Image: Pexels, downloaded https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-a-sad-girl-holding-paint-brush-3778361/ (10.4.2021.)
The Blessed Damozel
The blessed Damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary’s gift
For service meetly worn;
And her hair lying down her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.
Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God’s choristers;
The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.
(To one it is ten years of years.
…Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o’er me – her hair
Fell all about my face…
Nothing: the Autumn fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)
It was the rampart of God’s house
That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;
So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.
It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.
She scarcely heard her sweet new friends;
Playing at holy games,
Softly they spake among themselves
Their virginal chaste names;
And the souls, mounting up to God,
Went by her like thin flames.
And still she bowed above the vast
Waste sea of worlds, that swarm;
Untill her bosom must have made
The bar she leaned on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm.
From the fixed place of Heaven, she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke, as when
The stars sang in their spheres.
The sun was gone now. The curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf. And now
She spoke trough the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.
‘I wish that he were come to me,
For he will come,’ she said.
‘Have I not prayed in Heaven? - on earth,
Lord, Lord, has he not prayed?
Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
And shall I feel afraid?
‘When round his head the aureole clings,
And he is clothed in white,
I’ll take his hand, and go with him
To the deep wells of light,
And we will step down as to a stream
And bathe there in God’s sight.
‘We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps tremble continually
With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.
‘We two will lie i’ the shadow of
That living mystic tree,
Within whose secret growth the Dove
Is sometimes felt to be,
While every leaf that His plumes touch
Saith His name audibly.
‘And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,
The songs I sing here; which his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And finde some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know.’
(Ah sweet! Just now, in that bird's song,
Strove not her accents there
Faint to be hearkened? When those bells
Possessed the midday air,
Was she not stepping to my side
Down all the trembling stair?)
‘We two,’ she said, ‘will seek the groves
Where the Lady Mary is,
With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret and Rosalys.
‘Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded;
Into the fine cloth white like flame,
Weaving the golden thread,
To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.
‘He shall fear, haply, and be dumb;
Then I will lay my cheek
To his, and tell about our love,
Not once abashed or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.
‘Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round whom all souls
Kneel, the unnumbered ransomed heads
Bowed with their aureoles:
And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.
‘There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me: –
Only to live as once on earth,
At peace - only to be
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he.’
She gazed, and listened, and then said,
Less sad of speech than mild,
‘All this is when he comes.’ She ceased.
The light thrilled past her, filled
With angels in strong level lapse.
Her eyes prayed, and she smiled.
(I saw her smile.) But soon their flight
Was vague in distant spheres;
And then she laid her arms along
The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands.
And wept. (I heard her tears.)
Source: A book of English poetry: Chaucer to Rossetti (Harrison, G. B. (1968.), A book of English poetry: Chaucer to Rossetti, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books).
More about Rosseti: https://www.zvonainari.hr/single-post/2019/05/10/weekly-zingers-the-blessed-damozel-sonnets-of-farewell
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