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 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