O ye spirits of earth,
I almost, from my
miserable
heart,
Could here upbraid you for your cruel heart,
Which will not let me, down the slope of death,
Draw any of your pity after me,
Or lie still in the quiet of your looks,
As my flower, there, in mine.
Elizabeth Browning
_ By God, perhaps, in these.
_Adam._ I think, not so. Had God foredoomed despair
He had not spoken hope. He may destroy
Certes, but not deceive.
_Eve._ Behold this rose!
I plucked it in our bower of Paradise
This morning as I went forth, and my heart
Has beat against its petals all the day.
I thought it would be always red and full
As when I plucked it. _Is_ it?--ye may see!
I cast it down to you that ye may see,
All of you!--count the petals lost of it,
And note the colours fainted! ye may see!
And I am as it is, who yesterday
Grew in the same place.
O ye spirits of earth,
I almost, from my
miserable
heart,
Could here upbraid you for your cruel heart,
Which will not let me, down the slope of death,
Draw any of your pity after me,
Or lie still in the quiet of your looks,
As my flower, there, in mine.
[_A bleak wind, quickened with indistinct Human Voices, spins around the
Earth-zodiac, filling the circle with its presence; and then, wailing
off into the East, carries the rose away with it. EVE falls upon her
face. ADAM stands erect._
_Adam._ So, verily,
The last departs.
_Eve._ So Memory follows Hope,
And Life both. Love said to me, "Do not die,"
And I replied, "O Love, I will not die.
I exiled and I will not orphan Love."
But now it is no choice of mine to die:
My heart throbs from me.
_Adam._ Call it straightway back!
Death's consummation crowns completed life,
Or comes too early. Hope being set on thee
For others, if for others then for thee,--
For thee and me.
[_The wind revolves from the East, and round again to the East, perfumed
by the Eden rose, and full of Voices which sweep out into articulation
as they pass.
