Shakespeare

To rest the weary nurse has gone:An eight-day watch had watched she,Still rocking beneath sun and moonThe baby on her knee,Till Isobel its mother said"The fever waneth--wend to bed,For now the watch comes round to me."

Then wearily the nurse did throwHer pallet in the darkest placeOf that sick room, and slept and dreamed:For, as the gusty wind did blowThe night-lamp's flare across her face,She saw or seemed to see, but dreamed,That the poplars tall on the opposite hill,The seven tall poplars on the hill,Did clasp the setting sun untilHis rays dropped from him, pined and stillAs blossoms in frost,Till he waned and paled, so weirdly crossed,To the colour of moonlight which doth passOver the dank ridged churchyard grass.The poplars held the sun, and heThe eyes of the nurse that they should not see--Not for a moment, the babe on her knee,Though she shuddered to feel that it grew to beToo chill, and lay too heavily.

She only dreamed; for all the while'T was Lady Isobel that keptThe little baby: and it sleptFast, warm, as if its mother's smile,Laden with love's dewy weight,And red as rose of HarpocrateDropt upon its eyelids, pressedLashes to cheek in a sealed rest.

And more and more smiled IsobelTo see the baby sleep so well--She knew not that she smiled.Against the lattice, dull and wildDrive the heavy droning drops,Drop by drop, the sound being one;As momently time's segments fallOn the ear of God, who hears through allEternity's unbroken monotone:And more and more smiled IsobelTo see the baby sleep so well--She knew not that she smiled.The wind in intermission stopsDown in the beechen forest,Then cries aloudAs one at the sorest,Self-stung, self-driven,And rises up to its very tops,Stiffening erect the branches bowed,Dilating with a tempest-soulThe trees that with their dark hands breakThrough their own outline, and heavy rollShadows as massive as clouds in heavenAcross the castle lakeAnd more and more smiled IsobelTo see the baby sleep so well;She knew not that she smiled;She knew not that the storm was wild;Through the uproar drear she could not hearThe castle clock which struck anear--She heard the low, light breathing of her child.

O sight for wondering look!While the external nature brokeInto such abandonment,While the very mist, heart-rentBy the lightning, seemed to eddyAgainst nature, with a din,--A sense of silence and of steadyNatural calm appeared to comeFrom things without, and enter inThe human creature's room.

So motionless she sate,The babe asleep upon her knees,You might have dreamed their souls had goneAway to things inanimate,In such to live, in such to moan;And that their bodies had ta'en back,In mystic change, all silencesThat cross the sky in cloudy rack,Or dwell beneath the reedy groundIn waters safe from their own sound:Only she woreThe deepening smile I named before,And that a deepening love expressed;And who at once can love and rest?

In sooth the smile that then was keepingWatch upon the baby sleeping,Floated with its tender lightDownward, from the drooping eyes,Upward, from the lips apart,Over cheeks which had grown whiteWith an eight-day weeping:All smiles come in such a wiseWhere tears shall fall or have of old--Like northern lights that fill the heartOf heaven in sign of cold.

Motionless she sate.Her hair had fallen by its weightOn each side of her smile and layVery blackly on the armWhere the baby nestled warm,Pale as baby carved in stoneSeen by glimpses of the moonUp a dark cathedral aisle:But, through the storm, no moonbeam fellUpon the child of Isobel--Perhaps you saw it by the rayAlone of her still smile.

A solemn thing it is to meTo look upon a babe that sleepsWearing in its spirit-deepsThe undeveloped mysteryOf our Adam's taint and woe,Which, when they developed be,Will not let it slumber so;Lying new in life beneathThe shadow of the coming death,With that soft, low, quiet breath,As if it felt the sun;Knowing all things by their blooms,Not their roots, yea, sun and skyOnly by the warmth that comesOut of each, earth only byThe pleasant hues that o'er it run,And human love by drops of sweetWhite nourishment still hanging roundThe little mouth so slumber-bound:All which broken sentiencyAnd conclusion incomplete,Will gather and unite and climbTo an immortalityGood or evil, each sublime,Through life and death to life again.O little lids, now folded fast,Must ye learn to drop at lastOur large and burning tears?O warm quick body, must thou lie,When the time comes round to die,Still from all the whirl of years,Bare of all the joy and pain?O small frail being, wilt thou standAt God's right hand,Lifting up those sleeping eyesDilated by great destinies,To an endless waking? thrones and seraphim.Through the long ranks of their solemnities,Sunning thee with calm looks of Heaven's surprise,But thine alone on Him?Or else, self-willed, to tread the Godless place,(God keep thy will!) feel thine own energiesCold, strong, objectless, like a dead man's clasp,The sleepless deathless life within thee grasp,--While myriad faces, like one changeless face,With woe not love's, shall glass thee everywhereAnd overcome thee with thine own despair?

More soft, less solemn imagesDrifted o'er the lady's heartSilently as snow.She had seen eight days departHour by hour, on bended knees,With pale-wrung hands and prayings lowAnd broken, through which came the soundOf tears that fell against the ground,Making sad stops.--"Dear Lord, dear Lord!"She still had prayed, (the heavenly wordBroken by an earthly sigh)--"Thou who didst not erst denyThe mother-joy to Mary mild,Blessed in the blessed childWhich hearkened in meek babyhoodHer cradle-hymn, albeit usedTo all that music interfusedIn breasts of angels high and good!Oh, take not, Lord, my babe away--Oh, take not to thy songful heavenThe pretty baby thou hast given,Or ere that I have seen him playAround his father's knees and knownThat he knew how my love has goneFrom all the world to him.Think, God among the cherubim,How I shall shiver every dayIn thy June sunshine, knowing whereThe grave-grass keeps it from his fairStill cheeks: and feel, at every tread,His little body, which is deadAnd hidden in thy turfy fold,Doth make thy whole warm earth a-cold!O God, I am so young, so young--I am not used to tears at nightsInstead of slumber--not to prayerWith sobbing lips and hands out-wrung!Thou knowest all my prayings were'I bless thee, God, for past delights--Thank God!' I am not used to bearHard thoughts of death; the earth doth coverNo face from me of friend or lover:And must the first who teaches meThe form of shrouds and funerals, beMine own first-born beloved? heWho taught me first this mother-love?Dear Lord who spreadest out aboveThy loving, transpierced hands to meetAll lifted hearts with blessing sweet,--Pierce not my heart, my tender heartThou madest tender! Thou who artSo happy in thy heaven alway,Take not mine only bliss away!"

She so had prayed: and God, who hearsThrough seraph-songs the sound of tearsFrom that beloved babe had ta'enThe fever and the beating pain.And more and more smiled IsobelTo see the baby sleep so well,(She knew not that she smiled, I wis)Until the pleasant gradual thoughtWhich near her heart the smile enwrought,Now soft and slow, itself did seemTo float along a happy dream,Beyond it into speech like this.

"I prayed for thee, my little child,And God has heard my prayer!And when thy babyhood is gone,We two together undefiledBy men's repinings, will kneel downUpon His earth which will be fair(Not covering thee, sweet!) to us twain,And give Him thankful praise."

"I thank Him now, that I can thinkOf those same future days,Nor from the harmless image shrinkOf what I there might see--Strange babies on their mothers' knee,Whose innocent soft faces mightFrom off mine eyelids strike the light,With looks not meant for me!"

"But now, O baby mine, together,We turn this hope of ours againTo many an hour of summer weather,When we shall sit and intertwineOur spirits, and instruct each otherIn the pure loves of child and mother!Two human loves make one divine."

"My little child, what wilt thou choose?Now let me look at thee and ponder.What gladness, from the gladnessesFuturity is spreading underThy gladsome sight? Beneath the treesWilt thou lean all day, and loseThy spirit with the river seenIntermittently betweenThe winding beechen alleys,--Half in labour, half repose,Like a shepherd keeping sheep,Thou, with only thoughts to keepWhich never a bound will overpass,And which are innocent as thoseThat feed among Arcadian valleysUpon the dewy grass?"

The large white owl that with age is blind,That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow,Is carried away in a gust of wind;His wings could beat him not as fastAs he goeth now the lattice past;He is borne by the winds, the rains do followHis white wings to the blast outflowing,He hooteth in going,And still, in the lightnings, coldly glitterHis round unblinking eyes

"Or, baby, wilt thou think it fitterTo be eloquent and wise,One upon whose lips the airTurns to solemn veritiesFor men to breathe anew, and winA deeper-seated life within?Wilt be a philosopher,By whose voice the earth and skiesShall speak to the unborn?Or a poet, broadly spreadingThe golden immortalitiesOf thy soul on natures lornAnd poor of such, them all to guardFrom their decay,--beneath thy treading,Earth's flowers recovering hues of Eden,--And stars, drawn downward by thy looks,To shine ascendant in thy books?"

The tame hawk in the castle-yard,How it screams to the lightning, with its wetJagged plumes overhanging the parapet!And at the lady's door the houndScratches with a crying sound.

"But, O my babe, thy lids are laidClose, fast upon thy cheek,And not a dream of power and sheenCan make a passage up between;Thy heart is of thy mother's made,Thy looks are very meek,And it will be their chosen placeTo rest on some beloved face,As these on thine, and let the noiseOf the whole world go on nor drownThe tender silence of thy joys:Or when that silence shall have grownToo tender for itself, the sameYearning for sound,--to look aboveAnd utter its one meaning, LOVE,That He may hear His name."

No wind, no rain, no thunder!The waters had trickled not slowly,The thunder was not spentNor the wind near finishing;Who would have said that the storm was diminishing?No wind, no rain, no thunder!Their noises dropped asunderFrom the earth and the firmament,From the towers and the lattices,Abrupt and echolessAs ripe fruits on the ground unshaken whollyAs life in death.And sudden and solemn the silence fell,Startling the heart of IsobelAs the tempest could not:Against the door went panting the breathOf the lady's hound whose cry was still,And she, constrained howe'er she would not,Lifted her eyes and saw the moonLooking out of heaven aloneUpon the poplared hill,--A calm of God, made visibleThat men might bless it at their will.

The moonshine on the baby's faceFalleth clear and cold:The mother's looks have fallen backTo the same place:Because no moon with silver rack,Nor broad sunrise in jasper skiesHas power to holdOur loving eyes,Which still revert, as ever mustWonder and Hope, to gaze on the dust.

The moonshine on the baby's faceCold and clear remaineth;The mother's looks do shrink away,--The mother's looks return to stay,As charmed by what paineth:Is any glamour in the case?Is it dream, or is it sight?Hath the change upon the wildElements that sign the night,Passed upon the child?It is not dream, but sight.

The babe has awakened from sleepAnd unto the gaze of its mother,Bent over it, lifted another--Not the baby-looks that goUnaimingly to and fro,But an earnest gazing deepSuch as soul gives soul at lengthWhen by work and wail of yearsIt winneth a solemn strengthAnd mourneth as it wears.A strong man could not brook,With pulse unhurried by fears,To meet that baby's lookO'erglazed by manhood's tears,The tears of a man full grown,With a power to wring our own,In the eyes all undefiledOf a little three-months' child--To see that babe-brow wroughtBy the witnessing of thoughtTo judgment's prodigy,And the small soft mouth unweaned,By mother's kiss o'erleaned,(Putting the sound of lovingWhere no sound else was movingExcept the speechless cry)Quickened to mind's expression,Shaped to articulation,Yea, uttering words, yea, naming woe,In tones that with it strangely wentBecause so baby-innocent,As the child spake out to the mother, so:--

"O mother, mother, loose thy prayer!Christ's name hath made it strong.It bindeth me, it holdeth meWith its most loving cruelty,From floating my new soul alongThe happy heavenly air.It bindeth me, it holdeth meIn all this dark, upon this dullLow earth, by only weepers trod.It bindeth me, it holdeth me!Mine angel looketh sorrowfulUpon the face of God.

"Mother, mother, can I dreamBeneath your earthly trees?I had a vision and a gleam,I heard a sound more sweet than theseWhen rippled by the wind:Did you see the Dove with wingsBathed in golden glisteringsFrom a sunless light behind,Dropping on me from the sky,Soft as mother's kiss, untilI seemed to leap and yet was still?Saw you how His love-large eyeLooked upon me mystic calms,Till the power of His divineVision was indrawn to mine?

"Oh, the dream within the dream!I saw celestial places even.Oh, the vistas of high palmsMaking finites of delightThrough the heavenly infinite,Lifting up their green still topsTo the heaven of heaven!Oh, the sweet life-tree that dropsShade like light across the riverGlorified in its for-everFlowing from the Throne!Oh, the shining holinessesOf the thousand, thousand facesGod-sunned by the throned ONE,And made intense with such a loveThat, though I saw them turned above,Each loving seemed for also me!And, oh, the Unspeakable, the HE,The manifest in secreciesYet of mine own heart partakerWith the overcoming lookOf One who hath been once forsookAnd blesseth the forsaker!Mother, mother, let me goToward the Face that looketh so!Through the mystic winged FourWhose are inward, outward eyesDark with light of mysteriesAnd the restless evermore'Holy, holy, holy,'--throughThe sevenfold Lamps that burn in viewOf cherubim and seraphim,--Through the four-and-twenty crownedStately elders white around,Suffer me to go to Him!

"Is your wisdom very wise,Mother, on the narrow earth,Very happy, very worthThat I should stay to learn?Are these air-corrupting sighsFashioned by unlearned breath?Do the students' lamps that burnAll night, illumine death?Mother, albeit this be so,Loose thy prayer and let me goWhere that bright chief angel standsApart from all his brother bands,Too glad for smiling, having bentIn angelic wildermentO'er the depths of God, and broughtReeling thence one only thoughtTo fill his own eternity.He the teacher is for me--He can teach what I would know--Mother, mother, let me go!

"Can your poet make an EdenNo winter will undo,And light a starry fire while heedingHis hearth's is burning too?Drown in music the earth's din,And keep his own wild soul withinThe law of his own harmony?Mother, albeit this be so,Let me to my heaven go!A little harp me waits thereby,A harp whose strings are golden allAnd tuned to music spherical,Hanging on the green life-treeWhere no willows ever be.Shall I miss that harp of mine?Mother, no!--the Eye divineTurned upon it, makes it shine;And when I touch it, poems sweetLike separate souls shall fly from it,Each to the immortal fytte.We shall all be poets there,Gazing on the chiefest Fair.

"Love! earth's love! and can we loveFixedly where all things move?Can the sinning love each other?Mother, mother,I tremble in thy close embrace,I feel thy tears adown my face,Thy prayers do keep me out of bliss--O dreary earthly love!Loose thy prayer and let me goTo the place which loving isYet not sad; and when is givenEscape to thee from this below,Thou shalt behold me that I waitFor thee beside the happy Gate,And silence shall be up in heavenTo hear our greeting kiss."

The nurse awakes in the morning sun,And starts to see beside her bedThe lady with a grandeur spreadLike pathos o'er her face, as oneGod-satisfied and earth-undone;The babe upon her arm was dead:And the nurse could utter forth no cry,--She was awed by the calm in the mother's eye.

"Wake, nurse!" the lady said;"We are waking--he and I--I, on earth, and he, in sky:And thou must help me to o'erlayWith garment white this little clayWhich needs no more our lullaby.

"I changed the cruel prayer I made,And bowed my meekened face, and prayedThat God would do His will; and thusHe did it, nurse! He parted us:And His sun shows victoriousThe dead calm face,--and I am calm,And Heaven is hearkening a new psalm.

"This earthly noise is too anear,Too loud, and will not let me hearThe little harp. My death will soonMake silence."

And a sense of tune,A satisfied love meanwhileWhich nothing earthly could despoil,Sang on within her soul.

Oh you,Earth's tender and impassioned few,Take courage to entrust your loveTo Him so named who guards aboveIts ends and shall fulfil!Breaking the narrow prayers that mayBefit your narrow hearts, awayIn His broad, loving will.