JEANNE BRAS
A BALLAD OF SORROW
“Jeanne Bras! Jeanne Bras! arise and let me in;
Jeanne Bras! Jeanne Bras I will you awake?”
“Now who comes so late at my door, her way to win,
Who knocks thus my slumbering to break!”
“Oh I it is your child who is ill with bitter woe!
So open to her the bolted door.”
“I had a child, but she left me long ago:
I pray you to trouble me no more.”
“Oh I one stands here—she is weary unto death,
Beaten with the wind and with the rain.”
“The child I bore I shall curse with dying breathy
And so your knocking is in vain.”
“Your child is here, with her bowed and humbled head
Grown grey while yet its years are green.”
“My child had hair gold as a silkworm's thread.
She held it as high as a queen.”
“One cries here, and her lips, so sad and white,
Still call you in a daughter's name.”
“My child's mouth bore a smile of fond delight;
It never had pleaded of shame.”
“One weeps here: in her eyes all joy is stilled,
And she on her mother doth cry.”
“My child's eyes with God's innocence were filled,
And pure with the blue of His sky.”
48
