Page images
PDF
EPUB

XXXV.

Our wounds are different. Your white men

Are, after all, not gods indeed,

Nor able to make Christs again

Do good with bleeding. We who bleed... (Stand off!) we help not in our loss! We are too heavy for our cross, And fall and crush you and your seed.

XXXVI.

I fall, I swoon! I look at the sky:
The clouds are breaking on my brain;
I am floated along, as if I should die

Of liberty's exquisite pain—

In the name of the white child, waiting for me In the death-dark where we may kiss and agree, White men, I leave you all curse-free

In my broken heart's disdain!

HECTOR IN THE GARDEN.

I.

NINE years old! The first of any

Seem the happiest years that come:-
Yet when I was nine, I said

No such word!-I thought, instead,
That the Greeks had used as many
In besieging Ilium.

II.

Nine green years had scarcely brought me
To my childhood's haunted spring:-
I had life, like flowers and bees,
In betwixt the country trees;
And the sun, the pleasure, taught me
Which he teacheth every thing.

III.

If the rain fell, there was sorrow ;—
Little head, leant on the pane,
Little finger drawing down it
The long trailing drops upon it,-
And the "Rain, rain, come to-morrow,"
Said for charm against the rain.

IV.

Such a charm was right Canidian,
Though you meet it with a jeer!
If I said it long enough,

Then the rain hummed dimly off,
And the thrush, with his pure Lydian,
Was left only, to the ear:

V.

And the sun and I together
Went a-rushing out of doors:
We, our tender spirits, drew
Over hill and dale in view,
Glimmering hither, glimmering thither,
In the footsteps of the showers.

VI

Underneath the chestnuts dripping,
Through the grasses wet and fair,
Straight I sought my garden-ground,
With the laurel on the mound,
And the pear-tree oversweeping
A side-shadow of green air.

VII.

In the garden, lay supinely

A huge giant, wrought of spade!
Arms and legs were stretched at length,

In a passive giant strength,—

And the meadow turf, cut finely,

Round them laid and interlaid.

VIII.

Call him Hector, son of Priam !
Such his title and degree.

With my rake I smoothed his brow

Both his cheeks I weeded through:

But a rhymer such as I am,

Scarce can sing his dignity.

IX.

Eyes of gentianellas azure,
Staring, winking at the skies;
Nose of gilly flowers and box;
Scented grasses, put for locks-
Which a little breeze, at pleasure,
Set a-waving round his eyes.

;

X.

Brazen helm of daffodillies,

With a glitter toward the light; Purple violets, for the mouth, Breathing perfumes west and south; And a sword of flashing lilies,

Holden ready for the fight.

XI.

And a breastplate, made of daisies,
Closely fitting, leaf by leaf;
Periwinkles interlaced,

Drawn for belt about the waist;

While the brown bees, humming praises, Shot their arrows round the chief.

XII.

And who knows, (I sometimes wondered,)

If the disembodied soul

Of old Hector, once of Troy, Might not take a dreary joy Here to enter-if it thundered, Rolling up the thunder-roll?

XIII.

Rolling this way, from Troy-ruin,
In this body rude and rife,
He might enter, and take rest
'Neath the daisies of the breast-
They, with tender roots, renewing
His heroic heart to life.

XIV.

Who could know? I sometimes started

At a motion or a sound!

Did his mouth speak-naming Troy,

With an οτοτοτοτοι?

Did the pulse of the Strong-hearted

Make the daisies tremble round?

XV.

It was hard to answer, often:

But the birds sang in the tree-
But the little birds sang bold,
In the pear-tree green and old;
And my terror seemed to soften,
Through the courage of their glee.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »