Francis William Lauderdale Adams: Verses about Children

ALOLL in the warm clear water,
On her back with languorous limbs,
She lies. The baby upon her breasts
Paddles and falls and swims.
With half-closed eyes she smiles,
Guarding it with her hands;
And the sob swells up in my heart —
In my heart that understands.
Dear, in the English country,
The hatefullest land on earth,
The mothers are starved and the children die,
And death is better than birth!

SHE went along the road,
Her baby in her arms,
The night and its alarms
Made deadlier her load.
Her shrunken breasts were dry;
She felt the hunger bite.
She lay down in the night,
She and the child, to die.
But it would wail, and wail,
And wail. She crept away.
She had no word to say,
Yet still she heard it wail.
She took a jagged stone;
She wished it to be dead.
She beat it on the head;
It only gave one moan.
She has no word to say;
She sits there in the night.
The east sky glints with light,
And it is Christmas Day!

IN the early summer morning
I stand and watch them come,
The Children to the School-house;
They chatter and laugh and hum.
The little boys with satchels
Slung round them, and the Girls
Each with hers swinging in her hand;
I love their sunny curls.
I love to see them playing,
Romping and shouting with glee,
The boys and girls together,
Simple, fearless, free.
I love to see them marching
In squads, in file, in line,
Advancing and retreating,
Tramping, keeping time.
Sometimes a little lad
With a bright brave face I'll see,
And a wistful yearning wonder
Comes stealing over me.
For once I too had a Darling;
I dreamed what he should do,
And surely he'd have had, I thought,
Just such a face as You.
And I, I dreamed to see him
Noble and brave and strong,
Loving the light, the lovely,
Hating the dark, the wrong,
Loving the poor, the People,
Ready to smile and give
Blood and brain to their service,
For them to die or live!
No matter, O little Darlings!
Little Boys, you shall be
My Citizens for faithful labour,
My Soldiers for victory!
Little Girls, I charge you
Be noble sweethearts, wives,
Mothers — comrades the sweetest,
Fountains of happy lives!
Farewell, O little Darlings!
Far away — with strangers, too —
He sleeps, the little Darling,
I dreamed to see like you.
And I, O little Darlings,
I have many miles to go,
And where I too may stop and sleep,
And when, I do not know.
But I charge you to remember
The love, the trust I had,
That you'd be noble, fearless, free,
And make your country glad.
That you should toil together,
Face whatever yet shall be,
My citizens for faithful labour,
My soldiers for victory.
I charge you to remember;
I bless you with my hand,
And I know the hour is coming
When you shall understand:
When you shall understand too,
Why, as I said farewell,
Although my lips were smiling,
The shining tears down fell.

. . . In a dark street she met and spoke to me,
Importuning, one wet and mild March night.
We walked and talked together. O her tale
Was very common; thousands know it all!
'Seduced'; a gentleman; a baby coming;
Parents that railed; London; the child born dead;
A seamstress then, one of some fifty girls
'Taken on' a few months at a dressmaker's
In the crush of the 'season' at ten shillings a week!
The fashionable people's dresses done,
And they flown off, these fifty extra girls
Sent — to the streets: that is, to work that gives
Scarcely enough to buy the decent clothes
Respectable employers all demand
Or speak dismissal. Well, well, well, we know!
And she — 'Why, I have gone on down and down,
And there's the gutter, look, that I shall die in!'
'My dear,' I say, 'where hope of all but that
Is gone, 'tis time, I think, life were gone too.'
She looks at me. 'That I should kill myself?'
'That you should kill yourself.' — 'That would be sin,
And God would punish me!' — 'And will not God
Punish for this?' She pauses; then whispers:
'No, no, He will forgive me, for He knows!'
I laughed aloud: 'And you,' she said, 'and you,
Who are so good, so noble' . . . 'Noble? Good?'
I laughed aloud, the great sob in my throat.
O my poor Darling, O my little lost Sheep
Of this vast flock that perishes alone
Out in the pitiless desert! — Yet she'd speak:
She'd ask me: she'd entreat: she'd demonstrate.
O I must not say that! I must believe!
Who made the sea, the leaves so green, the sky
So big and blue and pure above it all?
O my poor Darling, O my little lost Sheep,
Entreat no more and demonstrate no more;
For I believe there is a God, a God
Not in the heaven, the earth, or the waters; no,
But in the heart of Man, on the dear lips
Of angel Women, of heroic Men!
O hopeless Wanderer that would not stay,
('It is too late, I cannot rise again!')
O Saint of faith in love behind the veils,
('You must believe in God, for you are good!')
O Sister who made holy with your kiss,
Your kiss in that wet dark mild night of March,
There in the hideous infamous London streets,
My cheek, and made my soul a sacred place,
my poor Darling, O my little lost Sheep!