, to stand in His creation
And doubt truth’s sufficiency! —
To think God’s song unexcelling
The poor tales of our own telling —
When Pan is dead!
XXXVIII
What is true and just and honest,
What is lovely, what is pure,
All of praise that hath admonisht,
All of virtue, — shall endure;
These are themes for poets’ uses,
Stirring nobler than the Muses,
Ere Pan was dead.
XXXIX
O brave poets, keep back nothing,
Nor mix falsehood with the whole!
Look up Godward; speak the truth in
Worthy song from earnest soul:
Hold, in high poetic duty,
Truest Truth the fairest Beauty!
Pan, Pan is dead.
A CHILD’S GRAVE AT FLORENCE.
A.A.E.C.
Born, July 1848. Died, November 1849
I.
Of English blood, of Tuscan birth,
What country should we give her?
Instead of any on the earth,
The civic Heavens receive her.
II.
And here among the English tombs
In Tuscan ground we lay her,
While the blue Tuscan sky endomes
Our English words of prayer.
III.
A little child! — how long she lived,
By months, not years, is reckoned:
Born in one July, she survived
Alone to see a second.
IV.
Bright-featured, as the July sun
Her little face still played in,
And splendours, with her birth begun,
Had had no time for fading.
V.
So, LILY, from those July hours,
No wonder we should call her;
She looked such kinship to the flowers, —
Was but a little taller.
VI.
A Tuscan Lily, — only white,
As Dante, in abhorrence
Of red corruption, wished aright
The lilies of his Florence.
VII.
We could not wish her whiter, — her
Who perfumed with pure blossom
The house — a lovely thing to wear
Upon a mother’s bosom!
VIII.
This July creature thought perhaps
Our speech not worth assuming;
She sat upon her parents’ laps
And mimicked the gnat’s humming;
IX.
Said “father,” “mother” — then left off,
For tongues celestial, fitter:
Her hair had grown just long enough
To catch heaven’s jasper-glitter.