As one bloody fall

On the soldier's bed,

And three days on the ruined wall
Among the thirstless dead.

O, to think my name is crossed

From duty's muster-roll;

That I may slumber through the clarion call, And live the joy of an embodied soul

Free as a liberated ghost.

O, to feel a life of deed

Was emptied out to feed

That fire of pain that burned so brief a while, —
That fire from which I come as the dead come
Forth from the irreparable tomb,

Or as a martyr on his funeral pile
Heaps up the burdens other men do bear
Through years of segregated care,

And takes the total load

Upon his shoulders broad,

And steps from earth to God.

O, to think, through good or ill,
Whatever I am you'll love me still;
O, to think, though dull I be,
You that are so grand and free,
You that are so bright and gay,
Will pause to hear me when I will,
As though my head were gray;
And though there's little I can say,

Each will look kind with honor while he hears.

And to your loving ears

My thoughts will halt with honorable scars,

And when my dark voice stumbles with the weight Of what it doth relate

(Like that blind comrade, — blinded in the wars,

Who bore the one-eyed brother that was lame),
You'll remember 't is the same

That cried, "Follow me,'

Upon a summer's day;

دو

And I shall understand with unshed tears

This great reverence that I see,

And bless the day, — and Thee,

Lord God of victory!

And she,

Perhaps O, even she

May look as she looked when I knew her

In those old days of childish sooth,

Ere my boyhood dared to woo her.
I will not seek nor sue her,

For I'm neither fonder nor truer

Than when she slighted my love-lorn youth,
My giftless, graceless, guinealess truth,
And I only lived to rue her.
But I'll never love another,

And, in spite of her lovers and lands,
She shall love me yet, my brother!

As a child that holds by his mother,
While his mother speaks his praises,
Holds with eager hands,

And ruddy and silent stands

In the ruddy and silent daisies,
And hears her bless her boy,
And lifts a wondering joy,
So I'll not seek nor sue her,

But I'll leave my glory to woo her,
And I'll stand like a child beside,
And from behind the purple pride
I'll lift my eyes unto her,

And I shall not be denied.

And

you will love her, brother dear, And perhaps next year you 'll bring me here All through the balmy April-tide,

And she will trip like spring by my side,

And be all the birds to my ear.

And here all three we 'll sit in the sun,
And see the Aprils one by one,
Primrosed Aprils on and on,
Till the floating prospect closes
In golden glimmers that rise and rise,
And perhaps are gleams of Paradise,
And perhaps too far for mortal eyes,
New springs of fresh primroses,
Springs of earth's primroses,
Springs to be, and springs for me,
Of distant dim primroses.

VOL. XIV.

9

M

MOTHER AND POET.

(Turin, after news from Gaeta, 1861.)

BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

EAD! One of them shot in the sea by 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 ? O, 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 pressed
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 doat!

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 honie to be spoiled,
In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.

Then 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