The Collected Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Author:Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Limited
Published: 2015-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

Third Book

‘Today 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,

To signify the death which he should die <5

When crucified head downward

If He spoke

To Peter then, He speaks to us the same;

The word suits many different martyrdoms,

And signifies a multiform of death,

Although we scarcely die apostles, we, <10

And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth.

For ’tis not in mere death that men die most,

And, after our first girding of the loins

In youth’s fine linen and fair broidery,

To run up hill and meet the rising sun, <15

We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool,

While others gird us with the violent bands

Of social figments, feints, and formalisms,

Reversing our straight nature, lifting up

Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts, <20

Head downward on the cross-sticks of the world.

Yet He can pluck us from that shameful cross.

God, set our feet low and our forehead high,

And show us how a man was made to walk!

Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed. <25

The room does very well; I have to write

Beyond the stroke of midnight. Get away;

Your steps, for ever buzzing in the room,

Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters! throw them down

At once, as I must have them, to be sure, <30

Whether I bid you never bring me such

At such an hour, or bid you. No excuse;

You choose to bring them, as I choose perhaps

To throw them in the fire. Now get to bed,

And dream, if possible, I am not cross. <35

Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow, –

A mere, mere woman, a mere flaccid nerve,

A kerchief left out all night in the rain,

Turned soft so, – overtasked and overstrained

And overlived in this close London life! <40

And yet I should be stronger.

Never burn

Your letters, poor Aurora! for they stare

With red seals from the table, saying each,

‘Here’s something that you know not.’ Out alas,

’Tis scarcely that the world’s more good and wise <45

Or even straighter and more consequent

Since yesterday at this time – yet, again,

If but one angel spoke from Ararat

I should be very sorry not to hear:

So open all the letters! let me read. <50

Blanche Ord, the writer in the ‘Lady’s Fan,’

Requests my judgement on . that, afterwards.

Kate Ward desires the model of my cloak,

And signs, ‘Elisha to you.’ Pringle Sharpe

Presents his work on ‘Social Conduct,’ craves <55

A little money for his pressing debts .

From me, who scarce have money for my needs;

Art’s fiery chariot which we journey in

Being apt to singe our singing-robes to holes

Although you ask me for my cloak, Kate Ward! <60

Here’s Rudgely knows it, – editor and scribe;

He’s ‘forced to marry where his heart is not,

Because the purse lacks where he lost his heart.’

Ah, – lost it because no one picked it up;

That’s really loss, – (and passable impudence.) <65

My critic Hammond flatters prettily,

And wants another volume like the last.

My critic Belfair wants another book

Entirely different, which will sell (and live?),

A striking book, yet not a startling book,

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