Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Isobel's Child lyrics

To rest the weary nurse has gone:
 An eight day watch had watchèd she
Still rocking beneath sun and moon
 The baby on her knee
Till Isobel it's mother said
"The fever waneth wend to bed
 For now the watch comes round to me"

 Then wearily the nurse did throw
   Her pallet in the darkest place
Of that sick room, and slept and dreamed:
 For, as the gusty wind did blow
   The night lamp's flare
Across her face
She saw or seemed to see, but dreamed
 That the poplars tall on
The opposite hill
The seven tall poplars on the hill
Did clasp the setting sun until
His rays dropped from him, pined and still
 As blossoms in frost


Till he waned and paled, so weirdly crossed
To the colour of moonlight which doth pass
Over the dank ridged churchyard grass
The poplars held the sun, and he
The eyes of the nurse that
They should not see
Not for a moment, the babe on her knee
Though she shuddered to feel that
It grew to be too chill, and lay too heavily

She only dreamed for all the while
 'T was Lady Isobel that kept
 The little baby: and it slept
Fast, warm, as if it's mother's smile
Laden with love's dewy weight
And red as rose of Harpocrate
Dropt upon it's eyelids, pressed
Lashes to cheek in a sealèd rest

And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well
She knew not that she smiled
Against the lattice, dull and wild
Drive the heavy droning drops
 Drop by drop, the sound being one
As momently time's segments fall
On the ear of God, who hears through all
 Eternity's unbroken monotone:
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well
She knew not that she smiled
The wind in intermission stops
 Down in the beechen forest
   Then cries aloud
 As one at the sorest
   Self-stung, self-driven
And rises up to it's very tops
Stiffening erect the branches bowed
 Dilating with a tempest-soul
The trees that with their dark hands break
Through their own outline, and heavy roll
 Shadows as massive as clouds in heaven
   Across the castle lake
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well
She knew not that she smiled
She knew not that the storm was wild
Through the uproar drear she could not hear
The castle clock which struck anear
She heard the low
Light breathing of her child

O sight for wondering look!
While the external nature broke
Into such abandonment
While the very mist, heart-rent
By the lightning, seemed to eddy
Against nature, with a din
A sense of silence and of steady
Natural calm appeared to come
From things without, and enter in
The human creature's room

So motionless she sate
 The babe asleep upon her knees
You might have dreamed their souls had gone
Away to things inanimate
In such to live, in such to moan
And that their bodies had ta'en back
 In mystic change, all silences
That cross the sky in cloudy rack
Or dwell beneath the reedy ground
In waters safe from their own sound:
   Only she wore
The deepening smile I named before
And that a deepening love expressed
And who at once can love and rest?

In sooth the smile that then was keeping
Watch upon the baby sleeping
 Floated with it's tender light
Downward, from the drooping eyes
Upward, from the lips apart
 Over cheeks which had grown white
With an eight day weeping:
All smiles come in such a wise
 Where tears shall fall or have of old
Like northern lights that fill the heart
 Of heaven in sign of cold

Motionless she sate
Her hair had fallen by it's weight
On each side of her smile and lay
Very blackly on the arm
Where the baby nestled warm
Pale as baby carved in stone
Seen by glimpses of the moon
Up a dark cathedral aisle:
But, through the storm, no moonbeam fell
 Upon the child of Isobel
Perhaps you saw it by the ray
 Alone of her still smile

 A solemn thing it is to me
   To look upon a babe that sleeps
   Wearing in it's spirit deeps
 The undeveloped mystery
   Of our Adam's taint and woe
 Which, when they developed be
   Will not let it slumber so
 Lying new in life beneath
 The shadow of the coming death
 With that soft, low, quiet breath
   As if it felt the sun
 Knowing all things by their blooms
 Not their roots, yea, sun and sky
 Only by the warmth that comes
 Out of each, earth only by
   The pleasant hues that
O'er it run
 And human love by drops of sweet
   White nourishment still
Hanging round
   The little mouth so slumber-bound:
 All which broken sentiency
 And conclusion incomplete
   Will gather and unite and climb
 To an immortality
   Good or evil, each sublime
 Through life and death to life again
   O little lids, now folded fast
   Must ye learn to drop at last
 Our large and burning tears?
     O warm quick
Body, must thou lie
 When the time comes round to die
   Still from all the whirl of years
 Bare of all the joy and pain?
 O small frail being, wilt thou stand
 At God's right hand
 Lifting up those sleeping eyes
 Dilated by great destinies
To an endless waking? thrones and seraphim
Through the long ranks of their solemnities
Sunning thee with calm looks
Of Heaven's surprise
 But thine alone on Him?
Or else, self-willed, to tread
The Godless place
(God keep thy will) feel thine own energies
Cold, strong, objèctless, like a
Dead man's clasp
The sleepless deathless life
Within thee grasp
While myriad faces, like one changeless face
With woe not love's
Shall glass thee everywhere
And overcome thee with thine own despair?

More soft, less solemn images
Drifted o'er the lady's heart
 Silently as snow
She had seen eight days depart
Hour by hour, on bended knees
 With pale-wrung hands and prayings low
And broken, through which came the sound
Of tears that fell against the ground
Making sad stops "Dear Lord, dear Lord!"
She still had prayed (the heavenly word
Broken by an earthly sigh)
"Thou who didst not erst deny
The mother-joy to Mary mild
Blessèd in the blessèd child
Which hearkened in meek babyhood
Her cradle-hymn, albeit used
To all that music interfused
In breasts of angels high and good!
Oh, take not, Lord, my babe away
Oh, take not to thy songful heaven
The pretty baby thou hast given
Or ere that I have seen him play
Around his father's knees and known
That he knew how my love has gone
From all the world to him
Think, God among the cherubim
How I shall shiver every day
In thy June sunshine, knowing where
The grave-grass keeps it from his fair
Still cheeks: and feel, at every tread
His little body, which is dead
And hidden in thy turfy fold
Doth make thy whole warm earth a-cold!
O God, I am so young, so young
 I am not used to tears at nights
Instead of slumber not to prayer
With sobbing lips and hands out-wrung!
Thou knowest all my prayings were
 'I bless thee, God, for past delights
Thank God!' I am not used to bear
Hard thoughts of death the earth doth cover
No face from me of friend or lover:
And must the first who teaches me
The form of shrouds and funerals, be
Mine own first-born belovèd? he
Who taught me first this mother-love?
Dear Lord who spreadest out above
Thy loving, transpierced hands to meet
All lifted hearts with blessing sweet
Pierce not my heart, my tender heart
Thou madest tender! Thou who art
So happy in thy heaven alway
Take not mine only bliss away!"

She so had prayed: and God, who hears
Through seraph-songs the sound of tears
From that belovèd babe had ta'en
The fever and the beating pain
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well
  (She knew not that she smiled, I wis)
Until the pleasant gradual thought
Which near her heart the smile enwrought
Now soft and slow, it'self did seem
To float along a happy dream
 Beyond it into speech like this

"I prayed for thee, my little child
 And God has heard my prayer!
And when thy babyhood is gone
We two together undefiled
By men's repinings, will kneel down
 Upon His earth which will be fair
(Not covering thee, sweet) to us twain
 And give Him thankful praise"

Dully and wildly drives the rain:
Against the lattices drives the rain

"I thank Him now, that I can think
 Of those same future days
Nor from the harmless image shrink
 Of what I there might see
Strange babies on their mothers' knee
Whose innocent soft faces might
From off mine eyelids strike the light
 With looks not meant for me!"

Gustily blows the wind through the rain
As against the lattices drives the rain

"But now, O baby mine, together
 We turn this hope of ours again
To many an hour of summer weather
When we shall sit and intertwine
 Our spirit's, and instruct each other
 In the pure loves of child and mother!
Two human loves make one divine"

The thunder tears through the
Wind and the rain
As full on the lattices drives the rain

"My little child, what wilt thou choose?
 Now let me look at thee and ponder
What gladness, from the gladnesses
 Futurity is spreading under
Thy gladsome sight? Beneath the trees
Wilt thou lean all day, and lose
Thy spirit with the river seen
Intermittently between
 The winding beechen alleys
Half in labour, half repose
 Like a shepherd keeping sheep
 Thou, with only thoughts to keep
Which never a bound will overpass
And which are innocent as those
 That feed among Arcadian valleys
   Upon the dewy grass?"

The large white owl that with age is blind
 That hath sate for years in
The old tree hollow
Is carried away in a gust of wind
His wings could beat him not as fast
As he goeth now the lattice past
 He is borne by the winds
The rains do follow
His white wings to the blast outflowing
   He hooteth in going
And still, in the lightnings, coldly glitter
   His round unblinking eyes

"Or, baby, wilt thou think it fitter
 To be eloquent and wise
One upon whose lips the air
 Turns to solemn verities
For men to breathe anew, and win
A deeper-seated life within?
Wilt be a philosopher
 By whose voice the earth and skies
Shall speak to the unborn?
Or a poet, broadly spreading
 The golden immortalities
Of thy soul on natures lorn
 And poor of such, them all to guard
From their decay, beneath thy treading
Earth's flowers recovering hues of Eden
And stars, drawn downward by thy looks
To shine ascendant in thy books?"

 The tame hawk in the castle yard
How it screams to the lightning
With it's wet
Jagged plumes overhanging the parapet!
And at the lady's door the hound
Scratches with a crying sound

"But, O my babe, thy lids are laid
 Close, fast upon thy cheek
And not a dream of power and sheen
Can make a passage up between
Thy heart is of thy mother's made
 Thy looks are very meek
And it will be their chosen place
To rest on some beloved face
 As these on thine, and let the noise
Of the whole world go on nor drown
 The tender silence of thy joys:
Or when that silence shall have grown
 Too tender for it'self, the same
Yearning for sound, to look above
And utter it's one meaning, LOVE
 That He may hear His name"

No wind, no rain, no thunder!
The waters had trickled not slowly
The thunder was not spent
Nor the wind near finishing
Who would have said that
The storm was diminishing?
No wind, no rain, no thunder!
Their noises dropped asunder
From the earth and the firmament
From the towers and the lattices
Abrupt and echoless
As ripe fruit's on the ground unshaken wholly
 As life in death
And sudden and solemn the silence fell
Startling the heart of Isobel
 As the tempest could not:
Against the door went panting the breath
Of the lady's hound whose cry was still
 And she, constrained howe'er
She would not
Lifted her eyes and saw the moon
Looking out of heaven alone
 Upon the poplared hill
 A calm of God, made visible
 That men might bless it at their will

The moonshine on the baby's face
 Falleth clear and cold:
The mother's looks have fallen back
 To the same place:
Because no moon with silver rack
Nor broad sunrise in jasper skies
 Has power to hold  Our loving eyes
Which still revert, as ever must
Wonder and Hope, to gaze on the dust

The moonshine on the baby's face
 Cold and clear remaineth
The mother's looks do shrink away
The mother's looks return to stay
 As charmèd by what paineth:
Is any glamour in the case?
 Is it dream, or is it sight?
Hath the change upon the wild
 Elements that sign the night
Passed upon the child?
 It is not dream, but sight

The babe has awakened from sleep
 And unto the gaze of it's mother
 Bent over it, lifted another
 Not the baby-looks that go
 Unaimingly to and fro
But an earnest gazing deep
Such as soul gives soul at length
 When by work and wail of years
It winneth a solemn strength
 And mourneth as it wears
A strong man could not brook
 With pulse unhurried by fears
To meet that baby's look
 O'erglazed by manhood's tears
The tears of a man full grown
With a power to wring our own
In the eyes all undefiled
Of a little three-months' child
To see that babe-brow wrought
By the witnessing of thought
 To judgment's prodigy
And the small soft mouth unweaned
By mother's kiss o'erleaned
(Putting the sound of loving
Where no sound else was moving
 Except the speechless cry)
Quickened to mind's expression
Shaped to articulation
Yea, uttering words, yea, naming woe
 In tones that with it strangely went
 Because so baby-innocent
As the child spake out to the mother, so:

"O mother, mother, loose thy prayer!
 Christ's name hath made it strong
It bindeth me, it holdeth me
With it's most loving cruelty
 From floating my new soul along
 The happy heavenly air
It bindeth me, it holdeth me
 In all this dark, upon this dull
Low earth, by only weepers trod
It bindeth me, it holdeth me!
 Mine angel looketh sorrowful
Upon the face of God

"Mother, mother, can I dream
 Beneath your earthly trees?
I had a vision and a gleam
 I heard a sound more sweet than these
When rippled by the wind:
 Did you see the Dove with wings
 Bathed in golden glisterings
From a sunless light behind
 Dropping on me from the sky
Soft as mother's kiss, until
I seemed to leap and yet was still?
 Saw you how His love large eye
Looked upon me mystic calms
 Till the power of His divine
 Vision was indrawn to mine?

"Oh, the dream within the dream!
 I saw celestial places even
Oh, the vistas of high palms
 Making finites of delight
 Through the heavenly infinite
Lifting up their green still tops
 To the heaven of heaven!
Oh, the sweet life-tree that drops
Shade like light across the river
Glorified in it's for-ever
 Flowing from the Throne!
Oh, the shining holinesses
Of the thousand, thousand faces
 God-sunned by the thronèd One
And made intense with such a love
That, though I saw them turned above
Each loving seemed for also me!
And, oh, the Unspeakable, the He
The manifest in secrecies
 Yet of mine own heart partaker
With the overcoming look
Of One who hath been once forsook
 And blesseth the forsaker!
Mother, mother, let me go
Toward the Face that looketh so!
 Through the mystic wingèd Four
Whose are inward, outward eyes
Dark with light of mysteries
 And the restless evermore
'Holy, holy, holy, ' through
The sevenfold Lamps that burn in view
 Of cherubim and seraphim
Through the four-and-twenty crowned
Stately elders white around
 Suffer me to go to Him!

"Is your wisdom very wise
 Mother, on the narrow earth
 Very happy, very worth
That I should stay to learn?
Are these air-corrupting sighs
 Fashioned by unlearnèd breath?
Do the students' lamps that burn
 All night, illumine death?
Mother, albeit this be so
Loose thy prayer and let me go
Where that bright chief angel stands
Apart from all his brother bands
Too glad for smiling, having bent
In angelic wilderment
O'er the depths of God, and brought
Reeling thence one only thought
To fill his own eternity
He the teacher is for me
He can teach what I would know
Mother, mother, let me go!

"Can your poet make an Eden
 No winter will undo
And light a starry fire while heeding
 His hearth's is burning too?
Drown in music the earth's din
And keep his own wild soul within
 The law of his own harmony?
Mother, albeit this be so
Let me to my heaven go!
 A little harp me wait's thereby
A harp whose strings are golden all
And tuned to music spherical
Hanging on the green life-tree
Where no willows ever be
Shall I miss that harp of mine?
Mother, no! the Eye divine
Turned upon it, makes it shine
And when I touch it, poems sweet
Like separate souls shall fly from it
Each to the immortal fytte
We shall all be poets there
Gazing on the chiefest Fair

"Love! earth's love! and can we love
Fixedly where all things move?
Can the sinning love each other?
 Mother, mother
I tremble in thy close embrace
I feel thy tears adown my face
 Thy prayers do keep me out of bliss
O dreary earthly love!
Loose thy prayer and let me go
 To the place which loving is
Yet not sad and when is given
Escape to thee from this below
Thou shalt behold me that I wait
For thee beside the happy Gate
And silence shall be up in heaven
 To hear our greeting kiss"

 The nurse awakes in the morning sun
   And starts to see beside her bed
   The lady with a grandeur spread
 Like pathos o'er her face, as one
 God-satisfied and earth-undone
   The babe upon her arm was dead:
And the nurse could utter forth no cry
She was awed by the calm in the mother's eye

"Wake, nurse!" the lady said
 "We are waking he and I
 I, on earth, and he, in sky:
And thou must help me to o'erlay
With garment white this little clay
 Which needs no more our lullaby

"I changed the cruel prayer I made
And bowed my meekened face, and prayed
That God would do His will and thus
He did it, nurse! He parted us:
And His sun shows victorious
The dead calm face, and I am calm
And Heaven is hearkening a new psalm

"This earthly noise is too anear
Too loud, and will not let me hear
The little harp my death will soon
Make silence"

   And a sense of tune
A satisfied love meanwhile
Which nothing earthly could despoil
Sang on within her soul

       Oh you
Earth's tender and impassioned few
Take courage to entrust your love
To Him so named who guards above
 Its ends and shall fulfil!
Breaking the narrow prayers that may
Befit your narrow hearts, away
 In His broad, loving will