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diff --git a/1333.txt b/1333.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7433168 --- /dev/null +++ b/1333.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4268 @@ +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*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1894 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +ROBERT F. MURRAY +(AUTHOR OF THE SCARLET GOWN) +HIS POEMS: WITH MEMOIR + + +BY +ANDREW LANG + +LONDON +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. +NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16TH STREET + +1894 + +Edinburgh: T. AND A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty + +THE VOLUME +IS DEDICATED TO +J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN, ESQ. +MOST INDULGENT OF MASTERS +AND KINDEST OF +FRIENDS + + + + +R. F. MURRAY--1863-1893 + + +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 _The Scarlet Gown_, 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, [Greek text], 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. + +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. + +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. + +The life and the letters of Murray remind one strongly of Thomas +Davidson's, as published in that admirable and touching biography, _A +Scottish Probationer_. 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 _St. Andrews +University Magazine_ 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 _Cornhill Magazine_ 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, _The Banks of the Yang-tse-kiang_. +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 Andre Chenier, 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 _genre_. 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 _non est tanti_, 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 _Punch_, 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. + +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 _gagne-pain_. 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. + +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 _The Scarlet Gown_, 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 +_Gaudeamuses_--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. + +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. + +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 _farouche_ 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. + +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). + + '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. + + '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.' + +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. + +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. + +No longer a schoolboy, he was now a _Bejant_ (_bec jaune_?), 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 _esprit +de corps_ 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 Paedagogium. 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 _bunks_. 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. + +It was thus to a university with ancient associations, with a _religio +loci_, 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! + +Though, like a descendant of Archbishop Sharp, and a winner of the +archery medal, I boast myself _Sancti Leonardi alumnus addictissimus_, 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 _bunks_. 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. + +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 _solatia_--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. + + + +THE WASTER SINGING AT MIDNIGHT. +AFTER LONGFELLOW. + + + Loud he sang the song Ta Phershon + For his personal diversion, + Sang the chorus U-pi-dee, + Sang about the Barley Bree. + + In that hour when all is quiet + Sang he songs of noise and riot, + In a voice so loud and queer + That I wakened up to hear. + + Songs that distantly resembled + Those one hears from men assembled + In the old Cross Keys Hotel, + Only sung not half so well. + + For the time of this ecstatic + Amateur was most erratic, + And he only hit the key + Once in every melody. + + If "he wot prigs wot isn't his'n + Ven he's cotched is sent to prison," + He who murders sleep might well + Adorn a solitary cell. + + But, if no obliging peeler + Will arrest this midnight squealer, + My own peculiar arm of might + Must undertake the job to-night. + +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:-- + + + +TO NUMBER 27x. + + + Beloved Peeler! friend and guide + And guard of many a midnight reeler, + None worthier, though the world is wide, + Beloved Peeler. + + Thou from before the swift four-wheeler + Didst pluck me, and didst thrust aside + A strongly built provision-dealer + + Who menaced me with blows, and cried + 'Come on! come on!' O Paian, Healer, + Then but for thee I must have died, + Beloved Peeler! + +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:-- + + + +THE WASTER'S PRESENTIMENT + + + I shall be spun. There is a voice within + Which tells me plainly I am all undone; + For though I toil not, neither do I spin, + I shall be spun. + + April approaches. I have not begun + Schwegler or Mackintosh, nor will begin + Those lucid works till April 21. + + So my degree I do not hope to win, + For not by ways like mine degrees are won; + And though, to please my uncle, I go in, + I shall be spun. + +Here we must quote, from _The Scarlet Gown_, one of his most tender +pieces of affectionate praise bestowed on his favourite city:-- + + + +A DECEMBER DAY + + + Blue, blue is the sea to-day, + Warmly the light + Sleeps on St. Andrews Bay-- + Blue, fringed with white. + + That's no December sky! + Surely 'tis June + Holds now her state on high, + Queen of the noon. + + Only the tree-tops bare + Crowning the hill, + Clear-cut in perfect air, + Warn us that still + + Winter, the aged chief, + Mighty in power, + Exiles the tender leaf, + Exiles the flower. + + Is there a heart to-day, + A heart that grieves + For flowers that fade away, + For fallen leaves? + + Oh, not in leaves or flowers + Endures the charm + That clothes those naked towers + With love-light warm. + + O dear St. Andrews Bay, + Winter or Spring + Gives not nor takes away + Memories that cling + + All round thy girdling reefs, + That walk thy shore, + Memories of joys and griefs + Ours evermore. + +'I have _not_ 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 _he_ 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. + +'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.' {1} + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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:-- + + 'A sweet life and an idle + He lives from year to year, + Unknowing bit or bridle, + There are no Proctors here.' + +In Greek, despite his enthusiastic admiration of the professor, Mr. +Campbell, he did not much enjoy himself:-- + + 'Thrice happy are those + Who ne'er heard of Greek Prose-- + Or Greek Poetry either, as far as that goes; + For Liddell and Scott + Shall cumber them not, + Nor Sargent nor Sidgwick shall break their repose. + + But I, late at night, + By the very bad light + Of very bad gas, must painfully write + Some stuff that a Greek + With his delicate cheek + Would smile at as 'barbarous'--faith, he well might. + + * * * * * + + So away with Greek Prose, + The source of my woes! + (This metre's too tough, I must draw to a close.) + May Sargent be drowned + In the ocean profound, + And Sidgwick be food for the carrion crows!' + +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. + +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:-- + + + +[GREEK TITLE] + + + Ever to be the best. To lead + In whatsoever things are true; + Not stand among the halting crew, + The faint of heart, the feeble-kneed, + Who tarry for a certain sign + To make them follow with the rest-- + Oh, let not their reproach be thine! + But ever be the best. + + For want of this aspiring soul, + Great deeds on earth remain undone, + But, sharpened by the sight of one, + Many shall press toward the goal. + Thou running foremost of the throng, + The fire of striving in thy breast, + Shalt win, although the race be long, + And ever be the best. + + And wilt thou question of the prize? + 'Tis not of silver or of gold, + Nor in applauses manifold, + But hidden in the heart it lies: + To know that but for thee not one + Had run the race or sought the quest, + To know that thou hast ever done + And ever been the best. + +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.' + + + +IMITATED FROM WORDSWORTH + + + He brought a team from Inversnaid + To play our Third Fifteen, + A man whom none of us had played + And very few had seen. + + He weighed not less than eighteen stone, + And to a practised eye + He seemed as little fit to run + As he was fit to fly. + + He looked so clumsy and so slow, + And made so little fuss; + But he got in behind--and oh, + The difference to us! + +He was never a golfer; one of his best light pieces, published later in +the _Saturday Review_, dealt in kindly ridicule of _The City of Golf_. + + 'Would you like to see a city given over, + Soul and body, to a tyrannising game? + If you would, there's little need to be a rover, + For St. Andrews is the abject city's name.' + +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. + + 'And I fear we never again shall go, + The cold and weariness scorning, + For a ten mile walk through the frozen snow + At one o'clock in the morning: + + Out by Cameron, in by the Grange, + And to bed as the moon descended . . . + To you and to me there has come a change, + And the days of our youth are ended.' + +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, _La Messe des Morts_, 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 _a triste_ good company, tender +and true, as the lovers of whom M. Anatole France has written (_La Messe +des Morts_). 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-- + + 'The mist hangs round the College tower, + The ghostly street + Is silent at this midnight hour, + Save for my feet. + + With none to see, with none to hear, + Downward I go + To where, beside the rugged pier, + The sea sings low. + + It sings a tune well loved and known + In days gone by, + When often here, and not alone, + I watched the sky.' + +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 _College Echoes_-- + + + +A TENNYSONIAN FRAGMENT + + + So in the village inn the poet dwelt. + His honey-dew was gone; only the pouch, + His cousin's work, her empty labour, left. + But still he sniffed it, still a fragrance clung + And lingered all about the broidered flowers. + Then came his landlord, saying in broad Scotch, + 'Smoke plug, mon,' whom he looked at doubtfully. + Then came the grocer saying, 'Hae some twist + At tippence,' whom he answered with a qualm. + But when they left him to himself again, + Twist, like a fiend's breath from a distant room + Diffusing through the passage, crept; the smell + Deepening had power upon him, and he mixt + His fancies with the billow-lifted bay + Of Biscay, and the rollings of a ship. + + And on that night he made a little song, + And called his song 'The Song of Twist and Plug,' + And sang it; scarcely could he make or sing. + + 'Rank is black plug, though smoked in wind and rain; + And rank is twist, which gives no end of pain; + I know not which is ranker, no, not I. + + 'Plug, art thou rank? then milder twist must be; + Plug, thou art milder: rank is twist to me. + O twist, if plug be milder, let me buy. + + 'Rank twist, that seems to make me fade away, + Rank plug, that navvies smoke in loveless clay, + I know not which is ranker, no, not I. + + 'I fain would purchase flake, if that could be; + I needs must purchase plug, ah, woe is me! + Plug and a cutty, a cutty, let me buy. + +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 _Tom Brown_ long ago: +he was not, however, in the running. + +Politics often inspire the electors; occasionally (I have heard) grave +seniors use their influence, mainly for reasons of academic policy. + +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! + +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 _College Echoes_. + +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 _better_ 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. + +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? + +'My blood-curdling romance I offered to the editor of _Longman's +Magazine_, 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, + + 'Waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.' + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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 _Pickwick_ 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 _Pickwick_ +and a translation of old French sermons about Madame, and Conde, and +people of whom few modern readers ever heard. + +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.' + +Murray now called on the Editor of the _Scottish Leader_, 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 +_Athenaeum_, the _Academy_, 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. + +But the literary _follet_, 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. + +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 _Scottish +Leader_, and he withdrew from its service. + +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. + +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 _The Heart of Midlothian_, '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. + +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 _College Echoes_, 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 _Longman's Magazine_, to which he contributed +occasionally. + +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. + + 'To aching eyes each landscape lowers, + To feverish pulse each gale blows chill, + And Araby's or Eden's bowers + Were barren as this moorland hill,' + +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. + +He was not wholly idle. He wrote a number of short pieces of verse in +_Punch_, and two or three in the _St. James's Gazette_. Other work, no +doubt, he planned, but his strength was gone. In 1891 his book, _The +Scarlet Gown_, 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 _alumnus addictissimus_. + +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. + +They certainly celebrated + + 'The faith our fathers fought for, + The kings our fathers knew,' + +in a different tone in the North. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +MOONLIGHT NORTH AND SOUTH + + +Love, we have heard together + The North Sea sing his tune, +And felt the wind's wild feather + Brush past our cheeks at noon, +And seen the cloudy weather + Made wondrous with the moon. + +Where loveliness is rarest, + 'Tis also prized the most: +The moonlight shone her fairest + Along that level coast +Where sands and dunes the barest, + Of beauty seldom boast, + +Far from that bleak and rude land + An exile I remain +Fixed in a fair and good land, + A valley and a plain +Rich in fat fields and woodland, + And watered well with rain. + +Last night the full moon's splendour + Shone down on Taunton Dene, +And pasture fresh and tender, + And coppice dusky green, +The heavenly light did render + In one enchanted scene, + +One fair unearthly vision. + Yet soon mine eyes were cloyed, +And found those fields Elysian + Too rich to be enjoyed. +Or was it our division + Made all my pleasure void? + +Across the window glasses + The curtain then I drew, +And, as a sea-bird passes, + In sleep my spirit flew +To grey and windswept grasses + And moonlit sands--and you. + + + + +WINTER AT ST. ANDREWS + + +The city once again doth wear + Her wonted dress of winter's bride, +Her mantle woven of misty air, + With saffron sunlight faintly dyed. +She sits above the seething tide, + Of all her summer robes forlorn-- +And dead is all her summer pride-- + The leaves are off Queen Mary's Thorn. + +All round, the landscape stretches bare, + The bleak fields lying far and wide, +Monotonous, with here and there + A lone tree on a lone hillside. +No more the land is glorified + With golden gleams of ripening corn, +Scarce is a cheerful hue descried-- + The leaves are off Queen Mary's Thorn. + +For me, I do not greatly care + Though leaves be dead, and mists abide. +To me the place is thrice as fair + In winter as in summer-tide: +With kindlier memories allied + Of pleasure past and pain o'erworn. +What care I, though the earth may hide + The leaves from off Queen Mary's Thorn? + +Thus I unto my friend replied, + When, on a chill late autumn morn, +He pointed to the tree, and cried, + 'The leaves are off Queen Mary's Thorn!' + + + + +PATRIOTISM + + +There was a time when it was counted high + To be a patriot--whether by the zeal + Of peaceful labour for the country's weal, +Or by the courage in her cause to die: + +_For King and Country_ was a rallying cry + That turned men's hearts to fire, their nerves to steel; + Not to unheeding ears did it appeal, +A pulpit formula, a platform lie. + +Only a fool will wantonly desire +That war should come, outpouring blood and fire, + And bringing grief and hunger in her train. +And yet, if there be found no other way, +God send us war, and with it send the day + When love of country shall be real again! + + + + +SLEEP FLIES ME + + +Sleep flies me like a lover + Too eagerly pursued, +Or like a bird to cover + Within some distant wood, +Where thickest boughs roof over + Her secret solitude. + +The nets I spread to snare her, + Although with cunning wrought, +Have only served to scare her, + And now she'll not be caught. +To those who best could spare her, + She ever comes unsought. + +She lights upon their pillows; + She gives them pleasant dreams, +Grey-green with leaves of willows, + And cool with sound of streams, +Or big with tranquil billows, + On which the starlight gleams. + +No vision fair entrances + My weary open eye, +No marvellous romances + Make night go swiftly by; +But only feverish fancies + Beset me where I lie. + +The black midnight is steeping + The hillside and the lawn, +But still I lie unsleeping, + With curtains backward drawn, +To catch the earliest peeping + Of the desired dawn. + +Perhaps, when day is breaking; + When birds their song begin, +And, worn with all night waking, + I call their music din, +Sweet sleep, some pity taking, + At last may enter in. + + + + +LOVE'S PHANTOM + + +Whene'er I try to read a book, +Across the page your face will look, +And then I neither know nor care +What sense the printed words may bear. + +At night when I would go to sleep, +Thinking of you, awake I keep, +And still repeat the words you said, +Like sick men murmuring prayers in bed. + +And when, with weariness oppressed, +I sink in spite of you to rest, +Your image, like a lovely sprite, +Haunts me in dreams through half the night. + +I wake upon the autumn morn +To find the sunrise hardly born, +And in the sky a soft pale blue, +And in my heart your image true. + +When out I walk to take the air, +Your image is for ever there, +Among the woods that lose their leaves, +Or where the North Sea sadly heaves. + +By what enchantment shall be laid +This ghost, which does not make afraid, +But vexes with dim loveliness +And many a shadowy caress? + +There is no other way I know +But unto you forthwith to go, +That I may look upon the maid +Whereof that other is the shade. + +As the strong sun puts out the moon, +Whose borrowed rays are all his own, +So, in your living presence, dies +The phantom kindled at your eyes. + +By this most blessed spell, each day +The vexing ghost awhile I lay. +Yet am I glad to know that when +I leave you it will rise again. + + + + +COME BACK TO ST. ANDREWS + + +Come back to St. Andrews! Before you went away +You said you would be wretched where you could not see the Bay, +The East sands and the West sands and the castle in the sea +Come back to St. Andrews--St. Andrews and me. + +Oh, it's dreary along South Street when the rain is coming down, +And the east wind makes the student draw more close his warm red gown, +As I often saw you do, when I watched you going by +On the stormy days to College, from my window up on high. + +I wander on the Lade Braes, where I used to walk with you, +And purple are the woods of Mount Melville, budding new, +But I cannot bear to look, for the tears keep coming so, +And the Spring has lost the freshness which it had a year ago. + +Yet often I could fancy, where the pathway takes a turn, +I shall see you in a moment, coming round beside the burn, +Coming round beside the burn, with your swinging step and free, +And your face lit up with pleasure at the sudden sight of me. + +Beyond the Rock and Spindle, where we watched the water clear +In the happy April sunshine, with a happy sound to hear, +There I sat this afternoon, but no hand was holding mine, +And the water sounded eerie, though the April sun did shine. + +Oh, why should I complain of what I know was bound to be? +For you had your way to make, and you must not think of me. +But a woman's heart is weak, and a woman's joys are few-- +There are times when I could die for a moment's sight of you. + +It may be you will come again, before my hair is grey +As the sea is in the twilight of a weary winter's day. +When success is grown a burden, and your heart would fain be free, +Come back to St. Andrews--St. Andrews and me. + + + + +THE SOLITARY + + +I have been lonely all my days on earth, + Living a life within my secret soul, +With mine own springs of sorrow and of mirth, + Beyond the world's control. + +Though sometimes with vain longing I have sought + To walk the paths where other mortals tread, +To wear the clothes for other mortals wrought, + And eat the selfsame bread-- + +Yet have I ever found, when thus I strove + To mould my life upon the common plan, +That I was furthest from all truth and love, + And least a living man. + +Truth frowned upon my poor hypocrisy, + Life left my soul, and dwelt but in my sense; +No man could love me, for all men could see + The hollow vain pretence. + +Their clothes sat on me with outlandish air, + Upon their easy road I tripped and fell, +And still I sickened of the wholesome fare + On which they nourished well. + +I was a stranger in that company, + A Galilean whom his speech bewrayed, +And when they lifted up their songs of glee, + My voice sad discord made. + +Peace for mine own self I could never find, + And still my presence marred the general peace, +And when I parted, leaving them behind, + They felt, and I, release. + +So will I follow now my spirit's bent, + Not scorning those who walk the beaten track, +Yet not despising mine own banishment, + Nor often looking back. + +Their way is best for them, but mine for me. + And there is comfort for my lonely heart, +To think perhaps our journeys' ends may be + Not very far apart. + + + + +TO ALFRED TENNYSON--1883 + + +Familiar with thy melody, + We go debating of its power, + As churls, who hear it hour by hour, +Contemn the skylark's minstrelsy-- + +As shepherds on a Highland lea + Think lightly of the heather flower + Which makes the moorland's purple dower, +As far away as eye can see. + +Let churl or shepherd change his sky, + And labour in the city dark, + Where there is neither air nor room-- +How often will the exile sigh + To hear again the unwearied lark, + And see the heather's lavish bloom! + + + + +ICHABOD + + +Gone is the glory from the hills, + The autumn sunshine from the mere, + Which mourns for the declining year +In all her tributary rills. + +A sense of change obscurely chills + The misty twilight atmosphere, + In which familiar things appear +Like alien ghosts, foreboding ills. + +The twilight hour a month ago + Was full of pleasant warmth and ease, + The pearl of all the twenty-four. +Erelong the winter gales shall blow, + Erelong the winter frosts shall freeze-- + And oh, that it were June once more! + + + + +AT A HIGH CEREMONY + + +Not the proudest damsel here +Looks so well as doth my dear. +All the borrowed light of dress +Outshining not her loveliness, + +A loveliness not born of art, +But growing outwards from her heart, +Illuminating all her face, +And filling all her form with grace. + +Said I, of dress the borrowed light +Could rival not her beauty bright? +Yet, looking round, 'tis truth to tell, +No damsel here is dressed so well. + +Only in them the dress one sees, +Because more greatly it doth please +Than any other charm that's theirs, +Than all their manners, all their airs. + +But dress in her, although indeed +It perfect be, we do not heed, +Because the face, the form, the air +Are all so gentle and so rare. + + + + +THE WASTED DAY + + +Another day let slip! Its hours have run, + Its golden hours, with prodigal excess, + All run to waste. A day of life the less; +Of many wasted days, alas, but one! + +Through my west window streams the setting sun. + I kneel within my chamber, and confess + My sin and sorrow, filled with vain distress, +In place of honest joy for work well done. + +At noon I passed some labourers in a field. + The sweat ran down upon each sunburnt face, + Which shone like copper in the ardent glow. +And one looked up, with envy unconcealed, + Beholding my cool cheeks and listless pace, + Yet he was happier, though he did not know. + + + + +INDOLENCE + + +Fain would I shake thee off, but weak am I + Thy strong solicitations to withstand. + Plenty of work lies ready to my hand, +Which rests irresolute, and lets it lie. + +How can I work, when that seductive sky + Smiles through the window, beautiful and bland, + And seems to half entreat and half command +My presence out of doors beneath its eye? + +Will not the air be fresh, the water blue, + The smell of beanfields, blowing to the shore, + Better than these poor drooping purchased flowers? +Good-bye, dull books! Hot room, good-bye to you! + And think it strange if I return before + The sea grows purple in the evening hours. + + + + +DAWN SONG + + +I hear a twittering of birds, + And now they burst in song. +How sweet, although it wants the words! + It shall not want them long, +For I will set some to the note +Which bubbles from the thrush's throat. + +O jewelled night, that reign'st on high, + Where is thy crescent moon? +Thy stars have faded from the sky, + The sun is coming soon. +The summer night is passed away, +Sing welcome to the summer day. + + + + +CAIRNSMILL DEN--TUNE: 'A ROVING' + + +As I, with hopeless love o'erthrown, +With love o'erthrown, with love o'erthrown, + And this is truth I tell, +As I, with hopeless love o'erthrown, +Was sadly walking all alone, + +I met my love one morning + In Cairnsmill Den. +One morning, one morning, +One blue and blowy morning, +I met my love one morning + In Cairnsmill Den. + +A dead bough broke within the wood +Within the wood, within the wood, + And this is truth I tell. +A dead bough broke within the wood, +And I looked up, and there she stood. + +I asked what was it brought her there, +What brought her there, what brought her there, + And this is truth I tell. +I asked what was it brought her there. +Says she, 'To pull the primrose fair.' + +Says I, 'Come, let me pull with you, +Along with you, along with you,' + And this is truth I tell. +Says I, 'Come let me pull with you, +For one is not so good as two.' + +But when at noon we climbed the hill, +We climbed the hill, we climbed the hill, + And this is truth I tell. +But when at noon we climbed the hill, +Her hands and mine were empty still. + +And when we reached the top so high, +The top so high, the top so high, + And this is truth I tell. +And when we reached the top so high +Says I, 'I'll kiss you, if I die!' + +I kissed my love in Cairnsmill Den, +In Cairnsmill Den, in Cairnsmill Den, + And this is truth I tell. +I kissed my love in Cairnsmill Den, +And my love kissed me back again. + +I met my love one morning + In Cairnsmill Den. +One morning, one morning, +One blue and blowy morning, +I met my love one morning + In Cairnsmill Den. + + + + +A LOST OPPORTUNITY + + +One dark, dark night--it was long ago, + The air was heavy and still and warm-- +It fell to me and a man I know, + To see two girls to their father's farm. + +There was little seeing, that I recall: + We seemed to grope in a cave profound. +They might have come by a painful fall, + Had we not helped them over the ground. + +The girls were sisters. Both were fair, + But mine was the fairer (so I say). +The dark soon severed us, pair from pair, + And not long after we lost our way. + +We wandered over the country-side, + And we frightened most of the sheep about, +And I do not think that we greatly tried, + Having lost our way, to find it out. + +The night being fine, it was not worth while. + We strayed through furrow and corn and grass +We met with many a fence and stile, + And a quickset hedge, which we failed to pass. + +At last we came on a road she knew; + She said we were near her father's place. +I heard the steps of the other two, + And my heart stood still for a moment's space. + +Then I pleaded, 'Give me a good-night kiss.' + I have learned, but I did not know in time, +The fruits that hang on the tree of bliss + Are not for cravens who will not climb. + +We met all four by the farmyard gate, + We parted laughing, with half a sigh, +And home we went, at a quicker rate, + A shorter journey, my friend and I. + +When we reached the house, it was late enough, + And many impertinent things were said, +Of time and distance, and such dull stuff, + But we said little, and went to bed. + +We went to bed, but one at least + Went not to sleep till the black turned grey, +And the sun rose up, and the light increased, + And the birds awoke to a summer day. + +And sometimes now, when the nights are mild, + And the moon is away, and no stars shine, +I wander out, and I go half-wild, + To think of the kiss which was not mine. + +Let great minds laugh at a grief so small, + Let small minds laugh at a fool so great. +Kind maidens, pity me, one and all. + Shy youths, take warning by this my fate. + + + + +THE CAGED THRUSH + + +Alas for the bird who was born to sing! +They have made him a cage; they have clipped his wing; +They have shut him up in a dingy street, +And they praise his singing and call it sweet. +But his heart and his song are saddened and filled +With the woods, and the nest he never will build, +And the wild young dawn coming into the tree, +And the mate that never his mate will be. +And day by day, when his notes are heard +They freshen the street--but alas for the bird + + + + +MIDNIGHT + + +The air is dark and fragrant + With memories of a shower, +And sanctified with stillness + By this most holy hour. + +The leaves forget to whisper + Of soft and secret things, +And every bird is silent, + With folded eyes and wings. + +O blessed hour of midnight, + Of sleep and of release, +Thou yieldest to the toiler + The wages of thy peace. + +And I, who have not laboured, + Nor borne the heat of noon, +Receive thy tranquil quiet-- + An undeserved boon. + +Yes, truly God is gracious, + Who makes His sun to shine +Upon the good and evil, + And idle lives like mine. + +Upon the just and unjust + He sends His rain to fall, +And gives this hour of blessing + Freely alike to all. + + + + +WHERE'S THE USE + + +Oh, where's the use of having gifts that can't be turned to money? + And where's the use of singing, when there's no one wants to hear? +It may be one or two will say your songs are sweet as honey, + But where's the use of honey, when the loaf of bread is dear? + + + + +A MAY-DAY MADRIGAL + + +The sun shines fair on Tweedside, the river flowing bright, +Your heart is full of pleasure, your eyes are full of light, +Your cheeks are like the morning, your pearls are like the dew, +Or morning and her dew-drops are like your pearls and you. + +Because you are a princess, a princess of the land, +You will not turn your lightsome eyes a moment where I stand, +A poor unnoticed poet, a-making of his rhymes; +But I have found a mistress, more fair a thousand times. + +'Tis May, the elfish maiden, the daughter of the Spring, +Upon whose birthday morning the birds delight to sing. +They would not sing one note for you, if you should so command, +Although you are a princess, a princess of the land. + + + + +SONG IS NOT DEAD + + +Song is not dead, although to-day + Men tell us everything is said. +There yet is something left to say, + Song is not dead. + +While still the evening sky is red, + While still the morning gold and grey, +While still the autumn leaves are shed, + +While still the heart of youth is gay, + And honour crowns the hoary head, +While men and women love and pray + Song is not dead. + + + + +A SONG OF TRUCE + + +Till the tread of marching feet +Through the quiet grass-grown street +Of the little town shall come, +Soldier, rest awhile at home. + +While the banners idly hang, +While the bugles do not clang, +While is hushed the clamorous drum, +Soldier, rest awhile at home. + +In the breathing-time of Death, +While the sword is in its sheath, +While the cannon's mouth is dumb, +Soldier, rest awhile at home. + +Not too long the rest shall be. +Soon enough, to Death and thee, +The assembly call shall come. +Soldier, rest awhile at home. + + + + +ONE TEAR + + +Last night, when at parting + Awhile we did stand, +Suddenly starting, + There fell on my hand + +Something that burned it, + Something that shone +In the moon as I turned it, + And then it was gone. + +One bright stray jewel-- + What made it stray? +Was I cold or cruel, + At the close of day? + +Oh, do not cry, lass! + What is crying worth? +There is no lass like my lass + In the whole wide earth. + + + + +A LOVER'S CONFESSION + + +When people tell me they have loved + But once in youth, +I wonder, are they always moved + To speak the truth? + +Not that they wilfully deceive: + They fondly cherish +A constancy which they would grieve + To think might perish. + +They cherish it until they think + 'Twas always theirs. +So, if the truth they sometimes blink, + 'Tis unawares. + +Yet unawares, I must profess, + They do deceive +Themselves, and those who questionless + Their tale believe. + +For I have loved, I freely own, + A score of times, +And woven, out of love alone, + A hundred rhymes. + +Boys will be fickle. Yet, when all + Is said and done, +I was not one whom you could call + A flirt--not one + +Of those who into three or four + Their hearts divide. +My queens came singly to the door, + Not side by side. + +Each, while she reigned, possessed alone + My spirit loyal, +Then left an undisputed throne + To one more royal, + +To one more fair in form and face + Sweeter and stronger, +Who filled the throne with truer grace, + And filled it longer. + +So, love by love, they came and passed, + These loves of mine, +And each one brighter than the last + Their lights did shine. + +Until--but am I not too free, + Most courteous stranger, +With secrets which belong to me? + There is a danger. + +Until, I say, the perfect love, + The last, the best, +Like flame descending from above, + Kindled my breast, + +Kindled my breast like ardent flame, + With quenchless glow. +I knew not love until it came, + But now I know. + +You smile. The twenty loves before + Were each in turn, +You say, the final flame that o'er + My soul should burn. + +Smile on, my friend. I will not say + You have no reason; +But if the love I feel to-day + Depart, 'tis treason! + +If this depart, not once again + Will I on paper +Declare the loves that waste and wane, + Like some poor taper. + +No, no! This flame, I cannot doubt, + Despite your laughter, +Will burn till Death shall put it out, + And may be after. + + + + +TRAFALGAR SQUARE + + +These verses have I pilfered like a bee +Out of a letter from my C. C. C. + In London, showing what befell him there, +With other things, of interest to me. + +One page described a night in open air +He spent last summer in Trafalgar Square, + With men and women who by want are driven +Thither for lodging, when the nights are fair. + +No roof there is between their heads and heaven, +No warmth but what by ragged clothes is given, + No comfort but the company of those +Who with despair, like them, have vainly striven. + +On benches there uneasily they doze, +Snatching brief morsels of a poor repose, + And if through weariness they might sleep sound, +Their eyes must open almost ere they close. + +With even tramp upon the paven ground, +Twice every hour the night patrol comes round + To clear these wretches off, who may not keep +The miserable couches they have found. + +Yet the stern shepherds of the poor black sheep +Will soften when they see a woman weep. + There was a mother there who strove in vain, +With sobs, to hush a starving child to sleep. + +And through the night which took so long to wane, +He saw sad sufferers relieving pain, + And daughters of iniquity and scorn +Performing deeds which God will not disdain. + +There was a girl, forlorn of the forlorn, +Whose dress was white, but draggled, soiled, and torn, + Who wandered like a ghost without a home. +She spoke to him before the day was born. + +She, who all night, when spoken to, was dumb, +Earning dislike from most, abuse from some, + Now asked the hour, and when he told her 'Two,' +Wailed, 'O my God, will daylight never come?' + +Yes, it will come, and change the sky anew +From star-besprinkled black to sunlit blue, + And bring sweet thoughts and innocent desires +To countless girls. What will it bring to you? + + + + +A SUMMER MORNING + + +Never was sun so bright before, + No matin of the lark so sweet, + No grass so green beneath my feet, +Nor with such dewdrops jewelled o'er. + +I stand with thee outside the door, + The air not yet is close with heat, + And far across the yellowing wheat +The waves are breaking on the shore. + +A lovely day! Yet many such, + Each like to each, this month have passed, + And none did so supremely shine. +One thing they lacked: the perfect touch + Of thee--and thou art come at last, + And half this loveliness is thine. + + + + +WELCOME HOME + + +The fire burns bright +And the hearth is clean swept, +As she likes it kept, +And the lamp is alight. +She is coming to-night. + +The wind's east of late. +When she comes, she'll be cold, +So the big chair is rolled +Close up to the grate, +And I listen and wait. + +The shutters are fast, +And the red curtains hide +Every hint of outside. +But hark, how the blast +Whistled then as it passed! + +Or was it the train? +How long shall I stand, +With my watch in my hand, +And listen in vain +For the wheels in the lane? + +Hark! A rumble I hear +(Will the wind not be still?), +And it comes down the hill, +And it grows on the ear, +And now it is near. + +Quick, a fresh log to burn! +Run and open the door, +Hold a lamp out before +To light up the turn, +And bring in the urn. + +You are come, then, at last! +O my dear, is it you? +I can scarce think it true +I am holding you fast, +And sorrow is past. + + + + +AN INVITATION + + +Dear Ritchie, I am waiting for the signal word to fly, + And tell me that the visit which has suffered such belating +Is to be a thing of now, and no more of by-and-by. + Dear Ritchie, I am waiting. + +The sea is at its bluest, and the Spring is new creating + The woods and dens we know of, and the fields rejoicing lie, +And the air is soft as summer, and the hedge-birds all are mating. + +The Links are full of larks' nests, and the larks possess the sky, + Like a choir of happy spirits, melodiously debating, +All is ready for your coming, dear Ritchie--yes, and I, + Dear Ritchie, I am waiting. + + + + +FICKLE SUMMER + + +Fickle Summer's fled away, + Shall we see her face again? + Hearken to the weeping rain, +Never sunbeam greets the day. + +More inconstant than the May, + She cares nothing for our pain, + Nor will hear the birds complain +In their bowers that once were gay. + +Summer, Summer, come once more, + Drive the shadows from the field, + All thy radiance round thee fling, +Be our lady as of yore; + Then the earth her fruits shall yield, + Then the morning stars shall sing. + + + + +SORROW'S TREACHERY + + +I made a truce last night with Sorrow, + The queen of tears, the foe of sleep, +To keep her tents until the morrow, + Nor send such dreams to make me weep. + +Before the lusty day was springing, + Before the tired moon was set, +I dreamed I heard my dead love singing, + And when I woke my eyes were wet. + + + + +THE CROWN OF YEARS + + +Years grow and gather--each a gem + Lustrous with laughter and with tears, + And cunning Time a crown of years +Contrives for her who weareth them. + +No chance can snatch this diadem, + It trembles not with hopes or fears, + It shines before the rose appears, +And when the leaves forsake her stem. + +Time sets his jewels one by one. + Then wherefore mourn the wreaths that lie + In attic chambers of the past? +They withered ere the day was done. + This coronal will never die, + Nor shall you lose it at the last. + + + + +HOPE DEFERRED + + +When the weary night is fled, +And the morning sky is red, +Then my heart doth rise and say, +'Surely she will come to-day.' + +In the golden blaze of noon, +'Surely she is coming soon.' +In the twilight, 'Will she come?' +Then my heart with fear is dumb. + +When the night wind in the trees +Plays its mournful melodies, +Then I know my trust is vain, +And she will not come again. + + + + +THE LIFE OF EARTH + + +The life of earth, how full of pain, + Which greets us on our day of birth, +Nor leaves us while we yet retain + The life of earth. + +There is a shadow on our mirth, + Our sun is blotted out with rain, +And all our joys are little worth. + +Yet oh, when life begins to wane, + And we must sail the doubtful firth, +How wild the longing to regain + The life of earth! + + + + +GOLDEN DREAM + + +Golden dream of summer morn, + By a well-remembered stream +In the land where I was born, + Golden dream! + +Ripples, by the glancing beam + Lightly kissed in playful scorn, +Meadows moist with sunlit steam. + +When I lift my eyelids worn + Like a fair mirage you seem, +In the winter dawn forlorn, + Golden dream! + + + + +TEARS + + +Mourn that which will not come again, + The joy, the strength of early years. + Bow down thy head, and let thy tears +Water the grave where hope lies slain. + +For tears are like a summer rain, + To murmur in a mourner's ears, + To soften all the field of fears, +To moisten valleys parched with pain. + +And though thy tears will not awake + What lies beneath of young or fair + And sleeps so sound it draws no breath, +Yet, watered thus, the sod may break + In flowers which sweeten all the air, + And fill with life the place of death. + + + + +THE HOUSE OF SLEEP + + +When we have laid aside our last endeavour, + And said farewell to one or two that weep, +And issued from the house of life for ever, + To find a lodging in the house of sleep-- + +With eyes fast shut, in sunless chambers lying, + With folded arms unmoved upon the breast, +Beyond the noise of sorrow and of crying, + Beyond the dread of dreaming, shall we rest? + +Or shall there come at last desire of waking, + To walk again on hillsides that we know, +When sunrise through the cold white mist is breaking, + Or in the stillness of the after-glow? + +Shall there be yearning for the sound of voices, + The sight of faces, and the touch of hands, +The will that works, the spirit that rejoices, + The heart that feels, the mind that understands? + +Shall dreams and memories crowding from the distance, + Shall ghosts of old ambition or of mirth, +Create for us a shadow of existence, + A dim reflection of the life of earth? + +And being dead, and powerless to recover + The substance of the show whereon we gaze, +Shall we be likened to the hapless lover, + Who broods upon the unreturning days? + +Not so: for we have known how swift to perish + Is man's delight when youth and health take wing, +Until the winter leaves him nought to cherish + But recollections of a vanished spring. + +Dream as we may, desire of life shall never + Disturb our slumbers in the house of sleep. +Yet oh, to think we may not greet for ever + The one or two that, when we leave them, weep! + + + + +THE OUTCAST'S FAREWELL + + +The sun is banished, +The daylight vanished, +No rosy traces + Are left behind. +Here in the meadow +I watch the shadow +Of forms and faces + Upon your blind. + +Through swift transitions, +In new positions, +My eyes still follow + One shape most fair. +My heart delaying +Awhile, is playing +With pleasures hollow, + Which mock despair. + +I feel so lonely, +I long once only +To pass an hour + With you, O sweet! +To touch your fingers, +Where fragrance lingers +From some rare flower, + And kiss your feet. + +But not this even +To me is given. +Of all sad mortals + Most sad am I, +Never to meet you, +Never to greet you, +Nor pass your portals + Before I die. + +All men scorn me, +Not one will mourn me, +When from their city + I pass away. +Will you to-morrow +Recall with sorrow +Him whom with pity + You saw to-day? + +Outcast and lonely, +One thing only +Beyond misgiving + I hold for true, +That, had you known me, +You would have shown me +A life worth living-- + A life for you. + +Yes: five years younger +My manhood's hunger +Had you come filling + With plenty sweet, +My life so nourished, +Had grown and flourished, +Had God been willing + That we should meet. + +How vain to fashion +From dreams and passion +The rich existence + Which might have been! +Can God's own power +Recall the hour, +Or bridge the distance + That lies between? + +Before the morning, +From pain and scorning +I sail death's river + To sleep or hell. +To you is given +The life of heaven. +Farewell for ever, + Farewell, farewell! + + + + +YET A LITTLE SLEEP + + +Beside the drowsy streams that creep + Within this island of repose, + Oh, let us rest from cares and woes, +Oh, let us fold our hands to sleep! + +Is it ignoble, then, to keep + Awhile from where the rough wind blows, + And all is strife, and no man knows +What end awaits him on the deep? + +The voyager may rest awhile, + When rest invites, and yet may be + Neither a sluggard nor a craven. +With strength renewed he quits the isle, + And putting out again to sea, + Makes sail for his desired haven. + + + + +LOST LIBERTY + + +Of our own will we are not free, + When freedom lies within our power. + We wait for some decisive hour, +To rise and take our liberty. + +Still we delay, content to be + Imprisoned in our own high tower. + What is it but a strong-built bower? +Ours are the warders, ours the key. + +But we through indolence grow weak. + Our warders, fed with power so long, + Become at last our lords indeed. +We vainly threaten, vainly seek + To move their ruth. The bars are strong. + We dash against them till we bleed. + + + + +AN AFTERTHOUGHT + + +You found my life, a poor lame bird + That had no heart to sing, +You would not speak the magic word + To give it voice and wing. + +Yet sometimes, dreaming of that hour, + I think, if you had known +How much my life was in your power, + It might have sung and flown. + + + + +TO J. R. + + +Last Sunday night I read the saddening story + Of the unanswered love of fair Elaine, +The 'faith unfaithful' and the joyless glory + Of Lancelot, 'groaning in remorseful pain.' + +I thought of all those nights in wintry weather, + Those Sunday nights that seem not long ago, +When we two read our Poet's words together, + Till summer warmth within our hearts did glow. + +Ah, when shall we renew that bygone pleasure, + Sit down together at our Merlin's feet, +Drink from one cup the overflowing measure, + And find, in sharing it, the draught more sweet? + +That time perchance is far, beyond divining. + Till then we drain the 'magic cup' apart; +Yet not apart, for hope and memory twining + Smile upon each, uniting heart to heart. + + + + +THE TEMPTED SOUL + + +Weak soul, by sense still led astray, + Why wilt thou parley with the foe? + He seeks to work thine overthrow, +And thou, poor fool! dost point the way. + +Hast thou forgotten many a day, + When thou exulting forth didst go, + And ere the noon wert lying low, +A broken and defenceless prey? + +If thou wouldst live, avoid his face; + Dwell in the wilderness apart, + And gather force for vanquishing, +Ere thou returnest to his place. + Then arm, and with undaunted heart + Give battle, till he own thee king. + + + + +YOUTH RENEWED + + +When one who has wandered out of the way + Which leads to the hills of joy, +Whose heart has grown both cold and grey, + Though it be but the heart of a boy-- +When such a one turns back his feet + From the valley of shadow and pain, +Is not the sunshine passing sweet, + When a man grows young again? + +How gladly he mounts up the steep hillside, + With strength that is born anew, +And in his veins, like a full springtide, + The blood streams through and through. +And far above is the summit clear, + And his heart to be there is fain, +And all too slowly it comes more near + When a man grows young again. + +He breathes the pure sweet mountain breath, + And it widens all his heart, +And life seems no more kin to death, + Nor death the better part. +And in tones that are strong and rich and deep + He sings a grand refrain, +For the soul has awakened from mortal sleep, + When a man grows young again. + + + + +VANITY OF VANITIES + + +Be ye happy, if ye may, +In the years that pass away. +Ye shall pass and be forgot, +And your place shall know you not. + +Other generations rise, +With the same hope in their eyes +That in yours is kindled now, +And the same light on their brow. + +They shall see the selfsame sun +That your eyes now gaze upon, +They shall breathe the same sweet air, +And shall reck not who ye were. + +Yet they too shall fade at last +In the twilight of the past, +They and you alike shall be +Lost from the world's memory. + +Then, while yet ye breathe and live, +Drink the cup that life can give. +Be ye happy, if ye may, +In the years that pass away, + +Ere the golden bowl be broken, +Ere ye pass and leave no token, +Ere the silver cord be loosed, +Ere ye turn again to dust. + +'And shall this be all,' ye cry, +'But to eat and drink and die? +If no more than this there be, +Vanity of vanity!' + +Yea, all things are vanity, +And what else but vain are ye? +Ye who boast yourselves the kings +Over all created things. + +Kings! whence came your right to reign? +Ye shall be dethroned again. +Yet for this, your one brief hour, +Wield your mockery of power. + +Dupes of Fate, that treads you down +Wear awhile your tinsel crown +Be ye happy, if ye may, +In the years that pass away. + + + + +LOVE'S WORSHIP RESTORED + + +O Love, thine empire is not dead, +Nor will we let thy worship go, +Although thine early flush be fled, +Thine ardent eyes more faintly glow, +And thy light wings be fallen slow +Since when as novices we came +Into the temple of thy name. + +Not now with garlands in our hair, +And singing lips, we come to thee. +There is a coldness in the air, +A dulness on the encircling sea, +Which doth not well with songs agree. +And we forget the words we sang +When first to thee our voices rang. + +When we recall that magic prime, +We needs must weep its early death. +How pleasant from thy towers the chime +Of bells, and sweet the incense breath +That rose while we, who kept thy faith, +Chanting our creed, and chanting bore +Our offerings to thine altar store! + +Now are our voices out of tune, +Our gifts unworthy of thy name. +December frowns, in place of June. +Who smiled when to thy house we came, +We who came leaping, now are lame. +Dull ears and failing eyes are ours, +And who shall lead us to thy towers? + +O hark! A sound across the air, +Which tells not of December's cold, +A sound most musical and rare. +Thy bells are ringing as of old, +With silver throats and tongues of gold. +Alas! it is too sweet for truth, +An empty echo of our youth. + +Nay, never echo spake so loud! +It is indeed thy bells that ring. +And lo, against the leaden cloud, +Thy towers! Once more we leap and spring, +Once more melodiously we sing, +We sing, and in our song forget +That winter lies around us yet. + +Oh, what is winter, now we know, +Full surely, thou canst never fail? +Forgive our weak untrustful woe, +Which deemed thy glowing face grown pale. +We know thee, mighty to prevail. +Doubt and decrepitude depart, +And youth comes back into the heart. + +O Love, who turnest frost to flame +With ardent and immortal eyes, +Whose spirit sorrow cannot tame, +Nor time subdue in any wise-- +While sun and moon for us shall rise, +Oh, may we in thy service keep +Till in thy faith we fall asleep! + + + + +BELOW HER WINDOW + + +Where she sleeps, no moonlight shines + No pale beam unbidden creeps. +Darkest shade the place enshrines + Where she sleeps. + +Like a diamond in the deeps + Of the rich unopened mines +There her lovely rest she keeps. + +Though the jealous dark confines + All her beauty, Love's heart leaps. +His unerring thought divines + Where she sleeps. + + + + +REQUIEM + + +For thee the birds shall never sing again, + Nor fresh green leaves come out upon the tree, +The brook shall no more murmur the refrain + For thee. + +Thou liest underneath the windswept lea, + Thou dreamest not of pleasure or of pain, +Thou dreadest no to-morrow that shall be. + +Deep rest is thine, unbroken by the rain, + Ay, or the thunder. Brother, canst thou see +The tears that night and morning fall in vain + For thee? + + + + +THOU ART QUEEN + + +Thou art queen to every eye, + When the fairest maids convene. +Envy's self can not deny + Thou art queen. + +In thy step thy right is seen, + In thy beauty pure and high, +In thy grace of air and mien. + +Thine unworthy vassal I, + Lay my hands thy hands between; +Kneeling at thy feet I cry + Thou art queen! + + + + +IN TIME OF DOUBT + + +'In the shadow of Thy wings, O Lord of Hosts, whom I extol, +I will put my trust for ever,' so the kingly David sings. +'Thou shalt help me, Thou shalt save me, only + Thou shalt keep me whole, + In the shadow of Thy wings.' + +In our ears this voice triumphant, like a blowing trumpet, rings, +But our hearts have heard another, as of funeral bells that toll, +'God of David where to find Thee?' No reply the question brings. + +Shadows are there overhead, but they are of the clouds that roll, + Blotting out the sun from sight, and overwhelming earthly things. +Oh, that we might feel Thy presence! Surely we could rest our soul + In the shadow of Thy wings. + + + + +THE GARDEN OF SIN + + +I know the garden-close of sin, + The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers, + I long have roamed the walks and bowers, +Desiring what no man shall win: + +A secret place to shelter in, + When soon or late the angry powers + Come down to seek the wretch who cowers, +Expecting judgment to begin. + +The pleasure long has passed away + From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread + My doom will find me where I lie. +I dare not go, I dare not stay. + Without the walks, my hope is dead, + Within them, I myself must die. + + + + +URSULA + + +There is a village in a southern land, +By rounded hills closed in on every hand. +The streets slope steeply to the market-square, +Long lines of white-washed houses, clean and fair, +With roofs irregular, and steps of stone +Ascending to the front of every one. +The people swarthy, idle, full of mirth, +Live mostly by the tillage of the earth. + +Upon the northern hill-top, looking down, +Like some sequestered saint upon the town, +Stands the great convent. + + On a summer night, +Ten years ago, the moon with rising light +Made all the convent towers as clear as day, +While still in deepest shade the village lay. +Both light and shadow with repose were filled, +The village sounds, the convent bells were stilled. +No foot in all the streets was now astir, +And in the convent none kept watch but her +Whom they called Ursula. The moonlight fell +Brightly around her in the lonely cell. +Her eyes were dark, and full of unshed woe, +Like mountain tarns which cannot overflow, +Surcharged with rain, and round about the eyes +Deep rings recorded sleepless nights, and cries +Stifled before their birth. Her brow was pale, +And like a marble temple in a vale +Of cypress trees, shone shadowed by her hair. +So still she was, that had you seen her there, +You might have thought you were beholding death. +Her lips were parted, but if any breath +Came from between them, it were hard to know +By any movement of her breast of snow. + +But when the summer night was now far spent, +She kneeled upon the floor. Her head she leant +Down on the cold stone of the window-seat. +God knows if there were any vital heat +In those pale brows, or if they chilled the stone. +And as she knelt, she made a bitter moan, +With words that issued from a bitter soul,-- +'O Mary, Mother, and is this thy goal, +Thy peace which waiteth for the world-worn heart? +Is it for this I live and die apart +From all that once I knew? O Holy God, +Is this the blessed chastening of Thy rod, +Which only wounds to heal? Is this the cross +That I must carry, counting all for loss +Which once was precious in the world to me? +If Thou be God, blot out my memory, +And let me come, forsaking all, to Thee. +But here, though that old world beholds me not, +Here, though I seek Thee through my lonely lot, +Here, though I fast, do penance day by day, +Kneel at Thy feet, and ever watch and pray, +Beloved forms from that forsaken world +Revisit me. The pale blue smoke is curled +Up from the dwellings of the sons of men. +I see it, and all my heart turns back again +From seeking Thee, to find the forms I love. + +'Thou, with Thy saints abiding far above, +What canst Thou know of this, my earthly pain? +They said to me, Thou shalt be born again, +And learn that worldly things are nothing worth, +In that new state. O God, is this new birth, +Birth of the spirit dying to the flesh? +Are these the living waters which refresh +The thirsty spirit, that it thirst no more? +Still all my life is thirsting to the core. +Thou canst not satisfy, if this be Thou. +And yet I dream, or I remember how, +Before I came here, while I tarried yet +Among the friends they tell me to forget, +I never seemed to seek Thee, but I found +Thou wert in all the loveliness around, +And most of all in hearts that loved me well. + +'And then I came to seek Thee in this cell, +To crucify my worldliness and pride, +To lay my heart's affections all aside, +As carnal hindrances which held my soul +From hasting unencumbered to her goal. +And all this have I done, or else have striven +To do, obeying the behest of Heaven, +And my reward is bitterness. I seem +To wander always in a feverish dream +On plains where there is only sun and sand, +No rock or tree in all the weary land, +My thirst unquenchable, my heart burnt dry. +And still in my parched throat I faintly cry, +Deliver me, O Lord: bow down Thine ear! + +'He will not answer me. He does not hear. +I am alone within the universe. +Oh for a strength of will to rise and curse +God, and defy Him here to strike me dead! +But my heart fails me, and I bow my head, +And cry to Him for mercy, still in vain. +Oh for some sudden agony of pain, +To make such insurrection in my soul +That I might burst all bondage of control, +Be for one moment as the beasts that die, +And pour my life in one blaspheming cry!' + +The morning came, and all the convent towers +Were gilt with glory by the golden hours. +But where was Ursula? The sisters came +With quiet footsteps, calling her by name, +But there was none that answered. In her cell, +The glad, illuminating sunshine fell +On form and face, and showed that she was dead. +'May Christ receive her soul!' the sisters said, +And spoke in whispers of her holy life, +And how God's mercy spared her pain and strife, +And gave this quiet death. The face was still, +Like a tired child's, that lies and sleeps its fill. + + + + +UNDESIRED REVENGE + + +Sorrow and sin have worked their will + For years upon your sovereign face, + And yet it keeps a faded trace +Of its unequalled beauty still, + As ruined sanctuaries hold + A crumbled trace of perfect mould +In shrines which saints no longer fill. + +I knew you in your splendid morn, + Oh, how imperiously sweet! + I bowed and worshipped at your feet, +And you received my love with scorn. + Now I scorn you. It is a change, + When I consider it, how strange +That you, not I, should be forlorn. + +Do you suppose I have no pain + To see you play this sorry part, + With faded face and broken heart, +And life lived utterly in vain? + Oh would to God that you once more + Might scorn me as you did of yore, +And I might worship you again! + + + + +POETS + + +Children of earth are we, +Lovers of land and sea, +Of hill, of brook, of tree, + Of all things fair; +Of all things dark or bright, +Born of the day and night, +Red rose and lily white + And dusky hair. + +Yet not alone from earth +Do we derive our birth. +What were our singing worth + Were this the whole? +Somewhere from heaven afar +Hath dropped a fiery star, +Which makes us what we are, + Which is our soul. + + + + +A PRESENTIMENT + + +It seems a little word to say-- + _Farewell_--but may it not, when said, + Be like the kiss we give the dead, +Before they pass the doors for aye? + +Who knows if, on some after day, + Your lips shall utter in its stead + A welcome, and the broken thread +Be joined again, the selfsame way? + +The word is said, I turn to go, + But on the threshold seem to hear + A sound as of a passing bell, +Tolling monotonous and slow, + Which strikes despair upon my ear, + And says it is a last farewell. + + + + +A BIRTHDAY GIFT + + +No gift I bring but worship, and the love + Which all must bear to lovely souls and pure, + Those lights, that, when all else is dark, endure; +Stars in the night, to lift our eyes above; + +To lift our eyes and hearts, and make us move + Less doubtful, though our journey be obscure, + Less fearful of its ending, being sure +That they watch over us, where'er we rove. + +And though my gift itself have little worth, + Yet worth it gains from her to whom 'tis given, + As a weak flower gets colour from the sun. +Or rather, as when angels walk the earth, + All things they look on take the look of heaven-- + For of those blessed angels thou art one. + + + + +CYCLAMEN + + +I had a plant which would not thrive, + Although I watered it with care, + I could not save the blossoms fair, +Nor even keep the leaves alive. + +I strove till it was vain to strive. + I gave it light, I gave it air, + I sought from skill and counsel rare +The means to make it yet survive. + +A lady sent it me, to prove + She held my friendship in esteem; + I would not have it as she said, +I wanted it to be for love; + And now not even friends we seem, + And now the cyclamen is dead. + + + + +LOVE RECALLED IN SLEEP + + +There was a time when in your face + There dwelt such power, and in your smile +I know not what of magic grace; + They held me captive for a while. + +Ah, then I listened for your voice! + Like music every word did fall, +Making the hearts of men rejoice, + And mine rejoiced the most of all. + +At sight of you, my soul took flame. + But now, alas! the spell is fled. +Is it that you are not the same, + Or only that my love is dead? + +I know not--but last night I dreamed + That you were walking by my side, +And sweet, as once you were, you seemed, + And all my heart was glorified. + +Your head against my shoulder lay, + And round your waist my arm was pressed, +And as we walked a well-known way, + Love was between us both confessed. + +But when with dawn I woke from sleep, + And slow came back the unlovely truth, +I wept, as an old man might weep + For the lost paradise of youth. + + + + +FOOTSTEPS IN THE STREET + + +Oh, will the footsteps never be done? + The insolent feet + Thronging the street, +Forsaken now of the only one. + +The only one out of all the throng, + Whose footfall I knew, + And could tell it so true, +That I leapt to see as she passed along, + +As she passed along with her beautiful face, + Which knew full well + Though it did not tell, +That I was there in the window-space. + +Now my sense is never so clear. + It cheats my heart, + Making me start +A thousand times, when she is not near. + +When she is not near, but so far away, + I could not come + To the place of her home, +Though I travelled and sought for a month and a day. + +Do you wonder then if I wish the street + Were grown with grass, + And no foot might pass +Till she treads it again with her sacred feet? + + + + +FOR A PRESENT OF ROSES + + +Crimson and cream and white-- + My room is a garden of roses! +Centre and left and right, + Three several splendid posies. + +As the sender is, they are sweet, + These lovely gifts of your sending, +With the stifling summer heat + Their delicate fragrance blending. + +What more can my heart desire? + Has it lost the power to be grateful? +Is it only a burnt-out fire, + Whose ashes are dull and hateful? + +Yet still to itself it doth say, + 'I should have loved far better +To have found, coming in to-day, + The merest scrap of a letter.' + + + + +IN TIME OF SORROW + + +Despair is in the suns that shine, + And in the rains that fall, +This sad forsaken soul of mine + Is weary of them all. + +They fall and shine on alien streets + From those I love and know. +I cannot hear amid the heats + The North Sea's freshening flow + +The people hurry up and down, + Like ghosts that cannot lie; +And wandering through the phantom town + The weariest ghost am I. + + + + +A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE--FROM VICTOR HUGO + + +If a pleasant lawn there grow + By the showers caressed, +Where in all the seasons blow + Flowers gaily dressed, +Where by handfuls one may win +Lilies, woodbine, jessamine, +I will make a path therein + For thy feet to rest. + +If there live in honour's sway + An all-loving breast +Whose devotion cannot stray, + Never gloom-oppressed-- +If this noble breast still wake +For a worthy motive's sake, +There a pillow I will make + For thy head to rest. + +If there be a dream of love, + Dream that God has blest, +Yielding daily treasure-trove + Of delightful zest, +With the scent of roses filled, +With the soul's communion thrilled, +There, oh! there a nest I'll build + For thy heart to rest. + + + + +THE FIDDLER + + +There's a fiddler in the street, + And the children all are dancing: +Two dozen lightsome feet + Springing and prancing. + +Pleasure he gives to you, + Dance then, and spare not! +For the poor fiddler's due, + Know not and care not. + +While you are prancing, + Let the fiddler play. +When you're tired of dancing + He may go away. + + + + +THE FIRST MEETING + + +Last night for the first time, O Heart's Delight, + I held your hand a moment in my own, + The dearest moment which my soul has known, +Since I beheld and loved you at first sight. + +I left you, and I wandered in the night, + Under the rain, beside the ocean's moan. + All was black dark, but in the north alone +There was a glimmer of the Northern Light. + +My heart was singing like a happy bird, + Glad of the present, and from forethought free, +Save for one note amid its music heard: + God grant, whatever end of this may be, +That when the tale is told, the final word + May be of peace and benison to thee. + + + + +A CRITICISM OF CRITICS + + +How often have the critics, trained + To look upon the sky +Through telescopes securely chained, + Forgot the naked eye. + +Within the compass of their glass + Each smallest star they knew, +And not a meteor could pass + But they were looking through. + +When a new planet shed its rays + Beyond their field of vision, +And simple folk ran out to gaze, + They laughed in high derision. + +They railed upon the senseless throng + Who cheered the brave new light. +And yet the learned men were wrong, + The simple folk were right. + + + + +MY LADY + + +My Lady of all ladies! Queen by right + Of tender beauty; full of gentle moods; + With eyes that look divine beatitudes, +Large eyes illumined with her spirit's light; + +Lips that are lovely both by sound and sight, + Breathing such music as the dove, which broods + Within the dark and silence of the woods, +Croons to the mate that is her heart's delight. + +Where is a line, in cloud or wave or hill, + To match the curve which rounds her soft-flushed cheek? + A colour, in the sky of morn or of even, +To match that flush? Ah, let me now be still! + If of her spirit I should strive to speak, + I should come short, as earth comes short of heaven. + + + + +PARTNERSHIP IN FAME + + +Love, when the present is become the past, + And dust has covered all that now is new, + When many a fame has faded out of view, +And many a later fame is fading fast-- + +If then these songs of mine might hope to last, + Which sing most sweetly when they sing of you, + Though queen and empress wore oblivion's hue, +Your loveliness would not be overcast. + +Now, while the present stays with you and me, + In love's copartnery our hearts combine, + Life's loss and gain in equal shares to take. +Partners in fame our memories then would be: + Your name remembered for my songs; and mine + Still unforgotten for your sweetness' sake. + + + + +A CHRISTMAS FANCY + + + Early on Christmas Day, + Love, as awake I lay, +And heard the Christmas bells ring sweet and clearly, + My heart stole through the gloom + Into your silent room, +And whispered to your heart, 'I love you dearly.' + + There, in the dark profound, + Your heart was sleeping sound, +And dreaming some fair dream of summer weather. + At my heart's word it woke, + And, ere the morning broke, +They sang a Christmas carol both together. + + Glory to God on high! + Stars of the morning sky, +Sing as ye sang upon the first creation, + When all the Sons of God + Shouted for joy abroad, +And earth was laid upon a sure foundation. + + Glory to God again! + Peace and goodwill to men, +And kindly feeling all the wide world over, + Where friends with joy and mirth + Meet round the Christmas hearth, +Or dreams of home the solitary rover. + + Glory to God! True hearts, + Lo, now the dark departs, +And morning on the snow-clad hills grows grey. + Oh, may love's dawning light + Kindled from loveless night, +Shine more and more unto the perfect day! + + + + +THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR + + +Oh, who may this dead warrior be + That to his grave they bring? +'Tis William, Duke of Normandy, + The conqueror and king. + +Across the sea, with fire and sword, + The English crown he won; +The lawless Scots they owned him lord, + But now his rule is done. + +A king should die from length of years, + A conqueror in the field, +A king amid his people's tears, + A conqueror on his shield. + +But he, who ruled by sword and flame, + Who swore to ravage France, +Like some poor serf without a name, + Has died by mere mischance. + +To Caen now he comes to sleep, + The minster bells they toll, +A solemn sound it is and deep, + May God receive his soul! + +With priests that chant a wailing hymn, + He slowly comes this way, +To where the painted windows dim + The lively light of day. + +He enters in. The townsfolk stand + In reverent silence round, +To see the lord of all the land + Take house in narrow ground. + +While, in the dwelling-place he seeks, + To lay him they prepare, +One Asselin FitzArthur speaks, + And bids the priests forbear. + +'The ground whereon this abbey stands + Is mine,' he cries, 'by right. +'Twas wrested from my father's hands + By lawlessness and might. + +Duke William took the land away, + To build this minster high. +Bury the robber where ye may, + But here he shall not lie.' + +The holy brethren bid him cease; + But he will not be stilled, +And soon the house of God's own peace + With noise and strife is filled. + +And some cry shame on Asselin, + Such tumult to excite, +Some say, it was Duke William's sin, + And Asselin does right. + +But he round whom their quarrels keep, + Lies still and takes no heed. +No strife can mar a dead man's sleep, + And this is rest indeed. + +Now Asselin at length is won + The land's full price to take, +And let the burial rites go on, + And so a peace they make. + +When Harold, king of Englishmen, + Was killed in Senlac fight, +Duke William would not yield him then + A Christian grave or rite. + +Because he fought for keeping free + His kingdom and his throne, +No Christian rite nor grave had he + In land that was his own. + +And just it is, this Duke unkind, + Now he has come to die, +In plundered land should hardly find + Sufficient space to lie. + + + + +THE DEATH OF WILLIAM RUFUS + + +The Red King's gone a-hunting, in the woods his father made +For the tall red deer to wander through the thicket and the glade, +The King and Walter Tyrrel, Prince Henry and the rest +Are all gone out upon the sport the Red King loves the best. + +Last night, when they were feasting in the royal banquet-hall, +De Breteuil told a dream he had, that evil would befall +If the King should go to-morrow to the hunting of the deer, +And while he spoke, the fiery face grew well-nigh pale to hear. + +He drank until the fire came back, and all his heart was brave, +Then bade them keep such woman's tales to tell an English slave, +For he would hunt to-morrow, though a thousand dreams foretold +All the sorrow and the mischief De Breteuil's brain could hold. + +So the Red King's gone a-hunting, for all that they could do, +And an arrow in the greenwood made De Breteuil's dream come true. +They said 'twas Walter Tyrrel, and so it may have been, +But there's many walk the forest when the leaves are thick and green. + +There's many walk the forest, who would gladly see the sport, +When the King goes out a-hunting with the nobles of his court, +And when the nobles scatter, and the King is left alone, +There are thickets where an English slave might string his bow unknown. + +The forest laws are cruel, and the time is hard as steel +To English slaves, trod down and bruised beneath the Norman heel. +Like worms they writhe, but by-and-by the Norman heel may learn +There are worms that carry poison, and that are not slow to turn. + +The lords came back, by one and two, from straying far apart, +And they found the Red King lying with an arrow in his heart. +Who should have done the deed, but him by whom it first was seen? +So they said 'twas Walter Tyrrel, and so it may have been. + +They cried upon Prince Henry, the brother of the King, +And he came up the greenwood, and rode into the ring. +He looked upon his brother's face, and then he turned away, +And galloped off to Winchester, where all the treasure lay. + +'God strike me,' cried De Breteuil, 'but brothers' blood is thin! +And why should ours be thicker that are neither kith nor kin?' +They spurred their horses in the flank, and swiftly thence they passed, +But Walter Tyrrel lingered and forsook his liege the last. + +They say it was enchantment, that fixed him to the scene, +To look upon his traitor's work, and so it may have been. +But presently he got to horse, and took the seaward way, +And all alone within the glade, in state the Red King lay. + +Then a creaking cart came slowly, which a charcoal-burner drove. +He found the dead man lying, a ghastly treasure-trove; +He raised the corpse for charity, and on his wagon laid, +And so the Red King drove in state from out the forest glade. + +His hair was like a yellow flame about the bloated face, +The blood had stained his tunic from the fatal arrow-place. +Not good to look upon was he, in life, nor yet when dead. +The driver of the cart drove on, and never turned his head. + +When next the nobles throng at night the royal banquet-hall, +Another King will rule the feast, the drinking and the brawl, +While Walter Tyrrel walks alone upon the Norman shore, +And the Red King in the forest will chase the deer no more. + + + + +AFTER WATERLOO + + +On the field of Waterloo we made Napoleon rue + That ever out of Elba he decided for to come, +For we finished him that day, and he had to run away, + And yield himself to Maitland on the Billy-ruffium. + +'Twas a stubborn fight, no doubt, and the fortune wheeled about, + And the brave Mossoos kept coming most uncomfortable near, +And says Wellington the hero, as his hopes went down to zero, + 'I wish to God that Blooker or the night was only here!' + +But Blooker came at length, and we broke Napoleon's strength, + And the flower of his army--that's the old Imperial Guard-- +They made a final sally, but they found they could not rally, + And at last they broke and fled, after fighting bitter hard. + +Now Napoleon he had thought, when a British ship he sought, + And gave himself uncalled-for, in a manner, you might say, +He'd be treated like a king with the best of every thing, + And maybe have a palace for to live in every day. + +He was treated very well, as became a noble swell, + But we couldn't leave him loose, not in Europe anywhere, +For we knew he would be making some gigantic undertaking, + While the trustful British lion was reposing in his lair. + +We tried him once before near the European shore, + Having planted him in Elba, where he promised to remain, +But when he saw his chance, why, he bolted off to France, + And he made a lot of trouble--but it wouldn't do again. + +Says the Prince to him, 'You know, far away you'll have to go, + To a pleasant little island off the coast of Africay, +Where they tell me that the view of the ocean deep and blue, + Is remarkable extensive, and it's there you'll have to stay.' + +So Napoleon wiped his eye, and he wished the Prince good-bye, + And being stony-broke, made the best of it he could, +And they kept him snugly pensioned, where his Royal Highness mentioned, + And Napoleon Boneyparty is provided for for good. + +Now of that I don't complain, but I ask and ask in vain, + Why me, a British soldier, as has lost a useful arm +Through fighting of the foe, when the trumpets ceased to blow, + Should be forced to feed the pigs on a little Surrey farm, + +While him as fought with us, and created such a fuss, + And in the whole of Europe did a mighty deal of harm, +Should be kept upon a rock, like a precious fighting cock, + And be found in beer and baccy, which would suit me to a charm? + + + + +DEATH AT THE WINDOW + + +This morning, while we sat in talk + Of spring and apple-bloom, +Lo! Death stood in the garden walk, + And peered into the room. + +Your back was turned, you did not see + The shadow that he made. +He bent his head and looked at me; + It made my soul afraid. + +The words I had begun to speak + Fell broken in the air. +You saw the pallor of my cheek, + And turned--but none was there. + +He came as sudden as a thought, + And so departed too. +What made him leave his task unwrought? + It was the sight of you. + +Though Death but seldom turns aside + From those he means to take, +He would not yet our hearts divide, + For love and pity's sake. + + + + +MAKE-BELIEVES + + +When I was young and well and glad, +I used to play at being sad; +Now youth and health are fled away, +At being glad I sometimes play. + + + + +A COINCIDENCE + + +Every critic in the town +Runs the minor poet down; +Every critic--don't you know it? +Is himself a minor poet. + + + + +ART'S DISCIPLINE + + +Long since I came into the school of Art, +A child in works, but not a child in heart. +Slowly I learn, by her instruction mild, +To be in works a man, in heart a child. + + + + +THE TRUE LIBERAL + + +The truest Liberal is he +Who sees the man in each degree, +Who merit in a churl can prize, +And baseness in an earl despise, +Yet censures baseness in a churl, +And dares find merit in an earl. + + + + +A LATE GOOD NIGHT + + +My lamp is out, my task is done, + And up the stair with lingering feet +I climb. The staircase clock strikes one. + Good night, my love! good night, my sweet! + +My solitary room I gain. + A single star makes incomplete +The blackness of the window pane. + Good night, my love! good night, my sweet! + +Dim and more dim its sparkle grows, + And ere my head the pillows meet, +My lids are fain themselves to close. + Good night, my love! good night, my sweet! + +My lips no other words can say, + But still they murmur and repeat +To you, who slumber far away, + Good night, my love! good night, my sweet! + + + + +AN EXILE'S SONG + + +My soul is like a prisoned lark, + That sings and dreams of liberty, +The nights are long, the days are dark, + Away from home, away from thee! + +My only joy is in my dreams, + When I thy loving face can see. +How dreary the awakening seems, + Away from home, away from thee! + +At dawn I hasten to the shore, + To gaze across the sparkling sea-- +The sea is bright to me no more, + Which parts me from my home and thee. + +At twilight, when the air grows chill, + And cold and leaden is the sea, +My tears like bitter dews distil, + Away from home, away from thee. + +I could not live, did I not know + That thou art ever true to me, +I could not bear a doubtful woe, + Away from home, away from thee. + +I could not live, did I not hear + A voice that sings the day to be, +When hitherward a ship shall steer, + To bear me back to home and thee. + +Oh, when at last that day shall break + In sunshine on the dancing sea, +It will be brighter for the sake + Of my return to home and thee! + + + + +FOR SCOTLAND + + +Beyond the Cheviots and the Tweed, + Beyond the Firth of Forth, +My memory returns at speed + To Scotland and the North. + +For still I keep, and ever shall, + A warm place in my heart for Scotland, +Scotland, Scotland, + A warm place in my heart for Scotland. + +Oh, cruel off St. Andrew's Bay + The winds are wont to blow! +They either rest or gently play, + When there in dreams I go. + +And there I wander, young again, + With limbs that do not tire, +Along the coast to Kittock's Den, + With whinbloom all afire. + +I climb the Spindle Rock, and lie + And take my doubtful ease, +Between the ocean and the sky, + Derided by the breeze. + +Where coloured mushrooms thickly grow, + Like flowers of brittle stalk, +To haunted Magus Muir I go, + By Lady Catherine's Walk. + +In dreams the year I linger through, + In that familiar town, +Where all the youth I ever knew, + Burned up and flickered down. + +There's not a rock that fronts the sea, + There's not an inland grove, +But has a tale to tell to me + Of friendship or of love. + +And so I keep, and ever shall, + The best place in my heart for Scotland, +Scotland, Scotland, + The best place in my heart for Scotland! + + + + +THE HAUNTED CHAMBER + + +Life is a house where many chambers be, + And all the doors will yield to him who tries, + Save one, whereof men say, behind it lies +The haunting secret. He who keeps the key, + +Keeps it securely, smiles perchance to see + The eager hands stretched out to clutch the prize, + Or looks with pity in the yearning eyes, +And is half moved to let the secret free. + +And truly some at every hour pass through, + Pass through, and tread upon that solemn floor, + Yet come not back to tell what they have found. +We will not importune, as others do, + With tears and cries, the keeper of the door, + But wait till our appointed hour comes round. + + + + +NIGHTFALL + + +Let me sleep. The day is past, + And the folded shadows keep +Weary mortals safe and fast. + Let me sleep. + +I am all too tired to weep + For the sunlight of the Past +Sunk within the drowning deep. + +Treasured vanities I cast + In an unregarded heap. +Time has given rest at last. + Let me sleep. + + + + +IN TIME OF SICKNESS + + +Lost Youth, come back again! +Laugh at weariness and pain. +Come not in dreams, but come in truth, + Lost Youth. + +Sweetheart of long ago, +Why do you haunt me so? +Were you not glad to part, + Sweetheart? + +Still Death, that draws so near, +Is it hope you bring, or fear? +Is it only ease of breath, + Still Death? + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} Mr. Butler lectures on Physics, or, as it is called in Scotland, +Natural Philosophy. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT F. 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