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| 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! | 5 |
| |
| Yet I was a poetess only last year, | |
| And good at my art, for a woman, men said; | |
| But this woman, this, who is agoniz’d here, | |
| —The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head | |
| For ever instead. | 10 |
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| 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 press’d, | |
| And I proud, by that test. | 15 |
| |
| 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 doat. | 20 |
| |
| 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. | 25 |
| |
| And when their eyes flash’d … 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! | 30 |
| |
| At first, happy news came, in gay letters moil’d | |
| With my kisses,—of camp-life and glory, and how | |
| They both lov’d me; and, soon coming home to be spoil’d, | |
| In return would fan off every fly from my brow | |
| With their green laurel-bough. | 35 |
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| Then was triumph at Turin: “Ancona was free!” | |
| And someone 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 cheer’d in the street. | 40 |
| |
| I bore it; friends sooth’d me; my grief look’d sublime | |
| As the ransom of Italy. One boy remain’d | |
| To be leant on and walk’d with, recalling the time | |
| When the first grew immortal, while both of us strain’d | |
| To the height he had gain’d. | 45 |
| |
| And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong, | |
| Writ now but in one hand, “I was not to faint,— | |
| One lov’d me for two—would be with me ere long: | |
| And Viva l’ Italia!—he died for, our saint, | |
| Who forbids our complaint.” | 50 |
| |
| My Nanni would add, “he was safe, and aware | |
| Of a presence that turn’d off the balls,—was impress’d | |
| It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, | |
| And how ’t was impossible, quite dispossess’d, | |
| To live on for the rest.” | 55 |
| |
| On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line, | |
| Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta:—Shot. | |
| Tell his mother. Ah, ah, “his,” “their” mother,—not “mine,” | |
| No voice says “My mother” again to me. What! | |
| You think Guido forgot? | 60 |
| |
| Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven, | |
| They drop earth’s affections, conceive not of woe? | |
| I think not. Themselves were to lately forgiven | |
| Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconcil’d so | |
| The Above and Below. | 65 |
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| O Christ of the five 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 turn’d away, | |
| And no last word to say! | 70 |
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| 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? | 75 |
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| 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 the guns of Cavalli with final retort | |
| Have cut the game short? | 80 |
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| 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)— | 85 |
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| What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low, | |
| And burn your lights faintly! My country is there, | |
| Above the star prick’d by the last peak of snow: | |
| My Italy’s THERE, with my brave civic Pair, | |
| To disfranchise despair! | 90 |
| |
| 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. | 95 |
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| Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east, | |
| And one of them shot in the west 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
[This was Laura Savio, of Turin, a poet and patriot, whose sons were killed at Ancona and Gaeta.] | 100 |
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