DEAD! one of them shot by the sea in the east, | |
| And one of them shot in the west by the sea. | |
| Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast | |
| And are wanting a great song for Italy free, | |
| Let none look at me! | 5 |
| |
| Yet I was a poetess only last year, | |
| And good at my art, for a woman, men said. | |
| But this woman, this, who is agonized here, | |
| The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head | |
| Forever instead. | 10 |
| |
| What art can a woman be good at? oh, vain! | |
| What art is she good at, but hurting her breast | |
| With the milk teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain? | |
| Ah boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed, | |
| |
| And I, proud by that test. | 15 |
| What art’s for a woman! To hold on her knees | |
| Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat | |
| Cling, struggle a little! to sew by degrees | |
| And ’broider the long-clothes and neat little coat! | |
| To dream and to dote. | 20 |
| |
| To teach them…. It stings there. I made them indeed | |
| Speak plain the word “country,” I taught them no doubt | |
| That a country’s a thing men should die for at need. | |
| I prated of liberty, rights, and about | |
| The tyrant turned out. | 25 |
| |
| And when their eyes flashed … O my beautiful eyes!… | |
| I exulted! nay, let them go forth at the wheels | |
| Of the guns and denied not.—But then the surprise, | |
| When one sits quite alone!—Then one weeps, then one kneels! | |
| —God! how the house feels! | 30 |
| |
| At first happy news came, in gay letters moiled | |
| With my kisses, of camp-life, and glory, and how | |
| They both loved me, and soon, coming home to be spoiled, | |
| In return would fan off every fly from my brow | |
| With their green laurel-bough. | 35 |
| |
| Then was triumph at Turin. “Ancona was free!” | |
| And some one came out of the cheers in the street | |
| With a face pale as stone, to say something to me. | |
| My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet, | |
| While they cheered in the street. | 40 |
| |
| I bore it;—friends soothed me: my grief looked sublime | |
| As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained | |
| To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time | |
| When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained | |
| To the height he had gained. | 45 |
| |
| And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong, | |
| Writ now but in one hand. “I was not to faint. | |
| One loved me for two … would be with me ere long: | |
| And “viva Italia” he died for, our saint, | |
| Who forbids our complaint.” | 50 |
| |
| My Nanni would add “he was safe, and aware | |
| Of a presence that turned off the balls … was imprest | |
| It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, | |
| And how ’twas impossible, quite dispossessed, | |
| To live on for the rest.” | 55 |
| |
| On which without pause up the telegraph line | |
| Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta:—“Shot. | |
| Tell his mother.” Ah, ah, “his,” “their” mother; not “mine.” | |
| No voice says “my mother” again to me. What! | |
| You think Guido forgot? | 60 |
| |
| Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with heaven, | |
| They drop earth’s affections, conceive not of woe? | |
| I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven | |
| Through that love and sorrow which reconciled so | |
| The above and below. | 65 |
| |
| O Christ of the seven wounds, who look’dst through the dark | |
| To the face of thy mother! consider, I pray, | |
| How we common mothers! stand desolate, mark, | |
| Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, | |
| And no last word to say! | 70 |
| |
| Both boys dead! but that’s out of nature; we all | |
| Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. | |
| ’Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall. | |
| And when Italy’s made, for what end is it done, | |
| If we have not a son? | 75 |
| |
| Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta’s taken, what then? | |
| When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport | |
| Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men? | |
| When your guns of Cavalli with final retort | |
| Have cut the game short.— | 80 |
| |
| When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, | |
| When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green and red, | |
| When you have your country from mountain to sea, | |
| When King Victor has Italy’s crown on his head, | |
| (And I have my dead,) | 85 |
| |
| What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low, | |
| And burn your lights faintly! My country is there, | |
| Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow, | |
| My Italy’s there, with my brave civic pair, | |
| To disfranchise despair. | 90 |
| |
| Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength, | |
| And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn. | |
| But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length | |
| Into such wail as this!—and we sit on forlorn | |
| When the man-child is born. | 95 |
| |
| Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the west, | |
| And one of them shot in the east by the sea! | |
| Both! both my boys!—If in keeping the feast | |
| You want a great song for your Italy free, | |
| Let none look at me! | 100 |
| |
