SONNETS.
Reading edition
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BY MISS ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
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I.
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
In hearts, as countries, lieth silent, bare
Under the blenching, vertical eye-glare
Of the free chartered heavens. Be still! express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to Death!
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless wo,
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it, spectator! Are its eyelids wet?
If it could weep it could arise and go!
II.
When some belovéd voice, which was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence against which you dare not cry
Aches round you with an anguish dreadly new—
What hope, what help? What music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship’s sigh,
Not reason’s labored proof, not melody
Of viols, nor the dancers footing through;
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales,
Whose hearts leap upward from the cypress trees
To Venus’ star! nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted—nor the angels’ sweet “all hails,”
Met in the smile of God! Nay, none of these!
Speak, Christ at His right hand, and fill this pause.
III.
What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil!
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines
For all the heat o’ the sun, till it declines,
And Death’s mild curfew shall from work assoil.
God did anoint thee with his odorous oil
To wrestle, not to reign—and he assigns
All thy tears over like pure crystallines
Unto thy fellows, working the same soil.
To wear for amulets. So others shall
Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand,
From thy hand, and thy heart, and thy brave cheer,
And God’s grace fructify through thee to all!
The least flower with a brimming cup may stand
And share its dew-drop with another near.
IV.
The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel
A pleasant song, ballad or barcarolle,
She thinketh of her song, upon the whole,
Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel
Is full, and artfully her fingers feel,
With quick adjustment, provident control,
The lines, too subtly twisted to unroll,
Out to the perfect thread. I hence appeal
To the dear Christian church—that we may do
Our Father’s business in these temples mirk,
So swift and steadfast, so intent and strong—
While so, apart from toil, our souls pursue
Some high, calm, spheric tune—proving our work
The better for the sweetness of our song.