Life and Existence

III


Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart !
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree ?
The chrism is on thine head,--on mine, the dew,--
And Death must dig the level where these agree.

III


Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart !
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree ?
The chrism is on thine head,--on mine, the dew,--
And Death must dig the level where these agree.

I


I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair:
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,-'
Guess now who holds thee ? '--' Death,' I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang,--' Not Death, but Love.'

I


I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair:
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,-'
Guess now who holds thee ? '--' Death,' I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang,--' Not Death, but Love.'

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Futurity


AND, O beloved voices, upon which
Ours passionately call because erelong
Ye brake off in the middle of that song
We sang together softly, to enrich
The poor world with the sense of love, and witch,
The heart out of things evil,--I am strong,
Knowing ye are not lost for aye among

The hills, with last year's thrush. God keeps a niche
In Heaven to hold our idols; and albeit
He brake them to our faces and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,
I know we shall behold them raised, complete,
The dust swept from their beauty,--glorified
New Memnons singing in the great God-light.

Futurity


AND, O beloved voices, upon which
Ours passionately call because erelong
Ye brake off in the middle of that song
We sang together softly, to enrich
The poor world with the sense of love, and witch,
The heart out of things evil,--I am strong,
Knowing ye are not lost for aye among

The hills, with last year's thrush. God keeps a niche
In Heaven to hold our idols; and albeit
He brake them to our faces and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,
I know we shall behold them raised, complete,
The dust swept from their beauty,--glorified
New Memnons singing in the great God-light.

Exaggeration


WE overstate the ills of life, and take
Imagination (given us to bring down
The choirs of singing angels overshone
By God's clear glory) down our earth to rake
The dismal snows instead, flake following flake,
To cover all the corn; we walk upon
The shadow of hills across a level thrown,
And pant like climbers: near the alder brake
We sigh so loud, the nightingale within
Refuses to sing loud, as else she would.
O brothers, let us leave the shame and sin
Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood,
The holy name of GRIEF !--holy herein
That by the grief of ONE came all our good.

De Profundis

I

The face, which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
With hourly love, is dimmed away—
And yet my days go on, go on.


II


The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone,
And every morning with ' Good day'
Make each day good, is hushed away,
And yet my days go on, go on.


III


The heart which, like a staff, was one
For mine to lean and rest upon,
The strongest on the longest day
With steadfast love, is caught away,
And yet my days go on, go on.


IV


And cold before my summer's done,
And deaf in Nature's general tune,
And fallen too low for special fear,
And here, with hope no longer here,
While the tears drop, my days go on.


V


The world goes whispering to its own,
‘This anguish pierces to the bone;’
And tender friends go sighing round,
‘What love can ever cure this wound ?'
My days go on, my days go on.


VI


The past rolls forward on the sun
And makes all night. O dreams begun,
Not to be ended! Ended bliss,
And life that will not end in this!
My days go on, my days go on.


VII


Breath freezes on my lips to moan:
As one alone, once not alone,



I sit and knock at Nature's door,
Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor,
Whose desolated days go on.


VIII


I knock and cry, —Undone, undone!
Is there no help, no comfort, —none?
No gleaning in the wide wheat plains
Where others drive their loaded wains?
My vacant days go on, go on.


IX


This Nature, though the snows be down,
Thinks kindly of the bird of June:
The little red hip on the tree
Is ripe for such. What is for me,
Whose days so winterly go on?


X


No bird am I, to sing in June,
And dare not ask an equal boon.
Good nests and berries red are Nature's
To give away to better creatures, —
And yet my days go on, go on.


XI


I ask less kindness to be done, —
Only to loose these pilgrim shoon,
(Too early worn and grimed) with sweet
Cool deadly touch to these tired feet.
Till days go out which now go on.


XII


Only to lift the turf unmown
From off the earth where it has grown,
Some cubit-space, and say ‘Behold,
Creep in, poor Heart, beneath that fold,
Forgetting how the days go on.’


XIII


What harm would that do? Green anon
The sward would quicken, overshone
By skies as blue; and crickets might
Have leave to chirp there day and night
While my new rest went on, went on.



XIV


From gracious Nature have I won
Such liberal bounty? may I run
So, lizard-like, within her side,
And there be safe, who now am tried
By days that painfully go on?


XV


—A Voice reproves me thereupon,
More sweet than Nature's when the drone
Of bees is sweetest, and more deep
Than when the rivers overleap
The shuddering pines, and thunder on.


XVI


God's Voice, not Nature's! Night and noon
He sits upon the great white throne
And listens for the creatures' praise.
What babble we of days and days?
The Day-spring He, whose days go on.


XVII


He reigns above, He reigns alone;
Systems burn out and have his throne;
Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall
Around Him, changeless amid all,
Ancient of Days, whose days go on.


XVIII


He reigns below, He reigns alone,
And, having life in love forgone
Beneath the crown of sovran thorns,
He reigns the Jealous God. Who mourns
Or rules with Him, while days go on?


XIX


By anguish which made pale the sun,
I hear Him charge his saints that none
Among his creatures anywhere
Blaspheme against Him with despair,
However darkly days go on.


XX


Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown!



No mortal grief deserves that crown.
O supreme Love, chief misery,
The sharp regalia are for Thee
Whose days eternally go on!


XXI


For us, —whatever's undergone,
Thou knowest, willest what is done,
Grief may be joy misunderstood;
Only the Good discerns the good.
I trust Thee while my days go on.


XXII


Whatever's lost, it first was won;
We will not struggle nor impugn.
Perhaps the cup was broken here,
That Heaven's new wine might show more clear.
I praise Thee while my days go on.


XXIII


I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on:
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.


XXIV


And having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling—so I. THY DAYS GO ON.

Comfort


SPEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so
Who art not missed by any that entreat.
Speak to mo as to Mary at thy feet !
And if no precious gums my hands bestow,
Let my tears drop like amber while I go
In reach of thy divinest voice complete
In humanest affection -- thus, in sooth,
To lose the sense of losing. As a child,
Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore
Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth
Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled,
He sleeps the faster that he wept before.

Adequacy


NOW, by the verdure on thy thousand hills,
Beloved England, doth the earth appear
Quite good enough for men to overbear
The will of God in, with rebellious wills !
We cannot say the morning-sun fulfils
Ingloriously its course, nor that the clear
Strong stars without significance insphere
Our habitation: we, meantime, our ills
Heap up against this good and lift a cry
Against this work-day world, this ill-spread feast,
As if ourselves were better certainly
Than what we come to. Maker and High Priest,
I ask thee not my joys to multiply,--
Only to make me worthier of the least.

Aurora Leigh (excerpts)

[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.

Aurora Leigh (excerpts)

[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.

A Sea-Side Walk

We walked beside the sea,
After a day which perished silently
Of its own glory---like the Princess weird
Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared,
Uttered with burning breath, 'Ho! victory!'
And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale;


So runs the Arab tale.

The sky above us showed
An universal and unmoving cloud,
On which, the cliffs permitted us to see
Only the outline of their majesty,
As master-minds, when gazed at by the crowd!
And, shining with a gloom, the water grey

Swang in its moon-taught way.

Nor moon nor stars were out.
They did not dare to tread so soon about,
Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun.
The light was neither night's nor day's, but one
Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt;
And Silence's impassioned breathings round

Seemed wandering into sound.

O solemn-beating heart
Of nature! I have knowledge that thou art
Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever---
And, what time they are slackened by him ever,
So to attest his own supernal part,
Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong,

The slackened cord along.

For though we never spoke
Of the grey water anal the shaded rock,---
Dark wave and stone, unconsciously, were fused
Into the plaintive speaking that we used,
Of absent friends and memories unforsook;
And, had we seen each other's face, we had

Seen haply, each was sad.

A Man's Requirements

I

Love me Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.


II


Love me with thine open youth
In its frank surrender;
With the vowing of thy mouth,
With its silence tender.


III


Love me with thine azure eyes,
Made for earnest grantings;
Taking colour from the skies,
Can Heaven's truth be wanting?


IV


Love me with their lids, that fall
Snow-like at first meeting;
Love me with thine heart, that all
Neighbours then see beating.


V


Love me with thine hand stretched out
Freely -- open-minded:
Love me with thy loitering foot, --
Hearing one behind it.


VI


Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;
Love me with thy blush that burns
When I murmur 'Love me!'


VII


Love me with thy thinking soul,
Break it to love-sighing;
Love me with thy thoughts that roll
On through living -- dying.


VIII


Love me in thy gorgeous airs,



When the world has crowned thee;
Love me, kneeling at thy prayers,
With the angels round thee.


IX


Love me pure, as muses do,
Up the woodlands shady:
Love me gaily, fast and true,
As a winsome lady.


X


Through all hopes that keep us brave,
Farther off or nigher,
Love me for the house and grave,
And for something higher.


XI


Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear,
Woman's love no fable,
I will love thee -- half a year --
As a man is able.

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.

The Pelican Chorus

King and Queen of the Pelicans we;
No other Birds so grand we see!
None but we have feet like fins!
With lovely leathery throats and chins!
Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
We think no birds so happy as we!
Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
We think so then, and we thought so still!


We live on the Nile. The Nile we love.
By night we sleep on the cliffs above.
By day we fish, and at eve we stand
On long bare islands of yellow sand.
And when the sun sinks slowly down
And the great rock walls grow dark and brown,
Where the purple river rolls fast and dim
And the ivory Ibis starlike skim,
Wing to wing we dance around, -
Stamping our feet with a flumpy sound, -
Opening our mouths as Pelicans ought,
And this is the song we nightly snort:
Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
We think no Birds so happy as we!
Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
We think so then, and we thought so still.


Last year came out our Daughter, Dell;
And all the Birds received her well.
To do her honour, a feast we made
For every bird that can swim or wade.
Herons and Gulls, and Cormorants black,
Cranes, and Flamingoes with scarlet back,
Plovers and Storks, and Geese in clouds,
Swans and Dilberry Ducks in crowds.
Thousands of Birds in wondrous flight!
They ate and drank and danced all night,
And echoing back from the rocks you heard
Multitude-echoes from Bird and Bird, -
Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
We think no Birds so happy as we!
Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
We think so then, and we thought so still!
Yes, they came; and among the rest,
The king of the Cranes all grandly dressed.
Such a lovely tail! Its feathers float
Between the ends of his blue dress-coat;
With pea-green trowsers all so neat,
And a delicate frill to hide his feet, (
For though no one speaks of it, everyone knows,
He has got no webs between his toes!)
As soon as he saw our Daughter Dell,
In violent love that Crane King fell,



On seeing her waddling form so fair,
With a wreath of shrimps in her short white hair,
And before the end of the next long day,
Our Dell had given her heart away;
For the King of the Cranes had won that heart,
With a Crocodile's egg and a large fish-tart.
She vowed to marry the King of the Cranes,
Leaving the Nile for stranger plains;
And away they flew in a gathering crowd
Of endless birds in a lengthening cloud.
Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
We think no Birds so happy as we!
Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
We think so then, and we thought so still!


And far away in the twilight sky,
We heard them singing in a lessening cry, -
Farther and farther till out of sight,
And we stood alone in the silent night!
Often since, in the nights of June,
We sit on the sand and watch the moon;


-She dwells by the streams of the Chankly Bore,
And we probably never shall see her more.
Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
We think no Birds so happy as we!
Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
We think so then, and we thought so still!

Mr and Mrs Discobbolos

First Part
Mr and Mrs Discobbolos
Climbed to the top of a wall,
And they sat to watch the sunset sky
And to hear the Nupiter Piffkin cry
And the Biscuit Buffalo call.
They took up a roll and some Chamomile tea,
And both were as happy as happy could be -
Till Mrs Discobbolos said, '
Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
It has just come into my head -
Suppose we should happen to fall!!!!!
Darling Mr Discobbolos?


'Suppose we should fall down flumpetty
Just like two pieces of stone!
On to the thorns, - or into the moat!
What would become of your new green coat?
And might you not break a bone?
It never occurred to me before -
That perhaps we shall never go down any more!'
And Mrs Discobbolos said '
Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
What put it into your head
To climb up this wall? - my own
Darling Mr Discobbolos?'


Mr Discobbolos answered, '
At first it gave me pain, -
And I felt my ears turn perfectly pink
When your exclamation made me think
We might never get down again!
But now I believe it is wiser far
To remain for ever just where we are.' -
And Mr Discobbolos said,
'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
It has just come into my head '-
We shall never go down again -
Dearest Mrs Discobbolos.!'


So Mr and Mrs Discobbolos
Stood up, and began to sing,
'Far away from hurry and strife
Here we will pass the rest of life,
Ding a dong, ding dong, ding!
We want no knives nor forks nor chairs,
No tables nor carpets nor household cares,
From worry of life we've fled '
Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
There is no more trouble ahead
Sorrow or any such thing -
For Mr and Mrs Discobbolos!'



Second Part.


Mr and Mrs Discobbolos
Lived on the top of the wall
For twenty years, a month and a day,
Till their hair had grown all pearly gray,
And their teeth began to fall.
They never were ill, or at all dejected,
By all admired, and by some respected,
Till Mrs Discobbolos said,
'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
It has just come into my head,
We have no more room at all -
Darling Mr Discobbolos!


Look at our six fine boys!
And our six sweet girls so fair!
Upon this wall they have all been born,
And not one of the twelve has happened to fall
Through my maternal care!
Surely they should not pass their lives
Without any chance of husbands or wives!'
And Mrs Discobbolos said,
'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
Did it never come into your head
That our lives must be lived elsewhere,
Dearest Mr Discobbolos?


'They have never been at a ball,
Nor have even seen a bazaar!
Nor have heard folks say in a tone all hearty,
'What loves of girls (at a garden party)
Those Misses Discobbolos are!'
Morning and night it drives me wild
To think of the fate of each darling child!'
But Mr Discobbolos said,
'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
What has come to your fiddledum head!
What a runcible goose you are!
Octopod Mrs Discobbolos!'


Suddenly Mr Discobbolos
Slid from the top of the wall;
And beneath it he dug a dreadful trench,
And filled it with dynamite, gunpowder gench,
And aloud he began to call '
Let the wild bee sing,
And the blue bird hum!
For the end of your lives has certainly come!'
And Mrs Discobbolos said,



'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
We shall presently all be dead,
On this ancient runcible wall,
Terrible Mr Discobbolos!'


Pensively, Mr Discobbolos
Sat with his back to the wall;
He lighted a match, and fired the train,
And the mortified mountain echoed again
To the sound of an awful fall!
And all the Discobbolos family flew
In thousands of bits to the sky so blue,
And no one was left to have said,
'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
Has it come into anyone's head
That the end has happened to all
Of the whole of the Clan Discobbolos?'

Imitation of The Olden Poets

Time is a taper waning fast!
Use it, man, well whilst it doth last:
Lest burning downwards it consume away,
Before thou hast commenced the labour of the day.


Time is a pardon of a goodly soil!
Plenty shall crown thine honest toil:
But if uncultivated, rankest weeds
Shall choke the efforts of the rising seeds.


Time is a leasehold of uncertain date!
Granted to thee by everlasting fate.
Neglect not thou, ere thy short term expire,
To save thy soul from ever-burning fire.

Imitation of The Olden Poets

Time is a taper waning fast!
Use it, man, well whilst it doth last:
Lest burning downwards it consume away,
Before thou hast commenced the labour of the day.


Time is a pardon of a goodly soil!
Plenty shall crown thine honest toil:
But if uncultivated, rankest weeds
Shall choke the efforts of the rising seeds.


Time is a leasehold of uncertain date!
Granted to thee by everlasting fate.
Neglect not thou, ere thy short term expire,
To save thy soul from ever-burning fire.

Imitation of The Olden Poets

Time is a taper waning fast!
Use it, man, well whilst it doth last:
Lest burning downwards it consume away,
Before thou hast commenced the labour of the day.


Time is a pardon of a goodly soil!
Plenty shall crown thine honest toil:
But if uncultivated, rankest weeds
Shall choke the efforts of the rising seeds.


Time is a leasehold of uncertain date!
Granted to thee by everlasting fate.
Neglect not thou, ere thy short term expire,
To save thy soul from ever-burning fire.

this(let's remember)day died again and...

this(let's remember)day died again and
again;whose golden,crimson dooms conceive


an oceaning abyss of orange dream


larger than sky times earth:a flame beyond
soul immemorially forevering amand
as collapsing that grey mind by wave
doom disappeared,out of perhaps(who knows?)


eternity floated a blossoming


(while anyone might slowly count to soon)
rose-did you see her?darling,did you(kiss
me)quickly count to never?you were wrong


-then all the way from perfect nowhere came


(as easily as we forget something)
livingest the imaginable moon

Sometimes I Am Alive Because With

sometimes i am alive because with
me her alert treelike body sleeps
which i will feel slowly sharpening
becoming distinct with love slowly,
who in my shoulder sinks sweetly teeth
until we shall attain the Springsmelling
intense large togethercoloured instant


the moment pleasantly frightful


when, her mouth suddenly rising, wholly
begins with mine fiercely to fool
(and from my thighs which shrug and pant
a murdering rain leapingly reaches the upward singular deepest flower which she
carries in a gesture of her hips)

Spring is like a perhaps hand

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and


changing everything carefully


spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and


without breaking anything.