English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
647. Rizpah
17And Willy’s voice in the wind, “O mother, come out to me!”
Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go?
For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow.
The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the down,
When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain,
And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with the rain.
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.
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.
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 gather’d my baby together—and now you may go your way.
But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life.
I kiss’d 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.
“The farmer dared me to do it,” he said; he was always so wild—
The King should have made him a soldier, he would have been one of his best.
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.
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?
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.
They had fasten’d 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.
They seized me and shut me up: they fasten’d me down on my bed.
“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.
I 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.
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.
Sin? O, yes, we are sinners, I know—let all that be,
And read me a Bible verse of the Lord’s goodwill 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.
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.
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?
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.
Do you think that 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.
But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy’s voice in the wind—
The snow and the 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!
Willy—the moon’s in a cloud—Good-night. I am going. He calls.