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Browning, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Title: The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Volume II

Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Release Date: August 6, 2010 [EBook #33363]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF E. B. BARRETT ***




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THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

_In Six Volumes_

VOL. II.


LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO. , 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1890




CONTENTS.


PAGE

THE ROMAUNT OF MARGRET 3
ISOBEL'S CHILD 15
THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE 40
THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY.
FIRST PART 57
SECOND PART 63
THIRD PART 72
FOURTH PART 80
A ROMANCE OF THE GANGES 83
RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 94
THE RHYME 96
THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 132
BERTHA IN THE LANE 138
LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 150
THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT 192
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 205
A CHILD ASLEEP 213
THE FOURFOLD ASPECT 217
NIGHT AND THE MERRY MAN.
NIGHT 223
THE MERRY MAN 224
EARTH AND HER PRAISERS 229
THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS 239
AN ISLAND 248
THE SOUL'S TRAVELLING 259
TO BETTINE, THE CHILD-FRIEND OF GOETHE 270
MAN AND NATURE 274
A SEA-SIDE WALK 276
THE SEA-MEW 278
FELICIA HEMANS TO L. E. L. 281
L. E. L. 'S LAST QUESTION 284




POEMS




_THE ROMAUNT OF MARGRET. _

Can my affections find out nothing best,
But still and still remove?

QUARLES.


I.

I plant a tree whose leaf
The yew-tree leaf will suit:
But when its shade is o'er you laid,
Turn round and pluck the fruit.
Now reach my harp from off the wall
Where shines the sun aslant;
The sun may shine and we be cold!
O hearken, loving hearts and bold,
Unto my wild romaunt.
Margret, Margret.

II.

Sitteth the fair ladye
Close to the river side
Which runneth on with a merry tone
Her merry thoughts to guide:
It runneth through the trees,
It runneth by the hill,
Nathless the lady's thoughts have found
A way more pleasant still
Margret, Margret.

III.

The night is in her hair
And giveth shade to shade,
And the pale moonlight on her forehead white
Like a spirit's hand is laid;
Her lips part with a smile
Instead of speakings done:
I ween, she thinketh of a voice,
Albeit uttering none.
Margret, Margret.

IV.

All little birds do sit
With heads beneath their wings:
Nature doth seem in a mystic dream,
Absorbed from her living things:
That dream by that ladye
Is certes unpartook,
For she looketh to the high cold stars
With a tender human look
Margret, Margret.

V.

The lady's shadow lies
Upon the running river;
It lieth no less in its quietness,
For that which resteth never:
Most like a trusting heart
Upon a passing faith,
Or as upon the course of life
The steadfast doom of death.
Margret, Margret.

VI.

The lady doth not move,
The lady doth not dream,
Yet she seeth her shade no longer laid
In rest upon the stream:
It shaketh without wind,
It parteth from the tide,
It standeth upright in the cleft moonlight,
It sitteth at her side.
Margret, Margret.

VII.

Look in its face, ladye,
And keep thee from thy swound;
With a spirit bold thy pulses hold
And hear its voice's sound:
For so will sound thy voice
When thy face is to the wall,
And such will be thy face, ladye,
When the maidens work thy pall.
Margret, Margret.

VIII.

"Am I not like to thee? "
The voice was calm and low,
And between each word you might have heard
The silent forests grow;
"_The like may sway the like;_"
By which mysterious law
Mine eyes from thine and my lips from thine
The light and breath may draw.
Margret, Margret.

IX.

"My lips do need thy breath,
My lips do need thy smile,
And my pallid eyne, that light in thine
Which met the stars erewhile:
Yet go with light and life
If that thou lovest one
In all the earth who loveth thee
As truly as the sun,
Margret, Margret. "

X.

Her cheek had waxèd white
Like cloud at fall of snow;
Then like to one at set of sun,
It waxèd red alsò;
For love's name maketh bold
As if the loved were near:
And then she sighed the deep long sigh
Which cometh after fear.
Margret, Margret.

XI.

"Now, sooth, I fear thee not--
Shall never fear thee now! "
(And a noble sight was the sudden light
Which lit her lifted brow. )
"Can earth be dry of streams,
Or hearts of love? " she said;
"Who doubteth love, can know not love:
He is already dead. "
Margret, Margret.

XII.

"I have" . . . and here her lips
Some word in pause did keep,
And gave the while a quiet smile
As if they paused in sleep,--
"I have . . . a brother dear,
A knight of knightly fame!
I broidered him a knightly scarf
With letters of my name
Margret, Margret.

XIII.

"I fed his grey goshawk,
I kissed his fierce bloodhoùnd,
I sate at home when he might come
And caught his horn's far sound:
I sang him hunter's songs,
I poured him the red wine,
He looked across the cup and said,
_I love thee, sister mine. _"
Margret, Margret.

XIV.

IT trembled on the grass
With a low, shadowy laughter;
The sounding river which rolled, for ever
Stood dumb and stagnant after:
"Brave knight thy brother is!
But better loveth he
Thy chaliced wine than thy chaunted song,
And better both than thee,
Margret, Margret. "

XV.

The lady did not heed
The river's silence while
Her own thoughts still ran at their will,
And calm was still her smile.
"My little sister wears
The look our mother wore:
I smooth her locks with a golden comb,
I bless her evermore. "
Margret, Margret.

XVI.

"I gave her my first bird
When first my voice it knew;
I made her share my posies rare
And told her where they grew:
I taught her God's dear name
With prayer and praise to tell,
She looked from heaven into my face
And said, _I love thee well. _"
Margret, Margret.

XVII.

IT trembled on the grass
With a low, shadowy laughter;
You could see each bird as it woke and stared
Through the shrivelled foliage after.
"Fair child thy sister is!
But better loveth she
Thy golden comb than thy gathered flowers,
And better both than thee,
Margret, Margret. "

XVIII.

Thy lady did not heed
The withering on the bough;
Still calm her smile albeit the while
A little pale her brow:
"I have a father old,
The lord of ancient halls;
An hundred friends are in his court
Yet only me he calls.
Margret, Margret.

XIX.

"An hundred knights are in his court
Yet read I by his knee;
And when forth they go to the tourney-show
I rise not up to see:
'T is a weary book to read,
My tryst's at set of sun,
But loving and dear beneath the stars
Is his blessing when I've done. "
Margret, Margret.

XX.

IT trembled on the grass
With a low, shadowy laughter;
And moon and star though bright and far
Did shrink and darken after.
"High lord thy father is!
But better loveth he
His ancient halls than his hundred friends,
His ancient halls, than thee,
Margret, Margret. "

XXI.

The lady did not heed
That the far stars did fail;
Still calm her smile, albeit the while . . .
Nay, but she is not pale!
"I have more than a friend
Across the mountains dim:
No other's voice is soft to me,
Unless it nameth _him_. "
Margret, Margret.

XXII.

"Though louder beats my heart,
I know his tread again,
And his fair plume aye, unless turned away,
For the tears do blind me then:
We brake no gold, a sign
Of stronger faith to be,
But I wear his last look in my soul,
Which said, _I love but thee! _"
Margret, Margret.

XXIII.

IT trembled on the grass
With a low, shadowy laughter;
And the wind did toll, as a passing soul
Were sped by church-bell after;
And shadows, 'stead of light,
Fell from the stars above,
In flakes of darkness on her face
Still bright with trusting love.
Margret, Margret.

XXIV.

"He _loved_ but only thee!
_That_ love is transient too.
The wild hawk's bill doth dabble still
I' the mouth that vowed thee true:
Will he open his dull eyes
When tears fall on his brow?
Behold, the death-worm to his heart
Is a nearer thing than _thou_,
Margret, Margret. "

XXV.

Her face was on the ground--
None saw the agony;
But the men at sea did that night agree
They heard a drowning cry:
And when the morning brake,
Fast rolled the river's tide,
With the green trees waving overhead
And a white corse laid beside.
Margret, Margret.

XXVI.

A knight's bloodhound and he
The funeral watch did keep;
With a thought o' the chase he stroked its face
As it howled to see him weep.
A fair child kissed the dead,
But shrank before its cold.
And alone yet proudly in his hall
Did stand a baron old.
Margret, Margret.

XXVII.

Hang up my harp again!
I have no voice for song.
Not song but wail, and mourners pale,
Not bards, to love belong.
O failing human love!
O light, by darkness known!
O false, the while thou treadest earth!
O deaf beneath the stone!
Margret, Margret.




_ISOBEL'S CHILD. _

----so find we profit,
By losing of our prayers.

SHAKESPEARE.


I.

To rest the weary nurse has gone:
An eight-day watch had watchèd she,
Still rocking beneath sun and moon
The baby on her knee,
Till Isobel its mother said
"The fever waneth--wend to bed,
For now the watch comes round to me. "

II.

Then wearily the nurse did throw
Her pallet in the darkest place
Of that sick room, and slept and dreamed:
For, as the gusty wind did blow
The night-lamp's flare across her face,
She saw or seemed to see, but dreamed,
That the poplars tall on the opposite hill,
The seven tall poplars on the hill,
Did clasp the setting sun until
His rays dropped from him, pined and still
As blossoms in frost,
Till he waned and paled, so weirdly crossed,
To the colour of moonlight which doth pass
Over the dank ridged churchyard grass.
The poplars held the sun, and he
The eyes of the nurse that they should not see
--Not for a moment, the babe on her knee,
Though she shuddered to feel that it grew to be
Too chill, and lay too heavily.

III.

She only dreamed; for all the while
'T was Lady Isobel that kept
The little baby: and it slept
Fast, warm, as if its mother's smile,
Laden with love's dewy weight,
And red as rose of Harpocrate
Dropt upon its eyelids, pressed
Lashes to cheek in a sealèd rest.

IV.

And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well--
She knew not that she smiled.
Against the lattice, dull and wild
Drive the heavy droning drops,
Drop by drop, the sound being one;
As momently time's segments fall
On the ear of God, who hears through all
Eternity's unbroken monotone:
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well--
She knew not that she smiled.
The wind in intermission stops
Down in the beechen forest,
Then cries aloud
As one at the sorest,
Self-stung, self-driven,
And rises up to its very tops,
Stiffening erect the branches bowed,
Dilating with a tempest-soul
The trees that with their dark hands break
Through their own outline, and heavy roll
Shadows as massive as clouds in heaven
Across the castle lake
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well;
She knew not that she smiled;
She knew not that the storm was wild;
Through the uproar drear she could not hear
The castle clock which struck anear--
She heard the low, light breathing of her child.

V.

O sight for wondering look!
While the external nature broke
Into such abandonment,
While the very mist, heart-rent
By the lightning, seemed to eddy
Against nature, with a din,--
A sense of silence and of steady
Natural calm appeared to come
From things without, and enter in
The human creature's room.

VI.

So motionless she sate,
The babe asleep upon her knees,
You might have dreamed their souls had gone
Away to things inanimate,
In such to live, in such to moan;
And that their bodies had ta'en back,
In mystic change, all silences
That cross the sky in cloudy rack,
Or dwell beneath the reedy ground
In waters safe from their own sound:
Only she wore
The deepening smile I named before,
And _that_ a deepening love expressed;
And who at once can love and rest?

VII.

In sooth the smile that then was keeping
Watch upon the baby sleeping,
Floated with its tender light
Downward, from the drooping eyes,
Upward, from the lips apart,
Over cheeks which had grown white
With an eight-day weeping:
All smiles come in such a wise
Where tears shall fall or have of old--
Like northern lights that fill the heart
Of heaven in sign of cold.

VIII.

Motionless she sate.
Her hair had fallen by its weight
On each side of her smile and lay
Very blackly on the arm
Where the baby nestled warm,
Pale as baby carved in stone
Seen by glimpses of the moon
Up a dark cathedral aisle:
But, through the storm, no moonbeam fell
Upon the child of Isobel--
Perhaps you saw it by the ray
Alone of her still smile.

IX.

A solemn thing it is to me
To look upon a babe that sleeps
Wearing in its spirit-deeps
The undeveloped mystery
Of our Adam's taint and woe,
Which, when they developed be,
Will not let it slumber so;
Lying new in life beneath
The shadow of the coming death,
With that soft, low, quiet breath,
As if it felt the sun;
Knowing all things by their blooms,
Not their roots, yea, sun and sky
Only by the warmth that comes
Out of each, earth only by
The pleasant hues that o'er it run,
And human love by drops of sweet
White nourishment still hanging round
The little mouth so slumber-bound:
All which broken sentiency
And conclusion incomplete,
Will gather and unite and climb
To an immortality
Good or evil, each sublime,
Through life and death to life again.
O little lids, now folded fast,
Must ye learn to drop at last
Our large and burning tears?
O warm quick body, must thou lie,
When the time comes round to die,
Still from all the whirl of years,
Bare of all the joy and pain?
O small frail being, wilt thou stand
At God's right hand,
Lifting up those sleeping eyes
Dilated by great destinies,
To an endless waking? thrones and seraphim.
Through the long ranks of their solemnities,
Sunning thee with calm looks of Heaven's surprise,
But thine alone on Him?
Or else, self-willed, to tread the Godless place,
(God keep thy will! ) feel thine own energies
Cold, strong, objèctless, like a dead man's clasp,
The sleepless deathless life within thee grasp,--
While myriad faces, like one changeless face,
With woe _not love's_, shall glass thee everywhere
And overcome thee with thine own despair?

X.

More soft, less solemn images
Drifted o'er the lady's heart
Silently as snow.
She had seen eight days depart
Hour by hour, on bended knees,
With pale-wrung hands and prayings low
And broken, through which came the sound
Of tears that fell against the ground,
Making sad stops. --"Dear Lord, dear Lord! "
She still had prayed, (the heavenly word
Broken by an earthly sigh)
--"Thou who didst not erst deny
The mother-joy to Mary mild,
Blessèd in the blessèd child
Which hearkened in meek babyhood
Her cradle-hymn, albeit used
To all that music interfused
In breasts of angels high and good!
Oh, take not, Lord, my babe away--
Oh, take not to thy songful heaven
The pretty baby thou hast given,
Or ere that I have seen him play
Around his father's knees and known
That _he_ knew how my love has gone
From all the world to him.
Think, God among the cherubim,
How I shall shiver every day
In thy June sunshine, knowing where
The grave-grass keeps it from his fair
Still cheeks: and feel, at every tread,
His little body, which is dead
And hidden in thy turfy fold,
Doth make thy whole warm earth a-cold!
O God, I am so young, so young--
I am not used to tears at nights
Instead of slumber--not to prayer
With sobbing lips and hands out-wrung!
Thou knowest all my prayings were
'I bless thee, God, for past delights--
Thank God! ' I am not used to bear
Hard thoughts of death; the earth doth cover
No face from me of friend or lover:
And must the first who teaches me
The form of shrouds and funerals, be
Mine own first-born belovèd? he
Who taught me first this mother-love?
Dear Lord who spreadest out above
Thy loving, transpierced hands to meet
All lifted hearts with blessing sweet,--
Pierce not my heart, my tender heart
Thou madest tender! Thou who art
So happy in thy heaven alway,
Take not mine only bliss away! "

XI.

She so had prayed: and God, who hears
Through seraph-songs the sound of tears
From that belovèd babe had ta'en
The fever and the beating pain.
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well,
(She knew not that she smiled, I wis)
Until the pleasant gradual thought
Which near her heart the smile enwrought,
Now soft and slow, itself did seem
To float along a happy dream,
Beyond it into speech like this.

XII.

"I prayed for thee, my little child,
And God has heard my prayer!
And when thy babyhood is gone,
We two together undefiled
By men's repinings, will kneel down
Upon His earth which will be fair
(Not covering thee, sweet! ) to us twain,
And give Him thankful praise. "

XIII.

Dully and wildly drives the rain:
Against the lattices drives the rain.

XIV.

"I thank Him now, that I can think
Of those same future days,
Nor from the harmless image shrink
Of what I there might see--
Strange babies on their mothers' knee,
Whose innocent soft faces might
From off mine eyelids strike the light,
With looks not meant for me! "

XV.

Gustily blows the wind through the rain,
As against the lattices drives the rain.

XVI.

"But now, O baby mine, together,
We turn this hope of ours again
To many an hour of summer weather,
When we shall sit and intertwine
Our spirits, and instruct each other
In the pure loves of child and mother!
Two human loves make one divine. "

XVII.

The thunder tears through the wind and the rain,
As full on the lattices drives the rain.

XVIII.

"My little child, what wilt thou choose?
Now let me look at thee and ponder.
What gladness, from the gladnesses
Futurity is spreading under
Thy gladsome sight? Beneath the trees
Wilt thou lean all day, and lose
Thy spirit with the river seen
Intermittently between
The winding beechen alleys,--
Half in labour, half repose,
Like a shepherd keeping sheep,
Thou, with only thoughts to keep
Which never a bound will overpass,
And which are innocent as those
That feed among Arcadian valleys
Upon the dewy grass? "

XIX.

The large white owl that with age is blind,
That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow,
Is carried away in a gust of wind;
His wings could beat him not as fast
As he goeth now the lattice past;
He is borne by the winds, the rains do follow
His white wings to the blast outflowing,
He hooteth in going,
And still, in the lightnings, coldly glitter
His round unblinking eyes

XX.
Sitteth the fair ladye
Close to the river side
Which runneth on with a merry tone
Her merry thoughts to guide:
It runneth through the trees,
It runneth by the hill,
Nathless the lady's thoughts have found
A way more pleasant still
Margret, Margret.

III.

The night is in her hair
And giveth shade to shade,
And the pale moonlight on her forehead white
Like a spirit's hand is laid;
Her lips part with a smile
Instead of speakings done:
I ween, she thinketh of a voice,
Albeit uttering none.
Margret, Margret.

IV.

All little birds do sit
With heads beneath their wings:
Nature doth seem in a mystic dream,
Absorbed from her living things:
That dream by that ladye
Is certes unpartook,
For she looketh to the high cold stars
With a tender human look
Margret, Margret.

V.

The lady's shadow lies
Upon the running river;
It lieth no less in its quietness,
For that which resteth never:
Most like a trusting heart
Upon a passing faith,
Or as upon the course of life
The steadfast doom of death.
Margret, Margret.

VI.

The lady doth not move,
The lady doth not dream,
Yet she seeth her shade no longer laid
In rest upon the stream:
It shaketh without wind,
It parteth from the tide,
It standeth upright in the cleft moonlight,
It sitteth at her side.
Margret, Margret.

VII.

Look in its face, ladye,
And keep thee from thy swound;
With a spirit bold thy pulses hold
And hear its voice's sound:
For so will sound thy voice
When thy face is to the wall,
And such will be thy face, ladye,
When the maidens work thy pall.
Margret, Margret.

VIII.

"Am I not like to thee? "
The voice was calm and low,
And between each word you might have heard
The silent forests grow;
"_The like may sway the like;_"
By which mysterious law
Mine eyes from thine and my lips from thine
The light and breath may draw.
Margret, Margret.

IX.

"My lips do need thy breath,
My lips do need thy smile,
And my pallid eyne, that light in thine
Which met the stars erewhile:
Yet go with light and life
If that thou lovest one
In all the earth who loveth thee
As truly as the sun,
Margret, Margret. "

X.

Her cheek had waxèd white
Like cloud at fall of snow;
Then like to one at set of sun,
It waxèd red alsò;
For love's name maketh bold
As if the loved were near:
And then she sighed the deep long sigh
Which cometh after fear.
Margret, Margret.

XI.

"Now, sooth, I fear thee not--
Shall never fear thee now! "
(And a noble sight was the sudden light
Which lit her lifted brow. )
"Can earth be dry of streams,
Or hearts of love? " she said;
"Who doubteth love, can know not love:
He is already dead. "
Margret, Margret.

XII.

"I have" . . . and here her lips
Some word in pause did keep,
And gave the while a quiet smile
As if they paused in sleep,--
"I have . . . a brother dear,
A knight of knightly fame!
I broidered him a knightly scarf
With letters of my name
Margret, Margret.

XIII.

"I fed his grey goshawk,
I kissed his fierce bloodhoùnd,
I sate at home when he might come
And caught his horn's far sound:
I sang him hunter's songs,
I poured him the red wine,
He looked across the cup and said,
_I love thee, sister mine. _"
Margret, Margret.

XIV.

IT trembled on the grass
With a low, shadowy laughter;
The sounding river which rolled, for ever
Stood dumb and stagnant after:
"Brave knight thy brother is!
But better loveth he
Thy chaliced wine than thy chaunted song,
And better both than thee,
Margret, Margret. "

XV.

The lady did not heed
The river's silence while
Her own thoughts still ran at their will,
And calm was still her smile.
"My little sister wears
The look our mother wore:
I smooth her locks with a golden comb,
I bless her evermore. "
Margret, Margret.

XVI.

"I gave her my first bird
When first my voice it knew;
I made her share my posies rare
And told her where they grew:
I taught her God's dear name
With prayer and praise to tell,
She looked from heaven into my face
And said, _I love thee well. _"
Margret, Margret.

XVII.

IT trembled on the grass
With a low, shadowy laughter;
You could see each bird as it woke and stared
Through the shrivelled foliage after.
"Fair child thy sister is!
But better loveth she
Thy golden comb than thy gathered flowers,
And better both than thee,
Margret, Margret. "

XVIII.

Thy lady did not heed
The withering on the bough;
Still calm her smile albeit the while
A little pale her brow:
"I have a father old,
The lord of ancient halls;
An hundred friends are in his court
Yet only me he calls.
Margret, Margret.

XIX.

"An hundred knights are in his court
Yet read I by his knee;
And when forth they go to the tourney-show
I rise not up to see:
'T is a weary book to read,
My tryst's at set of sun,
But loving and dear beneath the stars
Is his blessing when I've done. "
Margret, Margret.

XX.

IT trembled on the grass
With a low, shadowy laughter;
And moon and star though bright and far
Did shrink and darken after.
"High lord thy father is!
But better loveth he
His ancient halls than his hundred friends,
His ancient halls, than thee,
Margret, Margret. "

XXI.

The lady did not heed
That the far stars did fail;
Still calm her smile, albeit the while . . .
Nay, but she is not pale!
"I have more than a friend
Across the mountains dim:
No other's voice is soft to me,
Unless it nameth _him_. "
Margret, Margret.

XXII.

"Though louder beats my heart,
I know his tread again,
And his fair plume aye, unless turned away,
For the tears do blind me then:
We brake no gold, a sign
Of stronger faith to be,
But I wear his last look in my soul,
Which said, _I love but thee! _"
Margret, Margret.

XXIII.

IT trembled on the grass
With a low, shadowy laughter;
And the wind did toll, as a passing soul
Were sped by church-bell after;
And shadows, 'stead of light,
Fell from the stars above,
In flakes of darkness on her face
Still bright with trusting love.
Margret, Margret.

XXIV.

"He _loved_ but only thee!
_That_ love is transient too.
The wild hawk's bill doth dabble still
I' the mouth that vowed thee true:
Will he open his dull eyes
When tears fall on his brow?
Behold, the death-worm to his heart
Is a nearer thing than _thou_,
Margret, Margret. "

XXV.

Her face was on the ground--
None saw the agony;
But the men at sea did that night agree
They heard a drowning cry:
And when the morning brake,
Fast rolled the river's tide,
With the green trees waving overhead
And a white corse laid beside.
Margret, Margret.

XXVI.

A knight's bloodhound and he
The funeral watch did keep;
With a thought o' the chase he stroked its face
As it howled to see him weep.
A fair child kissed the dead,
But shrank before its cold.
And alone yet proudly in his hall
Did stand a baron old.
Margret, Margret.

XXVII.

Hang up my harp again!
I have no voice for song.
Not song but wail, and mourners pale,
Not bards, to love belong.
O failing human love!
O light, by darkness known!
O false, the while thou treadest earth!
O deaf beneath the stone!
Margret, Margret.




_ISOBEL'S CHILD. _

----so find we profit,
By losing of our prayers.

SHAKESPEARE.


I.

To rest the weary nurse has gone:
An eight-day watch had watchèd she,
Still rocking beneath sun and moon
The baby on her knee,
Till Isobel its mother said
"The fever waneth--wend to bed,
For now the watch comes round to me. "

II.

Then wearily the nurse did throw
Her pallet in the darkest place
Of that sick room, and slept and dreamed:
For, as the gusty wind did blow
The night-lamp's flare across her face,
She saw or seemed to see, but dreamed,
That the poplars tall on the opposite hill,
The seven tall poplars on the hill,
Did clasp the setting sun until
His rays dropped from him, pined and still
As blossoms in frost,
Till he waned and paled, so weirdly crossed,
To the colour of moonlight which doth pass
Over the dank ridged churchyard grass.
The poplars held the sun, and he
The eyes of the nurse that they should not see
--Not for a moment, the babe on her knee,
Though she shuddered to feel that it grew to be
Too chill, and lay too heavily.

III.

She only dreamed; for all the while
'T was Lady Isobel that kept
The little baby: and it slept
Fast, warm, as if its mother's smile,
Laden with love's dewy weight,
And red as rose of Harpocrate
Dropt upon its eyelids, pressed
Lashes to cheek in a sealèd rest.

IV.

And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well--
She knew not that she smiled.
Against the lattice, dull and wild
Drive the heavy droning drops,
Drop by drop, the sound being one;
As momently time's segments fall
On the ear of God, who hears through all
Eternity's unbroken monotone:
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well--
She knew not that she smiled.
The wind in intermission stops
Down in the beechen forest,
Then cries aloud
As one at the sorest,
Self-stung, self-driven,
And rises up to its very tops,
Stiffening erect the branches bowed,
Dilating with a tempest-soul
The trees that with their dark hands break
Through their own outline, and heavy roll
Shadows as massive as clouds in heaven
Across the castle lake
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well;
She knew not that she smiled;
She knew not that the storm was wild;
Through the uproar drear she could not hear
The castle clock which struck anear--
She heard the low, light breathing of her child.

V.

O sight for wondering look!
While the external nature broke
Into such abandonment,
While the very mist, heart-rent
By the lightning, seemed to eddy
Against nature, with a din,--
A sense of silence and of steady
Natural calm appeared to come
From things without, and enter in
The human creature's room.

VI.

So motionless she sate,
The babe asleep upon her knees,
You might have dreamed their souls had gone
Away to things inanimate,
In such to live, in such to moan;
And that their bodies had ta'en back,
In mystic change, all silences
That cross the sky in cloudy rack,
Or dwell beneath the reedy ground
In waters safe from their own sound:
Only she wore
The deepening smile I named before,
And _that_ a deepening love expressed;
And who at once can love and rest?

VII.

In sooth the smile that then was keeping
Watch upon the baby sleeping,
Floated with its tender light
Downward, from the drooping eyes,
Upward, from the lips apart,
Over cheeks which had grown white
With an eight-day weeping:
All smiles come in such a wise
Where tears shall fall or have of old--
Like northern lights that fill the heart
Of heaven in sign of cold.

VIII.

Motionless she sate.
Her hair had fallen by its weight
On each side of her smile and lay
Very blackly on the arm
Where the baby nestled warm,
Pale as baby carved in stone
Seen by glimpses of the moon
Up a dark cathedral aisle:
But, through the storm, no moonbeam fell
Upon the child of Isobel--
Perhaps you saw it by the ray
Alone of her still smile.

IX.

A solemn thing it is to me
To look upon a babe that sleeps
Wearing in its spirit-deeps
The undeveloped mystery
Of our Adam's taint and woe,
Which, when they developed be,
Will not let it slumber so;
Lying new in life beneath
The shadow of the coming death,
With that soft, low, quiet breath,
As if it felt the sun;
Knowing all things by their blooms,
Not their roots, yea, sun and sky
Only by the warmth that comes
Out of each, earth only by
The pleasant hues that o'er it run,
And human love by drops of sweet
White nourishment still hanging round
The little mouth so slumber-bound:
All which broken sentiency
And conclusion incomplete,
Will gather and unite and climb
To an immortality
Good or evil, each sublime,
Through life and death to life again.
O little lids, now folded fast,
Must ye learn to drop at last
Our large and burning tears?
O warm quick body, must thou lie,
When the time comes round to die,
Still from all the whirl of years,
Bare of all the joy and pain?
O small frail being, wilt thou stand
At God's right hand,
Lifting up those sleeping eyes
Dilated by great destinies,
To an endless waking? thrones and seraphim.
Through the long ranks of their solemnities,
Sunning thee with calm looks of Heaven's surprise,
But thine alone on Him?
Or else, self-willed, to tread the Godless place,
(God keep thy will! ) feel thine own energies
Cold, strong, objèctless, like a dead man's clasp,
The sleepless deathless life within thee grasp,--
While myriad faces, like one changeless face,
With woe _not love's_, shall glass thee everywhere
And overcome thee with thine own despair?

X.

More soft, less solemn images
Drifted o'er the lady's heart
Silently as snow.
She had seen eight days depart
Hour by hour, on bended knees,
With pale-wrung hands and prayings low
And broken, through which came the sound
Of tears that fell against the ground,
Making sad stops. --"Dear Lord, dear Lord! "
She still had prayed, (the heavenly word
Broken by an earthly sigh)
--"Thou who didst not erst deny
The mother-joy to Mary mild,
Blessèd in the blessèd child
Which hearkened in meek babyhood
Her cradle-hymn, albeit used
To all that music interfused
In breasts of angels high and good!
Oh, take not, Lord, my babe away--
Oh, take not to thy songful heaven
The pretty baby thou hast given,
Or ere that I have seen him play
Around his father's knees and known
That _he_ knew how my love has gone
From all the world to him.
Think, God among the cherubim,
How I shall shiver every day
In thy June sunshine, knowing where
The grave-grass keeps it from his fair
Still cheeks: and feel, at every tread,
His little body, which is dead
And hidden in thy turfy fold,
Doth make thy whole warm earth a-cold!
O God, I am so young, so young--
I am not used to tears at nights
Instead of slumber--not to prayer
With sobbing lips and hands out-wrung!
Thou knowest all my prayings were
'I bless thee, God, for past delights--
Thank God! ' I am not used to bear
Hard thoughts of death; the earth doth cover
No face from me of friend or lover:
And must the first who teaches me
The form of shrouds and funerals, be
Mine own first-born belovèd? he
Who taught me first this mother-love?
Dear Lord who spreadest out above
Thy loving, transpierced hands to meet
All lifted hearts with blessing sweet,--
Pierce not my heart, my tender heart
Thou madest tender! Thou who art
So happy in thy heaven alway,
Take not mine only bliss away! "

XI.

She so had prayed: and God, who hears
Through seraph-songs the sound of tears
From that belovèd babe had ta'en
The fever and the beating pain.
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well,
(She knew not that she smiled, I wis)
Until the pleasant gradual thought
Which near her heart the smile enwrought,
Now soft and slow, itself did seem
To float along a happy dream,
Beyond it into speech like this.

XII.

"I prayed for thee, my little child,
And God has heard my prayer!
And when thy babyhood is gone,
We two together undefiled
By men's repinings, will kneel down
Upon His earth which will be fair
(Not covering thee, sweet! ) to us twain,
And give Him thankful praise. "

XIII.

Dully and wildly drives the rain:
Against the lattices drives the rain.

XIV.

"I thank Him now, that I can think
Of those same future days,
Nor from the harmless image shrink
Of what I there might see--
Strange babies on their mothers' knee,
Whose innocent soft faces might
From off mine eyelids strike the light,
With looks not meant for me! "

XV.

Gustily blows the wind through the rain,
As against the lattices drives the rain.

XVI.

"But now, O baby mine, together,
We turn this hope of ours again
To many an hour of summer weather,
When we shall sit and intertwine
Our spirits, and instruct each other
In the pure loves of child and mother!
Two human loves make one divine. "

XVII.

The thunder tears through the wind and the rain,
As full on the lattices drives the rain.

XVIII.

"My little child, what wilt thou choose?
Now let me look at thee and ponder.
What gladness, from the gladnesses
Futurity is spreading under
Thy gladsome sight? Beneath the trees
Wilt thou lean all day, and lose
Thy spirit with the river seen
Intermittently between
The winding beechen alleys,--
Half in labour, half repose,
Like a shepherd keeping sheep,
Thou, with only thoughts to keep
Which never a bound will overpass,
And which are innocent as those
That feed among Arcadian valleys
Upon the dewy grass? "

XIX.

The large white owl that with age is blind,
That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow,
Is carried away in a gust of wind;
His wings could beat him not as fast
As he goeth now the lattice past;
He is borne by the winds, the rains do follow
His white wings to the blast outflowing,
He hooteth in going,
And still, in the lightnings, coldly glitter
His round unblinking eyes

XX.

"Or, baby, wilt thou think it fitter
To be eloquent and wise,
One upon whose lips the air
Turns to solemn verities
For men to breathe anew, and win
A deeper-seated life within?
Wilt be a philosopher,
By whose voice the earth and skies
Shall speak to the unborn?
Or a poet, broadly spreading
The golden immortalities
Of thy soul on natures lorn
And poor of such, them all to guard
From their decay,--beneath thy treading,
Earth's flowers recovering hues of Eden,--
And stars, drawn downward by thy looks,
To shine ascendant in thy books? "

XXI.

The tame hawk in the castle-yard,
How it screams to the lightning, with its wet
Jagged plumes overhanging the parapet!
And at the lady's door the hound
Scratches with a crying sound.

XXII.

"But, O my babe, thy lids are laid
Close, fast upon thy cheek,
And not a dream of power and sheen
Can make a passage up between;
Thy heart is of thy mother's made,
Thy looks are very meek,
And it will be their chosen place
To rest on some beloved face,
As these on thine, and let the noise
Of the whole world go on nor drown
The tender silence of thy joys:
Or when that silence shall have grown
Too tender for itself, the same
Yearning for sound,--to look above
And utter its one meaning, LOVE,
That _He_ may hear His name. "

XXIII.

No wind, no rain, no thunder!
The waters had trickled not slowly,
The thunder was not spent
Nor the wind near finishing;
Who would have said that the storm was diminishing?
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 God, made visible
That men might bless it at their will.

XXIV.

The moonshine 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 moonshine on the baby's face
Cold and clear remaineth;
The mother's looks do shrink away,--
The mother's looks return to stay,
As charmèd 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,
Passed 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!