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The Clergyman’s Second Tale

Edward and Jane a married couple were,
And fonder she of him or he of her
Was hard to say; their wedlock had begun
When in one year they both were twenty-one;
And friends, who would not sanction, left them free.
He gentle-born, nor his inferior she,
And neither rich; to the newly-wedded boy,
A great Insurance Office found employ.
Strong in their loves and hopes, with joy they took
This narrow lot and the world’s altered look;
Beyond their home they nothing sought or craved,
And even from the narrow income saved;
Their busy days for no ennui had place,
Neither grew weary of the other’s face.
Nine happy years had crowned their married state
With children, one a little girl of eight;
With nine industrious years his income grew,
With his employers rose his favour too;
Nine years complete had passed when something ailed,
Friends and the doctors said his health had failed,
He must recruit, or worse would come to pass;
And though to rest was hard for him, alas!
Three months of leave he found he could obtain,
And go, they said, get well and work again.
Just at this juncture of their married life,
Her mother, sickening, begged to have his wife.
Her house among the hills in Surrey stood,
And to be there, said Jane, would do the children good.
They let their house, and with the children she
Went to her mother, he beyond the sea;
Far to the south his orders were to go.
A watering-place, whose name we need not know,
For climate and for change of scene was best:
There he was bid, laborious task, to rest.
A dismal thing in foreign lands to roam
To one accustomed to an English home,
Dismal yet more, in health if feeble grown,
To live a boarder, helpless and alone
In foreign town, and worse yet worse is made,
If ’tis a town of pleasure and parade.
Dispiriting the public walks and seats,
The alien faces that an alien meets;
Drearily every day this old routine repeats.
Yet here this alien prospered, change of air
Or change of scene did more than tenderest care:
Three weeks were scarce completed, to his home,
He wrote to say, he thought he now could come,
His usual work was sure he could resume,
And something said about the place’s gloom,
And how he loathed idling his time away.
O, but they wrote, his wife and all, to say
He must not think of it, ’twas quite too quick;
Let was their house, her mother still was sick,
Three months were given, and three he ought to take;
For his and her’s and for his children’s sake.
He wrote again, ’twas weariness to wait,
This doing nothing was a thing to hate;
He’d cast his nine laborious years away,
And was as fresh as on his wedding-day;
At last he yielded, feared he must obey.
And now, his health repaired, his spirits grown
Less feeble, less he cared to live alone.
’Twas easier now to face the crowded shore,
And table d’hôte less tedious than before;
His ancient silence sometimes he would break,
And the mute Englishman was heard to speak.
His youthful colour soon, his youthful air
Came back; amongst the crowd of idlers there,
With whom good looks entitle to good name,
For his good looks he gained a sort of fame,
People would watch him as he went and came.
Explain the tragic mystery who can,
Something there is, we know not what, in man,
With all established happiness at strife,
And bent on revolution in his life.
Explain the plan of Providence who dare,
And tell us wherefore in this world there are
Beings who seem for this alone to live,
Temptation to another soul to give.
A beauteous woman at the table d’hôte,
To try this English heart, at least to note
This English countenance, conceived the whim.
She sat exactly opposite to him.
Ere long he noticed with a vague surprise
How every day on him she bent her eyes;
Soft and inquiring now they looked, and then
Wholly withdrawn, unnoticed came again;
His shrunk aside: and yet there came a day,
Alas! they did not wholly turn away.
So beautiful her beauty was, so strange,
And to his northern feeling such a change;
Her throat and neck Junonian in their grace;
The blood just mantled in her southern face:
Dark hair, dark eyes; and all the arts she had
With which some dreadful power adorns the bad,
Bad women in their youth, and young was she,
Twenty perhaps, at the utmost twenty-three,
And timid seemed, and innocent of ill,;
Her feelings went and came without her will.
You will not wish minutely to know all
His efforts in the prospect of the fall.
He oscillated to and fro, he took
High courage oft, temptation from him shook,
Compelled himself to virtuous thoughts and just,
And as it were in ashes and in dust
Abhorred his thought. But living thus alone,
Of solitary tedium weary grown;
From sweet society so long debarred,
And fearing in his judgment to be hard
On her that he was sometimes off his guard
What wonder? She relentless still pursued
Unmarked, and tracked him in his solitude.
And not in vain, alas!
The days went by and found him in the snare.
But soon a letter full of tenderest care
Came from his wife, the little daughter too
In a large hand the exercise was new
To her papa her love and kisses sent.
Into his very heart and soul it went.
Forth on the high and dusty road he sought
Some issue for the vortex of his thought,
Returned, packed up his things, and ere the day
Descended, was a hundred miles away.
There are, I know of course, who lightly treat
Such slips; we stumble, we regain our feet;
What can we do, they say, but hasten on
And disregard it as a thing that’s gone?
Many there are who in a case like this
Would calm re-seek their sweet domestic bliss;
Accept unshamed the wifely tender kiss,
And lift their little children on their knees,
And take their kisses too; with hearts at ease
Will read the household prayers, to church will go,
And sacrament, nor care if people know.
Such men so minded do exist, God knows,
And, God be thanked, this was not one of those.
Late in the night, at a provincial town
In France, a passing traveller was put down;
Haggard he looked, his hair was turning grey,
His hair, his clothes, were much in disarray:
In a bedchamber here one day he stayed,
Wrote letters, posted them, his reckoning paid
And went. ’Twas Edward rushing from his fall;
Here to his wife he wrote and told her all.
Forgiveness yes, perhaps she might forgive
For her, and for the children, he must live
At any rate; but their old home to share
As yet was something that he could not bear.
She with her mother still her home should make,
A lodging-near the office he should take
And once a quarter he would bring his pay,
And he would see her on the quarter-day,
But her alone; e’en this would dreadful be,
The children ’twas not possible to see.
Back to the office at this early day
To see him come, old-looking thus and grey,
His comrades wondered, wondered too to see,
How dire a passion for his work had he,
How in a garret too he lived alone;
So cold a husband, cold a father grown.
In a green lane beside her mother’s home,
Where in old days they had been used to roam,
His wife had met him on the appointed day,
Fell on his neck, said all that love could say,
And wept; he put the loving arms away.
At dusk they met, for so was his desire;
She felt his cheeks and forehead all on fire;
The kisses which she gave he could not brook;
Once in her face he gave a sidelong look,
Said, but for them he wished that he were dead,
And put the money in her hand and fled.
Sometimes in easy and familiar tone,
Of sins resembling more or less his own
He heard his comrades in the office speak,
And felt the colour tingling in his cheek;
Lightly they spoke as of a thing of nought;
He of their judgment ne’er so much as thought.
I know not, in his solitary pains,
Whether he seemed to feel as in his veins
The moral mischief circulating still,
Racked with the torture of the double will;
And like some frontier-land where armies wage
The mighty wars, engage and yet engage
All through the summer in the fierce campaign;
March, counter-march, gain, lose, and yet regain;
With battle reeks the desolated plain;
So felt his nature yielded to the strife
Of the contending good and ill of life.
But a whole year this penance he endured,
Nor even then would think that he was cured.
Once in a quarter, in the country lane,
He met his wife and paid his quarter’s gain;
To bring the children she besought in vain.
He has a life small happiness that gives,
Who friendless in a London lodging lives,
Dines in a dingy chop-house, and returns
To a lone room while all within him yearns
For sympathy, and his whole nature burns
With a fierce thirst for some one, is there none?
To expend his human tenderness upon.
So blank, and hard, and stony is the way
To walk, I wonder not men go astray.
Edward, whom still a sense that never slept
On the strict path undeviating kept,
One winter-evening found himself pursued
Amidst the dusky thronging multitude.
Quickly he walked, but strangely swift was she,
And pertinacious, and would make him see.
He saw at last, and recognising slow,
Discovered in this hapless thing of woe
The occasion of his shame twelve wretched months ago.
She gaily laughed, she cried, and sought his hand,
And spoke sweet phrases of her native land;
Exiled, she said, her lovely home had left,
Not to forsake a friend of all but her bereft;
Exiled, she cried, for liberty, for love,
She was; still limpid eyes she turned above.
So beauteous once, and now such misery in,
Pity had all but softened him to sin;
But while she talked, and wildly laughed, and cried,
And plucked the hand which sadly he denied,
A stranger came and swept her from his side.
He watched them in the gas-lit darkness go,
And a voice said within him, Even so,
So midst the gloomy mansions where they dwell
The lost souls walk the flaming streets of hell!
The lamps appeared to fling a baleful glare,
A brazen heat was heavy in the air;
And it was hell, and he some unblest wanderer there.
For a long hour he stayed the streets to roam,
Late gathering sense, he gained his garret home;
There found a telegraph that bade him come
Straight to the country, where his daughter, still
His darling child, lay dangerously ill.
The doctor would he bring? Away he went
And found the doctor; to the office sent
A letter, asking leave, and went again,
And with a wild confusion in his brain,
Joining the doctor caught the latest train.
The train swift whirled them from the city light
Into the shadows of the natural night.
’Twas silent starry midnight on the down,
Silent and chill, when they, straight come from town,
Leaving the station, walked a mile to gain
The lonely house amid the hills where Jane,
Her mother, and her children should be found.
Waked by their entrance, but of sleep unsound,
The child not yet her altered father knew;
Yet talked of her papa in her delirium too.
Danger there was, yet hope there was; and he,
To attend the crisis, and the changes see,
And take the steps, at hand should surely be.
Said Jane the following day, ‘Edward, you know,
Over and over I have told you so,
As in a better world I seek to live,
As I desire forgiveness, I forgive.
Forgiveness does not feel the word to say,
As I believe in One who takes away
Our sin and gives us righteousness instead,
You to this sin, I do believe, are dead.
’Twas I, you know, who let you leave your home
And bade you stay when you so wished to come;
My fault was that: I’ve told you so before,
And vainly told; but now ’tis something more.
Say, is it right, without a single friend,
Without advice, to leave me to attend
Children and mother both? Indeed, I’ve thought
Through want of you the child her fever caught.
Chances of mischief come with every hour.
It is not in a single woman’s power
Alone, and ever haunted more or less
With anxious thoughts of you and your distress,
’Tis not indeed, I’m sure of it, in me,
All things with perfect judgment to foresee.
This weight has grown too heavy to endure;
And you, I tell you now, and I am sure,
Neglect your duty both to God and man
Persisting thus in your unnatural plan.
This feeling you must conquer, for you can.
And after all, you know we are but dust,
What are we, in ourselves that we should trust?’
He scarcely answered her; but he obtained
A longer leave, and quietly remained.
Slowly the child recovered, long was ill,
Long delicate, and he must watch her still
To give up seeing her he could not near,
To leave her less attended, did not dare.
The child recovered slowly, slowly too
Recovered he, and more familiar drew
Home’s happy breath; and apprehension o’er,
Their former life he yielded to restore,
And to his mournful garret went no more.

Midnight was dim and hazy overhead.
When the tale ended and we turned to bed.
On the companion-way, descending slow,
The artillery captain, as we went below,
Said to the lawyer, life could not be meant
To be so altogether innocent.
What did the atonement show? he, for the rest,
Could not, he thought, have written and confessed.
Weakness it was, and adding crime to crime
To leave his family that length of time,
The lawyer said; the American was sure
Each nature knows instinctively its cure.

Midnight was in the cabin still and dead,
Our fellow-passengers were all in bed,
We followed them, and nothing further spoke.
Out of the sweetest of my sleep I woke
At two, and felt we stopped; amid a dream
Of England knew the letting-off of steam
And rose. ’Twas fog, and were we off Cape Race?
The captain would be certain of his place.
Wild in white vapour flew away the force,
And self-arrested was the eager course
That had not ceased before. But shortly now
Cape Race was made to starboard on the bow.
The paddles plied. I slept. The following night
In the mid seas we saw a quay and light,
And peered through mist into an unseen town,
And on scarce-seeming land set one companion down,
And went. With morning and a shining sun,
Under the bright New Brunswick coast we run,
And visible discern to every eye
Rocks, pines, and little ports, and passing by
The boats and coasting craft. When sunk the night,
Early now sunk, the northern streamers bright
Floated and flashed, the cliffs and clouds behind,
With phosphorus the billows all were lined.

That evening, while the arctic streamers bright
Rolled from the clouds in waves of airy light,
The lawyer said, ‘I laid by for to night
A story that I would not tell before;
For the last time, a confidential four,
We meet. Receive in your elected ears
A tale of human suffering and tears.’

poem by Arthur Hugh Clough from Mari Magno or Tales on Board
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Lawyer’s Second Tale: Christian

A highland inn among the western hills,
A single parlour, single bed that fills
With fisher or with tourist, as may be;
A waiting-maid. as fair as you can see,
With hazel eyes, and frequent blushing face,
And ample brow, and with a rustic grace
In all her easy quiet motions seen,
Large of her age, which haply is nineteen,
Christian her name, in full a pleasant name,
Christian and Christie scarcely seem the same;
A college fellow, who has sent away
The pupils he has taught for many a day,
And comes for fishing and for solitude,
Perhaps a little pensive in his mood,
An aspiration and a thought have failed,
Where he had hoped, another has prevailed,
But to the joys of hill and stream alive,
And in his boyhood yet, at twenty-five.
A merry dance, that made young people meet,
And set them moving, both with hands and feet;
A dance in which he danced, and nearer knew
The soft brown eyes, and found them tender too.
A dance that lit in two young hearts the fire,
The low soft flame, of loving sweet desire,
And made him feel that he could feel again;
The preface this, what follows to explain.
That night he kissed, he held her in his arms,
And felt the subtle virtue of her charms;
Nor less bewildered on the following day,
He kissed, he found excuse near her to stay,
Was it not love? And yet the truth to speak,
Playing the fool for haply half a week,
He yet had fled, so strong within him dwelt
The horror of the sin, and such he felt
The miseries to the woman that ensue.
He wearied long his brain with reasonings fine,
But when at evening dusk he came to dine,
In linsey petticoat and jacket blue
She stood, so radiant and so modest too,
All into air his strong conclusions flew.
Now should he go. But dim and drizzling too,
For a night march, to-night will hardly do,
A march of sixteen weary miles of way.
No, by the chances which our lives obey,
No, by the Heavens and this sweet face, he’ll stay.

A week he stayed, and still was loth to go,
But she grew anxious and would have it so.
Her time of service shortly would be o’er,
And she would leave; her mistress knew before.
Where would she go? To Glasgow, if she could;
Her father’s sister would be kind and good;
An only child she was, an orphan left,
Of all her kindred, save of this, bereft.
Said he, ‘Your guide to Glasgow let me be
You little know, you have not tried the sea,
Say, at the ferry when are we to meet?
Thither, I guess, you travel on your feet.’
She would ‘be there on Tuesday next at three;
‘O dear, how glad and thankful she would be;
But don’t,’ she said, ‘be troubled much for me.’
Punctual they met, a second class he took,
More naturally to her wants to look,
And from her side was seldom far away.
So quiet, so indifferent yet, were they,
As fellow-servants travelling south they seemed,
And no one of a love-relation dreamed.
At Oban, where the stormy darkness fell,
He got two chambers in a cheap hotel.
At Oban of discomfort one is sure,
Little the difference whether rich or poor.
Around the Mull the passage now to make,
They go aboard, and separate tickets take,
First-class for him, and second-class for her.
No other first-class passengers there were,
And with the captain walking soon alone,
This Highland girl, he said, to him was known.
He had engaged to take her to her kin;
Could she be put the ladies’ cabin in?
The difference gladly he himself would pay,
The weather seemed but menacing to-day.
She ne’er had travelled from her home before,
He wished to be at hand to hear about her more.
Curious it seemed, but he had such a tone,
And kept at first so carefully alone,
And she so quiet was, and so discreet,
So heedful ne’er to seek him or to meet,
The first small wonder quickly passed away.
And so from Oban’s little land-locked bay
Forth out to Jura Jura pictured high
With lofty peaks against the western sky,
Jura, that far o’erlooks the Atlantic seas,
The loftiest of the Southern Hebrides.
Through the main sea to Jura; when we reach
Jura, we turn to leftward to the breach,
And southward strain the narrow channel through,
And Colonsay we pass and Islay too;
Cantire is on the left, and all the day
A dull dead calm upon the waters lay.
Sitting below, after some length of while,
He sought her, and the tedium to beguile,
He ventured some experiments to make,
The measure of her intellect to take.
Upon the cabin table chanced to lie
A book of popular astronomy;
In this he tried her, and discoursed away
Of Winter, Summer, and of Night and Day.
Still to the task a reasoning power she brought,
And followed, slowly followed with the thought;
How beautiful it was to see the stir
Of natural wonder waking thus in her;
But loth was he to set on books to pore
An intellect so charming in the ore.
And she, perhaps, had comprehended soon
Even the nodes, so puzzling, of the moon;
But nearing now the Mull they met the gale
Right in their teeth: and should the fuel fail?
Thinking of her, he grew a little pale,
But bravely she the terrors, miseries, took:
And met him with a sweet courageous look:
Once, at the worst, unto his side she drew,
And said a little tremulously too,
‘If we must die, please let me come to you.’
I know not by what change of wind or tide,
Heading the Mull, they gained the eastern side,
But stiller now, and sunny e’en it grew;
Arran’s high peaks unmantled to the view;
While to the north, far seen from left to right,
The Highland range, extended snowy white.
Now in the Clyde, he asked, what would be thought,
In Glasgow, of the company she brought:
‘You know,’ he said, ‘how I desire to stay;
We’ve played at strangers for so long a day,
But for a while I yet would go away.’
She said, O no, indeed they must not part.
Her father’s sister had a kindly heart.
‘I’ll tell her all, and O, when you she sees,
I think she’ll not be difficult to please.’
Landed at Glasgow, quickly they espied
Macfarlane, grocer, by the river side:
To greet her niece the woman joyful ran,
But looked with wonder on the tall young man.
Into the house the women went and talked,
He with the grocer in the doorway walked.
He told him he was looking for a set
Of lodgings: had he any he could let?
The man was called to council with his wife;
They took the thing as what will be in life,
Half in a kind, half in a worldly way;
They said, the lassie might play out her play.
The gentleman should have the second floor,
At thirty shillings, for a week or more.
Some days in this obscurity he stayed,
Happy with her, and some inquiry made
(For friends he found) and did his best to see,
What hope of getting pupils there would be.
This must he do, ’twas evident, ’twas clear,
Marry and seek a humble maintenance here.
Himself he had a hundred pounds a year.
To this plain business he would bend his life,
And find his joy in children and in wife,
A wife so good, so tender, and so true,
Mother to be of glorious children too.
Half to excuse his present lawless way,
He to the grocer happened once to say
Marriage would cost him more than others dear;
Cost him, indeed, three hundred pounds a-year.
‘’Deed,’ said the man, ‘a heavy price, no doubt,
For a bit form that one can do without.’
And asked some questions, pertinent and plain,
Exacter information to obtain;
He took a little trouble to explain.
The College Audit now, to last at least
Three weeks, ere ending with the College Feast,
He must attend, a tedious, dull affair,
But he, as junior Bursar, must be there.
Three weeks, however, quickly would be fled,
And then he’d come, he didn’t say to wed.
With plans of which he nothing yet would say,
Preoccupied upon the parting day,
He seemed a little absent and distrait;
But she, as knowing nothing was amiss,
Gave him her fondest smile, her sweetest kiss.
A fortnight after, or a little more,
As at the Audit, weary of the bore,
He sat, and of his future prospects thought,
A letter in an unknown hand was brought.
’Twas from Macfarlane, and to let him know
To South Australia they proposed to go.
‘Rich friends we have, who have advised us thus,
Occasion offers suitable for us;
Christie we take; whate’er she find of new,
She’ll ne’er forget the joy she’s had with you;
’Tis an expensive pilgrimage to make
You’ll like to send a trifle for her sake.’
Nothing he said of when the ship would sail.
That very night, by swift-returning mail,
Ten pounds he sent, for what he did not know;
And ‘In no case,’ he said, ‘let Christian go.’
He in three days would come, and for his life
Would claim her and declare her as his wife.
Swift the night-mail conveyed his missive on;
He followed in three days, and found them gone.
All three had sailed: he looked as though he dreamed
The money-order had been cashed, it seemed.

The Clergyman, ‘This story is mere pain,’
Exclaimed, ‘for if the women don’t sustain
The moral standard, all we do is vain.’
‘But what we want,’ the Yankee said, ‘to know,
Is if the girl went willingly or no.
Sufficient motive though one does not see,
’Tis clear the grocer used some trickery.’

He judged himself, so strong the clinging in
This kind of people is to kith and kin;
For if they went and she remained behind,
No one she had, if him she failed to find.
Alas, this lawless loving was the cause,
She did not dare to think how dear she was.
Justly his guilty tardiness he curst,
He should have owned her when he left her first.
And something added how upon the sea,
She perilled, too, a life that was to be;
A child that, born in far Australia, there
Would have no father and no father’s care.
So to the South a lonely man returned,
For other scenes and busier life he burned,
College he left and settled soon in town,
Wrote in the journals, gained a swift renown.
Soon into high society he came,
And still where’er he went outdid his fame.
All the more liked and more esteemed, the less
He seemed to make an object of success.
An active literary life he spent,
Towards lofty points of public practice bent,
Was never man so carefully who read,
Whose plans so well were fashioned in his head,
Nor one who truths so luminously said.
Some years in various labours thus he passed,
A spotless course maintaining to the last.
Twice upon Government Commissions served
With honour; place, which he declined, deserved.
He married then, a marriage fit and good,
That kept him where his worth was understood;
A widow, wealthy and of noble blood.
Mr. and Lady Mary are they styled,
One grief is theirs to be without a child.
I did not tell you how he went before
To South Australia, vainly to explore.
The ship had come to Adelaide, no doubt;
Watching the papers he had made it out,
But of themselves, in country or in town,
Nothing discovered, travelling up and down.
Only an entry of uncertain sound,
In an imperfect register he found.
His son, he thought, but could not prove it true;
The surname of the girl it chanced he never knew.
But this uneasy feeling gathered strength
As years advanced, and it became at length
His secret torture and his secret joy
To think about his lost Australian boy.
Somewhere in wild colonial lands has grown
A child that is his true and very own.
This strong parental passion fills his mind,
To all the dubious chances makes him blind.
Still he will seek, and still he hopes to find.
Again will go.

Said I, ‘O let him stay,
And in a London drawing-room some day
Rings on her fingers, brilliants in her hair,
The lady of the latest millionaire
She’ll come, and with a gathering slow surprise
On Lady Mary’s husband turn her eyes:
The soft brown eyes that in a former day
From his discretion lured him all astray.
At home, six bouncing girls, who more or less
Are learning English of a governess,
Six boisterous boys, as like as pear to pear;
Only the eldest has a different air.’

‘You jest,’ he said, ‘indeed it happened so.’
From a great party just about to go,
He saw, he knew, and ere she saw him, said
Swift to his wife, as for the door he made,
‘My Highland bride! to escape a scene I go,
Stay, find her out great God! and let me know.’
The Lady Mary turned to scrutinise
The lovely brow, the beautiful brown eyes,
One moment, then performed her perfect part,
And did her spiriting with simplest art,
Was introduced, her former friends had known,
Say, might she call to-morrow afternoon
At three? O yes! At three she made her call,
And told her who she was and told her all.
Her lady manners all she laid aside;
Like women the two women kissed and cried.
Half overwhelmed sat Christian by her side,
While she, ‘You know he never knew the day
When you would sail, but he believed you’d stay
Because he wrote you never knew, you say,
Wrote that in three days’ time, they need not fear,
He’d come and then would marry you, my dear.
You never knew? And he had planned to live
At Glasgow, lessons had arranged to give.
Alas, then to Australia he went out,
All through the land to find you sought about,
And found a trace, which though it left a doubt,
Sufficed to make it still his grief, his joy,
To think he had a child, a living boy,
Whom you, my love ’

‘His child is six foot high,
I’ve kept him as the apple of my eye,’
Cried she, ‘he’s riding, or you’d see him here.
O joy, that he at last should see his father dear!
As soon as he comes in I’ll tell him all,
And on his father he shall go and call.’
‘And you,’ she said, ‘my husband will you see?’
‘O no, it is not possible for me.
The boy I’ll send this very afternoon.
O dear, I know he cannot go too soon;
And something I must write, to write will do.’
So they embraced and sadly bade adieu.
The boy came in, his father went and saw;
We will not wait this interview to draw;
Ere long returned, and to his mother ran:
His father was a wonderful fine man,
He said, and looked at her; the Lady, too,
Had done whatever it was kind to do.
He loved his mother more than he could say,
But if she wished, he’d with his father stay.
A little change she noticed in his face,
E’en now the father’s influence she could trace;
From her the slight, slight severance had begun,
But simply she rejoiced that it was done.
She smiled and kissed her boy, and ‘Long ago,
When I was young, I loved your father so.
Together now we had been living, too,
Only the ship went sooner than he knew.
In loving him you will be loving me:
Father and mother are as one you see.’
Her letter caught him on the following day
As to the club he started on his way.
From her he guessed, the hand indeed was new;
Back to his room he went and read it through.
‘I know not how to write and dare not see;
But it will take a load of grief from me
O! what a load that you at last should know
The way in which I was compelled to go.
Wretched, I know, and yet it seems ’twas more
Cruel and wretched than I knew before;
So many years to think how on your day
Joyful you’d come, and find me flown away.
What would you think of me, what would you say?
O love, this little let me call you so;
What other name to use I do not know.
O let me think that by your side I sit,
And tell it you, and weep a little bit,
And you too weep with me, for hearing it.
Alone so long I’ve borne this dreadful weight;
Such grief, at times it almost turned to hate.
O let me think you sit and listening long,
Comfort me still, and say I wasn’t wrong,
And pity me, and far, far hence again
Dismiss, if haply any yet remain,
Hard thoughts of me that in your heart have lain.
O love! to hear your voice I dare not go.
But let me trust that you will judge me so.
‘I think no sooner were you gone away,
My aunt began to tell me of some pay,
More than three hundred pounds a-year ’twould be,
Which you, she said, would lose by marrying me.
Was this a thing a man of sense would do?
Was I a fool, to look for it from you?
You were a handsome gentleman and kind,
And to do right were every way inclined,
But to this truth I must submit my mind,
You would not marry. “Speak, and tell me true,
Say, has he ever said one word to you
That meant as much?” O, love, I knew you would.
I’ve read it in your eyes so kind and good,
Although you did not speak, I understood.
Though for myself, indeed, I sought it not,
It seemed so high, so undeserved a lot,
But for the child, when it should come, I knew
O, I was certain what you meant to do.
She said, “We quit the land, will it be right
Or kind to leave you for a single night,
Just on the chance that he will come down here,
And sacrifice three hundred pounds a-year,
And all his hopes and prospects fling away,
And has already had his will, as one may say?
Go you with us, and find beyond the seas,
Men by the score to choose from, if you please.”
I said my will and duty was to stay,
Would they not help me to some decent way
To wait, and surely near was now the day?
Quite they refused; had they to let you know
Written, I asked, to say we were to go?
They told me yes; they showed a letter, too,
Post-office order that had come from you.
Alas, I could not read or write, they knew.
I think they meant me, though they did not say,
To think you wanted me to go away;
O, love, I’m thankful nothing of the kind
Ever so much as came into my mind.
‘To-morrow was the day that would not fail;
For Adelaide the vessel was to sail.
All night I hoped some dreadful wind would rise.
And lift the seas and rend the very skies.
All night I lay and listened hard for you.
Twice to the door I went, the bolt I drew,
And called to you; scarce what I did I knew.
‘Morning grew light, the house was emptied clear;
The ship would go, the boat was lying near.
They had my money, how was I to stay?
Who could I go to, when they went away?
Out in the streets I could not lie, you know.
O dear, but it was terrible to go.
Yet, yet I looked; I do not know what passed,
I think they took and carried me at last.
Twelve hours I lay, and sobbed in my distress;
But in the night, let be this idleness,
I said, I’ll bear it for my baby’s sake,
Lest of my going mischief it should take,
Advice will seek, and every caution use;
My love I’ve lost his child I must not lose.
‘How oft I thought, when sailing on the seas,
Of our dear journey through the Hebrides,
When you the kindest were and best of men:
O, love, I did not love you right till then.
O, and myself how willingly I blamed,
So simple who had been, and was ashamed,
So mindful only of the present joy,
When you had anxious cares your busy mind to employ.
Ah, well, I said, but now at least he’s free,
He will not have to lower himself for me.
He will not lose three hundred pounds a-year,
In many ways my love has cost him dear.
‘Upon the passage, great was my delight,
A lady taught me how to read and write.
She saw me much, and fond of me she grew,
Only I durst not talk to her of you.
‘We had a quiet time upon the seas,
And reached our port of Adelaide with ease.
At Adelaide my lovely baby came.
Philip, he took his father’s Christian name,
And my poor maiden surname, to my shame.
O, but I little cared, I loved him so,
’Twas such a joy to watch and see him grow.
At Adelaide we made no length of stay;
Our friends to Melbourne just had gone away.
We followed shortly where they led before,
To Melbourne went, and flourished more and more.
My aunt and uncle both are buried there;
I closed their eyes, and I was left their heir.
They meant me well, I loved them for their care.
‘Ten years ago I married Robert; dear
And well he loved, and waited many a year.
Selfish it seemed to turn from one so true,
And I of course was desperate of you.
I’ve borne him children six; we’ve left behind
Three little ones, whom soon I hope to find.
To my dear boy he ever has been kind.
‘Next week we sail, and I should be so glad
Only to leave my boy will make me sad.
But yours he is by right the grief I’ll bear,
And at his age, more easy he can spare,
Perhaps, a mother’s than a father’s care.
Indeed I think him like his father, too;
He will be happier, probably, with you.
’Tis best, I know, nor will he quite forget,
Some day he’ll come perhaps and see his mother yet.
O heaven! farewell perhaps I’ve been to blame
To write as if it all were still the same.
Farewell, write not. I will not seek to know
Whether you ever think of me or no.’
O love, love, love, too late! the tears fell down.
He dried them up and slowly walked to town.

To bed with busy thoughts; the following day
Bore us expectant into Boston Bay;
With dome and steeple on the yellow skies,
Upon the left we watched with curious eyes
The Puritan great Mother City rise.
Among the islets, winding in and round,
The great ship moved to her appointed ground.
We bade adieu, shook hands and went ashore:
I and my friend have seen our friends no more.

poem by Arthur Hugh Clough from Mari Magno or Tales on Board
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Mate’s Story

‘I’ve often wondered how it is, at times
Good people do what are as bad as crimes.
A common person would have been ashamed
To do what once a family far-famed
For their religious ways was known to do.
Small harm befell, small thanks to them were due.
They from abroad, perhaps it cost them less,
Had brought a young French girl as governess,
A pretty, youthful thing as e’er you saw;
She taught the children how to play and draw,
Of course, the language of her native land;
English she scarcely learnt to understand.
After a time they wanted her no more;
She must go home, but how to send her o’er,
Far in the south of France she lived, and they
In Ireland there was more than they could say.
A monthly steamer, as they chanced to know,
From Liverpool went over to Bordeaux,
And would, they thought, exactly meet the case.
They wrote and got a friend to take a place;
And from her salary paid her money down.
A trading steamer from the sea-port town
Near which they lived, across the Channel plied,
And this, they said, a passage would provide.
With pigs, and with the Irish reaping horde,
This pretty tender girl was put on board;
And a rough time of it, no doubt, had she,
Tossing about upon the Irish Sea.
Arrived at last and set ashore, she found
The steamer gone for which she had been bound.
The pious people, in their careless way,
Had made some loose mistake about the day.
She stood; the passengers with whom she crossed
Went off, and she remained as one that ’s lost.
Think of the hapless creature standing here
Alone, beside her boxes on the pier.
Whither to turn, and where to try and go,
She knew not; nay, the language did not know.
So young a girl, so pretty too, set down
Here, in the midst of a great sea-port town,
What might have happened one may sadly guess,
Had not the captain, seeing her distress,
Made out the cause, and told her she could stay
On board the vessel till the following day.
Next day, he said the steamer to Bordeaux
Was gone no doubt, next month the next would go;
For this her passage-money she had paid,
But some arrangement could, he thought, be made,
If only she could manage to afford
To wait a month and pay for bed and board.
She sadly shook her head well, after all,
’Twas a bad town, and mischief might befall,
Would she go back? Indeed ’twas but a shame,
To take her back to those from whom she came.
‘There’s one thing, Miss,’ said he, ‘that you can do,
It’s speaking somewhat sudden-like, it’s true,
But if you’ll marry me, I’ll marry you.
May be you won’t, but if you will you can.’
This captain was a young and decent man,
And I suppose she saw no better way;
Marry they did, and married live this day.
Another friend, these previous nights away,
An officer of engineers, and round
By Halifax to far Bermuda bound,
Joined us this night; a rover he had been.
Many strange sights and many climes had seen,
And much of various life; his comment was, ’twas well
There was no further incident to tell.
He’d been afraid that ere the tale was o’er,
’Twould prove the captain had a wife before.
The poor French girl was luckier than she knew;
Soldiers and sailors had so often two.
And it was something, too, for men who went
From port to port to be with two content.
In every place the marriage rite supplied
A decent spouse to whom you were not tied.
Of course the women would at times suspect,
But felt their reputations were not wrecked.

One after night we took ourselves to task
For our neglect who had forborne to ask
The clergyman, who told his tale so well,.
Another tale for our behalf to tell.
He to a second had himself confessed,
Now, when to hear it eagerly we pressed,
He put us off; but, ere the night was done,
Told us his second, and his sadder one.

poem by Arthur Hugh Clough from Mari Magno or Tales on Board
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Love Of A Parent

They had married at a very young age
At the time they thought it was a game.
They had been together for a long time
and he thought that everything would be fine.

They had lived together for two years or more
And they thought they knew the score.
At seventeen years of age they felt they knew it all
And life was to have a ball.

With part time jobs they paid their bills
Living together was such a thrill.
Not having to worry about a curfew hour
Now ' they had all the power'.

Going out partying every weekend
Not thinking of the money that they spent.
Coming home late at night, being drunk
They would start to fight.

She started feeling some menstruation pain
And from this point on their lives would change.
She went to her doctor to check it out
Pregnant she was - there was no doubt.

Now their eyes opened to the fact
From this point on there was no turning back.
They now had a child on the way
And they could no longer go out to play.

He got a full time job and straightened up his act
And a better position he would have to attack.
He went back to school To get a better education
And to give his wife and child all that he could give
And with both their incomes they would have to live.

She worked for seven months till she
Could work no longer, and to get their house in order.
When she went to the hospital because her time was due
She found out she was having not one but two.

She gave birth to a beautiful boy and girl
He was a diamond and she a pearl.
The most precious babies you'd ever want to see
And he was the proud father - as proud as can be.

They struggled like most couples do
But he was determined to see it through.
She took her children and held them tight
For in their faces she saw their fathers might.

His love so strong for his family
And this is what they all did see.
And the rest is history.

poem by Louis Rams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lost and Found

In a southern city lived a wealthy family;
In a southern city was the happy home
Of a father and mother and a little daughter.
In peace and contentment they lived alone.

But one summer evening there happened a misfortune,
Which caused the parents to weep and mourn,
For this little daughter, a loving little treasure,
Was a poor little wanderer far, far from home.

It happened thus, -- the mother went out calling
On a widow friend, who lived all alone;
She left her little daughter in the care of her father,
And through his neglect she wandered from home.

The father rocked his child, till her eyes closed in slumber;
Thought he to himself, I'll go over across the way,
And see a neighbor friend; he'll be there this evening,
And I must see him before he goes away.

He left his little one, he supposed, sweetly sleeping
In her little cradle, in the house alone,
And in his great hurry he left the gate ajar;
This thoughtlessness caused destruction to his home.

Soon after he was gone she awoke from her slumber,
Poor child, she then found herself all alone,
For no one was there, no one heard her weeping
As she wandered away far, far from home.

She wandered along on the busy thoroughbare,
No one seemed to notice this little one alone;
She wandered down Broadway till the little feet were tired,
This poor little wanderer far away from home.

At last, getting weary, she sat down on the pavement,
And soon fell asleep, so tired had she grown;
In her troubled sleep she would softly murmur, papa;
This poor little lost one so far away from home.

A policeman came along and saw her sweetly sleeping,
On the pavement at midnight alone.
He gently picked her up and took her to the station,
This poor little wanderer far away from home.

He advertised, but could not find her parents;
At last he took her to the orphan home,
Where she lived till a farmer in the country
Took her to live with him, this wanderer alone.

The father died o'er the loss of his daughter,
The mother sought for her three years alone;
At last she found her with kind people in the country,
Her poor little wanderer far away from home.

Kind people can imagine the joy of the mother,
When she found her little loving one.
"Oh God," exclaimed the mother, "I have found my little Alice,
My poor little wanderer far away from home.

poem by Julia A Moore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I'm A Small And Lonely Light

The stairs are dark and silent
The morning cold and gray
A last look at the things I knew
And slowly turn away
And as I watch the scenery unwind
My childhood slips a hundred miles behind
Leave the bus in Houston
Walk around the town
But all the strange, unfriendly faces
Seem to get me down
And in the park where little children play
I sit and watch the dying of the day
I'm a small and lonely light
A bird that's lost in flight
And it's too late at night to go home
I'm a tall and weary kite
A face that's out of sight
And it's too late at night to go home
Always had the good life
Never felt unsure
But now the good life's not enough
There must be something more
And so I sit and shiver in the dawn
And watch the world and wait to be reborn
I'm a small and lonely light
A bird that's lost in flight
And it's too late at night to go home
I'm a tall and weary kite
A face that's out of sight
And it's too late at night to go home
Too late at night to go home
But I've talked too long my friend

song performed by by Olivia Newton-John
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life From 1835 to 1851

And, now, a vacancy occurs,
For very nearly sixteen years,
In which I'd not the least desire,
To strike the harp or tune the lyre.
But having left the good old 'Medway:
I tried on shore to make some headway.
I first a situation got,
And not amiss I found my lot:-
My wages good, my work was various;
My living far above precarious.
I then began to look around,
And thought ere long to settle down:
And then a letter I wrote home,
And ask'd my love if she would come;
Offering at once to pay her passage:-
And in due time received this message:-
'I'll wait till many years are past,
If you'll say you'll come home at last;-
But can't consent to such removal,
Without my fathers full approval:
Which I'm afraid he'll never give;
But come home dear, we'll happy live.'
And, then I thought if home I went,
I could not feel the same content,
As if I'd never come away,
But work'd for half a crown a day:-
While here, I thought I'd every chance
My future prospects to advance.
And after some more serious thought:
Another letter home I wrote;-
Which now I cannot give verbatim,
Though it contain'd my ultimatium.
From her engagement I relieved her,
And I've no doubt it sorely grieved her:-
Then, married in due time I got:-
Though not my first love, still my lot.
We had our sorrows and our joys,
And in due time we had four boys;
But on the day our fifth was born,
My heart was with sad anguish torn:-
A fearful illness seiz'd my wife,
Which nearly drain'd away her life:
It was so sudden and severe;
It fill'd me with a dreadful fear.
We lost the babe; and my poor wife
Show'd very little sign of life,
For thirteen hours; then, I went near her;
And what I could, I did to cheer her:-
And in due time again she rallied:
But oh! she look'd so deathly pallid.
Her illness shook her system so;
I felt my heart o'erwhelm'd with woe.
With tender unremitting care,
Good nourishment and change of air;
Health seem'd regain'd in eleven months:-
She then relaps'd, and sunk at once.
I, and my boys were now alone:-
My wife, their mother dead and gone:-
I felt bereft of my best friend,
And almost wish'd my life would end.
But having made to God my prayer
My all committed to his care;
I begg'd He would my mind direct,
My boys to support and protect.
My God afforded me relief,
And caus'd me to assuage my grief;
And thus he gently clear'd my way;
And gave me strength to suit each day,
but as I'd other ills sustain'd;
I thought if longer I remain'd;
They might increase and break me down,
And all my future prospects drown,
For I'd borne wrongs of every quality,
Many from sanctified rascality.
So I, within a little while,
Resolv'd to quit Tasmania's Isle
And in due time I made a start,
With Drew, 'Old Hoppy' and spring-cart.
Melbourne I reach'd on that day week,
And stroll'd about some work to seek:
Though very much a job I needed;
'Twas full twelve days ere I succeeded.
Work then in Melbourne was precarious;
The jobs I got were short and various:
So when five months had just roll'd over:
Portland I reach'd in the 'Red Rover'
So here I made a five months jump
And from old deck planks made a pump.
Thus near five years of sorrow past;
I and my boys were snug at last:-
I in the shop 'mong wheels and carts;
At school and home they did their parts.
Now all this while by some mischance,
My muse on me ne'er cast a glance:
But in nine months at the election
She took me under her protection.
I really felt like one inspired.
Could spin off verse when I desired;
Which made some cynics on me frown;
And then for fun I wrote them down.
Now I've gone over sixteen years
Through joys and sorrows, smiles and tears
And as I end this tale at last,
You'll guess the future by the past.

poem by William Gay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Im A Small & Lonely Light

(farrar/best)
The stairs are dark and silent
The morning cold and gray
A last look at the things I knew
And slowly turn away
And as I watch the scenery unwind
My childhood slips a hundred miles behind
Leave the bus in houston
Walk around the town
But all the strange, unfriendly faces
Seem to get me down
And in the park where little children play
I sit and watch the dying of the day
Im a small and lonely light
A bird thats lost in flight
And its too late at night to go home
Im a tall and weary kite
A face thats out of sight
And its too late at night to go home
Always had the good life
Never felt unsure
But now the good lifes not enough
There must be something more
And so I sit and shiver in the dawn
And watch the world and wait to be reborn
Im a small and lonely light
A bird thats lost in flight
And its too late at night to go home
Im a tall and weary kite
A face thats out of sight
And its too late at night to go home
Too late at night to go home
But Ive talked too long my friend

song performed by by Olivia Newton-John
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Orthodox

Love to whom, who really lover you,
But never hate who does with you so,
Kindle the revolution in the heart of you,
And remove the baseless tradition like a foe.

In a town, there lived a handsome boy,
There lived a girl too, full of coy,
Both were young having strong intention,
They would meet and did long time mention.

The time passed their love got its culmination,
Castes were different but had sinkie thought,
And wished to marry they had determination,
And life-partner in each other they'd sought.

Race was the single obstacle in their wedding way,
They eloped and married and enjoyed a marital life,
Cause they never dare to their families say,
Now they began living happily but with strife.

Both families got angery knowing this deed,
His father warned not to come back,
They would be killed if they paid on heed,
All seasons passed, they didn't come back.

He begot four children with the passage of time,
Now their children got their prime,
Passing twenty years, once he thought,
Their elopement likely they had forgot.

With his family he started for his home,
To see his father's home children were keen,
Cause they had been fed up living in single home,
Cause their grandparents they had never seen.

Reaching that town, it began to rain,
Children were wet like blossoming flowers,
Somehow he managed to reach the door again,
Door was knocked snackly like it showers.

The door being opened, emerged his mother,
Seeing them her joys knew no bound,
Kissed and hugged, and let them enter,
And home filled for sometimes with joyful sound.

The father saw them, became red and red,
And frightened mother her tears began to shed,
He roared, ' You've lost my dignity,
So, on you can never be taken pity.'

He pushed into his room, emerged in little time,
There was gun in his old hand,
Shot at all, like attacks a lion in his prime,
A moment passed, all six were lying dead on the land.

poem by Mohammad Muzzammil
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lazarus

“No, Mary, there was nothing—not a word.
Nothing, and always nothing. Go again
Yourself, and he may listen—or at least
Look up at you, and let you see his eyes.
I might as well have been the sound of rain,
A wind among the cedars, or a bird;
Or nothing. Mary, make him look at you;
And even if he should say that we are nothing,
To know that you have heard him will be something.
And yet he loved us, and it was for love
The Master gave him back. Why did he wait
So long before he came? Why did he weep?
I thought he would be glad—and Lazarus—
To see us all again as he had left us—
All as it was, all as it was before.”

Mary, who felt her sister’s frightened arms
Like those of someone drowning who had seized her,
Fearing at last they were to fail and sink
Together in this fog-stricken sea of strangeness,
Fought sadly, with bereaved indignant eyes,
To find again the fading shores of home
That she had seen but now could see no longer
Now she could only gaze into the twilight,
And in the dimness know that he was there,
Like someone that was not. He who had been
Their brother, and was dead, now seemed alive
Only in death again—or worse than death;
For tombs at least, always until today,
Though sad were certain. There was nothing certain
For man or God in such a day as this;
For there they were alone, and there was he—
Alone; and somewhere out of Bethany,
The Master—who had come to them so late,
Only for love of them and then so slowly,
And was for their sake hunted now by men
Who feared Him as they feared no other prey—
For the world’s sake was hidden. “Better the tomb
For Lazarus than life, if this be life,”
She thought; and then to Martha, “No, my dear,”
She said aloud; “not as it was before.
Nothing is ever as it was before,
Where Time has been. Here there is more than Time;
And we that are so lonely and so far
From home, since he is with us here again,
Are farther now from him and from ourselves
Than we are from the stars. He will not speak
Until the spirit that is in him speaks;
And we must wait for all we are to know,
Or even to learn that we are not to know.
Martha, we are too near to this for knowledge,
And that is why it is that we must wait.
Our friends are coming if we call for them,
And there are covers we’ll put over him
To make him warmer. We are too young, perhaps,
To say that we know better what is best
Than he. We do not know how old he is.
If you remember what the Master said,
Try to believe that we need have no fear.
Let me, the selfish and the careless one,
Be housewife and a mother for tonight;
For I am not so fearful as you are,
And I was not so eager.”

Martha sank
Down at her sister’s feet and there sat watching
A flower that had a small familiar name
That was as old as memory, but was not
The name of what she saw now in its brief
And infinite mystery that so frightened her
That life became a terror. Tears again
Flooded her eyes and overflowed. “No, Mary,”
She murmured slowly, hating her own words
Before she heard them, “you are not so eager
To see our brother as we see him now;
Neither is he who gave him back to us.
I was to be the simple one, as always,
And this was all for me.” She stared again
Over among the trees where Lazarus,
Who seemed to be a man who was not there,
Might have been one more shadow among shadows,
If she had not remembered. Then she felt
The cool calm hands of Mary on her face,
And shivered, wondering if such hands were real.

“The Master loved you as he loved us all,
Martha; and you are saying only things
That children say when they have had no sleep.
Try somehow now to rest a little while;
You know that I am here, and that our friends
Are coming if I call.”

Martha at last
Arose, and went with Mary to the door,
Where they stood looking off at the same place,
And at the same shape that was always there
As if it would not ever move or speak,
And always would be there. “Mary, go now,
Before the dark that will be coming hides him.
I am afraid of him out there alone,
Unless I see him; and I have forgotten
What sleep is. Go now—make him look at you—
And I shall hear him if he stirs or whispers.
Go!—or I’ll scream and bring all Bethany
To come and make him speak. Make him say once
That he is glad, and God may say the rest.
Though He say I shall sleep, and sleep for ever,
I shall not care for that… Go!”

Mary, moving
Almost as if an angry child had pushed her,
Went forward a few steps; and having waited
As long as Martha’s eyes would look at hers,
Went forward a few more, and a few more;
And so, until she came to Lazarus,
Who crouched with his face hidden in his hands,
Like one that had no face. Before she spoke,
Feeling her sister’s eyes that were behind her
As if the door where Martha stood were now
As far from her as Egypt, Mary turned
Once more to see that she was there. Then, softly,
Fearing him not so much as wondering
What his first word might be, said, “Lazarus,
Forgive us if we seemed afraid of you;”
And having spoken, pitied her poor speech
That had so little seeming gladness in it,
So little comfort, and so little love.

There was no sign from him that he had heard,
Or that he knew that she was there, or cared
Whether she spoke to him again or died
There at his feet. “We love you, Lazarus,
And we are not afraid. The Master said
We need not be afraid. Will you not say
To me that you are glad? Look, Lazarus!
Look at my face, and see me. This is Mary.”
She found his hands and held them. They were cool,
Like hers, but they were not so calm as hers.
Through the white robes in which his friends had wrapped him
When he had groped out of that awful sleep,
She felt him trembling and she was afraid.
At last he sighed; and she prayed hungrily
To God that she might hear again the voice
Of Lazarus, whose hands were giving her now
The recognition of a living pressure
That was almost a language. When he spoke,
Only one word that she had waited for
Came from his lips, and that word was her name.

“I heard them saying, Mary, that he wept
Before I woke.” The words were low and shaken,
Yet Mary knew that he who uttered them
Was Lazarus; and that would be enough
Until there should be more… “Who made him come,
That he should weep for me?… Was it you, Mary?”
The questions held in his incredulous eyes
Were more than she would see. She looked away;
But she had felt them and should feel for ever,
She thought, their cold and lonely desperation
That had the bitterness of all cold things
That were not cruel. “I should have wept,” he said,
“If I had been the Master….”

Now she could feel
His hands above her hair—the same black hair
That once he made a jest of, praising it,
While Martha’s busy eyes had left their work
To flash with laughing envy. Nothing of that
Was to be theirs again; and such a thought
Was like the flying by of a quick bird
Seen through a shadowy doorway in the twilight.
For now she felt his hands upon her head,
Like weights of kindness: “I forgive you, Mary….
You did not know—Martha could not have known—
Only the Master knew…. Where is he now?
Yes, I remember. They came after him.
May the good God forgive him…. I forgive him.
I must; and I may know only from him
The burden of all this… Martha was here—
But I was not yet here. She was afraid….
Why did he do it, Mary? Was it—you?
Was it for you?… Where are the friends I saw?
Yes, I remember. They all went away.
I made them go away…. Where is he now?…
What do I see down there? Do I see Martha—
Down by the door?… I must have time for this.”

Lazarus looked about him fearfully,
And then again at Mary, who discovered
Awakening apprehension in his eyes,
And shivered at his feet. All she had feared
Was here; and only in the slow reproach
Of his forgiveness lived his gratitude.
Why had he asked if it was all for her
That he was here? And what had Martha meant?
Why had the Master waited? What was coming
To Lazarus, and to them, that had not come?
What had the Master seen before he came,
That he had come so late?

“Where is he, Mary?”
Lazarus asked again. “Where did he go?”
Once more he gazed about him, and once more
At Mary for an answer. “Have they found him?
Or did he go away because he wished
Never to look into my eyes again?…
That, I could understand…. Where is he, Mary?”

“I do not know,” she said. “Yet in my heart
I know that he is living, as you are living—
Living, and here. He is not far from us.
He will come back to us and find us all—
Lazarus, Martha, Mary—everything—
All as it was before. Martha said that.
And he said we were not to be afraid.”
Lazarus closed his eyes while on his face
A tortured adumbration of a smile
Flickered an instant. “All as it was before,”
He murmured wearily. “Martha said that;
And he said you were not to be afraid …
Not you… Not you… Why should you be afraid?
Give all your little fears, and Martha’s with them,
To me; and I will add them unto mine,
Like a few rain-drops to Gennesaret.”

“If you had frightened me in other ways,
Not willing it,” Mary said, “I should have known
You still for Lazarus. But who is this?
Tell me again that you are Lazarus;
And tell me if the Master gave to you
No sign of a new joy that shall be coming
To this house that he loved. Are you afraid?
Are you afraid, who have felt everything—
And seen…?”

But Lazarus only shook his head,
Staring with his bewildered shining eyes
Hard into Mary’s face. “I do not know,
Mary,” he said, after a long time.
“When I came back, I knew the Master’s eyes
Were looking into mine. I looked at his,
And there was more in them than I could see.
At first I could see nothing but his eyes;
Nothing else anywhere was to be seen—
Only his eyes. And they looked into mine—
Long into mine, Mary, as if he knew.”

Mary began to be afraid of words
As she had never been afraid before
Of loneliness or darkness, or of death,
But now she must have more of them or die:
“He cannot know that there is worse than death,”
She said. “And you…”

“Yes, there is worse than death.”
Said Lazarus; “and that was what he knew;
And that is what it was that I could see
This morning in his eyes. I was afraid,
But not as you are. There is worse than death,
Mary; and there is nothing that is good
For you in dying while you are still here.
Mary, never go back to that again.
You would not hear me if I told you more,
For I should say it only in a language
That you are not to learn by going back.
To be a child again is to go forward—
And that is much to know. Many grow old,
And fade, and go away, not knowing how much
That is to know. Mary, the night is coming,
And there will soon be darkness all around you.
Let us go down where Martha waits for us,
And let there be light shining in this house.”

He rose, but Mary would not let him go:
“Martha, when she came back from here, said only
That she heard nothing. And have you no more
For Mary now than you had then for Martha?
Is Nothing, Lazarus, all you have for me?
Was Nothing all you found where you have been?
If that be so, what is there worse than that—
Or better—if that be so? And why should you,
With even our love, go the same dark road over?”

“I could not answer that, if that were so,”
Said Lazarus,—“not even if I were God.
Why should He care whether I came or stayed,
If that were so? Why should the Master weep—
For me, or for the world,—or save himself
Longer for nothing? And if that were so,
Why should a few years’ more mortality
Make him a fugitive where flight were needless,
Had he but held his peace and given his nod
To an old Law that would be new as any?
I cannot say the answer to all that;
Though I may say that he is not afraid,
And that it is not for the joy there is
In serving an eternal Ignorance
Of our futility that he is here.
Is that what you and Martha mean by Nothing?
Is that what you are fearing? If that be so,
There are more weeds than lentils in your garden.
And one whose weeds are laughing at his harvest
May as well have no garden; for not there
Shall he be gleaning the few bits and orts
Of life that are to save him. For my part,
I am again with you, here among shadows
That will not always be so dark as this;
Though now I see there’s yet an evil in me
That made me let you be afraid of me.
No, I was not afraid—not even of life.
I thought I was…I must have time for this;
And all the time there is will not be long.
I cannot tell you what the Master saw
This morning in my eyes. I do not know.
I cannot yet say how far I have gone,
Or why it is that I am here again,
Or where the old road leads. I do not know.
I know that when I did come back, I saw
His eyes again among the trees and faces—
Only his eyes; and they looked into mine—
Long into mine—long, long, as if he knew.”

poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Our Life's Greatest Treasure

Met in high school, still together
when college did come.
Graduation day, a joy for us two,
together we decided to be one,
darling, just me and you.

Two years passed and with a
baby girl we were blessed, like
two birds we had started our
loving nest. She brought such
joy to us, so in God we then
put all our trust.

We decided that we needed you
at home, so you became a 'stay at
home Mom.' Such loving care you
poured into out little one and
into our growing home.

Late the following spring, God had
blessed our lives again. A little
brother for our Sara Anne. We were
so happy, so filled with joy, God's gift
to us, a baby boy.

We watched them grow, and so close
they grew, bringing so much love to
me and you. We had such strength
in our little family, there was nothing
we couldn't do, in our hearts, love
would conquer all, this we knew.

The day little Joey turned two, another
blessing, as you gave us the news.
A long nine months, as so many
troubles you had, the day came when
once again you made me a Dad.
But when the doctor gave the news,
it left us broken hearted and sad.

You grew so weak, each breath came
far and few, I prayed to God, 'honey I
knew I couldn't lose you.' I held your hand,
as the children did cling to your side,
you took that last breath, 'honey that
was the moment the biggest part
of me died.'

An infant in my arms, two more standing,
clinging onto my side, the rose petals fell
so softly onto the mound of dirt, I don't
think I have ever felt such a hurt.
Remembering the touch of your hand,
the softness in your voice, alone now I
have to do this, I have no choice.

Each day on my way to work, and to take
the kids to school, we stop and give
a rose to you. We stand by you still
each day, and silently to God we pray.
We miss your tenderness, your hugs
and your sweet kiss.

It is hard day to day, the children and
I, trying to make our way. We see you
in the stars at night, we feel your hugs,
when I tuck them in tight. Their tears still
fall, as in the night your name they still
call. It's just not the same dear, since God
took you home, 'I have never felt
so alone.'

On the weekends to our ocean retreat,
through the mist of the oceans we
hear your voice so sweet. Remembering
the ocean to be your favorite place,
going back there, recapturing your
beautiful face.

Hearing your whipsers in the gentle
waves, saying your last goodbys
as you left us that day. Been a year
now, the pain is still there, but I know
you are at peace, in his loving care. 'Darling,
you gave us nothing but sheer pleasure,
and in Heaven I know, God now holds, our
life's greatest treasure.

No one will ever take your place, the
beauty you posessed will never
be found in any heart, nor on any face.
We know you are here with us each and
every day, without you dear, we
wouldn't make it through the day. I see
you in our children, in every tear that
they cry, rest peacefully now my love,
till we meet in our home that I know
you are preparing for us all, there in
the sky.

poem by Ruth warren
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Three Graves. A Fragment Of A Sexton's Tale

The grapes upon the Vicar's wall
Were ripe as ripe could be;
And yellow leaves in sun and wind
Were falling from the tree.

On the hedge-elms in the narrow lane
Still swung the spikes of corn:
Dear Lord! it seems but yesterday--
Young Edward's marriage-morn.

Up through that wood behind the church,
There leads from Edward's door
A mossy track, all over boughed,
For half a mile or more.

And from their house-door by that track
The bride and bridegroom went;
Sweet Mary, though she was not gay,
Seemed cheerful and content.

But when they to the church-yard came,
I've heard poor Mary say,
As soon as she stepped into the sun,
Her heart it died away.

And when the Vicar join'd their hands,
Her limbs did creep and freeze;
But when they prayed, she thought she saw
Her mother on her knees.

And o'er the church-path they returned--
I saw poor Mary's back,
Just as she stepped beneath the boughs
Into the mossy track.

Her feet upon the mossy track
The married maiden set:
That moment--I have heard her say--
She wished she could forget.

The shade o'er-flushed her limbs with heat--
Then came a chill like death:
And when the merry bells rang out,
They seemed to stop her breath.

Beneath the foulest mother's curse
No child could ever thrive:
A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.

So five months passed: the mother still
Would never heal the strife;
But Edward was a loving man,
And Mary a fond wife.

'My sister may not visit us,
My mother says her nay:
O Edward! you are all to me,
I wish for your sake I could be
More lifesome and more gay.

'I'm dull and sad! indeed, indeed
I know I have no reason!
Perhaps I am not well in health,
And 'tis a gloomy season.'

'Twas a drizzly time--no ice, no snow!
And on the few fine days
She stirred not out, lest she might meet
Her mother in the ways.

But Ellen, spite of miry ways
And weather dark and dreary,
Trudged every day to Edward's house,
And made them all more cheery.

Oh! Ellen was a faithful friend,
More dear than any sister!
As cheerful too as singing lark;
And she ne'er left them till 'twas dark,
And then they always missed her.

And now Ash-Wednesday came-that day
But few to church repair:
For on that day you know we read
The Commination prayer.

Our late old Vicar, a kind man,
Once, Sir, he said to me,
He wished that service was clean out
Of our good Liturgy.

The mother walked into the church--
To Ellen's seat she went:
Though Ellen always kept her church
All church-days during Lent.

And gentle Ellen welcomed her
With courteous looks and mild:
Thought she, 'What if her heart should melt,
And all be reconciled!'

The day was scarcely like a day--
The clouds were black outright:
And many a night, with half a moon,
I've seen the church more light.

The wind was wild; against the glass
The rain did beat and bicker;
The church-tower swinging over head,
You scarce could hear the Vicar!

And then and there the mother knelt,
And audibly she cried-
'Oh! may a clinging curse consume
This woman by my side!

'O hear me, hear me, Lord in Heaven,
Although you take my life--
O curse this woman, at whose house
Young Edward woo'd his wife.

'By night and day, in bed and bower,
O let her cursed be!!! '
So having prayed, steady and slow,
She rose up from her knee!

And left the church, nor e'er again
The church-door entered she.
I saw poor Ellen kneeling still,
So pale! I guessed not why:
When she stood up, there plainly was
A trouble in her eye.

And when the prayers were done, we all
Came round and asked her why:
Giddy she seemed, and sure, there was
A trouble in her eye.

But ere she from the church-door stepped
She smiled and told us why:
'It was a wicked woman's curse,'
Quoth she, 'and what care I?'

She smiled, and smiled, and passed it off
Ere from the door she stept--
But all agree it would have been
Much better had she wept.

And if her heart was not at ease,
This was her constant cry--
'It was a wicked woman's curse--
God's good, and what care I?'

There was a hurry in her looks,
Her struggles she redoubled:
'It was a wicked woman's curse,
And why should I be troubled?'

These tears will come--I dandled her
When 'twas the merest fairy--
Good creature! and she hid it all:
She told it not to Mary.

But Mary heard the tale: her arms
Round Ellen's neck she threw;
'O Ellen, Ellen, she cursed me,
And now she hath cursed you!'

I saw young Edward by himself
Stalk fast adown the lee,
He snatched a stick from every fence,
A twig from every tree.

He snapped them still with hand or knee,
And then away they flew!
As if with his uneasy limbs
He knew not what to do!

You see, good Sir! that single hill?
His farm lies underneath:
He heard it there, he heard it all,
And only gnashed his teeth.

Now Ellen was a darling love
In all his joys and cares:
And Ellen's name and Mary's name
Fast-linked they both together came,
Whene'er he said his prayers.

And in the moment of his prayers
He loved them both alike:
Yea, both sweet names with one sweet joy
Upon his heart did strike!

He reach'd his home, and by his looks
They saw his inward strife:
And they clung round him with their arms,
Both Ellen and his wife.

And Mary could not check her tears,
So on his breast she bowed;
Then frenzy melted into grief,
And Edward wept aloud.

Dear Ellen did not weep at all,
But closelier did she cling,
And turned her face and looked as if
She saw some frightful thing.

PART II.

To see a man tread over graves
I hold it no good mark;
'Tis wicked in the sun and moon,
And bad luck in the dark!

You see that grave? The Lord he gives,
The Lord, he takes away:
O Sir! the child of my old age
Lies there as cold as clay.

Except that grave, you scarce see one
That was not dug by me;
I'd rather dance upon 'em all
Than tread upon these three!

'Aye, Sexton!'tis a touching tale.'
You, Sir! are but a lad;
This month I'm in my seventieth year,
And still it makes me sad.

And Mary's sister told it me,
For three good hours and more;
Though I had heard it, in the main,
From Edward's self, before.

Well! it passed off! the gentle Ellen
Did well nigh dote on Mary;
And she went oftener than before,
And Mary loved her more and more:
She managed all the dairy.

To market she on market-days,
To church on Sundays came;
All seemed the same: all seemed so, Sir!
But all was not the same!

Had Ellen lost her mirth? Oh! no!
But she was seldom cheerful;
And Edward look'd as if he thought
That Ellen's mirth was fearful.

When by herself, she to herself
Must sing some merry rhyme;
She could not now be glad for hours,
Yet silent all the time.

And when she soothed her friend, through all
Her soothing words 'twas plain
She had a sore grief of her own,
A haunting in her brain.

And oft she said, I'm not grown thin!
And then her wrist she spanned;
And once when Mary was down-cast,
She took her by the hand,
And gazed upon her, and at first
She gently pressed her hand;

Then harder, till her grasp at length
Did gripe like a convulsion!
'Alas!' said she, 'we ne'er can be
Made happy by compulsion!'

And once her both arms suddenly
Round Mary's neck she flung,
And her heart panted, and she felt
The words upon her tongue.

She felt them coming, but no power
Had she the words to smother;
And with a kind of shriek she cried,
'Oh Christ! you're like your mother!'

So gentle Ellen now no more
Could make this sad house cheery;
And Mary's melancholy ways
Drove Edward wild and weary.

Lingering he raised his latch at eve,
Though tired in heart and limb:
He loved no other place, and yet
Home was no home to him.

One evening he took up a book,
And nothing in it read;
Then flung it down, and groaning cried,
'O! Heaven! that I were dead.'

Mary looked up into his face,
And nothing to him said;
She tried to smile, and on his arm
Mournfully leaned her head.

And he burst into tears, and fell
Upon his knees in prayer:
'Her heart is broke! O God! my grief,
It is too great to bear!'

'Twas such a foggy time as makes
Old sextons, Sir! like me,
Rest on their spades to cough; the spring
Was late uncommonly.

And then the hot days, all at once,
They came, we knew not how:
You looked about for shade, when scarce
A leaf was on a bough.

It happened then ('twas in the bower,
A furlong up the wood:
Perhaps you know the place, and yet
I scarce know how you should,)

No path leads thither, 'tis not nigh
To any pasture-plot;
But clustered near the chattering brook,
Lone hollies marked the spot.

Those hollies of themselves a shape
As of an arbour took,
A close, round arbour; and it stands
Not three strides from a brook.

Within this arbour, which was still
With scarlet berries hung,
Were these three friends, one Sunday morn,
Just as the first bell rung.

'Tis sweet to hear a brook, 'tis sweet
To hear the Sabbath-bell,
'Tis sweet to hear them both at once,
Deep in a woody dell.

His limbs along the moss, his head
Upon a mossy heap,
With shut-up senses, Edward lay:
That brook e'en on a working day
Might chatter one to sleep.

And he had passed a restless night,
And was not well in health;
The women sat down by his side,
And talked as 'twere by stealth.

'The Sun peeps through the close thick leaves,
See, dearest Ellen! see!
'Tis in the leaves, a little sun,
No bigger than your ee;

'A tiny sun, and it has got
A perfect glory too;
Ten thousand threads and hairs of light,
Make up a glory gay and bright
Round that small orb, so blue.'

And then they argued of those rays,
What colour they might be;
Says this, 'They're mostly green'; says that,
'They're amber-like to me.'

So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts
Were troubling Edward's rest;
But soon they heard his hard quick pants,
And the thumping in his breast.

'A mother too!' these self-same words
Did Edward mutter plain;
His face was drawn back on itself,
With horror and huge pain.

Both groan'd at once, for both knew well
What thoughts were in his mind;
When he waked up, and stared like one
That hath been just struck blind.

He sat upright; and ere the dream
Had had time to depart,
'O God, forgive me!' (he exclaimed)
'I have torn out her heart.'

Then Ellen shrieked, and forthwith burst
Into ungentle laughter;
And Mary shivered, where she sat,
And never she smiled after.

Carmen reliquum in futurum tempus relegatum. To-morrow! and To-morrow! and To-morrow!----

poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Happy Home

Intro
Oh man
(hey)
Yeah
(hey)
(ha ha)
Lets turn this house
Into a happy home
(this for all the homeboys)
(that couldnt)
Lets turn this house
Into a happy home
(as long as one of us got it)
(some of us got it)
Lets turn this house
Into a happy home
(you know what that is)
(stay down for me)
(ha ha)
Verse 1:
Now we been kicking it, for quite some time
Remain beside me, through my trials
In this life of crime, we done fought
So many times, I forgot to count
I never hit you, now the coward
Rather leave your house, remember back in december
When we was tight, sippin alize and crystal
While in every night in my bedroom
Promise that I commit to you soon
Tongue kiss me everytime you see
We step inside a room, straight out the hood
We promise to be good to each other
Plus I love you so I know you goin make a good mother
Just try to understand if I change a time
Its only cause I never owned anything thats mine
So Im trying, you can stay with my momma but keep the drama
To a low, never call the police
I never call you bitch or hoe
We were all born hungry in this world alone
Finally moved out
My moms house
And got a happy home
Chorus : female singer (2pac)
Hap-py home (lets turn the house into a happy home)
Hap-py home (finally made it out of my momz house)
(got a happy home)
Hap-py home (lets turn the house into a happy home)
Happy home
(huh)
Verse 2 :
Born through hard times ghetto child of mine
I wonder if you have to suffer for your fathers crimes
To be honest its a hard road
Just keep your faith in god
Knowin you can be scarred though
Look at him walkin and talkin
A little child with my eyes and mouth
Father, watch over little seeds
Help me guide them out
Had to change my whole lifestyle
Married my babys momma
Made her my wife now
Im tryin hard yall
Maybe in time
Ill be a better man
Watching the older couples handle it like veterans
Show me the meaning of forever
And together we rise if it would
Help our child grow live together
We die
Why question my love
Its so easy to see without my family
All Im left with is a shadow of me
After all the arguements and the nights alone
Now its time to live the good life
Inside a happy home
Chorus :
Hap-py home (turn the house into a happy home)
Hap-py home (finally got to live a good live inside a happy home)
Hap-py home (turn the house into a happy home)
Hap-py home (a happy home)
Male singer (2pac) :
All these problems got me gone,we got a family of our own
I just want a happy home (turn this house into a happy home)
Long as we just stand up alone, Ill promise I wont do you wrong
I just want a happy home (finally made it out of my momz house)
(got a happy home)
Female singer (2pac)
Hap-py home (turn the house into a happy home)
Hap-py home (finally got to live a good live inside a happy home)
Hap-py home (finally made it out of my momz house)
(got a happy home)
(hey)
(haha)
(turn this house into a happy home)
As long one of us got, some of us got it
(turn this house into a happy home)

song performed by by 2 Pac
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Pearls of Verna Boone

I'd been alone for a year or so
Since Norma Jean had died,
I stayed in the house I'd bought for her
At the end of River Drive,
I'd felt her death as a fatal blow,
A crippling twist of fate,
For Norma Jean was my one true love,
Though I'd met her a little late!

I was past my prime when our eyes had met,
And she'd looked so young to me,
Her eyes had sparkled like diamonds set
As scarabs in sand and sea,
She saw the desert behind my eyes,
The emptiness in my life,
I stumbled over the words, but she
Said 'Yes! ' - She would be my wife!

I didn't know that she carried then
The seeds of a painful death,
Her face was flushed at the altar stone
And she seemed so short of breath,
I thought it merely a passing faint
That excitement had brought on,
As we stood in front of the Minister,
And joined our lives as one.

But then at home, she fell apart,
Collapsed on the kitchen floor,
I saw her lying, and coughing blood
Like I'd never seen before,
The doctor called, and he shook his head
As he left her there in the bed,
'I'm very sorry, ' the doctor sighed,
'But your lovely wife is dead! '

I cried and raged, and swore at fate
I smashed each wedding gift,
I wouldn't go to the funeral
But stayed at home and wept.
I cursed the heavens and thought that hell
Could never have been as bad
As a love that I'd waited a lifetime for,
A love that I'd never had!

The house next door was a rental place,
Stood empty for months that year,
But then a couple had moved on in,
I didn't see him, just her.
I thought that he was a traveller,
Was constantly on the road,
He came at night, and he left at dawn
In a battered and ancient Ford.

I had no reason to talk to them,
I sat at home with my grief,
I wandered out in the garden then
At one with each falling leaf,
But then one day, I heard her there
The other side of the fence,
Breaking her heart, as crying there
She sobbed with vehemence.

After a week of this, I climbed
The fence, and spoke to her,
'Why do you sigh, why do you cry? '
But she cried then all the more.
I walked around and sat with her
Quite late in the afternoon,
She smiled, and dried her eyes, and said,
'My name is Verna Boone! '

She said she'd only been married
Just a year this coming Spring,
But now that she knew the man he was,
Regretted everything,
He'd lost her money, just gambled it,
Had spent it on other girls,
And now they were left with nothing, he
Just wanted her mother's pearls!

'They're all I have to remember her, '
She sobbed, like a frightened child,
'They're worth a lot, but they're more to me, '
She looked at me, and smiled.
She took me inside and pulled them out
Three strings, they were very fine,
'He said that he's going to pawn them! '
Then she put her small hand in mine.

I was sad, alone and vulnerable,
I looked at her lovely curls,
She smiled at me, and she asked me then
If I'd care for her mother's pearls?
'I'll say they're lost, misplaced, I'll say,
He'll rant and rage, and more,
But he won't be able to pawn them now...'
Then she walked me to the door.

I took her home, and I placed the pearls
With the gems my wife had once:
'They'll be all right in the downstairs safe.'
It was then that she saw the gun.
She looked afraid, but she picked it up
And weighed it there in her hand,
I took it gently and locked it up
With the rest of my contraband.

'She must have watched as I spun the dial,
I know - I was such a fool! '
The sergeant sat and he stared at me,
And his stare was distant, cool.
He didn't believe a word I said
I could see that now, I'm done!
They put me back in a cell to wait
To be charged with Murder One!

She told them I had come over when
Her husband came home one night,
Waving a gun and ranting, then
Her husband put up a fight!
I'd shot him once through the head, she said,
Then taken her on the bed,
Stolen a fine pearl necklace,
Then beaten and left her for dead!

They found the gun on the floor, they said,
I knew that the gun was mine,
They found the pearls in my safe, they said,
It was only a question of time.
She sat at the back of the court while I
Was stood in the prisoner's dock,
And I noticed she wore her mother's pearls
With a nice new evening frock.

10 August 2009

poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Come Home, Father!

'Tis The
SONG OF LITTLE MARY,
Standing at the bar-room door
While the shameful midnight revel
Rages wildly as before.

Father, dear father, come home with me now!
The clock in the steeple strikes one;
You said you were coming right home from the shop,
As soon as your day's work was done.
Our fire has gone out our house is all dark
And mother's been watching since tea, --
With poor brother Benny so sick in her arms,
And no one to help her but me. --
Come home! come home! come home! --
Please, father, dear father, come home. --

Hear the sweet voice of the child
Which the night winds repeat as they roam!
Oh who could resist this most plaintive of prayers?
"Please, father, dear father, come home."

Father, dear father, come home with me now!
The clock in the steeple strikes two;
The night has grown colder, and Benny is worse
But he has been calling for you.
Indeed he is worse Ma says he will die,
Perhaps before morning shall dawn; --
And this is the message she sent me to bring
"Come quickly, or he will be gone." --
Come home! come home! come home! --
Please, father, dear father, come home. --

Hear the sweet voice of the child
Which the night winds repeat as they roam!
Oh who could resist this most plaintive of prayers?
"Please, father, dear father, come home."

Father, dear father, come home with me now!
The clock in the steeple strikes three;
The house is so lonely the hours are so long
For poor weeping mother and me.
Yes, we are alone poor Benny is dead,
And gone with the angels of light; --
And these were the very last words that he said
"I want to kiss Papa good night." --
Come home! come home! come home! --
Please, father, dear father, come home. --

Hear the sweet voice of the child
Which the night winds repeat as they roam!
Oh who could resist this most plaintive of prayers?
"Please, father, dear father, come home."

poem by Henry Clay Work
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Time’s Changes In A Household

They were as fair and bright a band as ever filled with pride
Parental hearts whose task it was children beloved to guide;
And every care that love upon its idols bright may shower
Was lavished with impartial hand upon each fair young flower.

Theirs was the father’s merry hour sharing their childish bliss,
The mother’s soft breathed benison and tender, nightly kiss;
While strangers who by chance might see their joyous graceful play,
To breathe some word of fondness kind would pause upon their way.

But years rolled on, and in their course Time many changes brought,
And sorrow in that household gay his silent power wrought!
The sons had grown to gallant men of lofty heart and brow,
The fairy like and joyous girls were thoughtful women now.

The hour of changes had arrived, and slowly, one by one,
The playmates left the parent’s roof, their own career to run;
The eldest born, the mother’s choice, whose soft and holy smile
In childhood’s days had told of heart as angel’s free from guile.

Formed in resolve, and scorning all earth’s pleasures and its fame,
Had offered up his life to God, a teacher of His name:
His spirit sighed not long on earth, he found a quiet grave
’Mid forests wild whose shades he’d sought the Red man’s soul to save.

Far diff’rent was the stirring choice of his youthful brother gay,
His was the glitt’ring sword and flag, the drum, the war steed’s neigh;
And the proud spirit that had marked his childhood’s earliest hour
Distinguished still the warrior brave in manhood’s lofty power.

Alas for him, and visions vain of fame that lured him on,
An early grave in a distant land was the only goal he won!
His gaze bedimmed that yearned for home rested on alien skies,
And alien watchers wiped death’s damps, and closed his dying eyes.

A third with buoyant heart, had sought far India’s burning soil,
Thinking to win wealth’s treasures by a few years’ eager toil,
But ere those years had sped their course, from earth’s cares he was free,—
He sleeps beneath the shadow of the date and mango tree.

But the sisters who had brightened once the home now desolate—
Lived they to mourn each brother’s loss? was theirs a happier fate?
In childhood’s sports and youth’s high dreams they’d borne a happy part,
But severed they were doomed ere long in death to sleep apart.

The tall and dark-eyed girl whose laugh, so full of silvery glee,
Had ever told of spirit light, from care and shadow free,
Had early left her happy home, the bright and envied bride
Of a husband whose ancestral name betokened wealth and pride.

Alas for her who in youth’s hour had basked in love’s sunshine,
That husband stern deserted her in cold neglect to pine;
The merry smile soon fled her lip, the sparkling light her eye,
In vain she sought a southern clime, she only went to die.

And now of all the lovely band who’d joined in mirth of old,
There is, alas! but one sweet flower whose tale remains untold:
She was the joy, the pride of all, that gentle girl, and fair,—
With deep and dreamy azure eyes and shining golden hair.

E’en her bold brothers, in their youth, were gentle when she played,
From reckless sports, from daring games their eager hands they stayed;
And when amid their thoughtless mirth harsh feelings might awake,
They ever yielded to her prayers, and rested for her sake.

Oh! hers was far the brightest lot in life’s eventful race!
She passed from earth ere care had left upon her brow one trace—
She passed from earth with loving ones grouped round her dying bed,
And on a mother’s tender breast rested her throbbing head.

’Twas thus that each beloved one of that bright joyous band,
Save her, had found a lonely grave in a far distant land;
Yet murmurs ’gainst high heaven’s decrees as impious were as vain—
For in far happier regions will that household meet again!

poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Walked Last Night In A District I Lived In For Almost Twenty Years

I WALKED LAST NIGHT IN A DISTRICT I LIVED IN FOR ALMOST TWENTY YEARS

I walked last night in a district I lived in for almost twenty years
I came back after being away for a time
To visit an old and ailing friend
The streets were empty and lonely as they often were then-
I thought for the first time I understood how lonely the district itself is-
‘A lonely district’
I wondered how I managed to live there all those years
And how anyone still manages to live there-
I looked up at the sky and wrote in my mind a small poem of a kind I wrote many of in my years there
I remembered teachers and friends who had lived there
No longer of this district or any district on earth
I wondered how life goes and how from so many years so much life has been lived without having any place in my memory
I felt as empty inside as the district without
I did not have to wait long for the bus
And relieved inside it I put my heart to home
So many years had been lived there
I remembered taking my small children to the playground there
Now they thank G-d have children of their own
Oh the years go by and the life we have lived in them largely dies
Forever to be unknown again-
I put my heart and mind in a different direction
And began to do what I always do – not think of the district again
Life is this mystery and question we live through and never wholly possess even as we are experiencing it
How long before all will be gone for me
Including the district I live in now?

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Dukite Snake

Well, mate, you’ve asked about a fellow
You met to-day, in a black-and-yellow
Chain-gang suit, with a peddler’s pack,
Or with some such burden, strapped to his back.
Did you meet him square? No, passed you by?
Well, if you had, and had looked in his eye,
You’d have felt for your irons then and there;
For the light in his eye is a madman’s glare.
Ay, mad, poor fellow! I know him well,
And if you’re not sleepy just yet, I’ll tell
His story,—a strange one as ever you heard
Or read; but I’ll vouch for it, every word.

You just wait a minute, mate: I must see
How that damper’s doing, and make some tea.
You smoke? That’s good; for there’s plenty of weed
In that wallaby skin. Does your horse feed
In the hobbles? Well, he’s got good feed here,
And my own old bush mare won’t interfere.
Done with that meat? Throw it there to the dogs,
And fling on a couple of banksia logs.

And now for the story. That man who goes
Through the bush with the pack and the convict’s clothes
Has been mad for years; but he does no harm,
And our lonely settlers feel no alarm
When they see or meet him. Poor Dave Sloane
Was a settler once, and a friend of my own.
Some eight years back, in the spring of the year,
Dave came from Scotland, and settled here.
A splendid young fellow he was just then,
And one of the bravest and truest men
That I ever met: he was kind as a woman
To all who needed a friend, and no man—
Not even a convict—met with his scorn,
For David Sloane was a gentleman born.
Ay, friend, a gentleman, though it sounds queer:
There’s plenty of blue blood flowing out here,
And some younger sons of your “upper ten”
Can be met with here, first-rate bushmen.
Why, friend, I—Bah! curse that dog! you see
This talking so much has affected me.

Well, Sloane came here with an axe and a gun;
He bought four miles of a sandal-wood run.
This bush at that time was a lonesome place,
So lonesome the sight of a white man’s face
Was a blessing, unless it came at night,
And peered in your hut, with the cunning fright
Of a runaway convict; and even they
Were welcome, for talk’s sake, while they could stay.
Dave lived with me here for a while, and learned
The tricks of the bush,—how the snare was laid
In the wallaby track, how traps were made,
How ’possums and kangaroo rats were killed,
And when that was learned, I helped him to build
From mahogany slabs a good bush hut,
And showed him how sandal-wood logs were cut.
I lived up there with him days and days,
For I loved the lad for his honest ways.
I had only one fault to find: at first
Dave worked too hard; for a lad who was nursed,
As he was, in idleness, it was strange
How he cleared that sandal-wood off his range.
From the morning light till the light expired
He was always working, he never tired;
Till at length I began to think his will
Was too much settled on wealth, and still
When I looked at the lad’s brown face, and eye
Clear open, my heart gave such thought the lie.
But one day—for he read my mind—he laid
His hand on my shoulder: “Don’t be afraid,”
Said he, “that I’m seeking alone for pelf.
I work hard, friend; but ’tis not for myself.”

And he told me then, in his quiet tone,
Of a girl in Scotland, who was his own,—
His wife,—’twas for her: ’twas all he could say,
And his clear eye brimmed as he turned away.
After that he told me the simple tale:
They had married for love, and she was to sail
For Australia when he wrote home and told
The oft-watched-for story of finding gold.

In a year he wrote, and his news was good:
He had bought some cattle and sold his wood.
He said, “Darling, I’ve only a hut,—but come.”
Friend, a husband’s heart is a true wife’s home;
And he knew she’d come. Then he turned his hand
To make neat the house, and prepare the land
For his crops and vines; and he made that place
Put on such a smiling and homelike face,
That when she came, and he showed her round
His sandal-wood and his crops in the ground,
And spoke of the future, they cried for joy,
The husband’s arm clasping his wife and boy.

Well, friend, if a little of heaven’s best bliss
Ever comes from the upper world to this,
It came into that manly bushman’s life,
And circled him round with the arms of his wife.
God bless that bright memory! Even to me,
A rough, lonely man, did she seem to be,
While living, an angel of God’s pure love,
And now I could pray to her face above.
And David he loved her as only a man
With a heart as large as was his heart can.
I wondered how they could have lived apart,
For he was her idol, and she his heart.

Friend, there isn’t much more of the tale to tell:
I was talking of angels awhile since. Well,
Now I’ll change to a devil,—ay, to a devil!
You needn’t start: if a spirit of evil
Ever came to this world its hate to slake
One mankind, it came as a Dukite Snake.

Like? Like the pictures you’ve seen of Sin,
A long red snake,—as if what was within
Was fire that gleamed through his glistening skin.
And his eyes!—if you could go down to hell
And come back to your fellows here and tell
What the fire was like, you could find no thing,
Here below on the earth, or up in the sky,
To compare it to but a Dukite’s eye!

Now, mark you, these Dukites don’t go alone:
There’s another near when you see but one;
And beware you of killing that one you see
Without finding the other; for you may be
More than twenty miles from the spot that night,
When camped, but you’re tracked by the lone Dukite,
That will follow your trail like Death or Fate,
And kill you as sure as you killed its mate!

Well, poor Dave Sloane had his young wife here
Three months,—’twas just this time of the year.
He had teamed some sandal-wood to the Vasse,
And was homeward bound, when he saw in the grass
A long red snake: he had never been told
Of the Dukite’s ways,—he jumped to the road,
And smashed its flat head with the bullock-goad!

He was proud of the red skin, so he tied
Its tail to the cart, and the snake’s blood dyed
The bush on the path he followed that night.

He was early home, and the dead Dukite
Was flung at the door to be skinned next day.
At sunrise next morning he started away
To hunt up his cattle. A three hours’ ride
Brought him back: he gazed on his home with pride
And joy in his heart; he jumped from his horse
And entered—to look on his young wife’s corse,
And his dead child clutching his mother’s clothes
As in fright; and there, as he gazed, arose
From her breast, where ’twas resting, the gleaming head
Of the terrible Dukite, as if it said,
“I’ve had vengeance, my foe: you took all I had.”

And so had the snake—David Sloane was mad!
I rode to his hut just by chance that night,
And there on the threshold the clear moonlight
Showed the two snakes dead. I pushed in the door
With an awful feeling of coming woe:
The dead was stretched on the moonlit floor,
The man held the hand of his wife,—his pride,
His poor life’s treasure,—and crouched by her side.
O God! I sank with the weight of the blow.

I touched and called him: he heeded me not,
So I dug her grave in a quiet spot,
And lifted them both,—her boy on her breast,—
And laid them down in the shade to rest.
Then I tried to take my poor friend away,
But he cried so woefully, “Let me stay
Till she comes again!” that I had no heart
To try to persuade him then to part
From all that was left to him here,—her grave;
So I stayed by his side that night, and, save
One heart-cutting cry, he uttered no sound,—
O God! that wail—like the wail of a hound!

’Tis six long years since I heard that cry,
But ’twill ring in my ears till the day I die.
Since that fearful night no one has heard
Poor David Sloane utter sound or word.
You have seen to-day how he always goes:
He’s been given that suit of convict’s clothes
By some prison officer. On his back
You noticed a load like a peddler’s pack?
Well, that’s what he lives for: when reason went,
Still memory lived, for the days are spent
In searching for Dukites; and year by year
That bundle of skins is growing. ’Tis clear
That the Lord out of evil some good still takes;
For he’s clearing this bush of the Dukite snakes.

poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Mother And Son

Now sleeps the land of houses,
and dead night holds the street,
And there thou liest, my baby,
and sleepest soft and sweet;
My man is away for awhile,
but safe and alone we lie,
And none heareth thy breath but thy mother,
and the moon looking down from the sky
On the weary waste of the town,
as it looked on the grass-edged road
Still warm with yesterday’s sun,
when I left my old abode;
Hand in hand with my love,
that night of all nights in the year;
When the river of love o’erflowed
and drowned all doubt and fear,
And we two were alone in the world,
and once if never again,
We knew of the secret of earth
and the tale of its labour and pain.

Lo amidst London I lift thee,
and how little and light thou art,
And thou without hope or fear
thou fear and hope of my heart!
Lo here thy body beginning,
O son, and thy soul and thy life;
But how will it be if thou livest,
and enterest into the strife,
And in love we dwell together
when the man is grown in thee,
When thy sweet speech I shall hearken,
and yet ’twixt thee and me
Shall rise that wall of distance,
that round each one doth grow,
And maketh it hard and bitter
each other’s thought to know.

Now, therefore, while yet thou art little
and hast no thought of thine own,
I will tell thee a word of the world;
of the hope whence thou hast grown;
Of the love that once begat thee,
of the sorrow that hath made
Thy little heart of hunger,
and thy hands on my bosom laid.
Then mayst thou remember hereafter,
as whiles when people say
All this hath happened before
in the life of another day;
So mayst thou dimly remember
this tale of thy mother’s voice,
As oft in the calm of dawning
I have heard the birds rejoice,
As oft I have heard the storm-wind
go moaning through the wood;
And I knew that earth was speaking,
and the mother’s voice was good.

Now, to thee alone will I tell it
that thy mother’s body is fair,
In the guise of the country maidens
Who play with the sun and the air;
Who have stood in the row of the reapers
in the August afternoon,
Who have sat by the frozen water
in the high day of the moon,
When the lights of the Christmas feasting
were dead in the house on the hill,
And the wild geese gone to the salt-marsh
had left the winter still.
Yea, I am fair, my firstling;
if thou couldst but remember me!
The hair that thy small hand clutcheth
is a goodly sight to see;
I am true, but my face is a snare;
soft and deep are my eyes,
And they seem for men’s beguiling
fulfilled with the dreams of the wise.
Kind are my lips, and they look
as though my soul had learned
Deep things I have never heard of,
my face and my hands are burned
By the lovely sun of the acres;
three months of London town
And thy birth-bed have bleached them indeed,
“But lo, where the edge of the gown”
(So said thy father) “is parting
the wrist that is white as the curd
From the brown of the hand that I love,
bright as the wing of a bird.”

Such is thy mother, O firstling,
yet strong as the maidens of old,
Whose spears and whose swords were the warders
of homestead, of field and of fold.
Oft were my feet on the highway,
often they wearied the grass;
From dusk unto dusk of the summer
three times in a week would I pass
To the downs from the house on the river
through the waves of the blossoming corn.
Fair then I lay down in the even,
and fresh I arose on the morn,
And scarce in the noon was I weary.
Ah, son, in the days of thy strife,
If thy soul could but harbour a dream
of the blossom of my life!
It would be as the sunlit meadows
beheld from a tossing sea,
And thy soul should look on a vision
of the peace that is to be.

Yet, yet the tears on my cheek!
and what is this doth move
My heart to thy heart, beloved,
save the flood of yearning love?
For fair and fierce is thy father,
and soft and strange are his eyes
That look on the days that shall be
with the hope of the brave and the wise.
It was many a day that we laughed,
as over the meadows we walked,
And many a day I hearkened
and the pictures came as he talked;
It was many a day that we longed,
and we lingered late at eve
Ere speech from speech was sundered,
and my hand his hand could leave.
Then I wept when I was alone,
and I longed till the daylight came;
And down the stairs I stole,
and there was our housekeeping dame
(No mother of me, the foundling)
kindling the fire betimes
Ere the haymaking folk went forth
to the meadows down by the limes;
All things I saw at a glance;
the quickening fire-tongues leapt
Through the crackling heap of sticks,
and the sweet smoke up from it crept,
And close to the very hearth
the low sun flooded the floor,
And the cat and her kittens played
in the sun by the open door.
The garden was fair in the morning,
and there in the road he stood
Beyond the crimson daisies
and the bush of southernwood.
Then side by side together
through the grey-walled place we went,
And O the fear departed,
and the rest and sweet content!

Son, sorrow and wisdom he taught me,
and sore I grieved and learned
As we twain grew into one;
and the heart within me burned
With the very hopes of his heart.
Ah, son, it is piteous,
But never again in my life
shall I dare to speak to thee thus;
So may these lonely words
about thee creep and cling,
These words of the lonely night
in the days of our wayfaring.
Many a child of woman
to-night is born in the town,
The desert of folly and wrong;
and of what and whence are they grown?
Many and many an one
of wont and use is born;
For a husband is taken to bed
as a hat or a ribbon is worn.
Prudence begets her thousands;
“good is a housekeeper’s life,
So shall I sell my body
that I may be matron and wife.”
“And I shall endure foul wedlock
and bear the children of need.”
Some are there born of hate,
many the children of greed.
“I, I too can be wedded,
though thou my love hast got.”
“I am fair and hard of heart,
and riches shall be my lot.”
And all these are the good and the happy,
on whom the world dawns fair.
O son, when wilt thou learn
of those that are born of despair,
As the fabled mud of the Nile
that quickens under the sun
With a growth of creeping things,
half dead when just begun?
E’en such is the care of Nature
that man should never die,
Though she breed of the fools of the earth,
and the dregs of the city sty.
But thou, O son, O son,
of very love wert born,
When our hope fulfilled bred hope,
and fear was a folly outworn.
On the eve of the toil and the battle
all sorrow and grief we weighed,
We hoped and we were not ashamed,
we knew and we were not afraid.

Now waneth the night and the moon;
ah, son, it is piteous
That never again in my life
shall I dare to speak to thee thus.
But sure from the wise and the simple
shall the mighty come to birth;
And fair were my fate, beloved,
if I be yet on the earth
When the world is awaken at last,
and from mouth to mouth they tell
Of thy love and thy deeds and thy valour,
and thy hope that nought can quell.

poem by William Morris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Future.

I WAS a laughing child, and gaily dwelt
Where murmuring brooks, and dark blue rivers roll'd,
And shadowy trees outspread their silent arms,
To welcome all the weary to their rest.
And there an antique castle rais'd its head,
Where dwelt a fair and fairy girl: perchance
Two summers she had seen beyond my years;
And all she said or did, was said and done
With such a light and airy sportiveness,
That oft I envied her, for I was poor,
And lowly, and to me her fate did seem
Fraught with a certainty of happiness.
Years past; and she was wed against her will,
To one who sought her for the gold she brought,
And they did vex and wound her gentle spirit,
Till madness took the place of misery.

And oft I heard her low, soft, gentle song,
Breathing of early times with mournful sound,
Till I could weep to hear, and thought how sad.
The envied future of her life had prov'd.
And then I grew a fond and thoughtful girl,
Loving, and deeming I was lov'd again:
But he that won my easy heart, full soon
Turn'd to another:-she might be more fair,
But could not love him better. And I wept,
Day after day, till weary grew my spirit,
With fancying how happy she must be
Whom he had chosen-yet she was not so;
For he she wedded, loved her for a time,
And then he changed, even as he did to me,
Though something later; and he sought another
To please his fancy, far away from home.
And he was kind: oh, yes! he still was kind.
It vex'd her more; for though she knew his love
Had faded like the primrose after spring,
Yet there was nothing which she might complain,
Had cause to grieve her; he was gentle still.
She would have given all the store she had,
That he would but be angry for an hour,
That she might come and soothe his wounded spirit,
And lay her weeping head upon his bosom,
And say, how freely she forgave her wrongs:

But still, with calm, cold kindness he pursued
(Kindness, the mockery of departed love!)
His way-and then she died, the broken-hearted;
And I thanked heaven, who gave me not her lot,
Though I had wish'd it.
Again, I was a wife, a happy wife;
And he I loved was still unchangeable,
And kind, and true, and loved me from his soul;
But I was childless, and my lonely heart
Yearned for an image of my heart's beloved,
A something which should be my 'future' now
That I had so much of my life gone by;
Something to look to after I should go,
And all except my memory be past.
There was a child, a little rosy thing,
With sunny eyes, and curled and shining hair,
That used to play among the daisy flowers,
Looking as innocent and fair as they;
And sail its little boat upon the stream,
Gazing with dark blue eyes in the blue waters,
And singing in its merriment of heart
All the bright day: and when the sun was setting,
It came unbid to its glad mother's side,
To lisp with holy look its evening prayer:
And, kneeling on the green and flowery ground,
At the sweet cottage door-he fixed his eyes

For some short moments on her tranquil face,
As if she was his guiding star to God;
And then with young, meek, innocent brow upraised,
Spoke the slow words with lips that longed to smile,
But dared not. Oh! I loved that child with all
A mother's fondest love; and, as he grew
More and more beautiful from day to day,
The half-involuntary sigh I gave
Spoke but too plain the wish that he were mine-
My child-my own. And in my solitude,
Often I clasped my hands and thought of him,
And looked with mournful and reproachful gaze
To heaven, which had denied me such a one.
Years past: the child became a rebel boy;
The boy a wild, untamed, and passionate youth;
The youth a man-but such a man! so fierce,
So wild, so headlong, and so haughty too,
So cruel in avenging any wrongs,
So merciless when he had half avenged them!
At length his hour had come-a deed of blood,
Of murder, was upon his guilty soul.
He stood in that same spot, by his sweet home,
The same blue river flowing by his feet,
(Whose stream might never wash his guilt away
The same green hills, and mossy sloping banks,
Where the bright sun was smiling as of yore:

With pallid cheek and dark and sullen brow,
The beautiful and lost; you might have deemed
That Satan, newly banished, stood and gazed
On the bright scenery of an infant world.
For, fallen as he was, his Maker's hand
Had stamped him beauteous, and he was so still.
And his eyes turned from off his early home
With something like a shudder; and they lighted
On his poor broken-hearted mother's grave.
And there was something in them of old times,
Ere sin had darkened o'er their tranquil blue,
In that most mournful look-that made me weep;
'For I had gazed on him with fear and anguish
Till now. And, 'weep for her,' my favourite said,
For she was good-I murdered her-I killed
Many that harmed me not.' And still he spoke
In a low, listless voice; and forms came round
Who dragged him from us. I remember not
What followed then. But on another day,
There was a crowd collected, and a cart
Slowly approached to give to shameful death
Its burden; and there was a prayer, and silence,
Silence like that of death. And then a murmur!
And all was over. And I groaned, and turned
To where his poor old father had been sitting;
And there he sate, still with his feeble limbs

And palsied head, and dim and watery eyes,
Gazing up at the place where was his son;
And with a shuddering touch I sought to rouse him,
But could not, for the poor old man was dead.
And then I flung myself upon the ground,
And mingled salt tears with the evening dew;
And thanked my God that he was not my son;
And that I was a childless, lonely wife.
To-morrow I will tell thee all that now
Remains to tell-but I am old and feeble.
And cannot speak for tears.
She rose and went,
But she returned no more. The morrow came,
But not to her;-the tale of life was finished,
Not by her lips, for she had ceased to breath.
But, by this silent warning joined to hers,
How little we may count upon the future,
Or reckon what that future may bring forth!

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Men Who Made Bad Matches

'Tis the song of many husbands, and you all must understand
That you cannot call me coward now that women rule the land;
I have written much for women, where I thought that they were right,
But the men who made bad matches claim a song from me to-night.
Oh, the men who made bad matches are of every tribe and clime,
And, if Adam was the first man, then they date from Adam’s time.
They shall live and they shall suffer, until married life is past,
And the last sad son of Adam stands alone—at peace at last.

Oh, the men who made bad matches, and the Great Misunderstood,
Are through all the world a mighty and a silent brotherhood.
If a wife is discontented, every other woman knows—
But the men who made bad matches keep the cruel secret close.

You may say that you can tell them, by their clothing, if you will,
But a man may seem neglected, and his home be happy still.
You may tell by their assumption of conventional disguise—
But, the men who made bad matches, I can tell them by their eyes!

I have seen them by the camp-fire, where a child’s voice never comes,
I have seen them by the fireside, in their seeming happy homes—
Seen their wives’ false arms go round them, and the kisses that were lies—
Oh, the men who made bad matches! I can tell them by their eyes.

I have seen them bad in prison—seen them sullen, seen them sad;
I have seen them (in the mad-house)—I have seen them raving mad.
Watched them fight the battle bravely, for the children’s sake alone,
Like a father who has wronged them, and who lives but to atone.

But it’s cruel, oh! it’s cruel, for the husband and the wife,
Who have not one thought in common, and are yoked for weary life.
They must see it through and suffer, for the children they must rear—
Oh, the folk who made bad matches have a heavy cross to bear.

There is not a ray of comfort, in the future’s gloomy sky,
For the children of bad matches will make trouble by-and-bye.
And though second wives be angels, while the first wives were the worst,
No second wife yet wedded makes a man forget the first.

Ah! the men who made bad matches think more often than we know,
Of the girls they should have married, in the glorious long ago,
And there’s many a wife and mother thinks with bitter pain to-day,
Of her giddy, silly girlhood, and the man she sent away.

Life is sad for men and women, but the thoughts are bitter sad
Of the girls we should have married, and the boys we should have had.
But we’ll part now with a handshake, if we cannot with a kiss,
And bad matches may be mended in a better world than this.

poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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