The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume II Part 29

'Earth, I praise thee! praise thou _me_!

G.o.d perfecteth his creation With this recipient poet-pa.s.sion, And makes the beautiful to be.

I praise thee, O beloved sign, From the G.o.d-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 gra.s.s 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 G.o.d's dear book we read _No night shall be therein_: Praised be thy dwellings warm By household f.a.ggot'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 G.o.d; 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 s.h.i.+ftings 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 suns.h.i.+ne! 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 G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+ning testifies To that beat.i.tude 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-wors.h.i.+ppers with me!

Sleep, sleep, my wors.h.i.+pped 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 G.o.d 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 n.o.blest, no high name Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame When I sit meek in heaven!

For me, for me, G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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: G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 G.o.d, 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!