Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 117
sea-blue.
II.
“Because I fear you,” he answered;— “because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your gold-coloured hair.”
III.
“Oh, that,” she said, “is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,
And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.”
IV.
“Yet farewell so,” he answered;— “the sun-stroke’s fatal at times.
I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the
limes.”
V.
“Oh, that,” she said, “is no reason. You smell a rose through a
fence:
If two should smell it, what matter? who grumbles, and where’s the
pretence?”
VI.
“But I,” he replied, “have promised another, when love was free,
To love her alone, alone, who alone and afar loves me.”
VII.
“Why, that,” she said, “is no reason. Love’s always free, I am
told.
Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it
will hold?”
VIII.
“But you,” he replied, “have a daughter, a young little child, who
was laid
In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me
afraid.”
IX.
“Oh, that,” she said, “is no reason. The angels keep out of the
way;
And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although you should please me
and stay.”
X.
At which he rose up in his anger,— “Why, now, you no longer are
fair!
Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear.”
XI.
At which she laughed out in her scorn: “These men! Oh, these men
overnice,
Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a
vice.”
XII.
Her eyes blazed upon him— “And you! You bring us your vices so
near
That we smell them! You think in our presence a thought ‘t would
defame us to hear!
XIII.
“What reason had you, and what right, — I appeal to your soul from my
life, —
To find me too fair as a woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife.
XIV.
“Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you
imply
I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me
as high?
XV.
“If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much
To uses unlawful and fatal. The praise! — shall I thank you for
such?
XVI.
“Too fair? — not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a
while,
You attain to it, straightway you call us no longer too fair, but
too vile.
XVII.
“A moment, — I pray your attention! — I have a poor word in my head
I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better
unsaid.
XVIII.
“You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a
ring.
You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter! — I’ve broken the
thing.
XIX.
“You did me the honour, perhaps, to be moved at my side now and
then
In the senses — a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and
some men.
XX.
“Love’s a virtue for heroes! — as white as the snow on high hills,
And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and
fulfils.
XXI.
“I love my Walter profoundly, — you, Maude, though you faltered a
week,
For the sake of ... what was it — an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole
on a cheek?
XXII.
“And since, when all’s said, you’re too noble to stoop to the
frivolous cant
About crimes irresistible, virtues that swindle, betray and
supplant,
XXIII.
“I determined to prove to yourself that, whate’er you might dream or
avow
By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now.
XXIV.
“There! Look me full in the face! — in the face. Understand, if you
can,
That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man.
XXV.
“Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you
a scar —
You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are.
XXVI.
“You wronged me: but then I considered ... there’s Walter! And so at
the end
I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a
friend.
XXVII.
“Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my
Walter, be mine!
Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine.”
BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES.
I.
The cypress stood up like a church
That night we felt our love would hold,
And saintly moonlight seemed to search
And wash the whole world clean as gold;
The olives crystallized the vales’
Broad slopes until the hills grew strong:
The fire-flies and the nightingales
Throbbed each to either, flame and song.
The nightingales, the nightingales!
II.
Upon the angle of its shade
The cypress stood, self-balanced high;
Half up, half down, as double-made,
Along the ground, against the sky;
And we, too! from such soul-height went
Such leaps of blood, so blindly driven,
We scarce knew if our nature meant
Most passionate earth or intense heaven
The nightingales, the nightingales!
III.
We paled with love, we shook with love,
We kissed so close we could not vow;
Till Giulio whispered “Sweet, above
God’s Ever guaranties this Now.”
And through his words the nightingales
Drove straight and full their long clear call,
Like arrows through heroic mails,
And love was awful in it all.
The nightingales, the nightingales!
IV.
O cold white moonlight of the north,
Refresh these pulses, quench this hell!
O coverture of death drawn forth
Across this garden-chamber ... well!
But what have nightingales to do
In gloomy England, called the free ...
(Yes, free to die in!...) when we two
Are sundered, singing still to me?
And still they sing, the nightingales!
V.
I think I hear him, how he cried
“My own soul’s life!” between their notes.
Each man has but one soul supplied,
And that’s immortal. Though his throat’s
On fire with passion now, to her
He can’t say what to me he said!
And yet he moves her, they aver.
The nightingales sing through my head, —
The nightingales, the nightingales!
VI.
He says to her what moves her most.
He wo
uld not name his soul within
Her hearing, — rather pays her cost
With praises to her lips and chin.
Man has but one soul, ‘t is ordained,
And each soul but one love, I add;
Yet souls are damned and love’s profaned;
These nightingales will sing me mad!
The nightingales, the nightingales!
VII.
I marvel how the birds can sing.
There’s little difference, in their view,
Betwixt our Tuscan trees that spring
As vital flames into the blue,
And dull round blots of foliage meant,
Like saturated sponges here,
To suck the fogs up. As content
Is he too in this land, ‘t is clear.
And still they sing, the nightingales.
VIII.
My native Florence! dear, forgone!
I see across the Alpine ridge
How the last feast-day of Saint John
Shot rockets from Carraia bridge.
The luminous city, tall with fire,
Trod deep down in that river of ours,
While many a boat with lamp and choir
Skimmed birdlike over glittering towers.
I will not hear these nightingales.
IX.
I seem to float, we seem to float
Down Arno’s stream in festive guise;
A boat strikes flame into our boat,
And up that lady seems to rise
As then she rose. The shock had flashed
A vision on us! What a head,
What leaping eyeballs! — beauty dashed
To splendour by a sudden dread.
And still they sing, the nightingales.
X.
Too bold to sin, too weak to die;
Such women are so. As for me,
I would we had drowned there, he and I,
That moment, loving perfectly.
He had not caught her with her loosed
Gold ringlets ... rarer in the south ...
Nor heard the “Grazie tanto” bruised
To sweetness by her English mouth.
And still they sing, the nightingales.
XI.
She had not reached him at my heart
With her fine tongue, as snakes indeed
Kill flies; nor had I, for my part,
Yearned after, in my desperate need,
And followed him as he did her
To coasts left bitter by the tide,
Whose very nightingales, elsewhere
Delighting, torture and deride!
For still they sing, the nightingales.
XII.
A worthless woman; mere cold clay
As all false things are: but so fair,
She takes the breath of men away
Who gaze upon her unaware.
I would not play her larcenous tricks
To have her looks! She lied and stole,
And spat into my love’s pure pyx
The rank saliva of her soul.
And still they sing, the nightingales.
XIII.
I would not for her white and pink,
Though such he likes — her grace of limb,
Though such he has praised — nor yet, I think.
For life itself, though spent with him,
Commit such sacrilege, affront
God’s nature which is love, intrude
‘Twixt two affianced souls, and hunt
Like spiders, in the altar’s wood.
I cannot bear these nightingales.
XIV.
If she chose sin, some gentler guise
She might have sinned in, so it seems:
She might have pricked out both my eyes,
And I still seen him in my dreams!
— Or drugged me in my soup or wine,
Nor left me angry afterward:
To die here with his hand in mine,
His breath upon me, were not hard.
(Our Lady hush these nightingales!)
XV.
But set a springe for him, “mio ben,”
My only good, my first last love! —
Though Christ knows well what sin is, when
He sees some things done they must move
Himself to wonder. Let her pass.
I think of her by night and day.
Must I too join her ... out, alas!...
With Giulio, in each word I say?
And evermore the nightingales!
XVI.
Giulio, my Giulio! — sing they so,
And you be silent? Do I speak,
And you not hear? An arm you throw
Round someone, and I feel so weak?
— Oh, owl-like birds! They sing for spite,
They sing for hate, they sing for doom,
They’ll sing through death who sing through night,
They’ll sing and stun me in the tomb —
The nightingales, the nightingales!
MY KATE.
I.
She was not as pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow
Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways,
While she’s still remembered on warm and cold days —
My Kate.
II.
Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;
You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face:
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth —
My Kate.
III.
Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,
You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke:
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone —
My Kate.
IV.
I doubt if she said to you much that could act
As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract
In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer
‘T was her thinking of others made you think of her —
My Kate.
V.
She never found fault with you, never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town
The children were gladder that pulled at her gown —
My Kate.
VI.
None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall;
They knelt more to God than they used, — that was all:
If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant,
But the charm of her presence was felt when she went —
My Kate.
VII.
The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,
She took as she found them, and did them all good;
It always was so with her — see what you have!
She has made the grass greener even here ... with her grave —
My Kate.
VIII.
My dear one! — when thou wast alive with the rest,
I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best:
And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part
As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart —
My Kate?
A SONG FOR THE RAGGED SCHOOL OF LONDON.
WRITTEN IN ROME.
I.
I am listening here in Rome.
“England’s strong,” say many speakers,
“If she winks, the Czar must come,
Prow and topsail, to the breakers.”
II.
“England’s rich in coal and oak,”
Adds a Roman, getting moody;
“If she shakes a travelling cloak,
Down our Appian roll the scudi.”
III.
“England’s righteous
,” they rejoin:
“Who shall grudge her exaltations
When her wealth of golden coin
Works the welfare of the nations?”
IV.
I am listening here in Rome.
Over Alps a voice is sweeping —
“England’s cruel, save us some
Of these victims in her keeping!”
V.
As the cry beneath the wheel
Of an old triumphant Roman
Cleft the people’s shouts like steel,
While the show was spoilt for no man,
VI.
Comes that voice. Let others shout,
Other poets praise my land here:
I am sadly sitting out,
Praying, “God forgive her grandeur.”
VII.
Shall we boast of empire, where
Time with ruin sits commissioned?
In God’s liberal blue air
Peter’s dome itself looks wizened;
VIII.
And the mountains, in disdain,
Gather back their lights of opal
From the dumb despondent plain
Heaped with jawbones of a people.
IX.
Lordly English, think it o’er,
Caesar’s doing is all undone!
You have cannons on your shore,