III.

Any thing 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.

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.

IV.

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-

But the night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken my eyes.

V.

Ah-you, that have lived 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 gathered my baby together—and now you may go your

way.

VI.

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 kissed my boy in the prison, before he went out to die.

They dared me to do it," he said, and he never has told me a lie.

I whipt him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a

child

The farmer dared me to do it," he said; he was always so

wild

And idle-and couldn'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.

VII.

But he lived 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;

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.

VIII.

I came into the 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-we had always borne a good name

To be hang'd for a thief-and then put away-isn'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'll 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.

IX.

And the jailer forced me away. I had bid him my last goodbye;

They had fastened the door of his cell. "O mother!" I heard

him cry:

I couldn't get back tho' I tried, he had something further to say, And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me away.

X.

Then since I couldn't but hear that cry of my boy that was

dead,

They seized me and shut me up: they fasten'd me down on my bed.

66

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 couldn'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 worked their will.

XI.

Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was leftI 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 laughed and had cried-

Theirs? O no! they are mine—not theirs--they had moved in my side.

Do

XII.

you think I was scared by the bones? I kiss'd 'em, I buried 'em all-

I can't dig deep, I am old—in the night by the churchyard

wall,

My Willy'll rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment'll

sound,

But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground.

XIII.

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,

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,

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.

XIV.

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? Heard! have you ever heard, when the storm on the downs began?

The wind that'll wail like a child, and the sea that'll moan like a man?

XV.

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 cared so much for my boy that the Lord has look'd into

my care,

And He means me I'm sure to be happy with Willy, I know not where.

XVI.

And if he be lost-but to save my soul, that is all your desire: Do you think 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.

XVII.

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 sky so bright-he used 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

Willy-the moon's in a cloud-Good-night. I am going. He calls.

DEDICATORY POEM TO THE PRINCESS ALICE.

DEAD PRINCESS, living Power, if that, which lived
True life, live on-and if the fatal kiss,
Born of true life and love, divorce thee not
From earthly love and life-if what we call

The spirit flash not all at once from out
This shadow into Substance-then perhaps
The mellow'd murmur of the people's praise

From thine own State, and all our breadth of realm,
Where Love and Longing dress thy deeds in light,
Ascends to thee; and this March morn that sees
Thy Soldier-brother's bridal-orange bloom
Break thro' the yews and cypress of thy grave,
And thine Imperial mother smile again,
May send one ray to thee! and who can tell-
Thou-England's England-loving daughter-thou
Dying so English thou wouldst have her flag
Borne on thy coffin-where is he can swear

But that some broken gleam from our poor earth
May touch thee, while remembering thee, I lay
At thy pale feet this ballad of the deeds
Of England, and her banner in the East?

DE PROFUNDIS.

THE TWO GREETINGS.

I.

OUT of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Where all that was to be in all that was
Whirl'd for a million æons thro' the vast
Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light—
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Thro' all this changing world of changeless law,
And every phase of ever-heightening life,
And nine long months of antenatal gloom,

With this last moon, this crescent-her dark orb
Touch'd with earth's light-thou comest, darling boy;
Our own; a babe in lineament and limb

Perfect, and prophet of the perfect man;

Whose face and form are hers and mine in one,
Indissolubly married like our love;

Live and be happy in thyself, and serve

This mortal race thy kin so well, that men

May bless thee as we bless thee; O young life,
Breaking with laughter from the dark; and may
The fated channel where thy motion lives
Be prosperously shaped, and sway thy course
Along the years of haste and random youth
Unshatter'd, then full-current thro' full man,
And last in kindly curves, with gentlest fall,
By quiet fields, a slowly-dying power,

To that last deep where we and thou are still.

II.

OUT of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
From that great deep before our world begins
Whereon the Spirit of God moves as he will-
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
From that true world within the world we see,
Whereof our world is but the bounding shore—
Out of the deep, Spirit, out of the deep,

With this ninth moon that sends the hidden sun
Down yon dark sea, thou comest, darling boy.