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diff --git a/33363.txt b/33363.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2156994 --- /dev/null +++ b/33363.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7574 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning + Volume II + +Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning + +Release Date: August 6, 2010 [EBook #33363] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF E. B. BARRETT *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Chandra Friend and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + OF + ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + + _In Six Volumes_ + + VOL. II. + + + LONDON + SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE + 1890 + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + THE ROMAUNT OF MARGRET 3 + ISOBEL'S CHILD 15 + THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 40 + THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY. + FIRST PART 57 + SECOND PART 63 + THIRD PART 72 + FOURTH PART 80 + A ROMANCE OF THE GANGES 83 + RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 94 + THE RHYME 96 + THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 132 + BERTHA IN THE LANE 138 + LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 150 + THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT 192 + THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 205 + A CHILD ASLEEP 213 + THE FOURFOLD ASPECT 217 + NIGHT AND THE MERRY MAN. + NIGHT 223 + THE MERRY MAN 224 + EARTH AND HER PRAISERS 229 + THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS 239 + AN ISLAND 248 + THE SOUL'S TRAVELLING 259 + TO BETTINE, THE CHILD-FRIEND OF GOETHE 270 + MAN AND NATURE 274 + A SEA-SIDE WALK 276 + THE SEA-MEW 278 + FELICIA HEMANS TO L. E. L. 281 + L. E. L.'S LAST QUESTION 284 + + + + +POEMS + + + + +_THE ROMAUNT OF MARGRET._ + + Can my affections find out nothing best, + But still and still remove? + + QUARLES. + + + I. + + I plant a tree whose leaf + The yew-tree leaf will suit: + But when its shade is o'er you laid, + Turn round and pluck the fruit. + Now reach my harp from off the wall + Where shines the sun aslant; + The sun may shine and we be cold! + O hearken, loving hearts and bold, + Unto my wild romaunt. + Margret, Margret. + + II. + + Sitteth the fair ladye + Close to the river side + Which runneth on with a merry tone + Her merry thoughts to guide: + It runneth through the trees, + It runneth by the hill, + Nathless the lady's thoughts have found + A way more pleasant still + Margret, Margret. + + III. + + The night is in her hair + And giveth shade to shade, + And the pale moonlight on her forehead white + Like a spirit's hand is laid; + Her lips part with a smile + Instead of speakings done: + I ween, she thinketh of a voice, + Albeit uttering none. + Margret, Margret. + + IV. + + All little birds do sit + With heads beneath their wings: + Nature doth seem in a mystic dream, + Absorbed from her living things: + That dream by that ladye + Is certes unpartook, + For she looketh to the high cold stars + With a tender human look + Margret, Margret. + + V. + + The lady's shadow lies + Upon the running river; + It lieth no less in its quietness, + For that which resteth never: + Most like a trusting heart + Upon a passing faith, + Or as upon the course of life + The steadfast doom of death. + Margret, Margret. + + VI. + + The lady doth not move, + The lady doth not dream, + Yet she seeth her shade no longer laid + In rest upon the stream: + It shaketh without wind, + It parteth from the tide, + It standeth upright in the cleft moonlight, + It sitteth at her side. + Margret, Margret. + + VII. + + Look in its face, ladye, + And keep thee from thy swound; + With a spirit bold thy pulses hold + And hear its voice's sound: + For so will sound thy voice + When thy face is to the wall, + And such will be thy face, ladye, + When the maidens work thy pall. + Margret, Margret. + + VIII. + + "Am I not like to thee?" + The voice was calm and low, + And between each word you might have heard + The silent forests grow; + "_The like may sway the like;_" + By which mysterious law + Mine eyes from thine and my lips from thine + The light and breath may draw. + Margret, Margret. + + IX. + + "My lips do need thy breath, + My lips do need thy smile, + And my pallid eyne, that light in thine + Which met the stars erewhile: + Yet go with light and life + If that thou lovest one + In all the earth who loveth thee + As truly as the sun, + Margret, Margret." + + X. + + Her cheek had waxed white + Like cloud at fall of snow; + Then like to one at set of sun, + It waxed red also; + For love's name maketh bold + As if the loved were near: + And then she sighed the deep long sigh + Which cometh after fear. + Margret, Margret. + + XI. + + "Now, sooth, I fear thee not-- + Shall never fear thee now!" + (And a noble sight was the sudden light + Which lit her lifted brow.) + "Can earth be dry of streams, + Or hearts of love?" she said; + "Who doubteth love, can know not love: + He is already dead." + Margret, Margret. + + XII. + + "I have" ... and here her lips + Some word in pause did keep, + And gave the while a quiet smile + As if they paused in sleep,-- + "I have ... a brother dear, + A knight of knightly fame! + I broidered him a knightly scarf + With letters of my name + Margret, Margret. + + XIII. + + "I fed his grey goshawk, + I kissed his fierce bloodhound, + I sate at home when he might come + And caught his horn's far sound: + I sang him hunter's songs, + I poured him the red wine, + He looked across the cup and said, + _I love thee, sister mine._" + Margret, Margret. + + XIV. + + IT trembled on the grass + With a low, shadowy laughter; + The sounding river which rolled, for ever + Stood dumb and stagnant after: + "Brave knight thy brother is! + But better loveth he + Thy chaliced wine than thy chaunted song, + And better both than thee, + Margret, Margret." + + XV. + + The lady did not heed + The river's silence while + Her own thoughts still ran at their will, + And calm was still her smile. + "My little sister wears + The look our mother wore: + I smooth her locks with a golden comb, + I bless her evermore." + Margret, Margret. + + XVI. + + "I gave her my first bird + When first my voice it knew; + I made her share my posies rare + And told her where they grew: + I taught her God's dear name + With prayer and praise to tell, + She looked from heaven into my face + And said, _I love thee well._" + Margret, Margret. + + XVII. + + IT trembled on the grass + With a low, shadowy laughter; + You could see each bird as it woke and stared + Through the shrivelled foliage after. + "Fair child thy sister is! + But better loveth she + Thy golden comb than thy gathered flowers, + And better both than thee, + Margret, Margret." + + XVIII. + + Thy lady did not heed + The withering on the bough; + Still calm her smile albeit the while + A little pale her brow: + "I have a father old, + The lord of ancient halls; + An hundred friends are in his court + Yet only me he calls. + Margret, Margret. + + XIX. + + "An hundred knights are in his court + Yet read I by his knee; + And when forth they go to the tourney-show + I rise not up to see: + 'T is a weary book to read, + My tryst's at set of sun, + But loving and dear beneath the stars + Is his blessing when I've done." + Margret, Margret. + + XX. + + IT trembled on the grass + With a low, shadowy laughter; + And moon and star though bright and far + Did shrink and darken after. + "High lord thy father is! + But better loveth he + His ancient halls than his hundred friends, + His ancient halls, than thee, + Margret, Margret." + + XXI. + + The lady did not heed + That the far stars did fail; + Still calm her smile, albeit the while ... + Nay, but she is not pale! + "I have more than a friend + Across the mountains dim: + No other's voice is soft to me, + Unless it nameth _him_." + Margret, Margret. + + XXII. + + "Though louder beats my heart, + I know his tread again, + And his fair plume aye, unless turned away, + For the tears do blind me then: + We brake no gold, a sign + Of stronger faith to be, + But I wear his last look in my soul, + Which said, _I love but thee!_" + Margret, Margret. + + XXIII. + + IT trembled on the grass + With a low, shadowy laughter; + And the wind did toll, as a passing soul + Were sped by church-bell after; + And shadows, 'stead of light, + Fell from the stars above, + In flakes of darkness on her face + Still bright with trusting love. + Margret, Margret. + + XXIV. + + "He _loved_ but only thee! + _That_ love is transient too. + The wild hawk's bill doth dabble still + I' the mouth that vowed thee true: + Will he open his dull eyes + When tears fall on his brow? + Behold, the death-worm to his heart + Is a nearer thing than _thou_, + Margret, Margret." + + XXV. + + Her face was on the ground-- + None saw the agony; + But the men at sea did that night agree + They heard a drowning cry: + And when the morning brake, + Fast rolled the river's tide, + With the green trees waving overhead + And a white corse laid beside. + Margret, Margret. + + XXVI. + + A knight's bloodhound and he + The funeral watch did keep; + With a thought o' the chase he stroked its face + As it howled to see him weep. + A fair child kissed the dead, + But shrank before its cold. + And alone yet proudly in his hall + Did stand a baron old. + Margret, Margret. + + XXVII. + + Hang up my harp again! + I have no voice for song. + Not song but wail, and mourners pale, + Not bards, to love belong. + O failing human love! + O light, by darkness known! + O false, the while thou treadest earth! + O deaf beneath the stone! + Margret, Margret. + + + + +_ISOBEL'S CHILD._ + + ----so find we profit, + By losing of our prayers. + + SHAKESPEARE. + + + I. + + To rest the weary nurse has gone: + An eight-day watch had watched she, + Still rocking beneath sun and moon + The baby on her knee, + Till Isobel its mother said + "The fever waneth--wend to bed, + For now the watch comes round to me." + + II. + + Then wearily the nurse did throw + Her pallet in the darkest place + Of that sick room, and slept and dreamed: + For, as the gusty wind did blow + The night-lamp's flare across her face, + She saw or seemed to see, but dreamed, + That the poplars tall on the opposite hill, + The seven tall poplars on the hill, + Did clasp the setting sun until + His rays dropped from him, pined and still + As blossoms in frost, + Till he waned and paled, so weirdly crossed, + To the colour of moonlight which doth pass + Over the dank ridged churchyard grass. + The poplars held the sun, and he + The eyes of the nurse that they should not see + --Not for a moment, the babe on her knee, + Though she shuddered to feel that it grew to be + Too chill, and lay too heavily. + + III. + + She only dreamed; for all the while + 'T was Lady Isobel that kept + The little baby: and it slept + Fast, warm, as if its mother's smile, + Laden with love's dewy weight, + And red as rose of Harpocrate + Dropt upon its eyelids, pressed + Lashes to cheek in a sealed rest. + + IV. + + And more and more smiled Isobel + To see the baby sleep so well-- + She knew not that she smiled. + Against the lattice, dull and wild + Drive the heavy droning drops, + Drop by drop, the sound being one; + As momently time's segments fall + On the ear of God, who hears through all + Eternity's unbroken monotone: + And more and more smiled Isobel + To see the baby sleep so well-- + She knew not that she smiled. + The wind in intermission stops + Down in the beechen forest, + Then cries aloud + As one at the sorest, + Self-stung, self-driven, + And rises up to its very tops, + Stiffening erect the branches bowed, + Dilating with a tempest-soul + The trees that with their dark hands break + Through their own outline, and heavy roll + Shadows as massive as clouds in heaven + Across the castle lake + And more and more smiled Isobel + To see the baby sleep so well; + She knew not that she smiled; + She knew not that the storm was wild; + Through the uproar drear she could not hear + The castle clock which struck anear-- + She heard the low, light breathing of her child. + + V. + + O sight for wondering look! + While the external nature broke + Into such abandonment, + While the very mist, heart-rent + By the lightning, seemed to eddy + Against nature, with a din,-- + A sense of silence and of steady + Natural calm appeared to come + From things without, and enter in + The human creature's room. + + VI. + + So motionless she sate, + The babe asleep upon her knees, + You might have dreamed their souls had gone + Away to things inanimate, + In such to live, in such to moan; + And that their bodies had ta'en back, + In mystic change, all silences + That cross the sky in cloudy rack, + Or dwell beneath the reedy ground + In waters safe from their own sound: + Only she wore + The deepening smile I named before, + And _that_ a deepening love expressed; + And who at once can love and rest? + + VII. + + In sooth the smile that then was keeping + Watch upon the baby sleeping, + Floated with its tender light + Downward, from the drooping eyes, + Upward, from the lips apart, + Over cheeks which had grown white + With an eight-day weeping: + All smiles come in such a wise + Where tears shall fall or have of old-- + Like northern lights that fill the heart + Of heaven in sign of cold. + + VIII. + + Motionless she sate. + Her hair had fallen by its weight + On each side of her smile and lay + Very blackly on the arm + Where the baby nestled warm, + Pale as baby carved in stone + Seen by glimpses of the moon + Up a dark cathedral aisle: + But, through the storm, no moonbeam fell + Upon the child of Isobel-- + Perhaps you saw it by the ray + Alone of her still smile. + + IX. + + A solemn thing it is to me + To look upon a babe that sleeps + Wearing in its spirit-deeps + The undeveloped mystery + Of our Adam's taint and woe, + Which, when they developed be, + Will not let it slumber so; + Lying new in life beneath + The shadow of the coming death, + With that soft, low, quiet breath, + As if it felt the sun; + Knowing all things by their blooms, + Not their roots, yea, sun and sky + Only by the warmth that comes + Out of each, earth only by + The pleasant hues that o'er it run, + And human love by drops of sweet + White nourishment still hanging round + The little mouth so slumber-bound: + All which broken sentiency + And conclusion incomplete, + Will gather and unite and climb + To an immortality + Good or evil, each sublime, + Through life and death to life again. + O little lids, now folded fast, + Must ye learn to drop at last + Our large and burning tears? + O warm quick body, must thou lie, + When the time comes round to die, + Still from all the whirl of years, + Bare of all the joy and pain? + O small frail being, wilt thou stand + At God's right hand, + Lifting up those sleeping eyes + Dilated by great destinies, + To an endless waking? thrones and seraphim. + Through the long ranks of their solemnities, + Sunning thee with calm looks of Heaven's surprise, + But thine alone on Him? + Or else, self-willed, to tread the Godless place, + (God keep thy will!) feel thine own energies + Cold, strong, objectless, like a dead man's clasp, + The sleepless deathless life within thee grasp,-- + While myriad faces, like one changeless face, + With woe _not love's_, shall glass thee everywhere + And overcome thee with thine own despair? + + X. + + More soft, less solemn images + Drifted o'er the lady's heart + Silently as snow. + She had seen eight days depart + Hour by hour, on bended knees, + With pale-wrung hands and prayings low + And broken, through which came the sound + Of tears that fell against the ground, + Making sad stops.--"Dear Lord, dear Lord!" + She still had prayed, (the heavenly word + Broken by an earthly sigh) + --"Thou who didst not erst deny + The mother-joy to Mary mild, + Blessed in the blessed child + Which hearkened in meek babyhood + Her cradle-hymn, albeit used + To all that music interfused + In breasts of angels high and good! + Oh, take not, Lord, my babe away-- + Oh, take not to thy songful heaven + The pretty baby thou hast given, + Or ere that I have seen him play + Around his father's knees and known + That _he_ knew how my love has gone + From all the world to him. + Think, God among the cherubim, + How I shall shiver every day + In thy June sunshine, knowing where + The grave-grass keeps it from his fair + Still cheeks: and feel, at every tread, + His little body, which is dead + And hidden in thy turfy fold, + Doth make thy whole warm earth a-cold! + O God, I am so young, so young-- + I am not used to tears at nights + Instead of slumber--not to prayer + With sobbing lips and hands out-wrung! + Thou knowest all my prayings were + 'I bless thee, God, for past delights-- + Thank God!' I am not used to bear + Hard thoughts of death; the earth doth cover + No face from me of friend or lover: + And must the first who teaches me + The form of shrouds and funerals, be + Mine own first-born beloved? he + Who taught me first this mother-love? + Dear Lord who spreadest out above + Thy loving, transpierced hands to meet + All lifted hearts with blessing sweet,-- + Pierce not my heart, my tender heart + Thou madest tender! Thou who art + So happy in thy heaven alway, + Take not mine only bliss away!" + + XI. + + She so had prayed: and God, who hears + Through seraph-songs the sound of tears + From that beloved babe had ta'en + The fever and the beating pain. + And more and more smiled Isobel + To see the baby sleep so well, + (She knew not that she smiled, I wis) + Until the pleasant gradual thought + Which near her heart the smile enwrought, + Now soft and slow, itself did seem + To float along a happy dream, + Beyond it into speech like this. + + XII. + + "I prayed for thee, my little child, + And God has heard my prayer! + And when thy babyhood is gone, + We two together undefiled + By men's repinings, will kneel down + Upon His earth which will be fair + (Not covering thee, sweet!) to us twain, + And give Him thankful praise." + + XIII. + + Dully and wildly drives the rain: + Against the lattices drives the rain. + + XIV. + + "I thank Him now, that I can think + Of those same future days, + Nor from the harmless image shrink + Of what I there might see-- + Strange babies on their mothers' knee, + Whose innocent soft faces might + From off mine eyelids strike the light, + With looks not meant for me!" + + XV. + + Gustily blows the wind through the rain, + As against the lattices drives the rain. + + XVI. + + "But now, O baby mine, together, + We turn this hope of ours again + To many an hour of summer weather, + When we shall sit and intertwine + Our spirits, and instruct each other + In the pure loves of child and mother! + Two human loves make one divine." + + XVII. + + The thunder tears through the wind and the rain, + As full on the lattices drives the rain. + + XVIII. + + "My little child, what wilt thou choose? + Now let me look at thee and ponder. + What gladness, from the gladnesses + Futurity is spreading under + Thy gladsome sight? Beneath the trees + Wilt thou lean all day, and lose + Thy spirit with the river seen + Intermittently between + The winding beechen alleys,-- + Half in labour, half repose, + Like a shepherd keeping sheep, + Thou, with only thoughts to keep + Which never a bound will overpass, + And which are innocent as those + That feed among Arcadian valleys + Upon the dewy grass?" + + XIX. + + The large white owl that with age is blind, + That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow, + Is carried away in a gust of wind; + His wings could beat him not as fast + As he goeth now the lattice past; + He is borne by the winds, the rains do follow + His white wings to the blast outflowing, + He hooteth in going, + And still, in the lightnings, coldly glitter + His round unblinking eyes + + XX. + + "Or, baby, wilt thou think it fitter + To be eloquent and wise, + One upon whose lips the air + Turns to solemn verities + For men to breathe anew, and win + A deeper-seated life within? + Wilt be a philosopher, + By whose voice the earth and skies + Shall speak to the unborn? + Or a poet, broadly spreading + The golden immortalities + Of thy soul on natures lorn + And poor of such, them all to guard + From their decay,--beneath thy treading, + Earth's flowers recovering hues of Eden,-- + And stars, drawn downward by thy looks, + To shine ascendant in thy books?" + + XXI. + + The tame hawk in the castle-yard, + How it screams to the lightning, with its wet + Jagged plumes overhanging the parapet! + And at the lady's door the hound + Scratches with a crying sound. + + XXII. + + "But, O my babe, thy lids are laid + Close, fast upon thy cheek, + And not a dream of power and sheen + Can make a passage up between; + Thy heart is of thy mother's made, + Thy looks are very meek, + And it will be their chosen place + To rest on some beloved face, + As these on thine, and let the noise + Of the whole world go on nor drown + The tender silence of thy joys: + Or when that silence shall have grown + Too tender for itself, the same + Yearning for sound,--to look above + And utter its one meaning, LOVE, + That _He_ may hear His name." + + XXIII. + + No wind, no rain, no thunder! + The waters had trickled not slowly, + The thunder was not spent + Nor the wind near finishing; + Who would have said that the storm was diminishing? + No wind, no rain, no thunder! + Their noises dropped asunder + From the earth and the firmament, + From the towers and the lattices, + Abrupt and echoless + As ripe fruits on the ground unshaken wholly + As life in death. + And sudden and solemn the silence fell, + Startling the heart of Isobel + As the tempest could not: + Against the door went panting the breath + Of the lady's hound whose cry was still, + And she, constrained howe'er she would not, + Lifted her eyes and saw the moon + Looking out of heaven alone + Upon the poplared hill,-- + A calm of God, made visible + That men might bless it at their will. + + XXIV. + + The moonshine on the baby's face + Falleth clear and cold: + The mother's looks have fallen back + To the same place: + Because no moon with silver rack, + Nor broad sunrise in jasper skies + Has power to hold + Our loving eyes, + Which still revert, as ever must + Wonder and Hope, to gaze on the dust. + + XXV. + + The moonshine on the baby's face + Cold and clear remaineth; + The mother's looks do shrink away,-- + The mother's looks return to stay, + As charmed by what paineth: + Is any glamour in the case? + Is it dream, or is it sight? + Hath the change upon the wild + Elements that sign the night, + Passed upon the child? + It is not dream, but sight. + + XXVI. + + The babe has awakened from sleep + And unto the gaze of its mother, + Bent over it, lifted another-- + Not the baby-looks that go + Unaimingly to and fro, + But an earnest gazing deep + Such as soul gives soul at length + When by work and wail of years + It winneth a solemn strength + And mourneth as it wears. + A strong man could not brook, + With pulse unhurried by fears, + To meet that baby's look + O'erglazed by manhood's tears, + The tears of a man full grown, + With a power to wring our own, + In the eyes all undefiled + Of a little three-months' child-- + To see that babe-brow wrought + By the witnessing of thought + To judgment's prodigy, + And the small soft mouth unweaned, + By mother's kiss o'erleaned, + (Putting the sound of loving + Where no sound else was moving + Except the speechless cry) + Quickened to mind's expression, + Shaped to articulation, + Yea, uttering words, yea, naming woe, + In tones that with it strangely went + Because so baby-innocent, + As the child spake out to the mother, so:-- + + XXVII. + + "O mother, mother, loose thy prayer! + Christ's name hath made it strong. + It bindeth me, it holdeth me + With its most loving cruelty, + From floating my new soul along + The happy heavenly air. + It bindeth me, it holdeth me + In all this dark, upon this dull + Low earth, by only weepers trod. + It bindeth me, it holdeth me! + Mine angel looketh sorrowful + Upon the face of God.[1] + + XXVIII. + + "Mother, mother, can I dream + Beneath your earthly trees? + I had a vision and a gleam, + I heard a sound more sweet than these + When rippled by the wind: + Did you see the Dove with wings + Bathed in golden glisterings + From a sunless light behind, + Dropping on me from the sky, + Soft as mother's kiss, until + I seemed to leap and yet was still? + Saw you how His love-large eye + Looked upon me mystic calms, + Till the power of His divine + Vision was indrawn to mine? + + XXIX. + + "Oh, the dream within the dream! + I saw celestial places even. + Oh, the vistas of high palms + Making finites of delight + Through the heavenly infinite, + Lifting up their green still tops + To the heaven of heaven! + Oh, the sweet life-tree that drops + Shade like light across the river + Glorified in its for-ever + Flowing from the Throne! + Oh, the shining holinesses + Of the thousand, thousand faces + God-sunned by the throned ONE, + And made intense with such a love + That, though I saw them turned above, + Each loving seemed for also me! + And, oh, the Unspeakable, the HE, + The manifest in secrecies + Yet of mine own heart partaker + With the overcoming look + Of One who hath been once forsook + And blesseth the forsaker! + Mother, mother, let me go + Toward the Face that looketh so! + Through the mystic winged Four + Whose are inward, outward eyes + Dark with light of mysteries + And the restless evermore + 'Holy, holy, holy,'--through + The sevenfold Lamps that burn in view + Of cherubim and seraphim,-- + Through the four-and-twenty crowned + Stately elders white around, + Suffer me to go to Him! + + XXX. + + "Is your wisdom very wise, + Mother, on the narrow earth, + Very happy, very worth + That I should stay to learn? + Are these air-corrupting sighs + Fashioned by unlearned breath? + Do the students' lamps that burn + All night, illumine death? + Mother, albeit this be so, + Loose thy prayer and let me go + Where that bright chief angel stands + Apart from all his brother bands, + Too glad for smiling, having bent + In angelic wilderment + O'er the depths of God, and brought + Reeling thence one only thought + To fill his own eternity. + He the teacher is for me-- + He can teach what I would know-- + Mother, mother, let me go! + + XXXI. + + "Can your poet make an Eden + No winter will undo, + And light a starry fire while heeding + His hearth's is burning too? + Drown in music the earth's din, + And keep his own wild soul within + The law of his own harmony? + Mother, albeit this be so, + Let me to my heaven go! + A little harp me waits thereby, + A harp whose strings are golden all + And tuned to music spherical, + Hanging on the green life-tree + Where no willows ever be. + Shall I miss that harp of mine? + Mother, no!--the Eye divine + Turned upon it, makes it shine; + And when I touch it, poems sweet + Like separate souls shall fly from it, + Each to the immortal fytte. + We shall all be poets there, + Gazing on the chiefest Fair. + + XXXII. + + "Love! earth's love! and _can_ we love + Fixedly where all things move? + Can the sinning love each other? + Mother, mother, + I tremble in thy close embrace, + I feel thy tears adown my face, + Thy prayers do keep me out of bliss-- + O dreary earthly love! + Loose thy prayer and let me go + To the place which loving is + Yet not sad; and when is given + Escape to _thee_ from this below, + Thou shalt behold me that I wait + For thee beside the happy Gate, + And silence shall be up in heaven + To hear our greeting kiss." + + XXXIII. + + The nurse awakes in the morning sun, + And starts to see beside her bed + The lady with a grandeur spread + Like pathos o'er her face, as one + God-satisfied and earth-undone; + The babe upon her arm was dead: + And the nurse could utter forth no cry,-- + She was awed by the calm in the mother's eye. + + XXXIV. + + "Wake, nurse!" the lady said; + "_We_ are waking--he and I-- + I, on earth, and he, in sky: + And thou must help me to o'erlay + With garment white this little clay + Which needs no more our lullaby. + + XXXV. + + "I changed the cruel prayer I made, + And bowed my meekened face, and prayed + That God would do His will; and thus + He did it, nurse! He parted us: + And His sun shows victorious + The dead calm face,--and _I_ am calm, + And Heaven is hearkening a new psalm. + + XXXVI. + + "This earthly noise is too anear, + Too loud, and will not let me hear + The little harp. My death will soon + Make silence." + + And a sense of tune, + A satisfied love meanwhile + Which nothing earthly could despoil, + Sang on within her soul. + + XXXVII. + + Oh you, + Earth's tender and impassioned few, + Take courage to entrust your love + To Him so named who guards above + Its ends and shall fulfil! + Breaking the narrow prayers that may + Befit your narrow hearts, away + In His broad, loving will. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] For I say unto you that in Heaven their angels do always behold +the face of my Father which is in Heaven--_Matt._ xviii, 10. + + + + +_THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE._ + + + I. + + A knight of gallant deeds + And a young page at his side, + From the holy war in Palestine + Did slow and thoughtful ride, + As each were a palmer and told for beads + The dews of the eventide. + + II. + + "O young page," said the knight, + "A noble page art thou! + Thou fearest not to steep in blood + The curls upon thy brow; + And once in the tent, and twice in the fight, + Didst ward me a mortal blow." + + III. + + "O brave knight," said the page, + "Or ere we hither came, + We talked in tent, we talked in field, + Of the bloody battle-game; + But here, below this greenwood bough, + I cannot speak the same. + + IV. + + "Our troop is far behind, + The woodland calm is new; + Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled hoofs, + Tread deep the shadows through; + And, in my mind, some blessing kind + Is dropping with the dew. + + V. + + "The woodland calm is pure-- + I cannot choose but have + A thought from these, o' the beechen-trees, + Which in our England wave, + And of the little finches fine + Which sang there while in Palestine + The warrior-hilt we drave. + + VI. + + "Methinks, a moment gone, + I heard my mother pray! + I heard, sir knight, the prayer for me + Wherein she passed away; + And I know the heavens are leaning down + To hear what I shall say." + + VII. + + The page spake calm and high, + As of no mean degree; + Perhaps he felt in nature's broad + Full heart, his own was free: + And the knight looked up to his lifted eye, + Then answered smilingly-- + + VIII. + + "Sir page, I pray your grace! + Certes, I meant not so + To cross your pastoral mood, sir page, + With the crook of the battle-bow; + But a knight may speak of a lady's face, + I ween, in any mood or place, + If the grasses die or grow. + + IX. + + "And this I meant to say-- + My lady's face shall shine + As ladies' faces use, to greet + My page from Palestine; + Or, speak she fair or prank she gay, + She is no lady of mine. + + X. + + "And this I meant to fear-- + Her bower may suit thee ill; + For, sooth, in that same field and tent, + Thy _talk_ was somewhat still: + And fitter thy hand for my knightly spear + Than thy tongue for my lady's will!" + + XI. + + Slowly and thankfully + The young page bowed his head; + His large eyes seemed to muse a smile, + Until he blushed instead, + And no lady in her bower, pardie, + Could blush more sudden red: + "Sir Knight,--thy lady's bower to me + Is suited well," he said. + + XII. + + _Beati, beati, mortui!_ + From the convent on the sea, + One mile off, or scarce so nigh, + Swells the dirge as clear and high + As if that, over brake and lea, + Bodily the wind did carry + The great altar of Saint Mary, + And the fifty tapers burning o'er it, + And the lady Abbess dead before it, + And the chanting nuns whom yesterweek + Her voice did charge and bless,-- + Chanting steady, chanting meek, + Chanting with a solemn breath, + Because that they are thinking less + Upon the dead than upon death. + _Beati, beati, mortui!_ + Now the vision in the sound + Wheeleth on the wind around; + Now it sweepeth back, away-- + The uplands will not let it stay + To dark the western sun: + _Mortui!_--away at last,-- + Or ere the page's blush is past! + And the knight heard all, and the page heard none. + + XIII. + + "A boon, thou noble knight, + If ever I served thee! + Though thou art a knight and I am a page, + Now grant a boon to me; + And tell me sooth, if dark or bright, + If little loved or loved aright + Be the face of thy ladye." + + XIV. + + Gloomily looked the knight-- + "As a son thou hast served me, + And would to none I had granted boon + Except to only thee! + For haply then I should love aright, + For then I should know if dark or bright + Were the face of my ladye. + + XV. + + "Yet it ill suits my knightly tongue + To grudge that granted boon, + That heavy price from heart and life + I paid in silence down; + The hand that claimed it, cleared in fine + My father's fame: I swear by mine, + That price was nobly won! + + XVI. + + "Earl Walter was a brave old earl, + He was my father's friend, + And while I rode the lists at court + And little guessed the end, + My noble father in his shroud + Against a slanderer lying loud, + He rose up to defend. + + XVII. + + "Oh, calm below the marble grey + My father's dust was strown! + Oh, meek above the marble grey + His image prayed alone! + The slanderer lied: the wretch was brave-- + For, looking up the minster-nave, + He saw my father's knightly glaive + Was changed from steel to stone. + + XVIII. + + "Earl Walter's glaive was steel, + With a brave old hand to wear it, + And dashed the lie back in the mouth + Which lied against the godly truth + And against the knightly merit + The slanderer, 'neath the avenger's heel, + Struck up the dagger in appeal + From stealthy lie to brutal force-- + And out upon the traitor's corse + Was yielded the true spirit. + + XIX. + + "I would mine hand had fought that fight + And justified my father! + I would mine heart had caught that wound + And slept beside him rather! + I think it were a better thing + Than murdered friend and marriage-ring + Forced on my life together. + + XX. + + "Wail shook Earl Walter's house; + His true wife shed no tear; + She lay upon her bed as mute + As the earl did on his bier: + Till--'Ride, ride fast,' she said at last, + 'And bring the avenged's son anear! + Ride fast, ride free, as a dart can flee, + For white of blee with waiting for me + Is the corse in the next chambere.' + + XXI. + + "I came, I knelt beside her bed; + Her calm was worse than strife: + 'My husband, for thy father dear, + Gave freely when thou wast not here + His own and eke my life. + A boon! Of that sweet child we make + An orphan for thy father's sake, + Make thou, for ours, a wife.' + + XXII. + + "I said, 'My steed neighs in the court, + My bark rocks on the brine, + And the warrior's vow I am under now + To free the pilgrim's shrine; + But fetch the ring and fetch the priest + And call that daughter of thine, + And rule she wide from my castle on Nyde + While I am in Palestine.' + + XXIII. + + "In the dark chambere, if the bride was fair, + Ye wis, I could not see, + But the steed thrice neighed, and the priest fast prayed, + And wedded fast were we. + Her mother smiled upon her bed + As at its side we knelt to wed, + And the bride rose from her knee + And kissed the smile of her mother dead, + Or ever she kissed me. + + XXIV. + + "My page, my page, what grieves thee so, + That the tears run down thy face?"-- + "Alas, alas! mine own sister + Was in thy lady's case: + But _she_ laid down the silks she wore + And followed him she wed before, + Disguised as his true servitor, + To the very battle-place." + + XXV. + + And wept the page, but laughed the knight, + A careless laugh laughed he: + "Well done it were for thy sister, + But not for my ladye! + My love, so please you, shall requite + No woman, whether dark or bright, + Unwomaned if she be." + + XXVI. + + The page stopped weeping and smiled cold-- + "Your wisdom may declare + That womanhood is proved the best + By golden brooch and glossy vest + The mincing ladies wear; + Yet is it proved, and was of old, + Anear as well, I dare to hold, + By truth, or by despair." + + XXVII. + + He smiled no more, he wept no more, + But passionate he spake-- + "Oh, womanly she prayed in tent, + When none beside did wake! + Oh, womanly she paled in fight, + For one beloved's sake!-- + And her little hand, defiled with blood, + Her tender tears of womanhood + Most woman-pure did make!" + + XXVIII. + + --"Well done it were for thy sister, + Thou tellest well her tale! + But for my lady, she shall pray + I' the kirk of Nydesdale. + Not dread for me but love for me + Shall make my lady pale; + No casque shall hide her woman's tear-- + It shall have room to trickle clear + Behind her woman's veil." + + XXIX. + + --"But what if she mistook thy mind + And followed thee to strife, + Then kneeling did entreat thy love + As Paynims ask for life?" + --"I would forgive, and evermore + Would love her as my servitor, + But little as my wife. + + XXX. + + "Look up--there is a small bright cloud + Alone amid the skies! + So high, so pure, and so apart, + A woman's honour lies." + The page looked up--the cloud was sheen-- + A sadder cloud did rush, I ween, + Betwixt it and his eyes. + + XXXI. + + Then dimly dropped his eyes away + From welkin unto hill-- + Ha! who rides there?--the page is 'ware, + Though the cry at his heart is still: + And the page seeth all and the knight seeth none, + Though banner and spear do fleck the sun, + And the Saracens ride at will. + + XXXII. + + He speaketh calm, he speaketh low,-- + "Ride fast, my master, ride, + Or ere within the broadening dark + The narrow shadows hide." + "Yea, fast, my page, I will do so, + And keep thou at my side." + + XXXIII. + + "Now nay, now nay, ride on thy way, + Thy faithful page precede. + For I must loose on saddle-bow + My battle-casque that galls, I trow, + The shoulder of my steed; + And I must pray, as I did vow, + For one in bitter need. + + XXXIV. + + "Ere night I shall be near to thee,-- + Now ride, my master, ride! + Ere night, as parted spirits cleave + To mortals too beloved to leave, + I shall be at thy side." + The knight smiled free at the fantasy, + And adown the dell did ride. + + XXXV. + + Had the knight looked up to the page's face, + No smile the word had won; + Had the knight looked up to the page's face, + I ween he had never gone: + Had the knight looked back to the page's geste, + I ween he had turned anon, + For dread was the woe in the face so young, + And wild was the silent geste that flung + Casque, sword to earth, as the boy down-sprung + And stood--alone, alone. + + XXXVI. + + He clenched his hands as if to hold + His soul's great agony-- + "Have I renounced my womanhood, + For wifehood unto _thee_, + And is this the last, last look of thine + That ever I shall see? + + XXXVII. + + "Yet God thee save, and mayst thou have + A lady to thy mind, + More woman-proud and half as true + As one thou leav'st behind! + And God me take with HIM to dwell-- + For HIM I cannot love too well, + As I have loved my kind." + + XXXVIII. + + She looketh up, in earth's despair, + The hopeful heavens to seek; + That little cloud still floateth there, + Whereof her loved did speak: + How bright the little cloud appears! + Her eyelids fall upon the tears, + And the tears down either cheek. + + XXXIX. + + The tramp of hoof, the flash of steel-- + The Paynims round her coming! + The sound and sight have made her calm,-- + False page, but truthful woman; + She stands amid them all unmoved: + A heart once broken by the loved + Is strong to meet the foeman. + + XL. + + "Ho, Christian page! art keeping sheep, + From pouring wine-cups resting?"-- + "I keep my master's noble name, + For warring, not for feasting; + And if that here Sir Hubert were, + My master brave, my master dear, + Ye would not stay the questing." + + XLI. + + "Where is thy master, scornful page, + That we may slay or bind him?"-- + "Now search the lea and search the wood, + And see if ye can find him! + Nathless, as hath been often tried, + Your Paynim heroes faster ride + Before him than behind him." + + XLII. + + "Give smoother answers, lying page, + Or perish in the lying!"-- + "I trow that if the warrior brand + Beside my foot, were in my hand, + 'T were better at replying!" + They cursed her deep, they smote her low, + They cleft her golden ringlets through; + The Loving is the Dying. + + XLIII. + + She felt the scimitar gleam down, + And met it from beneath + With smile more bright in victory + Than any sword from sheath,-- + Which flashed across her lip serene, + Most like the spirit-light between + The darks of life and death. + + XLIV. + + _Ingemisco, ingemisco!_ + From the convent on the sea, + Now it sweepeth solemnly, + As over wood and over lea + Bodily the wind did carry + The great altar of St. Mary, + And the fifty tapers paling o'er it, + And the Lady Abbess stark before it, + And the weary nuns with hearts that faintly + Beat along their voices saintly-- + _Ingemisco, ingemisco!_ + Dirge for abbess laid in shroud + Sweepeth o'er the shroudless dead, + Page or lady, as we said, + With the dews upon her head, + All as sad if not as loud. + _Ingemisco, ingemisco!_ + Is ever a lament begun + By any mourner under sun, + Which, ere it endeth, suits but _one_? + + + + +_THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY._ + + +FIRST PART. + + + I. + + "Onora, Onora,"--her mother is calling, + She sits at the lattice and hears the dew falling + Drop after drop from the sycamores laden + With dew as with blossom, and calls home the maiden, + "Night cometh, Onora." + + II. + + She looks down the garden-walk caverned with trees, + To the limes at the end where the green arbour is-- + "Some sweet thought or other may keep where it found her, + While, forgot or unseen in the dreamlight around her, + Night cometh--Onora!" + + III. + + She looks up the forest whose alleys shoot on + Like the mute minster-aisles when the anthem is done + And the choristers sitting with faces aslant + Feel the silence to consecrate more than the chant-- + "Onora, Onora!" + + IV. + + And forward she looketh across the brown heath-- + "Onora, art coming?"--what is it she seeth? + Nought, nought but the grey border-stone that is wist + To dilate and assume a wild shape in the mist-- + "My daughter!" Then over + + V. + + The casement she leaneth, and as she doth so + She is 'ware of her little son playing below: + "Now where is Onora?" He hung down his head + And spake not, then answering blushed scarlet-red,-- + "At the tryst with her lover." + + VI. + + But his mother was wroth: in a sternness quoth she, + "As thou play'st at the ball art thou playing with me? + When we know that her lover to battle is gone, + And the saints know above that she loveth but one + And will ne'er wed another?" + + VII. + + Then the boy wept aloud; 't was a fair sight yet sad + To see the tears run down the sweet blooms he had: + He stamped with his foot, said--"The saints know I lied + Because truth that is wicked is fittest to hide: + Must I utter it, mother?" + + VIII. + + In his vehement childhood he hurried within + And knelt at her feet as in prayer against sin, + But a child at a prayer never sobbeth as he-- + "Oh! she sits with the nun of the brown rosary, + At nights in the ruin-- + + IX. + + "The old convent ruin the ivy rots off, + Where the owl hoots by day and the toad is sun-proof, + Where no singing-birds build and the trees gaunt and grey + As in stormy sea-coasts appear blasted one way-- + But is _this_ the wind's doing? + + X. + + "A nun in the east wall was buried alive + Who mocked at the priest when he called her to shrive, + And shrieked such a curse, as the stone took her breath, + The old abbess fell backwards and swooned unto death + With an Ave half-spoken. + + XI. + + "I tried once to pass it, myself and my hound, + Till, as fearing the lash, down he shivered to ground-- + A brave hound, my mother! a brave hound, ye wot! + And the wolf thought the same with his fangs at her throat + In the pass of the Brocken. + + XII. + + "At dawn and at eve, mother, who sitteth there + With the brown rosary never used for a prayer? + Stoop low, mother, low! If we went there to see, + What an ugly great hole in that east wall must be + At dawn and at even! + + XIII. + + "Who meet there, my mother, at dawn and at even? + Who meet by that wall, never looking to heaven? + O sweetest my sister, what doeth with _thee_ + The ghost of a nun with a brown rosary + And a face turned from heaven? + + XIV. + + "Saint Agnes o'erwatcheth my dreams and erewhile + I have felt through mine eyelids the warmth of her smile; + But last night, as a sadness like pity came o'er her, + She whispered--'Say _two_ prayers at dawn for Onora: + The Tempted is sinning.'" + + XV. + + "Onora, Onora!" they heard her not coming, + Not a step on the grass, not a voice through the gloaming; + But her mother looked up, and she stood on the floor + Fair and still as the moonlight that came there before, + And a smile just beginning: + + XVI. + + It touches her lips but it dares not arise + To the height of the mystical sphere of her eyes, + And the large musing eyes, neither joyous nor sorry + Sing on like the angels in separate glory + Between clouds of amber; + + XVII. + + For the hair droops in clouds amber-coloured till stirred + Into gold by the gesture that comes with a word; + While--O soft!--her speaking is so interwound + Of the dim and the sweet, 't is a twilight of sound + And floats through the chamber. + + XVIII. + + "Since thou shrivest my brother, fair mother," said she + "I count on thy priesthood for marrying of me, + And I know by the hills that the battle is done. + That my lover rides on, will be here with the sun, + 'Neath the eyes that behold thee." + + XIX. + + Her mother sat silent--too tender, I wis, + Of the smile her dead father smiled dying to kiss: + But the boy started up pale with tears, passion-wrought-- + "O wicked fair sister, the hills utter nought! + If he cometh, who told thee?" + + XX. + + "I know by the hills," she resumed calm and clear, + "By the beauty upon them, that HE is anear: + Did they ever look _so_ since he bade me adieu? + Oh, love in the waking, sweet brother, is true, + As Saint Agnes in sleeping!" + + XXI. + + Half-ashamed and half-softened the boy did not speak, + And the blush met the lashes which fell on his cheek: + She bowed down to kiss him: dear saints, did he see + Or feel on her bosom the BROWN ROSARY, + That he shrank away weeping? + + +SECOND PART. + +_A bed._ ONORA, _sleeping._ Angels, _but not near._ + + +_First Angel._ + + Must we stand so far, and she + So very fair? + +_Second Angel._ + + As bodies be. + +_First Angel._ + + And she so mild? + +_Second Angel._ + + As spirits when + They meeken, not to God, but men. + +_First Angel._ + + And she so young, that I who bring + Good dreams for saintly children, might + Mistake that small soft face to-night, + And fetch her such a blessed thing + That at her waking she would weep + For childhood lost anew in sleep. + How hath she sinned? + +_Second Angel._ + + In bartering love; + God's love for man's. + +_First Angel._ + + We may reprove + The world for this, not only her: + Let me approach to breathe away + This dust o' the heart with holy air. + +_Second Angel._ + + Stand off! She sleeps, and did not pray. + +_First Angel._ + + Did none pray for her? + +_Second Angel._ + + Ay, a child,-- + Who never, praying, wept before: + While, in a mother undefiled, + Prayer goeth on in sleep, as true + And pauseless as the pulses do. + +_First Angel._ + + Then I approach. + +_Second Angel._ + + It is not WILLED. + +_First Angel._ + + One word: is she redeemed? + +_Second Angel._ + + No more! + The place is filled. [Angels _vanish_ + +_Evil Spirit (in a Nun's garb by the bed)._ + + Forbear that dream--forbear that dream! too near to heaven it leaned. + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + Nay, leave me this--but only this! 't is but a dream, sweet fiend! + +_Evil Spirit._ + + It is a _thought_. + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + A sleeping thought--most innocent of good: + It doth the Devil no harm, sweet fiend! it cannot if it would. + I say in it no holy hymn, I do no holy work, + I scarcely hear the sabbath-bell that chimeth from the kirk. + +_Evil Spirit._ + + Forbear that dream--forbear that dream! + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + Nay, let me dream at least. + That far-off bell, it may be took for viol at a feast: + I only walk among the fields, beneath the autumn-sun, + With my dead father, hand in hand, as I have often done. + +_Evil Spirit._ + + Forbear that dream--forbear that dream! + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + Nay, sweet fiend, let me go: + I never more can walk with _him_, oh, never more but so! + For they have tied my father's feet beneath the kirk-yard stone, + Oh, deep and straight! oh, very straight! they move at nights alone: + And then he calleth through my dreams, he calleth tenderly, + "Come forth, my daughter, my beloved, and walk the fields with me!" + +_Evil Spirit._ + + Forbear that dream, or else disprove its pureness by a sign. + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + Speak on, thou shalt be satisfied, my word shall answer thine. + I heard a bird which used to sing when I a child was praying, + I see the poppies in the corn I used to sport away in: + What shall I do--tread down the dew and pull the blossoms blowing? + Or clap my wicked hands to fright the finches from the rowan? + +_Evil Spirit._ + + Thou shalt do something harder still. Stand up where thou dost stand + Among the fields of Dreamland with thy father hand in hand, + And clear and slow repeat the vow, declare its cause and kind, + Which not to break, in sleep or wake thou bearest on thy mind. + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + I bear a vow of sinful kind, a vow for mournful cause; + I vowed it deep, I vowed it strong, the spirits laughed applause: + The spirits trailed along the pines low laughter like a breeze, + While, high atween their swinging tops, the stars appeared to freeze. + +_Evil Spirit._ + + More calm and free, speak out to me why such a vow was made. + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + Because that God decreed my death and I shrank back afraid. + Have patience, O dead father mine! I did not fear to die-- + I wish I were a young dead child and had thy company! + I wish I lay beside thy feet, a buried three-year child, + And wearing only a kiss of thine upon my lips that smiled! + The linden-tree that covers thee might so have shadowed twain, + For death itself I did not fear--'t is love that makes the pain: + Love feareth death. I was no child, I was betrothed that day; + I wore a troth-kiss on my lips I could not give away. + How could I bear to lie content and still beneath a stone, + And feel mine own betrothed go by--alas! no more mine own-- + Go leading by in wedding pomp some lovely lady brave, + With cheeks that blushed as red as rose, while mine were white in + grave? + How could I bear to sit in heaven, on e'er so high a throne, + And hear him say to her--to _her_! that else he loveth none? + Though e'er so high I sate above, though e'er so low he spake, + As clear as thunder I should hear the new oath he might take, + That hers, forsooth, were heavenly eyes--ah me, while very dim + Some heavenly eyes (indeed of heaven!) would darken down to _him_! + +_Evil Spirit._ + + Who told thee thou wast called to death? + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + I sate all night beside thee: + The grey owl on the ruined wall shut both his eyes to hide thee, + And ever he flapped his heavy wing all brokenly and weak, + And the long grass waved against the sky, around his gasping beak. + I sate beside thee all the night, while the moonlight lay forlorn + Strewn round us like a dead world's shroud in ghastly fragments torn: + And through the night, and through the hush, and over the flapping + wing, + We heard beside the Heavenly Gate the angels murmuring: + We heard them say, "Put day to day, and count the days to seven, + And God will draw Onora up the golden stairs of heaven. + And yet the Evil ones have leave that purpose to defer, + For if she has no need of HIM, He has no need of her." + +_Evil Spirit._ + + Speak out to me, speak bold and free. + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + And then I heard thee say-- + "I count upon my rosary brown the hours thou hast to stay! + Yet God permits us Evil ones to put by that decree, + Since if thou hast no need of HIM, He has no need of thee: + And if thou wilt forgo the sight of angels, verily + Thy true love gazing on thy face shall guess what angels be; + Nor bride shall pass, save thee" ... Alas!--my father's hand's a-cold, + The meadows seem ... + +_Evil Spirit._ + + Forbear the dream, or let the vow be told. + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + I vowed upon thy rosary brown, this string of antique beads, + By charnel lichens overgrown, and dank among the weeds, + This rosary brown which is thine own,--lost soul of buried nun! + Who, lost by vow, wouldst render now all souls alike undone,-- + I vowed upon thy rosary brown,--and, till such vow should break, + A pledge always of living days 't was hung around my neck-- + I vowed to thee on rosary (dead father, look not so!), + _I would not thank God in my weal, nor seek God in my woe._ + +_Evil Spirit._ + + And canst thou prove ... + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + O love, my love! I felt him near again! + I saw his steed on mountain-head, I heard it on the plain! + Was this no weal for me to feel? Is greater weal than this? + Yet when he came, I wept his name--and the angels heard but _his_. + +_Evil Spirit._ + + Well done, well done! + +_Onora (in sleep)._ + + Ah me, the sun! the dreamlight 'gins to pine,-- + Ah me, how dread can look the Dead! Aroint thee, father mine! + + She starteth from slumber, she sitteth upright, + And her breath comes in sobs, while she stares through the night; + There is nought; the great willow, her lattice before, + Large-drawn in the moon, lieth calm on the floor: + But her hands tremble fast as their pulses and, free + From the death-clasp, close over--the BROWN ROSARY. + + +THIRD PART. + + + I. + + 'Tis a morn for a bridal; the merry bride-bell + Rings clear through the green-wood that skirts the chapelle, + And the priest at the altar awaiteth the bride, + And the sacristans slyly are jesting aside + At the work shall be doing; + + II. + + While down through the wood rides that fair company, + The youths with the courtship, the maids with the glee, + Till the chapel-cross opens to sight, and at once + All the maids sigh demurely and think for the nonce, + "And so endeth a wooing!" + + III. + + And the bride and the bridegroom are leading the way, + With his hand on her rein, and a word yet to say; + Her dropt eyelids suggest the soft answers beneath, + And the little quick smiles come and go with her breath + When she sigheth or speaketh. + + IV. + + And the tender bride-mother breaks off unaware + From an Ave, to think that her daughter is fair, + Till in nearing the chapel and glancing before, + She seeth her little son stand at the door: + Is it play that he seeketh? + + V. + + Is it play, when his eyes wander innocent-wild + And sublimed with a sadness unfitting a child? + He trembles not, weeps not; the passion is done, + And calmly he kneels in their midst, with the sun + On his head like a glory. + + VI. + + "O fair-featured maids, ye are many!" he cried, + "But in fairness and vileness who matcheth the bride? + O brave-hearted youths, ye are many! but whom + For the courage and woe can ye match with the groom + As ye see them before ye?" + + VII. + + Out spake the bride's mother, "The vileness is thine + If thou shame thine own sister, a bride at the shrine!" + Out spake the bride's lover, "The vileness be mine + If he shame mine own wife at the hearth or the shrine + And the charge be unproved. + + VIII. + + "Bring the charge, prove the charge, brother! speak it aloud: + Let thy father and hers hear it deep in his shroud!" + --"O father, thou seest, for dead eyes can see, + How she wears on her bosom a BROWN ROSARY, + O my father beloved!" + + IX. + + Then outlaughed the bridegroom, and outlaughed withal + Both maidens and youths by the old chapel-wall: + "So she weareth no love-gift, kind brother," quoth he, + "She may wear an she listeth a brown rosary, + Like a pure-hearted lady." + + X. + + Then swept through the chapel the long bridal train; + Though he spake to the bride she replied not again: + On, as one in a dream, pale and stately she went + Where the altar-lights burn o'er the great sacrament, + Faint with daylight, but steady. + + XI. + + But her brother had passed in between them and her, + And calmly knelt down on the high-altar stair-- + Of an infantine aspect so stern to the view + That the priest could not smile on the child's eyes of blue + As he would for another. + + XII. + + He knelt like a child marble-sculptured and white + That seems kneeling to pray on the tomb of a knight, + With a look taken up to each iris of stone + From the greatness and death where he kneeleth, but none + From the face of a mother. + + XIII. + + "In your chapel, O priest, ye have wedded and shriven + Fair wives for the hearth, and fair sinners for heaven; + But this fairest my sister, ye think now to wed, + Bid her kneel where she standeth, and shrive her instead: + O shrive her and wed not!" + + XIV. + + In tears, the bride's mother,--"Sir priest, unto thee + Would he lie, as he lied to this fair company." + In wrath, the bride's lover,--"The lie shall be clear! + Speak it out, boy! the saints in their niches shall hear: + Be the charge proved or said not!" + + XV. + + Then serene in his childhood he lifted his face, + And his voice sounded holy and fit for the place,-- + "Look down from your niches, ye still saints, and see + How she wears on her bosom a BROWN ROSARY! + Is it used for the praying?" + + XVI. + + The youths looked aside--to laugh there were a sin-- + And the maidens' lips trembled from smiles shut within. + Quoth the priest, "Thou art wild, pretty boy! Blessed she + Who prefers at her bridal a brown rosary + To a worldly arraying." + + XVII. + + The bridegroom spake low and led onward the bride + And before the high altar they stood side by side: + The rite-book is opened, the rite is begun, + They have knelt down together to rise up as one. + Who laughed by the altar? + + XVIII. + + The maidens looked forward, the youths looked around, + The bridegroom's eye flashed from his prayer at the sound; + And each saw the bride, as if no bride she were, + Gazing cold at the priest without gesture of prayer, + As he read from the psalter. + + XIX. + + The priest never knew that she did so, but still + He felt a power on him too strong for his will: + And whenever the Great Name was there to be read, + His voice sank to silence--THAT could not be said, + Or the air could not hold it. + + XX. + + "I have sinned," quoth he, "I have sinned, I wot"-- + And the tears ran adown his old cheeks at the thought: + They dropped fast on the book, but he read on the same, + And aye was the silence where should be the NAME,-- + As the choristers told it. + + XXI. + + The rite-book is closed, and the rite being done + They, who knelt down together, arise up as one: + Fair riseth the bride--Oh, a fair bride is she, + But, for all (think the maidens) that brown rosary, + No saint at her praying! + + XXII. + + What aileth the bridegroom? He glares blank and wide; + Then suddenly turning he kisseth the bride; + His lips stung her with cold; she glanced upwardly mute: + "Mine own wife," he said, and fell stark at her foot + In the word he was saying. + + XXIII. + + They have lifted him up, but his head sinks away, + And his face showeth bleak in the sunshine and grey. + Leave him now where he lieth--for oh, never more + Will he kneel at an altar or stand on a floor! + Let his bride gaze upon him. + + XXIV. + + Long and still was her gaze while they chafed him there + And breathed in the mouth whose last life had kissed her, + But when they stood up--only _they_! with a start + The shriek from her soul struck her pale lips apart: + She has lived, and forgone him! + + XXV. + + And low on his body she droppeth adown-- + "Didst call me thine own wife, beloved--thine own? + Then take thine own with thee! thy coldness is warm + To the world's cold without thee! Come, keep me from harm + In a calm of thy teaching!" + + XXVI. + + She looked in his face earnest-long, as in sooth + There were hope of an answer, and then kissed his mouth, + And with head on his bosom, wept, wept bitterly,-- + "Now, O God, take pity--take pity on me! + God, hear my beseeching!" + + XXVII. + + She was 'ware of a shadow that crossed where she lay, + She was 'ware of a presence that withered the day: + Wild she sprang to her feet,--"I surrender to _thee_ + The broken vow's pledge, the accursed rosary,-- + I am ready for dying!" + + XXVIII. + + She dashed it in scorn to the marble-paved ground + Where it fell mute as snow, and a weird music-sound + Crept up, like a chill, up the aisles long and dim,-- + As the fiends tried to mock at the choristers' hymn + And moaned in the trying. + + +FOURTH PART. + + + Onora looketh listlessly adown the garden walk: + "I am weary, O my mother, of thy tender talk. + I am weary of the trees a-waving to and fro, + Of the steadfast skies above, the running brooks below. + All things are the same, but I,--only I am dreary, + And, mother, of my dreariness behold me very weary. + + "Mother, brother, pull the flowers I planted in the spring + And smiled to think I should smile more upon their gathering: + The bees will find out other flowers--oh, pull them, dearest mine, + And carry them and carry me before Saint Agnes' shrine." + --Whereat they pulled the summer flowers she planted in the spring, + And her and them all mournfully to Agnes' shrine did bring. + + She looked up to the pictured saint and gently shook her head-- + "The picture is too calm for _me_--too calm for _me_," she said: + "The little flowers we brought with us, before it we may lay, + For those are used to look at heaven,--but _I_ must turn away, + Because no sinner under sun can dare or bear to gaze + On God's or angel's holiness, except in Jesu's face." + + She spoke with passion after pause--"And were it wisely done + If we who cannot gaze above, should walk the earth alone? + If we whose virtue is so weak should have a will so strong, + And stand blind on the rocks to choose the right path from the wrong? + To choose perhaps a love-lit hearth, instead of love and heaven,-- + A single rose, for a rose-tree which beareth seven times seven? + A rose that droppeth from the hand, that fadeth in the breast,-- + Until, in grieving for the worst, we learn what is the best!" + + Then breaking into tears,--"Dear God," she cried, "and must we see + All blissful things depart from us or ere we go to THEE? + We cannot guess Thee in the wood or hear Thee in the wind? + Our cedars must fall round us ere we see the light behind? + Ay sooth, we feel too strong, in weal, to need thee on that road, + But woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on 'God.'" + + Her mother could not speak for tears; she ever mused thus, + "_The bees will find out other flowers_,--but what is left for _us_?" + But her young brother stayed his sobs and knelt beside her knee, + --"Thou sweetest sister in the world, hast never a word for me?" + She passed her hand across his face, she pressed it on his cheek, + So tenderly, so tenderly--she needed not to speak. + + The wreath which lay on shrine that day, at vespers bloomed no more. + The woman fair who placed it there had died an hour before. + Both perished mute for lack of root, earth's nourishment to reach. + O reader, breathe (the ballad saith) some sweetness out of each! + + + + +_A ROMANCE OF THE GANGES._ + + + I. + + Seven maidens 'neath the midnight + Stand near the river-sea + Whose water sweepeth white around + The shadow of the tree; + The moon and earth are face to face, + And earth is slumbering deep; + The wave-voice seems the voice of dreams + That wander through her sleep: + The river floweth on. + + II. + + What bring they 'neath the midnight, + Beside the river-sea? + They bring the human heart wherein + No nightly calm can be,-- + That droppeth never with the wind, + Nor drieth with the dew: + Oh, calm in God! thy calm is broad + To cover spirits too. + The river floweth on. + + III. + + The maidens lean them over + The waters, side by side, + And shun each other's deepening eyes, + And gaze adown the tide; + For each within a little boat + A little lamp hath put, + And heaped for freight some lily's weight + Or scarlet rose half shut. + The river floweth on. + + IV. + + Of shell of cocoa carven + Each little boat is made; + Each carries a lamp, and carries a flower, + And carries a hope unsaid; + And when the boat hath carried the lamp + Unquenched till out of sight, + The maiden is sure that love will endure; + But love will fail with light. + The river floweth on. + + V. + + Why, all the stars are ready + To symbolize the soul, + The stars untroubled by the wind, + Unwearied as they roll; + And yet the soul by instinct sad + Reverts to symbols low-- + To that small flame, whose very name + Breathed o'er it, shakes it so! + The river floweth on. + + VI. + + Six boats are on the river, + Seven maidens on the shore, + While still above them steadfastly + The stars shine evermore. + Go, little boats, go soft and safe, + And guard the symbol spark! + The boats aright go safe and bright + Across the waters dark. + The river floweth on. + + VII. + + The maiden Luti watcheth + Where onwardly they float: + That look in her dilating eyes + Might seem to drive her boat: + Her eyes still mark the constant fire, + And kindling unawares + That hopeful while, she lets a smile + Creep silent through her prayers. + The river floweth on. + + VIII. + + The smile--where hath it wandered? + She riseth from her knee, + She holds her dark, wet locks away-- + There is no light to see! + She cries a quick and bitter cry-- + "Nuleeni, launch me thine! + We must have light abroad to-night, + For all the wreck of mine." + The river floweth on. + + IX. + + "I do remember watching + Beside this river-bed + When on my childish knee was leaned + My dying father's head; + I turned mine own to keep the tears + From falling on his face: + What doth it prove when Death and Love + Choose out the self-same place?" + The river floweth on. + + X. + + "They say the dead are joyful + The death-change here receiving: + Who say--ah me! who dare to say + Where joy comes to the living? + Thy boat, Nuleeni! look not sad-- + Light up the waters rather! + I weep no faithless lover where + I wept a loving father." + The river floweth on. + + XI. + + "My heart foretold his falsehood + Ere my little boat grew dim; + And though I closed mine eyes to dream + That one last dream of _him_, + They shall not now be wet to see + The shining vision go: + From earth's cold love I look above + To the holy house of snow."[2] + The river floweth on. + + XII. + + "Come thou--thou never knewest + A grief, that thou shouldst fear one! + Thou wearest still the happy look + That shines beneath a dear one: + Thy humming-bird is in the sun,[3] + Thy cuckoo in the grove, + And all the three broad worlds, for thee + Are full of wandering love." + The river floweth on. + + XIII. + + "Why, maiden, dost thou loiter? + What secret wouldst thou cover? + That peepul cannot hide thy boat, + And I can guess thy lover; + I heard thee sob his name in sleep, + It was a name I knew: + Come, little maid, be not afraid, + But let us prove him true!" + The river floweth on. + + XIV. + + The little maiden cometh, + She cometh shy and slow; + I ween she seeth through her lids + They drop adown so low: + Her tresses meet her small bare feet, + She stands and speaketh nought, + Yet blusheth red as if she said + The name she only thought. + The river floweth on. + + XV. + + She knelt beside the water, + She lighted up the flame, + And o'er her youthful forehead's calm + The fitful radiance came:-- + "Go, little boat, go soft and safe, + And guard the symbol spark!" + Soft, safe doth float the little boat + Across the waters dark. + The river floweth on. + + XVI. + + Glad tears her eyes have blinded, + The light they cannot reach; + She turneth with that sudden smile + She learnt before her speech-- + "I do not hear his voice, the tears + Have dimmed my light away, + But the symbol light will last to-night, + The love will last for aye!" + The river floweth on. + + XVII. + + Then Luti spake behind her, + Outspake she bitterly-- + "By the symbol light that lasts to-night, + Wilt vow a vow to me?" + Nuleeni gazeth up her face, + Soft answer maketh she-- + "By loves that last when lights are past, + I vow that vow to thee!" + The river floweth on. + + XVIII. + + An earthly look had Luti + Though her voice was deep as prayer-- + "The rice is gathered from the plains + To cast upon thine hair:[4] + But when _he_ comes his marriage-band + Around thy neck to throw, + Thy bride-smile raise to meet his gaze, + And whisper,--_There is one betrays, + While Luti suffers woe._" + The river floweth on. + + XIX. + + "And when in seasons after, + Thy little bright-faced son + Shall lean against thy knee and ask + What deeds his sire hath done,-- + Press deeper down thy mother-smile + His glossy curls among, + View deep his pretty childish eyes, + And whisper,--_There is none denies, + While Luti speaks of wrong._" + The river floweth on. + + XX. + + Nuleeni looked in wonder, + Yet softly answered she-- + "By loves that last when lights are past, + I vowed that vow to thee: + But why glads it thee that a bride-day be + By a word of _woe_ defiled? + That a word of _wrong_ take the cradle-song + From the ear of a sinless child?" + "Why?" Luti said, and her laugh was dread, + And her eyes dilated wild-- + "That the fair new love may her bridegroom prove, + And the father shame the child!" + The river floweth on. + + XXI. + + "Thou flowest still, O river, + Thou flowest 'neath the moon; + Thy lily hath not changed a leaf,[5] + Thy charmed lute a tune: + _He_ mixed his voice with thine and _his_ + Was all I heard around; + But now, beside his chosen bride, + I hear the river's sound." + The river floweth on. + + XXII. + + "I gaze upon her beauty + Through the tresses that enwreathe it; + The light above thy wave, is hers-- + My rest, alone beneath it: + Oh, give me back the dying look + My father gave thy water! + Give back--and let a little love + O'erwatch his weary daughter!" + The river floweth on. + + XXIII. + + "Give back!" she hath departed-- + The word is wandering with her; + And the stricken maidens hear afar + The step and cry together. + Frail symbols? None are frail enow + For mortal joys to borrow!-- + While bright doth float Nuleeni's boat, + She weepeth dark with sorrow. + The river floweth on. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] The Hindoo heaven is localized on the summit of Mount Meru--one of +the mountains of Himalaya or Himmaleh, which signifies, I believe, in +Sanscrit, the abode of snow, winter, or coldness. + +[3] Himadeva, the Indian god of love, is imagined to wander through +the three worlds, accompanied by the humming-bird, cuckoo, and gentle +breezes. + +[4] The casting of rice upon the head, and the fixing of the band or +tali about the neck, are parts of the Hindoo marriage ceremonial. + +[5] The Ganges is represented as a white woman, with a water-lily in +her right hand, and in her left a lute. + + + + +_RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY._ + + + I. + + To the belfry, one by one, went the ringers from the sun, + _Toll slowly._ + And the oldest ringer said, "Ours is music for the dead + When the rebecks are all done." + + II. + + Six abeles i' the churchyard grow on the north side in a row, + _Toll slowly._ + And the shadows of their tops rock across the little slopes + Of the grassy graves below. + + III. + + On the south side and the west a small river runs in haste, + _Toll slowly._ + And, between the river flowing and the fair green trees a-growing, + Do the dead lie at their rest. + + IV. + + On the east I sate that day, up against a willow grey: + _Toll slowly._ + Through the rain of willow-branches I could see the low hill-ranges + And the river on its way. + + V. + + There I sate beneath the tree, and the bell tolled solemnly, + _Toll slowly._ + While the trees' and river's voices flowed between the solemn noises,-- + Yet death seemed more loud to me. + + VI. + + There I read this ancient rhyme while the bell did all the time + _Toll slowly._ + And the solemn knell fell in with the tale of life and sin, + Like a rhythmic fate sublime. + + +THE RHYME. + + + I. + + Broad the forests stood (I read) on the hills of Linteged, + _Toll slowly._ + And three hundred years had stood mute adown each hoary wood, + Like a full heart having prayed. + + II. + + And the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, + _Toll slowly._ + And but little thought was theirs of the silent antique years, + In the building of their nest. + + III. + + Down the sun dropt large and red on the towers of Linteged,-- + _Toll slowly._ + Lance and spear upon the height, bristling strange in fiery light, + While the castle stood in shade. + + IV. + + There the castle stood up black with the red sun at its back-- + _Toll slowly_-- + Like a sullen smouldering pyre with a top that flickers fire + When the wind is on its track. + + V. + + And five hundred archers tall did besiege the castle wall-- + _Toll slowly._ + And the castle, seethed in blood, fourteen days and nights had stood + And to-night was near its fall. + + VI. + + Yet thereunto, blind to doom, three months since, a bride did come-- + _Toll slowly._ + One who proudly trod the floors and softly whispered in the doors, + "May good angels bless our home." + + VII. + + Oh, a bride of queenly eyes, with a front of constancies: + _Toll slowly._ + Oh, a bride of cordial mouth where the untired smile of youth + Did light outward its own sighs! + + VIII. + + 'T was a Duke's fair orphan-girl, and her uncle's ward--the Earl-- + _Toll slowly._ + Who betrothed her twelve years old, for the sake of dowry gold, + To his son Lord Leigh the churl. + + IX. + + But what time she had made good all her years of womanhood-- + _Toll slowly._ + Unto both these lords of Leigh spake she out right sovranly, + "My will runneth as my blood. + + X. + + "And while this same blood makes red this same right hand's veins," + she said-- + _Toll slowly_-- + "'T is my will, as lady free, not to wed a lord of Leigh, + But Sir Guy of Linteged." + + XI. + + The old Earl he smiled smooth, then he sighed for wilful youth-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Good my niece, that hand withal looketh somewhat soft and small + For so large a will, in sooth." + + XII. + + She too smiled by that same sign, but her smile was cold and fine-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Little hand clasps muckle gold, or it were not worth the hold + Of thy son, good uncle mine!" + + XIII. + + Then the young lord jerked his breath, and sware thickly in his teeth-- + _Toll slowly_-- + "He would wed his own betrothed, an she loved him an she loathed, + Let the life come or the death." + + XIV. + + Up she rose with scornful eyes, as her father's child might rise-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Thy hound's blood, my lord of Leigh, stains thy knightly heel," + quoth she, + "And he moans not where he lies: + + XV. + + "But a woman's will dies hard, in the hall or on the sward"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "By that grave, my lords, which made me orphaned girl and dowered lady, + I deny you wife and ward!" + + XVI. + + Unto each she bowed her head and swept past with lofty tread. + _Toll slowly._ + Ere the midnight-bell had ceased, in the chapel had the priest + Blessed her, bride of Linteged. + + XVII. + + Fast and fain the bridal train along the night-storm rode amain-- + _Toll slowly._ + Hard the steeds of lord and serf struck their hoofs out on the turf, + In the pauses of the rain. + + XVIII. + + Fast and fain the kinsmen's train along the storm pursued amain-- + _Toll slowly._ + Steed on steed-track, dashing off,--thickening, doubling, hoof on hoof, + In the pauses of the rain. + + XIX. + + And the bridegroom led the flight on his red-roan steed of might-- + _Toll slowly._ + And the bride lay on his arm, still, as if she feared no harm, + Smiling out into the night. + + XX. + + "Dost thou fear?" he said at last. "Nay," she answered him in haste,-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Not such death as we could find--only life with one behind. + Ride on fast as fear, ride fast!" + + XXI. + + Up the mountain wheeled the steed--girth to ground, and fetlocks + spread-- + _Toll slowly._ + Headlong bounds, and rocking flanks,--down he staggered, down the + banks, + To the towers of Linteged. + + XXII. + + High and low the serfs looked out, red the flambeaus tossed about-- + _Toll slowly._ + In the courtyard rose the cry, "Live the Duchess and Sir Guy!" + But she never heard them shout. + + XXIII. + + On the steed she dropped her cheek, kissed his mane and kissed his + neck-- + _Toll slowly._ + "I had happier died by thee than lived on, a Lady Leigh," + Were the first words she did speak. + + XXIV. + + But a three months' joyaunce lay 'twixt that moment and to-day-- + _Toll slowly._ + When five hundred archers tall stand beside the castle wall + To recapture Duchess May. + + XXV. + + And the castle standeth black with the red sun at its back-- + _Toll slowly._ + And a fortnight's siege is done, and, except the duchess, none + Can misdoubt the coming wrack. + + XXVI. + + Then the captain, young Lord Leigh, with his eyes so grey of blee-- + _Toll slowly._ + And thin lips that scarcely sheath the cold white gnashing of his + teeth, + Gnashed in smiling, absently,-- + + XXVII. + + Cried aloud, "So goes the day, bridegroom fair of Duchess May!" + _Toll slowly._ + "Look thy last upon that sun! if thou seest to-morrow's one + 'T will be through a foot of clay. + + XXVIII. + + "Ha, fair bride! dost hear no sound save that moaning of the hound?" + _Toll slowly._ + "Thou and I have parted troth, yet I keep my vengeance-oath, + And the other may come round. + + XXIX. + + "Ha! thy will is brave to dare, and thy new love past compare"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Yet thine old love's falchion brave is as strong a thing to have, + As the will of lady fair. + + XXX. + + "Peck on blindly, netted dove! If a wife's name thee behove"-- + _Toll slowly_-- + "Thou shalt wear the same to-morrow, ere the grave has hid the sorrow + Of thy last ill-mated love. + + XXXI. + + "O'er his fixed and silent mouth, thou and I will call back troth": + _Toll slowly._ + "He shall altar be and priest,--and he will not cry at least + 'I forbid you, I am loth!' + + XXXII. + + "I will wring thy fingers pale in the gauntlet of my mail": + _Toll slowly._ + "'Little hand and muckle gold' close shall lie within my hold, + As the sword did, to prevail." + + XXXIII. + + Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west-- + _Toll slowly._ + Oh, and laughed the Duchess May, and her soul did put away + All his boasting, for a jest. + + XXXIV. + + In her chamber did she sit, laughing low to think of it,-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Tower is strong and will is free: thou canst boast, my lord of Leigh, + But thou boastest little wit." + + XXXV. + + In her tire-glass gazed she, and she blushed right womanly-- + _Toll slowly._ + She blushed half from her disdain, half her beauty was so plain, + --"Oath for oath, my lord of Leigh!" + + XXXVI. + + Straight she called her maidens in--"Since ye gave me blame herein"-- + _Toll slowly_-- + "That a bridal such as mine should lack gauds to make it fine, + Come and shrive me from that sin. + + XXXVII. + + "It is three months gone to-day since I gave mine hand away": + _Toll slowly._ + "Bring the gold and bring the gem, we will keep bride-state in them, + While we keep the foe at bay. + + XXXVIII. + + "On your arms I loose mine hair; comb it smooth and crown it fair": + _Toll slowly._ + "I would look in purple pall from this lattice down the wall, + And throw scorn to one that's there!" + + XXXIX. + + Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west-- + _Toll slowly._ + On the tower the castle's lord leant in silence on his sword, + With an anguish in his breast. + + XL. + + With a spirit-laden weight did he lean down passionate: + _Toll slowly._ + They have almost sapped the wall,--they will enter therewithal + With no knocking at the gate. + + XLI. + + Then the sword he leant upon, shivered, snapped upon the stone-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Sword," he thought, with inward laugh, "ill thou servest for a staff + When thy nobler use is done! + + XLII. + + "Sword, thy nobler use is done! tower is lost, and shame begun!"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "If we met them in the breach, hilt to hilt or speech to speech, + We should die there, each for one. + + XLIII. + + "If we met them at the wall, we should singly, vainly fall"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "But if _I_ die here alone,--then I die who am but one, + And die nobly for them all. + + XLIV. + + "Five true friends lie for my sake in the moat and in the brake"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Thirteen warriors lie at rest with a black wound in the breast, + And not one of these will wake. + + XLV. + + "So, no more of this shall be! heart-blood weighs too heavily"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "And I could not sleep in grave, with the faithful and the brave + Heaped around and over me. + + XLVI. + + "Since young Clare a mother hath, and young Ralph a plighted faith"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Since my pale young sister's cheeks blush like rose when Ronald + speaks, + Albeit never a word she saith-- + + XLVII. + + "These shall never die for me: life-blood falls too heavily": + _Toll slowly._ + "And if _I_ die here apart, o'er my dead and silent heart + They shall pass out safe and free. + + XLVIII. + + "When the foe hath heard it said--'Death holds Guy of Linteged'"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "That new corse new peace shall bring, and a blessed, blessed thing + Shall the stone be at its head. + + XLIX. + + "Then my friends shall pass out free, and shall bear my memory"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Then my foes shall sleek their pride, soothing fair my widowed bride + Whose sole sin was love of me: + + L. + + "With their words all smooth and sweet, they will front her and + entreat"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "And their purple pall will spread underneath her fainting head + While her tears drop over it. + + LI. + + "She will weep her woman's tears, she will pray her woman's prayers"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "But her heart is young in pain, and her hopes will spring again + By the suntime of her years. + + LII. + + "Ah, sweet May! ah, sweetest grief!--once I vowed thee my belief"-- + _Toll slowly_-- + "That thy name expressed thy sweetness,--May of poets, in completeness! + Now my May-day seemeth brief." + + LIII. + + All these silent thoughts did swim o'er his eyes grown strange and + dim-- + _Toll slowly._ + Till his true men, in the place, wished they stood there face to face + With the foe instead of him. + + LIV. + + "One last oath, my friends that wear faithful hearts to do and dare!" + _Toll slowly._ + "Tower must fall and bride be lost--swear me service worth the cost!" + Bold they stood around to swear. + + LV. + + "Each man clasp my hand and swear by the deed we failed in there"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Not for vengeance, not for right, will ye strike one blow to-night!" + Pale they stood around to swear. + + LVI. + + "One last boon, young Ralph and Clare! faithful hearts to do and dare!" + _Toll slowly._ + "Bring that steed up from his stall, which she kissed before you all. + Guide him up the turret-stair. + + LVII. + + "Ye shall harness him aright, and lead upward to this height:" + _Toll slowly._ + "Once in love and twice in war hath he borne me strong and far: + He shall bear me far to-night." + + LVIII. + + Then his men looked to and fro, when they heard him speaking so-- + _Toll slowly._ + "'Las! the noble heart," they thought, "he in sooth is grief- + distraught: + Would we stood here with the foe!" + + LIX. + + But a fire flashed from his eye, 'twixt their thought and their reply-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Have ye so much time to waste? We who ride here, must ride fast + As we wish our foes to fly." + + LX. + + They have fetched the steed with care, in the harness he did wear-- + _Toll slowly._ + Past the court and through the doors, across the rushes of the floors, + But they goad him up the stair. + + LXI. + + Then from out her bower chambere did the Duchess May repair: + _Toll slowly._ + "Tell me now what is your need," said the lady, "of this steed, + That ye goad him up the stair?" + + LXII. + + Calm she stood; unbodkined through, fell her dark hair to her shoe: + _Toll slowly._ + And the smile upon her face, ere she left the tiring-glass, + Had not time enough to go. + + LXIII. + + "Get thee back, sweet Duchess May! hope is gone like yesterday": + _Toll slowly._ + One half-hour completes the breach; and thy lord grows wild of speech-- + Get thee in, sweet lady, and pray! + + LXIV. + + "In the east tower, high'st of all, loud he cries for steed from + stall": + _Toll slowly._ + "'He would ride as far,' quoth he, 'as for love and victory, + Though he rides the castle-wall.' + + LXV. + + "And we fetch the steed from stall, up where never a hoof did fall"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Wifely prayer meets deathly need: may the sweet Heavens hear thee + plead + If he rides the castle-wall!" + + LXVI. + + Low she dropt her head, and lower, till her hair coiled on the floor-- + _Toll slowly._ + And tear after tear you heard fall distinct as any word + Which you might be listening for. + + LXVII. + + "Get thee in, thou soft ladye! here is never a place for thee!" + _Toll slowly._ + "Braid thine hair and clasp thy gown, that thy beauty in its moan + May find grace with Leigh of Leigh." + + LXVIII. + + She stood up in bitter case, with a pale yet steady face: + _Toll slowly._ + Like a statue thunderstruck, which, though quivering, seems to look + Right against the thunder-place. + + LXIX. + + And her foot trod in, with pride, her own tears i' the stone beside-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Go to, faithful friends, go to! judge no more what ladies do, + No, nor how their lords may ride!" + + LXX. + + Then the good steed's rein she took, and his neck did kiss and stroke: + _Toll slowly._ + Soft he neighed to answer her, and then followed up the stair + For the love of her sweet look: + + LXXI. + + Oh, and steeply, steeply wound up the narrow stair around-- + _Toll slowly._ + Oh, and closely, closely speeding, step by step beside her treading + Did he follow, meek as hound. + + LXXII. + + On the east tower, high'st of all,--there, where never a hoof did + fall-- + _Toll slowly._ + Out they swept, a vision steady, noble steed and lovely lady, + Calm as if in bower or stall. + + LXXIII. + + Down she knelt at her lord's knee, and she looked up silently-- + _Toll slowly._ + And he kissed her twice and thrice, for that look within her eyes + Which he could not bear to see. + + LXXIV. + + Quoth he, "Get thee from this strife, and the sweet saints bless thy + life!" + _Toll slowly._ + "In this hour I stand in need of my noble red-roan steed, + But no more of my noble wife." + + LXXV. + + Quoth she, "Meekly have I done all thy biddings under sun": + _Toll slowly._ + "But by all my womanhood, which is proved so, true and good, + I will never do this one. + + LXXVI. + + "Now by womanhood's degree and by wifehood's verity"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "In this hour if thou hast need of thy noble red-roan steed, + Thou hast also need of _me_. + + LXXVII. + + "By this golden ring ye see on this lifted hand pardie"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "If, this hour, on castle-wall can be room for steed from stall, + Shall be also room for _me_. + + LXXVIII. + + "So the sweet saints with me be," (did she utter solemnly)-- + _Toll slowly._ + "If a man, this eventide, on this castle wall will ride, + He shall ride the same with _me_." + + LXXIX. + + Oh, he sprang up in the selle and he laughed out bitter-well-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Wouldst thou ride among the leaves, as we used on other eves, + To hear chime a vesper-bell?" + + LXXX. + + She clung closer to his knee--"Ay, beneath the cypress-tree!" + _Toll slowly._ + "Mock me not, for otherwhere than along the greenwood fair + Have I ridden fast with thee. + + LXXXI. + + "Fast I rode with new-made vows from my angry kinsman's house": + _Toll slowly._ + "What, and would you men should reck that I dared more for love's sake + As a bride than as a spouse? + + LXXXII. + + "What, and would you it should fall, as a proverb, before all"-- + _Toll slowly._ + "That a bride may keep your side while through castle-gate you ride, + Yet eschew the castle-wall?" + + LXXXIII. + + Ho! the breach yawns into ruin and roars up against her suing-- + _Toll slowly._ + With the inarticulate din and the dreadful falling in-- + Shrieks of doing and undoing! + + LXXXIV. + + Twice he wrung her hands in twain, but the small hands closed again. + _Toll slowly._ + Back he reined the steed--back, back! but she trailed along his track + With a frantic clasp and strain. + + LXXXV. + + Evermore the foemen pour through the crash of window and door-- + _Toll slowly._ + And the shouts of Leigh and Leigh, and the shrieks of "kill!" and + "flee!" + Strike up clear amid the roar. + + LXXXVI. + + Thrice he wrung her hands in twain, but they closed and clung again-- + _Toll slowly._ + While she clung, as one, withstood, clasps a Christ upon the rood, + In a spasm of deathly pain. + + LXXXVII. + + She clung wild and she clung mute with her shuddering lips half-shut. + _Toll slowly._ + Her head fallen as half in swound, hair and knee swept on the ground, + She clung wild to stirrup and foot. + + LXXXVIII. + + Back he reined his steed back-thrown on the slippery coping-stone: + _Toll slowly._ + Back the iron hoofs did grind on the battlement behind + Whence a hundred feet went down: + + LXXXIX. + + And his heel did press and goad on the quivering flank bestrode-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Friends and brothers, save my wife! Pardon, sweet, in change for + life,-- + But I ride alone to God." + + XC. + + Straight as if the Holy name had upbreathed her like a flame-- + _Toll slowly._ + She upsprang, she rose upright, in his selle she sate in sight, + By her love she overcame. + + XCI. + + And her head was on his breast where she smiled as one at rest-- + _Toll slowly._ + "Ring," she cried, "O vesper-bell in the beechwood's old chapelle-- + But the passing-bell rings best!" + + XCII. + + They have caught out at the rein which Sir Guy threw loose--in vain-- + _Toll slowly._ + For the horse in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air, + On the last verge rears amain. + + XCIII. + + Now he hangs, he rocks between, and his nostrils curdle in-- + _Toll slowly._ + Now he shivers head and hoof and the flakes of foam fall off, + And his face grows fierce and thin: + + XCIV. + + And a look of human woe from his staring eyes did go: + _Toll slowly._ + And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold agony + Of the headlong death below,-- + + XCV. + + And, "Ring, ring, thou passing-bell," still she cried, "i' the old + chapelle!" + _Toll slowly._ + Then, back-toppling, crashing back--a dead weight flung out to wrack, + Horse and riders overfell. + + * * * * * + + Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west-- + _Toll slowly._ + And I read this ancient Rhyme, in the churchyard, while the chime + Slowly tolled for one at rest. + + II. + + The abeles moved in the sun, and the river smooth did run-- + _Toll slowly._ + And the ancient Rhyme rang strange, with its passion and its change, + Here, where all done lay undone. + + III. + + And beneath a willow tree I a little grave did see-- + _Toll slowly_-- + Where was graved--HERE, UNDEFILED, LIETH MAUD, A THREE-YEAR CHILD, + EIGHTEEN HUNDRED FORTY-THREE. + + IV. + + Then O spirits, did I say, ye who rode so fast that day-- + _Toll slowly._ + Did star-wheels and angel wings with their holy winnowings + Keep beside you all the way? + + V. + + Though in passion ye would dash, with a blind and heavy crash-- + _Toll slowly_-- + Up against the thick-bossed shield of God's judgment in the field,-- + Though your heart and brain were rash,-- + + VI. + + Now, your will is all unwilled; now, your pulses are all stilled: + _Toll slowly._ + Now, ye lie as meek and mild (whereso laid) as Maud the child + Whose small grave was lately filled. + + VII. + + Beating heart and burning brow, ye are very patient now-- + _Toll slowly._ + And the children might be bold to pluck the kingcups from your mould + Ere a month had let them grow. + + VIII. + + And you let the goldfinch sing in the alder near in spring-- + _Toll slowly._ + Let her build her nest and sit all the three weeks out on it, + Murmuring not at anything. + + IX. + + In your patience ye are strong, cold and heat ye take not wrong-- + _Toll slowly._ + When the trumpet of the angel blows eternity's evangel, + Time will seem to you not long. + + X. + + Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west-- + _Toll slowly._ + And I said in underbreath,--All our life is mixed with death, + And who knoweth which is best? + + XI. + + Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west-- + _Toll slowly._ + And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our + incompleteness,-- + Round our restlessness, His rest. + + + + +_THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST._ + + So the dreams depart, + So the fading phantoms flee, + And the sharp reality + Now must act its part. + + WESTWOOD'S _Beads from a Rosary_ + + + I. + + Little Ellie sits alone + 'Mid the beeches of a meadow, + By a stream-side on the grass, + And the trees are showering down + Doubles of their leaves in shadow + On her shining hair and face. + + II. + + She has thrown her bonnet by, + And her feet she has been dipping + In the shallow water's flow: + Now she holds them nakedly + In her hands, all sleek and dripping, + While she rocketh to and fro. + + III. + + Little Ellie sits alone, + And the smile she softly uses + Fills the silence like a speech + While she thinks what shall be done, + And the sweetest pleasure chooses + For her future within reach. + + IV. + + Little Ellie in her smile + Chooses--"I will have a lover + Riding on a steed of steeds: + He shall love me without guile, + And to _him_ I will discover + The swan's nest among the reeds. + + V. + + "And the steed shall be red-roan, + And the lover shall be noble, + With an eye that takes the breath: + And the lute he plays upon + Shall strike ladies into trouble, + As his sword strikes men to death. + + VI. + + "And the steed it shall be shod + All in silver, housed in azure, + And the mane shall swim the wind; + And the hoofs along the sod + Shall flash onward and keep measure, + Till the shepherds look behind. + + VII. + + "But my lover will not prize + All the glory that he rides in, + When he gazes in my face: + He will say, 'O Love, thine eyes + Build the shrine my soul abides in, + And I kneel here for thy grace!' + + VIII. + + "Then, ay, then he shall kneel low, + With the red-roan steed anear him + Which shall seem to understand, + Till I answer, 'Rise and go! + For the world must love and fear him + Whom I gift with heart and hand.' + + IX. + + "Then he will arise so pale, + I shall feel my own lips tremble + With a _yes_ I must not say, + Nathless maiden-brave, 'Farewell,' + I will utter, and dissemble-- + 'Light to-morrow with to-day!' + + X. + + "Then he'll ride among the hills + To the wide world past the river, + There to put away all wrong; + To make straight distorted wills, + And to empty the broad quiver + Which the wicked bear along. + + XI. + + "Three times shall a young foot-page + Swim the stream and climb the mountain + And kneel down beside my feet-- + 'Lo, my master sends this gage, + Lady, for thy pity's counting! + What wilt thou exchange for it?' + + XII. + + "And the first time I will send + A white rosebud for a guerdon, + And the second time, a glove; + But the third time--I may bend + From my pride, and answer--'Pardon + If he comes to take my love.' + + XIII. + + "Then the young foot-page will run, + Then my lover will ride faster, + Till he kneeleth at my knee: + 'I am a duke's eldest son, + Thousand serfs do call me master, + But, O Love, I love but _thee_!' + + XIV. + + "He will kiss me on the mouth + Then, and lead me as a lover + Through the crowds that praise his deeds; + And, when soul-tied by one troth, + Unto _him_ I will discover + That swan's nest among the reeds." + + XV. + + Little Ellie, with her smile + Not yet ended, rose up gaily, + Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe, + And went homeward, round a mile, + Just to see, as she did daily, + What more eggs were with the two. + + XVI. + + Pushing through the elm-tree copse, + Winding up the stream, light-hearted, + Where the osier pathway leads, + Past the boughs she stoops--and stops. + Lo, the wild swan had deserted, + And a rat had gnawed the reeds! + + XVII. + + Ellie went home sad and slow. + If she found the lover ever, + With his red-roan steed of steeds, + Sooth I know not; but I know + She could never show him--never, + That swan's nest among the reeds! + + + + +_BERTHA IN THE LANE._ + + + I. + + Put the broidery-frame away, + For my sewing is all done: + The last thread is used to-day, + And I need not join it on. + Though the clock stands at the noon + I am weary. I have sewn, + Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown. + + II. + + Sister, help me to the bed, + And stand near me, Dearest-sweet. + Do not shrink nor be afraid, + Blushing with a sudden heat! + No one standeth in the street?-- + By God's love I go to meet, + Love I thee with love complete. + + III. + + Lean thy face down; drop it in + These two hands, that I may hold + 'Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, + Stroking back the curls of gold: + 'T is a fair, fair face, in sooth-- + Larger eyes and redder mouth + Than mine were in my first youth. + + IV. + + Thou art younger by seven years-- + Ah!--so bashful at my gaze, + That the lashes, hung with tears, + Grow too heavy to upraise? + I would wound thee by no touch + Which thy shyness feels as such. + Dost thou mind me, Dear, so much? + + V. + + Have I not been nigh a mother + To thy sweetness--tell me, Dear? + Have we not loved one another + Tenderly, from year to year, + Since our dying mother mild + Said with accents undefiled, + "Child, be mother to this child"! + + VI. + + Mother, mother, up in heaven, + Stand up on the jasper sea, + And be witness I have given + All the gifts required of me,-- + Hope that blessed me, bliss that crowned, + Love that left me with a wound, + Life itself that turneth round! + + VII. + + Thou art standing in the room, + In a molten glory shrined + That rays off into the gloom! + But thy smile is bright and bleak + Like cold waves--I cannot speak, + I sob in it, and grow weak. + + VIII. + + Ghostly mother, keep aloof + One hour longer from my soul, + For I still am thinking of + Earth's warm-beating joy and dole! + On my finger is a ring + Which I still see glittering + When the night hides everything. + + IX. + + Little sister, thou art pale! + Ah, I have a wandering brain-- + But I lose that fever-bale, + And my thoughts grow calm again. + Lean down closer--closer still! + I have words thine ear to fill, + And would kiss thee at my will. + + X. + + Dear, I heard thee in the spring, + Thee and Robert--through the trees,-- + When we all went gathering + Boughs of May-bloom for the bees. + Do not start so! think instead + How the sunshine overhead + Seemed to trickle through the shade. + + XI. + + What a day it was, that day! + Hills and vales did openly + Seem to heave and throb away + At the sight of the great sky: + And the silence, as it stood + In the glory's golden flood, + Audibly did bud, and bud. + + XII. + + Through the winding hedgerows green, + How we wandered, I and you, + With the bowery tops shut in, + And the gates that showed the view! + How we talked there; thrushes soft + Sang our praises out, or oft + Bleatings took them from the croft: + + XIII. + + Till the pleasure grown too strong + Left me muter evermore, + And, the winding road being long, + I walked out of sight, before, + And so, wrapt in musings fond, + Issued (past the wayside pond) + On the meadow-lands beyond. + + XIV. + + I sate down beneath the beech + Which leans over to the lane, + And the far sound of your speech + Did not promise any pain; + And I blessed you full and free, + With a smile stooped tenderly + O'er the May-flowers on my knee. + + XV. + + But the sound grew into word + As the speakers drew more near-- + Sweet, forgive me that I heard + What you wished me not to hear. + Do not weep so, do not shake, + Oh,--I heard thee, Bertha, make + Good true answers for my sake. + + XVI. + + Yes, and HE too! let him stand + In thy thoughts, untouched by blame. + Could he help it, if my hand + He had claimed with hasty claim? + That was wrong perhaps--but then + Such things be--and will, again. + Women cannot judge for men. + + XVII. + + Had he seen thee when he swore + He would love but me alone? + Thou wast absent, sent before + To our kin in Sidmouth town. + When he saw thee who art best + Past compare, and loveliest. + He but judged thee as the rest. + + XVIII. + + Could we blame him with grave words, + Thou and I, Dear, if we might? + Thy brown eyes have looks like birds + Flying straightway to the light: + Mine are older.--Hush!--look out-- + Up the street! Is none without? + How the poplar swings about! + + XIX. + + And that hour--beneath the beech, + When I listened in a dream, + And he said in his deep speech + That he owed me all _esteem_,-- + Each word swam in on my brain + With a dim, dilating pain, + Till it burst with that last strain. + + XX. + + I fell flooded with a dark, + In the silence of a swoon. + When I rose, still cold and stark, + There was night; I saw the moon + And the stars, each in its place, + And the May-blooms on the grass, + Seemed to wonder what I was. + + XXI. + + And I walked as if apart + From myself, when I could stand, + And I pitied my own heart, + As if I held it in my hand-- + Somewhat coldly, with a sense + Of fulfilled benevolence, + And a "Poor thing" negligence. + + XXII. + + And I answered coldly too, + When you met me at the door; + And I only _heard_ the dew + Dripping from me to the floor: + And the flowers, I bade you see, + Were too withered for the bee,-- + As my life, henceforth, for me. + + XXIII. + + Do not weep so--Dear,--heart-warm! + All was best as it befell. + If I say he did me harm, + I speak wild,--I am not well. + All his words were kind and good-- + _He esteemed me._ Only, blood + Runs so faint in womanhood! + + XXIV. + + Then I always was too grave,-- + Liked the saddest ballad sung,-- + With that look, besides, we have + In our faces, who die young. + I had died, Dear, all the same; + Life's long, joyous, jostling game + Is too loud for my meek shame. + + XXV. + + We are so unlike each other, + Thou and I, that none could guess + We were children of one mother, + But for mutual tenderness. + Thou art rose-lined from the cold, + And meant verily to hold + Life's pure pleasures manifold. + + XXVI. + + I am pale as crocus grows + Close beside a rose-tree's root; + Whosoe'er would reach the rose, + Treads the crocus underfoot. + _I_, like May-bloom on thorn-tree, + Thou, like merry summer-bee,-- + Fit that I be plucked for thee! + + XXVII. + + Yet who plucks me?--no one mourns, + I have lived my season out, + And now die of my own thorns + Which I could not live without. + Sweet, be merry! How the light + Comes and goes! If it be night, + Keep the candles in my sight. + + XXVIII. + + Are there footsteps at the door? + Look out quickly. Yea, or nay? + Some one might be waiting for + Some last word that I might say. + Nay? So best!--so angels would + Stand off clear from deathly road, + Not to cross the sight of God. + + XXIX. + + Colder grow my hands and feet. + When I wear the shroud I made, + Let the folds lie straight and neat, + And the rosemary be spread, + That if any friend should come, + (To see _thee_, Sweet!) all the room + May be lifted out of gloom. + + XXX. + + And, dear Bertha, let me keep + On my hand this little ring, + Which at nights, when others sleep, + I can still see glittering! + Let me wear it out of sight, + In the grave,--where it will light + All the dark up, day and night. + + XXXI. + + On that grave drop not a tear! + Else, though fathom-deep the place, + Through the woollen shroud I wear + I shall feel it on my face. + Rather smile there, blessed one, + Thinking of me in the sun, + Or forget me--smiling on! + + XXXII. + + Art thou near me? nearer! so-- + Kiss me close upon the eyes, + That the earthly light may go + Sweetly, as it used to rise + When I watched the morning-grey + Strike, betwixt the hills, the way + He was sure to come that day. + + XXXIII. + + So,--no more vain words be said! + The hosannas nearer roll. + Mother, smile now on thy Dead, + I am death-strong in my soul. + Mystic Dove alit on cross, + Guide the poor bird of the snows + Through the snow-wind above loss! + + XXXIV. + + Jesus, Victim, comprehending + Love's divine self-abnegation, + Cleanse my love in its self-spending, + And absorb the poor libation! + Wind my thread of life up higher, + Up, through angels' hands of fire! + I aspire while I expire. + + + + +_LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP:_ + +A ROMANCE OF THE AGE. + +_A Poet writes to his Friend._ PLACE--_A Room in Wycombe Hall._ +TIME--_Late in the evening._ + + + I. + + Dear my friend and fellow-student, I would lean my spirit o'er you! + Down the purple of this chamber tears should scarcely run at will. + I am humbled who was humble. Friend, I bow my head before you: + You should lead me to my peasants, but their faces are too still. + + II. + + There's a lady, an earl's daughter,--she is proud and she is noble, + And she treads the crimson carpet and she breathes the perfumed air, + And a kingly blood sends glances up, her princely eye to trouble, + And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair. + + III. + + She has halls among the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers, + She has farms and she has manors, she can threaten and command: + And the palpitating engines snort in steam across her acres, + As they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of the land. + + IV. + + There are none of England's daughters who can show a prouder presence; + Upon princely suitors' praying she has looked in her disdain. + She was sprung of English nobles, I was born of English peasants; + What was _I_ that I should love her, save for competence to pain? + + V. + + I was only a poor poet, made for singing at her casement, + As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other things. + Oh, she walked so high above me, she appeared to my abasement, + In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel clad in wings! + + VI. + + Many vassals bow before her as her carriage sweeps their doorways; + She has blest their little children, as a priest or queen were she: + Far too tender, or too cruel far, her smile upon the poor was, + For I thought it was the same smile which she used to smile on _me_. + + VII. + + She has voters in the Commons, she has lovers in the palace, + And, of all the fair court-ladies, few have jewels half as fine; + Oft the Prince has named her beauty 'twixt the red wine and the + chalice: + Oh, and what was _I_ to love her? my beloved, my Geraldine! + + VIII. + + Yet I could not choose but love her: I was born to poet-uses, + To love all things set above me, all of good and all of fair. + Nymphs of mountain, not of valley, we are wont to call the Muses; + And in nympholeptic climbing, poets pass from mount to star. + + IX. + + And because I was a poet, and because the public praised me, + With a critical deduction for the modern writer's fault, + I could sit at rich men's tables,--though the courtesies that raised + me, + Still suggested clear between us the pale spectrum of the salt. + + X. + + And they praised me in her presence--"Will your book appear this + summer?" + Then returning to each other--"Yes, our plans are for the moors." + Then with whisper dropped behind me--"There he is! the latest comer. + Oh, she only likes his verses! what is over, she endures. + + XI. + + "Quite low-born, self-educated! somewhat gifted though by nature, + And we make a point of asking him,--of being very kind. + You may speak, he does not hear you! and, besides, he writes no + satire,-- + All these serpents kept by charmers leave the natural sting behind." + + XII. + + I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as I stood up there among them, + Till as frost intense will burn you, the cold scorning scorched my + brow; + When a sudden silver speaking, gravely cadenced, over-rung them, + And a sudden silken stirring touched my inner nature through. + + XIII. + + I looked upward and beheld her: with a calm and regnant spirit, + Slowly round she swept her eyelids, and said clear before them all-- + "Have you such superfluous honour, sir, that able to confer it + You will come down, Mister Bertram, as my guest to Wycombe Hall?" + + XIV. + + Here she paused; she had been paler at the first word of her speaking, + But, because a silence followed it, blushed somewhat, as for shame: + Then, as scorning her own feeling, resumed calmly--"I am seeking + More distinction than these gentlemen think worthy of my claim. + + XV. + + "Ne'ertheless, you see, I seek it--not because I am a woman," + (Here her smile sprang like a fountain and, so, overflowed her mouth) + "But because my woods in Sussex have some purple shades at gloaming + Which are worthy of a king in state, or poet in his youth. + + XVI. + + "I invite you, Mister Bertram, to no scene for worldly speeches-- + Sir, I scarce should dare--but only where God asked the thrushes first: + And if _you_ will sing beside them, in the covert of my beeches, + I will thank you for the woodlands,--for the human world, at worst." + + XVII. + + Then she smiled around right childly, then she gazed around right + queenly, + And I bowed--I could not answer; alternated light and gloom-- + While as one who quells the lions, with a steady eye serenely, + She, with level fronting eyelids, passed out stately from the room. + + XVIII. + + Oh, the blessed woods of Sussex, I can hear them still around me, + With their leafy tide of greenery still rippling up the wind! + Oh, the cursed woods of Sussex! where the hunter's arrow found me, + When a fair face and a tender voice had made me mad and blind! + + XIX. + + In that ancient hall of Wycombe thronged the numerous guests invited, + And the lovely London ladies trod the floors with gliding feet; + And their voices low with fashion, not with feeling, softly freighted + All the air about the windows with elastic laughters sweet. + + XX. + + For at eve the open windows flung their light out on the terrace + Which the floating orbs of curtains did with gradual shadow sweep, + While the swans upon the river, fed at morning by the heiress, + Trembled downward through their snowy wings at music in their sleep. + + XXI. + + And there evermore was music, both of instrument and singing, + Till the finches of the shrubberies grew restless in the dark; + But the cedars stood up motionless, each in a moonlight's ringing, + And the deer, half in the glimmer, strewed the hollows of the park. + + XXII. + + And though sometimes she would bind me with her silver-corded speeches + To commix my words and laughter with the converse and the jest, + Oft I sat apart and, gazing on the river through the beeches, + Heard, as pure the swans swam down it, her pure voice o'erfloat the + rest. + + XXIII. + + In the morning, horn of huntsman, hoof of steed and laugh of rider, + Spread out cheery from the courtyard till we lost them in the hills, + While herself and other ladies, and her suitors left beside her, + Went a-wandering up the gardens through the laurels and abeles. + + XXIV. + + Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass, bareheaded, with the flowing + Of the virginal white vesture gathered closely to her throat, + And the golden ringlets in her neck just quickened by her going, + And appearing to breathe sun for air, and doubting if to float,-- + + XXV. + + With a bunch of dewy maple, which her right hand held above her, + And which trembled a green shadow in betwixt her and the skies, + As she turned her face in going, thus, she drew me on to love her, + And to worship the divineness of the smile hid in her eyes. + + XXVI. + + For her eyes alone smile constantly; her lips have serious sweetness, + And her front is calm, the dimple rarely ripples on the cheek; + But her deep blue eyes smile constantly, as if they in discreetness + Kept the secret of a happy dream she did not care to speak. + + XXVII. + + Thus she drew me the first morning, out across into the garden, + And I walked among her noble friends and could not keep behind. + Spake she unto all and unto me--"Behold, I am the warden + Of the song-birds in these lindens, which are cages to their mind. + + XXVIII. + + "But within this swarded circle into which the lime-walk brings us, + Whence the beeches, rounded greenly, stand away in reverent fear, + I will let no music enter, saving what the fountain sings us + Which the lilies round the basin may seem pure enough to hear. + + XXIX. + + "The live air that waves the lilies waves the slender jet of water + Like a holy thought sent feebly up from soul of fasting saint: + Whereby lies a marble Silence, sleeping (Lough the sculptor wrought + her), + So asleep she is forgetting to say Hush!--a fancy quaint. + + XXX. + + "Mark how heavy white her eyelids! not a dream between them lingers; + And the left hand's index droppeth from the lips upon the cheek: + While the right hand,--with the symbol-rose held slack within the + fingers,-- + Has fallen backward in the basin--yet this Silence will not speak! + + XXXI. + + "That the essential meaning growing may exceed the special symbol, + Is the thought as I conceive it: it applies more high and low. + Our true noblemen will often through right nobleness grow humble, + And assert an inward honour by denying outward show." + + XXXII. + + "Nay, your Silence," said I, "truly, holds her symbol-rose but slackly, + Yet _she holds it_, or would scarcely be a Silence to our ken: + And your nobles wear their ermine on the outside, or walk blackly + In the presence of the social law as mere ignoble men. + + XXXIII. + + "Let the poets dream such dreaming! madam, in these British islands + 'T is the substance that wanes ever, 't is the symbol that exceeds. + Soon we shall have nought but symbol: and, for statues like this + Silence, + Shall accept the rose's image--in another case, the weed's." + + XXXIV. + + "Not so quickly," she retorted,--"I confess, where'er you go, you + Find for things, names--shows for actions, and pure gold for honour + clear: + But when all is run to symbol in the Social, I will throw you + The world's book which now reads dryly, and sit down with Silence + here." + + XXXV. + + Half in playfulness she spoke, I thought, and half in indignation; + Friends, who listened, laughed her words off, while her lovers deemed + her fair: + A fair woman, flushed with feeling, in her noble-lighted station + Near the statue's white reposing--and both bathed in sunny air! + + XXXVI. + + With the trees round, not so distant but you heard their vernal murmur, + And beheld in light and shadow the leaves in and outward move, + And the little fountain leaping toward the sun-heart to be warmer, + Then recoiling in a tremble from the too much light above. + + XXXVII. + + 'T is a picture for remembrance. And thus, morning after morning, + Did I follow as she drew me by the spirit to her feet. + Why, her greyhound followed also! dogs--we both were dogs for + scorning-- + To be sent back when she pleased it and her path lay through the wheat. + + XXXVIII. + + And thus, morning after morning, spite of vows and spite of sorrow, + Did I follow at her drawing, while the week-days passed along,-- + Just to feed the swans this noontide, or to see the fawns to-morrow, + Or to teach the hill-side echo some sweet Tuscan in a song. + + XXXIX. + + Ay, for sometimes on the hill-side, while we sate down in the gowans, + With the forest green behind us and its shadow cast before, + And the river running under, and across it from the rowans + A brown partridge whirring near us till we felt the air it bore,-- + + XL. + + There, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poems + Made to Tuscan flutes, or instruments more various of our own; + Read the pastoral parts of Spenser, or the subtle interflowings + Found in Petrarch's sonnets--here's the book, the leaf is folded down! + + XLI. + + Or at times a modern volume, Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl, + Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie,-- + Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which, if cut deep down the + middle, + Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity. + + XLII. + + Or at times I read there, hoarsely, some new poem of my making: + Poets ever fail in reading their own verses to their worth, + For the echo in you breaks upon the words which you are speaking, + And the chariot wheels jar in the gate through which you drive them + forth. + + XLIII. + + After, when we were grown tired of books, the silence round us flinging + A slow arm of sweet compression, felt with beatings at the breast + She would break out on a sudden in a gush of woodland singing, + Like a child's emotion in a god--a naiad tired of rest. + + XLIV. + + Oh, to see or hear her singing! scarce I know which is divinest, + For her looks sing too--she modulates her gestures on the tune, + And her mouth stirs with the song, like song; and when the notes are + finest, + 'T is the eyes that shoot out vocal light and seem to swell them on. + + XLV. + + Then we talked--oh, how we talked! her voice, so cadenced in the + talking, + Made another singing--of the soul! a music without bars: + While the leafy sounds of woodlands, humming round where we were + walking, + Brought interposition worthy-sweet,--as skies about the stars. + + XLVI. + + And she spake such good thoughts natural, as if she always thought + them; + She had sympathies so rapid, open, free as bird on branch, + Just as ready to fly east as west, whichever way besought them, + In the birchen-wood a chirrup, or a cock-crow in the grange. + + XLVII. + + In her utmost lightness there is truth--and often she speaks lightly, + Has a grace in being gay which even mournful souls approve, + For the root of some grave earnest thought is understruck so rightly + As to justify the foliage and the waving flowers above. + + XLVIII. + + And she talked on--_we_ talked, rather! upon all things, substance, + shadow, + Of the sheep that browsed the grasses, of the reapers in the corn, + Of the little children from the schools, seen winding through the + meadow, + Of the poor rich world beyond them, still kept poorer by its scorn. + + XLIX. + + So, of men, and so, of letters--books are men of higher stature, + And the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear; + So, of mankind in the abstract, which grows slowly into nature, + Yet will lift the cry of "progress," as it trod from sphere to sphere. + + L. + + And her custom was to praise me when I said,--"The Age culls simples, + With a broad clown's back turned broadly to the glory of the stars. + We are gods by our own reck'ning, and may well shut up the temples, + And wield on, amid the incense-steam, the thunder of our cars. + + LI. + + "For we throw out acclamations of self-thanking, self admiring, + With, at every mile run faster,--'O the wondrous wondrous age!' + Little thinking if we work our SOULS as nobly as our iron, + Or if angels will commend us at the goal of pilgrimage. + + LII. + + "Why, what _is_ this patient entrance into nature's deep resources + But the child's most gradual learning to walk upright without bane? + When we drive out, from the cloud of steam, majestical white horses, + Are we greater than the first men who led black ones by the mane? + + LIII. + + "If we trod the deeps of ocean, if we struck the stars in rising, + If we wrapped the globe intensely with one hot electric breath, + 'T were but power within our tether, no new spirit-power comprising, + And in life we were not greater men, nor bolder men in death." + + LIV. + + She was patient with my talking; and I loved her, loved her certes + As I loved all heavenly objects, with uplifted eyes and hands; + As I loved pure inspirations, loved the graces, loved the virtues, + In a Love content with writing his own name on desert sands. + + LV. + + Or at least I thought so, purely; thought no idiot Hope was raising + Any crown to crown Love's silence, silent Love that sate alone: + Out, alas! the stag is like me, he that tries to go on grazing + With the great deep gun-wound in his neck, then reels with sudden moan. + + LVI. + + It was thus I reeled. I told you that her hand had many suitors; + But she smiles them down imperially as Venus did the waves, + And with such a gracious coldness that they cannot press their futures + On the present of her courtesy, which yieldingly enslaves. + + LVII. + + And this morning as I sat alone within the inner chamber + With the great saloon beyond it, lost in pleasant thought serene, + For I had been reading Camoens, that poem you remember, + Which his lady's eyes are praised in as the sweetest ever seen. + + LVIII. + + And the book lay open, and my thought flew from it, taking from it + A vibration and impulsion to an end beyond its own, + As the branch of a green osier, when a child would overcome it, + Springs up freely from his claspings and goes swinging in the sun. + + LIX. + + As I mused I heard a murmur; it grew deep as it grew longer, + Speakers using earnest language--"Lady Geraldine, you _would_!" + And I heard a voice that pleaded, ever on in accents stronger, + As a sense of reason gave it power to make its rhetoric good. + + LX. + + Well I knew that voice; it was an earl's, of soul that matched his + station, + Soul completed into lordship, might and right read on his brow; + Very finely courteous; far too proud to doubt his domination + Of the common people, he atones for grandeur by a bow. + + LXI. + + High straight forehead, nose of eagle, cold blue eyes of less + expression + Than resistance, coldly casting off the looks of other men, + As steel, arrows; unelastic lips which seem to taste possession + And be cautious lest the common air should injure or distrain. + + LXII. + + For the rest, accomplished, upright,--ay, and standing by his order + With a bearing not ungraceful; fond of art and letters too; + Just a good man made a proud man,--as the sandy rocks that border + A wild coast, by circumstances, in a regnant ebb and flow. + + LXIII. + + Thus, I knew that voice, I heard it, and I could not help the + hearkening: + In the room I stood up blindly, and my burning heart within + Seemed to seethe and fuse my senses till they ran on all sides + darkening, + And scorched, weighed like melted metal round my feet that stood + therein. + + LXIV. + + And that voice, I heard it pleading, for love's sake, for wealth, + position, + For the sake of liberal uses and great actions to be done: + And she interrupted gently, "Nay, my lord, the old tradition + Of your Normans, by some worthier hand than mine is, should be won." + + LXV. + + "Ah, that white hand!" he said quickly,--and in his he either drew it + Or attempted--for with gravity and instance she replied, + "Nay, indeed, my lord, this talk is vain, and we had best eschew it + And pass on, like friends, to other points less easy to decide." + + LXVI. + + What he said again, I know not: it is likely that his trouble + Worked his pride up to the surface, for she answered in slow scorn, + "And your lordship judges rightly. Whom I marry shall be noble, + Ay, and wealthy. I shall never blush to think how he was born." + + LXVII. + + There, I maddened! her words stung me. Life swept through me into + fever, + And my soul sprang up astonished, sprang full-statured in an hour. + Know you what it is when anguish, with apocalyptic NEVER, + To a Pythian height dilates you, and despair sublimes to power? + + LXVIII. + + From my brain the soul-wings budded, waved a flame about my body, + Whence conventions coiled to ashes. I felt self-drawn out, as man, + From amalgamate false natures, and I saw the skies grow ruddy + With the deepening feet of angels, and I knew what spirits can. + + LXIX. + + I was mad, inspired--say either! (anguish worketh inspiration) + Was a man or beast--perhaps so, for the tiger roars when speared; + And I walked on, step by step along the level of my passion-- + Oh my soul! and passed the doorway to her face, and never feared. + + LXX. + + _He_ had left her, peradventure, when my footstep proved my coming, + But for _her_--she half arose, then sate, grew scarlet and grew pale. + Oh, she trembled! 't is so always with a worldly man or woman + In the presence of true spirits; what else _can_ they do but quail? + + LXXI. + + Oh, she fluttered like a tame bird, in among its forest-brothers + Far too strong for it; then drooping, bowed her face upon her hands; + And I spake out wildly, fiercely, brutal truths of her and others: + _I_, she planted in the desert, swathed her, windlike, with my sands. + + LXXII. + + I plucked up her social fictions, bloody-rooted though leaf-verdant, + Trod them down with words of shaming,--all the purple and the gold. + All the "landed stakes" and lordships, all that spirits pure and ardent + Are cast out of love and honour because chancing not to hold. + + LXXIII. + + "For myself I do not argue," said I, "though I love you, madam, + But for better souls that nearer to the height of yours have trod: + And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam + Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God. + + LXXIV. + + "Yet, O God," I said, "O grave," I said, "O mother's heart and bosom, + With whom first and last are equal, saint and corpse and little child! + We are fools to your deductions, in these figments of heart-closing; + We are traitors to your causes, in these sympathies defiled. + + LXXV. + + "Learn more reverence, madam, not for rank or wealth--_that_ needs no + learning: + _That_ comes quickly, quick as sin does, ay, and culminates to sin; + But for Adam's seed, MAN! Trust me, 't is a clay above your scorning, + With God's image stamped upon it, and God's kindling breath within. + + LXXVI. + + "What right have you, madam, gazing in your palace mirror daily, + Getting so by heart your beauty which all others must adore, + While you draw the golden ringlets down your fingers, to vow gaily + You will wed no man that's only good to God, and nothing more? + + LXXVII. + + "Why, what right have you, made fair by that same God, the sweetest + woman + Of all women He has fashioned, with your lovely spirit-face + Which would seem too near to vanish if its smile were not so human, + And your voice of holy sweetness, turning common words to grace,-- + + LXXVIII. + + "What right _can_ you have, God's other works to scorn, despise, revile + them + In the gross, as mere men, broadly--not as _noble_ men, forsooth,-- + As mere Pariahs of the outer world, forbidden to assoil them + In the hope of living, dying, near that sweetness of your mouth? + + LXXIX. + + "Have you any answer, madam? If my spirit were less earthly, + If its instrument were gifted with a better silver string, + I would kneel down where I stand, and say--Behold me! I am worthy + Of thy loving, for I love thee. I am worthy as a king. + + LXXX. + + "As it is--your ermined pride, I swear, shall feel this stain upon her, + That _I_, poor, weak, tost with passion, scorned by me and you again, + Love you, madam, dare to love you, to my grief and your dishonour, + To my endless desolation, and your impotent disdain!" + + LXXXI. + + More mad words like these--mere madness! friend, I need not write them + fuller, + For I hear my hot soul dropping on the lines in showers of tears. + Oh, a woman! friend, a woman! why, a beast had scarce been duller + Than roar bestial loud complaints against the shining of the spheres. + + LXXXII. + + But at last there came a pause. I stood all vibrating with thunder + Which my soul had used. The silence drew her face up like a call. + Could you guess what word she uttered? She looked up, as if in wonder, + With tears beaded on her lashes, and said--"Bertram!"--It was all. + + LXXXIII. + + If she had cursed me, and she might have, or if even, with queenly + bearing + Which at need is used by women, she had risen up and said, + "Sir, you are my guest, and therefore I have given you a full hearing: + Now, beseech you, choose a name exacting somewhat less, instead!"-- + + LXXXIV. + + I had borne it: but that "Bertram"--why, it lies there on the paper + A mere word, without her accent, and you cannot judge the weight + Of the calm which crushed my passion: I seemed drowning in a vapour; + And her gentleness destroyed me whom her scorn made desolate. + + LXXXV. + + So, struck backward and exhausted by that inward flow of passion + Which had rushed on, sparing nothing, into forms of abstract truth, + By a logic agonizing through unseemly demonstration, + And by youth's own anguish turning grimly grey the hairs of youth,-- + + LXXXVI. + + By the sense accursed and instant, that if even I spake wisely + I spake basely--using truth, if what I spake indeed was true, + To avenge wrong on a woman--_her_, who sate there weighing nicely + A poor manhood's worth, found guilty of such deeds as I could do!-- + + LXXXVII. + + By such wrong and woe exhausted--what I suffered and occasioned,-- + As a wild horse through a city runs with lightning in his eyes, + And then dashing at a church's cold and passive wall, impassioned, + Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops and dies-- + + LXXXVIII. + + So I fell, struck down before her--do you blame me, friend, for + weakness? + 'T was my strength of passion slew me!--fell before her like a stone; + Fast the dreadful world rolled from me on its roaring wheels of + blackness: + When the light came I was lying in this chamber and alone. + + LXXXIX. + + Oh, of course she charged her lacqueys to bear out the sickly burden, + And to cast it from her scornful sight, but not _beyond_ the gate; + She is too kind to be cruel, and too haughty not to pardon + Such a man as I; 't were something to be level to her hate. + + XC. + + But for me--you now are conscious why, my friend, I write this letter, + How my life is read all backward, and the charm of life undone. + I shall leave her house at dawn; I would to-night, if I were better-- + And I charge my soul to hold my body strengthened for the sun. + + XCI. + + When the sun has dyed the oriel, I depart, with no last gazes, + No weak moanings (one word only, left in writing for her hands), + Out of reach of all derision, and some unavailing praises, + To make front against this anguish in the far and foreign lands. + + XCII. + + Blame me not. I would not squander life in grief--I am abstemious. + I but nurse my spirit's falcon that its wing may soar again. + There's no room for tears of weakness in the blind eyes of a Phemius: + Into work the poet kneads them, and he does not die _till then_. + + + CONCLUSION. + + I. + + Bertram finished the last pages, while along the silence ever + Still in hot and heavy splashes fell the tears on every leaf. + Having ended, he leans backward in his chair, with lips that quiver + From the deep unspoken, ay, and deep unwritten thoughts of grief. + + II. + + Soh! how still the lady standeth! 'T is a dream--a dream of mercies! + 'Twixt the purple lattice-curtains how she standeth still and pale! + 'T is a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self curses, + Sent to sweep a patient quiet o'er the tossing of his wail. + + III. + + "Eyes," he said, "now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo + me? + Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone! + Underneath that calm white forehead are ye ever burning torrid + O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone?" + + IV. + + With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air the purple curtain + Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows, + While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise for ever + Through the open casement whitened by the moonlight's slant repose. + + V. + + Said he--"Vision of a lady! stand there silent, stand there steady! + Now I see it plainly, plainly now I cannot hope or doubt-- + There, the brows of mild repression--there, the lips of silent passion, + Curved like an archer's bow to send the bitter arrows out." + + VI. + + Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling, + And approached him slowly, slowly, in a gliding measured pace; + With her two white hands extended as if praying one offended, + And a look of supplication gazing earnest in his face. + + VII. + + Said he--"Wake me by no gesture,--sound of breath, or stir of vesture! + Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to its divine! + No approaching--hush, no breathing! or my heart must swoon to death in + The too utter life thou bringest, O thou dream of Geraldine!" + + VIII. + + Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling, + But the tears ran over lightly from her eyes and tenderly:-- + "Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me? Is no woman far above me + Found more worthy of thy poet-heart than such a one as _I_?" + + IX. + + Said he--"I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that river, + Flowing ever in a shadow greenly onward to the sea! + So, thou vision of all sweetness, princely to a full completeness + Would my heart and life flow onward, deathward, through this dream of + THEE!" + + X. + + Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling, + While the silver tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks; + Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly told him, + "Bertram, if I say I love thee, ... 't is the vision only speaks." + + XI. + + Softened, quickened to adore her, on his knee he fell before her, + And she whispered low in triumph, "It shall be as I have sworn. + Very rich he is in virtues, very noble--noble, certes; + And I shall not blush in knowing that men call him lowly born." + + + + +_THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT._ + + + I. + + I stand on the mark beside the shore + Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee, + Where exile turned to ancestor, + And God was thanked for liberty. + I have run through the night, my skin is as dark, + I bend my knee down on this mark: + I look on the sky and the sea. + + II. + + O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you! + I see you come proud and slow + From the land of the spirits pale as dew + And round me and round me ye go. + O pilgrims, I have gasped and run + All night long from the whips of one + Who in your names works sin and woe! + + III. + + And thus I thought that I would come + And kneel here where ye knelt before, + And feel your souls around me hum + In undertone to the ocean's roar; + And lift my black face, my black hand, + Here, in your names, to curse this land + Ye blessed in freedom's, evermore. + + IV. + + I am black, I am black, + And yet God made me, they say: + But if He did so, smiling back + He must have cast his work away + Under the feet of his white creatures, + With a look of scorn, that the dusky features + Might be trodden again to clay. + + V. + + And yet He has made dark things + To be glad and merry as light: + There's a little dark bird sits and sings, + There's a dark stream ripples out of sight, + And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass, + And the sweetest stars are made to pass + O'er the face of the darkest night. + + VI. + + But _we_ who are dark, we are dark! + Ah God, we have no stars! + About our souls in care and cark + Our blackness shuts like prison-bars: + The poor souls crouch so far behind + That never a comfort can they find + By reaching through the prison-bars. + + VII. + + Indeed we live beneath the sky, + That great smooth Hand of God stretched out + On all His children fatherly, + To save them from the dread and doubt + Which would be if, from this low place, + All opened straight up to His face + Into the grand eternity. + + VIII. + + And still God's sunshine and His frost, + They make us hot, they make us cold, + As if we were not black and lost; + And the beasts and birds, in wood and fold, + Do fear and take us for very men: + Could the whip-poor-will or the cat of the glen + Look into my eyes and be bold? + + IX. + + I am black, I am black! + But, once, I laughed in girlish glee, + For one of my colour stood in the track + Where the drivers drove, and looked at me, + And tender and full was the look he gave-- + Could a slave look _so_ at another slave?-- + I look at the sky and the sea. + + X. + + And from that hour our spirits grew + As free as if unsold, unbought: + Oh, strong enough, since we were two, + To conquer the world, we thought. + The drivers drove us day by day; + We did not mind, we went one way, + And no better a freedom sought. + + XI. + + In the sunny ground between the canes, + He said "I love you" as he passed; + When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains, + I heard how he vowed it fast: + While others shook he smiled in the hut, + As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut + Through the roar of the hurricanes. + + XII. + + I sang his name instead of a song, + Over and over I sang his name, + Upward and downward I drew it along + My various notes,--the same, the same! + I sang it low, that the slave-girls near + Might never guess, from aught they could hear, + It was only a name--a name. + + XIII. + + I look on the sky and the sea. + We were two to love, and two to pray: + Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee, + Though nothing didst Thou say! + Coldly Thou sat'st behind the sun: + And now I cry who am but one, + Thou wilt not speak to-day. + + XIV. + + We were black, we were black, + We had no claim to love and bliss, + What marvel if each went to wrack? + They wrung my cold hands out of his, + They dragged him--where? I crawled to touch + His blood's mark in the dust ... not much, + Ye pilgrim-souls, though plain as _this_! + + XV. + + Wrong, followed by a deeper wrong! + Mere grief's too good for such as I: + So the white men brought the shame ere long + To strangle the sob of my agony. + They would not leave me for my dull + Wet eyes!--it was too merciful + To let me weep pure tears and die. + + XVI. + + I am black, I am black! + I wore a child upon my breast, + An amulet that hung too slack, + And, in my unrest, could not rest: + Thus we went moaning, child and mother, + One to another, one to another, + Until all ended for the best. + + XVII. + + For hark! I will tell you low, low, + I am black, you see,-- + And the babe who lay on my bosom so, + Was far too white, too white for me; + As white as the ladies who scorned to pray + Beside me at church but yesterday, + Though my tears had washed a place for my knee. + + XVIII. + + My own, own child! I could not bear + To look in his face, it was so white; + I covered him up with a kerchief there, + I covered his face in close and tight: + And he moaned and struggled, as well might be, + For the white child wanted his liberty-- + Ha, ha! he wanted the master-right. + + XIX. + + He moaned and beat with his head and feet, + His little feet that never grew; + He struck them out, as it was meet, + Against my heart to break it through: + I might have sung and made him mild, + But I dared not sing to the white-faced child + The only song I knew. + + XX. + + I pulled the kerchief very close: + He could not see the sun, I swear, + More, then, alive, than now he does + From between the roots of the mango ... where? + I know where. Close! A child and mother + Do wrong to look at one another + When one is black and one is fair. + + XXI. + + Why, in that single glance I had + Of my child's face, ... I tell you all, + I saw a look that made me mad! + The _master's_ look, that used to fall + On my soul like his lash ... or worse! + And so, to save it from my curse, + I twisted it round in my shawl. + + XXII. + + And he moaned and trembled from foot to head, + He shivered from head to foot; + Till after a time, he lay instead + Too suddenly still and mute. + I felt, beside, a stiffening cold: + I dared to lift up just a fold, + As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit. + + XXIII. + + But _my_ fruit ... ha, ha!--there, had been + (I laugh to think on 't at this hour!) + Your fine white angels (who have seen + Nearest the secret of God's power) + And plucked my fruit to make them wine, + And sucked the soul of that child of mine + As the humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower. + + XXIV. + + Ha, ha, the trick of the angels white! + They freed the white child's spirit so. + I said not a word, but day and night + I carried the body to and fro, + And it lay on my heart like a stone, as chill. + --The sun may shine out as much as he will: + I am cold, though it happened a month ago. + + XXV. + + From the white man's house, and the black man's hut, + I carried the little body on; + The forest's arms did round us shut, + And silence through the trees did run: + They asked no question as I went, + They stood too high for astonishment, + They could see God sit on his throne. + + XXVI. + + My little body, kerchiefed fast, + I bore it on through the forest, on; + And when I felt it was tired at last, + I scooped a hole beneath the moon: + Through the forest-tops the angels far, + With a white sharp finger from every star, + Did point and mock at what was done. + + XXVII. + + Yet when it was all done aught,-- + Earth, 'twixt me and my baby, strewed,-- + All, changed to black earth,--nothing white,-- + A dark child in the dark!--ensued + Some comfort, and my heart grew young; + I sate down smiling there and sung + The song I learnt in my maidenhood. + + XXVIII. + + And thus we two were reconciled, + The white child and black mother, thus; + For as I sang it soft and wild, + The same song, more melodious, + Rose from the grave whereon I sate + It was the dead child singing that, + To join the souls of both of us. + + XXIX. + + I look on the sea and the sky. + Where the pilgrims' ships first anchored lay + The free sun rideth gloriously, + But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away + Through the earliest streaks of the morn: + My face is black, but it glares with a scorn + Which they dare not meet by day. + + XXX. + + Ha!--in their stead, their hunter sons! + Ha, ha! they are on me--they hunt in a ring! + Keep off! I brave you all at once, + I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting! + You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think: + Did you ever stand still in your triumph, and shrink + From the stroke of her wounded wing? + + XXXI. + + (Man, drop that stone you dared to lift!--) + I wish you who stand there five abreast. + Each, for his own wife's joy and gift, + A little corpse as safely at rest + As mine in the mangoes! Yes, but _she_ + May keep live babies on her knee, + And sing the song she likes the best. + + XXXII. + + I am not mad: I am black. + I see you staring in my face-- + I know you staring, shrinking back, + Ye are born of the Washington-race, + And this land is the free America, + And this mark on my wrist--(I prove what I say) + Ropes tied me up here to the flogging-place. + + XXXIII. + + You think I shrieked then? Not a sound! + I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun; + I only cursed them all around + As softly as I might have done + My very own child: from these sands + Up to the mountains, lift your hands, + O slaves, and end what I begun! + + XXXIV. + + Whips, curses; these must answer those! + For in this UNION you have set + Two kinds of men in adverse rows, + Each loathing each; and all forget + The seven wounds in Christ's body fair, + While HE sees gaping everywhere + Our countless wounds that pay no debt. + + XXXV. + + Our wounds are different. Your white men + Are, after all, not gods indeed, + Nor able to make Christs again + Do good with bleeding. _We_ who bleed + (Stand off!) we help not in our loss! + _We_ are too heavy for our cross, + And fall and crush you and your seed. + + XXXVI. + + I fall, I swoon! I look at the sky. + The clouds are breaking on my brain + I am floated along, as if I should die + Of liberty's exquisite pain. + In the name of the white child waiting for me + In the death-dark where we may kiss and agree, + White men, I leave you all curse-free + In my broken heart's disdain! + + + + +_THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN._ + + ~"Pheu, pheu, ti prosderkesthe m' ommasin, tekna?"~ + + --Medea. + + + I. + + Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, + Ere the sorrow comes with years? + They are leaning their young heads against their mothers. + And _that_ cannot stop their tears. + The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, + The young birds are chirping in the nest, + The young fawns are playing with the shadows, + The young flowers are blowing toward the west-- + But the young, young children, O my brothers, + They are weeping bitterly! + They are weeping in the playtime of the others, + In the country of the free. + + II. + + Do you question the young children in the sorrow + Why their tears are falling so? + The old man may weep for his to-morrow + Which is lost in Long Ago; + The old tree is leafless in the forest, + The old year is ending in the frost, + The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, + The old hope is hardest to be lost: + But the young, young children, O my brothers, + Do you ask them why they stand + Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, + In our happy Fatherland? + + III. + + They look up with their pale and sunken faces, + And their looks are sad to see, + For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses + Down the cheeks of infancy; + "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary, + Our young feet," they say, "are very weak; + Few paces have we taken, yet are weary-- + Our grave-rest is very far to seek: + Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children, + For the outside earth is cold, + And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, + And the graves are for the old." + + IV. + + "True," say the children, "it may happen + That we die before our time: + Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen + Like a snowball, in the rime. + We looked into the pit prepared to take her: + Was no room for any work in the close clay! + From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her, + Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.' + If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, + With your ear down, little Alice never cries; + Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her, + For the smile has time for growing in her eyes: + And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in + The shroud by the kirk-chime. + It is good when it happens," say the children, + "That we die before our time." + + V. + + Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking + Death in life, as best to have: + They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, + With a cerement from the grave. + Go out, children, from the mine and from the city, + Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do; + Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty, + Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through! + But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows + Like our weeds anear the mine? + Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, + From your pleasures fair and fine! + + VI. + + "For oh," say the children, "we are weary, + And we cannot run or leap; + If we cared for any meadows, it were merely + To drop down in them and sleep. + Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, + We fall upon our faces, trying to go; + And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, + The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. + For, all day, we drag our burden tiring + Through the coal-dark, underground; + Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron + In the factories, round and round. + + VII. + + "For all day the wheels are droning, turning; + Their wind comes in our faces, + Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, + And the walls turn in their places: + Turns the sky in the high window, blank and reeling, + Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, + Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling: + All are turning, all the day, and we with all. + And all day the iron wheels are droning, + And sometimes we could pray, + 'O ye wheels' (breaking out in a mad moaning), + 'Stop! be silent for to-day!'" + + VIII. + + Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing + For a moment, mouth to mouth! + Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing + Of their tender human youth! + Let them feel that this cold metallic motion + Is not all the life God fashions or reveals: + Let them prove their living souls against the notion + That they live in you, or under you, O wheels! + Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, + Grinding life down from its mark; + And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, + Spin on blindly in the dark. + + IX. + + Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, + To look up to Him and pray; + So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, + Will bless them another day. + They answer, "Who is God that He should hear us, + While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred? + When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us + Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. + And _we_ hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) + Strangers speaking at the door: + Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, + Hears our weeping any more? + + X. + + "Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, + And at midnight's hour of harm, + 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, + We say softly for a charm.[6] + We know no other words except 'Our Father,' + And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, + God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, + And hold both within His right hand which is strong. + 'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely + (For they call Him good and mild) + Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, + 'Come and rest with me, my child.' + + XI. + + "But, no!" say the children, weeping faster, + "He is speechless as a stone: + And they tell us, of His image is the master + Who commands us to work on. + Go to!" say the children,--"up in Heaven, + Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. + Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving: + We look up for God, but tears have made us blind." + Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, + O my brothers, what ye preach? + For God's possible is taught by His world's loving, + And the children doubt of each. + + XII. + + And well may the children weep before you! + They are weary ere they run; + They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory + Which is brighter than the sun. + They know the grief of man, without its wisdom; + They sink in man's despair, without its calm; + Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, + Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm: + Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly + The harvest of its memories cannot reap,-- + Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly. + Let them weep! let them weep! + + XIII. + + They look up with their pale and sunken faces, + And their look is dread to see, + For they mind you of their angels in high places, + With eyes turned on Deity. + "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, + Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,-- + Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, + And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? + Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, + And your purple shows your path! + But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper + Than the strong man in his wrath." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Horne's report of +his Commission. The name of the poet of "Orion" and "Cosmo de' Medici" +has, however, a change of associations, and comes in time to remind me +that we have some noble poetic heat of literature still,--however open +to the reproach of being somewhat gelid in our humanity--1844. + + + + +_A CHILD ASLEEP._ + + + I. + + How he sleepeth, having drunken + Weary childhood's mandragore! + From its pretty eyes have sunken + Pleasures to make room for more; + Sleeping near the withered nosegay which he pulled the day before. + + II. + + Nosegays! leave them for the waking; + Throw them earthward where they grew; + Dim are such beside the breaking + Amaranths he looks unto: + Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do. + + III. + + Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden + From the palms they sprang beneath, + Now perhaps divinely holden, + Swing against him in a wreath: + We may think so from the quickening of his bloom and of his breath. + + IV. + + Vision unto vision calleth + While the young child dreameth on: + Fair, O dreamer, thee befalleth + With the glory thou hast won! + Darker wast thou in the garden yestermorn by summer sun. + + V. + + We should see the spirits ringing + Round thee, were the clouds away: + 'T is the child-heart draws them, singing + In the silent-seeming clay-- + Singing! stars that seem the mutest go in music all the way. + + VI. + + As the moths around a taper, + As the bees around a rose, + As the gnats around a vapour, + So the spirits group and close + Round about a holy childhood as if drinking its repose. + + VII. + + Shapes of brightness overlean thee, + Flash their diadems of youth + On the ringlets which half screen thee, + While thou smilest ... not in sooth + _Thy_ smile, but the overfair one, dropt from some etherial mouth. + + VIII. + + Haply it is angels' duty, + During slumber, shade by shade + To fine down this childish beauty + To the thing it must be made + Ere the world shall bring it praises, or the tomb shall see it fade. + + IX. + + Softly, softly! make no noises! + Now he lieth dead and dumb; + Now he hears the angels' voices + Folding silence in the room + Now he muses deep the meaning of the Heaven-words as they come. + + X. + + Speak not! he is consecrated; + Breathe no breath across his eyes: + Lifted up and separated + On the hand of God he lies + In a sweetness beyond touching, held in cloistral sanctities. + + XI. + + Could ye bless him, father--mother, + Bless the dimple in his cheek? + Dare ye look at one another + And the benediction speak? + Would ye not break out in weeping and confess yourselves too weak? + + XII. + + He is harmless, ye are sinful; + Ye are troubled, he at ease; + From his slumber virtue winful + Floweth outward with increase. + Dare not bless him! but be blessed by his peace, and go in peace. + + + + +_THE FOURFOLD ASPECT._ + + + I. + + When ye stood up in the house + With your little childish feet, + And, in touching Life's first shows, + First the touch of Love did meet,-- + Love and Nearness seeming one, + By the heartlight cast before, + And of all Beloveds, none + Standing farther than the door; + Not a name being dear to thought, + With its owner beyond call; + Not a face, unless it brought + Its own shadow to the wall; + When the worst recorded change + Was of apple dropt from bough, + When love's sorrow seemed more strange + Than love's treason can seem now;-- + Then, the Loving took you up + Soft, upon their elder knees, + Telling why the statues droop + Underneath the churchyard trees, + And how ye must lie beneath them + Through the winters long and deep, + Till the last trump overbreathe them, + And ye smile out of your sleep. + Oh, ye lifted up your head, and it seemed as if they said + A tale of fairy ships + With a swan-wing for a sail; + Oh, ye kissed their loving lips + For the merry merry tale-- + So carelessly ye thought upon the Dead! + + II. + + Soon ye read in solemn stories + Of the men of long ago, + Of the pale bewildering glories + Shining farther than we know; + Of the heroes with the laurel, + Of the poets with the bay, + Of the two worlds' earnest quarrel + For that beauteous Helena; + How Achilles at the portal + Of the tent heard footsteps nigh, + And his strong heart, half-immortal, + Met the _keitai_ with a cry; + How Ulysses left the sunlight + For the pale eidola race + Blank and passive through the dun light, + Staring blindly in his face; + How that true wife said to Poetus, + With calm smile and wounded heart, + "Sweet, it hurts not!" How Admetus + Saw his blessed one depart; + How King Arthur proved his mission, + And Sir Roland wound his horn, + And at Sangreal's moony vision + Swords did bristle round like corn. + Oh, ye lifted up your head, and it seemed, the while ye read, + That this Death, then, must be found + A Valhalla for the crowned, + The heroic who prevail: + None, be sure can enter in + Far below a paladin + Of a noble noble tale-- + So awfully ye thought upon the Dead! + + III. + + Ay, but soon ye woke up shrieking, + As a child that wakes at night + From a dream of sisters speaking + In a garden's summer-light,-- + That wakes, starting up and bounding, + In a lonely lonely bed, + With a wall of darkness round him, + Stifling black about his head! + And the full sense of your mortal + Rushed upon you deep and loud, + And ye heard the thunder hurtle + From the silence of the cloud. + Funeral-torches at your gateway + Threw a dreadful light within. + All things changed: you rose up straightway, + And saluted Death and Sin. + Since, your outward man has rallied, + And your eye and voice grown bold; + Yet the Sphinx of Life stands pallid, + With her saddest secret told. + Happy places have grown holy: + If ye went where once ye went, + Only tears would fall down slowly, + As at solemn sacrament. + Merry books, once read for pastime, + If ye dared to read again, + Only memories of the last time + Would swim darkly up the brain. + Household names, which used to flutter + Through your laughter unawares,-- + God's Divinest ye could utter + With less trembling in your prayers. + Ye have dropt adown your head, and it seems as if ye tread + On your own hearts in the path + Ye are called to in His wrath, + And your prayers go up in wail + --"Dost Thou see, then, all our loss, + O Thou agonized on cross? + Art thou reading all its tale?" + So mournfully ye think upon the Dead! + + IV. + + Pray, pray, thou who also weepest, + And the drops will slacken so. + Weep, weep, and the watch thou keepest + With a quicker count will go. + Think: the shadow on the dial + For the nature most undone, + Marks the passing of the trial, + Proves the presence of the sun. + Look, look up, in starry passion, + To the throne above the spheres: + Learn: the spirit's gravitation + Still must differ from the tear's. + Hope: with all the strength thou usest + In embracing thy despair. + Love: the earthly love thou losest + Shall return to thee more fair. + Work: make clear the forest-tangles + Of the wildest stranger-land + Trust: the blessed deathly angels + Whisper, "Sabbath hours at hand!" + By the heart's wound when most gory, + By the longest agony, + Smile! Behold in sudden glory + The TRANSFIGURED smiles on _thee_! + And ye lifted up your head, and it seemed as if He said, + "My Beloved, is it so? + Have ye tasted of my woe? + Of my Heaven ye shall not fail!" + He stands brightly where the shade is, + With the keys of Death and Hades, + And there, ends the mournful tale-- + So hopefully ye think upon the Dead! + + + + +_NIGHT AND THE MERRY MAN._ + + +NIGHT. + + 'Neath my moon what doest thou, + With a somewhat paler brow + Than she giveth to the ocean? + He, without a pulse or motion, + Muttering low before her stands, + Lifting his invoking hands + Like a seer before a sprite, + To catch her oracles of light: + But thy soul out-trembles now + Many pulses on thy brow. + Where be all thy laughters clear, + Others laughed alone to hear? + Where thy quaint jests, said for fame? + Where thy dances, mixed with game? + Where thy festive companies, + Mooned o'er with ladies' eyes + All more bright for thee, I trow? + 'Neath my moon what doest thou? + + +THE MERRY MAN. + + I am digging my warm heart + Till I find its coldest part; + I am digging wide and low, + Further than a spade will go, + Till that, when the pit is deep + And large enough, I there may heap + All my present pain and past + Joy, dead things that look aghast + By the daylight: now 't is done. + Throw them in, by one and one! + I must laugh, at rising sun. + + * * * * * + + Memories--of fancy's golden + Treasures which my hands have holden, + Till the chillness made them ache; + Of childhood's hopes that used to wake + If birds were in a singing strain, + And for less cause, sleep again; + Of the moss-seat in the wood + Where I trysted solitude; + Of the hill-top where the wind + Used to follow me behind, + Then in sudden rush to blind + Both my glad eyes with my hair, + Taken gladly in the snare; + Of the climbing up the rocks, + Of the playing 'neath the oaks + Which retain beneath them now + Only shadow of the bough; + Of the lying on the grass + While the clouds did overpass, + Only they, so lightly driven, + Seeming betwixt me and Heaven; + Of the little prayers serene, + Murmuring of earth and sin; + Of large-leaved philosophy + Leaning from my childish knee; + Of poetic book sublime, + Soul-kissed for the first dear time, + Greek or English, ere I knew + Life was not a poem too:-- + Throw them in, by one and one! + I must laugh, at rising sun. + + * * * * * + + --Of the glorious ambitions + Yet unquenched by their fruitions + Of the reading out the nights; + Of the straining at mad heights; + Of achievements, less descried + By a dear few than magnified; + Of praises from the many earned + When praise from love was undiscerned; + Of the sweet reflecting gladness + Softened by itself to sadness:-- + Throw them in, by one and one! + I must laugh, at rising sun. + + * * * * * + + What are these? more, more than these! + Throw in dearer memories!-- + Of voices whereof but to speak + Makes mine own all sunk and weak; + Of smiles the thought of which is sweeping + All my soul to floods of weeping; + Of looks whose absence fain would weigh + My looks to the ground for aye; + Of clasping hands--ah me, I wring + Mine, and in a tremble fling + Downward, downward all this paining! + Partings with the sting remaining, + Meetings with a deeper throe + Since the joy is ruined so, + Changes with a fiery burning, + (Shadows upon all the turning,) + Thoughts of ... with a storm they came, + _Them_ I have not breath to name: + Downward, downward be they cast + In the pit! and now at last + My work beneath the moon is done, + And I shall laugh, at rising sun. + + * * * * * + + But let me pause or ere I cover + All my treasures darkly over: + I will speak not in thine ears, + Only tell my beaded tears + Silently, most silently. + When the last is calmly told, + Let that same moist rosary + With the rest sepulchred be, + Finished now! The darksome mould + Sealeth up the darksome pit. + I will lay no stone on it, + Grasses I will sow instead, + Fit for Queen Titania's tread; + Flowers, encoloured with the sun, + And ~ai ai~ written upon none; + Thus, whenever saileth by + The Lady World of dainty eye, + Not a grief shall here remain, + Silken shoon to damp or stain: + And while she lisps, "I have not seen + Any place more smooth and clean" ... + Here she cometh!--Ha, ha!--who + Laughs as loud as I can do? + + + + +_EARTH AND HER PRAISERS._ + + + I. + + The Earth is old; + Six thousand winters make her heart a-cold; + The sceptre slanteth from her palsied hold. + She saith, "'Las me! God's word that I was 'good' + Is taken back to heaven, + From whence when any sound comes, I am riven + By some sharp bolt; and now no angel would + Descend with sweet dew-silence on my mountains, + To glorify the lovely river fountains + That gush along their side: + I see--O weary change!--I see instead + This human wrath and pride, + These thrones and tombs, judicial wrong and blood, + And bitter words are poured upon mine head-- + 'O Earth! thou art a stage for tricks unholy, + A church for most remorseful melancholy; + Thou art so spoilt, we should forget we had + An Eden in thee, wert thou not so sad!' + Sweet children, I am old! ye, every one, + Do keep me from a portion of my sun. + Give praise in change for brightness! + That I may shake my hills in infiniteness + Of breezy laughter, as in youthful mirth, + To hear Earth's sons and daughters praising Earth." + + II. + + Whereupon a child began + With spirit running up to man + As by angels' shining ladder, + (May he find no cloud above!) + Seeming he had ne'er been sadder + All his days than now, + Sitting in the chestnut grove, + With that joyous overflow + Of smiling from his mouth o'er brow + And cheek and chin, as if the breeze + Leaning tricksy from the trees + To part his golden hairs, had blown + Into an hundred smiles that one. + + III. + + "O rare, rare Earth!" he saith, + "I will praise thee presently; + Not to-day; I have no breath: + I have hunted squirrels three-- + Two ran down in the furzy hollow + Where I could not see nor follow, + One sits at the top of the filbert-tree, + With a yellow nut and a mock at me: + Presently it shall be done! + When I see which way these two have run, + When the mocking one at the filbert-top + Shall leap a-down and beside me stop, + Then, rare Earth, rare Earth, + Will I pause, having known thy worth, + To say all good of thee!" + + IV. + + Next a lover,--with a dream + 'Neath his waking eyelids hidden, + And a frequent sigh unbidden, + And an idlesse all the day + Beside a wandering stream, + And a silence that is made + Of a word he dares not say,-- + Shakes slow his pensive head: + "Earth, Earth!" saith he, + "If spirits, like thy roses, grew + On one stalk, and winds austere + Could but only blow them near, + To share each other's dew;-- + If, when summer rains agree + To beautify thy hills, I knew + Looking off them I might see + Some one very beauteous too,-- + Then Earth," saith he, + "I would praise ... nay, nay--not _thee_!" + + V. + + Will the pedant name her next? + Crabbed with a crabbed text + Sits he in his study nook, + With his elbow on a book, + And with stately crossed knees, + And a wrinkle deeply thrid + Through his lowering brow, + Caused by making proofs enow + That Plato in "Parmenides" + Meant the same Spinoza did,-- + Or, that an hundred of the groping + Like himself, had made one Homer, + _Homeros_ being a misnomer + What hath _he_ to do with praise + Of Earth or aught? Whene'er the sloping + Sunbeams through his window daze + His eyes off from the learned phrase, + Straightway he draws close the curtain. + May abstraction keep him dumb! + Were his lips to ope, 't is certain + "_Derivatum est_" would come. + + VI. + + Then a mourner moveth pale + In a silence full of wail, + Raising not his sunken head + Because he wandered last that way + With that one beneath the clay: + Weeping not, because that one, + The only one who would have said + "Cease to weep, beloved!" has gone + Whence returneth comfort none. + The silence breaketh suddenly,-- + "Earth, I praise thee!" crieth he, + "Thou hast a grave for also _me_." + + VII. + + Ha, a poet! know him by + The ecstasy-dilated eye, + Not uncharged with tears that ran + Upward from his heart of man; + By the cheek, from hour to hour, + Kindled bright or sunken wan + With a sense of lonely power; + By the brow uplifted higher + Than others, for more low declining + By the lip which words of fire + Overboiling have burned white + While they gave the nations light: + Ay, in every time and place + Ye may know the poet's face + By the shade or shining. + + VIII. + + 'Neath a golden cloud he stands, + Spreading his impassioned hands. + "O God's Earth!" he saith, "the sign + From the Father-soul to mine + Of all beauteous mysteries, + Of all perfect images + Which, divine in His divine, + In my human only are + Very excellent and fair! + Think not, Earth, that I would raise + Weary forehead in thy praise, + (Weary, that I cannot go + Farther from thy region low,) + If were struck no richer meanings + From thee than thyself. The leaning + Of the close trees o'er the brim + Of a sunshine-haunted stream + Have a sound beneath their leaves, + Not of wind, not of wind, + Which the poet's voice achieves: + The faint mountains, heaped behind, + Have a falling on their tops, + Not of dew, not of dew, + Which the poet's fancy drops: + Viewless things his eyes can view + Driftings of his dream do light + All the skies by day and night, + And the seas that deepest roll + Carry murmurs of his soul. + 'Earth, I praise thee! praise thou _me_! + God perfecteth his creation + With this recipient poet-passion, + And makes the beautiful to be. + I praise thee, O beloved sign, + From the God-soul unto mine! + Praise me, that I cast on thee + The cunning sweet interpretation, + The help and glory and dilation + Of mine immortality!" + + IX. + + There was silence. None did dare + To use again the spoken air + Of that far-charming voice, until + A Christian resting on the hill, + With a thoughtful smile subdued + (Seeming learnt in solitude) + Which a weeper might have viewed + Without new tears, did softly say, + And looked up unto heaven alway + While he praised the Earth-- + "O Earth, + I count the praises thou art worth, + By thy waves that move aloud, + By thy hills against the cloud, + By thy valleys warm and green, + By the copses' elms between, + By their birds which, like a sprite + Scattered by a strong delight + Into fragments musical, + Stir and sing in every bush; + By thy silver founts that fall, + As if to entice the stars at night + To thine heart; by grass and rush, + And little weeds the children pull, + Mistook for flowers! + --Oh, beautiful + Art thou, Earth, albeit worse + Than in heaven is called good! + Good to us, that we may know + Meekly from thy good to go; + While the holy, crying Blood + Puts its music kind and low + 'Twixt such ears as are not dull, + And thine ancient curse! + + X. + + "Praised be the mosses soft + In thy forest pathways oft, + And the thorns, which make us think + Of the thornless river-brink + Where the ransomed tread: + Praised be thy sunny gleams, + And the storm, that worketh dreams + Of calm unfinished: + Praised be thine active days, + And thy night-time's solemn need, + When in God's dear book we read + _No night shall be therein_: + Praised be thy dwellings warm + By household faggot's cheerful blaze, + Where, to hear of pardoned sin, + Pauseth oft the merry din, + Save the babe's upon the arm + Who croweth to the crackling wood: + Yea, and, better understood, + Praised be thy dwellings cold, + Hid beneath the churchyard mould, + Where the bodies of the saints + Separate from earthly taints + Lie asleep, in blessing bound, + Waiting for the trumpet's sound + To free them into blessing;--none + Weeping more beneath the sun, + Though dangerous words of human love + Be graven very near, above. + + XI. + + "Earth, we Christians praise thee thus, + Even for the change that comes + With a grief from thee to us: + For thy cradles and thy tombs, + For the pleasant corn and wine + And summer-heat; and also for + The frost upon the sycamore + And hail upon the vine!" + + + + +_THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS._ + + But see the Virgin blest + Hath laid her babe to rest. + + MILTON'S _Hymn on the Nativity_. + + + I. + + Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One! + My flesh, my Lord!--what name? I do not know + A name that seemeth not too high or low, + Too far from me or heaven: + My Jesus, _that_ is best! that word being given + By the majestic angel whose command + Was softly as a man's beseeching said, + When I and all the earth appeared to stand + In the great overflow + Of light celestial from his wings and head. + Sleep, sleep, my saving One! + + II. + + And art Thou come for saving, baby-browed + And speechless Being--art Thou come for saving? + The palm that grows beside our door is bowed + By treadings of the low wind from the south, + A restless shadow through the chamber waving: + Upon its bough a bird sings in the sun, + But Thou, with that close slumber on Thy mouth, + Dost seem of wind and sun already weary. + Art come for saving, O my weary One? + + III. + + Perchance this sleep that shutteth out the dreary + Earth-sounds and motions, opens on Thy soul + High dreams on fire with God; + High songs that make the pathways where they roll + More bright than stars do theirs; and visions new + Of Thine eternal Nature's old abode. + Suffer this mother's kiss, + Best thing that earthly is, + To glide the music and the glory through, + Nor narrow in Thy dream the broad upliftings + Of any seraph wing. + Thus noiseless, thus. Sleep, sleep my dreaming One! + + IV. + + The slumber of His lips meseems to run + Through _my_ lips to mine heart, to all its shiftings + Of sensual life, bringing contrariousness + In a great calm. I feel I could lie down + As Moses did, and die,[7]--and then live most. + I am 'ware of you, heavenly Presences, + That stand with your peculiar light unlost, + Each forehead with a high thought for a crown, + Unsunned i' the sunshine! I am 'ware. Ye throw + No shade against the wall! How motionless + Ye round me with your living statuary, + While through your whiteness, in and outwardly, + Continual thoughts of God appear to go, + Like light's soul in itself. I bear, I bear + To look upon the dropt lids of your eyes, + Though their external shining testifies + To that beatitude within which were + Enough to blast an eagle at his sun: + I fall not on my sad clay face before ye,-- + I look on His. I know + My spirit which dilateth with the woe + Of His mortality, + May well contain your glory. + Yea, drop your lids more low. + Ye are but fellow-worshippers with me! + Sleep, sleep, my worshipped One! + + V. + + We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem; + The dumb kine from their fodder turning them, + Softened their horned faces + To almost human gazes + Toward the newly Born: + The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks + Brought visionary looks, + As yet in their astonied hearing rung + The strange sweet angel-tongue: + The magi of the East, in sandals worn, + Knelt reverent, sweeping round, + With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground, + The incense, myrrh and gold + These baby hands were impotent to hold: + So let all earthlies and celestials wait + Upon Thy royal state. + Sleep, sleep, my kingly One! + + VI. + + I am not proud--meek angels, ye invest + New meeknesses to hear such utterance rest + On mortal lips,--"I am not proud"--_not proud!_ + Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son, + Albeit over Him my head is bowed + As others bow before Him, still mine heart + Bows lower than their knees. O centuries + That roll in vision your futurities + My future grave athwart,-- + Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep + Watch o'er this sleep,-- + Say of me as the Heavenly said--"Thou art + The blessedest of women!"--blessedest, + Not holiest, not noblest, no high name + Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame + When I sit meek in heaven! + For me, for me, + God knows that I am feeble like the rest! + I often wandered forth, more child than maiden + Among the midnight hills of Galilee + Whose summits looked heaven-laden, + Listening to silence as it seemed to be + God's voice, so soft yet strong, so fain to press + Upon my heart as heaven did on the height, + And waken up its shadows by a light, + And show its vileness by a holiness. + Then I knelt down most silent like the night, + Too self-renounced for fears, + Raising my small face to the boundless blue + Whose stars did mix and tremble in my tears: + God heard _them_ falling after, with His dew. + + VII. + + So, seeing my corruption, can I see + This Incorruptible now born of me, + This fair new Innocence no sun did chance + To shine on, (for even Adam was no child,) + Created from my nature all defiled, + This mystery, from out mine ignorance,-- + Nor feel the blindness, stain, corruption, more + Than others do, or _I_ did heretofore? + Can hands wherein such burden pure has been, + Not open with the cry "unclean, unclean," + More oft than any else beneath the skies? + Ah King, ah, Christ, ah son! + The kine, the shepherds, the abased wise + Must all less lowly wait + Than I, upon Thy state. + Sleep, sleep, my kingly One! + + VIII. + + Art Thou a King, then? Come, His universe, + Come, crown me Him a King! + Pluck rays from all such stars as never fling + Their light where fell a curse, + And make a crowning for this kingly brow!-- + What is my word? Each empyreal star + Sits in a sphere afar + In shining ambuscade: + The child-brow, crowned by none, + Keeps its unchildlike shade. + Sleep, sleep, my crownless One! + + IX. + + Unchildlike shade! No other babe doth wear + An aspect very sorrowful, as Thou. + No small babe-smiles my watching heart has seen + To float like speech the speechless lips between, + No dovelike cooing in the golden air, + No quick short joys of leaping babyhood. + Alas, our earthly good + In heaven thought evil, seems too good for Thee; + Yet, sleep, my weary One! + + X. + + And then the drear sharp tongue of prophecy, + With the dread sense of things which shall be done, + Doth smite me inly, like a sword: a sword? + _That_ "smites the Shepherd." Then, I think aloud + The words "despised,"--"rejected,"--every word + Recoiling into darkness as I view + The DARLING on my knee. + Bright angels,--move not--lest ye stir the cloud + Betwixt my soul and His futurity! + I must not die, with mother's work to do, + And could not live-and see. + + XI. + + It is enough to bear + This image still and fair, + This holier in sleep + Than a saint at prayer, + This aspect of a child + Who never sinned or smiled; + This Presence in an infant's face; + This sadness most like love, + This love than love more deep, + This weakness like omnipotence + It is so strong to move. + Awful is this watching place, + Awful what I see from hence-- + A king, without regalia, + A God, without the thunder, + A child, without the heart for play; + Ay, a Creator, rent asunder + From His first glory and cast away + On His own world, for me alone + To hold in hands created, crying--SON! + + XII. + + That tear fell not on Thee, + Beloved, yet thou stirrest in thy slumber! + THOU, stirring not for glad sounds out of number + Which through the vibratory palm-trees run + From summer-wind and bird, + So quickly hast thou heard + A tear fall silently? + Wak'st thou, O loving One?-- + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] It is a Jewish tradition that Moses died of the kisses of God's +lips. + + + + +_AN ISLAND._ + + All goeth but Goddis will.--OLD POET. + + + I. + + My dream is of an island-place + Which distant seas keep lonely, + A little island on whose face + The stars are watchers only: + Those bright still stars! they need not seem + Brighter or stiller in my dream. + + II. + + An island full of hills and dells, + All rumpled and uneven + With green recesses, sudden swells, + And odorous valleys driven + So deep and straight that always there + The wind is cradled to soft air. + + III. + + Hills running up to heaven for light + Through woods that half-way ran, + As if the wild earth mimicked right + The wilder heart of man: + Only it shall be greener far + And gladder than hearts ever are. + + IV. + + More like, perhaps, that mountain piece + Of Dante's paradise, + Disrupt to an hundred hills like these, + In falling from the skies; + Bringing within it, all the roots + Of heavenly trees and flowers and fruits: + + V. + + For--saving where the grey rocks strike + Their javelins up the azure, + Or where deep fissures miser-like + Hoard up some fountain treasure, + (And e'en in them, stoop down and hear, + Leaf sounds with water in your ear,--) + + VI. + + The place is all awave with trees, + Limes, myrtles purple-beaded, + Acacias having drunk the lees + Of the night-dew, faint-headed, + And wan grey olive-woods which seem + The fittest foliage for a dream. + + VII. + + Trees, trees on all sides! they combine + Their plumy shades to throw, + Through whose clear fruit and blossom fine + Whene'er the sun may go, + The ground beneath he deeply stains, + As passing through cathedral panes. + + VIII. + + But little needs this earth of ours + That shining from above her, + When many Pleiades of flowers + (Not one lost) star her over, + The rays of their unnumbered hues + Being all refracted by the dews. + + IX. + + Wide-petalled plants that boldly drink + The Amreeta of the sky, + Shut bells that dull with rapture sink, + And lolling buds, half shy; + I cannot count them, but between + Is room for grass and mosses green, + + X. + + And brooks, that glass in different strengths + All colours in disorder, + Or, gathering up their silver lengths + Beside their winding border, + Sleep, haunted through the slumber hidden, + By lilies white as dreams in Eden. + + XI. + + Nor think each arched tree with each + Too closely interlaces + To admit of vistas out of reach, + And broad moon-lighted places + Upon whose sward the antlered deer + May view their double image clear. + + XII. + + For all this island's creature-full, + (Kept happy not by halves) + Mild cows, that at the vine-wreaths pull, + Then low back at their calves + With tender lowings, to approve + The warm mouths milking them for love. + + XIII. + + Free gamesome horses, antelopes, + And harmless leaping leopards, + And buffaloes upon the slopes, + And sheep unruled by shepherds: + Hares, lizards, hedgehogs, badgers, mice, + Snakes, squirrels, frogs, and butterflies. + + XIV. + + And birds that live there in a crowd, + Horned owls, rapt nightingales, + Larks bold with heaven, and peacocks proud, + Self-sphered in those grand tails; + All creatures glad and safe, I deem + No guns nor springes in my dream! + + XV. + + The island's edges are a-wing + With trees that overbranch + The sea with song-birds welcoming + The curlews to green change; + And doves from half-closed lids espy + The red and purple fish go by. + + XVI. + + One dove is answering in trust + The water every minute, + Thinking so soft a murmur must + Have her mate's cooing in it: + So softly doth earth's beauty round + Infuse itself in ocean's sound. + + XVII. + + My sanguine soul bounds forwarder + To meet the bounding waves; + Beside them straightway I repair, + To live within the caves: + And near me two or three may dwell + Whom dreams fantastic please as well. + + XVIII. + + Long winding caverns, glittering far + Into a crystal distance! + Through clefts of which shall many a star + Shine clear without resistance, + And carry down its rays the smell + Of flowers above invisible. + + XIX. + + I said that two or three might choose + Their dwelling near mine own: + Those who would change man's voice and use, + For Nature's way and tone-- + Man's veering heart and careless eyes, + For Nature's steadfast sympathies. + + XX. + + Ourselves, to meet her faithfulness, + Shall play a faithful part; + Her beautiful shall ne'er address + The monstrous at our heart: + Her musical shall ever touch + Something within us also such. + + XXI. + + Yet shall she not our mistress live, + As doth the moon of ocean, + Though gently as the moon she give + Our thoughts a light and motion: + More like a harp of many lays, + Moving its master while he plays. + + XXII. + + No sod in all that island doth + Yawn open for the dead; + No wind hath borne a traitor's oath; + No earth, a mourner's tread; + We cannot say by stream or shade, + "I suffered _here_,--was _here_ betrayed." + + XXIII. + + Our only "farewell" we shall laugh + To shifting cloud or hour, + And use our only epitaph + To some bud turned a flower: + Our only tears shall serve to prove + Excess in pleasure or in love. + + XXIV. + + Our fancies shall their plumage catch + From fairest island-birds, + Whose eggs let young ones out at hatch, + Born singing! then our words + Unconsciously shall take the dyes + Of those prodigious fantasies. + + XXV. + + Yea, soon, no consonant unsmooth + Our smile-tuned lips shall reach; + Sounds sweet as Hellas spake in youth + Shall glide into our speech: + (What music, certes, can you find + As soft as voices which are kind?) + + XXVI. + + And often, by the joy without + And in us, overcome, + We, through our musing, shall let float + Such poems,--sitting dumb,-- + As Pindar might have writ if he + Had tended sheep in Arcady; + + XXVII. + + Or AEschylus--the pleasant fields + He died in, longer knowing; + Or Homer, had men's sins and shields + Been lost in Meles flowing; + Or Poet Plato, had the undim + Unsetting Godlight broke on him. + + XXVIII. + + Choose me the cave most worthy choice, + To make a place for prayer, + And I will choose a praying voice + To pour our spirits there: + How silverly the echoes run! + _Thy will be done,--thy will be done._ + + XXIX. + + Gently yet strangely uttered words! + They lift me from my dream; + The island fadeth with its swards + That did no more than seem: + The streams are dry, no sun could find-- + The fruits are fallen, without wind. + + XXX. + + So oft the doing of God's will + Our foolish wills undoeth! + And yet what idle dream breaks ill, + Which morning-light subdueth? + And who would murmur and misdoubt, + When God's great sunrise finds him out? + + + + +_THE SOUL'S TRAVELLING._ + + ~Ede noerous + Petasai tarsous.~ + + SYNESIUS. + + + I. + + I dwell amid the city ever. + The great humanity which beats + Its life along the stony streets, + Like a strong and unsunned river + In a self-made course, + I sit and hearken while it rolls. + Very sad and very hoarse + Certes is the flow of souls; + Infinitest tendencies + By the finite prest and pent, + In the finite, turbulent: + How we tremble in surprise + When sometimes, with an awful sound, + God's great plummet strikes the ground! + + II. + + The champ of the steeds on the silver bit, + As they whirl the rich man's carriage by; + The beggar's whine as he looks at it,-- + But it goes too fast for charity; + The trail on the street of the poor man's broom, + That the lady who walks to her palace-home, + On her silken skirt may catch no dust; + The tread of the business-men who must + Count their per-cents by the paces they take; + The cry of the babe unheard of its mother + Though it lie on her breast, while she thinks of the other + Laid yesterday where it will not wake; + The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinks + Held out in the smoke, like stars by day; + The gin-door's oath that hollowly chinks + Guilt upon grief and wrong upon hate; + The cabman's cry to get out of the way; + The dustman's call down the area-grate; + The young maid's jest, and the old wife's scold, + The haggling talk of the boys at a stall, + The fight in the street which is backed for gold, + The plea of the lawyers in Westminster Hall; + The drop on the stones of the blind man's staff + As he trades in his own grief's sacredness, + The brothel shriek, and the Newgate laugh, + The hum upon 'Change, and the organ's grinding, + (The grinder's face being nevertheless + Dry and vacant of even woe + While the children's hearts are leaping so + At the merry music's winding;) + The black-plumed funeral's creeping train, + Long and slow (and yet they will go + As fast as Life though it hurry and strain!) + Creeping the populous houses through + And nodding their plumes at either side,-- + At many a house, where an infant, new + To the sunshiny world, has just struggled and cried,-- + At many a house where sitteth a bride + Trying to-morrow's coronals + With a scarlet blush to-day: + Slowly creep the funerals, + As none should hear the noise and say + "The living, the living must go away + To multiply the dead." + Hark! an upward shout is sent, + In grave strong joy from tower to steeple + The bells ring out, + The trumpets sound, the people shout, + The young queen goes to her Parliament. + She turneth round her large blue eyes + More bright with childish memories + Than royal hopes, upon the people; + On either side she bows her head + Lowly, with a queenly grace + And smile most trusting-innocent, + As if she smiled upon her mother; + The thousands press before each other + To bless her to her face; + And booms the deep majestic voice + Through trump and drum,--"May the queen rejoice + In the people's liberties!" + + III. + + I dwell amid the city, + And hear the flow of souls in act and speech, + For pomp or trade, for merrymake or folly: + I hear the confluence and sum of each, + And that is melancholy! + Thy voice is a complaint, O crowned city, + The blue sky covering thee like God's great pity. + + IV. + + O blue sky! it mindeth me + Of places where I used to see + Its vast unbroken circle thrown + From the far pale-peaked hill + Out to the last verge of ocean, + As by God's arm it were done + Then for the first time, with the emotion + Of that first impulse on it still. + Oh, we spirits fly at will + Faster than the winged steed + Whereof in old book we read, + With the sunlight foaming back + From his flanks to a misty wrack, + And his nostril reddening proud + As he breasteth the steep thundercloud,-- + Smoother than Sabrina's chair + Gliding up from wave to air, + While she smileth debonair + Yet holy, coldly and yet brightly, + Like her own mooned waters nightly, + Through her dripping hair. + + V. + + Very fast and smooth we fly, + Spirits, though the flesh be by; + All looks feed not from the eye + Nor all hearings from the ear: + We can hearken and espy + Without either, we can journey + Bold and gay as knight to tourney, + And, though we wear no visor down + To dark our countenance, the foe + Shall never chafe us as we go. + + VI. + + I am gone from peopled town! + It passeth its street-thunder round + My body which yet hears no sound, + For now another sound, another + Vision, my soul's senses have-- + O'er a hundred valleys deep + Where the hills' green shadows sleep + Scarce known because the valley-trees + Cross those upland images, + O'er a hundred hills each other + Watching to the western wave, + I have travelled,--I have found + The silent, lone, remembered ground. + + VII. + + I have found a grassy niche + Hollowed in a seaside hill, + As if the ocean-grandeur which + Is aspectable from the place, + Had struck the hill as with a mace + Sudden and cleaving. You might fill + That little nook with the little cloud + Which sometimes lieth by the moon + To beautify a night of June; + A cavelike nook which, opening all + To the wide sea, is disallowed + From its own earth's sweet pastoral: + Cavelike, but roofless overhead + And made of verdant banks instead + Of any rocks, with flowerets spread + Instead of spar and stalactite, + Cowslips and daisies gold and white: + Such pretty flowers on such green sward, + You think the sea they look toward + Doth serve them for another sky + As warm and blue as that on high. + + VIII. + + And in this hollow is a seat, + And when you shall have crept to it, + Slipping down the banks too steep + To be o'erbrowzed by the sheep, + Do not think--though at your feet + The cliffs disrupt--you shall behold + The line where earth and ocean meet; + You sit too much above to view + The solemn confluence of the two: + You can hear them as they greet, + You can hear that evermore + Distance-softened noise more old + Than Nereid's singing, the tide spent + Joining soft issues with the shore + In harmony of discontent, + And when you hearken to the grave + Lamenting of the underwave, + You must believe in earth's communion + Albeit you witness not the union. + + IX. + + Except that sound, the place is full + Of silences, which when you cull + By any word, it thrills you so + That presently you let them grow + To meditation's fullest length + Across your soul with a soul's strength: + And as they touch your soul, they borrow + Both of its grandeur and its sorrow, + That deathly odour which the clay + Leaves on its deathlessness alway. + + X. + + Alway! alway? must this be? + Rapid Soul from city gone, + Dost thou carry inwardly + What doth make the city's moan? + Must this deep sigh of thine own + Haunt thee with humanity? + Green visioned banks that are too steep + To be o'erbrowzed by the sheep, + May all sad thoughts adown you creep + Without a shepherd? Mighty sea, + Can we dwarf thy magnitude + And fit it to our straitest mood? + O fair, fair Nature, are we thus + Impotent and querulous + Among thy workings glorious, + Wealth and sanctities, that still + Leave us vacant and defiled + And wailing like a soft-kissed child, + Kissed soft against his will? + + XI. + + God, God! + With a child's voice I cry, + Weak, sad, confidingly-- + God, God! + Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up + Unto Thy love, (as none of ours are) droop + As ours, o'er many a tear; + Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad, + Two little tears suffice to cover all: + Thou knowest, Thou who art so prodigal + Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer + Expiring in the woods, that care for none + Of those delightsome flowers they die upon. + + XII. + + O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath + We name our souls, self-spoilt!--by that strong passion + Which paled Thee once with sighs, by that strong death + Which made Thee once unbreathing--from the wrack + Themselves have called around them, call them back, + Back to Thee in continuous aspiration! + For here, O Lord, + For here they travel vainly, vainly pass + From city-pavement to untrodden sward + Where the lark finds her deep nest in the grass + Cold with the earth's last dew. Yea, very vain + The greatest speed of all these souls of men + Unless they travel upward to the throne + Where sittest THOU the satisfying ONE, + With help for sins and holy perfectings + For all requirements: while the archangel, raising + Unto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing, + Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings. + + + + +_TO BETTINE,_ + +THE CHILD-FRIEND OF GOETHE. + +"I have the second sight, Goethe!"--_Letters of a Child._ + + + I. + + Bettine, friend of Goethe, + _Hadst_ thou the second sight-- + Upturning worship and delight + With such a loving duty + To his grand face, as women will, + The childhood 'neath thine eyelids still? + + II. + + --Before his shrine to doom thee, + Using the same child's smile + That heaven and earth, beheld erewhile + For the first time, won from thee + Ere star and flower grew dim and dead + Save at his feet and o'er his head? + + III. + + --Digging thine heart and throwing + Away its childhood's gold, + That so its woman-depth might hold + His spirit's overflowing? + (For surging souls, no worlds can bound, + Their channel in the heart have found.) + + IV. + + O child, to change appointed, + Thou hadst not second sight! + What eyes the future view aright + Unless by tears anointed? + Yea, only tears themselves can show + The burning ones that have to flow. + + V. + + O woman, deeply loving, + Thou hadst not second sight! + The star is very high and bright, + And none can see it moving. + Love looks around, below, above, + Yet all his prophecy is--love. + + VI. + + The bird thy childhood's playing + Sent onward o'er the sea, + Thy dove of hope came back to thee + Without a leaf: art laying + Its wet cold wing no sun can dry, + Still in thy bosom secretly? + + VII. + + Our Goethe's friend, Bettine, + I have the second sight! + The stone upon his grave is white, + The funeral stone between ye; + And in thy mirror thou hast viewed + Some change as hardly understood. + + VIII. + + Where's childhood? where is Goethe? + The tears are in thine eyes. + Nay, thou shalt yet reorganize + Thy maidenhood of beauty + In his own glory, which is smooth + Of wrinkles and sublime in youth. + + IX. + + The poet's arms have wound thee, + He breathes upon thy brow, + He lifts thee upward in the glow + Of his great genius round thee,-- + The childlike poet undefiled + Preserving evermore THE CHILD. + + + + +_MAN AND NATURE._ + + + A sad man on a summer day + Did look upon the earth and say-- + + "Purple cloud the hill-top binding; + Folded hills the valleys wind in; + Valleys with fresh streams among you; + Streams with bosky trees along you; + Trees with many birds and blossoms; + Birds with music-trembling bosoms; + Blossoms dropping dews that wreathe you + To your fellow flowers beneath you; + Flowers that constellate on earth; + Earth that shakest to the mirth + Of the merry Titan Ocean, + All his shining hair in motion! + Why am I thus the only one + Who can be dark beneath the sun?" + + But when the summer day was past, + He looked to heaven and smiled at last, + Self-answered so-- + "Because, O cloud, + Pressing with thy crumpled shroud + Heavily on mountain top,-- + Hills that almost seem to drop + Stricken with a misty death + To the valleys underneath,-- + Valleys sighing with the torrent,-- + Waters streaked with branches horrent,-- + Branchless trees that shake your head + Wildly o'er your blossoms spread + Where the common flowers are found,-- + Flowers with foreheads to the ground,-- + Ground that shriekest while the sea + With his iron smiteth thee-- + I am, besides, the only one + Who can be bright _without_ the sun." + + + + +_A SEA-SIDE WALK._ + + + I. + + We walked beside the sea + After a day which perished silently + Of its own glory--like the princess weird + Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared, + Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! victory!" + And sank adown, a heap of ashes pale: + So runs the Arab tale. + + II. + + The sky above us showed + A universal and unmoving cloud + On which the cliffs permitted us to see + Only the outline of their majesty, + As master-minds when gazed at by the crowd: + And shining with a gloom, the water grey + Swang in its moon-taught way. + + III. + + Nor moon, nor stars were out; + They did not dare to tread so soon about, + Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun: + The light was neither night's nor day's, but one + Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt, + And silence's impassioned breathings round + Seemed wandering into sound. + + IV. + + O solemn-beating heart + Of nature! I have knowledge that thou art + Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever; + And, what time they are slackened by him ever, + So to attest his own supernal part, + Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong + The slackened cord along: + + V. + + For though we never spoke + Of the grey water and the shaded rock, + Dark wave and stone unconsciously were fused + Into the plaintive speaking that we used + Of absent friends and memories unforsook; + And, had we seen each other's face, we had + Seen haply each was sad. + + + + +_THE SEA-MEW._ + +AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO M. E. H. + + + I. + + How joyously the young sea-mew + Lay dreaming on the waters blue + Whereon our little bark had thrown + A little shade, the only one, + But shadows ever man pursue. + + II. + + Familiar with the waves and free + As if their own white foam were he, + His heart upon the heart of ocean + Lay learning all its mystic motion, + And throbbing to the throbbing sea. + + III. + + And such a brightness in his eye + As if the ocean and the sky + Within him had lit up and nurst + A soul God gave him not at first, + To comprehend their majesty. + + IV. + + We were not cruel, yet did sunder + His white wing from the blue waves under, + And bound it, while his fearless eyes + Shone up to ours in calm surprise, + As deeming us some ocean wonder. + + V. + + We bore our ocean bird unto + A grassy place where he might view + The flowers that curtsey to the bees, + The waving of the tall green trees, + The falling of the silver dew. + + VI. + + But flowers of earth were pale to him + Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim; + And when earth's dew around him lay + He thought of ocean's winged spray, + And his eye waxed sad and dim. + + VII. + + The green trees round him only made + A prison with their darksome shade; + And drooped his wing, and mourned he + For his own boundless glittering sea-- + Albeit he knew not they could fade. + + VIII. + + Then One her gladsome face did bring, + Her gentle voice's murmuring, + In ocean's stead his heart to move + And teach him what was human love: + He thought it a strange, mournful thing. + + IX. + + He lay down in his grief to die, + (First looking to the sea-like sky + That hath no waves) because, alas! + Our human touch did on him pass, + And, with our touch, our agony. + + + + +_FELICIA HEMANS_ + +TO L. E. L., + +REFERRING TO HER MONODY ON THE POETESS. + + + I. + + Thou bay-crowned living One that o'er the bay-crowned Dead art bowing, + And o'er the shadeless moveless brow the vital shadow throwing, + And o'er the sighless songless lips the wail and music wedding, + And dropping o'er the tranquil eyes the tears not of their shedding!-- + + II. + + Take music from the silent Dead whose meaning is completer, + Reserve thy tears for living brows where all such tears are meeter, + And leave the violets in the grass to brighten where thou treadest, + No flowers for her! no need of flowers, albeit "bring flowers!" thou + saidest. + + III. + + Yes, flowers, to crown the "cup and lute," since both may come to + breaking, + Or flowers, to greet the "bride"--the heart's own beating works its + aching; + Or flowers, to soothe the "captive's" sight, from earth's free bosom + gathered, + Reminding of his earthly hope, then withering as it withered: + + IV. + + But bring not near the solemn corse a type of human seeming, + Lay only dust's stern verity upon the dust undreaming: + And while the calm perpetual stars shall look upon it solely, + Her sphered soul shall look on _them_ with eyes more bright and holy. + + V. + + Nor mourn, O living One, because her part in life was mourning: + Would she have lost the poet's fire for anguish of the burning? + The minstrel harp, for the strained string? the tripod, for the + afflated + Woe? or the vision, for those tears in which it shone dilated? + + VI. + + Perhaps she shuddered while the world's cold hand her brow was + wreathing, + But never wronged that mystic breath which breathed in all her + breathing, + Which drew, from rocky earth and man, abstractions high and moving, + Beauty, if not the beautiful, and love, if not the loving. + + VII. + + Such visionings have paled in sight; the Saviour she descrieth, + And little recks _who_ wreathed the brow which on His bosom lieth: + The whiteness of His innocence o'er all her garments, flowing, + There learneth she the sweet "new song" she will not mourn in knowing. + + VIII. + + Be happy, crowned and living One! and as thy dust decayeth + May thine own England say for thee what now for Her it sayeth-- + "Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was ringing, + The foot-fall of her parting soul is softer than her singing." + + + + +_L. E. L.'S LAST QUESTION._ + + "Do you think of me as I think of you?" + (_From her poem written during the voyage to the Cape._) + + + I. + + "Do you think of me as I think of you, + My friends, my friends?"--She said it from the sea, + The English minstrel in her minstrelsy, + While, under brighter skies than erst she knew, + Her heart grew dark, and groped there as the blind + To reach across the waves friends left behind-- + "Do you think of me as I think of you?" + + II. + + It seemed not much to ask--"as _I_ of _you_?" + We all do ask the same; no eyelids cover + Within the meekest eyes that question over: + And little in the world the Loving do + But sit (among the rocks?) and listen for + The echo of their own love evermore-- + "Do you think of me as I think of you?" + + III. + + Love-learned she had sung of love and love,-- + And like a child that, sleeping with dropt head + Upon the fairy-book he lately read, + Whatever household noises round him move, + Hears in his dream some elfin turbulence,-- + Even so suggestive to her inward sense, + All sounds of life assumed one tune of love. + + IV. + + And when the glory of her dream withdrew, + When knightly gestes and courtly pageantries + Were broken in her visionary eyes + By tears the solemn seas attested true,-- + Forgetting that sweet lute beside her hand, + She asked not,--"Do you praise me, O my land?" + But,--"Think ye of me, friends, as I of you?" + + V. + + Hers was the hand that played for many a year + Love's silver phrase for England, smooth and well. + Would God her heart's more inward oracle + In that lone moment might confirm her dear! + For when her questioned friends in agony + Made passionate response, "We think of thee," + Her place was in the dust, too deep to hear. + + VI. + + Could she not wait to catch their answering breath? + Was she content, content with ocean's sound + Which dashed its mocking infinite around + One thirsty for a little love?--beneath + Those stars content, where last her song had gone,-- + They mute and cold in radiant life, as soon + Their singer was to be, in darksome death?[8] + + VII. + + Bring your vain answers--cry, "We think of thee!" + How think ye of her? warm in long ago + Delights? or crowned with budding bays? Not so. + None smile and none are crowned where lieth she, + With all her visions unfulfilled save one, + Her childhood's, of the palm-trees in the sun-- + And lo! their shadow on her sepulchre! + + VIII. + + "Do ye think of me as I think of you?"-- + O friends, O kindred, O dear brotherhood + Of all the world! what are we that we should + For covenants of long affection sue? + Why press so near each other when the touch + Is barred by graves? Not much, and yet too much + Is this "Think of me as I think of you." + + IX. + + But while on mortal lips I shape anew + A sigh to mortal issues, verily + Above the unshaken stars that see us die, + A vocal pathos rolls; and HE who drew + All life from dust, and for all tasted death, + By death and life and love appealing, saith + _Do you think of me as I think of you?_ + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] Her lyric on the Polar Star came home with her latest papers. + + + + +END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. + + + PRINTED BY + SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE + LONDON + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: Archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation are +preserved. Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_. Greek +transliterations indicated by ~tildes~. A very few minor printer's +errors have been corrected. In "The Romaunt of the Page," single quotation +and double quotation marks have been preserved as printed, in spite of +their confusing usage; no clearer edition could be found. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Elizabeth +Barrett Browning, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF E. B. 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