[ { "title": "Human Life’s Mystery", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,", "We build the house where we may rest,", "And then, at moments, suddenly,", "We look up to the great wide sky,", "Inquiring wherefore we were born…", "For earnest or for jest?", "", "The senses folding thick and dark", "About the stifled soul within,", "We guess diviner things beyond,", "And yearn to them with yearning fond;", "We strike out blindly to a mark", "Believed in, but not seen.", "", "We vibrate to the pant and thrill", "Wherewith Eternity has curled", "In serpent-twine about God’s seat;", "While, freshening upward to His feet,", "In gradual growth His full-leaved will", "Expands from world to world.", "", "And, in the tumult and excess", "Of act and passion under sun,", "We sometimes hear—oh, soft and far,", "As silver star did touch with star,", "The kiss of Peace and Righteousness", "Through all things that are done.", "", "God keeps His holy mysteries", "Just on the outside of man’s dream;", "In diapason slow, we think", "To hear their pinions rise and sink,", "While they float pure beneath His eyes,", "Like swans adown a stream.", "", "Abstractions, are they, from the forms", "Of His great beauty?—exaltations", "From His great glory?—strong previsions", "Of what we shall be?—intuitions", "Of what we are—in calms and storms,", "Beyond our peace and passions?", "", "Things nameless! which, in passing so,", "Do stroke us with a subtle grace.", "We say, ‘Who passes?’—they are dumb.", "We cannot see them go or come:", "Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow", "Upon a blind man’s face.", "", "Yet, touching so, they draw above", "Our common thoughts to Heaven’s unknown,", "Our daily joy and pain advance", "To a divine significance,", "Our human love—O mortal love,", "That light is not its own!", "", "And sometimes horror chills our blood", "To be so near such mystic Things,", "And we wrap round us for defence", "Our purple manners, moods of sense—", "As angels from the face of God", "Stand hidden in their wings.", "", "And sometimes through life’s heavy swound", "We grope for them!—with strangled breath", "We stretch our hands abroad and try", "To reach them in our agony,—", "And widen, so, the broad life-wound", "Which soon is large enough for death." ], "linecount": "60" }, { "title": "Mother and Poet", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "I.", "", "Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,", "And one of them shot in the west by the sea.", "Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast", "And are wanting a great song for Italy free,", "Let none look at me !", "", "II.", "Yet I was a poetess only last year,", "And good at my art, for a woman, men said ;", "But this woman, this, who is agonized here,", "-- The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head", "For ever instead.", "", "III.", "What art can a woman be good at ? Oh, vain !", "What art is she good at, but hurting her breast", "With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain ?", "Ah boys, how you hurt ! you were strong as you pressed,", "And I proud, by that test.", "", "IV.", "What art's for a woman ? To hold on her knees", "Both darlings ! to feel all their arms round her throat,", "Cling, strangle a little ! to sew by degrees", "And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ;", "To dream and to doat.", "", "V.", "To teach them ... It stings there ! I made them indeed", "Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,", "That a country's a thing men should die for at need.", "I prated of liberty, rights, and about", "The tyrant cast out.", "", "VI.", "And when their eyes flashed ... O my beautiful eyes ! ...", "I exulted ; nay, let them go forth at the wheels", "Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise", "When one sits quite alone ! Then one weeps, then one kneels !", "God, how the house feels !", "", "VII.", "At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled", "With my kisses, -- of camp-life and glory, and how", "They both loved me ; and, soon coming home to be spoiled", "In return would fan off every fly from my brow", "With their green laurel-bough.", "", "VIII.", "Then was triumph at Turin : `Ancona was free !'", "And some one came out of the cheers in the street,", "With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.", "My Guido was dead ! I fell down at his feet,", "While they cheered in the street.", "", "IX.", "I bore it ; friends soothed me ; my grief looked sublime", "As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained", "To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time", "When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained", "To the height he had gained.", "", "X.", "And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,", "Writ now but in one hand, `I was not to faint, --", "One loved me for two -- would be with me ere long :", "And Viva l' Italia ! -- he died for, our saint,", "Who forbids our complaint.\"", "", "XI.", "My Nanni would add, `he was safe, and aware", "Of a presence that turned off the balls, -- was imprest", "It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,", "And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed,", "To live on for the rest.\"", "", "XII.", "On which, without pause, up the telegraph line", "Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : -- Shot.", "Tell his mother. Ah, ah, ` his, ' ` their ' mother, -- not ` mine, '", "No voice says \"My mother\" again to me. What !", "You think Guido forgot ?", "", "XIII.", "Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,", "They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe ?", "I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven", "Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so", "The Above and Below.", "", "XIV.", "O Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark", "To the face of Thy mother ! consider, I pray,", "How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,", "Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,", "And no last word to say !", "", "XV.", "Both boys dead ? but that's out of nature. We all", "Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.", "'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall ;", "And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done", "If we have not a son ?", "", "XVI.", "Ah, ah, ah ! when Gaeta's taken, what then ?", "When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport", "Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men ?", "When the guns of Cavalli with final retort", "Have cut the game short ?", "", "XVII.", "When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,", "When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,", "When you have your country from mountain to sea,", "When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,", "(And I have my Dead) --", "", "XVIII.", "What then ? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,", "And burn your lights faintly ! My country is there,", "Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow :", "My Italy 's THERE, with my brave civic Pair,", "To disfranchise despair !", "", "XIX.", "Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,", "And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn ;", "But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length", "Into wail such as this -- and we sit on forlorn", "When the man-child is born.", "", "XX.", "Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,", "And one of them shot in the west by the sea.", "Both ! both my boys ! If in keeping the feast", "You want a great song for your Italy free,", "Let none look at me !", "", "", "[This was Laura Savio, of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sonswere killed at Ancona and Gaeta.]" ], "linecount": "121" }, { "title": "Pain In Pleasure", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "A THOUGHT ay like a flower upon mine heart,", "And drew around it other thoughts like bees", "For multitude and thirst of sweetnesses;", "Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art", "Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and mart", "Could lure those insect swarms from orange-trees", "That I might hive with me such thoughts and please", "My soul so, always. foolish counterpart", "Of a weak man's vain wishes ! While I spoke,", "The thought I called a flower grew nettle-rough", "The thoughts, called bees, stung me to festering:", "Oh, entertain (cried Reason as she woke)", "Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough,", "And they will all prove sad enough to sting !" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "On A Portrait Of Wordsworth", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn ! Let the cloud", "Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,", "Then break against the rock, and show behind", "The lowland valleys floating up to crowd", "The sense with beauty. He with forehead bowed", "And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined", "Before the sovran thought of his own mind,", "And very meek with inspirations proud,", "Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest", "By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer", "", "To the higher Heavens. A noble vision free", "Our Haydon's hand has flung out from the mist:", "No portrait this, with Academic air !", "This is the poet and his poetry." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Lord Walter's Wife", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "I", "", "'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew,", "And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.", "", "II", "", "'Because I fear you,' he answered;--'because you are far too fair,", "And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd-coloured hair.'", "", "III", "", "'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,", "And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.'", "", "IV", "", "'Yet farewell so,' he answered; --'the sunstroke's fatal at times.", "I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes.", "", "V", "", "'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence:", "If two should smell it what matter? who grumbles, and where's the pretense?", "", "VI", "", "'But I,' he replied, 'have promised another, when love was free,", "To love her alone, alone, who alone from afar loves me.'", "", "VII", "", "'Why, that,' she said, 'is no reason. Love's always free I am told.", "Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it will hold?", "", "VIII", "", "'But you,' he replied, 'have a daughter, a young child, who was laid", "In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me afraid.\"", "", "IX", "", "'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. The angels keep out of the way;", "And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although you should please me and stay.'", "", "X", "", "At which he rose up in his anger,--'Why now, you no longer are fair!", "Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear.'", "", "XI", "", "At which she laughed out in her scorn: 'These men! Oh these men overnice,", "Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a vice.'", "", "XII", "", "Her eyes blazed upon him--'And you! You bring us your vices so near", "That we smell them! You think in our presence a thought 'twould defame us to hear!", "", "XIII", "", "'What reason had you, and what right,--I appel to your soul from my life,--", "To find me so fair as a woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife.", "", "XIV", "", "'Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you imply", "I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me as high?", "", "XV", "", "'If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much", "To use unlawful and fatal. The praise! --shall I thank you for such?", "", "XVI", "", "'Too fair?--not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a while,", "You attain to it, straightaway you call us no longer too fair, but too vile.", "", "XVII", "", "'A moment,--I pray your attention!--I have a poor word in my head", "I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better unsaid.", "", "XVIII", "", "'You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a ring.", "You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter! I've broken the thing.", "", "XIX", "", "'You did me the honour, perhaps, to be moved at my side now and then", "In the senses--a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and some men.", "", "XX", "", "'Love's a virtue for heroes!--as white as the snow on high hills,", "And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and fulfils.", "", "XXI", "'I love my Walter profoundly,--you, Maude, though you faltered a week,", "For the sake of . . . what is it--an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole on the cheek?", "", "XXII", "'And since, when all's said, you're too noble to stoop to the frivolous cant", "About crimes irresistable, virtues that swindle, betray and supplant.", "", "XXIII", "", "'I determined to prove to yourself that, whate'er you might dream or avow", "By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now.", "", "XXIV", "", "'There! Look me full in the face!--in the face. Understand, if you can,", "That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man.", "", "XXV", "'Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you a scar--", "You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are.", "", "XXVI", "", "'You wronged me: but then I considered . . . there's Walter! And so at the end", "I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a friend.", "", "XXVII", "", "'Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my Walter, be mine!", "Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine.'" ], "linecount": "81" }, { "title": "Sonnet 33 - Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear", "The name I used to run at, when a child,", "From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled,", "To glance up in some face that proved me dear", "With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear", "Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled", "Into the music of Heaven's undefiled,", "Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,", "While I call God—call God!—So let thy mouth", "Be heir to those who are now exanimate.", "Gather the north flowers to complete the south,", "And catch the early love up in the late.", "Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,", "With the same heart, will answer and not wait." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 16 - And yet, because thou overcomest so", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "And yet, because thou overcomest so,", "Because thou art more noble and like a king,", "Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling", "Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow", "Too close against thine heart henceforth to know", "How it shook when alone. Why, conquering", "May prove as lordly and complete a thing", "In lifting upward, as in crushing low!", "And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword", "To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,", "Even so, Beloved, I at last record,", "Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,", "I rise above abasement at the word.", "Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "The Cry Of The Children", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,", "Ere the sorrow comes with years?", "They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,", "And that cannot stop their tears.", "The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,", "The young birds are chirping in the nest,", "The young fawns are playing with the shadows,", "The young flowers are blowing toward the west—", "But the young, young children, O my brothers,", "They are weeping bitterly!", "They are weeping in the playtime of the others,", "In the country of the free.", "", "Do you question the young children in their sorrow,", "Why their tears are falling so?", "The old man may weep for his tomorrow,", "Which is lost in Long Ago;", "The old tree is leafless in the forest,", "The old year is ending in the frost,", "The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,", "The old hope is hardest to be lost:", "But the young, young children, O my brothers,", "Do you ask them why they stand", "Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,", "In our happy Fatherland?", "", "They look up with their pale and sunken faces,", "And their looks are sad to see,", "For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses", "Down the cheeks of infancy;", "\"Your old earth,\" they say, \"is very dreary;", "Our young feet,\" they say, \"are very weak!", "Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—", "Our grave-rest is very far to seek.", "Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,", "For the outside earth is cold,", "And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,", "And the graves are for the old.\"", "", "\"True,\" say the children, \"it may happen", "That we die before our time.", "Little Alice died last year—her grave is shapen", "Like a snowball, in the rime.", "We looked into the pit prepared to take her:", "Was no room for any work in the close clay!", "From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,", "Crying 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.'", "If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,", "With your ear down, little Alice never cries;", "Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,", "For the smile has time for growing in her eyes:", "And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in", "The shroud by the kirk-chime.", "It is good when it happens,\" say the children,", "\"That we die before our time.\"", "", "Alas, alas, the children! They are seeking", "Death in life, as best to have;", "They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,", "With a cerement from the grave.", "Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,", "Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do;", "Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty,", "Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!", "But they answer, \"Are your cowslips of the meadows", "Like our weeds anear the mine?", "Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,", "From your pleasures fair and fine!", "", "\"For oh,\" say the children, \"we are weary,", "And we cannot run or leap;", "If we cared for any meadows, it were merely", "To drop down in them and sleep.", "Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,", "We fall upon our faces, trying to go;", "And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,", "The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.", "For, all day, we drag our burden tiring", "Through the coal-dark, underground;", "Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron", "In the factories, round and round.", "", "\"For all day the wheels are droning, turning;", "Their wind comes in our faces,—", "Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,", "And the walls turn in their places:", "Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,", "Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,", "Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,—", "All are turning, all the day, and we with all.", "And all day, the iron wheels are droning,", "And sometimes we could pray,", "'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning)", "'Stop! be silent for today!' \"", "", "Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing", "For a moment, mouth to mouth!", "Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing", "Of their tender human youth!", "Let them feel that this cold metallic motion", "Is not all the life God fashions or reveals:", "Let them prove their living souls against the notion", "That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!", "Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,", "Grinding life down from its mark;", "And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,", "Spin on blindly in the dark.", "", "Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,", "To look up to Him and pray;", "So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,", "Will bless them another day.", "They answer, \"Who is God that He should hear us,", "While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred?", "When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us", "Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word.", "And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)", "Strangers speaking at the door:", "Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,", "Hears our weeping any more?", "", "\"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,", "And at midnight's hour of harm,", "'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,", "We say softly for a charm.", "We know no other words except 'Our Father,'", "And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,", "God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,", "And hold both within His right hand which is strong.", "'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely", "(For they call Him good and mild)", "Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,", "'Come and rest with me, my child.'", "", "\"But, no!\" say the children, weeping faster,", "\"He is speechless as a stone:", "And they tell us, of His image is the master", "Who commands us to work on.", "Go to!\" say the children,—\"up in heaven,", "Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.", "Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving—", "We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.\"", "Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,", "O my brothers, what ye preach?", "For God's possible is taught by His world's loving,", "And the children doubt of each.", "", "And well may the children weep before you!", "They are weary ere they run;", "They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory", "Which is brighter than the sun.", "They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;", "They sink in man's despair, without its calm,—", "Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,—", "Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm,—", "Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly", "The harvest of its memories cannot reap,—", "Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.", "Let them weep! let them weep!", "", "They look up with their pale and sunken faces,", "And their look is dread to see,", "For they mind you of their angels in high places,", "With eyes turned on Deity;—", "\"How long,\" they say, \"how long, O cruel nation,", "Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,—", "Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,", "And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?", "Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,", "And its purple shows your path!", "But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper", "Than the strong man in his wrath.\"" ], "linecount": "160" }, { "title": "Sonnet 21 - Say over again, and yet once over again", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Say over again, and yet once over again,", "That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated", "Should seem 'a cuckoo-song,' as thou dost treat it,", "Remember, never to the hill or plain,", "Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain", "Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.", "Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted", "By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain", "Cry, 'Speak once more—thou lovest! 'Who can fear", "Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,", "Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?", "Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll", "The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,", "To love me also in silence with thy soul." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "The Autumn", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Go, sit upon the lofty hill,", "And turn your eyes around,", "Where waving woods and waters wild", "Do hymn an autumn sound.", "The summer sun is faint on them --", "The summer flowers depart --", "Sit still -- as all transform'd to stone,", "Except your musing heart.", "", "How there you sat in summer-time,", "May yet be in your mind;", "And how you heard the green woods sing", "Beneath the freshening wind.", "Though the same wind now blows around,", "You would its blast recall;", "For every breath that stirs the trees,", "Doth cause a leaf to fall.", "", "Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth", "That flesh and dust impart:", "We cannot bear its visitings,", "When change is on the heart.", "Gay words and jests may make us smile,", "When Sorrow is asleep;", "But other things must make us smile,", "When Sorrow bids us weep!", "", "The dearest hands that clasp our hands, --", "Their presence may be o'er;", "The dearest voice that meets our ear,", "That tone may come no more!", "Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,", "Which once refresh'd our mind,", "Shall come -- as, on those sighing woods,", "The chilling autumn wind.", "", "Hear not the wind -- view not the woods;", "Look out o'er vale and hill-", "In spring, the sky encircled them --", "The sky is round them still.", "Come autumn's scathe -- come winter's cold --", "Come change -- and human fate!", "Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,", "Can ne'er be desolate." ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "Sonnet 09 - Can it be right to give what I can give?", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Can it be right to give what I can give?", "To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears", "As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years", "Re-sighing on my lips renunciative", "Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live", "For all thy adjurations? O my fears,", "That this can scarce be right! We are not peers,", "So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,", "That givers of such gifts as mine are, must", "Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!", "I will not soil thy purple with my dust,", "Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,", "Nor give thee any love—which were unjust.", "Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 07 - The face of all the world is changed, I think", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "The face of all the world is changed, I think,", "Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul", "Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole", "Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink", "Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,", "Was caught up into love, and taught the whole", "Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole", "God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,", "And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.", "The names of country, heaven, are changed away", "For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;", "And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,", "(The singing angels know) are only dear", "Because thy name moves right in what they say." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 44 - Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers", "Plucked in the garden, all the summer through", "And winter, and it seemed as if they grew", "In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.", "So, in the like name of that love of ours,", "Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,", "And which on warm and cold days I withdrew", "From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers", "Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,", "And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine,", "Here 's ivy!—take them, as I used to do", "Thy fowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.", "Instruct thine eyes to keep their colors true,", "And tell thy soul their roots are left in mine." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 19 - The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "XIX", "", "The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise;", "I barter curl for curl upon that mart,", "And from my poet's forehead to my heart", "Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—", "As purply black, as erst to Pindar's eyes", "The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart", "The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .", "The bay-crown's shade, Beloved, I surmise,", "Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!", "Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,", "I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,", "And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;", "Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack", "No natural heat till mine grows cold in death." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet 32 - The first time that the sun rose on thine oath", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "The first time that the sun rose on thine oath", "To love me, I looked forward to the moon", "To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon", "And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.", "Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;", "And, looking on myself, I seemed not one", "For such man's love!—more like an out-of-tune", "Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth", "To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,", "Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.", "I did not wrong myself so, but I placed", "A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float", "'Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,—", "And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "The breaking waves dashed high", "On a stern and rock-bound coast,", "And the woods, against a stormy sky,", "Their giant branches tost;", "", "And the heavy night hung dark", "The hills and water o'er,", "When a band of exiles moored their bark", "On the wild New England shore.", "", "Not as the conqueror comes,", "They, the true-hearted, came;", "Not with the roll of the stirring drums,", "And the trumpet that sings of fame;", "", "Not as the flying come,", "In silence and in fear,—", "They shook the depths of the desert's gloom", "With their hymns of lofty cheer.", "", "Amidst the storm they sang,", "And the stars heard and the sea;", "And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang", "To the anthem of the free.", "", "The ocean-eagle soared", "From his nest by the white wave's foam,", "And the rocking pines of the forest roared—", "This was their welcome home!", "", "There were men with hoary hair", "Amidst that pilgrim band:", "Why had they come to wither there,", "Away from their childhood's land?", "", "There was woman's fearless eye,", "Lit by her deep love's truth;", "There was manhood's brow serenely high,", "And the fiery heart of youth.", "", "What sought they thus afar?", "Bright jewels of the mine?", "The wealth of the seas? the spoils of war?—", "They sought a faith's pure shrine!", "", "Ay, call it holy ground,", "The soil where first they trod!", "They have left unstained what there they found—", "Freedom to worship God!" ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "Sonnet 30 - I see thine image through my tears to-night", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "I see thine image through my tears to-night,", "And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How", "Refer the cause?—Beloved, is it thou", "Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte", "Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite", "May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,", "On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,", "Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,", "As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's Amen.", "Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all", "The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when", "Too vehement light dilated my ideal,", "For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again,", "As now these tears come—falling hot and real?" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Patience Taught By Nature", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "'O DREARY life,' we cry, ' O dreary life ! '", "And still the generations of the birds", "Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds", "Serenely live while we are keeping strife", "With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife", "Against which we may struggle ! Ocean girds", "Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards", "Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife", "Meek leaves drop year]y from the forest-trees", "To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass", "In their old glory: O thou God of old,", "Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these !--", "But so much patience as a blade of grass", "Grows by, contented through the heat and cold." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Perplexed Music", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds", "A dulcimer of patience in his hand,", "Whence harmonies, we cannot understand,", "Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds", "In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds", "Fall on us while we hear, and countermand", "Our sanguine heart back from the fancyland", "With nightingales in visionary wolds.", "We murmur ' Where is any certain tune", "Or measured music in such notes as these ? '", "But angels, leaning from the golden seat,", "Are not so minded their fine ear hath won", "The issue of completed cadences,", "And, smiling down the stars, they whisper--", "SWEET." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet 22 - When our two souls stand up erect and strong", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "When our two souls stand up erect and strong,", "Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,", "Until the lengthening wings break into fire", "At either curved point,—what bitter wrong", "Can the earth do to us, that we should not long", "Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,", "The angels would press on us and aspire", "To drop some golden orb of perfect song", "Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay", "Rather on earth, Beloved,—where the unfit", "Contrarious moods of men recoil away", "And isolate pure spirits, and permit", "A place to stand and love in for a day,", "With darkness and the death-hour rounding it." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 34 - With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee", "As those, when thou shalt call me by my name—", "Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,", "Perplexed and ruffled by life's strategy?", "When called before, I told how hastily", "I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game,", "To run and answer with the smile that came", "At play last moment, and went on with me", "Through my obedience. When I answer now,", "I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;", "Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how—", "Not as to a single good, but all my good!", "Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow", "That no child's foot could run fast as this blood." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "To Flush, My Dog", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Yet, my pretty sportive friend,", "Little is't to such an end", "That I praise thy rareness!", "Other dogs may be thy peers", "Haply in these drooping ears,", "And this glossy fairness.", "", "But of thee it shall be said,", "This dog watched beside a bed", "Day and night unweary—", "Watched within a curtained room,", "Where no sunbeam brake the gloom", "Round the sick and dreary.", "", "Roses, gathered for a vase,", "In that chamber died apace,", "Beam and breeze resigning.", "This dog only, waited on,", "Knowing that when light is gone", "Love remains for shining.", "", "Other dogs in thymy dew", "Tracked the hares, and followed through", "Sunny moor or meadow.", "This dog only, crept and crept", "Next a languid cheek that slept,", "Sharing in the shadow.", "", "Other dogs of loyal cheer", "Bounded at the whistle clear,", "Up the woodside hieing.", "This dog only, watched in reach", "Of a faintly uttered speech,", "Or a louder sighing.", "", "And if one or two quick tears", "Dropped upon his glossy ears,", "Or a sigh came double—", "Up he sprang in eager haste,", "Fawning, fondling, breathing fast,", "In a tender trouble.", "", "And this dog was satisfied", "If a pale thin hand would glide", "Down his dewlaps sloping—", "Which he pushed his nose within,", "After—platforming his chin", "On the palm left open." ], "linecount": "42" }, { "title": "Aurora Leigh (excerpts)", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "[Book 1]", "I am like,", "They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows", "Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth", "Of delicate features, -- paler, near as grave ;", "But then my mother's smile breaks up the whole,", "And makes it better sometimes than itself.", "So, nine full years, our days were hid with God", "Among his mountains : I was just thirteen,", "Still growing like the plants from unseen roots", "In tongue-tied Springs, -- and suddenly awoke", "To full life and life 's needs and agonies,", "With an intense, strong, struggling heart beside", "A stone-dead father. Life, struck sharp on death,", "Makes awful lightning. His last word was, `Love --'", "`Love, my child, love, love !' -- (then he had done with grief)", "`Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone,", "And none was left to love in all the world.", "There, ended childhood. What succeeded next", "I recollect as, after fevers, men", "Thread back the passage of delirium,", "Missing the turn still, baffled by the door ;", "Smooth endless days, notched here and there with knives ;", "A weary, wormy darkness, spurr'd i' the flank", "With flame, that it should eat and end itself", "Like some tormented scorpion. Then at last", "I do remember clearly, how there came", "A stranger with authority, not right,", "(I thought not) who commanded, caught me up", "From old Assunta's neck ; how, with a shriek,", "She let me go, -- while I, with ears too full", "Of my father's silence, to shriek back a word,", "In all a child's astonishment at grief", "Stared at the wharf-edge where she stood and moaned,", "My poor Assunta, where she stood and moaned !", "The white walls, the blue hills, my Italy,", "Drawn backward from the shuddering steamer-deck,", "Like one in anger drawing back her skirts", "Which supplicants catch at. Then the bitter sea", "Inexorably pushed between us both,", "And sweeping up the ship with my despair", "Threw us out as a pasture to the stars.", "Ten nights and days we voyaged on the deep ;", "Ten nights and days, without the common face", "Of any day or night ; the moon and sun", "Cut off from the green reconciling earth,", "To starve into a blind ferocity", "And glare unnatural ; the very sky", "(Dropping its bell-net down upon the sea", "As if no human heart should 'scape alive,)", "Bedraggled with the desolating salt,", "Until it seemed no more that holy heaven", "To which my father went. All new and strange", "The universe turned stranger, for a child.", "Then, land ! -- then, England ! oh, the frosty cliffs", "Looked cold upon me. Could I find a home", "Among those mean red houses through the fog ?", "And when I heard my father's language first", "From alien lips which had no kiss for mine", "I wept aloud, then laughed, then wept, then wept,", "And some one near me said the child was mad", "Through much sea-sickness. The train swept us on.", "Was this my father's England ? the great isle ?", "The ground seemed cut up from the fellowship", "Of verdure, field from field, as man from man ;", "The skies themselves looked low and positive,", "As almost you could touch them with a hand,", "And dared to do it they were so far off", "From God's celestial crystals ; all things blurred", "And dull and vague. Did Shakspeare and his mates", "Absorb the light here ? -- not a hill or stone", "With heart to strike a radiant colour up", "Or active outline on the indifferent air.", "I think I see my father's sister stand", "Upon the hall-step of her country-house", "To give me welcome. She stood straight and calm,", "Her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight", "As if for taming accidental thoughts", "From possible pulses ; brown hair pricked with grey", "By frigid use of life, (she was not old", "Although my father's elder by a year)", "A nose drawn sharply yet in delicate lines ;", "A close mild mouth, a little soured about", "The ends, through speaking unrequited loves", "Or peradventure niggardly half-truths ;", "Eyes of no colour, -- once they might have smiled,", "But never, never have forgot themselves", "In smiling ; cheeks, in which was yet a rose", "Of perished summers, like a rose in a book,", "Kept more for ruth than pleasure, -- if past bloom,", "Past fading also.", "She had lived, we'll say,", "A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,", "A quiet life, which was not life at all,", "(But that, she had not lived enough to know)", "Between the vicar and the country squires,", "The lord-lieutenant looking down sometimes", "From the empyrean to assure their souls", "Against chance-vulgarisms, and, in the abyss", "The apothecary, looked on once a year", "To prove their soundness of humility.", "The poor-club exercised her Christian gifts", "Of knitting stockings, stitching petticoats,", "Because we are of one flesh after all", "And need one flannel (with a proper sense", "Of difference in the quality) -- and still", "The book-club, guarded from your modern trick", "Of shaking dangerous questions from the crease,", "Preserved her intellectual. She had lived", "A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage,", "Accounting that to leap from perch to perch", "Was act and joy enough for any bird.", "Dear heaven, how silly are the things that live", "In thickets, and eat berries !", "I, alas,", "A wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her cage,", "And she was there to meet me. Very kind.", "Bring the clean water, give out the fresh seed.", "She stood upon the steps to welcome me,", "Calm, in black garb. I clung about her neck, --", "Young babes, who catch at every shred of wool", "To draw the new light closer, catch and cling", "Less blindly. In my ears, my father's word", "Hummed ignorantly, as the sea in shells,", "`Love, love, my child.' She, black there with my grief,", "Might feel my love -- she was his sister once,", "I clung to her. A moment, she seemed moved,", "Kissed me with cold lips, suffered me to cling,", "And drew me feebly through the hall into", "The room she sate in.", "There, with some strange spasm", "Of pain and passion, she wrung loose my hands", "Imperiously, and held me at arm's length,", "And with two grey-steel naked-bladed eyes", "Searched through my face, -- ay, stabbed it through and through,", "Through brows and cheeks and chin, as if to find", "A wicked murderer in my innocent face,", "If not here, there perhaps. Then, drawing breath,", "She struggled for her ordinary calm", "And missed it rather, -- told me not to shrink,", "As if she had told me not to lie or swear, --", "`She loved my father, and would love me too", "As long as I deserved it.' Very kind.", "", "[Book 5]", "", "AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope", "To speak my poems in mysterious tune", "With man and nature ? -- with the lava-lymph", "That trickles from successive galaxies", "Still drop by drop adown the finger of God", "In still new worlds ? -- with summer-days in this ?", "That scarce dare breathe they are so beautiful ?--", "With spring's delicious trouble in the ground,", "Tormented by the quickened blood of roots,", "And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves", "In token of the harvest-time of flowers ?--", "With winters and with autumns, -- and beyond,", "With the human heart's large seasons, when it hopes", "And fears, joys, grieves, and loves ? -- with all that strain", "Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh", "In a sacrament of souls ? with mother's breasts", "Which, round the new-made creatures hanging there,", "Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres ? --", "With multitudinous life, and finally", "With the great escapings of ecstatic souls,", "Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,", "Their radiant faces upward, burn away", "This dark of the body, issuing on a world,", "Beyond our mortal ? -- can I speak my verse", "Sp plainly in tune to these things and the rest,", "That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,", "As having the same warrant over them", "To hold and move them if they will or no,", "Alike imperious as the primal rhythm", "Of that theurgic nature ? I must fail,", "Who fail at the beginning to hold and move", "One man, -- and he my cousin, and he my friend,", "And he born tender, made intelligent,", "Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides", "Of difficult questions ; yet, obtuse to me,", "Of me, incurious ! likes me very well,", "And wishes me a paradise of good,", "Good looks, good means, and good digestion, -- ay,", "But otherwise evades me, puts me off", "With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness, --", "Too light a book for a grave man's reading ! Go,", "Aurora Leigh : be humble.", "There it is,", "We women are too apt to look to One,", "Which proves a certain impotence in art.", "We strain our natures at doing something great,", "Far less because it 's something great to do,", "Than haply that we, so, commend ourselves", "As being not small, and more appreciable", "To some one friend. We must have mediators", "Betwixt our highest conscience and the judge ;", "Some sweet saint's blood must quicken in our palms", "Or all the life in heaven seems slow and cold :", "Good only being perceived as the end of good,", "And God alone pleased, -- that's too poor, we think,", "And not enough for us by any means.", "Ay, Romney, I remember, told me once", "We miss the abstract when we comprehend.", "We miss it most when we aspire, -- and fail.", "Yet, so, I will not. -- This vile woman's way", "Of trailing garments, shall not trip me up :", "I 'll have no traffic with the personal thought", "In art's pure temple. Must I work in vain,", "Without the approbation of a man ?", "It cannot be ; it shall not. Fame itself,", "That approbation of the general race,", "Presents a poor end, (though the arrow speed,", "Shot straight with vigorous finger to the white,)", "And the highest fame was never reached except", "By what was aimed above it. Art for art,", "And good for God Himself, the essential Good !", "We 'll keep our aims sublime, our eyes erect,", "Although our woman-hands should shake and fail ;", "And if we fail .. But must we ? --", "Shall I fail ?", "The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase,", "`Let no one be called happy till his death.'", "To which I add, -- Let no one till his death", "Be called unhappy. Measure not the work", "Until the day 's out and the labour done,", "Then bring your gauges. If the day's work 's scant,", "Why, call it scant ; affect no compromise ;", "And, in that we have nobly striven at least,", "Deal with us nobly, women though we be.", "And honour us with truth if not with praise." ], "linecount": "229" }, { "title": "A Dead Rose", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "O Rose! who dares to name thee?", "No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet;", "But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat,---", "Kept seven years in a drawer---thy titles shame thee.", "", "The breeze that used to blow thee", "Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away", "An odour up the lane to last all day,---", "If breathing now,---unsweetened would forego thee.", "", "The sun that used to smite thee,", "And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn,", "Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn,---", "If shining now,---with not a hue would light thee.", "", "The dew that used to wet thee,", "And, white first, grow incarnadined, because", "It lay upon thee where the crimson was,---", "If dropping now,---would darken where it met thee.", "", "The fly that lit upon thee,", "To stretch the tendrils of its tiny feet,", "Along thy leaf's pure edges, after heat,---", "If lighting now,---would coldly overrun thee.", "", "The bee that once did suck thee,", "And build thy perfumed ambers up his hive,", "And swoon in thee for joy, till scarce alive,---", "If passing now,---would blindly overlook thee.", "", "The heart doth recognise thee,", "Alone, alone! The heart doth smell thee sweet,", "Doth view thee fair, doth judge thee most complete,---", "Though seeing now those changes that disguise thee.", "", "Yes, and the heart doth owe thee", "More love, dead rose! than to such roses bold", "As Julia wears at dances, smiling cold!---", "Lie still upon this heart---which breaks below thee!" ], "linecount": "32" }, { "title": "Sonnet 40 - Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!", "I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth.", "I have heard love talked in my early youth,", "And since, not so long back but that the flowers", "Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours", "Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth", "For any weeping. Polypheme's white tooth", "Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,", "The shell is over-smooth,—and not so much", "Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate", "Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such", "A lover, my Beloved! thou canst wait", "Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,", "And think it soon when others cry 'Too late.'" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "A Thought For A Lonely Death-Bed", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "IF God compel thee to this destiny,", "To die alone, with none beside thy bed", "To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said", "And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,--", "Pray then alone, ' O Christ, come tenderly !", "By thy forsaken Sonship in the red", "Drear wine-press,--by the wilderness out-spread,--", "And the lone garden where thine agony", "Fell bloody from thy brow,--by all of those", "Permitted desolations, comfort mine !", "No earthly friend being near me, interpose", "No deathly angel 'twixt my face aud thine,", "But stoop Thyself to gather my life's rose,", "And smile away my mortal to Divine !" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "A Woman's Shortcomings", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "She has laughed as softly as if she sighed,", "She has counted six, and over,", "Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried -", "Oh, each a worthy lover!", "They \"give her time\"; for her soul must slip", "Where the world has set the grooving;", "She will lie to none with her fair red lip:", "But love seeks truer loving.", "", "She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb,", "As her thoughts were beyond recalling;", "With a glance for one, and a glance for some,", "From her eyelids rising and falling;", "Speaks common words with a blushful air,", "Hears bold words, unreproving;", "But her silence says - what she never will swear -", "And love seeks better loving.", "", "Go, lady! lean to the night-guitar,", "And drop a smile to the bringer;", "Then smile as sweetly, when he is far,", "At the voice of an in-door singer.", "Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes;", "Glance lightly, on their removing;", "And join new vows to old perjuries -", "But dare not call it loving!", "", "Unless you can think, when the song is done,", "No other is soft in the rhythm;", "Unless you can feel, when left by One,", "That all men else go with him;", "Unless you can know, when unpraised by his breath,", "That your beauty itself wants proving;", "Unless you can swear \"For life, for death!\" -", "Oh, fear to call it loving!", "", "Unless you can muse in a crowd all day", "On the absent face that fixed you;", "Unless you can love, as the angels may,", "With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;", "Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,", "Through behoving and unbehoving;", "Unless you can die when the dream is past -", "Oh, never call it loving!" ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "Sonnet 23 - Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,", "Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?", "And would the sun for thee more coldly shine", "Because of grave-damps falling round my head?", "I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read", "Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine—", "But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine", "While my hands tremble ? Then my soul, instead", "Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.", "Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me!", "As brighter ladies do not count it strange,", "For love, to give up acres and degree,", "I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange", "My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 12 - Indeed this very love which is my boast", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Indeed this very love which is my boast,", "And which, when rising up from breast to brow,", "Doth crown me with a ruby large enow", "To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,—", "This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,", "I should not love withal, unless that thou", "Hadst set me an example, shown me how,", "When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,", "And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak", "Of love even, as a good thing of my own:", "Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,", "And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—", "And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)", "Is by thee only, whom I love alone." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "The breaking waves dashed high", "On a stern and rock-bound coast,", "And the woods, against a stormy sky,", "Their giant branches tost;", "", "And the heavy night hung dark", "The hills and water o'er,", "When a band of exiles moored their bark", "On the wild New England shore.", "", "Not as the conqueror comes,", "They, the true-hearted, came;", "Not with the roll of the stirring drums,", "And the trumpet that sings of fame;", "", "Not as the flying come,", "In silence and in fear, -", "They shook the depths of the desert's gloom", "With their hymns of lofty cheer.", "", "Amidst the storm they sang,", "And the stars heard and the sea;", "And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang", "To the anthem of the free.", "", "The ocean-eagle soared", "From his nest by the white wave's foam,", "And the rocking pines of the forest roared -", "This was their welcome home!", "", "There were men with hoary hair", "Amidst that pilgrim band:", "Why had they come to wither there,", "Away from their childhood's land?", "", "There was woman's fearless eye,", "Lit by her deep love's truth;", "There was manhood's brow serenely high,", "And the fiery heart of youth.", "", "What sought they thus afar?", "Bright jewels of the mine?", "The wealth of the seas? the spoils of war? -", "They sought a faith's pure shrine!", "", "Ay, call it holy ground,", "The soil where first they trod!", "They have left unstained what there they found -", "Freedom to worship God!" ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "A Child Asleep", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "How he sleepeth! having drunken", "Weary childhood's mandragore,", "From his pretty eyes have sunken", "Pleasures, to make room for more---", "Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before.", "", "Nosegays! leave them for the waking:", "Throw them earthward where they grew.", "Dim are such, beside the breaking", "Amaranths he looks unto---", "Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.", "", "Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden", "From the paths they sprang beneath,", "Now perhaps divinely holden,", "Swing against him in a wreath---", "We may think so from the quickening of his bloom and of his breath.", "", "Vision unto vision calleth,", "While the young child dreameth on.", "Fair, O dreamer, thee befalleth", "With the glory thou hast won!", "Darker wert thou in the garden, yestermorn, by summer sun.", "", "We should see the spirits ringing", "Round thee,---were the clouds away.", "'Tis the child-heart draws them, singing", "In the silent-seeming clay---", "Singing!---Stars that seem the mutest, go in music all the way.", "", "As the moths around a taper,", "As the bees around a rose,", "As the gnats around a vapour,---", "So the Spirits group and close", "Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its repose.", "", "Shapes of brightness overlean thee,---", "Flash their diadems of youth", "On the ringlets which half screen thee,---", "While thou smilest, . . . not in sooth", "Thy smile . . . but the overfair one, dropt from some aethereal mouth.", "", "Haply it is angels' duty,", "During slumber, shade by shade:", "To fine down this childish beauty", "To the thing it must be made,", "Ere the world shall bring it praises, or the tomb shall see it fade.", "", "Softly, softly! make no noises!", "Now he lieth dead and dumb---", "Now he hears the angels' voices", "Folding silence in the room---", "Now he muses deep the meaning of the Heaven-words as they come.", "", "Speak not! he is consecrated---", "Breathe no breath across his eyes.", "Lifted up and separated,", "On the hand of God he lies,", "In a sweetness beyond touching---held in cloistral sanctities.", "", "Could ye bless him---father---mother ?", "Bless the dimple in his cheek?", "Dare ye look at one another,", "And the benediction speak?", "Would ye not break out in weeping, and confess yourselves too weak?", "", "He is harmless---ye are sinful,---", "Ye are troubled---he, at ease:", "From his slumber, virtue winful", "Floweth outward with increase---", "Dare not bless him! but be blessed by his peace---and go in peace." ], "linecount": "60" }, { "title": "A Musical Instrument", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "What was he doing, the great god Pan,", "Down in the reeds by the river?", "Spreading ruin and scattering ban,", "Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,", "And breaking the golden lilies afloat", "With the dragon-fly on the river.", "", "He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,", "From the deep cool bed of the river:", "The limpid water turbidly ran,", "And the broken lilies a-dying lay,", "And the dragon-fly had fled away,", "Ere he brought it out of the river.", "", "High on the shore sat the great god Pan,", "While turbidly flowed the river;", "And hacked and hewed as a great god can,", "With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,", "Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed", "To prove it fresh from the river.", "", "He cut it short, did the great god Pan,", "(How tall it stood in the river!)", "Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,", "Steadily from the outside ring,", "And notched the poor dry empty thing", "In holes, as he sat by the river.", "", "\"This is the way,\" laughed the great god Pan,", "(Laughed while he sat by the river)", "\"The only way, since gods began", "To make sweet music, they could succeed.\"", "Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,", "He blew in power by the river.", "", "Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!", "Piercing sweet by the river!", "Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!", "The sun on the hill forgot to die,", "And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly", "Came back to dream on the river.", "", "Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,", "To laugh as he sits by the river,", "Making a poet out of a man:", "The true gods sigh for the cost and pain—", "For the reed which grows nevermore again", "As a reed with the reeds in the river." ], "linecount": "42" }, { "title": "Sonnet 38 - First time he kissed me, he but only kissed", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "First time he kissed me, he but only kissed", "The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;", "And ever since, it grew more clean and white,", "Slow to world-greetings, quick with its 'Oh, list,'", "When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst", "I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,", "Than that first kiss. The second passed in height", "The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,", "Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!", "That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown,", "With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.", "The third upon my lips was folded down", "In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,", "I have been proud and said, 'My love, my own.'" ], "linecount": "14" } ]