if ye have grieved,
Ye are too mortal to be pitiable,
The power to die disproves the right to grieve.
Ye are too mortal to be pitiable,
The power to die disproves the right to grieve.
Elizabeth Browning
_ For, O ye heavens, ye are my witnesses,
That _I_, struck out from nature in a blot,
The outcast and the mildew of things good,
The leper of angels, the excepted dust
Under the common rain of daily gifts,--
I the snake, I the tempter, I the cursed,--
To whom the highest and the lowest alike
Say, Go from us--we have no need of thee,--
Was made by God like others. Good and fair,
He did create me! --ask him, if not fair!
Ask, if I caught not fair and silverly
His blessing for chief angels on my head
Until it grew there, a crown crystallized!
Ask, if he never called me by my name,
_Lucifer_--kindly said as "Gabriel"--
_Lucifer_--soft as "Michael! " while serene
I, standing in the glory of the lamps,
Answered "my Father," innocent of shame
And of the sense of thunder. Ha! ye think,
White angels in your niches,--I repent,
And would tread down my own offences back
To service at the footstool? _that's_ read wrong!
I cry as the beast did, that I may cry--
Expansive, not appealing! Fallen so deep,
Against the sides of this prodigious pit
I cry--cry--dashing out the hands of wail
On each side, to meet anguish everywhere,
And to attest it in the ecstasy
And exaltation of a woe sustained
Because provoked and chosen.
Pass along
Your wilderness, vain mortals! Puny griefs
In transitory shapes, be henceforth dwarfed
To your own conscience, by the dread extremes
Of what I am and have been. If ye have fallen,
It is but a step's fall,--the whole ground beneath
Strewn woolly soft with promise! if ye have sinned,
Your prayers tread high as angels!
if ye have grieved,
Ye are too mortal to be pitiable,
The power to die disproves the right to grieve.
Go to! ye call this ruin? I half-scorn
The ill I did you! Were ye wronged by me,
Hated and tempted and undone of me,--
Still, what's your hurt to mine of doing hurt,
Of hating, tempting, and so ruining?
This sword's _hilt_ is the sharpest, and cuts through
The hand that wields it.
Go! I curse you all.
Hate one another--feebly--as ye can!
I would not certes cut you short in hate,
Far be it from me! hate on as ye can!
I breathe into your faces, spirits of earth,
As wintry blast may breathe on wintry leaves
And lifting up their brownness show beneath
The branches bare. Beseech you, spirits, give
To Eve who beggarly entreats your love
For her and Adam when they shall be dead,
An answer rather fitting to the sin
Than to the sorrow--as the heavens, I trow,
For justice' sake gave theirs.
I curse you both,
Adam and Eve. Say grace as after meat,
After my curses! May your tears fall hot
On all the hissing scorns o' the creatures here,--
And yet rejoice!
That _I_, struck out from nature in a blot,
The outcast and the mildew of things good,
The leper of angels, the excepted dust
Under the common rain of daily gifts,--
I the snake, I the tempter, I the cursed,--
To whom the highest and the lowest alike
Say, Go from us--we have no need of thee,--
Was made by God like others. Good and fair,
He did create me! --ask him, if not fair!
Ask, if I caught not fair and silverly
His blessing for chief angels on my head
Until it grew there, a crown crystallized!
Ask, if he never called me by my name,
_Lucifer_--kindly said as "Gabriel"--
_Lucifer_--soft as "Michael! " while serene
I, standing in the glory of the lamps,
Answered "my Father," innocent of shame
And of the sense of thunder. Ha! ye think,
White angels in your niches,--I repent,
And would tread down my own offences back
To service at the footstool? _that's_ read wrong!
I cry as the beast did, that I may cry--
Expansive, not appealing! Fallen so deep,
Against the sides of this prodigious pit
I cry--cry--dashing out the hands of wail
On each side, to meet anguish everywhere,
And to attest it in the ecstasy
And exaltation of a woe sustained
Because provoked and chosen.
Pass along
Your wilderness, vain mortals! Puny griefs
In transitory shapes, be henceforth dwarfed
To your own conscience, by the dread extremes
Of what I am and have been. If ye have fallen,
It is but a step's fall,--the whole ground beneath
Strewn woolly soft with promise! if ye have sinned,
Your prayers tread high as angels!
if ye have grieved,
Ye are too mortal to be pitiable,
The power to die disproves the right to grieve.
Go to! ye call this ruin? I half-scorn
The ill I did you! Were ye wronged by me,
Hated and tempted and undone of me,--
Still, what's your hurt to mine of doing hurt,
Of hating, tempting, and so ruining?
This sword's _hilt_ is the sharpest, and cuts through
The hand that wields it.
Go! I curse you all.
Hate one another--feebly--as ye can!
I would not certes cut you short in hate,
Far be it from me! hate on as ye can!
I breathe into your faces, spirits of earth,
As wintry blast may breathe on wintry leaves
And lifting up their brownness show beneath
The branches bare. Beseech you, spirits, give
To Eve who beggarly entreats your love
For her and Adam when they shall be dead,
An answer rather fitting to the sin
Than to the sorrow--as the heavens, I trow,
For justice' sake gave theirs.
I curse you both,
Adam and Eve. Say grace as after meat,
After my curses! May your tears fall hot
On all the hissing scorns o' the creatures here,--
And yet rejoice!
