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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 text] + +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 Project Gutenberg Etext of R. F. Murray: His Poems with a Memoir + |