The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume II Part 23

Lx.x.x.

"As it is--your ermined pride, I swear, shall feel this stain upon her, That _I_, poor, weak, tost with pa.s.sion, scorned by me and you again, Love you, madam, dare to love you, to my grief and your dishonour, To my endless desolation, and your impotent disdain!"

Lx.x.xI.

More mad words like these--mere madness! friend, I need not write them fuller, For I hear my hot soul dropping on the lines in showers of tears.

Oh, a woman! friend, a woman! why, a beast had scarce been duller Than roar b.e.s.t.i.a.l loud complaints against the s.h.i.+ning of the spheres.

Lx.x.xII.

But at last there came a pause. I stood all vibrating with thunder Which my soul had used. The silence drew her face up like a call.

Could you guess what word she uttered? She looked up, as if in wonder, With tears beaded on her lashes, and said--"Bertram!"--It was all.

Lx.x.xIII.

If she had cursed me, and she might have, or if even, with queenly bearing Which at need is used by women, she had risen up and said, "Sir, you are my guest, and therefore I have given you a full hearing: Now, beseech you, choose a name exacting somewhat less, instead!"--

Lx.x.xIV.

I had borne it: but that "Bertram"--why, it lies there on the paper A mere word, without her accent, and you cannot judge the weight Of the calm which crushed my pa.s.sion: I seemed drowning in a vapour; And her gentleness destroyed me whom her scorn made desolate.

Lx.x.xV.

So, struck backward and exhausted by that inward flow of pa.s.sion Which had rushed on, sparing nothing, into forms of abstract truth, By a logic agonizing through unseemly demonstration, And by youth's own anguish turning grimly grey the hairs of youth,--

Lx.x.xVI.

By the sense accursed and instant, that if even I spake wisely I spake basely--using truth, if what I spake indeed was true, To avenge wrong on a woman--_her_, who sate there weighing nicely A poor manhood's worth, found guilty of such deeds as I could do!--

Lx.x.xVII.

By such wrong and woe exhausted--what I suffered and occasioned,-- As a wild horse through a city runs with lightning in his eyes, And then das.h.i.+ng at a church's cold and pa.s.sive wall, impa.s.sioned, Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops and dies--

Lx.x.xVIII.

So I fell, struck down before her--do you blame me, friend, for weakness?

'T was my strength of pa.s.sion slew me!--fell before her like a stone; Fast the dreadful world rolled from me on its roaring wheels of blackness: When the light came I was lying in this chamber and alone.

Lx.x.xIX.

Oh, of course she charged her lacqueys to bear out the sickly burden, And to cast it from her scornful sight, but not _beyond_ the gate; She is too kind to be cruel, and too haughty not to pardon Such a man as I; 't were something to be level to her hate.

XC.

But for me--you now are conscious why, my friend, I write this letter, How my life is read all backward, and the charm of life undone.

I shall leave her house at dawn; I would to-night, if I were better-- And I charge my soul to hold my body strengthened for the sun.

XCI.

When the sun has dyed the oriel, I depart, with no last gazes, No weak moanings (one word only, left in writing for her hands), Out of reach of all derision, and some unavailing praises, To make front against this anguish in the far and foreign lands.

XCII.

Blame me not. I would not squander life in grief--I am abstemious.

I but nurse my spirit's falcon that its wing may soar again.

There's no room for tears of weakness in the blind eyes of a Phemius: Into work the poet kneads them, and he does not die _till then_.

CONCLUSION.

I.

Bertram finished the last pages, while along the silence ever Still in hot and heavy splashes fell the tears on every leaf.

Having ended, he leans backward in his chair, with lips that quiver From the deep unspoken, ay, and deep unwritten thoughts of grief.

II.

Soh! how still the lady standeth! 'T is a dream--a dream of mercies!

'Twixt the purple lattice-curtains how she standeth still and pale!

'T is a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self curses, Sent to sweep a patient quiet o'er the tossing of his wail.

III.

"Eyes," he said, "now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo me?

s.h.i.+ning eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone!

Underneath that calm white forehead are ye ever burning torrid O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone?"

IV.

With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air the purple curtain Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows, While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise for ever Through the open cas.e.m.e.nt whitened by the moonlight's slant repose.

V.

Said he--"Vision of a lady! stand there silent, stand there steady!

Now I see it plainly, plainly now I cannot hope or doubt-- There, the brows of mild repression--there, the lips of silent pa.s.sion, Curved like an archer's bow to send the bitter arrows out."

VI.

Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling, And approached him slowly, slowly, in a gliding measured pace; With her two white hands extended as if praying one offended, And a look of supplication gazing earnest in his face.

VII.

Said he--"Wake me by no gesture,--sound of breath, or stir of vesture!

Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to its divine!

No approaching--hush, no breathing! or my heart must swoon to death in The too utter life thou bringest, O thou dream of Geraldine!"

VIII.