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RACHEL
RACHEL, the beautiful (as she was call’d), | |
| Despis’d our mother Leah, for that she | |
| Was tender-ey’d, lean-favor’d, and did lack | |
| The pulpy ripeness swelling the white skin | |
| To sleek proportions beautiful and round, | 5 |
| With wrinkled joints so fruitful to the eye. | |
| All this is fair: and yet we know it true | |
| That ’neath a pomane breast and snowy side | |
| A heart of guile and falsehood may be hid, | |
| As well as where the soil is deeper tinct. | 10 |
| So here with this same Rachel was it found: | |
| The dim blue-laced veins on either brow, | |
| Neath the transparent skin meandering, | |
| That with the silver-leaved lily vied; | |
| Her full dark eye, whose brightness glisten’d through | 15 |
| The sable lashes soft as camel-hair; | |
| Her slanting head curv’d like the maiden moon | |
| And hung with hair luxuriant as a vine | |
| And blacker than a storm; her rounded ear | |
| Turn’d like a shell upon some golden shore; | 20 |
| Her whispering foot that carried all her weight, | |
| Nor left its little pressure on the sand; | |
| Her lips as drowsy poppies, soft and red, | |
| Gathering a dew from her escaping breath; | |
| Her voice melodious, mellow, deep, and clear, | 25 |
| Lingering like sweet music in the ear; | |
| Her neck o’ersoften’d like to unsunn’d curd; | |
| Her tapering fingers rounded to a point; | |
| The silken softness of her veined hand; | |
| Her dimpled knuckles answering to her chin; | 30 |
| And teeth like honeycombs o’ the wilderness: | |
| All these did tend to a bad proof in her. | |
| For armed thus in beauty she did steal | |
| The eye of Jacob to her proper self, | |
| Engross’d his time, and kept him by her side, | 35 |
| Casting on Leah indifference and neglect; | |
| Whereat great Heaven took our mother’s part | |
| And struck young Rachel with a barrenness, | |
| While she bore children: thus the matter went; | |
| Till Rachel, feeling guilty of her fault, | 40 |
| Turn’d to some penitence, which Heaven heard; | |
| And then she bore this Joseph, who must, and does, | |
| Inherit towards the children all the pride | |
| And scorn his mother had towards our mother: | |
| Wherefore he suffers in our just rebuke. | 45 |
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PHRAXANOR TO JOSEPH
Phrax. Oh! ignorant boy, it is the secret hour, | |
| The sun of love doth shine most goodly fair. | |
| Contemptible darkness never yet did dull | |
| The splendor of love’s palpitating light. | |
| At love’s slight curtains, that are made of sighs, | 50 |
| Though e’er so dark, silence is seen to stand | |
| Like to a flower closed in the night; | |
| Or, like a lovely image drooping down | |
| With its fair head aslant and finger rais’d, | |
| And mutely on its shoulder slumbering. | 55 |
| Pulses do sound quick music in Love’s ear, | |
| And blended fragrance in his startled breath | |
| Doth hang the hair with drops of magic dew. | |
| All outward thoughts, all common circumstance, | |
| Are buried in the dimple of his smile: | 60 |
| And the great city like a vision sails | |
| From out the closing doors of the hush’d mind. | |
| His heart strikes audibly against his ribs | |
| As a dove’s wing doth freak upon a cage, | |
| Forcing the blood athro’ the cramped veins | 65 |
| Faster than dolphins do o’ershoot the tide | |
| Cours’d by the yawning shark. Therefore I say | |
| Night-blooming Cereus, and the star-flower sweet, | |
| The honeysuckle, and the eglantine, | |
| And the ring’d vinous tree that yields red wine, | 70 |
| Together with all intertwining flowers, | |
| Are plants most fit to ramble o’er each other, | |
| And form the bower of all-precious Love, | |
| Shrouding the sun with fragrant bloom and leaves | |
| From jealous interception of Love’s gaze. | 75 |
| This is Love’s cabin in the light of day, | |
| But oh! compare it not with the black night; | |
| Delay thou sun, and give me instant night— | |
| Its soft, mysterious, and secret hours; | |
| The whitest clouds are pillows to bright stars, | 80 |
| Ah! therefore shroud thine eyes. | |
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THE PATRIARCHAL HOME
Joseph. Still I am patient, tho’ you ’re merciless. | |
| Yet to speak out my mind, I do avouch | |
| There is no city feast, nor city show, | |
| The encampment of the king and soldiery, | 85 |
| Rejoicings, revelries, and victories, | |
| Can equal the remembrance of my home | |
| In visible imagination. | |
| Even as he was I see my father now, | |
| His grave and graceful head’s benignity | 90 |
| Musing beyond the confines of this world, | |
| His world within with all its mysteries. | |
| What pompless majesty was in his mien, | |
| An image of integrity creates, | |
| Pattern of nature, in perfection. | 95 |
| Lo! in the morning when we issued forth, | |
| The patriarch surrounded by his sons, | |
| Girt round with looks of sweet obedience, | |
| Each struggling who should honor him the most; | |
| While from the wrinkles deep of many years, | 100 |
| Enfurrow’d smiles, like violets in snow, | |
| Touch’d us with heat and melancholy cold, | |
| Mingling our joy with sorrow for his age: | |
| There were my brothers, habited in skins; | |
| Ten goodly men, myself, and a sweet youth | 105 |
| Too young to mix in anything but joy; | |
| And in his hands each led a milk-white steer, | |
| Hung o’er with roses, garlanded with flowers, | |
| Laden with fragrant panniers of green boughs | |
| Of bays and myrtle interleav’d with herbs, | 110 |
| Wherein was stor’d our country wine and fruit, | |
| And bread with honey sweeten’d, and dried figs, | |
| And pressed curds, and choicest rarities, | |
| Stores of the cheerless season of the year; | |
| While at our sides the women of our tribe, | 115 |
| With pitchers on their heads, fill’d to the brim | |
| With wine, and honey, and with smoking milk, | |
| Made proud the black-ey’d heifers with the swell | |
| Of the sweet anthem sung in plenty’s praise. | |
| Thus would we journey to the wilderness, | 120 |
| And fixing on some peak that did o’erlook | |
| The spacious plains that lay display’d beneath, | |
| Where we could see our cattle, like to specks | |
| In the warm meads, browsing the juicy grass, | |
| There pitch our tent, and feast, and revel out,— | 125 |
| The minutes flying faster than our feet | |
| That vaulted nimbly to the pipe and voice, | |
| Making fatigue more sweet by appetite. | |
| There stood the graceful Reuben by my sire, | |
| Piping a ditty, ardent as the sun, | 130 |
| And, like him, stealing renovation | |
| Into the darkest corner of the soul, | |
| And filling it with light. There, women group’d, | |
| My sisters and their maids, with ears subdued, | |
| With bosoms panting from the eager dance, | 135 |
| Against each other lean’d; as I have seen | |
| A graceful tuft of lilies of the vale | |
| Oppress’d with rain, upon each other bend, | |
| While freshness has stol’n o’er them. Some way off | |
| My brothers pitch’d the bar, or plough’d for fame, | 140 |
| Each two with their two heifers harness’d fast | |
| Unto the shaft, and labor’d till the sweat | |
| Had crept about them like a sudden thaw. | |
| Anon they tied an eagle to a tree, | |
| And strove at archery; or with a bear | 145 |
| Struggled for strength of limb. These were no slaves— | |
| No villain’s sons to rifle passengers. | |
| The sports being done, the winners claim’d the spoil: | |
| Or hide, or feather, or renowned bow, | |
| Or spotted cow, or fleet and pamper’d horse. | 150 |
| And then my father bless’d us, and we sang | |
| Our sweet way home again. Oft I have ach’d | |
| In memory of these so precious hours, | |
| And wept upon those keys that were my pride, | |
| And soak’d my pillow thro’ the heavy night. | 155 |
| Alas! God willing, I ’ll be patient yet. | |
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THE PATRIARCHAL HOME
In the royal path | |
| Came maidens rob’d in white, enchain’d in flowers, | |
| Sweeping the ground with incense-scented palms: | |
| Then came the sweetest voices of the land, | 160 |
| And cried, ‘Bow ye the knee!’—and then aloud | |
| Clarions and trumpets broke forth in the air: | |
| After a multitude of men-at-arms, | |
| Of priests, of officers, and horsed chiefs, | |
| Came the benignant Pharaoh, whose great pride | 165 |
| Was buried in his smile. I did but glimpse | |
| His car, for ’t was of burnish’d gold. No eye | |
| Save that of eagles could confront the blaze | |
| That seem’d to burn the air, unless it fell | |
| Either on sapphire or carbuncle huge | 170 |
| That riveted the weight. This car was drawn | |
| By twelve jet horses, being four abreast, | |
| And pied in their own foam. Within the car | |
| Sat Pharaoh, whose bare head was girt around | |
| By a crown of iron; and his sable hair, | 175 |
| Like strakey as a mane, fell where it would, | |
| And somewhat hid his glossy sun-brent neck | |
| And carcanet of precious sardonyx. | |
| His jewell’d armlets, weighty as a sword, | |
| Clasp’d his brown naked arms—a crimson robe, | 180 |
| Deep edged with silver, and with golden thread, | |
| Upon a bear-skin kirtle deeply blush’d, | |
| Whose broad resplendent braid and shield-like clasps | |
| Were boss’d with diamonds large, by rubies fir’d, | |
| Like beauty’s eye in rage, or roses white | 185 |
| Lit by the glowing red. Beside him lay | |
| A bunch of poppied corn; and at his feet | |
| A tamed lion as his footstool crouch’d. | |
| Cas’d o’er in burnish’d plates I, hors’d, did bear | |
| A snow-white eagle on a silver shaft, | 190 |
| From whence great Pharaoh’s royal banner stream’d, | |
| An emblem of his might and dignity; | |
| And as the minstrelsy burst clanging forth, | |
| With shouts that broke like thunder from the host, | |
| The royal bird with kindred pride of power | 195 |
| Flew up the measure of his silken cord, | |
| And arch’d his cloud-like wings as he would mount, | |
| And babble of this glory to the sun. | |
| Then follow’d Joseph in a silver car, | |
| Drawn by eight horses, white as evening clouds: | 200 |
| His feet were resting upon Pharaoh’s sword; | |
| And on his head a crown of drooping corn | |
| Mock’d that of Ceres in high holiday. | |
| His robes were simple, but were full of grace, | |
| And (out of love and truth I speak him thus) | 205 |
| I never did behold a man less proud, | |
| More dignified or grateful to admire. | |
| His honors nothing teas’d him from himself; | |
| And he but fill’d his fortunes like a man | |
| Who did intend to honor them as much | 210 |
| As they could honor him. | |
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