Chorus of Eden Spirits

Chorus of Eden Spirits

HEARKEN, oh hearken! let your souls behind you

Turn, gently moved!

Our voices feel along the Dread to find you,

O lost, beloved!

Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels,

They press and pierce:

Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,—

Voice throbs in verse.

We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden

A time ago:

God gave us golden cups, and we were bidden

To feed you so.

But now our right hand hath no cup remaining,

No work to do,

The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining

The whole earth through.

Most ineradicable stains, for showing

(Not interfused!)

That brighter colours were the world’s foregoing,

Than shall be used.

Hearken, oh hearken! ye shall hearken surely

For years and years,

The noise beside you, dripping coldly, purely,

Of spirits’ tears.

The yearning to a beautiful denied you,

Shall strain your powers.

Ideal sweetnesses shall over-glide you,

Resumed from ours.

In all your music, our pathetic minor

Your ears shall cross;

And all good gifts shall mind you of diviner,

With sense of loss.

We shall be near you in your poet-languors

And wild extremes,

What time ye vex the desert with vain angers,

Or mock with dreams.

And when upon you, weary after roaming,

Death’s seal is put,

By the foregone ye shall discern the coming,

Through eyelids shut.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning