Classic Poem

I

Our dreams create the babes we bear;
Our beauty goes to make them fair.
We give them all we have of good,
Our blood to drink, our hearts for food;

And in our souls they lie and rest
Until upon their mother's breast
So innocent and sweet they lie.
They live to curse us; then they die.

When he was born, it seemed the spring
Had come again with birds to sing
And blossoms dancing in the sun
Where streams released from winter run.

His sunlit hair was all my gold;
His loving eyes my wealth untold.
All heaven was hid within the breast
Whereon my child was laid to rest.

He grew to manhood. Then one came
False-hearted as Hell's blackest shame,
To steal my child from me, and thrust
The soul I loved down to the dust.

Her hungry, wicked lips were red
As that dark blood my son's hand shed;
Her eyes were black as Hell's own night,
Her ice-cold breast was winter-white. —

I had put by a little gold
To bury me when I was cold.
Her fanged, wanton kiss to buy
My son's love willed that I should die.

The gold was hid beneath my bed;
So little, and my weary head
Was all the guard it had. They lie
So quiet and still who soon must die.

He stole to kill me while I slept —
The little son, who never wept
But that I kissed his tears away
So fast, his weeping seemed but play.

So light his footfall. Yet I heard
Its echo in my heart, and stirred
From out my weary sleep to see
My child's face bending over me.

The wicked knife flashed serpent-wise. —
Yet I saw nothing but his eyes,
And heard one little word he said
Go echoing down among the Dead.

II

They say the Dead may never dream.
But yet I heard my pierced heart scream
His name within the dark. They lie
Who say the Dead can ever die.

For in the grave I may not sleep
For dreaming that I hear him weep.
And in the dark, my dead hands grope
In search of him. O barren hope!

I cannot draw his head to rest
Deep down upon my wounded breast...
He gave the breast that fed him well
To suckle the small worms of Hell.

The little wicked thoughts that fed
Upon the weary, helpless Dead...
They whispered o'er my broken heart,
They stuck their fangs deep in the smart.

" The child she bore with bloody sweat
And agony has paid his debt.
Through that bleak face the stark winds play;
The crows have chased his soul away.

" His body is a blackened rag
Upon the tree — a monstrous flag."
Thus one Worm to the other saith.
Those slow mean servitors of Death,

They chuckling said: " Your soul grown blind
With anguish, is the shrieking Wind
That blows the flame that never dies
About his empty, lidless eyes."

I tore them from my heart. I said:
" The life-blood that my son's hand shed,
That from my broken heart outburst
I'd give again, to quench his thirst.

He did no sin. But cold blind earth
The body was that gave him birth.
All mine, all mine the sin; the love
I bore him was not deep enough."