The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 7

_Lucifer (after a pause)._ Dost thou remember, Adam, when the curse Took us in Eden? On a mountain-peak Half-sheathed in primal woods and glittering In spasms of awful suns.h.i.+ne at that hour, A lion couched, part raised upon his paws, With his calm ma.s.sive face turned full on thine, And his mane listening. When the ended curse Left silence in the world, right suddenly He sprang up rampant and stood straight and stiff, As if the new reality of death Were dashed against his eyes, and roared so fierce, (Such thick carnivorous pa.s.sion in his throat Tearing a pa.s.sage through the wrath and fear) And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills Such fast keen echoes crumbling down the vales Precipitately,--that the forest beasts, One after one, did mutter a response Of savage and of sorrowful complaint Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once, He fell back, and rolled cras.h.i.+ng from the height Into the dusk of pines.

_Adam._ It might have been.

I heard the curse alone.

_Earth Spirits._ I wail, I wail!

_Lucifer._ That lion is the type of what I am.

And as he fixed thee with his full-faced hate, And roared, O Adam, comprehending doom, So, gazing on the face of the Unseen, I cry out here between the Heavens and Earth My conscience of this sin, this woe, this wrath, Which d.a.m.n me to this depth.

_Earth Spirits._ I wail, I wail!

_Eve._ I wail--O G.o.d!

_Lucifer._ I scorn you that ye wail, Who use your petty griefs for pedestals To stand on, beckoning pity from without, And deal in pathos of ant.i.thesis Of what ye _were_ forsooth, and what ye are;-- I scorn you like an angel! Yet, one cry I, too, would drive up like a column erect, Marble to marble, from my heart to heaven, A monument of anguish to transpierce And overtop your vapoury complaints Expressed from feeble woes.

_Earth Spirits._ I wail, I wail!

_Lucifer._ For, O ye heavens, ye are my witnesses, That _I_, struck out from nature in a blot, The outcast and the mildew of things good, The leper of angels, the excepted dust Under the common rain of daily gifts,-- I the snake, I the tempter, I the cursed,-- To whom the highest and the lowest alike Say, Go from us--we have no need of thee,-- Was made by G.o.d like others. Good and fair, He did create me!--ask him, if not fair!

Ask, if I caught not fair and silverly His blessing for chief angels on my head Until it grew there, a crown crystallized!

Ask, if he never called me by my name, _Lucifer_--kindly said as "Gabriel"-- _Lucifer_--soft as "Michael!" while serene I, standing in the glory of the lamps, Answered "my Father," innocent of shame And of the sense of thunder. Ha! ye think, White angels in your niches,--I repent, And would tread down my own offences back To service at the footstool? _that's_ read wrong!

I cry as the beast did, that I may cry-- Expansive, not appealing! Fallen so deep, Against the sides of this prodigious pit I cry--cry--das.h.i.+ng out the hands of wail On each side, to meet anguish everywhere, And to attest it in the ecstasy And exaltation of a woe sustained Because provoked and chosen.

Pa.s.s along Your wilderness, vain mortals! Puny griefs In transitory shapes, be henceforth dwarfed To your own conscience, by the dread extremes Of what I am and have been. If ye have fallen, It is but a step's fall,--the whole ground beneath Strewn woolly soft with promise! if ye have sinned, Your prayers tread high as angels! if ye have grieved, Ye are too mortal to be pitiable, The power to die disproves the right to grieve.

Go to! ye call this ruin? I half-scorn The ill I did you! Were ye wronged by me, Hated and tempted and undone of me,-- Still, what's your hurt to mine of doing hurt, Of hating, tempting, and so ruining?

This sword's _hilt_ is the sharpest, and cuts through The hand that wields it.

Go! I curse you all.

Hate one another--feebly--as ye can!

I would not certes cut you short in hate, Far be it from me! hate on as ye can!

I breathe into your faces, spirits of earth, As wintry blast may breathe on wintry leaves And lifting up their brownness show beneath The branches bare. Beseech you, spirits, give To Eve who beggarly entreats your love For her and Adam when they shall be dead, An answer rather fitting to the sin Than to the sorrow--as the heavens, I trow, For justice' sake gave theirs.

I curse you both, Adam and Eve. Say grace as after meat, After my curses! May your tears fall hot On all the hissing scorns o' the creatures here,-- And yet rejoice! Increase and multiply, Ye in your generations, in all plagues, Corruptions, melancholies, poverties, And hideous forms of life and fears of death,-- The thought of death being always imminent, Immoveable and dreadful in your life, And deafly and dumbly insignificant Of any hope beyond,--as death itself, Whichever of you lieth dead the first, Shall seem to the survivor--yet rejoice!

My curse catch at you strongly, body and soul, And HE find no redemption--nor the wing Of seraph move your way; and yet rejoice!

Rejoice,--because ye have not, set in you, This hate which shall pursue you--this fire-hate Which glares without, because it burns within-- Which kills from ashes--this potential hate, Wherein I, angel, in antagonism To G.o.d and his reflex beat.i.tudes, Moan ever, in the central universe, With the great woe of striving against Love-- And gasp for s.p.a.ce amid the Infinite, And toss for rest amid the Desertness, Self-orphaned by my will, and self-elect To kings.h.i.+p of resistant agony Toward the Good round me--hating good and love, And willing to hate good and to hate love, And willing to will on so evermore, Scorning the past and d.a.m.ning the to-come-- Go and rejoice! I curse you.

[_LUCIFER vanishes._

_Earth Spirits._ And we scorn you! there's no pardon Which can lean to you aright.

When your bodies take the guerdon Of the death-curse in our sight, Then the bee that hummeth lowest shall transcend you: Then ye shall not move an eyelid Though the stars look down your eyes; And the earth which ye defiled Shall expose you to the skies,-- "Lo! these kings of ours, who sought to comprehend you."

_First Spirit._ And the elements shall boldly All your dust to dust constrain.

Unresistedly and coldly I will smite you with my rain.

From the slowest of my frosts is no receding.

_Second Spirit._ And my little worm, appointed To a.s.sume a royal part, He shall reign, crowned and anointed, O'er the n.o.ble human heart.

Give him counsel against losing of that Eden!

_Adam._ Do ye scorn us? Back your scorn Toward your faces grey and lorn, As the wind drives back the rain, Thus I drive with pa.s.sion-strife, I who stand beneath G.o.d's sun, Made like G.o.d, and, though undone, Not unmade for love and life.

Lo! ye utter threats in vain.

By my free will that chose sin, By mine agony within Round the pa.s.sage of the fire, By the pinings which disclose That my native soul is higher Than what it chose, We are yet too high, O Spirits, for your disdain!

_Eve._ Nay, beloved! If these be low, We confront them from no height.

We have stooped down to their level By infecting them with evil, And their scorn that meets our blow Scathes aright.

Amen. Let it be so.

_Earth Spirits._ We shall triumph--triumph greatly When ye lie beneath the sward.

There, our lily shall grow stately Though ye answer not a word, And her fragrance shall be scornful of your silence: While your throne ascending calmly We, in heirdom of your soul, Flash the river, lift the palm-tree, The dilated ocean roll, By the thoughts that throbbed within you, round the islands.

Alp and torrent shall inherit Your significance of will, And the grandeur of your spirit Shall our broad savannahs fill; In our winds, your exultations shall be springing!

Even your parlance which inveigles, By our rudeness shall be won.

Hearts poetic in our eagles Shall beat up against the sun And strike downward in articulate clear singing.

Your bold speeches our Behemoth With his thunderous jaw shall wield.

Your high fancies shall our Mammoth Breathe sublimely up the s.h.i.+eld Of Saint Michael at G.o.d's throne, who waits to speed him: Till the heavens' smooth-grooved thunder Spinning back, shall leave them clear, And the angels, smiling wonder, With dropt looks from sphere to sphere, Shall cry "Ho, ye heirs of Adam! ye exceed him."

_Adam._ Root out thine eyes, Sweet, from the dreary ground!

Beloved, we may be overcome by G.o.d, But not by these.

_Eve._ By G.o.d, perhaps, in these.

_Adam._ I think, not so. Had G.o.d foredoomed despair He had not spoken hope. He may destroy Certes, but not deceive.

_Eve._ Behold this rose!

I plucked it in our bower of Paradise This morning as I went forth, and my heart Has beat against its petals all the day.

I thought it would be always red and full As when I plucked it. _Is_ it?--ye may see!

I cast it down to you that ye may see, All of you!--count the petals lost of it, And note the colours fainted! ye may see!

And I am as it is, who yesterday Grew in the same place. O ye spirits of earth, I almost, from my miserable heart, Could here upbraid you for your cruel heart, Which will not let me, down the slope of death, Draw any of your pity after me, Or lie still in the quiet of your looks, As my flower, there, in mine.

[_A bleak wind, quickened with indistinct Human Voices, spins around the Earth-zodiac, filling the circle with its presence; and then, wailing off into the East, carries the rose away with it. EVE falls upon her face. ADAM stands erect._

_Adam._ So, verily, The last departs.

_Eve._ So Memory follows Hope, And Life both. Love said to me, "Do not die,"

And I replied, "O Love, I will not die.

I exiled and I will not orphan Love."

But now it is no choice of mine to die: My heart throbs from me.

_Adam._ Call it straightway back!

Death's consummation crowns completed life, Or comes too early. Hope being set on thee For others, if for others then for thee,-- For thee and me.

[_The wind revolves from the East, and round again to the East, perfumed by the Eden rose, and full of Voices which sweep out into articulation as they pa.s.s._

Let thy soul shake its leaves To feel the mystic wind--hark!

_Eve._ I hear life.

_Infant Voices pa.s.sing in the wind._ O we live, O we live-- And this life that we receive Is a warm thing and a new, Which we softly bud into From the heart and from the brain,-- Something strange that overmuch is Of the sound and of the sight, Flowing round in trickling touches, With a sorrow and delight,-- Yet is it all in vain?

Rock us softly, Lest it be all in vain.

_Youthful Voices pa.s.sing._ O we live, O we live-- And this life that we achieve Is a loud thing and a bold Which with pulses manifold Strikes the heart out full and fain-- Active doer, n.o.ble liver, Strong to struggle, sure to conquer, Though the vessel's prow will quiver At the lifting of the anchor: Yet do we strive in vain?

_Infant Voices pa.s.sing._ Rock us softly, Lest it be all in vain.