Domremy and Rouen

THE sheep are folded. I may sit awhile
Here in the dusk, and think my thoughts alone.
Not long: even now the shadows that lay slant
And sharp across the orchard are quite gone;
I shall be looked for soon.

Fifteen years old!
And I am strong and well as ever I was
When I was young: the saints are very good
And very close. Sometimes I seem to hear
Their quiet voices, saying kind, kind things
Only because they love me. And sometimes . . .
Sometimes ... I know not how, they are calling, calling
, And something I must do, and something be,
I know not what. I lean to hear the word,
And strange tears brush my cheek, and dim eyes look
From far, far spaces into mine, and then . . .
Once more the quiet voices, and the breath
Of dear companionship.

Fifteen years old . . .
Who knows ? I may be married in a year,
Now I am quite a woman, and then — then . . .
Ah, little smiling, weeping, roseleaf things!
If one could bear them as Our Lady bore
The little Lord! No one, the women say,
No one but she was ever mother so,
And I must be content without my blessing
Till I may win a good man’s love . . . But me!
What good man will think ever to love me ?
A very foolish good man! . . .

Sometimes, too,
I hear far-off in some faint other-world
A deeper voice: “Nay, little one, not thou,
Not thou — far other blessedness for thee. ”
Till I wake weeping, clutching at my breast
To still the hungry ache of motherhood.
If it were so, why should I weep ? Perhaps
Some life of holy quiet shall be mine,
Far from the world, in time to grow and grow
A very little saint. One would be glad
To be as good as that, and yet . . .

Last night,
The very last night of my fourteen years,
I had a dream. By a bright hearth I sat,
Distaff in hand, and all about my knees
Tumbled and clung a troop of little ones,
All mine, all mine. And as I shook for joy,
And would have stooped to kiss them, all at once
My stool grew — think! — a horse, and my sweet babes
A throng of armèd men, still at my knee,
Still looking in my face for comfort: so —
Why, so I gave them comfort . . .
What a dream!

This is the hour they told me of. I thought
There would be fear, which I might chance to hide,
And numb at last with prayer, as I have done
Often upon the hanging wave of battle
Before it broke and gave me calm. Then — then —
Perhaps some quick and upward witnessing
Of heart and voice, and then a pang . . . and then
I should be dead. How strange one should have made
So much of it! I think in all this mass
Of breathers, mine’s the only quiet heart.

Ah, zest of anxious service, eager task Of life, how wonderful you were; and now
A little troubled thing for memory
To deal with for a moment, and let slip
Into the dark . . .

It was a glory, yes,
But not mine own; I may forget it now.
The calling voices are all still’d at last,
They have no more to ask; I may forget . . .

Shadowy days in far green Domremy,
So little while ago, and yet so long,
You only, grow and grow out of the dusk
Endearingly upon the woman’s heart
With visions of the simple maid she was . . .
And yet I know not what slow bitterness
Wells upward from some long-neglected spring
Deep in the heart, for looking in this face
Once mine and lost: the wonder if perhaps
The service and the glory might have fallen
To one who, worthier for that, had been
Less fit for simpler uses.

“This young maid,”
So will the women say, “this gentle maid
Became the champion of France and God:
She might have been a mother and a wife! ”

Not wasted, and not grudged, the thing I gave,
Only I know not how to turn me from
This world unloved, unprattled-for . . . Wert thou
Minded to yield some little token to
A foolish woman who has served thee, God,
It should not be a crown of gold, the praise
Of saintly throngs, a seat at the right hand, —
But only this . . . One hour to feel myself
At last fulfilled of womanhood ; to weep
And smile as other women do, with here
A broad breast for my comfort human-wise,
And there a little babble of soft lips,
And tender palms uplifted just to me . . .
That were a glory! . . .

That were quite too much,
No doubt. I will not ask for it, nor ask
For anything but rest: I am too tired
For anything but rest . . .
Sirs, I am ready.