ODE ON A GRECIAN URN. 57 Ode on a Grecian Urn. HOU still unravished bride of quietness! TH Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time! Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme ! What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? what maidens loath ? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Though winning near the goal; yet do not grieve- Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! Forever-panting and forever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead and a parching tongue. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe JOHN KEATS. Mother and Poet. (Turin, after news from Gaeta, 1861.) EAD! One of them shot by the sea in the east, DE And one of them shot in the west by the sea! Yet I was a poetess only last year, And good at my art, for a woman, men said; But this woman, this, who is agonized here, -The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head Forever instead. MOTHER AND POET. What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain! With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain? What art's for a woman? to hold on her knees Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ! To teach them . . It stings there! I made them, indeed, The tyrant cast out. And when their eyes flashed . . O my beautiful eyes! . . God, how the house feels! At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled With my kisses,-of camp-life and glory, and how They both loved me, and, soon coming home to be spoiled, In return would fan off every fly from my brow With their green laurel-bough. Then was triumph at Turin: "Ancona was free!" While they cheered in the street. I bore it; friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong, My Nanni would add, "he was safe, and aware To live on for the rest." On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line No voice says "my mother" again to me. What! Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven, O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through the dark To the face of Thy mother! consider, I pray, How we common mothers stand desolate, mark, Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, And no last word to say! MOTHER AND POET. Both boys dead? but that's out of nature. 61 We all Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall; And, when Italy's made, for what end is it done, Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then? When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, 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),- What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low, And burn your lights faintly! Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow: Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength, 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 Dead! When the man-child is born. One of them shot by the sea in the east, ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. |