I am roused by the wail of a child, and awake to a livid light, And a ghastlier face than ever has haunted a grave by night, I would hide from the storm without, I would flee from the storm within, I would make my life one prayer for a soul that died in his sin, I was the tempter, Mother, and mine was the deeper fall; I will sit at your feet, I will hide my face, I will tell you all. 11. He that they gave me to, Mother, a heedless and innocent bride A princelier-looking man never stept thro' a Prince's hall. And who, when his anger was kindled, would venture to give him the nay? And a man men fear is a man to be loved by the women they say. And I could have loved him too, if the blossom can doat on the blight, Or the young green leaf rejoice in the frost that sears it at night; He would open the books that I prized, and toss them away with a yawn, My Shelley would fall from my hands when he cast a contemptuous glance My hands, when I heard him coming would drop from the chords or the keys, But ever I fail'd to please him, however I strove to please All day long far-off in the cloud of the city, and there Lost, head and heart, in the chances of dividend, consol, and share And at home if I sought for a kindly caress, being woman and weak, And so, when I bore him a girl, when I held it aloft in my joy, He look'd at it coldly, and said to me "Pity it isn't a boy." The one thing given me, to love and to live for, glanced at in scorn! The daisy will shut to the shadow, I closed my heart to the gloom; By the low foot-lights of the world and I caught the wreath that was flung III. Mother, I have not- however their tongues may have babbled of me And all but a hunchback too; and I look'd at him, first, askance For I knew not what, when I heard that voice, -as mellow and deep As a psalm by a mighty master and peal'd from an organ, - roll wise! IV. For I broke the bond. That day my nurse had brought me the child. V. Low warm winds had gently breathed us away from the land- But days of a larger light than I ever again shall know VI. Mother, one morning a bird with a warble plaintively sweet I took it, he made it a cage, we fondled it, Stephen and I, But it died, and I thought of the child for a moment, I scarce know why. VII. But if sin be sin, not inherited fate, as many will say, My sin to my desolate little one found me at sea on a day, When her orphan wail came borne in the shriek of a growing wind, And a voice rang out in the thunders of Ocean and Heaven "Thou hast sinn'd." -- "The wages of sin is death," and then I began to weep, "I am the Jonah, the crew should cast me into the deep, For ah God, what a heart was mine to forsake her even for you." 66 Never the heart among women," he said, "more tender and true." "The heart! not a mother's heart, when I left my darling alone." 66 Comfort yourself, for the heart of the father will care for his own." "The heart of the father will spurn her," I cried, "for the sin of the wife, And he spoke not only the storm; till after a little, I yearn'd For his voice again, and he call'd to me" Kiss me!" and there-as I turn'd — "The heart, the heart!" I kiss'd him, I clung to the sinking form, And the storm went roaring above us, and he-was out of the storm. VIII. And then, then, Mother, the ship stagger'd under a thunderous shock, Dead to the death beside me, and lost to the loss that was mine, Till I woke from the trance, and the ship stood still, and the skies were blue, IX. The strange misfeaturing mask that I saw so amazed me, that I Stumbled on deck, half mad. I would fling myself over and die! But one he was waving a flag-the one man left on the wreck"Woman -he graspt at my arm-" stay there"-I crouch'd on the deck"We are sinking, and yet there's hope: look yonder," he cried, "a sail" In a tone so rough that I broke into passionate tears, and the wail Of a beaten babe, till I saw that a boat was nearing us- then All on a sudden I thought, I shall look on the child again. X. They lower'd me down the side, and there in the boat I lay XI. -- They took us aboard: the crew were gentle, the captain kind; For whenever a rougher gust might tumble a stormier wave, XII. The broad white brow of the Isle-that bay with the color'd sand- All so quiet the ripple would hardly blanch into spray At the feet of the cliff; and I pray'd-"my child" for I still could pray- Was it well with the child? I wrote to the nurse Who had borne my flower on her hireling heart; and an answer came And gone that day of the storm-O Mother, she came to me there. DESPAIR. A man and his wife having lost faith in a God, and hope of a life to come, and being utterly miserable in this, resolve to end themselves by drowning. The woman is drowned, but the man rescued by a minister of the sect he had abandoned. I. Is it you, that preach'd in the chapel there looking over the sand? II. What did I feel that night? You are curious. How should I tell? Of a life without sun, without health, without hope, without any delight In anything here upon earth? but ah God, that night, that night When the rolling eyes of the light-house there on the fatal neck Of land running out into rock - they had saved many hundreds from wreck Glared on our way toward death, I remember I thought, as we past, Does it matter how many they saved? we are all of us wreck'd at last — 'Do you fear," and there came thro' the roar of the breaker a whisper, a breath, "Fear? am I not with you? I am frighted at life not death." III. And the suns of the limitless Universe sparkled and shone in the sky, A fiery scroll written over with lamentation and woe. IV. See, we were nursed in the drear night-fold of your fatalist creed, For He spoke, or it seem'd that He spoke, of a Hell without help, without end. V. Hoped for a dawn and it came, but the promise had faded away; Of a worm as it writhes in a world of the weak trodden down by the strong, VI. O we poor orphans of nothing-alone on that lonely shore- - VII. Nay, but I am not claiming your pity: I know you of old Small pity for those that have ranged from the narrow warmth of your fold, VIII. But pity- the Pagan held it a vice- was in her and in me, And pity for our own selves on an earth that bore not a flower; IX. "Lightly step over the sands! the waters - you hear them call! Life with its anguish, and horrors, and errors away with it all!” And she laid her hand in my own- she was always loyal and sweetTill the points of the foam in the dusk came playing about our feet. There was a strong sea-current would sweep us out to the main. "Ah God" tho' I felt as I spoke I was taking the name in vain "Ah God" and we turn'd to each other, we kiss'd, we embraced she and I. Knowing the Love we were used to believe everlasting would die: |