Yet I was a poetess only last year,

And good at my art, for a woman, men said;
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,

—The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
For ever instead.

What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain !

What art is she good at, but hurting her breast With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain? Ah boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed, And I proud, by that test.

What art 's for a woman? To hold on her knees

Both darlings; to feel all their arms round her throat; Cling, strangle a little, to sew by degrees

And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat;
To dream and to doat.

To teach them . . . It stings there! I made them indeed Speak plain the word country. I taught them, not

doubt,

That a country's a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, rights, and about

The tyrant cast out.

"And when their eyes flashed... O my beautiful eyes! . . .

I exulted; nay, let them go forth at the wheels

At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled

With my kisses,—of camp-life and glory, and how They both loved me; and, soon coming home to be spoiled,

In return would fan off every fly from my brow

With their green laurel-bough.

Then was triumph at Turin: "Ancona was free!"
And someone came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet,
While they cheered in the street.

I bore it; friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained

To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained To the height he had gained.

And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand, "I was not to faint,—
One loved me for two-would be with me ere long :
And Viva Italia!-he died for, our saint,

Who forbids our complaint."

My Nanni would add, "he was safe, and aware
Of a presence that turned off the balls,- -was imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how 't was impossible, quite dispossessed,

To live on for the rest."

On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line,
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta :-Shot.
Tell his mother. Ah, ah, "his," "their" mother,-not

"mine,"

No voice says "My mother" again to me.

You think Guido forgot?

What!

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?

I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so
The Above and Below.

O Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark To the face of Thy mother! consider, I pray,

How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,

Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,

And no last word to say!

Both boys dead? but that's out of nature. We all
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep

one.

'T were imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall;

And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son?

Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta 's taken, what then?

When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men? When the guns of Cavalli with final retort

Have cut the game short?

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,
When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and

red,

When you have your country from mountain to sea,

When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,

(And I have my Dead)—

What then? Do not mock me.

And burn your lights faintly!

Ah, ring your bells low,

My country is there,

Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow:
My Italy's THERE, with my brave civic Pair,
To disfranchise despair!

Forgive me.

Some women bear children in strength,

And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn; But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length Into wail such as this-and we sit on forlorn

When the man-child is born.

Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea,
Both both my boys! If in keeping the feast
You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me.

[This was Laura Savio, of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sons were killed at Ancona and Gaeta.]

NATURE'S REMORSES.

ROME, 1861.

HER soul was bred by a throne, and fed
From the sucking-bottle used in her race,
On starch and water (for mother's milk
Which gives a larger growth instead),
And, out of the natural liberal grace,

Was swaddled away in violet silk.
And young and kind, and royally blind,
Forth she stepped from her palace-door
On three-piled carpet of compliments,
Curtains of incense drawn by the wind
In between her for evermore

And daylight issues of events.
On she drew, as a queen might do,
To meet a Dream of Italy,—

Of magical town and musical wave,
Where even a god, his amulet blue
Of shining sea, in an ecstasy

Dropt and forgot in a nereid's cave.
Down she goes, as the soft wind blows,
To live more smoothly than mortals can,
To love and to reign as queen and wife,
To wear a crown that smells of a rose,
And still, with a sceptre as light as a fan,
Beat sweet time to the song of life.

What is this? As quick as a kiss,
Falls a smile from her girlish mouth!
The lion-people has left its lair,
Roaring along her garden of bliss,
And the fiery under-world of the south
Scorched a way to the upper air.

And a fire-stone ran in the form of a man,
Burningly, boundingly, fatal and fell,

Bowling the kingdom down! Where was the king?
She had heard somewhat, since life began,
Of terrors on earth, and horrors in hell,

But never, never of such a thing!

You think she dropped when her dream was stopped,
When the blotch of Bourbon blood inlay,

Lividly rank, her new lord's cheek?

Not so.

Her high heart overtopped

The royal part she had come to play.
Only the men in that hour were weak.

And twice a wife by her ravaged life,
And twice a queen by her kingdom lost,

She braved the shock and the counter-shock

Of hero and traitor, bullet and knife,

While Italy pushed, like a vengeful ghost,

That son of the Cursed from Gaeta's rock.

What will ye give her, who could not deliver,
German Princesses? A laurel-wreath

All over-scored with your signatures,
Graces, Serenities, Highnesses ever?

Mock her not, fresh from the truth of Death,
Conscious of dignities higher than yours.

What will ye put in your casket shut,

Ladies of Paris, in sympathy's name?

Guizot's daughter, what have you brought her?