The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Volume 2. Browning Elizabeth Barrett

      Then wearily the nurse did throw

      Her pallet in the darkest place

      Of that sick room, and slept and dreamed:

      For, as the gusty wind did blow

      The night-lamp's flare across her face,

      She saw or seemed to see, but dreamed,

      That the poplars tall on the opposite hill,

      The seven tall poplars on the hill,

      Did clasp the setting sun until

      His rays dropped from him, pined and still

      As blossoms in frost,

      Till he waned and paled, so weirdly crossed,

      To the colour of moonlight which doth pass

      Over the dank ridged churchyard grass.

      The poplars held the sun, and he

      The eyes of the nurse that they should not see

      – Not for a moment, the babe on her knee,

      Though she shuddered to feel that it grew to be

      Too chill, and lay too heavily.

      She only dreamed; for all the while

      'T was Lady Isobel that kept

      The little baby: and it slept

      Fast, warm, as if its mother's smile,

      Laden with love's dewy weight,

      And red as rose of Harpocrate

      Dropt upon its eyelids, pressed

      Lashes to cheek in a sealèd rest.

      And more and more smiled Isobel

      To see the baby sleep so well —

      She knew not that she smiled.

      Against the lattice, dull and wild

      Drive the heavy droning drops,

      Drop by drop, the sound being one;

      As momently time's segments fall

      On the ear of God, who hears through all

      Eternity's unbroken monotone:

      And more and more smiled Isobel

      To see the baby sleep so well —

      She knew not that she smiled.

      The wind in intermission stops

      Down in the beechen forest,

      Then cries aloud

      As one at the sorest,

      Self-stung, self-driven,

      And rises up to its very tops,

      Stiffening erect the branches bowed,

      Dilating with a tempest-soul

      The trees that with their dark hands break

      Through their own outline, and heavy roll

      Shadows as massive as clouds in heaven

      Across the castle lake

      And more and more smiled Isobel

      To see the baby sleep so well;

      She knew not that she smiled;

      She knew not that the storm was wild;

      Through the uproar drear she could not hear

      The castle clock which struck anear —

      She heard the low, light breathing of her child.

      O sight for wondering look!

      While the external nature broke

      Into such abandonment,

      While the very mist, heart-rent

      By the lightning, seemed to eddy

      Against nature, with a din, —

      A sense of silence and of steady

      Natural calm appeared to come

      From things without, and enter in

      The human creature's room.

      So motionless she sate,

      The babe asleep upon her knees,

      You might have dreamed their souls had gone

      Away to things inanimate,

      In such to live, in such to moan;

      And that their bodies had ta'en back,

      In mystic change, all silences

      That cross the sky in cloudy rack,

      Or dwell beneath the reedy ground

      In waters safe from their own sound:

      Only she wore

      The deepening smile I named before,

      And that a deepening love expressed;

      And who at once can love and rest?

      In sooth the smile that then was keeping

      Watch upon the baby sleeping,

      Floated with its tender light

      Downward, from the drooping eyes,

      Upward, from the lips apart,

      Over cheeks which had grown white

      With an eight-day weeping:

      All smiles come in such a wise

      Where tears shall fall or have of old —

      Like northern lights that fill the heart

      Of heaven in sign of cold.

      Motionless she sate.

      Her hair had fallen by its weight

      On each side of her smile and lay

      Very blackly on the arm

      Where the baby nestled warm,

      Pale as baby carved in stone

      Seen by glimpses of the moon

      Up a dark cathedral aisle:

      But, through the storm, no moonbeam fell

      Upon the child of Isobel —

      Perhaps you saw it by the ray

      Alone of her still smile.

      A solemn thing it is to me

      To look upon a babe that sleeps

      Wearing in its spirit-deeps

      The undeveloped mystery

      Of our Adam's taint and woe,

      Which, when they developed be,

      Will not let it slumber so;

      Lying new in life beneath

      The shadow of the coming death,

      With that soft, low, quiet breath,

      As if it felt the sun;

      Knowing all things by their blooms,

      Not their roots, yea, sun and sky

      Only by the warmth that comes

      Out of each, earth only by

      The pleasant hues that o'er it run,

      And human love by drops of sweet

      White nourishment still hanging round

      The little mouth so slumber-bound:

      All which broken sentiency

      And conclusion incomplete,

      Will gather and unite and climb

      To