None did dare
To use again the spoken air
Of that far-charming voice, until
A
Christian
resting on the hill,
With a thoughtful smile subdued
(Seeming learnt in solitude)
Which a weeper might have viewed
Without new tears, did softly say,
And looked up unto heaven alway
While he praised the Earth--
"O Earth,
I count the praises thou art worth,
By thy waves that move aloud,
By thy hills against the cloud,
By thy valleys warm and green,
By the copses' elms between,
By their birds which, like a sprite
Scattered by a strong delight
Into fragments musical,
Stir and sing in every bush;
By thy silver founts that fall,
As if to entice the stars at night
To thine heart; by grass and rush,
And little weeds the children pull,
Mistook for flowers!
Elizabeth Browning
Ha, a poet! know him by
The ecstasy-dilated eye,
Not uncharged with tears that ran
Upward from his heart of man;
By the cheek, from hour to hour,
Kindled bright or sunken wan
With a sense of lonely power;
By the brow uplifted higher
Than others, for more low declining
By the lip which words of fire
Overboiling have burned white
While they gave the nations light:
Ay, in every time and place
Ye may know the poet's face
By the shade or shining.
VIII.
'Neath a golden cloud he stands,
Spreading his impassioned hands.
"O God's Earth!" he saith, "the sign
From the Father-soul to mine
Of all beauteous mysteries,
Of all perfect images
Which, divine in His divine,
In my human only are
Very excellent and fair!
Think not, Earth, that I would raise
Weary forehead in thy praise,
(Weary, that I cannot go
Farther from thy region low,)
If were struck no richer meanings
From thee than thyself. The leaning
Of the close trees o'er the brim
Of a sunshine-haunted stream
Have a sound beneath their leaves,
Not of wind, not of wind,
Which the poet's voice achieves:
The faint mountains, heaped behind,
Have a falling on their tops,
Not of dew, not of dew,
Which the poet's fancy drops:
Viewless things his eyes can view
Driftings of his dream do light
All the skies by day and night,
And the seas that deepest roll
Carry murmurs of his soul.
'Earth, I praise thee! praise thou _me_!
God perfecteth his creation
With this recipient poet-passion,
And makes the beautiful to be.
I praise thee, O beloved sign,
From the God-soul unto mine!
Praise me, that I cast on thee
The cunning sweet interpretation,
The help and glory and dilation
Of mine immortality!"
IX.
There was silence.
None did dare
To use again the spoken air
Of that far-charming voice, until
A
Christian
resting on the hill,
With a thoughtful smile subdued
(Seeming learnt in solitude)
Which a weeper might have viewed
Without new tears, did softly say,
And looked up unto heaven alway
While he praised the Earth--
"O Earth,
I count the praises thou art worth,
By thy waves that move aloud,
By thy hills against the cloud,
By thy valleys warm and green,
By the copses' elms between,
By their birds which, like a sprite
Scattered by a strong delight
Into fragments musical,
Stir and sing in every bush;
By thy silver founts that fall,
As if to entice the stars at night
To thine heart; by grass and rush,
And little weeds the children pull,
Mistook for flowers!
--Oh, beautiful
Art thou, Earth, albeit worse
Than in heaven is called good!
Good to us, that we may know
Meekly from thy good to go;
While the holy, crying Blood
Puts its music kind and low
'Twixt such ears as are not dull,
And thine ancient curse!
X.
"Praised be the mosses soft
In thy forest pathways oft,
And the thorns, which make us think
Of the thornless river-brink
Where the ransomed tread:
Praised be thy sunny gleams,
And the storm, that worketh dreams
Of calm unfinished:
Praised be thine active days,
And thy night-time's solemn need,
When in God's dear book we read
_No night shall be therein_:
Praised be thy dwellings warm
By household faggot's cheerful blaze,
Where, to hear of pardoned sin,
Pauseth oft the merry din,
Save the babe's upon the arm
Who croweth to the crackling wood:
Yea, and, better understood,
Praised be thy dwellings cold,
Hid beneath the churchyard mould,
Where the bodies of the saints
Separate from earthly taints
Lie asleep, in blessing bound,
Waiting for the trumpet's sound
To free them into blessing;--none
Weeping more beneath the sun,
Though dangerous words of human love
Be graven very near, above.
XI.
"Earth, we Christians praise thee thus,
Even for the change that comes
With a grief from thee to us:
For thy cradles and thy tombs,
For the pleasant corn and wine
And summer-heat; and also for
The frost upon the sycamore
And hail upon the vine!"
_THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS._
But see the Virgin blest
Hath laid her babe to rest.
MILTON'S _Hymn on the Nativity_.
I.
Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One!
My flesh, my Lord!--what name? I do not know
A name that seemeth not too high or low,
Too far from me or heaven:
My Jesus, _that_ is best! that word being given
By the majestic angel whose command
Was softly as a man's beseeching said,
When I and all the earth appeared to stand
In the great overflow
Of light celestial from his wings and head.
