And still they sing, the
nightingales!
Elizabeth Browning - 4
Who could wonder such a sight
Made a woman mad outright?
Show me Michael with the sword
Rather than such angels, Lord!
A FALSE STEP.
I.
Sweet, thou hast trod on a heart.
Pass; there's a world full of men;
And women as fair as thou art
Must do such things now and then.
II.
Thou only hast stepped unaware,--
Malice, not one can impute;
And why should a heart have been there
In the way of a fair woman's foot?
III.
It was not a stone that could trip,
Nor was it a thorn that could rend:
Put up thy proud under-lip!
'T was merely the heart of a friend.
IV.
And yet peradventure one day
Thou, sitting alone at the glass,
Remarking the bloom gone away,
Where the smile in its dimplement was,
V.
And seeking around thee in vain
From hundreds who flattered before,
Such a word as "Oh, not in the main
Do I hold thee less precious, but more! ". . .
VI.
Thou'lt sigh, very like, on thy part,
"Of all I have known or can know,
I wish I had only that Heart
I trod upon ages ago! "
VOID IN LAW.
I.
Sleep, little babe, on my knee,
Sleep, for the midnight is chill,
And the moon has died out in the tree,
And the great human world goeth ill.
Sleep, for the wicked agree:
Sleep, let them do as they will.
Sleep.
II.
Sleep, thou hast drawn from my breast
The last drop of milk that was good;
And now, in a dream, suck the rest,
Lest the real should trouble thy blood.
Suck, little lips dispossessed,
As we kiss in the air whom we would.
Sleep.
III.
O lips of thy father! the same,
So like! Very deeply they swore
When he gave me his ring and his name,
To take back, I imagined, no more!
And now is all changed like a game,
Though the old cards are used as of yore?
Sleep.
IV.
"Void in law," said the Courts. Something wrong
In the forms? Yet, "Till death part us two,
I, James, take thee, Jessie," was strong,
And ONE witness competent. True
Such a marriage was worth an old song,
Heard in Heaven though, as plain as the New.
Sleep.
V.
Sleep, little child, his and mine!
Her throat has the antelope curve,
And her cheek just the colour and line
Which fade not before him nor swerve:
Yet _she_ has no child! --the divine
Seal of right upon loves that deserve.
Sleep.
VI.
My child! though the world take her part,
Saying "She was the woman to choose;
He had eyes, was a man in his heart,"--
We twain the decision refuse:
We . . . weak as I am, as thou art, . . .
Cling on to him, never to loose.
Sleep.
VII.
He thinks that, when done with this place,
All's ended? he'll new-stamp the ore?
Yes, Cæsar's--but not in our case.
Let him learn we are waiting before
The grave's mouth, the heaven's gate, God's face
With implacable love evermore.
Sleep.
VIII.
He's ours, though he kissed her but now,
He's ours, though she kissed in reply:
He's ours, though himself disavow,
And God's universe favour the lie;
Ours to claim, ours to clasp, ours below,
Ours above, . . . if we live, if we die.
Sleep.
IX.
Ah baby, my baby, too rough
Is my lullaby? What have I said?
Sleep! When I've wept long enough
I shall learn to weep softly instead,
And piece with some alien stuff
My heart to lie smooth for thy head.
Sleep.
X.
Two souls met upon thee, my sweet;
Two loves led thee out to the sun:
Alas, pretty hands, pretty feet,
If the one who remains (only one)
Set her grief at thee, turned in a heat
To thine enemy,--were it well done?
Sleep.
XI.
May He of the manger stand near
And love thee! An infant He came
To His own who rejected Him here,
But the Magi brought gifts all the same.
_I_ hurry the cross on my Dear!
_My_ gifts are the griefs I declaim!
Sleep.
LORD WALTER'S WIFE.
I.
"But why do you go? " said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the
sea-blue.
II.
"Because I fear you," he answered;--"because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your gold-coloured hair. "
III.
"Oh, that," she said, "is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,
And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun. "
IV.
"Yet farewell so," he answered;--"the sun-stroke's fatal at times.
I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the
limes. "
V.
"Oh, that," she said, "is no reason. You smell a rose through a
fence:
If two should smell it, what matter? who grumbles, and where's the
pretence? "
VI.
"But I," he replied, "have promised another, when love was free,
To love her alone, alone, who alone and afar loves me. "
VII.
"Why, that," she said, "is no reason. Love's always free, I am
told.
Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it
will hold? "
VIII.
"But you," he replied, "have a daughter, a young little child, who
was laid
In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me
afraid. "
IX.
"Oh, that," she said, "is no reason. The angels keep out of the
way;
And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although you should please me
and stay. "
X.
At which he rose up in his anger,--"Why, now, you no longer are
fair!
Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear. "
XI.
At which she laughed out in her scorn: "These men! Oh, these men
overnice,
Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a
vice. "
XII.
Her eyes blazed upon him--"And _you_! You bring us your vices so
near
That we smell them! You think in our presence a thought 't would
defame us to hear!
XIII.
"What reason had you, and what right,--I appeal to your soul from my
life,--
To find me too fair as a woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife.
XIV.
"Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you
imply
I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me
as high?
XV.
"If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much
To uses unlawful and fatal. The praise! --shall I thank you for
such?
XVI.
"Too fair? --not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a
while,
You attain to it, straightway you call us no longer too fair, but
too vile.
XVII.
"A moment,--I pray your attention! --I have a poor word in my head
I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better
unsaid.
XVIII.
"You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a
ring.
You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter! --I've broken the
thing.
XIX.
"You did me the honour, perhaps, to be moved at my side now and
then
In the senses--a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and
some men.
XX.
"Love's a virtue for heroes! --as white as the snow on high hills,
And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and
fulfils.
XXI.
"I love my Walter profoundly,--you, Maude, though you faltered a
week,
For the sake of . . . what was it--an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole
on a cheek?
XXII.
"And since, when all's said, you're too noble to stoop to the
frivolous cant
About crimes irresistible, virtues that swindle, betray and
supplant,
XXIII.
"I determined to prove to yourself that, whate'er you might dream or
avow
By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now.
XXIV.
"There! Look me full in the face! --in the face. Understand, if you
can,
That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man.
XXV.
"Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you
a scar--
You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are.
XXVI.
"You wronged me: but then I considered . . . there's Walter! And so at
the end
I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a
friend.
XXVII.
"Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my
Walter, be mine!
Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine. "
BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES.
I.
The cypress stood up like a church
That night we felt our love would hold,
And saintly moonlight seemed to search
And wash the whole world clean as gold;
The olives crystallized the vales'
Broad slopes until the hills grew strong:
The fire-flies and the nightingales
Throbbed each to either, flame and song.
The nightingales, the nightingales!
II.
Upon the angle of its shade
The cypress stood, self-balanced high;
Half up, half down, as double-made,
Along the ground, against the sky;
And _we_, too! from such soul-height went
Such leaps of blood, so blindly driven,
We scarce knew if our nature meant
Most passionate earth or intense heaven
The nightingales, the nightingales!
III.
We paled with love, we shook with love,
We kissed so close we could not vow;
Till Giulio whispered "Sweet, above
God's Ever guaranties this Now. "
And through his words the nightingales
Drove straight and full their long clear call,
Like arrows through heroic mails,
And love was awful in it all.
The nightingales, the nightingales!
IV.
O cold white moonlight of the north,
Refresh these pulses, quench this hell!
O coverture of death drawn forth
Across this garden-chamber . . . well!
But what have nightingales to do
In gloomy England, called the free . . .
(Yes, free to die in! . . . ) when we two
Are sundered, singing still to me?
And still they sing, the nightingales!
V.
I think I hear him, how he cried
"My own soul's life! " between their notes.
Each man has but one soul supplied,
And that's immortal. Though his throat's
On fire with passion now, to _her_
He can't say what to me he said!
And yet he moves her, they aver.
The nightingales sing through my head,--
The nightingales, the nightingales!
VI.
He says to her what moves her most.
He would not name his soul within
Her hearing,--rather pays her cost
With praises to her lips and chin.
Man has but one soul, 't is ordained,
And each soul but one love, I add;
Yet souls are damned and love's profaned;
These nightingales will sing me mad!
The nightingales, the nightingales!
VII.
I marvel how the birds can sing.
There's little difference, in their view,
Betwixt our Tuscan trees that spring
As vital flames into the blue,
And dull round blots of foliage meant,
Like saturated sponges here,
To suck the fogs up. As content
Is he too in this land, 't is clear.
And still they sing, the nightingales.
VIII.
My native Florence! dear, forgone!
I see across the Alpine ridge
How the last feast-day of Saint John
Shot rockets from Carraia bridge.
The luminous city, tall with fire,
Trod deep down in that river of ours,
While many a boat with lamp and choir
Skimmed birdlike over glittering towers.
I will not hear these nightingales.
IX.
I seem to float, _we_ seem to float
Down Arno's stream in festive guise;
A boat strikes flame into our boat,
And up that lady seems to rise
As then she rose. The shock had flashed
A vision on us! What a head,
What leaping eyeballs! --beauty dashed
To splendour by a sudden dread.
And still they sing, the nightingales.
X.
Too bold to sin, too weak to die;
Such women are so. As for me,
I would we had drowned there, he and I,
That moment, loving perfectly.
He had not caught her with her loosed
Gold ringlets . . . rarer in the south . . .
Nor heard the "Grazie tanto" bruised
To sweetness by her English mouth.
And still they sing, the nightingales.
XI.
She had not reached him at my heart
With her fine tongue, as snakes indeed
Kill flies; nor had I, for my part,
Yearned after, in my desperate need,
And followed him as he did her
To coasts left bitter by the tide,
Whose very nightingales, elsewhere
Delighting, torture and deride!
For still they sing, the nightingales.
XII.
A worthless woman; mere cold clay
As all false things are: but so fair,
She takes the breath of men away
Who gaze upon her unaware.
I would not play her larcenous tricks
To have her looks! She lied and stole,
And spat into my love's pure pyx
The rank saliva of her soul.
And still they sing, the nightingales.
XIII.
I would not for her white and pink,
Though such he likes--her grace of limb,
Though such he has praised--nor yet, I think.
For life itself, though spent with him,
Commit such sacrilege, affront
God's nature which is love, intrude
'Twixt two affianced souls, and hunt
Like spiders, in the altar's wood.
I cannot bear these nightingales.
XIV.
If she chose sin, some gentler guise
She might have sinned in, so it seems:
She might have pricked out both my eyes,
And I still seen him in my dreams!
--Or drugged me in my soup or wine,
Nor left me angry afterward:
To die here with his hand in mine,
His breath upon me, were not hard.
(Our Lady hush these nightingales! )
XV.
But set a springe for _him_, "mio ben,"
My only good, my first last love! --
Though Christ knows well what sin is, when
He sees some things done they must move
Himself to wonder. Let her pass.
I think of her by night and day.
Must _I_ too join her . . . out, alas! . . .
With Giulio, in each word I say?
And evermore the nightingales!
XVI.
Giulio, my Giulio! --sing they so,
And you be silent? Do I speak,
And you not hear? An arm you throw
Round someone, and I feel so weak?
--Oh, owl-like birds! They sing for spite,
They sing for hate, they sing for doom,
They'll sing through death who sing through night,
They'll sing and stun me in the tomb--
The nightingales, the nightingales!
MY KATE.
I.
She was not as pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow
Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways,
While she's still remembered on warm and cold days--
My Kate.
II.
Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;
You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face:
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth--
My Kate.
III.
Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,
You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke:
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone--
My Kate.
IV.
I doubt if she said to you much that could act
As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract
In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer
'T was her thinking of others made you think of her--
My Kate.
V.
She never found fault with you, never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town
The children were gladder that pulled at her gown--
My Kate.
VI.
None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall;
They knelt more to God than they used,--that was all:
If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant,
But the charm of her presence was felt when she went--
My Kate.
VII.
The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,
She took as she found them, and did them all good;
It always was so with her--see what you have!
She has made the grass greener even here . . . with her grave--
My Kate.
VIII.
My dear one! --when thou wast alive with the rest,
I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best:
And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part
As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart--
My Kate?
A SONG FOR THE RAGGED SCHOOL OF LONDON.
WRITTEN IN ROME.
I.
I am listening here in Rome.
"England's strong," say many speakers,
"If she winks, the Czar must come,
Prow and topsail, to the breakers. "
II.
"England's rich in coal and oak,"
Adds a Roman, getting moody;
"If she shakes a travelling cloak,
Down our Appian roll the scudi. "
III.
"England's righteous," they rejoin:
"Who shall grudge her exaltations
When her wealth of golden coin
Works the welfare of the nations? "
IV.
I am listening here in Rome.
Over Alps a voice is sweeping--
"England's cruel, save us some
Of these victims in her keeping! "
V.
As the cry beneath the wheel
Of an old triumphant Roman
Cleft the people's shouts like steel,
While the show was spoilt for no man,
VI.
Comes that voice. Let others shout,
Other poets praise my land here:
I am sadly sitting out,
Praying, "God forgive her grandeur. "
VII.
Shall we boast of empire, where
Time with ruin sits commissioned?
In God's liberal blue air
Peter's dome itself looks wizened;
VIII.
And the mountains, in disdain,
Gather back their lights of opal
From the dumb despondent plain
Heaped with jawbones of a people.
IX.
Lordly English, think it o'er,
Cæsar's doing is all undone!
You have cannons on your shore,
And free Parliaments in London;
X.
Princes' parks, and merchants' homes,
Tents for soldiers, ships for seamen,--
Ay, but ruins worse than Rome's
In your pauper men and women.
XI.
Women leering through the gas
(Just such bosoms used to nurse you),
Men, turned wolves by famine--pass!
Those can speak themselves, and curse you.
XII.
But these others--children small,
Spilt like blots about the city,
Quay, and street, and palace-wall--
Take them up into your pity!
XIII.
Ragged children with bare feet,
Whom the angels in white raiment
Know the names of, to repeat
When they come on you for payment.
XIV.
Ragged children, hungry-eyed,
Huddled up out of the coldness
On your doorsteps, side by side,
Till your footman damns their boldness.
XV.
In the alleys, in the squares,
Begging, lying little rebels;
In the noisy thoroughfares,
Struggling on with piteous trebles.
XVI.
Patient children--think what pain
Makes a young child patient--ponder!
Wronged too commonly to strain
After right, or wish, or wonder.
XVII.
Wicked children, with peaked chins,
And old foreheads! there are many
With no pleasures except sins,
Gambling with a stolen penny.
XVIII.
Sickly children, that whine low
To themselves and not their mothers,
From mere habit,--never so
Hoping help or care from others.
XIX.
Healthy children, with those blue
English eyes, fresh from their Maker,
Fierce and ravenous, staring through
At the brown loaves of the baker.
XX.
I am listening here in Rome,
And the Romans are confessing,
"English children pass in bloom
All the prettiest made for blessing.
XXI.
"_Angli angeli! _" (resumed
From the mediæval story)
"Such rose angelhoods, emplumed
In such ringlets of pure glory! "
XXII.
Can we smooth down the bright hair,
O my sisters, calm, unthrilled in
Our heart's pulses? Can we bear
The sweet looks of our own children,
XXIII.
While those others, lean and small,
Scurf and mildew of the city,
Spot our streets, convict us all
Till we take them into pity?
XXIV.
"Is it our fault? " you reply,
"When, throughout civilization,
Every nation's empery
Is asserted by starvation?
XXV.
"All these mouths we cannot feed,
And we cannot clothe these bodies. "
Well, if man's so hard indeed,
Let them learn at least what God is!
XXVI.
Little outcasts from life's fold,
The grave's hope they may be joined in
By Christ's covenant consoled
For our social contract's grinding.
XXVII.
If no better can be done,
Let us do but this,--endeavour
That the sun behind the sun
Shine upon them while they shiver!
XXVIII.
On the dismal London flags,
Through the cruel social juggle,
Put a thought beneath their rags
To ennoble the heart's struggle.
XXIX.
O my sisters, not so much
Are we asked for--not a blossom
From our children's nosegay, such
As we gave it from our bosom,--
XXX.
Not the milk left in their cup,
Not the lamp while they are sleeping,
Not the little cloak hung up
While the coat's in daily keeping,--
XXXI.
But a place in RAGGED SCHOOLS,
Where the outcasts may to-morrow
Learn by gentle words and rules
Just the uses of their sorrow.
XXXII.
O my sisters! children small,
Blue-eyed, wailing through the city--
Our own babes cry in them all:
Let us take them into pity.
MAY'S LOVE.
[Illustration: Handwritten Copy of Poem]
I.
You love all, you say,
Round, beneath, above me:
Find me then some way
Better than to love me,
Me, too, dearest May!
II.
O world-kissing eyes
Which the blue heavens melt to;
I, sad, overwise,
Loathe the sweet looks dealt to
All things--men and flies.
III.
You love all, you say:
Therefore, Dear, abate me
Just your love, I pray!
Shut your eyes and hate me--
Only _me_--fair May!
AMY'S CRUELTY.
I.
Fair Amy of the terraced house,
Assist me to discover
Why you who would not hurt a mouse
Can torture so your lover.
II.
You give your coffee to the cat,
You stroke the dog for coming,
And all your face grows kinder at
The little brown bee's humming.
III.
But when _he_ haunts your door . . . the town
Marks coming and marks going . . .
You seem to have stitched your eyelids down
To that long piece of sewing!
IV.
You never give a look, not you,
Nor drop him a "Good morning,"
To keep his long day warm and blue,
So fretted by your scorning.
V.
She shook her head--"The mouse and bee
For crumb or flower will linger:
The dog is happy at my knee,
The cat purrs at my finger.
VI.
"But _he_ . .
