Fearest thou, a groan of thine
Would make the pulse of thy creation fail
As thine own pulse?
Would make the pulse of thy creation fail
As thine own pulse?
Elizabeth Browning
_ Above, Creator!
Within, Upholder!
_Ador. _ And below, below,
The creature's and the upholden's sacrifice!
_Zerah. _ Why do I pause? --
_Ador. _ There is a silentness
That answers thee enow,
That, like a brazen sound
Excluding others, doth ensheathe us round,--
Hear it. It is not from the visible skies
Though they are still,
Unconscious that their own dropped dews express
The light of heaven on every earthly hill.
It is not from the hills, though calm and bare
They, since their first creation,
Through midnight cloud or morning's glittering air
Or the deep deluge blindness, toward the place
Whence thrilled the mystic word's creative grace,
And whence again shall come
The word that uncreates,
Have lift their brows in voiceless expectation.
It is not from the places that entomb
Man's dead, though common Silence there dilates
Her soul to grand proportions, worthily
To fill life's vacant room.
Not there: not there.
Not yet within those chambers lieth He,
A dead one in his living world; his south
And west winds blowing over earth and sea,
And not a breath on that creating mouth.
But now,--a silence keeps
(Not death's, nor sleep's)
The lips whose whispered word
Might roll the thunders round reverberated.
Silent art thou, O my Lord,
Bowing down thy stricken head!
Fearest thou, a groan of thine
Would make the pulse of thy creation fail
As thine own pulse? --would rend the veil
Of visible things and let the flood
Of the unseen Light, the essential God,
Rush in to whelm the undivine?
Thy silence, to my thinking, is as dread.
_Zerah. _ O silence!
_Ador. _ Doth it say to thee--the NAME,
Slow-learning seraph?
_Zerah. _ I have learnt.
_Ador. _ The flame
Perishes in thine eyes.
_Zerah. _ He opened his,
And looked. I cannot bear--
_Ador. _ Their agony?
_Zerah.
Within, Upholder!
_Ador. _ And below, below,
The creature's and the upholden's sacrifice!
_Zerah. _ Why do I pause? --
_Ador. _ There is a silentness
That answers thee enow,
That, like a brazen sound
Excluding others, doth ensheathe us round,--
Hear it. It is not from the visible skies
Though they are still,
Unconscious that their own dropped dews express
The light of heaven on every earthly hill.
It is not from the hills, though calm and bare
They, since their first creation,
Through midnight cloud or morning's glittering air
Or the deep deluge blindness, toward the place
Whence thrilled the mystic word's creative grace,
And whence again shall come
The word that uncreates,
Have lift their brows in voiceless expectation.
It is not from the places that entomb
Man's dead, though common Silence there dilates
Her soul to grand proportions, worthily
To fill life's vacant room.
Not there: not there.
Not yet within those chambers lieth He,
A dead one in his living world; his south
And west winds blowing over earth and sea,
And not a breath on that creating mouth.
But now,--a silence keeps
(Not death's, nor sleep's)
The lips whose whispered word
Might roll the thunders round reverberated.
Silent art thou, O my Lord,
Bowing down thy stricken head!
Fearest thou, a groan of thine
Would make the pulse of thy creation fail
As thine own pulse? --would rend the veil
Of visible things and let the flood
Of the unseen Light, the essential God,
Rush in to whelm the undivine?
Thy silence, to my thinking, is as dread.
_Zerah. _ O silence!
_Ador. _ Doth it say to thee--the NAME,
Slow-learning seraph?
_Zerah. _ I have learnt.
_Ador. _ The flame
Perishes in thine eyes.
_Zerah. _ He opened his,
And looked. I cannot bear--
_Ador. _ Their agony?
_Zerah.
