The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume II Part 3

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 G.o.d, made visible That men might bless it at their will.

XXIV.

The moons.h.i.+ne 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 moons.h.i.+ne 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, Pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d.[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 s.h.i.+ning holinesses Of the thousand, thousand faces G.o.d-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!

x.x.x.

"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 Fas.h.i.+oned 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 G.o.d, 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!

x.x.xI.

"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 s.h.i.+ne; 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.

x.x.xII.

"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."

x.x.xIII.

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 G.o.d-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.

x.x.xIV.

"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.

x.x.xV.

"I changed the cruel prayer I made, And bowed my meekened face, and prayed That G.o.d 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.

x.x.xVI.

"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.

x.x.xVII.

Oh you, Earth's tender and impa.s.sioned 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.