Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Arose up overhead and out of sight.

  Meanwhile, let all the far ends of the world

  Breathe back the deep breath of their old delight,

  To swell the Italian banner just unfurled.

  Help, lands of Europe! for, if Austria fight,

  The drums will bar your slumber. Had ye curled

  The laurel for your thousand artists’ brows,

  If these Italian hands had planted none?

  Can any sit down idle in the house

  Nor hear appeals from Buonarroti’s stone

  And Raffael’s canvas, rousing and to rouse?

  Where’s Poussin’s master? Gallic Avignon

  Bred Laura, and Vaucluse’s fount has stirred

  The heart of France too strongly, as it lets

  Its little stream out (like a wizard’s bird

  Which bounds upon its emerald wing and wets

  The rocks on each side), that she should not gird

  Her loins with Charlemagne’s sword when foes beset

  The country of her Petrarch. Spain may well

  Be minded how from Italy she caught,

  To mingle with her tinkling Moorish bell,

  A fuller cadence and a subtler thought.

  And even the New World, the receptacle

  Of freemen, may send glad men, as it ought,

  To greet Vespucci Amerigo’s door.

  While England claims, by trump of poetry,

  Verona, Venice, the Ravenna-shore,

  And dearer holds John Milton’s Fiesole

  Than Langland’s Malvern with the stars in flower.

  And Vallombrosa, we two went to see

  Last June, beloved companion, — where sublime

  The mountains live in holy families,

  And the slow pinewoods ever climb and climb

  Half up their breasts, just stagger as they seize

  Some grey crag, drop back with it many a time,

  And straggle blindly down the precipice.

  The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick

  That June-day, knee-deep with dead beechen leaves,

  As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick

  And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves

  Are all the same too: scarce have they changed the wick

  On good Saint Gualbert’s altar which receives

  The convent’s pilgrims; and the pool in front

  (Wherein the hill-stream trout are cast, to wait

  The beatific vision and the grunt

  Used at refectory) keeps its weedy state,

  To baffle saintly abbots who would count

  The fish across their breviary nor ‘bate

  The measure of their steps. O waterfalls

  And forests! sound and silence! mountains bare

  That leap up peak by peak and catch the palls

  Of purple and silver mist to rend and share

  With one another, at electric calls

  Of life in the sunbeams, — till we cannot dare

  Fix your shapes, count your number! we must think

  Your beauty and your glory helped to fill

  The cup of Milton’s soul so to the brink,

  He never more was thirsty when God’s will

  Had shattered to his sense the last chain-link

  By which he had drawn from Nature’s visible

  The fresh well-water. Satisfied by this,

  He sang of Adam’s paradise and smiled,

  Remembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is

  The place divine to English man and child,

  And pilgrims leave their souls here in a kiss.

  For Italy’s the whole earth’s treasury, piled

  With reveries of gentle ladies, flung

  Aside, like ravelled silk, from life’s worn stuff;

  With coins of scholars’ fancy, which, being rung

  On work-day counter, still sound silver-proof;

  In short, with all the dreams of dreamers young,

  Before their heads have time for slipping off

  Hope’s pillow to the ground. How oft, indeed,

  We’ve sent our souls out from the rigid north,

  On bare white feet which would not print nor bleed,

  To climb the Alpine passes and look forth,

  Where booming low the Lombard rivers lead

  To gardens, vineyards, all a dream is worth, —

  Sights, thou and I, Love, have seen afterward

  From Tuscan Bellosguardo, wide awake,[11]

  When, standing on the actual blessed sward

  Where Galileo stood at nights to take

  The vision of the stars, we have found it hard,

  Gazing upon the earth and heaven, to make

  A choice of beauty.

  Therefore let us all

  Refreshed in England or in other land,

  By visions, with their fountain-rise and fall,

  Of this earth’s darling, — we, who understand

  A little how the Tuscan musical

  Vowels do round themselves as if they planned

  Eternities of separate sweetness, — we,

  Who loved Sorrento vines in picture-book,

  Or ere in wine-cup we pledged faith or glee, —

  Who loved Rome’s wolf with demi-gods at suck,

  Or ere we loved truth’s own divinity, —

  Who loved, in brief, the classic hill and brook,

  And Ovid’s dreaming tales and Petrarch’s song,

  Or ere we loved Love’s self even, — let us give

  The blessing of our souls (and wish them strong

  To bear it to the height where prayers arrive,

  When faithful spirits pray against a wrong,)

  To this great cause of southern men who strive

  In God’s name for man’s rights, and shall not fail.

  Behold, they shall not fail. The shouts ascend

  Above the shrieks, in Naples, and prevail.

  Rows of shot corpses, waiting for the end

  Of burial, seem to smile up straight and pale

  Into the azure air and apprehend

  That final gun-flash from Palermo’s coast

  Which lightens their apocalypse of death.

  So let them die! The world shows nothing lost;

  Therefore, not blood. Above or underneath,

  What matter, brothers, if ye keep your post

  On duty’s side? As sword returns to sheath,

  So dust to grave, but souls find place in Heaven.

  Heroic daring is the true success,

  The eucharistic bread requires no leaven;

  And though your ends were hopeless, we should bless

  Your cause as holy. Strive — and, having striven,

  Take, for God’s recompense, that righteousness!

  CASA GUIDI WINDOWS. PART II.

  I wrote a meditation and a dream,

  Hearing a little child sing in the street:

  I leant upon his music as a theme,

  Till it gave way beneath my heart’s full beat

  Which tried at an exultant prophecy

  But dropped before the measure was complete —

  Alas, for songs and hearts! O Tuscany,

  O Dante’s Florence, is the type too plain?

  Didst thou, too, only sing of liberty

  As little children take up a high strain

  With unintentioned voices, and break off

  To sleep upon their mothers’ knees again?

  Couldst thou not watch one hour? then, sleep enough —

  That sleep may hasten manhood and sustain

  The faint pale spirit with some muscular stuff.

  But we, who cannot slumber as thou dost,

  We thinkers, who have thought for thee and failed,

  We hopers, who have hoped for thee and lost,

  We poets, wandered round by dreams,[12] who hailed

  From this Atrides’ roof (with lintel-post

  Which still dr
ips blood, — the worse part hath prevailed)

  The fire-voice of the beacons to declare

  Troy taken, sorrow ended, — cozened through

  A crimson sunset in a misty air,

  What now remains for such as we, to do?

  God’s judgments, peradventure, will He bare

  To the roots of thunder, if we kneel and sue?

  From Casa Guidi windows I looked forth,

  And saw ten thousand eyes of Florentines

  Flash back the triumph of the Lombard north, —

  Saw fifty banners, freighted with the signs

  And exultations of the awakened earth,

  Float on above the multitude in lines,

  Straight to the Pitti. So, the vision went.

  And so, between those populous rough hands

  Raised in the sun, Duke Leopold outleant,

  And took the patriot’s oath which henceforth stands

  Among the oaths of perjurers, eminent

  To catch the lightnings ripened for these lands.

  Why swear at all, thou false Duke Leopold?

  What need to swear? What need to boast thy blood

  Unspoilt of Austria, and thy heart unsold

  Away from Florence? It was understood

  God made thee not too vigorous or too bold;

  And men had patience with thy quiet mood,

  And women, pity, as they saw thee pace

  Their festive streets with premature grey hairs.

  We turned the mild dejection of thy face

  To princely meanings, took thy wrinkling cares

  For ruffling hopes, and called thee weak, not base.

  Nay, better light the torches for more prayers

  And smoke the pale Madonnas at the shrine,

  Being still “our poor Grand-duke, our good Grand-duke,

  Who cannot help the Austrian in his line,” —

  Than write an oath upon a nation’s book

  For men to spit at with scorn’s blurring brine!

  Who dares forgive what none can overlook?

  For me, I do repent me in this dust

  Of towns and temples which makes Italy, —

  I sigh amid the sighs which breathe a gust

  Of dying century to century

  Around us on the uneven crater-crust

  Of these old worlds, — I bow my soul and knee.

  Absolve me, patriots, of my woman’s fault

  That ever I believed the man was true!

  These sceptred strangers shun the common salt,

  And, therefore, when the general board’s in view

  And they stand up to carve for blind and halt,

  The wise suspect the viands which ensue.

  I much repent that, in this time and place

  Where many corpse-lights of experience burn

  From Caesar’s and Lorenzo’s festering race,

  To enlighten groping reasoners, I could learn

  No better counsel for a simple case

  Than to put faith in princes, in my turn.

  Had all the death-piles of the ancient years

  Flared up in vain before me? knew I not

  What stench arises from some purple gears?

  And how the sceptres witness whence they got

  Their briar-wood, crackling through the atmosphere’s

  Foul smoke, by princely perjuries, kept hot?

  Forgive me, ghosts of patriots, — Brutus, thou,

  Who trailest downhill into life again

  Thy blood-weighed cloak, to indict me with thy slow

  Reproachful eyes! — for being taught in vain

  That, while the illegitimate Caesars show

  Of meaner stature than the first full strain

  (Confessed incompetent to conquer Gaul),

  They swoon as feebly and cross Rubicons

  As rashly as any Julius of them all!

  Forgive, that I forgot the mind which runs

  Through absolute races, too unsceptical!

  I saw the man among his little sons,

  His lips were warm with kisses while he swore;

  And I, because I am a woman — I,

  Who felt my own child’s coming life before

  The prescience of my soul, and held faith high, —

  I could not bear to think, whoever bore,

  That lips, so warmed, could shape so cold a lie.

  From Casa Guidi windows I looked out,

  Again looked, and beheld a different sight.

  The Duke had fled before the people’s shout

  “Long live the Duke!” A people, to speak right,

  Must speak as soft as courtiers, lest a doubt

  Should curdle brows of gracious sovereigns, white.

  Moreover that same dangerous shouting meant

  Some gratitude for future favours, which

  Were only promised, the Constituent

  Implied, the whole being subject to the hitch

  In “motu proprios,” very incident

  To all these Czars, from Paul to Paulovitch.

  Whereat the people rose up in the dust

  Of the ruler’s flying feet, and shouted still

  And loudly; only, this time, as was just,

  Not “Live the Duke,” who had fled for good or ill,

  But “Live the People,” who remained and must,

  The unrenounced and unrenounceable.

  Long live the people! How they lived! and boiled

  And bubbled in the cauldron of the street:

  How the young blustered, nor the old recoiled,

  And what a thunderous stir of tongues and feet

  Trod flat the palpitating bells and foiled

  The joy-guns of their echo, shattering it!

  How down they pulled the Duke’s arms everywhere!

  How up they set new cafe-signs, to show

  Where patriots might sip ices in pure air —

  (The fresh paint smelling somewhat)! To and fro

  How marched the civic guard, and stopped to stare

  When boys broke windows in a civic glow!

  How rebel songs were sung to loyal tunes,

  And bishops cursed in ecclesiastic metres:

  How all the Circoli grew large as moons,

  And all the speakers, moonstruck, — thankful greeters

  Of prospects which struck poor the ducal boons,

  A mere free Press, and Chambers! — frank repeaters

  Of great Guerazzi’s praises— “There’s a man,

  The father of the land, who, truly great,

  Takes off that national disgrace and ban,

  The farthing tax upon our Florence-gate,

  And saves Italia as he only can!”

  How all the nobles fled, and would not wait,

  Because they were most noble, — which being so,

  How Liberals vowed to burn their palaces,

  Because free Tuscans were not free to go!

  How grown men raged at Austria’s wickedness,

  And smoked, — while fifty striplings in a row

  Marched straight to Piedmont for the wrong’s redress!

  You say we failed in duty, we who wore

  Black velvet like Italian democrats,

  Who slashed our sleeves like patriots, nor forswore

  The true republic in the form of hats?

  We chased the archbishop from the Duomo door,

  We chalked the walls with bloody caveats

  Against all tyrants. If we did not fight

  Exactly, we fired muskets up the air

  To show that victory was ours of right.

  We met, had free discussion everywhere

  (Except perhaps i’ the Chambers) day and night.

  We proved the poor should be employed, ... that’s fair, —

  And yet the rich not worked for anywise, —

  Pay certified, yet payers abrogated, —

  Full work secured, yet liabilities

  To overwork excluded, — not
one bated

  Of all our holidays, that still, at twice

  Or thrice a week, are moderately rated.

  We proved that Austria was dislodged, or would

  Or should be, and that Tuscany in arms

  Should, would dislodge her, ending the old feud;

  And yet, to leave our piazzas, shops, and farms,

  For the simple sake of fighting, was not good —

  We proved that also. “Did we carry charms

  Against being killed ourselves, that we should rush

  On killing others? what, desert herewith

  Our wives and mothers? — was that duty? tush!”

  At which we shook the sword within the sheath

  Like heroes — only louder; and the flush

  Ran up the cheek to meet the future wreath.

  Nay, what we proved, we shouted — how we shouted

  (Especially the boys did), boldly planting

  That tree of liberty, whose fruit is doubted,

  Because the roots are not of nature’s granting!

  A tree of good and evil: none, without it,

  Grow gods; alas and, with it, men are wanting!

  O holy knowledge, holy liberty,

  O holy rights of nations! If I speak

  These bitter things against the jugglery

  Of days that in your names proved blind and weak,

  It is that tears are bitter. When we see

  The brown skulls grin at death in churchyards bleak,

  We do not cry “This Yorick is too light,”

  For death grows deathlier with that mouth he makes.

  So with my mocking: bitter things I write

  Because my soul is bitter for your sakes,

  O freedom! O my Florence!

  Men who might

  Do greatly in a universe that breaks

  And burns, must ever know before they do.

  Courage and patience are but sacrifice;

  And sacrifice is offered for and to

  Something conceived of. Each man pays a price

  For what himself counts precious, whether true

  Or false the appreciation it implies.

  But here, — no knowledge, no conception, nought!

  Desire was absent, that provides great deeds

  From out the greatness of prevenient thought:

  And action, action, like a flame that needs

  A steady breath and fuel, being caught

  Up, like a burning reed from other reeds,

  Flashed in the empty and uncertain air,

  Then wavered, then went out. Behold, who blames

  A crooked course, when not a goal is there

  To round the fervid striving of the games?

  An ignorance of means may minister