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MOTHER AND POET,

MOTHER AND POET.

(Turin — After news from Gaeta, 1861.)

 

By ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

EAD! 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/

Vet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art for a woman, men said,
But ¢#is woman, #his, who is agonized here,
The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
Forever instead. :

What art can woman be good at? Oh, vain!
What art zs 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 J proud by that test.

What art’s fora woman? To hold on her knees
Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her
throat
Cling, strangle a little! To sew by degrees,
And ’broider the long clothes and neat little coat!
To dream and to dote.

To teach them... It stings there. J 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.
Z prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant turned out.

And when their eyes flashed, oh, 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,

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.

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.

I bore it—friends soothed me: my grief looked sub-
lime
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.

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’ Ze died for, our saint,
Who forbids our complaint.

My Nanni would add, ‘he was safe, and aware
Of a presence that turned off the balls .
imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how ’twas impossible, quite dispossessed,
To live on for the rest.’

« Was

On which, without pause, up the telegraph line,
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta — Shot.
Tell his mother. Ah, ah! ‘his,’ ‘their’ mother: no
‘mine.’
No voice says ‘my mother’ again to me.
You think Guido forgot?

What!