Proof this, beyond all lingering doubt,
That not with natural or mental wealth
Was God delighted, or His peace secured;
That not in natural or mental wealth

Was human happiness or grandeur found.
Attempt how monstrous, and how surely vain
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God,
With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love,
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul!
Attempt, vain inconceivably! attempt
To satisfy the Ocean with a drop,

To marry Immortality to Death,

And with the unsubstantial Shade of Time
To fill the embrace of all Eternity!

MOTHER AND POET

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

NOTE TO THE PUPIL. Elizabeth Barrett, one of the most gifted female poets who ever lived, was born in Durham, England, in 1806. She was highly educated, well acquainted with the Greek and Latin languages. She began to write verses at the age of ten. In 1846 she married the poet, Robert Browning. Her greatest work is "Aurora Leigh." She died in 1861.

EAD! One of them shot by the sea in the east,

DR

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!

Yet I was a poetess only last year,

And good at my art, for a woman, men said;

But this woman, this, who is agonized here

The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
Forever instead.

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 prest,
And I proud by that test.

What's art 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 dote.

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

At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled

With my kisses, of camp life and glory, and how They both loved me; and soon, coming home to be spoiled, In return would fan off every fly from my brow

With the green laurel bough.

There was triumph at Turin: "Ancona was free!"
And some one 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 cheered in the street.

I bore it; friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained

To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while the both of us
strained,

To the height he had gained.

And letters still came; shorter, sadder, more strong,

Writ now but in one hand:-"I was not to faint, One loved me for two; would be with me erelong: And Viva l'Italia he died for, our saint,

Who forbids our complaint."

My Nanni would add, “he was safe, and aware

Of a presence that turned off the balls, was imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossest,

To live on for the rest."

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?

Are souls straight so happy, that, dizzy with heaven,
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?

I think not! Themselves were too lately forgiven

Through that Love and that Sorrow which reconciled so
The Above and Below.

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 Christ's, 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 fireballs of death crashing souls out of men; When the 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 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!

A WOMAN'S QUESTION

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing D°

Ever made by the hand above —

A woman's heart and a woman's life,

And a woman's wonderful love?

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy?
Demanding what others have died to win

With the reckless dash of a boy.

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Man-like you have questioned me-
Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul,
Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,
Your socks and your shirts shall be whole;
I require your heart to be true as God's stars,
And pure as heaven your soul.