Epilogue
TO THE POET’S SITTER, Wherein he excuseth himself for the manner of the Portrait.
ALAS! now wilt thou chide, and say (I deem),My figured descant hides the simple theme:Or in another wise reproving, sayI ill observe thine own high reticent way.Oh, pardon, that I testify of theeWhat thou couldst never speak, nor others be!
Yet (for the book is not more innocentOf what the gazer’s eyes makes so intent),She will but smile, perhaps, that I find my fairSufficing scope in such strait theme as her.“Bird of the sun! the stars’ wild honey-bee!Is your gold browsing done so thoroughly?Or sinks a singèd wing to narrow nest in me?”(Thus she might say: for not this lowly veinOut-deprecates her deprecating strain.)Oh, you mistake, dear lady, quite; nor knowEther was strict as you, its loftiness as low!
The heavens do not advance their majestyOver their marge; beyond his emperyThe ensigns of the wind are not unfurled,His reign is hooped in by the pale o’ the world.’Tis not the continent, but the contained,That pleasaunce makes or prison, loose or chained.Too much alike or little captives me,For all oppression is captivity.What groweth to its height demands no higher;The limit limits not, but the desire.Give but my spirit its desirèd scope,—A giant in a pismire, I not grope;Deny it,—and an ant, with on my backA firmament, the skiey vault will crack.Our minds make their own Termini, nor callThe issuing circumscriptions great or small;So high constructing Nature lessons to us all:Who optics gives accommodate to seeYour countenance large as looks the sun to be,And distant greatness less than near humanity.
We, therefore, with a sure instinctive mind,An equal spaciousness of bondage findIn confines far or near, of air or our own kind.Our looks and longings, which affront the stars,Most richly bruised against their golden bars,Delighted captives of their flaming spears,Find a restraint restrainless which appearsAs that is, and so simply natural,In you;—the fair detention freedom call,And overscroll with fancies the loved prison-wall.
Such sweet captivity, and only such,In you, as in those golden bars, we touch!Our gazes for sufficing limits knowThe firmament above, your face below;Our longings are contented with the skies,Contented with the heaven, and your eyes.My restless wings, that beat the whole world through,Flag on the confines of the sun and you;And find the human pale remoter of the two.