  He wiled me through the furzy croft; He wiled me down the sandy lane; He told his boy's love, soft and oft, Until I told him mine again. We married, and we sailed the main,— A soldier, and a soldier's wife. We marched through many a burning plain; We sighed for many a gallant life. But his—God keep it safe from harm. He toiled, and dared, and earned command, And those three stripes upon his arm Were more to me than gold or land. Sure he would win some great renown; Our lives were strong, our hearts were high. One night the fever struck him down. I sat, and stared, and saw him die. I had his children,—one, two, three. One week I had them, blithe and sound. The next—beneath this mango tree By him in barrack burying-ground. I sit beneath the mango shade; I live my five years' life all o'er,— Round yonder stems his children played; He mounted guard at yonder door. 'Tis I, not they, am gone and dead. They live, they know, they feel, they see. Their spirits light the golden shade Beneath the giant mango tree. All things, save I, are full of life: The minas, pluming velvet breasts; The monkeys, in their foolish strife; The swooping hawks, the swinging nests; The lizards basking on the soil; The butterflies who sun their wings; They live, they love, the blissful things! Each tender purple mango shoot, That folds and droops so bashful down, It lives, it sucks some hidden root, It rears at last a broad green crown. It blossoms: and the children cry, "Watch when the mango apples fall." It lives; but rootless, fruitless, I,— I breathe and dream,—and that is all. Thus am I dead, yet cannot die; But still within my foolish brain There hangs a pale blue evening sky, A furzy croft, a sandy lane. Charles Kingsley. |
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