XXI

And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too—they sing to their team :

Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of a dream.

They come and sit by my chair, they hover about my bed

I am not always certain if they be alive or dead.

XXII

And yet I know for a truth, there's none of them left alive;

For Harry went at sixty, your father at sixty-five: And Willy, my eldest-born, at nigh threescore and ten ; I knew them all as babies, and now they're elderly men.

XXIII

For mine is a time of peace, it is not often I grieve; I am oftener sitting at home in my father's farm at eve : And the neighbours come and laugh and gossip, and so do I ;

I find myself often laughing at things that have long gone by.

XXIV

To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make us sad :

But mine is a time of peace, and there is Grace to be

had;

And God, not man, is the Judge of us all when life

shall cease;

And in this Book, little Annie, the message is one of Peace.

XXV

And age is a time of peace, so it be free from pain, And happy has been my life; but I would not live it

again.

I seem to be tired a little, that's all, and long for rest;

Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best.

XXVI

So Willy has gone, my beauty, my eldest-born, my

flower;

But how can I weep for Willy, he has but gone for an hour,-

Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the

next;

I, too, shall go in a minute. What time have I to be vext?

XXVII

And Willy's wife has written, she never was overwise.

Get me my glasses, Annie: thank God that I keep

my eyes.

There is but a trifle left you, when I shall have past

away.

But stay with the old woman now: you cannot have long to stay.

VII

RIZPAH

17

I

WAILING, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and

sea

And Willy's voice in the wind, 'O mother, come out

to me.

Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go?

For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow.

II

We should be seen, my dear; they would spy us out of the town.

The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the down,

When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain,

And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with the rain.

III

Anything fallen again? nay-what was there left to fall?

I have taken them home, I have number'd the bones, I have hidden them all.

What am I saying? and what are you? do you come as a spy?

Falls? what falls? who knows? As the tree falls so must it lie.

IV

Who let her in? how long has she been? you-what have you heard?

Why did you sit so quiet? you never have spoken a word.

O-to pray with me—yes--a lady-none of their spies

But the night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken my eyes.

V

Ah-you, that have lived so soft, what should you know of the night,

The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost and the fright?

I have done it, while you were asleep-you were only made for the day.

I have gather'd my baby together-and now you may

go your way.

E

VI

Nay-for it's kind of you, Madam, to sit by an old dying wife.

But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life.

I kiss'd my boy in the prison, before he went out to die.

'They dared me to do it,' he said, and he never has told me a lie.

I whipt him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a child

'The farmer dared me to do it,' he said; he was always so wild

And idle and couldn't be idle-my Willy-he never could rest.

The King should have made him a soldier, he would have been one of his best.

VII

But he lived with a lot of wild mates, and they never would let him be good;

They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he swore that he would;

And he took no life, but he took one purse, and when all was done

He flung it among his fellows--I'll none of it, said my

son.

VIII

I came into court to the Judge and the lawyers. I told them my tale,

God's own truth-but they kill'd him, they kill'd him for robbing the mail.

They hang'd him in chains for a show-we had always borne a good name

To be hang'd for a thief-and then put away-isn't that enough shame?

Dust to dust-low down-let us hide! but they set him so high

That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by.

God 'ill pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air,

But not the black heart of the lawyer who kill'd him and hang'd him there.

IX

And the jailer forced me away. last goodbye ;

I had bid him my

They had fasten'd the door of his cell. 'O mother!' I heard him cry.

I couldn't get back tho' I tried, he had something

further to say,

And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me

away.

X

Then since I couldn't but hear that cry of my boy that was dead,

They seized me and shut me up: they fasten'd me down on my bed.

'Mother, O mother !'-he call'd in the dark to me year after year

They beat me for that, they beat me-you know that I couldn't but hear;

And then at the last they found I had grown so stupid

and still

They let me abroad again-but the creatures had worked their will.

XI

Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was left

I stole them all from the lawyers-and you, will you call it a theft?—

My baby, the bones that had suck'd me, the bones that had laughed and had cried

Theirs? O no! they are mine-not theirs-they had moved in my side.