The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Volume 2

The echo of their own love evermore —
"Do you think of me as I think of you?"

III

Love-learnèd she had sung of love and love, —
And like a child that, sleeping with dropt head
Upon the fairy-book he lately read,
Whatever household noises round him move,
Hears in his dream some elfin turbulence, —
Even so suggestive to her inward sense,
All sounds of life assumed one tune of love.

IV

And when the glory of her dream withdrew,
When knightly gestes and courtly pageantries
Were broken in her visionary eyes
By tears the solemn seas attested true, —
Forgetting that sweet lute beside her hand,
She asked not, – "Do you praise me, O my land?"
But, – "Think ye of me, friends, as I of you?"

V

Hers was the hand that played for many a year
Love's silver phrase for England, smooth and well.
Would God her heart's more inward oracle
In that lone moment might confirm her dear!
For when her questioned friends in agony
Made passionate response, "We think of thee,"
Her place was in the dust, too deep to hear.

VI

Could she not wait to catch their answering breath?
Was she content, content with ocean's sound
Which dashed its mocking infinite around
One thirsty for a little love? – beneath
Those stars content, where last her song had gone, —
They mute and cold in radiant life, as soon
Their singer was to be, in darksome death?[8 - Her lyric on the Polar Star came home with her latest papers.]

VII

Bring your vain answers – cry, "We think of thee!"
How think ye of her? warm in long ago
Delights? or crowned with budding bays? Not so.
None smile and none are crowned where lieth she,
With all her visions unfulfilled save one,
Her childhood's, of the palm-trees in the sun —
And lo! their shadow on her sepulchre!

VIII

"Do ye think of me as I think of you?" —
O friends, O kindred, O dear brotherhood
Of all the world! what are we that we should
For covenants of long affection sue?
Why press so near each other when the touch
Is barred by graves? Not much, and yet too much
Is this "Think of me as I think of you."

IX

But while on mortal lips I shape anew
A sigh to mortal issues, verily
Above the unshaken stars that see us die,
A vocal pathos rolls; and He who drew
All life from dust, and for all tasted death,
By death and life and love appealing, saith
Do you think of me as I think of you?

notes

1

For I say unto you that in Heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven —Matt. xviii, 10.

2

The Hindoo heaven is localized on the summit of Mount Meru – one of the mountains of Himalaya or Himmaleh, which signifies, I believe, in Sanscrit, the abode of snow, winter, or coldness.

3

Himadeva, the Indian god of love, is imagined to wander through the three worlds, accompanied by the humming-bird, cuckoo, and gentle breezes.

4

The casting of rice upon the head, and the fixing of the band or tali about the neck, are parts of the Hindoo marriage ceremonial.

5

The Ganges is represented as a white woman, with a water-lily in her right hand, and in her left a lute.

6

A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Horne's report of his Commission. The name of the poet of "Orion" and "Cosmo de' Medici" has, however, a change of associations, and comes in time to remind me that we have some noble poetic heat of literature still, – however open to the reproach of being somewhat gelid in our humanity – 1844.

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