English Roses :: :: University of Virginia Library

A clouded heaven, a cursèd globe
Wrapt in its fated funeral robe,
A solemn silent gloom
That with its horror rolled on each
Pale thing, as on some blasted beach
The waters roll to doom;
I saw the burden of a vision
Of the gray coming years,
And gates that opened in derision
To show the shrouded fears;
And lone, in dead creation, stood
A woman in her womanhood.

Hope had departed, she was left
Of all but love and life bereft,
And still she struggled on;
And still her face by sickness marred,
With vanquished pain and sorrow scarred,
Bright as an angel shone.
Her sole companion was the thunder
Low in a lurid sky,
She trod the earth she trampled under
Clothed in eternity.
Betwixt the sunset and the storm,
Palm-like arose her pillared form.

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No foot was on the palsied land
Which trembled with its dreary brand,
No sail upon the sea,
No music dropt from laughing lip,
No clasp of kindly fellowship,
No maiden's murmured plea.
The dust had opened wide its portal,
And welcomed in its womb
The young and sweet and what was mortal,
Till Time was but a tomb.
And none but she drew living breath,
Within that voiceless world of death.

A sudden plague had swooped like night
On wings of famine and affright,
Down on the troubled earth;
It poisoned all the haunted air,
And when it found an Eden fair
It left an aching dearth.
Men cast of iron pined and perished
Before that dreadful wave,
And tenderest things were only cherished
To moulder in the grave;
A shadow rested on the day,
And where the stricken fell they lay.

She saw them going one by one,
Her weary work might not be done
Till she had buried all;
Her dearest in their youth and pride
Lay down in sadness at her side,
She heard their faintest call;
The sick with softest hand she tended
And soothed the breaking tie,
Till each poor tortured life was ended
And yet she could not die.
A cemetery was her throne,
In awful peace she reigned alone.

But for her babe she suffered sore
That he might live a little more,

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And from the general fate
Be plucked to babble at her breast
And woo and win delicious rest—
She suffered long and late.
And though the tide of woe came faster,
Her love refused to yield
And stronger than all dire disaster
Enclosed him like a shield.
But soon that sparkling life was spent,
And into the great darkness went.

And now in solitary calm,
Uplifted as some stately palm
That guards a burial ground,
She stood in the dim dreadful light
With her scarred beauty grand and bright
And with her sorrow crowned;
Above all need, above all anguish,
She faced her desperate lot,
The heaven and earth might lie and languish,
Unconquered she would not;
Beneath her grovelled wrecks of time,
But yet her heart kept constant chime.

She saw her treasured darling still
Beyond the passion and the ill,
Beyond the veil of tears,
And all her spirit rushed to meet
The patter of those pretty feet,
Adown the coming years.
No word of hope or fear she uttered
Who spurned the common band,
The baffled thunder moaned and muttered,
The lightning licked her hand.
And there she stood with regal head,
A faithful watcher by her dead.

She heard the music of his call
That rang for ever over all
And echoed through her heart,
That flooded sombre land and sky

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With its own immortality,
Wherein all had a part.
And, lo, the clouds of gray affliction
Before her seemed to bow,
And rested like a benediction
Bright on her holy brow
The solemn sun that sank to rest,
With her was glorified and blest.

Aloud the storm its trumpets blew,
And dank mists to destruction flew
On seas and continents,
She marked no ruin of the globe
And simply saw the baby robe
In earth's dull cerements;
The vapours were his golden tresses
The breezes did disperse,
And his dear little lovelinesses
Attired the universe.
She stood a pillar of white fire,
Sceptred with her one calm desire.