The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

From all the ends of the earth the plaintiffs came.—
“I lost my three sons in a day,” one said:
The next, “My white-souled daughter wedded shame.”
Then came a flower with overburthened head
And petals filled with flush of vengeful flame;
Weeping, it plained: “My sister rose was red;
We loved each other, and we rested close
Against the quiet garden's grey old wall
Till the wind shook us roughly from repose
And lo! one day I saw my sister fall.
Now I am lonely; lonelier than those
Who throng the sunlit flower-beds,—yea, than all.
God, give me back my sister.” Then the man:
“God, give me back my daughter. Lo! I saw
Her poor face lit by gas, so peaked and wan,
In a London street. The winter wind blew raw
And down her rouge-red cheeks the rain-drops ran;
Doth this not strike thy listless soul with awe?”

199

Next came an Empress: “Surely thou hast done
Worse things to me and sadder”—so she wept—
“Than unto any soul beneath the sun.
Our kingdom was stolen from us while we slept;
Scattered was all the glory we had won,
And lo! red Revolution's tiger leapt
Upon us, and the people of France forgot
All good deeds, and all bad were brought to light.
My husband died. My son in loneliest spot
Thou didst ordain the savage spears to smite,
So making sonless too my widowed lot.
God of the wide earth, answer. Was this right?”
And then a woman: “Lo! an Empress' tears
Move God perhaps. But has he heed of mine?
Has he watched through the weary weary years
My whole soul yearn and agonize and pine
After the son who 'mid the serried tiers
Of battle fell? Can God my grief divine?
Lo! she was beautiful, that Empress there,
And crowned and happy. I was quite alone
—Save for my son the bond-slave of despair—
Her husband levied to support his throne
Vast armies, and my son they must ensnare:
Empress and Emperor reap what they have sown.”

200

And then another woman: “Lo! the waves
Sucked down my husband on my wedding-day.
God! hast thou not enough white watery graves
Round thee in their interminable array
That thou must add another?”—So she raves,
With madness in her eyes of sunless grey.
And then a prisoner: “In Siberian mines
For fifty years I languished,—while the blue
Sweet sky above me kissed thy waving pines
And laughter came thy palace-gateways through.
If thou dost place me where the sunlight shines
Now, canst thou those lost fifty years renew?
Canst thou restore my wife who 'neath the knout
Perished? Canst thou restore my only child?”
And then there came a grim voice from without,
An Emperor's: “My rule was ever mild
And clement. Yet one day the fires leaped out
And left my limbs a shattered horror, piled
Loose in the roadway.” Then his son exclaimed,
“And my life is a horror likewise! I
Though nowise crippled, blind, deformed, or lamed,
Through palace-windows only see the sky
And know myself through all my land defamed
And stir not out unless my guards are nigh.

201

Is this a life worth having,—knowing well
That round about me murderous creatures wait
To fling the bomb with red fuse dipped in hell?
I dare not move beyond my palace-gate
For fear of dull roar of the deadly shell.
Armed guards surround and watch me early and late.
God, is this just?” And next a butterfly:
“Born on a sunny morning 'mid the flowers
And waving grasses and green leaves was I.
Rapture it was from fragrant fields to bowers
All honeysuckle-girt to hover and hie,
Trying in the swift air my new-born powers.
But lo! a creature caught me in a net
And through my struggling body thrust a pin
(I feel the steely cold pang even yet!)
And just as sweet life promised to begin
Dead was I,—long before my first sun set.
To make me, then to slay me, was a sin,
Lord God! The eternal justice is in fault
That I, when all my white-winged friends were free
And happy, thus was marred by rude assault
And stabbed to death. Lord God, canst thou not see
That thus to pin me and prison in a vault
Airless, with human quick dexterity,

202

Was murder?” Then a poet rose and said:
“I blame thee, God,—for though fair visions pass
Gold-winged and grand and gorgeous through my head
I cannot stay their arrowy flight, alas!
I shall speak no true word till I am dead
And o'er me waves thy never-ending grass!
Why make me at all, if thus I must pursue
Beauty, and never reach her though I follow
With ardent tireless feet the whole world through;
O'er mountain steep and down green-skirted hollow
And over ocean-wastes of endless blue,
Swifter than flight of summer-searching swallow?
Of all created things we have the most
And bitterest cause to blame thee. Thou hast poured
Love in our hearts, and given us but a ghost
Instead of love,—or slain love with thy sword.
Now round about thy throne, a fiery host,
We stand, with tongues that witness 'gainst thee, Lord.”
And then a woman: “What is theirs to this
Sorrow of mine that eats away my soul?
—The bitter longing for love's flame-lipped kiss:
—The daily journeying not towards any goal:
—To dream of love, how passing sweet it is,
And wake to hear love's wheels i'the distance roll.

203

—To long to feel against one's white smooth breast
And white smooth neck a lover's soft lips burn:
—For love's divine unutterable rest
With every pulse of womanhood to yearn:
To follow love in a fatigueless quest,
Yet to watch love's eyes ever shift and turn
Aside,—is this not agony supreme?
Thou, God, in heaven canst know not aught so grim
And deep and terrible.”—But then a scream
Rang round the vaulted judgment-chamber dim;
A blood-stained soldier spoke: “Ah! God, I deem
Thou never hast had in seas of blood to swim!
Thou hast not felt the round-shot tear its way
Through thy rent flesh, and, fallen amid the wheat,
There lingered helpless through the maddening day,
Crushed by the gun-wheels and the chargers' feet.
Thou hast the great white clouds whereon to lay
Thy head when fevered by the summer heat.”

And then a husband: “Day by day my life
Grows yet more wearisome. The flowers outside
Laugh when they hear the shrill voice of my wife
And toss their petals through the window wide,

204

Mocking our endless miserable strife;—
Ah! when I married, all my true soul died.”
But then a woman spoke: “My husband slew
All high thoughts in me,—till my lover came,
And then the sweet and young thoughts bloomed anew;
But now alas! each flower with scarlet shame
Was tipped, and flushed beneath the sunny blue
With trembling dread and streaks of passionate flame.
God's face was in my lover's: yet I felt
That duty drew me from him. When I fled,
The very world beneath me seemed to melt
And hell beneath me yawned wide open and red
And stroke on stroke the sword of agony dealt
Till I alive was mingled with the dead
In all save outward seeming. Then one hour
Again my lover came along the way
And kissed my weary mouth till all aflower
It laughed, and sudden sunlight flushed the grey
Waste thornful branches of my hawthorn bower...
And then—now, God, hast thou one word to say
In thine excuse?—my husband's sword flashed out
Straight from behind our tender bower of green,
And red strange heavy drops ran all about,
And lo! where, even just now, my lips had been

205

Blood from my lover's lips welled slow without:
O murderous God, who witnessedst that scene,
Can I forgive thee?—Never! though the tears
Ran down thy cheeks for ever.” Then a slave:
“For eighty long unutterable years
I watched the free wind through the reed-beds wave,
And heard some women's laughter with mine ears,
Yet never laughed,—till round me closed the grave.”
And then a statesman: “Surely most of all
Slaves are we who upon the people wait;
On whom in turn the vengeful masses fall;
Whom sometimes through the deadly prison-gate
They lead, and sometimes on the steel-spiked wall
Fix our grey heads in their dull poisonous hate,
Though all our lives have done them service true.
God, what of this?” And then a wild-eyed man:
“God! surely thy misdeed thine heart shall rue.
Through all eternity my curse and ban
Shall rest upon thee! Whom thy keen sword slew,
Let her forgive thee; for I never can.”
And then a woman, pale, and all her face
Deep-lined with grief: “I loved, and dreamed that he
Returned my love. My beauty won more grace
From the sweet thought. Yes, I was fair to see!

206

And lovers thronged about me in each place.
God, thou didst bid the tender dream to flee,
As all the golden hues of perfect morn
Flee through the morning's swiftly-closing gate.”
She spake,—and with one voice the wild forlorn
Strange group cried: “God, we crown thee with our hate,
Hate,—and an inextinguishable scorn.”

And then God's answer came in one word. “Wait.”

March, 1883.