I.
My dream is of an island-place
 Which distant seas keep lonely,
A little island on whose face
 The stars are watchers only:
Those bright still stars! they need not seem
Brighter or stiller in my dream.
II.
An island full of hills and dells,
 All rumpled and uneven
With green recesses, sudden swells,
 And odorous valleys driven
So deep and straight that always there
The wind is cradled to soft air.
III.
Hills running up to heaven for light
 Through woods that half-way ran,
As if the wild earth mimicked right
 The wilder heart of man:
Only it shall be greener far
And gladder than hearts ever are.
IV.
More like, perhaps, that mountain piece
 Of Dante's paradise,
Disrupt to an hundred hills like these,
 In falling from the skies;
Bringing within it, all the roots
Of heavenly trees and flowers and fruits:
V.
For—saving where the grey rocks strike
 Their javelins up the azure,
Or where deep fissures miser-like
 Hoard up some fountain treasure,
(And e'en in them, stoop down and hear,
Leaf sounds with water in your ear,—)
VI.
The place is all awave with trees,
 Limes, myrtles purple-beaded,
Acacias having drunk the lees
 Of the night-dew, faint-headed,
And wan grey olive-woods which seem
The fittest foliage for a dream.
VII.
Trees, trees on all sides! they combine
 Their plumy shades to throw,
Through whose clear fruit and blossom fine
 Whene'er the sun may go,
The ground beneath he deeply stains,
As passing through cathedral panes.
VIII.
But little needs this earth of ours
 That shining from above her,
When many Pleiades of flowers
 (Not one lost) star her over,
The rays of their unnumbered hues
Being all refracted by the dews.
IX.
Wide-petalled plants that boldly drink
 The Amreeta of the sky,
Shut bells that dull with rapture sink,
 And lolling buds, half shy;
I cannot count them, but between
Is room for grass and mosses green,
X.
And brooks, that glass in different strengths
 All colours in disorder,
Or, gathering up their silver lengths
 Beside their winding border,
Sleep, haunted through the slumber hidden,
By lilies white as dreams in Eden.
XI.
Nor think each archèd tree with each
 Too closely interlaces
To admit of vistas out of reach,
 And broad moon-lighted places
Upon whose sward the antlered deer
May view their double image clear.
XII.
For all this island's creature-full,
 (Kept happy not by halves)
Mild cows, that at the vine-wreaths pull,
 Then low back at their calves
With tender lowings, to approve
The warm mouths milking them for love.
XIII.
Free gamesome horses, antelopes,
 And harmless leaping leopards,
And buffaloes upon the slopes,
 And sheep unruled by shepherds:
Hares, lizards, hedgehogs, badgers, mice,
Snakes, squirrels, frogs, and butterflies.
XIV.
And birds that live there in a crowd,
 Horned owls, rapt nightingales,
Larks bold with heaven, and peacocks proud,
 Self-sphered in those grand tails;
All creatures glad and safe, I deem
No guns nor springes in my dream!
XV.
The island's edges are a-wing
 With trees that overbranch
The sea with song-birds welcoming
 The curlews to green change;
And doves from half-closed lids espy
The red and purple fish go by.
XVI.
One dove is answering in trust
 The water every minute,
Thinking so soft a murmur must
 Have her mate's cooing in it:
So softly doth earth's beauty round
Infuse itself in ocean's sound.
XVII.
My sanguine soul bounds forwarder
 To meet the bounding waves;
Beside them straightway I repair,
 To live within the caves:
And near me two or three may dwell
Whom dreams fantastic please as well.
XVIII.
Long winding caverns, glittering far
 Into a crystal distance!
Through clefts of which shall many a star
 Shine clear without resistance,
And carry down its rays the smell
Of flowers above invisible.
XIX.
I said that two or three might choose
 Their dwelling near mine own:
Those who would change man's voice and use,
 For Nature's way and tone—
Man's veering heart and careless eyes,
For Nature's steadfast sympathies.
XX.
Ourselves, to meet her faithfulness,
 Shall play a faithful part;
Her beautiful shall ne'er address
 The monstrous at our heart:
Her musical shall ever touch
Something within us also such.
XXI.
Yet shall she not our mistress live,
 As doth the moon of ocean,
Though gently as the moon she give
 Our thoughts a light and motion:
More like a harp of many lays,
Moving its master while he plays.
XXII.
No sod in all that island doth
 Yawn open for the dead;
No wind hath borne a traitor's oath;
 No earth, a mourner's tread;
We cannot say by stream or shade,
"I suffered here,—was here betrayed."
XXIII.
Our only "farewell" we shall laugh
 To shifting cloud or hour,
And use our only epitaph
 To some bud turned a flower:
Our only tears shall serve to prove
Excess in pleasure or in love.
XXIV.
Our fancies shall their plumage catch
 From fairest island-birds,
Whose eggs let young ones out at hatch,
 Born singing! then our words
Unconsciously shall take the dyes
Of those prodigious fantasies.
XXV.
Yea, soon, no consonant unsmooth
 Our smile-tuned lips shall reach;
Sounds sweet as Hellas spake in youth
 Shall glide into our speech:
(What music, certes, can you find
As soft as voices which are kind?)
XXVI.
And often, by the joy without
 And in us, overcome,
We, through our musing, shall let float
 Such poems,—sitting dumb,—
As Pindar might have writ if he
Had tended sheep in Arcady;
XXVII.
Or Æschylus—the pleasant fields
 He died in, longer knowing;
Or Homer, had men's sins and shields
 Been lost in Meles flowing;
Or Poet Plato, had the undim
Unsetting Godlight broke on him.
XXVIII.
Choose me the cave most worthy choice,
 To make a place for prayer,
And I will choose a praying voice
 To pour our spirits there:
How silverly the echoes run!
Thy will be done,—thy will be done.
XXIX.
Gently yet strangely uttered words!
 They lift me from my dream;
The island fadeth with its swards
 That did no more than seem:
The streams are dry, no sun could find—
The fruits are fallen, without wind.
XXX.
So oft the doing of God's will
 Our foolish wills undoeth!
And yet what idle dream breaks ill,
 Which morning-light subdueth?
And who would murmur and misdoubt,
When God's great sunrise finds him out?
Other Elizabeth Barrett Browning songs:
all Elizabeth Barrett Browning songs all songs from 2013