For I cared so much for my boy that the Lord has look'd into my care, And He means me I'm sure to be happy with Willy, I know not where. XVI. And if he be lost-but to save my soul, that is all your desire: Do you think I care for my soul if my boy be gone to the fire? I have been with God in the dark-go, go, you may leave me alone You never have borne a child--you are just as hard as a stone. XVII. Madam, I beg your pardon! I think that you mean to be kind, But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy's voice in the wind The snow and sky so bright--he used but to call in the dark, And he calls to me now from the church and not from the gibbet--for hark! Nay-you can hear it yourself-it is coming-shaking the walls Willy-the moon's in a cloud- Good-night. I am going. He calls. DEDICATORY POEM TO THE PRINCESS ALICE. DEAD PRINCESS, living Power, if that, which lived From thine own State, and all our breadth of realm, But that some broken gleam from our poor earth DE PROFUNDIS. THE TWO GREETINGS. I. OUT of the deep, my child, out of the deep, With this last moon, this crescent-her dark orb Whose face and form are hers and mine in one, Live and be happy in thyself, and serve This mortal race thy kin so well, that men May bless thee as we bless thee; O young life, To that last deep where we and thou are still. II. OUT of the deep, my child, out of the deep, With this ninth moon that sends the hidden sun For in the world, which is not ours, They said Let us make man" and that which should be man, Sun, sun, and sun, thro' finite-infinite space Out of His whole World-self and all in all- But this main miracle, that thou art thou, With power on thine own, act and on the world. SONGS FROM THE ANCIENT SAGE. How far thro' all the bloom and brake What power but the bird's could make How summer-bright are yonder skies, And yet what sign of aught that lies But man to-day is fancy's fool As man hath ever been. The nameless Power, or Powers, that rule Were never heard or seen. What Power but the Years that make And stir the sleeping earth, and wake What rulers but the Days and Hours And wind the front of youth with flowers, But vain the tears for darken'd years And vain the laughter as the tears, For all that laugh, and all that weep Yet wine and laughter friends! and set The years that make the stripling wise And leave him, blind of heart and eyes, Who clings to earth, and once would dare And now one breath of cooler air The wife, the sons, who love him best The griefs by which he once was wrung The shaft of scorn that once had stung SELECTIONS FROM LOCKSLEY HALL. SIXTY YEARS AFTER. LATE, my grandson! half the morning have I paced these sandy tracts; Watch'd again the hollow ridges roaring into cataracts, Wander'd back to living boyhood while I heard the curlew's call, I myself so close on death, and death itself in Locksley Hall. So your happy suit was blasted-she the faultless, the divine; And you liken-boyish babble-this boy-love of yours with mine. I myself have often babbled doubtless of a foolish past; last. Curse him!" curse your fellow-victim? call him dotard in your rage? Eyes that lured a doting boyhood well might fool a dotard's age. Jilted for a wealthier! wealthier? yet perhaps she was not wise; I remember how you kiss'd the miniature with those sweet eyes. In the hall there hangs a painting-Amy's arms about my neck Happy children in a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck. In my life there was a picture, she that clasped my neck had flown; I was left within the shadow sitting on the wreck alone. Yours has been a slighter ailment, will you sicken for her sake? You, not you! your modern amourist is of easier, earthier make. Amy lov'd me, Amy fail'd me, Amy was a timid child; But your Judith-but your worldling-she had never driven me wild. |