The following three verses have been taken from a much longer poem.

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-61

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 

      Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, -

      And that cannot stop their tears. 

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ; 

   The young birds are chirping in the nest ; 

The young fawns are playing with the shadows ; 

   The young flowers are blowing toward the west - 

But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

      They are weeping bitterly ! 

They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 

      In the country of the free. 

Do you question the young children in the sorrow, 

      Why their tears are falling so ? 

The old man may weep for his to-morrow 

      Which is lost in Long Ago  -

The old tree is leafless in the forest  - 

   The old year is ending in the frost  -

The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest  - 

   The old hope is hardest to be lost : 

But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

      Do you ask them why they stand 

Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, 

      In our happy Fatherland ? 

They look up with their pale and sunken faces, 

      And their looks are sad to see, 

For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses 

      Down the cheeks of infancy  - 

"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;" 

   "Our young feet," they say, "are very weak !" 

Few paces have we taken, yet are weary -

   Our grave-rest is very far to seek ! 

Ask the old why they weep, and not the children, 

      For the outside earth is cold -

And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, 

      And the graves are for the old !" 

A new Art Blog PAINTINGS - A PERSONAL CHOICE begins this week on Friday
http://paintings-apersonalchoice.blogspot.com

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