The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 11

FOOTNOTES:

[B] Adam recognizes in _Aquarius_, the Water-bearer, and _Sagittarius_, the Archer, distinct types of the man bearing and the man combating,--the pa.s.sive and active forms of human labour. I hope that the preceding zodiacal signs--transferred to the earthly shadow and representative purpose--of Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Leo, Libra, Scorpio, Capricornus, and Pisces, are sufficiently obvious to the reader.

[C] Her maternal instinct is excited by Gemini.

THE SERAPHIM

I look for Angels' songs, and hear Him cry.

GILES FLETCHER.

THE SERAPHIM.

PART THE FIRST.

[_It is the time of the Crucifixion; and the Angels of Heaven have departed towards the Earth, except the two Seraphim, ADOR the Strong and ZERAH the Bright One._ _The place is the outer side of the shut Heavenly Gate._]

_Ador._ O Seraph, pause no more!

Beside this gate of heaven we stand alone.

_Zerah._ Of heaven!

_Ador._ Our brother hosts are gone--

_Zerah._ Are gone before.

_Ador._ And the golden harps the angels bore To help the songs of their desire, Still burning from their hands of fire, Lie without touch or tone Upon the gla.s.s-sea sh.o.r.e.

_Zerah._ Silent upon the gla.s.s-sea sh.o.r.e!

_Ador._ There the Shadow from the throne Formless with infinity Hovers o'er the crystal sea Awfuller than light derived, And red with those primeval heats Whereby all life has lived.

_Zerah._ Our visible G.o.d, our heavenly seats!

_Ador._ Beneath us sinks the pomp angelical, Cherub and seraph, powers and virtues, all,-- The roar of whose descent has died To a still sound, as thunder into rain.

Immeasurable s.p.a.ce spreads magnified With that thick life, along the plane The worlds slid out on. What a fall And eddy of wings innumerous, crossed By trailing curls that have not lost The glitter of the G.o.d-smile shed On every prostrate angel's head!

What gleaming up of hands that fling Their homage in retorted rays, From high instinct of wors.h.i.+pping, And habitude of praise!

_Zerah._ Rapidly they drop below us: Pointed palm and wing and hair Indistinguishable show us Only pulses in the air Throbbing with a fiery beat, As if a new creation heard Some divine and plastic word, And trembling at its new-found being, Awakened at our feet.

_Ador._ Zerah, do not wait for seeing!

HIS voice, his, that thrills us so As we our harpstrings, uttered _Go_, _Behold the Holy in his woe!_ And all are gone, save thee and--

_Zerah._ Thee!

_Ador._ I stood the nearest to the throne In hierarchical degree, What time the Voice said _Go_!

And whether I was moved alone By the storm-pathos of the tone Which swept through heaven the alien name of _woe_, Or whether the subtle glory broke Through my strong and s.h.i.+elding wings, Bearing to my finite essence Incapacious of their presence, Infinite imaginings, None knoweth save the Throned who spoke; But I who at creation stood upright And heard the G.o.d-breath move Shaping the words that lightened, "Be there light, Nor trembled but with love, Now fell down shudderingly, My face upon the pavement whence I had towered, As if in mine immortal overpowered By G.o.d's eternity.

_Zerah._ Let me wait!--let me wait!--

_Ador._ Nay, gaze not backward through the gate!

G.o.d fills our heaven with G.o.d's own solitude Till all the pavements glow: His G.o.dhead being no more subdued, By itself, to glories low Which seraphs can sustain.

What if thou, in gazing so, Shouldst behold but only one Attribute, the veil undone-- Even that to which we dare to press Nearest, for its gentleness-- Ay, his love!

How the deep ecstatic pain Thy being's strength would capture!

Without language for the rapture, Without music strong to come And set the adoration free, For ever, ever, wouldst thou be Amid the general chorus dumb, G.o.d-stricken to seraphic agony.

Or, brother, what if on thine eyes In vision bare should rise The life-fount whence his hand did gather With solitary force Our immortalities!

Straightway how thine own would wither, Falter like a human breath, And shrink into a point like death, By gazing on its source!-- My words have imaged dread Meekly hast thou bent thine head, And dropt thy wings in languishment: Overclouding foot and face, As if G.o.d's throne were eminent Before thee, in the place.

Yet not--not so, O loving spirit and meek, dost thou fulfil The supreme Will.

Not for obeisance but obedience, Give motion to thy wings! Depart from hence!

The voice said "Go!"

_Zerah._ Beloved, I depart, His will is as a spirit within my spirit, A portion of the being I inherit.

His will is mine obedience. I resemble A flame all undefiled though it tremble; I go and tremble. Love me, O beloved!

O thou, who stronger art, And standest ever near the Infinite, Pale with the light of Light, Love me, beloved! me, more newly made, More feeble, more afraid; And let me hear with mine thy pinions moved, As close and gentle as the loving are, That love being near, heaven may not seem so far.

_Ador._ I am near thee and I love thee.

Were I loveless, from thee gone, Love is round, beneath, above thee, G.o.d, the omnipresent one.

Spread the wing and lift the brow!

Well-beloved, what fearest thou?

_Zerah._ I fear, I fear--

_Ador._ What fear?

_Zerah._ The fear of earth.

_Ador._ Of earth, the G.o.d-created and G.o.d-praised In the hour of birth?

Where every night the moon in light Doth lead the waters silver-faced?

Where every day the sun doth lay A rapture to the heart of all The leafy and reeded pastoral, As if the joyous shout which burst From angel lips to see him first, Had left a silent echo in his ray?

_Zerah._ Of earth--the G.o.d-created and G.o.d-curst, Where man is, and the thorn: Where sun and moon have borne No light to souls forlorn: Where Eden's tree of life no more uprears Its spiral leaves and fruitage, but instead The yew-tree bows its melancholy head And all the undergra.s.ses kills and seres.

_Ador._ Of earth the weak, Made and unmade?

Where men, that faint, do strive for crowns that fade?

Where, having won the profit which they seek, They lie beside the sceptre and the gold With fleshless hands that cannot wield or hold, And the stars s.h.i.+ne in their unwinking eyes?

_Zerah._ Of earth the bold, Where the blind matter wrings An awful potence out of impotence, Bowing the spiritual things To the things of sense.

Where the human will replies With ay and no, Because the human pulse is quick or slow.

Where Love succ.u.mbs to Change, With only his own memories, for revenge.

And the fearful mystery--