Elizabeth Barrett Browning - The Fourfold Aspect lyrics
[Elizabeth Barrett Browning - The Fourfold Aspect lyrics]
When ye stood up in the house
With your little childish feet
And, in touching Life's first shows
First the touch of Love did meet
Love and Nearness seeming one
By the heartlight cast before
And of all Beloveds, none
Standing farther than the door
Not a name being dear to thought
With it's owner beyond call
Not a face, unless it brought
Its own shadow to the wall
When the worst recorded change
Was of apple dropt from bough
When love's sorrow seemed more strange
Than love's treason can seem now
Then, the Loving took you up
Soft, upon their elder knees
Telling why the statues droop
Underneath the churchyard trees
And how ye must lie beneath them
Through the winters long and deep
Till the last trump overbreathe them
And ye smile out of your sleep
Oh, ye lifted up your head
And it seemed as if they said
A tale of fairy ships
With a swan-wing for a sail
Oh, ye kissed their loving lips
For the merry merry tale
So carelessly ye thought upon the Dead!
Soon ye read in solemn stories
Of the men of long ago
Of the pale bewildering glories
Shining farther than we know
Of the heroes with the laurel
Of the poets with the bay
Of the two worlds' earnest quarrel
For that beauteous Helena
How Achilles at the portal
Of the tent heard footsteps nigh
And his strong heart, half-immortal
Met the keitai with a cry
How Ulysses left the sunlight
For the pale eidola race
Blank and passive through the dun light
Staring blindly in his face
How that true wife said to Poetus
With calm smile and wounded heart
"Sweet, it hurts not!" How Admetus
Saw his blessed one depart
How King Arthur proved his mission
And Sir Roland wound his horn
And at Sangreal's moony vision
Swords did bristle round like corn
Oh, ye lifted up your head, and
It seemed, the while ye read
That this Death, then, must be found
A Valhalla for the crowned
The heroic who prevail:
None, be sure can enter in
Far below a paladin of a noble noble tale
So awfully ye thought upon the Dead!
Ay, but soon ye woke up shrieking
As a child that wakes at night
From a dream of sisters speaking
In a garden's summer-light
That wakes, starting up and bounding
In a lonely lonely bed
With a wall of darkness round him
Stifling black about his head!
And the full sense of your mortal
Rushed upon you deep and loud
And ye heard the thunder hurtle
From the silence of the cloud
Funeral-torches at your gateway
Threw a dreadful light within
All things changed: you rose up straightway
And saluted Death and Sin
Since, your outward man has rallied
And your eye and voice grown bold
Yet the Sphinx of Life stands pallid
With her saddest secret told
Happy places have grown holy:
If ye went where once ye went
Only tears would fall down slowly
As at solemn sacrament
Merry books, once read for pastime
If ye dared to read again
Only memories of the last time
Would swim darkly up the brain
Household names, which used to flutter
Through your laughter unawares
God's Divinest ye could utter
With less trembling in your prayers
Ye have dropt adown your head
And it seems as if ye tread
On your own hearts in the path
Ye are called to in His wrath
And your prayers go up in wail
"Dost Thou see, then, all our loss
O Thou agonized on cross?
Art thou reading all it's tale?"
So mournfully ye think upon the Dead!
Pray, pray, thou who also weepest
And the drops will slacken so
Weep, weep, and the watch thou keepest
With a quicker count will go
Think: the shadow on the dial
For the nature most undone
Marks the passing of the trial
Proves the presence of the sun
Look, look up, in starry passion
To the throne above the spheres:
Learn: the spirit's gravitation
Still must differ from the tear's
Hope: with all the strength thou usest
In embracing thy despair
Love: the earthly love thou losest
Shall return to thee more fair
Work: make clear the forest tangles
Of the wildest stranger land
Trust: the blessèd deathly angels
Whisper, "Sabbath hours at hand!"
By the heart's wound when most gory
By the longest agony
Smile! Behold in sudden glory
The Transfigured smiles on thee!
And ye lifted up your head, and
It seemed as if He said
"My Belovèd, is it so?
Have ye tasted of my woe?
Of my Heaven ye shall not fail!"
He stands brightly where the shade is
With the keys of Death and Hades
And there, ends the mournful tale
So hopefully ye think upon the Dead!
With your little childish feet
And, in touching Life's first shows
First the touch of Love did meet
Love and Nearness seeming one
By the heartlight cast before
And of all Beloveds, none
Standing farther than the door
Not a name being dear to thought
With it's owner beyond call
Not a face, unless it brought
Its own shadow to the wall
When the worst recorded change
Was of apple dropt from bough
When love's sorrow seemed more strange
Than love's treason can seem now
Then, the Loving took you up
Soft, upon their elder knees
Telling why the statues droop
Underneath the churchyard trees
And how ye must lie beneath them
Through the winters long and deep
Till the last trump overbreathe them
And ye smile out of your sleep
Oh, ye lifted up your head
And it seemed as if they said
A tale of fairy ships
With a swan-wing for a sail
Oh, ye kissed their loving lips
For the merry merry tale
So carelessly ye thought upon the Dead!
Soon ye read in solemn stories
Of the men of long ago
Of the pale bewildering glories
Shining farther than we know
Of the heroes with the laurel
Of the poets with the bay
Of the two worlds' earnest quarrel
For that beauteous Helena
How Achilles at the portal
Of the tent heard footsteps nigh
And his strong heart, half-immortal
Met the keitai with a cry
How Ulysses left the sunlight
For the pale eidola race
Blank and passive through the dun light
Staring blindly in his face
How that true wife said to Poetus
With calm smile and wounded heart
"Sweet, it hurts not!" How Admetus
Saw his blessed one depart
How King Arthur proved his mission
And Sir Roland wound his horn
And at Sangreal's moony vision
Swords did bristle round like corn
Oh, ye lifted up your head, and
It seemed, the while ye read
That this Death, then, must be found
A Valhalla for the crowned
The heroic who prevail:
None, be sure can enter in
Far below a paladin of a noble noble tale
So awfully ye thought upon the Dead!
Ay, but soon ye woke up shrieking
As a child that wakes at night
From a dream of sisters speaking
In a garden's summer-light
That wakes, starting up and bounding
In a lonely lonely bed
With a wall of darkness round him
Stifling black about his head!
And the full sense of your mortal
Rushed upon you deep and loud
And ye heard the thunder hurtle
From the silence of the cloud
Funeral-torches at your gateway
Threw a dreadful light within
All things changed: you rose up straightway
And saluted Death and Sin
Since, your outward man has rallied
And your eye and voice grown bold
Yet the Sphinx of Life stands pallid
With her saddest secret told
Happy places have grown holy:
If ye went where once ye went
Only tears would fall down slowly
As at solemn sacrament
Merry books, once read for pastime
If ye dared to read again
Only memories of the last time
Would swim darkly up the brain
Household names, which used to flutter
Through your laughter unawares
God's Divinest ye could utter
With less trembling in your prayers
Ye have dropt adown your head
And it seems as if ye tread
On your own hearts in the path
Ye are called to in His wrath
And your prayers go up in wail
"Dost Thou see, then, all our loss
O Thou agonized on cross?
Art thou reading all it's tale?"
So mournfully ye think upon the Dead!
Pray, pray, thou who also weepest
And the drops will slacken so
Weep, weep, and the watch thou keepest
With a quicker count will go
Think: the shadow on the dial
For the nature most undone
Marks the passing of the trial
Proves the presence of the sun
Look, look up, in starry passion
To the throne above the spheres:
Learn: the spirit's gravitation
Still must differ from the tear's
Hope: with all the strength thou usest
In embracing thy despair
Love: the earthly love thou losest
Shall return to thee more fair
Work: make clear the forest tangles
Of the wildest stranger land
Trust: the blessèd deathly angels
Whisper, "Sabbath hours at hand!"
By the heart's wound when most gory
By the longest agony
Smile! Behold in sudden glory
The Transfigured smiles on thee!
And ye lifted up your head, and
It seemed as if He said
"My Belovèd, is it so?
Have ye tasted of my woe?
Of my Heaven ye shall not fail!"
He stands brightly where the shade is
With the keys of Death and Hades
And there, ends the mournful tale
So hopefully ye think upon the Dead!