Part 7

Soh! how still the lady standeth! 'T is a dream--a dream of mercies! 'Twixt the purple lattice-curtains how she standeth still and pale! 'T is a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self curses, Sent to sweep a patient quiet o'er the tossing of his wail.

III.

"Eyes," he said, "now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo me? Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone! Underneath that calm white forehead are ye ever burning torrid O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone?"

IV.

With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air the purple curtain Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows, While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise for ever Through the open casement whitened by the moonlight's slant repose.

V.

Said he--"Vision of a lady! stand there silent, stand there steady! Now I see it plainly, plainly now I cannot hope or doubt-- There, the brows of mild repression--there, the lips of silent passion, Curved like an archer's bow to send the bitter arrows out."

VI.

Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling, And approached him slowly, slowly, in a gliding measured pace; With her two white hands extended as if praying one offended, And a look of supplication gazing earnest in his face.

VII.

Said he--"Wake me by no gesture,--sound of breath, or stir of vesture! Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to its divine! No approaching--hush, no breathing! or my heart must swoon to death in The too utter life thou bringest, O thou dream of Geraldine!"

VIII.

Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling, But the tears ran over lightly from her eyes and tenderly:-- "Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me? Is no woman far above me Found more worthy of thy poet-heart than such a one as _I_?"

IX.

Said he--"I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that river, Flowing ever in a shadow greenly onward to the sea! So, thou vision of all sweetness, princely to a full completeness Would my heart and life flow onward, deathward, through this dream of THEE!"

X.

Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling, While the silver tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks; Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly told him, "Bertram, if I say I love thee, ... 't is the vision only speaks."

XI.

Softened, quickened to adore her, on his knee he fell before her, And she whispered low in triumph, "It shall be as I have sworn. Very rich he is in virtues, very noble--noble, certes; And I shall not blush in knowing that men call him lowly born."

_THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT._

I.

I stand on the mark beside the shore Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee, Where exile turned to ancestor, And God was thanked for liberty. I have run through the night, my skin is as dark, I bend my knee down on this mark: I look on the sky and the sea.

II.

O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you! I see you come proud and slow From the land of the spirits pale as dew And round me and round me ye go. O pilgrims, I have gasped and run All night long from the whips of one Who in your names works sin and woe!

III.

And thus I thought that I would come And kneel here where ye knelt before, And feel your souls around me hum In undertone to the ocean's roar; And lift my black face, my black hand, Here, in your names, to curse this land Ye blessed in freedom's, evermore.

IV.

I am black, I am black, And yet God made me, they say: But if He did so, smiling back He must have cast his work away Under the feet of his white creatures, With a look of scorn, that the dusky features Might be trodden again to clay.

V.

And yet He has made dark things To be glad and merry as light: There's a little dark bird sits and sings, There's a dark stream ripples out of sight, And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass, And the sweetest stars are made to pass O'er the face of the darkest night.

VI.

But _we_ who are dark, we are dark! Ah God, we have no stars! About our souls in care and cark Our blackness shuts like prison-bars: The poor souls crouch so far behind That never a comfort can they find By reaching through the prison-bars.

VII.

Indeed we live beneath the sky, That great smooth Hand of God stretched out On all His children fatherly, To save them from the dread and doubt Which would be if, from this low place, All opened straight up to His face Into the grand eternity.

VIII.

And still God's sunshine and His frost, They make us hot, they make us cold, As if we were not black and lost; And the beasts and birds, in wood and fold, Do fear and take us for very men: Could the whip-poor-will or the cat of the glen Look into my eyes and be bold?

IX.

I am black, I am black! But, once, I laughed in girlish glee, For one of my colour stood in the track Where the drivers drove, and looked at me, And tender and full was the look he gave-- Could a slave look _so_ at another slave?-- I look at the sky and the sea.

X.

And from that hour our spirits grew As free as if unsold, unbought: Oh, strong enough, since we were two, To conquer the world, we thought. The drivers drove us day by day; We did not mind, we went one way, And no better a freedom sought.

XI.

In the sunny ground between the canes, He said "I love you" as he passed; When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains, I heard how he vowed it fast: While others shook he smiled in the hut, As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut Through the roar of the hurricanes.

XII.

I sang his name instead of a song, Over and over I sang his name, Upward and downward I drew it along My various notes,--the same, the same! I sang it low, that the slave-girls near Might never guess, from aught they could hear, It was only a name--a name.

XIII.

I look on the sky and the sea. We were two to love, and two to pray: Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee, Though nothing didst Thou say! Coldly Thou sat'st behind the sun: And now I cry who am but one, Thou wilt not speak to-day.

XIV.

We were black, we were black, We had no claim to love and bliss, What marvel if each went to wrack? They wrung my cold hands out of his, They dragged him--where? I crawled to touch His blood's mark in the dust ... not much, Ye pilgrim-souls, though plain as _this_!

XV.

Wrong, followed by a deeper wrong! Mere grief's too good for such as I: So the white men brought the shame ere long To strangle the sob of my agony. They would not leave me for my dull Wet eyes!--it was too merciful To let me weep pure tears and die.

XVI.

I am black, I am black! I wore a child upon my breast, An amulet that hung too slack, And, in my unrest, could not rest: Thus we went moaning, child and mother, One to another, one to another, Until all ended for the best.

XVII.

For hark! I will tell you low, low, I am black, you see,-- And the babe who lay on my bosom so, Was far too white, too white for me; As white as the ladies who scorned to pray Beside me at church but yesterday, Though my tears had washed a place for my knee.

XVIII.

My own, own child! I could not bear To look in his face, it was so white; I covered him up with a kerchief there, I covered his face in close and tight: And he moaned and struggled, as well might be, For the white child wanted his liberty-- Ha, ha! he wanted the master-right.

XIX.

He moaned and beat with his head and feet, His little feet that never grew; He struck them out, as it was meet, Against my heart to break it through: I might have sung and made him mild, But I dared not sing to the white-faced child The only song I knew.

XX.

I pulled the kerchief very close: He could not see the sun, I swear, More, then, alive, than now he does From between the roots of the mango ... where? I know where. Close! A child and mother Do wrong to look at one another When one is black and one is fair.

XXI.

Why, in that single glance I had Of my child's face, ... I tell you all, I saw a look that made me mad! The _master's_ look, that used to fall On my soul like his lash ... or worse! And so, to save it from my curse, I twisted it round in my shawl.

XXII.

And he moaned and trembled from foot to head, He shivered from head to foot; Till after a time, he lay instead Too suddenly still and mute. I felt, beside, a stiffening cold: I dared to lift up just a fold, As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit.

XXIII.

But _my_ fruit ... ha, ha!--there, had been (I laugh to think on 't at this hour!) Your fine white angels (who have seen Nearest the secret of God's power) And plucked my fruit to make them wine, And sucked the soul of that child of mine As the humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower.

XXIV.

Ha, ha, the trick of the angels white! They freed the white child's spirit so. I said not a word, but day and night I carried the body to and fro, And it lay on my heart like a stone, as chill. --The sun may shine out as much as he will: I am cold, though it happened a month ago.

XXV.

From the white man's house, and the black man's hut, I carried the little body on; The forest's arms did round us shut, And silence through the trees did run: They asked no question as I went, They stood too high for astonishment, They could see God sit on his throne.

XXVI.

My little body, kerchiefed fast, I bore it on through the forest, on; And when I felt it was tired at last, I scooped a hole beneath the moon: Through the forest-tops the angels far, With a white sharp finger from every star, Did point and mock at what was done.

XXVII.

Yet when it was all done aught,-- Earth, 'twixt me and my baby, strewed,-- All, changed to black earth,--nothing white,-- A dark child in the dark!--ensued Some comfort, and my heart grew young; I sate down smiling there and sung The song I learnt in my maidenhood.

XXVIII.

And thus we two were reconciled, The white child and black mother, thus; For as I sang it soft and wild, The same song, more melodious, Rose from the grave whereon I sate It was the dead child singing that, To join the souls of both of us.

XXIX.

I look on the sea and the sky. Where the pilgrims' ships first anchored lay The free sun rideth gloriously, But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away Through the earliest streaks of the morn: My face is black, but it glares with a scorn Which they dare not meet by day.

XXX.

Ha!--in their stead, their hunter sons! Ha, ha! they are on me--they hunt in a ring! Keep off! I brave you all at once, I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting! You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think: Did you ever stand still in your triumph, and shrink From the stroke of her wounded wing?

XXXI.

(Man, drop that stone you dared to lift!--) I wish you who stand there five abreast. Each, for his own wife's joy and gift, A little corpse as safely at rest As mine in the mangoes! Yes, but _she_ May keep live babies on her knee, And sing the song she likes the best.

XXXII.

I am not mad: I am black. I see you staring in my face-- I know you staring, shrinking back, Ye are born of the Washington-race, And this land is the free America, And this mark on my wrist--(I prove what I say) Ropes tied me up here to the flogging-place.

XXXIII.

You think I shrieked then? Not a sound! I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun; I only cursed them all around As softly as I might have done My very own child: from these sands Up to the mountains, lift your hands, O slaves, and end what I begun!

XXXIV.

Whips, curses; these must answer those! For in this UNION you have set Two kinds of men in adverse rows, Each loathing each; and all forget The seven wounds in Christ's body fair, While HE sees gaping everywhere Our countless wounds that pay no debt.

XXXV.

Our wounds are different. Your white men Are, after all, not gods indeed, Nor able to make Christs again Do good with bleeding. _We_ who bleed (Stand off!) we help not in our loss! _We_ are too heavy for our cross, And fall and crush you and your seed.

XXXVI.

I fall, I swoon! I look at the sky. The clouds are breaking on my brain I am floated along, as if I should die Of liberty's exquisite pain. In the name of the white child waiting for me In the death-dark where we may kiss and agree, White men, I leave you all curse-free In my broken heart's disdain!

_THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN._

~"Pheu, pheu, ti prosderkesthe m' ommasin, tekna?"~

--Medea.

I.

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers. And _that_ cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, The young flowers are blowing toward the west-- But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.

II.

Do you question the young children in the sorrow Why their tears are falling so? The old man may weep for his to-morrow Which is lost in Long Ago; The old tree is leafless in the forest, The old year is ending in the frost, The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, The old hope is hardest to be lost: But the young, young children, O my brothers, Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland?

III.

They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their looks are sad to see, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy; "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary, Our young feet," they say, "are very weak; Few paces have we taken, yet are weary-- Our grave-rest is very far to seek: Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children, For the outside earth is cold, And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, And the graves are for the old."

IV.

"True," say the children, "it may happen That we die before our time: Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen Like a snowball, in the rime. We looked into the pit prepared to take her: Was no room for any work in the close clay! From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her, Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.' If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, With your ear down, little Alice never cries; Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her, For the smile has time for growing in her eyes: And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in The shroud by the kirk-chime. It is good when it happens," say the children, "That we die before our time."

V.

Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking Death in life, as best to have: They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from the city, Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do; Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty, Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through! But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows Like our weeds anear the mine? Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, From your pleasures fair and fine!

VI.

"For oh," say the children, "we are weary, And we cannot run or leap; If we cared for any meadows, it were merely To drop down in them and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, We fall upon our faces, trying to go; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For, all day, we drag our burden tiring Through the coal-dark, underground; Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron In the factories, round and round.

VII.

"For all day the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places: Turns the sky in the high window, blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling: All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels' (breaking out in a mad moaning), 'Stop! be silent for to-day!'"

VIII.

Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing For a moment, mouth to mouth! Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing Of their tender human youth! Let them feel that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God fashions or reveals: Let them prove their living souls against the notion That they live in you, or under you, O wheels! Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark.

IX.

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, To look up to Him and pray; So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, Will bless them another day. They answer, "Who is God that He should hear us, While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. And _we_ hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) Strangers speaking at the door: Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, Hears our weeping any more?

X.

"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, And at midnight's hour of harm, 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm.[6] We know no other words except 'Our Father,' And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both within His right hand which is strong. 'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely (For they call Him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 'Come and rest with me, my child.'

XI.

"But, no!" say the children, weeping faster, "He is speechless as a stone: And they tell us, of His image is the master Who commands us to work on. Go to!" say the children,--"up in Heaven, Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving: We look up for God, but tears have made us blind." Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, O my brothers, what ye preach? For God's possible is taught by His world's loving, And the children doubt of each.

XII.

And well may the children weep before you! They are weary ere they run; They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory Which is brighter than the sun. They know the grief of man, without its wisdom; They sink in man's despair, without its calm; Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm: Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly The harvest of its memories cannot reap,-- Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly. Let them weep! let them weep!

XIII.

They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see, For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,-- Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Horne's report of his Commission. The name of the poet of "Orion" and "Cosmo de' Medici" has, however, a change of associations, and comes in time to remind me that we have some noble poetic heat of literature still,--however open to the reproach of being somewhat gelid in our humanity--1844.

_A CHILD ASLEEP._

I.

How he sleepeth, having drunken Weary childhood's mandragore! From its pretty eyes have sunken Pleasures to make room for more; Sleeping near the withered nosegay which he pulled the day before.

II.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking; Throw them earthward where they grew; Dim are such beside the breaking Amaranths he looks unto: Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.

III.

Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden From the palms they sprang beneath, Now perhaps divinely holden, Swing against him in a wreath: We may think so from the quickening of his bloom and of his breath.

IV.

Vision unto vision calleth While the young child dreameth on: Fair, O dreamer, thee befalleth With the glory thou hast won! Darker wast thou in the garden yestermorn by summer sun.

V.

We should see the spirits ringing Round thee, were the clouds away: 'T is the child-heart draws them, singing In the silent-seeming clay-- Singing! stars that seem the mutest go in music all the way.

VI.

As the moths around a taper, As the bees around a rose, As the gnats around a vapour, So the spirits group and close Round about a holy childhood as if drinking its repose.

VII.

Shapes of brightness overlean thee, Flash their diadems of youth On the ringlets which half screen thee, While thou smilest ... not in sooth _Thy_ smile, but the overfair one, dropt from some etherial mouth.

VIII.

Haply it is angels' duty, During slumber, shade by shade To fine down this childish beauty To the thing it must be made Ere the world shall bring it praises, or the tomb shall see it fade.

IX.

Softly, softly! make no noises! Now he lieth dead and dumb; Now he hears the angels' voices Folding silence in the room Now he muses deep the meaning of the Heaven-words as they come.

X.

Speak not! he is consecrated; Breathe no breath across his eyes: Lifted up and separated On the hand of God he lies In a sweetness beyond touching, held in cloistral sanctities.

XI.