Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/139

 What! when I kneel in temples of the Gods Must I bethink me of the upturned sods, And hear a voice say: 'Mother, wilt thou come And see us resting in our new-made home, Since thou wert used to make us lie full soft, Smoothing our pillows many a time and oft? O mother, now no dainty food we need, Whereof of old thou usedst to have such heed. O mother, now we need no gown of gold, Nor in the winter time do we grow cold; Thy hands would bathe us when we were thine own, Now doth the rain wash every shining bone. No pedagogue we need, for surely heaven Lies spread above us, with the planets seven, To teach us all its lore.

Rarely but in the ballad and romance periods has such poetry been written, so broad and sad and simple, so full of deep and direct fire, certain of its aim, without finish, without fault. The passion from hence fills and burns to a close; the verse for a little is as the garment of Medea steeped in strange moisture as of tears and liquid flame to be kindled by the sun.

"O sons, with what sweet counsels and what tears Would I have hearkened to the hopes and fears Of your first loves: what rapture had it been Your dear returning footsteps to have seen Amidst the happy warriors of the land; But now—but now—this is a little hand,  Too often kissed since love did first begin  To win such curses as it yet shall win,  When after all bad deeds there comes a worse;  Praise to the Gods! ye know not how to curse."

It should now be clear, or never, that in this poem a new thing of great price has been cast into the English treasure-house. Nor is the cutting or the setting of the