Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Lord Walter's Wife lyrics

"But why do you go?" said the lady
While both sat under the yew
And her eyes were alive in their depth
As the kraken beneath the sea-blue

"Because I fear you, " he answered
"because you are far too fair
And able to strangle my soul in
A mesh of your gold-coloured hair"

"Oh, that, " she said, "is no
Reason! Such knots are quickly undone
And too much beauty, I reckon
Is nothing but too much sun"

"Yet farewell so
" he answered "the sun-stroke’s
Fatal at times
I value your husband, Lord Walter
Whose gallop rings still from the limes"



"Oh, that, " she said
"is no reason you smell a
Rose through a fence:
If two should smell it
What matter? who grumbles
And where’s the pretence?"

"But, I, " he replied, "have promised
Another, when love was free
To love her alone, alone
Who alone and afar loves me"

"Why, that, " she said, "is
No reason love’s always free, i am told
Will you vow to be safe
From the headache on Tuesday
And think it will hold?"

"But, you, " he replied, "have a
Daughter, a young little child, who was laid
In your lap to be pure so I leave
You: the angels would make me afraid"

"Oh, that, " she said
"is no reason the angels keep out of the way
And Dora, the child, observes nothing
Although you should please, me and stay"

At which he rose up in his anger, "Why, now
You no longer are fair!
Why, now, you no longer are
Fatal, but ugly and hateful, i swear"

At which she laughed out in her scorn:
"These men! Oh, these men overnice
Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous
Is frankly put on by a vice"

Her eyes blazed upon him "And you! You
Bring us your vices so near
That we smell them! You think in our presence
A thought ’t would defame us to hear!

"What reason had you, and what right, I
Appeal to your soul from my life
To find me too fair as a
Woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife

"Is the day-star too fair up above you?
It burns you not dare you imply
I brushed you more close than the star does
When Walter had set me as high?

"If a man finds a woman too fair
He means simply adapted too much
To uses unlawful and fatal the praise!
Shall I thank you for such?

"Too fair? not unless you misuse us! and
Surely if, once in a while
You attain to it, straightway you call
Us no longer too fair, but too vile

"A moment, i pray your attention! I have a
Poor word in my head i must utter
Though womanly custom would set
It down better unsaid

"You grew, sir, pale to impertinence
Once when I showed you a ring
You kissed my fan when I dropped it
No matter! I’ve broken the thing

"You did me the honour, perhaps
To be moved at my side now and then
In the senses a vice, I have heard
Which is common to beasts and some men

"Love’s a virtue for heroes! as white
As the snow on high hills
And immortal as every great soul
Is that struggles, endures, and fulfils

"I love my Walter profoundly, you, Maude
Though you faltered a week
For the sake of what was it
An eyebrow? or, less still
A mole on a cheek?

"And since, when all’s said
You’re too noble to stoop
To the frivolous cant
About crimes irresistible, virtues that
Swindle, betray and supplant

"I determined to prove to yourself that
Whate’er you might dream or avow
By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of
Me than you have now

"There! Look me full in the face! in
The face understand, if you can
That the eyes of such women as I am
Are clean as the palm of a man

"Drop his hand
You insult him avoid us for fear
We should cost you a scar
You take us for harlots, I tell you
And not for the women we are

"You wronged me: but then
I considered there’s
Walter! And so at the end
I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me
In the hand of a friend

"Have I hurt you indeed? We are quit's
Then nay, friend of my Walter, be mine!
Come, Dora, my darling, my angel
And help me to ask him to dine"