The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 6

Filtered through roses did the light enclose me, And bunches of the grape swam blue across me-- Yet I wail!

_Second Spirit._ I bounded with my panthers: I rejoiced In my young tumbling lions rolled together: My stag, the river at his fetlocks, poised Then dipped his antlers through the golden weather In the same ripple which the alligator Left, in his joyous troubling of the water-- Yet I wail!

_First Spirit._ O my deep waters, cataract and flood, What wordless triumph did your voices render O mountain-summits, where the angels stood And shook from head and wing thick dews of splendour!

How, with a holy quiet, did your Earthy Accept that Heavenly, knowing ye were worthy!

Yet I wail!

_Second Spirit._ O my wild wood-dogs, with your listening eyes!

My horses--my ground-eagles, for swift fleeing!

My birds, with viewless wings of harmonies, My calm cold fishes of a silver being, How happy were ye, living and possessing, O fair half-souls capacious of full blessing!

Yet I wail!

_First Spirit._ I wail, I wail! Now hear my charge to-day, Thou man, thou woman, marked as the misdoers By G.o.d's sword at your backs! I lent my clay To make your bodies, which had grown more flowers: And now, in change for what I lent, ye give me The thorn to vex, the tempest-fare to cleave me-- And I wail!

_Second Spirit._ I wail, I wail! Behold ye that I fasten My sorrow's fang upon your souls dishonoured?

Accursed transgressors! down the steep ye hasten,-- Your crown's weight on the world, to drag it downward Unto your ruin. Lo! my lions, scenting The blood of wars, roar hoa.r.s.e and unrelenting-- And I wail!

_First Spirit._ I wail, I wail! Do you hear that I wail?

I had no part in your transgression--none.

My roses on the bough did bud not pale, My rivers did not loiter in the sun; _I_ was obedient. Wherefore in my centre Do I thrill at this curse of death and winter?-- Do I wail?

_Second Spirit._ I wail, I wail! I wail in the a.s.sault Of undeserved perdition, sorely wounded!

My nightingale sang sweet without a fault, My gentle leopards innocently bounded.

_We_ were obedient. What is this convulses Our blameless life with pangs and fever pulses?

And I wail!

_Eve._ I choose G.o.d's thunder and His angels' swords To die by, Adam, rather than such words.

Let us pa.s.s out and flee.

_Adam._ We cannot flee.

This zodiac of the creatures' cruelty Curls round us, like a river cold and drear, And shuts us in, constraining us to hear.

_First Spirit._ I feel your steps, O wandering sinners, strike A sense of death to me, and undug graves!

The heart of earth, once calm, is trembling like The ragged foam along the ocean-waves: The restless earthquakes rock against each other; The elements moan 'round me--"Mother, mother"-- And I wail!

_Second Spirit._ Your melancholy looks do pierce me through; Corruption swathes the paleness of your beauty.

Why have ye done this thing? What did we do That we should fall from bliss as ye from duty?

Wild shriek the hawks, in waiting for their jesses, Fierce howl the wolves along the wildernesses-- And I wail!

_Adam._ To thee, the Spirit of the harmless earth, To thee, the Spirit of earth's harmless lives, Inferior creatures but still innocent, Be salutation from a guilty mouth Yet worthy of some audience and respect From you who are not guilty. If we have sinned, G.o.d hath rebuked us, who is over us To give rebuke or death, and if ye wail Because of any suffering from our sin, Ye who are under and not over us, Be satisfied with G.o.d, if not with us, And pa.s.s out from our presence in such peace As we have left you, to enjoy revenge Such as the heavens have made you. Verily, There must be strife between us, large as sin.

_Eve._ No strife, mine Adam! Let us not stand high Upon the wrong we did to reach disdain, Who rather should be humbler evermore Since self-made sadder. Adam! shall I speak-- I who spake once to such a bitter end-- Shall I speak humbly now who once was proud?

I, schooled by sin to more humility Than thou hast, O mine Adam, O my king-- _My_ king, if not the world's?

_Adam._ Speak as thou wilt.

_Eve._ Thus, then--my hand in thine-- ... Sweet, dreadful Spirits!

I pray you humbly in the name of G.o.d, Not to say of these tears, which are impure-- Grant me such pardoning grace as can go forth From clean volitions toward a spotted will, From the wronged to the wronger, this and no more!

I do not ask more. I am 'ware, indeed, That absolute pardon is impossible From you to me, by reason of my sin,-- And that I cannot evermore, as once, With worthy acceptation of pure joy, Behold the trances of the holy hills Beneath the leaning stars, or watch the vales Dew-pallid with their morning ecstasy,-- Or hear the winds make pastoral peace between Two gra.s.sy uplands,--and the river-wells Work out their bubbling mysteries underground,-- And all the birds sing, till for joy of song They lift their trembling wings as if to heave The too-much weight of music from their heart And float it up the aether. I am 'ware That these things I can no more apprehend With a pure organ into a full delight,-- The sense of beauty and of melody Being no more aided in me by the sense Of personal adjustment to those heights Of what I see well-formed or hear well-tuned, But rather coupled darkly and made ashamed By my percipiency of sin and fall In melancholy of humiliant thoughts.

But, oh! fair, dreadful Spirits--albeit this Your accusation must confront my soul, And your pathetic utterance and full gaze Must evermore subdue me,--be content!

Conquer me gently--as if pitying me, Not to say loving! let my tears fall thick As watering dews of Eden, unreproached; And when your tongues reprove me, make me smooth, Not ruffled--smooth and still with your reproof, And peradventure better while more sad!

For look to it, sweet Spirits, look well to it, It will not be amiss in you who kept The law of your own righteousness, and keep The right of your own griefs to mourn themselves,-- To pity me twice fallen, from that, and this, From joy of place, and also right of wail, "I wail" being not for me--only "I sin."

Look to it, O sweet Spirits!

For was I not, At that last sunset seen in Paradise, When all the westering clouds flashed out in throngs Of sudden angel-faces, face by face, All hushed and solemn, as a thought of G.o.d Held them suspended,--was I not, that hour, The lady of the world, princess of life, Mistress of feast and favour? Could I touch A rose with my white hand, but it became Redder at once? Could I walk leisurely Along our swarded garden, but the gra.s.s Tracked me with greenness? Could I stand aside A moment underneath a cornel-tree, But all the leaves did tremble as alive With songs of fifty birds who were made glad Because I stood there? Could I turn to look With these twain eyes of mine, now weeping fast, Now good for only weeping,--upon man, Angel, or beast, or bird, but each rejoiced Because I looked on him? Alas, alas!

And is not this much woe, to cry "alas!"

Speaking of joy? And is not this more shame, To have made the woe myself, from all that joy?

To have stretched my hand, and plucked it from the tree, And chosen it for fruit? Nay, is not this Still most despair,--to have halved that bitter fruit, And ruined, so, the sweetest friend I have, Turning the GREATEST to mine enemy?

_Adam._ I will not hear thee speak so. Hearken, Spirits!

Our G.o.d, who is the enemy of none But only of their sin, hath set your hope And my hope, in a promise, on this Head.

Show reverence, then, and never bruise her more With unpermitted and extreme reproach,-- Lest, pa.s.sionate in anguish, she fling down Beneath your trampling feet, G.o.d's gift to us Of sovranty by reason and freewill, Sinning against the province of the Soul To rule the soulless. Reverence her estate, And pa.s.s out from her presence with no words!

_Eve._ O dearest Heart, have patience with my heart!

O Spirits, have patience, 'stead of reverence, And let me speak, for, not being innocent, It little doth become me to be proud.

And I am prescient by the very hope And promise set upon me, that henceforth Only my gentleness shall make me great, My humbleness exalt me. Awful Spirits, Be witness that I stand in your reproof But one sun's length off from my happiness-- Happy, as I have said, to look around, Clear to look up!--And now! I need not speak-- Ye see me what I am; ye scorn me so, Because ye see me what I have made myself From G.o.d's best making! Alas,--peace forgone, Love wronged, and virtue forfeit, and tears wept Upon all, vainly! Alas, me! alas, Who have undone myself, from all that best, Fairest and sweetest, to this wretchedest Saddest and most defiled--cast out, cast down-- What word metes absolute loss? let absolute loss Suffice you for revenge. For _I_, who lived Beneath the wings of angels yesterday, Wander to-day beneath the roofless world: _I_, reigning the earth's empress yesterday, Put off from me, to-day, your hate with prayers: _I_, yesterday, who answered the Lord G.o.d, Composed and glad as singing-birds the sun, Might shriek now from our dismal desert, "G.o.d,"

And hear him make reply, "What is thy need, Thou whom I cursed to-day?"

_Adam._ Eve!

_Eve._ _I_, at last, Who yesterday was helpmate and delight Unto mine Adam, am to-day the grief And curse-mete for him. And, so, pity us, Ye gentle Spirits, and pardon him and me, And let some tender peace, made of our pain, Grow up betwixt us, as a tree might grow, With boughs on both sides! In the shade of which, When presently ye shall behold us dead,-- For the poor sake of our humility, Breathe out your pardon on our breathless lips, And drop your twilight dews against our brows, And stroking with mild airs our harmless hands Left empty of all fruit, perceive your love Distilling through your pity over us, And suffer it, self-reconciled, to pa.s.s!

_LUCIFER rises in the circle._

_Lucifer._ Who talks here of a complement of grief?

Of expiation wrought by loss and fall?

Of hate subduable to pity? Eve?

Take counsel from thy counsellor the snake, And boast no more in grief, nor hope from pain, My docile Eve! I teach you to despond Who taught you disobedience. Look around:-- Earth spirits and phantasms hear you talk unmoved, As if ye were red clay again and talked!

What are your words to them--your grief to them-- Your deaths, indeed, to them? Did the hand pause, For _their_ sake, in the plucking of the fruit, That they should pause for _you_, in hating you?

Or will your grief or death, as did your sin, Bring change upon their final doom? Behold, Your grief is but your sin in the rebound, And cannot expiate for it.

_Adam._ That is true.

_Lucifer._ Ay, that is true. The clay-king testifies To the snake's counsel,--hear him!--very true.

_Earth Spirits._ I wail, I wail!

_Lucifer._ And certes, _that_ is true.

Ye wail, ye all wail. Peradventure I Could wail among you. O thou universe, That holdest sin and woe,--more room for wail!

_Distant Starry Voice._ Ah, ah, Heosphoros! Heosphoros!

_Adam._ Mark Lucifer! He changes awfully.

_Eve._ It seems as if he looked from grief to G.o.d And could not see him. Wretched Lucifer!

_Adam._ How he stands--yet an angel!

_Earth Spirits._ We all wail!