Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  He printed his discourses ‘by request;’

  And if your book shall sell as his did, then

  Your verses are less good than I suppose.

  The women of the neighbourhood subscribed,

  And sent me a copy bound in scarlet silk,

  Tooled edges, blazoned with the arms of Leigh:

  I own that touched me.’

  ‘What, the pretty ones?

  Poor Romney!’

  ‘Otherwise the effect was small.

  I had my windows broken once or twice

  By liberal peasants, naturally incensed

  At such a vexer of Arcadian peace,

  Who would not let men call their wives their own

  To kick like Britons,–and made obstacles

  When things went smoothly as a baby drugged,

  Toward freedom and starvation; bringing down

  The wicked London tavern-thieves and drabs,

  To affront the blessed hillside drabs and thieves

  With mended morals, quotha,–fine new lives!–

  My windows paid for’t. I was shot at, once,

  By an active poacher who had hit a hare

  From the other barrel, tired of springeing game

  So long upon my acres, undisturbed,

  And restless for the country’s virtue, (yet

  He missed me)–ay, and pelted very oft

  In riding through the village. ‘There he goes,

  ‘Who’d drive away our Christian gentlefolks,

  ‘To catch us undefended in the trap

  ‘He baits with poisonous cheese, and locks us up

  ‘In that pernicious prison of Leigh Hall

  ‘With all his murderers! Give another name,

  ‘And say Leigh Hell, and burn it up with fire.’

  And so they did at last, Aurora.’

  ‘Did?’

  ‘You never heard it, cousin? Vincent’s news

  Came stinted, then.’

  ‘They did? they burnt Leigh Hall?’

  ‘You’re sorry, dear Aurora? Yes indeed,

  They did it perfectly: a thorough work,

  And not a failure, this time. Let us grant

  ‘Tis somewhat easier, though, to burn a house

  Than build a system:–yet that’s easy, too,

  In a dream. Books, pictures,–ay, the pictures what,

  You think your dear Vandykes would give them pause?

  Our proud ancestral Leighs with those peaked beards,

  Or bosoms white as foam thrown up on rocks

  From the old-spent wave. Such calm defiant looks

  They flared up with! now, nevermore they’ll twit

  The bones in the family-vault with ugly death.

  Not one was rescued, save the Lady Maud,

  Who threw you down, that morning you were born,

  The undeniable lineal mouth and chin,

  To wear for ever for her gracious sake;

  For which good deed I saved her: the rest went:

  And you, your sorry, cousin. Well, for me,

  With all my phalansterians safely out,

  (Poor hearts, they helped the burners, it was said,

  And certainly a few clapped hands and yelled)

  The ruin did not hurt me as it might,–

  As when for instance I was hurt one day,

  A certain letter being destroyed. In fact,

  To see the great house flare so . . oaken floors,

  Our fathers made so fine with rushes once,

  Before our mothers furbished them with trains,–

  Carved wainscots, panelled walls, the favourite slide

  For draining off a martyr, (or a rogue)

  The echoing galleries, half a half-mile long,

  And all the various stairs that took you up

  And took you down, and took you round about

  Upon their slippery darkness, recollect,

  All helping to keep up one blazing jest;

  The flames through all the casements pushing forth,

  Like red-hot devils crinkled into snakes,

  All signifying,–’Look you, Romney Leigh,

  ‘We save the people from your saving, here,

  ‘Yet so as by fire! we make a pretty show

  ‘Besides,–and that’s the best you’ve ever done.’–

  –To see this, almost moved myself to clap!

  The ‘vale et plaude’ came, too, with effect,

  When, in the roof fell, and the fire, that paused,

  Stunned momently beneath the stroke of slates

  And tumbling rafters, rose at once and roared,

  And wrapping the whole house, (which disappeared

  In a mounting whirlwind of dilated flame,)

  Blew upward, straight, its drift of fiery chaff

  In the face of heaven, . . which blenched and ran up higher.’

  ‘Poor Romney!’

  ‘Sometimes when I dream,’ he said,

  ‘I hear the silence after; ‘twas so still.

  For all those wild beasts, yelling, cursing round,

  Were suddenly silent, while you counted five!

  So silent, that you heard a young bird fall

  From the top-nest in the neighbouring rookery

  Through edging over-rashly toward the light.

  The old rooks had already fled too far,

  To hear the screech they fled with, though you saw

  Some flying on still, like scatterings of dead leaves

  In autumn-gusts, seen dark against the sky:

  All flying,–ousted, like the house of Leigh.’

  ‘Dear Romney!’

  ‘Evidently ‘twould have been

  A fine sight for a poet, sweet, like you,

  To make the verse blaze after. I myself,

  Even I, felt something in the grand old trees,

  Which stood that moment like brute Druid gods,

  Amazed upon the rim of ruin, where,

  As into a blackened socket, the great fire

  Had dropped,–still throwing up splinters now and then,

  To show them grey with all their centuries,

  Left there to witness that on such a day

  The house went out.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘While you counted five

  I seemed to feel a little like a Leigh,–

  But then it passed, Aurora. A child cried;

  And I had enough to think of what to do

  With all those houseless wretches in the dark,

  And ponder where they’d dance the next time, they

  Who had burnt the viol.’

  ‘Did you think of that?

  Who burns his viol will not dance, I know,

  To cymbals, Romney.’

  ‘O my sweet sad voice,’

  He cried,–’O voice that speaks and overcomes!

  The sun is silent, but Aurora speaks.’

  ‘Alas,’ I said; ‘I speak I know not what:

  I’m back in childhood, thinking as a child,

  A foolish fancy–will it make you smile?

  I shall not from the window of my room

  Catch sight of those old chimneys any more.’

  ‘No more,’ he answered. ‘If you pushed one day

  Through all the green hills to our father’s house,

  You’d come upon a great charred circle where

  The patient earth was singed an acre round;

  With one stone-stair, symbolic of my life,

  Ascending, winding, leading up to nought!

  ‘Tis worth a poet’s seeing. Will you go?’

  I made no answer. Had I any right

  To weep with this man, that I dared to speak!

  A woman stood between his soul and mine,

  And waved us off from touching evermore

  With those unclean white hands of hers. Enough.

  We had burnt our viols and were silent.

  So,

  The silence lengthened till it pressed. I spoke,r />
  To breathe: ‘I think you were ill afterward.’

  ‘More ill,’ he answered, ‘had been scarcely ill.

  I hoped this feeble fumbling at life’s knot

  Might end concisely,–but I failed to die,

  As formerly I failed to live,–and thus

  Grew willing, having tried all other ways,

  To try just God’s. Humility’s so good,

  When pride’s impossible. Mark us, how we make

  Our virtues, cousin, from our worn-out sins,

  Which smack of them from henceforth. Is it right,

  For instance, to wed here, while you love there?

  And yet because a man sins once, the sin

  Cleaves to him, in necessity to sin;

  That if he sin not so, to damn himself,

  He sins so, to damn others with himself:

  And thus, to wed here, loving there, becomes

  A duty. Virtue buds a dubious leaf

  Round mortal brows; your ivy’s better, dear.

  –Yet she, ‘tis certain, is my very wife;

  The very lamb left mangled by the wolves

  Through my own bad shepherding: and could I choose

  But take her on my shoulder past this stretch

  Of rough, uneasy wilderness, poor lamb,

  Poor child, poor child?–Aurora, my beloved,

  I will not vex you any more to-night;

  But, having spoken what I came to say,

  The rest shall please you. What she can, in me,–

  Protection, tender liking, freedom, ease,

  She shall have surely, liberally, for her

  And hers, Aurora. Small amends they’ll make

  For hideous evils (which she had not known

  Except by me) and for this imminent loss,

  This forfeit presence of a gracious friend,

  Which also she must forfeit for my sake,

  Since, . . . drop your hand in mine a moment, sweet,

  We’re parting!–Ah, my snowdrop, what a touch,

  As if the wind had swept it off! you grudge

  Your gelid sweetness on my palm but so,

  A moment? angry, that I could not bear

  You . . speaking, breathing, living, side by side

  With some one called my wife . . and live, myself?

  Nay, be not cruel–you must understand!

  Your lightest footfall on a floor of mine

  Would shake the house, my lintel being uncrossed

  ‘Gainst angels: henceforth it is night with me,

  And so, henceforth, I put the shutters up;

  Auroras must not come to spoil my dark.’

  He smiled so feebly, with an empty hand

  Stretched sideway from me,–as indeed he looked

  To any one but me to give him help,–

  And, while the moon came suddenly out full,

  The double rose of our Italian moons,

  Sufficient, plainly, for the heaven and earth,

  (The stars, struck dumb and washed away in dews

  Of golden glory, and the mountains steeped

  In divine languor) he, the man, appeared

  So pale and patient, like the marble man

  A sculptor puts his personal sadness in

  To join his grandeur of ideal thought,–

  As if his mallet struck me from my height

  Of passionate indignation, I who had risen

  Pale,–doubting, paused, . . . . Was Romney mad indeed?

  Had all this wrong of heart made sick the brain?

  Then quiet, with a sort of tremulous pride,

  ‘Go, cousin,’ I said coldly. ‘A farewell

  Was sooner spoken ‘twixt a pair of friends

  In those old days, than seems to suit you now:

  And if, since then, I’ve writ a book or two,

  I’m somewhat dull still in the manly art

  Of phrase and metaphrase. Why, any man

  Can carve a score of white Loves out of snow,

  As Buonarroti down in Florence there,

  And set them on the wall in some safe shade,

  As safe, sir, as your marriage! very good;

  Though if a woman took one from the ledge

  To put it on the table by her flowers,

  And let it mind her of a certain friend,

  ‘Twould drop at once, (so better,) would not bear

  Her nail-mark even, where she took it up

  A little tenderly; so best, I say:

  For me, I would not touch so light a thing,

  And risk to spoil it half an hour before

  The sun shall shine to melt it; leave it there.

  I’m plain at speech, direct in purpose: when

  I speak, you’ll take the meaning as it is,

  And not allow for puckerings in the silks

  By clever stitches. I’m a woman, sir,

  And use the woman’s figures naturally,

  As you, the male license. So, I wish you well.

  I’m simply sorry for the griefs you’ve had–

  And not for your sake only, but mankind’s.

  This race is never grateful: from the first,

  One fills their cup at supper with pure wine,

  Which back they give at cross-time on a sponge,

  In bitter vinegar.’

  ‘If gratefuller,’

  He murmured,–’by so much less pitiable!

  God’s self would never have come down to die,

  Could man have thanked him for it.’

  ‘Happily

  ‘Tis patent that, whatever,’ I resumed,

  ‘You suffered from this thanklessness of men,

  You sink no more than Moses’ bulrush-boat,

  When once relieved of Moses; for you’re light,

  You’re light, my cousin! which is well for you,

  And manly. For myself,–now mark me, sir,

  They burnt Leigh Hall; but if, consummated

  To devils, heightened beyond Lucifers,

  They had burnt instead a star or two, of those

  We saw above there just a moment back,

  Before the moon abolished them,–destroyed

  And riddled them in ashes through a sieve

  On the head of the foundering universe,–what then?

  If you and I remained still you and I,

  It would not shift our places as mere friends,

  Nor render decent you should toss a phrase

  Beyond the point of actual feeling!–nay

  You shall not interrupt me: as you said,

  We’re parting. Certainly, not once or twice,

  To-night you’ve mocked me somewhat, or yourself,

  And I, at least, have not deserved it so

  That I should meet it unsurprised. But now,

  Enough: we’re parting . . parting. Cousin Leigh,

  I wish you well through all the acts of life

  And life’s relation, wedlock, not the least;

  And it shall ‘please me,’ in your words, to know

  You yield your wife, protection, freedom, ease,

  And very tender liking. May you live

  So happy with her, Romney, that your friends

  May praise her for it. Meantime, some of us

  Are wholly dull in keeping ignorant

  Of what she has suffered by you, and what debt

  Of sorrow your rich love sits down to pay:

  But if ‘tis sweet for love to pay its debt,

  ‘Tis sweeter still for love to give its gift;

  and you, be liberal in the sweeter way,–

  You can, I think. At least, as touches me,

  You owe her, cousin Romney, no amends;

  She is not used to hold my gown so fast,

  You need entreat her now to let it go:

  The lady never was a friend of mine,

  Nor capable,–I thought you knew as much,–

  Of losing for your sake so poor a prize

  As such a worthless fri
endship. Be content,

  Good cousin, therefore, both for her and you!

  I’ll never spoil your dark, nor dull your noon,

  Nor vex you when you’re merry, nor when you rest:

  You shall not need to put a shutter up

  To keep out this Aurora. Ah, your north

  Can make Auroras which vex nobody,

  Scarce known from evenings! also, let me say,

  My larks fly higher than some windows. Right;

  You’ve read your Leighs. Indeed ‘twould shake a house,

  If such as I came in with outstretched hand,

  Still warm and thrilling from the clasp of one . .

  Of one we know, . . to acknowledge, palm to palm,

  As mistress there . . the Lady Waldemar.’

  ‘Now God be with us’ . . with a sudden clash

  Of voice he interrupted–’what name’s that?

  You spoke a name, Aurora.’

  ‘Pardon me;

  I would that, Romney, I could name your wife

  Nor wound you, yet be worthy.’

  ‘Are we mad?’

  He echoed–’wife! mine! Lady Waldemar!

  I think you said my wife.’ He sprang to his feet,

  And threw his noble head back toward the moon

  As one who swims against a stormy sea,

  And laughed with such a helpless, hopeless scorn,

  I stood and trembled.

  ‘May God judge me so,’

  He said at last,–’I came convicted here,

  And humbled sorely if not enough. I came,

  Because this woman from her crystal soul

  Had shown me something which a man calls light:

  Because too, formerly, I sinned by her

  As, then and ever since, I have, by God,

  Through arrogance of nature,–though I loved . .

  Whom best, I need not say, . . since that is writ

  Too plainly in the book of my misdeeds;

  And thus I came here to abase myself,

  And fasten, kneeling, on her regent brows

  A garland which I startled thence one day

  Of her beautiful June-youth. But here again

  I’m baffled!–fail in my abasement as

  My aggrandisement: there’s no room left for me,

  At any woman’s foot, who misconceives

  My nature, purpose, possible actions. What!

  Are you the Aurora who made large my dreams

  To frame your greatness? you conceive so small?

  You stand so less than woman, through being more,

  And lose your natural instinct, like a beast,

  Through intellectual culture? since indeed

  I do not think that any common she

  Would dare adopt such fancy-forgeries

  For the legible life-signature of such