The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter/Jeanne Bras
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.”
“Here is your child; her weak and weary feet
Led her home to her own mother's door.”
“My child stole from my side all gladly fleet;
I tell you to trouble me no more.”
“O mother, mother I a little babe I bring;
I pray you rise and let us through.”
“On my child's hand was set no wedding-ring;
I shall not open unto you.”
“Oh, cruel you are I Unforgiving to your child:
Sorrow and shame make her appeal.”
“Did she think of me when a stranger came and smiled!
She went like a dog to his heel!”
“A priest I a priest, I pray you bring to me;
Unchurched and unshriven am I.”
“As you went, you shall go, unblessed to be.
Why do you linger here to cry!”
“A priest! A priest! My little dying boy!
Unchristened and unholy he lies.”
“Accurst be your sorrow, accurst was your joy—
Begone! I will answer not your cries.”
••••••
Jeanne Bras, Jeanne Bras, she rose up with the dawn,
And flung off the bolt and the chain:
The first thing she rested her hot eyes upon
Was the child who had called her in vain.
The next thing she saw was the babe, all so white,
Lying cold on its cold mother's breast.
Each face bore the tears of its pitiful plight—
They lay in their sleeping unblest.
Jeanne Bras, Jeanne Bras, she laid them side by side,
All in their cold and silent bed;
Then she knelt by their grave, and bitterly she cried
Till the stars trembled forth overhead.
Now they lay all so cold and they lay all so still
Till the night of the third long day;
Then they rose in their grave-clothes, all stiff and all chill,
And back to her door made their way.
“Jeanne Bras! Jeanne Bras! arise and let us through;
Jeanne Bras! Jeanne Bras! will you awake?”
“Oh glad, sweet ghost, will I free my door to you,
And pray your forgiveness to take!”
Jeanne Bras arose, and she lit her taper bright,
And her door she did set open wide:
She heard a young child go crying in the night,
But never a one was outside.
She prayed till dawn, and wept the lone, long day,
Weary she laid her down to rest;
There came to her door a ghost all pale and grey,
A babe lying cold on her breast.
“Jeanne Bras! Jeanne Bras! give shelter! Oh, awake!
Chill we are, and bitter is our woe.”
“O child, dear child, your mother's heart doth breaks
While cold and unsheltered you go!”
She rose up straight, and bright her taper shone
As she opened the door so wide;
But alas I to her grief, the woful ghost had gone,
And never a one was outside.
Jeanne Bras, so pale, she mounted up her stair.
And no tear did she now let fall;
But she laid her down on her pallet hard and bare,
And her white face she turned to the wall.
She lay there all night, she lay the day through,
And never a word spoke she,
Till there came with the dark a sad weeping she knew
The cry of her daughter to be.
She tossed to the left, she tossed to the right.
The sound could not stifle nor still;
She heard the loud wail of a woman's sad plight,
And a babe in its agony shrill.
Again she rose up with her taper aflame,
And the great door all soon she unbarred;
She called through the night on her lost daughter's name,
Slow she went to the ancient churchyard.
Feeble she was and all old with her years,
By her child's grave she bent her white head;
And her poor heart it broke with the burden of tears,
And she lay there as cold as the dead.
••••••
Her ghost it still walks through the dark hours of night,
She sighs with the grief of the wind;
She holds in her hand a wax taper all white;
She seeks what she never will find.