The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 14

_Zerah._ G.o.d! G.o.d!

Spirit of my spirit! who movest Through seraph veins in burning deity To light the quenchless pulses!--

_Ador._ But hast trod The depths of love in thy peculiar nature, And not in any thou hast made and lovest In narrow seraph hearts!--

_Zerah._ Above, Creator!

Within, Upholder!

_Ador._ And below, below, The creature's and the upholden's sacrifice!

_Zerah._ Why do I pause?--

_Ador._ There is a silentness That answers thee enow, That, like a brazen sound Excluding others, doth ensheathe us round,-- Hear it. It is not from the visible skies Though they are still, Unconscious that their own dropped dews express The light of heaven on every earthly hill.

It is not from the hills, though calm and bare They, since their first creation, Through midnight cloud or morning's glittering air Or the deep deluge blindness, toward the place Whence thrilled the mystic word's creative grace, And whence again shall come The word that uncreates, Have lift their brows in voiceless expectation.

It is not from the places that entomb Man's dead, though common Silence there dilates Her soul to grand proportions, worthily To fill life's vacant room.

Not there: not there.

Not yet within those chambers lieth He, A dead one in his living world; his south And west winds blowing over earth and sea, And not a breath on that creating mouth.

But now,--a silence keeps (Not death's, nor sleep's) The lips whose whispered word Might roll the thunders round reverberated.

Silent art thou, O my Lord, Bowing down thy stricken head!

Fearest thou, a groan of thine Would make the pulse of thy creation fail As thine own pulse?--would rend the veil Of visible things and let the flood Of the unseen Light, the essential G.o.d, Rush in to whelm the undivine?

Thy silence, to my thinking, is as dread.

_Zerah._ O silence!

_Ador._ Doth it say to thee--the NAME, Slow-learning seraph?

_Zerah._ I have learnt.

_Ador._ The flame Perishes in thine eyes.

_Zerah._ He opened his, And looked. I cannot bear--

_Ador._ Their agony?

_Zerah._ Their love. G.o.d's depth is in them. From his brows White, terrible in meekness, didst thou see The lifted eyes unclose?

He is G.o.d, seraph! Look no more on me, O G.o.d--I am not G.o.d.

_Ador._ The loving is Sublimed within them by the sorrowful.

In heaven we could sustain them.

_Zerah._ Heaven is dull, Mine Ador, to man's earth. The light that burns In fluent, refluent motion Along the crystal ocean; The springing of the golden harps between The bowery wings, in fountains of sweet sound, The winding, wandering music that returns Upon itself, exultingly self-bound In the great spheric round Of everlasting praises; The G.o.d-thoughts in our midst that intervene, Visibly flas.h.i.+ng from the supreme throne Full in seraphic faces Till each astonishes the other, grown More beautiful with wors.h.i.+p and delight-- My heaven! my home of heaven! my infinite Heaven-choirs! what are ye to this dust and death, This cloud, this cold, these tears, this failing breath, Where G.o.d's immortal love now issueth In this MAN'S woe?

_Ador._ His eyes are very deep yet calm.

_Zerah._ No more On _me_, Jehovah-man--

_Ador._ Calm-deep. They show A pa.s.sion which is tranquil. They are seeing No earth, no heaven, no men that slay and curse, No seraphs that adore; Their gaze is on the invisible, the dread, The things we cannot view or think or speak, Because we are too happy, or too weak,-- The sea of ill, for which the universe, With all its piled s.p.a.ce, can find no sh.o.r.e, With all its life, no living foot to tread.

But he, accomplished in Jehovah-being, Sustains the gaze adown, Conceives the vast despair, And feels the billowy griefs come up to drown, Nor fears, nor faints, nor fails, till all be finished.

_Zerah._ Thus, do I find Thee thus? My undiminished And undiminishable G.o.d!--my G.o.d!

The echoes are still tremulous along The heavenly mountains, of the latest song Thy manifested glory swept abroad In rus.h.i.+ng past our lips: they echo aye "Creator, thou art strong!

Creator, thou art blessed over all."

By what new utterance shall I now recall, Unteaching the heaven-echoes? Dare I say, "Creator, thou art feebler than thy work!

Creator, thou art sadder than thy creature!

A worm, and not a man, Yea, no worm, but a curse?"

I dare not so mine heavenly phrase reverse.

Albeit the piercing thorn and thistle-fork (Whose seed disordered ran From Eve's hand trembling when the curse did reach her) Be garnered darklier in thy soul, the rod That smites thee never blossoming, and thou Grief-bearer for thy world, with unkinged brow-- I leave to men their song of Ichabod: I have an angel-tongue--I know but praise.

_Ador._ Hereafter shall the blood-bought captives raise The pa.s.sion-song of blood.

_Zerah._ And _we_, extend Our holy vacant hands towards the Throne, Crying "We have no music."

_Ador._ Rather, blend Both musics into one.

The sanct.i.ties and sanctified above Shall each to each, with lifted looks serene, Their s.h.i.+ning faces lean, And mix the adoring breath And breathe the full thanksgiving.

_Zerah._ But the love-- The love, mine Ador!

_Ador._ Do we love not?

_Zerah._ Yea, But not as man shall! not with life for death, New-throbbing through the startled being; not With strange astonished smiles, that ever may Gush pa.s.sionate like tears and fill their place: Nor yet with speechless memories of what Earth's winters were, enverduring the green Of every heavenly palm Whose windless, shadeless calm Moves only at the breath of the Unseen.

Oh, not with this blood on us--and this face,-- Still, haply, pale with sorrow that it bore In our behalf, and tender evermore With nature all our own, upon us gazing-- Nor yet with these forgiving hands upraising Their unreproachful wounds, alone to bless!

Alas, Creator! shall we love thee less Than mortals shall?

_Ador._ Amen! so let it be.

We love in our proportion, to the bound Thine infinite our finite set around, And that is finitely,--thou, infinite And worthy infinite love! And our delight Is, watching the dear love poured out to thee From ever fuller chalice. Blessed they, Who love thee more than we do: blessed we, Viewing that love which shall exceed even this, And winning in the sight a double bliss For all so lost in love's supremacy.

The bliss is better. Only on the sad Cold earth there are who say It seemeth better to be great than glad.

The bliss is better. Love him more, O man, Than sinless seraphs can!

_Zerah._ Yea, love him more!

_Voices of the Angelic Mult.i.tude._ Yea, more!

_Ador._ The loving word Is caught by those from whom we stand apart.

For silence hath no deepness in her heart Where love's low name low breathed would not be heard By angels, clear as thunder.

_Angelic Voices._ Love him more!

_Ador._ Sweet voices, swooning o'er The music which ye make!

Albeit to love there were not ever given A mournful sound when uttered out of heaven, That angel-sadness ye would fitly take.

Of love be silent now! we gaze adown Upon the incarnate Love who wears no crown.

_Zerah._ No crown! the woe instead Is heavy on his head, Pressing inward on his brain With a hot and clinging pain Till all tears are prest away, And clear and calm his vision may Peruse the black abyss.

No rod, no sceptre is Holden in his fingers pale; They close instead upon the nail, Concealing the sharp dole, Never stirring to put by The fair hair peaked with blood, Drooping forward from the rood Helplessly, heavily On the cheek that waxeth colder, Whiter ever, and the shoulder Where the government was laid.

His glory made the heavens afraid; Will he not unearth this cross from its hole?

His pity makes his piteous state; Will he be uncompa.s.sionate Alone to his proper soul?

Yea, will he not lift up His lips from the bitter cup, His brows from the dreary weight, His hand from the clenching cross, Crying, "My Father, give to me Again the joy I had with thee Or ere this earth was made for loss?

No stir no sound.

The love and woe being interwound He cleaveth to the woe; And putteth forth heaven's strength below, To bear.

_Ador._ And that creates his anguish now, Which made his glory there.