Be changed, or change for thee, and love so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for XVII My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes From thence into their ears. God's will devotes II When our two souls stand up erect and strong, And isolate pure spirits, and permit A place to stand and love in for a day, XX Beloved, my Beloved, when I think ΙΟ XXVIII My letters all dead paper, mute and white! string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. - 10 XXI Say over again and yet once over again That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it, Remember never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain, Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed! Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN II I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith; I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. 20 The old hope is hardest to be lost: But the young, young children, O my brothers, Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland? They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their looks are sad to see, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy; "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary, Our young feet," they say, "are very weak! Few paces have we taken, yet are weary 31 We looked into the pit prepared to take her: 435 Was no room for any work in the close clay! From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.' If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, With your ear down, little Alice never cries; Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her, For a smile has time for growing in her eyes: And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in The shroud by the kirk-chime. 50 It is good when it happens," say the children, "That we die before our time." "For oh," say the children, "we are weary, If we cared for any meadows, it were merely We fall upon our faces, trying to go; 70 And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) Strangers speaking at the door: Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, Hears our weeping any more? "Two words, indeed, of praying we remember; And at midnight's hour of harm, 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm. We know no other words, except 'Our Father,' And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both within His right hand which is strong. 120 'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely (For they call Him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 'Come and rest with me, my child.' "But no!" say the children, weeping faster, "He is speechless as a stone: And they tell us, of His image is the master Go to!" say the children, "Up in Heaven, Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find: 130 Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving: We look up for God, but tears have made us blind." Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, O my brothers, what ye preach? For God's possible is taught by His world's loving, And the children doubt of each. |