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| I TOO remember, in the after years, | |
| The long-hair’d Niobe, when she was old, | |
| Sitting alone, without the city gates, | |
| Upon the ground; alone she sat, and mourn’d. | |
| Her watchers, mindful of her royal state, | 5 |
| Her widowhood, and sorrows, follow’d her | |
| Far off, when she went forth, to be alone | |
| In lonely places; and at set of sun | |
| They won her back by some fond phantasy, | |
| By telling her some tale of the gone days | 10 |
| Of her dear lost ones, promising to show her | |
| Some faded garland, or some broken toy, | |
| Dusty and dim, which they had found, or feign’d | |
| To have found, some plaything of their infant hours. | |
| Within the echoes of a ruin’d court | 15 |
| She sat and mourn’d, with her lamenting voice, | |
| Melodious in sorrow, like the sound | |
| Of funeral hymns; for in her youth she sang | |
| Along the myrtle valleys in the spring, | |
| Plucking the fresh pinks and the hyacinths, | 20 |
| With her fair troop of girls, who answer’d her | |
| Silverly sweet, so that the lovely tribe | |
| Were Nature’s matchless treble to the last | |
| Delicious pipe, pure, warbling, dewy clear. | |
| In summer and in winter, that lorn voice | 25 |
| Went up, like the struck spirit of this world, | |
| Making the starry roof of heaven tremble | |
| With her lament, and agony, and all | |
| The crowned Gods in their high tabernacles | |
| Sigh unawares, and think upon their deeds. | 30 |
| Her guardians let her wander at her will, | |
| For all could weep for her; had she not been | |
| The first and fairest of that sunny land, | |
| And bless’d with all things; doubly crown’d with power | |
| And beauty, doubly now discrown’d and fallen? | 35 |
| Oh! none would harm her, only she herself; | |
| And chiefly then when they would hold her back, | |
| And sue her to take comfort in her home, | |
| Or in the bridal chambers of her youth, | |
| Or in the old gardens, once her joy and pride, | 40 |
| Or the rose-bowers along the river-shore | |
| She lov’d of old, now silent and forsaken. | |
| For then she fled away, as though in fear, | |
| As if she saw the spectres of her hours | |
| Of joyaunce pass before her in the shapes | 45 |
| Of her belov’d ones. But most she chose | |
| Waste places, where the moss and lichen crawl’d, | |
| And the wild ivy flutter’d, and the rains | |
| Wept thro’ the roofless ruins, and all seem’d | |
| To mourn in symbols, and to answer to her, | 50 |
| Showing her outward that she was within. | |
| The unregarding multitude pass’d on, | |
| Because her woe was a familiar sight. | |
| But some there were that shut their ears and fled, | |
| And they were childless; the rose-lipp’d and young | 55 |
| Felt that imperial voice and desolate | |
| Strike cold into their hearts; children at play | |
| Were smit with sudden silence, with their toys | |
| Clutch’d in their hands, forgetful of the game. | |
| Aged she was, yet beautiful in age. | 60 |
| Her beauty, thro’ the cloud of years and grief, | |
| Shone as a wintry sun; she never smil’d, | |
| Save when a darkness pass’d across the sun, | |
| And blotted out from her entranced eyes | |
| Disastrous shapes that rode upon his disk, | 65 |
| Tyrannous visions, armed presences; | |
| And then she sigh’d and lifted up her head, | |
| And shed a few warm tears. But when he rose, | |
| And her sad eyes unclos’d before his beams, | |
| She started up with terrors in her look, | 70 |
| That wither’d up all pity in affright, | |
| And ran about, like one with Furies torn, | |
| And rent her hair, and madly threaten’d Heaven, | |
| And call’d for retribution on the Gods, | |
| Crying, “O save me from Him, He is there; | 75 |
| Oh, let me wear my little span of life. | |
| I see Him in the centre of the sun; | |
| His face is black with wrath! thou angry God, | |
| I am a worthless thing, a childless mother, | |
| Widow’d and wasted, old and comfortless, | 80 |
| But still I am alive; wouldst thou take all? | |
| Thou who hast snatch’d my hopes and my delights, | |
| Thou who hast kill’d my children, wouldst thou take | |
| The little remnant of my days of sorrow, | |
| Which the sharp winds of the first winter days, | 85 |
| Or the first night of frost, may give unto thee? | |
| For never shall I seek again that home | |
| Where they are not; cold, cold shall be the hearth | |
| Where they were gather’d, cold as is my heart! | |
| Oh! if my living lot be bitterness, | 90 |
| ’T is sweeter than to think, that, if I go | |
| Down to the dust, then I shall think no more | |
| Of them I lov’d and lost, the thoughts of whom | |
| Are all my being, and shall speak no more, | |
| In answer to their voices in my heart, | 95 |
| As though it were mine ear, rewording all | |
| Their innocent delights, and fleeting pains, | |
| Their infant fondnesses, their little wants, | |
| And simple words. Oh! while I am, I dream | |
| Of those who are not; thus my anguish grows | 100 |
| My solace, as the salt surf of the seas | |
| Clothes the sharp crags with beauty.” Then her mood | |
| Would veer to madness, like a windy change | |
| That brings up thunder, and she rais’d her voice, | |
| Crying, “And yet they are not, they who were, | 105 |
| And never more shall be! accursed dreams!” | |
| And, suddenly becoming motionless, | |
| The bright hue from her cheeks and forehead pass’d, | |
| And, full of awful resignation, fixing | |
| Her large undazzled orbs upon the sun, | 110 |
| She shriek’d, “Strike, God, thou canst not harm me more!” | |
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