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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:04:27 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:04:27 -0700 |
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diff --git a/45586-0.txt b/45586-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc02f3d --- /dev/null +++ b/45586-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5830 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Auld Lang Syne, by Various + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Auld Lang Syne + Selections from the Papers of the "Pen and Pencil Club" + + +Author: Various + + + +Release Date: May 5, 2014 [eBook #45586] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AULD LANG SYNE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1877 Chiswick Press edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + AULD LANG SYNE. + + + * * * * * + + SELECTIONS FROM THE PAPERS + + OF THE + + “PEN AND PENCIL CLUB.” + + “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, + And never brought to min’, + Should auld acquaintance be forgot, + And days o’ lang syne!” + + BURNS. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. + + 1877. + + * * * * * + + CHISWICK PRESS:—C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS COURT, + CHANCERY LANE. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + + PAGE +Cradle Feb. 1864 _Mentia Taylor_ 1 +Bells March, 1864 _Marian James_ 3 +Mirror June, 1864 _Lewis Morris_ 4 +Shadows Nov. 1864 _Catherine 5 + Taylor_ +Shadows Nov. 1864 _Lewis 6 + Sergeant_ +Organ Boys Dec. 1864 _Frances Power 7 + Cobbe_ +Organ Boys Dec. 1864 _Lewis Morris_ 9 +Stumbling Blocks March, 1865 _Professor 16 + Seeley_ +Witchcraft May, 1865 _Mentia Taylor_ 19 +Chivalry Feb. 1866 _Marian James_ 22 +Castles in the Air March, 1866 _Annie Keary_ 26 +Autumn Leaves May, 1866 _Arthur Munby_ 28 +Silence June, 1866 _Mentia Taylor_ 30 +Lights and Shadows Dec. 1866 _Lewis Morris_ 31 +Echoes Feb. 1867 _M. D. Conway_ 36 +Expediency March, 1867 _Professor 40 + Seeley_ +Rest April, 1867 _Joseph 43 + Mazzini_ +Rest April, 1867 _Alice 45 + Malleson_ +Rest April, 1867 _Edwin Arnold_ 46 +Gossip Nov. 1867 _Catherine 49 + Taylor_ +Chips May, 1868 _Austin Dobson_ 54 +Chips May, 1868 _Joseph Biggs_ 57 +Transformation Dec. 1868 _Caroline 62 + Biggs_ +Transformation Dec. 1868 _Eliza Keary_ 67 +Surprise March, 1869 _Edwin Arnold_ 75 +The Gloaming March, 1869 _Henry 78 + Fellowes_ +Sketches April, 1869 _Lewis 83 + Sergeant_ +Sketches April, 1869 _Annie Keary_ 84 +Sketches April, 1869 _Austin Dobson_ 92 +Things Gone By May, 1869 _Sheldon Amos_ 97 +Things Gone By May, 1869 _P. A. Taylor_ 99 +Things Gone By May, 1869 _Arthur Munby_ 102 +No; or, the Little Goose May, 1869 _Eliza Keary_ 103 +Girl +Exile Jan. 1870 _Caroline 108 + Biggs_ +Exile Jan. 1870 _Joseph Biggs_ 111 +Tradition Feb. 1870 _H. W. Higgins_ 115 +Regret March, 1870 _A. D. 117 + Atkinson_ +Realities Dec. 1870 _P. A. Taylor_ 118 +Realities Dec. 1870 _Lewis 125 + Sergeant_ +Bark Feb. 1871 _Lewis 128 + Sergeant_ +Smoke April, 1871 _J. S. Babb_ 130 +Wherefore Nov. 1871 _H. W. Higgins_ 132 +Voices Nov. 1871 _M. J. 134 + Ronniger_ +Return of the Swallows March, 1874 _Agnes 135 + Macdonell_ +Return of the Swallows March, 1874 _William 137 + Allingham_ +Return of the Swallows March, 1874 _Edmund Gosse_ 142 +Auld Lang Syne March, 1874 _Thomas 144 + Webster_ +Auld Lang Syne March, 1874 _Augusta 149 + Webster_ +River April, 1874 _Austin Dobson_ 151 +River April, 1874 _Adelaide 156 + Manning_ +Footpath April, 1874 _Ashurst Biggs_ 158 +Footpath April, 1874 _C. E. Maurice_ 162 +Footpath April, 1874 _Edward 164 + Carpenter_ +Footpath April, 1874 _Edmund Gosse_ 165 +Footpath April, 1874 _Austin Dobson_ 170 +Turn of the Tide May, 1874 _Caroline 171 + Biggs_ +Turn of the Tide May, 1874 _A. M. 173 + Stoddart_ +Turn of the Tide May, 1874 _G. A. Simcox_ 174 +Compromise May, 1874 _Thomas 175 + Webster_ +Farewell _Mentia Taylor_ 176 + + [Picture: Aubrey House (back view)] + + [Picture: Aubrey House (front view)] + + + + +CRADLE. + + + THE human heart is cradle of deep love, + Which growing and expanding from its birth, + Ever finds space within that living cot; + Howe’er remotely o’er this beauteous earth + Its subtle influences may joy impart, + Whilst nestling in the human heart. + + The human mind is cradle of high thought, + Ever aspiring to extend its sphere, + To penetrate those mysteries of life + Philosophy has fail’d to render clear. + Howe’er expansive, thought will ever find + Its cradle in the human mind. + + The human soul is cradle of deep faith, + Of aspirations, and of purpose strong, + To kindle into life the seeds of truth— + Eradicate the germs of vice and wrong. + Howe’er these seeds develop and increase, + Within man’s soul they’ll find their place. + + Three living cradles in one living form, + Expanding ever from their early birth; + High thought and sweet affection in ye dwell, + And Faith which hallows all things on this earth. + Each human being in himself may find + Three living cradles—soul, heart, mind. + + + + +THE SOUND OF BELLS. + + + O HAPPY bells that thrill the air + Of tranquil English summer-eves, + When stirless hang the aspen leaves, + And Silence listens everywhere. + + And sinks and swells the tender chime, + Sad, as regret for buried fears, + Sweet, as repentant yearning tears— + The fit voice of the holy time. + + O wond’rous voice! O mystic sound! + We listen, and our thoughts aspire + Like spiritual flame, from fire + That idly smoulders on the ground. + + Forgotten longings have new birth + For better, purer, nobler life, + Lifted above the noisy strife + That drowns the music of this earth. + + And human sorrow seems to be + A link unto diviner things, + The budding of the spirit’s wings + That only thus can soar—and see. + + The twilight fades—the sweet bells cease, + The common world’s come back again, + But for a little space, its pain + And weariness are steep’d in peace. + + + + +MIRROR. + + + I SEE myself reflected in thine eyes, + The dainty mirrors set in golden frame + Of eyelash, quiver with a sweet surprise, + And most ingenuous shame. + + Like Eve, who hid her from the dread command + Deep in the dewy blooms of paradise; + So thy shy soul, love calling, fears to stand + Discover’d at thine eyes. + + Or, like a tender little fawn, which lies + Asleep amid the fern, and waking, hears + Some careless footstep drawing near, and flies, + Yet knows not what she fears. + + So shrinks thy soul, but, dearest, shrink not so; + Look thou into mine eyes as I in thine, + So our reflected souls shall meet and grow, + And each with each combine + + In something nobler; as when one has laid + Opposite mirrors on a cottage wall; + And lo! the never-ending colonnade, + The vast palatial hall. + + So our twin souls, by one sweet suicide, + Shall fade into an essence more sublime; + Living through death, and dying glorified, + Beyond the reach of time. + + + + +SHADOWS. + + + SHADOW gives to sunshine brightness, + And it gives to joy its lightness; + Shadow gives to honour meekness, + And imparts its strength to weakness; + Shadow deepens human kindness, + Draws the veil from mental blindness; + Shadow sweetens love’s own sweetness, + And gives to life its deep intenseness; + Shadow is earth’s sacredness, + And the heaven’s loveliness; + Shadow is day’s tenderness, + And the night’s calm holiness; + Shadow’s deepest night of darkness + Will break in day’s eternal brightness. + + + + +SHADOWS. + + + IN the band of noble workers, + Seems no place for such as I— + They have faith, where I have yearning, + They can speak where I but sigh, + They can point the way distinctly + Where for me the shadows lie. + + Lofty purpose, strong endeavour, + These are not ordain’d for me— + Wayside flower might strive for ever, + Never could it grow a tree— + Yet a child may laugh to gather, + Or a sick man smile to see. + + So I too in God’s creation + Have my own peculiar part, + He must have some purpose surely + For weak hand and timid heart, + Transient joys for my diffusing, + For my healing transient smart. + + Just to fling a moment’s brightness + Over dreary down-trod ways, + Just to fan a better impulse + By a full and ready praise— + Pitying where I may not succour, + Loving where I cannot raise. + + + + +ORGAN-BOYS. +A LEGEND OF LONDON. +BY THOMAS INGOLDSBY, MINOR. + + + IN days—not old—a Demon lived, + And a terrible Fiend was he, + For he ground and he ground + All London around, + A huge barrel-organ of hideous sound, + Incessantly! + From morning’s light + Till the deep midnight, + In all sorts of streets and all sorts of squares. + Up the _cul-de-sacs_—down the thoroughfares, + Where Thames rolls his waters from Greenwich to Kew, + Not a lane could you find that he didn’t go through. + You heard him at all times when most unaware, + In quiet back-parlours up five flights of stair; + When you ate, when you drank, when you read morning prayer, + Or sat dozing awhile in an easy armchair, + Or read a new novel—or talk’d to a friend, + Or endeavour’d to settle accounts without end, + Or when grief (or champagne), caused an ache in your head, + Or you promised yourself to lie latish in bed, + It was all the same + That Demon came, + Grind! grind! + Peace there was none, + Under the sun; + That odious organ never had done. + Sick, sad, or sorry, + No end to the worry. + No sort of grief + Brought the slightest relief; + You might send out to say you were dying or dead, + The organ ground on as if nothing were said! + Grind! grind! + Till you lost your mind. + No use to scold, or draw down the blind, + The fiend only ground more loud and more fast, + Till you _had_ to give him a shilling at last. + So that having tormented you madly that day, + He would surely next morning come round the same way, + And grind and grind—till in frenzy of pain, + You should bribe him once more—just to come back again! + + Know ye, my friends, who this Fiend may be? + Here is the key to the mystery— + It is TUBAL CAIN! who—the Bible says— + Invented organs in very old days, + And for that dread crime, so atrocious and black, + Was sentenced thenceforth to bear one on his back, + A heavier fate (as was justly his due), + Than befell his Papa when poor Abel he slew: + For Cain, killing _one_ man, was let off quite cheap— + Tubal murdered us _all_—at least “murder’d our sleep.” + + + + +THE ORGAN-BOY. + + + GREAT brown eyes, + Thick plumes of hair, + Old corduroys + The worse for wear. + A button’d jacket, + And peeping out + An ape’s grave poll, + Or a guinea-pig’s snout. + A sun-kiss’d face + And a dimpled mouth, + With the white flashing teeth, + And soft smile of the south. + A young back bent, + Not with age or care, + But the load of poor music + ’Tis fated to bear. + But a common-place picture + To common-place eyes, + Yet full of a charm + Which the thinker will prize. + They were stern, cold rulers, + Those Romans of old, + Scorning art and letters + For conquest and gold; + Yet leavening mankind, + In mind and tongue, + With the laws that they made + And the songs that they sung. + Sitting, rose-crown’d, + With pleasure-choked breath, + As the nude young limbs crimson’d, + Then stiffen’d in death. + Piling up monuments + Greater than praise, + Thoughts and deeds that shall live + To the latest of days. + Adding province to province, + And sea to sea, + Till the idol fell down + And the world rose up free. + + And this is the outcome, + This vagabond child + With that statue-like face + And eyes soft and mild; + This creature so humble, + So gay, yet so meek, + Whose sole strength is only + The strength of the weak. + Of those long cruel ages + Of lust and of guile, + Nought left us to-day + But an innocent smile. + For the labour’d appeal + Of the orator’s art, + A few foolish accents + That reach to the heart. + For those stern legions speeding + O’er sea and o’er land, + But a pitiful glance + And a suppliant hand. + I could moralize still + But the organ begins, + And the tired ape swings downward, + And capers and grins, + And away flies romance. + And yet, time after time, + As I dwell on days spent + In a sunnier clime, + Of blue lakes deep set + In the olive-clad mountains, + Of gleaming white palaces + Girt with cool fountains, + Of minsters where every + Carved stone is a treasure, + Of sweet music hovering + ’Twixt pain and ’twixt pleasure; + Of chambers enrich’d + On all sides, overhead, + With the deathless creations + Of hands that are dead; + Of still cloisters holy, + And twilight arcade, + Where the lovers still saunter + Thro’ chequers of shade; + Of tomb and of temple, + Arena and column, + ’Mid to-day’s garish splendours, + Sombre and solemn; + Of the marvellous town + With the salt-flowing street, + Where colour burns deepest, + And music most sweet; + Of her the great mother, + Who centuries sate + ’Neath a black shadow blotting + The days she was great; + Who was plunged in such shame— + She, our source and our home— + That a foul spectre only + Was left us of Rome; + She who, seeming to sleep + Through all ages to be, + Was the priest’s, is mankind’s,— + Was a slave, and is free! + + I turn with grave thought + To this child of the ages, + And to all that is writ + In Time’s hidden pages. + Shall young Howards or Guelphs, + In the days that shall come, + Wander forth, seeking bread, + Far from England and home? + + Shall they sail to new continents, + English no more, + Or turn—strange reverse— + To the old classic shore? + Shall fair locks and blue eyes, + And the rose on the cheek, + Find a language of pity + The tongue cannot speak— + “Not English, but angels?” + Shall this tale be told + Of Romans to be + As of Romans of old? + Shall they too have monkeys + And music? Will any + Try their luck with an engine + Or toy spinning-jenny? + + Shall we too be led + By that mirage of Art + Which saps the true strength + Of the national heart? + The sensuous glamour, + The dreamland of grace, + Which rot the strong manhood + They fail to replace; + Which at once are the glory, + The ruin, the shame, + Of the beautiful lands + And ripe souls whence they came? + + Oh, my England! oh, Mother + Of Freemen! oh, sweet, + Sad toiler majestic, + With labour-worn feet! + Brave worker, girt round, + Inexpugnable, free, + With tumultuous sound + And salt spume of the sea, + Fenced off from the clamour + Of alien mankind + By the surf on the rock, + And the shriek of the wind, + Tho’ the hot Gaul shall envy, + The cold German flout thee, + Thy far children scorn thee, + Still thou shalt be great, + Still march on uncaring, + Thy perils unsharing, + Alone, and yet daring + Thy infinite fate. + Yet ever remembering + The precepts of gold + That were written in part + For the great ones of old— + “Let other hands fashion + The marvels of art; + To thee fate has given + A loftier part, + To rule the wide peoples, + To bind them to thee.” + By the sole bond of loving, + That bindeth the free, + To hold thy own place, + Neither lawless nor slave; + Not driven by the despot, + Nor trick’d by the knave. + + But these thoughts are too solemn. + So play, my child, play, + Never heeding the connoisseur + Over the way, + The last dances of course; + Then with scant pause between, + “Home, sweet Home,” the “Old Hundredth,” + And “God Save the Queen.” + + See the poor children swarm + From dark court and dull street, + As the gay music quickens + The lightsome young feet. + See them now whirl away, + Now insidiously come, + With a coy grace which conquers + The squalor of home. + See the pallid cheeks flushing + With innocent pleasure + At the hurry and haste + Of the quick-footed measure. + See the dull eyes now bright, + And now happily dim, + For some soft-dying cadence + Of love-song or hymn. + Dear souls, little joy + Of their young lives have they, + So thro’ hymn-tune and song-tune + Play on, my child, play. + + For though dull pedants chatter + Of musical taste, + Talk of hindered researches + And hours run to waste; + Though they tell us of thoughts + To ennoble mankind, + Which your poor measures chase + From the labouring mind; + While your music rejoices + One joyless young heart, + Perish bookworms and books, + Perish learning and art— + Of my vagabond fancies + I’ll even take my fill. + “Qualche cosa, signor?” + Yes, my child, that I will. + + + + +STUMBLING-BLOCKS. + + + THINK when you blame the present age, my friends, + This age has one redeeming point—it _mends_. + With many monstrous ills we’re forced to cope; + But we have life and movement, we have hope. + Oh! this is much! Thrice pitiable they + Whose lot is cast in ages of decay, + Who watch a waning light, an ebbing tide, + Decline of energy and fall of pride, + Old glories disappearing unreplaced, + Receding culture and encroaching waste, + Art grown pedantic, manners waxing coarse, + The good thing still succeeded by the worse. + We see not what those latest Romans saw, + When o’er Italian cities, Latin law, + Greek beauty, swept the barbarizing tide, + And all fair things in slow succession died. + ’Tis much that such defeat and blank despair, + Whate’er our trials, ’tis not ours to bear, + Much that the mass of foul abuse grows less, + Much that the injured have sometimes redress, + Wealth grows less haughty, misery less resigned, + That policy grows just, religion kind, + That all worst things towards some better tend, + And long endurance nears at last its end; + The ponderous cloud grows thin and pierced with bright, + And its wild edge is fused in blinding light. + Yet disappointment still with hope appears, + And with desires that strengthen, strengthen fears, + ’Tis the swift-sailing ship that dreads the rocks, + The active foot must ’ware of stumbling-blocks. + Alas! along the way towards social good, + How many stones of dire offence lie strew’d. + Whence frequent failure, many shrewd mishaps + And dismal pause or helpless backward lapse. + Such was the hard reverse that Milton mourn’d, + An old man, when he saw the King returned + With right divine, and that fantastic train + Of banished fopperies come back again. + Thus France, too wildly clutching happiness. + Stumbled perplexed, and paid in long distress, + In carnage, where the bloody conduit runs, + And one whole generation of her sons + Devoted to the Power of Fratricide + For one great year, one eager onward stride. + From all these stumbling-blocks that strew the way + What wisest cautions may ensure us, say. + Cling to the present good with steadfast grip, + And for no fancied better let it slip, + Whether thy fancy in the future live + Or yearn to make the buried past revive. + The past is dead,—let the dead have his dues, + Remembrance of historian and of Muse; + But try no lawless magic on the urn, + It shocks to see the brightest past return. + Some good things linger when their date is fled, + These honour as you do the hoary head, + And treat them tenderly for what they were, + But dream not to detain them always there. + The living good the present moments bring + To this devote thyself and chiefly cling; + And for the novel schemes that round thee rise, + Watch them with hopeful and indulgent eyes, + Treat them as children, love them, mark their ways, + And blame their faults and dole out cautious praise, + And give them space, yet limit them with rule, + And hold them down and keep them long at school: + Yet know in these is life most fresh and strong, + And that to these at last shall all belong. + Be proved and present good thy safe-guard still, + And thy one quarrel be with present ill. + Learn by degrees a steady onward stride + With sleepless circumspection for thy guide. + And since so thick the stumbling-blocks are placed, + You are not safe but in renouncing haste; + Permit not so your zeal to be repressed, + But make the loss up by renouncing rest. + + + + +WITCHCRAFT. + + + I SPOSE ’tis I—and yet, so strange + I feel, I doubt if I’m all right. + Only since Tuesday last this change, + And this is Friday night. + + On Monday, life was very drear, + My missus was _so_ cross, + ’Cos how I’d spilt a jug of beer— + She, who calls money dross. + + She thinks herself a very saint, + ‘Cos she reads prayers to us; + But Sal the cook, and I, we ain’t + Imposed on by her fuss. + + ’Tis not the prayers I think is bad, + But those who are so good + Should act as if they feelings had + Towards we—who are flesh and blood. + + But _now_ if missus ’gins to scold + I do not care a straw, + For Tom, on Tuesday morning, told + Me not to mind her jaw. + + I now can dance, and laugh, and sing, + Altho’ I work all day. + _Surely_ it is a funny thing, + I’m all at once so gay. + + All ’cos Tom’s in love with me, + And I’m sure he says what’s true. + _He_ says love’s a mystery + Which in Eden’s garden grew. + + _I_ call love witchcraft, that I do; + It’s made me quite another; + Instead of being Mary Roe, + I may be any other. + + Missus thinks I’m going mad, + I work with such good glee; + ’Tis only that my heart is glad + ’Cos Tom’s in love with me. + + I wish some man would missus love; + She might be kinder then. + She says her ’fections are above, + ’Cos sinful are all men. + + If she but had the chance, I b’lieve, + She’d ’cept the first with glee, + And would not any longer grieve + O’er man’s depravity. + + She’d be as different as I— + Oh, laws! what fun ’twould be; + For missus is a very guy, + ’Twixt you and Tom and me. + + P’rhaps love would make her young once more, + And change her temper too, + For certain, love has witchcraft’s power, + All things he likes, to do. + + Tom says _so_, and _so_ ’tis true, + Tom never tells a lie; + And what Tom bids I’ll always do, + Until at last I die. + + + + +CHIVALRY. + + +CHIVALRY, ho yes, I have heerd of such a thing, but I don’t mind +owning—not allus having a Tomson’s Dixonary aside o’ me—as I never +rightly unnerstood the full meanin’ o’ the word until this very day, when +the subjick was suggested and my opinion arxed, which, why should I deny, +I _had_ supposed it strictly limited to the man in Brass ninth o’ +November Lord Mayor’s Show, as they says it is to be abolished in future +times, and a great loss I’m sure to the rising generation, though apt to +be mostly all mud and squeeging and more pains than profit to grownups, +and likewise in Christmas pantomines and bur-lesks at theayters I have +seen Alls of Chivalry most georgius to beeold with young ladies in +uncountless troops coming out o’ shells and flowers and bells and stars +as made the rime of infancy seem quite reesnable, though why slugs and +snails only for the other sect is more than I can explain, and I don’t +blush to own free and frank as I believed the time for it in reel life +was past and gone these ages, though efforts made many a year back at the +Eglintown Turnamount rung through the country, and well I remember seeing +picters of queens o’ beauty and gentlemen done up in harmer and a +hossback as looked when once they was hup it was more than they could do +to save their lives to get down again without most competent assistance, +and far from comfortable or easy I should say them mettal dresses was, as +it stands to reesin, man being of a active character, was never intended +by nature to go about with a shell outside of him like snails, which is +both slow and useless, _I_ should say, unless making your palings slimy +and nibbling at your cabbage sprouts is useful acts, which much I doubt, +though how I’ve got from Chivalry to snails is most surpriging, only the +workings of the huming mind _is_ so surpriging as no one never need be +surpriged at nothing of the sort,—where was I, ho at harmer which, if you +arx my opinion, I do consider such a ill-conwenience as there ought to be +a deal to make up for it, and if you can’t have Chivalry without harmer I +must say I think we’re better as we are, fur what with crinnerlin the +world’s ardly big enough as it is, and if these coats of male was to come +in, made of steel likewise, you couldn’t walk in London, excep in +Portland Place, praps, and in quiet distrix like Islington and Upper +Baker Street, while as for omnibuses, my belief is they’re only kep going +as it is by the lightness and tightness of manly figgers and costoom, and +if _they_ took to harmer there’d be an end of twelve inside, much less of +thirteen out, and pit seats would have to be enlarged, as also pews in +church, and especially pulpits, likewise the Houses of Parliament and the +Corts of Lor, and everythink would be deranged together fur no particklar +good that I can see, but Mrs. Jones she ses it’s not the harmer, it’s not +the outside man as needs a haltering in this year age of ourn, it’s not +the costoom she ses, it’s the manners, she ses, which in ancient times +was so much superior to any think we know on in the presint day, she ses, +fur in them distant days there was galliant knights which wore a scarve +or a ribbing of the lady as they preferred, and went about the world with +long spears a defying all the other knights to say as that there lady of +theirs wasn’t the most beautifulest of all living ladies, and fight they +would with them spears, and sometimes got ard nox too, in spite of their +harmer, but got up again a hossback mostly, and went off to other parts a +doing the same thing, which, if that’s chivalry, why I arx you what on +erth is the good of such goings on as that, but ho Mrs. Jones ses, that’s +not all, she ses, and torx at me fur hours on end, she does, a trying to +show me what a deal more obliginger and politer was the manners of them +there knights to the manners of these year days, and how they was always +a helping of the helpless, and a succouring the distressed, and how they +thought it a honner and no trouble to put theirselves to all sorts of +inconvenience to oblige one of our sect which, especially the unprotected +female, was their joy and pride, never you mind how many bangboxes she +might have, nor how pouring of rain, outside of the omnibuses of the +period them knights would go immediate, and only count it a ordinary part +of what they called their devour to the fare, which I will own I _have_ +met with quite contrairy condick from well drest pussons, as doubtless +calls theirselves gentlemen, and after standing hours, I may say, in +Regint Circus or corner of Tottenham Court Road, have been pushed from +getting of my place inside by the very harms that in other times Mrs. +Jones ses would have been lifted to my haid, but lor! I ses to her, +though this may appen occasional, I ses, what can you expeck in London in +the midst of millions of snobs as thinks only of theirselves, and has +never learned any better, poor deers, which I’m sorry fur ’em, fur sure I +am as the feelins is much more comfortabler of a reel and right down +_gentle_ man, which the word explains itself, don’t it, and we don’t want +no knights in harmer while there’s men left, and proud I am to say I know +a many such, and have met with kindness from a many more as I don’t know +the names on, which if they’d had harmer on twice over couldn’t be more +ready to lend their strength to the weak, and their elp to the elpless, +and chivalry can’t mean no more than that, so let alone the harmer, we +can’t have too much of it, _I_ ses, and Mrs. Jones she ses so too, and we +ses it not as wimming only but as humane beings as likes to see their +feller creeturs a growing in good arts and appiness, not forgetting as +wimming likewise has _our_ duties, which is seldom done as well as one +could wish, and so has no manner of rite to preech, which much I fear +I’ve been a running on most unconscionable, and took up a deal too much +of your time, but umbly arx your parding and won’t intrude no further. + + + + +CHILDHOOD’S CASTLES IN THE AIR. + + + GENTLY, no pushing; there’s room to sit + All three without grumbling, + One in front, two behind, well you fit, + And mamma to hold you from tumbling. + Rock, rock, old rocking chair, + You’ll last us a long time with care, + And still without balking + Of us four any one, + From rocking and talking— + That is what we call fun. + + Curtains drawn, and no candles lit, + Great red caves in the fire, + This is the time for us four to sit + Rocking and talking all till we tire. + Rock, rock, old rocking chair, + How the fire-light glows up there, + Red on the white ceiling; + The shadows every one + Might be giants, reeling + On their great heads, for fun. + + Shall we call this a boat out at sea, + We, four sailors rowing? + Can you fancy it well? As for me + I feel the salt wind blowing. + Up, up and down, lazy boat, + On the top of a wave we float, + Down we go with a rush; + Far off I see a strand + Glimmer; our boat we’ll push + Ashore on Fairy-land. + + The fairy people come running + To meet us down on the sand, + Each holding out toward us the very thing + We’ve long wished for, held in his hand. + Up, up again; one wave more + Holds us back from the fairy shore; + Let’s pull all together, + Then with it, up we’ll climb, + To the always fine weather + That makes up fairy time. + + Come to us through the dark, children, + Hark! the fairy people call, + But a step between us and you, children, + And in Fairy-land room for us all. + Climb the main and you will be + Landed safe in gay Fairie, + Sporting, feasting, both night and noon, + No pause in fairy pleasures; + Silver ships that sail to the moon, + Magic toys for treasures. + + Ah! the tide sweeps us out of our track, + The glimmer dies in the fire, + There’s no climbing the wave that holds back + Just the things that we all most desire! + Never mind, rock, rocking-chair; + While there’s room for us four there, + To sit by fire-light swinging, + Till some one open the door, + Birds in their own nest singing + Ain’t happier than we four. + + + + +AUTUMN LEAVES. + + +I. + + + WHO cares to think of autumn leaves in spring? + When the birds sing, + And buds are new, and every tree is seen + Veil’d in a mist of tender gradual green; + And every bole and bough + Makes ready for the soft low-brooding wings + Of nested ones to settle there and prove + How sweet is love; + Alas, who then will notice or avow + Such bygone things? + + + +II. + + + For, hath not spring the promise of the year? + Is she not always dear + To those who can look forward and forget? + Her woods do nurse the violet; + With cowslips fair her fragrant fields are set; + And freckled butterflies + Gleam in her gleaming skies; + And life looks larger, as each lengthening day + Withdraws the shadow, and drinks up the tear: + Youth shall be youth for ever; and the gay + High-hearted summer with her pomps is near. + + + +III. + + + Yes; but the soul that meditates and grieves, + And guards a precious past, + And feels that neither joy nor loveliness can last— + To her, the fervid flutter of our Spring + Is like the warmth of that barbarian hall + To the scared bird, whose wet and wearied wing + Shot through it once, and came not back at all. + Poor shrunken soul! she knows her fate too well; + Too surely she can tell + That each most delicate toy her fancy made, + And she herself, and what she prized and knew, + And all her loved ones too, + Shall soon lie low, forgotten and decay’d, + Like autumn leaves. + + + + +SILENCE. +(OF A DEAF PERSON.) + + + I SEE the small birds fluttering on the trees, + And _know_ the sweet notes they are softly singing; + I see the green leaves trembling in the breeze, + And _know_ the rustling that such breeze is bringing; + I see the waters rippling as they flow, + And _know_ the soothing murmur of their noise; + I see the children in the fire-light’s glow, + Laughing and playing with their varied toys; + I see the signs of merriment and mirth; + I see the music of God’s lovely earth; + I see the earnest talk of friend with friend, + And wish my earnest thoughts with theirs could blend; + But oh! to my deaf ears there comes no sound, + I live a life of silence most profound. + + + + +LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. + + + DEAR heart! what a little time it is, since Francis and I used to walk + From church in the still June evenings together, busy with loving + talk; + And now he is gone far away over seas, to some strange foreign + country,—and I + Shall never rise from my bed any more, till the day when I come to + die. + + I tried not to think of him during the prayers; but when his dear + voice I heard + I fail’d to take part in the hymns, for my heart flutter’d up to my + throat like a bird; + And scarcely a word of the sermon I caught. I doubt ’twas a grievous + sin; + But ’twas only one poor little hour in the week that I had to be happy + in. + + When the blessing was given, and we left the dim aisles for the light + of the evening star, + Though I durst not lift up my eyes from the ground, yet I knew that he + was not far; + And I hurried on, though I fain would have stayed, till I heard his + footstep draw near, + And love rising up in my breast like a flame, cast out every shadow of + fear. + + Ah me! ’twas a pleasant pathway home, a pleasant pathway and sweet, + Ankle deep through the purple clover, breast high ’mid the blossoming + wheat: + I can hear the landrails call through the dew, and the night-jars’ + tremulous thrill, + And the nightingale pouring her passionate song from the hawthorn + under the hill. + + One day, when we came to the wicket gate, ’neath the elms, where we + used to part, + His voice began to falter and break as he told me I had his heart; + And I whisper’d that mine was his; we knew what we felt long ago: + Six weeks are as long as a lifetime almost when you love each other + so. + + So we put up the banns, and were man and wife in the sweet fading time + of the year, + And till Christmas was over and past I knew neither sorrow nor fear. + It seems like a dream already, a sweet dream vanished and gone; + So hurried and brief while passing away, so long to look back upon. + + I had only had him three months, and the world lay frozen and dead, + When the summons came which we feared and hoped, and he sail’d over + sea for our bread. + Ah well! it is fine to be wealthy and grand, and never to need to + part; + But ’tis better to love and be poor, than be rich with an empty heart. + + Though I thought ’twould have kill’d me to lose him at first, yet was + he not going for me? + So I hid all the grief in my breast which I knew it would pain him to + see. + He’d be back by the autumn, he said; and since his last passionate + kiss + He has scarcely been out of my thoughts, day or night, for a moment, + from that day to this. + + When I wrote to him how I thought it would be, and he answered so full + of love; + Ah! there was no angel happier than I, in all the bright chorus above; + And I seem’d to be lonely no longer, the days slipp’d so swiftly away; + And the March winds died, and the sweet April showers gave place to + the blossoms of May. + + And then came the sad summer eve, when I sat with the little frock in + the sun, + And Annie ran in with the news of the ship. Ah, well! may His will be + done! + They said that all hands were lost, and I swoon’d away like a stone, + And another life came ere I knew he was safe, and that mine was over + and gone. + + So now I lie helpless here, and shall never rise up again, + I grow weaker and weaker, day by day, till my weakness itself is a + pain. + Every morning the creeping dawn, every evening I see from my bed + The orange-gold fade into lifeless grey, and the old evening star + overhead. + + Sometimes in the twilight dim, or the awful birth of the day, + As I lie, not asleep nor awake, my soul seems to flutter away, + And I seem to be floating beyond the stars, till I thrill with an + exquisite pain, + And the feeble touch of a tiny hand recalls me to life again. + + And the doctor says she will live. Ah! ’tis hard to leave her alone, + And to think she will never know in the world the love of the mother + who’s gone! + He will tell her of me, by and by,—she will shed me a childish tear; + But if I should stoop to her bed in the night, she would start with a + horrible fear. + + She will grow into girlhood, I trust, and will bask in the light of + love, + And I, if I see her at all, shall only look on from above— + I shall see her, and cannot help, though she fall into evil and woe. + Ah! how can the angels find heart to rejoice when they think of their + loved ones below? + + And Francis, he too, will forget me, and will go on the journey of + life, + And I hope, though I dare not think of it yet, will take him another + wife. + It will scarcely be Annie, I think, though she liked him in days gone + by; + Was that why she came?—but what thoughts are these for one who is + going to die? + + I hope he will come ere I go, though I feel no longer the thirst + For the sound of his voice, and the light of his eye, that I used to + feel at first: + ’Tis not that I love him less, but death dries, like a whirlwind of + fire, + The tender springs of innocent love, and the torrents of strong + desire. + + And I know we shall meet again. I have done many things that are + wrong, + But, surely, the Lord of Life and of Love, cannot bear to be angry + long. + I am only a girl of eighteen, and have had no teacher but love; + And, it may be, the sorrow and pain I have known will be counted for + me, above; + + For I doubt if the minister knows all the depths of the goodness of + God, + When he says He is jealous of earthly love, and bids me bow down + ’neath the rod. + He is learnèd and wise, I know, but, somehow, to dying eyes + God opens the secret doors of the shrine that are closed to the + learnèd and wise. + + So now I am ready to go, for I know He will do what is best, + Though he call me away while the sun is on high, like a child sent + early to rest. + I should like to see Francis look on our child, though the longing is + over and past— + But what is that footstep upon the stair? Oh! my darling—at last! at + last! + + + + +ECHOES. + + +ON Thursday I sat in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral and watched the +Bishops, Deans, Canons, and other clergy as they walked up in procession, +leading the new Archbishop. The Archbishop seemed, I thought, to look +with sheepish glances at two young men in full ball-room dress, who +walked behind, holding up his long train; and I am satisfied that nothing +but the proprieties of the place prevented his Grace from kicking them +both, and carrying his tail in his own hands. The clergy, in their white +gowns, with their various University colours, presented a rather pleasant +appearance in the aggregate, and, with the environment of the old +Cathedral arches, I thought they must have appeared to the best +advantage. But while I gazed upon the old Archbishop and those who were +doing him homage, the first notes of a distant chant broke faintly +through the air. The choristers had just entered the western door far +away, and as they slowly moved at the end of the long procession, they +uttered a sweet old Gregorian chant. At first, as I listened, I thought +how very sweet it was; then I thought it was in danger of becoming +monotonous; nevertheless, the little cherubs had not consulted me about +the length of it, and so continued their chant. But then the old music +began to strike me with subtle effects, like the strain of some long +sound-seasoned Cremona violin. And at length it began to work some +strange spell upon me, and weave for my ear echoes caught up as it were +from the dead past which before had seemed sleeping in its many tombs +around. The echoes of wild pagan song, uttered with the tramp of mystic +dances, gathering at last to the dying groan of some poor wretch +perishing on a rude altar that a complacent smile may be won to the face +of his god. The echo of the voice of a monk who finds that altar, and +raises the crucifix above it. His voice blends with the outcry of the +people for their old gods, and the loud command of the baptized King. +What wild echoes are these hiding under that outburst of young voices? +The echoes of a thousand savage martyrs who will not bow down to the +Pope. Their protest is stifled with their blood; they pass to Valhalla +for whose All-Father they have died; and the howling tempest marks his +passage over the scene. Echoes again; the sounds of war. Hark! a +tumult—words of anger—a hoarse cry—an Archbishop’s last sigh as his life +ebbs away on the floor—there on the spot near the choir’s gate, where +Archbishop Tait now gazes as if he could see the stark form of à-Becket +lying there. Yes, plainly I heard that groan in the Gregorian chant. +Then there were the echoes of stripes. A King in the dark crypt, beneath +the shrine of the murdered Archbishop, now canonized, is being scourged +in penance for his sins. Blended with these, the echoes of the voices of +the great prelates and princes of many kingdoms, who have come to build a +shrine for the martyr: their exclamations before the shrine decked with +all the gleaming gems owned by the monarchs of Europe. One of them, +Louis of France, has refused to offer a diamond, the finest in the world, +but when the shrine is uncovered, the stone leaps from his ring and sets +itself in the centre of the brilliants. The people shout, nay, weep with +excitement at this miracle. All these I heard again in the chant. Then +came pathetic echoes out of many ages: the tones of mourners as they +followed here their honoured dead; the prayers of souls here aspiring +towards the mysteries of existence; voices of hearts that found peace; +the sobs of those who found it not; the low-toned benediction or +exhortation of confessors. The voices of priests from pulpits, and of +those who responded. All are hushed in death; but I heard their awakened +echoes. The echoes of tolling bells, of marriage chimes. The tones of +marriage vows. The startled cry of the infant wondering at the holy +water sprinkled upon it. The echoes of Chaucer’s merry or sad pilgrims +with their gracious or wanton stories, beguiling their way to the old inn +near Christ Church Gate, which one seeks now only to find it has been +burnt down. The echoes of their prayers for health at St. Dunstan’s or +St. Thomas’s Shrine, and that other shrine where the stones are worn +deepest with the knees of pilgrims, but whose saint is unknown. All +these echoes were awakened for my ear by the sweet chant of the boys in +Canterbury Cathedral; and unreal as they were, I confess they still seem +to me more real than the actual prayers for the confusion of Dr. Tait’s +imaginary enemies, or the ceremony of his enthronement. To sit upon +fourteen centuries and see a London gentleman in a coat so much too large +for him that his friends have to hold up its skirts for him, and to see +plethoric Englishmen, suggestive of sirloins, on their knees praying that +the snares set for their feet shall be broken,—produced in me feelings, +to say the least, of a mixed character; such as those which may have been +experienced by the landlady in the Strand, when she found that her lodger +Mr. Taylor (the Platonist) had sacrificed a bull to Jupiter in her back +parlour. There is something not undignified in an old Greek sacrificing +a heifer, laurel-crowned, to Zeus; and there is something not +unimpressive in old missionaries of the Cross struggling with pagan foes, +and symbolizing their faith in their vesture and in their candles which +lit up the caves to which they often had to fly. But to the crowd that +went down between business and business, to see so long as a +return-ticket permitted this effigy of a real past, there must have been +more absurdity than impressiveness in it. From the whole pageant I +recall with pleasure only the long sweet chant,—a theme ensouled by +genius and piety,—which, between the doorway and the altar, filled the +old Cathedral and made it a vast organ, with historic tones breathing the +echoes of millions of heaven-seeking pilgrims whose prayers and hymns +began at that spot before the advent of Christianity, and may perhaps +remain there after it has passed away. + + + + +EXPEDIENCY. + + + THUS to his scholars once Confucius said: + Better to die than not be rich: get wealth. + He who has nothing, trust me, nothing is; + Nay, tenfold worse than nothing. Not to be + Is neither good nor bad; but to be poor!— + ’Tis to be nothing with an envious wish, + A zero conscious of nonentity. + To get wealth, and to keep it—this is all, + And the one rule of life, expediency. + This was the lesson that the master taught, + And then he gave some rules for getting wealth: + Happy, who once can say, I have a thing. + All things are given us, all things to be had, + Except, alas! the faculty of having. + If you are sated with one dish of fruit, + Why, no more fruit have you, to call it having, + Though a whole Autumn lay in heaps about you. + How to _have_, this, my scholars, would I teach. + Yet who can teach it? it is great and hard. + This one thing dare I say. Be not deceived, + Nor dream that those called rich _have_ anything; + Who think that what the pocket treasures up, + And jealous foldings of the robe, is theirs; + Theirs all the plate the burglar cannot reach, + Theirs all the land they warn the traveller off: + Fools! Because we are poorer, are they rich? + What is none other’s, is it therefore theirs? + Endeavour, O my scholars, to be rich, + Scheme to get riches when you wake from sleep, + All day pursue them, pray for them at night. + As when one leans long time upon his hand, + Then, moving it, finds all its strength is gone + And it can now grasp nothing, so the soul + Loses in listlessness the grasping power, + And in the midst of wealth, _has_ nothing still. + I know not, O my scholars, how to bring + The tingling blood through the soul’s palsied limbs, + But when ’tis done how rich the soul may be + How royal in possessions, I can tell,— + One half of wisdom—seek elsewhere the other. + The gods divorce knowledge of good from good. + He who is happy and rich does seldom know it, + And he who knows the true wealth seldom has it. + Not only all this world of eye and ear + Becomes his house and palace of delights + Whose soul has grasping power; so that each form + To him becomes a picture that is his, + The light-stream as a fountain in his court, + The murmur of all movement music to him, + And time’s mere lapse rhythmical in his heart. + Not only so; a greater treasure still, + The lives of other men, by sympathy + Incorporated with his own, are his. + Get wealth, my scholars, this wealth first of all. + One life is beggary; live a thousand lives. + In those about you live and those remote; + Live many lives at once and call it country, + And call it kind; in the great future live + And make it in your life rehearse its life, + And make the pallid past repeat its life. + Be public-hearted and be myriad-soul’d, + So shall you noble be as well as rich, + And as a king watch for the general good. + Raised to a higher level, you shall find + With large enjoyments vast constraints, vast cares. + Be swayed by wider interests, be touched + By wiser instincts of the experienced heart, + And, since all greatness is a ponderous weight, + Be capable of vaster sufferance. + Your joys shall be as heaven, your griefs as hell. + Rise early, O my scholars, to be rich, + And make Expediency your rule of life. + Then, when the utmost scale of wealth is gain’d, + And other lives are to your own annex’d + By the soul’s grasping power, this guide of life, + This sure Expediency, shall suffer change. + When appetites shall tame to prudences + And Prudence purge herself to Sacred Law, + When lusts shall sweeten into sympathies, + And royal Justice out of Anger spring, + When the expanding Self grows infinite, + Then shall Expediency, the guide of life, + In Virtue die, in Virtue rise again. + + + + +REST. {43} + + +DEAREST FRIEND, + +THE subject of your meeting of to-morrow is so suggestive that I would +gladly join you all, and write an essay on it, if I had health and time. +I have neither, and, perhaps, better so. My essay, I candidly avow, +would tend to prove that no essay ought to be written on the subject. It +has no reality. A sort of intuitive instinct led you to couple “Ghosts +and Rest” together. + +There is, here down, and there ought to be, no Rest. Life is an _aim_; +an aim which can be _approached_, not _reached_, here down. There is, +therefore, no rest. Rest is immoral. + +It is not mine now to give a definition of the _aim_; whatever it is, +there is one, there _must_ be one. Without it, Life has no sense. It is +atheistical; and, moreover, an irony and a deception. + +I entertain all possible respect for the members of your Club; but I +venture to say that any contribution on Rest which will not exhibit at +the top a definition of Life will wander sadly between wild arbitrary +intellectual display and commonplaces. + +Life is no sinecure, no “_recherche du bonheur_” to be secured, as the +promulgators of the theory had it, by guillotine, or, as their less +energetic followers have it, by railway shares, selfishness, or +contemplation. Life is, as Schiller said, “a battle and a march;” a +battle for Good against Evil, for Justice against arbitrary privileges, +for Liberty against Oppression, for associated Love against +Individualism; a march onwards to Self, through collective Perfecting, to +the progressive realization of an Ideal, which is only dawning to our +mind and soul. Shall the battle be finally won during life-time? Shall +it on Earth? are we believing in a Millennium? Don’t we feel that the +spiral curve through which we ascend had its beginning elsewhere, and has +its end, if any, beyond this terrestrial world of ours? Where is then a +possible foundation for your essays and sketches? + +Goethe’s “Contemplation” has created a multitude of little sects aiming +at Rest, where is no Rest, falsifying art, the element of which is +evolution, not re-production, transformation, not contemplation, and +enervating the soul in self-abdicating Brahmanic attempts. For God’s +sake let not your Club add one little sect to the fatally existing +hundreds! + +There is nothing to be looked for in life except the uninterrupted +fulfilment of Duty, and, not Rest, but consolation and strengthening from +Love. There is, not rest, but a promise, a shadowing forth of Rest in +Love. Only there must be in Love absolute _trust_; and it is very seldom +that this blessing depends on us. The child goes to sleep, a dreamless +sleep, with unbounded trust, on the mother’s bosom; but _our_ sleep is a +restless one, agitated by sad dreams and alarms. + +You will smile at my lugubrious turn of mind; but if I was one of _your_ +Artists, I would sketch a man on the scaffold going to die for a great +Idea, for the cause of Truth, with his eye looking trustfully on a loving +woman, whose finger would trustfully and smilingly point out to him the +unbounded. Under the sketch I would write, not Rest, but “a Promise of +Rest.” Addio: tell me one word about the point of view of your +contributors. + + Ever affectionately yours, + JOSEPH MAZZINI. + + + + +REST. + + + POOR restless heart! still thy lament, + Crave not for rest, refusèd still, + There is some struggle,—discontent, + That stays thy will. + + Be brave to meet unrest, + Nor seek from work release, + Clasp struggle close unto thy breast, + Until it brings thee peace. + + Seek not in creed a resting-place + From problems that around thee surge, + But look doubt bravely in the face, + Till truth emerge. + + Work out the problem of thy life, + To no convention chainèd be, + Against self-love wage ceaseless strife, + And thus be free. + + Then, if in harmony thou livest, + With all that’s in thy nature best, + Who “Sleep to his beloved giveth,” + Will give thee rest. + + + + +REST. + + + HIS Mother was a Prince’s child, + His Father was a King; + There wanted not to that proud lot + What power or wealth could bring; + Great nobles served him, bending low, + Strong captains wrought his will; + Fair fortune!—but it wearied him, + His spirit thirsted still! + + For him the glorious music roll’d + Of singers, silent long; + Grave histories told, in scrolls of old, + The strife of right and wrong; + For him Philosophy unveil’d + Athenian Plato’s lore, + Might these not serve to fill a life? + Not this! he sigh’d for more! + + He loved!—the truest, newest lip + That ever lover pressed, + The queenliest mouth of all the south + Long love for him confess’d: + Round him his children’s joyousness + Rang silverly and shrill; + Thrice blessed! save _that_ blessedness + Lack’d something—something still! + + To battle all his spears he led, + In streams of winding steel; + On breast and head of foeman dead + His war-horse set its heel; + The jewell’d housings of its flank + Swung wet with blood of kings; + Yet the rich victory seem’d rank + With the blood taint it brings! + + The splendid passion seized his soul + To heal, by statutes sage, + The ills that bind our hapless kind. + And chafe to crime and rage; + And dear the people’s blessing was, + The praising of the poor; + But evil stronger is than thrones, + And hate no laws can cure! + + He laid aside the sword and pen, + And lit the lamp, to wrest + From nature’s range the secrets strange, + The treasures of her breast; + And wisdom deep his guerdon was, + And wondrous things he knew; + Yet from each vanquish’d mystery + Some harder marvel grew! + + No pause! no respite! no sure ground, + To stay the spirit’s quest! + In all around not one thing found + So good as to be “best;” + Not even love proved quite divine; + Therefore his search did cease, + Lord of all gifts that life can give + Save the one sweet gift—Peace! + + Then came it!—crown, sword, wreath—each lay, + An unregarded thing! + The funeral sheet from head to feet, + Was royal robe to that king! + And strange!—Love, learning, statecraft, sway, + Look’d always on before, + But those pale, happy, lips of clay, + Lack’d nothing!—nothing more! + + + + +GOSSIP. + + +I FEEL impelled to say a word, and it shall be but a word—and so more +patiently endured—in defence of that much abused, much maligned +thing—gossipry. Johnson, among many other designations, gives for +“gossipred,” “spiritual affinity;” a very good definition, and the one I +shall adopt; that is, sympathy, the need to give and to receive it; and I +must say I know few things more charming than this sympathy in small +things, this gossipry between kindly hearts and well filled heads. That +light pouring out the thoughts and feelings and observations of the +passing hour, which, while it commences with the external, is sure to +touch, ever and anon, those deeper springs of thought, and feeling, and +action, from which well up pleasant memories, apt thoughts, and pertinent +reflections. + +Poring over old letters and papers which chanced recently to come into my +hands, I came upon an old leaf of yellow paper and faded ink, which +caught my attention; it appeared to be either a scrap of an old diary, or +of a letter; it seemed to me somewhat germane to our present subject, and +being venerable from its antiquity, I venture to quote it. Its date is +too indistinct to be sure of, but it seems to be 1700 and something. +Thus it runs:—“My husband was bidden to dinner yesterday to our Rector’s, +I with him; my husband was pleased thereat, because there was, he said, +to be there a man of parts, from London; so I laid out my husband’s best +coat and long flowered waistcoat, and his kerseys and silk stockings, +which he did not often wear, for I desired him to be seemly in his +attire, that he might do fitting honour to our Rector; I was a little +flustered at first with the notion of this great man; but I noted that my +husband bore himself towards him exactly as if he had been an ordinary +man. At table I found myself set next to him. The gardens at the great +house are very fine, and kept excellently well, as indeed is not +wonderful, as there are two whole gardeners and a boy to do the work. +Looking out of the large bay-window which looked upon the flower garden, +and stood open, for it was mighty warm, I could not keep my eyes off the +flowers, they were so exceeding gay; the sun shone out surprisingly; one +spot in particular took my attention: a large clump of daffodils had been +allowed on the lawn, the grass was high round them, and on the top of +every blade there was a drop that sparkled like a diamond—for there had +been a slight shower—and as I looked upon them, I thought of the +description in holy writ of the gates of the temple of Jerusalem, all +studded with sapphires and emeralds and diamonds; and I was so taken up +that I forgot it was the great man that was sitting by me, and I asked +him if it was not beautiful? ‘It is vastly fine indeed, ma’am,’ he said; +but he looked at me with wonderment, I thought, and from the look in his +eyes, I am sure he did not know a daffodil from a daisy, poor man. So I +felt very much abashed, and sat still and said no more; and there was not +much discourse, but everybody looked wise and silent; and I remembered +that somewhere it is said, it is a grand thing to know how to be silent; +but I thought a little talking would have been more agreeable, only +perhaps not so wise-like, only of course I knew I was quite a common +person, and had no parts at all; so when it was about three of the +clock—the hour fixed for the dinner was rather late, as it was a bye +common occasion—and we ladies left the gentlemen to settle down to their +wine, I thought I would go home to my children, for I thought our lady +Rector looked somewhat puffed up and stately with the great honour she +had had, and done to us; and to say the very truth, I felt longing to +speak and to hear in the ordinary way. So I took my leave in a beseeming +and courteous manner, and stepped across to my own place; and my eldest +daughter came running to me and said she had got so many things to tell +me; and then out of her little heart she poured out all her little +troubles and pleasures; and oh! she said, little brother had been so +naughty, and had cried dreadfully for the pretty cup from China, and +stamped and fought her when she would not let him have it, because dear +mamma liked it so much, and would be sorry to have it broken. ‘But then, +mamma,’ she said, ‘when he got a little quieter, I talked to him, and +hushed him and kissed him, and so he was soon good, and we had a great +game at horses.’ Then I kissed the little maid, and called her a ‘dear +little mother,’ but she was greatly puzzled, and said, ‘Oh, mamma, I am +only a little girl.’ Then she said I must tell her all about the +gentleman that she had heard papa say had a great many parts—‘more, I +suppose, mamma, than any of us.’ I only kissed her at this, and told her +of the golden daffodils and many other flowers I had noticed; and of two +great blackbirds I had seen hopping very lovingly together upon the lawn. +She said she liked to hear of these extremely; and I told of the roast +sucking-pig with an orange in its mouth, which was at the top of the +table; but she did not like this; she said it would remind her of the +little piggy running about, which that little pig would never do any +more. Then she said she would tell me of one of her little misfortunes, +which she thought was almost a big one: ‘the poor brown hen with ten +little chicks had been shut up by themselves, because the little chicks +would run about too far; and the boy had forgotten them, and they had +been shut up without anything to eat for ever so many hours; and when we +put some barley in, dear old browney clucked and clucked, and showed the +grains to the chicks, but never touched one herself, mamma, and when the +little chicks had eaten till they were quite full, she called them all +under her wings, and they went fast asleep; but then, mamma, there was +not one single barley left near the poor mother; and so I do believe +mamma, she would have been quite starved to death, only we put some +barley and some nice crumbs quite close to her; so she got them without +moving a bit, or waking the chicks, and oh, mamma, she did gobble it up +so fast; I know she was so hungry, for she did not eat one single +barley-corn before, for I watched her all the time; wasn’t it sweet and +good of her, mamma? I shall love that dear old browney for always.’ And +so my little daughter and I chatted away and enjoyed ourselves hugely, +till my dear good man, who I had thought was sitting over his wine, and +perhaps his pipe—but I don’t know about that because of the company—came +suddenly behind us. He kissed us both, saying, ‘My two sweet gossips, it +does my heart good to hear you. It seems to me, my Margery,’ he said, +‘that our little one here hath both a sound heart and a wise head.’” + +There the paper is torn, and I could see no other word. It appears to me +that this, and many other gossipries, are, in their small way, good, and +that when they are not good, it is because the heart is cankered, and the +head empty; and so we come round to the conclusion on all subjects and on +all difficulties, especially social difficulties—educate, educate, +educate; teach the mind to find subjects for thought in all things, and +purify the heart by enabling it to find “sermons in stones, and good in +everything;” then will Gossip be the graceful unbending of the loving +heart and well-filled head. + + + + +CHIPS. + + + CHIPS! chips! + We had climb’d to the top of the cliff that day, + Just where the brow look’d over the bay; + And you stood, and you watch’d the shifting ships + Till I found you a seat in the heather. + As we reach’d the top you had touch’d me thrice; + I had felt your hand on my shoulder twice, + And once I had brush’d your feather. + And I turn’d at last, and saw you stand, + Looking down seaward hat in hand, + At the shelving sweep of the scoop’d-out sand, + And the great blue gem within it. + The bright, sweet sky was over your head, + Your cheek was aflame with the climber’s red, + And a something leapt in my heart that said,— + Happy or sorry, living or dead,— + My fate had begun that minute. + And we sat, and we watch’d the clouds go by + (There were none but the clouds and you and I + As we sat on the hill together); + As you sketch’d the rack as it drifted by, + Fleece upon fleece through the pathless sky, + Did you wonder, Florence, whether, + When you held me up your point to cut, + I had kept the chips, when the knife was shut,— + For none of them fell in the heather. + + Chips! chips!— + Yet what was I but the cousin, you know?— + Only the boy that you favour’d so— + And the word that stirr’d my lips + I must hide away in my heart, and keep, + For the road to you was dizzy and steep + As the cliff we had climb’d together. + There was many an older lover nigh, + With the will and the right to seek your eye; + And for me, I know not whether, + If I chose to live, or I chose to die, + It would matter to you a feather. + But this I know, as the feather’s weight + Will keep the poise of the balance straight, + In the doubtful climb—in the day’s eclipse, + In the stumbling steps, in the faults and trips, + I have gain’d a strength from the tiniest scraps + That ever were help to a man, perhaps,— + Chips! chips! + + Look, these are “the tiniest scraps,” you see, + And this is their casket of filigree, + That I bought that year “far over the sea,” + With a volley of chaff, and a half-rupee, + From a huckstering, fox-faced Bengalee, + That set himself up for a dealer. + They have slept with me by the jungle fires, + They have watch’d with me under Indian spires, + I have kept them safe in their gilded wires + From the clutch of the coolie stealer; + And when at last they relieved “the Nest,”— + Alick, and Ellis, and all the rest,— + March’d into Lucknow four abreast, + That I had the chips still under my vest, + That they pray’d with me, must be confess’d, + Who never was much of a kneeler. + And now that I come, and I find you free, + You, that have waken’d this thing in me, + Will you tell me, Florence, whether, + When I kept your pencil’s chips that day, + Was it better perhaps to have let them stay + To be lost in the mountain heather! + + + + +CHIPS. + + + CHIPS! It may be well disputed + If a word exists, less suited, + Or more odd and uninviting + As a theme for rhyme or writing; + Coinage of that dull Max Müller, + Title of a book still duller. + Fill’d with words so cabalistic, + That methought the German mystic + Must have found the dialect + Spoken ere man walk’d erect. + + Never mind! what must be, must; + Men must eat both crumb and crust. + And the dodge of many a poet + (Half the verses publish’d show it), + When his Pegasus rides restive, + Is to make his _rhymes_ suggestive. + If in what you chance to seize on + Rhyme and reason will not chime, + Better rhyme without the reason + Than the reason and no rhyme; + Better anything than prose, + So, as Milton says, “here goes.” + + “When the Grecian chiefs in ships + Sail’d on Argonautic trips!” + + “When the Furies with their whips + Flogg’d Orestes all to strips! + + “When the sun in dim eclipse + In the darken’d ocean dips!” + + Still I see no clue to chips! + + “Meadows where the lambkin skips, + Where the dew from roses drips + And the bee the honey sips . . . .” + + Odd, that nothing leads to chips! + + Then I thought of “cranks and quips,” + Wanton wiles and laughing lips, + Luring us to fatal slips, + And leaving us in Satan’s grips. + + Then I made a desperate trial, + With the sixth and seventh vial— + Thinking I could steal some Chips + From St. John’s Apocalypse. + + Then there came a long hiatus, + While I kept repeating Chips, + Feeling the divine afflatus + Oozing through my finger-tips. + + Gone and going hopelessly, + So, in my accustom’d manner, + Underneath my favourite tree, + I began a mild havannah— + ’Twas indeed my favourite station, + For recruiting mind and body; + Drinking draughts of inspiration, + Alternate with whisky toddy. + ’Twas an oak tree old and hoary. + And my garden’s pride and glory; + Hallow’d trunk and boughs in splinters, + Mossy with a thousand winters. + + Here I found the Muses’ fountain, + And perceived my spirits mounting, + And exclaim’d in accents burning, + To the tree my eyes upturning, + “Venerable tree and vast, + Speak to me of ages past! + Sylvan monarch of the wold, + Tell me of the days of old! + Did thy giant boughs o’er-arching + View the Roman legions marching? + Has the painted Briton stray’d + Underneath thy hoary shade? + Did some heathen oracle + In thy knotty bosom dwell, + As in groves of old Dodona, + Or the Druid oaks of Mona? + Dwelt the outlaw’d foresters + Here in ‘otium cum dig.’ + While the feather’d choristers + In thy branches ‘hopp’d the twig?’ + Help me, Nymph! Fawn! Hamadryad! + One at once, or all the Triad.” + + Lo! a voice to my invoking! + ’Twas my stupid gardener croaking, + “Please, Sir, mayn’t I fall this tree, + ’Cos it spoils the crops, you see: + And the grass it shades and lumbers, + And we shan’t have no _cow_cumbers. + Some time it will fall for good, + And the Missis wants the wood.” + + Shock’d at such a scheme audacious, + Faint, I gasp’d out, “Goodness gracious!” + “Yes,” I said, “the tree must fall, + ’Tis, alas! the lot of all; + But no mortal shall presume + To accelerate its doom. + Rescued from thy low desires, + It shall warm my poet fires. + Let the strokes of fate subdue it, + Let the axe of Time cut through it; + When it must fall, let it fall, + But, oh! never let me view it.” + + Seeing that my phrase exalted + Fell upon his senses vainly, + In my full career I halted, + And I spoke my orders plainly. + “Never seek to trim or lop it, + Once for all I charge thee, drop it.” + And I added, to my sorrow, + “You shall ‘cut your stick’ to-morrow + Know what _that_ means, I suppose?” + “Yes,” he said, “I thinks I does.” + So I left him at this crisis, + Left him to his own devices, + Left him like the royal Vandal, + Leaning on his old spade handle. + Oh! those vulgar slang expressions,— + How I smart for my transgressions! + Judge my wrath, surprise, and horror, + When I rose upon the morrow, + To behold my tree in ruin, + And be told ’twas all _my_ doing, + While the villain grinn’d in glee! + “Wretch!” I thunder’d, “Where’s my tree?” + And these words came from his lips, + “There’s the tree, and them’s the Chips.” + + + + +TRANSFORMATION. + + + THE LAST SPEECH AND CONFESSION OF A MAHOGANY-TREE NYMPH. + + YOU’VE heard in Greek mythology + Of nymph and hamadryad + Who had their being in a tree; + Perchance, the tale admired. + Yet live we, in oblivion sunk; + Though strange, my tale’s as sure as + That I was once a stately trunk + In the forests of Honduras. + + My home was in a jungle low, + And tall tree ferns grew round me; + The humming-birds flew to and fro, + And wild lianas bound me; + The panther, jaguar, and ounce, + Lurk’d ever in my branches + On weary travellers to pounce + While journeying to their ranches. + Me, merchants from Honduras found + Who had not got a log any; + They cut me prostrate on the ground + To make first-rate mahogany. + + They pack’d me in a darksome hold; + We cross’d the ocean quivering; + They took me to a region cold + That set my timbers shivering; + Above, an atmosphere of fog; + Around me, masts upstanding— + When they had piled me log by log, + Upon the dockyard landing. + + And then they came with rule and chalk + Numb’ring my feet and inches, + And pack’d us high beside that walk + With pullies, cranks, and winches; + And one by one my logs were sold, + And one by one were taken, + Till I, the spirit of the whole, + Was left of form forsaken. + + And when the auction sale was past, + Mourning each separate splinter + I flitted formless round the masts, + Through all that ice-bound winter, + Still with benumb’d and torpid sense + All plan or hope deferring, + Till, when the spring sun shone intense, + My spirit’s sap was stirring, + + I heard a wordless, whisper’d sound, + (Such as we tree-nymphs utter,) + Of swelling twigs, and buds unbound, + And tremulous leaflets’ flutter,— + And saw a dim, green, glossy face + With eyes like pearly flowers,— + And knew the spirit of our race, + Fresh from Honduras’ bowers. + + “Poor disembodied nymph,” I thought + It said; “Go, seek thy children, + A true statistical report + To bring us, though bewild’ring, + Of what with every inch they’ve done, + Each splintering and chipling; + Then, backwards to Honduras flown, + Thou’lt have another sapling.” + + I wing’d my way elate with hopes, + To seek each cabinet maker— + To Druse and Heal’s well furnish’d shops, + And the Bazaar of Baker— + Each piano manufactory, + To Broadwood and to Collard— + Where’er a portion of my tree, + Was carried, there I follow’d: + + And where’er a sofa or chair I saw, + Or bedstead or wardrobe furnish’d, + Or centre-table with spreading claw, + With my wood all brightly burnish’d, + Each knot, and knob, and scar, and split, + And delicate grain appearing. + Long was my search, made longer yet + By the general use of veneering. + + I’ve flitted through a mansion proud + To watch a grand piano, + The centre of a list’ning crowd + High-bred in tone and manner: + I’ve stood by many a shining board, + Were dinners were demolish’d, + And view’d the silver and glass _encored_— + Seen double in the polish. + + And beside a stately bed I’ve stood, + Where curtains of silken splendour + O’er damask hangings and polish’d wood, + Threw a lustre subdued and tender. + A dainty cradle stood near its head, + But no form was in it sleeping, + For the couch of state held the baby dead, + And the mother knelt near it weeping: + + I came beneath a gorgeous dome, + With fretted arch and column, + And stained glass windows through the gloom + That made it very solemn. + And by the pulpit stairs I stood + The preacher’s words to follow— + The sounding-board was my own wood— + (That, and the words were hollow): + + And I’ve wandered to the library— + The bookshelves there were mine— + Belonging to one of the Ministry; + The whole was wondrous fine. + (I thought the pay seem’d very high, + The work of an easy nature, + And wondered if that was the reason why + They would not suffer women to try + To sit in the Legislature): + + And I’ve been up a dismal attic flight, + Not knowing why there I hasten’d, + And I found ’twas the sewing-table bright + To which a machine was fasten’d; + And a girl was working, so pale and drear, + And in such a forlorn condition, + That, ghost as I was, I had shed a tear, + But I knew that that garret was woman’s sphere, + And dressmaking her mission. + + Last month I came to a table round + Which cover’d, to my surprise, is, + (Whilst a critical crowd collects around,) + With chips of all lengths and sizes: + And I knew I’d found the last piece of wood; + And back, to my former station, + My spirit crossed the Atlantic flood + To begin a new transformation. + So I laid the glimpses that I had had + Of the motley life of this nation + Upon this table—or good or bad— + For the general delectation. + + + + +TRANSFORMATION. +LITTLE SEAL-SKIN. + + + THE fisherman walked up the hill, + His boat lay on the sand, + His net was on his shoulder still, + His home a mile inland. + And as he walk’d among the whin + He saw a little white seal-skin, + Which he took up in his hand. + Then “How,” said he, “can this thing be? + A seal-skin, and no seal within?” + Thus pondered he, + Partly in fear, + Till he remember’d what he’d heard + Of creatures in the sea,— + Sea-men and women, who are stirred + One day in every year + To drop their seal-skins on the sand, + To leave the sea, and seek the land + For twelve long hours, + Playing about in sweet sunshine, + Among the corn-fields, with corn-flowers, + Wild roses, and woodbine: + Till night comes on, and then they flit + Adown the fields, and sit + Upon the shore and put their seal-skins on, + And slip into the sea, and they are gone. + The fisherman strok’d the fur + Of the little white seal-skin, + Soft as silk, and white as snow; + And he said to himself, “I know + That some little sea-woman lived in + This seal-skin, perhaps not long ago. + I wonder what has become of her! + And why she left this on the whin, + Instead of slipping it on again + When all the little sea-women and men + Went hurrying down to the sea! + Ah! well, she never meant + It for me, + That I should take it, but I will, + Home to my house on the hill,” + Said the fisherman; and home he went. + + The Fisher dozed before his fire, + The night was cold outside, + The bright full moon was rising higher + Above the swelling tide, + And the wind brought the sound of breakers nigher, + Even to the hill side; + When suddenly + Something broke at the cottage door, + Like the plash + Of a little wave on a pebbly shore; + And as water frets in the backward drain + Of the wave, seeming to fall in pain, + There came a wailing after the plash.— + The fisherman woke, and said, “Is it rain?” + Then he rose from his seat + And open’d his door a little way, + But soon shut it again + With a kind of awe; + For the prettiest little sea-woman lay + On the grass at his feet + That you ever saw; + She began to sob and to say, + “Who has stolen my skin from me? + And who is there will take me in? + For I have lost my little seal-skin, + And I can’t get back to the sea.” + + The Fisherman stroked the fur + Of the downy white seal-skin, + And he said, “Shall I give it her?— + But then she would get in, + And hurry away to the sea, + And not come back to me, + And I should be sorry all my life, + I want her so for my little wife.” + The Fisherman thought for a minute, + Then he carried the seal-skin to + A secret hole in the thatch, + Where he hid it cleverly, so + That a sharp-sighted person might go, + In front of the hole and not catch + A glimpse of the seal-skin within it. + After this he lifted the latch + Of his door once more, + But the night was darker, for + The moon was swimming under a cloud, + So the Fisherman couldn’t see + The little sea-woman plainly, + Seeing a fleck of white foam only, + That was sobbing aloud + As before. + + “Little sea-woman,” said the Fisherman, + “Will you come home to me, + Will you help me to work, and help me to save, + Care for my house and me, + And the little children that we shall have?” + “Yes, Fisherman,” said she. + So the Fisherman had his way, + And seven years of life + Pass’d by him like one happy day; + But, as for his sea-wife, + She sorrowed for the sea alway + And loved not her land life. + Morning and evening, and all day + She would say + To herself—“The sea! the sea!” + And at night, when dreaming, + She stretch’d her arms about her, seeming + To seek little Willie, + It was the sea + She would have clasp’d, not he— + The great sea’s purple water, + Dearer to her than little son or daughter. + Yet she was kind + To her children three, + Harry, fair Alice, and baby Willie; + And set her mind + To keep things orderly. + “Only,” thought she, + “If I _could_ but find + That little seal-skin I lost one day.” + She didn’t know + That her husband had it hidden away; + Nor he + That she long’d for it so. + Until + One evening as he climb’d the hill, + The Fisherman found her amongst the whin, + Sobbing, saying, “My little seal-skin— + Who has stolen my skin from me? + How shall I find it, and get in, + And hurry away to the sea?” + “Then she shall have her will,” + Said he. + + So + Next morning, when he rose to go + A-fishing, and his wife still slept, + He stole + The seal-skin from that secret hole + Where he had kept + It, and flung it on a chair, + Saying, “She will be glad to find it there + To-day + When I am gone, + And yet + Perhaps she will not put it on,” + He said, “Nor go away.” + In sleeping his wife wept; + Then the Fisherman took his net + And crept + Into the chill air. + + The night drew on—the air was still, + Homeward the fisher climbed the hill. + All day he’d thought, “She will not go;” + And now, “She has not,” pondered he. + “She is not gone,” he said, “I know, + There is a lamp in our window, + Put ready on the sill + To guide me home, and I shall see + The dear light glimmering presently, + Just as I round the hill.” + But when he turn’d, there was no light + To guide him homeward through the night. + Then, “I am late,” he said, + “And maybe she was weary + Looking so long for me. + She lays the little ones in bed + Well content, + In the inner room where I shall find her, + And where she went, + Forgetting to leave the light behind her.” + + So he came to his cottage door, + And threw it open wide; + But stood a breathing space, before + He dared to look inside. + No fire was in the fireplace, nor + A light on any side; + But a little heap lay on the floor, + And the voice of a baby cried. + Rocking and moaning on the floor, + That little heap + Was the children, tired with crying, + Trying to sleep, + Moaning and rocking to and fro; + But Baby Willie hindered the trying + By wailing so. + + Then “Wife! wife!” said the Fisherman, + “Come from the inner room.” + There was no answer, and he ran + Searching into the gloom. + + “Wife! wife! why don’t you come? + The children want you, and I’ve come home.” + “Mammy’s gone, Daddy,” said Harry— + “Gone into the sea; + She’ll never come back to carry + Tired Baby Willie. + It’s no use now, Daddy, looking about; + I can tell you just how it all fell out. + + “There was a seal-skin + In the kitchen— + A little crumpled thing; + I can’t think how it came there; + But this morning + Mammy found it on a chair, + And when she began + To feel it, she dropped + It on the floor— + But snatch’d it up again and ran + Straight out at the door, + And never stopped + Till she-reach’d the shore. + + “Then we three, Daddy, + Ran after, crying, ‘Take us to the sea! + Wait for us, Mammy, we are coming too! + Here’s Alice, Willie can’t keep up with you! + Mammy, stop—just for a minute or two!’ + But Alice said, ‘Maybe + She’s making us a boat + Out of the seal-skin cleverly, + And by-and-by she’ll float + It on the water from the sands + For us.’ Then Willie clapt his hands + And shouted, ‘Run on, Mammy, to the sea, + And we are coming, Willie understands.’ + + “At last we came to where the hill + Slopes straight down to the beach, + And there we stood all breathless, still, + Fast clinging each to each. + We saw her sitting upon a stone, + Putting the little seal-skin on. + Oh! Mammy! Mammy! + She never said good-bye, Daddy, + She didn’t kiss us three; + She just put the little seal-skin on, + And slipped into the sea! + Oh! Mammy’s gone, Daddy; Mammy’s gone! + She slipp’d into the sea!” + + + + +A SURPRISE. + + + “SHE is dead!” they said to him. “Come away; + Kiss her! and leave her!—thy love is clay!” + + They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair; + On her forehead of stone they laid it fair: + + Over her eyes, which gazed too much, + They drew the lids with a gentle touch; + + With a tender touch they closed up well + The sweet thin lips that had secrets to tell; + + About her brows, and her dear, pale face + They tied her veil and her marriage-lace; + + And drew on her white feet her white silk shoes;— + Which were the whiter no eye could choose! + + And over her bosom they crossed her hands; + “Come away,” they said,—“God understands!” + + And then there was Silence;—and nothing there + But the Silence—and scents of eglantere, + + And jasmine, and roses, and rosemary; + For they said, “As a lady should lie, lies she!” + + And they held their breath as they left the room, + With a shudder to glance at its stillness and gloom. + + But he—who loved her too well to dread + The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead,— + + He lit his lamp, and took the key, + And turn’d it!—Alone again—he and she! + + He and she; but she would not speak, + Though he kiss’d, in the old place, the quiet cheek; + + He and she; yet she would not smile, + Though he call’d her the name that was fondest erewhile. + + He and she; and she did not move + To any one passionate whisper of love. + + Then he said, “Cold lips! and breast without breath! + Is there no voice?—no language of death + + “Dumb to the ear and still to the sense, + But to heart and to soul distinct,—intense? + + “See, now,—I listen with soul, not ear— + What was the secret of dying, Dear? + + “Was it the infinite wonder of all, + That you ever could let life’s flower fall? + + “Or was it a greater marvel to feel + The perfect calm o’er the agony steal? + + “Was the miracle greatest to find how deep, + Beyond all dreams, sank downward that sleep? + + “Did life roll backward its record, Dear, + And show, as they say it does, past things clear? + + “And was it the innermost heart of the bliss + To find out so what a wisdom love is? + + “Oh, perfect Dead! oh, Dead most dear, + I hold the breath of my soul to hear; + + “I listen—as deep as to horrible hell, + As high as to heaven!—and you do not tell! + + “There must be pleasures in dying, Sweet, + To make you so placid from head to feet! + + “I would tell you, Darling, if I were dead, + And ’twere your hot tears upon my brow shed. + + “I would say, though the angel of death had laid + His sword on my lips to keep it unsaid. + + “You should not ask, vainly, with streaming eyes, + Which in Death’s touch was the chiefest surprise; + + “The very strangest and suddenest thing + Of all the surprises that dying must bring.” + + * * * * + + Ah! foolish world! Oh! most kind Dead! + Though he told me, who will believe it was said? + + Who will believe that he heard her say, + With the soft rich voice, in the dear old way:— + + “The utmost wonder is this,—I hear, + And see you, and love you, and kiss you, Dear; + + “I can speak now you listen with soul, not ear; + If your soul could see, it would all be clear + + “What a strange delicious amazement is Death, + To be without body and breathe without breath. + + “I should laugh for joy if you did not cry; + Oh, listen! Love lasts!—Love never will die. + + “I am only your Angel who was your Bride; + And I see, that though dead, I have never died.” + + + + +THE GLOAMING. + + +THE gloaming! the gloaming! “What is the gloaming?” was asked by some +honourable member of this honourable Society, when the word was chosen a +month ago. “Twilight,” was promptly answered by another honourable +member! And although the gloaming is undoubtedly _twilight_, is twilight +as undoubtedly the gloaming?—the gloaming of Burns, of Scott, the +gloaming so often referred to in our old Northern minstrelsy? The City +clerk on the knife-board of his familiar “bus,” soothing himself with a +fragrant Pickwick, after his ten hours’ labour in that turmoil and eddy +of restless humanity—the City—may see, as he rolls westward, the sun +slowly sinking and setting in its fiery grandeur behind the Marble Arch. +He may see the shades of evening stealing over the Park and the Bayswater +Road, and darkness settling softly over gentle Notting Hill; and he may +see, if there be no fog, or not too much smoke in the atmosphere to +prevent astronomical observations, the stars stealing out one by one in +the Heavens above him, as the gas-lamps are being lit in the streets +around him; but would that observant youth on his knife-board, with his +Pickwick, amidst the lamp-lights, in the roar of London, be justified in +describing what he had seen as “the gloaming?” I think not. Is not the +gloaming twilight only in certain localities, and under certain +conditions? Is not the gloaming chiefly confined to the North country, +or to mountainous districts? It is difficult to say where the gloaming +shall be called gloaming no more, and where twilight is just simple +twilight, and no gloaming; but surely there lives not the man who will +assert that he has seen a real gloaming effect in the _Tottenham Court +Road_, for instance! + +Can it be applied to eventide in the flat fens of Lincolnshire and +Cambridgeshire? Does the gloaming ever fall on the manufacturing +districts of Yorkshire—Leeds, Sheffield, Huddersfield? Twilight in the +Potteries is surely twilight and no gloaming. May not, are not the +limits within which the latter word may be used as aptly describing +eventide, be the limits within which our old balladry sprung and +flourished? May not, are not the limits within which the word is wholly +inapplicable to describe the close of day, be the limits within which the +love of song was not so strongly developed—where external nature did not, +and does not suggest song, or poetry to the mind? Well, that definition +is quite enough for the present day, in which “hard and fast lines” are +at a discount! But there is still that awkward question, “What is the +gloaming?” And what is there in the gloaming that distinguishes it from +that which is twilight merely? To answer that with any hope of conveying +any sense of the difference which undoubtedly _does_ exist, is a matter +which is beyond the capacity of any one not being a Ruskin. As to +_define_ the gloaming is beyond the powers of ordinary mortals, and as +ostracism is threatened if I do not do something—as I am writing _in +terrorem_, and to save my pen-and-pencil existence, which is hanging on +this slender thread—I will, in default of being able to do better, give +my own experiences of a real “GLOAMING.” + +Time of year—the end of August. Locality, _not_ the Tottenham Court +Road, but one of the northernmost points of the Northumberland border—a +wild, rough, hard land—the fighting ground, for centuries upon centuries, +first of the old Romans, and then of our own border laddies, who held it +against the “rieving Scots”—a land over which the famous Sixth Legion has +marched—a land which has seen Hotspur fight and Douglas fall—a land where +almost every hillside and burn has its legend and ballad—a land on which +one would reasonably expect to see the gloaming, as distinguished from +twilight, fall! I had had ten days walking after wild grouse—tramping +through the heather, generally dripping wet, for the Scotch mist did not +observe or keep the border line, worse luck to it. At last a fine day, +and a long tramp on the moors. At the close of it, having first walked +enough over the soft moss and young heather to make me exult in the grand +condition for exercise which ten days’ hill air will give, I separated +from my party to try for a snipe down by a little tarn, lying in the +midst of a “faded bent” in the moor, intending to tramp home afterwards +in my own company—and in my own company it _was_ that I had full +opportunity of studying the effect of the gloaming. + +The sun was getting low as I separated from my party and walked up the +side of a long hill covered with old heather, moss, patches of grass, +patches of reeds, and bogs. It was a glorious scene! A sea of +moorland—wave over wave of undulating hill—rolled from me northward to +the foot of old Cheviot, whose long back, some twenty miles away, was lit +up by the brilliant sinking sun so clearly that I could distinguish the +gullies and inequalities in its time-honoured old sides. Wave over wave, +southward and westward, rolled those same moorland hills from my feet, +seemingly into the still more distant hills of Cumberland, and from north +to south, east to west, was a sea of purple heather in its fullest bloom, +lit up by the golden floods of light of the setting sun. In another five +minutes the sun had disappeared, and I was down by the side of the little +Tarn. Already the air, always fresh on the hills, became fresher; the +golden light was dying out of the sky; the blue of the Heaven above me +was darkening, the hills, a mass of purple sheen so few minutes ago, +stood out sharp and black against the sky; and so I started on my long +tramp home, watching the growth of the “gloaming.” There was still the +heather. I was still tramping through it, but its colour was gone. It +was now an expanse of purple blackness. More intensely dark became the +blue of the sky above me as the red streaks, still hovering over the +place where the sun had dipped, faded. Gradually, imperceptibly was +darkness spreading over everything; and as the darkness spread, the +stillness and sweetness of the “gloaming” made itself felt. The +stillness and freshness of the air, the mysterious blackness of the +hills; the startling white flashes of the little pools, in the moors, +looking as though they had absorbed light from somewhere, and were loth +to part with it; the faintly reflected colours of the fading sky given +back by the burns and streamlets which crossed my path, the whispering of +the reeds and long grass; the great grey boulders looming here and there +through the dark heather and bracken—boulders behind which at that hour +one could not help believing that Kelpies and Pixies were hiding, and +might dart out at any moment for some Tam-o’-Shanter frolic over the +moor—and the soft springy moss, grass, and heather, still under my feet +deadening all the sound of my tread. Light dying, fading, and darkness, +a rich purple darkness, spreading; and everywhere the scent of heather +bloom and stillness and freshness—freshness indescribable, a stillness +only broken by the call here and there of the scattered grouse; or the +soft rush of wings and whistling of golden plover far away over head; or +the cry of the lapwing—or the bark miles away of a collie dog; or the +dripping and murmuring and bubbling of the little burns in the gullies! + +Light still dying away! What was left only “dealt a doubtful sense of +things not so much seen as felt.” And then it was that I realized what +Robert Burns had sung:— + + “Gie me the hour o’ gloamin grey, + For it mak’s my heart sae cheery O.” + + + + +SKETCHES. + + + SKETCHES of life upon the slabs of death + Our loving hand on living stone indites: + Sketches of death upon the screens of life + Time, the great limner, for a warning writes. + + Sketches of joy upon the face of sorrow, + Still credulous, our aching fingers trace: + Time steals the pencil, and with bitter scorn, + Sketches old sorrow on our young joy’s face. + + E’en so our sketch of life is framed and fashion’d; + In vain with glowing touches we begin— + By day we work upon the light and colour, + Time comes by night and puts the shadows in. + + + + +SKETCHES. +A CONVERSATION. +KATEY. + + +“THERE! I have finished my sketch of the sloping field, and the misty +strip of woodland above, in its autumn dress, by putting you in in the +foreground, the only living thing in my misty-autumn picture; though, +after all, you don’t look much more than a brown spot on the green, with +your brown hat and skirt and your old brown book. I am much obliged to +it for keeping you still so long this misty morning. What is there in +it?” + +“Sketches,” I answered. “Misty sketches like this of yours.” And I +stretched out my hand for my cousin’s drawing, while she looked over my +shoulder down on to the volume on my knee and uttered an exclamation of +surprise when her eye fell on nothing but black letters on a damp spotted +yellow page. “‘Treating of the four complexions, into which men are +bound during their sojourn in their earthly houses,’” she read aloud; +“what does it mean? Let me look on. ‘Of those that draw their +complexion from the dark and melancholy earth. Of those who take their +complexion from the friendly air. Of those who are complexioned after +the manner of fire. Of those who partake of the nature of the subtle and +yielding water;’ who writes this queer stuff; is it sense or nonsense?” +I held up the book that she might read the faded gilt letters on its +wormeaten leather back. “Letters of Jacob Böhme to John Schauffman and +others,” she read. “Oh!”—rather a doubtful “oh!” it was, as if the name +did not settle the question about sense or nonsense as completely as she +had expected it would. + +“This is rather a rare book I flatter myself,” I went on. “I bought it +at a book-stall because it looked so odd and old, and found to my great +joy that it was a miscellaneous collection of Jacob Böhme’s letters, on +all sorts of subjects; the four that I have been reading this morning +about the four different temperaments, or, as he calls it, complexions +into which men may be divided, come in oddly enough among much more +mystical and transcendental matter. They are, as I said, misty sketches +of character, but I think they show that the dreamy old cobbler knew +something about his fellow-men.” + +_K._ “What are Jacob Böhme’s writings like?” + +“Oh, I can’t tell you that, I can only tell you what it makes one feel +like to read them. Something, as we should feel, you and I, if we +climbed up to that peak above the wood there, and looked down on the mist +in the valley now the sun is gilding it. We should have a vague feeling +of having got up on to a height, and perceived something glorious; but we +should not be able to give much account of what we had seen when we came +down.” + +_K._ “But I hope you will be able to give me an account of what you have +been reading to-day. I want you to explain to me about the four +complexions as we walk home.” + +“Well, I will try; these four letters have something in them that one can +get hold of and venture to put into fresh words. You must remember, to +begin with, that Böhme still held to there being only four +elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and thought that everything, our +bodies included, was made up of various proportions of these elemental +substances—the soul, a pure indivisible essence, he thinks of as living +imprisoned in these compound bodies. Shadowed and clouded and hindered +in its work by the material form that shuts it in from the true fount of +being; individualizing it and debasing it at the same time. Character, +according to him, depends upon the element that preponderates in the +composition of our bodies; our souls work through it and are more or less +free. His theory of the causes of differences of character may be ever +so foolish, yet I think the classification he draws from it is +interesting, and does somehow or other help us to understand ourselves +and our fellow-creatures a little better.” + +_K._ “Let me see, he divides people into earth, air, fire, and water +people. What sort of character does he suppose the earth element colours +the soul with?” + +“You are quite right to use the word _colour_, Böhme thinks of the +complexion, or, as we should say, the humour of a person, as of an +independent _atmosphere_ through which the soul works, but which is no +part of it. He speaks of souls shut up in the dark and melancholy earth +element; these are the silent, sensitive, brooding people, who find it +very difficult either to give out or receive impressions to or from their +fellow-creatures. They are shut up, and as the earth (so at least Böhme +says) draws a great deal more heat and light from the sun than it ever +gives back, and darkly absorbs and stores up heat within itself, so these +earth men and women, separated from their fellows, have the power of +drawing great enlightenment and deep warmth of love _direct_ from the +spiritual source of light and love. Religious enthusiasts are all of +this class; Böhme was an earth person himself, he says so; so was Dante +and John Bunyan, and all the other people one reads of who have had +terrible experiences in the depths of their own souls and ecstatic +visions to comfort them. Böhme says that the very best and the very +worst people are those shut in by the earth. They are the most +_individual_, the most thoroughly separated; if conquering this +hindrance, they re-absorb the Divine into themselves by _direct_ vision; +they rise to heights of wisdom, love, and self-sacrifice that no other +souls can reach; but if by pride and self-will they cut themselves from +spiritual influences, they remain solitary, dark, hungry, always striving +vainly to extract the light and warmth they want from some one or two of +their fellow-creatures, and being constantly disappointed, because, not +having the power of ray-ing out love, they can rarely attract it. They +are eaten up by a sad dark egotism. If they have a great deal of +intellect they throw themselves vehemently into some one pursuit or +study, and become great but never happy.” + +_K._ “I am thankful to say I don’t know any earth people.” + +“Nor do I, pure earth, but I think I have come across one or two with a +touch of earth in their temperaments. The air folk are much more common. +They are the eager inquisitive people, who want to get into everything +and understand everything, just as the air pervades and permeates all +creation. Great lovers of knowledge and scientific observers must always +be air people. Böhme thinks that in spite of their not being generally +very spiritual, they have the best chance of getting to heaven, because +of all classes they have most sympathy and are least shut up in +themselves, getting everywhere, like their element the air: they get into +the souls of others and understand them and live in them. Their +influence is of a very peculiar kind; not being very individual, they +don’t impress the people round them with a strong sense of their +personality; they are not loved passionately, and they don’t love +passionately, but people turn to them to be understood and helped, and +they are always benevolently ready to understand and help. They are +satisfied that their influence should be breathed like the air, without +being more recognized than the air: Shakespeare was, I expect, a typical +_air_ man. He had been everywhere, into all sorts of souls, peering +about, and understanding them all, and how little any one seems to have +known about himself! He was separated as little as possible from the +universal fount of Being.” + +_K._ “Socrates was an air man too I suppose? Your air people would be +all philosophers.” + +“More or less lovers of knowledge they must be; but remember that +temperament does not affect the quality of the soul itself, it is only +more or less of a hindrance. The peculiar faults of air people are, as +you will imagine, fickleness and coldness; their sympathy partakes of the +nature of curiosity, and they easily adapt themselves to changes of +circumstance; they can as easily live in one person as in another, and +the love of knowledge in little souls would degenerate into restless +curiosity and fussiness.” + +_K._ “Would not Goethe be as good a type of the air temperament as +Shakespeare? He certainly had the besetting faults of the complexion, +fickleness and coldness.” + +“Yes, but the great influence he exercised over his contemporaries, +points to his drawing something too from the fire nature.” + +_K._ “Those complexioned after the manner of the fire are, I suppose, +the warm-hearted, affectionate souls?” + +“Not at all; Böhme would not have consented to lay hold of such an +obvious analogy. He dives deeper into fire characteristics than to think +chiefly of its warmth. It is above all a consuming element; it takes +substances of all kinds and transmutes them into itself, a greedy +devourer, reckless of the value of what it takes, intent only on +increasing and maintaining itself. The fire people are the ambitious +conquerors and rulers of the world, who by the strength and attractive +warmth of their own natures force others to bend to them and become +absorbed in their projects. They are in reality as great egotists as the +earth people, only they don’t keep their egotism at smouldering fever +heat in their own hearts; they let it blaze forth into a living flame, +which draws weaker natures to be consumed in it, or at least forces them +to live only in its heat and light. Napoleon Bonaparte, I think, might +stand for a typical fire man. In women the fire nature shows rather +differently: pure fire women have acted very conspicuous parts in the +world’s history, and generally very disastrous ones, they are the women +who inspire great passions and feel very little themselves. They draw +others to them for the sake of homage to add to their own light. Madame +de Chevreuse and Madame de Longueville must have been pure fire women, I +should say. Don’t suppose, however, that the fire, more than any other +temperament, secures greatness or real superiority; it enables those who +follow its complexion to impress themselves more on other people than the +air spirits can, but their influence may be only temporary, and it may be +very disagreeable, and in the end repelling. Don’t you know people, both +men and women, who have a mysterious way of making their will felt, and +who always count for something in whatever society they are in as long as +they are present, but who leave no permanent impression? Those I suppose +would be, according to Böhme, stupid souls acting through the fire +temperament. The influence of the air souls, inconspicuous as it is, is +more permanent. Like the air it nourishes and changes without +destroying; air people give more than they take. Fire people take more +than they give.” + +_K._ “And now what are the water followers? I hope we are coming to +some amiable, pleasant people at last, for you have not described +anything very attractive yet.” + +“I am afraid you will like the water complexion least of all, and be +obliged to acknowledge too that ‘the subtle and yielding water’ has more +followers than any of the other elements. The water element has a sort +of resemblance to the air element; it mimics it without having its power. +Water people are that large majority of mankind who have too weak a hold +on life to be anything very distinctive of themselves. They simulate +living and thinking, rather than really think and live. Just as water +receives impressions in itself that it cannot clasp and hold, that seem +to be part of it and are not. They are easily influenced by others—by +air people for example; but they only _image_ their thoughts in +themselves. They look like them when they are with them, and when the +influence is removed they are empty like a lake when a veil of clouds is +drawn over the sky. The distinctive mark of water people is that they +are _self-conscious_, they are always thinking of themselves, because +they live a sort of double life—occupied not only with what they are +doing but with the thought that they actually are doing it. +Unconsciously they are continually acting a part. They have notions +about themselves and act up to them. They see themselves in different +lights, and everything else as it concerns themselves. Seeing not the +real thing, but the thing reflected in themselves. You must know such +people, though they are difficult to describe, and I cannot just now +think of any historical typical water person to help out my description. +Perhaps Napoleon the Third would do. I think he must be what Böhme meant +by ‘those who partake of the nature of the subtle and yielding nature;’ +and, by the way, Böhme does not describe the water people as really +yielding; on the contrary, he says they are very persistent. In a slow, +obstinate way, by seeming to yield and always returning to the point from +which they had been diverging (always finding their own level) they have +more power than the followers of any of the other elements.” + +_K._ “Is there nothing good about these poor water creatures? Have they +no redeeming qualities?” + +“Oh yes! The water temperament conduces to industry and perseverance. +Water men and women are very good imitators, not actors, and do most of +the second-rate work in the world. They are not un-sympathizing. Like +air people, they take in easily the thoughts and lives of others, only +they are always conscious of taking them in; they don’t lose themselves +in others, as it is possible for the air followers to do. While they +sympathize, they think how nice it is to be sympathetic; or, if they are +women, perhaps the thought is how interesting I look while I am listening +to this sad story.” + +_K._ “Come now, I believe you have some particular water person in your +mind, for you are getting satirical. It is well we are nearly home. +What I can’t understand is, why all the four complexions have so much +that is disagreeable in them. In which class would Böhme put really good +and noble people?” + +“They might come into any one of the four classes. You must remember +that according to Böhme the temperament is an outer material atmosphere +surrounding the soul, and of necessity partly evil, because it is +material; the pure soul has to work through it, and conquer it, according +to Böhme.” + + + + +SKETCHES. + + + (_In a Garden_.) + + A LADY.—A POET. + + THE LADY. + + + +I. + + + SIR POET, ere you crossed the lawn + (If it was wrong to watch you, pardon) + Behind this weeping birch withdrawn, + I watched you saunter round the garden. + I saw you bend beside the phlox; + Pluck, as you passed, a sprig of myrtle, + Review my well-ranged hollyhocks, + Smile at the fountain’s slender spurtle; + + + +II. + + + You paused beneath the cherry-tree, + Where my marauder thrush was singing, + Peered at the bee-hives curiously, + And narrowly escaped a stinging; + And then—you see I watched—you passed + Down the espalier walk that reaches + Out to the western wall, and last + Dropped on the seat before the peaches. + + + +III. + + + What was your thought? You waited long. + Sublime or graceful,—grave,—satiric? + A Morris Greek-and-Gothic song? + A tender Tennysonian lyric? + Tell me. That garden-seat shall be, + So long as speech renown disperses, + Illustrious as the spot where he— + The gifted Blank—composed his verses. + + + +THE POET. +IV. + + + Madam,—whose uncensorious eye + Grows gracious over certain pages. + Wherein the Jester’s maxims lie, + It may be, thicker than the Sage’s + I hear but to obey, and could + Mere wish of mine the pleasure do you, + Some verse as whimsical as Hood,— + As gay as Praed,—should answer to you. + + + +V. + + + But, though the common voice proclaims + Our only serious vocation + Confined to giving nothings names, + And dreams a “local habitation;” + Believe me, there are tuneless days, + When neither marble, brass, nor vellum, + Would profit much by any lays + That haunt the poet’s cerebellum. + + + +VI. + + + More empty things, I fear, than rhymes, + More idle things than songs, absorb it; + The “finely-frenzied” eye, at times, + Reposes mildly in its orbit; + And, painful truth, at times, to him, + Whose jog-trot thought is nowise restive, + “A primrose by a river’s brim” + Is absolutely unsuggestive. + + + +VII. + + + The fickle Muse! As ladies will, + She sometimes wearies of her wooer; + A goddess, yet a woman still, + She flies the more that we pursue her; + In short, with worst as well as best, + Five months in six, your hapless poet + Is just as prosy as the rest, + But cannot comfortably show it. + + + +VIII. + + + You thought, no doubt, the garden-scent + Brings back some brief-winged bright sensation + Of love that came and love that went,— + Some fragrance of a lost flirtation, + Born when the cuckoo changes song, + Dead ere the apple’s red is on it, + That should have been an epic long, + Yet scarcely served to fill a sonnet. + + + +IX. + + + Or else you thought,—the murmuring noon, + He turns it to a lyric sweeter, + With birds that gossip in the tune, + And windy bough-swing in the metre; + Or else the zigzag fruit-tree arms + Recall some dream of harp-prest bosoms, + Round singing mouths, and chanted charms, + And mediæval orchard blossoms,— + + + +X. + + + Quite _à la mode_. Alas! for prose,— + My vagrant fancies only rambled + Back to the red-walled Rectory close, + Where first my graceless boyhood gambolled, + Climbed on the dial, teased the fish, + And chased the kitten round the beeches, + Till widening instincts made me wish + For certain slowly-ripening peaches. + + + +XI. + + + Three peaches. Not the Graces three + Had more equality of beauty: + I would not look, yet went to see; + I wrestled with Desire and Duty; + I felt the pangs of those who feel + The Laws of Property beset them; + The conflict made my reason reel, + And, half-abstractedly, I ate them;— + + + +XII. + + + Or Two of them. Forthwith Despair— + More keen than one of these was rotten— + Moved me to seek some forest lair + Where I might hide and dwell forgotten, + Attired in skins, by berries stained, + Absolved from brushes and ablution;— + But, ere my sylvan haunt was gained, + Fate gave me up to execution. + + + +XIII. + + + I saw it all but now. The grin + That gnarled old Gardener Sandy’s features; + My father, scholar-like and thin, + Unroused, the tenderest of creatures; + I saw—ah me—I saw again + My dear and deprecating mother; + And then, remembering the cane, + Regretted—THAT I’D LEFT THE OTHER. + + + + +THINGS GONE BY. + + +IS it that things go by, or is it that people go by the things? If the +former, it is no wonder that a good deal of gloom hangs about the matter. +To be standing still, and to have a panorama constantly moving by one, +bearing on its face all things fair and beautiful—happy love scenes, +kindly friends, pleasant meetings, wise speeches, noble acts, stirring +words, national epochs, as well as gay landscapes of hill and dale, and +river and sun, and shade and trees, and cottages and labouring men and +grazing cattle; to have all things moving by one, and oneself to stagnate +and alone to be left behind, as all else moves on to greet the young, the +hopeful, and the untried,—there is indeed something sad in this. We have +seen these good and beautiful and soul-touching visions once. They +charmed and entranced us as they lingered with us for a few brief and +blissful moments, but they have gone by and left us alone. We shall +never look upon them again. Yes, it is bitter—too bitter almost for man +to dwell upon much. He must turn elsewhere, and try to bury the past in +forgetfulness, gazing on the new visions as they in turn pass by him, +knowing that their time is short, and that they too, like all the old +ones, will very soon be as though they were not. + +But it is not so. Man is passing the world by, and not the world man. +Man is passing on, year after year, in his magnificent and irresistible +course, never losing, and ever gaining. All he sees, and knows, and +feels, and does becomes an inseparable part of himself, far more closely +bound up with his life and nature than even his flesh, and nerves, and +bones. It is not merely that he remembers the past and loves the past, +but he is the past; and he is more the whole assembly of the past than he +is anything else whatever. Man alone moves onward to perfection and to +happiness, as a universe stands still ministering to his lordly progress. +Even the life, the passions, and the personal progress of each particular +man stand still, as it were, in the service of all the rest, and become +their lasting and inalienable treasure. Nothing is wasted or irreparable +but wrong-doing, and that too is not lost. + + + + +THINGS GONE BY. + + +“ONCE more, who would not be a boy?”—or _girl_? and revel in the +delights—real or imaginary—of _things gone by_? What a halo is round +them! Their pleasures were exquisite, and their very miseries have in +remembrance, a piquancy of flavour that is almost agreeable. I suppose +the habit of most of us who have attained a certain, or rather uncertain +age, is to revel in the past, to endure the present, and to let the +future look after itself. + +Now this is all well enough for the sentimentalist, or for the poet who, +like Bulwer, can write at thirty “on the departure of youth.” But to the +philosopher—that is, of course, to each member of “Pen and +Pencil”—another and more useful tone of mind and method of comparison +should not be absent. Is not the present what was the future to the +past, and may we not by comparing the existing with what has been, as +also with what was the aspiration of the past, throw some light, borrowed +though it be, on what will be the present to our descendants? Mr. +Pecksniff observes: “It is a poor heart that never rejoices.” Let us +manifest our wealth—of imagination, shall I say?—by endeavouring to +realize how, through the falsehood and wickedness of the past, we have +arrived at our own lofty and noble eminence. + +When we read, in the blood-stained pages of history, of nations and +continents plunged into warfare of the most horrible and heartrending +description, at the call of national glory or dynastic ambition, how can +we sufficiently rejoice at the soft accents of peace and happiness which +none would now venture to interrupt over the length and breadth of happy +Europe? + +The age of falsehood and party spirit may be said to have passed away. +Our newspapers tell nothing but truth, and the only difference +perceptible in their mild criticisms of friend or foe, is that they +betray a generous tendency to do more than justice to their enemies. + +If we cannot say that pauperism is extinct, yet we can honestly affirm +that, if we cannot destroy the accursed thing itself, yet we can, and do +so deal with paupers that the weakest, at least, soon cease to be a +burden on the rates. Science and humanity have shaken hands, and the +soft persuasions of chemical compounds are employed to assist down any +unhappy girl who should be betrayed into aspirations towards the +chimney-pot. We all know that gluttony is one of the greatest evils in +the world, and which of our hearts could be hard enough not to glow with +rapture at the benevolent rule of a London Union, mentioned in to-day’s +paper, of never giving their inmates anything to tax their digestive +forces between 5 P.M. and 8 A.M. + +Again, when we read in our “Spectators” or other venerable records of the +follies of fashion of 150 years ago, or indeed of any other epoch we like +to recur to—of hoops and paint, and patches—how may we rejoice at the +greater wisdom of our ladies in these days, in recognizing how +beautifully they blend the tasteful with the useful! Their crinoline, +how Grecian in its elegance; their chignons, how intellectual in +appearance; their bonnets, how well calculated to protect from rain and +sun; their trains, how cleanly; their boot-heels, how well calculated to +produce by natural means what the barbarian Chinese seek by coarser +methods—to deform the foot, and thus, by limiting their power of walking, +to leave them more time for high intellectual culture. + +Of the improvement in our social morals it is needless to speak, and +indeed I must decline to do so, if only that in drawing a comparison I +should have to shock the ears of “Pen and Pencil” with some allusions to +_things gone by_. I will but casually refer to two salient +characteristics of the enormities of bygone times—to novels and to the +theatre. Compare but for a moment the wild and almost licentious +writings of a Walter Scott, an Edgeworth, or an Austen with the pure and +unexaggerated novels of the present halcyon time. And for our theatres, +if it be possible to imagine anything more chaste and elevating than the +existing drama—anything more stimulating to all that is purest, more +repressive of all that is vulgar and low in our ballets or +pantomimes—why, I very much mistake the realities that lie before us. + +Finally, in the religion of the country—there where one looks for the +summing up and climax as it were of all the incidental advances we have +glanced at, how glorious is the spectacle! The fopperies of +ecclesiastical upholstery banished from the land; the hardness and +cruelty of dogmatic intolerance heard no more; a noble life everywhere +more honoured than an orthodox belief. + +Surely we have reached the Promised Land—it overflows with charity, with +peace, plenty, and concord; and the only regret left to us is the fear +that in so good a world none of us can entertain the hope to leave it +better than we found it! + + + + +THINGS GONE BY. + + + SOME years go by so comfortably calm, + So like their fellows, that they all seem one; + Each answering each, as verses in a psalm, + We miss them not—until the psalm is done: + + Until, above the mild responsive strain, + An alter’d note, a louder passage rolls, + Whose diapason of delight or pain + Ends once for all the sameness of our souls: + + Until some year, with passionate bold hand, + Breaks up at length our languid liberty, + And changes for us, in one brief command, + Both all that was, and all that was to be. + + Thenceforth, the New Year never comes unheard; + No noise of mirth, no lulling winter’s snow + Can hush the footsteps which are bringing word + Of things that make us other than we know. + + Thenceforth, we differ from our former selves; + We have an insight new, a sharper sense + Of being; how unlike those thoughtless elves + Who wait no end, and watch no providence! + + We watch, we wait, with not a star in view: + Content, if haply whilst we dwell alone + The memory of something live and true + Can keep our hearts from freezing into stone. + + + + +NO; +OR, THE LITTLE GOOSE-GIRL. +A TALE OF THE FIRST OF MAY, 2099. + + + THE little Goose-girl came singing + Along the fields, “Sweet May, oh! the long sweet day.” + That was her song, + Bringing about her, floating about + In and out through the long fair tresses + Of her hair; oh! a thousand thousand idlenesses, + Spreading away on May’s breath everywhere + “Idleness, sweet idleness.” + + But this was a time, + Two thousand and ninety-nine, + When, singing of idleness even in Spring, + Or drinking wind-wine, + Or looking up into the blue heaven + Was counted a crime. + A time, harsh, not sublime, + One terrible sort of school- + Hour all the year through, + When everyone had to do something, and do it by rule. + Why, even the babies could calculate + Two and two at the least, mentally, without a slate, + Each calling itself an aggregate + Of molecules— + It was always school—schools, + All over the world as far as the sky could cover + It—dry land and sea. + High Priests said, + “Let matter be Z, + Thoroughly calculated and tried + To work our problems with, before all eyes— + Anything beside that might prove a dangerous guide: + X’s and Y’s, + Unknown quantities, + We hesitate not, at once to designate + Fit only, now and for ever to be laid aside.” + So, you see + Everything was made as plain as could be, + Not the ghost of a doubt even left to roam about free. + Everybody’s concern + Being just to learn, learn, learn, + In one way—but only in one way. + + Where then did the little Goose-girl come from that day? + I don’t know. Though + Isn’t there hard by + A place, tender and sunny, + One can feel slid between + Our seen and unseen, + And whose shadows we trace on the Earth’s face + Now and then dimly?—Well, she + Was as ignorant as she could ignorant be. + The world wasn’t school to her + Who came singing + “Sweet Idleness, sweet Idleness” up to the very feet + Of the Professors’ chairs, + And of the thousand thousand pupils sitting round upon theirs; + Who, up all sprang, + At the sound of the words she sang + With “No, no, no, no, no, + There are no sweets in May, + None in the weary day; + What foolish thing is this, singing of idleness in spring?” + + “Oh! sunny spring,” + Still sang the little Goose-girl. Wondering + As she was passing— + And suddenly stay’d for a moment basking + In the broad light, with wide eyes asking + What “nay” could mean to the soft warm day. + And as she stay’d + There stray’d out from her + May breaths, wandering all the school over. + + But now, the hard eyes move her + And her lips quiver + As the sweet notes shiver + Between them and die. + So her singing ceases, she + Looking up, crying, “Why is my May not sweet? + Is the wide sky fair? + Are the free winds fleet? + Are the feet of the Spring not rare + That tread flowers out of the soil? + Oh! long hours, not for toil, + But for wondering and singing.” + “No, no, no, no,” + These reply, + “Silly fancies of flowers and skies, + All these things we know. + There is nothing to wonder at, sing, + Love, or fear— + Is not everything simple, and clear, + And common, and near us, and weary? + So, pass by idle dreaming— + And you, if you would like to know + Being from seeming, + Come into the schools and study.” + + “Still to sing sometimes when I have the will, + And be idle and ponder,” + Said the Goose-girl, “and look up to heaven and wonder?” + “What! Squander Truth’s time + In dreams of the unknown sublime— + No—” Then “Ignorant always,” said she, + “I must be,” + And went on her way. “Sweet May, sad May”— + Hanging her head— + Till, “The mills of the gods grind slowly,” she said, + “But they grind exceeding small, + Let be, I will sit by the mills of the gods, and watch the slow atoms + fall.” + So, patient and still, through long patient hours + As she laid her heart low in the hearts of the flowers, + Through clouds and through shine, + With smiles and with tears, + Through long hours, through sweet years; + Oh! _years_—for a hundred years was one + School-hour in two thousand and ninety-nine. + And see! + Who are these that come creeping out from the schools? + —Long ago, when idlenesses + Out of her tresses, stray’d the school over, + Some slept of the learners, some played. + These crept out to wonder and sing, + And look for _her_ yonder, + Away up the hills, + Amongst the gods’ mills. + And now + “Is it this way?” they say, + Bowing low, + “Oh! wise, by the heaven in thine eyes + Teach—we will learn from thee— + Is it no, is it yes, + Labour or Idleness?” + She, + Answering meekly: “This— + Neither no, nor yes, + But ‘come into God and see.’” + + Oh! the deeps we can feel; oh! the heights we must climb. + Oh! slow gentle hours of the golden time— + Here, the end of my rhyme. + + _May_, 1869. + + + + +EXILE. + + + NIGHT falls in the convict prison,— + The eve of a summer day; + Through the heated cells and galleries, + The cooler nightwinds play. + And slumber on folded pinions + With oblivion brought relief; + Stilling the weary tossings,— + Smoothing the brow of grief. + + Through a dungeon’s narrow grating + The slanting moonlight fell + Down by a careworn prisoner, + Asleep in his lonely cell. + The hand which lay so nerveless + Had grasp’d a sword ere now, + And the lips now parch’d with fever + Had utter’d a patriot’s vow. + + He stirr’d and the silence was broken, + By the clanking of a chain, + He sigh’d, but the sigh no longer, + Show’d the spirit’s restless pain. + For to him the dark walls faded, + And the prisoner stood once more + Beneath the vine-wreath’d trellis, + Beside his loved home’s door. + + And memory drew the faces + So dear in earlier days, + Of the sisters who were with him + Joining in childish plays, + And the mother whose lips first murmured + The prayer which had made him brave, + “Let his fate be what Thou wiliest, + But not, oh! not a slave.” + + And the friends whose blood beat quickly + At the wrongs of their native land + And the vow they had vowed together, + Grasping each other’s hand. + He dreamt of the first resistance, + Of the one who basely fled; + And the guard’s o’erwhelming numbers + And the hopes of life all dead. + + And then of the weary waiting, + An exile on foreign ground; + With stranger voices near him, + And unknown faces round. + Oh! ships o’er the gladsome waters, + What news do you bring to-day? + What tidings of home and kindred + To the exile far away? + + And he dreamt of the glad returning + To the well-loved native shore; + When news had come—All are ready + To dare the fight once more. + Of the hearts that throbbed exulting, + With hope of the coming strife, + Of the sigh which fell unheeded + To the thought of child and wife. + + And he dreamt of the day of contest, + Of whistling shot and shell, + When he bore his country’s banner, + And had borne it high and well. + “Rally for Freedom! Forward! + Stand! for our cause is Right; + Sooner be slain than defeated, + Better is death than flight.” + + Ah! happy the first who perished, + Who saw not the turning day, + And the fallen flag, and the broken line, + And the rout without hope or stay! + And the prisoner groaned in his slumbers, + But now, with a sudden glow, + The glorious moonlight’s splendour + Poured full on his humid brow. + + On its rays there floated to him + The friends of his early youth, + Who had borne their steadfast witness + In the holy cause of Truth. + “Welcome,” they said, “we await thee; + Come, and receive thy meed, + The crown of those who flinched not + In our country’s greatest need.” + + Was it a dream, or delusion? + Or vision? Who shall say? + Its spell consoled the hours + Of many a weary day. + And months went slowly over, + And the winter’s icy breath + Blew chill through an empty dungeon: + The convict was freed—by Death. + + + + +EXILE. + + + IN exile, hopeless of relief, + I pine, a hapless sailor, + And this is how I came to grief, + Upon an Arctic whaler. + My exile is no land of palms, + Of tropic groves and spices, + But placed amid the savage charms + Of polar snows and ices. + + It was a sad funereal coast, + The billows moaned a dirge; + The coast itself was lined with _bays_, + The rocks were cloth’d with _surge_. + And here by cruel fogs and fates + Our ship was cast away— + Where Davis found himself in straits, + And Baffin turn’d to bay. + + And from my chilly watch aloft + I saw the icebergs sailing, + Where I sat weeping very oft, + While all the crew were whaling. + For one and all, both great and small, + From veteran to lubber, + From captain down to cabin boy, + Were used to _whale_ and _blubber_. + + Our ship misled by ill advice— + Our skipper, half seas over, + Upon this continent of ice + Incontinently drove her. + While I alone to land did drive, + Among the spars and splinters, + And since have kept myself alive, + Through two long Arctic winters. + + It was a land most desolate, + Where ice, and frost, and fog, + Too truly did prognosticate, + An utter want of prog. + Another would have reeved a rope, + And made himself a necklace; + My wreck bereaved me of my hope, + But did not leave me reckless. + + And since, on oil and fat I’ve kept + My freezing blood in motion. + (I think the “fatness” of the land + Transcends the land of Goshen.) + In vain, gaunt hunger to beguile, + I try each strange device; + Alas! my ribs grow thin the while, + Amid the thick-ribb’d ice. + + In vain I pour the midnight oil, + As eating cares increase; + And make the study of my nights + A history of Greece. + Monarch of all that I survey, + By right divine appointed; + (If lubrication in and out + Can make a Lord’s anointed). + + Though lord of both the fowl and brute + My schemes to catch them work ill, + And three she-walrii constitute + My social Arctic circle; + _Three_, did I say? there are but two, + For she I chiefly fancied + Has been my stay the winter through, + And now is turning rancid. + + The cruel frost has nipped me some; + My mournful glances linger + Upon a solitary thumb, + And half a middle finger. + In toto I have lost my toes, + Down to the latest joint: + And there is little of my nose + Above the freezing point. + + Upon this floe of ice my tears + Are freezing as they flow; + I lie between two sheets of ice, + Upon a bed of snow. + I have a hybernating feel, + And with the Bear and Dormouse, + Shall take it out in sleep until + Something turns up to warm us: + + Until some Gulf-Stream vagaries + Or astronomic cycles, + Shall bring to these raw latitudes + The climate of St. Michael’s. + Or else some cataclysm rude + With polar laws shall _play_ tricks, + And Nature in a melting mood + Dissolve my icy matrix. + + Maybe, a hundred centuries hence, + Pr’aps thousands (say the latter), + Amid the war of elements + And even the wreck of matter, + When in the crush of worlds, our own + Gets squeezed into a hexagon, + The natives of this frozen zone + May see me on my legs again. + + + + +THE LITTLE FAIRY. +TRADITION. +_From Béranger_. + + + ONCE on a time, my children dear, + A Fairy, called Urgande, lived here, + Who though but as my finger tall, + Was just as good as she was small; + For of her wand one touch, they say, + Could perfect happiness convey. + O dear Urgande! O good Urgande! + Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand! + + Eight butterflies, in harness, drew + Her tiny car of sapphire blue, + In which, as o’er the land she went, + Her smile to earth fresh vigour lent; + The grape grew sweeter on the vine, + More golden did the cornfield shine. + O dear Urgande! O good Urgande! + Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand! + + The King a godson was of hers, + And so she chose his Ministers— + Just men who held the laws in sight, + And whose accounts could face the light. + The crook as shepherds did they keep + To scare the wolves and not the sheep. + O dear Urgande! O good Urgande! + Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand! + + To show what love she tow’rds him bore, + She touched the crown her godson wore— + A happy people met his eye, + Who for his sake would freely die; + Did foreign foes the realm invade + Not long they lived, or short they stayed. + O dear Urgande! O good Urgande! + Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand! + + The judges of this King so good + Decided always as they should: + Not once throughout that pleasant reign + Did Innocence unheard complain, + Or guilt repentant vainly pray + For guidance in the better way. + O dear Urgande! O good Urgande! + Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand! + + Alas! my dear, I must allow + There’s no Urgande on earth just now. + America is sore be-mobbed; + Poor Asia’s conquered, crushed, and robbed; + And though at home, of course, we find + Our rulers all that’s nice and kind— + Still—dear Urgande! O good Urgande! + Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand! + + + + +REGRET. + + +I. + + + VIOLETS in the Springtide gathered, + To the child-heart prest, + Treasured in the breast + With a tender wistful joy, + In their fading, fragrant yet:— + A tearful sweet regret + Of the early time. + + + +II. + + + Glowing, wayward crimson roses, + Shedding perfume rare + O’er the summer air, + With a canker at the heart + And a stem where thorns are set:— + O bitter-sweet regret + Of the golden prime! + + + +III. + + + Snowflakes falling through the darkness, + Hiding out of sight + Graves of past delight, + Till the folded whiteness mocks + Watching faces, wan and wet:— + O mournful-sweet regret + Of the wintry time. + + + + +REALITIES. + + +I AM informed by “Pen and Pencil,” with a certain harsh inexorableness of +tone, that _something_ I must produce this evening, or—incur a sentence +too dreadful to be contemplated, no less than that of ostracism (perhaps +ostracism for incapacity should be spelt _ass_tracism). + +Well, what are the words? _Realities_ and _drifting_. Very good; then +I’ll take both, for the most characteristic element that I have noted of +_realities_ is that they are constantly _drifting_. + +Wishing to start from an undoubted basis, I asked a friend, before +sitting down to write, what exactly he understood by _realities_, and he +replied, with the air of a philosopher, “whatever man, through the medium +of his senses, can surely realize.” The conclusion I draw is, that there +is some inextricable connection between _realities_ and _real lies_. In +which I am confirmed by Johnson, who traces the derivation of the word +_reality_ as _from_ real. + +Sir John Lubbock, in his “Origin of Civilization,” under the heading of +“Savage Tendency to Deification,” states as a fact that “The king of the +Koussa Kaffirs, having broken off a piece of a stranded anchor, died soon +afterwards, upon which all the Kaffirs looked upon the anchor as alive, +and saluted it respectfully whenever they passed near it.” At a glance +it occurred to me, this is a _reality_ well worthy of being brought under +the notice of “Pen and Pencil.” Will it not furnish, thought I, material +for their philosophers, and mirth for their humorists, and surely an +excellent subject for their artists? _But is it true_? Ay, that must be +my first discovery. Who shall hope to palm off doubtful _realities_ upon +“Pen and Pencil,” without deservedly _drifting_ to disgrace? + +Without indecent boasting, I believe I may assure this august assembly +that I have probed this matter to its very root; the whole truth is in my +hands, and shall be faithfully presented to this critical company. I +shall be excused from detailing my method of examination; time would fail +us were I to make the attempt; suffice it to say that I have brought all +possible modes under contribution, and many more, and that not a single +fact has been set down unless previously tested by a wild flight of +imagination. Upon principle, too, I decline to say how I have arrived at +the realities of the case, lest truth should suffer through disapproval +of my process. + +If I say that I have telegraphed direct, some wretched caviller may +observe that he never heard of Kaffir wires. I may have conversed with +the ghost of the wicked king of Koussa Kaffir through the medium of Mrs. +Marshall, but some joker—how I do detest the race—might object to my plan +of _marshalling_ my facts. I may have “asked that solemn question” of +the leg of my loo-table, which does _not_ by any means “seem eternal,” +something after the fashion of Ion. I may have caught the little toe of +Mr. Home, as he was floating in mid-air, and so found my information, as +honest debts should be paid, _on the nail_. I may have—but no more—I +respectfully decline to communicate, to-night at least, aught but the +ascertained _realities_. + +It is true, then, that a stranded anchor was thrown on the shore of +Koussa Kaffir; that it created widespread wonder and inquiry as to its +whence, its wherefore, and its whither; that the king, being of an +inquiring mind, often examined the anchor, pondered over its shape and +its materials; that one day, testing this last with too much energy, one +fluke was quite lopped off. His majesty was pleased with the result, +although it did not seem to do much towards solving the difficult +questions connected with the strange visitor; but it was afterwards +generally reported that some of the wisest of the Kaffirs had shaken +their heads three times, and had remarked that if anything should happen +they should doubt whether it was not for something. + +Something did happen. The king that night ate for his supper forty-four +ostrich eggs, beside two kangaroos and a missionary. It was too much for +even a Kaffir king; he was seized with nightmare, raved of the weight of +the anchor on his chest, and died. + +The effect produced upon Kaffir public opinion, and the Kaffir press, was +startling and instantaneous. The king had broken the anchor; the king +had died—had died _because_ he broke the anchor; that was evident, nay +was proved—proved by unerring figures, as thus: the king was fifty-five +years old; had lived, that is to say, 20,075 days; to say, therefore, +that he had not died this day _because_ of his daring impiety was more +than 20,000 to one against the doctrine of probabilities. + +The anchor, therefore, was a power—was a devil to be feared—that is, a +god to be worshipped; for in savage countries there is a wonderful +likeness between the two. Thus was born a religion in Koussa Kaffir. +Divine honours or dastard fears were lavished on the anchor; a priesthood +sprang up who made their account in the Kaffir superstition. They were +called anchorites. They were partly cheats, and partly dupes; but they +made a livelihood between the two characters. They fixed the nature and +the amount of the sacrifices to be offered, and the requirements of the +anchor were in remarkable harmony with the wants of its priests. Natural +causes, too, were happily blended with supernatural. The anchor was +declared to be the great healer of diseases. For immense sums the +ministering priests would give small filings to the diseased, and +marvellous were the cures produced by oxides and by iron; never, in +short, was there a more prosperous faith. The morals of the people, I +grieve to say, did not improve in proportion to their faith. An anchor +that is supposed to remit sins on sacerdotal intercession is probably not +favourable to the higher morals in Koussa Kaffir. + +But a trial had to come upon the anchor-devil and its worshippers. Under +it it must collapse, or passing through it as through the flame of +persecution, come forth stronger and brighter than ever. Which should it +be? It was an interesting spectacle. Let me finish my story. + +There returned to Koussa Kaffir a native who had voyaged round the world +since he had left his native land; he had seen and had observed much; he +was well acquainted with anchors; had seen them in all stages and under +all conditions; he knew their use by long experience; he had handled +them. One time his vessel had been saved by its stout anchor, another +time he had had to save the ship by slipping his cable and leaving the +anchor at the bottom; he had never known an anchor resent the worst +usage; he would not worship this old broken one. Some thought him mad, +some wicked; he was called infidel by those who knew his mind, but for a +long time he followed his friends’ advice, and said nothing of his awful +heresy. + +But this condition of mind would hardly last for ever. Travel had +improved his intellectual force, as well as given special knowledge about +anchors and other things; he began to lament over and even to despise the +folly of his race; he burned to cast off some at least of their shackles +of ignorance and superstition. “How shall I begin,” cried he one day, +“to raise their souls to something higher, while they worship that stupid +old rusty anchor in the sand?” + +His soul began to burn with the spirit of martyrs and reformers. “I will +expose this folly; I will break to pieces their anchor-devil, and when +they see that all is well as it was before, they will begin to laugh at +their own devil, and will have their minds open to a higher faith.” + +But first he would consult his friends; if possible obtain their +sanction, and act in unison with others. He met with no encouragement. +One gravely rebuked him for his presumption and conceit, and produced a +long list of eminent Kaffirs who had bowed before the anchor. Another +found in the absurdity of the anchor faith its best evidence of solidity. +It was, he said, a faith too improbable for a Kaffir to have invented; +any fool, he added, could believe a probable religion, but it needed a +superior Kaffir to swallow this. Some put their tongues in their cheeks +(a vulgar habit amongst the Koussa Kaffirs), and said: “Silly fellow, we +know all that as well as you do, but the anchor is a profitable anchor, +and as needs must, you shall be one amongst the priests.” + +Again, others said: “We, too, have our doubts, but as a political engine +we must retain our anchor. How should we keep down the lower orders? +How restrain our servants from pilfering without its influence and +sanctifying power? The fact is, that in our complicated social system +all society depends upon the anchor.” “Between ourselves,” one added, +“if heaven had not sent that particular anchor some of us think we must +have sent to Woolwich for another.” + +But the only arguments that caused him any hesitation, and which did give +him some pain, were from certain women who implored him not to destroy +their anchor idol. “We cannot judge,” said one of these, “between your +arguments and the conclusions we have been brought up to reverence. The +anchor may not be a god but only a symbol, but how beautiful a one! Does +not the anchor save the ship? And are not our own lives, too, like the +storm-tossed vessel? That anchor is associated with all we have felt, +suffered, prayed for. Destroy that symbol, and you wound and endanger +the deepest element of religion in our hearts.” + +Finally, one very intelligent friend said to him with much solemnity: +“Rash man, forbear! Stop while there is time in a course that may bring +down ruin on the State and on yourself, and for the doing of which you +can have, as a rational being, no temptation whatever. I grant you you +may be right, and the rest all wrong; but what then? We can know nothing +of the matter, and _you may be wrong_. Now, anyhow, _we are on the safe +side of the hedge_. If the anchor be a devil he may do you harm, and if +he be only a bit of rusty iron, you will be none the worse for a bow and +a grimace.” + +The rash man was immovable. Doomed by the infernal gods to pay the +penalty of having lit his Promethean torch at Woolwich dockyard, armed +with a mighty hammer, and followed by an awe-struck crowd, he fell upon +the anchor, and with one mighty blow, struck off the other fluke. It was +his last! Inspired by religious zeal, the Koussa Kaffirs rushed upon +him, and in the sight of the outraged anchor beat his brains out on the +beach. It was observed that his friend who liked to be “on the safe +side” threw the first stone, and the advocate of public morals was the +next; after that they rained too thick to tell who did the most. + +Meantime the anchor of Koussa Kaffir will be worshipped for a thousand +years, for has it not slain the only two men who dared to question its +authority? + + + + +REALITIES; +A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS. + + + [Ye Prologue.] + + I HAD been to the theatre, swallowed a play, + Seen bright Marie Wilton, and cried with the best + O’er the poor parting lovers; then laugh’d and was gay + At the plump roly-poly, the puns, and the rest. + + [Acte ye fyrste.] + + So into the streets, warmly muffled, I came, + And turn’d my steps homeward, three miles in the fog; + When, threading a court (I can’t tell you its name), + I tripp’d against something I thought was a dog, + + For it moan’d. I stoop’d down, half-expecting a bite; + But the thing never moved; then I look’d, and behold, + A baby, wrapt up in brown paper and night, + Half-dying with hunger, half-frozen with cold. + + I return’d to the Foundling, and ringing the bell, + Gave Baby in charge; then, retracing my way, + I mused upon this which had happen’d, and fell + From my comedy-mood to a tragedy-play. + + [Acte ye second.] + + I had seen the first act—now the second began. + Night lifted her curtain; and, here in the street, + A minute City Arab, the least of his clan, + Patter’d past on the pavement,—no shoes to his feet; + + Black, shivering, starving; not daring to beg, + Not able to work, not unwilling to steal, + If a chance came his way; he was fleet of his leg; + He would risk a policeman to pilfer a meal. + + Sure enough the chance came; ’twas a truckful of bread; + No Gorgon to watch it—no dragon to slay; + Like a juvenile Jason, he plunder’d and fled; + Like a Jason, he found a Medea to pay— + + In the shape of a lout, twice the size of himself, + The sole witness, by hunger made ruthless and keen; + He demolish’d the pilferer, pilfer’d the pelf, + Disappear’d with his booty—and down came the scene. + + [Acte ye thyrde.] + + Act the third was a garret;—I thought I had clomb + Up a hundred of stairs, to a hole in the roof, + Where a lad of eighteen had made shift of a home,— + With a wife, if you please—and a baby for proof. + + He was thief by profession—a cadger—a sot— + Sticking close to his calling; and so, as we say, + An habitual rogue;—had he chosen his lot, + It may be he had pitch’d on an honester way. + + As it was, he was light of his fingers—adept + At shop-lifting and burglary—nimble and cute; + Never fear’d a policeman (unless when he slept), + And was held by his pals in the highest repute. + + [Acte ye fovrthe.] + + Act the fourth is the hulks, where our hero appears + In the proper stage garments of yellow and red; + With a chain to his leg this last dozen of years, + And a warder to see that he works for his bread. + + [Morall Reflecciouns.] + + Once again—’tis his lot; you won’t hear him complain; + He was born to it, kick’d to it—Fortune is blind; + And if some have the pleasure, some _must_ have the pain; + So it’s each for himself—and the devil behind. + + [ Acte ye last and Ingenious rhyme.] + + The last act of our drama—well, what shall it be? + The august British Public, defraying the cost?— + Or . . . P-a-r-l-i-a-m-e-n-t? + Or the angels, lamenting the soul that is lost? + + + + +BARK. + + +BOW-WOW! + +I’m my master’s dog; whose dog are you? I live in a kennel, which +somebody was good enough to make for me; and I sleep on straw, which grew +that I might sleep on it. I have my meals brought to me punctually; and, +therefore, I conclude that meals are a noble institution and that +punctuality is a virtue. When I act as a good dog ought to act, I get a +bone, and my master pats me on the back. Therefore I always do what is +expected of me; and that I call morality. Dogs which have no kennels +flounder about in the gutter. Having a kennel, I eschew the gutter;—and +that I call respectability. It is in the nature of dogs to lick their +masters’ feet. The best dogs do it, so I follow their example;—and that +I call religion. If I do what is not expected of me, I get the stick. I +do not like the stick, so I behave myself;—and that I call +conventionality. There is a chain round my neck, lest I should run away. +I cannot break the chain, so I play with it;—and that I call the proper +subjection of the individual. But I am free to pull at my chain till my +neck is sore;—and that I call liberty . . . For the rest, I bark. + +There are three kinds of spiritual beings: men, dogs, and cats. Men are +supreme, and made both dogs and cats. Dogs were created for happiness, +and cats for misery. We are the good race, and they are the evil. It is +the duty of a dog to kill a cat. Then hate cats, and hang them up by the +tails in the back garden. If I am a bad dog, I shall be turned into a +cat, and hung up by my tail. Cats are fed on black beetles; but men are +very happy, and eat bones all day long. I eat a bone when I can get one; +which makes me think that I shall some day be turned into a man. When I +am, I shall hang up cats by the tails. + +Of created beings dogs are the only ones who have souls. There is a +heaven for dogs, but for no one else. There are no cats in heaven; and +for that matter, very few dogs; but I hope to be one of them; for there +the dogs have meaty bones, and bark all day long, making sweet music. +This is the Dogs’ creed. All who believe it will go to Bone-land; and +all who do not, will be hung up with the cats in the back garden. + +Bow-wow! + + + + +SMOKE. +THE IRONWORKERS. + + + UNDER the rolling smoke, the brave black smoke, + Our work is wrought; + Fashion’d strong with every sturdy stroke + That does wild music from the roofs provoke + In echoes brought. + A rare bold sport + Rather than labour stern, or blunting task; + A toil to ask + Not blench from. Merrily round the fire + We work our will, + Producing still + Some new form daily to our hearts’ desire. + + Delicate iron bands + That, as with fairy hands, + Heavenward aspire + To carry roofs, sun pierced and ever gleaming, + Wherein the varied race + Of fruit or flowers finds place, + While the weak Northern rays through mist are streaming. + + Or lofty gate + Of palace or of temple set apart; + The hallowed gaols of art, + Where low estate + Is never welcome; ever warmly bidden + To enter and abide. Far better hidden + Life’s earnest prime behind the factory gate. + Always the rolling smoke, the brave black smoke, + Is overhead, + Like floating incense looming through the sky, + It tells the prayer of work goes on hard by + Where zeal new energies of life evokes; + While iron red + From earthy bed + Blackens to use beneath the smith’s firm strokes. + + Under the rolling smoke, the brave black smoke, + Our lot is laid. + Our ever-flaming altar spreads on high + This great scroll as a witness in the sky + Of effort made. + Here, rare workmanship, we, day by day, + Strive to display, + Not heeding if our work make weal or woe. + We do our best, + Ye will the rest, + To meet whose wants me make our furnace glow. + + Pleasant are our rough hands + That work the world’s demands + And never tire, + Bringing to shape forms past the quaintest dreaming. + Hot, and with grimy arms + We weave the Earth’s new charms, + Only a hymn of praise our toil esteeming. + + Under the rolling smoke, the brave black smoke, + Our work is wrought; + Not a cloud, the summer air to choke, + But banner of our craft, the floating smoke + Ensigns our labour, with bright meanings fraught. + + + + +WHEREFORE HORRIBLE SPRING? +_From Béranger_. + + + WHEN winter was here, from my window on high + I saw her sweet face up at hers where she sat. + We never had met, but ’twas plain she and I + From falling in love were not hinder’d by that. + Between the bare boughs of these lindens how oft + Kind kisses we blew I’ve no patience to sing, + For there are the leaves now all quiv’ring aloft— + Ah! why are you here again, horrible Spring? + + Yes, there are the leaves, and no more I behold + My kind little neighbour put forth her dear head + To scatter the bread-crumbs, when, tamed by the cold, + The robins, her pensioners, wait to be fed. + The minute her casement she open would throw, + The Loves with our errands were all on the wing. + What is there for beauty to equal the snow? + Ah! why are you here again, horrible Spring? + + And ’twere not for you I should still with the dawn + Behold her new-risen in simplest array; + So, radiant and lovely, great painters have drawn + Aurora enclosing the curtains of day. + At eve, in the heavens though stars might be bright, + I watched for her taper my planet to bring; + How lonely I felt when she put out her light; + Ah! why are you here again, horrible Spring? + + Ever dear to my heart must the winter remain; + How glad I should be if I only could hear + The sharp little tinkling of sleet on the pane, + Than whispering of zephyrs more dulcet and dear. + Your fruits and your flowers are odious and vile, + Your long sunny days only sadness can bring; + More sunny by far was the light of her smile. + Ah! why are you here again, horrible Spring? + + + + +VOICES. + + + THROUGH hoary centuries, through History’s page, + Like tongues of fire unquench’d, undimm’d by age, + Whisper the voices, living, clear and true, + The crust of Time and changes piercing through; + Sometimes like trumpets’ martial tones they ring— + Anon, scarce heard, in trembling accents sing, + Yet there is life in what they tell and say, + A life nor years nor days can sweep away: + From out the Past, from out the silent grave, + From the lone deep where beats the ceaseless wave, + They yearn, they rise, they plead with deathless tone: + From hill, from field, from cot, from kingly throne + They bring their witness;—if we list or learn, + The days shall tell of each one in his turn:— + Oh, who shall say a voice, however weak, + Its message doth not bear—its lesson speak! + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOW. +THREE VOICES. + + + _The Child speaks_. + + TWEET, tweet, tweet! + The birds cry out of the sky. + Tweet, tweet, tweet, + Mother I want to fly. + Up, and up, and up, + Above the poplars tall, + Mother, if I had wings, + I would fly and never fall! + + _The Mother speaks_. + + Sweet, sweet, sweet! + So the swallows are here again, + Flying over the village street, + And out to the open plain. + Sweet, sweet, sweet! + As they cried three springs ago, + When Will led me through the fields + Down to the church below. + Three years have come and gone, + Through warm summer and winter cold + I have carried his dinner afield, + And led the cattle to fold. + Three years have come and gone, + And my child is just two years old, + And the swallows are crying again Sweet, sweet, + And my tale is told. + + _The Grandmother speaks_. + + Fleet, fleet, fleet, + Are those the swallows I hear? + The sound was sudden and sweet, + And this is the spring of the year. + To my dim eyes they seem + But a sudden light as they pass; + But I know how they skim o’er the stream, + And over the churchyard grass. + Their wings are a sudden light, + Thy tunes will not be long, + For my spirit is nearer its flight + Than that of the young and the strong; + Fleet, fleet, fleet, my days are waning fast, + I hear them cry, for out of the sky, + “There are wings for the soul at last.” + + + + +SWALLOWS. + + +A NEW season is begun. Parliament met to-day. London is getting full, +and the price of coals has fallen. The celandine (swallow-flower) is +beginning to cover the hedgerow banks of the Isle of Wight with yellow +stars, and the swallows themselves will soon be with us again. + +I may mention as another agreeable sign of spring the return of “Pen and +Pencil,” not to the old nest, but under shelter of the old hospitality. + +The Rhodians used to salute the return of the swallows with a traditional +popular song, the _Chelidonisma_; perhaps some lady present may gratify +us with a chant of the like purport. My own aim this evening is merely +to give some brief natural history notes on the British swallows, drawn +partly from books and partly from my own observation. + +There are about sixty species of the family of Hirundinidæ, but only four +kinds (counting the swift as one) are habitual visitors of the British +Islands—the chimney swallow, the house martin, the bank martin (_Hirundo +rustica_, _urbica_, and _riparia_), and fourthly the swift (_Cypselus_). + +The chimney swallow (_rustica_) has a brownish-red throat, back of +blue-black lustre, under part of body reddish-white, and a long forked +tail. It is a bold bird, and trusting to its superior speed, dashes at a +hawk whenever it sees one. It always builds near men, and makes its +cup-shaped nest inside chimneys and old wells, in barns, gateways, sheds, +and arches of bridges. There are four or five spotted eggs, and it +brings out two broods each year. The chimney swallow has a sweet little +song of its own, and is one of the earliest birds heard of a summer +morning, beginning soon after two o’clock. It is said to grow very tame +in confinement, but I never saw and should not like to see one in a cage. +These are the most abundant of our swallows, and the same birds return +year after year, while their little time endures, to the same localities, +and often very likely to the same nests. + +The house martin (_urbica_), or window swallow or martlet, is smaller and +less agile than its cousin just described, and has a far shorter tail. +Its feet and toes are downy. It comes later than the chimney swallow, +builds amidst towns, on the _outside_ of houses, under eaves and in +window niches, and chooses a northern aspect to avoid the direct rays of +the sun, which would crack its mud nest. Martlets sometimes build on the +face of cliffs, as may be seen at the Giant’s Causeway. It has four or +five _white_ eggs, and brings out two broods. As a vocalist it can only +get as far as a chirp, or at most a small twitter. Its body is white +below, and purple on the back and wings. The house martin does not, like +the chimney swallow, sweep the ground and water in its flight. + +The bank swallow (_riparian_) or sand martin, which is so sociable with +its own kind but not with man, digs horizontal and serpentine holes in +banks, sloping upwards to avoid rain, where it lays in a careless nest +four or six white eggs. It has sometimes, but perhaps not always, two +broods. These are the smallest and wildest of our swallows; nearly mute, +or with only a tiny chirp; and, when they can, frequent large spaces of +water. They often fly waveringly with a quick fluttering of wings, +somewhat like butterflies, and anon sail circling like other swallows. +They use their old caves for some years, but may often be seen digging +new ones. They are probably driven out sometimes by the fleas which, as +I have often seen, abound in their habitations. Birds, indeed, free and +airy as their life seems, suffer much from vermin, and the poor baby +swallows are terribly preyed upon. The sand martin is mouse-coloured on +the back and brownish-white below. It is the earliest to arrive in +England, and may be expected now in three weeks or so. Next we may look +for the chimney swallow with his long tail—then for the house martin, and +latest of all comes the swift (_Cypselus_), which some naturalists say is +no true swallow, having several anatomical peculiarities, the most +noticeable being that all four toes go forward. No other bird, I think +(save the Gibraltar swift), has a similar foot. The swift can cling well +to the face of a wall, but cannot perch in the usual bird fashion, and +gets on very badly on the ground, finding it difficult to rise on the +wing. Once in the air, with its long wings in motion, it is truly master +of the situation. It is one of the speediest, if not the speediest, and +can keep on the wing for sixteen hours, which is longer than any other +bird. The swifts are most active in sultry thundery weather. They fly +in rain, but dislike wind. They are the latest day-birds in summer, and +their one very shrill note may be heard up to nearly nine o’clock. +Sometimes they get excited and dart about screaming, perhaps quarrelling, +but usually the swallows, all of them, agree well among themselves, +though they also keep a proper distance. The swifts build high in holes +of walls and rocks. The Tower of London is one of their London palaces. +The nest is bulky and has two white eggs. There is but one brood in the +season, and the swift leaves town for Africa in August, going earliest, +although he was the latest to come. + +Swallows for several weeks after their arrival in England play about +before beginning their nests— + + “Like children coursing every room + Of some new house.” + +They wait for fit weather to go away, and may then be seen sitting in +rows as though meditating on their journey, perhaps dimly sorry to part— + + “With a birdish trouble, half-perplexed.” + +Utterly mysterious and inscrutable to us are the feelings of our lower +fellow-creatures on this earth, and how the bird of passage, +“lone-wandering but not lost,” finds its distant goal, is beyond man’s +wit to explain. + +After this I fear tedious sketch of our four winged friends, I will only +add another word or two as to the name swallow, a rather odd word, +entirely different from the Greek _χελῖδών_, and the Latin _hirundo_ +(which, unlike as it may appear, philologists tell us is formed from the +Greek name). The Italians call the bird _rondine_ (evidently from the +Latin), and the French _hirondelle_. We get our word from the +Anglo-Saxon, _swalewe_, and the modern German is _schwalbe_. What does +this mean? I must own with regret that it seems to me most likely that +the name is given on account of the voracity of this bird, which is +engaged in swallowing gnats, beetles, bees, may-flies, dragon-flies, and +all kinds of flies from break of day till sunset. The Anglo-Saxon verb +to swallow is _swelgan_. Fain would I take the word _swelgel_, air, sky; +but the Spanish name for our bird seems conclusive for the baser +derivation. The Spaniards call it golondrina (evidently from _gola_, +throat); and it may be added, make a cruel kind of amusement out of the +gulosity of the swallows, by angling for them with fishing-flies from the +walls of the Alhambra, round which the birds dart in myriads on a +summer’s day—descendants of those that played round the heads of the +Moorish kings, who perhaps were kinder to their visitors. + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOWS. + + + “OUT in the meadows the young grass springs, + Shivering with sap,” said the larks, “and we + Shoot into air with our strong young wings, + Spirally up over level and lea; + Come, O Swallows, and fly with us + Now that horizons are luminous! + Evening and morning the world of light, + Spreading and kindling, is infinite!” + + Far away, by the sea in the south, + The hills of olive and slopes of fern + Whiten and glow in the sun’s long drouth, + Under the heavens that beam and burn; + And all the swallows were gathered there + Flitting about in the fragrant air, + And heard no sound from the larks, but flew + Flashing under the blinding blue. + + Out of the depth of their soft rich throats + Languidly fluted the thrushes, and said: + “Musical thought in the mild air floats, + Spring is coming, and winter is dead! + Come, O Swallows, and stir the air, + For the buds are all bursting unaware, + And the drooping eaves and the elm-trees long + To hear the sound of your low sweet song.” + + Over the roofs of the white Algiers, + Flashingly shadowing the bright bazaar, + Flitted the swallows, and not one hears + The call of the thrushes from far, from far; + Sighed the thrushes; then, all at once, + Broke out singing the old sweet tones, + Singing the bridal of sap and shoot, + The tree’s slow life between root and fruit. + + But just when the dingles of April flowers + Shine with the earliest daffodils, + When, before sunrise, the cold, clear hours + Gleam with a promise that noon fulfils,— + Deep in the leafage the cuckoo cried, + Perched on a spray by a rivulet-side, + “Swallows, O Swallows, come back again + To swoop and herald the April rain!” + + And something awoke in the slumbering heart + Of the alien birds in their African air, + And they paused, and alighted, and twittered apart, + And met in the broad white dreamy square, + And the sad slave woman, who lifted up + From the fountain her broad-lipped earthen cup, + Said to herself with a weary sigh, + “To-morrow the swallows will northward fly!” + + + + +AULD LANG SYNE; +OR, THE LAW IN 1874. + + +IN 1868 it was determined by Lord Cairns, then Lord Chancellor, that a +revised edition of the statutes of the realm should be published +containing only such statutes as were actually in force. + +In looking over the first volume, which contains statutes passed between +1235 and 1685, one is struck by the number of stringent Acts of +Parliament forming part of our present law, which nevertheless are +habitually neglected. + +Now that the destroying hands of the Gladstonian iconoclasts are stayed +there can be no more useful task than to look around us and see how many +of these relics of the embodied wisdom of our ancestors still remain to +us, rusted indeed but ready for our use. + +In enumerating a few of these enactments I have two objects in view. +First, I would remind those whose province it is to administer law and +justice to the subjects of Queen Victoria of powers with which they are +armed; and, secondly, I would offer timely warning to those against whom +these powers, when again exercised, which the present healthy state of +public feeling assures us they will be, must inevitably be directed. + +To begin then. Can there be a more appalling spectacle than the +“Monstrous Regiment of Women?” Well, we have our weapons of defence +ready in 3 Henry VIII. c. 11., 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 8, and 5 +Elizabeth c. 4. s. 17. What a sound and vigorous ring is there in the +first of these statutes with the pains and penalties it enacts against +ignorant persons practising physic or surgery, “such,” it goes on to say, +“as common artificers, smythes, wevers and women.” And how discreetly +liberal is the second of these statutes, which indicates a legitimate +field for women’s activity, and allows them, in common with all other +unqualified persons, to cure outward sores, such as “a pyn and the web in +the eye, uncoomes of hands, scaldings, burnings, sore mouths, saucelin, +morfew” and the like, by herbs, ointments, baths, poultices, and +plasters. But most practical, perhaps, of all these three statutes is +the statute of Elizabeth, which, making no exception, sweeps within its +enactments all women under the age of forty who have failed to fulfil the +great end of their being, matrimony. + + “And bee it further enacted that twoo justices of the peace the maior + or other head officer of any citie burghe or towne corporate and twoo + aldermen, or twoo other discrete burgesses of the same citie burghe + or towne corporate yf ther be no aldermen, shall and may by vertue + hereof appoint any suche woman as is of thage of twelfe yeres and + under thage of fourtye yeres and unmarried and foorthe of service, as + they shall thinck meete to serve, to be reteyned or serve by the yere + or by the weeke or daye, for such wages and in such reasonable sorte + and maner as they shall thinck meete: And yf any such woman shall + refuse so to serve, then yt shalbe lawfull for the said justices of + peace maior or head officers to comit suche woman to warde untill she + shalbe bounden to serve as aforesaid.” + +The effect of enforcing this law would be salutary indeed. Under the +existing state of things men are frequently employed upon duties so +disagreeable and ill-paid that Providence can only have intended them for +women. Why then do we not take advantage of the power, nay, the duty of +sending women to their proper sphere and mission which is entrusted to +our magistrates and discreet burgesses? As the wages will be fixed by +these authorities, the burden to the rate-payers need not be great. And +we should thus silence the demand which, I am told, women are beginning +to make not only for work (as if their male relations were not always +ready and willing to find them plenty), but even for remunerative work. + +But I pass from our women to our agricultural labourers. We have lately +heard much debate on the conduct of commanding officers who, when +labourers at harvest-time were holding out for wages, allowed their +soldiers to help in getting in the harvest. But such aid would never +have been required had not the fifteenth section of the same statute of +Elizabeth been unaccountably overlooked. + + “Provided always that in the time of hey or corne harvest, the + justices of peace and every of them, and also the cunstable or other + head officer of every towneshipe, upon request and for thavoyding of + the los of any corne grayne or heye, shall and may cause all suche + artificers and persons as be meete to labour, by the discretions of + the said justices or cunstables or other head officers or by any of + them, to serve by the daye for the mowing reaping shearing getting or + inning of corne grayne and heye, according to the skill and qualite + of the person; and that none of the said persons shall refuse so to + doo, upon payne to suffer imprisonement in the stockes by the space + of twoo dayes and one night.” + +Nor need our farmers at any other times in the year fear a deficiency of +labour if they will but invoke the aid of the fifth section of the same +statute, whereby every person between the ages of twelve and sixty not +being employed in any of a few callings mentioned in the Act, nor being a +gentleman born, nor being a student or scholar in any of the universities +or in any school, nor having real estate worth forty shillings a year or +goods and chattels worth £10, nor being the heir-apparent of any one with +real estate worth £10 a year or goods and chattels worth £40, is declared +compellable to be retained to serve in husbandry by the year with any +person that keepeth husbandry. + +Again we have Acts of 1275 and 1378 (3 Edward I., and 2 Richard II.), as +our defences against those who are described as “devisors of false news +and of horrible and false lies of prelates dukes earls barons” and, +comprehensively, “other nobles and great men of the realm,” and also of +various officials enumerated, with a like comprehensive “and of other +great officers of the realm.” The Act of Richard II. reiterates and +confirms that of Edward I., and under these Acts “all persons so hardy as +to devise speak or tell any false news, lies, or such other false things” +about great people, incur the penalty of imprisonment “until they have +brought him into Court who was the first author of the tale.” What a +check would the carrying out of these provisions put upon the +impertinences of Own Correspondents, social reformers, gossips, +novelists, caricaturists, and moralists! It will be a happy day for +England when the many thoughtless or malignant persons who now permit +themselves to retail stories inconvenient to members of the aristocracy +or to the dignitaries of the country, suffer the punishment of their +infraction of the law. To take but one instance of the great need there +exists for the protection of our upper classes—an instance, as it +chances, which enables me to show that I would not wish the private +character of even a political enemy to be traduced—I may remind you that +if the statutes of _Scandalum Magnatum_ were enforced there would not now +be at large persons ascribing to the late Prime Minister himself the +authorship of the Greenwich stanza on the Straits of Malacca. + +There are many other statutes on which I might enlarge. I might remind +coroners of duties which they have forgotten, and the clergy of rights +which they are allowing to lapse, but time will not permit me. + +It is true that when I read my Statute Book I meet with some provisions +of which I do not comprehend the necessity. As a Protestant I do not see +why I should be imprisoned for three years and fined besides, if I carry +off a nun from a convent with her consent; and as a botanist I do not see +why, since January, 1660, I have been prohibited from setting or planting +so much as a single tobacco plant in my garden. Still, all are parts of +one stupendous whole, parts of the sacred fabric built by our forefathers +in “Auld Lang Syne.” Touch one stone and the British Constitution may +crumble. And as a humble member of the Great Constitutional Party I +desire to raise my protest against the canker of decay being left to eat +insidiously into our ancient and revered legislative code, by our +suffering any Acts of Parliament which appear on our Statute Book as +parts of the living Law of the Land to drop into disuse, as if, contrary +to the doctrine of the highest legal authorities, an Act of Parliament +unrepealed _could_ become obsolete. + + + + +AULD LANG SYNE, +WHERE HOME WAS. + + + ’TWAS yesterday; ’twas long ago: + And for this flaunting grimy street, + And for this crowding to and fro, + And thud and roar of wheels and feet, + Were elm-trees and the linnet’s trill, + The little gurgles of the rill, + And breath of meadow flowers that blow + Ere roses make the summer sweet. + + ’Twas long ago; ’twas yesterday. + Our peach would just be new with leaves, + The swallow pair that used to lay + Their glimmering eggs beneath our eaves + Would flutter busy with their brood, + And, haply, in our hazel-wood, + Small village urchins hide at play, + And girls sit binding bluebell sheaves. + + Was the house here, or there, or there? + No landmark tells. All changed; all lost; + As when the waves that fret and tear + The fore-shores of some level coast + Roll smoothly where the sea-pinks grew. + All changed, and all grown old anew; + And I pass over, unaware, + The memories I am seeking most. + + But where these huddled house-rows spread, + And where this thickened air hangs murk + And the dim sun peers round and red + On stir and haste and cares and work, + For me were baby’s daisy-chains, + For me the meetings in the lanes, + The shy good-morrows softly said + That paid my morning’s lying lurk. + + Oh lingering days of long ago, + Not until now you passed away. + Years wane between and we unknow; + Our youth is always yesterday. + But, like a traveller home who craves + For friends and finds forgotten graves, + I seek you where you dwelled, and, lo, + Even farewells not left to say! + + + + +RIVER. +AN AUTUMN IDYL. + + + “Sweet Thames! ran softly, till I end my song.” + + SPENSER, _Prothalamion_. + + LAURENCE. FRANK. JACK. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + HERE, where the beech-nuts drop among the grasses, + Push the boat in, and throw the rope ashore. + Jack, hand me out the claret and the glasses;— + Here let us sit. We landed here before. + + + +FRANK. + + + Jack’s undecided. Say, _formose puer_, + Bent in a dream above the “water wan;” + Shall we row higher, for the reeds are fewer, + There by the pollards, where you see the swan? + + + +JACK. + + + Hist! That’s a pike. Look,—note against the river, + Gaunt as a wolf,—the sly old privateer, + Enter a gudgeon. Snap,—a gulp, a shiver;— + Exit the gudgeon. Let us anchor here. + + + +FRANK. (_In the grass_.) + + + Jove, what a day! Black Care upon the crupper + Nods at his post, and slumbers in the sun, + Half of Theocritus, with a touch of Tupper + Churns in my head. The frenzy has begun. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + Sing to us then. Damoetas in a choker + Much out of tune, will edify the rooks. + + + +FRANK. + + + Sing you again. So musical a croaker + Surely will draw the fish upon the hooks. + + + +JACK. + + + Sing while you may. The beard of manhood still is + Faint on your cheeks, but I, alas! am old. + Doubtless you yet believe in Amaryllis;— + Sing me of Her, whose name may not be told. + + + +FRANK. + + + Listen, O Thames. His budding beard is riper + Say, by a week. Well, Laurence, shall we sing? + + + +LAURENCE. + + + Yes, if you will. But, ere I play the piper, + Let him declare the prize he has to bring. + + + +JACK. + + + Hear then, my Shepherds. Lo to him accounted + First in the song—a Pipe I will impart; + This, my Belovèd, marvellously mounted, + Amber and foam—a miracle of art. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + Lordly the gift. O Muse of many numbers, + Grant me a soft alliterative song. + + + +FRANK. + + + Me, too, O Muse. And when the umpire slumbers, + Sting him with gnats a summer evening long. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + Not in a cot, begarlanded of spiders, + Not where the brook traditionally purls, + No; in the Row, supreme among the riders, + Seek I the gem, the paragon of girls. + + + +FRANK. + + + Not in the waste of column and of coping, + Not in the sham and stucco of a square; + No; on a June-lawn to the water sloping + Stands she I honour, beautifully fair. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + Dark-haired is mine, with splendid tresses plaited + Back from the brows, imperially curled; + Calm as a grand, far-looking Caryatid + Holding the roof that covers in a world. + + + +FRANK. + + + Dark-haired is mine, with breezy ripples swinging + Loose as a vine-branch blowing in the morn; + Eyes like the morning, mouth for ever singing,— + Blythe as a bird, new risen from the corn. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + Best is the song with music interwoven; + Mine’s a musician, musical at heart, + Throbs to the gathered grieving of Beethoven— + Sways to the right coquetting of Mozart. + + + +FRANK. + + + Best? You should hear mine trilling out a ballad, + Queen at a picnic, leader of the glees; + Not too divine to toss you up a salad, + Great in “Sir Roger” danced among the trees. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + Ah, when the thick night flares with dropping torches, + Ah, when the crush-room empties of the swarm, + Pleasant the hand that, in the gusty porches, + Light as a snowflake, settles on your arm. + + + +FRANK. + + + Better the twilight and the cheery chatting,— + Better the dim, forgotten garden-seat, + Where one may lie, and watch the fingers tatting, + Lounging with Bran or Bevis at her feet. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + All worship mine. Her purity doth hedge her + Round with so delicate divinity, that men + Stained to the soul with money-bag and ledger + Bend to the Goddess, manifest again. + + + +FRANK. + + + None worship mine. But some, I fancy, love her, + Cynics to boot, I know the children run + Seeing her come, for naught that I discover + Save that she brings the summer and the sun. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + Mine is a Lady, beautiful and queenly, + Crown’d with a sweet, continual control, + Grandly forbearing, lifting life serenely + E’en to her own nobility of soul. + + + +FRANK. + + + Mine is a Woman, kindly beyond measure, + Fearless in praising; faltering in blame, + Simply devoted to other people’s pleasure. + Jack’s sister Florence. Now you know her name. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + “Jack’s sister Florence!” Never, Francis, never! + Jack, do you hear? Why, it was She I meant. + She like the country! Ah! she’s far too clever. + + + +FRANK. + + + There you are wrong. I know her down in Kent. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + You’ll get a sunstroke, standing with your head bare. + Sorry to differ. Jack, the word’s with you. + + + +FRANK. + + + How is it, umpire? Though the motto’s threadbare, + “_Cœlum non animum_,” is, I take it, true. + + + +JACK. + + + “_Souvent femme varie_,” as a rule, is truer. + Flatter’d, I’m sure—but both of you romance. + Happy to further suit of either wooer, + Merely observing—you haven’t got a chance. + + + +LAURENCE. + + + Yes. But the Pipe— + + + +FRANK. + + + The Pipe is what we care for. + + + +JACK. + + + Well, in this case, I scarcely need explain. + Judgment of mine were indiscreet, and therefore— + Peace to you both.—The pipe I shall retain. + + + + +RIVER. + + + THREE rivers fell to strife, about their own renown, + Producing rival claims to wear the rivers’ crown. + Proud Amazon was one, and yellow Tiber next, + And third, an English Thames—all three most fierce and vex’d. + + Said Amazon: “The length of my majestic stream + Makes me amazed that you, two tiny rills, should deem + You can be e’en compared with me—enormous _me_! + Of rivers I’m the king!—Let that acknowledged be!” + + “Absurd!” cried Tiber. “_Size_—and all that sort of thing + Are never reckon’d points in fixing on a king. + But Rome was _mine_! And _mine_ her conquests, laws, and fame, + In fact, her total past is coupled with _my_ name!” + + “Be silent!” said the Thames; “I’m greater than you both! + Not hist’ry and not miles can match with present growth. + I’m proud to say _I_ own a trading wealthy place, + By Anglo-Saxons built—that fearless, active race!” + + The contest grew more sharp, they roll’d their waves in storm; + Thermometers, if there, had shown the waters warm. + Thames wreck’d some twenty ships, and Amazon still more, + While Tiber caused dire dread to Romans as of yore. + + At length the mighty sea, lamenting such a fray, + By these wise words prevailed their envious wrath to stay. + “Dear streams! you once were one—to me you all return. + Oh! cease then—being one—with jealousies to burn!” + + + + +FOOTPATH +BETWEEN THE PATHWAY AND RIVER. + + +“FOLLOW that pathway till you come to some arches, and turn under them, +and you will find the Blind School,” was the answer given whenever we +stopped in our bewildered pilgrimage to inquire: but no arches were +visible, save one disreputable old bridge, under which no self-respecting +school seemed likely to find shelter; so we went on hopelessly, asking +the way from waggoners and countrymen, who all seemed interested in the +question, but were unable to give us any guidance. A pitiless hailstorm +rattled on our umbrellas and splashed the mud upon our boots: while the +path, it was evident, was leading us on towards the river, not the +school; so at last in despair we turned, and flying before the storm +sought refuge under the despised railway bridge, where a group of +children were playing dry and comfortable, while we were wet and muddy. +Once again we inquired for the Blind School, and were told to go on. The +path led under a succession of iron girders which apparently stand for +arches in those regions, and we tramped on discontentedly, feeling we had +been deceived, and that we too might have been dry and safe like the +children, if only our misinformants had called a spade a spade, and a row +of iron girders something else than arches. But the path took a turn, +and we saw cottages and green fields, and we reached a house which had +two doors, on one of which we read, “Mr. Wallis,” and on the other +nothing: so we chanced the second door, knocked, and were soon among a +group of children, all neat, healthy, and cheerful—but blind. In this +blind school there were but two people who could see, and these were not +the only teachers, for here the blind helped the blind, as the rich +helped the poor. + +For this school began with a blind man. Five years ago, near the banks +of the Severn, a cart containing vitriol was overturned; and of four +people who were there, only two were left alive, and one of these was +blind. Childless and blind, this man had to begin life again—to learn to +live in darkness, and in darkness to work for others. For as soon as he +had learned to grope his way, he learned to read in the books provided +for the blind, and went from village to village to find other blind +persons, and teach them how to read also. Then a noble-hearted woman +came forward to help him, and founded the school; where blind children +are trained to work as well as read, and blind men and women come every +day to be taught trades. These latter come daily to the school, groping +their way along the path that had been so tedious to our impatience; and +learn to work, and also to read, helped sometimes by the teachers, +sometimes by the blind man: who also still goes as before, from village +to village, teaching and comforting those in the same straits as himself. + +We were guided through a back way, intricate and uneven, where our blind +guide warned us carefully of every step—though he said the children ran +about everywhere and never fell—till we went through the school and +entered his little house alongside, and found ourselves in a bright +little parlour upstairs, full of books, and tastefully furnished, with a +woman’s taste; for the woman who survived the accident which left her +childless and crippled, had still the sight of one eye. There was an +harmonium in the room, and one of the children came to play it. He was +called Abraham; but this old name belonged to an intelligent, +bright-faced English lad of twelve, well dressed and handsome but for his +sad dim eyes. He is the son of a well-to-do farmer, and in education and +intelligence far removed from some of his companions. He handled the +harmonium with his small, delicate fingers as only a real musician can, +and while the music lasted I nearly forgot all the sadness of the scene, +and the hopeless life of the musician and the other children, who, one by +one, guided by the sound, crept up the narrow stairs and came noiselessly +into the room, and stood listening spell-bound till he finished. “And +now, Lizzie, play,” said some one, and a girl came to the harmonium. She +knew far less of music than Abraham, and had as yet little execution, but +the sweet, true feeling which she gave to the old hymn tunes stirred the +heart and brought tears to my eyes. “And would you like to hear us sing +the hymn we sang when she was buried?” they asked. For their +benefactress and friend, the woman whose untiring energy had begun and +carried on this work among them, rousing sympathy for them among her +townspeople, and begging for them when her own means were insufficient, +died a few weeks ago, and the children of the school had seen her laid in +the churchyard. The harmonium was hushed, Lizzie only struck the +keynote, and they all sang, as they had all sung at the grave in the cold +February morning when they saw her lowered into the cold earth, + + “I know there is a land where all is bright,” + +and they turned their poor sightless eyes to the light, as if that were +to them the symbol of the heaven they longed to reach. It was too sad. +The singing ceased, and we all tried to speak of something else. “How +did you get that Indian picture?” I asked, looking round, and as the +words left my lips, I reproached myself for speaking to one who could not +see it, of a thing that could have no present interest to him. But I had +made no mistake, as it chanced. “Ay, my brother brought it me,” he +answered. “I know what you mean.” “It is painted on ivory, is it not?” +“Oh no! this is a picture; my sister wears the one on ivory for a brooch, +though it is rather large for that, maybe; but my brother brought them. +He was at Agra during the mutiny, and he brought a ball in his shoulder, +too, back—that’s what he brought; but I’d forgotten the picture till you +mentioned it. But will you hear the children read now? Read the history +of England, Abraham.” And Abraham read, opening the book at hazard, and +reading clearly and distinctly the death of Cœur de Lion, his forgiveness +of his enemy, and his burial in Fontevrault in token of his deep +repentance. The children all listened with pleasure till one little one, +the pet of the flock, whimpered because “Bessie” did not read; so Bessie, +whose fingers were busy with her knitting, was compelled to read, +although coming after Abraham it was rather a trying ordeal. Still the +pet had to be satisfied, and then every one went on with their straw +work, for the funds of the home are dependent on charity or the sale of +work, as friends visiting Worcester will do wisely to remember. Straw +mats, baskets, and balls were the work of the little ones, and they took +the keenest interest in the question whether I preferred blue and white +mats, or purple and white. I bought both, and shook hands all round, and +in a few minutes was retreading my way towards the broad rolling Severn. +Never did I feel how intense the joy of sight was as I did when I stood +by its silver stream, and thought of those I had just left in the little +house near the railway bridge. + + + + +THE FOOTPATH. + + + OUT at the doorway with shrill delight + Ringing, clear of alloy, + After a butterfly flashing so white + As it wheels and floats in the soft sunlight, + He darts, O adventurous joy! + + Away! the fields are waving, the wheat + Stands proudly over the path, + The path winds onward, winning his feet + Through avenues arched and shady and sweet,— + Sweet vista that childhood hath. + + But stay: the butterfly has upflown + High in the stainless blue; + Under the shadowing wheat alone, + He stands and wonders, still as a stone, + For all the world is new. + + He sees each beautiful stem, blue-green, + Standing alone in its grace, + Great pendulous poppies aflame between, + And little convolvulus climbing to screen + That dim forest world from his face. + + He sees overhead as they dance to its tune + The ears flash white in the wind, + But that musical laugh before mid-noon + Ripples far and faint in the heat, and soon + Leaves silence only behind. + + And the silence falls on his fresh young soul, + Like the far sound of the sea, + Infinite, solemn; its strange control + Possesses him quite; quick fancies roll + Through his brain; half fearfully + + He looks; and the long path seems to strain + His tremulous lips apart; + Some sudden trouble his eyes sustain; + For so the folded blossom of pain + Has broke in his childish heart. + + What is it?—some swift intuitive glance, + Half-shapen only in thought, + Of stranger worlds, of wide mischance? + Some intimate sense of severance + Or loss?—I know not what. + + He turns and leaps; for his mother’s arms + Out of the doorway lean; + She folds him safely from all alarms, + And rallies his courage with rhythmical charms,— + Yet knows not what he has seen. + + + + +FOOTPATH. + + + ONWARD, where through dewy grass + Slowly wading footsteps pass; + Where the daisy’s peaceful eye + Gazes trustful to the sky; + Where the river rippling by + Makes scarce heeded harmony + With the deep bell’s distant chime, + And the wandering waifs of rhyme, + Flung at random from the mind, + While the thought still lags behind, + Held in check by idle musing + Born of chance, not wilful choosing. + Now, more clear on either side, + See the meadows green divide; + Clearer lies the path before us; + Varied sounds are floating o’er us; + All the stirring noise of life, + All the ceaseless daily strife; + The larger world breaks strongly in + Where footpaths end and roads begin. + + + + +THE FOOTPATH. + + +I. + + + REMEMBER how, the winter through, + While all the ways were choked with mire, + Half-maddened at the rain, we two + Have nestled closer to the fire, + And talk’d of all that should be done + When April brought us back the sun, + What gardens white with butterflies, + What soft green nooks of budded heather, + What moorlands open to the skies, + We two would scour together! + + + +II. + + + And now the month comes round again! + Cool interchange of genial hours, + Soft gleams of sunlight, streams of rain, + Have starred the meadow-lands with flowers, + And in the orchards on the hills + The grass is gold with daffodils, + And we have wander’d, hand in hand, + Where sea below and sky above + Seem narrowing to a strip of land + The pathway that we love! + + + +III. + + + Our path looks out on the wide sea, + And knows not of the land; we sit + For hours in silent reverie, + To watch the sea, and pulse with it; + Its deep monotonous refrain + Brings melancholy, almost pain: + We scarcely wish to speak or move, + But just to feel each other there, + And sense of presence is like love, + And silence more than prayer. + + + +IV. + + + Sharp round the steep hill’s utmost line + It winds, and, just below, the grass + Sinks with tumultuous incline + To where the rock-pools shine like glass; + The tufts of thrift can drink their fill + Of sea-wind on this rugged hill, + And all the herbage, toss’d and blown, + Is stain’d with salt and crush’d with wind, + Save where behind some boulder-stone + A harbour flowers may find. + + + +V. + + + The bright sea sparkles, sunbeam-kiss’d, + And o’er its face such breezes float + As lightly turn to amethyst + The pearl-grey of a ring-dove’s throat; + Thus stirr’d and ruffled, shines anew + The radiant plain of changing hue, + So gentle, that the eye divines + No reason why the foam should fall + So loudly, in such serried lines, + Against the dark rock-wall. + + + +VI. + + + The wind is low now; even here, + Where all the breezes congregate, + The softest warbler need not fear + To linger with its downy mate; + And here where you have long’d to be + So many weeks and months with me, + Sit silently, or softly speak + Or sing some air of pensive mood, + Not loud enough to mar or break + This delicate solitude. + + + +VII. + + + Are we not happy? Sun-lit air, + Soft colour, floods of dewy light, + A flowery perfume everywhere + Pour out their wealth for our delight; + Through dreary hours of snow and sleet + The hope of these wing’d winter’s feet; + We have them now! The very breath + Of Nature seems an altar-fire + That wakes the bright world’s heart from death + To satiate our desire! + + + +VIII. + + + Sing to me, therefore, sing or speak! + Wake my dull heart to happiness; + Perchance my pulses are too weak + To stir with all this sweet excess! + Perhaps the sudden spring has come + Too soon, and found my spirit dumb! + Howe’er it be, my heart is cold, + No echo stirs within my brain, + To me, too suddenly grown old, + This beauty speaks in vain! + + + +IX. + + + Why are you silent? Lo! to-day + It is not as it once hath been; + I cannot sit the old sweet way, + Absorbed, contented, and serene; + I cannot feel my heart rejoice, + I crave the comfort of your voice! + Speak, speak! remind me of the past! + Let my spent embers at your fire + Revive and kindle, till at last + Delight surpass desire! + + + +X. + + + Yea! are you silent, only press + My hand, and turn your face away; + You wince, too, from the fierce caress + That April flings on us to-day? + O human heart, too weak to bear + The whole fulfilment of a prayer! + This sudden summer strikes us dumb; + The wild hope, realized, but scares! + The substances of dreams become + A burden unawares. + + + +XI. + + + How can we sit here and not thrill + With but the pleasure of past time? + This footpath winding round the hill + Should stir us like remember’d rhyme + Nay! for the dull and sluggish brain + Is spurred to action all in vain, + And when the spirit cannot rise + Through natural feeling into light, + No perfumed air, no splendid skies, + Can lend it wings for flight. + + + +XII. + + + Come, then, and leave the sovereign sea + To sparkle in the laughing air; + Another day its face will be + No less refulgent, no less fair, + And we by custom be made strong + To bear what we desired so long; + To-day the slackening nerves demand + A milder light, a sadder air, + Some corner of forgotten land, + Still winter-like and bare. + + + +XIII. + + + Come! leave our pathway for to-day, + And turning inland, seek the woods, + Where last year’s sombre leaves decay + In brown sonorous solitudes; + The murmurous voice of those dark trees + Will teach us more than sun or seas, + And in that twilight we may find + Some golden flower of strange perfume, + A blossom hidden from the wind, + A flame within the tomb. + + + + +THE FOOTPATH. + + + YOU gave your hand to me, as through + The low scrub-growth that spanned + The Danes’ old tower, we caught anew + The sharp salt-burdened breeze that blew + Across the reach of sand. + + Too proud! the grace you scorned to do, + Where scarce your foot could stand;— + ’Twas but from sheer fatigue, I knew, + You gave your hand! + + How well that scene comes back to view! + Your cheeks’ faint roses fanned,— + The gorge,—the twinkling seaward blue, + The black boats on the strand; + I gave you all my heart, and you— + You gave your hand. + + + + +A TURN OF THE TIDE. + + + ONLY a turn of the tide! + I was sitting here, by myself alone + On this rock, now hardly three hours agone, + With my book on my knees, and my eyes on the sea, + And my thoughts still further adrift, when he + So suddenly stood by my side. + + The sun shone white on the sails, + The waves were dimpling and sparkling in light; + And I, my visions were almost as bright. + But a mist is now creeping along the shore, + And I shiver with cold—it is nothing more; + If it were—what now avails? + + Only one turn of the tide! + He told me his love was so deep and strong, + That in saying him nay, I did him wrong, + That I had not the right his life to break, + And before I half knew the words I spake + I had promised to be his bride. + + I can see his footprints yet; + Though the stealthy waves have almost effaced + From the sand’s dry bed the track they traced, + But I feel as if years had gone over my head, + As if I had died, and been raised from the dead, + Since those sands were glistening wet. + + Only a turn of the tide! + Is it always so when our dreams come true? + Is the present so grey, and the future so blue? + Is the rainbow we chased nought but drizzling mist? + And the hope we hugged to our hearts and kiss’d, + Delusion, and nought beside? + + I had liked him truly for years, + I know he is greater and nobler than I, + With a larger brain and a clearer eye; + That my life is of small account, if it give + Him comfort; but shall I, so long as I live, + Feel these half-unreasoning fears? + + Ah me! one turn of the tide! + This morning I was a careless child, + So gay, so petted, so thoughtless and wild; + I’m content with my fate, but one more year + Of freedom would have been very dear. + Was it I, or the wind that sigh’d? + + I thought so—here comes the rain, + The mist grows dense, and the clouds gather fast, + And the tide has covered the sands at last; + I must hasten, and think of regrets no more, + But—could all things be as they were before, + I would not promise again. + + + + +THE TURN OF THE TIDE. + + + FAR up the shingle crept the cruel wave, + With seeming coy reluctance to his feet, + Which—faint with toiling in the noonday heat— + He let his foe with flattering murmur lave, + Nor sought to flee the cool and pleasant grave + Its soft arms laid about him, nor to cheat + The patient billow of its victim meet, + For he had lost all power himself to save. + When, while he waited, thinking death was slow, + Eyesight and hearing dim with tired despair, + The whisper of the sea grew faint and low, + And, waked by stirring of the evening air, + He rose, and saw the waves in sunset glow, + Gleaming far off in beauty new and rare. + + + + +THE TURN OF THE TIDE. + + +I. + + + THE harbour lights are dim with smoke + Which hangs about the under sky, + And wraps the simple fisher-folk + In lurid mist as they go by. + Along the shore the wind blows free, + Keen twilight kisses the wan sea + Far out; steer thither, watch with me + The tender stars come out on high. + + + +II. + + + The sky is deepening overhead: + The sail flaps loose: the wind has died: + The water laps the boat like lead: + Faint ripples plash against the side, + And shimmer with unearthly light, + The harbour lamps are out of sight; + We drift into a starless night + Together on the ebbing tide. + + + +III. + + + How still—how strange—the tide is slack, + We eddy round—we drift no more. + What swell is this which sweeps us back + To where the gathering breakers roar? + About the pale unlighted land? + Can any tell if we shall stand + Safe in the morning hand in hand + Upon the steep and rock-bound shore? + + + + +COMPROMISE. + + + “COME, promise, dear,” I whispered low, + “That you will take my name.” + I never said I’d give it, but + They swore ’twas all the same. + + They brought an action to extort + Four thousand pounds from me— + The Judge said “compromise,” and so + I had to give her three. + + By my hard fate, unwary youth, + Take warning, and be wise: + Once with “_come promise_” you begin, + The end is _compromise_. + + + + +FAREWELL. + + + FAR through the vista of receding years + I dimly catch a glimpse through falling tears, + Of faces bending o’er some pictured glory + Or—brightly list’ning to some magic story, + Told by a gifted wielder of the Pen + Whose power and pathos touch’d the hearts of men. + But when the pathos ’gan to sadden all, + A comic writer would our smiles recall: + And by his clever travesty and fable + Excite a merry laughter round the table. + Then some philosopher with voice sonorous + Would read an essay—not too long, to bore us. + The papers read, around the board we press’d, + To scan the pictures of each artist-guest. + Then to discussion of a slight repast + Of fish and rolls, and velvet cream we’d haste, + Ere Pens and Pencils all would speed away, + To meet again some happy future day. + That day, alas! has pass’d, the night has come, + And witty Pens and Pencils all are dumb. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{43} Although Mazzini was not a member of Pen and Pencil, he wrote this +letter at the request of the President. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AULD LANG SYNE*** + + +******* This file should be named 45586-0.txt or 45586-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/5/5/8/45586 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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