Poems by Elizabeth Barrett BrowningHow he sleepeth! having drunken
Weary childhood's mandragore,
From his pretty eyes have sunken
I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said 'Write!
Write a Nation's curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea.'
I
Love me Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.
II
What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
We walked beside the sea,
After a day which perished silently
Of its own glory---like the Princess weird
IF God compel thee to this destiny,
To die alone, with none beside thy bed
To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said
She has laughed as softly as if she sighed,
She has counted six, and over,
Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried -
1
He listened at the porch that day,
To hear the wheel go on, and on;
And then it stopped, ran back away,
NOW, by the verdure on thy thousand hills,
Beloved England, doth the earth appear
Quite good enough for men to overbear
IF all the gentlest-hearted friends I know
Concentred in one heart their gentleness,
What's the best thing in the world?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Five months ago the stream did flow,
The lilies bloomed within the sedge,
And we were lingering to and fro,
I THINK we are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope
HEARKEN, oh hearken! let your souls behind you
Turn, gently moved!
Our voices feel along the Dread to find you,
SPEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low
All are not taken; there are left behind
Living Belovèds, tender looks to bring
And make the daylight still a happy thing,
I
The face, which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
I mind me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.
LIGHT human nature is too lightly tost
And ruffled without cause, complaining on--
Restless with rest, until, being overthrown,
WE overstate the ills of life, and take
Imagination (given us to bring down
The choirs of singing angels overshone
God, God!
With a child?s voice I cry,
Weak, sad, confidingly
God, God!
Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up
AND, O beloved voices, upon which
Ours passionately call because erelong
Ye brake off in the middle of that song
I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
But only three in all God's universe
Have heard this word thou hast said,--Himself, beside
Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart !
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
When I attain to utter forth in verse
Some inward thought, my soul throbs audibly
Along my pulses, yearning to be free
I HAVE been in the meadows all the day
And gathered there the nosegay that you see
Singing within myself as bird or bee
Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
Most gracious singer of high poems ! where
Can it be right to give what I can give ?
To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears
As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years
"Yes," I answered you last night;
"No," this morning, Sir, I say.
Colours seen by candlelight,
Will not look the same by day.
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost;
The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word,
No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene
I
'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
I think that look of Christ might seem to say--
'Thou Peter ! art thou then a common stone
For ever, since my childish looks
Could rest on Nature's pictured books;
For ever, since my childish tongue
I.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
I.
ENOUGH ! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn ! Let the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,
Then break against the rock, and show behind
Wordsworth upon Helvellyn ! Let the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,
Then break against the rock, and show behind
I.
FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea,
Who tell me how lonely you stand
A THOUGHT ay like a flower upon mine heart,
And drew around it other thoughts like bees
MY future will not copy fair my past
On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done,
Supernal Will ! I would not fain be one
'O DREARY life,' we cry, ' O dreary life ! '
And still the generations of the birds
EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand,
Whence harmonies, we cannot understand,
Said a people to a poet---" Go out from among us straightway!
While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine.
I count the dismal time by months and years
Since last I felt the green sward under foot,
I LEFT thee last, a child at heart,
A woman scarce in years:
I come to thee, a solemn corpse
Which neither feels nor fears.
I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,
The seraph sings before the manifest
God-One, and in the burning of the Seven,
And with the full life of consummate
II
But only three in all God's universe
Have heard this word thou hast said, Himself, beside
III
Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
IV
Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
Most gracious singer of high poems! where
V
I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
VI
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
VII
The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
VIII
What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
IX
Can it be right to give what I can give?
To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears
X
Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
THANK God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for. That is well--
Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
