My Slain
This sweet child which hath climbed upon my knee,
This amber-haired, four-summered little maid,
With her unconscious beauty troubleth me,
With her low prattle maketh me afraid.
Ah, darling! when you cling and nestle so
You hurt me, though you do not see me cry,
Nor hear the weariness with which I sigh,
For the dear babe I killed so long ago.
I tremble at the touch of your caress;
I am not worthy of your innocent faith;
I who with whetted knives of worldliness
Did put my own child-heartedness to death,
Beside whose grave I pace forevermore,
Like desolation on a shipwrecked shore.
There is no little child within me now,
To sing back to the thrushes, to leap up
When June winds kiss me, when an apple bough
Laughs into blossoms, or a buttercup
Plays with the sunshine, or a violet
Dances in the glad dew. Alas! alas!
The meaning of the daisies in the grass
I have forgotten; and if my cheeks are wet
It is not with the blitheness of the child,
But with the bitter sorrow of sad years.
O moaning life, with life irreconciled;
O backward-looking thought, O pain, O tears,
For us there is not any silver sound
Of rhythmic wonders springing from the ground.
Woe worth the knowledge and the bookish lore
Which makes men mummies, weighs out every grain
Of that which was miraculous before,
And sneers the heart down with the scoffing brain.
Woe worth the peering, analytic days
That dry the tender juices in the breast,
And put the thunders of the Lord to test,
So that no marvel must be, and no praise,
Nor any God except Necessity.
What can ye give my poor, starved life in lieu
Of this dead cherub which I slew for ye?
Take back your doubtful wisdom, and renew
My early foolish freshness of the dunce,
Whose simple instincts guessed the heavens at once.
Richard Realf.