Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

To this life's bitter December

To this life's snow-drifted track.

And I thought, with a pan and a shudder,
As soon as I open'd my eyes,

And saw the frost on the window
And the pallid and dim sun rise,
How Kitty had slept in the parler
All the long, long winter night
With only a shest around her,
In her summer dress of white

Ah, me

how the wind is blowing,

How lonely will be the way

That leads to the little church-yard,
Over the hills today.

How fast the snow is fall ing!

I wish you had left me yet

Searching the summer forest,
After the violet."

See also "AFTER DEATH" by Christina Georgina Ros

setti, Vic. An. page 376.

The grief expressed in the following Victorian lyrics is unequaled by anything found in the Elizabethan lyrics. In the first we have a mother driven almost to insanity

over the death of her little child.

LAMENT

By Roden Noel

(Vic. An. page 201)

"I am lying in the tomb, love,
Lying in the tomb,

Tho 'I move within the gloom, love,
Breathe within the gloom!

Men deem life not fled, dear,

Deem my life not fled,

Tho' I with thee am dead, dear,

I with thee am dead,

O my little child!

What is the gray world darling,
What is the gray world,

Where the worm lies curl'd, darling,

The deathworm lies curl'd?

They tell me of the spring, dear!

Do I want the spring?

Will she waft upon her wing, dear,

The joy-pulse of her wing,
Thy songs thy blossoming,

O my little child.

Would they put me out of pain, dear,
Out of all my pain,

Since I may not live arain, dear,
Never live again!

I am lying in the grave, love,

In thy little grave,

Yet I hear the wind rave, love,
And the wild wave!

I would lie asleep, darling,

With thee lie asleep,

Unhearing the world weep, darling,

Little children weep!

O my little child." 1

1. This poem is very like a stanza or two of Kipling's, where mother grief is heart breaking.

(Con. foot note next pare)

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

(Continuation foot note pare 71)

"O fest I have held in my hand,

O hands at my heart to catch,

How should they know the way to go,

And how should they lift the latch?"

And the old widow says to the sorrowing young mother:

"Lie still dear lamb, lie still;

The child is passed from harm,

'Tis the ache in your breast that broke our rest

And the feel of an empty arm. "

« AnteriorContinuar »