The Village Wifes Lament | Page 8

a murder'd son!

How many wish none they had borne
To do as theirs have done!

Who dares to see a mask of hate
And snarling on the face
Which
she had pray'd to consecrate
To honour for a space?
This high-flusht lad whom she has known
Since as a new-born child

He lay as soft as thistle-down,
Or like an angel smil'd;
Whom she
has seen, a sturdy imp
Tumble bare-breecht at play,
Or nurst to
health when, quiet and limp,
Short-breath'd and flusht he lay;
Or shockhead boy, aburst with joy,
Or gawky, ill-at-ease,
All hot
and coy, a hobbledehoy
With laces round his knees--
But hers, her
own, with eyes that trust
Hers for his better part--
Ah, tiger-lust of
War that thrust
A hand to snatch that heart!
She hides her woe, and helps him go,
She sits at home to pray;
He
tells her when he met the foe,
But nothing of the way.
She never
knows the way, and who
Would know it if she could,
What in his
fever-heat he do
Of rage and dust and blood?
The lads go by, the colours fly,
Drums rattle, bugles bray;
We only
cry, Let mine not die--
No thought for whom he slay.
But woman
bares a martyr breast,
And herself points the flame:
Her son, a hero
or a beast,

Will never be the same.
iii

When forth my love to duty went
I sought my old home,
My few
months' joy over and spent,
And lean years to come.
My mother
blinkt her patient eyes;
She said, It was to be.
Was I less temperate
or more wise
To question her decree?
Was it for this, our clasp and kiss?
For this end and no other
That I
was shapt to have increase,
And call'd to be mother?
Did God make
o'er the power to soar
On men, that they should sink?
Did He
outpour a flood of war
And leave us on the brink?
Was't so He wove the robe of Love,
To mock the lovely earth?
Sees
He, above, creation move
To death, not birth?
Go, thou dear head,
for God is dead,
And Death is our Lord:
Between us, red, lies in the
bed
War, like a naked sword.
iv
O failing heart, accept your part,
And thank the Lord, Who bound

Your labour daily to the mart,
Your service to the ground!
Take to
the mart your stricken heart,
Tho' the chaffer graze it;
Shrink not
altho' the quick flesh smart--
But meet pain and praise it!
v
He came to see me once again,
Stiffen'd in his new buff:
A few
short hours compact of strain,
Too hasty for love;
For Love can
never be confin'd,
But asks eternity.
To nurse the lov'd one in the
mind
The bond must first be free.
And he, he now serv'd otherwhere
And could not be the same;
To
all the world my love was there
And answer'd to his name;
But not
to me, oh, not to me
The kisses of his lips
Were as of old, but
guardedly,
Like sunlight in eclipse.
The moment came, I held him close,
But had no word to say--


Good-bye, sweetheart, Good-bye, Blush Rose:
'Twas his old way.

Then in a hush which seem'd to rock
Me like a leaf about,
I heard
the pulsing of the clock,
Counting my dear life out.
And I am here, and you are, where?
While the long hours go by,

And on my eyes the glaze of care,
And in my heart a cry.
Bury my
heart deep in the grave
Where all its grace is hid:
What other
service should I have
Than tend my lovely dead?
vi
Then waiting, watching, judging news,
Then terror in the night--
I
used to start up with the dews
All over me of fright.
I dream'd of
him on stormy seas;
Then, in a woodland bare,
I saw my love on
hands and knees,
With blood upon his hair.
Along the limits of the wood,
A green bank full of holes,
With
lichen'd stumps which lean'd or stood
Like crazy channel-poles:

'Twas there I saw my love's drawn face,
A face of paper-white,

Wherein just for a choking space
His eyes shone burning bright;
Then faded, and an eyeless man
He crawled along the wood,
And
from his hair a black line ran
And broaden'd into blood.
It was not
horror of him wrong'd,
It was not pity mov'd me;
It was, those
tortur'd eyes belong'd
To one who'd never lov'd me.
That was my love in face and shape,
That was my love in pain;
But
something told me past escape
That not by him I'd lain.
I sat and
star'd into the night,
And still most dreadfully
I saw those two eyes
burning white
That never had seen me!
vii
Upon a wild March morn
My husband went to France;
The day my
child was born
His word came to advance.

'Twas on that very day
When my life should be crown'd,
As I lay in,
he lay
Broken upon the ground.
For my loss there was gain,
But his precious blood
Was shed to
earth like rain
Within the shatter'd wood.
Missing, the paper said,
But my heart said, Nay.
Missing! My man
had been dead
Before he went away!
viii
It never throve from the first,
Mother, she seem'd to fear it;
But her
words were the worst:
"Nancy, you'll never rear it."
Yet he took to the breast
And I knew the great end
Of women, to
give their best,
To