THERE is a dungeon in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on? Nothing: look again! Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight, Two insulated phantoms of the brain : It is not so; I see them full and plain, An old man and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar: but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?
Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, Where on the heart and from the heart we took Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, Or even the piping cry of lips that brook No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — What may the fruit be yet? I know not - Cain was Eve's.
But here youth offers to old age the food, The milk of his own gift: it is her sire To whom she renders back the debt of blood Born with her birth. No! he shall not expire While in those warm and lovely veins the fire Of health and holy feeling can provide Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher Than Egypt's river ;- from that gentle side Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine :
Go where I will, to me thou art the same,
A loved regret which I would not resign. There yet are two things in my destiny, A world to roam through, and a home with thee.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over; I am one the more To baffled millions which have gone before.
And for the future, this world's future may From me demand but little of my care; I have outlived myself by many a day :
Having survived so many things that were; My years have been no slumber, but the prey Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have filled a century, Before its fourth in time had passed me by.
BERTHA IN THE LANE. PUT the broidery-frame away, For my sewing is all done! The last thread is used to-day, And I need not join it on. Though the clock stands at the noon, I am weary! I have sewn, Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown.
Sister, help me to the bed,
And stand near me, dearest-sweet! Do not shrink nor be afraid, Blushing with a sudden heat! No one standeth in the street! By God's love I go to meet,
Love I thee with love complete.
Lean thy face down! drop it in
These two hands, that I may hold "Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, Stroking back the curls of gold. "T is a fair, fair face, in sooth, Larger eyes and redder mouth Than mine were in my first youth!
Till the pleasure, grown too strong, Left me muter evermore; And, the winding road being long, I walked out of sight, before; And so, wrapt in musings fond, Issued (past the wayside pond) On the meadow-lands beyond.
I sat down beneath the beech Which leans over to the lane, And the far sound of your speech Did not promise any pain; And I blessed you, full and free, With a smile stooped tenderly O'er the May-flowers on my knee.
But the sound grew into word
As the speakers drew more near Sweet, forgive me that I heard What you wished me not to hear. Do not weep so, do not shake- O, I heard thee, Bertha, make Good true answers for my sake.
Yes, and he too! let him stand
In thy thoughts, untouched by blame. Could he help it, if my hand
He had claimed with hasty claim ! That was wrong perhaps, but then Such things be- and will, again!
- dear-heart-warm! It was best as it befell!
If I say he did me harm,
I speak wild, I am not well.
All his words were kind and good, – He esteemed me! Only blood Runs so faint in womanhood.
Then I always was too grave, Liked the saddest ballads sung, With that look, besides, we have In our faces who die young. I had died, dear, all the same, Life's long, joyous, jostling game Is too loud for my meek shame.
We are so unlike each other,
Thou and I, that none could guess We were children of one mother, But for mutual tenderness. Thou art rose-lined from the cold, And meant, verily, to hold Life's pure pleasures manifold.
I am pale as crocus grows Close beside a rose-tree's root ! Whosoe'er would reach the rose, Treads the crocus underfoot;
COME to me, O my Mother! come to me, Thine own son slowly dying far away! Through the moist ways of the wide ocean, blown By great invisible winds, come stately ships To this calm bay for quiet anchorage; They come, they rest awhile, they go away, But, O my Mother, never comest thou !
As a peculiar darling? Lo, the flies Hum o'er him! Lo, a feather from the crow Falls in his parted lips! Lo, his dead eyes See not the raven! Lo, the worm, the worm Creeps from his festering corse! My God! my God!
O Lord, Thou doest well. I am content. If Thou have need of him he shall not stay. But as one calleth to a servant, saying "At such a time be with me," so, O Lord, Call him to Thee! O, bid him not in haste Straight whence he standeth. Let him lay aside The soiléd tools of labor. Let him wash
His hands of blood. Let him array himself Meet for his Lord, pure from the sweat and fume Of corporal travail ! Lord, if he must die, Let him die here. O, take him where Thou gavest !
And even as once I held him in my womb
The snow is round thy dwelling, the white snow, Till all things were fulfilled, and he came forth, That cold soft revelation pure as light, And the pine-spire is mystically fringed, Laced with incrusted silver. Here-ah me! The winter is decrepit, underborn,
A leper with no power but his disease. Why am I from thee, Mother, far from thee? Far from the frost enchantment, and the woods Jewelled from bough to bough? O home, my home !
O river in the valley of my home, With mazy-winding motion intricate, Twisting thy deathless music underneath The polished ice-work, must I nevermore Behold thee with familiar eyes, and watch Thy beauty changing with the changeful day, Thy beauty constant to the constant change?
THE ABSENT SOLDIER SON. 66 FROM THE ROMAN."
LORD, I am weeping. As Thou wilt, O Lord, Do with him as Thou wilt; but O my God, Let him come back to die! Let not the fowls O' the air defile the body of my child, My own fair child, that when he was a babe, I lift up in my arms and gave to Thee! Let not his garment, Lord, be vilely parted, Nor the fine linen which these hands have spun Fall to the stranger's lot! Shall the wild bird, That would have pilfered of the ox, this year Disdain the pens and stalls? Shall her blind
That on the fleck and moult of brutish beasts
Had been too happy, sleep in cloth of gold Whereof each thread is to this beating heart
So, O Lord, let me hold him in my grave Till the time come, and Thou, who settest when The hinds shall calve, ordain a better birth; And as I looked and saw my son, and wept For joy, I look again and see my son, And weep again for joy of him and Thee!
OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.
GONE, gone, sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air,
Gone, gone, - sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hill and waters, Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone, sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. There no mother's eye is near them, There no mother's ear can hear them; Never, when the torturing lash Seams their back with many a gash, Shall a mother's kindness bless them, Or a mother's arms caress them.
Gone, gone, sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia's hills and waters, Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
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