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Mater Dolorosa

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Citoyen, lui dit Enjoiras, ma m're, c'est la R'publique.

- Les Mis'rables.

Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,

In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,

In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,

With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?

She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,

Worn through with her tears, are deep as the depth of skies.

This is she for whose sake being fallen, for whose abject sake,

Earth groans in the blackness of darkness, and men's hearts break.

This is she for whose love, having seen her, the men that were

Poured life out as water, and shed their souls upon air.

This is she for whose glory their years were counted as foam;

Whose face was a light upon Greece, was a fire upon Rome.

Is it now not surely a vain thing, a foolish and vain,

To sit down by her, mourn to her, serve her, partake in the pain?

She is grey with the dust of time on his manifold ways,

Where her faint feet stumble and falter through year-long days.

Shall she help us at all, O fools, give fruit or give fame,

Who herself is a name despised, a rejected name?

We have not served her for guerdon. If any do so,

That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.

We have drunk from a wine-unsweetened, a perilous cup,

A draught very bitter. The kings of the earth stood up,

And the rulers took counsel together, to smite her and slay;

And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today.

Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?

Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?

Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?

In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.

For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;

She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.

Is it nothing unto you then, all ye that pass by,

If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?

Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,

Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,

And rejoiced, having found her, though roof they had none nor bread;

But ye care not; what is it to you if her day be dead?

It was well with our fathers; their sound was in all men's lands;

There was fire in their hearts, and the hunger of fight in their hands.

Naked and strong they went forth in her strength like flame,

For her love's and her name's sake of old, her republican name.

But their children, by kings made quiet, by priests made wise,

Love better the heat of their hearths than the light of her eyes.

Are they children of these thy children indeed, who have sold,

O golden goddess, the light of thy face for gold?

Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy dayspring of hope,

Whose lives are in fief of an emperor, whose souls of a Pope?

Hide then thine head, O beloved; thy time is done;

Thy kingdom is broken in heaven, and blind thy sun.

What sleep is upon you, to dream she indeed shall rise,

When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes?

If ye sing of her dead, will she stir? if ye weep for her, weep?

Come away now, leave her; what hath she to do but sleep?

But ye that mourn are alive, and have years to be;

And life is good, and the world is wiser than we.

Yea, wise is the world and mighty, with years to give,

And years to promise; but how long now shall it live?

And foolish and poor is faith, and her ways are bare,

Till she find the way of the sun, and the morning air.

In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun,

And the soul of man and her soul and the world's be one.