Poems (Barrett)/The Lost Bower

by Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

The Lost Bower.

      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!

      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.

      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.

      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.

      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.

      For you hearken on your right hand,
      How the birds do leap and call
      In the greenwood, out of sight and YES
      Out of reach and fear of all;
And the squirrels crack the filberts, through their cheerful madrigal.

      On your left, the sheep are cropping
      The slant grass 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!"

      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.

      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.^[1]

      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 an eve of holiday!

      But the wood, all close and clenching
      Bough in bough and root in root,—
      No more sky (for over-branching)
      At your head than at your foot,—
Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past dispute.

      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.

      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 1 braver children climb and creep where they would go.

      And the poets wander, said I,
      Over places all as rude!
      Bold Rinaldo's lovely lady
      Sate to meet him in a wood—
Rosalinda, like a fountain, laughed out pure with solitude.

      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.

      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 lichens which entrapped me, and the barrier branches strong.

      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!

      From the place I stood in, floated
      Back the covert dim and close;
      And the open ground was suited
      Carpet-smooth with grass and moss,
And the blue-bell's purple presence signed it worthily across.

      Here a linden-tree stood, brightening
      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.

      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.

      '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.

      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.

      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.

      And the ivy, veined and glossy,
      Was inwrought with eglantine;
      And the wild hop fibred closely,
      And the large-leaved columbine,
Arch of door and window-mullion, did right sylvanly entwine.

      Bose-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.

      As I entered—mosses hushing
      Stole all noises from my foot;
      And a round elastic cushion,
      Clasped within the linden's root,
Took me in a chair of silence, very rare and absolute.

      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.

      "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.

      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.

      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, in partaking of the grace.

      Where's no foot of human creature,
      How could reach a human hand?
      And if this be work of nature,
      Why is nature sudden bland,
Breaking off from other wild work? It was hard to understand.

      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?

      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?

      Or was this the house of fairies,
      Left, because of the rough ways,
      Unassoiled by Ave Marys
      Which the passing pilgrim prays,—
And beyond St. Catherine's chiming, on the blessed Sabbath days?

      So, young muser, I sate 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.

      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 marble Naiad, sitting smilingly within.

      Whence the music came, who knoweth?
      I know nothing. But indeed
      Pan or Faunus never bloweth
      So much sweetness from a reed,
"Which has sucked the milk of waters, at the oldest riverhead.

      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.

      Never nightingale so singeth—
      Oh! she leans on thorny tree,
      And her poet-soul she flingeth
      Over pain to victory!
Yet she never sings such music,—or she sings it not to me!

      Never blackbirds, never thrushes,
      N or 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.

      If it were a bird, it seemèd
      Most like Chaucer's, which, in sooth,
      He of green and azure dreamed,
      While it sate in spirit-ruth
On that bier of a crowned lady, singing nigh her silent mouth.

      If it were a bird!—ah, sceptic,
      Give me "Yea" or give me "Nay"—
      Though my soul were nympholeptic,
      As I heard that virëlay,
You may stoop your pride to pardon, for my sin is far away.

      I rose up in exaltation
      And an inward trembling heat,
      And (it seemed) in geste of passion,
      Dropped the music to my feet,
Like a garment rustling downwards!—such a silence followed it.

      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.

      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.

      Face to face with the true mountains,
      I stood silently and still;
      Drawing strength for fancy's dauntings,
      From the air about the hill,
And from Nature's open mercies, and most debonaire goodwill.

      Oh! the golden-hearted daisies
      Witnessed there, before my youth,
      To the truth of things, with praises
      To the beauty of the truth;
And I woke to Nature's real, laughing joyfully for both.

      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 never more missay.

      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.

      So I said. But the next morning,
      (—Child, look up into my face—
      'Ware, O sceptic, of your scorning!
      This is truth in its pure grace;)
The next morning, all had vanished, or my wandering missed the place.

      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 snow-drop—by the rosemary and rue,—

      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 never more upon it, turned my mortal countenance.

      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.

      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 death.

      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 cedarn alleys green.

      But for me, I saw no splendour—
      All my sword was my child-heart;
      And the wood refused surrender
      Of that bower it held apart,
Safe as Œdipus's grave-place, 'mid Colone's olives swart.

      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.

      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!

      For this loss it did prefigure
      Other loss of better good,
      When my soul, in spirit-vigour,
      And in ripened womanhood,
Fell from visions of more beauty than an arbour in a wood.

      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.

      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—

      Exultations 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!

      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.

      Some respect to social fictions
      Hath been also lost by me;
      And some generous genuflections,
      Which my spirit offered free
To the pleasant old conventions of our false Humanity.

      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."

      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.

      Laugh ye 1 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!

      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.

      On 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.

      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!

      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 passed me overhead.

      And that music overfloweth,
      Sudden sweet, the sylvan eaves;
      Thrush or nightingale—who knoweth!
      Fay or Faunus—who believes?
But my heart still trembles in me, to the trembling of the leaves.

      Is the bower lost, then? "Who sayeth
      That the bower indeed is lost?
      Hark! my spirit in it prayeth
      Through the solstice and the frost,—
And the prayer preserves it greenly, to the last and uttermost—

      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!"

1. The Malvern Hills of Worcestershire are the scene of Langlande's visions; and thus present the earliest classic ground of English poetry.