I have no breath to use in sighs; They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes To seal them safe from tears.
Look on me with thine own calm look: I meet it calm as thou.
No look of thine can change this smile, Or break thy sinful vow: I tell thee that my poor scorn"d heart Is of thine earth--thine earth--a part: It cannot vex thee now.
I have pray"d for thee with bursting sob When pa.s.sion"s course was free; I have pray"d for thee with silent lips In the anguish none could see; They whisper"d oft, "She sleepeth soft"-- But I only pray"d for thee.
Go to! I pray for thee no more: The corpse"s tongue is still; Its folded fingers point to heaven, But point there stiff and chill: No farther wrong, no farther woe Hath licence from the sin below Its tranquil heart to thrill.
I charge thee, by the living"s prayer, And the dead"s silentness, To wring from out thy soul a cry Which G.o.d shall hear and bless!
Lest Heaven"s own palm droop in my hand, And pale among the saints I stand, A saint companionless.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
679. The Deserted Garden
I MIND me in the days departed, How often underneath the sun With childish bounds I used to run To a garden long deserted.
The beds and walks were vanish"d quite; And wheresoe"er had struck the spade, The greenest gra.s.ses Nature laid, To sanctify her right.
I call"d the place my wilderness, For no one enter"d there but I.
The sheep look"d in, the gra.s.s to espy, And pa.s.s"d it ne"ertheless.
The trees were interwoven wild, And spread their boughs enough about To keep both sheep and shepherd out, But not a happy child.
Adventurous joy it was for me!
I crept beneath the boughs, and found A circle smooth of mossy ground Beneath a poplar-tree.
Old garden rose-trees hedged it in, Bedropt with roses waxen-white, Well satisfied with dew and light, And careless to be seen.
Long years ago, it might befall, When all the garden flowers were trim, The grave old gardener prided him On these the most of all.
Some Lady, stately overmuch, Here moving with a silken noise, Has blush"d beside them at the voice That liken"d her to such.
Or these, to make a diadem, She often may have pluck"d and twined; Half-smiling as it came to mind, That few would look at them.
O, little thought that Lady proud, A child would watch her fair white rose, When buried lay her whiter brows, And silk was changed for shroud!--
Nor thought that gardener (full of scorns For men unlearn"d and simple phrase) A child would bring it all its praise, By creeping through the thorns!
To me upon my low moss seat, Though never a dream the roses sent Of science or love"s compliment, I ween they smelt as sweet.
It did not move my grief to see The trace of human step departed: Because the garden was deserted, The blither place for me!
Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken Hath childhood "twixt the sun and sward: We draw the moral afterward-- We feel the gladness then.
And gladdest hours for me did glide In silence at the rose-tree wall: A thrush made gladness musical Upon the other side.
Nor he nor I did e"er incline To peck or pluck the blossoms white:-- How should I know but that they might Lead lives as glad as mine?
To make my hermit-home complete, I brought clear water from the spring Praised in its own low murmuring, And cresses glossy wet.
And so, I thought, my likeness grew (Without the melancholy tale) To "gentle hermit of the dale,"
And Angelina too.
For oft I read within my nook Such minstrel stories; till the breeze Made sounds poetic in the trees, And then I shut the book.
If I shut this wherein I write, I hear no more the wind athwart Those trees, nor feel that childish heart Delighting in delight.
My childhood from my life is parted, My footstep from the moss which drew Its fairy circle round: anew The garden is deserted.
Another thrush may there rehea.r.s.e The madrigals which sweetest are; No more for me!--myself afar Do sing a sadder verse.
Ah me! ah me! when erst I lay In that child"s-nest so greenly wrought, I laugh"d unto myself and thought, "The time will pa.s.s away."
And still I laugh"d, and did not fear But that, whene"er was pa.s.s"d away The childish time, some happier play My womanhood would cheer.
I knew the time would pa.s.s away; And yet, beside the rose-tree wall, Dear G.o.d, how seldom, if at all, Did I look up to pray!
The time is past: and now that grows The cypress high among the trees, And I behold white sepulchres As well as the white rose,--
When wiser, meeker thoughts are given, And I have learnt to lift my face, Reminded how earth"s greenest place The colour draws from heaven,--
It something saith for earthly pain, But more for heavenly promise free, That I who was, would shrink to be That happy child again.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
680. Consolation
ALL are not taken; there are left behind Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring And make the daylight still a happy thing, And tender voices, to make soft the wind: But if it were not so--if I could find No love in all this world for comforting, Nor any path but hollowly did ring Where "dust to dust" the love from life disjoin"d; And if, before those sepulchres unmoving I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth) Crying "Where are ye, O my loved and loving?"-- I know a voice would sound, "Daughter, I AM.
Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth?"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
681. Grief
I TELL you, hopeless grief is pa.s.sionless; That only men incredulous of despair, Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to G.o.d"s throne in loud access Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness In souls as countries lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death-- Most like a monumental statue set In everlasting watch and moveless woe Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet: If it could weep, it could arise and go.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
682. Sonnets from the Portuguese i
I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wish"d-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw in gradual vision through my tears The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years-- Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was "ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, "Guess now who holds thee?"--"Death," I said. But there The silver answer rang--"Not Death, but Love."