The Village Wifes Lament | Page 4

heart woke
Nature out of her sleep.
So once, they tell, did Gabriel
Name a young Maid
For honour and
a miracle,
And few words she said;
But things have changed a
wondrous deal
Since she was nam'd,
If to her room she did not steal

As if she were asham'd;
And there upon her bed to sit
Astare, as I guess,
Watching her
fingers weave and knit,
Bedded in her dress,
A-thinking thoughts in
her young mind
Too wild for tears to gain,
As when the roaring
North-West wind

Gives no time to the rain.
iv
Give thanks, you maids, that there's your work
To keep your heart
and head
From thoughts that lurk in them who shirk
Their daily

round to tread.
But she goes bold who feels the hold
And colour of
her love
Laid on her task like water-gold
From the lit sky above.
v
I rose with early morning light,
The meadows grey with rime,
To
set the kitchen fire, and dight
The room for breakfast-time;
Or make
the beds, or rinse and scour,
And all the while
A singing heart, a
face aflower,
And secret smile.
So 'twas with me week in, week out,
And no more to be said;
A
moment's look, a hint of doubt,
A half-turn of the head.
I had my
hands as full as full,
And full of work was he--
But I learn'd in
another school
After he'd lookt at me.
vi
In summer time of flowers and bees
And flies on the pane,
Before
the sun could gild the trees
Or set afire the vane,
Down I must go
upon my knees,
Or ply the showering mop;
Then feed the chicken,
ducks and geese,
And milk the last drop.
On winter mornings dark and hard,
White from aching bed,
There
were the huddled fowls in yard
All to be fed.
My frozen breath
stream'd from my lips,
The cows were hid in steam;
I lost sense of
my finger-tips
And milkt in a dream.
My drowsy cheek fast to her side,
The pail below my arm,
My
thought leapt what might me betide,
And soon I was warm.
For that
gave me a beating heart
And made me hot thro',
As when you
reckon, with a start,

Someone speaks of you.
vii
And all my years of farm-service
There was no dismay,
But men

and maids knew nought amiss
With their work or play;
But grew
amain like tree or beast,
Labouring out their lives
Till sap and milk
fill'd spine and breast,
And ripen'd men and wives.
What call had we to think of war,
We growing things?
What need
had we to reckon o'er
Misdoubts or threatenings?
A soldier-lad in
his red coat
Show'd up then as he past
Like a lamplighted
fishing-boat
Lonely in the vast.
An aeroplane in middle sky
Might bring us to our doors,
To see her
like a dragon-fly
Droning as she soars.
Long before you see her
come
You can hear her throbbing,
Far, far away like a distant drum,

Near, like a thresher sobbing.
Ah, in those days of wonderment,
Wonder and delight,
No thought
we spent what murder meant,
Horror in the night;
Or how a hidden
dreadful plan
Like a fingering weed
Was growing up in the mind of
man
From a fungus-seed!
IV
i
Out of the clear how shrewdly blows
The North-West wind!
Free as
he goes, how brave he shows,
The sun seems blind!
The shadows
fleet upon the grass
Where the kestrels hover--
What leagues of
sorrow they must pass
Before they shroud my lover!
Half-naked now, confronting cold,
The tall trees shiver,
Each with
its pool of pallid gold
Draining down to the river.
'Tis now when
fret of winter wet
Warns the year she is old,
And she casts robe and
coronet,
That I would loosen hold.
ii

Our lives creep on to change at last,
And change is sudden coming;

Rooted you see yourself and fast,
And then be sent roaming.
When
I was come to twenty years,
Home for a spell,
Mother she brought a
flush of tears
With what she had to tell.
There was a fine new place for me
Forty miles away--
And where
my dream of what might be
One fine day?
The farmer's wife she
kiss'd me kindly
When I was paid;
But Ted and I said Goodbye
blindly,
And no more said.
No word between us of the thought
That fill'd four years,
No fond
look caught by eyes well taught,
Tho' thick with tears!
'Twas
Goodbye, Nance, and Goodbye, Ted,
And just a clasp of the hand:

Maybe I'll write, he might have said
For me to understand.
But poor people have need to work
Whether merry or sad,

Whatever groping thought do lurk,
Whatever dreams they've had!
I
went my way and he kept his,
I to the county town,
He in a row of
cottages
Below the hump-backt down.
iii
A town-bred girl, her hair in curl
And apron edged with lace,
She
took me in, my head awhirl,
To my new place.
And there the five of
us must hive
In that warm shutter'd house,
And keep our honesty
alive
With none to counsel us.
The master and the mistresses,
What were they but strangers?
'Twas
no part of their businesses
To think of servants' dangers.
They sneer
at us, and we at them,
Life sunders where the stairs are:

But are the
things that they condemn
In us much worse than theirs are?
iv
'Twas busy now I had to be,
And keep myself neat,
Dress in my

new black gown by tea,
And streamer'd