The Village Wifes Lament | Page 2

our own;
For Life it teaches you
but this:
Seek you each other;
Rise up from your clasp and kiss,

A
father and a mother.

O piety of hand and knee,
Of lips and bow'd head!
O ye who see a
soul set free--
Free, when the heart is dead!
There is no rest but in
the grave;
Thither my wasted eyes
Turn for the only home they
have,
Where my true love lies.
There alongside his clay-cold corse
I pray that mine may rest;
I'll
warm him with my lover's force
And feed him at my breast:
I'll
nurse him as I nurst his child,
The child he never saw,
The stricken
child that never smil'd.
And scarce my milk could draw.
Poor girls, whose argument's the same
For seeking or denying,
Who
kiss to shield yourselves from blame,
And kiss for justifying;
How
am I better now or worse,
Beguiler or beguiled,
Who crave to nurse
a clay-cold corse,
And kiss a dead child?
vii
O I was shap't in comeliness,
My face was fashion'd fair,
My breath
was sweet, I used to bless
The treasure of my hair;
A many prais'd
my body's grace,
And follow'd with the eye
My faring in the village
ways,
And I knew why.
Love came my way, fire-flusht and gay,
Where I did stand:
"This is
the day your pride to lay
Under a true man's hand."
I bow'd my
head to hear it said
In words of long ago;
For ever since the world
was made
Our lot was order'd so.
And I was bred in pious bed,
Brought up to be good:
Respect
yourself, my mother said,
And rule your own mood.
Fend for
yourself while you're a may,
And keep your own counsel,
And pick
at what the neighbours say
As a bird picks at groundsel.
But Love said Nay to Watch and Pray
When the birds were singing,

And taught my heart a roundelay
Like the bells a-ringing;
And so

blindfast I ran and cast
My treasure on the gale--
Would the
storm-blast had snapt the mast
Before I fared to sail!
II
i
Now that the Lord has open'd me
The evil with the good,
I am as
one wise suddenly
Who never understood.
I see the shaping of my
days
From the beginning,
When, a young child, I walkt the ways

And knew nought of sinning.
I see how Nature ripen'd me
Under sun and shower,
As she ripens
herb and tree
To bud and to flower.
As she ripens herb and tree

Unto flowering shoot,
So it was she ripen'd me
That I might fruit.
I see--alas, how should I not,
With all joy behind?--
How that in
love I was begot
And for love design'd.
Consentient, my mother
lent,
Blessing, who had been blest,
That fount unspent, my
nourishment,
Which after swell'd my breast.
ii
I learned at home the laws of Earth:
The nest-law that says,
Stray
not too far beyond the hearth,
Keep truth always;
And then the law
of sip and bite:
Work, that there may be some
For you who crowd
the board this night,
And the one that is to come.
The laws are so for bird and beast,
And so we must live:
They give
the most who have the least,
And gain of what they give.
For
working women 'tis the luck,
A child on the lap;
And when a crust
he learn to suck,
Another's for the pap.
iii
I know 'tis true, the laws of Life

Are holy to the poor:
Cleave you to

her who is your wife,
Trust you in her store;
Eat you with sweat
your self-won meat,
Labour the stubborn sod,
And that your heat
may quicken it,
Wait still upon God.
Hallow with praise the wheeling days
Until the cord goes slack,

Until the very heartstring frays,
Until the stiffening back
Can ply no
more; keep then the door,
And, thankful in the sun,
Watch you the
same unending war
Ontaken by your son.
iv
Who is to know how she does grow
Or how shapes her mind?
The
seasons flow, not fast or slow,
We cannot lag behind.
The long
winds blow, a tree lies low
That was an old friend:
The winter snow,
the summer's glow--
Shall these things have an end?
When I was young I used to think
I should not taste of death;
And
now I faint to reach the brink,
And grudge my every breath
That
streameth to the utter air
Leaving me to my tears
And outlook bare,
with eyes astare
Upon the creeping years.
v
That little old house that seems to stoop
Yellow under thatch,
Like
a three-sided chicken-coop,
Where, if you watch,
You'll see the
starlings go and come
All a spring morn--
Half of that is my old
home
Where I was born.
One half a little old cottage
The five of us had,
Five tall sisters in a
cage
With our Mother and Dad.
Alice she was the eldest one,

Then Mary, and then me,
And then Fanny, and little Joan,

The
last-born was she.
Never a boy that liv'd to grow
Did our mother carry;
She us'd to
wonder how she'd do
With five great girls to marry.
But once I

heard her say to Dad,
A chain of pretty girls
Made out her neck the
comelier clad
Than diamonds or pearls.
vi
How we did do on Father's money
Is more than I can tell:
There
was the money from the honey,
And Mother's work as well;
For she
did work with no more rest
Than the buzzing bees,
And the sight