The Village Wifes Lament

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Title: The Village Wife's Lament
Author: Maurice Hewlett
Release Date: April 10, 2007 [EBook #21025]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE VILLAGE WIFE'S LAMENT
POETICAL WORKS OF MAURICE HEWLETT
A Masque of Dead Florentines
Pan and the Young Shepherd: a
pastoral
Artemision
The Agonists: a trilogy
Helen Redeemed and
other Poems
Gai Saber: Tales and Songs
The Song of the Plow

Peridore and Paravail
The Village Wife's Lament
THE VILLAGE WIFE'S LAMENT
BY

MAURICE HEWLETT
LONDON
MARTIN SECKER
LONDON: MARTIN SECKER (LTD) 1918
I
i
O what is this you've done to me,
Or what have I done,
That bare
should be our fair roof-tree,
And I all alone?
'Tis worse than widow
I become
More than desolate,
To face a worse than empty home

Without child or mate.
'Twas not my strife askt him his life
When it was but begun,
Nor
mine, I was a new-made wife
And now I am none;
Nor mine that
many a sapless ghost
Wails in sorrow-fare--
But this does cost my
pride the most,
That bloodshedding to share.
Image of streaming eyes, tear-gleaming,
Of women foiled and defeat,

I am like Christ shockt out of dreaming,
Showing His hands and
feet;
Showing His feet and hands to God,
Saying, "Are these in vain?

For men I have trod the sorrowful road,
And by them I am slain."
Seeing I have a breast in common,
I must share in that shame,
Since
from the womb of some poor woman
Each evil one came--
Every
hot and blundering thought,
Every hag-rid will,
And every haut
king pride-distraught
That drove men out to kill.
A woman's womb did fashion him,
Her bosom was his nurse,
And
many women's eyes are dim
To see their sons a curse.
Had I the wit
some women have
To one such I would say,
"Think you this love
the good Lord gave
Is yours to take away?"
O Hand divine that for a sign
Didst bend the rose-red bow,


Betokening wrath was no more Thine
With man's Cain-branded
brow--
What now, O Lord, shouldst Thou accord
To such a
shameful brood?
A bow as crimson as the sword
Which men have
soakt in blood.
ii
I cannot see the grass
Or feel the wind blowing,
But I think of
brother and brother
And hot blood flowing.
The whole world akin,
And I, an alien,
Walk branded with the sin

And the blood-guilt of men.
And often I cry
In my sharp distress,
It were better to die
Than
know such bitterness.
iii
The Lord of Life He did ordain
How this world should run,
That
Love should call thro' joy and pain
Two natures to be one;
Now
jags across the high God's plan
Division like a scar,
For this is true,
that He made man,
But man made war.
Had men the dower of teeth and claws
And not a grace beside them?

Were they given wit to know the laws
And hard hearts to outride
them?
What drove them turn the sweet green earth
Into a puddle of
blood?
What drove them drown our simple mirth
In salt tear-flood?
Has man been lifted up erect,
A lord of life and death,
His world's
elect, and his brow deckt
With murder for a wreath?
What shall be
done with such an one,
And whither he be hurl'd?
The Lord let
crucify His Son--
Who gibbetted His world?
iv
Be it Pole Star or Southern Cross
That shelters me or you,
The

same things are gain and loss,
And the same things true:
The
home-love, the mother-love,
The old, old things;
The lad's love of
maiden's love
That gives a man wings,
And makes a maid stand still, afraid
Lest it were all a dream
That
he do think himself apaid
If she be all to him.
The arching earth has
no more worth
Than this, to love, to wed,
To serve the hearth, to
bring to birth,
To win your children's bread.
v
The bee pills nothing for himself,
Loading with gold his thigh,
The
martin twittering, at his shelf,
Glancing from the sky
Not greedy
ease make slaves of these;
Nor yet endures the cow,
Her failing knees and agonies
For price of
joy I vow.
A call above the spell of love,
A crying and a need
To make two
one, the fruit whereof
To nurture and to feed;
To brood, to hoard, to
spend as rain
Virtue and tears and blood;
To get that you may give
amain--
Of such is parenthood.
vi
I chose a heart out of a hundred
To nest my own heart in;
To have
that plunder'd, and two hearts sunder'd--
Who had heart for the sin?

What woman's son that saw but one
Such sanctuary waste
Could set
his lips like ironstone
And raven broadcast?
What harm did we to any man
That now I must moan?
We did but
follow Nature's plan
And cleave to