{"id":195,"date":"2014-06-17T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T21:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/?post_type=chapter&p=195"},"modified":"2014-09-26T18:42:55","modified_gmt":"2014-09-26T18:42:55","slug":"the-cry-of-the-children","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/chapter\/the-cry-of-the-children\/","title":{"raw":"The Cry of the Children","rendered":"The Cry of the Children"},"content":{"raw":"\"\u03a6\u03b7\u1fe6, \u03c6\u03b7\u1fe6, \u03c4\u03af \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b4\u03ad\u03c1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03ad \u03bc' \u1f44\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, \u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bd\u03b1\u037e\"\u2014Medea<\/em>[footnote]The title and first line are taken from the Chorus in response to the murders being committed in Euripedes\u2019 tragedy, Medea<\/em>. Browning wrote the poem in response to The Report of the Children\u2019s Employment Commission<\/em> (1843) by her friend, the poet Richard Henry Horne, who exposed the abuses against children employed in British mines and factories.[\/footnote].\r\n\r\n [Alas, alas, why do you gaze at me with your eyes, my children?]<\/em>\r\n\r\nDo ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,\r\n\r\nEre the sorrow comes with years?\r\n\r\nThey are leaning their young heads against their mothers,\r\n\r\nAnd that<\/em> cannot stop their tears.\r\n\r\nThe young lambs are bleating in the meadows;\r\n\r\nThe young birds are chirping in the nest,\r\n\r\nThe young fawns are playing with the shadow,\r\n\r\nThe young flowers are blowing toward the west\u2014\r\n\r\nBut the young, young children, O my brothers,\r\n\r\nThey are weeping bitterly!\r\n\r\nThey are weeping in the playtime of the others,\r\n\r\nIn the country of the free.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nDo you question the young children in the sorrow\r\n\r\nWhy their tears are falling so?\r\n\r\nThe old man may weep for his to-morrow\r\n\r\nWhich is lost in Long Ago;\r\n\r\nThe old tree is leafless in the forest,\r\n\r\nThe old year is ending in the frost,\r\n\r\nThe old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,\r\n\r\nThe old hope is hardest to be lost:\r\n\r\nBut the young, young children, O my brothers,\r\n\r\nDo you ask them why they stand\r\n\r\nWeeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,\r\n\r\nIn our happy Fatherland?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey look up with their pale and sunken faces,\r\n\r\nAnd their looks are sad to see,\r\n\r\nFor the man's hoary anguish draws and presses\r\n\r\nDown the cheeks of infancy;\r\n\r\n\"Your old earth,\" they say, \"is very dreary,\r\n\r\nOur young feet,\" they say, \"are very weak;\r\n\r\nFew paces have we taken, yet are weary\u2014\r\n\r\nOur grave-rest is very far to seek:\r\n\r\nAsk the aged why they weep, and not the children,\r\n\r\nFor the outside earth is cold,\r\n\r\nAnd we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,\r\n\r\nAnd the graves are for the old!\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"True,\" say the children, \"it may happen\r\n\r\nThat we die before our time:\r\n\r\nLittle Alice died last year, her grave is shapen\r\n\r\nLike a snowball, in the rime.[footnote]Frost.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nWe looked into the pit prepared to take her:\r\n\r\nWas no room for any work in the close clay!\r\n\r\nFrom the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,\r\n\r\nCrying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.'\r\n\r\nIf you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,\r\n\r\nWith your ear down, little Alice never cries;\r\n\r\nCould we see her face, be sure we should not know her,\r\n\r\nFor the smile has time for growing in her eyes,\u2014\r\n\r\nAnd merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in\r\n\r\nThe shroud, by the kirk-chime![footnote]Church bell.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is good when it happens,\" say the children,\r\n\r\n\"That we die before our time.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAlas, alas, the children! they are seeking\r\n\r\nDeath in life, as best to have!\r\n\r\nThey are binding up their hearts away from breaking,\r\n\r\nWith a cerement[footnote]Shroud.[\/footnote] from the grave.\r\n\r\nGo out, children, from the mine and from the city,\r\n\r\nSing out, children, as the little thrushes do;\r\n\r\nPluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty,\r\n\r\nLaugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!\r\n\r\nBut they answer, \"Are your cowslips of the meadows\r\n\r\nLike our weeds anear the mine?\r\n\r\nLeave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,\r\n\r\nFrom your pleasures fair and fine!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"For oh,\" say the children, \"we are weary,\r\n\r\nAnd we cannot run or leap;\r\n\r\nIf we cared for any meadows, it were merely\r\n\r\nTo drop down in them and sleep.\r\n\r\nOur knees tremble sorely in the stooping,\r\n\r\nWe fall upon our faces, trying to go;\r\n\r\nAnd, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,\r\n\r\nThe reddest flower would look as pale as snow.\r\n\r\nFor, all day, we drag our burden tiring,\r\n\r\nThrough the coal-dark, underground;\r\n\r\nOr, all day, we drive the wheels of iron\r\n\r\nIn the factories, round and round.\u201d\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"For all day, the wheels are droning, turning;\r\n\r\nTheir wind comes in our faces,\r\n\r\nTill our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,\r\n\r\nAnd the walls turn in their places:\r\n\r\nTurns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,\r\n\r\nTurns the long light that drops adown the wall,\r\n\r\nTurn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling;\r\n\r\nAll are turning, all the day, and we with all.\r\n\r\nAnd all day, the iron wheels are droning,\r\n\r\nAnd sometimes we could pray,\r\n\r\n'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning),\r\n\r\n'Stop! be silent for to-day !' \"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAy! be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing\r\n\r\nFor a moment, mouth to mouth!\r\n\r\nLet them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing\r\n\r\nOf their tender human youth!\r\n\r\nLet them feel that this cold metallic motion\r\n\r\nIs not all the life God fashions or reveals:\r\n\r\nLet them prove their living souls against the notion\r\n\r\nThat they live in you, or under you, O wheels!\r\n\r\nStill, all day, the iron wheels go onward,\r\n\r\nGrinding life down from its mark;\r\n\r\nAnd the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,\r\n\r\nSpin on blindly in the dark.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNow tell the poor young children, O my brothers,\r\n\r\nTo look up to Him and pray;\r\n\r\nSo the blessed One who blesseth all the others,\r\n\r\nWill bless them another day.\r\n\r\nThey answer, \"Who is God that He should hear us,\r\n\r\nWhile the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred?\r\n\r\nWhen we sob aloud, the human creatures near us\r\n\r\nPass by, hearing not, or answer not a word!\r\n\r\nAnd we<\/em> hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)\r\n\r\nStrangers speaking at the door:\r\n\r\nIs it likely God, with angels singing round Him,\r\n\r\nHears our weeping any more?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,\r\n\r\nAnd at midnight's hour of harm,\r\n\r\n'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,\r\n\r\nWe say softly for a charm.\r\n\r\nWe know no other words, except 'Our Father,'\r\n\r\nAnd we think that, in some pause of angels' song,\r\n\r\nGod may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,\r\n\r\nAnd hold both within His right hand which is strong.\r\n\r\n'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely\r\n\r\n(For they call Him good and mild)\r\n\r\nAnswer, smiling down the steep world very purely,\r\n\r\n'Come and rest with me, my child.'\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"But, no!\" say the children, weeping faster,\r\n\r\n\"He is speechless as a stone:\r\n\r\nAnd they tell us, of His image is the master\r\n\r\nWho commands us to work on.\r\n\r\nGo to!\" say the children,\u2014 \"up in Heaven,\r\n\r\nDark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.\r\n\r\nDo not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving:\r\n\r\nWe look up for God, but tears have made us blind.\"\r\n\r\nDo ye hear the children weeping and disproving,\r\n\r\nO my brothers, what ye preach?\r\n\r\nFor God's possible is taught by His world's loving \u2014\r\n\r\nAnd the children doubt of each.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd well may the children weep before you!\r\n\r\nThey are weary ere they run;\r\n\r\nThey have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory\r\n\r\nWhich is brighter than the sun:\r\n\r\nThey know the grief of man, without its wisdom;\r\n\r\nThey sink in man\u2019s despair, without its calm;\r\n\r\nAre slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,\r\n\r\nAre martyrs, by the pang without the palm:\r\n\r\nAre worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly\r\n\r\nThe harvest of its memories cannot reap,\u2014\r\n\r\nAre orphans of the earthly love and heavenly:\r\n\r\nLet them weep! let them weep!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThey look up, with their pale and sunken faces,\r\n\r\nAnd their look is dread to see,\r\n\r\nFor they mind you of their angels in high places,\r\n\r\nWith eyes turned on Deity.\r\n\r\n\"How long,\" they say, \"how long, O cruel nation,\r\n\r\nWill you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, \u2014\r\n\r\nStifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,\r\n\r\nAnd tread onward to your throne amid the mart?\r\n\r\nOur blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,\r\n\r\nAnd your purple[footnote]cf. Donne, invoking Herod\u2019s slaughter of the children in Matthew 2: 16: \u201c...hast thou since\/Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?\u201d, \u201cThe Flea.\u201d[\/footnote] shows your path!\r\n\r\nBut the child's sob in the silence curses deeper\r\n\r\nThan the strong man in his wrath!\"\r\n\r\n\u20141843","rendered":"

“\u03a6\u03b7\u1fe6, \u03c6\u03b7\u1fe6, \u03c4\u03af \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b4\u03ad\u03c1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03ad \u03bc’ \u1f44\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, \u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bd\u03b1\u037e”\u2014Medea<\/em>[1]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Alas, alas, why do you gaze at me with your eyes, my children?]<\/em><\/p>\n

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,<\/p>\n

Ere the sorrow comes with years?<\/p>\n

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,<\/p>\n

And that<\/em> cannot stop their tears.<\/p>\n

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;<\/p>\n

The young birds are chirping in the nest,<\/p>\n

The young fawns are playing with the shadow,<\/p>\n

The young flowers are blowing toward the west\u2014<\/p>\n

But the young, young children, O my brothers,<\/p>\n

They are weeping bitterly!<\/p>\n

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,<\/p>\n

In the country of the free.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you question the young children in the sorrow<\/p>\n

Why their tears are falling so?<\/p>\n

The old man may weep for his to-morrow<\/p>\n

Which is lost in Long Ago;<\/p>\n

The old tree is leafless in the forest,<\/p>\n

The old year is ending in the frost,<\/p>\n

The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,<\/p>\n

The old hope is hardest to be lost:<\/p>\n

But the young, young children, O my brothers,<\/p>\n

Do you ask them why they stand<\/p>\n

Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,<\/p>\n

In our happy Fatherland?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,<\/p>\n

And their looks are sad to see,<\/p>\n

For the man’s hoary anguish draws and presses<\/p>\n

Down the cheeks of infancy;<\/p>\n

“Your old earth,” they say, “is very dreary,<\/p>\n

Our young feet,” they say, “are very weak;<\/p>\n

Few paces have we taken, yet are weary\u2014<\/p>\n

Our grave-rest is very far to seek:<\/p>\n

Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,<\/p>\n

For the outside earth is cold,<\/p>\n

And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,<\/p>\n

And the graves are for the old!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“True,” say the children, “it may happen<\/p>\n

That we die before our time:<\/p>\n

Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen<\/p>\n

Like a snowball, in the rime.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

We looked into the pit prepared to take her:<\/p>\n

Was no room for any work in the close clay!<\/p>\n

From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,<\/p>\n

Crying, ‘Get up, little Alice! it is day.’<\/p>\n

If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,<\/p>\n

With your ear down, little Alice never cries;<\/p>\n

Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,<\/p>\n

For the smile has time for growing in her eyes,\u2014<\/p>\n

And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in<\/p>\n

The shroud, by the kirk-chime![3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is good when it happens,” say the children,<\/p>\n

“That we die before our time.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking<\/p>\n

Death in life, as best to have!<\/p>\n

They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,<\/p>\n

With a cerement[4]<\/sup><\/a> from the grave.<\/p>\n

Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,<\/p>\n

Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do;<\/p>\n

Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty,<\/p>\n

Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!<\/p>\n

But they answer, “Are your cowslips of the meadows<\/p>\n

Like our weeds anear the mine?<\/p>\n

Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,<\/p>\n

From your pleasures fair and fine!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“For oh,” say the children, “we are weary,<\/p>\n

And we cannot run or leap;<\/p>\n

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely<\/p>\n

To drop down in them and sleep.<\/p>\n

Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,<\/p>\n

We fall upon our faces, trying to go;<\/p>\n

And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,<\/p>\n

The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.<\/p>\n

For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,<\/p>\n

Through the coal-dark, underground;<\/p>\n

Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron<\/p>\n

In the factories, round and round.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“For all day, the wheels are droning, turning;<\/p>\n

Their wind comes in our faces,<\/p>\n

Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,<\/p>\n

And the walls turn in their places:<\/p>\n

Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,<\/p>\n

Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,<\/p>\n

Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling;<\/p>\n

All are turning, all the day, and we with all.<\/p>\n

And all day, the iron wheels are droning,<\/p>\n

And sometimes we could pray,<\/p>\n

‘O ye wheels,’ (breaking out in a mad moaning),<\/p>\n

‘Stop! be silent for to-day !’ ”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ay! be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing<\/p>\n

For a moment, mouth to mouth!<\/p>\n

Let them touch each other’s hands, in a fresh wreathing<\/p>\n

Of their tender human youth!<\/p>\n

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion<\/p>\n

Is not all the life God fashions or reveals:<\/p>\n

Let them prove their living souls against the notion<\/p>\n

That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!<\/p>\n

Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,<\/p>\n

Grinding life down from its mark;<\/p>\n

And the children’s souls, which God is calling sunward,<\/p>\n

Spin on blindly in the dark.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,<\/p>\n

To look up to Him and pray;<\/p>\n

So the blessed One who blesseth all the others,<\/p>\n

Will bless them another day.<\/p>\n

They answer, “Who is God that He should hear us,<\/p>\n

While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred?<\/p>\n

When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us<\/p>\n

Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word!<\/p>\n

And we<\/em> hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)<\/p>\n

Strangers speaking at the door:<\/p>\n

Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,<\/p>\n

Hears our weeping any more?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,<\/p>\n

And at midnight’s hour of harm,<\/p>\n

‘Our Father,’ looking upward in the chamber,<\/p>\n

We say softly for a charm.<\/p>\n

We know no other words, except ‘Our Father,’<\/p>\n

And we think that, in some pause of angels’ song,<\/p>\n

God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,<\/p>\n

And hold both within His right hand which is strong.<\/p>\n

‘Our Father!’ If He heard us, He would surely<\/p>\n

(For they call Him good and mild)<\/p>\n

Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,<\/p>\n

‘Come and rest with me, my child.’<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But, no!” say the children, weeping faster,<\/p>\n

“He is speechless as a stone:<\/p>\n

And they tell us, of His image is the master<\/p>\n

Who commands us to work on.<\/p>\n

Go to!” say the children,\u2014 “up in Heaven,<\/p>\n

Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.<\/p>\n

Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving:<\/p>\n

We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.”<\/p>\n

Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving,<\/p>\n

O my brothers, what ye preach?<\/p>\n

For God’s possible is taught by His world’s loving \u2014<\/p>\n

And the children doubt of each.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And well may the children weep before you!<\/p>\n

They are weary ere they run;<\/p>\n

They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory<\/p>\n

Which is brighter than the sun:<\/p>\n

They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;<\/p>\n

They sink in man\u2019s despair, without its calm;<\/p>\n

Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,<\/p>\n

Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm:<\/p>\n

Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly<\/p>\n

The harvest of its memories cannot reap,\u2014<\/p>\n

Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly:<\/p>\n

Let them weep! let them weep!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,<\/p>\n

And their look is dread to see,<\/p>\n

For they mind you of their angels in high places,<\/p>\n

With eyes turned on Deity.<\/p>\n

“How long,” they say, “how long, O cruel nation,<\/p>\n

Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart, \u2014<\/p>\n

Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,<\/p>\n

And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?<\/p>\n

Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,<\/p>\n

And your purple[5]<\/sup><\/a> shows your path!<\/p>\n

But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper<\/p>\n

Than the strong man in his wrath!”<\/p>\n

\u20141843<\/p>\n

  1. The title and first line are taken from the Chorus in response to the murders being committed in Euripedes\u2019 tragedy, Medea<\/em>. Browning wrote the poem in response to The Report of the Children\u2019s Employment Commission<\/em> (1843) by her friend, the poet Richard Henry Horne, who exposed the abuses against children employed in British mines and factories. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  2. Frost. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  3. Church bell. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  4. Shroud. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  5. cf. Donne, invoking Herod\u2019s slaughter of the children in Matthew 2: 16: \u201c...hast thou since\/Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?\u201d, \u201cThe Flea.\u201d ↵<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["elizabeth-barrett-browning"],"pb_section_license":"public-domain"},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[56],"license":[78],"class_list":["post-195","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-elizabeth-barrett-browning","license-public-domain"],"part":189,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1772,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/195\/revisions\/1772"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/189"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/195\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}