Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Page 118
And free Parliaments in London;
X.
Princes’ parks, and merchants’ homes,
Tents for soldiers, ships for seamen, —
Ay, but ruins worse than Rome’s
In your pauper men and women.
XI.
Women leering through the gas
(Just such bosoms used to nurse you),
Men, turned wolves by famine — pass!
Those can speak themselves, and curse you.
XII.
But these others — children small,
Spilt like blots about the city,
Quay, and street, and palace-wall —
Take them up into your pity!
XIII.
Ragged children with bare feet,
Whom the angels in white raiment
Know the names of, to repeat
When they come on you for payment.
XIV.
Ragged children, hungry-eyed,
Huddled up out of the coldness
On your doorsteps, side by side,
Till your footman damns their boldness.
XV.
In the alleys, in the squares,
Begging, lying little rebels;
In the noisy thoroughfares,
Struggling on with piteous trebles.
XVI.
Patient children — think what pain
Makes a young child patient — ponder!
Wronged too commonly to strain
After right, or wish, or wonder.
XVII.
Wicked children, with peaked chins,
And old foreheads! there are many
With no pleasures except sins,
Gambling with a stolen penny.
XVIII.
Sickly children, that whine low
To themselves and not their mothers,
From mere habit, — never so
Hoping help or care from others.
XIX.
Healthy children, with those blue
English eyes, fresh from their Maker,
Fierce and ravenous, staring through
At the brown loaves of the baker.
XX.
I am listening here in Rome,
And the Romans are confessing,
“English children pass in bloom
All the prettiest made for blessing.
XXI.
“Angli angeli!” (resumed
From the mediaeval story)
“Such rose angelhoods, emplumed
In such ringlets of pure glory!”
XXII.
Can we smooth down the bright hair,
O my sisters, calm, unthrilled in
Our heart’s pulses? Can we bear
The sweet looks of our own children,
XXIII.
While those others, lean and small,
Scurf and mildew of the city,
Spot our streets, convict us all
Till we take them into pity?
XXIV.
“Is it our fault?” you reply,
“When, throughout civilization,
Every nation’s empery
Is asserted by starvation?
XXV.
“All these mouths we cannot feed,
And we cannot clothe these bodies.”
Well, if man’s so hard indeed,
Let them learn at least what God is!
XXVI.
Little outcasts from life’s fold,
The grave’s hope they may be joined in
By Christ’s covenant consoled
For our social contract’s grinding.
XXVII.
If no better can be done,
Let us do but this, — endeavour
That the sun behind the sun
Shine upon them while they shiver!
XXVIII.
On the dismal London flags,
Through the cruel social juggle,
Put a thought beneath their rags
To ennoble the heart’s struggle.
XXIX.
O my sisters, not so much
Are we asked for — not a blossom
From our children’s nosegay, such
As we gave it from our bosom, —
XXX.
Not the milk left in their cup,
Not the lamp while they are sleeping,
Not the little cloak hung up
While the coat’s in daily keeping, —
XXXI.
But a place in RAGGED SCHOOLS,
Where the outcasts may to-morrow
Learn by gentle words and rules
Just the uses of their sorrow.
XXXII.
O my sisters! children small,
Blue-eyed, wailing through the city —
Our own babes cry in them all:
Let us take them into pity.
MAY’S LOVE.
[Illustration: Handwritten Copy of Poem]
I.
You love all, you say,
Round, beneath, above me:
Find me then some way
Better than to love me,
Me, too, dearest May!
II.
O world-kissing eyes
Which the blue heavens melt to;
I, sad, overwise,
Loathe the sweet looks dealt to
All things — men and flies.
III.
You love all, you say:
Therefore, Dear, abate me
Just your love, I pray!
Shut your eyes and hate me —
Only me — fair May!
AMY’S CRUELTY.
I.
Fair Amy of the terraced house,
Assist me to discover
Why you who would not hurt a mouse
Can torture so your lover.
II.
You give your coffee to the cat,
You stroke the dog for coming,
And all your face grows kinder at
The little brown bee’s humming.
III.
But when he haunts your door ... the town
Marks coming and marks going ...
You seem to have stitched your eyelids down
To that long piece of sewing!
IV.
You never give a look, not you,
Nor drop him a “Good morning,”
To keep his long day warm and blue,
So fretted by your scorning.
V.
She shook her head— “The mouse and bee
For crumb or flower will linger:
The dog is happy at my knee,
The cat purrs at my finger.
VI.
“But he ... to him, the least thing given
Means great things at a distance;
He wants my world, my sun, my heaven,
Soul, body, whole existence.
VII.
“They say love gives as well as takes;
But I’m a simple maiden, —
My mother’s first smile when she wakes
I still have smiled and prayed in.
VIII.
“I only know my mother’s love
Which gives all and asks nothing;
And this new loving sets the groove
Too much the way of loathing.
IX.
“Unless he gives me all in change,
I forfeit all things by him:
The risk is terrible and strange —
I tremble, doubt, ... deny him.
X.
“He’s sweetest friend or hardest foe,
Best angel or worst devil;
I either hate or ... love him so,
I can’t be merely civil!
XI.
“You trust a woman who puts forth
Her blossoms thick as summer’s?
You think she dreams what love is worth,
Who casts it to new-comers?
XII.
“Such love’s a cowslip-ball to fling,
A mome
nt’s pretty pastime;
I give ... all me, if anything,
The first time and the last time.
XIII.
“Dear neighbour of the trellised house,
A man should murmur never,
Though treated worse than dog and mouse,
Till doated on for ever!”
MY HEART AND I.
I.
Enough! we’re tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason’s knife,
As heaven’s sweet life renews earth’s life
With which we’re tired, my heart and I.
II.
You see we’re tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colours could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune’s end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we’re tired, my heart and I.
III.
How tired we feel, my heart and I!
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang grey and uncurled
About men’s eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we here, my heart and I?
IV.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me ‘neath the lime
To watch the sunset from the sky.
“Dear love, you’re looking tired,” he said;
I, smiling at him, shook my head:
‘T is now we’re tired, my heart and I.
V.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in a sigh
Of happy languor. Now, alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.
VI.
Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
Of powers and pleasures? Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God’s blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.
VII.
Yet who complains? My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by!
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, — well enough,
I think, we’ve fared, my heart and I.
THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD.
What’s the best thing in the world?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Light, that never makes you wink;
Memory, that gives no pain;
Love, when, so, you’re loved again.
What’s the best thing in the world?
— Something out of it, I think.
WHERE’S AGNES?
I.
Nay, if I had come back so,
And found her dead in her grave,
And if a friend I know
Had said, “Be strong, nor rave:
She lies there, dead below:
II.
“I saw her, I who speak,
White, stiff, the face one blank:
The blue shade came to her cheek
Before they nailed the plank,
For she had been dead a week.”
III.
Why, if he had spoken so,
I might have believed the thing,
Although her look, although
Her step, laugh, voice’s ring
Lived in me still as they do.
IV.
But dead that other way,
Corrupted thus and lost?
That sort of worm in the clay?
I cannot count the cost,
That I should rise and pay.
V.
My Agnes false? such shame?
She? Rather be it said
That the pure saint of her name
Has stood there in her stead,
And tricked you to this blame.
VI.
Her very gown, her cloak
Fell chastely: no disguise,
But expression! while she broke
With her clear grey morning-eyes
Full upon me and then spoke.
VII.
She wore her hair away
From her forehead, — like a cloud
Which a little wind in May
Peels off finely: disallowed
Though bright enough to stay.
VIII.
For the heavens must have the place
To themselves, to use and shine in,
As her soul would have her face
To press through upon mine, in
That orb of angel grace.
IX.
Had she any fault at all,
‘T was having none, I thought too —
There seemed a sort of thrall;
As she felt her shadow ought to
Fall straight upon the wall.
X.
Her sweetness strained the sense
Of common life and duty;
And every day’s expense
Of moving in such beauty
Required, almost, defence.
XI.
What good, I thought, is done
By such sweet things, if any?
This world smells ill i’ the sun
Though the garden-flowers are many, —
She is only one.
XII.
Can a voice so low and soft
Take open actual part
With Right, — maintain aloft
Pure truth in life or art,
Vexed always, wounded oft? —
XIII.
She fit, with that fair pose
Which melts from curve to curve,
To stand, run, work with those
Who wrestle and deserve,
And speak plain without glose?
XIV.
But I turned round on my fear
Defiant, disagreeing —
What if God has set her here
Less for action than for Being? —
For the eye and for the ear.
XV.
Just to show what beauty may,
Just to prove what music can, —
And then to die away
From the presence of a man,
Who shall learn, henceforth, to pray?
XVI.
As a door, left half ajar
In heaven, would make him think
How heavenly-different are
Things glanced at through the chink,
Till he pined from near to far.
XVII.
That door could lead to hell?
That shining merely meant
Damnation? What! She fell
Like a woman, who was sent
Like an angel, by a spell?
XVIII.
She, who scarcely trod the earth,
Turned mere dirt? My Agnes, — mine!
Called so! felt of too much worth
To be used so! too divine
To be breathed near, and so forth!
XIX.
Why, I dared not name a sin
In her presence: I went round,
Clipped its name and shut it
in
Some mysterious crystal sound, —
Changed the dagger for the pin.
XX.
Now you name herself that word?
O my Agnes! O my saint!
Then the great joys of the Lord
Do not last? Then all this paint
Runs off nature? leaves a board?
XXI.
Who’s dead here? No, not she:
Rather I! or whence this damp
Cold corruption’s misery?
While my very mourners stamp
Closer in the clods on me.
XXII.
And my mouth is full of dust
Till I cannot speak and curse —
Speak and damn him ... “Blame’s unjust”?
Sin blots out the universe,
All because she would and must?
XXIII.
She, my white rose, dropping off
The high rose-tree branch! and not
That the night-wind blew too rough,
Or the noon-sun burnt too hot,
But, that being a rose— ‘t was enough!
XXIV.