Elizabeth Barrett Browning - The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus lyrics

   Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One!
My flesh, my Lord! what name? I do not know
A name that seemeth not too high or low
   Too far from me or heaven:
My Jesus, that is best! that word being given
By the majestic angel whose command
Was softly as a man's beseeching said
When I and all the earth appeared to stand
   In the great overflow
Of light celestial from his wings and head
   Sleep, sleep, my saving One!

And art Thou come for saving, baby-browed
And speechless Being art Thou
Come for saving?
The palm that grows beside our door is bowed
By treadings of the low wind from the south
A restless shadow through the chamber waving:
Upon it's bough a bird sings in the sun
But Thou, with that close
Slumber on Thy mouth
Dost seem of wind and sun already weary
Art come for saving, O my weary One?

Perchance this sleep that shutteth
Out the dreary
Earth-sounds and motions, opens on Thy soul
 High dreams on fire with God
High songs that make the
Pathways where they roll
More bright than stars do
Theirs and visions new
Of Thine eternal Nature's old abode
 Suffer this mother's kiss
 Best thing that earthly is
To glide the music and the glory through
Nor narrow in Thy dream the broad upliftings
 Of any seraph wing
Thus noiseless, thus sleep
Sleep my dreaming One!

The slumber of His lips meseems to run
Through my lips to mine heart
To all it's shiftings
Of sensual life, bringing contrariousness
In a great calm i feel I could lie down

I am 'ware of you, heavenly Presences
That stand with your peculiar light unlost
Each forehead with a high
Thought for a crown
Unsunned i' the sunshine! I am 'ware ye throw
No shade against the wall! How motionless
Ye round me with your living statuary
While through your whiteness
In and outwardly
Continual thoughts of God appear to go
Like light's soul in it'self i bear, I bear
To look upon the dropt lids of your eyes
Though their external shining testifies
To that beatitude within which were
Enough to blast an eagle at his sun:
I fall not on my sad clay face before ye
   I look on His i know
My spirit which dilateth with the woe
     Of His mortality
     May well contain your glory
   Yea, drop your lids more low
Ye are but fellow-worshippers with me!
   Sleep, sleep, my worshipped One!

We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them
 Softened their hornèd faces
 To almost human gazes
 Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
 Brought visionary looks
As yet in their astonied hearing rung
 The strange sweet angel-tongue:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn
 Knelt reverent, sweeping round
With long pale beards, their
Gifts upon the ground
 The incense, myrrh and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
 Upon Thy royal state
 Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

I am not proud meek angels, ye invest
New meeknesses to hear such utterance rest
On mortal lips, "I am not proud" not proud!
Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son
Albeit over Him my head is bowed
As others bow before Him, still mine heart
Bows lower than their knees o centuries
That roll in vision your futurities
   My future grave athwart
Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep
   Watch o'er this sleep
Say of me as the Heavenly said "Thou art
The blessedest of women!" blessedest
Not holiest, not noblest, no high name
Whose height misplaced may pierce
Me like a shame when I sit meek in heaven!
     For me, for me
God knows that I am feeble like the rest!
I often wandered forth
More child than maiden
Among the midnight hills of Galilee
   Whose summit's looked
Heaven laden
Listening to silence as it seemed to be
God's voice, so soft yet strong
So fain to press
Upon my heart as heaven did on the height
And waken up it's shadows by a light
And show it's vileness by a holiness
Then I knelt down most silent like the night
   Too self-renounced for fears
Raising my small face to the boundless blue
Whose stars did mix and tremble in my tears:
God heard them falling after, with His dew

So, seeing my corruption, can I see
This Incorruptible now born of me
This fair new Innocence no sun did chance
To shine on (for even Adam was no child)
Created from my nature all defiled
This mystery, from out mine ignorance
Nor feel the blindness, stain, corruption
More than others do, or I did heretofore?
Can hands wherein such burden pure has been
Not open with the cry "unclean, unclean, "
More oft than any else beneath the skies?
   Ah King, ah, Christ, ah son!
The kine, the shepherds, the abasèd wise
   Must all less lowly wait
   Than I, upon Thy state
 Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

Art Thou a King, then? Come, His universe
Come, crown me Him a King!
Pluck rays from all such stars as never fling
 Their light where fell a curse
And make a crowning for this kingly brow!
What is my word? Each empyreal star
   Sit's in a sphere afar
   In shining ambuscade:
   The child-brow, crowned by none
   Keeps it's unchildlike shade
   Sleep, sleep, my crownless One!

Unchildlike shade! No other babe doth wear
An aspect very sorrowful, as Thou
No small babe-smiles my watching
Heart has seen to float like speech the
Speechless lips between
No dovelike cooing in the golden air
No quick short joys of leaping babyhood
   Alas, our earthly good
In heaven thought evil
Seems too good for Thee
   Yet, sleep, my weary One!

And then the drear sharp tongue of prophecy
With the dread sense of things
Which shall be done
Doth smite me inly, like a sword: a sword?
That "smites the Shepherd" Then
I think aloud
The words "despised, " "rejected
" every word
Recoiling into darkness as I view
   The Darling on my knee
Bright angels
Move not lest ye stir the cloud
Betwixt my soul and His futurity!
I must not die, with mother's work to do
   And could not live-and see

 It is enough to bear
 This image still and fair
 This holier in sleep
 Than a saint at prayer
 This aspect of a child
 Who never sinned or smiled
 This Presence in an infant's face
 This sadness most like love
 This love than love more deep
 This weakness like omnipotence
 It is so strong to move
 Awful is this watching place
 Awful what I see from hence
 A king, without regalia
 A God, without the thunder
 A child, without the heart for play
 Ay, a Creator, rent asunder
 From His first glory and cast away
 On His own world, for me alone
To hold in hands created, crying Son!

 That tear fell not on Thee
Beloved, yet thou stirrest in thy slumber!
Thou, stirring not for glad
Sounds out of number
Which through the vibratory palm-trees run
 From summer-wind and bird
 So quickly hast thou heard
 A tear fall silently?
 Wak'st thou, O loving One?