And crept with the blood through every vein;255
And hour by hour, day after day,
The wonder could not charm away,
But laid in sleep, my wakeful pain,
Until I knew it was a child,
And then I wept. For long, long years260
These frozen eyes had shed no tears:
But now—'twas the season fair and mild
When April has wept itself to May:
I sate through the sweet sunny day
By my window bowered round with leaves,265
And down my cheeks the quick tears ran[1]
Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves,
When warm spring showers are passing o'er
Helen, none can ever tell
The joy it was to weep once more!270
I wept to think how hard it were
To kill my babe, and take from it
The sense of light, and the warm air,
And my own fond and tender care,
And love and smiles; ere I knew yet275
That these for it might, as for me,
Be the masks of a grinning mockery.
And haply, I would dream, 'twere sweet
To feed it from my faded breast,
Or mark my own heart's restless beat280
Rock it to its untroubled rest,
And watch the growing soul beneath
Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,
Half interrupted by calm sighs,
- ↑ Mr. Rossetti prints fell for ran, so as to get a rhyme for tell. It is certainly more correct to say tears run down the cheeks than fall down the cheeks; and the alteration is very insecure. It should be noted that the ensuing simile is somewhat loose, inasmuch as rain-drops from the eaves do not either fall down anything or run down anything, but through the air.
