A woman’s husband has been killed in battle, and his body is brought home to her. Instead of crying out or fainting, she sits completely still and silent. Her watching maidens are alarmed: if she doesn’t weep, they believe, the suppressed sorrow will destroy her. They try to stir her grief by softly praising the dead man—his loyalty, his courage—but she remains frozen. Even when one maiden boldly uncovers his face, she neither moves nor weeps. The tension is unbearable, the room heavy with a mourning that won’t release.
Only when an aged nurse places the couple’s child on her lap does the dam break. The tears come “like summer tempest,” sudden and drenching, and she speaks at last: “Sweet my child, I live for thee.” The poem traces a shock so profound that it numbs all feeling, until the touch of new life—and the pull of motherhood—gives that grief a focus and a reason to go on. The mood shifts from eerie stillness to aching relief and tenderness.