Elizabeth Browning - The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Volume 1

Eve. Where is loss?
Am I in Eden? can another speak
Mine own love's tongue?

Adam. Because with her , I stand
Upright, as far as can be in this fall,
And look away from heaven which doth accuse,
And look away from earth which doth convict,
Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow
Out of her love, and put the thought of her
Around me, for an Eden full of birds,
And lift her body up – thus – to my heart,
And with my lips upon her lips, – thus, thus, —
Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath
Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides
But overtops this grief.

Eve. I am renewed.
My eyes grow with the light which is in thine;
The silence of my heart is full of sound.
Hold me up – so! Because I comprehend
This human love, I shall not be afraid
Of any human death; and yet because
I know this strength of love, I seem to know
Death's strength by that same sign. Kiss on my lips,
To shut the door close on my rising soul, —
Lest it pass outwards in astonishment
And leave thee lonely!

Adam. Yet thou liest, Eve,
Bent heavily on thyself across mine arm,
Thy face flat to the sky.

Eve. Ay, and the tears
Running, as it might seem, my life from me,
They run so fast and warm. Let me lie so,
And weep so, as if in a dream or prayer,
Unfastening, clasp by clasp, the hard tight thought
Which clipped my heart and showed me evermore
Loathed of thy justice as I loathe the snake,
And as the pure ones loathe our sin. To-day,
All day, beloved, as we fled across
This desolating radiance cast by swords
Not suns, – my lips prayed soundless to myself,
Striking against each other – "O Lord God!"
('Twas so I prayed) "I ask Thee by my sin,
"And by thy curse, and by thy blameless heavens,
"Make dreadful haste to hide me from thy face
"And from the face of my beloved here
"For whom I am no helpmeet, quick away
"Into the new dark mystery of death!
"I will lie still there, I will make no plaint,
"I will not sigh, nor sob, nor speak a word,
"Nor struggle to come back beneath the sun
"Where peradventure I might sin anew
"Against thy mercy and his pleasure. Death,
"O death, whatever it be, is good enough
"For such as I am: while for Adam here,
"No voice shall say again, in heaven or earth,
" It is not good for him to be alone ."

Adam. And was it good for such a prayer to pass,
My unkind Eve, betwixt our mutual lives?
If I am exiled, must I be bereaved?

Eve. 'Twas an ill prayer: it shall be prayed no more;
And God did use it like a foolishness,
Giving no answer. Now my heart has grown
Too high and strong for such a foolish prayer,
Love makes it strong and since I was the first
In the transgression, with a steady foot
I will be first to tread from this sword-glare
Into the outer darkness of the waste, —
And thus I do it.

Adam. Thus I follow thee,
As erewhile in the sin. – What sounds! what sounds!
I feel a music which comes straight from heaven,
As tender as a watering dew.

Eve. I think
That angels – not those guarding Paradise, —
But the love-angels, who came erst to us,
And when we said 'God,' fainted unawares
Back from our mortal presence unto God,
(As if he drew them inward in a breath)
His name being heard of them, – I think that they
With sliding voices lean from heavenly towers,
Invisible but gracious. Hark – how soft!

Mortal man and woman,
Go upon your travel!
Heaven assist the human
Smoothly to unravel
All that web of pain
Wherein ye are holden.
Do ye know our voices
Chanting down the Golden?
Do ye guess our choice is,
Being unbeholden,
To be hearkened by you yet again?

This pure door of opal
God hath shut between us, —
Us, his shining people,
You, who once have seen us
And are blinded new!
Yet, across the doorway,
Past the silence reaching,
Farewells evermore may,
Blessing in the teaching,
Glide from us to you.

First Semichorus.
Think how erst your Eden,
Day on day succeeding,
With our presence glowed.
We came as if the Heavens were bowed
To a milder music rare.
Ye saw us in our solemn treading,
Treading down the steps of cloud,
While our wings, outspreading
Double calms of whiteness,
Dropped superfluous brightness
Down from stair to stair.

Second Semichorus.
Or oft, abrupt though tender,
While ye gazed on space,
We flashed our angel-splendour
In either human face.
With mystic lilies in our hands,
From the atmospheric bands
Breaking with a sudden grace,
We took you unaware!
While our feet struck glories
Outward, smooth and fair,
Which we stood on floorwise,
Platformed in mid-air.

First Semichorus.
Or oft, when Heaven-descended,
Stood we in our wondering sight
In a mute apocalypse
With dumb vibrations on our lips
From hosannas ended,
And grand half-vanishings
Of the empyreal things
Within our eyes belated,
Till the heavenly Infinite
Falling off from the Created,
Left our inward contemplation
Opened into ministration.

Chorus.
Then upon our axle turning
Of great joy to sympathy,
We sang out the morning
Broadening up the sky,
Or we drew
Our music through
The noontide's hush and heat and shine,
Informed with our intense Divine:
Interrupted vital notes
Palpitating hither, thither,
Burning out into the æther,
Sensible like fiery motes.
Or, whenever twilight drifted
Through the cedar masses,
The globèd sun we lifted,
Trailing purple, trailing gold
Out between the passes
Of the mountains manifold,
To anthems slowly sung:
While he, – aweary, half in swoon
For joy to hear our climbing tune
Transpierce the stars' concentric rings, —
The burden of his glory flung
In broken lights upon our wings.

Lucifer. Now may all fruits be pleasant to thy lips,
Beautiful Eve! The times have somewhat changed
Since thou and I had talk beneath a tree,
Albeit ye are not gods yet.

Eve. Adam! hold
My right hand strongly! It is Lucifer —
And we have love to lose.

Adam. I' the name of God,
Go apart from us, O thou Lucifer!
And leave us to the desert thou hast made
Out of thy treason. Bring no serpent-slime
Athwart this path kept holy to our tears!
Or we may curse thee with their bitterness.

Lucifer. Curse freely! curses thicken. Why, this Eve
Who thought me once part worthy of her ear
And somewhat wiser than the other beasts, —
Drawing together her large globes of eyes,
The light of which is throbbing in and out
Their steadfast continuity of gaze, —
Knots her fair eyebrows in so hard a knot,
And down from her white heights of womanhood
Looks on me so amazed, – I scarce should fear
To wager such an apple as she plucked
Against one riper from the tree of life,
That she could curse too – as a woman may —
Smooth in the vowels.