A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/The Grandmother (Victor Hugo)
THE GRANDMOTHER.
'Sleep'st thou? Awaken, mother of our mother!
We love thee—thee alone—we have no other!
In sleeping thy lips moved: we've seen this often,
For thy sleep was a prayer,—oh, relent and soften!
But this evening thou seemest the Madonna of stone,
And though thou art present, we feel all alone.
'Why bend'st thou thy forehead lower than ever?
What wrong have we done, that thou claspest us never?
See! the lamp flickers, the hearth sparkles as dying,
If thou speakest no more, and art deaf to our crying—
The fire that we feed now, and the lamp that we cherish,
And we two thy loved ones—all, all shall perish.
'Thou shalt find us both dead, by the lamp without light,
And what wilt thou do when thou meetest that sight?
Thy children in turn shall be deaf to thy calling,
To bring us to life, thou then shalt be falling
On thy knees to thy Saints,—but long will it be,
Yea, long must thou clasp us, ere they give us to thee.
'Oh, show us thy Bible, and the pictures we love,
The Saints on their knees, the skies fretted above
The child Jesus, the manger, the oxen, the kings
With their gold, and their spices, and their rich offerings,
And make us read, as we can, in this Latin so odd,
Which we like (though 'tis hard), for it tells us of God.
'Mother! Alas! the light wanes by degrees,
The shadows dance round; while we bend on our knees,
The spirits, perhaps, are floating around,
Oh, wake from thy slumber,—oh, breathe but a sound!
Thou who gavest courage—would'st thou affrighten?
The embers like eyes in the gray ashes lighten.
'God! How these hands are cold! Ope thine eyes!—of late
Thou spakest of our world—our trial state,
And of heaven, and of the tomb, and of the fleeting life,
And of death—the last, last agony and strife;
What then is death? Oh, tell us, mother dear,
Alas! Thou answerest not—this silence kills with fear.'
Their sobbing voices long disturbed the night,
At length the fresh spring dawn appeared with light:
The steeple rang its melancholy chime
From hour to hour,—but not till evening time,
Did a lone traveller through the doorway see
The mother, and the Book, and the children at her knee.