To see a light upon such brows, Be pitiful, O God! The happy children come to us They ask us "Was it thus, and thus, And feel our mother's smile press through The kisses she is giving. Be pitiful, O God! We pray together at the kirk Its spirit, bright before Thee: Between them, worse than either, we- Be pitiful, O God! We leave the communing of men, The murmur of the passions, And live alone, to live again With endless generations: Are we so brave? The sea and sky And, glassed therein, our spirits high Be pitiful, O God! We sit on hills our childhood wist, The sun strikes through the farthest mist The city's golden spire it was, When hope and health were strongest, We look upon the longest. Be pitiful, O God! And soon all vision waxeth dull; No strength, no need. Then, soul of mine, Lo, in the depth of God's Divine, The Son adjures the Father, BE PITIFUL, O GOD! THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. [Blackwood's Magazine 1843.] “Φεῦ, φεῦ, τί προσδέρκεσθέ μ' ὄμμασιν, τέκνα;” Medea. Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young flowers are blowing toward the west— They are weeping in the playtime of the others, Do you question the young children in the sorrow The old man may weep for his to-morrow The old tree is leafless in the forest, The old year is ending in the frost, Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, They look up with their pale and sunken faces, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary, Our young feet," they say, "are very weak; Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children, And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, "True," say the children, "it may happen Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen 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, Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her, It is good when it happens," say the children, Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, Go out, children, from the mine and from the city, 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, "For oh," say the children, "we are weary, If we cared for any meadows, it were merely 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. "For all day the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, Turns the sky in the high window, blank and reeling, And sometimes we could pray, ye wheels' (breaking out in a mad moaning), Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing 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 under 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. Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, So the blessed 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, |