Explore "Down to the Mothers" by Charles Kingsley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Linger no more, my beloved, by abbey and cell and cathedral; / Mourn not for holy ones mourning of old them who knew not the Father, / Weeping with fast and scourge, when the bridegroom was taken from them.
Drop back awhile through the years, to the warm rich youth of the nations, / Childlike in virtue and faith, though childlike in passion and pleasure, / Childlike still, and still near to their God, while the day-spring of Eden / Lingered in rose-red rays on the peaks of Ionian mountains.
Down to the mothers, as Faust went, I go, to the roots of our manhood, / Mothers of us in our cradles; of us once more in our glory.
New-born, body and soul, in the great pure world which shall be / In the renewing of all things, when man shall return to his Eden / Conquering evil, and death, and shame, and the slander of conscience -- / Free in the sunshine of Godhead -- and fearlessly smile on his Father.
Down to the mothers I go -- yet with thee still! -- be with me, thou purest! / Lead me, thy hand in my hand; and the dayspring of God go before us.
Eversley, 1852.