The Pilgrims of Hope | Page 8

daylight came; And down the stairs I stole, and there was our housekeeping dame (No mother of me, the foundling) kindling the fire betimes Ere the haymaking folk went forth to the meadows down by the limes; All things I saw at a glance; the quickening fire-tongues leapt Through the crackling heap of sticks, and the sweet smoke up from it crept, And close to the very hearth the low sun flooded the floor, And the cat and her kittens played in the sun by the open door. The garden was fair in the morning, and there in the road he stood Beyond the crimson daisies and the bush of southernwood. Then side by side together through the grey-walled place we went, And O the fear departed, and the rest and sweet content!
Son, sorrow and wisdom he taught me, and sore I grieved and learned As we twain grew into one; and the heart within me burned With the very hopes of his heart. Ah, son, it is piteous, But never again in my life shall I dare to speak to thee thus; So may these lonely words about thee creep and cling, These words of the lonely night in the days of our wayfaring. Many a child of woman to-night is born in the town, The desert of folly and wrong; and of what and whence are they grown? Many and many an one of wont and use is born; For a husband is taken to bed as a hat or a ribbon is worn. Prudence begets her thousands: "Good is a housekeeper's life, So shall I sell my body that I may be matron and wife." "And I shall endure foul wedlock and bear the children of need." Some are there born of hate--many the children of greed. "I, I too can be wedded, though thou my love hast got." "I am fair and hard of heart, and riches shall be my lot." And all these are the good and the happy, on whom the world dawns fair. O son, when wilt thou learn of those that are born of despair, As the fabled mud of the Nile that quickens under the sun With a growth of creeping things, half dead when just begun? E'en such is the care of Nature that man should never die, Though she breed of the fools of the earth, and the dregs of the city sty. But thou, O son, O son, of very love wert born, When our hope fulfilled bred hope, and fear was a folly outworn; On the eve of the toil and the battle all sorrow and grief we weighed, We hoped and we were not ashamed, we knew and we were not afraid.
Now waneth the night and the moon--ah, son, it is piteous That never again in my life shall I dare to speak to thee thus. But sure from the wise and the simple shall the mighty come to birth; And fair were my fate, beloved, if I be yet on the earth When the world is awaken at last, and from mouth to mouth they tell Of thy love and thy deeds and thy valour, and thy hope that nought can quell.

NEW BIRTH

It was twenty-five years ago that I lay in my mother's lap New born to life, nor knowing one whit of all that should hap: That day was I won from nothing to the world of struggle and pain, Twenty-five years ago--and to-night am I born again.
I look and behold the days of the years that are passed away, And my soul is full of their wealth, for oft were they blithe and gay As the hours of bird and of beast: they have made me calm and strong To wade the stream of confusion, the river of grief and wrong.
A rich man was my father, but he skulked ere I was born, And gave my mother money, but left her life to scorn; And we dwelt alone in our village: I knew not my mother's "shame," But her love and her wisdom I knew till death and the parting came. Then a lawyer paid me money, and I lived awhile at a school, And learned the lore of the ancients, and how the knave and the fool Have been mostly the masters of earth: yet the earth seemed fair and good With the wealth of field and homestead, and garden and river and wood; And I was glad amidst it, and little of evil I knew As I did in sport and pastime such deeds as a youth might do, Who deems he shall live for ever. Till at last it befel on a day That I came across our Frenchman at the edge of the new-mown hay, A-fishing as he was