RIZPAH

647

17

WAILING, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea

And Willy's voice in the wind, "O mother, come out to me!"
Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go?
For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the

snow.

We should be seen, my dear; they would spy us out of the town. The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the down, When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain, And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with the

rain.

Anything fallen again? nay-what was there left to fall?

I have taken them home, I have number'd the bones, I have hidden them all.

What am I saying? and what are you? do you come as a spy?
Falls? what falls? who knows? As the tree falls so must it lie.

Who let her in? how long has she been? you-what have you heard? Why did you sit so quiet? you never have spoken a word.

O to pray with me-yes-a lady-none of their spies

But the night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken my eyes.

Ah—you, that lived so soft, what should you know of the night, The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost and the fright? I have done it, while you were asleep-you were only made for the day.

I have gather'd my baby together-and now you may go your way.

Nay-for it's kind of you, madam, to sit by an old dying wife.
But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life.
I kiss'd my boy in the prison, before he went out to die.
"They dared me to do it," he said, and he never has told me a lie.

I whipped him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a child"The farmer dared me to do it," he said; he was always so wild

And idle-and couldn't be idle-my Willy-he never could rest. The King should have made him a soldier, he would have been one of his best.

But he lived with a lot of wild mates, and they never would let him be good;

They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he swore that he would; And he took no life, but he took one purse, and when all was done He flung it among his fellows-"I'll none of it," said my son.

I came into court to the judge and the lawyers. I told them my tale, God's own truth-but they kill'd him, they kill'd him for robbing the mail.

They hang'd him in chains for a show-we had always borne a good

name

To be hang'd for a thief—and then put away-isn't that enough shame?

Dust to dust-low down-let us hide! but they set him so high
That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by.
God'll pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air,
But not the black heart of the lawyer who kill'd him and hang'd him
there.

And the jailer forced me away. I had bid him my last good-bye;
They had fasten'd the door of his cell. "O mother!" I heard him cry.
I couldn't get back tho' I tried, he had something further to say,
And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me away.

Then since I couldn't but hear that cry of my boy that was dead, They seized me and shut me up: they fasten'd me down on my bed. "Mother, O mother!"-he call'd in the dark to me year after year— They beat me for that, they beat me-you know that I couldn't but hear;

And then at the last they found I had grown so stupid and still They let me abroad again—but the creatures had worked their will.

Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was left

I stole them all from the lawyers-and you, will you call it a theft?— My baby, the bones that had suck'd me, the bones that had laughed and had cried

Theirs? O, no! they are mine-not theirs-they had moved in my side.

Do

you think I was scared by the bones? I kiss'd 'em, I buried 'em

all

I can't dig deep, I am old-in the night by the churchyard wall. My Willy'll rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment'll sound, But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground.

They would scratch him up-they would hang him again on the cursed tree.

Sin? O, yes, we are sinners, I know-let all that be,

And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's goodwill toward men"Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord"-let me hear it again; "Full of compassion and mercy-long-suffering." Yes, O, yes! For the lawyer is born but to murder-the Saviour lives but to bless.

He'll never put on the black cap except for the worst of the worst, And the first may be last-I have heard it in church-and the last may be first.

Suffering-O, long-suffering-yes, as the Lord must know,

Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow.

Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never repented his

sin.

How do they know it? are they his mother? are you of his kin?
Heard! have you ever heard, when the storm on the downs began,
The wind that'll wail like a child and the sea that'll moan like a man?

Election, Election, and Reprobation-it's all very well.

But I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not find him in Hell.

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.

And if he be lost-but to save my soul, that is all your desire-
Do you think that 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.

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 the 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!

648

Nay-you can hear it yourself-it is coming-shaking the wallsWilly-the moon's in a cloud-Good-night. I am going. He calls.

TO VIRGIL

ROMAN VIRGIL, thou that singest Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire, Ilion falling, Rome arising, wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;

Landscape-lover, lord of language more than he that sang the "Works and Days,"

All the chosen coin of fancy flashing out from many a golden phrase;

Thou that singest wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;

All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word;

Poet of the happy Tityrus piping underneath his beechen bowers; Poet of the poet-satyr whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers;

Chanter of the Pollio, glorying in the blissful years again to be, Summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea;

Thou that seest Universal Nature moved by Universal Mind; Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind;

Light among the vanish'd ages; star that gildest yet this phantom shore;

Golden branch amid the shadows, kings and realms that pass to rise

no more;

Now thy Forum roars no longer, fallen every purple Cæsar's domeTho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm sound forever of Imperial Rome

Now the Rome of slaves hath perish'd, and the Rome of freemen holds her place,

I, from out the Northern Islands sunder'd once from all the human race,

I salute thee, Mantovano, I that loved thee since my day began, Wielder of the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man.

649

MAUD

PART I

I

I

I HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little wood,
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,
And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers "Death."

2

For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found,
His who had given me life-O father! O God! was it well?—
Mangled, and flatten'd, and crush'd, and dinted into the ground:
There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he fell.

3

Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had fail'd,

And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair, And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd, And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air.

4

I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr'd

By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a whisper'd fright, And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as I heard The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night.

5

Villainy somewhere! whose? One says, we are villains all.
Not he: his honest fame should at least by me be maintain'd:
But that old man, now lord of the broad estate and the Hall,
Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us flaccid and drain'd.

6

Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a

curse,

Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;