Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

V. Death and Bereavement

Mother and Poet

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

Laura Savio of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sons were killed at Ancona and Gaëta.

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? O, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.”

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 ’t was impossible, quite dispossessed,

To live on for the rest.”

On which without pause up the telegraph line

Swept smoothly the next news from Gaëta:—“Shot.

Tell his mother.” Ah, ah, “his,” “their” mother; not “mine.”

No voice says “my mother” again to me. What!

You think Guido forgot?

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.

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!

Both boys dead! but that ’s out of nature. We all

Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.

’T were imbecile hewing out roads to a wall.

And when Italy ’s made, for what end is it done

If we have not a son?

Ah, ah, ah! when Gaëta ’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 at Cavalli with final retort

Have cut the game short,—

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,)

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.

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.

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!