Elizabeth Barrett Browning - The Lay Of The Brown Rosary 4 lyrics
[Elizabeth Barrett Browning - The Lay Of The Brown Rosary 4 lyrics]
Onora looketh listlessly adown
The garden walk:
"I am weary, O my mother, of thy tender talk
I am weary of the trees a-waving to and fro
Of the steadfast skies above
The running brooks below
All things are the same, but
I, only I am dreary, and, mother
Of my dreariness behold me very weary
"Mother, brother
Pull the flowers I planted in the spring
And smiled to think I should
Smile more upon their gathering:
The bees will find out other flowers
Oh, pull them, dearest mine
And carry them and carry me
Before Saint Agnes' shrine"
Whereat they pulled the summer flowers
She planted in the spring
And her and them all mournfully
To Agnes' shrine did bring
She looked up to the pictured saint
And gently shook her head
"The picture is too calm for
Me too calm for me, " she said:
"The little flowers we brought with us
Before it we may lay
For those are used to look at
Heaven, but I must turn away
Because no sinner under sun can
Dare or bear to gaze
On God's or angel's holiness
Except in Jesu's face"
She spoke with passion after pause
"And were it wisely done
If we who cannot gaze above
Should walk the earth alone?
If we whose virtue is so weak
Should have a will so strong
And stand blind on the rocks to choose
The right path from the wrong?
To choose perhaps a love-lit hearth
Instead of love and heaven, a single rose
For a rose-tree which beareth
Seven times seven?
A rose that droppeth from the hand
That fadeth in the breast
Until, in grieving for the worst
We learn what is the best!"
Then breaking into tears, "Dear
God, " she cried, "and must we see
All blissful things depart from us or
Ere we go to Thee?
We cannot guess Thee in the wood
Or hear Thee in the wind?
Our cedars must fall round us ere
We see the light behind?
Ay sooth, we feel too strong, in weal
To need thee on that road
But woe being come
The soul is dumb that crieth not on 'God'"
Her mother could not speak for
Tears she ever musèd thus
"The bees will find out other flowers
But what is left for us?"
But her young brother stayed his sobs
And knelt beside her knee
"Thou sweetest sister in the world
Hast never a word for me?"
She passed her hand across his face
She pressed it on his cheek, so tenderly
So tenderly she needed not to speak
The wreath which lay on shrine that day
At vespers bloomed no more
The woman fair who placed it there
Had died an hour before
Both perished mute for lack of root
Earth's nourishment to reach
O reader, breathe
(the ballad saith) some sweetness
Out of each!
The garden walk:
"I am weary, O my mother, of thy tender talk
I am weary of the trees a-waving to and fro
Of the steadfast skies above
The running brooks below
All things are the same, but
I, only I am dreary, and, mother
Of my dreariness behold me very weary
"Mother, brother
Pull the flowers I planted in the spring
And smiled to think I should
Smile more upon their gathering:
The bees will find out other flowers
Oh, pull them, dearest mine
And carry them and carry me
Before Saint Agnes' shrine"
Whereat they pulled the summer flowers
She planted in the spring
And her and them all mournfully
To Agnes' shrine did bring
She looked up to the pictured saint
And gently shook her head
"The picture is too calm for
Me too calm for me, " she said:
"The little flowers we brought with us
Before it we may lay
For those are used to look at
Heaven, but I must turn away
Because no sinner under sun can
Dare or bear to gaze
On God's or angel's holiness
Except in Jesu's face"
She spoke with passion after pause
"And were it wisely done
If we who cannot gaze above
Should walk the earth alone?
If we whose virtue is so weak
Should have a will so strong
And stand blind on the rocks to choose
The right path from the wrong?
To choose perhaps a love-lit hearth
Instead of love and heaven, a single rose
For a rose-tree which beareth
Seven times seven?
A rose that droppeth from the hand
That fadeth in the breast
Until, in grieving for the worst
We learn what is the best!"
Then breaking into tears, "Dear
God, " she cried, "and must we see
All blissful things depart from us or
Ere we go to Thee?
We cannot guess Thee in the wood
Or hear Thee in the wind?
Our cedars must fall round us ere
We see the light behind?
Ay sooth, we feel too strong, in weal
To need thee on that road
But woe being come
The soul is dumb that crieth not on 'God'"
Her mother could not speak for
Tears she ever musèd thus
"The bees will find out other flowers
But what is left for us?"
But her young brother stayed his sobs
And knelt beside her knee
"Thou sweetest sister in the world
Hast never a word for me?"
She passed her hand across his face
She pressed it on his cheek, so tenderly
So tenderly she needed not to speak
The wreath which lay on shrine that day
At vespers bloomed no more
The woman fair who placed it there
Had died an hour before
Both perished mute for lack of root
Earth's nourishment to reach
O reader, breathe
(the ballad saith) some sweetness
Out of each!