Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me!

Yet I was a poetess only last year,

And good at my art, for a woman men said; But this woman, this, who is agoniz'd here,

The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head Forever instead.

What art can a woman be good at?

Oh, vain!

What art is she good at, but hurting her breast With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain? Ah boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed

And I proud, by that test.

What art's for a woman? To hold on her knees Both darlings; to feel all their arms round her throat, Cling, strangle a little, to sew by degrees

And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat; To dream and to doat.

To teach them . . . It stings there! I made them indeed

Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,

That a country's a thing men should die for at need. I prated of liberty, rights, and about

The tyrant cast out.

And when their eyes flashed . . . O my beautiful

eyes! ..

I exulted; nay, let them go forth at the wheels

At first, happy news came, in gay letters moil'd
With my kisses,- of camp-life and glory, and how
They both lov'd me; and, soon coming home to be
spoil'd,

In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.

66

Then was triumph at Turin: Ancona was free!" And some one came out of the cheers in the street, With a face pale as stone, to say something to me. My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet, While they cheer'd in the street.

I bore it; friends sooth'd me; my grief look'd sublime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remain'd
To be leant on and walk'd with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of
them strain'd

To the height he had gain'd.

And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong, Writ now but in one hand, "I was not to faint,—

One lov'd me for two would be with me ere long:

And Viva l'Italia! - he died for, our saint,

Who forbids our complaint."

My Nanni would add, "he was safe, and aware

Of a presence that turn'd off the balls,- was impress'd

It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossess'd, To live on for the rest."

On which without pause, up the telegraph-line,

Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta:-Shot. Tell his mother. Ah, ah, "his," "their" mother,— not "mine,"

No voice says "My mother" again to me. What! You think Guido forgot?

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven, They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe? I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven Through that Love and Sorrow which reconcil'd so The Above and Below.

O Christ of the five wounds, who look'st through the dark

To the face of Thy Mother! consider I pray,

How we common mothers stand desolate, mark, Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turn'd

away,

And no last word to say!

Both boys dead? but that's out of nature. We all Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.

'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall;

And, when Italy's made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son?

Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then?

When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her

sport

Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men?
When the guns of Cavalli with final retort
Have cut the game short?

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green,

and red,

When you have your country from mountain to sea, When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, (And I have my Dead)

What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,

And burn your lights faintly! My country is

there,

Above the star prick'd by the last peak of snow:
My Italy's there, with my brave civic Pair,
To disfranchise despair!

Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength, And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn;

But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length

Into wail such as this

- and we sit on forlorn

When the man-child is born.

Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea,
Both! both my boys! If in keeping the feast,
You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me.

"MOTHER," AND "MOTHER CAREY'S

CHICKENS."

A REVIEW FROM The Outlook

The young girls and older women who have adopted the habits, dress, and moral standards of the fast set are, happily, a very small minority, but the signs of their increase in numbers are very disconcerting. It is a great relief, in this widening morass of lowered standards, cheapened and superficial ideals of life, and love of vulgar publicity, to come upon simple, wholesome, fundamental stories which deal reverently with the vital things of life. Such a story of Mrs. Norris's "Mother" after half a dozen novels of the emancipated kind, gives one a sense of escape from fetid air into mountain air, from a casino into a home. It is a very simple story, and for that reason those who require highly seasoned fiction whose chief figures are irresponsible men seeking "soul unions" and feather-brained women skirting the edges of the