MY lord, your servants sought me and I came With reverence turned to pleading in my heart; For my tall sisters chid me for a child To cherish an old man and an impotent. They said "Old men are cruel when they learn How feebleness has left them only thoughts -- Ah, they are cruel and very merciless Unto the helpless teacher in their arms. Stay, or you lose the birthright of our kind; The young men only seek virginity." But I said then "He is well loved of God, And age being thoughtful is made pitiful: Lovely and young-browed queens were his in vain, They could not save him from this lowly need; So, surely, in his lonely heights shall thoughts Of Michal and Bathsheba make him kind."... Ah, lord, forgive me and do not hide your head; I will not whisper that first name again. One day last year my slave brought me her child, A very little baby that looked so dead It never could be wakened any more.... Dread lord, how have I hurt you with my words? I would but tell you how I cried in bed And clasped it to me all the waking night Till with the dawn I felt it live again; -- Turn from me, lord; I am frightened of your eyes -- So by such strength of cool compassionate love I thought, I hope to rise to your deep need Till maidenly, unmaidenly, are words I shall not need nor understand again. I know I am to be used and put aside, But that is all I ask; I could not live To think you loved me for my yielding thus. Consider that God sent you to be served, And I am made for service and no more; Then, being spent, I shall go home again, While kindness will just leave you to forget A thing God's purpose used and put aside. And I will never boast of doing right. So calm I come, grey father of us all, A daughter to my duty manifest, A mother in affection and hushed care. O cold, cold, cold, thin feet and face and hands.... Now lift your head a little to my arm; Is this way slowly easier? It is well. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY BEFORE BANNOCKBURN by ROBERT BURNS SEVEN TIMES SEVEN [- LONGING FOR HOME] by JEAN INGELOW LOVE AND SLEEP by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE A CHARACTER by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD URANIA; THE WOMAN IN THE MOON: THE FOURTH CANTO, OR LAST QUARTER by WILLIAM BASSE |