Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Where's Agnes? (The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Vol. IV) lyrics

Nay, if I had come back so
 And found her dead in her grave
And if a friend I know
 Had said, "Be strong, nor rave:
She lies there, dead below:

"I saw her, I who speak
 White, stiff, the face one blank:
The blue shade came to her cheek
 Before they nailed the plank
For she had been dead a week"

Why, if he had spoken so
 I might have believed the thing
Although her look, although
 Her step, laugh, voice’s ring
Lived in me still as they do

But dead that other way
 Corrupted thus and lost?
That sort of worm in the clay?


 I cannot count the cost
That I should rise and pay

My Agnes false? such shame?
 She? Rather be it said
That the pure saint of her name
 Has stood there in her stead
And tricked you to this blame

Her very gown, her cloak
 Fell chastely: no disguise
But expression! while she broke
 With her clear grey morning-eyes
Full upon me and then spoke

She wore her hair away
 From her forehead, like a cloud
Which a little wind in May
 Peels off finely: disallowed
Though bright enough to stay

For the heavens must have the place
 To themselves, to use and shine in
As her soul would have her face
 To press through upon mine, in
That orb of angel grace

Had she any fault at all
 ’T was having none, I thought too
There seemed a sort of thrall
 As she felt her shadow ought to
Fall straight upon the wall

Her sweetness strained the sense
 Of common life and duty
And every day’s expense
 Of moving in such beauty
Required, almost, defence

What good, I thought, is done
 By such sweet things, if any?
This world smells ill i’ the sun
 Though the garden-flowers are many
She is only one

Can a voice so low and soft
 Take open actual part
With Right, maintain aloft
 Pure truth in life or art
Vexed always, wounded oft?

She fit, with that fair pose
 Which melts from curve to curve
To stand, run, work with those
 Who wrestle and deserve
And speak plain without glose?

But, I turned round on my fear
 Defiant, disagreeing
What if God has set her here
 Less for action than for Being?
For the eye and for the ear

Just to show what beauty may
 Just to prove what music can
And then to die away
 From the presence of a man
Who shall learn, henceforth, to pray?

As a door, left half ajar
 In heaven, would make him think
How heavenly-different are
 Things glanced at through the chink
Till he pined from near to far

That door could lead to hell?
 That shining merely meant
Damnation? What! She fell
 Like a woman, who was sent
Like an angel, by a spell?

She, who scarcely trod the earth
 Turned mere dirt? My Agnes, mine!
Called so! felt of too much worth
 To be used so! too divine
To be breathed near, and so forth!

Why, I dared not name a sin
 In her presence: I went round
Clipped it's name and shut it in
 Some mysterious crystal sound
Changed the dagger for the pin

Now you name herself that word?
 O my Agnes! O my saint!
Then the great joys of the Lord
 Do not last? Then all this paint
Runs off nature? leaves a board?

Who’s dead here? No, not she:
 Rather I! or whence this damp
Cold corruption’s misery?
 While my very mourners stamp
Closer in the clods on me

And my mouth is full of dust
 Till I cannot speak and curse
Speak and damn him "Blame’s unjust"?
 Sin blots out the universe
All because she would and must?

She, my white rose, dropping off
 The high rose-tree branch! and not
That the night-wind blew too rough
 Or the noon-sun burnt too hot
But, that being a rose ’t was enough!

Then henceforth may earth grow trees!
 No more roses! hard straight lines
To score lies out! none of these
 Fluctuant curves, but firs and pines
Poplars, cedars, cypresses!