The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume 1Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
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The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume 1
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
English poetry -- 19th century; Poetry, Modern -- 19th century
_Zerah._ Forms, Spaces, Motions wide,
O meek, insensate things,
O congregated matters! who inherit,
Instead of vital powers,
Impulsions God-supplied;
Instead of influent spirit,
A clear informing beauty;
Instead of creature-duty,
Submission calm as rest.
Lights, without feet or wings,
In golden courses sliding!
Glooms, stagnantly subsiding,
Whose lustrous heart away was prest
Into the argent stars!
Ye crystal firmamental bars
That hold the skyey waters free
From tide or tempest's ecstasy!
Airs universal! thunders lorn
That wait your lightnings in cloud-cave
Hewn out by the winds! O brave
And subtle elements! the Holy
Hath charged me by your voice with folly.[D]
Enough, the mystic arrow leaves its wound.
Return ye to your silences inborn,
Or to your inarticulated sound!
_Ador._ Zerah!
_Zerah._ Wilt _thou_ rebuke?
God hath rebuked me, brother. I am weak.
_Ador._ Zerah, my brother Zerah! could I speak
Of thee, 'twould be of love to thee.
_Zerah._ Thy look
Is fixed on earth, as mine upon thy face.
Where shall I seek His?
I have thrown
One look upon earth, but one,
Over the blue mountain-lines,
Over the forests of palms and pines,
Over the harvest-lands golden,
Over the valleys that fold in
The gardens and vines--
He is not there.
All these are unworthy
Those footsteps to bear,
Before which, bowing down
I would fain quench the stars of my crown
In the dark of the earthy.
Where shall I seek him?
No reply?
Hath language left thy lips, to place
Its vocal in thine eye?
Ador, Ador! are we come
To a double portent, that
Dumb matter grows articulate
And songful seraphs dumb?
Ador, Ador!
_Ador._ I constrain
The passion of my silence. None
Of those places gazed upon
Are gloomy enow to fit his pain.
Unto Him, whose forming word
Gave to Nature flower and sward.
She hath given back again,
For the myrtle--the thorn,
For the sylvan calm--the human scorn.
Still, still, reluctant seraph, gaze beneath!
There is a city----
_Zerah._ Temple and tower,
Palace and purple would droop like a flower,
(Or a cloud at our breath)
If He neared in his state
The outermost gate.
_Ador._ Ah me, not so
In the state of a king did the victim go!
And THOU who hangest mute of speech
'Twixt heaven and earth, with forehead yet
Stainèd by the bloody sweat,
God! man! Thou hast forgone thy throne in each.
_Zerah._ Thine eyes behold him?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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