FullReads

v

The bee pills nothing for himself,
Loading with gold his thigh,
The martin twittering, at his shelf,
Glancing from the sky
Not greedy ease make slaves of these;
Nor yet endures the cow,
Her failing knees and agonies
For price of joy I vow.

A call above the spell of love,
A crying and a need
To make two one, the fruit whereof
To nurture and to feed;
To brood, to hoard, to spend as rain
Virtue and tears and blood;
To get that you may give amain–
Of such is parenthood.

vi

I chose a heart out of a hundred
To nest my own heart in;
To have that plunder’d, and two hearts sunder’d–
Who had heart for the sin?
What woman’s son that saw but one
Such sanctuary waste
Could set his lips like ironstone
And raven broadcast?

What harm did we to any man
That now I must moan?
We did but follow Nature’s plan
And cleave to our own;
For Life it teaches you but this:
Seek you each other;
Rise up from your clasp and kiss,
A father and a mother.

O piety of hand and knee,
Of lips and bow’d head!
O ye who see a soul set free–
Free, when the heart is dead!
There is no rest but in the grave;
Thither my wasted eyes
Turn for the only home they have,
Where my true love lies.

There alongside his clay-cold corse
I pray that mine may rest;
I’ll warm him with my lover’s force
And feed him at my breast:
I’ll nurse him as I nurst his child,
The child he never saw,
The stricken child that never smil’d.
And scarce my milk could draw.

Poor girls, whose argument’s the same
For seeking or denying,
Who kiss to shield yourselves from blame,
And kiss for justifying;
How am I better now or worse,
Beguiler or beguiled,
Who crave to nurse a clay-cold corse,
And kiss a dead child?

vii

O I was shap’t in comeliness,
My face was fashion’d fair,
My breath was sweet, I used to bless
The treasure of my hair;
A many prais’d my body’s grace,
And follow’d with the eye
My faring in the village ways,
And I knew why.

Love came my way, fire-flusht and gay,
Where I did stand:
“This is the day your pride to lay
Under a true man’s hand.”
I bow’d my head to hear it said
In words of long ago;
For ever since the world was made
Our lot was order’d so.

And I was bred in pious bed,
Brought up to be good:
Respect yourself, my mother said,
And rule your own mood.
Fend for yourself while you’re a may,
And keep your own counsel,
And pick at what the neighbours say
As a bird picks at groundsel.

But Love said Nay to Watch and Pray
When the birds were singing,
And taught my heart a roundelay
Like the bells a-ringing;
And so blindfast I ran and cast
My treasure on the gale–
Would the storm-blast had snapt the mast
Before I fared to sail!

II

i

Now that the Lord has open’d me
The evil with the good,
I am as one wise suddenly
Who never understood.
I see the shaping of my days
From the beginning,
When, a young child, I walkt the ways
And knew nought of sinning.

I see how Nature ripen’d me
Under sun and shower,
As she ripens herb and tree
To bud and to flower.
As she ripens herb and tree
Unto flowering shoot,
So it was she ripen’d me
That I might fruit.