Poems & Ballads Volume II Part 10

What G.o.d in your own tongue shall talk with thee, Showing how all souls that look upon the sun Shall be for thee one spirit and thy son, And thy soul's child the soul of man to be?

_January 3, 1876._

INFERIAE

Spring, and the light and sound of things on earth Requickening, all within our green sea's girth; A time of pa.s.sage or a time of birth Fourscore years since as this year, first and last.

The sun is all about the world we see, The breath and strength of very spring; and we Live, love, and feed on our own hearts; but he Whose heart fed mine has pa.s.sed into the past.

Past, all things born with sense and blood and breath; The flesh hears nought that now the spirit saith.

If death be like as birth and birth as death, The first was fair--more fair should be the last.

Fourscore years since, and come but one month more The count were perfect of his mortal score Whose sail went seaward yesterday from sh.o.r.e To cross the last of many an unsailed sea.

Light, love and labour up to life's last height, These three were stars unsetting in his sight; Even as the sun is life and heat and light And sets not nor is dark when dark are we.

The life, the spirit, and the work were one That here--ah, who shall say, that here are done?

Not I, that know not; father, not thy son, For all the darkness of the night and sea.

_March 5, 1877_

A BIRTH-SONG

(For Olivia Frances Madox Rossetti, born September 20, 1875)

Out of the dark sweet sleep Where no dreams laugh or weep Borne through bright gates of birth Into the dim sweet light Where day still dreams of night While heaven takes form on earth, White rose of spirit and flesh, red lily of love, What note of song have we Fit for the birds and thee, Fair nestling couched beneath the mother-dove?

Nay, in some more divine Small speechless song of thine Some news too good for words, Heart-hushed and smiling, we Might hope to have of thee, The youngest of G.o.d's birds, If thy sweet sense might mix itself with ours, If ours might understand The language of thy land, Ere thine become the tongue of mortal hours:

Ere thy lips learn too soon Their soft first human tune, Sweet, but less sweet than now, And thy raised eyes to read Glad and good things indeed, But none so sweet as thou: Ere thought lift up their flower-soft lids to see What life and love on earth Bring thee for gifts at birth, But none so good as thine who hast given us thee:

Now, ere thy sense forget The heaven that fills it yet, Now, sleeping or awake, If thou couldst tell, or we Ask and be heard of thee, For love's undying sake, From thy dumb lips divine and bright mute speech Such news might touch our ear That then would burn to hear Too high a message now for man's to reach.

Ere the gold hair of corn Had withered wast thou born, To make the good time glad; The time that but last year Fell colder than a tear On hearts and hopes turned sad, High hopes and hearts requickening in thy dawn, Even theirs whose life-springs, child, Filled thine with life and smiled, But then wept blood for half their own withdrawn.[1]

If death and birth be one, And set with rise of sun, And truth with dreams divine, Some word might come with thee From over the still sea Deep hid in shade or shine, Crossed by the crossing sails of death and birth, Word of some sweet new thing Fit for such lips to bring, Some word of love, some afterthought of earth.

If love be strong as death, By what so natural breath As thine could this be said?

By what so lovely way Could love send word to say He lives and is not dead?

Such word alone were fit for only thee, If his and thine have met Where spirits rise and set, His whom we see not, thine whom scarce we see:

His there new-born, as thou New-born among us now; His, here so fruitful-souled, Now veiled and silent here, Now dumb as thou last year, A ghost of one year old: If lights that change their sphere in changing meet, Some ray might his not give To thine who wast to live, And make thy present with his past life sweet?

Let dreams that laugh or weep, All glad and sad dreams, sleep; Truth more than dreams is dear.

Let thoughts that change and fly, Sweet thoughts and swift, go by; More than all thought is here.

More than all hope can forge or memory feign The life that in our eyes, Made out of love's life, lies, And flower-like fed with love for sun and rain.

Twice royal in its root The sweet small olive-shoot Here set in sacred earth; Twice dowered with glorious grace From either heaven-born race First blended in its birth; Fair G.o.d or Genius of so fair an hour, For love of either name Twice crowned, with love and fame, Guard and be gracious to the fair-named flower.

_October 19, 1875._

[Footnote 1: Oliver Madox Brown died November 5, 1874, in his twentieth year.]

EX-VOTO

When their last hour shall rise Pale on these mortal eyes, Herself like one that dies, And kiss me dying The cold last kiss, and fold Close round my limbs her cold Soft shade as raiment rolled And leave them lying,

If aught my soul would say Might move to hear me pray The birth-G.o.d of my day That he might hearken, This grace my heart should crave, To find no landward grave That worldly springs make brave, World's winters darken,

Nor grow through gradual hours The cold blind seed of flowers Made by new beams and showers From limbs that moulder, Nor take my part with earth, But find for death's new birth A bed of larger girth, More chaste and colder.

Not earth's for spring and fall, Not earth's at heart, not all Earth's making, though men call Earth only mother, Not hers at heart she bare Me, but thy child, O fair Sea, and thy brother's care, The wind thy brother.

Yours was I born, and ye, The sea-wind and the sea, Made all my soul in me A song for ever, A harp to string and smite For love's sake of the bright Wind and the sea's delight, To fail them never:

Not while on this side death I hear what either saith And drink of either's breath With heart's thanksgiving That in my veins like wine Some sharp salt blood of thine, Some springtide pulse of brine, Yet leaps up living.

When thy salt lips wellnigh Sucked in my mouth's last sigh, Grudged I so much to die This death as others?

Was it no ease to think The chalice from whose brink Fate gave me death to drink Was thine--my mother's?

Thee too, the all-fostering earth, Fair as thy fairest birth, More than thy worthiest worth, We call, we know thee, More sweet and just and dread Than live men highest of head Or even thy holiest dead Laid low below thee.

The sunbeam on the sheaf, The dewfall on the leaf, All joy, all grace, all grief, Are thine for giving; Of thee our loves are born, Our lives and loves, that mourn And triumph; tares with corn, Dead seed with living:

All good and ill things done In eyeshot of the sun At last in thee made one Rest well contented; All words of all man's breath And works he doth or saith, All wholly done to death, None long lamented.

A slave to sons of thee, Thou, seeming, yet art free; But who shall make the sea Serve even in seeming?

What plough shall bid it bear Seed to the sun and the air, Fruit for thy strong sons' fare, Fresh wine's foam streaming?

What oldworld son of thine, Made drunk with death as wine, Hath drunk the bright sea's brine With lips of laughter?

Thy blood they drink; but he Who hath drunken of the sea Once deeplier than of thee Shall drink not after.

Of thee thy sons of men Drink deep, and thirst again; For wine in feasts, and then In fields for slaughter; But thirst shall touch not him Who hath felt with sense grown dim Rise, covering lip and limb, The wan sea's water.

All fire of thirst that aches The salt sea cools and slakes More than all springs or lakes, Freshets or shallows; Wells where no beam can burn Through frondage of the fern That hides from hart and hern The haunt it hallows.

Peace with all graves on earth For death or sleep or birth Be alway, one in worth One with another; But when my time shall be, O mother, O my sea, Alive or dead, take me, Me too, my mother.