The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Volume 2

THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE

I

 
A knight of gallant deeds
And a young page at his side,
From the holy war in Palestine
Did slow and thoughtful ride,
As each were a palmer and told for beads
The dews of the eventide.
 

II

 
"O young page," said the knight,
"A noble page art thou!
Thou fearest not to steep in blood
The curls upon thy brow;
And once in the tent, and twice in the fight,
Didst ward me a mortal blow."
 

III

 
"O brave knight," said the page,
"Or ere we hither came,
We talked in tent, we talked in field,
Of the bloody battle-game;
But here, below this greenwood bough,
I cannot speak the same.
 

IV

 
"Our troop is far behind,
The woodland calm is new;
Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled hoofs,
Tread deep the shadows through;
And, in my mind, some blessing kind
Is dropping with the dew.
 

V

 
"The woodland calm is pure —
I cannot choose but have
A thought from these, o' the beechen-trees,
Which in our England wave,
And of the little finches fine
Which sang there while in Palestine
The warrior-hilt we drave.
 

VI

 
"Methinks, a moment gone,
I heard my mother pray!
I heard, sir knight, the prayer for me
Wherein she passed away;
And I know the heavens are leaning down
To hear what I shall say."
 

VII

 
The page spake calm and high,
As of no mean degree;
Perhaps he felt in nature's broad
Full heart, his own was free:
And the knight looked up to his lifted eye,
Then answered smilingly —
 

VIII

 
"Sir page, I pray your grace!
Certes, I meant not so
To cross your pastoral mood, sir page,
With the crook of the battle-bow;
But a knight may speak of a lady's face,
I ween, in any mood or place,
If the grasses die or grow.
 

IX

 
"And this I meant to say —
My lady's face shall shine
As ladies' faces use, to greet
My page from Palestine;
Or, speak she fair or prank she gay,
She is no lady of mine.
 

X

 
"And this I meant to fear —
Her bower may suit thee ill;
For, sooth, in that same field and tent,
Thy talk was somewhat still:
And fitter thy hand for my knightly spear
Than thy tongue for my lady's will!"
 

XI

 
Slowly and thankfully
The young page bowed his head;
His large eyes seemed to muse a smile,
Until he blushed instead,
And no lady in her bower, pardiè,
Could blush more sudden red:
"Sir Knight, – thy lady's bower to me
Is suited well," he said.
 

XII

 
Beati, beati, mortui!
From the convent on the sea,
One mile off, or scarce so nigh,
Swells the dirge as clear and high
As if that, over brake and lea,
Bodily the wind did carry
The great altar of Saint Mary,
And the fifty tapers burning o'er it,
And the lady Abbess dead before it,
And the chanting nuns whom yesterweek
Her voice did charge and bless, —
Chanting steady, chanting meek,
Chanting with a solemn breath,
Because that they are thinking less
Upon the dead than upon death.
Beati, beati, mortui!
Now the vision in the sound
Wheeleth on the wind around;
Now it sweepeth back, away —
The uplands will not let it stay
To dark the western sun:
Mortui!– away at last, —
Or ere the page's blush is past!
And the knight heard all, and the page heard none.
 

XIII

 
"A boon, thou noble knight,
If ever I servèd thee!
Though thou art a knight and I am a page,
Now grant a boon to me;
And tell me sooth, if dark or bright,
If little loved or loved aright
Be the face of thy ladye."
 

XIV

 
Gloomily looked the knight —
"As a son thou hast servèd me,
And would to none I had granted boon
Except to only thee!
For haply then I should love aright,
For then I should know if dark or bright
Were the face of my ladye.
 

XV

 
"Yet it ill suits my knightly tongue
To grudge that granted boon,
That heavy price from heart and life
I paid in silence down;
The hand that claimed it, cleared in fine
My father's fame: I swear by mine,
That price was nobly won!
 

XVI

 
"Earl Walter was a brave old earl,
He was my father's friend,
And while I rode the lists at court
And little guessed the end,
My noble father in his shroud
Against a slanderer lying loud,
He rose up to defend.
 

XVII

 
"Oh, calm below the marble grey
My father's dust was strown!
Oh, meek above the marble grey
His image prayed alone!
The slanderer lied: the wretch was brave —
For, looking up the minster-nave,
He saw my father's knightly glaive
Was changed from steel to stone.
 

XVIII

 
"Earl Walter's glaive was steel,
With a brave old hand to wear it,
And dashed the lie back in the mouth
Which lied against the godly truth
And against the knightly merit
The slanderer, 'neath the avenger's heel,
Struck up the dagger in appeal
From stealthy lie to brutal force —
And out upon the traitor's corse
Was yielded the true spirit.
 

XIX

 
"I would mine hand had fought that fight
And justified my father!
I would mine heart had caught that wound
And slept beside him rather!
I think it were a better thing
Than murdered friend and marriage-ring
Forced on my life together.
 

XX

 
"Wail shook Earl Walter's house;
His true wife shed no tear;
She lay upon her bed as mute
As the earl did on his bier:
Till – 'Ride, ride fast,' she said at last,
'And bring the avengèd's son anear!
Ride fast, ride free, as a dart can flee,
For white of blee with waiting for me
Is the corse in the next chambère.'
 

XXI

 
"I came, I knelt beside her bed;
Her calm was worse than strife:
'My husband, for thy father dear,
Gave freely when thou wast not here
His own and eke my life.
A boon! Of that sweet child we make
An orphan for thy father's sake,
Make thou, for ours, a wife.'
 

XXII

 
"I said, 'My steed neighs in the court,
My bark rocks on the brine,
And the warrior's vow I am under now
To free the pilgrim's shrine;
But fetch the ring and fetch the priest
And call that daughter of thine,
And rule she wide from my castle on Nyde
While I am in Palestine.'
 

XXIII

 
"In the dark chambère, if the bride was fair,
Ye wis, I could not see,
But the steed thrice neighed, and the priest fast prayed,
And wedded fast were we.
Her mother smiled upon her bed
As at its side we knelt to wed,
And the bride rose from her knee
And kissed the smile of her mother dead,
Or ever she kissed me.
 

XXIV

 
"My page, my page, what grieves thee so,
That the tears run down thy face?" —
"Alas, alas! mine own sistèr
Was in thy lady's case:
But she laid down the silks she wore
And followed him she wed before,
Disguised as his true servitor,
To the very battle-place."
 

XXV

 
And wept the page, but laughed the knight,
A careless laugh laughed he:
"Well done it were for thy sistèr,
But not for my ladye!
My love, so please you, shall requite
No woman, whether dark or bright,
Unwomaned if she be."
 

XXVI

 
The page stopped weeping and smiled cold —
"Your wisdom may declare
That womanhood is proved the best
By golden brooch and glossy vest
The mincing ladies wear;
Yet is it proved, and was of old,
Anear as well, I dare to hold,
By truth, or by despair."
 

XXVII

 
He smiled no more, he wept no more,
But passionate he spake —
"Oh, womanly she prayed in tent,
When none beside did wake!
Oh, womanly she paled in fight,
For one belovèd's sake! —
And her little hand, defiled with blood,
Her tender tears of womanhood
Most woman-pure did make!"
 

XXVIII

 
– "Well done it were for thy sistèr,
Thou tellest well her tale!
But for my lady, she shall pray
I' the kirk of Nydesdale.
Not dread for me but love for me
Shall make my lady pale;
No casque shall hide her woman's tear —
It shall have room to trickle clear
Behind her woman's veil."
 

XXIX

 
– "But what if she mistook thy mind
And followed thee to strife,
Then kneeling did entreat thy love
As Paynims ask for life?"
– "I would forgive, and evermore
Would love her as my servitor,
But little as my wife.
 

XXX

 
"Look up – there is a small bright cloud
Alone amid the skies!
So high, so pure, and so apart,
A woman's honour lies."
The page looked up – the cloud was sheen —
A sadder cloud did rush, I ween,
Betwixt it and his eyes.
 

XXXI

 
Then dimly dropped his eyes away
From welkin unto hill —
Ha! who rides there? – the page is 'ware,
Though the cry at his heart is still:
And the page seeth all and the knight seeth none,
Though banner and spear do fleck the sun,
And the Saracens ride at will.
 

XXXII

 
He speaketh calm, he speaketh low, —
"Ride fast, my master, ride,
Or ere within the broadening dark
The narrow shadows hide."
"Yea, fast, my page, I will do so,
And keep thou at my side."
 

XXXIII

 
"Now nay, now nay, ride on thy way,
Thy faithful page precede.
For I must loose on saddle-bow
My battle-casque that galls, I trow,
The shoulder of my steed;
And I must pray, as I did vow,
For one in bitter need.
 

XXXIV

 
"Ere night I shall be near to thee, —
Now ride, my master, ride!
Ere night, as parted spirits cleave
To mortals too beloved to leave,
I shall be at thy side."
The knight smiled free at the fantasy,
And adown the dell did ride.
 

XXXV

 
Had the knight looked up to the page's face,
No smile the word had won;
Had the knight looked up to the page's face,
I ween he had never gone:
Had the knight looked back to the page's geste,
I ween he had turned anon,
For dread was the woe in the face so young,
And wild was the silent geste that flung
Casque, sword to earth, as the boy down-sprung
And stood – alone, alone.
 

XXXVI

 
He clenched his hands as if to hold
His soul's great agony —
"Have I renounced my womanhood,
For wifehood unto thee,
And is this the last, last look of thine
That ever I shall see?
 

XXXVII

 
"Yet God thee save, and mayst thou have
A lady to thy mind,
More woman-proud and half as true
As one thou leav'st behind!
And God me take with Him to dwell —
For Him I cannot love too well,
As I have loved my kind."
 

XXXVIII

 
She looketh up, in earth's despair,
The hopeful heavens to seek;
That little cloud still floateth there,
Whereof her loved did speak:
How bright the little cloud appears!
Her eyelids fall upon the tears,
And the tears down either cheek.
 

XXXIX

 
The tramp of hoof, the flash of steel —
The Paynims round her coming!
The sound and sight have made her calm, —
False page, but truthful woman;
She stands amid them all unmoved:
A heart once broken by the loved
Is strong to meet the foeman.
 

XL

 
"Ho, Christian page! art keeping sheep,
From pouring wine-cups resting?" —
"I keep my master's noble name,
For warring, not for feasting;
And if that here Sir Hubert were,
My master brave, my master dear,
Ye would not stay the questing."
 

XLI

 
"Where is thy master, scornful page,
That we may slay or bind him?" —
"Now search the lea and search the wood,
And see if ye can find him!
Nathless, as hath been often tried,
Your Paynim heroes faster ride
Before him than behind him."
 

XLII

 
"Give smoother answers, lying page,
Or perish in the lying!" —
"I trow that if the warrior brand
Beside my foot, were in my hand,
'T were better at replying!"
They cursed her deep, they smote her low,
They cleft her golden ringlets through;
The Loving is the Dying.
 

XLIII

 
She felt the scimitar gleam down,
And met it from beneath
With smile more bright in victory
Than any sword from sheath, —
Which flashed across her lip serene,
Most like the spirit-light between
The darks of life and death.
 

XLIV

 
Ingemisco, ingemisco!
From the convent on the sea,
Now it sweepeth solemnly,
As over wood and over lea
Bodily the wind did carry
The great altar of St. Mary,
And the fifty tapers paling o'er it,
And the Lady Abbess stark before it,
And the weary nuns with hearts that faintly
Beat along their voices saintly —
Ingemisco, ingemisco!
Dirge for abbess laid in shroud
Sweepeth o'er the shroudless dead,
Page or lady, as we said,
With the dews upon her head,
All as sad if not as loud.
Ingemisco, ingemisco!
Is ever a lament begun
By any mourner under sun,
Which, ere it endeth, suits but one?
 

THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY

FIRST PART

I

 
"Onora, Onora," – her mother is calling,
She sits at the lattice and hears the dew falling
Drop after drop from the sycamores laden
With dew as with blossom, and calls home the maiden,
"Night cometh, Onora."
 

II

 
She looks down the garden-walk caverned with trees,
To the limes at the end where the green arbour is —
"Some sweet thought or other may keep where it found her,
While, forgot or unseen in the dreamlight around her,
Night cometh – Onora!"
 

III

 
She looks up the forest whose alleys shoot on
Like the mute minster-aisles when the anthem is done
And the choristers sitting with faces aslant
Feel the silence to consecrate more than the chant —
"Onora, Onora!"
 

IV

 
And forward she looketh across the brown heath —
"Onora, art coming?" – what is it she seeth?
Nought, nought but the grey border-stone that is wist
To dilate and assume a wild shape in the mist —
"My daughter!" Then over
 

V

 
The casement she leaneth, and as she doth so
She is 'ware of her little son playing below:
"Now where is Onora?" He hung down his head
And spake not, then answering blushed scarlet-red, —
"At the tryst with her lover."
 

VI

 
But his mother was wroth: in a sternness quoth she,
"As thou play'st at the ball art thou playing with me?
When we know that her lover to battle is gone,
And the saints know above that she loveth but one
And will ne'er wed another?"
 

VII

 
Then the boy wept aloud; 't was a fair sight yet sad
To see the tears run down the sweet blooms he had:
He stamped with his foot, said – "The saints know I lied
Because truth that is wicked is fittest to hide:
Must I utter it, mother?"
 

VIII

 
In his vehement childhood he hurried within
And knelt at her feet as in prayer against sin,
But a child at a prayer never sobbeth as he —
"Oh! she sits with the nun of the brown rosary,
At nights in the ruin —
 

IX

 
"The old convent ruin the ivy rots off,
Where the owl hoots by day and the toad is sun-proof,
Where no singing-birds build and the trees gaunt and grey
As in stormy sea-coasts appear blasted one way —
But is this the wind's doing?
 

X

 
"A nun in the east wall was buried alive
Who mocked at the priest when he called her to shrive,
And shrieked such a curse, as the stone took her breath,
The old abbess fell backwards and swooned unto death
With an Ave half-spoken.
 

XI

 
"I tried once to pass it, myself and my hound,
Till, as fearing the lash, down he shivered to ground —
A brave hound, my mother! a brave hound, ye wot!
And the wolf thought the same with his fangs at her throat
In the pass of the Brocken.
 

XII

 
"At dawn and at eve, mother, who sitteth there
With the brown rosary never used for a prayer?
Stoop low, mother, low! If we went there to see,
What an ugly great hole in that east wall must be
At dawn and at even!
 

XIII

 
"Who meet there, my mother, at dawn and at even?
Who meet by that wall, never looking to heaven?
O sweetest my sister, what doeth with thee
The ghost of a nun with a brown rosary
And a face turned from heaven?
 

XIV

 
"Saint Agnes o'erwatcheth my dreams and erewhile
I have felt through mine eyelids the warmth of her smile;
But last night, as a sadness like pity came o'er her,
She whispered – 'Say two prayers at dawn for Onora:
The Tempted is sinning.'"
 

XV

 
"Onora, Onora!" they heard her not coming,
Not a step on the grass, not a voice through the gloaming;
But her mother looked up, and she stood on the floor
Fair and still as the moonlight that came there before,
And a smile just beginning:
 

XVI

 
It touches her lips but it dares not arise
To the height of the mystical sphere of her eyes,
And the large musing eyes, neither joyous nor sorry
Sing on like the angels in separate glory
Between clouds of amber;
 

XVII

 
For the hair droops in clouds amber-coloured till stirred
Into gold by the gesture that comes with a word;
While – O soft! – her speaking is so interwound
Of the dim and the sweet, 't is a twilight of sound
And floats through the chamber.
 

XVIII

 
"Since thou shrivest my brother, fair mother," said she
"I count on thy priesthood for marrying of me,
And I know by the hills that the battle is done.
That my lover rides on, will be here with the sun,
'Neath the eyes that behold thee."
 

XIX

 
Her mother sat silent – too tender, I wis,
Of the smile her dead father smiled dying to kiss:
But the boy started up pale with tears, passion-wrought —
"O wicked fair sister, the hills utter nought!
If he cometh, who told thee?"
 

XX

 
"I know by the hills," she resumed calm and clear,
"By the beauty upon them, that HE is anear:
Did they ever look so since he bade me adieu?
Oh, love in the waking, sweet brother, is true,
As Saint Agnes in sleeping!"
 

XXI

 
Half-ashamed and half-softened the boy did not speak,
And the blush met the lashes which fell on his cheek:
She bowed down to kiss him: dear saints, did he see
Or feel on her bosom the BROWN ROSARY,
That he shrank away weeping?
 

SECOND PART

A bed. Onora, sleeping. Angels, but not near

First Angel

 
Must we stand so far, and she
So very fair?
 

Second Angel

 
As bodies be.
 

First Angel

 
And she so mild?
 

Second Angel

 
As spirits when
They meeken, not to God, but men.
 

First Angel

 
And she so young, that I who bring
Good dreams for saintly children, might
Mistake that small soft face to-night,
And fetch her such a blessèd thing
That at her waking she would weep
For childhood lost anew in sleep.
How hath she sinned?
 

Second Angel

 
In bartering love;
God's love for man's.
 

First Angel

 
We may reprove
The world for this, not only her:
Let me approach to breathe away
This dust o' the heart with holy air.
 

Second Angel

 
Stand off! She sleeps, and did not pray.
 

First Angel

 
Did none pray for her?
 

Second Angel

 
Ay, a child, —
Who never, praying, wept before:
While, in a mother undefiled,
Prayer goeth on in sleep, as true
And pauseless as the pulses do.
 

First Angel

 
Then I approach.
 

Second Angel

 
It is not WILLED.
 

First Angel

 
One word: is she redeemed?
 

Second Angel

 
No more!
The place is filled.
 

[Angels vanish

Evil Spirit (in a Nun's garb by the bed)

 
Forbear that dream – forbear that dream! too near to heaven it leaned.
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
Nay, leave me this – but only this! 't is but a dream, sweet fiend!
 

Evil Spirit

 
It is a thought.
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
A sleeping thought – most innocent of good:
It doth the Devil no harm, sweet fiend! it cannot if it would.
I say in it no holy hymn, I do no holy work,
I scarcely hear the sabbath-bell that chimeth from the kirk.
 

Evil Spirit

 
Forbear that dream – forbear that dream!
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
Nay, let me dream at least.
That far-off bell, it may be took for viol at a feast:
I only walk among the fields, beneath the autumn-sun,
With my dead father, hand in hand, as I have often done.
 

Evil Spirit

 
Forbear that dream – forbear that dream!
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
Nay, sweet fiend, let me go:
I never more can walk with him, oh, never more but so!
For they have tied my father's feet beneath the kirk-yard stone,
Oh, deep and straight! oh, very straight! they move at nights alone:
And then he calleth through my dreams, he calleth tenderly,
"Come forth, my daughter, my beloved, and walk the fields with me!"
 

Evil Spirit

 
Forbear that dream, or else disprove its pureness by a sign.
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
Speak on, thou shalt be satisfied, my word shall answer thine.
I heard a bird which used to sing when I a child was praying,
I see the poppies in the corn I used to sport away in:
What shall I do – tread down the dew and pull the blossoms blowing?
Or clap my wicked hands to fright the finches from the rowan?
 

Evil Spirit

 
Thou shalt do something harder still. Stand up where thou dost stand
Among the fields of Dreamland with thy father hand in hand,
And clear and slow repeat the vow, declare its cause and kind,
Which not to break, in sleep or wake thou bearest on thy mind.
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
I bear a vow of sinful kind, a vow for mournful cause;
I vowed it deep, I vowed it strong, the spirits laughed applause:
The spirits trailed along the pines low laughter like a breeze,
While, high atween their swinging tops, the stars appeared to freeze.
 

Evil Spirit

 
More calm and free, speak out to me why such a vow was made.
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
Because that God decreed my death and I shrank back afraid.
Have patience, O dead father mine! I did not fear to die —
I wish I were a young dead child and had thy company!
I wish I lay beside thy feet, a buried three-year child,
And wearing only a kiss of thine upon my lips that smiled!
The linden-tree that covers thee might so have shadowed twain,
For death itself I did not fear – 't is love that makes the pain:
Love feareth death. I was no child, I was betrothed that day;
I wore a troth-kiss on my lips I could not give away.
How could I bear to lie content and still beneath a stone,
And feel mine own betrothed go by – alas! no more mine own —
Go leading by in wedding pomp some lovely lady brave,
With cheeks that blushed as red as rose, while mine were white in grave?
How could I bear to sit in heaven, on e'er so high a throne,
And hear him say to her – to her! that else he loveth none?
Though e'er so high I sate above, though e'er so low he spake,
As clear as thunder I should hear the new oath he might take,
That hers, forsooth, were heavenly eyes – ah me, while very dim
Some heavenly eyes (indeed of heaven!) would darken down to him!
 

Evil Spirit

 
Who told thee thou wast called to death?
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
I sate all night beside thee:
The grey owl on the ruined wall shut both his eyes to hide thee,
And ever he flapped his heavy wing all brokenly and weak,
And the long grass waved against the sky, around his gasping beak.
I sate beside thee all the night, while the moonlight lay forlorn
Strewn round us like a dead world's shroud in ghastly fragments torn:
And through the night, and through the hush, and over the flapping
wing,
We heard beside the Heavenly Gate the angels murmuring:
We heard them say, "Put day to day, and count the days to seven,
And God will draw Onora up the golden stairs of heaven.
And yet the Evil ones have leave that purpose to defer,
For if she has no need of Him, He has no need of her."
 

Evil Spirit

 
Speak out to me, speak bold and free.
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
And then I heard thee say —
"I count upon my rosary brown the hours thou hast to stay!
Yet God permits us Evil ones to put by that decree,
Since if thou hast no need of Him, He has no need of thee:
And if thou wilt forgo the sight of angels, verily
Thy true love gazing on thy face shall guess what angels be;
Nor bride shall pass, save thee" … Alas! – my father's hand's a-cold,
The meadows seem …
 

Evil Spirit

 
Forbear the dream, or let the vow be told.
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
I vowed upon thy rosary brown, this string of antique beads,
By charnel lichens overgrown, and dank among the weeds,
This rosary brown which is thine own, – lost soul of buried nun!
Who, lost by vow, wouldst render now all souls alike undone, —
I vowed upon thy rosary brown, – and, till such vow should break,
A pledge always of living days 't was hung around my neck —
I vowed to thee on rosary (dead father, look not so!),
I would not thank God in my weal, nor seek God in my woe.
 

Evil Spirit

 
And canst thou prove …
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
O love, my love! I felt him near again!
I saw his steed on mountain-head, I heard it on the plain!
Was this no weal for me to feel? Is greater weal than this?
Yet when he came, I wept his name – and the angels heard but his.
 

Evil Spirit

 
Well done, well done!
 

Onora (in sleep)

 
Ah me, the sun! the dreamlight 'gins to pine, —
Ah me, how dread can look the Dead! Aroint thee, father mine!
 
 
She starteth from slumber, she sitteth upright,
And her breath comes in sobs, while she stares through the night;
There is nought; the great willow, her lattice before,
Large-drawn in the moon, lieth calm on the floor:
But her hands tremble fast as their pulses and, free
From the death-clasp, close over – the BROWN ROSARY.