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CCCCI

TEARS.

THA

'HANK God, bless God, all ye who suffer not

ELIZABETH

BARRETT

More grief than ye can weep for.

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1809-1861

That is light grieving! lighter none befell
Since Adam forfeited the primal lot.

Tears! what are tears? The babe weeps in its cot,

The mother singing; at her marriage-bell

The bride weeps, and before the oracle

Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot

Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace,

Ye who weep only! If, as some have done,

Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place

And touch but tombs,-look up! those tears will run
Soon in long rivers down the lifted face,
And leave the vision clear for stars and sun.

CCCCII

SUBSTITUTION.

WHEN some beloved voice that was to you

Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,

And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new-
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship's sigh,
Not reason's subtle count; not melody

Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew ;
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales

Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees
To the clear moon; nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet All hails,
Met in the smile of God: nay, none of these.
Speak THOU, availing Christ !-and fill this pause.

ELIZABETH
BARRETT
BROWNING

1809-1861

SPEA

CCCCIII

COMFORT.

PEAK 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 me 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.

CCCCIV

PERPLEXED MUSIC.

EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds

A dulcimer of patience in his hand,

Whence harmonies we cannot understand,
Of God's will in his worlds, the strain unfolds
In sad, perplexèd minors: deathly colds
Fall on us while we hear, and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fancy-land
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.

WHAT

CCCCV

WORK.

HAT are we set on earth for? Say, to toil;
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines
For all the heat o' the day, till it declines,
And Death's mild curfew shall from work assoil.
God did anoint thee with his odorous oil
To wrestle, not to reign; and He assigns
All thy tears over, like pure crystallines,
For younger fellow-workers of the soil
To wear for amulets. So others shall

Take patience, labour, to their heart and hand,
From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer,
And God's grace fructify through thee to all.
The least flower, with a brimming cup may stand,
And share its dew-drop with another near.

ELIZABETH
BARRETT
BROWNING

1809-1861

CCCCVI

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.

ELIZABETH
BARRETT
BROWNING
1809-1861

CCCCVII

WORK AND CONTEMPLATION.

THE woman singeth at her spinning-wheel

A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole;
She thinketh of her song, upon the whole,
Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel
Is full, and artfully her fingers feel
With quick adjustment, provident control,
The lines, too subtly twisted to unroll,
Out to a perfect thread. I hence appeal
To the dear Christian church-that we may do
Our Father's business in these temples mirk,
Thus swift and steadfast, thus intent and strong;
While thus, apart from toil, our souls pursue
Some high, calm, spheric tune, and prove our work
The better for the sweetness of our song.

CCCCVIII

FLUSH OR FAUNUS.

YOU see this dog; it was but yesterday

You

I mused forgetful of his presence here

Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear:
When from the pillow where wet-cheeked I lay,

A head as hairy as Faunus thrust its way
Right sudden against my face, two golden-clear
Great eyes astonished mine, a drooping ear
Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray!
I started first as some Arcadian

Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove;
But as the bearded vision closelier ran
My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above
Surprise and sadness,-thanking the true PAN
Who by low creatures leads to heights of love.

I

CCCCIX

CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON.

THINK we are too ready with complaint

In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope
Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint
To muse upon eternity's constraint
Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop,

For a few days consumed in loss and taint?
O pusillanimous heart, be comforted
And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road,
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod
To meet the flints? At least it may be said,
'Because the way is short, I thank thee, God.'

ELIZABETH

BARRETT BROWNING

1809-1861

CCCCX

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.

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