POEMS

3

A CHILD’S GRAVE AT FLORENCE.

A.A.E.C.
Born, July 1848. Died, November 1849

I. Of English blood, of Tuscan birth, What country should we give her? Instead of any on the earth, The civic Heavens receive her. II. And here among the English tombs In Tuscan ground we lay her, While the blue Tuscan sky endomes Our English words of prayer. 4 III. A little child!—how long she lived, By months, not years, is reckoned: Born in one July, she survived Alone to see a second. IV. Bright-featured, as the July sun Her little face still played in, And splendours, with her birth begun, Had had no time for fading. V. So, Lily, from those July hours, No wonder we should call her; She looked such kinship to the flowers,— Was but a little taller. VI. A Tuscan Lily,—only white, As Dante, in abhorrence Of red corruption, wished aright The lilies of his Florence. 5 VII. We could not wish her whiter,—her Who perfumed with pure blossom The house—a lovely thing to wear Upon a mother’s bosom! VIII. This July creature thought perhaps Our speech not worth assuming; She sat upon her parents’ laps And mimicked the gnat’s humming; IX. Said “father,” “mother”—then left off, For tongues celestial, fitter: Her hair had grown just long enough To catch heaven’s jasper-glitter. X. Babes! Love could always hear and see Behind the cloud that hid them. “Let little children come to Me, And do not thou forbid them.” 6 XI. So, unforbidding, have we met, And gently here have laid her, Though winter is no time to get The flowers that should o’erspread her: XII. We should bring pansies quick with spring, Rose, violet, daffodilly, And also, above everything, White lilies for our Lily. XIII. Nay, more than flowers, this grave exacts,— Glad, grateful attestations Of her sweet eyes and pretty acts, With calm renunciations. XIV. Her very mother with light feet Should leave the place too earthy, Saying “The angels have thee, Sweet, Because we are not worthy.” 7 XV. But winter kills the orange-buds, The gardens in the frost are, And all the heart dissolves in floods, Remembering we have lost her. XVI. Poor earth, poor heart,—too weak, too weak To miss the July shining! Poor heart!—what bitter words we speak When God speaks of resigning! XVII. Sustain this heart in us that faints, Thou God, the self-existent! We catch up wild at parting saints And feel Thy heaven too distant. XVIII. The wind that swept them out of sin Has ruffled all our vesture: On the shut door that let them in We beat with frantic gesture,— 8 XIX. To us, us also, open straight! The outer life is chilly; Are we too, like the earth, to wait Till next year for our Lily? XX. —Oh, my own baby on my knees, My leaping, dimpled treasure, At every word I write like these, Clasped close with stronger pressure! XXI. Too well my own heart understands,— At every word beats fuller— My little feet, my little hands, And hair of Lily’s colour! XXII. But God gives patience, Love learns strength, And Faith remembers promise, And Hope itself can smile at length On other hopes gone from us. 9 XXIII. Love, strong as Death, shall conquer Death, Through struggle made more glorious: This mother stills her sobbing breath, Renouncing yet victorious. XXIV. Arms, empty of her child, she lifts With spirit unbereaven,— “God will not all take back His gifts; My Lily’s mine in heaven. XXV. “Still mine! maternal rights serene Not given to another! The crystal bars shine faint between The souls of child and mother. XXVI. “Meanwhile,” the mother cries, “content! Our love was well divided: Its sweetness following where she went, Its anguish stayed where I did. 10 XXVII. “Well done of God, to halve the lot, And give her all the sweetness; To us, the empty room and cot,— To her, the Heaven’s completeness. XXVIII. “To us, this grave,—to her, the rows The mystic palm-trees spring in; To us, the silence in the house,— To her, the choral singing. XXIX. “For her, to gladden in God’s view,— For us, to hope and bear on. Grow, Lily, in thy garden new, Beside the Rose of Sharon! XXX. “Grow fast in heaven, sweet Lily clipped, In love more calm than this is, And may the angels dewy-lipped Remind thee of our kisses! 11 XXXI. “While none shall tell thee of our tears, These human tears now falling, Till, after a few patient years, One home shall take us all in. XXXII. “Child, father, mother—who, left out? Not mother, and not father! And when, our dying couch about, The natural mists shall gather, XXXIII. “Some smiling angel close shall stand In old Correggio’s fashion, And bear a Lily in his hand, For death’s ANNUNCIATION.”

12

CATARINA TO CAMOENS

(DYING IN HIS ABSENCE ABROAD, AND REFERRING TO THE POEM IN WHICH HE RECORDED THE SWEETNESS OF HER EYES).

I. On the door you will not enter, I have gazed too long: adieu! Hope withdraws her peradventure; Death is near me,—and not you. Come, O lover, Close and cover These poor eyes, you called, I ween, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen!” II. When I heard you sing that burden In my vernal days and bowers, Other praises disregarding, I but hearkened that of yours— 13 Only saying In heart-playing, “Blessed eyes mine eyes have been, If the sweetest HIS have seen!” III. But all changes. At this vesper, Cold the sun shines down the door. If you stood there, would you whisper “Love, I love you,” as before,— Death pervading Now, and shading Eyes you sang of, that yestreen, As the sweetest ever seen? IV. Yes. I think, were you beside them, Near the bed I die upon, Though their beauty you denied them, As you stood there, looking down, You would truly Call them duly, For the love’s sake found therein, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” 14 V. And if you looked down upon them, And if they looked up to you, All the light which has foregone them Would be gathered back anew: They would truly Be as duly Love-transformed to beauty’s sheen, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” VI. But, ah me! you only see me, In your thoughts of loving man, Smiling soft perhaps and dreamy Through the wavings of my fan; And unweeting Go repeating, In your reverie serene, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen——” VII. While my spirit leans and reaches From my body still and pale, Fain to hear what tender speech is In your love to help my bale. 15 O my poet, Come and show it! Come, of latest love, to glean “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” VIII. O my poet, O my prophet, When you praised their sweetness so, Did you think, in singing of it, That it might be near to go? Had you fancies From their glances, That the grave would quickly screen “Sweetest eyes were ever seen”? IX. No reply. The fountain’s warble In the courtyard sounds alone. As the water to the marble So my heart falls with a moan From love-sighing To this dying. Death forerunneth Love to win “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” 16 X. Will you come? When I’m departed Where all sweetnesses are hid, Where thy voice, my tender-hearted, Will not lift up either lid. Cry, O lover, Love is over! Cry, beneath the cypress green, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen!” XI. When the angelus is ringing, Near the convent will you walk, And recall the choral singing Which brought angels down our talk? Spirit-shriven I viewed Heaven, Till you smiled—“Is earth unclean, Sweetest eyes were ever seen?” XII. When beneath the palace-lattice You ride slow as you have done, And you see a face there that is Not the old familiar one,— 17 Will you oftly Murmur softly, “Here ye watched me morn and e’en, Sweetest eyes were ever seen!” XIII. When the palace-ladies, sitting Round your gittern, shall have said, “Poet, sing those verses written For the lady who is dead,” Will you tremble Yet dissemble,— Or sing hoarse, with tears between, “Sweetest eyes were ever seen”? XIV. “Sweetest eyes!” how sweet in flowings The repeated cadence is! Though you sang a hundred poems, Still the best one would be this. I can hear it ’Twixt my spirit And the earth-noise intervene— “Sweetest eyes were ever seen!” 18 XV. But the priest waits for the praying, And the choir are on their knees, And the soul must pass away in Strains more solemn-high than these. Miserere For the weary! Oh, no longer for Catrine “Sweetest eyes were ever seen!” XVI. Keep my riband, take and keep it, (I have loosed it from my hair)[1] Feeling, while you overweep it, Not alone in your despair, Since with saintly Watch unfaintly Out of heaven shall o’er you lean “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” XVII. But—but now—yet unremovèd Up to heaven, they glisten fast; 19 You may cast away, Belovèd, In your future all my past: Such old phrases May be praises For some fairer bosom-queen— “Sweetest eyes were ever seen!” XVIII. Eyes of mine, what are ye doing? Faithless, faithless,—praised amiss If a tear be of your showing, Dropt for any hope of HIS! Death has boldness Besides coldness, If unworthy tears demean “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.” XIX. I will look out to his future; I will bless it till it shine. Should he ever be a suitor Unto sweeter eyes than mine, Sunshine gild them, Angels shield them, Whatsoever eyes terrene Be the sweetest HIS have seen!