4497194Poems — A Vision of PoetsElizabeth Barrett Barrett
A VISION OF POETS.
A Vision of Poets.
"O Sacred Essence, lighting me this hour, How may I lightly stile thy great power? Echo.Power. Power! but of whence? under the greenwood spraye? Or liv'st in Heaven? saye. Echo.In Heavens aye. In Heavens aye! tell, may I it obtayne By alms, by fasting, prayer,—by paine? Echo.By paine. Show me the paine, it shall be undergone: I to mine end will still go on. Echo.Go on."Britannia's Pastorals.
A poet could not sleep aright, For his soul kept up too much light Under his eyelids for the night:
And thus he rose disquieted, With sweet rhymes ringing through his head, And in the forest wandered;
Where, sloping up the darkest glades, The moon had drawn long colonnades, Upon whose floor the verdure fades
To a faint silver: pavement fair, The antique Dryads scarce would dare To footprint o'er, if such were there,
But rather sit by breathlessly, With tears in their large eyes to see The consecrated sight. But he—
The poet—who with spirit-kiss Familiar, had long claimed for his Whatever earthly beauty is,
Who also in his spirit bore A Beauty passing the earth's store, Walked calmly onward evermore.
His aimless thoughts in metre went, Like a babe's hand, without intent, Drawn down a seven-stringed instrument.
Nor jarred it with his mood when as, With a faint stirring down the grass, An apparition fair did pass.
He might have feared another time, But all things fair and strange did chime With his thoughts then—as rhyme to rhyme.
An angel had not startled him, Dropping from Heaven's encyclic rim To breathe from glory in the Dim—
Much less a lady, riding slow Upon a palfrey white as snow, And smooth as a snow-cloud could go.
Full upon his she turned her face,—"What, ho, sir poet! dost thou pace Our woods at night in ghostly chace
"Of some fair Dryad of old tales, Who chaunts between the nightingales, And over sleep by song prevails?"
She smiled; but he could see arise Her soul from far adown her eyes, Prepared as if for sacrifice.
She looked a queen who seemeth gay From royal grace alone: "Now, nay," He answered,—" slumber passed away,
"Compelled by instincts in my head, That I should see to-night instead Of a fair nymph, some fairer Dread."
She looked up quickly to the sky And spake:—"The moon's regality Will hear no praise! she is as I.
"She is in heaven, and I on earth; This is my kingdom—I come forth To crown all poets to their worth."
He brake in with a voice that mourned—"To their worth, lady! They are scorned By men they sing for, till inurned.
"To their worth! Beauty in the mind Leaves the hearth cold; and love-refined Ambitions make the world unkind.
"The boor who ploughs the daisy down, The chief, whose mortgage of renown, Fixed upon graves, has bought a crown—
"Both these are happier, more approved Than poets!—Why should I be moved In saying both are more beloved?"
"The south can judge not of the north;" She resumed calmly—"I come forth To crown all poets to their worth.
"Yea, sooth! and to anoint them all With blessed oils, which surely shall Smell sweeter as the ages fall."
"As sweet," the poet said, and rung A low sad laugh, "as flowers do, sprung Out of their graves when they die young!
"As sweet as window eglantine—Some bough of which, as they decline, The hired nurse plucketh at their sign!
"As sweet, in short, as perfumed shroud, Which the fair Roman maidens sewed For English Keats, singing aloud."
The lady answered, "Yea, as sweet! The things thou namest being complete In fragrance, as I measure it.
"Since sweet the death-clothes and the knell Of him who, having lived, dies well,—And holy sweet the asphodel,
"Stirred softly by that foot of his, When he treads brave on all that is, Into the world of souls, from this!
"Since sweet the tears, dropped at the door Of tearless Death,—and even before: Sweet, consecrated evermore!
"What! dost thou judge it a strange thing, That poets, crowned for conquering, Should bear some dust from out the ring?
"Come on with me, come on with me; And learn in coming! Let me free Thy spirit into verity."
She ceased: her palfrey's paces sent No separate noises as she went,—'Twas a bee's hum—a little spent.
And while the poet seemed to tread Along the drowsy noise so made, The forest heaved up overhead
Its billowy foliage through the air, And the calm stars did, far and fair, O'er-swim the masses everywhere:
Save where the overtopping pines Did bar their tremulous light with lines All fixed and black. Now the moon shines
A broader glory! You may see The trees grow rarer presently,—The air blows up more fresh and free:
Until they come from dark to light, And from the forest to the sight Of the large Heaven-heart, bare with night,—
A fiery throb in every star With burning arteries that are The conduits of God's life afar,—
A wild brown moorland underneath, Low glimmering here and thither, with White pools in breaks, as blank as death.
Beside the first pool, near the wood, A dead tree in set horror stood, Peeled and disjointed, stark as rood;
Since thunder stricken, years ago, Fixed in the spectral strain and throe Wherewith it struggled from the blow:
A monumental tree . . . alone, That will not bend, if tempest-blown, But break off sudden like a stone,—
Its lifeless shadow lies oblique Upon the pool,—where, javelin-like, The star-rays quiver while they strike.
"Drink," said the lady, very still—"Be holy and cold." He did her will, And drank the starry water chill.
The next pool they came near unto, Was bare of trees: there, only grew Straight flags and lilies fair to view,
Which sullen on the water sate, And leant their faces on the flat, As weary of the starlight-state.
"Drink," said the lady, grave and slow, "World's use behoveth thee to know." He drank the bitter wave below.
The third pool, girt with thorny bushes, And flaunting weeds, and reeds and rushes That winds sang through in mournful gushes,
Was whitely smeared in many a round By a slow slime: the starlight swound Over the ghastly light it found.
"Drink," said the lady, sad and slow—"World's love behoveth thee to know." He looked to her, commanding so.
Her brow was troubled, but her eye Struck clear to his soul. For all reply He drank the water suddenly,—
Then, with a deathly sickness, passed Beside the fourth pool and the last, Where weights of shadow were down-cast
From yew and cypress, and from trails Of hemlock clasping the trunk-scales, And flung across the intervals
From yew to yew. Who dareth stoop Where those moist branches overdroop, Into his heart the chill strikes up:
He hears a silent, gliding coil—The snakes breathe hard against the soil—His foot slips in their slimy oil:
And toads seem crawling on his hand, And clinging bats, but dimly scanned, Eight in his face their wings expand.
A paleness took the poet's cheek: "Must I drink here?" he questioned meek The lady's will, with utterance weak.
"Ay, ay," she said, "it so must be"—(And this time she spake cheerfully) "Behoves thee know world's cruelty."
He bowed his forehead till his mouth Curved in the wave, and drank unloth, As if from rivers of the south.
His lip sobbed through the water rank, His heart paused in him while he drank, His brain beat heart-like—rose and sank,—
And he swooned backward to a dream, Wherein he lay 'twixt gloom and gleam, With Death and Life at each extreme.
And spiritual thunders, born of soul Not cloud, did leap from mystic pole, And o'er him roll and counter-roll,
Crushing their echoes reboant With their own wheels. Did Heaven so grant His spirit a sign of covenant?
At last came silence. A slow kiss Did crown his forehead after this: His eyelids flew back for the bliss.
The lady stood beside his head, Smiling a thought, with hair dispread! The moonshine seemed dishevelled
In her sleek tresses manifold; Like Danae's in the rain of old, That dripped with melancholy gold!
But she was holy, pale, and high—As one who saw an ecstasy Beyond a foretold agony.
"Rise up!" said she, with voice where song Eddied through speech—"rise up! be strong; And learn how right avengeth wrong."
The poet rose up on his feet: He stood before an altar set For sacrament, with vessels meet,
And mystic altar-lights which shine As if their flames were crystalline Carved flames that would not shrink or pine.
The altar filled the central place Of a great church, and toward its face Long aisles did shoot and interlace.
And from it a continuous mist Of incense (round the edges kissed By a pure light of amethyst)
Wound upward slowly and throbbingly, Cloud within cloud, right silverly, Cloud above cloud, victoriously,
Broke full against the arched roof, And, thence refracting, eddied off, And floated through the marble woof
Of many a fine-wrought architrave,—Then, poising the white masses brave, Swept solemnly down aisle and nave.
And now in dark, and now in light, The countless columns, glimmering white, Seemed leading out to Infinite.
Plunged half-way up the shaft they showed, In the pale shifting incense-cloud Which flowed them by, and overflowed,
Till mist and marble seemed to blend, And the whole temple, at the end, With its own incense to distend;
The arches, like a giant's bow, To bend and slacken,—and below, The niched saints to come and go.
Alone, amid the shifting scene, That central altar stood serene In its clear stedfast taper-sheen.
Then first, the poet was aware Of a chief angel standing there Before that altar, in the glare.
His eyes were dreadful, for you saw That they saw God—his lips and jaw, Grand-made and strong, as Sinai's Law
They could enunciate, and refrain From vibratory after-pain; And his brow's height was sovereign—
On the vast background of his wings Arose his image! and he flings, From each plumed arc, pale glitterings
And fiery flakes (as beateth more Or less, the angel-heart!) before, And round him, upon roof and floor,
Edging with fire the shifting fumes: While at his side, 'twixt lights and glooms, The phantasm of an organ booms.
Extending from which instrument And angel, right and left-way bent, The poet's sight grew sentient
Of a strange company around And toward the altar,—pale and crowned, With sovran eyes of depth profound.
Deathful their faces were; and yet The power of life was in them set—Never forgot, nor to forget.
Sublime significance of mouth, Dilated nostril full of youth, And forehead royal with the truth.
These faces were not multiplied Beyond your count, but side by sideDid front the altar, glorified;
Still as a vision, yet exprest Full as an action—look and geste Of buried saint, in risen rest!
The poet knew them. Faint and dim His spirit seemed to sink in him,Then, like a dolphin, change and swim
The current—These were poets true "Who died for Beauty, as martyrs do For Truth—the ends being scarcely two.
God's prophets of the Beautiful These poets were—of iron rule, The rugged cilix, serge of wool.
Here, Homer, with the broad suspense Of thunderous brows, and lips intense Of garrulous god-innocence.
There, Shakspeare! on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world! Oh, eyes sublime—With tears and laughters for all time!
Here, Æschylus,—the women swooned To see so awful when he frowned As the gods did,—he standeth crowned.
Euripides, with close and mild Scholastic lips,—that could be wild, And laugh or sob out like a child
Right in the classes. Sophocles, With that king's look which down the trees, Followed the dark effigies
Of the lost Theban! Hesiod old, Who, somewhat blind, and deaf, and cold, Cared most for gods and bulls! and bold
Electric Pindar, quick as fear, With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear, Slant startled eyes that seem to hear
The chariot rounding the last goal, To hurtle past it in his soul! And Sappho crowned with aureole
Of ebon curls on calmed brows—O poet-woman! none forgoes The leap, attaining the repose!
Theocritus, with glittering locks, Dropt sideway, as betwixt the rocks He watched the visionary flocks!
And Aristophanes; who took The world with mirth, and laughter-struck The hollow caves of Thought and woke
The infinite echoes hid in each. And Virgil! shade of Mantuan beech Did help the shade of bay to reach
And knit around his forehead high!—For his gods wore less majesty Than his brown bees hummed deathlessly.
Lucretius—nobler than his mood! Who dropped his plummet down the broad Deep universe, and said "No God,"
Finding no bottom! he denied Divinely the divine, and died Chief poet on the Tiber-side,
By grace of God! his face is stern, As one compelled, in spite of scorn, To teach a truth he could not learn.
And Ossian, dimly seen or guessed! Once counted greater than the rest, When mountain-winds blew out his vest.
And Spenser drooped his dreaming head (With languid sleep-smile you had said From his own verse engendered)
On Ariosto's, till they ran Their locks in one!—The Italian Shot nimbler heat of bolder man
From his fine lids. And Dante stern And sweet, whose spirit was an urn For wine and milk poured out in turn.
Hard-souled Alfieri; and fancy-willed Boiardo,—who with laughters filled The pauses of the jostled shield.
And Berni, with a hand stretched out To sleek that storm! And not without The wreath he died in, and the doubt
He died by, Tasso! bard and lover, Whose visions were too thin to cover The face of a false woman over.
And soft Racine,—and grave Corneille—The orator of rhymes, whose wail Scarce shook his purple! And Petrarch pale,
Who from his brainlit heart hath thrown A thousand thoughts beneath the sun, Each perfumed with the name of One.
And Camoens, with that look he had, Compelling India's Genius sad From the wave through the Lusiad,
With murmurs of a purple ocean Indrawn in vibrative emotion Along the verse! And while devotion
In his wild eyes fantastic shone Between the bright curls blown upon By airs celestial,—Calderon!
And bold De Vega,—who breathed quick Song after song, till death's old trick Put pause to life and rhetorick.
And Goethe—with that reaching eye His soul reached out from, far and high, And fell from inner entity.
And Schiller, with heroic front Worthy of Plutarch's kiss upon't,—Too large for wreath of modern wont.
And Chaucer, with his infantine Familiar clasp of things divine—That mark upon his lip is wine.
Here Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim! The shapes of suns and stars did swim Like clouds from them, and granted him
God for sole vision! Cowley, there, Whose active fancy debonaire Drew straws like amber—foul to fair.
Drayton and Browne,—with smiles they drew From outward Nature, to renew From their own inward nature true.
And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben—Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows, when The world was worthy of such men.
And Burns, with pungent passionings Set in his eyes. Deep lyric springs Are of the fire-mount's issuings.
And Shelley, in his white ideal, All statue-blind; and Keats the real Adonis, with the hymeneal
Fresh vernal buds half sunk between His youthful curls, kissed straight and sheen In his Rome-grave, by Venus queen.
And poor, proud Byron,—sad as grave And salt as life! forlornly brave, And quivering with the dart he drave.
And visionary Coleridge, who Did sweep his thoughts as angels do Their wings, with cadence up the Blue.
These poets faced (and other more) The lighted altar booming o'er The clouds of incense dim and hoar:
And all their faces, in the lull Of natural things, looked wonderful With life and death and deathless rule!
All, still as stone, and yet intense; As if by spirit's vehemence That stone were carved, and not by sense.
All still and calm as statue stone! The life lay coiled unforegone Up in the awful eyes alone,
And flung its length out through the air Into whatever eyes should dare To front them—Awful shapes and fair!
But where the heart of each should beat, There seemed a wound instead of it, From whence the blood dropped to their feet,
Drop after drop—dropped heavily, As century follows century Into the deep eternity.
Then said the lady—and her word Came distant,—as wide waves were stirred Between her and the ear that heard;—
"World's use is cold—world's love is vain,—World's cruelty is bitter bane; But pain is not the fruit of pain.
"Hearken, O poet, whom I led From the dark wood! Dismissing dread, Now hear this angel in my stead.
"His organ's pedals strike along These poets' hearts, which metal-strong, They gave him without count of wrong,—
"From which foundation he can guide Up to God's feet, from these who died, An anthem fully glorified!
"Whereat God's blessing . . . Ibarak (יברך)Breathes back this music—folds it hack About the earth in vapoury rack:
"And men walk in it, crying 'Lo! The world is wider, and we know The very heavens look brighter so!
"'The stars walk statelier round the edge O' the silver spheres, and give in pledge Their light for nobler privilege.
"'No little flower hut joys or grieves—Full life is rustling in the sheaves; Full spirit sweeps the forest-leaves!'
"So works this music on the earth! God so admits it, sends it forth, To add another worth to worth—
"A new creation-bloom that rounds The old creation, and expounds His Beautiful in tuneful sounds.
"Now hearken!" Then the Poet gazed Upon the angel glorious-faced, Whose hand, majestically raised,
Floated across the organ-keys, Like a pale moon o'er murmuring seas, With no touch hut with influences.
Then rose and fell (with swell and swound Of shapeless noises wandering round A concord which at last they found)
Those mystic keys—the tones were mixed, Dim, faint; and thrilled and throbbed betwixt The incomplete and the unfixed:
And therein mighty minds were heard In mighty musings, inly stirred, And struggling outward for a word.
Until these surges, having run This way and that, gave out as one An Aphrodite of sweet tune,
A Harmony that finding vent, Upward in grand ascension went, Winged to a heavenly argument—
Up, upward! like a saint who strips The shroud back from his eyes and lips, And rises in apocalypse!
A Harmony sublime and plain Which cleft (as flying swan, the rain,—Throwing the drops off with a strain
Of her white wing) those undertones Of perplext chords, and soared at once, And struck out from the starry thrones
Their several silver octaves, as It passed to God! The music was Of divine stature—strong to pass!
And those who heard it, understood Something of life in spirit and blood—Something of nature's fair and good.
And while it sounded, those great souls' Did thrill as racers at the goals, And burn in all their aureoles.
But she, the lady, as vapour-bound, Stood calmly in the joy of sound,—Like Nature with the showers around.
And when it ceased, the blood which fell, Again, alone grew audible, Tolling the silence as a bell.
The sovran angel lifted high His hand, and spake out sovranly—"Tried poets, hearken and reply!
"Give me true answers. If we grant That not to suffer, is to want The conscience of the Jubilant,—
"If ignorance of anguish is But ignorance; and mortals miss Far prospects, by a level bliss,—
"If as two colours must be viewed In a seen image, mortals should Need good and evil, to see good,—
"If to speak nobly, comprehends To feel profoundly—if the ends Of power and suffering, Nature blends,—
"If poets on the tripod must Writhe like the Pythian, to make just Their oracles, and merit trust,—
"If every vatic word that sweeps To change the world, must pale their lips, And leave their own souls in eclipse—
"If to search deep the universe Must pierce the searcher with the curse,—Because that bolt (in man's reverse),
"Was shot to the heart o' the wood, and lies Wedged deepest in the best!—if eyes That look for visions and surprise
"From marshalled, angels, must shut down Their lids, first, upon sun and moon, The head asleep upon a stone,—
"If One who did redeem you hack, By His own lack, from final lack, Did consecrate by touch and track
"Those temporal sorrows, till the taste Of brackish waters of the waste Is salt with tears He dropt too fast,—
"If all the crowns of earth must wound With prickings of the thorns He found,—If saddest sighs swell sweetest sound,—
"What say ye unto this?—refuse This baptism in salt water?—choose Calm breasts, mute lips, and labour loose?
"Or, oh ye gifted givers! ye Who give your liberal hearts to me, To make the world this harmony,—
"Are ye resigned that they he spent To such world's help? "—The Spirits bent Their awful brows and said—"Content!"
Content! it sounded like Amen,Said by a choir of mourning men—An affirmation full of pain
And patience!—ay, of glorying, And adoration,—as a king Might seal an oath for governing.
Then said the angel—and his face Lightened abroad until the place Grew larger for a moment's space—
The long aisles flashing out in light, And nave and transept, columns white, And arches crossed, being clear to sight,
As if the roof were off, and all Stood in the noon-sun,—"Lo! I call To other hearts as liberal.
"This pedal strikes out in the air! My instrument hath room to bear Still fuller strains and perfecter.
"Herein is room, and shall be room While Time lasts, for new hearts to come Consummating while they consume.
"What living man will bring a gift Of his own heart, and help to lift The tune?—The race is to the swift!"
So asked the angel. Straight the while, A company came up the aisle With measured step and sorted smile;
Cleaving the incense-clouds that rise, With winking unaccustomed eyes, And love-locks smelling sweet of spice.
One bore his head above the rest, As if the world were dispossessed—And one did pillow chin on breast,
Right languid—an as he should faint! One shook his curls across his paint, And moralised on worldly taint.
One, slanting up his face, did wink The salt rheum to the eyelid's brink, To think—O gods! or—not to think!
Some trod out stealthily and slow, As if the sun would fall in snow, If they walked to, instead of fro.
And some with conscious ambling free, Did shake their bells right daintily On hand and foot, for harmony.
And some composing sudden sighs, In attitudes of point-device, Rehearsed impromptu agonies.
And when this company drew near The spirits crowned, it might appear Submitted to a ghastly fear.
As a sane eye in master-passion Constrains a maniac to the fashion Of hideous maniac imitation
In the least geste—the dropping low O' the lid—the wrinkling of the brow,—Exaggerate with mock and mow,—
So, mastered was that company By the crowned vision utterly, Swayed to a maniac mockery.
One dulled his eyeballs, as they ached With Homer's forehead—though he lacked An inch of any! And one racked
His lower lip with restless tooth,—As Pindar's rushing words forsooth Were pent behind it. One, his smooth
Pink cheeks, did rumple passionate, Like Æschylus—and tried to prate On trolling tongue, of fate and fate!
One set her eyes like Sappho's—or Any light woman's! one forbore Like Dante, or any man as poor
In mirth, to let a smile undo His hard shut lips. And one, that drew Sour humours from his mother, blew
His sunken cheeks out to the size Of most unnatural jollities, Because Anacreon looked jest-wise.
So with the rest.—It was a sight For great world-laughter, as it might For great world-wrath, with equal right!
Out came a speaker from that crowd, To speak for all—in sleek and proud Exordial periods, while he bowed
His knee before the angel.—"Thus, O angel, who hast called for us, We bring thee service emulous,—
"Fit service from sufficient soul—Hand-service, to receive world's dole—Lip-service, in world's ear to roll
"Adjusted concords—soft enow To hear the wine cups passing, through, And not too grave to spoil the show.
"Thou, certes, when thou askest more, O sapient angel, leanest o'er The window-sill of metaphor.
"To give our hearts up! fie!—That rage Barbaric, antedates the age! It is not done on any stage.
"Because your scald or gleeman went With seven or nine-stringed instrument Upon his back—must ours be bent?
"We are not pilgrims, by your leave, No, nor yet martyrs! if we grieve, It is to rhyme to . . . summer eve.
"And if we labour, it shall be As suiteth best with our degree, In after-dinner reverie."
More yet that speaker would have said,—Poising between his smiles fair-fed, Each separate phrase till finished;
But all the foreheads of those born And dead true poets flashed with scorn Betwixt the bay leaves round them worn—
Ay, jetted such brave fire, that they, The new-come, shrank and paled away, Like leaden ashes when the day
Strikes on the hearth! A spirit-blast, A presence known by power, at last Took them up mutely—they had passed!
And he, our pilgrim-poet, saw Only their places, in deep awe,—What time the angel's smile did draw
His gazing upward. Smiling on, The angel in the angel shone, Revealing glory in benison.
Till, ripened in the light which shut The poet in, his spirit mute Dropped sudden, as a perfect fruit.
He fell before the angel's feet, Saying—"If what is true is sweet, In something I may compass it.
"For, where my worthiness is poor, My will stands richly at the door, To pay short comings evermore.
"Accept me therefore—Not for price, And not for pride, my sacrifice Is tendered! for my soul is nice,
"And will beat down those dusty seeds Of bearded corn, if she succeeds In soaring while the covey feeds.
"I soar—I am drawn up like the lark To its white cloud! So high my mark, Albeit my wing is small and dark!
"I ask no wages—seek no fame! Sew me, for shroud round face and name, God's banner of the oriflamme.
"I only would have leave to loose (In tears and blood, if so He choose, Mine inward music out to use.
"I only would he spent—in pain And loss, perchance—hut not in vain, Upon the sweetness of that strain,—
"Only project, beyond the hound Of mine own life, so lost and found, My voice, and live on in its sound,—
"Only embrace and he embraced By fiery ends,—whereby to waste, And light God's future with my past!"
The angel's smile grew more divine—The mortal speaking—ay, its shine Swelled fuller, like a choir-note fine,
Till the broad gloriole, round his brow, Did vibrate with the light below; But what he said I do not know.
Nor know I if the man who prayed, Rose up accepted, unforbade, From the church-floor where he was laid,—
Nor if a listening life did run Through the king-poets, glossing down Their eyes capacious of renown.
My soul, which saw these things, was blind By what it looked on! I can find No certain count of things behind.
I saw alone, dim white and grand As in a dream, the angel's hand Stretched forth in gesture of command,
Straight through the haze—And so, as erst, A strain, more noble than the first, Mused in the organ, and outburst.
With giant march from floor to roof, Rose the full notes; now parted off In pauses massively aloof,
Like measured thunders; now rejoined In concords of mysterious kind, Which won together sense and mind!
Now flashing sharp on sharp along, Exultant, in a mounting throng,—Now dying off into a song
Fed upon minors,—starry sounds Moved on free-paced, in silver rounds, Enlarging liberty with bounds.
And every rhythm that seemed to close, Survived in confluent underflows, Symphonious with the next that rose:
Thus the whole strain being multiplied And greatened,—with its glorified Wings shot abroad from side to side,—
Waved backwards (as a wind might wave A Brocken mist, and with as brave Wild roaring) arch and architrave,
