To feed it from my faded breast,
Or mark my own heart's restless beat Rock it to its untroubled rest,
And watch the growing soul beneath Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath, Half interrupted by calm sighs,
And search the depth of its fair eyes For long departed memories!
And so I lived till that sweet load Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed The stream of years, and on it bore Two shapes of gladness to my sight; Two other babes, delightful more In my lost soul's abandoned night, Than their own country ships may be Sailing towards wrecked mariners, Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea. For each, as it came, brought soothing tears, And a loosening warmth, as each one lay Sucking the sullen milk away
About my frozen heart, did play,
And weaned it, oh how painfully!
As they themselves were weaned each one From that sweet food,-even from the thirst Of death, and nothingness, and rest, Strange inmate of a living breast! Which all that I had undergone
Of grief and shame, since she, who first The gates of that dark refuge closed, Came to my sigh:, and almost burst The seal of that Lethean spring; But these fair shadows interposed: For all delights are shadows now! And from my brain to my dull brow
The tears which fell from her wan eyes Glimmered among the moonlight dew: Her deep hard sobs and heavy sighs Their echoes in the darkness threw. When she grew calm, she thus did keep The tenor of her tale:
I know not how: he was not old, If age be numbered by its years: But he was bowed and bent with fears, Pale with the quenchless thirst of gold, Which, like fierce fever left him weak; And his strait lip and bloated cheek Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers; And selfish cares with barren plough, Not age, had lined his narrow brow, And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed Upon the withering life within,
Like vipers on some poisonous weed. Whether his ill were death or sin
None knew, until he died indeed, And then men owned they were the same.
Seven days within my chamber lay That corse, and my babes made holiday; At last, I told them what is death; The eldest, with a kind of shame, Came to my knees with silent breath, And sate awe-stricken at my feet; And soon the others left their play, And sate there too. It is unmeet
To shed on the brief flower of youth The withering knowledge of the grave; From me remorse then wrung that truth. I could not bear the joy which gave Too just a response to mine own. In vain. I dared not feign a groan; And in their artless looks I saw, Between the mists of fear and awe, That my own thought was theirs; and they Expressed it not in words, but said, Each in its heart, how every day Will pass in happy work and play, Now he is dead and gone away.
After the funeral all our kin Assembled, and the will was read,
My friend, I tell thee, even the dead Have strength, their putrid shrouds within, To blast and torture. Those who live Still fear the living, but a corse Is merciless, and power doth give To such pale tyrants half the spoil He rends from those who groan and toil, Because they blush not with remorse Among their crawling worms. Behold, I have no child! my tale grows old With grief, and staggers: let it reach The limits of my feeble speech, And languidly at length recline On the brink of its own grave and mine.
Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty Among the fallen on evil days: 'Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,
And houseless Want in frozen years
Wandering ungarmented, and Pain, And, worse than all, that inward stain Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers Youth's starlight smile, and makes it, tears First like hot gall, then dry for ever! And well thou knowest a mother never Could doom her children to this ill, And well he knew the same. The will Imported, that if e'er again
I sought my children to behold, Or in my birth-place did remain
Beyond three days, whose hours were told, They should inherit nought: and he, To whom next came their patrimony, A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold,
Aye watched me, as the will was read, With eyes askance, which sought to see The secrets of my agony;
And with close lips and anxious brow Stood canvasing still to and fro The chance of my resolve, and all The dead man's caution just did call; For in that killing lie 'twas said- "She is adulterous, and doth hold In secret that the Christian creed Is false, and therefore is much need That I should have a care to save My children from eternal fire." Friend, he was sheltered by the grave, And therefore dared to be a liar!
In truth, the Indian on the pyre Of her dead husband, half consumed, As well might there be false, as I To those abhorred embraces doomed, Far worse than fire's brief agony.
As to the Christian creed, if true Or false, I never questioned it: I took it as the vulgar do :
Nor my vext soul had leisure yet
To doubt the things men say, or deem That they are other than they seem.
All present who those crimes did hear, In feigned or actual scorn and fear, Men, women, children, slunk away, Whispering with self-contented pride, Which half suspects its own base lie. I spoke to none, nor did abide, But silently I went my way, Nor noticed I where joyously Sate my two younger babes at play, In the court-yard through which I past; But went with footsteps firm and fast Till I came to the brink of the ocean green, And there, a woman with grey hairs, Who had my mother's servant been, Kneeling, with many tears and prayers, Made me accept a purse of gold, Half of the earnings she had kept To refuge her when weak and old.
With woe, which never sleeps or slept, I wander now. "Tis a vain thought- But on yon alp, whose snowy head 'Mid the azure air is islanded,
(We see it o'er the flood of cloud, Which sunrise from its eastern caves Drives, wrinkling into golden waves, Hung with its precipices proud,
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