Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BIRTH OF HENRI QUATRE, by ELIZABETH JANE COATSWORTH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BIRTH OF HENRI QUATRE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This is so brisk, so fine a day
Last Line: My memories turn to jeanne d'albret.
Alternate Author Name(s): Beston, Henry, Mrs.
Subject(s): Birth; Child Birth; Midwifery


This is so brisk, so fine a day,
So sunny and bare, withal so gay,
That my memory turns to gallant things
To the bleak bright sword that cuts and sings,
To Jeanne d'Albret in her castle at Pau,
Singing high and singing low --
Though her travail be hard and her pain be long
Her son shall be born to his mother's song!
I see her lying in the great state bed
With the canopy dark above her head,
Two glazed eyes and a rigid mouth
That still sings canticles of the south,
Whatever the pain she still must sing
For out of cowards, cowards spring
And the gifts that she has for her first son are
This night-long song and the realm of Navarre.

When the day is so bleak and wild and gay
My memories turn to Jeanne d'Albret.





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