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. 'Twere 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 Gaeta'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 of 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 wail such 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_! NATURE'S LADY. Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This child I to myself will take, She shall be mine, and I will make A lady of my own. "Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse: and with me The Girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle or restrain. "She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm, Of mute insensate things. {She shall be sportive as the fawn: p3.jpg} "The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willows bend; Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the storm Grace that shall mould the maiden's form By silent sympathy. "The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face." TO A SKYLARK. Hail to thee, blithe spirit-- Bird thou never wert-- That from heaven or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.