| |
| WHERE art thou, my beloved son, | |
| Where art thou, worse to me than dead? | |
| Oh find me, prosperous or undone! | |
| Or, if the grave be now thy bed, | |
| Why am I ignorant of the same | 5 |
| That I may rest; and neither blame | |
| Nor sorrow may attend thy name? | |
| |
| Seven years, alas! to have received | |
| No tidings of an only child; | |
| To have despaired, have hoped, believed, | 10 |
| And been for evermore beguiled; | |
| Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss! | |
| I catch at them, and then I miss; | |
| Was ever darkness like to this? | |
| |
| He was among the prime in worth, | 15 |
| An object beauteous to behold; | |
| Well born, well bred; I sent him forth | |
| Ingenuous, innocent, and bold: | |
| If things ensued that wanted grace, | |
| As hath been said, they were not base; | 20 |
| And never blush was on my face. | |
| |
| Ah! little doth the young one dream, | |
| When full of play and childish cares, | |
| What power is in his wildest scream, | |
| Heard by his mother unawares! | 25 |
| He knows it not, he cannot guess: | |
| Years to a mother bring distress; | |
| But do not make her love the less. | |
| |
| Neglect me! no, I suffered long | |
| From that ill thought; and, being blind, | 30 |
| Said, ‘Pride shall help me in my wrong; | |
| Kind mother have I been, as kind | |
| As ever breathed:’ and that is true: | |
| I’ve wet my path with tears like dew, | |
| Weeping for him when no one knew. | 35 |
| |
| My Son, if thou be humbled, poor, | |
| Hopeless of honour and of gain, | |
| Oh! do not dread thy mother’s door; | |
| Think not of me with grief and pain: | |
| I now can see with better eyes; | 40 |
| And worldly grandeur I despise, | |
| And fortune with her gifts and lies. | |
| |
| Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings, | |
| And blasts of heaven will aid their flight; | |
| They mount, how short a voyage brings | 45 |
| The wanderers back to their delight! | |
| Chains tie us down by land and sea; | |
| And wishes, vain as mine, may be | |
| All that is left to comfort thee. | |
| |
| Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan, | 50 |
| Maimed, mangled by inhuman men; | |
| Or thou upon a desert thrown | |
| Inheritest the lion’s den; | |
| Or hast been summoned to the deep, | |
| Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep | 55 |
| An incommunicable sleep. | |
| |
| I look for ghosts; but none will force | |
| Their way to me:—’tis falsely said | |
| That there was ever intercourse | |
| Between the living and the dead; | 60 |
| For, surely, then I should have sight | |
| Of him I wait for day and night, | |
| With love and longings infinite. | |
| |
| My apprehensions come in crowds; | |
| I dread the rustling of the grass; | 65 |
| The very shadows of the clouds | |
| Have power to shake me as they pass: | |
| I question things and do not find | |
| One that will answer to my mind; | |
| And all the world appears unkind. | 70 |
| |
| Beyond participation lie | |
| My troubles, and beyond relief: | |
| If any chance to heave a sigh, | |
| They pity me, and not my grief. | |
| Then come to me, my Son, or send | 75 |
| Some tidings that my woes may end; | |
| I have no other earthly friend. | |
| |
