What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low, And burn your lights faintly!-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: 90 But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length Into such wail as this!-and we sit on forlorn When the man-child is born. 95 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! 1862. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 100 ULALUME THE skies they were ashen and sober; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, Here once, through an alley Titanic As the lavas that restlessly roll That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek Our talk had been serious and sober, sere, Our memories were treacherous and sere, For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)We noted not the dim lake of Auber (Though once we had journeyed down Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Weir. 19 29 And now, as the night was senescent And I said: "She is warmer than Dian: She has seen that the tears are not dry on To shine on us with her bright eyes: 50 But Psyche, uplifting her finger, In agony sobbed, letting sink her I replied "This is nothing but dreaming: Let us bathe in this crystalline light! With hope and in beauty to-night: See, it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright: We safely may trust to a gleaming That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night." Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And I said: "What is written, sweet sister, 71 81 Then my heart it grew ashen and sober And I cried: "It was surely October That I journeyed-I journeyed down here- Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber, 1847. Edgar Allan Poe. LORRAINE "ARE you ready for your steeple-chase, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe? Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree. You 're booked to ride your capping race today at Coulterlee, You 're booked to ride Vindictive, for all the world to see, To keep him straight, and keep him first, and win the run for me." Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree. She clasp'd her new-born baby, poor Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree. 9 |