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!”

MOTHER AND POET

[On Laura Savio of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sons
were killed at Ancona and Gaeta.]

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!

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.

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 prest,
And I proud by that test.

What art’s for a 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! 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 cast out.

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!

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.

There 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 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.