The House Below The Hill
You ask me of the farthest star,
Whither your thought can climb at will,
Forever questioning child of mine.
I fear it is not half so far
As is the house below the hill,
Where one poor lamp begins to shine,—
The lamp that is of death the sign.
Has it indeed been there for years,
In rain and snow, with ruined roof
For God to look through, day and night,
At man's despair and woman's tears,
While with myself I stood aloof,
As one by some enchanted right
Held high from any ghastly sight?
. . . . One of my children lightly said:
“Oh nothing, (Why must we be still?)
Only the people have to cry
Because the woman's child is dead
There in the house below the hill.
I wish that we could see it fly;—
It has gold wings, and that is why!”
Gold wings it has? I only know
What wasted little hands it had,
That reached to me for pity, but
Before I thought to give it—oh,
On earth's last rose-bud, faint and sad,
Less cold than mine had been, they shut.
Sharper than steel some things should cut!
. . . . I thought the mother showed to me,
With something of a noble scorn
(When morning mocked with bird and dew),
That brief and bitter courtesy
Which awes us in the lowliest born.
Ah, soul, to thine own self be true;—
God's eyes, grown human, look thee through!
“We need no help—we needed it.
You have not come in time, and so
The women here did everything.
You did not know? You did not know!”
I surely saw the dark brows knit.
—To let the living die for bread,
Then bring fair shrouds to hide the dead!
What time I cried with Rachel's cry,
I wondered that I could not wring,
While sitting at the grave forlorn,
Compassion from yon alien sky,
That knows not death nor anything
That troubles man of woman born,
Save that he wounded Christ with thorn.
My sorrow had the right to find
Immortal pity? I could sit,
Not hearing at my very feet
The utter wailing of my kind,
And dream my dream high over it!
O human heart! what need to beat,
If nothing save your own is sweet?
Ah me, that fluttering flower and leaf,
That weird, wan moon and pitiless sun,
And my own shadow in the grass
Should hide from me this common grief!
Was I not dust? What had I done?
In that fixed face, as in a glass,
I saw myself to judgment pass!
Whither your thought can climb at will,
Forever questioning child of mine.
I fear it is not half so far
As is the house below the hill,
Where one poor lamp begins to shine,—
The lamp that is of death the sign.
Has it indeed been there for years,
In rain and snow, with ruined roof
For God to look through, day and night,
At man's despair and woman's tears,
While with myself I stood aloof,
As one by some enchanted right
Held high from any ghastly sight?
. . . . One of my children lightly said:
“Oh nothing, (Why must we be still?)
Only the people have to cry
Because the woman's child is dead
There in the house below the hill.
I wish that we could see it fly;—
It has gold wings, and that is why!”
Gold wings it has? I only know
What wasted little hands it had,
That reached to me for pity, but
Before I thought to give it—oh,
On earth's last rose-bud, faint and sad,
Less cold than mine had been, they shut.
Sharper than steel some things should cut!
. . . . I thought the mother showed to me,
With something of a noble scorn
(When morning mocked with bird and dew),
That brief and bitter courtesy
Which awes us in the lowliest born.
Ah, soul, to thine own self be true;—
God's eyes, grown human, look thee through!
“We need no help—we needed it.
You have not come in time, and so
The women here did everything.
You did not know? You did not know!”
I surely saw the dark brows knit.
—To let the living die for bread,
Then bring fair shrouds to hide the dead!
What time I cried with Rachel's cry,
I wondered that I could not wring,
While sitting at the grave forlorn,
Compassion from yon alien sky,
That knows not death nor anything
That troubles man of woman born,
Save that he wounded Christ with thorn.
My sorrow had the right to find
Immortal pity? I could sit,
Not hearing at my very feet
The utter wailing of my kind,
And dream my dream high over it!
O human heart! what need to beat,
If nothing save your own is sweet?
Ah me, that fluttering flower and leaf,
That weird, wan moon and pitiless sun,
And my own shadow in the grass
Should hide from me this common grief!
Was I not dust? What had I done?
In that fixed face, as in a glass,
I saw myself to judgment pass!
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