Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806–61Mother and Poet
BrowningEBD
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me!
And good at my art, for a woman, men said;
But this woman, this, who is agoniz’d here,
—The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
For ever instead.
What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain?
Ah boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you press’d,
And I proud, by that test.
Both Darlings; to feel all their arms round her throat,
Cling, strangle a little, to sew by degrees
And ’broider the long-clothes and neat little coat;
To dream and to doat.
Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,
That a country’s a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant cast out.
I exulted; nay, let them go forth at the wheels
Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise
When one sits quite alone! Then one weeps, then one kneels!
God, how the house feels!
With my kisses,—of camp-life and glory, and how
They both lov’d me; and, soon coming home to be spoil’d,
In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.
And someone came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet,
While they cheer’d in the street.
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remain’d
To be leant on and walk’d with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of us strain’d
To the height he had gain’d.
Writ now but in one hand, “I was not to faint,—
One lov’d me for two—would be with me ere long:
And Viva l’ Italia!—he died for, our saint,
Who forbids our complaint.”
Of a presence that turn’d off the balls,—was impress’d
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how ’t was impossible, quite dispossess’d,
To live on for the rest.”
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta:—Shot.
Tell his mother. Ah, ah, “his,” “their” mother,—not “mine,”
No voice says “My mother” again to me. What!
You think Guido forgot?
They drop earth’s affections, conceive not of woe?
I think not. Themselves were to lately forgiven
Through T
The Above and Below.
To the face of Thy mother! consider, I pray,
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,
Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turn’d away,
And no last word to say!
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.
’T were imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall;
And, when Italy’s made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son?
When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport
Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men?
When the guns of Cavalli with final retort
Have cut the game short?
When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy’s crown on his head,
(And I have my Dead)—
And burn your lights faintly! My country is there,
Above the star prick’d by the last peak of snow:
My Italy’s
To disfranchise despair!
And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn;
But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length
Into wail such as this—and we sit on forlorn
When the man-child is born.
And one of them shot in the west by the sea,
Both! both my boys! If in keeping the feast
You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me
[This was Laura Savio, of Turin, a poet and patriot, whose sons were killed at Ancona and Gaeta.]