The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 4

_Adam._ Ay, mock me! now I know more than I knew: Now I know that thou art fallen below hope Of final re-ascent.

_Lucifer._ Because?

_Adam._ Because A spirit who expected to see G.o.d Though at the last point of a million years, Could dare no mockery of a ruined man Such as this Adam.

_Lucifer._ Who is high and bold-- Be it said pa.s.sing!--of a good red clay Discovered on some top of Lebanon, Or haply of Aornus, beyond sweep Of the black eagle's wing! A furlong lower Had made a meeker king for Eden. Soh!

Is it not possible, by sin and grief (To give the things your names) that spirits should rise Instead of falling?

_Adam._ Most impossible.

The Highest being the Holy and the Glad, Whoever rises must approach delight And sanct.i.ty in the act.

_Lucifer._ Ha, my clay-king!

Thou wilt not rule by wisdom very long The after generations. Earth, methinks, Will disinherit thy philosophy For a new doctrine suited to thine heirs, And cla.s.s these present dogmas with the rest Of the old-world traditions, Eden fruits And Saurian fossils.

_Eve._ Speak no more with him, Beloved! it is not good to speak with him.

Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more!

We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn, Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting, Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft, We would be alone.--Go!

_Lucifer._ Ah! ye talk the same, All of you--spirits and clay--go, and depart!

In Heaven they said so, and at Eden's gate, And here, reiterant, in the wilderness.

None saith, Stay with me, for thy face is fair!

None saith, Stay with me, for thy voice is sweet!

And yet I was not fas.h.i.+oned out of clay.

Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful?

_Eve._ Thou hast a glorious darkness.

_Lucifer._ Nothing more?

_Eve._ I think, no more.

_Lucifer._ False Heart--thou thinkest more!

Thou canst not choose but think, as I praise G.o.d, Unwillingly but fully, that I stand Most absolute in beauty. As yourselves Were fas.h.i.+oned very good at best, so _we_ Sprang very beauteous from the creant Word Which thrilled behind us, G.o.d himself being moved When that august work of a perfect shape, His dignities of sovran angel-hood, Swept out into the universe,--divine With thunderous movements, earnest looks of G.o.ds, And silver-solemn clash of cymbal wings.

Whereof was I, in motion and in form, A part not poorest. And yet,--yet, perhaps, This beauty which I speak of, is not here, As G.o.d's voice is not here, nor even my crown-- I do not know. What is this thought or thing Which I call beauty? Is it thought, or thing?

Is it a thought accepted for a thing?

Or both? or neither?--a pretext--a word?

Its meaning flutters in me like a flame Under my own breath, my perceptions reel For evermore around it, and fall off, As if it too were holy.

_Eve._ Which it is.

_Adam._ The essence of all beauty, I call love.

The attribute, the evidence, and end, The consummation to the inward sense, Of beauty apprehended from without, I still call love. As form, when colourless, Is nothing to the eye,--that pine-tree there, Without its black and green, being all a blank,-- So, without love, is beauty undiscerned In man or angel. Angel! rather ask What love is in thee, what love moves to thee, And what collateral love moves on with thee; Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful.

_Lucifer._ Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love I darken to the image. Beauty--love!

[_He fades away, while a low music sounds._

_Adam._ Thou art pale, Eve.

_Eve._ The precipice of ill Down this colossal nature, dizzies me: And, hark! the starry harmony remote Seems measuring the heights from whence he fell.

_Adam._ Think that we have not fallen so! By the hope And aspiration, by the love and faith, We do exceed the stature of this angel.

_Eve._ Happier we are than he is, by the death.

_Adam._ Or rather, by the life of the Lord G.o.d!

How dim the angel grows, as if that blast Of music swept him back into the dark.

[_The music is stronger, gathering itself into uncertain articulation_

_Eve._ It throbs in on us like a plaintive heart, Pressing, with slow pulsations, vibrative, Its gradual sweetness through the yielding air, To such expression as the stars may use, Most starry-sweet and strange! With every note That grows more loud, the angel grows more dim, Receding in proportion to approach, Until he stand afar,--a shade.

_Adam._ Now, words.

SONG OF THE MORNING STAR TO LUCIFER.

_He fades utterly away and vanishes, as it proceeds._

Mine orbed image sinks Back from thee, back from thee, As thou art fallen, methinks, Back from me, back from me.

O my light-bearer, Could another fairer Lack to thee, lack to thee?

Ah, ah, Heosphoros!

I loved thee with the fiery love of stars Who love by burning, and by loving move, Too near the throned Jehovah not to love.

Ah, ah, Heosphoros!

Their brows flash fast on me from gliding cars, Pale-pa.s.sioned for my loss.

Ah, ah, Heosphoros!

Mine orbed heats drop cold Down from thee, down from thee, As fell thy grace of old Down from me, down from me, O my light-bearer, Is another fairer Won to thee, won to thee?

Ah, ah, Heosphoros, Great love preceded loss, Known to thee, known to thee.

Ah, ah!

Thou, breathing thy communicable grace Of life into my light, Mine astral faces, from thine angel face, Hast inly fed, And flooded me with radiance overmuch From thy pure height.

Ah, ah!

Thou, with calm, floating pinions both ways spread, Erect, irradiated, Didst sting my wheel of glory On, on before thee Along the G.o.dlight by a quickening touch!

Ha, ha!

Around, around the firmamental ocean I swam expanding with delirious fire!

Around, around, around, in blind desire To be drawn upward to the Infinite-- Ha, ha!

Until, the motion flinging out the motion To a keen whirl of pa.s.sion and avidity, To a dim whirl of languor and delight, I wound in gyrant orbits smooth and white With that intense rapidity.

Around, around, I wound and interwound, While all the cyclic heavens about me spun.

Stars, planets, suns, and moons dilated broad, Then flashed together into a single sun, And wound, and wound in one: And as they wound I wound,--around, around, In a great fire I almost took for G.o.d.

Ha, ha, Heosphoros!

Thine angel glory sinks Down from me, down from me-- My beauty falls, methinks, Down from thee, down from thee!

O my light-bearer, O my path-preparer, Gone from me, gone from me!

Ah, ah, Heosphoros!

I cannot kindle underneath the brow Of this new angel here, who is not thou.

All things are altered since that time ago,-- And if I s.h.i.+ne at eve, I shall not know.

I am strange--I am slow.