The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Volume 2. Browning Elizabeth Barrett

      More soft, less solemn images

      Drifted o'er the lady's heart

      Silently as snow.

      She had seen eight days depart

      Hour by hour, on bended knees,

      With pale-wrung hands and prayings low

      And broken, through which came the sound

      Of tears that fell against the ground,

      Making sad stops. – "Dear Lord, dear Lord!"

      She still had prayed, (the heavenly word

      Broken by an earthly sigh)

      – "Thou who didst not erst deny

      The mother-joy to Mary mild,

      Blessèd in the blessèd child

      Which hearkened in meek babyhood

      Her cradle-hymn, albeit used

      To all that music interfused

      In breasts of angels high and good!

      Oh, take not, Lord, my babe away —

      Oh, take not to thy songful heaven

      The pretty baby thou hast given,

      Or ere that I have seen him play

      Around his father's knees and known

      That he knew how my love has gone

      From all the world to him.

      Think, God among the cherubim,

      How I shall shiver every day

      In thy June sunshine, knowing where

      The grave-grass keeps it from his fair

      Still cheeks: and feel, at every tread,

      His little body, which is dead

      And hidden in thy turfy fold,

      Doth make thy whole warm earth a-cold!

      O God, I am so young, so young —

      I am not used to tears at nights

      Instead of slumber – not to prayer

      With sobbing lips and hands out-wrung!

      Thou knowest all my prayings were

      'I bless thee, God, for past delights —

      Thank God!' I am not used to bear

      Hard thoughts of death; the earth doth cover

      No face from me of friend or lover:

      And must the first who teaches me

      The form of shrouds and funerals, be

      Mine own first-born belovèd? he

      Who taught me first this mother-love?

      Dear Lord who spreadest out above

      Thy loving, transpierced hands to meet

      All lifted hearts with blessing sweet, —

      Pierce not my heart, my tender heart

      Thou madest tender! Thou who art

      So happy in thy heaven alway,

      Take not mine only bliss away!"

      She so had prayed: and God, who hears

      Through seraph-songs the sound of tears

      From that belovèd babe had ta'en

      The fever and the beating pain.

      And more and more smiled Isobel

      To see the baby sleep so well,

      (She knew not that she smiled, I wis)

      Until the pleasant gradual thought

      Which near her heart the smile enwrought,

      Now soft and slow, itself did seem

      To float along a happy dream,

      Beyond it into speech like this.

      "I prayed for thee, my little child,

      And God has heard my prayer!

      And when thy babyhood is gone,

      We two together undefiled

      By men's repinings, will kneel down

      Upon His earth which will be fair

      (Not covering thee, sweet!) to us twain,

      And give Him thankful praise."

      Dully and wildly drives the rain:

      Against the lattices drives the rain.

      "I thank Him now, that I can think

      Of those same future days,

      Nor from the harmless image shrink

      Of what I there might see —

      Strange babies on their mothers' knee,

      Whose innocent soft faces might

      From off mine eyelids strike the light,

      With looks not meant for me!"

      Gustily blows the wind through the rain,

      As against the lattices drives the rain.

      "But now, O baby mine, together,

      We turn this hope of ours again

      To many an hour of summer weather,

      When we shall sit and intertwine

      Our spirits, and instruct each other

      In the pure loves of child and mother!

      Two human loves make one divine."

      The thunder tears through the wind and the rain,

      As full on the lattices drives the rain.

      "My little child, what wilt thou choose?

      Now let me look at thee and ponder.

      What gladness, from the gladnesses

      Futurity is spreading under

      Thy