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| WAILING, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea— | |
| And Willy’s voice in the wind, “O mother, come out to me.” | |
| Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go? | |
| For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow. | |
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| We should be seen, my dear; they would spy us out of the town. | 5 |
| The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the down, | |
| When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain, | |
| And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drench’d with the rain. | |
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| Anything fallen again? nay—what was there left to fall? | |
| I have taken them home, I have number’d the bones, I have hidden them all. | 10 |
| What am I saying? and what are you? do you come as a spy? | |
| Falls? what falls? who knows? As the tree falls so must it lie. | |
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| Who let her in? how long has she been? you—what have you heard? | |
| Why did you sit so quiet? you never have spoken a word. | |
| O—to pray with me—yes—a lady—none of their spies— | 15 |
| But the night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken my eyes. | |
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| Ah—you, that have liv’d so soft, what should you know of the night, | |
| The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost and the fright? | |
| I have done it, while you were asleep—you were only made for the day. | |
| I have gather’d my baby together—and now you may go your way. | 20 |
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| Nay—for it ’s kind of you, Madam, to sit by an old dying wife. | |
| But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life. | |
| I kiss’d my boy in the prison, before he went out to die. | |
| “They dar’d me to do it,” he said, and he never has told me a lie. | |
| I whipp’d him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a child— | 25 |
| “The farmer dar’d me to do it,” he said; he was always so wild— | |
| And idle—and could n’t be idle—my Willy—he never could rest. | |
| The King should have made him a soldier; he would have been one of his best. | |
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| But he liv’d with a lot of wild mates, and they never would let him be good; | |
| They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he swore that he would; | 30 |
| And he took no life, but he took one purse, and when all was done | |
| He flung it among his fellows—I ’ll none of it, said my son. | |
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| I came into court to the Judge and the lawyers. I told them my tale, | |
| God’s own truth—but they kill’d him, they kill’d him for robbing the mail. | |
| They hang’d him in chains for a show—he had always borne a good name— | 35 |
| To be hang’d for a thief—and then put away—is n ’t that enough shame? | |
| Dust to dust—low down—let us hide! but they set him so high | |
| That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by. | |
| God ’ill pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air, | |
| But not the black heart of the lawyer who kill’d him and hang’d him there. | 40 |
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| And the jailer forced me away. I had bid him my last goodbye; | |
| They had fasten’d the door of his cell, “O mother!” I heard him cry. | |
| I could n’t get back tho’ I tried, he had something further to say, | |
| And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me away. | |
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| Then since I could n’t but hear that cry of my boy that was dead, | 45 |
| They seiz’d me and shut me up: they fasten’d me down on my bed. | |
| “Mother, O mother!”—he call’d in the dark to me year after year— | |
| They beat me for that, they beat me—you know that I could n’t but hear; | |
| And then at the last they found I had grown so stupid and still | |
| They let me abroad again—but the creatures had work’d their will. | 50 |
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| Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was left— | |
| I stole them all from the lawyers—and you, will you call it a theft?— | |
| My baby, the bones that had suck’d me, the bones that had laugh’d and had cried— | |
| Theirs? O no! they are mine—not theirs—they had mov’d in my side. | |
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| Do you think I was scar’d by the bones? I kiss’d ’em, I buried ’em all— | 55 |
| I can’t dig deep, I am old—in the night by the churchyard wall. | |
| My Willy ’ill rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment ’ill sound, | |
| But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground. | |
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| They would scratch him up—they would hang him again on the cursed tree. | |
| Sin? O yes—we are sinners, I know—let all that be, | 60 |
| And read me a Bible verse of the Lord’s good will toward men— | |
| “Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord”—let me hear it again; | |
| “Full of compassion and mercy—long-suffering.” Yes, O yes! | |
| For the lawyer is born but to murder—the Saviour lives but to bless. | |
| He ’ll never put on the black cap except for the worst of the worst, | 65 |
| And the first may be last—I have heard it in church—and the last may be first. | |
| Suffering—O long-suffering—yes, as the Lord must know, | |
| Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow. | |
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| Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never repented his sin. | |
| How do they know it? are they his mother? are you of his kin? | 70 |
| Heard! have you ever heard, when the storm on the downs began, | |
| The wind that ’ill wail like a child and the sea that ’ill moan like a man? | |
| Election, Election and Reprobation—it’s all very well. | |
| But I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not find him in Hell. | |
| For I car’d so much for my boy that the Lord has look’d into my care, | 75 |
| And He means me, I ’m sure, to be happy with Willy, I know not where. | |
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| And if he be lost—but to save my soul, that is all your desire: | |
| Do you think that I care for my soul if my boy be gone to the fire? | |
| I have been with God in the dark—go, go, you may leave me alone— | |
| You never have borne a child—you are just as hard as a stone. | 80 |
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| Madam, I beg your pardon! I think that you mean to be kind, | |
| But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy’s voice in the wind— | |
| The snow and the sky so bright—he us’d but to call in the dark, | |
| And he calls to me now from the church and not from the gibbet—for hark! | |
| Nay—you can hear it yourself—it is coming—shaking the walls— | 85 |
| Willy—the moon’s in a cloud—Good-night. I am going. He calls. | |
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