THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. “ Φεῦ, Φεῦ, τι πρασδέρκεσθέ μ' ομμασιν, τεκνα.” I. MEDEA. 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, They are weeping in the playtime of the others, II. Do you question the young children in the sorrow, The old man may weep for his to-morrow The old tree is leafless in the forest, But the young, young children, O my brothers, Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, III. They look up with their pale and sunken faces, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses 'Your old earth,' they say, 'is very dreary; Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children; And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, And the graves are for the old. IV. 'True,' say the children, 'it may happen Little Alice died last year-her grave is shapen We looked into the pit prepared to take her. 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 They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, Go out, children, from the mine and from the city, Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, VI. 'For oh,' say the children, 'we are weary If we cared for any meadows, it were merely Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, 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 VII. 'For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning,Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn,—our head, with pulses burning, Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning) 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, So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, They answer, 'Who is God that He should hear us, While the rushing of the iron wheel is stirred? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us, Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. Is it likely God, with angels singing round him, 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.* 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, And they tell us, of His image is the master * 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. |