Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 67
X.
Babes! Love could always hear and see
Behind the cloud that hid them.
“Let little children come to Me,
And do not thou forbid them.”
XI.
So, unforbidding, have we met,
And gently here have laid her,
Though winter is no time to get
The flowers that should o’erspread her:
XII.
We should bring pansies quick with spring,
Rose, violet, daffodilly,
And also, above everything,
White lilies for our Lily.
XIII.
Nay, more than flowers, this grave exacts, —
Glad, grateful attestations
Of her sweet eyes and pretty acts,
With calm renunciations.
XIV.
Her very mother with light feet
Should leave the place too earthy,
Saying “The angels have thee, Sweet,
Because we are not worthy.”
XV.
But winter kills the orange-buds,
The gardens in the frost are,
And all the heart dissolves in floods,
Remembering we have lost her.
XVI.
Poor earth, poor heart, — too weak, too weak
To miss the July shining!
Poor heart! — what bitter words we speak
When God speaks of resigning!
XVII.
Sustain this heart in us that faints,
Thou God, the self-existent!
We catch up wild at parting saints
And feel Thy heaven too distant.
XVIII.
The wind that swept them out of sin
Has ruffled all our vesture:
On the shut door that let them in
We beat with frantic gesture, —
XIX.
To us, us also, open straight!
The outer life is chilly;
Are we too, like the earth, to wait
Till next year for our Lily?
XX.
— Oh, my own baby on my knees,
My leaping, dimpled treasure,
At every word I write like these,
Clasped close with stronger pressure!
XXI.
Too well my own heart understands, —
At every word beats fuller —
My little feet, my little hands,
And hair of Lily’s colour!
XXII.
But God gives patience, Love learns strength,
And Faith remembers promise,
And Hope itself can smile at length
On other hopes gone from us.
XXIII.
Love, strong as Death, shall conquer Death,
Through struggle made more glorious:
This mother stills her sobbing breath,
Renouncing yet victorious.
XXIV.
Arms, empty of her child, she lifts
With spirit unbereaven, —
“God will not all take back His gifts;
My Lily’s mine in heaven.
XXV.
“Still mine! maternal rights serene
Not given to another!
The crystal bars shine faint between
The souls of child and mother.
XXVI.
“Meanwhile,” the mother cries, “content!
Our love was well divided:
Its sweetness following where she went,
Its anguish stayed where I did.
XXVII.
“Well done of God, to halve the lot,
And give her all the sweetness;
To us, the empty room and cot, —
To her, the Heaven’s completeness.
XXVIII.
“To us, this grave, — to her, the rows
The mystic palm-trees spring in;
To us, the silence in the house, —
To her, the choral singing.
XXIX.
“For her, to gladden in God’s view, —
For us, to hope and bear on.
Grow, Lily, in thy garden new,
Beside the Rose of Sharon!
XXX.
“Grow fast in heaven, sweet Lily clipped,
In love more calm than this is,
And may the angels dewy-lipped
Remind thee of our kisses!
XXXI.
“While none shall tell thee of our tears,
These human tears now falling,
Till, after a few patient years,
One home shall take us all in.
XXXII.
“Child, father, mother — who, left out?
Not mother, and not father!
And when, our dying couch about,
The natural mists shall gather,
XXXIII.
“Some smiling angel close shall stand
In old Correggio’s fashion,
And bear a LILY in his hand,
For death’s ANNUNCIATION.”
CATARINA TO CAMOENS
(DYING IN HIS ABSENCE ABROAD, AND REFERRING TO THE POEM IN WHICH HE
RECORDED THE SWEETNESS OF HER EYES).
I.
On the door you will not enter,
I have gazed too long: adieu!
Hope withdraws her peradventure;
Death is near me, — and not you.
Come, O lover,
Close and cover
These poor eyes, you called, I ween,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”
II.
When I heard you sing that burden
In my vernal days and bowers,
Other praises disregarding,
I but hearkened that of yours —
Only saying
In heart-playing,
“Blessed eyes mine eyes have been,
If the sweetest HIS have seen!”
III.
But all changes. At this vesper,
Cold the sun shines down the door.
If you stood there, would you whisper
“Love, I love you,” as before, —
Death pervading
Now, and shading
Eyes you sang of, that yestreen,
As the sweetest ever seen?
IV.
Yes. I think, were you beside them,
Near the bed I die upon,
Though their beauty you denied them,
As you stood there, looking down,
You would truly
Call them duly,
For the love’s sake found therein,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”
V.
And if you looked down upon them,
And if they looked up to you,
All the light which has foregone them
Would be gathered back anew:
They would truly
Be as duly
Love-transformed to beauty’s sheen,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”
VI.
But, ah me! you only see me,
In your thoughts of loving man,
Smiling soft perhaps and dreamy
Through the wavings of my fan;
And unweeting
Go repeating,
In your reverie serene,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen — — “
VII.
While my spirit leans and reaches
From my body still and pale,
Fain to hear what tender speech is
In your love to help my bale.
O my poet,
Come and show it!
Come, of latest love, to glean
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”
VIII.
O my poet, O my prophet,
When you praised their sweetness so,
Did you think, in singing of it,
That it might be near to go?
Had you fancies
From their glances,
That the grave would quickly screen
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen”?
IX.
No reply. The fountain’s warble
In the courtyard sounds alone.
As the water to the marble
So my heart falls with a moan
From love-sighing
To this dying.
Death forerunneth Love to win
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”
X.
Will you come? When I’m departed
Where all sweetnesses are hid,
Where thy voice, my tender-hearted,
Will not lift up either lid.
Cry, O lover,
Love is over!
Cry, beneath the cypress green,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”
XI.
When the angelus is ringing,
Near the convent will you walk,
And recall the choral singing
Which brought angels down our talk?
Spirit-shriven
I viewed Heaven,
Till you smiled— “Is earth unclean,
Sweetest eyes were ever seen?”
XII.
When beneath the palace-lattice
You ride slow as you have done,
And you see a face there that is
Not the old familiar one, —
Will you oftly
Murmur softly,
“Here ye watched me morn and e’en,
Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”
XIII.
When the palace-ladies, sitting
Round your gittern, shall have said,
“Poet, sing those verses written
For the lady who is dead,”
Will you tremble
Yet dissemble, —
Or sing hoarse, with tears between,
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen”?
XIV.
“Sweetest eyes!” how sweet in flowings
The repeated cadence is!
Though you sang a hundred poems,
Still the best one would be this.
I can hear it
‘Twixt my spirit
And the earth-noise intervene —
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”
XV.
But the priest waits for the praying,
And the choir are on their knees,
And the soul must pass away in
Strains more solemn-high than these.
Miserere
For the weary!
Oh, no longer for Catrine
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”
XVI.
Keep my riband, take and keep it,
(I have loosed it from my hair)[1]
Feeling, while you overweep it,
Not alone in your despair,
Since with saintly
Watch unfaintly
Out of heaven shall o’er you lean
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”
XVII.
But — but now — yet unremoved
Up to heaven, they glisten fast;
You may cast away, Beloved,
In your future all my past:
Such old phrases
May be praises
For some fairer bosom-queen —
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”
XVIII.
Eyes of mine, what are ye doing?
Faithless, faithless, — praised amiss
If a tear be of your showing,
Dropt for any hope of HIS!
Death has boldness
Besides coldness,
If unworthy tears demean
“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”
XIX.
I will look out to his future;
I will bless it till it shine.
Should he ever be a suitor
Unto sweeter eyes than mine,
Sunshine gild them,
Angels shield them,
Whatsoever eyes terrene
Be the sweetest HIS have seen!
LIFE AND LOVE.
I.
Fast this Life of mine was dying,
Blind already and calm as death,
Snowflakes on her bosom lying
Scarcely heaving with her breath.
II.
Love came by, and having known her
In a dream of fabled lands,
Gently stooped, and laid upon her
Mystic chrism of holy hands;
III.
Drew his smile across her folded
Eyelids, as the swallow dips;
Breathed as finely as the cold did
Through the locking of her lips.
IV.
So, when Life looked upward, being
Warmed and breathed on from above,
What sight could she have for seeing,
Evermore ... but only LOVE?
A DENIAL.
I.
We have met late — it is too late to meet,
O friend, not more than friend!
Death’s forecome shroud is tangled round my feet,
And if I step or stir, I touch the end.
In this last jeopardy
Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move?
How shall I answer thy request for love?
Look in my face and see.
II.
I love thee not, I dare not love thee! go
In silence; drop my hand.
If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow
In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand.
Can life and death agree,
That thou shouldst stoop thy song to my complaint?
I cannot love thee. If the word is faint,
Look in my face and see.
III.
I might have loved thee in some former days.
Oh, then, my spirits had leapt
As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise!
Before these faded cheeks were overwept,
Had this been asked of me,
To love thee with my whole strong heart and head, —
I should have said still ... yes, but smiled and said,
“Look in my face and see!”
IV.
But now ... God sees me, God, who took my heart
And drowned it in life’s surge.
In all your wide warm earth I have no part —
A light song overcomes me like a dirge.
Could Love’s great harmony
The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose,
Not weigh me down? am I a wife to choose?
Look in my face and see —
V.
While I behold, as plain as one who dreams,
Some woman of full worth,
Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream’s,
Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth;
One younger, more thought-free
And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget,
With brighter eyes than these ... which are not wet ...
Look in my face and see!
VI.
So farewell thou, whom I have known too late
To let thee come so near.
Be counted happy while men call thee great,
And one beloved woman feels thee dear! —
Not I! — that cannot be.
I am lost, I am changed, — I must go farther, where
The change shall take me worse, and no one dare
Look in my face and see.
VII.
Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine
I bless thee from all such!
I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine,
Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch
Of loyal troth. For me,
I love thee not, I love thee not! — away!
Here’s no more courage in my soul to say
“Look in my face and see.”
PROOF AND DISPROOF.
&nbs
p; I.
Dost thou love me, my Beloved?
Who shall answer yes or no?
What is proved or disproved
When my soul inquireth so,
Dost thou love me, my Beloved?
II.
I have seen thy heart to-day,
Never open to the crowd,
While to love me aye and aye
Was the vow as it was vowed
By thine eyes of steadfast grey.
III.
Now I sit alone, alone —
And the hot tears break and burn,
Now, Beloved, thou art gone,
Doubt and terror have their turn.
Is it love that I have known?
IV.
I have known some bitter things, —
Anguish, anger, solitude.
Year by year an evil brings,
Year by year denies a good;
March winds violate my springs.
V.
I have known how sickness bends,
I have known how sorrow breaks, —
How quick hopes have sudden ends,
How the heart thinks till it aches
Of the smile of buried friends.
VI.
Last, I have known thee, my brave
Noble thinker, lover, doer!
The best knowledge last I have.
But thou comest as the thrower
Of fresh flowers upon a grave.