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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=383802" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Mother and Poet</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,<br> And one of them shot in the west by the sea.<br> Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast<br> And are wanting a great song for Italy free,<br> Let none look at me !</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.<br> Yet I was a poetess only last year,<br> And good at my art, for a woman, men said ;<br> But this woman, this, who is agonized here,<br> -- The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head<br> For ever instead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.<br>What art can a woman be good at ? Oh, vain !<br> What art is she good at, but hurting her breast<br>With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain ?<br> Ah boys, how you hurt ! you were strong as you pressed,<br> And I proud, by that test.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV.<br>What art's for a woman ? To hold on her knees<br> Both darlings ! to feel all their arms round her throat,<br>Cling, strangle a little ! to sew by degrees<br> And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ;<br> To dream and to doat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V.<br>To teach them ... It stings there ! I made them indeed<br> Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt, <br>That a country's a thing men should die for at need.<br> I prated of liberty, rights, and about<br> The tyrant cast out.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI.<br>And when their eyes flashed ... O my beautiful eyes ! ...<br> I exulted ; nay, let them go forth at the wheels<br>Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise<br> When one sits quite alone ! Then one weeps, then one kneels !<br> God, how the house feels !</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII.<br>At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled<br> With my kisses, -- of camp-life and glory, and how<br>They both loved me ; and, soon coming home to be spoiled<br> In return would fan off every fly from my brow<br> With their green laurel-bough.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII.<br>Then was triumph at Turin : `Ancona was free !'<br> And some one came out of the cheers in the street,<br>With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.<br> My Guido was dead ! I fell down at his feet,<br> While they cheered in the street.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX.<br>I bore it ; friends soothed me ; my grief looked sublime<br> As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained<br>To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time<br> When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained<br> To the height he had gained.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">X.<br>And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,<br> Writ now but in one hand, `I was not to faint, --<br>One loved me for two -- would be with me ere long :<br> And Viva l' Italia ! -- he died for, our saint,<br> Who forbids our complaint.&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI.<br>My Nanni would add, `he was safe, and aware<br> Of a presence that turned off the balls, -- was imprest<br>It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,<br> And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed,<br> To live on for the rest.&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII.<br>On which, without pause, up the telegraph line<br> Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : -- Shot.<br>Tell his mother. Ah, ah, ` his, ' ` their ' mother, -- not ` mine, '<br> No voice says &quot;My mother&quot; again to me. What !<br> You think Guido forgot ?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII.<br>Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,<br> They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe ?<br>I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven<br> Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so<br> The Above and Below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV.<br>O Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark<br> To the face of Thy mother ! consider, I pray,<br>How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,<br> Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,<br> And no last word to say !</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XV.<br>Both boys dead ? but that's out of nature. We all<br> Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.<br>'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall ;<br> And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done<br> If we have not a son ?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVI.<br>Ah, ah, ah ! when Gaeta's taken, what then ?<br> When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport<br>Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men ?<br> When the guns of Cavalli with final retort<br> Have cut the game short ?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVII.<br>When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,<br> When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,<br>When you have your country from mountain to sea,<br> When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,<br> (And I have my Dead) --</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVIII.<br>What then ? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,<br> And burn your lights faintly ! My country is there,<br>Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow :<br> My Italy 's THERE, with my brave civic Pair,<br> To disfranchise despair !</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIX.<br>Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,<br> And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn ;<br>But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length<br> Into wail such as this -- and we sit on forlorn<br> When the man-child is born.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XX.<br>Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,<br> And one of them shot in the west by the sea.<br>Both ! both my boys ! If in keeping the feast<br> You want a great song for your Italy free,<br> Let none look at me !</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>[This was Laura Savio, of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sonswere killed at Ancona and Gaeta.]</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Elizabeth+Barrett+Browning">Elizabeth Barrett Browning</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=383802" data-title="Mother and Poet de Elizabeth Barrett Browning" data-description="I.

 Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
 And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
 Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
 And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
 Let none look at me !

II.
 Yet I was a poetess only..."></div>
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