I.
Eve is a twofold mystery;
 The stillness Earth doth keep,
The motion wherewith human hearts
 Do each to either leap
As if all souls between the poles
 Felt "Parting comes in sleep."
II.
The rowers lift their oars to view
 Each other in the sea;
The landsmen watch the rocking boats
 In a pleasant company;
While up the hill go gladlier still
 Dear friends by two and three.
III.
The peasant's wife hath looked without
 Her cottage door and smiled,
For there the peasant drops his spade
 To clasp his youngest child
Which hath no speech, but its hand can reach
 And stroke his forehead mild.
IV.
A poet sate that eventide
 Within his hall alone,
As silent as its ancient lords
 In the coffined place of stone,
When the bat hath shrunk from the praying monk,
 And the praying monk is gone.
V.
Nor wore the dead a stiller face
 Beneath the cerement's roll:
His lips refusing out in words
 Their mystic thoughts to dole,
His steadfast eye burnt inwardly,
 As burning out his soul.
VI.
You would not think that brow could e'er
 Ungentle moods express,
Yet seemed it, in this troubled world,
 Too calm for gentleness,
When the very star that shines from far
 Shines trembling ne'ertheless.
VII.
It lacked, all need, the softening light
 Which other brows supply:
We should conjoin the scathèd trunks
 Of our humanity,
That each leafless spray entwining may
 Look softer 'gainst the sky.
VIII.
None gazed within the poet's face,
 The poet gazed in none;
He threw a lonely shadow straight
 Before the moon and sun,
Affronting nature's heaven-dwelling creatures
 With wrong to nature done:
IX.
Because this poet daringly,
 —The nature at his heart,
And that quick tune along his veins
 He could not change by art,—
Had vowed his blood of brotherhood
 To a stagnant place apart.
X.
He did not vow in fear, or wrath,
 Or grief's fantastic whim,
But, weights and shows of sensual things
 Too closely crossing him,
On his soul's eyelid the pressure slid
 And made its vision dim.
XI.
And darkening in the dark he strove
 'Twixt earth and sea and sky
To lose in shadow, wave and cloud,
 His brother's haunting cry:
The winds were welcome as they swept,
 God's five-day work he would accept,
But let the rest go by.
XII.
He cried, "O touching, patient Earth
 That weepest in thy glee,
Whom God created very good,
 And very mournful, we!
Thy voice of moan doth reach His throne,
 As Abel's rose from thee.
XIII.
"Poor crystal sky with stars astray!
 Mad winds that howling go
From east to west! perplexèd seas
 That stagger from their blow!
O motion wild! O wave defiled!
 Our curse hath made you so.
XIV.
'We! and our curse! do I partake
 The desiccating sin?
Have I the apple at my lips?
 The money-lust within?
Do I human stand with the wounding hand,
 To the blasting heart akin?
XV.
"Thou solemn pathos of all things
 For solemn joy designed!
Behold, submissive to your cause,
 A holy wrath I find
And, for your sake, the bondage break
 That knits me to my kind.
XVI.
"Hear me forswear man's sympathies,
 His pleasant yea and no,
His riot on the piteous earth
 Whereon his thistles grow,
His changing love—with stars above,
 His pride—with graves below.
XVII.
"Hear me forswear his roof by night,
 His bread and salt by day,
His talkings at the wood-fire hearth,
 His greetings by the way,
His answering looks, his systemed books,
 All man, for aye and aye.
XVIII.
"That so my purged, once human heart,
 From all the human rent,
May gather strength to pledge and drink
 Your wine of wonderment,
While you pardon me all blessingly
 The woe mine Adam sent.
XIX.
"And I shall feel your unseen looks
 Innumerous, constant, deep
And soft as haunted Adam once,
 Though sadder, round me creep,—
As slumbering men have mystic ken
 Of watchers on their sleep.
XX.
"And ever, when I lift my brow
 At evening to the sun,
No voice of woman or of child
 Recording 'Day is done.'
Your silences shall a love express,
 More deep than such an one."
Other Elizabeth Barrett Browning songs:
all Elizabeth Barrett Browning songs all songs from 2013