Elizabeth Barrett Browning - The Lost Bower lyrics

THE LOST BOWER I In the pleasant orchard-closes, 'God bless all our gains,' say we; But 'May God bless all our losses,' Better suits with our degree. Listen, gentle -- ay, and simple! listen, children on the knee! II Green the land is where my daily Steps in jocund childhood played, Dimpled close with hill and valley, Dappled very close with shade: Summer-snow of apple-blossoms running up from glade to glade. III There is one hill I see nearer In my vision of the rest; And a little wood seems clearer As it climbeth from the west, Sideway from the tree-locked valley, to the airy upland crest. IV Small the wood is, green with hazels, And, completing the ascent, Where the wind blows and sun dazzles Thrills in leafy tremblement, Like a heart that after climbing, beateth quickly through content. V Not a step the wood advances O'er the open hill-top's bound; There, in green arrest, the branches See their image on the ground: You may walk beneath them smiling, glad with sight and glad with sound. VI For you hearken on your right hand, How the birds do leap and call In the greenwood, out of sight and Out of reach and fear of all; And the squirrels crack the filberts through their cheerful madrigal. VII On your left, the sheep are cropping The slant gra** and daisies pale, And five apple-trees stand dropping Separate shadows toward the vale, Over which, in choral silence, the hills look you their 'All hail!' VIII Far out, kindled by each other, Shining hills on hills arise, Close as brother leans to brother When they press beneath the eyes Of some father praying blessings from the gifts of paradise. IX While beyond, above them mounted, And above their woods also, Malvern hills, for mountains counted Not unduly, loom a-row -- Keepers of Piers Plowman's visions through the sunshine and the snow. X Yet, in childhood, little prized I That fair walk and far survey; 'Twas a straight walk unadvised by The least mischief worth a nay; Up and down -- as dull as grammar on the eve of holiday. XI But the wood, all close and clenching Bough in bough and root in root, -- No more sky (for overbranching) At your head than at your foot, -- Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past dispute! XII Few and broken paths showed through it, Where the sheep had tried to run, -- Forced with snowy wool to strew it Round the thickets, when anon They, with silly thorn-pricked noses, bleated back into the sun. XIII But my childish heart beat stronger Than those thickets dared to grow: I could pierce them! I could longer Travel on, methought, than so: Sheep for sheep-paths! braver children climb and creep where they would go. XIV And the poets wander, said I, Over places all as rude: Bold Rinaldo's lovely lady Sat to meet him in a wood: Rosalinda, like a fountain, laughed out pure with solitude. XV And if Chaucer had not travelled Through a forest by a well, He had never dreamt nor marvelled At those ladies fair and fell Who lived smiling without loving in their island-citadel. XVI Thus I thought of the old singers And took courage from their song, Till my little struggling fingers Tore asunder gyve and thong Of the brambles which entrapped me, and the barrier branches strong. XVII On a day, such pastime keeping, With a fawn's heart debonair, Under-crawling, overleaping Thorns that prick and boughs that bear, I stood suddenly astonied -- I was gladdened unaware. XVIII From the place I stood in, floated Back the covert dim and close, And the open ground was coated Carpet-smooth with gra** and moss, And the blue-bell's purple presence signed it worthily across. XIX Here a linden-tree stood, bright'ning All adown its silver rind; For as some trees draw the lightning, So this tree, unto my mind, Drew to earth the blessed sunshine from the sky where it was shrined. XX Tall the linden-tree, and near it An old hawthorn also grew; And wood-ivy like a spirit Hovered dimly round the two, Shaping thence that bower of beauty which I sing of thus to you. XXI 'Twas a bower for garden fitter Than for any woodland wide: Though a fresh and dewy glitter Struck it through from side to side, Shaped and shaven was the freshness, as by garden-cunning plied, XXII Oh, a lady might have come there, Hooded fairly like her hawk, With a book or lute in summer, And a hope of sweeter talk, -- Listening less to her own music than for footsteps on the walk! XXIII But that bower appeared a marvel In the wildness of the place; With such seeming art and travail, Finely fixed and fitted was Leaf to leaf, the dark-green ivy, to the summit from the base. XXIV And the ivy veined and glossy Was enwrought with eglantine; And the wild hop fibred closely, And the large-leaved columbine, Arch of door and window-mullion, did right sylvanly entwine. XXV Rose-trees either side the door were Growing lithe and growing tall, Each one set a summer warder For the keeping of the hall, -- With a red rose and a white rose, leaning, nodding at the wall. XXVI As I entered, mosses hushing Stole all noises from my foot; And a green elastic cushion, Clasped within the linden's root, Took me in a chair of silence very rare and absolute. XXVII All the floor was paved with glory, Greenly, silently inlaid (Through quick motions made before me), With fair counterparts in shade Of the fair serrated ivy-leaves which slanted overhead. XXVIII 'Is such pavement in a palace?' So I questioned in my thought: The sun, shining through the chalice Of the red rose hung without, Threw within a red libation, like an answer to my doubt. XXIX At the same time, on the linen Of my childish lap there fell Two white may-leaves, downward winning Through the ceiling's miracle, From a blossom, like an angel, out of sight yet blessing well. XXX Down to floor and up to ceiling, Quick I turned my childish face; With an innocent appealing For the secret of the place To the trees, which surely knew it partaking of the grace. XXXI Where's no foot of human creature, How could reach a human hand? And if this be work of Nature, Why has Nature turned so bland, Breaking off from other wild-work? It was hard to understand. XXXII Was she weary of rough-doing, Of the bramble and the thorn? Did she pause in tender rueing Here of all her sylvan scorn? Or in mock of Art's deceiving, was the sudden mildness worn? XXXIII Or could this same bower (I fancied) Be the work of Dryad strong, Who, surviving all that chanced In the world's old pagan wrong, Lay hid, feeding in the woodland on the last true poet's song? XXXIV Or was this the house of fairies, Left, because of the rough ways, Una**oiled by Ave Marys Which the pa**ing pilgrim prays, And beyond St. Catherine's chiming on the blessed Sabbath days? XXXV So, young muser, I sat listening To my fancy's wildest word: On a sudden, through the glistening Leaves around, a little stirred, Came a sound, a sense of music, which was rather felt than heard. XXXVI Softly, finely, it inwound me; From the world it shut me in, -- Like a fountain, falling round me, Which with silver waters thin Clips a little water Naiad sitting smilingly within. XXXVII Whence the music came, who knoweth? I know nothing: but indeed Pan or Faunus never bloweth So much sweetness from a reed Which has s**ed the milk of waters at the oldest river-head. XXXVIII Never lark the sun can waken With such sweetness! when the lark, The high planets overtaking In the half-evanished Dark, Casts his singing to their singing, like an arrow to the mark. XXXIX Never nightingale so singeth: Oh, she leans on thorny tree, And her poet-song she flingeth Over pain to victory! Yet she never sings such music, -- or she sings it not to me. XL Never blackbirds, never thrushes, Nor small finches sing as sweet, When the sun strikes through the bushes To their crimson clinging feet, And their pretty eyes look sideways to the summer heavens complete. XLI If it were a bird, it seemed. Most like Chaucer's, which, in sooth. He of green and azure dreamed, While it sat in spirit-ruth On that bier of a crowned lady, singing nigh her silent mouth. XLII If it were a bird? -- ah, sceptic, Give me 'yea' or give me 'nay' -- Though my soul were nympholeptic, As I heard that virelay, You may stoop your pride to pardon, for my sin is far away! XLIII I rose up in exaltation And an inward trembling heat, And (it seemed) in geste of pa**ion Dropped the music to my feet Like a garment rustling downwards! -- such a silence followed it! XLIV Heart and head beat through the quiet Full and heavily, though slower: In the song, I think, and by it, Mystic Presences of power Had up-snatched me to the Timeless, then returned me to the Hour. XLV In a child-abstraction lifted, Straightway from the bower I past, Foot and soul being dimly drifted Through the greenwood, till, at last, In the hill-top's open sunshine I all consciously was cast. XLVI Face to face with the true mountains I stood silently and still, Drawing strength from fancy's dauntings, From the air about the hill, And from Nature's open mercies and most debonair goodwill. XLVII Oh, the golden-hearted daisies Witnessed there, before my youth, To the truth of things, with praises Of the beauty of the truth; And I woke to Nature's real, laughing joyfully for both. XLVIII And I said within me, laughing, I have found a bower to-day, A green lusus, fashioned half in Chance and half in Nature's play, And a little bird sings nigh it, I will nevermore missay. XLIX Henceforth, I will be the fairy Of this bower not built by one; I will go there, sad or merry, With each morning's benison, And the bird shall be my harper in the dream-hall I have won. L So I said. But the next morning, (-- Child, look up into my face -- 'Ware, oh sceptic, of your scorning! This is truth in its pure grace!) The next morning, all had vanished, or my wandering missed the place. LI Bring an oath most sylvan-holy, And upon it swear me true -- By the wind-bells swinging slowly Their mute curfews in the dew, By the advent of the snowdrop, by the rosemary and rue, -- LII I affirm by all or any, Let the cause be charm or chance, That my wandering searches many Missed the bower of my romance -- That I nevermore upon it, turned my mortal countenance. LIII I affirm that, since I lost it, Never bower has seemed so fair; Never garden-creeper crossed it With so deft and brave an air, Never bird sung in the summer, as I saw and heard them there. LIV Day by day, with new desire, Toward my wood I ran in faith, Under leaf and over brier, Through the thickets, out of breath; Like the prince who rescued Beauty from the sleep as long as d**h. LV But his sword of mettle clashed, And his arm smote strong, I ween, And her dreaming spirit flashed Through her body's fair white screen, And the light thereof might guide him up the cedar alleys green: LVI But for me, I saw no splendor -- All my sword was my child-heart; And the wood refused surrender Of that bower it held apart, Safe as Oedipus's grave-place, 'mid Colonos' olives swart. LVII As Aladdin sought the basements His fair palace rose upon, And the four-and-twenty casements Which gave answers to the sun; So, in 'wilderment of gazing, I looked up and I looked down. LVIII Years have vanished since, as wholly As the little bower did then; And you call it tender folly That such thoughts should come again? Ah, I cannot change this sighing for your smiling, brother men! LIX For this loss it did prefigure Other loss of better good, When my soul, in spirit-vigor, And in ripened womanhood, Fell from visions of more beauty than an arbor in a wood. LX I have lost -- oh, many a pleasure, Many a hope and many a power -- Studious health, and merry leisure, The first dew on the first flower! But the first of all my losses was the losing of the bower. LXI I have lost the dream of Doing, And the other dream of Done, The first spring in the pursuing, The first pride in the Begun, -- First recoil from incompletion, in the face of what is won -- LXII Exaltations in the far light Where some cottage only is; Mild dejections in the starlight, Which the sadder-hearted miss; And the child-cheek blushing scarlet for the very shame of bliss. LXIII I have lost the sound child-sleeping Which the thunder could not break; Something too of the strong leaping Of the staglike heart awake, Which the pale is low for keeping in the road it ought to take. LXIV Some respect to social fictions Has been also lost by me; And some generous genuflexions, Which my spirit offered free To the pleasant old conventions of our false humanity. LXV All my losses did I tell you, Ye perchance would look away; -- Ye would answer me, 'Farewell! you Make sad company to-day, And your tears are falling faster than the bitter words you say.' LXVI For God placed me like a dial In the open ground with power, And my heart had for its trial All the sun and all the shower: And I suffered many losses, -- and my first was of the bower. LXVII Laugh you? If that loss of mine be Of no heavy-seeming weight -- When the cone falls from the pine-tree, The young children laugh thereat; Yet the wind that struck it, riseth, and the tempest shall be great. LXVIII One who knew me in my childhood In the glamour and the game, Looking on me long and mild, would Never know me for the same. Come, unchanging recollections, where those changes overcame! LXIX By this couch I weakly lie on, While I count my memories, -- Through the fingers which, still sighing, I press closely on mine eyes, -- Clear as once beneath the sunshine, I behold the bower arise. LXX Springs the linden-tree as greenly, Stroked with light adown its rind; And the ivy-leaves serenely Each in either intertwined; And the rose-trees at the doorway, they have neither grown nor pined. LXXI From those overblown faint roses Not a leaf appeareth shed, And that little bud discloses Not a thorn's-breadth more of red, For the winters and the summers which have pa**ed me overhead. LXXII And that music overfloweth, Sudden sweet, the sylvan eaves: Thrush or nightingale -- whoknoweth? Fay or Faunus -- who believes? But my heart still trembles in me to the trembling of the leaves. LXXIII Is the bower lost, then? who sayeth That the bower indeed is lost? Hark! my spirit in it prayeth Through the sunshine and the frost, -- And the prayer preserves it greenly, to the last and uttermost. LXXIV Till another open for me In God's Eden-land unknown, With an angel at the doorway, White with gazing at His Throne; And a saint's voice in the palm-trees, singing -- 'All is lost . . . and won!'