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diff --git a/1333-h/1333-h.htm b/1333-h/1333-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9439b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/1333-h/1333-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3779 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Robert F. Murray</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Robert F. Murray, by Robert F. Murray</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Robert F. Murray, by Robert F. Murray, Edited +by Andrew Lang + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Robert F. Murray + his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang + + +Author: Robert F. Murray + +Editor: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: July 4, 2007 [eBook #1333] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT F. MURRAY*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1894 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>ROBERT F. MURRAY<br /> +(<span class="smcap">author of the scarlet gown</span>)<br /> +HIS POEMS: WITH MEMOIR</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +ANDREW LANG</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">london</span><br /> +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br /> +<span class="smcap">new york</span>: <span class="smcap">15 east +16th street</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">1894</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Edinburgh: <span class="smcap">T. +and A. Constable</span>, Printers to Her Majesty</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the +volume</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">is dedicated to</span><br /> +J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN, ESQ.<br /> +<span class="smcap">most indulgent of masters</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">and kindest of</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">friends</span></p> +<h2>R. F. MURRAY—1863-1893</h2> +<p>Much is written about success and failure in the career of +literature, about the reasons which enable one man to reach the +front, and another to earn his livelihood, while a third, in +appearance as likely as either of them, fails and, perhaps, +faints by the way. Mr. R. F. Murray, the author of <i>The +Scarlet Gown</i>, was among those who do not attain success, in +spite of qualities which seem destined to ensure it, and who fall +out of the ranks. To him, indeed, success and the rewards +of this world, money, and praise, did by no means seem things to +be snatched at. To him success meant earning by his pen the +very modest sum which sufficed for his wants, and the leisure +necessary for serious essays in poetry. Fate denied him +even this, in spite of his charming natural endowment of humour, +of tenderness, of delight in good letters, and in nature. +He died young; he was one of those whose talent matures slowly, +and he died before he came into the full possession of his +intellectual kingdom. He had the ambition to excel, +αίεν +αριστευειν, +as the Homeric motto of his University runs, and he was on the +way to excellence when his health broke down. He lingered +for two years and passed away.</p> +<p>It is a familiar story, the story of lettered youth; of an +ambition, or rather of an ideal; of poverty; of struggles in the +‘dusty and stony ways’; of intellectual task-work; of +a true love consoling the last months of weakness and pain. +The tale is not repeated here because it is novel, nor even +because in its hero we have to regret an ‘inheritor of +unfulfilled renown.’ It is not the genius so much as +the character of this St. Andrews student which has won the +sympathy of his biographer, and may win, he hopes, the sympathy +of others. In Mr. Murray I feel that I have lost that rare +thing, a friend; a friend whom the chances of life threw in my +way, and withdrew again ere we had time and opportunity for +perfect recognition. Those who read his Letters and Remains +may also feel this emotion of sympathy and regret.</p> +<p>He was young in years, and younger in heart, a lover of youth; +and youth, if it could learn and could be warned, might win a +lesson from his life. Many of us have trod in his path, +and, by some kindness of fate, have found from it a sunnier exit +into longer days and more fortunate conditions. Others have +followed this well-beaten road to the same early and quiet end as +his.</p> +<p>The life and the letters of Murray remind one strongly of +Thomas Davidson’s, as published in that admirable and +touching biography, <i>A Scottish Probationer</i>. It was +my own chance to be almost in touch with both these gentle, +tuneful, and kindly humorists. Davidson was a Borderer, +born on the skirts of ‘stormy Ruberslaw,’ in the +country of James Thomson, of Leyden, of the old Ballad +minstrels. The son of a Scottish peasant line of the old +sort, honourable, refined, devout, he was educated in Edinburgh +for the ministry of the United Presbyterian Church. Some +beautiful verses of his appeared in the <i>St. Andrews University +Magazine</i> about 1863, at the time when I first ‘saw +myself in print’ in the same periodical. +Davidson’s poem delighted me: another of his, +‘Ariadne in Naxos,’ appeared in the <i>Cornhill +Magazine</i> about the same time. Mr. Thackeray, who was +then editor, no doubt remembered Pen’s prize poem on the +same subject. I did not succeed in learning anything about +the author, did not know that he lived within a drive of my own +home. When next I heard of him, it was in his +biography. As a ‘Probationer,’ or unplaced +minister, he, somehow, was not successful. A humorist, a +poet, a delightful companion, he never became ‘a placed +minister.’ It was the old story of an imprudence, a +journey made in damp clothes, of consumption, of the end of his +earthly life and love. His letters to his betrothed, his +poems, his career, constantly remind one of Murray’s, who +must often have joined in singing Davidson’s song, so +popular with St. Andrews students, <i>The Banks of the +Yang-tse-kiang</i>. Love of the Border, love of +Murray’s ‘dear St. Andrews Bay,’ love of +letters, make one akin to both of these friends who were lost +before their friendship was won. Why did not Murray succeed +to the measure of his most modest desire? If we examine the +records of literary success, we find it won, in the highest +fields, by what, for want of a better word, we call genius; in +the lower paths, by an energy which can take pleasure in all and +every exercise of pen and ink, and can communicate its pleasure +to others. Now for Murray one does not venture, in face of +his still not wholly developed talent, and of his checked career, +to claim genius. He was not a Keats, a Burns, a Shelley: he +was not, if one may choose modern examples, a Kipling or a +Stevenson. On the other hand, his was a high ideal; he +believed, with André Chénier, that he had +‘something there,’ something worthy of reverence and +of careful training within him. Consequently, as we shall +see, the drudgery of the pressman was excessively repulsive to +him. He could take no delight in making the best of +it. We learn that Mr. Kipling’s early tales were +written as part of hard daily journalistic work in India; written +in torrid newspaper offices, to fill columns. Yet they were +written with the delight of the artist, and are masterpieces in +their <i>genre</i>. Murray could not make the best of +ordinary pen-work in this manner. Again, he was incapable +of ‘transactions,’ of compromises; most honourably +incapable of earning his bread by agreeing, or seeming to agree +with opinions which were not his. He could not endure (here +I think he was wrong) to have his pieces of light and mirthful +verse touched in any way by an editor. Even where no +opinions were concerned, even where an editor has (to my mind) a +perfect right to alter anonymous contributions, Murray declined +to be edited. I ventured to remonstrate with him, to say +<i>non est tanti</i>, but I spoke too late, or spoke in +vain. He carried independence too far, or carried it into +the wrong field, for a piece of humorous verse, say in +<i>Punch</i>, is not an original masterpiece and immaculate work +of art, but more or less of a joint-stock product between the +editor, the author, and the public. Macaulay, and Carlyle, +and Sir Walter Scott suffered editors gladly or with +indifference, and who are we that we should complain? This +extreme sensitiveness would always have stood in Murray’s +way.</p> +<p>Once more, Murray’s interest in letters was much more +energetic than his zeal in the ordinary industry of a +student. As a general rule, men of original literary bent +are not exemplary students at college. ‘The common +curricoolum,’ as the Scottish laird called academic studies +generally, rather repels them. Macaulay took no honours at +Cambridge; mathematics defied him. Scott was ‘the +Greek dunce,’ at Edinburgh. Thackeray, Shelley, +Gibbon, did not cover themselves with college laurels; they read +what pleased them, they did not read ‘for the +schools.’ In short, this behaviour at college is the +rule among men who are to be distinguished in literature, not the +exception. The honours attained at Oxford by Mr. Swinburne, +whose Greek verses are no less poetical than his English poetry, +were inconspicuous. At St. Andrews, Murray read only +‘for human pleasure,’ like Scott, Thackeray, Shelley, +and the rest, at Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge. In this +matter, I think, he made an error, and one which affected his +whole career. He was not a man of private fortune, like +some of those whom we have mentioned. He had not a business +ready for him to step into. He had to force his own way in +life, had to make himself ‘self-supporting.’ +This was all the more essential to a man of his honourable +independence of character, a man who not only would not ask a +favour, but who actually shrunk back from such chances as were +offered to him, if these chances seemed to be connected with the +least discernible shadow of an obligation. At St. Andrews, +had he chosen to work hard in certain branches of study, he might +probably have gained an exhibition, gone to Oxford or elsewhere, +and, by winning a fellowship, secured the leisure which was +necessary for the development of his powers. I confess to +believing in strenuous work at the classics, as offering, apart +from all material reward, the best and most solid basis, +especially where there is no exuberant original genius, for the +career of a man of letters. The mental discipline is +invaluable, the training in accuracy is invaluable, and +invaluable is the life led in the society of the greatest minds, +the noblest poets, the most faultless artists of the world. +To descend to ordinary truths, scholarship is, at lowest, an +honourable <i>gagne-pain</i>. But Murray, like the majority +of students endowed with literary originality, did not share +these rather old-fashioned ideas. The clever Scottish +student is apt to work only too hard, and, perhaps, is frequently +in danger of exhausting his powers before they are mature, and of +injuring his health before it is confirmed. His ambitions, +to lookers-on, may seem narrow and school-boyish, as if he were +merely emulous, and eager for a high place in his +‘class,’ as lectures are called in Scotland. +This was Murray’s own view, and he certainly avoided the +dangers of academic over-work. He read abundantly, but, as +Fitzgerald says, he read ‘for human pleasure.’ +He never was a Greek scholar, he disliked Philosophy, as +presented to him in class-work; the gods had made him poetical, +not metaphysical.</p> +<p>There was one other cause of his lack of even such slender +commercial success in letters as was really necessary to a man +who liked ‘plain living and high thinking.’ He +fell early in love with a city, with a place—he lost his +heart to St. Andrews. Here, at all events, his critic can +sympathise with him. His ‘dear St. Andrews +Bay,’ beautiful alike in winter mists and in the crystal +days of still winter sunshine; the quiet brown streets brightened +by the scarlet gowns; the long limitless sands; the dark blue +distant hills, and far-off snowy peaks of the Grampians; the +majestic melancholy towers, monuments of old religion overthrown; +the deep dusky porch of the college chapel, with Kennedy’s +arms in wrought iron on the oaken door; the solid houses with +their crow steps and gables, all the forlorn memories of civil +and religious feud, of inhabitants saintly, royal, heroic, +endeared St. Andrews to Murray. He could not say, like our +other poet to Oxford, ‘Farewell, dear city of youth and +dream!’ His whole nature needed the air, ‘like +wine.’ He found, as he remarks, ‘health and +happiness in the German Ocean,’ swimming out beyond the +‘lake’ where the witches were dipped; walking to the +grey little coast-towns, with their wealth of historic documents, +their ancient kirks and graves; dreaming in the vernal woods of +Mount Melville or Strathtyrum; rambling (without a fishing-rod) +in the charmed ‘dens’ of the Kenley burn, a place +like Tempe in miniature: these things were Murray’s usual +enjoyments, and they became his indispensable needs. His +peculiarly shy and, as it were, silvan nature, made it physically +impossible for him to live in crowded streets and push his way +through throngs of indifferent men. He could not live even +in Edinburgh; he made the effort, and his health, at no time +strong, seems never to have recovered from the effects of a few +months spent under a roof in a large town. He hurried back +to St. Andrews: her fascination was too powerful. Hence it +is that, dying with his work scarcely begun, he will always be +best remembered as the poet of <i>The Scarlet Gown</i>, the +Calverley or J. K. S. of Kilrymont; endowed with their humour, +their skill in parody, their love of youth, but (if I am not +prejudiced) with more than the tenderness and natural magic of +these regretted writers. Not to be able to endure crowds +and towns, (a matter of physical health and constitution, as well +as of temperament) was, of course, fatal to an ordinary success +in journalism. On the other hand, Murray’s name is +inseparably connected with the life of youth in the little old +college, in the University of the Admirable Crichton and +Claverhouse, of the great Montrose and of Ferguson,—the +harmless Villon of Scotland,—the University of almost all +the famous Covenanters, and of all the valiant +poet-Cavaliers. Murray has sung of the life and pleasures +of its students, of examinations and +<i>Gaudeamuses</i>—supper parties—he has sung of the +sands, the links, the sea, the towers, and his name and fame are +for ever blended with the air of his city of youth and +dream. It is not a wide name or a great fame, but it is +what he would have desired, and we trust that it may be +long-lived and enduring. We are not to wax elegiac, and +adopt a tearful tone over one so gallant and so +uncomplaining. He failed, but he was undefeated.</p> +<p>In the following sketch of Murray’s life and work use is +made of his letters, chiefly of letters to his mother. They +always illustrate his own ideas and attempts; frequently they +throw the light of an impartial and critical mind on the +distinguished people whom Murray observed from without. It +is worth remarking that among many remarks on persons, I have +found not one of a censorious, cynical, envious, or unfriendly +nature. Youth is often captious and keenly critical; partly +because youth generally has an ideal, partly, perhaps chiefly, +from mere intellectual high spirits and sense of the incongruous; +occasionally the motive is jealousy or spite. +Murray’s sense of fun was keen, his ideal was lofty; of +envy, of an injured sense of being neglected, he does not show +one trace. To make fun of their masters and pastors, +tutors, professors, is the general and not necessarily unkind +tendency of pupils. Murray rarely mentions any of the +professors in St. Andrews except in terms of praise, which is +often enthusiastic. Now, as he was by no means a prize +student, or pattern young man for a story-book, this generosity +is a high proof of an admirable nature. If he chances to +speak to his mother about a bore, and he did not suffer bores +gladly, he not only does not name the person, but gives no hint +by which he might be identified. He had much to embitter +him, for he had a keen consciousness of ‘the something +within him,’ of the powers which never found full +expression; and he saw others advancing and prospering while he +seemed to be standing still, or losing ground in all ways. +But no word of bitterness ever escapes him in the correspondence +which I have seen. In one case he has to speak of a +disagreeable and disappointing interview with a man from whom he +had been led to expect sympathy and encouragement. He told +me about this affair in conversation; ‘There were tears in +my eyes as I turned from the house,’ he said, and he was +not effusive. In a letter to Mrs. Murray he describes this +unlucky interview,—a discouragement caused by a manner +which was strange to Murray, rather than by real +unkindness,—and he describes it with a delicacy, with a +reserve, with a toleration, beyond all praise. These are +traits of a character which was greater and more rare than his +literary talent: a character quite developed, while his talent +was only beginning to unfold itself, and to justify his belief in +his powers.</p> +<p>Robert Murray was the eldest child of John and Emmeline +Murray: the father a Scot, the mother of American birth. He +was born at Roxbury, in Massachusetts, on December 26th, +1863. It may be fancy, but, in his shy reserve, his almost +<i>farouche</i> independence, one seems to recognise the Scot; +while in his cast of literary talent, in his natural +‘culture,’ we observe the son of a refined American +lady. To his mother he could always write about the books +which were interesting him, with full reliance on her sympathy, +though indeed, he does not often say very much about +literature.</p> +<p>Till 1869 he lived in various parts of New England, his father +being a Unitarian minister. ‘He was a remarkably +cheerful and affectionate child, and seldom seemed to find +anything to trouble him.’ In 1869 his father carried +him to England, Mrs. Murray and a child remaining in +America. For more than a year the boy lived with kinsfolk +near Kelso, the beautiful old town on the Tweed where Scott +passed some of his childish days. In 1871 the family were +reunited at York, where he was fond of attending the services in +the Cathedral. Mr. Murray then took charge of the small +Unitarian chapel of Blackfriars, at Canterbury. Thus +Murray’s early youth was passed in the mingled influences +of Unitarianism at home, and of Cathedral services at York, and +in the church where Becket suffered martyrdom. A not +unnatural result was a somewhat eclectic and unconstrained +religion. He thought but little of the differences of +creed, believing that all good men held, in essentials, much the +same faith. His view of essentials was generous, as he +admitted. He occasionally spoke of himself as +‘sceptical,’ that is, in contrast with those whose +faith was more definite, more dogmatic, more securely based on +‘articles.’ To illustrate Murray’s +religious attitude, at least as it was in 1887, one may quote +from a letter of that year (April 17).</p> +<blockquote><p>‘There was a University sermon, and I +thought I would go and hear it. So I donned my old cap and +gown and felt quite proud of them. The preacher was Bishop +Wordsworth. He goes in for the union of the Presbyterian +and Episcopalian Churches, and is glad to preach in a +Presbyterian Church, as he did this morning. How the +aforesaid Union is to be brought about, I’m sure I +don’t know, for I am pretty certain that the Episcopalians +won’t give up their bishops, and the Presbyterians +won’t have them on any account. However, that’s +neither here nor there—at least it does not affect the fact +that Wordsworth is a first-rate man, and a fine preacher. I +dare say you know he is a nephew or grand-nephew of the +Poet. He is a most venerable old man, and worth looking at, +merely for his exterior. He is so feeble with age that he +can with difficulty climb the three short steps that lead into +the pulpit; but, once in the pulpit, it is another thing. +There is no feebleness when he begins to preach. He is one +of the last voices of the old orthodox school, and I wish there +were hundreds like him. If ever a man believed in his +message, Wordsworth does. And though I cannot follow him in +his veneration for the Thirty-nine Articles, the way in which he +does makes me half wish I could. . . . It was full of wisdom and +the beauty of holiness, which even I, poor sceptic and outcast, +could recognise and appreciate. After all, he didn’t +get it from the Articles, but from his own human heart, which, he +told us, was deceitful and desperately wicked.</p> +<p>‘Confound it, how stupid we all are! +Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Unitarians, Agnostics; the whole +lot of us. We all believe the same things, to a great +extent; but we must keep wrangling about the data from which we +infer these beliefs . . . I believe a great deal that he does, +but I certainly don’t act up to my belief as he does to +his.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The belief ‘up to’ which Murray lived was, if it +may be judged by its fruits, that of a Christian man. But, +in this age, we do find the most exemplary Christian conduct in +some who have discarded dogma and resigned hope. Probably +Murray would not the less have regarded these persons as +Christians. If we must make a choice, it is better to have +love and charity without belief, than belief of the most intense +kind, accompanied by such love and charity as John Knox bore to +all who differed from him about a mass or a chasuble, a priest or +a presbyter. This letter, illustrative of the effect of +cathedral services on a young Unitarian, is taken out of its +proper chronological place.</p> +<p>From Canterbury Mr. Murray went to Ilminster in +Somerset. Here Robert attended the Grammar School; in 1879 +he went to the Grammar School of Crewkerne. In 1881 he +entered at the University of St. Andrews, with a scholarship won +as an external student of Manchester New College. This he +resigned not long after, as he had abandoned the idea of becoming +a Unitarian minister.</p> +<p>No longer a schoolboy, he was now a <i>Bejant</i> (<i>bec +jaune</i>?), to use the old Scotch term for +‘freshman.’ He liked the picturesque word, and +opposed the introduction of ‘freshman.’ Indeed +he liked all things old, and, as a senior man, was a supporter of +ancient customs and of <i>esprit de corps</i> in college. +He fell in love for life with that old and grey enchantress, the +city of St. Margaret, of Cardinal Beaton, of Knox and Andrew +Melville, of Archbishop Sharp, and Samuel Rutherford. The +nature of life and education in a Scottish university is now, +probably, better understood in England than it used to be. +Of the Scottish universities, St. Andrews varies least, though it +varies much, from Oxford and Cambridge. Unlike the others, +Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, the United College of St. +Leonard and St. Salvator is not lost in a large town. The +College and the Divinity Hall of St. Mary’s are a survival +from the Middle Ages. The University itself arose from a +voluntary association of the learned in 1410. Privileges +were conferred on this association by Bishop Wardlaw in +1411. It was intended as a bulwark against Lollard +ideas. In 1413 the Antipope Benedict XIII., to whom +Scotland then adhered, granted six bulls of confirmation to the +new University. Not till 1430 did Bishop Wardlaw give a +building in South Street, the Pædagogium. St. +Salvator’s College was founded by Bishop Kennedy +(1440-1466): it was confirmed by Pius II. in 1458. Kennedy +endowed his foundation richly with plate (a silver mace is still +extant) and with gorgeous furniture and cloth of gold. St. +Leonard’s was founded by Prior Hepburn in 1512. Of +St. Salvator’s the ancient chapel still remains, and is in +use. St. Leonard’s was merged with St. +Salvator’s in the last century: its chapel is now roofless, +some of the old buildings remain, much modernised, but on the +south side fronting the gardens they are still picturesque. +Both Colleges were, originally, places of residence for the +students, as at Oxford and Cambridge, and the discipline, +especially at St. Leonard’s, was rather monastic. The +Reformation caused violent changes; all through these troubled +ages the new doctrines, and then the violent Presbyterian +pretensions to clerical influence in politics, and the Covenant +and the Restoration and Revolution, kept busy the dwellers in +what should have been ‘quiet collegiate +cloisters.’ St. Leonard’s was more extreme, on +Knox’s side, than St. Salvator’s, but was also more +devoted to King James in 1715. From St. Andrews Simon Lovat +went to lead his abominable old father’s clan, on the +Prince Regent’s side, in 1745. Golf and archery, +since the Reformation at least, were the chief recreations of the +students, and the archery medals bear all the noblest names of +the North, including those of Argyll and the great Marquis of +Montrose. Early in the present century the old ruinous +college buildings of St. Salvator’s ceased to be habitable, +except by a ghost! There is another spectre of a noisy sort +in St. Leonard’s. The new buildings are mere sets of +class-rooms, the students live where they please, generally in +lodgings, which they modestly call <i>bunks</i>. There is a +hall for dinners in common; it is part of the buildings of the +Union, a new hall added to an ancient house.</p> +<p>It was thus to a university with ancient associations, with a +<i>religio loci</i>, and with more united and harmonious +student-life than is customary in Scotland, that Murray came in +1881. How clearly his biographer remembers coming to the +same place, twenty years earlier! how vivid is his memory of +quaint streets, grey towers, and the North Sea breaking in heavy +rollers on the little pier!</p> +<p>Though, like a descendant of Archbishop Sharp, and a winner of +the archery medal, I boast myself <i>Sancti Leonardi alumnus +addictissimus</i>, I am unable to give a description, at first +hand, of student life in St. Andrews. In my time, a small +set of ‘men’ lived together in what was then St. +Leonard’s Hall. The buildings that remain on the site +of Prior Hepburn’s foundation, or some of them, were turned +into a hall, where we lived together, not scattered in +<i>bunks</i>. The existence was mainly like that of pupils +of a private tutor; seven-eighths of private tutor to one-eighth +of a college in the English universities. We attended the +lectures in the University, we distinguished ourselves no more +than Murray would have approved of, and many of us have remained +united by friendship through half a lifetime.</p> +<p>It was a pleasant existence, and the perfume of buds and +flowers in the old gardens, hard by those where John Knox sat and +talked with James Melville and our other predecessors at St. +Leonard’s, is fragrant in our memories. It was +pleasant, but St. Leonard’s Hall has ceased to be, and the +life there was not the life of the free and hardy +bunk-dwellers. Whoso pined for such dissipated pleasures as +the chill and dark streets of St. Andrews offer to the gay and +rousing blade, was not encouraged. We were very strictly +‘gated,’ though the whole society once got out of +window, and, by way of protest, made a moonlight march into the +country. We attended ‘gaudeamuses’ and +<i>solatia</i>—University suppers—but little; indeed, +he who writes does not remember any such diversions of boys who +beat the floor, and break the glass. To plant the standard +of cricket in the remoter gardens of our country, in a region +devastated by golf, was our ambition, and here we had no +assistance at all from the University. It was chiefly at +lecture, at football on the links, and in the debating societies +that we met our fellow-students; like the celebrated starling, +‘we could not get out,’ except to permitted dinners +and evening parties. Consequently one could only sketch +student life with a hand faltering and untrained. It was +very different with Murray and his friends. They were their +own masters, could sit up to all hours, smoking, talking, and, I +dare say, drinking. As I gather from his letters, Murray +drank nothing stronger than water. There was a certain kind +of humour in drink, he said, but he thought it was chiefly +obvious to the sober spectator. As the sober spectator, he +sang of violent delights which have violent ends. He may +best be left to illustrate student life for himself. The +‘waster’ of whom he chants is the slang name borne by +the local fast man.</p> +<h3>THE WASTER SINGING AT MIDNIGHT.<br /> +AFTER LONGFELLOW.</h3> +<blockquote><p>Loud he sang the song Ta Phershon<br /> +For his personal diversion,<br /> +Sang the chorus U-pi-dee,<br /> +Sang about the Barley Bree.</p> +<p>In that hour when all is quiet<br /> +Sang he songs of noise and riot,<br /> +In a voice so loud and queer<br /> +That I wakened up to hear.</p> +<p>Songs that distantly resembled<br /> +Those one hears from men assembled<br /> +In the old Cross Keys Hotel,<br /> +Only sung not half so well.</p> +<p>For the time of this ecstatic<br /> +Amateur was most erratic,<br /> +And he only hit the key<br /> +Once in every melody.</p> +<p>If “he wot prigs wot isn’t his’n<br /> +Ven he’s cotched is sent to prison,”<br /> +He who murders sleep might well<br /> +Adorn a solitary cell.</p> +<p>But, if no obliging peeler<br /> +Will arrest this midnight squealer,<br /> +My own peculiar arm of might<br /> +Must undertake the job to-night.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The following fragment is but doubtfully +autobiographical. ‘The swift four-wheeler’ +seldom devastates the streets where, of old, the +Archbishop’s jackmen sliced Presbyterian professors with +the claymore, as James Melville tells us:—</p> +<h3>TO NUMBER 27x.</h3> +<blockquote><p>Beloved Peeler! friend and guide<br /> + And guard of many a midnight reeler,<br /> +None worthier, though the world is wide,<br /> + Beloved Peeler.</p> +<p>Thou from before the swift four-wheeler<br /> + Didst pluck me, and didst thrust aside<br /> +A strongly built provision-dealer</p> +<p>Who menaced me with blows, and cried<br /> + ‘Come on! come on!’ O Paian, +Healer,<br /> +Then but for thee I must have died,<br /> + Beloved Peeler!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The following presentiment, though he was no +‘waster,’ may very well have been his own. He +was only half Scotch, and not at all metaphysical:—</p> +<h3>THE WASTER’S PRESENTIMENT</h3> +<blockquote><p>I shall be spun. There is a voice within<br +/> + Which tells me plainly I am all undone;<br /> +For though I toil not, neither do I spin,<br /> + I shall be spun.</p> +<p>April approaches. I have not begun<br /> + Schwegler or Mackintosh, nor will begin<br /> +Those lucid works till April 21.</p> +<p>So my degree I do not hope to win,<br /> + For not by ways like mine degrees are won;<br /> +And though, to please my uncle, I go in,<br /> + I shall be spun.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Here we must quote, from <i>The Scarlet Gown</i>, one of his +most tender pieces of affectionate praise bestowed on his +favourite city:—</p> +<h3>A DECEMBER DAY</h3> +<blockquote><p>Blue, blue is the sea to-day,<br /> + Warmly the light<br /> +Sleeps on St. Andrews Bay—<br /> + Blue, fringed with white.</p> +<p>That’s no December sky!<br /> + Surely ’tis June<br /> +Holds now her state on high,<br /> + Queen of the noon.</p> +<p>Only the tree-tops bare<br /> + Crowning the hill,<br /> +Clear-cut in perfect air,<br /> + Warn us that still</p> +<p>Winter, the aged chief,<br /> + Mighty in power,<br /> +Exiles the tender leaf,<br /> + Exiles the flower.</p> +<p>Is there a heart to-day,<br /> + A heart that grieves<br /> +For flowers that fade away,<br /> + For fallen leaves?</p> +<p>Oh, not in leaves or flowers<br /> + Endures the charm<br /> +That clothes those naked towers<br /> + With love-light warm.</p> +<p>O dear St. Andrews Bay,<br /> + Winter or Spring<br /> +Gives not nor takes away<br /> + Memories that cling</p> +<p>All round thy girdling reefs,<br /> + That walk thy shore,<br /> +Memories of joys and griefs<br /> + Ours evermore.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>‘I have <i>not</i> worked for my classes this +session,’ he writes (1884), ‘and shall not take any +places.’ The five or six most distinguished pupils +used, at least in my time, to receive prize-books decorated with +the University’s arms. These prize-men, no doubt, +held the ‘places’ alluded to by Murray. If +<i>he</i> was idle, ‘I speak of him but brotherly,’ +having never held any ‘place’ but that of second to +Mr. Wallace, now Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, in the +Greek Class (Mr. Sellar’s). Why was one so idle, in +Latin (Mr. Shairp), in Morals (Mr. Ferrier), in Logic (Mr. +Veitch)? but Logic was unintelligible.</p> +<p>‘I must confess,’ remarks Murray, in a similar +spirit of pensive regret, ‘that I have not had any ambition +to distinguish myself either in Knight’s (Moral Philosophy) +or in Butler’s.’ <a name="citation1"></a><a +href="#footnote1" class="citation">[1]</a></p> +<p>Murray then speaks with some acrimony about earnest students, +whose motive, he thinks, is a small ambition. But surely a +man may be fond of metaphysics for the sweet sake of Queen +Entelechy, and, moreover, these students looked forward to days +in which real work would bear fruit.</p> +<p>‘You must grind up the opinions of Plato, Aristotle, and +a lot of other men, concerning things about which they knew +nothing, and we know nothing, taking these opinions at second or +third hand, and never looking into the works of these men; for to +a man who wants to take a place, there is no time for anything of +that sort.’</p> +<p>Why not? The philosophers ought to be read in their own +language, as they are now read. The remarks on the most +fairy of philosophers—Plato; on the greatest of all minds, +that of Aristotle, are boyish. Again ‘I speak but +brotherly,’ remembering an old St. Leonard’s essay in +which Virgil was called ‘the furtive Mantuan,’ and +another, devoted to ridicule of Euripides. But Plato and +Aristotle we never blasphemed.</p> +<p>Murray adds that he thinks, next year, of taking the highest +Greek Class, and English Literature. In the latter, under +Mr. Baynes, he took the first place, which he mentions casually +to Mrs. Murray about a year after date:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘A sweet life and an idle<br /> + He lives from year to year,<br /> +Unknowing bit or bridle,<br /> + There are no Proctors here.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In Greek, despite his enthusiastic admiration of the +professor, Mr. Campbell, he did not much enjoy +himself:—</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘Thrice happy are those<br +/> + Who ne’er heard of Greek Prose—<br /> +Or Greek Poetry either, as far as that goes;<br /> + For Liddell and Scott<br /> + Shall cumber them not,<br /> +Nor Sargent nor Sidgwick shall break their repose.</p> +<p> But I, late at night,<br /> + By the very bad light<br /> +Of very bad gas, must painfully write<br /> + Some stuff that a Greek<br /> + With his delicate cheek<br /> +Would smile at as ‘barbarous’—faith, he well +might.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p> So away with Greek Prose,<br /> + The source of my woes!<br /> +(This metre’s too tough, I must draw to a close.)<br /> + May Sargent be drowned<br /> + In the ocean profound,<br /> +And Sidgwick be food for the carrion crows!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Greek prose is a stubborn thing, and the biographer remembers +being told that his was ‘the best, with the worst +mistakes’; also frequently by Mr. Sellar, that it was +‘bald.’ But Greek prose is splendid practice, +and no less good practice is Greek and Latin verse. These +exercises, so much sneered at, are the Dwellers on the Threshold +of the life of letters. They are haunting forms of fear, +but they have to be wrestled with, like the Angel (to change the +figure), till they bless you, and make words become, in your +hands, like the clay of the modeller. Could we write Greek +like Mr. Jebb, we would never write anything else.</p> +<p>Murray had naturally, it seems, certainly not by dint of +wrestling with Greek prose, the mastery of language. His +light verse is wonderfully handled, quaint, fluent, right. +Modest as he was, he was ambitious, as we said, but not ambitious +of any gain; merely eager, in his own way, to excel. His +ideal is plainly stated in the following verses:—</p> +<h3>ΑΙΕΝ +ΑΡΙΣΤΕΥΕΙΝ</h3> +<blockquote><p>Ever to be the best. To lead<br /> + In whatsoever things are true;<br /> + Not stand among the halting crew,<br /> +The faint of heart, the feeble-kneed,<br /> +Who tarry for a certain sign<br /> + To make them follow with the rest—<br /> +Oh, let not their reproach be thine!<br /> + But ever be the best.</p> +<p>For want of this aspiring soul,<br /> + Great deeds on earth remain undone,<br /> + But, sharpened by the sight of one,<br /> +Many shall press toward the goal.<br /> +Thou running foremost of the throng,<br /> + The fire of striving in thy breast,<br /> +Shalt win, although the race be long,<br /> + And ever be the best.</p> +<p>And wilt thou question of the prize?<br /> + ’Tis not of silver or of gold,<br /> + Nor in applauses manifold,<br /> +But hidden in the heart it lies:<br /> +To know that but for thee not one<br /> + Had run the race or sought the quest,<br /> +To know that thou hast ever done<br /> + And ever been the best.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Murray was never a great athlete: his ambition did not lead +him to desire a place in the Scottish Fifteen at Football. +Probably he was more likely to be found matched against +‘The Man from Inversnaid.’</p> +<h3>IMITATED FROM WORDSWORTH</h3> +<blockquote><p>He brought a team from Inversnaid<br /> + To play our Third Fifteen,<br /> +A man whom none of us had played<br /> + And very few had seen.</p> +<p>He weighed not less than eighteen stone,<br /> + And to a practised eye<br /> +He seemed as little fit to run<br /> + As he was fit to fly.</p> +<p>He looked so clumsy and so slow,<br /> + And made so little fuss;<br /> +But he got in behind—and oh,<br /> + The difference to us!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He was never a golfer; one of his best light pieces, published +later in the <i>Saturday Review</i>, dealt in kindly ridicule of +<i>The City of Golf</i>.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Would you like to see a city given over,<br +/> + Soul and body, to a tyrannising game?<br /> +If you would, there’s little need to be a rover,<br /> + For St. Andrews is the abject city’s +name.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He was fond, too fond, of long midnight walks, for in these he +overtasked his strength, and he had all a young man’s +contempt for maxims about not sitting in wet clothes and wet +boots. Early in his letters he speaks of bad colds, and it +is matter of tradition that he despised flannel. Most of us +have been like him, and have found pleasure in wading Tweed, for +example, when chill with snaw-bree. In brief, while reading +about Murray’s youth most men must feel that they are +reading, with slight differences, about their own. He +writes thus of his long darkling tramps, in a rhymed epistle to +his friend C. C. C.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘And I fear we never again shall go,<br /> + The cold and weariness scorning,<br /> +For a ten mile walk through the frozen snow<br /> + At one o’clock in the morning:</p> +<p>Out by Cameron, in by the Grange,<br /> + And to bed as the moon descended . . .<br /> +To you and to me there has come a change,<br /> + And the days of our youth are ended.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One fancies him roaming solitary, after midnight, in the dark +deserted streets. He passes the deep porch of the College +Church, and the spot where Patrick Hamilton was burned. He +goes down to the Castle by the sea, where, some say, the murdered +Cardinal may now and again be seen, in his red hat. In +South Street he hears the roll and rattle of the viewless +carriage which sounds in that thoroughfare. He loiters +under the haunted tower on Hepburn’s precinct wall, the +tower where the lady of the bright locks lies, with white gloves +on her hands. Might he not share, in the desolate +Cathedral, <i>La Messe des Morts</i>, when all the lost souls of +true lovers are allowed to meet once a year. Here be they +who were too fond when Culdees ruled, or who loved young monks of +the Priory; here be ladies of Queen Mary’s Court, and the +fair inscrutable Queen herself, with Chastelard, that died at St. +Andrews for desire of her; and poor lassies and lads who were +over gay for Andrew Melville and Mr. Blair; and Miss Pett, who +tended young Montrose, and may have had a tenderness for his +love-locks. They are <i>a triste</i> good company, tender +and true, as the lovers of whom M. Anatole France has written +(<i>La Messe des Morts</i>). Above the witches’ lake +come shadows of the women who suffered under Knox and the Bastard +of Scotland, poor creatures burned to ashes with none to help or +pity. The shades of Dominicans flit by the Black Friars +wall—verily the place is haunted, and among Murray’s +pleasures was this of pacing alone, by night, in that airy press +and throng of those who lived and loved and suffered so long +ago—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The mist hangs round the College tower,<br +/> + The ghostly street<br /> +Is silent at this midnight hour,<br /> + Save for my feet.</p> +<p>With none to see, with none to hear,<br /> + Downward I go<br /> +To where, beside the rugged pier,<br /> + The sea sings low.</p> +<p>It sings a tune well loved and known<br /> + In days gone by,<br /> +When often here, and not alone,<br /> + I watched the sky.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But he was not always, nor often, lonely. He was fond of +making his speech at the Debating Societies, and his speeches are +remembered as good. If he declined the whisky and water, he +did not flee the weed. I borrow from <i>College +Echoes</i>—</p> +<h3>A TENNYSONIAN FRAGMENT</h3> +<blockquote><p>So in the village inn the poet dwelt.<br /> +His honey-dew was gone; only the pouch,<br /> +His cousin’s work, her empty labour, left.<br /> +But still he sniffed it, still a fragrance clung<br /> +And lingered all about the broidered flowers.<br /> +Then came his landlord, saying in broad Scotch,<br /> +‘Smoke plug, mon,’ whom he looked at doubtfully.<br +/> +Then came the grocer saying, ‘Hae some twist<br /> +At tippence,’ whom he answered with a qualm.<br /> +But when they left him to himself again,<br /> +Twist, like a fiend’s breath from a distant room<br /> +Diffusing through the passage, crept; the smell<br /> +Deepening had power upon him, and he mixt<br /> +His fancies with the billow-lifted bay<br /> +Of Biscay, and the rollings of a ship.</p> +<p>And on that night he made a little song,<br /> +And called his song ‘The Song of Twist and Plug,’<br +/> +And sang it; scarcely could he make or sing.</p> +<p>‘Rank is black plug, though smoked in wind and rain;<br +/> +And rank is twist, which gives no end of pain;<br /> +I know not which is ranker, no, not I.</p> +<p>‘Plug, art thou rank? then milder twist must be;<br /> +Plug, thou art milder: rank is twist to me.<br /> +O twist, if plug be milder, let me buy.</p> +<p>‘Rank twist, that seems to make me fade away,<br /> +Rank plug, that navvies smoke in loveless clay,<br /> +I know not which is ranker, no, not I.</p> +<p>‘I fain would purchase flake, if that could be;<br /> +I needs must purchase plug, ah, woe is me!<br /> +Plug and a cutty, a cutty, let me buy.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His was the best good thing of the night’s talk, and the +thing that was remembered. He excited himself a good deal +over Rectorial Elections. The duties of the Lord Rector and +the mode of his election have varied frequently in near five +hundred years. In Murray’s day, as in my own, the +students elected their own Rector, and before Lord Bute’s +energetic reign, the Rector had little to do, but to make a +speech, and give a prize. I vaguely remember proposing the +author of <i>Tom Brown</i> long ago: he was not, however, in the +running.</p> +<p>Politics often inspire the electors; occasionally (I have +heard) grave seniors use their influence, mainly for reasons of +academic policy.</p> +<p>In December 1887 Murray writes about an election in which Mr. +Lowell was a candidate. ‘A pitiful protest was +entered by an’ (epithets followed by a proper name) +‘against Lowell, on the score of his being an alien. +Mallock, as you learn, was withdrawn, for which I am truly +thankful.’ Unlucky Mr. Mallock! ‘Lowell +polled 100 and Gibson 92 . . . The intrigues and corruption +appear to be almost worthy of an American Presidential +election.’ Mr. Lowell could not accept a compliment +which pleased him, because of his official position, and the +misfortune of his birth!</p> +<p>Murray was already doing a very little ‘miniature +journalism,’ in the form of University Notes for a local +paper. He complains of the ultra Caledonian frankness with +which men told him that they were very bad. A needless, if +friendly, outspokenness was a feature in Scottish character which +he did not easily endure. He wrote a good deal of verse in +the little University paper, now called <i>College +Echoes</i>.</p> +<p>If Murray ever had any definite idea of being ordained for the +ministry in any ‘denomination,’ he abandoned +it. His ‘bursaries’ (scholarships or +exhibitions), on which he had been passing rich, expired, and he +had to earn a livelihood. It seems plain to myself that he +might easily have done so with his pen. A young friend of +my own (who will excuse me for thinking that his bright verses +are not <i>better</i> than Murray’s) promptly made, by +these alone, an income which to Murray would have been +affluence. But this could not be done at St. Andrews. +Again, Murray was not in contact with people in the centre of +newspapers and magazines. He went very little into general +society, even at St. Andrews, and thus failed, perhaps, to make +acquaintances who might have been ‘useful.’ He +would have scorned the idea of making useful acquaintances. +But without seeking them, why should we reject any friendliness +when it offers itself? We are all members one of +another. Murray speaks of his experience of human beings, +as rich in examples of kindness and good-will. His shyness, +his reserve, his extreme unselfishness,—carried to the +point of diffidence,—made him rather shun than seek older +people who were dangerously likely to be serviceable. His +manner, when once he could be induced to meet strangers, was +extremely frank and pleasant, but from meeting strangers he +shrunk, in his inveterate modesty.</p> +<p>In 1886 Murray had the misfortune to lose is father, and it +became, perhaps, more prominently needful that he should find a +profession. He now assisted Professor Meiklejohn of St. +Andrews in various kinds of literary and academic work, and in +him found a friend, with whom he remained in close intercourse to +the last. He began the weary path, which all literary +beginners must tread, of sending contributions to +magazines. He seldom read magazine articles. ‘I +do not greatly care for “Problems” and “vexed +questions.” I am so much of a problem and a vexed +question that I have quite enough to do in searching for a +solution of my own personality.’ He tried a story, +based on ‘a midnight experience’ of his own; +unluckily he does not tell us what that experience was. Had +he encountered one of the local ghosts?</p> +<p>‘My blood-curdling romance I offered to the editor of +<i>Longman’s Magazine</i>, but that misguided person was so +ill-advised as to return it, accompanied with one of these +abominable lithographed forms conveying his hypocritical +regrets.’ Murray sent a directed envelope with a +twopenny-halfpenny stamp. The paper came back for +three-halfpence by book-post. ‘I have serious +thoughts of sueing him for the odd penny!’ ‘Why +should people be fools enough to read my rot when they have +twenty volumes of Scott at their command?’ He +confesses to ‘a Scott-mania almost as intense as if he were +the last new sensation.’ ‘I was always fond of +him, but I am fonder than ever now.’ This plunge into +the immortal romances seems really to have discouraged Murray; at +all events he says very little more about attempts in fiction of +his own. ‘I am a barren rascal,’ he writes, +quoting Johnson on Fielding. Like other men, Murray felt +extreme difficulty in writing articles or tales which have an +infinitesimal chance of being accepted. It needs a stout +heart to face this almost fixed certainty of rejection: a man is +weakened by his apprehensions of a lithographed form, and of his +old manuscript coming home to roost, like the Graces of +Theocritus, to pine in the dusty chest where is their chill +abode. If the Alexandrian poets knew this ill-fortune, so +do all beginners in letters. There is nothing for it but +‘putting a stout heart to a stey brae,’ as the Scotch +proverb says. Editors want good work, and on finding a new +man who is good, they greatly rejoice. But it is so +difficult to do vigorous and spontaneous work, as it were, in the +dark. Murray had not, it is probable, the qualities of the +novelist, the narrator. An excellent critic he might have +been if he had ‘descended to criticism,’ but he had, +at this time, no introductions, and probably did not address +reviews at random to editors. As to poetry, these +much-vexed men receive such enormous quantities of poetry that +they usually reject it at a venture, and obtain the small +necessary supplies from agreeable young ladies. Had Murray +been in London, with a few literary friends, he might soon have +been a thriving writer of light prose and light verse. But +the enchantress held him; he hated London, he had no literary +friends, he could write gaily for pleasure, not for gain. +So, like the Scholar Gypsy, he remained contemplative,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Waiting for the spark from heaven to +fall.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>About this time the present writer was in St. Andrews as +Gifford Lecturer in Natural Theology. To say that an +enthusiasm for totems and taboos, ghosts and gods of savage men, +was aroused by these lectures, would be to exaggerate +unpardonably. Efforts to make the students write essays or +ask questions were so entire a failure that only one question was +received—as to the proper pronunciation of +‘Myth.’ Had one been fortunate enough to +interest Murray, it must have led to some discussion of his +literary attempts. He mentions having attended a lecture +given by myself to the Literary Society on ‘Literature as a +Profession,’ and he found the lecturer ‘far more at +home in such a subject than in the Gifford Lectures.’ +Possibly the hearer was ‘more at home’ in literature +than in discussions as to the origin of Huitzilopochtli. +‘Literature,’ he says, ‘never was, is not, and +never will be, in the ordinary sense of the term, a +profession. You can’t teach it as you can the +professions, you can’t succeed in it as you can in the +professions, by dint of mere diligence and without special +aptitude . . . I think all this chatter about the technical and +pecuniary sides of literature is extremely foolish and worse than +useless. It only serves to glut the idle curiosity of the +general public about matters with which they have no concern, a +curiosity which (thanks partly to American methods of journalism) +has become simply outrageous.’</p> +<p>Into chatter about the pecuniary aspect of literature the +Lecturer need hardly say that he did not meander. It is +absolutely true that literature cannot be taught. +Maupassant could have dispensed with the instructions of +Flaubert. But an ‘aptitude’ is needed in all +professions, and in such arts as music, and painting, and +sculpture, teaching is necessary. In literature, teaching +can only come from general education in letters, from experience, +from friendly private criticism. But if you cannot succeed +in literature ‘by dint of mere diligence,’ mere +diligence is absolutely essential. Men must read, must +observe, must practise. Diligence is as necessary to the +author as to the grocer, the solicitor, the dentist, the +barrister, the soldier. Nothing but nature can give the +aptitude; diligence must improve it, and experience may direct +it. It is not enough to wait for the spark from heaven to +fall; the spark must be caught, and tended, and cherished. +A man must labour till he finds his vein, and himself. +Again, if literature is an art, it is also a profession. A +man’s very first duty is to support himself and those, if +any, who are dependent on him. If he cannot do it by epics, +tragedies, lyrics, he must do it by articles, essays, tales, or +how he honestly can. He must win his leisure by his labour, +and give his leisure to his art. Murray, at this time, was +diligent in helping to compile and correct educational +works. He might, but for the various conditions of reserve, +hatred of towns, and the rest, have been earning his leisure by +work more brilliant and more congenial to most men. But his +theory of literature was so lofty that he probably found the +other, the harder, the less remunerative, the less attractive +work, more congenial to his tastes.</p> +<p>He describes, to Mrs. Murray, various notable visitors to St. +Andrews: Professor Butcher, who lectured on Lucian, and is +‘very handsome,’ Mr. Arthur Balfour, the Lord Rector, +who is ‘rather handsome,’ and delights the listener +by his eloquence; Mr. Chamberlain, who pleases him too, though he +finds Mr. Chamberlain rather acrimonious in his political +reflections. About Lucian, the subject of Mr. +Butcher’s lecture, Murray says nothing. That +brilliant man of letters in general, the Alcibiades of +literature, the wittiest, and, rarely, the most tender, and, +always, the most graceful, was a model who does not seem to have +attracted Murray. Lucian amused, and amuses, and lived by +amusing: the vein of romance and poetry that was his he worked +but rarely: perhaps the Samosatene did not take himself too +seriously, yet he lives through the ages, an example, in many +ways to be followed, of a man who obviously delighted in all that +he wrought. He was no model to Murray, who only delighted +in his moments of inspiration, and could not make himself happy +even in the trifles which are demanded from the professional +pen.</p> +<p>He did, at last, endeavour to ply that servile engine of which +Pendennis conceived so exalted an opinion. Certainly a +false pride did not stand in his way when, on May 5, 1889, he +announced that he was about to leave St. Andrews, and attempt to +get work at proof-correcting and in the humblest sorts of +journalism in Edinburgh. The chapter is honourable to his +resolution, but most melancholy. There were competence and +ease waiting for him, probably, in London, if he would but let +his pen have its way in bright comment and occasional +verse. But he chose the other course. With letters of +introduction from Mr. Meiklejohn, he consulted the houses of +Messrs. Clark and Messrs. Constable in Edinburgh. He did +not find that his knowledge of Greek was adequate to the higher +and more remunerative branches of proof-reading, that weary +meticulous toil, so fatiguing to the eyesight. The hours, +too, were very long; he could do more and better work in fewer +hours. No time, no strength, were left for reading and +writing. He did, while in Edinburgh, send a few things to +magazines, but he did not actually ‘bombard’ +editors. He is ‘to live in one room, and dine, if not +on a red herring, on the next cheapest article of +diet.’ These months of privation, at which he +laughed, and some weeks of reading proofs, appear to have quite +undermined health which was never strong, and which had been +sorely tried by ‘the wind of a cursed to-day, the curse of +a windy to-morrow,’ at St. Andrews. If a reader +observes in Murray a lack of strenuous diligence, he must +attribute it less to lack of resolution, than to defect of +physical force and energy. The many bad colds of which he +speaks were warnings of the end, which came in the form of +consumption. This lurking malady it was that made him wait, +and dally with his talent. He hit on the idea of +translating some of Bossuet’s orations for a Scotch +theological publisher. Alas! the publisher did not +anticipate a demand, among Scotch ministers, for the Eagle of +Meaux. Murray, in his innocence, was startled by the +caution of the publisher, who certainly would have been a heavy +loser. ‘I honestly believe that, if Charles Dickens +were now alive and unknown, and were to offer the MS. of +<i>Pickwick</i> to an Edinburgh publisher, that sagacious old +individual would shake his prudent old head, and refuse (with the +utmost politeness) to publish it!’ There is a good +deal of difference between <i>Pickwick</i> and a translation of +old French sermons about Madame, and Condé, and people of +whom few modern readers ever heard.</p> +<p>Alone, in Edinburgh, Murray was saddened by the +‘unregarding’ irresponsive faces of the people as +they passed. In St. Andrews he probably knew every face; +even in Edinburgh (a visitor from London thinks) there is a +friendly look among the passers. Murray did not find it +so. He approached a newspaper office: ‘he [the Editor +whom he met] was extremely frank, and told me that the tone of my +article on—was underbred, while the verses I had sent him +had nothing in them. Very pleasant for the feelings of a +young author, was it not? . . . Unfavourable criticism is an +excellent tonic, but it should be a little diluted . . . I must, +however, do him the justice to say that he did me a good turn by +introducing me to ---, . . . who was kind and encouraging in the +extreme.’</p> +<p>Murray now called on the Editor of the <i>Scottish Leader</i>, +the Gladstonian organ, whom he found very courteous. He was +asked to write some ‘leader-notes’ as they are +called, paragraphs which appear in the same columns as the +leading articles. These were published, to his +astonishment, and he was ‘to be taken on at a salary +of—a week.’ Let us avoid pecuniary chatter, and +merely say that the sum, while he was on trial, was not likely to +tempt many young men into the career of journalism. Yet +‘the work will be very exacting, and almost preclude the +possibility of my doing anything else.’ Now, as four +leader notes, or, say, six, can be written in an hour, it is +difficult to see the necessity for this fatigue. Probably +there were many duties more exacting, and less agreeable, than +the turning out of epigrams. Indeed there was other work of +some more or less mechanical kind, and the manufacture of +‘leader notes’ was the least part of Murray’s +industry. At the end of two years there was ‘the +prospect of a very fair salary.’ But there was +‘night-work and everlasting hurry.’ ‘The +interviewing of a half-bred Town-Councillor on the subject of gas +and paving’ did not exhilarate Murray. Again, he had +to compile a column of Literary News, from the +<i>Athenæum</i>, the <i>Academy</i>, and so on, ‘with +comments and enlargements where possible.’ This might +have been made extremely amusing, it sounds like a delightful +task,—the making of comments on ‘Mr. --- has finished +a sonnet:’ ‘Mr. ---’s poems are in their +fiftieth thousand:’ ‘Miss --- has gone on a tour of +health to the banks of the Yang-tse-kiang:’ ‘Mrs. --- +is engaged on a novel about the Pilchard Fishery.’ +One could make comments (if permitted) on these topics for love, +and they might not be unpopular. But perhaps Murray was +shackled a little by human respect, or the prejudices of his +editor. At all events he calls it ‘not very inspiring +employment.’ The bare idea, I confess, inspirits me +extremely.</p> +<p>But the literary <i>follet</i>, who delights in mild mischief, +did not haunt Murray. He found an opportunity to write on +the Canongate Churchyard, where Fergusson lies, under the +monument erected by Burns to the boy of genius whom he called his +master. Of course the part of the article which dealt with +Fergusson, himself a poet of the Scarlet Gown, was cut out. +The Scotch do not care to hear about Fergusson, in spite of their +‘myriad mutchkined enthusiasm’ for his more +illustrious imitator and successor, Burns.</p> +<p>At this time Edinburgh was honouring itself, and Mr. Parnell, +by conferring its citizenship on that patriot. Murray was +actually told off ‘to stand at a given point of the line on +which the hero marched,’ and to write some lines of +‘picturesque description.’ This kind of thing +could not go on. It was at Nelson’s Monument that he +stood: his enthusiasm was more for Nelson than for Mr. Parnell; +and he caught a severe cold on this noble occasion. +Murray’s opinions clashed with those of the <i>Scottish +Leader</i>, and he withdrew from its service.</p> +<p>Just a week passed between the Parnellian triumph and +Murray’s retreat from daily journalism. ‘On a +newspaper one must have no opinions except those which are +favourable to the sale of the paper and the filling of its +advertisement columns.’ That is not precisely an +accurate theory. Without knowing anything of the +circumstances, one may imagine that Murray was rather +impracticable. Of course he could not write against his own +opinions, but it is unusual to expect any one to do that, or to +find any one who will do it. ‘Incompatibility of +temper’ probably caused this secession from the +newspaper.</p> +<p>After various attempts to find occupation, he did some +proof-reading for Messrs. Constable. Among other things he +‘read’ the journal of Lady Mary Coke, privately +printed for Lord Home. Lady Mary, who appears as a lively +child in <i>The Heart of Midlothian</i>, ‘had a taste for +loo, gossip, and gardening, but the greatest of these is +gossip.’ The best part of the book is Lady Louisa +Stuart’s inimitable introduction. Early in October he +decided to give up proof-reading: the confinement had already +told on his health. In the letter which announces this +determination he describes a sermon of Principal Caird: +‘Voice, gesture, language, thought—all in the highest +degree,—combined to make it the most moving and exalted +speech of a man to men that I ever listened to.’ +‘The world is too much with me,’ he adds, as if he +and the world were ever friends, or ever likely to be +friendly.</p> +<p>October 27th found him dating from St. Andrews again. +‘St. Andrews after Edinburgh is Paradise.’ His +Dalilah had called him home to her, and he was never again +unfaithful. He worked for his firm friend, Professor +Meiklejohn, he undertook some teaching, and he wrote a +little. It was at this time that his biographer made +Murray’s acquaintance. I had been delighted with his +verses in <i>College Echoes</i>, and I asked him to bring me some +of his more serious work. But he never brought them: his +old enemy, reserve, overcame him. A few of his pieces were +published ‘At the Sign of the Ship’ in +<i>Longman’s Magazine</i>, to which he contributed +occasionally.</p> +<p>From this point there is little in Murray’s life to be +chronicled. In 1890 his health broke down entirely, and +consumption declared itself. Very early in 1891 he visited +Egypt, where it was thought that some educational work might be +found for him. But he found Egypt cold, wet, and windy; of +Alexandria and the Mediterranean he says little: indeed he was +almost too weak and ill to see what is delightful either in +nature or art.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘To aching eyes each landscape lowers,<br /> + To feverish pulse each gale blows chill,<br /> +And Araby’s or Eden’s bowers<br /> + Were barren as this moorland hill,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>says the least self-conscious of poets. Even so barren +were the rich Nile and so bleak the blue Mediterranean +waters. Though received by the kindest and most hospitable +friends, Murray was homesick, and pined to be in England, now +that spring was there. He made the great mistake of coming +home too early. At Ilminster, in his mother’s home, +he slowly faded out of life. I have not the heart to quote +his descriptions of brief yet laborious saunters in the coppices, +from the letters which he wrote to the lady of his heart. +He was calm, cheerful, even buoyant. His letters to his +college friends are all concerned with literature, or with happy +old times, and are full of interest in them and in their +happiness.</p> +<p>He was not wholly idle. He wrote a number of short +pieces of verse in <i>Punch</i>, and two or three in the <i>St. +James’s Gazette</i>. Other work, no doubt, he +planned, but his strength was gone. In 1891 his book, +<i>The Scarlet Gown</i>, was published by his friend, Mr. A. M. +Holden. The little volume, despite its local character, was +kindly received by the Reviews. Here, it was plain, we had +a poet who was to St. Andrews what the regretted J. K. S. was to +Eton and Cambridge. This measure of success was not +calculated to displease our <i>alumnus addictissimus</i>.</p> +<p>Friendship and love, he said, made the summer of 1892 very +happy to him. I last heard from him in the summer of 1893, +when he sent me some of his most pleasing verses. He was in +Scotland; he had wandered back, a shadow of himself, to his dear +St. Andrews. I conceived that he was better; he said +nothing about his health. It is not easy to quote from his +letters to his friend, Mr. Wallace, still written in his +beautiful firm hand. They are too full of affectionate +banter: they also contain criticisms on living poets: he shows an +admiration, discriminating and not wholesale, of Mr. +Kipling’s verse: he censures Mr. Swinburne, whose Jacobite +song (as he wrote to myself) did not precisely strike him as the +kind of thing that Jacobites used to sing.</p> +<p>They certainly celebrated</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The faith our fathers fought for,<br /> +The kings our fathers knew,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>in a different tone in the North.</p> +<p>The perfect health of mind, in these letters of a dying man, +is admirable. Reading old letters over, he writes to Miss +---, ‘I have known a wonderful number of wonderfully +kind-hearted people.’ That is his criticism of a +world which had given him but a scanty welcome, and a life of +foiled endeavour, of disappointed hope. Even now there was +a disappointment. His poems did not find a publisher: what +publisher can take the risk of adding another volume of poetry to +the enormous stock of verse brought out at the author’s +expense? This did not sour or sadden him: he took +Montaigne’s advice, ‘not to make too much marvel of +our own fortunes.’ His biographer, hearing in the +winter of 1893 that Murray’s illness was now considered +hopeless, though its rapid close was not expected, began, with +Professor Meiklejohn, to make arrangements for the publication of +the poems. But the poet did not live to have this poor +gratification. He died in the early hours of 1894.</p> +<p>Of the merits of his more serious poetry others must +speak. To the Editor it seems that he is always at his best +when he is inspired by the Northern Sea, and the long sands and +grey sea grasses. Then he is most himself. He was +improving in his art with every year: his development, indeed, +was somewhat late.</p> +<p>It is less of the writer than the man that we prefer to +think. His letters display, in passages which he would not +have desired to see quoted, the depth and tenderness and +thoughtfulness of his affections. He must have been a +delightful friend: illness could not make him peevish, and his +correspondence with old college companions could never be taken +for that of a consciously dying man. He had perfect +courage, and resolution even in his seeming irresoluteness. +He was resolved to be, and continued to be, himself. +‘He had kept the bird in his bosom.’ We, who +regret him, may wish that he had been granted a longer life, and +a secure success. Happier fortunes might have mellowed him, +no fortunes could have altered for the worse his admirable +nature. He lives in the hearts of his friends, and in the +pride and sympathy of those who, after him, have worn and shall +wear the scarlet gown.</p> +<p>The following examples of his poetry were selected by +Murray’s biographer from a considerable mass, and have been +seen through the press by Professor Meiklejohn, who possesses the +original manuscript, beautifully written.</p> +<h2>MOONLIGHT NORTH AND SOUTH</h2> +<p>Love, we have heard together<br /> + The North Sea sing his tune,<br /> +And felt the wind’s wild feather<br /> + Brush past our cheeks at noon,<br /> +And seen the cloudy weather<br /> + Made wondrous with the moon.</p> +<p>Where loveliness is rarest,<br /> + ’Tis also prized the most:<br /> +The moonlight shone her fairest<br /> + Along that level coast<br /> +Where sands and dunes the barest,<br /> + Of beauty seldom boast,</p> +<p>Far from that bleak and rude land<br /> + An exile I remain<br /> +Fixed in a fair and good land,<br /> + A valley and a plain<br /> +Rich in fat fields and woodland,<br /> + And watered well with rain.</p> +<p>Last night the full moon’s splendour<br /> + Shone down on Taunton Dene,<br /> +And pasture fresh and tender,<br /> + And coppice dusky green,<br /> +The heavenly light did render<br /> + In one enchanted scene,</p> +<p>One fair unearthly vision.<br /> + Yet soon mine eyes were cloyed,<br /> +And found those fields Elysian<br /> + Too rich to be enjoyed.<br /> +Or was it our division<br /> + Made all my pleasure void?</p> +<p>Across the window glasses<br /> + The curtain then I drew,<br /> +And, as a sea-bird passes,<br /> + In sleep my spirit flew<br /> +To grey and windswept grasses<br /> + And moonlit sands—and you.</p> +<h2>WINTER AT ST. ANDREWS</h2> +<p>The city once again doth wear<br /> + Her wonted dress of winter’s bride,<br /> +Her mantle woven of misty air,<br /> + With saffron sunlight faintly dyed.<br /> +She sits above the seething tide,<br /> + Of all her summer robes forlorn—<br /> +And dead is all her summer pride—<br /> + The leaves are off Queen Mary’s Thorn.</p> +<p>All round, the landscape stretches bare,<br /> + The bleak fields lying far and wide,<br /> +Monotonous, with here and there<br /> + A lone tree on a lone hillside.<br /> +No more the land is glorified<br /> + With golden gleams of ripening corn,<br /> +Scarce is a cheerful hue descried—<br /> + The leaves are off Queen Mary’s Thorn.</p> +<p>For me, I do not greatly care<br /> + Though leaves be dead, and mists abide.<br /> +To me the place is thrice as fair<br /> + In winter as in summer-tide:<br /> +With kindlier memories allied<br /> + Of pleasure past and pain o’erworn.<br /> +What care I, though the earth may hide<br /> + The leaves from off Queen Mary’s Thorn?</p> +<p>Thus I unto my friend replied,<br /> + When, on a chill late autumn morn,<br /> +He pointed to the tree, and cried,<br /> + ‘The leaves are off Queen Mary’s +Thorn!’</p> +<h2>PATRIOTISM</h2> +<p>There was a time when it was counted high<br /> + To be a patriot—whether by the zeal<br /> + Of peaceful labour for the country’s weal,<br +/> +Or by the courage in her cause to die:</p> +<p><i>For King and Country</i> was a rallying cry<br /> + That turned men’s hearts to fire, their nerves +to steel;<br /> + Not to unheeding ears did it appeal,<br /> +A pulpit formula, a platform lie.</p> +<p>Only a fool will wantonly desire<br /> +That war should come, outpouring blood and fire,<br /> + And bringing grief and hunger in her train.<br /> +And yet, if there be found no other way,<br /> +God send us war, and with it send the day<br /> + When love of country shall be real again!</p> +<h2>SLEEP FLIES ME</h2> +<p>Sleep flies me like a lover<br /> + Too eagerly pursued,<br /> +Or like a bird to cover<br /> + Within some distant wood,<br /> +Where thickest boughs roof over<br /> + Her secret solitude.</p> +<p>The nets I spread to snare her,<br /> + Although with cunning wrought,<br /> +Have only served to scare her,<br /> + And now she’ll not be caught.<br /> +To those who best could spare her,<br /> + She ever comes unsought.</p> +<p>She lights upon their pillows;<br /> + She gives them pleasant dreams,<br /> +Grey-green with leaves of willows,<br /> + And cool with sound of streams,<br /> +Or big with tranquil billows,<br /> + On which the starlight gleams.</p> +<p>No vision fair entrances<br /> + My weary open eye,<br /> +No marvellous romances<br /> + Make night go swiftly by;<br /> +But only feverish fancies<br /> + Beset me where I lie.</p> +<p>The black midnight is steeping<br /> + The hillside and the lawn,<br /> +But still I lie unsleeping,<br /> + With curtains backward drawn,<br /> +To catch the earliest peeping<br /> + Of the desirèd dawn.</p> +<p>Perhaps, when day is breaking;<br /> + When birds their song begin,<br /> +And, worn with all night waking,<br /> + I call their music din,<br /> +Sweet sleep, some pity taking,<br /> + At last may enter in.</p> +<h2>LOVE’S PHANTOM</h2> +<p>Whene’er I try to read a book,<br /> +Across the page your face will look,<br /> +And then I neither know nor care<br /> +What sense the printed words may bear.</p> +<p>At night when I would go to sleep,<br /> +Thinking of you, awake I keep,<br /> +And still repeat the words you said,<br /> +Like sick men murmuring prayers in bed.</p> +<p>And when, with weariness oppressed,<br /> +I sink in spite of you to rest,<br /> +Your image, like a lovely sprite,<br /> +Haunts me in dreams through half the night.</p> +<p>I wake upon the autumn morn<br /> +To find the sunrise hardly born,<br /> +And in the sky a soft pale blue,<br /> +And in my heart your image true.</p> +<p>When out I walk to take the air,<br /> +Your image is for ever there,<br /> +Among the woods that lose their leaves,<br /> +Or where the North Sea sadly heaves.</p> +<p>By what enchantment shall be laid<br /> +This ghost, which does not make afraid,<br /> +But vexes with dim loveliness<br /> +And many a shadowy caress?</p> +<p>There is no other way I know<br /> +But unto you forthwith to go,<br /> +That I may look upon the maid<br /> +Whereof that other is the shade.</p> +<p>As the strong sun puts out the moon,<br /> +Whose borrowed rays are all his own,<br /> +So, in your living presence, dies<br /> +The phantom kindled at your eyes.</p> +<p>By this most blessed spell, each day<br /> +The vexing ghost awhile I lay.<br /> +Yet am I glad to know that when<br /> +I leave you it will rise again.</p> +<h2>COME BACK TO ST. ANDREWS</h2> +<p>Come back to St. Andrews! Before you went away<br /> +You said you would be wretched where you could not see the +Bay,<br /> +The East sands and the West sands and the castle in the sea<br /> +Come back to St. Andrews—St. Andrews and me.</p> +<p>Oh, it’s dreary along South Street when the rain is +coming down,<br /> +And the east wind makes the student draw more close his warm red +gown,<br /> +As I often saw you do, when I watched you going by<br /> +On the stormy days to College, from my window up on high.</p> +<p>I wander on the Lade Braes, where I used to walk with you,<br +/> +And purple are the woods of Mount Melville, budding new,<br /> +But I cannot bear to look, for the tears keep coming so,<br /> +And the Spring has lost the freshness which it had a year +ago.</p> +<p>Yet often I could fancy, where the pathway takes a turn,<br /> +I shall see you in a moment, coming round beside the burn,<br /> +Coming round beside the burn, with your swinging step and +free,<br /> +And your face lit up with pleasure at the sudden sight of me.</p> +<p>Beyond the Rock and Spindle, where we watched the water +clear<br /> +In the happy April sunshine, with a happy sound to hear,<br /> +There I sat this afternoon, but no hand was holding mine,<br /> +And the water sounded eerie, though the April sun did shine.</p> +<p>Oh, why should I complain of what I know was bound to be?<br +/> +For you had your way to make, and you must not think of me.<br /> +But a woman’s heart is weak, and a woman’s joys are +few—<br /> +There are times when I could die for a moment’s sight of +you.</p> +<p>It may be you will come again, before my hair is grey<br /> +As the sea is in the twilight of a weary winter’s day.<br +/> +When success is grown a burden, and your heart would fain be +free,<br /> +Come back to St. Andrews—St. Andrews and me.</p> +<h2>THE SOLITARY</h2> +<p>I have been lonely all my days on earth,<br /> + Living a life within my secret soul,<br /> +With mine own springs of sorrow and of mirth,<br /> + Beyond the world’s +control.</p> +<p>Though sometimes with vain longing I have sought<br /> + To walk the paths where other mortals tread,<br /> +To wear the clothes for other mortals wrought,<br /> + And eat the selfsame +bread—</p> +<p>Yet have I ever found, when thus I strove<br /> + To mould my life upon the common plan,<br /> +That I was furthest from all truth and love,<br /> + And least a living man.</p> +<p>Truth frowned upon my poor hypocrisy,<br /> + Life left my soul, and dwelt but in my sense;<br /> +No man could love me, for all men could see<br /> + The hollow vain pretence.</p> +<p>Their clothes sat on me with outlandish air,<br /> + Upon their easy road I tripped and fell,<br /> +And still I sickened of the wholesome fare<br /> + On which they nourished well.</p> +<p>I was a stranger in that company,<br /> + A Galilean whom his speech bewrayed,<br /> +And when they lifted up their songs of glee,<br /> + My voice sad discord made.</p> +<p>Peace for mine own self I could never find,<br /> + And still my presence marred the general peace,<br +/> +And when I parted, leaving them behind,<br /> + They felt, and I, release.</p> +<p>So will I follow now my spirit’s bent,<br /> + Not scorning those who walk the beaten track,<br /> +Yet not despising mine own banishment,<br /> + Nor often looking back.</p> +<p>Their way is best for them, but mine for me.<br /> + And there is comfort for my lonely heart,<br /> +To think perhaps our journeys’ ends may be<br /> + Not very far apart.</p> +<h2>TO ALFRED TENNYSON—1883</h2> +<p>Familiar with thy melody,<br /> + We go debating of its power,<br /> + As churls, who hear it hour by hour,<br /> +Contemn the skylark’s minstrelsy—</p> +<p>As shepherds on a Highland lea<br /> + Think lightly of the heather flower<br /> + Which makes the moorland’s purple dower,<br /> +As far away as eye can see.</p> +<p>Let churl or shepherd change his sky,<br /> + And labour in the city dark,<br /> + Where there is neither air nor +room—<br /> +How often will the exile sigh<br /> + To hear again the unwearied lark,<br /> + And see the heather’s lavish +bloom!</p> +<h2>ICHABOD</h2> +<p>Gone is the glory from the hills,<br /> + The autumn sunshine from the mere,<br /> + Which mourns for the declining year<br /> +In all her tributary rills.</p> +<p>A sense of change obscurely chills<br /> + The misty twilight atmosphere,<br /> + In which familiar things appear<br /> +Like alien ghosts, foreboding ills.</p> +<p>The twilight hour a month ago<br /> + Was full of pleasant warmth and ease,<br /> + The pearl of all the +twenty-four.<br /> +Erelong the winter gales shall blow,<br /> + Erelong the winter frosts shall freeze—<br /> + And oh, that it were June once +more!</p> +<h2>AT A HIGH CEREMONY</h2> +<p>Not the proudest damsel here<br /> +Looks so well as doth my dear.<br /> +All the borrowed light of dress<br /> +Outshining not her loveliness,</p> +<p>A loveliness not born of art,<br /> +But growing outwards from her heart,<br /> +Illuminating all her face,<br /> +And filling all her form with grace.</p> +<p>Said I, of dress the borrowed light<br /> +Could rival not her beauty bright?<br /> +Yet, looking round, ’tis truth to tell,<br /> +No damsel here is dressed so well.</p> +<p>Only in them the dress one sees,<br /> +Because more greatly it doth please<br /> +Than any other charm that’s theirs,<br /> +Than all their manners, all their airs.</p> +<p>But dress in her, although indeed<br /> +It perfect be, we do not heed,<br /> +Because the face, the form, the air<br /> +Are all so gentle and so rare.</p> +<h2>THE WASTED DAY</h2> +<p>Another day let slip! Its hours have run,<br /> + Its golden hours, with prodigal excess,<br /> + All run to waste. A day of life the less;<br +/> +Of many wasted days, alas, but one!</p> +<p>Through my west window streams the setting sun.<br /> + I kneel within my chamber, and confess<br /> + My sin and sorrow, filled with vain distress,<br /> +In place of honest joy for work well done.</p> +<p>At noon I passed some labourers in a field.<br /> + The sweat ran down upon each sunburnt face,<br /> + Which shone like copper in the +ardent glow.<br /> +And one looked up, with envy unconcealed,<br /> + Beholding my cool cheeks and listless pace,<br /> + Yet he was happier, though he did +not know.</p> +<h2>INDOLENCE</h2> +<p>Fain would I shake thee off, but weak am I<br /> + Thy strong solicitations to withstand.<br /> + Plenty of work lies ready to my hand,<br /> +Which rests irresolute, and lets it lie.</p> +<p>How can I work, when that seductive sky<br /> + Smiles through the window, beautiful and bland,<br +/> + And seems to half entreat and half command<br /> +My presence out of doors beneath its eye?</p> +<p>Will not the air be fresh, the water blue,<br /> + The smell of beanfields, blowing to the shore,<br /> + Better than these poor drooping +purchased flowers?<br /> +Good-bye, dull books! Hot room, good-bye to you!<br /> + And think it strange if I return before<br /> + The sea grows purple in the +evening hours.</p> +<h2>DAWN SONG</h2> +<p>I hear a twittering of birds,<br /> + And now they burst in song.<br /> +How sweet, although it wants the words!<br /> + It shall not want them long,<br /> +For I will set some to the note<br /> +Which bubbles from the thrush’s throat.</p> +<p>O jewelled night, that reign’st on high,<br /> + Where is thy crescent moon?<br /> +Thy stars have faded from the sky,<br /> + The sun is coming soon.<br /> +The summer night is passed away,<br /> +Sing welcome to the summer day.</p> +<h2>CAIRNSMILL DEN—TUNE: ‘A ROVING’</h2> +<p>As I, with hopeless love o’erthrown,<br /> +With love o’erthrown, with love o’erthrown,<br /> + And this is truth I tell,<br /> +As I, with hopeless love o’erthrown,<br /> +Was sadly walking all alone,</p> +<p>I met my love one morning<br /> + In Cairnsmill Den.<br /> +One morning, one morning,<br /> +One blue and blowy morning,<br /> +I met my love one morning<br /> + In Cairnsmill Den.</p> +<p>A dead bough broke within the wood<br /> +Within the wood, within the wood,<br /> + And this is truth I tell.<br /> +A dead bough broke within the wood,<br /> +And I looked up, and there she stood.</p> +<p>I asked what was it brought her there,<br /> +What brought her there, what brought her there,<br /> + And this is truth I tell.<br /> +I asked what was it brought her there.<br /> +Says she, ‘To pull the primrose fair.’</p> +<p>Says I, ‘Come, let me pull with you,<br /> +Along with you, along with you,’<br /> + And this is truth I tell.<br /> +Says I, ‘Come let me pull with you,<br /> +For one is not so good as two.’</p> +<p>But when at noon we climbed the hill,<br /> +We climbed the hill, we climbed the hill,<br /> + And this is truth I tell.<br /> +But when at noon we climbed the hill,<br /> +Her hands and mine were empty still.</p> +<p>And when we reached the top so high,<br /> +The top so high, the top so high,<br /> + And this is truth I tell.<br /> +And when we reached the top so high<br /> +Says I, ‘I’ll kiss you, if I die!’</p> +<p>I kissed my love in Cairnsmill Den,<br /> +In Cairnsmill Den, in Cairnsmill Den,<br /> + And this is truth I tell.<br /> +I kissed my love in Cairnsmill Den,<br /> +And my love kissed me back again.</p> +<p>I met my love one morning<br /> + In Cairnsmill Den.<br /> +One morning, one morning,<br /> +One blue and blowy morning,<br /> +I met my love one morning<br /> + In Cairnsmill Den.</p> +<h2>A LOST OPPORTUNITY</h2> +<p>One dark, dark night—it was long ago,<br /> + The air was heavy and still and warm—<br /> +It fell to me and a man I know,<br /> + To see two girls to their father’s farm.</p> +<p>There was little seeing, that I recall:<br /> + We seemed to grope in a cave profound.<br /> +They might have come by a painful fall,<br /> + Had we not helped them over the ground.</p> +<p>The girls were sisters. Both were fair,<br /> + But mine was the fairer (so I say).<br /> +The dark soon severed us, pair from pair,<br /> + And not long after we lost our way.</p> +<p>We wandered over the country-side,<br /> + And we frightened most of the sheep about,<br /> +And I do not think that we greatly tried,<br /> + Having lost our way, to find it out.</p> +<p>The night being fine, it was not worth while.<br /> + We strayed through furrow and corn and grass<br /> +We met with many a fence and stile,<br /> + And a quickset hedge, which we failed to pass.</p> +<p>At last we came on a road she knew;<br /> + She said we were near her father’s place.<br +/> +I heard the steps of the other two,<br /> + And my heart stood still for a moment’s +space.</p> +<p>Then I pleaded, ‘Give me a good-night kiss.’<br /> + I have learned, but I did not know in time,<br /> +The fruits that hang on the tree of bliss<br /> + Are not for cravens who will not climb.</p> +<p>We met all four by the farmyard gate,<br /> + We parted laughing, with half a sigh,<br /> +And home we went, at a quicker rate,<br /> + A shorter journey, my friend and I.</p> +<p>When we reached the house, it was late enough,<br /> + And many impertinent things were said,<br /> +Of time and distance, and such dull stuff,<br /> + But we said little, and went to bed.</p> +<p>We went to bed, but one at least<br /> + Went not to sleep till the black turned grey,<br /> +And the sun rose up, and the light increased,<br /> + And the birds awoke to a summer day.</p> +<p>And sometimes now, when the nights are mild,<br /> + And the moon is away, and no stars shine,<br /> +I wander out, and I go half-wild,<br /> + To think of the kiss which was not mine.</p> +<p>Let great minds laugh at a grief so small,<br /> + Let small minds laugh at a fool so great.<br /> +Kind maidens, pity me, one and all.<br /> + Shy youths, take warning by this my fate.</p> +<h2>THE CAGED THRUSH</h2> +<p>Alas for the bird who was born to sing!<br /> +They have made him a cage; they have clipped his wing;<br /> +They have shut him up in a dingy street,<br /> +And they praise his singing and call it sweet.<br /> +But his heart and his song are saddened and filled<br /> +With the woods, and the nest he never will build,<br /> +And the wild young dawn coming into the tree,<br /> +And the mate that never his mate will be.<br /> +And day by day, when his notes are heard<br /> +They freshen the street—but alas for the bird</p> +<h2>MIDNIGHT</h2> +<p>The air is dark and fragrant<br /> + With memories of a shower,<br /> +And sanctified with stillness<br /> + By this most holy hour.</p> +<p>The leaves forget to whisper<br /> + Of soft and secret things,<br /> +And every bird is silent,<br /> + With folded eyes and wings.</p> +<p>O blessed hour of midnight,<br /> + Of sleep and of release,<br /> +Thou yieldest to the toiler<br /> + The wages of thy peace.</p> +<p>And I, who have not laboured,<br /> + Nor borne the heat of noon,<br /> +Receive thy tranquil quiet—<br /> + An undeservèd boon.</p> +<p>Yes, truly God is gracious,<br /> + Who makes His sun to shine<br /> +Upon the good and evil,<br /> + And idle lives like mine.</p> +<p>Upon the just and unjust<br /> + He sends His rain to fall,<br /> +And gives this hour of blessing<br /> + Freely alike to all.</p> +<h2>WHERE’S THE USE</h2> +<p>Oh, where’s the use of having gifts that can’t be +turned to money?<br /> + And where’s the use of singing, when +there’s no one wants to hear?<br /> +It may be one or two will say your songs are sweet as honey,<br +/> + But where’s the use of honey, when the loaf of +bread is dear?</p> +<h2>A MAY-DAY MADRIGAL</h2> +<p>The sun shines fair on Tweedside, the river flowing bright,<br +/> +Your heart is full of pleasure, your eyes are full of light,<br +/> +Your cheeks are like the morning, your pearls are like the +dew,<br /> +Or morning and her dew-drops are like your pearls and you.</p> +<p>Because you are a princess, a princess of the land,<br /> +You will not turn your lightsome eyes a moment where I stand,<br +/> +A poor unnoticed poet, a-making of his rhymes;<br /> +But I have found a mistress, more fair a thousand times.</p> +<p>’Tis May, the elfish maiden, the daughter of the +Spring,<br /> +Upon whose birthday morning the birds delight to sing.<br /> +They would not sing one note for you, if you should so +command,<br /> +Although you are a princess, a princess of the land.</p> +<h2>SONG IS NOT DEAD</h2> +<p>Song is not dead, although to-day<br /> + Men tell us everything is said.<br /> +There yet is something left to say,<br /> + Song is not dead.</p> +<p>While still the evening sky is red,<br /> + While still the morning gold and grey,<br /> +While still the autumn leaves are shed,</p> +<p>While still the heart of youth is gay,<br /> + And honour crowns the hoary head,<br /> +While men and women love and pray<br /> + Song is not dead.</p> +<h2>A SONG OF TRUCE</h2> +<p>Till the tread of marching feet<br /> +Through the quiet grass-grown street<br /> +Of the little town shall come,<br /> +Soldier, rest awhile at home.</p> +<p>While the banners idly hang,<br /> +While the bugles do not clang,<br /> +While is hushed the clamorous drum,<br /> +Soldier, rest awhile at home.</p> +<p>In the breathing-time of Death,<br /> +While the sword is in its sheath,<br /> +While the cannon’s mouth is dumb,<br /> +Soldier, rest awhile at home.</p> +<p>Not too long the rest shall be.<br /> +Soon enough, to Death and thee,<br /> +The assembly call shall come.<br /> +Soldier, rest awhile at home.</p> +<h2>ONE TEAR</h2> +<p>Last night, when at parting<br /> + Awhile we did stand,<br /> +Suddenly starting,<br /> + There fell on my hand</p> +<p>Something that burned it,<br /> + Something that shone<br /> +In the moon as I turned it,<br /> + And then it was gone.</p> +<p>One bright stray jewel—<br /> + What made it stray?<br /> +Was I cold or cruel,<br /> + At the close of day?</p> +<p>Oh, do not cry, lass!<br /> + What is crying worth?<br /> +There is no lass like my lass<br /> + In the whole wide earth.</p> +<h2>A LOVER’S CONFESSION</h2> +<p>When people tell me they have loved<br /> + But once in youth,<br /> +I wonder, are they always moved<br /> + To speak the truth?</p> +<p>Not that they wilfully deceive:<br /> + They fondly cherish<br /> +A constancy which they would grieve<br /> + To think might perish.</p> +<p>They cherish it until they think<br /> + ’Twas always theirs.<br /> +So, if the truth they sometimes blink,<br /> + ’Tis unawares.</p> +<p>Yet unawares, I must profess,<br /> + They do deceive<br /> +Themselves, and those who questionless<br /> + Their tale believe.</p> +<p>For I have loved, I freely own,<br /> + A score of times,<br /> +And woven, out of love alone,<br /> + A hundred rhymes.</p> +<p>Boys will be fickle. Yet, when all<br /> + Is said and done,<br /> +I was not one whom you could call<br /> + A flirt—not one</p> +<p>Of those who into three or four<br /> + Their hearts divide.<br /> +My queens came singly to the door,<br /> + Not side by side.</p> +<p>Each, while she reigned, possessed alone<br /> + My spirit loyal,<br /> +Then left an undisputed throne<br /> + To one more royal,</p> +<p>To one more fair in form and face<br /> + Sweeter and stronger,<br /> +Who filled the throne with truer grace,<br /> + And filled it longer.</p> +<p>So, love by love, they came and passed,<br /> + These loves of mine,<br /> +And each one brighter than the last<br /> + Their lights did shine.</p> +<p>Until—but am I not too free,<br /> + Most courteous stranger,<br /> +With secrets which belong to me?<br /> + There is a danger.</p> +<p>Until, I say, the perfect love,<br /> + The last, the best,<br /> +Like flame descending from above,<br /> + Kindled my breast,</p> +<p>Kindled my breast like ardent flame,<br /> + With quenchless glow.<br /> +I knew not love until it came,<br /> + But now I know.</p> +<p>You smile. The twenty loves before<br /> + Were each in turn,<br /> +You say, the final flame that o’er<br /> + My soul should burn.</p> +<p>Smile on, my friend. I will not say<br /> + You have no reason;<br /> +But if the love I feel to-day<br /> + Depart, ’tis treason!</p> +<p>If this depart, not once again<br /> + Will I on paper<br /> +Declare the loves that waste and wane,<br /> + Like some poor taper.</p> +<p>No, no! This flame, I cannot doubt,<br /> + Despite your laughter,<br /> +Will burn till Death shall put it out,<br /> + And may be after.</p> +<h2>TRAFALGAR SQUARE</h2> +<p>These verses have I pilfered like a bee<br /> +Out of a letter from my C. C. C.<br /> + In London, showing what befell him there,<br /> +With other things, of interest to me.</p> +<p>One page described a night in open air<br /> +He spent last summer in Trafalgar Square,<br /> + With men and women who by want are driven<br /> +Thither for lodging, when the nights are fair.</p> +<p>No roof there is between their heads and heaven,<br /> +No warmth but what by ragged clothes is given,<br /> + No comfort but the company of those<br /> +Who with despair, like them, have vainly striven.</p> +<p>On benches there uneasily they doze,<br /> +Snatching brief morsels of a poor repose,<br /> + And if through weariness they might sleep sound,<br +/> +Their eyes must open almost ere they close.</p> +<p>With even tramp upon the paven ground,<br /> +Twice every hour the night patrol comes round<br /> + To clear these wretches off, who may not keep<br /> +The miserable couches they have found.</p> +<p>Yet the stern shepherds of the poor black sheep<br /> +Will soften when they see a woman weep.<br /> + There was a mother there who strove in vain,<br /> +With sobs, to hush a starving child to sleep.</p> +<p>And through the night which took so long to wane,<br /> +He saw sad sufferers relieving pain,<br /> + And daughters of iniquity and scorn<br /> +Performing deeds which God will not disdain.</p> +<p>There was a girl, forlorn of the forlorn,<br /> +Whose dress was white, but draggled, soiled, and torn,<br /> + Who wandered like a ghost without a home.<br /> +She spoke to him before the day was born.</p> +<p>She, who all night, when spoken to, was dumb,<br /> +Earning dislike from most, abuse from some,<br /> + Now asked the hour, and when he told her +‘Two,’<br /> +Wailed, ‘O my God, will daylight never come?’</p> +<p>Yes, it will come, and change the sky anew<br /> +From star-besprinkled black to sunlit blue,<br /> + And bring sweet thoughts and innocent desires<br /> +To countless girls. What will it bring to you?</p> +<h2>A SUMMER MORNING</h2> +<p>Never was sun so bright before,<br /> + No matin of the lark so sweet,<br /> + No grass so green beneath my feet,<br /> +Nor with such dewdrops jewelled o’er.</p> +<p>I stand with thee outside the door,<br /> + The air not yet is close with heat,<br /> + And far across the yellowing wheat<br /> +The waves are breaking on the shore.</p> +<p>A lovely day! Yet many such,<br /> + Each like to each, this month have passed,<br /> + And none did so supremely +shine.<br /> +One thing they lacked: the perfect touch<br /> + Of thee—and thou art come at last,<br /> + And half this loveliness is +thine.</p> +<h2>WELCOME HOME</h2> +<p>The fire burns bright<br /> +And the hearth is clean swept,<br /> +As she likes it kept,<br /> +And the lamp is alight.<br /> +She is coming to-night.</p> +<p>The wind’s east of late.<br /> +When she comes, she’ll be cold,<br /> +So the big chair is rolled<br /> +Close up to the grate,<br /> +And I listen and wait.</p> +<p>The shutters are fast,<br /> +And the red curtains hide<br /> +Every hint of outside.<br /> +But hark, how the blast<br /> +Whistled then as it passed!</p> +<p>Or was it the train?<br /> +How long shall I stand,<br /> +With my watch in my hand,<br /> +And listen in vain<br /> +For the wheels in the lane?</p> +<p>Hark! A rumble I hear<br /> +(Will the wind not be still?),<br /> +And it comes down the hill,<br /> +And it grows on the ear,<br /> +And now it is near.</p> +<p>Quick, a fresh log to burn!<br /> +Run and open the door,<br /> +Hold a lamp out before<br /> +To light up the turn,<br /> +And bring in the urn.</p> +<p>You are come, then, at last!<br /> +O my dear, is it you?<br /> +I can scarce think it true<br /> +I am holding you fast,<br /> +And sorrow is past.</p> +<h2>AN INVITATION</h2> +<p>Dear Ritchie, I am waiting for the signal word to fly,<br /> + And tell me that the visit which has suffered such +belating<br /> +Is to be a thing of now, and no more of by-and-by.<br /> + Dear Ritchie, I am waiting.</p> +<p>The sea is at its bluest, and the Spring is new creating<br /> + The woods and dens we know of, and the fields +rejoicing lie,<br /> +And the air is soft as summer, and the hedge-birds all are +mating.</p> +<p>The Links are full of larks’ nests, and the larks +possess the sky,<br /> + Like a choir of happy spirits, melodiously +debating,<br /> +All is ready for your coming, dear Ritchie—yes, and I,<br +/> + Dear Ritchie, I am waiting.</p> +<h2>FICKLE SUMMER</h2> +<p>Fickle Summer’s fled away,<br /> + Shall we see her face again?<br /> + Hearken to the weeping rain,<br /> +Never sunbeam greets the day.</p> +<p>More inconstant than the May,<br /> + She cares nothing for our pain,<br /> + Nor will hear the birds complain<br /> +In their bowers that once were gay.</p> +<p>Summer, Summer, come once more,<br /> + Drive the shadows from the field,<br /> + All thy radiance round thee +fling,<br /> +Be our lady as of yore;<br /> + Then the earth her fruits shall yield,<br /> + Then the morning stars shall +sing.</p> +<h2>SORROW’S TREACHERY</h2> +<p>I made a truce last night with Sorrow,<br /> + The queen of tears, the foe of sleep,<br /> +To keep her tents until the morrow,<br /> + Nor send such dreams to make me weep.</p> +<p>Before the lusty day was springing,<br /> + Before the tired moon was set,<br /> +I dreamed I heard my dead love singing,<br /> + And when I woke my eyes were wet.</p> +<h2>THE CROWN OF YEARS</h2> +<p>Years grow and gather—each a gem<br /> + Lustrous with laughter and with tears,<br /> + And cunning Time a crown of years<br /> +Contrives for her who weareth them.</p> +<p>No chance can snatch this diadem,<br /> + It trembles not with hopes or fears,<br /> + It shines before the rose appears,<br /> +And when the leaves forsake her stem.</p> +<p>Time sets his jewels one by one.<br /> + Then wherefore mourn the wreaths that lie<br /> + In attic chambers of the past?<br +/> +They withered ere the day was done.<br /> + This coronal will never die,<br /> + Nor shall you lose it at the +last.</p> +<h2>HOPE DEFERRED</h2> +<p>When the weary night is fled,<br /> +And the morning sky is red,<br /> +Then my heart doth rise and say,<br /> +‘Surely she will come to-day.’</p> +<p>In the golden blaze of noon,<br /> +‘Surely she is coming soon.’<br /> +In the twilight, ‘Will she come?’<br /> +Then my heart with fear is dumb.</p> +<p>When the night wind in the trees<br /> +Plays its mournful melodies,<br /> +Then I know my trust is vain,<br /> +And she will not come again.</p> +<h2>THE LIFE OF EARTH</h2> +<p>The life of earth, how full of pain,<br /> + Which greets us on our day of birth,<br /> +Nor leaves us while we yet retain<br /> + The life of earth.</p> +<p>There is a shadow on our mirth,<br /> + Our sun is blotted out with rain,<br /> +And all our joys are little worth.</p> +<p>Yet oh, when life begins to wane,<br /> + And we must sail the doubtful firth,<br /> +How wild the longing to regain<br /> + The life of earth!</p> +<h2>GOLDEN DREAM</h2> +<p>Golden dream of summer morn,<br /> + By a well-remembered stream<br /> +In the land where I was born,<br /> + Golden dream!</p> +<p>Ripples, by the glancing beam<br /> + Lightly kissed in playful scorn,<br /> +Meadows moist with sunlit steam.</p> +<p>When I lift my eyelids worn<br /> + Like a fair mirage you seem,<br /> +In the winter dawn forlorn,<br /> + Golden dream!</p> +<h2>TEARS</h2> +<p>Mourn that which will not come again,<br /> + The joy, the strength of early years.<br /> + Bow down thy head, and let thy tears<br /> +Water the grave where hope lies slain.</p> +<p>For tears are like a summer rain,<br /> + To murmur in a mourner’s ears,<br /> + To soften all the field of fears,<br /> +To moisten valleys parched with pain.</p> +<p>And though thy tears will not awake<br /> + What lies beneath of young or fair<br /> + And sleeps so sound it draws no +breath,<br /> +Yet, watered thus, the sod may break<br /> + In flowers which sweeten all the air,<br /> + And fill with life the place of +death.</p> +<h2>THE HOUSE OF SLEEP</h2> +<p>When we have laid aside our last endeavour,<br /> + And said farewell to one or two that weep,<br /> +And issued from the house of life for ever,<br /> + To find a lodging in the house of sleep—</p> +<p>With eyes fast shut, in sunless chambers lying,<br /> + With folded arms unmoved upon the breast,<br /> +Beyond the noise of sorrow and of crying,<br /> + Beyond the dread of dreaming, shall we rest?</p> +<p>Or shall there come at last desire of waking,<br /> + To walk again on hillsides that we know,<br /> +When sunrise through the cold white mist is breaking,<br /> + Or in the stillness of the after-glow?</p> +<p>Shall there be yearning for the sound of voices,<br /> + The sight of faces, and the touch of hands,<br /> +The will that works, the spirit that rejoices,<br /> + The heart that feels, the mind that understands?</p> +<p>Shall dreams and memories crowding from the distance,<br /> + Shall ghosts of old ambition or of mirth,<br /> +Create for us a shadow of existence,<br /> + A dim reflection of the life of earth?</p> +<p>And being dead, and powerless to recover<br /> + The substance of the show whereon we gaze,<br /> +Shall we be likened to the hapless lover,<br /> + Who broods upon the unreturning days?</p> +<p>Not so: for we have known how swift to perish<br /> + Is man’s delight when youth and health take +wing,<br /> +Until the winter leaves him nought to cherish<br /> + But recollections of a vanished spring.</p> +<p>Dream as we may, desire of life shall never<br /> + Disturb our slumbers in the house of sleep.<br /> +Yet oh, to think we may not greet for ever<br /> + The one or two that, when we leave them, weep!</p> +<h2>THE OUTCAST’S FAREWELL</h2> +<p>The sun is banished,<br /> +The daylight vanished,<br /> +No rosy traces<br /> + Are left behind.<br /> +Here in the meadow<br /> +I watch the shadow<br /> +Of forms and faces<br /> + Upon your blind.</p> +<p>Through swift transitions,<br /> +In new positions,<br /> +My eyes still follow<br /> + One shape most fair.<br /> +My heart delaying<br /> +Awhile, is playing<br /> +With pleasures hollow,<br /> + Which mock despair.</p> +<p>I feel so lonely,<br /> +I long once only<br /> +To pass an hour<br /> + With you, O sweet!<br /> +To touch your fingers,<br /> +Where fragrance lingers<br /> +From some rare flower,<br /> + And kiss your feet.</p> +<p>But not this even<br /> +To me is given.<br /> +Of all sad mortals<br /> + Most sad am I,<br /> +Never to meet you,<br /> +Never to greet you,<br /> +Nor pass your portals<br /> + Before I die.</p> +<p>All men scorn me,<br /> +Not one will mourn me,<br /> +When from their city<br /> + I pass away.<br /> +Will you to-morrow<br /> +Recall with sorrow<br /> +Him whom with pity<br /> + You saw to-day?</p> +<p>Outcast and lonely,<br /> +One thing only<br /> +Beyond misgiving<br /> + I hold for true,<br /> +That, had you known me,<br /> +You would have shown me<br /> +A life worth living—<br /> + A life for you.</p> +<p>Yes: five years younger<br /> +My manhood’s hunger<br /> +Had you come filling<br /> + With plenty sweet,<br /> +My life so nourished,<br /> +Had grown and flourished,<br /> +Had God been willing<br /> + That we should meet.</p> +<p>How vain to fashion<br /> +From dreams and passion<br /> +The rich existence<br /> + Which might have been!<br /> +Can God’s own power<br /> +Recall the hour,<br /> +Or bridge the distance<br /> + That lies between?</p> +<p>Before the morning,<br /> +From pain and scorning<br /> +I sail death’s river<br /> + To sleep or hell.<br /> +To you is given<br /> +The life of heaven.<br /> +Farewell for ever,<br /> + Farewell, farewell!</p> +<h2>YET A LITTLE SLEEP</h2> +<p>Beside the drowsy streams that creep<br /> + Within this island of repose,<br /> + Oh, let us rest from cares and woes,<br /> +Oh, let us fold our hands to sleep!</p> +<p>Is it ignoble, then, to keep<br /> + Awhile from where the rough wind blows,<br /> + And all is strife, and no man knows<br /> +What end awaits him on the deep?</p> +<p>The voyager may rest awhile,<br /> + When rest invites, and yet may be<br /> + Neither a sluggard nor a +craven.<br /> +With strength renewed he quits the isle,<br /> + And putting out again to sea,<br /> + Makes sail for his desirèd +haven.</p> +<h2>LOST LIBERTY</h2> +<p>Of our own will we are not free,<br /> + When freedom lies within our power.<br /> + We wait for some decisive hour,<br /> +To rise and take our liberty.</p> +<p>Still we delay, content to be<br /> + Imprisoned in our own high tower.<br /> + What is it but a strong-built bower?<br /> +Ours are the warders, ours the key.</p> +<p>But we through indolence grow weak.<br /> + Our warders, fed with power so long,<br /> + Become at last our lords +indeed.<br /> +We vainly threaten, vainly seek<br /> + To move their ruth. The bars are strong.<br /> + We dash against them till we +bleed.</p> +<h2>AN AFTERTHOUGHT</h2> +<p>You found my life, a poor lame bird<br /> + That had no heart to sing,<br /> +You would not speak the magic word<br /> + To give it voice and wing.</p> +<p>Yet sometimes, dreaming of that hour,<br /> + I think, if you had known<br /> +How much my life was in your power,<br /> + It might have sung and flown.</p> +<h2>TO J. R.</h2> +<p>Last Sunday night I read the saddening story<br /> + Of the unanswered love of fair Elaine,<br /> +The ‘faith unfaithful’ and the joyless glory<br /> + Of Lancelot, ‘groaning in remorseful +pain.’</p> +<p>I thought of all those nights in wintry weather,<br /> + Those Sunday nights that seem not long ago,<br /> +When we two read our Poet’s words together,<br /> + Till summer warmth within our hearts did glow.</p> +<p>Ah, when shall we renew that bygone pleasure,<br /> + Sit down together at our Merlin’s feet,<br /> +Drink from one cup the overflowing measure,<br /> + And find, in sharing it, the draught more sweet?</p> +<p>That time perchance is far, beyond divining.<br /> + Till then we drain the ‘magic cup’ +apart;<br /> +Yet not apart, for hope and memory twining<br /> + Smile upon each, uniting heart to heart.</p> +<h2>THE TEMPTED SOUL</h2> +<p>Weak soul, by sense still led astray,<br /> + Why wilt thou parley with the foe?<br /> + He seeks to work thine overthrow,<br /> +And thou, poor fool! dost point the way.</p> +<p>Hast thou forgotten many a day,<br /> + When thou exulting forth didst go,<br /> + And ere the noon wert lying low,<br /> +A broken and defenceless prey?</p> +<p>If thou wouldst live, avoid his face;<br /> + Dwell in the wilderness apart,<br /> + And gather force for +vanquishing,<br /> +Ere thou returnest to his place.<br /> + Then arm, and with undaunted heart<br /> + Give battle, till he own thee +king.</p> +<h2>YOUTH RENEWED</h2> +<p>When one who has wandered out of the way<br /> + Which leads to the hills of joy,<br /> +Whose heart has grown both cold and grey,<br /> + Though it be but the heart of a boy—<br /> +When such a one turns back his feet<br /> + From the valley of shadow and pain,<br /> +Is not the sunshine passing sweet,<br /> + When a man grows young again?</p> +<p>How gladly he mounts up the steep hillside,<br /> + With strength that is born anew,<br /> +And in his veins, like a full springtide,<br /> + The blood streams through and through.<br /> +And far above is the summit clear,<br /> + And his heart to be there is fain,<br /> +And all too slowly it comes more near<br /> + When a man grows young again.</p> +<p>He breathes the pure sweet mountain breath,<br /> + And it widens all his heart,<br /> +And life seems no more kin to death,<br /> + Nor death the better part.<br /> +And in tones that are strong and rich and deep<br /> + He sings a grand refrain,<br /> +For the soul has awakened from mortal sleep,<br /> + When a man grows young again.</p> +<h2>VANITY OF VANITIES</h2> +<p>Be ye happy, if ye may,<br /> +In the years that pass away.<br /> +Ye shall pass and be forgot,<br /> +And your place shall know you not.</p> +<p>Other generations rise,<br /> +With the same hope in their eyes<br /> +That in yours is kindled now,<br /> +And the same light on their brow.</p> +<p>They shall see the selfsame sun<br /> +That your eyes now gaze upon,<br /> +They shall breathe the same sweet air,<br /> +And shall reck not who ye were.</p> +<p>Yet they too shall fade at last<br /> +In the twilight of the past,<br /> +They and you alike shall be<br /> +Lost from the world’s memory.</p> +<p>Then, while yet ye breathe and live,<br /> +Drink the cup that life can give.<br /> +Be ye happy, if ye may,<br /> +In the years that pass away,</p> +<p>Ere the golden bowl be broken,<br /> +Ere ye pass and leave no token,<br /> +Ere the silver cord be loosed,<br /> +Ere ye turn again to dust.</p> +<p>‘And shall this be all,’ ye cry,<br /> +‘But to eat and drink and die?<br /> +If no more than this there be,<br /> +Vanity of vanity!’</p> +<p>Yea, all things are vanity,<br /> +And what else but vain are ye?<br /> +Ye who boast yourselves the kings<br /> +Over all created things.</p> +<p>Kings! whence came your right to reign?<br /> +Ye shall be dethroned again.<br /> +Yet for this, your one brief hour,<br /> +Wield your mockery of power.</p> +<p>Dupes of Fate, that treads you down<br /> +Wear awhile your tinsel crown<br /> +Be ye happy, if ye may,<br /> +In the years that pass away.</p> +<h2>LOVE’S WORSHIP RESTORED</h2> +<p>O Love, thine empire is not dead,<br /> +Nor will we let thy worship go,<br /> +Although thine early flush be fled,<br /> +Thine ardent eyes more faintly glow,<br /> +And thy light wings be fallen slow<br /> +Since when as novices we came<br /> +Into the temple of thy name.</p> +<p>Not now with garlands in our hair,<br /> +And singing lips, we come to thee.<br /> +There is a coldness in the air,<br /> +A dulness on the encircling sea,<br /> +Which doth not well with songs agree.<br /> +And we forget the words we sang<br /> +When first to thee our voices rang.</p> +<p>When we recall that magic prime,<br /> +We needs must weep its early death.<br /> +How pleasant from thy towers the chime<br /> +Of bells, and sweet the incense breath<br /> +That rose while we, who kept thy faith,<br /> +Chanting our creed, and chanting bore<br /> +Our offerings to thine altar store!</p> +<p>Now are our voices out of tune,<br /> +Our gifts unworthy of thy name.<br /> +December frowns, in place of June.<br /> +Who smiled when to thy house we came,<br /> +We who came leaping, now are lame.<br /> +Dull ears and failing eyes are ours,<br /> +And who shall lead us to thy towers?</p> +<p>O hark! A sound across the air,<br /> +Which tells not of December’s cold,<br /> +A sound most musical and rare.<br /> +Thy bells are ringing as of old,<br /> +With silver throats and tongues of gold.<br /> +Alas! it is too sweet for truth,<br /> +An empty echo of our youth.</p> +<p>Nay, never echo spake so loud!<br /> +It is indeed thy bells that ring.<br /> +And lo, against the leaden cloud,<br /> +Thy towers! Once more we leap and spring,<br /> +Once more melodiously we sing,<br /> +We sing, and in our song forget<br /> +That winter lies around us yet.</p> +<p>Oh, what is winter, now we know,<br /> +Full surely, thou canst never fail?<br /> +Forgive our weak untrustful woe,<br /> +Which deemed thy glowing face grown pale.<br /> +We know thee, mighty to prevail.<br /> +Doubt and decrepitude depart,<br /> +And youth comes back into the heart.</p> +<p>O Love, who turnest frost to flame<br /> +With ardent and immortal eyes,<br /> +Whose spirit sorrow cannot tame,<br /> +Nor time subdue in any wise—<br /> +While sun and moon for us shall rise,<br /> +Oh, may we in thy service keep<br /> +Till in thy faith we fall asleep!</p> +<h2>BELOW HER WINDOW</h2> +<p>Where she sleeps, no moonlight shines<br /> + No pale beam unbidden creeps.<br /> +Darkest shade the place enshrines<br /> + Where she sleeps.</p> +<p>Like a diamond in the deeps<br /> + Of the rich unopened mines<br /> +There her lovely rest she keeps.</p> +<p>Though the jealous dark confines<br /> + All her beauty, Love’s heart leaps.<br /> +His unerring thought divines<br /> + Where she sleeps.</p> +<h2>REQUIEM</h2> +<p>For thee the birds shall never sing again,<br /> + Nor fresh green leaves come out upon the tree,<br /> +The brook shall no more murmur the refrain<br /> + For thee.</p> +<p>Thou liest underneath the windswept lea,<br /> + Thou dreamest not of pleasure or of pain,<br /> +Thou dreadest no to-morrow that shall be.</p> +<p>Deep rest is thine, unbroken by the rain,<br /> + Ay, or the thunder. Brother, canst thou see<br +/> +The tears that night and morning fall in vain<br /> + For thee?</p> +<h2>THOU ART QUEEN</h2> +<p>Thou art queen to every eye,<br /> + When the fairest maids convene.<br /> +Envy’s self can not deny<br /> + Thou art queen.</p> +<p>In thy step thy right is seen,<br /> + In thy beauty pure and high,<br /> +In thy grace of air and mien.</p> +<p>Thine unworthy vassal I,<br /> + Lay my hands thy hands between;<br /> +Kneeling at thy feet I cry<br /> + Thou art queen!</p> +<h2>IN TIME OF DOUBT</h2> +<p>‘In the shadow of Thy wings, O Lord of Hosts, whom I +extol,<br /> +I will put my trust for ever,’ so the kingly David +sings.<br /> +‘Thou shalt help me, Thou shalt save me, only<br /> + Thou shalt keep me whole,<br /> + In the shadow of Thy +wings.’</p> +<p>In our ears this voice triumphant, like a blowing trumpet, +rings,<br /> +But our hearts have heard another, as of funeral bells that +toll,<br /> +‘God of David where to find Thee?’ No reply the +question brings.</p> +<p>Shadows are there overhead, but they are of the clouds that +roll,<br /> + Blotting out the sun from sight, and overwhelming +earthly things.<br /> +Oh, that we might feel Thy presence! Surely we could rest +our soul<br /> + In the shadow of Thy wings.</p> +<h2>THE GARDEN OF SIN</h2> +<p>I know the garden-close of sin,<br /> + The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers,<br /> + I long have roamed the walks and bowers,<br /> +Desiring what no man shall win:</p> +<p>A secret place to shelter in,<br /> + When soon or late the angry powers<br /> + Come down to seek the wretch who cowers,<br /> +Expecting judgment to begin.</p> +<p>The pleasure long has passed away<br /> + From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread<br /> + My doom will find me where I +lie.<br /> +I dare not go, I dare not stay.<br /> + Without the walks, my hope is dead,<br /> + Within them, I myself must +die.</p> +<h2>URSULA</h2> +<p>There is a village in a southern land,<br /> +By rounded hills closed in on every hand.<br /> +The streets slope steeply to the market-square,<br /> +Long lines of white-washed houses, clean and fair,<br /> +With roofs irregular, and steps of stone<br /> +Ascending to the front of every one.<br /> +The people swarthy, idle, full of mirth,<br /> +Live mostly by the tillage of the earth.</p> +<p>Upon the northern hill-top, looking down,<br /> +Like some sequestered saint upon the town,<br /> +Stands the great convent.</p> +<p> On a summer night,<br /> +Ten years ago, the moon with rising light<br /> +Made all the convent towers as clear as day,<br /> +While still in deepest shade the village lay.<br /> +Both light and shadow with repose were filled,<br /> +The village sounds, the convent bells were stilled.<br /> +No foot in all the streets was now astir,<br /> +And in the convent none kept watch but her<br /> +Whom they called Ursula. The moonlight fell<br /> +Brightly around her in the lonely cell.<br /> +Her eyes were dark, and full of unshed woe,<br /> +Like mountain tarns which cannot overflow,<br /> +Surcharged with rain, and round about the eyes<br /> +Deep rings recorded sleepless nights, and cries<br /> +Stifled before their birth. Her brow was pale,<br /> +And like a marble temple in a vale<br /> +Of cypress trees, shone shadowed by her hair.<br /> +So still she was, that had you seen her there,<br /> +You might have thought you were beholding death.<br /> +Her lips were parted, but if any breath<br /> +Came from between them, it were hard to know<br /> +By any movement of her breast of snow.</p> +<p>But when the summer night was now far spent,<br /> +She kneeled upon the floor. Her head she leant<br /> +Down on the cold stone of the window-seat.<br /> +God knows if there were any vital heat<br /> +In those pale brows, or if they chilled the stone.<br /> +And as she knelt, she made a bitter moan,<br /> +With words that issued from a bitter soul,—<br /> +‘O Mary, Mother, and is this thy goal,<br /> +Thy peace which waiteth for the world-worn heart?<br /> +Is it for this I live and die apart<br /> +From all that once I knew? O Holy God,<br /> +Is this the blessed chastening of Thy rod,<br /> +Which only wounds to heal? Is this the cross<br /> +That I must carry, counting all for loss<br /> +Which once was precious in the world to me?<br /> +If Thou be God, blot out my memory,<br /> +And let me come, forsaking all, to Thee.<br /> +But here, though that old world beholds me not,<br /> +Here, though I seek Thee through my lonely lot,<br /> +Here, though I fast, do penance day by day,<br /> +Kneel at Thy feet, and ever watch and pray,<br /> +Beloved forms from that forsaken world<br /> +Revisit me. The pale blue smoke is curled<br /> +Up from the dwellings of the sons of men.<br /> +I see it, and all my heart turns back again<br /> +From seeking Thee, to find the forms I love.</p> +<p>‘Thou, with Thy saints abiding far above,<br /> +What canst Thou know of this, my earthly pain?<br /> +They said to me, Thou shalt be born again,<br /> +And learn that worldly things are nothing worth,<br /> +In that new state. O God, is this new birth,<br /> +Birth of the spirit dying to the flesh?<br /> +Are these the living waters which refresh<br /> +The thirsty spirit, that it thirst no more?<br /> +Still all my life is thirsting to the core.<br /> +Thou canst not satisfy, if this be Thou.<br /> +And yet I dream, or I remember how,<br /> +Before I came here, while I tarried yet<br /> +Among the friends they tell me to forget,<br /> +I never seemed to seek Thee, but I found<br /> +Thou wert in all the loveliness around,<br /> +And most of all in hearts that loved me well.</p> +<p>‘And then I came to seek Thee in this cell,<br /> +To crucify my worldliness and pride,<br /> +To lay my heart’s affections all aside,<br /> +As carnal hindrances which held my soul<br /> +From hasting unencumbered to her goal.<br /> +And all this have I done, or else have striven<br /> +To do, obeying the behest of Heaven,<br /> +And my reward is bitterness. I seem<br /> +To wander always in a feverish dream<br /> +On plains where there is only sun and sand,<br /> +No rock or tree in all the weary land,<br /> +My thirst unquenchable, my heart burnt dry.<br /> +And still in my parched throat I faintly cry,<br /> +Deliver me, O Lord: bow down Thine ear!</p> +<p>‘He will not answer me. He does not hear.<br /> +I am alone within the universe.<br /> +Oh for a strength of will to rise and curse<br /> +God, and defy Him here to strike me dead!<br /> +But my heart fails me, and I bow my head,<br /> +And cry to Him for mercy, still in vain.<br /> +Oh for some sudden agony of pain,<br /> +To make such insurrection in my soul<br /> +That I might burst all bondage of control,<br /> +Be for one moment as the beasts that die,<br /> +And pour my life in one blaspheming cry!’</p> +<p>The morning came, and all the convent towers<br /> +Were gilt with glory by the golden hours.<br /> +But where was Ursula? The sisters came<br /> +With quiet footsteps, calling her by name,<br /> +But there was none that answered. In her cell,<br /> +The glad, illuminating sunshine fell<br /> +On form and face, and showed that she was dead.<br /> +‘May Christ receive her soul!’ the sisters said,<br +/> +And spoke in whispers of her holy life,<br /> +And how God’s mercy spared her pain and strife,<br /> +And gave this quiet death. The face was still,<br /> +Like a tired child’s, that lies and sleeps its fill.</p> +<h2>UNDESIRED REVENGE</h2> +<p>Sorrow and sin have worked their will<br /> + For years upon your sovereign face,<br /> + And yet it keeps a faded trace<br /> +Of its unequalled beauty still,<br /> + As ruined sanctuaries hold<br /> + A crumbled trace of perfect mould<br /> +In shrines which saints no longer fill.</p> +<p>I knew you in your splendid morn,<br /> + Oh, how imperiously sweet!<br /> + I bowed and worshipped at your feet,<br /> +And you received my love with scorn.<br /> + Now I scorn you. It is a change,<br /> + When I consider it, how strange<br /> +That you, not I, should be forlorn.</p> +<p>Do you suppose I have no pain<br /> + To see you play this sorry part,<br /> + With faded face and broken heart,<br /> +And life lived utterly in vain?<br /> + Oh would to God that you once more<br /> + Might scorn me as you did of yore,<br /> +And I might worship you again!</p> +<h2>POETS</h2> +<p>Children of earth are we,<br /> +Lovers of land and sea,<br /> +Of hill, of brook, of tree,<br /> + Of all things fair;<br /> +Of all things dark or bright,<br /> +Born of the day and night,<br /> +Red rose and lily white<br /> + And dusky hair.</p> +<p>Yet not alone from earth<br /> +Do we derive our birth.<br /> +What were our singing worth<br /> + Were this the whole?<br /> +Somewhere from heaven afar<br /> +Hath dropped a fiery star,<br /> +Which makes us what we are,<br /> + Which is our soul.</p> +<h2>A PRESENTIMENT</h2> +<p>It seems a little word to say—<br /> + <i>Farewell</i>—but may it not, when said,<br +/> + Be like the kiss we give the dead,<br /> +Before they pass the doors for aye?</p> +<p>Who knows if, on some after day,<br /> + Your lips shall utter in its stead<br /> + A welcome, and the broken thread<br /> +Be joined again, the selfsame way?</p> +<p>The word is said, I turn to go,<br /> + But on the threshold seem to hear<br /> + A sound as of a passing bell,<br +/> +Tolling monotonous and slow,<br /> + Which strikes despair upon my ear,<br /> + And says it is a last +farewell.</p> +<h2>A BIRTHDAY GIFT</h2> +<p>No gift I bring but worship, and the love<br /> + Which all must bear to lovely souls and pure,<br /> + Those lights, that, when all else is dark, +endure;<br /> +Stars in the night, to lift our eyes above;</p> +<p>To lift our eyes and hearts, and make us move<br /> + Less doubtful, though our journey be obscure,<br /> + Less fearful of its ending, being sure<br /> +That they watch over us, where’er we rove.</p> +<p>And though my gift itself have little worth,<br /> + Yet worth it gains from her to whom ’tis +given,<br /> + As a weak flower gets colour from +the sun.<br /> +Or rather, as when angels walk the earth,<br /> + All things they look on take the look of +heaven—<br /> + For of those blessed angels thou +art one.</p> +<h2>CYCLAMEN</h2> +<p>I had a plant which would not thrive,<br /> + Although I watered it with care,<br /> + I could not save the blossoms fair,<br /> +Nor even keep the leaves alive.</p> +<p>I strove till it was vain to strive.<br /> + I gave it light, I gave it air,<br /> + I sought from skill and counsel rare<br /> +The means to make it yet survive.</p> +<p>A lady sent it me, to prove<br /> + She held my friendship in esteem;<br /> + I would not have it as she +said,<br /> +I wanted it to be for love;<br /> + And now not even friends we seem,<br /> + And now the cyclamen is dead.</p> +<h2>LOVE RECALLED IN SLEEP</h2> +<p>There was a time when in your face<br /> + There dwelt such power, and in your smile<br /> +I know not what of magic grace;<br /> + They held me captive for a while.</p> +<p>Ah, then I listened for your voice!<br /> + Like music every word did fall,<br /> +Making the hearts of men rejoice,<br /> + And mine rejoiced the most of all.</p> +<p>At sight of you, my soul took flame.<br /> + But now, alas! the spell is fled.<br /> +Is it that you are not the same,<br /> + Or only that my love is dead?</p> +<p>I know not—but last night I dreamed<br /> + That you were walking by my side,<br /> +And sweet, as once you were, you seemed,<br /> + And all my heart was glorified.</p> +<p>Your head against my shoulder lay,<br /> + And round your waist my arm was pressed,<br /> +And as we walked a well-known way,<br /> + Love was between us both confessed.</p> +<p>But when with dawn I woke from sleep,<br /> + And slow came back the unlovely truth,<br /> +I wept, as an old man might weep<br /> + For the lost paradise of youth.</p> +<h2>FOOTSTEPS IN THE STREET</h2> +<p>Oh, will the footsteps never be done?<br /> + The insolent feet<br /> + Thronging the street,<br /> +Forsaken now of the only one.</p> +<p>The only one out of all the throng,<br /> + Whose footfall I knew,<br /> + And could tell it so true,<br /> +That I leapt to see as she passed along,</p> +<p>As she passed along with her beautiful face,<br /> + Which knew full well<br /> + Though it did not tell,<br /> +That I was there in the window-space.</p> +<p>Now my sense is never so clear.<br /> + It cheats my heart,<br /> + Making me start<br /> +A thousand times, when she is not near.</p> +<p>When she is not near, but so far away,<br /> + I could not come<br /> + To the place of her home,<br /> +Though I travelled and sought for a month and a day.</p> +<p>Do you wonder then if I wish the street<br /> + Were grown with grass,<br /> + And no foot might pass<br /> +Till she treads it again with her sacred feet?</p> +<h2>FOR A PRESENT OF ROSES</h2> +<p>Crimson and cream and white—<br /> + My room is a garden of roses!<br /> +Centre and left and right,<br /> + Three several splendid posies.</p> +<p>As the sender is, they are sweet,<br /> + These lovely gifts of your sending,<br /> +With the stifling summer heat<br /> + Their delicate fragrance blending.</p> +<p>What more can my heart desire?<br /> + Has it lost the power to be grateful?<br /> +Is it only a burnt-out fire,<br /> + Whose ashes are dull and hateful?</p> +<p>Yet still to itself it doth say,<br /> + ‘I should have loved far better<br /> +To have found, coming in to-day,<br /> + The merest scrap of a letter.’</p> +<h2>IN TIME OF SORROW</h2> +<p>Despair is in the suns that shine,<br /> + And in the rains that fall,<br /> +This sad forsaken soul of mine<br /> + Is weary of them all.</p> +<p>They fall and shine on alien streets<br /> + From those I love and know.<br /> +I cannot hear amid the heats<br /> + The North Sea’s freshening flow</p> +<p>The people hurry up and down,<br /> + Like ghosts that cannot lie;<br /> +And wandering through the phantom town<br /> + The weariest ghost am I.</p> +<h2>A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE—FROM VICTOR HUGO</h2> +<p>If a pleasant lawn there grow<br /> + By the showers caressed,<br /> +Where in all the seasons blow<br /> + Flowers gaily dressed,<br /> +Where by handfuls one may win<br /> +Lilies, woodbine, jessamine,<br /> +I will make a path therein<br /> + For thy feet to rest.</p> +<p>If there live in honour’s sway<br /> + An all-loving breast<br /> +Whose devotion cannot stray,<br /> + Never gloom-oppressed—<br /> +If this noble breast still wake<br /> +For a worthy motive’s sake,<br /> +There a pillow I will make<br /> + For thy head to rest.</p> +<p>If there be a dream of love,<br /> + Dream that God has blest,<br /> +Yielding daily treasure-trove<br /> + Of delightful zest,<br /> +With the scent of roses filled,<br /> +With the soul’s communion thrilled,<br /> +There, oh! there a nest I’ll build<br /> + For thy heart to rest.</p> +<h2>THE FIDDLER</h2> +<p>There’s a fiddler in the street,<br /> + And the children all are dancing:<br /> +Two dozen lightsome feet<br /> + Springing and prancing.</p> +<p>Pleasure he gives to you,<br /> + Dance then, and spare not!<br /> +For the poor fiddler’s due,<br /> + Know not and care not.</p> +<p>While you are prancing,<br /> + Let the fiddler play.<br /> +When you’re tired of dancing<br /> + He may go away.</p> +<h2>THE FIRST MEETING</h2> +<p>Last night for the first time, O Heart’s Delight,<br /> + I held your hand a moment in my own,<br /> + The dearest moment which my soul has known,<br /> +Since I beheld and loved you at first sight.</p> +<p>I left you, and I wandered in the night,<br /> + Under the rain, beside the ocean’s moan.<br /> + All was black dark, but in the north alone<br /> +There was a glimmer of the Northern Light.</p> +<p>My heart was singing like a happy bird,<br /> + Glad of the present, and from forethought free,<br +/> +Save for one note amid its music heard:<br /> + God grant, whatever end of this may be,<br /> +That when the tale is told, the final word<br /> + May be of peace and benison to thee.</p> +<h2>A CRITICISM OF CRITICS</h2> +<p>How often have the critics, trained<br /> + To look upon the sky<br /> +Through telescopes securely chained,<br /> + Forgot the naked eye.</p> +<p>Within the compass of their glass<br /> + Each smallest star they knew,<br /> +And not a meteor could pass<br /> + But they were looking through.</p> +<p>When a new planet shed its rays<br /> + Beyond their field of vision,<br /> +And simple folk ran out to gaze,<br /> + They laughed in high derision.</p> +<p>They railed upon the senseless throng<br /> + Who cheered the brave new light.<br /> +And yet the learned men were wrong,<br /> + The simple folk were right.</p> +<h2>MY LADY</h2> +<p>My Lady of all ladies! Queen by right<br /> + Of tender beauty; full of gentle moods;<br /> + With eyes that look divine beatitudes,<br /> +Large eyes illumined with her spirit’s light;</p> +<p>Lips that are lovely both by sound and sight,<br /> + Breathing such music as the dove, which broods<br /> + Within the dark and silence of the woods,<br /> +Croons to the mate that is her heart’s delight.</p> +<p>Where is a line, in cloud or wave or hill,<br /> + To match the curve which rounds her soft-flushed +cheek?<br /> + A colour, in the sky of morn or of +even,<br /> +To match that flush? Ah, let me now be still!<br /> + If of her spirit I should strive to speak,<br /> + I should come short, as earth +comes short of heaven.</p> +<h2>PARTNERSHIP IN FAME</h2> +<p>Love, when the present is become the past,<br /> + And dust has covered all that now is new,<br /> + When many a fame has faded out of view,<br /> +And many a later fame is fading fast—</p> +<p>If then these songs of mine might hope to last,<br /> + Which sing most sweetly when they sing of you,<br /> + Though queen and empress wore oblivion’s +hue,<br /> +Your loveliness would not be overcast.</p> +<p>Now, while the present stays with you and me,<br /> + In love’s copartnery our hearts combine,<br /> + Life’s loss and gain in +equal shares to take.<br /> +Partners in fame our memories then would be:<br /> + Your name remembered for my songs; and mine<br /> + Still unforgotten for your +sweetness’ sake.</p> +<h2>A CHRISTMAS FANCY</h2> +<p> Early on Christmas Day,<br +/> + Love, as awake I lay,<br /> +And heard the Christmas bells ring sweet and clearly,<br /> + My heart stole through the +gloom<br /> + Into your silent room,<br /> +And whispered to your heart, ‘I love you dearly.’</p> +<p> There, in the dark +profound,<br /> + Your heart was sleeping sound,<br +/> +And dreaming some fair dream of summer weather.<br /> + At my heart’s word it +woke,<br /> + And, ere the morning broke,<br /> +They sang a Christmas carol both together.</p> +<p> Glory to God on high!<br +/> + Stars of the morning sky,<br /> +Sing as ye sang upon the first creation,<br /> + When all the Sons of God<br /> + Shouted for joy abroad,<br /> +And earth was laid upon a sure foundation.</p> +<p> Glory to God again!<br /> + Peace and goodwill to men,<br /> +And kindly feeling all the wide world over,<br /> + Where friends with joy and +mirth<br /> + Meet round the Christmas +hearth,<br /> +Or dreams of home the solitary rover.</p> +<p> Glory to God! True +hearts,<br /> + Lo, now the dark departs,<br /> +And morning on the snow-clad hills grows grey.<br /> + Oh, may love’s dawning +light<br /> + Kindled from loveless night,<br /> +Shine more and more unto the perfect day!</p> +<h2>THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR</h2> +<p>Oh, who may this dead warrior be<br /> + That to his grave they bring?<br /> +’Tis William, Duke of Normandy,<br /> + The conqueror and king.</p> +<p>Across the sea, with fire and sword,<br /> + The English crown he won;<br /> +The lawless Scots they owned him lord,<br /> + But now his rule is done.</p> +<p>A king should die from length of years,<br /> + A conqueror in the field,<br /> +A king amid his people’s tears,<br /> + A conqueror on his shield.</p> +<p>But he, who ruled by sword and flame,<br /> + Who swore to ravage France,<br /> +Like some poor serf without a name,<br /> + Has died by mere mischance.</p> +<p>To Caen now he comes to sleep,<br /> + The minster bells they toll,<br /> +A solemn sound it is and deep,<br /> + May God receive his soul!</p> +<p>With priests that chant a wailing hymn,<br /> + He slowly comes this way,<br /> +To where the painted windows dim<br /> + The lively light of day.</p> +<p>He enters in. The townsfolk stand<br /> + In reverent silence round,<br /> +To see the lord of all the land<br /> + Take house in narrow ground.</p> +<p>While, in the dwelling-place he seeks,<br /> + To lay him they prepare,<br /> +One Asselin FitzArthur speaks,<br /> + And bids the priests forbear.</p> +<p>‘The ground whereon this abbey stands<br /> + Is mine,’ he cries, ‘by right.<br /> +’Twas wrested from my father’s hands<br /> + By lawlessness and might.</p> +<p>Duke William took the land away,<br /> + To build this minster high.<br /> +Bury the robber where ye may,<br /> + But here he shall not lie.’</p> +<p>The holy brethren bid him cease;<br /> + But he will not be stilled,<br /> +And soon the house of God’s own peace<br /> + With noise and strife is filled.</p> +<p>And some cry shame on Asselin,<br /> + Such tumult to excite,<br /> +Some say, it was Duke William’s sin,<br /> + And Asselin does right.</p> +<p>But he round whom their quarrels keep,<br /> + Lies still and takes no heed.<br /> +No strife can mar a dead man’s sleep,<br /> + And this is rest indeed.</p> +<p>Now Asselin at length is won<br /> + The land’s full price to take,<br /> +And let the burial rites go on,<br /> + And so a peace they make.</p> +<p>When Harold, king of Englishmen,<br /> + Was killed in Senlac fight,<br /> +Duke William would not yield him then<br /> + A Christian grave or rite.</p> +<p>Because he fought for keeping free<br /> + His kingdom and his throne,<br /> +No Christian rite nor grave had he<br /> + In land that was his own.</p> +<p>And just it is, this Duke unkind,<br /> + Now he has come to die,<br /> +In plundered land should hardly find<br /> + Sufficient space to lie.</p> +<h2>THE DEATH OF WILLIAM RUFUS</h2> +<p>The Red King’s gone a-hunting, in the woods his father +made<br /> +For the tall red deer to wander through the thicket and the +glade,<br /> +The King and Walter Tyrrel, Prince Henry and the rest<br /> +Are all gone out upon the sport the Red King loves the best.</p> +<p>Last night, when they were feasting in the royal +banquet-hall,<br /> +De Breteuil told a dream he had, that evil would befall<br /> +If the King should go to-morrow to the hunting of the deer,<br /> +And while he spoke, the fiery face grew well-nigh pale to +hear.</p> +<p>He drank until the fire came back, and all his heart was +brave,<br /> +Then bade them keep such woman’s tales to tell an English +slave,<br /> +For he would hunt to-morrow, though a thousand dreams foretold<br +/> +All the sorrow and the mischief De Breteuil’s brain could +hold.</p> +<p>So the Red King’s gone a-hunting, for all that they +could do,<br /> +And an arrow in the greenwood made De Breteuil’s dream come +true.<br /> +They said ’twas Walter Tyrrel, and so it may have been,<br +/> +But there’s many walk the forest when the leaves are thick +and green.</p> +<p>There’s many walk the forest, who would gladly see the +sport,<br /> +When the King goes out a-hunting with the nobles of his court,<br +/> +And when the nobles scatter, and the King is left alone,<br /> +There are thickets where an English slave might string his bow +unknown.</p> +<p>The forest laws are cruel, and the time is hard as steel<br /> +To English slaves, trod down and bruised beneath the Norman +heel.<br /> +Like worms they writhe, but by-and-by the Norman heel may +learn<br /> +There are worms that carry poison, and that are not slow to +turn.</p> +<p>The lords came back, by one and two, from straying far +apart,<br /> +And they found the Red King lying with an arrow in his heart.<br +/> +Who should have done the deed, but him by whom it first was +seen?<br /> +So they said ’twas Walter Tyrrel, and so it may have +been.</p> +<p>They cried upon Prince Henry, the brother of the King,<br /> +And he came up the greenwood, and rode into the ring.<br /> +He looked upon his brother’s face, and then he turned +away,<br /> +And galloped off to Winchester, where all the treasure lay.</p> +<p>‘God strike me,’ cried De Breteuil, ‘but +brothers’ blood is thin!<br /> +And why should ours be thicker that are neither kith nor +kin?’<br /> +They spurred their horses in the flank, and swiftly thence they +passed,<br /> +But Walter Tyrrel lingered and forsook his liege the last.</p> +<p>They say it was enchantment, that fixed him to the scene,<br +/> +To look upon his traitor’s work, and so it may have +been.<br /> +But presently he got to horse, and took the seaward way,<br /> +And all alone within the glade, in state the Red King lay.</p> +<p>Then a creaking cart came slowly, which a charcoal-burner +drove.<br /> +He found the dead man lying, a ghastly treasure-trove;<br /> +He raised the corpse for charity, and on his wagon laid,<br /> +And so the Red King drove in state from out the forest glade.</p> +<p>His hair was like a yellow flame about the bloated face,<br /> +The blood had stained his tunic from the fatal arrow-place.<br /> +Not good to look upon was he, in life, nor yet when dead.<br /> +The driver of the cart drove on, and never turned his head.</p> +<p>When next the nobles throng at night the royal +banquet-hall,<br /> +Another King will rule the feast, the drinking and the brawl,<br +/> +While Walter Tyrrel walks alone upon the Norman shore,<br /> +And the Red King in the forest will chase the deer no more.</p> +<h2>AFTER WATERLOO</h2> +<p>On the field of Waterloo we made Napoleon rue<br /> + That ever out of Elba he decided for to come,<br /> +For we finished him that day, and he had to run away,<br /> + And yield himself to Maitland on the +Billy-ruffium.</p> +<p>’Twas a stubborn fight, no doubt, and the fortune +wheeled about,<br /> + And the brave Mossoos kept coming most uncomfortable +near,<br /> +And says Wellington the hero, as his hopes went down to zero,<br +/> + ‘I wish to God that Blooker or the night was +only here!’</p> +<p>But Blooker came at length, and we broke Napoleon’s +strength,<br /> + And the flower of his army—that’s the +old Imperial Guard—<br /> +They made a final sally, but they found they could not rally,<br +/> + And at last they broke and fled, after fighting +bitter hard.</p> +<p>Now Napoleon he had thought, when a British ship he sought,<br +/> + And gave himself uncalled-for, in a manner, you +might say,<br /> +He’d be treated like a king with the best of every +thing,<br /> + And maybe have a palace for to live in every +day.</p> +<p>He was treated very well, as became a noble swell,<br /> + But we couldn’t leave him loose, not in Europe +anywhere,<br /> +For we knew he would be making some gigantic undertaking,<br /> + While the trustful British lion was reposing in his +lair.</p> +<p>We tried him once before near the European shore,<br /> + Having planted him in Elba, where he promised to +remain,<br /> +But when he saw his chance, why, he bolted off to France,<br /> + And he made a lot of trouble—but it +wouldn’t do again.</p> +<p>Says the Prince to him, ‘You know, far away you’ll +have to go,<br /> + To a pleasant little island off the coast of +Africay,<br /> +Where they tell me that the view of the ocean deep and blue,<br +/> + Is remarkable extensive, and it’s there +you’ll have to stay.’</p> +<p>So Napoleon wiped his eye, and he wished the Prince +good-bye,<br /> + And being stony-broke, made the best of it he +could,<br /> +And they kept him snugly pensioned, where his Royal Highness +mentioned,<br /> + And Napoleon Boneyparty is provided for for +good.</p> +<p>Now of that I don’t complain, but I ask and ask in +vain,<br /> + Why me, a British soldier, as has lost a useful +arm<br /> +Through fighting of the foe, when the trumpets ceased to blow,<br +/> + Should be forced to feed the pigs on a little Surrey +farm,</p> +<p>While him as fought with us, and created such a fuss,<br /> + And in the whole of Europe did a mighty deal of +harm,<br /> +Should be kept upon a rock, like a precious fighting cock,<br /> + And be found in beer and baccy, which would suit me +to a charm?</p> +<h2>DEATH AT THE WINDOW</h2> +<p>This morning, while we sat in talk<br /> + Of spring and apple-bloom,<br /> +Lo! Death stood in the garden walk,<br /> + And peered into the room.</p> +<p>Your back was turned, you did not see<br /> + The shadow that he made.<br /> +He bent his head and looked at me;<br /> + It made my soul afraid.</p> +<p>The words I had begun to speak<br /> + Fell broken in the air.<br /> +You saw the pallor of my cheek,<br /> + And turned—but none was there.</p> +<p>He came as sudden as a thought,<br /> + And so departed too.<br /> +What made him leave his task unwrought?<br /> + It was the sight of you.</p> +<p>Though Death but seldom turns aside<br /> + From those he means to take,<br /> +He would not yet our hearts divide,<br /> + For love and pity’s sake.</p> +<h2>MAKE-BELIEVES</h2> +<p>When I was young and well and glad,<br /> +I used to play at being sad;<br /> +Now youth and health are fled away,<br /> +At being glad I sometimes play.</p> +<h2>A COINCIDENCE</h2> +<p>Every critic in the town<br /> +Runs the minor poet down;<br /> +Every critic—don’t you know it?<br /> +Is himself a minor poet.</p> +<h2>ART’S DISCIPLINE</h2> +<p>Long since I came into the school of Art,<br /> +A child in works, but not a child in heart.<br /> +Slowly I learn, by her instruction mild,<br /> +To be in works a man, in heart a child.</p> +<h2>THE TRUE LIBERAL</h2> +<p>The truest Liberal is he<br /> +Who sees the man in each degree,<br /> +Who merit in a churl can prize,<br /> +And baseness in an earl despise,<br /> +Yet censures baseness in a churl,<br /> +And dares find merit in an earl.</p> +<h2>A LATE GOOD NIGHT</h2> +<p>My lamp is out, my task is done,<br /> + And up the stair with lingering feet<br /> +I climb. The staircase clock strikes one.<br /> + Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!</p> +<p>My solitary room I gain.<br /> + A single star makes incomplete<br /> +The blackness of the window pane.<br /> + Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!</p> +<p>Dim and more dim its sparkle grows,<br /> + And ere my head the pillows meet,<br /> +My lids are fain themselves to close.<br /> + Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!</p> +<p>My lips no other words can say,<br /> + But still they murmur and repeat<br /> +To you, who slumber far away,<br /> + Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!</p> +<h2>AN EXILE’S SONG</h2> +<p>My soul is like a prisoned lark,<br /> + That sings and dreams of liberty,<br /> +The nights are long, the days are dark,<br /> + Away from home, away from thee!</p> +<p>My only joy is in my dreams,<br /> + When I thy loving face can see.<br /> +How dreary the awakening seems,<br /> + Away from home, away from thee!</p> +<p>At dawn I hasten to the shore,<br /> + To gaze across the sparkling sea—<br /> +The sea is bright to me no more,<br /> + Which parts me from my home and thee.</p> +<p>At twilight, when the air grows chill,<br /> + And cold and leaden is the sea,<br /> +My tears like bitter dews distil,<br /> + Away from home, away from thee.</p> +<p>I could not live, did I not know<br /> + That thou art ever true to me,<br /> +I could not bear a doubtful woe,<br /> + Away from home, away from thee.</p> +<p>I could not live, did I not hear<br /> + A voice that sings the day to be,<br /> +When hitherward a ship shall steer,<br /> + To bear me back to home and thee.</p> +<p>Oh, when at last that day shall break<br /> + In sunshine on the dancing sea,<br /> +It will be brighter for the sake<br /> + Of my return to home and thee!</p> +<h2>FOR SCOTLAND</h2> +<p>Beyond the Cheviots and the Tweed,<br /> + Beyond the Firth of Forth,<br /> +My memory returns at speed<br /> + To Scotland and the North.</p> +<p>For still I keep, and ever shall,<br /> + A warm place in my heart for Scotland,<br /> +Scotland, Scotland,<br /> + A warm place in my heart for Scotland.</p> +<p>Oh, cruel off St. Andrew’s Bay<br /> + The winds are wont to blow!<br /> +They either rest or gently play,<br /> + When there in dreams I go.</p> +<p>And there I wander, young again,<br /> + With limbs that do not tire,<br /> +Along the coast to Kittock’s Den,<br /> + With whinbloom all afire.</p> +<p>I climb the Spindle Rock, and lie<br /> + And take my doubtful ease,<br /> +Between the ocean and the sky,<br /> + Derided by the breeze.</p> +<p>Where coloured mushrooms thickly grow,<br /> + Like flowers of brittle stalk,<br /> +To haunted Magus Muir I go,<br /> + By Lady Catherine’s Walk.</p> +<p>In dreams the year I linger through,<br /> + In that familiar town,<br /> +Where all the youth I ever knew,<br /> + Burned up and flickered down.</p> +<p>There’s not a rock that fronts the sea,<br /> + There’s not an inland grove,<br /> +But has a tale to tell to me<br /> + Of friendship or of love.</p> +<p>And so I keep, and ever shall,<br /> + The best place in my heart for Scotland,<br /> +Scotland, Scotland,<br /> + The best place in my heart for Scotland!</p> +<h2>THE HAUNTED CHAMBER</h2> +<p>Life is a house where many chambers be,<br /> + And all the doors will yield to him who tries,<br /> + Save one, whereof men say, behind it lies<br /> +The haunting secret. He who keeps the key,</p> +<p>Keeps it securely, smiles perchance to see<br /> + The eager hands stretched out to clutch the +prize,<br /> + Or looks with pity in the yearning eyes,<br /> +And is half moved to let the secret free.</p> +<p>And truly some at every hour pass through,<br /> + Pass through, and tread upon that solemn floor,<br +/> + Yet come not back to tell what +they have found.<br /> +We will not importune, as others do,<br /> + With tears and cries, the keeper of the door,<br /> + But wait till our appointed hour +comes round.</p> +<h2>NIGHTFALL</h2> +<p>Let me sleep. The day is past,<br /> + And the folded shadows keep<br /> +Weary mortals safe and fast.<br /> + Let me sleep.</p> +<p>I am all too tired to weep<br /> + For the sunlight of the Past<br /> +Sunk within the drowning deep.</p> +<p>Treasured vanities I cast<br /> + In an unregarded heap.<br /> +Time has given rest at last.<br /> + Let me sleep.</p> +<h2>IN TIME OF SICKNESS</h2> +<p>Lost Youth, come back again!<br /> +Laugh at weariness and pain.<br /> +Come not in dreams, but come in truth,<br /> + Lost Youth.</p> +<p>Sweetheart of long ago,<br /> +Why do you haunt me so?<br /> +Were you not glad to part,<br /> + Sweetheart?</p> +<p>Still Death, that draws so near,<br /> +Is it hope you bring, or fear?<br /> +Is it only ease of breath,<br /> + Still Death?</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> Mr. Butler lectures on Physics, +or, as it is called in Scotland, Natural Philosophy.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT F. 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