They little know what dreams have been
   My playmates, night and day;
Of equal kindness, helpful care,
   A mother’s perfect sway.

Now earth to earth in convent walls,
   To earth in churchyard sod: 
I was not good enough for man,
   And so am given to God.

Bertrich in the Eifel, 1851.

SONNET

The baby sings not on its mother’s breast;
Nor nightingales who nestle side by side;
Nor I by thine:  but let us only part,
Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still,
As having uttered all, must speak again—­
O stunted thoughts!  O chill and fettered rhyme
Yet my great bliss, though still entirely blest,
Losing its proper home, can find no rest: 
   So, like a child who whiles away the time
With dance and carol till the eventide,
Watching its mother homeward through the glen;
Or nightingale, who, sitting far apart,
Tells to his listening mate within the nest
The wonder of his star-entranced heart
Till all the wakened woodlands laugh and thrill—­
   Forth all my being bubbles into song;
   And rings aloft, not smooth, yet clear and strong.

Bertrich, 1851

THE SWAN-NECK

Evil sped the battle play
On the Pope Calixtus’ day;
Mighty war-smiths, thanes and lords,
In Senlac slept the sleep of swords. 
Harold Earl, shot over shield,
Lay along the autumn weald;
Slaughter such was never none
Since the Ethelings England won. 
   Thither Lady Githa came,
Weeping sore for grief and shame;
How may she her first-born tell? 
Frenchmen stript him where he fell,
Gashed and marred his comely face;
Who can know him in his place? 
   Up and spake two brethren wise,
’Youngest hearts have keenest eyes;
Bird which leaves its mother’s nest,
Moults its pinions, moults its crest. 
Let us call the Swan-neck here,
She that was his leman dear;
She shall know him in this stound;
Foot of wolf, and scent of hound,
Eye of hawk, and wing of dove,
Carry woman to her love.’ 
   Up and spake the Swan-neck high,
’Go! to all your thanes let cry
How I loved him best of all,
I whom men his leman call;
Better knew his body fair
Than the mother which him bare. 
When ye lived in wealth and glee
Then ye scorned to look on me;
God hath brought the proud ones low
After me afoot to go.’ 
   Rousing erne and sallow glede,
Rousing gray wolf off his feed,
Over franklin, earl, and thane,
Heaps of mother-naked slain,
Round the red field tracing slow,
Stooped that Swan-neck white as snow;
Never blushed nor turned away,
Till she found him where he lay;
Clipt him in her armes fair,
Wrapt him in her yellow hair,
Bore him from the battle-stead,
Saw him laid in pall of lead,
Took her to a minster high,
For Earl Harold’s soul to cry.