Works

INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND E. C.


If God compel thee to this destiny,
To die alone, with none beside thy bed
To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said
And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,...

One eve it happened, when I sat alone,
Alone, upon the terrace of my tower,
A book upon my knees to counterfeit
The reading that I never read at all,
While Marian, in the garden down below,...

Aurora Leigh, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature? with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God...

They met still sooner. 'Twas a year from thence
That Lucy Gresham, the sick sempstress girl,
Who sewed by Marian's chair so still and quick,
And leant her head upon its back to cough...

Even thus. I pause to write it out at length,
The letter of the Lady Waldemar.


"I prayed your cousin Leigh to take you this:
He says he'll do it. After years of love,...

Of writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,
Will write my story for my better self,...

"The woman's motive? shall we daub ourselves
With finding roots for nettles? 'tis soft clay
And easily explored. She had the means,
The moneys, by the lady's liberal grace,...

The English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands,
For say a foolish thing but oft enough
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,...

"To-day thou girdest up thy loins thyself
And goest where thou wouldest: presently
Others shall gird thee," said the Lord, "to go
Where thou wouldst not." He spoke to Peter thus,...

Times followed one another. Came a morn
I stood upon the brink of twenty years,
And looked before and after, as I stood
Woman and artist, either incomplete,
Both credulous of completion. There I held...

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace....

We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
We look up to the great wide sky,
Inquiring wherefore we were born'
For earnest or for jest?...

I

'But where 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.

II
...

"Yes!" I answered you last night;
"No!" this morning, Sir, I say!
Colours, seen by candle-light,
Will not look the same by day.

When the tabors played their best,
Lamps above, and laughs below...

The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word,
No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene
Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean
Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord...

I think that look of Christ might seem to say
'Thou Peter! art thou then a common stone
Which I at last must break my heart upon
For all God's charge to his high angels may...