Why, her greyhound
followed
also!
Elizabeth Browning
"
XXXII.
"Nay, your Silence," said I, "truly, holds her symbol-rose but slackly,
Yet _she holds it_, or would scarcely be a Silence to our ken:
And your nobles wear their ermine on the outside, or walk blackly
In the presence of the social law as mere ignoble men.
XXXIII.
"Let the poets dream such dreaming! madam, in these British islands
'T is the substance that wanes ever, 't is the symbol that exceeds.
Soon we shall have nought but symbol: and, for statues like this
Silence,
Shall accept the rose's image--in another case, the weed's. "
XXXIV.
"Not so quickly," she retorted,--"I confess, where'er you go, you
Find for things, names--shows for actions, and pure gold for honour
clear:
But when all is run to symbol in the Social, I will throw you
The world's book which now reads dryly, and sit down with Silence
here. "
XXXV.
Half in playfulness she spoke, I thought, and half in indignation;
Friends, who listened, laughed her words off, while her lovers deemed
her fair:
A fair woman, flushed with feeling, in her noble-lighted station
Near the statue's white reposing--and both bathed in sunny air!
XXXVI.
With the trees round, not so distant but you heard their vernal murmur,
And beheld in light and shadow the leaves in and outward move,
And the little fountain leaping toward the sun-heart to be warmer,
Then recoiling in a tremble from the too much light above.
XXXVII.
'T is a picture for remembrance. And thus, morning after morning,
Did I follow as she drew me by the spirit to her feet.
Why, her greyhound followed also! dogs--we both were dogs for
scorning--
To be sent back when she pleased it and her path lay through the wheat.
XXXVIII.
And thus, morning after morning, spite of vows and spite of sorrow,
Did I follow at her drawing, while the week-days passed along,--
Just to feed the swans this noontide, or to see the fawns to-morrow,
Or to teach the hill-side echo some sweet Tuscan in a song.
XXXIX.
Ay, for sometimes on the hill-side, while we sate down in the gowans,
With the forest green behind us and its shadow cast before,
And the river running under, and across it from the rowans
A brown partridge whirring near us till we felt the air it bore,--
XL.
There, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poems
Made to Tuscan flutes, or instruments more various of our own;
Read the pastoral parts of Spenser, or the subtle interflowings
Found in Petrarch's sonnets--here's the book, the leaf is folded down!
XLI.
Or at times a modern volume, Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl,
Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie,--
Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which, if cut deep down the
middle,
Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
XLII.
Or at times I read there, hoarsely, some new poem of my making:
Poets ever fail in reading their own verses to their worth,
For the echo in you breaks upon the words which you are speaking,
And the chariot wheels jar in the gate through which you drive them
forth.
XLIII.
After, when we were grown tired of books, the silence round us flinging
A slow arm of sweet compression, felt with beatings at the breast
She would break out on a sudden in a gush of woodland singing,
Like a child's emotion in a god--a naiad tired of rest.
XLIV.
Oh, to see or hear her singing! scarce I know which is divinest,
For her looks sing too--she modulates her gestures on the tune,
And her mouth stirs with the song, like song; and when the notes are
finest,
'T is the eyes that shoot out vocal light and seem to swell them on.
XXXII.
"Nay, your Silence," said I, "truly, holds her symbol-rose but slackly,
Yet _she holds it_, or would scarcely be a Silence to our ken:
And your nobles wear their ermine on the outside, or walk blackly
In the presence of the social law as mere ignoble men.
XXXIII.
"Let the poets dream such dreaming! madam, in these British islands
'T is the substance that wanes ever, 't is the symbol that exceeds.
Soon we shall have nought but symbol: and, for statues like this
Silence,
Shall accept the rose's image--in another case, the weed's. "
XXXIV.
"Not so quickly," she retorted,--"I confess, where'er you go, you
Find for things, names--shows for actions, and pure gold for honour
clear:
But when all is run to symbol in the Social, I will throw you
The world's book which now reads dryly, and sit down with Silence
here. "
XXXV.
Half in playfulness she spoke, I thought, and half in indignation;
Friends, who listened, laughed her words off, while her lovers deemed
her fair:
A fair woman, flushed with feeling, in her noble-lighted station
Near the statue's white reposing--and both bathed in sunny air!
XXXVI.
With the trees round, not so distant but you heard their vernal murmur,
And beheld in light and shadow the leaves in and outward move,
And the little fountain leaping toward the sun-heart to be warmer,
Then recoiling in a tremble from the too much light above.
XXXVII.
'T is a picture for remembrance. And thus, morning after morning,
Did I follow as she drew me by the spirit to her feet.
Why, her greyhound followed also! dogs--we both were dogs for
scorning--
To be sent back when she pleased it and her path lay through the wheat.
XXXVIII.
And thus, morning after morning, spite of vows and spite of sorrow,
Did I follow at her drawing, while the week-days passed along,--
Just to feed the swans this noontide, or to see the fawns to-morrow,
Or to teach the hill-side echo some sweet Tuscan in a song.
XXXIX.
Ay, for sometimes on the hill-side, while we sate down in the gowans,
With the forest green behind us and its shadow cast before,
And the river running under, and across it from the rowans
A brown partridge whirring near us till we felt the air it bore,--
XL.
There, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poems
Made to Tuscan flutes, or instruments more various of our own;
Read the pastoral parts of Spenser, or the subtle interflowings
Found in Petrarch's sonnets--here's the book, the leaf is folded down!
XLI.
Or at times a modern volume, Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl,
Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie,--
Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which, if cut deep down the
middle,
Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
XLII.
Or at times I read there, hoarsely, some new poem of my making:
Poets ever fail in reading their own verses to their worth,
For the echo in you breaks upon the words which you are speaking,
And the chariot wheels jar in the gate through which you drive them
forth.
XLIII.
After, when we were grown tired of books, the silence round us flinging
A slow arm of sweet compression, felt with beatings at the breast
She would break out on a sudden in a gush of woodland singing,
Like a child's emotion in a god--a naiad tired of rest.
XLIV.
Oh, to see or hear her singing! scarce I know which is divinest,
For her looks sing too--she modulates her gestures on the tune,
And her mouth stirs with the song, like song; and when the notes are
finest,
'T is the eyes that shoot out vocal light and seem to swell them on.
