Part 11 (1/2)
G.o.d's rod of avenging morrows, And the life here in my side!
O Mother, G.o.d's Mother of Sorrows, For both I would have died!
By the wall of the Chantry kneeling, I pray and the organ rings, ”_Gloria! gloria!_” pealing, ”_Sancta Maria_” sings!
They will find us dead to-morrow By the wall of their nunnery, O Mother, sweet Mother of Sorrow!
His unborn babe and me.
THE OLD INN.
1.
Red-winding from the sleepy town, One takes the lone, forgotten lane Straight through the hills. A brush-bird brown Bubbles in thorn-flowers sweet with rain; Light s.h.i.+vers sink the gleaming grain; The cautious drip of higher leaves The lower dips that drip again.-- Above the tangled tops it heaves Its gables and its haunted eaves.
2.
One creeper, gnarled to bloomlessness, O'er-forests all its eastern wall; The sighing cedars rake and press Dark boughs along the panes they sprawl; While, where the sun beats, breaks a drawl Of hiving wasps; one bushy bee, Gold-dusty, hurls along the hall To hum into a crack.--To me The shadows seem too scared to flee.
3.
Of ragged chimneys martins make Huge pipes of music; twittering here Build, breed, and roost.--My footfalls wake Strange stealing echoes, till I fear I'll meet my pale self coming near; My phantom face as in a gla.s.s; Or one men murdered, buried--where?
Dim in gray, stealthy glimmer, pa.s.s With lips that seem to moan ”Alas.”
LAST DAYS.
Aye! heartbreak of the tattered hills, And mourning of the raining sky!
Heartbreak and mourning, since G.o.d wills, Are mine, and G.o.d knows why!
The brutal wind that herds the storm In hail-big clouds that freeze along, As this gray heart are doubly warm With thrice the joy of song.
I held one dearer than each day Of life G.o.d sets in limpid gold-- What thief hath stole that gem away To leave me poor and old!
The heartbreak of the hills be mine, Of trampled twig and mired leaf, Of rain that sobs through thorn and pine An unavailing grief!
The sorrow of the childless skies'
_Good-nights_, long said, yet never said, As when I kissed my child's blue eyes And lips ice-dumb and dead.
THE ROMANZA.
In a kingdom of mist and moonlight, Or ever the world was known, Past leagues of unsailed water, There reigned a king with a daughter That shone like a starry stone.