"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, "He is speechless as a stone; And they tell us, of his image is the master Who commands us to work on. Go to!" say the children,--"up in heaven, Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. Do not mock us: Grief has made us unbelieving: We look up for God; but tears have made us blind." Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, O my brothers, what ye preach? For God's possible is taught by his world's loving-- And the children doubt of each. XII And well may the children weep before you! They are weary ere they run; They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory Which is brighter than the sun. They know the grief of man, without its wisdom; They sink in man's despair, without its calm; Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom; Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm; Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly The harvest of its memories cannot reap; Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly-- Let them weep! let them weep! XIII 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.