The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 12

_Ador._ called Death?

_Zerah._ Nay, death is fearful,--but who saith "To die," is comprehensible.

What's fearfuller, thou knowest well, Though the utterance be not for thee, Lest it blanch thy lips from glory-- Ay! the cursed thing that moved A shadow of ill, long time ago, Across our heaven's own s.h.i.+ning floor, And when it vanished, some who were On thrones of holy empire there, Did reign--were seen--were--never more.

Come nearer, O beloved!

_Ador._ I am near thee. Didst thou bear thee Ever to this earth?

_Zerah._ Before.

When thrilling from His hand along Its l.u.s.trous path with spheric song The earth was deathless, sorrowless.

Unfearing, then, pure feet might press The gra.s.ses brightening with their feet, For G.o.d's own voice did mix its sound In a solemn confluence oft With the rivers' flowing round, And the life-tree's waving soft.

Beautiful new earth and strange!

_Ador._ Hast thou seen it since--the change?

_Zerah._ Nay, or wherefore should I fear To look upon it now?

I have beheld the ruined things Only in depicturings Of angels from an earthly mission,-- Strong one, even upon thy brow, When, with task completed, given Back to us in that transition, I have beheld thee silent stand, Abstracted in the seraph band, Without a smile in heaven.

_Ador._ Then thou wast not one of those Whom the loving Father chose In visionary pomp to sweep O'er Judaea's gra.s.sy places, O'er the shepherds and the sheep, Though thou art so tender?--dimming All the stars except one star With their brighter kinder faces, And using heaven's own tune in hymning, While deep response from earth's own mountains ran, "Peace upon earth, goodwill to man."

_Zerah._ "Glory to G.o.d." I said amen afar.

And those who from that earthly mission are, Within mine ears have told That the seven everlasting Spirits did hold With such a sweet and prodigal constraint The meaning yet the mystery of the song What time they sang it, on their natures strong, That, gazing down on earth's dark steadfastness And speaking the new peace in promises, The love and pity made their voices faint Into the low and tender music, keeping The place in heaven of what on earth is weeping.

_Ador._ "Peace upon earth." Come down to it.

_Zerah._ Ah me!

I hear thereof uncomprehendingly.

Peace where the tempest, where the sighing is, And wors.h.i.+p of the idol, 'stead of His?

_Ador._ Yea, peace, where He is.

_Zerah._ He!

Say it again.

_Ador._ Where He is.

_Zerah._ Can it be That earth retains a tree Whose leaves, like Eden foliage, can be swayed By the breathing of His voice, nor shrink and fade?

_Ador._ There is a tree!--it hath no leaf nor root; Upon it hangs a curse for all its fruit: Its shadow on his head is laid.

For he, the crowned Son, Has left his crown and throne, Walks earth in Adam's clay, Eve's snake to bruise and slay--

_Zerah._ Walks earth in clay?

_Ador._ And walking in the clay which he created, He through it shall touch death.

What do I utter? what conceive? did breath Of demon howl it in a blasphemy?

Or was it mine own voice, informed, dilated By the seven confluent Spirits?--Speak--answer me!

_Who_ said man's victim was his deity?

_Zerah._ Beloved, beloved, the word came forth from thee.

Thine eyes are rolling a tempestuous light Above, below, around, As putting thunder-questions without cloud, Reverberate without sound, To universal nature's depth and height.

The tremor of an inexpressive thought Too self-amazed to shape itself aloud, O'erruns the awful curving of thy lips; And while thine hands are stretched above, As newly they had caught Some lightning from the Throne, or showed the Lord Some retributive sword, Thy brows do alternate with wild eclipse And radiance, with contrasted wrath and love, As G.o.d had called thee to a seraph's part, With a man's quailing heart.

_Ador._ O heart--O heart of man!

O ta'en from human clay To be no seraph's but Jehovah's own!

Made holy in the taking, And yet unseparate From death's perpetual ban, And human feelings sad and pa.s.sionate: Still subject to the treacherous forsaking Of other hearts, and its own steadfast pain.

O heart of man--of G.o.d! which G.o.d has ta'en From out the dust, with its humanity Mournful and weak yet innocent around it, And bade its many pulses beating lie Beside that incommunicable stir Of Deity wherewith he interwound it.

O man! and is thy nature so defiled That all that holy Heart's devout law-keeping, And low pathetic beat in deserts wild, And gus.h.i.+ngs pitiful of tender weeping For traitors who consigned it to such woe-- That all could cleanse thee not, without the flow Of blood, the life-blood--_His_--and streaming _so_?

O earth the thundercleft, windshaken, where The louder voice of "blood and blood" doth rise, Hast thou an altar for this sacrifice?

O heaven! O vacant throne!

O crowned hierarchies that wear your crown When His is put away!

Are ye unshamed that ye cannot dim Your alien brightness to be liker him, a.s.sume a human pa.s.sion, and down-lay Your sweet secureness for congenial fears, And teach your cloudless ever-burning eyes The mystery of his tears?

_Zerah._ I am strong, I am strong.

Were I never to see my heaven again, I would wheel to earth like the tempest rain Which sweeps there with an exultant sound To lose its life as it reaches the ground.

I am strong, I am strong.

Away from mine inward vision swim The s.h.i.+ning seats of my heavenly birth, I see but his, I see but him-- The Maker's steps on his cruel earth.

Will the bitter herbs of earth grow sweet To me, as trodden by his feet?

Will the vexed, accurst humanity, As worn by him, begin to be A blessed, yea, a sacred thing For love and awe and ministering?

I am strong, I am strong.

By our angel ken shall we survey His loving smile through his woeful clay?

I am swift, I am strong, The love is bearing me along.

_Ador._ One love is bearing us along.

PART THE SECOND.

_Mid-air, above Judaea. ADOR and ZERAH are a little apart from the visible Angelic Hosts._

_Ador._ Beloved! dost thou see?--

_Zerah._ Thee,--thee.

Thy burning eyes already are Grown wild and mournful as a star Whose occupation is for aye To look upon the place of clay Whereon thou lookest now.

The crown is fainting on thy brow To the likeness of a cloud, The forehead's self a little bowed From its aspect high and holy, As it would in meekness meet Some seraphic melancholy: Thy very wings that lately flung An outline clear, do flicker here And wear to each a shadow hung, Dropped across thy feet.

In these strange contrasting glooms Stagnant with the scent of tombs, Seraph faces, O my brother, Show awfully to one another.

_Ador._ Dost thou see?

_Zerah._ Even so; I see Our empyreal company, Alone the memory of their brightness Left in them, as in thee.

The circle upon circle, tier on tier, Piling earth's hemisphere With heavenly infiniteness, Above us and around, Straining the whole horizon like a bow: Their songful lips divorced from all sound, A darkness gliding down their silvery glances,-- Bowing their steadfast solemn countenances As if they heard G.o.d speak, and could not glow.

_Ador._ Look downward! dost thou see?

_Zerah._ And wouldst thou press _that_ vision on my words?

Doth not earth speak enough Of change and of undoing, Without a seraph's witness? Oceans rough With tempest, pastoral swards Displaced by fiery deserts, mountains ruing The bolt fallen yesterday, That shake their piny heads, as who would say "We are too beautiful for our decay"-- Shall seraphs speak of these things? Let alone Earth to her earthly moan!

_Voice of all things._ Is there no moan but hers?