Elizabeth Barrett Browning - An Island lyrics

I. My dream is of an island-place  Which distant seas keep lonely, A little island on whose face  The stars are watchers only: Those bright still stars! they need not seem Brighter or stiller in my dream. II. An island full of hills and dells,  All rumpled and uneven With green recesses, sudden swells,  And odorous valleys driven So deep and straight that always there The wind is cradled to soft air. III. Hills running up to heaven for light  Through woods that half-way ran, As if the wild earth mimicked right  The wilder heart of man: Only it shall be greener far And gladder than hearts ever are. IV. More like, perhaps, that mountain piece  Of Dante's paradise, Disrupt to an hundred hills like these,  In falling from the skies; Bringing within it, all the roots Of heavenly trees and flowers and fruits: V. For—saving where the grey rocks strike  Their javelins up the azure, Or where deep fissures miser-like  Hoard up some fountain treasure, (And e'en in them, stoop down and hear, Leaf sounds with water in your ear,—) VI. The place is all awave with trees,  Limes, myrtles purple-beaded, Acacias having drunk the lees  Of the night-dew, faint-headed, And wan grey olive-woods which seem The fittest foliage for a dream. VII. Trees, trees on all sides! they combine  Their plumy shades to throw, Through whose clear fruit and blossom fine  Whene'er the sun may go, The ground beneath he deeply stains, As pa**ing through cathedral panes. VIII. But little needs this earth of ours  That shining from above her, When many Pleiades of flowers  (Not one lost) star her over, The rays of their unnumbered hues Being all refracted by the dews. IX. Wide-petalled plants that boldly drink  The Amreeta of the sky, Shut bells that dull with rapture sink,  And lolling buds, half shy; I cannot count them, but between Is room for gra** and mosses green, X. And brooks, that gla** in different strengths  All colours in disorder, Or, gathering up their silver lengths  Beside their winding border, Sleep, haunted through the slumber hidden, By lilies white as dreams in Eden. XI. Nor think each archèd tree with each  Too closely interlaces To admit of vistas out of reach,  And broad moon-lighted places Upon whose sward the antlered deer May view their double image clear. XII. For all this island's creature-full,  (Kept happy not by halves) Mild cows, that at the vine-wreaths pull,  Then low back at their calves With tender lowings, to approve The warm mouths milking them for love. XIII. Free gamesome horses, antelopes,  And harmless leaping leopards, And buffaloes upon the slopes,  And sheep unruled by shepherds: Hares, lizards, hedgehogs, badgers, mice, Snakes, squirrels, frogs, and bu*terflies. XIV. And birds that live there in a crowd,  Horned owls, rapt nightingales, Larks bold with heaven, and peaco*ks proud,  Self-sphered in those grand tails; All creatures glad and safe, I deem No guns nor springes in my dream! XV. The island's edges are a-wing  With trees that overbranch The sea with song-birds welcoming  The curlews to green change; And doves from half-closed lids espy The red and purple fish go by. XVI. One dove is answering in trust  The water every minute, Thinking so soft a murmur must  Have her mate's cooing in it: So softly doth earth's beauty round Infuse itself in ocean's sound. XVII. My sanguine soul bounds forwarder  To meet the bounding waves; Beside them straightway I repair,  To live within the caves: And near me two or three may dwell Whom dreams fantastic please as well. XVIII. Long winding caverns, glittering far  Into a crystal distance! Through clefts of which shall many a star  Shine clear without resistance, And carry down its rays the smell Of flowers above invisible. XIX. I said that two or three might choose  Their dwelling near mine own: Those who would change man's voice and use,  For Nature's way and tone— Man's veering heart and careless eyes, For Nature's steadfast sympathies. XX. Ourselves, to meet her faithfulness,  Shall play a faithful part; Her beautiful shall ne'er address  The monstrous at our heart: Her musical shall ever touch Something within us also such. XXI. Yet shall she not our mistress live,  As doth the moon of ocean, Though gently as the moon she give  Our thoughts a light and motion: More like a harp of many lays, Moving its master while he plays. XXII. No sod in all that island doth  Yawn open for the dead; No wind hath borne a traitor's oath;  No earth, a mourner's tread; We cannot say by stream or shade, "I suffered here,—was here betrayed." XXIII. Our only "farewell" we shall laugh  To shifting cloud or hour, And use our only epitaph  To some bud turned a flower: Our only tears shall serve to prove Excess in pleasure or in love. XXIV. Our fancies shall their plumage catch  From fairest island-birds, Whose eggs let young ones out at hatch,  Born singing! then our words Unconsciously shall take the dyes Of those prodigious fantasies. XXV. Yea, soon, no consonant unsmooth  Our smile-tuned lips shall reach; Sounds sweet as Hellas spake in youth  Shall glide into our speech: (What music, certes, can you find As soft as voices which are kind?) XXVI. And often, by the joy without  And in us, overcome, We, through our musing, shall let float  Such poems,—sitting dumb,— As Pindar might have writ if he Had tended sheep in Arcady; XXVII. Or Æschylus—the pleasant fields  He died in, longer knowing; Or Homer, had men's sins and shields  Been lost in Meles flowing; Or Poet Plato, had the undim Unsetting Godlight broke on him. XXVIII. Choose me the cave most worthy choice,  To make a place for prayer, And I will choose a praying voice  To pour our spirits there: How silverly the echoes run! Thy will be done,—thy will be done. XXIX. Gently yet strangely uttered words!  They lift me from my dream; The island fadeth with its swards  That did no more than seem: The streams are dry, no sun could find— The fruits are fallen, without wind. XXX. So oft the doing of God's will  Our foolish wills undoeth! And yet what idle dream breaks ill,  Which morning-light subdueth? And who would murmur and misdoubt, When God's great sunrise finds him out?