Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  The night came drizzling downward in dark rain;

  And, as we walked, the colour of the time,

  The act, the presence, my hand upon his arm,

  His voice in my ear, and mine to my own sense,

  Appeared unnatural. We talked modern books,

  And daily papers; Spanish marriage-schemes,

  And English climate–was’t so cold last year?

  And will the wind change by to-morrow morn?

  Can Guizot stand? is London full? is trade

  Competitive? has Dickens turned his hinge

  A-pinch upon the fingers of the great?

  And are potatoes to grow mythical

  Like moly? will the apple die out too?

  Which way is the wind to-night? south-east? due east?

  We talked on fast, while every common word

  Seemed tangled with the thunder at one end,

  And ready to pull down upon our heads

  A terror out of sight. And yet to pause

  Were surelier mortal: we tore greedily up

  All silence, all the innocent breathing -points,

  As if, like pale conspirators in haste,

  We tore up papers where our signatures

  Imperilled us to an ugly shame or death.

  I cannot tell you why it was. ‘Tis plain

  We had not loved nor hated: wherefore dread

  To spill gunpowder on ground safe from fire?

  Perhaps we had lived too closely, to diverge

  So absolutely: leave two clocks, they say,

  Wound up to different hours, upon one shelf,

  And slowly, through the interior wheels of each,

  The blind mechanic motion sets itself

  A-throb, to feel out for the mutual time.

  It was not so with us, indeed. While he

  Struck midnight, I kept striking six at dawn,

  While he marked judgment, I, redemption-day;

  And such exception to a general law,

  Imperious upon inert matter even,

  Might make us, each to either insecure,

  A beckoning mystery, or a troubling fear.

  I mind me, when we parted at the door,

  How strange his good-night sounded,–like good-night

  Beside a deathbed, where the morrow’s sun

  Is sure to come too late for more good days:–

  And all that night I thought . . ‘Good-night,’ said he.

  And so, a month passed. Let me set it down

  At once,–I have been wrong, I have been wrong.

  We are wrong always, when we think too much

  Of what we think or are; albeit our thoughts

  Be verily bitter as self-sacrifice,

  We’re no less selfish. If we sleep on rocks

  Or roses, sleeping past the hour of noon

  We’re lazy. This I write against myself.

  I had done a duty in the visit paid

  To Marian, and was ready otherwise

  To give the witness of my presence and name

  Whenever she should marry.–Which, I thought

  Sufficed. I even had cast into the scale

  An overweight of justice toward the match;

  The Lady Waldemar had missed her tool,

  Had broken it in the lock as being too straight

  For a crooked purpose, while poor Marian Erle

  Missed nothing in my accents or my acts:

  I had not been ungenerous on the whole,

  Nor yet untender; so, enough. I felt

  Tired, overworked: this marriage somewhat jarred;

  Or, if it did not, all the bridal noise . .

  The pricking of the map of life with pins,

  In schemes of . . ‘Here we’ll go,’ and ‘There we’ll stay,’

  And ‘Everywhere we’ll prosper in our love,’

  Was scarce my business. Let them order it;

  Who else should care? I threw myself aside,

  As one who had done her work and shuts her eyes

  To rest the better.

  I, who should have known,

  Forereckoned mischief! Where we disavow

  Being keeper to our brother, we’re his Cain.

  I might have held that poor child to my heart

  A little longer! ‘twould have hurt me much

  To have hastened by its beats the marriage day,

  And kept her safe meantime from tampering hands,

  Or, peradventure, traps? What drew me back

  From telling Romney plainly, the designs

  Of Lady Waldemar, as spoken out

  To me . . me? had I any right, ay, right,

  With womanly compassion and reserve

  To break the fall of woman’s impudence?–

  To stand by calmly, knowing what I knew,

  And hear him call her good?

  Distrust that word.

  ‘There is none good save God,’ said Jesus Christ.

  If He once, in the first creation-week,

  Called creatures good,–for ever afterward,

  The Devil only has done it, and his heirs.

  The knaves who win so, and the fools who lose;

  The world’s grown dangerous. In the middle age,

  I think they called malignant fays and imps

  Good people. A good neighbour, even in this

  Is fatal sometimes,–cuts your morning up

  To mince-meat of the very smallest talk,

  Then helps to sugar her bohea at night

  With her reputation. I have known good wives,

  As chaste, or nearly so, as Potiphar’s;

  And good, good mothers, who would use a child

  To better an intrigue; good friends, beside.

  (Very good) who hung succinctly round your neck

  And sucked your breath, as cats are fabled to do

  By sleeping infants. And we all have known

  Good critics, who have stamped out poet’s hopes;

  Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state;

  Good patriots, who for a theory, risked a cause

  Good kings, who disemboweled for a tax;

  Good popes, who brought all good to jeopardy;

  Good Christians, who sate still in easy chairs,

  And damned the general world for standing up.–

  Now, may the good God pardon all good men!

  How bitterly I speak,–how certainly

  The innocent white milk in us is turned,

  By much persistent shining of the sun!

  Shake up the sweetest in us long enough

  With men, it drips to foolish curd, too sour

  To feed the most untender of Christ’s lambs.

  I should have thought . . .a woman of the world

  Like her I’m meaning,–centre to herself,

  Who has wheeled on her own pivot half a life

  In isolated self-love and self-will,

  As a windmill seen at distance radiating

  Its delicate white vans against the sky,

  So soft and soundless, simply beautiful,–

  Seen nearer . . what a roar and tear it makes,

  How it grinds and bruises! . . if she loves at last,

  Her love’s a re-adjustment of self-love,

  No more; a need felt of another’s use

  To her one advantage,–as the mill wants grain,

  The fire wants fuel, the very wolf wants prey;

  And none of these is more unscrupulous

  Than such a charming woman when she loves.

  She’ll not be thwarted by an obstacle

  So trifling as . . her soul is, . . much less yours!–

  Is God a consideration?–she loves you,

  Not God; she will not flinch for him indeed:

  She did not for the Marchioness of Perth,

  When wanting tickets for the birthnight ball.

  She loves you, sir, with passion, to lunacy;

  She loves you like her diamonds . . almost.

&
nbsp; Well,

  A month passed so, and then the notice came;

  On such a day the marriage at the church.

  I was not backward.

  Half St. Giles in frieze

  Was bidden to meet St. James in cloth of gold,

  And, after contract at the altar, pass

  To eat a marriage-feast on Hampstead Heath.

  Of course the people came in uncompelled,

  Lame, blind, and worse–sick, sorrowful, and worse,

  The humours of the peccant social wound

  All pressed out, poured out upon Pimlico.

  Exasperating the unaccustomed air

  With hideous interfusion: you’d suppose

  A finished generation, dead of plague,

  Swept outward from their graves into the sun,

  The moil of death upon them. What a sight!

  A holiday of miserable men

  Is sadder than a burial-day of kings.

  They clogged the streets, they oozed into the church

  In a dark slow stream, like blood. To see that sight,

  The noble ladies stood up in their pews,

  Some pale for fear, a few as red for hate,

  Some simply curious , some just insolent,

  And some in wondering scorn,–’What next? what next?’

  These crushed their delicate rose-lips from the smile

  That misbecame them in a holy place,

  With broidered hems of perfumed handkerchiefs;

  Those passed the salts with confidence of eyes

  And simultaneous shiver of moiré silk;

  While all the aisles, alive and black with heads,

  Crawled slowly toward the altar from the street,

  As bruised snakes crawl and hiss out of a hole

  With shuddering involutions, swaying slow

  From right to left, and then from left to right,

  In pants and pauses. What an ugly crest

  Of faces, rose upon you everywhere,

  From that crammed mass! you did not usually

  See faces like them in the open day:

  They hide in cellars, not to make you mad

  As Romney Leigh is.–Faces?–O my God,

  We call those, faces? men’s and women’s . . ay,

  And children’s;–babies, hanging like a rag

  Forgotten on their mother’s neck,–poor mouths.

  Wiped clean of mother’s milk by mother’s blow

  Before they are taught her cursing. Faces . . phew,

  We’ll call them vices festering to despairs,

  Or sorrows petrifying to vices: not

  A finger-touch of God left whole on them;

  All ruined, lost–the countenance worn out

  As the garments, the will dissolute as the acts,

  The passions loose and draggling in the dirt

  To trip the foot up at the first free step!–

  Those, faces! ‘twas as if you had stirred up hell

  To heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermost

  In fiery swirls of slime,–such strangled fronts,

  Such obdurate jaws were thrown up constantly,

  To twit you with your race, corrupt your blood,

  And grind to devilish colors all your dreams

  Henceforth, . . though, haply, you should drop asleep

  By clink of silver waters, in a muse

  On Raffael’s mild Madonna of the Bird.

  I’ve waked and slept through many nights and days

  Since then,–but still that day will catch my breath

  Like a nightmare. There are fatal days, indeed,

  In which the fibrous years have taken root

  So deeply, that they quiver to their tops

  Whene’er you stir the dust of such a day.

  My cousin met me with his eyes and hand,

  And then, with just a word, . . that ‘Marian Erle

  Was coming with her bridesmaids presently,’

  Made haste to place me by the altar-stair,

  Where he and other noble gentlemen

  And high-born ladies, waited for the bride.

  We waited. It was early: there was time

  For greeting, and the morning’s compliment;

  And gradually a ripple of women’s talk

  Arose and fell, and tossed about a spray

  Of English s s, soft as a silent hush,

  And, notwithstanding, quite as audible

  As louder phrases thrown out by the men.

  –’Yes really, if we’ve need to wait in church,

  We’ve need to talk there.’–’She? ‘Tis Lady Ayr

  In blue–not purple! that’s the dowager.’

  –’She looks as young.’–’She flirts as young, you mean!

  Why if you had seen her upon Thursday night,

  You’d call Miss Norris modest.’–’ You again!

  I waltzed with you three hours back. Up at six,

  Up still at ten: scarce time to change one’s shoes.

  I feel as white and sulky as a ghost,

  So pray don’t speak to me, Lord Belcher.’–’No,

  I’ll look at you instead, and it’s enough

  While you have that face.’ ‘In church, my lord! fie, fie!’

  –’Adair, you stayed for the Division?’–’Lost

  By one.’ ‘The devil it is! I’m sorry for’t.

  And if I had not promised Mistress Grove’ . .

  –’You might have kept your word to Liverpool.’

  ‘Constituents must remember, after all,

  We’re mortal.’–’We remind them of it.’–’Hark,

  The bride comes! Here she comes, in a stream of milk!’

  –’There? Dear, you are asleep still; don’t you know

  The five Miss Granvilles? always dressed in white

  To show they’re ready to be married.’–’Lower!

  The aunt is at your elbow.’–’Lady Maud,

  Did Lady Waldemar tell you she had seen

  This girl of Leigh’s?’ ‘No,–wait! ‘twas Mrs. Brookes,

  Who told me Lady Waldemar told her–

  No, ‘twasn’t Mrs. Brookes.’–’She’s pretty?’–’Who?

  Mrs.Brookes? Lady Waldemar?’–’How hot!

  Pray is’t the law to-day we’re not to breathe?

  You’re treading on my shawl–I thank you, sir.’

  –’They say the bride’s a mere child, who can’t read,

  But knows the things she shouldn’t, with wide-awake

  Great eyes. I’d go through fire to look at her.’

  –’You do, I think.’–’and Lady Waldemar

  (You see her; sitting close to Romney Leigh;

  How beautiful she looks, a little flushed!)

  Has taken up the girl, and organised

  Leigh’s folly. Should I have come here, you suppose,

  Except she’d asked me?’–’She’d have served him more

  By marrying him herself.’

  ‘Ah–there she comes,

  The bride, at last!’

  ‘Indeed, no. Past eleven.

  She puts off her patched petticoat to-day

  And puts on May-fair manners, so begins

  By setting us to wait.’–’Yes, yes, this Leigh

  Was always odd; it’s in the blood, I think;

  His father’s uncle’s cousin’s second son

  Was, was . . you understand me–and for him,

  He’s stark!–has turned quite lunatic upon

  This modern question of the poor–the poor:

  An excellent subject when you’re moderate;

  You’ve seen Prince Albert’s model lodging-house?

  Does honour to his royal highness. Good:

  But would he stop his carriage in Cheapside

  To shake a common fellow by the fist

  Whose name was . . Shakspeare? no. We draw a line,

  And if we stand not by our order, we

  In England, we fall headlong. Here’s a
sight,–

  A hideous sight, a most indecent sight,–

  My wife would come, sir, or I had kept her back.

  By heaven, sir, when poor Damiens’ trunk and limbs

  Were torn by horses, women of the court

  Stood by and stared, exactly as to-day

  On this dismembering of society,

  With pretty troubled faces.’

  ‘Now, at last.

  She comes now.’

  ‘Where? who sees? you push me, sir,

  Beyond the point of what is mannerly.

  You’re standing, madam, on my second flounce–

  I do beseech you.’

  ‘No–it’s not the bride.

  Half-past eleven. How late! the bridegroom, mark,

  Gets anxious and goes out.’

  ‘And as I said . .

  These Leighs! our best blood running in the rut!

  It’s something awful. We had pardoned him

  A simple misalliance, got up aside

  For a pair of sky-blue eyes; our House of Lords

  Has winked at such things, and we’ve all been young.

  But here’s an inter-marriage reasoned out,

  A contract (carried boldly to the light,

  To challenge observation, pioneer

  Good acts by a great example) ‘twixt the extremes

  Of martyrised society,–on the left,

  The well-born,–on the right, the merest mob.

  To treat as equals!–’tis anarchical!

  It means more than it says–’tis damnable!

  Why, sir, we can’t have even our coffee good,

  Unless we strain it.’

  ‘Here, Miss Leigh!’

  ‘Lord Howe,

  You’re Romney’s friend. What’s all this waiting for?’

  ‘I cannot tell. The bride has lost her head

  (And way, perhaps!) to prove her sympathy

  With the bridegroom.’

  ‘What,–you also, disapprove!’

  ‘Oh I approve of nothing in the world,’

  He answered; ‘not of you, still less of me,

  Nor even of Romney–though he’s worth us both.

  We’re all gone wrong. The tune in us is lost:

  And whistling in back alleys to the moon,

  Will never catch it.’

  Let me draw Lord Howe;

  A born aristocrat, bred radical,

  And educated socialist, who still

  Goes floating, on traditions of his kind,

  Across the theoretic flood from France,–

  Though, like a drenched Noah on a rotten deck,

  Scarce safer for his place there. He, at least,

  Will never land on Ararat, he knows,

  To recommence the world on the old plan: