The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume II Part 28

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 gra.s.s While the clouds did overpa.s.s, 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, Gra.s.ses I will sow instead, Fit for Queen t.i.tania'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! G.o.d'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' s.h.i.+ning 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 s.h.i.+ning.

VIII.

'Neath a golden cloud he stands, Spreading his impa.s.sioned hands.

"O G.o.d'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 suns.h.i.+ne-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.