James Lee’s Wife
I. James Lee’s Wife speaks at the Window.
—* In the original ed., 1864, the heading to this sectionwas ‘At the Window’; changed in ed. of 1868.—
1.
Ah, Love, but a day,And the world has changed!The sun’s away,And the bird estranged;The wind has dropped,And the sky’s deranged:Summer has stopped.
— St. 1. Ah, Love, but a day: Rev. H. J. Bulkeley, in his paper on ‘James Lee’s Wife’ (‘Browning Soc. Papers’, iv., p. 457), explains, “One day’s absence from him has caused the world to change.” It’s better to understand that something has occurred to cause the world to change in a single day; that James Lee has made some new revelation of himself, which causes the wife’s heart to have misgivings, and with these misgivings comes the eager desire expressed in St. 3, to show her love, when he returns, more strongly than ever.
2.
Look in my eyes!Wilt thou change too?Should I fear surprise?Shall I find aught newIn the old and dear,In the good and true,With the changing year?
3.
Thou art a man,But I am thy love.For the lake, its swan;For the dell, its dove;And for thee—(oh, haste!)Me, to bend above,Me, to hold embraced.
II — By the Fireside
1.
Is all our fire of shipwreck wood,Oak and pine?Oh, for the ills half-understood,The dim dead woeLong agoBefallen this bitter coast of France!Well, poor sailors took their chance;I take mine.
2.
A ruddy shaft our fire must shootO’er the sea;Do sailors eye the casement—muteDrenched and stark,From their bark—And envy, gnash their teeth for hateO’ the warm safe house and happy freight—Thee and me?
3.
God help you, sailors, at your need!Spare the curse!For some ships, safe in port indeed,Rot and rust,Run to dust,All through worms i’ the wood, which crept,Gnawed our hearts out while we slept:That is worse.
4.
Who lived here before us two?Old-world pairs.Did a woman ever—would I knew!—Watch the manWith whom beganLove’s voyage full-sail,—(now, gnash your teeth!)When planks start, open hell beneathUnawares?
III — In the Doorway
1.
The swallow has set her six young on the rail,And looks seaward:The water’s in stripes like a snake, olive-paleTo the leeward,—On the weather-side, black, spotted white with the wind.“Good fortune departs, and disaster’s behind”,—Hark, the wind with its wants and its infinite wail!
—St. 1. Note the truth of color in vv. 3–5.
2.
Our fig-tree, that leaned for the saltness, has furledHer five fingers,Each leaf like a hand opened wide to the worldWhere there lingersNo glint of the gold, Summer sent for her sake:How the vines writhe in rows, each impaled on its stake!My heart shrivels up and my spirit shrinks curled.
— St. 2. her five fingers: referring to the shape of the fig-leaf.
3.
Yet here are we two; we have love, house enough,With the field there,This house of four rooms, that field red and rough,Though it yield there,For the rabbit that robs, scarce a blade or a bent;If a magpie alight now, it seems an event;And they both will be gone at November’s rebuff.
— St. 3. a bent: a bit of coarse grass; A.-S. ‘beonet’, an adduced form; Ger. ‘binse’.
4.
But why must cold spread? but wherefore bring changeTo the spirit,God meant should mate his with an infinite range,And inheritHis power to put life in the darkness and cold?Oh, live and love worthily, bear and be bold!Whom Summer made friends of, let Winter estrange!
— St. 4. Whom Summer made friends of, etc.: i.e., let Winter (Adversity) estrange those whom Summer (Prosperity) made friends of, but let it not estrange us.
IV — Along the Beach
1.
I will be quiet and talk with you,And reason why you are wrong.You wanted my love—is that much true?And so I did love, so I do:What has come of it all along?
2.
I took you—how could I otherwise?For a world to me, and more;For all, love greatens and glorifiesTill God’s a-glow, to the loving eyes,In what was mere earth before.
—St. 2. love greatens and glorifies: see the poem,“Wanting is—what?”
3.
Yes, earth—yes, mere ignoble earth!Now do I misstate, mistake?Do I wrong your weakness and call it worth?Expect all harvest, dread no dearth,Seal my sense up for your sake?
4.
Oh Love, Love, no, Love! not so, indeedYou were just weak earth, I knew:With much in you waste, with many a weed,And plenty of passions run to seed,But a little good grain too.
5.
And such as you were, I took you for mine:Did not you find me yours,To watch the olive and wait the vine,And wonder when rivers of oil and wineWould flow, as the Book assures?
— St. 5. yours, to watch the olive and wait the vine: “olive” and “vine” are used metaphorically for the capabilities of her husband’s nature.
6.
Well, and if none of these good things came,What did the failure prove?The man was my whole world, all the same,With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame,And, either or both, to love.
— St. 6. The failure of fruit in her husband proved the absoluteness of her love, proved that he was her all, notwithstanding.
7.
Yet this turns now to a fault—there! there!That I do love, watch too long,And wait too well, and weary and wear;And ’tis all an old story, and my despairFit subject for some new song:
— St. 7. Yet this turns now to a fault: i.e., her watching the olive and waiting the vine of his nature. there! there!: I’ve come out plainly with the fact.
8.
“How the light, light love, he has wings to flyAt suspicion of a bond:My wisdom has bidden your pleasure good-bye,Which will turn up next in a laughing eye,And why should you look beyond?”
— St. 8. bond: refers to what is said in St. 7; why should you look beyond?: i.e., beyond a laughing eye, which does not “watch” and “wait”, and thus “weary” and “wear”.
V. On the Cliff.
1.
I leaned on the turf,I looked at a rockLeft dry by the surf;For the turf, to call it grass were to mock:Dead to the roots, so deep was doneThe work of the summer sun.
2.
And the rock lay flatAs an anvil’s face:No iron like that!Baked dry; of a weed, of a shell, no trace:Sunshine outside, but ice at the core,Death’s altar by the lone shore.
3.
On the turf, sprang gayWith his films of blue,No cricket, I’ll say,But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too,The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight,Real fairy, with wings all right.
— St. 3. No cricket, I’ll say: but to my lively admiration, a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too: see Webster’s Dict., s.v. “chamfrain”. {also chamfron: armor for a horse’s head}.
4.
On the rock, they scorchLike a drop of fireFrom a brandished torch,Fall two red fans of a butterfly:No turf, no rock,—in their ugly stead,See, wonderful blue and red!
— St. 4. they: i.e., the ‘two red fans’. no turf, no rock: i.e., the eye is taken up entirely with cricket and butterfly; blue and red refer respectively to cricket and butterfly.
5.
Is it not soWith the minds of men?The level and low,The burnt and bare, in themselves; but thenWith such a blue and red grace, not theirs,Love settling unawares!
— St. 5. Love: settling on the minds of men, the level and low, the burnt and bare, is compared to the cricket and the butterfly settling on the turf and the rock.
VI — Reading a Book under the Cliff
—* In the original ed., 1864, the heading to this sectionwas ‘Under the Cliff’; changed in ed. of 1868.—
1.
“Still ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no?Which needs the other’s office, thou or I?Dost want to be disburthened of a woe,And can, in truth, my voice untieIts links, and let it go?
2.
“Art thou a dumb, wronged thing that would be righted,Entrusting thus thy cause to me? Forbear!No tongue can mend such pleadings; faith, requitedWith falsehood,—love, at last awareOf scorn,—hopes, early blighted,—
3.
“We have them; but I know not any toneSo fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow:Dost think men would go mad without a moan,If they knew any way to borrowA pathos like thy own?
4.
“Which sigh wouldst mock, of all the sighs? The oneSo long escaping from lips starved and blue,That lasts while on her pallet-bed the nunStretches her length; her foot comes throughThe straw she shivers on;
5.
“You had not thought she was so tall: and spent,Her shrunk lids open, her lean fingers shutClose, close, their sharp and livid nails indentThe clammy palm; then all is mute:That way, the spirit went.
6.
“Or wouldst thou rather that I understandThy will to help me?—like the dog I foundOnce, pacing sad this solitary strand,Who would not take my food, poor hound,But whined, and licked my hand.”
— St. 1–6. See foot-note to the Argument of this section.
7.
All this, and more, comes from some young man’s prideOf power to see,—in failure and mistake,Relinquishment, disgrace, on every side,—Merely examples for his sake,Helps to his path untried:
8.
Instances he must—simply recognize?Oh, more than so!—must, with a learner’s zeal,Make doubly prominent, twice emphasize,By added touches that revealThe god in babe’s disguise.
9.
Oh, he knows what defeat means, and the rest!Himself the undefeated that shall be:Failure, disgrace, he flings them you to test,—His triumph, in eternityToo plainly manifest!
— St. 7–9. She reflects, ironically and sarcastically, upon the confidence of the young poet, resulting from his immaturity, in his future triumph over all obstacles. Inexperienced as he is, he feels himself the god in babe’s disguise, etc. He will learn after a while what the wind means in its moaning. The train of thought in St. 11–16 is presented in the Argument.
10.
Whence, judge if he learn forthwith what the windMeans in its moaning—by the happy promptInstinctive way of youth, I mean; for kindCalm years, exacting their accomptOf pain, mature the mind:
11.
And some midsummer morning, at the lullJust about daybreak, as he looks acrossA sparkling foreign country, wonderfulTo the sea’s edge for gloom and gloss,Next minute must annul,—
12.
Then, when the wind begins among the vines,So low, so low, what shall it say but this?“Here is the change beginning, here the linesCircumscribe beauty, set to blissThe limit time assigns.”
13.
Nothing can be as it has been before;Better, so call it, only not the same.To draw one beauty into our hearts’ core,And keep it changeless! such our claim;So answered,—Never more!
14.
Simple? Why this is the old woe o’ the world;Tune, to whose rise and fall we live and die.Rise with it, then! Rejoice that man is hurledFrom change to change unceasingly,His soul’s wings never furled!
15.
That’s a new question; still replies the fact,Nothing endures: the wind moans, saying so;We moan in acquiescence: there’s life’s pact,Perhaps probation—do I know?God does: endure his act!
16.
Only, for man, how bitter not to graveOn his soul’s hands’ palms one fair good wise thingJust as he grasped it! For himself, death’s wave;While time first washes—ah, the sting!—O’er all he’d sink to save.
VII — Among the Rocks
1.
Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth,This autumn morning! How he sets his bonesTo bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feetFor the ripple to run over in its mirth;Listening the while, where on the heap of stonesThe white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.
2.
That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;Such is life’s trial, as old earth smiles and knows.If you loved only what were worth your love,Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:Make the low nature better by your throes!Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!
VIII — Beside the Drawing-Board
1.
“As like as a Hand to another Hand!”Whoever said that foolish thing,Could not have studied to understandThe counsels of God in fashioning,Out of the infinite love of his heart,This Hand, whose beauty I praise, apartFrom the world of wonder left to praise,If I tried to learn the other waysOf love, in its skill, or love, in its power.“As like as a Hand to another Hand”: 10Who said that, never took his stand,Found and followed, like me, an hour,The beauty in this,—how free, how fineTo fear, almost,—of the limit-line!As I looked at this, and learned and drew,Drew and learned, and looked again,While fast the happy minutes flew,Its beauty mounted into my brain,And a fancy seized me; I was fainTo efface my work, begin anew, 20Kiss what before I only drew;Ay, laying the red chalk ‘twixt my lips,With soul to help if the mere lips failed,I kissed all right where the drawing ailed,Kissed fast the grace that somehow slipsStill from one’s soulless finger-tips.
— * Lines 27–87 {below—the rest of this section except the last two lines} were added in the edition of 1868; they clear up the obscurity of this section of the poem, as it stood in the original edition of 1864. —
2.
’Tis a clay cast, the perfect thing,From Hand live once, dead long ago:Princess-like it wears the ringTo fancy’s eye, by which we know 30That here at length a master foundHis match, a proud lone soul its mate,As soaring genius sank to groundAnd pencil could not emulateThe beauty in this,—how free, how fineTo fear almost!—of the limit-line.Long ago the god, like meThe worm, learned, each in our degree:Looked and loved, learned and drew,Drew and learned and loved again, 40While fast the happy minutes flew,Till beauty mounted into his brainAnd on the finger which outviedHis art he placed the ring that’s there,Still by fancy’s eye descried,In token of a marriage rare:For him on earth, his art’s despair,For him in heaven, his soul’s fit bride.
3.
Little girl with the poor coarse handI turned from to a cold clay cast—50I have my lesson, understandThe worth of flesh and blood at last!Nothing but beauty in a Hand?Because he could not change the hue,Mend the lines and make them trueTo this which met his soul’s demand,—Would Da Vinci turn from you?I hear him laugh my woes to scorn—“The fool forsooth is all forlornBecause the beauty, she thinks best, 60Lived long ago or was never born,—Because no beauty bears the testIn this rough peasant Hand! Confessed‘Art is null and study void!’So sayest thou? So said not I,Who threw the faulty pencil by,And years instead of hours employed,Learning the veritable useOf flesh and bone and nerve beneathLines and hue of the outer sheath, 70If haply I might reproduceOne motive of the mechanism,Flesh and bone and nerve that makeThe poorest coarsest human handAn object worthy to be scannedA whole life long for their sole sake.Shall earth and the cramped moment-spaceYield the heavenly crowning grace?Now the parts and then the whole!Who art thou, with stinted soul 80And stunted body, thus to cry‘I love,—shall that be life’s strait dole?I must live beloved or die!’This peasant hand that spins the woolAnd bakes the bread, why lives it on,Poor and coarse with beauty gone,—What use survives the beauty? Fool!”
Go, little girl with the poor coarse hand!I have my lesson, shall understand.
IX — On Deck
1.
There is nothing to remember in me,Nothing I ever said with a grace,Nothing I did that you care to see,Nothing I was that deserves a placeIn your mind, now I leave you, set you free.
— St. 1. Nothing I did that you care to see: refers to her art-work.
2.
Conceded! In turn, concede to me,Such things have been as a mutual flame.Your soul’s locked fast; but, love for a key,You might let it loose, till I grew the sameIn your eyes, as in mine you stand: strange plea!
3.
For then, then, what would it matter to meThat I was the harsh, ill-favored one?We both should be like as pea and pea;It was ever so since the world begun:So, let me proceed with my reverie.
—St. 3. Here it is indicated that she had not the personal charmswhich were needed to maintain her husband’s interest.A pretty face was more to him than a deep loving soul.
4.
How strange it were if you had all me,As I have all you in my heart and brain,You, whose least word brought gloom or glee,Who never lifted the hand in vainWill hold mine yet, from over the sea!
5.
Strange, if a face, when you thought of me,Rose like your own face present now,With eyes as dear in their due degree,Much such a mouth, and as bright a brow,Till you saw yourself, while you cried “’Tis She!”
6.
Well, you may, you must, set down to meLove that was life, life that was love;A tenure of breath at your lips’ decree,A passion to stand as your thoughts approve,A rapture to fall where your foot might be.
—St. 6. vv. 3–5 express the entire devotion and submissivenessof her love.
7.
But did one touch of such love for meCome in a word or a look of yours,Whose words and looks will, circling, fleeRound me and round while life endures,—Could I fancy “As I feel, thus feels He”;
8.
Why, fade you might to a thing like me,And your hair grow these coarse hanks of hair,Your skin, this bark of a gnarled tree,—You might turn myself!—should I know or care,When I should be dead of joy, James Lee?
A Tale.