Under the Rose

Oh the rose of keenest thorn!One hidden summer mornUnder the rose I was born.

I do not guess his nameWho wrought my Mother's shame,And gave me life forlorn,But my Mother, Mother, Mother,I know her from all other.My Mother pale and mild,Fair as ever was seen,She was but scarce sixteen,Little more than a child,When I was bornTo work her scorn.With secret bitter throes,In a passion of secret woes,She bore me under the rose.

One who my Mother nursedTook me from the first:--'O nurse, let me look uponThis babe that costs so dear;To-morrow she will be gone:Other mothers may keepTheir babes awake and asleep,But I must not keep her here.'--Whether I know or guess,I know this not the less.

So I was sent awayThat none might spy the truth:And my childhood waxed to youthAnd I left off childish play.I never cared to playWith the village boys and girls;And I think they thought me proud,I found so little to sayAnd kept so from the crowd:But I had the longest curlsAnd I had the largest eyesAnd my teeth were small like pearls;The girls might flout and scout me,But the boys would hang about meIn sheepish mooning wise.

Our one-street village stoodA long mile from the town,A mile of windy downAnd bleak one-sided wood,With not a single house.Our town itself was small,With just the common shops,And throve in its small way.Our neighbouring gentry rearedThe good old-fashioned crops,And made old-fashioned boastsOf what John Bull would doIf Frenchman Frog appeared,And drank old-fashioned toasts,And made old-fashioned bowsTo my Lady at the Hall.

My Lady at the HallIs grander than they all:Hers is the oldest nameIn all the neighbourhood;But the race must die with herThough she's a lofty dame,For she's unmarried still.Poor people say she's goodAnd has an open handAs any in the land,And she's the comforterOf many sick and sad;My nurse once said to meThat everything she hadCame of my Lady's bounty:'Though she's greatest in the countyShe's humble to the poor,No beggar seeks her doorBut finds help presently.I pray both night and dayFor her, and you must pray:But she'll never feel distressIf needy folk can bless.'

I was a little maidWhen here we came to liveFrom somewhere by the sea.Men spoke a foreign tongueThere where we used to beWhen I was merry and young,Too young to feel afraid;The fisher folk would giveA kind strange word to me,There by the foreign sea:I don't know where it was,But I remember stillOur cottage on a hill,And fields of flowering grassOn that fair foreign shore.

I liked my old home best,But this was pleasant too:So here we made our nestAnd here I grew.And now and then my LadyIn riding past our doorWould nod to Nurse and speak,Or stoop and pat my cheek;And I was always readyTo hold the field-gate wideFor my Lady to go through;My Lady in her veilSo seldom put aside,My Lady grave and pale.

I often sat to wonderWho might my parents be,For I knew of something underMy simple-seeming state.Nurse never talked to meOf mother or of father,But watched me early and lateWith kind suspicious cares:Or not suspicious, ratherAnxious, as if she knewSome secret I might gatherAnd smart for unawares.Thus I grew.

But Nurse waxed old and grey,Bent and weak with years.There came a certain dayThat she lay upon her bedShaking her palsied head,With words she gasped to sayWhich had to stay unsaid.Then with a jerking handHeld out so piteouslyShe gave a ring to meOf gold wrought curiously,A ring which she had wornSince the day I was born,She once had said to me:I slipped it on my finger;Her eyes were keen to lingerOn my hand that slipped it on;Then she sighed one rattling sighAnd stared on with sightless eye:--The one who loved me was gone.

How long I stayed aloneWith the corpse I never knew,For I fainted dead as stone:When I came to life once moreI was down upon the floor,With neighbours making adoTo bring me back to life.I heard the sexton's wifeSay: 'Up, my lad, and runTo tell it at the Hall;She was my Lady's nurse,And done can't be undone.I'll watch by this poor lamb.I guess my Lady's purseIs always open to such:I'd run up on my crutchA cripple as I am,'(For cramps had vexed her much)'Rather than this dear heartLack one to take her part.'

For days day after dayOn my weary bed I layWishing the time would pass;Oh, so wishing that I wasLikely to pass away:For the one friend whom I knewWas dead, I knew no other,Neither father nor mother;And I, what should I do?

One day the sexton's wifeSaid: 'Rouse yourself, my dear:My Lady has driven downFrom the Hall into the town,And we think she's coming here.Cheer up, for life is life.'

But I would not look or speak,Would not cheer up at all.My tears were like to fall,So I turned round to the wallAnd hid my hollow cheekMaking as if I slept,As silent as a stone,And no one knew I wept.What was my Lady to me,The grand lady from the Hall?She might come, or stay away,I was sick at heart that day:The whole world seemed to beNothing, just nothing to me,For aught that I could see.

Yet I listened where I lay:A bustle came below,A clear voice said: 'I know;I will see her first alone,It may be less of a shockIf she's so weak to-day:'--A light hand turned the lock,A light step crossed the floor,One sat beside my bed:But never a word she said.

For me, my shyness grewEach moment more and more:So I said never a wordAnd neither looked nor stirred;I think she must have heardMy heart go pit-a-pat:Thus I lay, my Lady sat,More than a mortal hour--(I counted one and twoBy the house-clock while I lay):I seemed to have no powerTo think of a thing to say,Or do what I ought to do,Or rouse myself to a choice.

At last she said: 'Margaret,Won't you even look at me?'A something in her voiceForced my tears to fall at last,Forced sobs from me thick and fast;Something not of the past,Yet stirring memory;A something new, and yetNot new, too sweet to last,Which I never can forget.

I turned and stared at her:Her cheek showed hollow-pale;Her hair like mine was fair,A wonderful fall of hairThat screened her like a veil;But her height was statelier,Her eyes had depth more deep;I think they must have hadAlways a something sad,Unless they were asleep.

While I stared, my Lady tookMy hand in her spare handJewelled and soft and grand,And looked with a long long lookOf hunger in my face;As if she tried to traceFeatures she ought to know,And half hoped, half feared, to find.Whatever was in her mindShe heaved a sigh at last,And began to talk to me.

'Your nurse was my dear nurse,And her nursling's dear,' said she:'I never knew that she was worseTill her poor life was past'(Here my Lady's tears dropped fast):'I might have been with her,But she had no comforter.She might have told me muchWhich now I shall never know,Never never shall know.'She sat by me sobbing so,And seemed so woe-begone,That I laid one hand uponHers with a timid touch,Scarce thinking what I did,Not knowing what to say:That moment her face was hidIn the pillow close by mine,Her arm was flung over me,She hugged me, sobbing soAs if her heart would break,And kissed me where I lay.

After this she often cameTo bring me fruit or wine,Or sometimes hothouse flowers.And at nights I lay awakeOften and often thinkingWhat to do for her sake.Wet or dry it was the same:She would come in at all hours,Set me eating and drinkingAnd say I must grow strong;At last the day seemed longAnd home seemed scarcely homeIf she did not come.

Well, I grew strong again:In time of primroses,I went to pluck them in the lane;In time of nestling birds,I heard them chirping round the house;And all the herdsWere out at grass when I grew strong,And days were waxen long,And there was work for beesAmong the May-bush boughs,And I had shot up tall,And life felt after allPleasant, and not so longWhen I grew strong.

I was going to the HallTo be my Lady's maid:'Her little friend,' she said to me,'Almost her child,'She said and smiledSighing painfully;Blushing, with a second flushAs if she blushed to blush.

Friend, servant, child: just thisMy standing at the Hall;The other servants call me 'Miss,'My Lady calls me 'Margaret,'With her clear voice musical.She never chides when I forgetThis or that; she never chides.Except when people come to stay,(And that's not often) at the Hall,I sit with her all dayAnd ride out when she rides.She sings to me and makes me sing;Sometimes I read to her,Sometimes we merely sit and talk.She noticed once my ringAnd made me tell its history:That evening in our garden walkShe said she should inferThe ring had been my father's first,Then my mother's, given for meTo the nurse who nursedMy mother in her misery,That so quite certainlySome one might know me, who...Then she was silent, and I too.

I hate when people come:The women speak and stareAnd mean to be so civil.This one will stroke my hair,That one will pat my cheekAnd praise my Lady's kindness,Expecting me to speak;I like the proud ones bestWho sit as struck with blindness,As if I wasn't there.But if any gentlemanIs staying at the Hall(Though few come prying here),My Lady seems to fearSome downright dreadful evil,And makes me keep my roomAs closely as she can:So I hate when people come,It is so troublesome.In spite of all her care,Sometimes to keep aliveI sometimes do contriveTo get out in the groundsFor a whiff of wholesome air,Under the rose you know:It's charming to break bounds,Stolen waters are sweet,And what's the good of feetIf for days they mustn't go?Give me a longer tether,Or I may break from it.

Now I have eyes and earsAnd just some little wit:'Almost my Lady's child;'I recollect she smiled,Sighed and blushed together;Then her story of the ringSounds not improbable,She told it me so wellIt seemed the actual thing:--Oh, keep your counsel close,But I guess under the rose,In long past summer weatherWhen the world was blossoming,And the rose upon its thorn:I guess not who he wasFlawed honour like a glass,And made my life forlorn,But my Mother, Mother, Mother,Oh, I know her from all other.

My Lady, you might trustYour daughter with your fame.Trust me, I would not shameOur honourable name,For I have noble bloodThough I was bred in dustAnd brought up in the mud.I will not press my claim,Just leave me where you will:But you might trust your daughter,For blood is thicker than waterAnd you're my mother still.

So my Lady holds her ownWith condescending grace,and fills her lofty placeWith an untroubled faceAs a queen may fill a throne.While I could hint a tale--(But then I am her child)--Would make her quail;Would set her in the dust,Lorn with no comforter,Her glorious hair defiledAnd ashes on her cheek:The decent world would thrustIts finger out at her,Not much displeased I thinkTo make a nine days' stir;The decent world would sinkIts voice to speak of her.

Now this is what I meanTo do, no more, no less:Never to speak, or showBare sign of what I know.Let the blot pass unseen;Yea, let her never guessI hold the tangled clueShe huddles out of view.Friend, servant, almost child,So be it and nothing moreOn this side of the grave.Mother, in Paradise,You'll see with clearer eyes;Perhaps in this world evenWhen you are like to dieAnd face to face with HeavenYou'll drop for once the lie:But you must drop the mask, not I.

My Lady promisesTwo hundred pounds with meWhenever I may wedA man she can approve:And since besides her bountyI'm fairest in the county(For so I've heard it said,Though I don't vouch for this),Her promised pounds may moveSome honest man to seeMy virtues and my beauties;Perhaps the rising grazier,Or temperance publican,May claim my wifely duties.Meanwhile I wait their leisureAnd grace-bestowing pleasure,I wait the happy man;But if I hold my headAnd pitch my expectationsJust higher than their level,They must fall back on patience:I may not mean to wed,Yet I'll be civil.

Now sometimes in a dreamMy heart goes out of meTo build and scheme,Till I sob after things that seemSo pleasant in a dream:A home such as I seeMy blessed neighbours live inWith father and with mother,All proud of one another,Named by one common nameFrom baby in the budTo full-blown workman father;It's little short of Heaven.I'd give my gentle bloodTo wash my special shameAnd drown my private grudge;I'd toil and moil much ratherThe dingiest cottage drudgeWhose mother need not blush,Than live here like a ladyAnd see my Mother flushAnd hear her voice unsteadySometimes, yet never dareAsk to share her care.

Of course the servants sneerBehind my back at me;Of course the village girls,Who envy me my curlsAnd gowns and idleness,Take comfort in a jeer;Of course the ladies guessJust so much of my historyAs points the emphatic stressWith which they laud my Lady;The gentlemen who catchA casual glimpse of meAnd turn again to see,Their valets on the watchTo speak a word with me,All know and sting me wild;Till I am almost readyTo wish that I were dead,No faces more to see,No more words to be said,My Mother safe at lastDisburdened of her child,And the past past.

'All equal before God'--Our Rector has it so,And sundry sleepers nod:It may be so; I knowAll are not equal here,And when the sleepers wakeThey make a difference.'All equal in the grave'--That shows an obvious sense:Yet something which I craveNot death itself brings near;Now should death half atoneFor all my past; or makeThe name I bear my own?

I love my dear old NurseWho loved me without gains;I love my mistress even,Friend, Mother, what you will:But I could almost curseMy Father for his pains;And sometimes at my prayerKneeling in sight of HeavenI almost curse him still:Why did he set his snareTo catch at unawareMy Mother's foolish youth;Load me with shame that's hers,And her with something worse,A lifelong lie for truth?

I think my mind is fixedOn one point and made up:To accept my lot unmixed;Never to drug the cupBut drink it by myself.I'll not be wooed for pelf;I'll not blot out my shameWith any man's good name;But nameless as I stand,My hand is my own hand,And nameless as I cameI go to the dark land.

'All equal in the grave'--I bide my time till then:'All equal before God'--To-day I feel His rod,To-morrow He may save:Amen.