Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sat gossiping with Robert.
(She was really a raving beauty in her day.
With Mary Pickford curls in clouds and whirls.)
She was trying to think of something nice to say,
So she pointed to a page by her fellow star and sage,
And said: "I wish that I could write that way!"

A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT.
When, by th' Almighty's dread command
Elijah, call'd from Israel's land,
Rose in the sacred flame,
His Mantle good Elisha caught,
And, with the Prophet's spirit fraught,
Her second hope became.


In Pitt our Israel saw combined
The Patriot's heart--the Prophet's mind,
Elijah's spirit here:
Now, sad reverse!--that spirit reft,
No confidence, no hope is left;
For no Elijah's near.


Is there, among the greedy band
Who've seized on power, with harpy hand,

I was among multitudes of children
Dancing at the foot of a mountain.
A breeze blew out of the east and swept them as leaves,
Driving some up the slopes.... All was changed.
Here were flying lights, and mystic moons, and dream-music.
A cloud fell upon us. When it lifted all was changed.
I was now amid multitudes who were wrangling.
Then a figure in shimmering gold, and one with a trumpet,
And one with a sceptre stood before me.
They mocked me and danced a rigadoon and vanished....
All was changed again. Out of a bower of poppies

Could Fate ordain a lot for me
Beyond all human ills,
I think that I would choose to be
A shephard of the hills;
With shaggy cloak and cape where skies
Eternally are blue
How I would stare with quiet eyes
At passing you!
II
And you would stare at static me,
Beside my patient flock;
And I would watch you silently,
A one with time and rock.
Then foreign farings you would chart,
And fly with fearsome wings,

"With female Fairies will thy tomb be haunted
"And worms will not come to thee." SHAKSPERE.


WHEN from Day's closing eye the lucid tears
Fall lightly on the bending lily's head;
When o'er the blushing sky night's curtains spread,
And the tall mountain's summit scarce appears;
When languid Evening, sinking to repose,
Her filmy mantle o'er the landscape throws;
Of THEE I'll sing; and as the mournful song
Glides in slow numbers the dark woods among;
My wand'ring steps shall seek the lonely shade,

THE knell of death, that on the twilight gale,
Swells its deep murmur to the pensive ear;
In awful sounds repeats a mournful tale,
And claims the tribute of a tender tear.

The dreadful hour is past ! the mandate giv'n!
The gentle MIDDLETON shall breathe no more,
Yet who shall blame the wise decrees of Heaven,
Or the dark mysteries of Fate explore?

No more her converse shall delight the heart;
No more her smile benign spread pleasure round;
No more her liberal bosom shall impart
The balm of pity to Affliction's wound.

Hush, thrush! Hush, missen-thrush, I listen...
I heard the flush of footsteps through the loose leaves,
And a low whistle by the water's brim.

Still! Daffodil! Nay, hail me not so gaily,-
Your gay gold lily daunts me and deceives,
Who follow gleams more golden and more slim.

Look, brook! O run and look, O run!
The vain reeds shook? - Yet search till gray sea heaves,
And I will stray among these fields for him.

Gaze, daisy! Stare through haze and glare,
And mark the hazardous stars all dawns and eves,

The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet.

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
Oh, to whom can we turn for help?
Not angels, not humans;

The page opens to snow on a field: boot-holed month, black hour
the bottle in your coat half voda half winter light.
To what and to whom does one say yes?
If God were the uncertain, would you cling to him?

Beneath a tattoo of stars the gate open, so silent so like a tomb.
This is the city you most loved, an empty stairwell
where the next rain lifts invisibly from the Seine.

With solitude, your coat open, you walk
steadily as if the railings were there and your hands weren't passing
through them.