Words for the Hour/Fanny Kemble's Child
FANNY KEMBLE'S CHILD.
As I was fain to wile a summer's dayWith Shakspeare's Juliet folded in my lap,And for her accents, strove to call up thine,An unexpected music to my thoughtsAnswered—the matchless laugh of Maidenhood;While looking from the pondered page, I sawOf the strange growths of Time and Nature, one.It had thy brow in little, and thine eyesBut new created, offering gentleness;Ev'n thy brown locks, with youth's half risen sunStill gilding them aslant. "Who should this beBut Fanny Kemble's Daughter?" said my heart,Ere others came to tell her parentage.
Tears waited on the vision. Woful child!Thy Mother scarcely knows thy countenance,Remodelled from its baby lineaments;And I, a stranger, hold with grasp profaneA hand, that she should almost die to touch.Wherefore is she thy Mother? unto her The Poet's word: "Bring forth male children only,"Should seem the fittest sentence. As I mused,I heard, but heeded not, her careless talk,Till mine own children climbed upon my knee,Whom with a Mother's foolery I fondled,Calling them Puss and Pug, and Slug, and Bear,Berating them with mimic violence,And silly buffets, to be coaxed with kissing.As with a swift remembrance, said the Girl,"Why, that is like my Mother!" and grew sad.
Oh! many-passioned Woman—fervid soul!Thou, rich in all save Meekness—strong in allSave that strong Patience which outwearies Fate,And makes Gods quail before its constancy.Which was forgotten in thy gifts of birth?Of all the powers the greatest only—Love.
What voice makes music in the childless breastWhich thine own Diapason cannot fill?Has Conscience ne'er a moral for the void?Do thy forsaken ones cry out to theeFor the brave nurture left aside one dayTo follow stormy feeling round the world?Or gatherest thou, from thine own infancy,Nature shall take thy glorious foundlings up, Proving a wiser and a tenderer nurseThan thou, self-tortured, and self-comforting?Oh! wander where thou wilt, thou must returnFrom the flushed conquests of a thousand fields,Vanquished at last of sorrow, as creeps backFrom her wild course the wounded Lioness,That Death may find her, crouching near her young.
Peace wait upon thee where thou seekest it—At the world's altar, or the Convent grate.But while thou walkest, Time doth follow onWith lessons that are slow and great to learn.Lessons of human weakness, and life's woe;The impotence of Anger, the divineOf Pardon, and th' unconquerable powerFixed in the waiting, philosophic eye.As Fate's kaleidoscopic angles turnThou shalt behold great burthens poised and heldIn smallest grasp, thro' Wisdom's leverage.Thou shalt allow what patient hearts attendThe helpless cradle, without hope or loveBetween its narrow bounds, and God's immense.What painful fingers spin the duteous webWith little comfort, for the weal of suchAs give no passing smile in recompense,But take the garment to their frigid souls, Saying, "it scarcely warms me." Thou shalt learnWhat Women, glorified thro' tears, have goneUncanonized of men, to that best heavenWhere God consoles His martyrs.Where God consoles His martyrs. One who walkedFrom the throne's splendor to the bloody block,Said: "this completes my glory," with a smileWhich still illuminates men's thoughts of her.When such as we supremely love and trustMeet the last struggle on their outward way,'Tis the last look of deathless-loving eyes,The parting gesture of unconquered Faith,That o'er the bitter waters beckon us,Wringing fond hearts with vague imaginings,Making unblest the limits that forbidAught save our longing souls to follow them.
Grief hath its wanderings—pass and pardon mine.Thine was the lot of Woman, only thouWert more than Woman in thy haughty will,And less than Woman, in humility.Battling for higher tasks, and loftier praise,Thy matchless office was unknown of thee.A helpful partner? whence are mightiest lawsBut of opposing forces, greatly wed?A nurse of Babies? what is Nature else? See, the stars nestle in the down of Night,And, from the calm of one wide Mother-breastDoth holy sleep reconsecrate the world.
Did torture go beyond the powers of life,Could one not, dying, look such mild reproachAs looks a slave in his tormentor's eyes,Who sees, thro' tears and blood, God's pardon near?
The tree that sheds its blossoms ere their time,Bears not the Autumn glory of its fruit.The drop that in its cavern cannot waitThe infiltration of a thousand yearsShall never shine, a diamond. Earth herself,Hoarding rebellion, were chaotic still,Foiled of her beauty, joyless, purposeless.Oh friend! Life is creation to the end,And we beget ourselves in agonyA thousand times, to one ancestral soul.
I cannot be thy Teacher, nor would askUnwilling lips to take their text from mine.But wonder seizes on my thoughts, and fear,When, in the Drama of our destinies,A soul like thine is summoned to the front,And maddens with the passion of its part. The gaslights flutter, and the benches whirl,The music sobs its insufficiency;Some shout applause, some sit convulsed and still,While heavenly Art, with awful eyes intent,Waits to pronounce the sentence of the world.