Part 3: Showing How The Vow Was Kept.

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I.

He dwelt alone, and, sun and moon,
Perpetual witness made
Of his repented humanness;
Until they seemed to fade.
His face did so; for he did grow
Of his own soul afraid.

II.

The self-poised God may dwell alone
With inward glorying;
But God's chief angel waiteth for
A brother's voice, to sing.
And a lonely creature of sinful nature --
It is an awful thing.

III.

An awful thing that feared itself
While many years did roll, --
A lonely man, a feeble man, --
A part beneath the whole --
He bore by day, he bore by night
That pressure of God's infinite
Upon his finite soul.

IV.

The poet at his lattice sate,
And downward. looked he:
Three Christians wended by to prayers,
With mute ones in their ee.
Each turned above a face of love,
And called him to the far chapelle
With voice more tuneful than its bell --
But still they wended three.

V.

There journeyed by a bridal pomp,
A bridegroom and his dame:
She speaketh low for happiness,
She blusheth red for shame, --
But never a tone of benison
From out the lattice came.

VI.

A little child with inward song,
No louder noise to dare,
Stood near the wall to see at play
The lizards green and rare --
Unblessed the while for his childish smile
Which cometh unaware.