God, with angels singing round Him, Hears our weeping any more? 115120Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, And at midnight's hour of harm, 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm. We know no other words except 'Our Father.' And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both within His right hand which is strong.
.
1082 / ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely (For they call Him good and mild)
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
'Come and rest with me, my child.'
125 'But, no!' say the children, weeping faster,
'He is speechless as a stone:
And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on.
Go to!' say the children,?'up in Heaven,
130 Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.
Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving:
We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.'
Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,
O my brothers, what ye preach?
135 For God's possible is taught by His world's loving,4
And the children doubt of each.
And well may the children weep before you!
They are weary ere they run;
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
HO Which is brighter than the sun. They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;
They sink in man's despair, without its calm;
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm:5
145 Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly The harvest of its memories cannot reap,?
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.
Let them weep! let them weep!
They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
i 50 And their look is dread to see,
For they mind you of their angels in high places,
With eyes turned on Deity.
'How long,' they say, 'how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,?
155 Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple6 shows your path!
But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper
160 Than the strong man in his wrath.'
4. I.e., we gain our sense of the possibilities of 6. Color associated with royalty and (in poetry) God's love from our experience of love in the world. with blood. 5. Palm branch, symbol of victory.
.
To GEORGE SAND / 1083
To George Sand1
A Desire
Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man, Self-called George Sand! whose soul, amid the lions Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance And answers roar for roar, as spirits can:
5 I would some mild miraculous thunder ran Above the applauded circus,2 in appliance Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science, Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan, From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place
