Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Is haggard as the sleepless, Twilight wears

  A sort of horror; as the veil withdrawn

  ‘Twixt the artist’s soul and works had left them heirs

  Of speechless thoughts which would not quail nor fawn,

  Of angers and contempts, of hope and love:

  For not without a meaning did he place

  The princely Urbino on the seat above

  With everlasting shadow on his face,

  While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove

  The ashes of his long-extinguished race

  Which never more shall clog the feet of men.

  I do believe, divinest Angelo,

  That winter-hour in Via Larga, when

  They bade thee build a statue up in snow[4]

  And straight that marvel of thine art again

  Dissolved beneath the sun’s Italian glow,

  Thine eyes, dilated with the plastic passion,

  Thawing too in drops of wounded manhood, since,

  To mock alike thine art and indignation,

  Laughed at the palace-window the new prince, —

  (“Aha! this genius needs for exaltation,

  When all’s said and however the proud may wince,

  A little marble from our princely mines!”)

  I do believe that hour thou laughedst too

  For the whole sad world and for thy Florentines,

  After those few tears, which were only few!

  That as, beneath the sun, the grand white lines

  Of thy snow-statue trembled and withdrew, —

  The head, erect as Jove’s, being palsied first,

  The eyelids flattened, the full brow turned blank,

  The right-hand, raised but now as if it cursed,

  Dropt, a mere snowball, (till the people sank

  Their voices, though a louder laughter burst

  From the royal window) — thou couldst proudly thank

  God and the prince for promise and presage,

  And laugh the laugh back, I think verily,

  Thine eyes being purged by tears of righteous rage

  To read a wrong into a prophecy,

  And measure a true great man’s heritage

  Against a mere great-duke’s posterity.

  I think thy soul said then, “I do not need

  A princedom and its quarries, after all;

  For if I write, paint, carve a word, indeed,

  On book or board or dust, on floor or wall,

  The same is kept of God who taketh heed

  That not a letter of the meaning fall

  Or ere it touch and teach His world’s deep heart,

  Outlasting, therefore, all your lordships, sir!

  So keep your stone, beseech you, for your part,

  To cover up your grave-place and refer

  The proper titles; I live by my art.

  The thought I threw into this snow shall stir

  This gazing people when their gaze is done;

  And the tradition of your act and mine,

  When all the snow is melted in the sun,

  Shall gather up, for unborn men, a sign

  Of what is the true princedom, — ay, and none

  Shall laugh that day, except the drunk with wine.”

  Amen, great Angelo! the day’s at hand.

  If many laugh not on it, shall we weep?

  Much more we must not, let us understand.

  Through rhymers sonneteering in their sleep

  And archaists mumbling dry bones up the land

  And sketchers lauding ruined towns a-heap, —

  Through all that drowsy hum of voices smooth,

  The hopeful bird mounts carolling from brake,

  The hopeful child, with leaps to catch his growth,

  Sings open-eyed for liberty’s sweet sake:

  And I, a singer also from my youth,

  Prefer to sing with these who are awake,

  With birds, with babes, with men who will not fear

  The baptism of the holy morning dew,

  (And many of such wakers now are here,

  Complete in their anointed manhood, who

  Will greatly dare and greatlier persevere,)

  Than join those old thin voices with my new,

  And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh

  Cooped up in music ‘twixt an oh and ah, —

  Nay, hand in hand with that young child, will I

  Go singing rather, “Bella liberta,”

  Than, with those poets, croon the dead or cry

  “Se tu men bella fossi, Italia!”

  “Less wretched if less fair.” Perhaps a truth

  Is so far plain in this, that Italy,

  Long trammelled with the purple of her youth

  Against her age’s ripe activity,

  Sits still upon her tombs, without death’s ruth

  But also without life’s brave energy.

  “Now tell us what is Italy?” men ask:

  And others answer, “Virgil, Cicero,

  Catullus, Caesar.” What beside? to task

  The memory closer— “Why, Boccaccio,

  Dante, Petrarca,” — and if still the flask

  Appears to yield its wine by drops too slow, —

  “Angelo, Raffael, Pergolese,” — all

  Whose strong hearts beat through stone, or charged again

  The paints with fire of souls electrical,

  Or broke up heaven for music. What more then?

  Why, then, no more. The chaplet’s last beads fall

  In naming the last saintship within ken,

  And, after that, none prayeth in the land.

  Alas, this Italy has too long swept

  Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand;

  Of her own past, impassioned nympholept!

  Consenting to be nailed here by the hand

  To the very bay-tree under which she stept

  A queen of old, and plucked a leafy branch;

  And, licensing the world too long indeed

  To use her broad phylacteries to staunch

  And stop her bloody lips, she takes no heed

  How one clear word would draw an avalanche

  Of living sons around her, to succeed

  The vanished generations. Can she count

  These oil-eaters with large live mobile mouths

  Agape for macaroni, in the amount

  Of consecrated heroes of her south’s

  Bright rosary? The pitcher at the fount,

  The gift of gods, being broken, she much loathes

  To let the ground-leaves of the place confer

  A natural bowl. So henceforth she would seem

  No nation, but the poet’s pensioner,

  With alms from every land of song and dream,

  While aye her pipers sadly pipe of her

  Until their proper breaths, in that extreme

  Of sighing, split the reed on which they played:

  Of which, no more. But never say “no more”

  To Italy’s life! Her memories undismayed

  Still argue “evermore;” her graves implore

  Her future to be strong and not afraid;

  Her very statues send their looks before.

  We do not serve the dead — the past is past.

  God lives, and lifts His glorious mornings up

  Before the eyes of men awake at last,

  Who put away the meats they used to sup,

  And down upon the dust of earth outcast

  The dregs remaining of the ancient cup,

  Then turn to wakeful prayer and worthy act.

  The Dead, upon their awful ‘vantage ground,

  The sun not in their faces, shall abstract

  No more our strength; we will not be discrowned

  As guardians of their crowns, nor deign transact

  A barter of the present, for a sound

  Of good so counted in the foregone days.

  O Dead, ye shall no longer cling t
o us

  With rigid hands of desiccating praise,

  And drag us backward by the garment thus,

  To stand and laud you in long-drawn virelays!

  We will not henceforth be oblivious

  Of our own lives, because ye lived before,

  Nor of our acts, because ye acted well.

  We thank you that ye first unlatched the door,

  But will not make it inaccessible

  By thankings on the threshold any more.

  We hurry onward to extinguish hell

  With our fresh souls, our younger hope, and God’s

  Maturity of purpose. Soon shall we

  Die also! and, that then our periods

  Of life may round themselves to memory

  As smoothly as on our graves the burial-sods,

  We now must look to it to excel as ye,

  And bear our age as far, unlimited

  By the last mind-mark; so, to be invoked

  By future generations, as their Dead.

  ‘T is true that when the dust of death has choked

  A great man’s voice, the common words he said

  Turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked

  Like horses, draw like griffins: this is true

  And acceptable. I, too, should desire,

  When men make record, with the flowers they strew,

  “Savonarola’s soul went out in fire

  Upon our Grand-duke’s piazza,[5] and burned through

  A moment first, or ere he did expire,

  The veil betwixt the right and wrong, and showed

  How near God sat and judged the judges there,— “

  Upon the self-same pavement overstrewed

  To cast my violets with as reverent care,

  And prove that all the winters which have snowed

  Cannot snow out the scent from stones and air,

  Of a sincere man’s virtues. This was he,

  Savonarola, who, while Peter sank

  With his whole boat-load, called courageously

  “Wake Christ, wake Christ!” — who, having tried the tank

  Of old church-waters used for baptistry

  Ere Luther came to spill them, swore they stank;

  Who also by a princely deathbed cried,

  “Loose Florence, or God will not loose thy soul!”

  Then fell back the Magnificent and died

  Beneath the star-look shooting from the cowl,

  Which turned to wormwood-bitterness the wide

  Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul

  To grudge Savonarola and the rest

  Their violets: rather pay them quick and fresh!

  The emphasis of death makes manifest

  The eloquence of action in our flesh;

  And men who, living, were but dimly guessed,

  When once free from their life’s entangled mesh,

  Show their full length in graves, or oft indeed

  Exaggerate their stature, in the flat,

  To noble admirations which exceed

  Most nobly, yet will calculate in that

  But accurately. We, who are the seed

  Of buried creatures, if we turned and spat

  Upon our antecedents, we were vile.

  Bring violets rather. If these had not walked

  Their furlong, could we hope to walk our mile?

  Therefore bring violets. Yet if we self-baulked

  Stand still, a-strewing violets all the while,

  These moved in vain, of whom we have vainly talked.

  So rise up henceforth with a cheerful smile,

  And having strewn the violets, reap the corn,

  And having reaped and garnered, bring the plough

  And draw new furrows ‘neath the healthy morn,

  And plant the great Hereafter in this Now.

  Of old ‘t was so. How step by step was worn,

  As each man gained on each securely! — how

  Each by his own strength sought his own Ideal, —

  The ultimate Perfection leaning bright

  From out the sun and stars to bless the leal

  And earnest search of all for Fair and Right

  Through doubtful forms by earth accounted real!

  Because old Jubal blew into delight

  The souls of men with clear-piped melodies,

  If youthful Asaph were content at most

  To draw from Jubal’s grave, with listening eyes,

  Traditionary music’s floating ghost

  Into the grass-grown silence, were it wise?

  And was ‘t not wiser, Jubal’s breath being lost,

  That Miriam clashed her cymbals to surprise

  The sun between her white arms flung apart,

  With new glad golden sounds? that David’s strings

  O’erflowed his hand with music from his heart?

  So harmony grows full from many springs,

  And happy accident turns holy art.

  You enter, in your Florence wanderings,

  The church of Saint Maria Novella. Pass

  The left stair, where at plague-time Machiavel[6]

  Saw One with set fair face as in a glass,

  Dressed out against the fear of death and hell,

  Rustling her silks in pauses of the mass,

  To keep the thought off how her husband fell,

  When she left home, stark dead across her feet, —

  The stair leads up to what the Orgagnas save

  Of Dante’s daemons; you, in passing it,

  Ascend the right stair from the farther nave

  To muse in a small chapel scarcely lit

  By Cimabue’s Virgin. Bright and brave,

  That picture was accounted, mark, of old:

  A king stood bare before its sovran grace,[7]

  A reverent people shouted to behold

  The picture, not the king, and even the place

  Containing such a miracle grew bold,

  Named the Glad Borgo from that beauteous face

  Which thrilled the artist, after work, to think

  His own ideal Mary-smile should stand

  So very near him, — he, within the brink

  Of all that glory, let in by his hand

  With too divine a rashness! Yet none shrink

  Who come to gaze here now; albeit ‘t was planned

  Sublimely in the thought’s simplicity:

  The Lady, throned in empyreal state,

  Minds only the young Babe upon her knee,

  While sidelong angels bear the royal weight,

  Prostrated meekly, smiling tenderly

  Oblivion of their wings; the Child thereat

  Stretching its hand like God. If any should,

  Because of some stiff draperies and loose joints,

  Gaze scorn down from the heights of Raffaelhood

  On Cimabue’s picture, — Heaven anoints

  The head of no such critic, and his blood

  The poet’s curse strikes full on and appoints

  To ague and cold spasms for evermore.

  A noble picture! worthy of the shout

  Wherewith along the streets the people bore

  Its cherub-faces which the sun threw out

  Until they stooped and entered the church door.

  Yet rightly was young Giotto talked about,

  Whom Cimabue found among the sheep,[8]

  And knew, as gods know gods, and carried home

  To paint the things he had painted, with a deep

  And fuller insight, and so overcome

  His chapel-Lady with a heavenlier sweep

  Of light: for thus we mount into the sum

  Of great things known or acted. I hold, too,

  That Cimabue smiled upon the lad

  At the first stroke which passed what he could do,

  Or else his Virgin’s smile had never had

  Such sweetness in ‘t. All great men who foreknew

  Their heirs in art, for art’s sake have be
en glad,

  And bent their old white heads as if uncrowned,

  Fanatics of their pure Ideals still

  Far more than of their triumphs, which were found

  With some less vehement struggle of the will.

  If old Margheritone trembled, swooned

  And died despairing at the open sill

  Of other men’s achievements (who achieved,

  By loving art beyond the master), he

  Was old Margheritone, and conceived

  Never, at first youth and most ecstasy,

  A Virgin like that dream of one, which heaved

  The death-sigh from his heart. If wistfully

  Margheritone sickened at the smell

  Of Cimabue’s laurel, let him go!

  For Cimabue stood up very well

  In spite of Giotto’s, and Angelico

  The artist-saint kept smiling in his cell

  The smile with which he welcomed the sweet slow

  Inbreak of angels (whitening through the dim

  That he might paint them), while the sudden sense

  Of Raffael’s future was revealed to him

  By force of his own fair works’ competence.

  The same blue waters where the dolphins swim

  Suggest the tritons. Through the blue Immense

  Strike out, all swimmers! cling not in the way

  Of one another, so to sink; but learn

  The strong man’s impulse, catch the freshening spray

  He throws up in his motions, and discern

  By his clear westering eye, the time of day.

  Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn

  Besides Thy heaven and Thee! and when I say

  There’s room here for the weakest man alive

  To live and die, there’s room too, I repeat,

  For all the strongest to live well, and strive

  Their own way, by their individual heat, —

  Like some new bee-swarm leaving the old hive,

  Despite the wax which tempts so violet-sweet.

  Then let the living live, the dead retain

  Their grave-cold flowers! — though honour’s best supplied

  By bringing actions, to prove theirs not vain.

  Cold graves, we say? it shall be testified

  That living men who burn in heart and brain,

  Without the dead were colder. If we tried

  To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure

  The future would not stand. Precipitate

  This old roof from the shrine, and, insecure,

  The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate.

  How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer!

  The tall green poplars grew no longer straight

  Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight

  For Athens, and not swear by Marathon?

  Who dared build temples, without tombs in sight?