Part 5 (1/2)
Whereso your angel is, My angel goeth; I am left guardianless, Paradise knoweth!
I have no Heaven left To weep my wrongs to; Heaven, when you went from us, Went with my songs too.
_Seraphim, Her to hymn, Might leave their portals; And at my feet learn The harping of mortals!_
I have no angels left Now, Sweet, to pray to: Where you have made your shrine They are away to.
They have struck Heaven's tent, And gone to cover you: Whereso you keep your state Heaven is pitched over you!
_Seraphim, Her to hymn, Might leave their portals; And at my feet learn The harping of mortals!_
She that is Heaven's Queen Her t.i.tle borrows, For that she, pitiful, Beareth our sorrows.
So thou, _Regina mi, Spes infirmorum_; With all our grieving crowned _Mater dolorum!
Seraphim, Her to hymn, Might leave their portals; And at my feet learn The harping of mortals!_
Yet, envious coveter Of other's grieving!
This lonely longing yet 'Scapeth your reaving.
Cruel to take from a Sinner his Heaven!
Think you with contrite smiles To be forgiven?
_Seraphim, Her to hymn, Might leave their portals; And at my feet learn The harping of mortals!_
Penitent! give me back Angels, and Heaven; Render your stolen self, And be forgiven!
How frontier Heaven from you?
For my soul prays, Sweet, Still to your face in Heaven, Heaven in your face, Sweet!
_Seraphim, Her to hymn, Might leave their portals; And at my feet learn The harping of mortals!_
HER PORTRAIT
Oh, but the heavenly grammar did I hold Of that high speech which angels' tongues turn gold!
So should her deathless beauty take no wrong, Praised in her own great kindred's fit and cognate tongue.
Or if that language yet with us abode Which Adam in the garden talked with G.o.d!
But our untempered speech descends--poor heirs!
Grimy and rough-cast still from Babel's bricklayers: Curse on the brutish jargon we inherit, Strong but to d.a.m.n, not memorise, a spirit!
A cheek, a lip, a limb, a bosom, they Move with light ease in speech of working-day; And women we do use to praise even so.
But here the gates we burst, and to the temple go.
Their praise were her dispraise; who dare, who dare, Adulate the seraphim for their burning hair?
How, if with them I dared, here should I dare it?
How praise the woman, who but know the spirit?
How praise the colour of her eyes, uncaught While they were coloured with her varying thought?
How her mouth's shape, who only use to know What tender shape her speech will fit it to?
Or her lips' redness, when their joined veil Song's fervid hand has parted till it wore them pale?
If I would praise her soul (temerarious if!) All must be mystery and hieroglyph.
Heaven, which not oft is prodigal of its more To singers, in their song too great before-- By which the hierarch of large poesy is Restrained to his one sacred benefice-- Only for her the salutary awe Relaxes and stern canon of its law; To her alone concedes pluralities, In her alone to reconcile agrees The Muse, the Graces, and the Charities; To her, who can the trust so well conduct, To her it gives the use, to us the usufruct.
What of the dear administress then may I utter, though I spoke her own carved perfect way?
What of her daily gracious converse known, Whose heavenly despotism must needs dethrone And subjugate all sweetness but its own?
Deep in my heart subsides the infrequent word, And there dies slowly throbbing like a wounded bird.
What of her silence, that outsweetens speech?
What of her thoughts, high marks for mine own thoughts to reach?
Yet (Chaucer's antique sentence so to turn), Most gladly will she teach, and gladly learn; And teaching her, by her enchanting art, The master threefold learns for all he can impart.
Now all is said, and all being said,--aye me!