Part 23

When the palace-ladies, sitting Round your gittern, shall have said, "Poets, sing those verses written For the lady who is dead," Will you tremble, Yet dissemble, Or sing hoarse, with tears between, "Sweetest eyes were ever seen"?

"Sweetest eyes!" How sweet in flowings The repeated cadence is! Though you sang a hundred poems, Still the best one would be this. I can hear it 'Twixt my spirit And the earth-noise intervene,-- "Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

But--but _now_--yet unremovèd Up to heaven they glisten fast; You may cast away, beloved, In your future all my past: Such old phrases May be praises For some fairer bosom-queen-- "Sweetest eyes were ever seen!"

Eyes of mine, what are ye doing? Faithless, faithless, praised amiss If a tear be, on your showing, Dropped for any hope of HIS! Death has boldness Besides coldness, If unworthy tears demean "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

I will look out to his future; I will bless it till it shine. Should he ever be a suitor Unto sweeter eyes than mine, Sunshine gild them, Angels shield them, Whatsoever eyes terrene _Be_ the sweetest HIS have seen.

THE SLEEP

"He giveth his beloved sleep."--Ps. cxxvii. 2

OF ALL the thoughts of God that are Borne inward into souls afar Along the Psalmist's music deep, Now tell me if that any is, For gift or grace, surpassing this-- "He giveth his beloved sleep."

What would we give to our beloved? The hero's heart to be unmoved. The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep, The patriot's voice to teach and rouse, The monarch's crown to light the brows?-- He giveth his belovèd sleep.

What do we give to our beloved? A little faith all undisproved, A little dust to overweep, And bitter memories to make The whole earth blasted for our sake. He giveth his beloved sleep.

"Sleep soft, beloved!" we sometimes say, Who have no tune to charm away Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep; But never doleful dream again Shall break the happy slumber when He giveth his belovèd sleep.

O earth, so full of dreary noises! O men with wailing in your voices! O delvèd gold the wailers heap! O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall! God strikes a silence through you all, And giveth his beloved sleep.

His dews drop mutely on the hill, His cloud above it saileth still, Though on its slope men sow and reap; More softly than the dew is shed, Or cloud is floated overhead, He giveth his belovèd sleep.

Ay, men may wonder while they scan A living, thinking, feeling man Confirmed in such a rest to keep; But angels say,--and through the word I think their happy smile is _heard_,-- "He giveth his belovèd sleep."

For me, my heart that erst did go Most like a tired child at a show, That sees through tears the mummers leap, Would now its wearied vision close, Would childlike on His love repose Who giveth his belovèd sleep.

And friends, dear friends, when it shall be That this low breath is gone from me, And round my bier ye come to weep, Let one most loving of you all Say, "Not a tear must o'er her fall! He giveth his belovèd sleep."

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN

I

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And _that_ cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; The young birds are chirping in the nest; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the west: But the young, young children, O my brothers! They are weeping bitterly. They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.

II

Do you question the young children in their sorrow, Why their tears are falling so? The old man may weep for his To-morrow Which is lost in Long-Ago; The old tree is leafless in the forest; The old year is ending in the frost; The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest; The old hope is hardest to be lost: But the young, young children, O my brothers! Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland?

III

They look up with their pale and sunken faces; And their looks are sad to see, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy. "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary; Our young feet," they say, "are very weak; Few paces have we taken, yet are weary; Our grave-rest is very far to seek. Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children; For the outside earth is cold, And we young ones stand without in our bewildering, And the graves are for the old."

IV

"True," say the children, "it may happen That we die before our time: Little Alice died last year; her grave is shapen Like a snowball in the rime. We looked into the pit prepared to take her: Was no room for any work in the close clay, From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her, Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.' If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, With your ear down, little Alice never cries. Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her, For the smile has time for growing in her eyes; And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in The shroud by the kirk-chime. It is good when it happens," say the children, "That we die before our time."

V

Alas, alas, the children! They are seeking Death in life, as best to have. They are binding up their hearts away from breaking With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from the city; Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do; Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty; Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through. But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows Like our weeds anear the mine? Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, From your pleasures fair and fine.

VI

"For oh!" say the children, "we are weary, And we cannot run or leap; If we cared for any meadows, it were merely To drop down in them, and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping; We fall upon our faces, trying to go; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow; For all day we drag our burden tiring, Through the coal-dark, underground; Or all day we drive the wheels of iron In the factories, round and round.

VII

"For all-day the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places. Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,-- All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels' (breaking out in a mad moaning), 'Stop! be silent for to-day!'"

VIII

Ay. be silent! Let them hear each other breathing For a moment, mouth to mouth; Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing Of their tender human youth; Let them feel that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God fashions or reveals; Let them prove their living souls against the notion That they live in you, or tinder you, O wheels! Still all day the iron wheels go onward, Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark.

IX

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, To look up to Him, and pray; So the blessèd One who blesseth all the others Will bless them another day. They answer, "Who is God, that he should hear us While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word; And _we_ hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) Strangers speaking at the door. Is it likely God, with angels singing round him, Hears our weeping any more?

X

"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember; And at midnight's hour of harm, 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm. We know no other words except 'Our Father'; And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both within his right hand, which is strong. 'Our Father!' If he heard us, he would surely (For they call him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 'Come and rest with me, my child.'

XI

"But no!" say the children, weeping faster, "He is speechless as a stone; And they tell us, of his image is the master Who commands us to work on. Go to!" say the children,--"up in heaven, Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. Do not mock us: Grief has made us unbelieving: We look up for God; but tears have made us blind." Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, O my brothers, what ye preach? For God's possible is taught by his world's loving-- And the children doubt of each.

XII

And well may the children weep before you! They are weary ere they run; They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory Which is brighter than the sun. They know the grief of man, without its wisdom; They sink in man's despair, without its calm; Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom; Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm; Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly The harvest of its memories cannot reap; Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly-- Let them weep! let them weep!

XIII

They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see. For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world on a child's heart,-- Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path; But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath!"

MOTHER AND POET

[On Laura Savio of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sons were killed at Ancona and Gaeta.]

DEAD! One of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea. Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast, And are wanting a great song for Italy free, Let none look at _me_!

Yet I was a poetess only last year, And good at my art, for a woman, men said: But _this_ woman, _this_, who is agonized here,-- The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head Forever instead.

What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain! What art _is_ she good at, but hurting her breast With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain? Ah, boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you prest, And I proud by that test.

What art's for a woman? To hold on her knees Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat Cling, strangle a little! to sew by degrees, And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat; To dream and to dote.

To teach them.... It stings there! _I_ made them indeed Speak plain the word _country. I_ taught them, no doubt, That a country's a thing men should die for at need. I prated of liberty, rights, and about The tyrant cast out.

And when their eyes flashed ... O my beautiful eyes! ... I exulted; nay, let them go forth at the wheels Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise When one sits quite alone! Then one weeps, then one kneels. God, how the house feels!

At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled With my kisses, of camp-life and glory, and how They both loved me; and soon, coming home to be spoiled, In return would fan off every fly from my brow With their green laurel-bough.

There was triumph at Turin: "Ancona was free!" And some one came out of the cheers in the street, With a face pale as stone, to say something to me. My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet, While they cheered in the street.

I bore it; friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained To the height _he_ had gained.

And letters still came; shorter, sadder, more strong, Writ now but in one hand:--"I was not to faint,-- One loved me for two; would be with me ere long: And _Viva l'Italia_ he died for, our saint, Who forbids our complaint."

My Nanni would add, "he was safe, and aware Of a presence that turned off the balls,--was imprest It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossest, To live on for the rest."

On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta,--"_Shot. Tell his mother_." Ah, ah! "his," "their" mother, not "mine": No voice says, "_My_ mother," again to me. What! You think Guido forgot?

Are souls straight so happy, that, dizzy with heaven, They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe? I think not! Themselves were too lately forgiven Through that Love and that Sorrow which reconciled so The Above and Below.

O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through the dark To the face of thy mother! Consider, I pray, How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,-- Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, And no last word to say!

Both boys dead? but that's out of nature. We all Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall; And when Italy's made, for what end is it done, If we have not a son?

Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then? When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men; When the guns of Cavalli with final retort Have cut the game short;

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee; When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red: When _you_ have your country from mountain to sea, When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, (And I have my dead)--

What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low And burn your lights faintly! _My_ country is _there_. Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow: My Italy's THERE, with my brave civic pair, To disfranchise despair!

Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength, And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn; But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length Into wail such as this, and we sit on forlorn When the man-child is born.

Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea. Both! both my boys! If in keeping the feast You want a great song for your Italy free, Let none look at _me_!

A COURT LADY

Her hair was tawny with gold; her eyes with purple were dark; Her cheeks' pale opal burnt with a red and restless spark.

Never was lady of Milan nobler in name and in race; Never was lady of Italy fairer to see in the face.

Never was lady on earth more true as woman and wife, Larger in judgment and instinct, prouder in manners and life.

She stood in the early morning, and said to her maidens, "Bring That silken robe made ready to wear at the court of the King.

"Bring me the clasps of diamond, lucid, clear of the mote; Clasp me the large at the waist, and clasp me the small at the throat.

"Diamonds to fasten the hair, and diamonds to fasten the sleeves, Laces to drop from their rays, like a powder of snow from the eaves."

Gorgeous she entered the sunlight, which gathered her up in a flame, While, straight in her open carriage, she to the hospital came.

In she went at the door, and gazing from end to end,-- "Many and low are the pallets; but each is the place of a friend."

Up she passed through the wards, and stood at a young man's bed; Bloody the band on his brow, and livid the droop of his head.

"Art thou a Lombard, my brother? Happy art thou!" she cried, And smiled like Italy on him: he dreamed in her face--and died.

Pale with his passing soul, she went on still to a second: He was a grave hard man, whose years by dungeons were reckoned.

Wounds in his body were sore, wounds in his life were sorer. "Art thou a Romagnole?" Her eyes drove lightnings before her.

"Austrian and priest had joined to double and tighten the cord Able to bind thee, O strong one, free by the stroke of a sword.

"Now be grave for the rest of us, using the life overcast To ripen our wine of the present (too new) in glooms of the past."

Down she stepped to a pallet where lay a face like a girl's, Young, and pathetic with dying,--a deep black hole in the curls.

"Art thou from Tuscany, brother? and seest thou, dreaming in pain, Thy mother stand in the piazza, searching the list of the slain?"

Kind as a mother herself, she touched his cheeks with her hands: "Blessed is she who has borne thee, although she should weep as she stands."

On she passed to a Frenchman, his arm carried off by a ball: Kneeling: "O more than my brother! how shall I thank thee for all?

"Each of the heroes around us has fought for his land and line; But thou hast fought for a stranger, in hate of a wrong not thine.

"Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossest, But blessed are those among nations who dare to be strong for the rest."

Ever she passed on her way, and came to a couch where pined One with a face from Venetia, white with a hope out of mind.

Long she stood and gazed, and twice she tried at the name; But two great crystal tears were all that faltered and came.

Only a tear for Venice? She turned as in passion and loss, And stooped to his forehead and kissed it, as if she were kissing the cross.

Faint with that strain of heart, she moved on then to another, Stern and strong in his death: "And dost thou suffer, my brother?"

Holding his hands in hers: "Out of the Piedmont lion Cometh the sweetness of freedom! sweetest to live or to die on."

Holding his cold rough hands: "Well, oh well have ye done In noble, noble Piedmont, who would not be noble alone."

Back he fell while she spoke. She rose to her feet with a spring. "That was a Piedmontese! and this is the court of the King!"

THE PROSPECT

Methinks we do as fretful children do, Leaning their faces on the window-pane To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's stain, And shut the sky and landscape from their view; And thus, alas! since God the maker drew A mystic separation 'twixt those twain,-- The life beyond us and our souls in pain,-- We miss the prospect which we are called unto By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath, And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong; That so, as life's appointment issueth, Thy vision may be clear to watch along The sunset consummation-lights of death.

DE PROFUNDIS

The face which, duly as the sun, Rose up for me with life begun, To mark all bright hours of the day With daily love, is dimmed away-- And yet my days go on, go on.

The tongue which, like a stream, could run Smooth music from the roughest stone, And every morning with "Good day" Make each day good, is hushed away-- And yet my days go on, go on.

The heart which, like a staff, was one For mine to lean and rest upon, The strongest on the longest day, With steadfast love is caught away-- And yet my days go on, go on.

The world goes whispering to its own, "This anguish pierces to the bone." And tender friends go sighing round, "What love can ever cure this wound?" My days go on, my days go on.

The past rolls forward on the sun And makes all night. O dreams begun, Not to be ended! Ended bliss! And life, that will not end in this! My days go on, my days go on.

Breath freezes on my lips to moan: As one alone, once not alone, I sit and knock at Nature's door, Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor, Whose desolated days go on.

I knock and cry--Undone, undone! Is there no help, no comfort--none? No gleaning in the wide wheat-plains Where others drive their loaded wains? My vacant days go on, go on.

This Nature, though the snows be down, Thinks kindly of the bird of June. The little red hip on the tree Is ripe for such. What is for me, Whose days so winterly go on?

No bird am I to sing in June, And dare not ask an equal boon. Good nests and berries red are Nature's To give away to better creatures-- And yet my days go on, go on.

_I_ ask less kindness to be done-- Only to loose these pilgrim-shoon (Too early worn and grimed) with sweet Cool deathly touch to these tired feet, Till days go out which now go on.

Only to lift the turf unmown From off the earth where it has grown, Some cubit-space, and say, "Behold, Creep in, poor Heart, beneath that fold, Forgetting how the days go on."

A Voice reproves me thereupon, More sweet than Nature's, when the drone Of bees is sweetest, and more deep, Than when the rivers overleap The shuddering pines, and thunder on.

God's Voice, not Nature's--night and noon He sits upon the great white throne, And listens for the creature's praise. What babble we of days and days? The Dayspring he, whose days go on!

He reigns above, he reigns alone: Systems burn out and leave his throne: Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall Around him, changeless amid all-- Ancient of days, whose days go on!

He reigns below, he reigns alone-- And having life in love forgone Beneath the crown of sovran thorns, He reigns the jealous God. Who mourns Or rules with HIM, while days go on?

By anguish which made pale the sun, I hear him charge his saints that none Among the creatures anywhere Blaspheme against him with despair, However darkly days go on.