diff options
28 files changed, 17 insertions, 9200 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82beb4a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #55716 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55716) diff --git a/old/55716-0.txt b/old/55716-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0550ca6..0000000 --- a/old/55716-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4211 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Poetical Works of David Gray, by David Gray - -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/license - - -Title: The Poetical Works of David Gray - A New and Enlarged Edition - -Author: David Gray - -Editor: Henry Glassford Bell - -Release Date: October 9, 2017 [EBook #55716] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF DAVID GRAY *** - - - - -Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Paul Marshall, Bryan Ness -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian -Libraries) - - - - - - -Transcriber's Notes: - - Underscores "_" before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_ - in the original text. - Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals. - Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved. - Typographical errors have been silently corrected but other variations - in spelling and punctuation remain unaltered. - Added subsection “Miscellaneous Poems” to Table of Contents as it is - included in the text. - - - - - THE POEMS OF DAVID GRAY. - - - PUBLISHED BY - JAMES MACLEHOSE, GLASGOW. - - MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. - - _London, Hamilton, Adams and Co._ - _Cambridge, Macmillan and Co._ - _Edinburgh, Edmonston and Douglas_. - _Dublin, W. H. Smith and Son_. - - MDCCCLXXIV. - - - - - THE POETICAL WORKS OF _DAVID GRAY_ - - A NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION, EDITED BY - HENRY GLASSFORD BELL - - Glasgow - JAMES MACLEHOSE - PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY - - LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. - 1874 - - _All rights reserved_ - - PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY - MACLEHOSE AND MACDOUGALL, - GLASGOW. - - TO - The Memory of - - _HENRY GLASSFORD BELL_, - LATE SHERIFF OF LANARKSHIRE, - - _THIS VOLUME_, - - _ON WHICH HIS LATEST LITERARY LABOUR_ - _WAS BESTOWED_, - - IS - - Affectionately Dedicated. - - - - -_INTRODUCTORY NOTE._ - - -This new Edition of the Works of David Gray, containing, it is -believed, all the maturely finished poems of the author, is a double -memorial. It commemorates “the thin-spun life” of a man of true -genius and rare promise, and the highly cultured judgment and tender -sympathies of a critic who has passed away in the vigorous fulness of -his years. - -A specimen page of “The Luggie,” forwarded with an appreciative letter -from a friend, reached the author on the day before his death. He -received it as “good news”—the fragmentary realization of his ambitious -dreams—and, in the hope that his name might not be wholly forgotten, -said he could now enter “without tears” into his rest. - -Within a week before his removal from amongst us, Mr. Glassford Bell -was engaged in correcting the proofs of the present edition. He had -selected from a mass of MSS. and other material what new pieces he -thought worthy of insertion in this enlarged edition—he had rearranged -the whole and finally revised the greater part of the volume, which it -was his intention to preface with a Memoir and Criticism. He looked -forward to accomplishing this labour of love in a period of retirement -from more active work which he had proposed to pass in Italy. - -It has been thought inadvisable to commit to other hands the -unexpectedly interrupted task. For a statement of the few and -simple vicissitudes of the Poet’s career, as well as a brief but -discriminating estimate of his rank in our literature, the reader is -referred to the speech—at the close of the volume—delivered by Mr. -Bell, nine years ago, on the inauguration of the Monument in the -“Auld Aisle” Burying-ground. Of the movement which resulted in this -tribute to departed genius, the late Sheriff was one of the most active -promoters. Himself a poet, and a generous patron of all genuine art, -the West of Scotland has known no “larger heart” or “kindlier hand.” -There is something suggestive in the fact that his last effort was to -throw another wreath on the early tomb of David Gray. - -_March, 1874._ - - - - - _CONTENTS._ - - - PAGE - THE LUGGIE, 1 - IN THE SHADOWS, 63 - - Miscellaneous Poems. - A WINTER RAMBLE, 99 - THE HOME-COMER, 104 - MY BROWN LITTLE BROTHER OF THREE, 108 - THE “AULD AISLE,” 111 - TO JEANETTE, 120 - THE POET AND HIS FRIEND, 124 - THE TWO STREAMS, 127 - EVENING, 132 - THE LOVE-TRYST, 134 - AN EPISTLE TO A FRIEND, 139 - A VISION OF VENICE, 145 - THE ANEMONE, 150 - THE YELLOWHAMMER, 154 - THE CUCKOO, 158 - FAME, 161 - HONEYSUCKLE, 164 - WHERE THE LILIES USED TO SPRING, 167 - SNOW, 170 - OCTOBER, 175 - THE ROMAN DYKE, 179 - - Sonnets. - EZEKIEL, 183 - THE MAVIS, 184 - DESPONDENCY, 185 - THE MOON, I., II., 186 - THE LUGGIE, I., II., III., 188 - THOMAS THE RHYMER, 191 - THE LIME-TREE, 192 - THE BROOKLET, 193 - MAIDENHOOD, 194 - SLEEP, 195 - THE DAYS OF OLD MYTHOLOGY, 196 - DISCONTENTMENT, 197 - SNOW, 198 - THE THRUSH, 199 - STARS, 200 - MY EPITAPH, 201 - - GRAY’S MONUMENT, 203 - - - - -The Luggie. - - -The Luggie. - - That impulse which all beauty gives the soul - Is languaged as I sing. For fairer stream - Rolled never golden sand unto the sea, - Made sweeter music than the Luggie, gloom’d - By glens whose melody mingles with her own. - The uttered name my inmost being thrills, - A word beyond a charm; and if this lay - Could smoothly flow along and wind to the end - In natural manner, as the Luggie winds - Her tortuous waters, then the world would list - In sweet enthralment, swallowed up and lost, - As he who hears the music that beguiles. - For as the pilgrim on warm summer days - Pacing the dusty highway, when he sees - The limpid silver glide with liquid lapse - Between the emerald banks—with inward throe - Blesses the clear enticement and partakes, - (His hot face meeting its own counterpart - Shadowy, from an unvoyageable sky) - So would the people in these later days - Listen the singing of a country song, - A virelay of harmless homeliness; - These later days, when in most bookish rhymes, - Dear blessed Nature is forgot, and lost - Her simple unelaborate modesty. - - And unto thee, my friend! thou prime of soul - ’Mong men; I gladly bring my firstborn song! - Would it were worthier for thy noble sake, - True poet and true English gentleman! - Thy favours flattered me, thy praise inspired: - Thy utter kindness took my heart, and now - Thy love alleviates my slow decline. - - Beneath an ash in beauty tender leaved, - And thro’ whose boughs the glimmering sunshine flow’d - In rare ethereal jasper, making cool - A chequered shadow in the dark-green grass, - I lay enchanted. At my head there bloomed - A hedge of sweet-brier, fragrant as the breath - Of maid belovëd when her cheek is laid - To yours in downy pressure, soft as sleep. - A bank of harebells, flowers unspeakable - For half-transparent azure, nodding, gleamed - As a faint zephyr, laden with perfume, - Kissed them to motion, gently, with no will. - Before me streams most dear unto my heart, - Sweet Luggie, sylvan Bothlin—fairer twain - Than ever sung themselves into the sea, - Lucid Ægean, gemmed with sacred isles— - Were rolled together in an emerald vale; - And into the severe bright noon, the smoke - In airy circles o’er the sycamores - Upcurled—a lonely little cloud of blue - Above the happy hamlet. Far away, - A gently-rising hill with umbrage clad, - Hazel and glossy birch and silver fir, - Met the keen sky. Oh, in that wood, I know, - The woodruff and the hyacinth are fair - In their own season; with the bilberry - Of dim and misty blue, to childhood dear. - Here, on a sunny August afternoon, - A vision stirred my spirit half-awake - To fling a purer lustre on those fields - That knew my boyish footsteps; and to sing - Thy pastoral beauty, Luggie, into fame. - Now, while the nights are long, by the dear hearth - Of home I write; and ere the mavis trills - His smooth notes from the budding boughs of March, - While the red windy morning o’er the east - Widens, or while the lowly sky of eve - Burns like a topaz;—all the dear design - May reach completion, married to my song - As far as words can syllable desire. - - May yet the inspiration and delight - That proved my soul on that Autumnal day, - Be with me now, while o’er the naked earth - Hushfully falls the soft, white, windless snow! - - Once more, O God, once more before I die, - Before blind darkness and the wormy grave - Contain me, and my memory fades away - Like a sweet-coloured evening, slowly sad— - Once more, O God, thy wonders take my soul. - A winter day! the feather-silent snow - Thickens the air with strange delight, and lays - A fairy carpet on the barren lea. - No sun, yet all around that inward light - Which is in purity,—a soft moonshine, - The silvery dimness of a happy dream. - How beautiful! afar on moorland ways, - Bosomed by mountains, darkened by huge glens, - (Where the lone altar raised by Druid hands - Stands like a mournful phantom), hidden clouds - Let fall soft beauty, till each green fir branch - Is plumed and tassel’d, till each heather stalk - Is delicately fringed. The sycamores, - Thro’ all their mystical entanglement - Of boughs, are draped with silver. All the green - Of sweet leaves playing with the subtle air - In dainty murmuring; the obstinate drone - Of limber bees that in the monkshood bells - House diligent; the imperishable glow - Of summer sunshine never more confessed - The harmony of nature, the divine - Diffusive spirit of the Beautiful. - Out in the snowy dimness, half revealed - Like ghosts in glimpsing moonshine, wildly run - The children in bewildering delight. - There is a living glory in the air— - A glory in the hush’d air, in the soul - A palpitating wonder hush’d in awe. - - Softly—with delicate softness—as the light - Quickens in the undawned east; and silently— - With definite silence—as the stealing dawn - Dapples the floating clouds, slow fall, slow fall, - With indecisive motion eddying down, - The white-winged flakes—calm as the sleep of sound, - Dim as a dream. The silver-misted air - Shines with mild radiance, as when thro’ a cloud - Of semi-lucent vapour shines the moon. - I saw last evening (when the ruddy sun, - Enlarged and strange, sank low and visibly, - Spreading fierce orange o’er the west), a scene - Of winter in his milder mood. Green fields, - Which no kine cropped, lay damp; and naked trees - Threw skeleton shadows. Hedges thickly grown, - Twined into compact firmness with no leaves, - Trembled in jewelled fretwork as the sun - To lustre touched the tremulous waterdrops. - Alone, nor whistling as his fellows do - In fabling poem and provincial song, - The ploughboy shouted to his reeking team; - And at the clamour, from a neighbouring field - Arose, with whirr of wings, a flock of rooks - More clamorous; and thro’ the frosted air, - Blown wildly here and there without a law, - They flew, low-grumbling out loquacious croaks. - Red sunset brightened all things; streams ran red - Yet coldly; and before the unwholesome east, - Searching the bones and breathing ice, blew down - The hill with a dry whistle, by the fire - In chamber twilight rested I at home. - - But now what revelation of fair change, - O Giver of the seasons and the days! - Creator of all elements, pale mists, - Invisible great winds and exact frost! - How shall I speak the wonder of thy snow? - What though we know its essence and its birth, - Can quick expound in philosophic wise, - The how, and whence, and manner of its fall; - Yet, oh, the inner beauty and the life— - The life that is in snow! The virgin-soft - And utter purity of the down-flake - Falling upon its fellow with no sound! - Unblown by vulgar winds, innumerous flakes - Fall gently, with the gentleness of love! - Between its spotless-clothëd banks, in clear - Pellucid luculence, the Luggie seems - Charmed in its course, and with deceptive calm - Flows mazily in unapparent lapse, - A liquid silence. Every field is robed, - And in the furrow lies the plough unused. - The earth is cherished, for beneath the soft - Pure uniformity, is gently born - Warmth and rich mildness fitting the dead roots - For the resuscitation of the spring. - - Now while I write, the wonder clothes the vale, - Calmed every wind and loaded every grove; - And looking thro’ the implicated boughs - I see a gleaming radiance. Sparkling snow - Refined by morning-footed frost so still - Mantles each bough; and such a windless hush - Breathes thro’ the air, it seems the fairy glen - About some phantom palace, pale abode - Of fabled _Sleeping Beauty_. Songless birds - Flit restlessly about the breathless wood, - Waiting the sudden breaking of the charm; - And as they quickly spring on nimble wing - From the white twig, a sparkling shower falls - Starlike. It is not whiteness, but a clear - Outshining of all purity, which takes - The winking eyes with such a silvery gleam. - No sunshine, and the sky is all one cloud. - The vale seems lonely, ghostlike; while aloud - The housewife’s voice is heard with doubled sound. - I have not words to speak the perfect show; - The ravishment of beauty; the delight - Of silent purity; the sanctity - Of inspiration which o’erflows the world, - Making it breathless with divinity. - God makes His angels spirits—that is, winds— - His ministers a flaming fire. So, heart! - (Weak heart that fainted in thy loneliness) - In the sweet breezes spirits are alive; - God’s angels guide the thunder-clouds; and God - Speaks in the thunder truly. All around - Is loving and continuous deity; - His mercy over all His works remains. - And surely in the glossy snow there shines - Angelic influence—a ministry - Devout and heavenly, that with benign - Action, amid a wondrous hush lets fall - The dazzling garment on the fostered fields. - - So thus with fair delapsion softly falls - The sacred shower; and when the shortened day - Dejected dies in the low streaky west, - The rimy moon displays a cold blue night, - And keen as steel the east wind sprinkles ice. - Thicker than bees, about the waxing moon - Gather the punctual stars. Huge whitened hills - Rise glimmering to the blue verge of the night, - Ghostlike, and striped with narrow glens of firs - Black-waving, solemn. O’er the Luggie stream - Gathers a veiny film of ice, and creeps - With elfin feet around each stone and reed, - Working fine masonry; while o’er the dam - Dashing, a noise of waters fills the clear - And nitrous air. All the dark wintry hours - Sharply the winds from the white level moors - Keen whistle. Timorous in homely bed - The schoolboy listens, fearful lest gaunt wolves - Or beasts, whose uncouth forms in ancient books - He has beheld, at creaking shutters pull - Howling. And when at last the languid dawn - In windy redness re-illumes the east - With ineffectual fire, an intense blue - Severely vivid o’er the snowy hills - Gleams chill, while hazy half-transparent clouds - Slow-range the freezing ether of the west. - Along the woods the keenly vehement blasts - Wail, and disrobe the mantled boughs, and fling - A snow-dust everywhere. Thus wears the day: - While grandfather over the well-watched fire - Hangs cowering, with a cold drop at his nose. - - Now underneath the ice the Luggie growls, - And to the polished smoothness curlers come - Rudely ambitious. Then for happy hours - The clinking stones are slid from wary hands, - And _Barleycorn_, best wine for surly airs, - Bites i’ th’ mouth, and ancient jokes are crack’d. - And oh, the journey homeward, when the sun, - Low-rounding to the west, in ruddy glow - Sinks large, and all the amber-skirted clouds, - His flaming retinue, with dark’ning glow - Diverge! The broom is brandished as the sign - Of conquest, and impetuously they boast - Of how this shot was played—with what a bend - Peculiar—the perfection of all art— - That stone came rolling grandly to the _Tee_ - With victory crown’d, and flinging wide the rest - In lordly crash! Within the village inn, - What time the stars are sown in ether keen, - Clear and acute with brightness; and the moon - Sharpens her semicircle; and the air - With bleakly shivering sough cuts like a scythe, - They by the roaring chimney sit, and quaff - The beaded ‘_Usqueba_’ with sugar dash’d. - Oh, when the precious liquid fires the brain - To joy, and every heart beats fast with mirth - And ancient fellowship, what nervy grasps - Of horny hands o’er tables of rough oak! - What singing of _Lang Syne_ till teardrops shine - And friendships brighten as the evening wanes! - - Now the dead earth, wrapt solemnly, expects - The punctual resurrection of the Spring. - Shackled and bound, the coldly vigilant frost - Stiffens all rivers, and with eager power - Hardens each glebe. The wasted country owns - The keen despotic vehemence of the North; - And, with the resignation that obtains - Where he is weak and powerless, man awaits, - Under God’s mercy, the dissolvent thaw. - - O All-beholding, All-informing God - Invisible, and ONLY through effects - Known and belov’d, unshackle the waste earth! - Soul of the incomplete vitality - In atom and in man! Soul of all Worlds! - Leave not Thy glory vacant, nor afflict - With fear and hunger man whom Thou hast made. - Thou from Thy chambers waterest the earth; - Thou givest snow like wool; and scatterest wide - Hoarfrost like ashes. Casting forth Thy ice - Like morsels, who can stand before Thy cold? - Thou sendest forth Thy word, and lo! they melt; - Causing Thy wind to blow, the waters flow.[A] - - Soon the frozen air receives the subtle thaw: - And suddenly a crawling mist, with rain - Impregn’d, the damp day dims, and drizzling drops - Proclaim a change. At night across the heavens - Swift-journeying, and by a furious wind - Squadron’d, the hurrying clouds range the roused sky, - Magnificently sombrous. The wan moon, - Amazed, gleams often through a cloudy rack, - Then, shuddering, hides. One earnest wakeful star - Of living sapphire drooping by her side, - A faithful spirit in her lone despair, - Outshines the cloudy tempest. Then the shower - Falls ceaseless, and night murmurs with the rain. - And in the sounding morning what a change! - The meadows shine new-washed; while here and there - A dusky patch of snow in shelter’d paths - Melts lonely. The awakened forest waves - With boughs unplumed. The white investiture - Of the fair earth hath vanished, and the hills - That in the evening sunset glowed with rose - And ineffectual baptism of gold, - Shine tawdry, crawled upon by the blind rain. - Now Luggie thunders down the ringing vale, - Tawnily brown, wide-leaving yellow sand - Upon the meadow. The South-West, aroused, - Blustering in moody kindness, clears the sky - To its blue depths by a full-wingëd wind, - Blowing the diapason of red March. - - Blow high and cleanse the sky, O South-West wind! - Roll the full clouds obedient; overthrow - White crags of vapour in confusion piled - Precipitate, high-toppling, undissolved; - And while with silent workings they are spread - And scattered, broken into ruinous pomp - By Thy invisible influence, what calm - And sweet disclosure of the upper deep - Cerulean, the atmospheric sea! - Blow high and sift the earth, thou South-West wind! - Now the dull air grows rarer, and no more - The stark day thickens towards evenfall; - Nor from the solid cloud-gloom drips the rain: - But in a sunset mild and beautiful - The day sinks, till in clear dilucid air, - As in a chamber newly decorate, - The golden Phœbe reddens with the wind. - No more through hoary mists and low-hung clouds - The eternal hills—bones of the earth—upheave - Their deity for worship: but severe - Against the clear sky outlined, each sharp crag - Uplifts its scarred magnificence to Heaven. - From breezy ledge the eagle springs aloft, - And, beating boldly up against the wind - With inconceivable velocity, - Stretches to upper ether, and renews - Haughty communion with the regal sun! - Blow high, O deep-mouth’d wind from the South-West! - And in the caves and hollows of the rocks - Moan mournfully, for desolation reigns. - Through the unknown abysses and foul chasms, - Sacred to horror and eternal damps - And darkness ever-cumbent, blindly howl - Till the hoarse dragons, wailing in their woe - Infernal, answer from accursed dens. - - Pleasant to him who long in sick-room pent, - Surveying still the same unchanging hills - Belted with vapour, muffled up in cloud; - The same raw landscape soaked in ceaseless rain; - Pleasant to him the invigorating wind. - Roused from reclusive thought by the deep sound - And motion of the forest (as a steed - When shrills the silver trumpet of the onset), - He rushes to communion with old forms. - Like a fair picture suddenly uncovered - To an impatient artist, the fair earth, - Touched with the primal glory of the Spring, - Flings an indefinite glamour on his soul. - With indistinct commotion he perceives - All things, and his delight is indistinct. - Earth’s forms and ever-living beauty strike - Amazement through his spirit, till he feels - As one new-born to being undeflowered. - The sudden music from the budding woods, - The lark in air, startles and overjoys. - O Laverock! (for thy Scottish name to me - Sounds sweetest) with unutterable love - I love thee, for each morning as I lie - Relaxed and weary with my long disease, - One from low grass arises visibly - And sings as if it sang for me alone. - Among a thousand I could tell the tones - Of this, my little sweet hierophant! - To fainting heart and the despairing soul - What is more soothing than the natural voice - Of birds? One Candlemas, many years ago, - When weak with pain and sickness, it infused - Into my soul a bliss delectable. - For suddenly into the misty air - A mellow, smooth and liquid music, clear - As silver, softer than an organ stop - Ere the bass grumbles, rose. The blunted winds, - No longer edged severely with keen frost, - Forgot to whisper, and a summer-calm - Pervaded soul and sense. No violet - As yet breathed perfume; from the darkling sward - No snowdrop boldly peeped; and even the ash, - Whence flowed the sound, unfolded not her buds - To blacken while the embryo gathered green. - And yet this hardy herald of the Spring - Chaunted rich harmony, daintily carved out - Her voice, and through her sleek throat sobb’d her soul - In a delicious tremble. As she tuned - Her pliant song, slow from the closing sky - The sacred snow fell calm. Yet through the shower, - Hushing all nature into silence, clear - The _Feltie-flier_[B] trilled her slippery close - In panting rapture, from the whitening ash. - I stood all wonder; and to this late hour - Remember the dear song with ravishment; - Nor ever comes a merry Candlemas day - But I am out to hear. And if perchance - Some warbler sprinkle on the vacant air - Its homeless notes, the bird seems to my heart - The individual bird of comely grey - That sang her pliant strain through falling snow. - - Now, when the crumbling glebe is by the wind - Unbound, and snows adown the mountains hoar - Glide liquid, from the furrow loose the plough. - Enyoke the willing horses, and upturn - With deep-pressed share the saponaceous loam. - From morn to even with progression slow - The ploughboy cuts his awkward parallels, - And soberly imbrowns the decent fields. - It was a hazy February day - Ten years ago, when I, a boy of ten, - Beheld a country ploughing-match. The morn - Lighted the east with a dim smoky flare - Of leaden purple, as the rumbling wains - Each with a plough light-laden (while behind - Trotted a horse sleek-comb’d and tail bedight - With many coloured ribbons) by our home - Went downwards to the rich fat meadow-grounds - Bounding the Luggie. Many a herd of beeves - Dew-lapp’d had fattened there, and headlong oft - O’er the hoof-clattering turf they wildly ran, - Lashing with swinging tail the thirsty flies. - But now the smooth expanse of level green - Was quickly to be changed to sober brown; - And twenty ploughs by twenty ploughmen held - To cut with shining share the living turf. - Oh many a wintry hour, thro’ wind and rain, - In valleys gloom’d, or by the bleak hill-side - Lonely, these twenty had themselves inured - And stubborn’d to perfection. Many a touch - And word of honest kindness had been used - To the dear faithful horses _snooving_ on - In quiet patience, jutting noble chests. - Now the big day, expected long, was come: - And, with proud shoulders yoked, conscious they stood - Patient and unrefusing; while behind, - All ready stripped, brown brawny arms displayed— - Arms sinewed by long labour—eager swains - O’er-leaning slight, with cautious wary hold - The plough detain. At the commencing sign - A simultaneous noise discordant tears - The air thick-closing to a hazy damp. - Sudden the horses move, and the clear yokes, - Well polished, clatter. With an artful bend - The gleaming coulter takes the grass and cuts - The greenly tedded blades with nibbling noise - Almost unheard. The smooth share follows fast; - And from its shining slope the clayey glebe - In neat and neighbouring furrows sidelong falls. - Thus till the dank, raw-cold, and unpurged day - Gathering its rheumy humours threatens rain; - And the bleak night steals up the forlorn east. - And when the careful verdict is preferr’d - By the wise judge (a gray-hair’d husbandman, - Himself in his fresh youth a ploughboy keen), - Some bosoms fire exultant. Others, slow - Their reeking horses harnessed, lag along - Heart-sad and weary; and the rumbling noise - Of homeward-going carts for miles away - Is heard, till night brings silence and repose. - - But never with sad motions of the soul, - Despairing, yoked his sleek and smoking team - For homeward journey my belovëd friend! - He the great prize, the guinea all of gold, - Gained thrice and grew a very famous man; - Till Death, the churl accurs’d, him in his prime - Bore to the border-land of wonder. Then - I felt the blank in life when dies a friend. - Inexplicable emptiness and want - Unsatisfied! The unrepealable law - Consumed the living while the dead decayed. - No more, no more thro’ glorious nights of May - We wander, chasing pleasure as of old. - First night of May! and the soft-silvered moon - Brightens her semicircle in the blue; - And ’mid the tawny orange of the west - Shines the full star that ushers in the even! - On the low meadows by the Luggie-side - Gathers a semi-lucent mist, and creeps - In busy silence, shrouding golden furze - And leafy copsewood. Thro’ the tortuous dell - Like an eternal sound the Luggie flows - In unreposing melody. And here, - Three perfect summers gone, my dear first friend - Was with me; and we swore a sudden oath, - To travel half-a-dozen miles and court - Two sisters, whose sweet faces sunshine kissed - To berry brown and country comeliness— - Kiss-worthier than the love of Solomon. - So singing clearly with a merry heart - Old songs—_It was upon a Lammas nicht_; - And that sweet thing by gentle Tannahill, - Married to music sweeter than itself; - _The Lowland Lassie_—thro’ dew-silvered fields - We hastened ’mid the mist our footsteps raised - Until we reached the moorland. From its bed - Among the purplish heather whirring rose - The plover, wildly screaming; and from glens - Of moaning firs the pheasant’s piercing shriek - Discordant sounded. Then, ’mong elder trees - Throwing antique fat shadows, soon we saw - The window panes, moon-whitened; and low heard - Bawtie, the shaggie collie, grumble out - His disapproval in a sullen growl. - But slyly wearing nearer, cried my friend, - “Whisht, Bawtie! Bawtie!” and the fellow came - Whining, and laid a wet nose in his palm - Obedient, while I tinkled on the panes - A fairy summons to the souls within. - The door creaked musically, and a face - Peeped smiling, till I whispered, “Open, Kate!” - And thro’ the moonshine came the low sweet quest— - “Oh! is it you?” My answer was a kiss. - Then entering the kitchen paved with stone, - We kicked the sparkling faggot till it blazed; - And sitting round it, many a tale of love - Was told, until the chrysolite of dawn - Burned in the east, and from the mountain rolled - The sarcenet mists far-flaming with the morn. - This was my first of May three years ago: - Now in a churchyard by the Bothlin side— - _The Auld Aisle_—moulders my first friend, and keeps - An early tryste with God, the All in All. - - We sat at school together on one seat, - Came home together thro’ the lanes, and knew - The dunnock’s nest together in the hedge, - With smooth blue eggs in cosy brightness warm. - And as two youngling kine on cold Spring nights - Lie close together on the bleak hill-side - For mutual heat, so when a trouble came - We crept to one another, growing still - True friends in interchange of heart and soul. - But suddenly death changed his countenance, - And grav’d him in the darkness far from me. - O Friendship, prelibation of divine - Enjoyment, union exquisite of soul, - How many blessings do I owe to thee, - How much of incommunicable woe! - The daisies bloom among the tall green blades - Upon his grave, and listening you may hear - The Bothlin make sweet music as she flows; - And you may see the poplars by her brink - Twinkle their silvery leaflets in the sun. - O little wandering preacher, Bothlin brook! - Wind musically by his lonely grave. - O well-known face, for ever lost! and voice, - For ever silent! I have heard thee sing - In village inns what time the silver frost - Curtained the panes in silent ministry, - Sing old Scotch ballads full of love and woe, - While the assimilative snow fell white and calm - With ceaseless lapse. And I have seen thee dance - Wild galliards with the buxom lasses, far - In lone farm-houses set on whistling hills, - While the storm thickened into thunder-cloud. - Dear mentor in all rustic merriment, - Ever as hearty as the night was long! - I miss thee often, as I do to-night, - And my heart fills; and thy belovëd songs - The music and the words ring in my ears, - _Then Lowland lassie wilt thou go_—until - My eyes are full of tears, dear heart! dear heart! - And I could pass the perilous edge of death - To see thy dear, clear face, and hear again - The old wild music as of old, of old. - - But as the Luggie with a plaintive song - Twists thro’ a glen of greenest gloom, and gropes - For open sunshine; and, the shadows past, - Glides quicker-footed thro’ divided meads - With sliding purl, so from that tale of gloom - My song with happier motions seeks the calm - And quiet smoothness of a silver end. - From orient valleys where as lucent dew - As ever jewelled Hermon, falls and shines - Fulfilled by sunrise; where slant arrow-showers - Of golden beams make every twinkling drop - A diamond, and every blade of grass - A glory;—comes the earth-born wanderer - Sweet Luggie, singing. Over the mill-dam - Sounding, a cataract in miniature, - White-robed it dashes thro’ unceasing mist. - Thro’ ivied bridge, adown its rocky bed - Shadowed by wavy limes whose branches bend - Kissing the wave to ripples, on it purls - Abrupt, capricious, past the hazel bower - Where marriageable maid is being woo’d; - And as on sward of velvet by her side - Her lover low reclines, while his dear tongue - Voices warm passion—she confiding lays - All her mild beauty in his manly breast - Blushing. Ah, Luggie! sure you murmur now - Clearly and dearly o’er thy pumy stones! - And when amid a pause of thought they hear - Thy babblement of music, never a shade - Darkens their souls. Thy song is happiness, - A revelation of sweet sympathies - By them interpreted; for never yet - Was Nature sullen when the spirit shone. - This is in twilight, when that only star - White Hesperus from chastest azure grows; - And as night trails her thousand shadows slow - Over the spinning world, the streamlet sings - Her mother earth asleep. O Autumn nights! - When skies are deeply blue, and the full moon - Soars in voluptuous whiteness, Juno-like, - A passionate splendour; when in the great south - Orion like a frozen skeleton - Hints of his ancient hugeness and mail’d strength; - And Cassiopeia glimmers cold and clear - Upon her throne of seven diamonds! - In the thick-foliaged brake, the nightingale - Of Scotland, chirping stonechacker, prolongs - With _whit, whit, chirr-r_ the day’s full melody. - Far-sounding thro’ blue silence and smooth air, - The drumming noise of the hoarse waterfall - Is heard unheeded all by homely fires, - And heard unheeded all in hazel bower - Where love wings hours of serene joy; and still - As roams with _eerie_ wail the unbodied wind - Thro’ ghostly glen of pine, the maiden clings - More closely, till two firm entwining arms - Press comfort; and there is a touch of lips. - - Now in this season—ere the flickering leaves, - Touch’d with October’s fiery alchemy, - Grow sere and crisp—is shorn the meadow-hay. - Mingled with spiral orchis, dim blue-bell - Of delicatest azure, crowfoot smooth, - And ox-eye flaunting with faint flowers wild, - Nameless to me—the fragrant rye-grass grew. - Now with a measured sweep the keen-edged scythe - Cuts all to wither in the imbrowning sun. - Two golden days o’erpast (with eves of cloud - Magnificently coloured, heaped and strewn - Confusedly) the country lasses come - Bare-armed, bare-ancled; and ’mid honest mirth - And homely jests with tinkling laughter winged, - Gather the fading balm. With kindling eyes, - And all the life of maidenhood aflame - In little tremulous pants,—they carry light - The warm load to the stack. - Oh, many a time - The old man, building slow the rising stack, - Saw and reproved not our wild merriment: - Remembering, half-sad, his own fresh youth - When beauty was a magic to the soul - And a fair face a charm; when a lip-touch - Was necromancy; and the perfect life - A wondrous yearning after womanhood. - But at the breathless nerve-dissolving noon, - When hot the undiminished sun downthrows - Direct his beams, they from the field retire - To cool consoling grove, or haply seek - The drowsy pool by beechen shadow chilled, - To lave the limbs relaxed. With eager leap, - Headlong they plunge from the enamelled bank - Into the liquid cold, and slowly move - With measured strokes and palms outspread; while oft, - When the clear water rises o’er the lip - Dallying, they uptilt the swelling chest - In unspent vigour. - Oh, the pleasant time! - Pleasant beneath embowering trees, when day - Hides with her silken mists the distant scene - And breathes afar a nerve-dissolving steam— - Pleasant in sweet consolatory shade - To wander pensive. Then the soul serenes - The turbulent passions, and in devout trance, - Unconscious of celestial power, reveals - The God reflected in fair natural forms. - For as the Sun disdains the vulgar gaze - In his uplifted sphere, yet in the broad - Grey Ocean shews a softer face, so God - In nature shines. Oh, sweet the bowery path - Of fair Glenconner, where in volant youth - I saw the heroes of divine Romance. - No pathway winding through fresh orange groves, - Leading to white Campanian city, set - Inviolably by the sapphire sea, - Can fair Glenconner’s umbrage-shadowed way - Excel. The bird-embowering beechen boughs, - Kissing each other, on the dusty way - Throw trembling shadows; and when warm west winds - Roam hither in voluptuous unconcern, - There is a music and a fragrancy - Upon Glenconner, like the music hymned - By quires angelic on cerulean floors. - Deem not I speak in vanity, or speak - In false hyperbole, as poets do - When languaging in love the radiance - Of maids; but there is beauty and delight - And passive feeling sweeter than all sense, - To him who walks beneath the boughs, and hears - The humming music like the sound of seas. - There have I dreamed for hours—and gathered there - The homely inspiration which fulfils - The yearning of my soul. There have I felt - The unconfined divinity which lies - In beauty; and when the eternal stars - Have twinkled silver thro’ illumined leaves, - I could not choose but worship. - - O fair eves - Of undescribable sweetness long ago! - When gloaming caught me musing unawares, - Musing alone beneath the whispering leaves - That overshade Glenconner. Hour of calm - Suggestive thought, when, like a robe, the earth - Puts on a shadowy pensiveness, and stills - The music of her motions multiform. - Day lingered in the west; and thro’ a sky - Of thinly-waning orange, sullen clouds - Of amethyst, with flamy purple edged, - Moved evenly in sluggish pilotage. - The windless shades of quiet eventide - Slow gathered, and the sweet concordant tones - Of melody within the leafy brake - Died clearly, till the Mavis piped alone; - Then softly from the jasper sky, a star - Drew radiant silver, brightening as the west - Darkened. But ere the semicircled moon - Shed her white light adown the lucent air, - The Mavis ceased, and thro’ the thin gloom brake - The Corncraik’s curious cry, the sylvan voice - Of the shy bird that haunts the bladed corn; - And suddenly, yet silently, the blue - Deepened, until innumerous white stars - Thro’ crystal smooth and yielding ether drooped, - Not coldly, but in passionate June glow. - The Corncraik now, ’mong tall green bladed corn - Breasted her eggs with feathers dew-besprent, - And stayed her human cry. The silence left - A gap within the soul, a sudden grief, - An emptiness in the low sighing air. - Then swooning through full night, the summer’d earth - Bosom’d her children into tender rest; - Now delicately chambered ladies breathe - Their souls asleep in white-limb’d luxury. - O Virgins purest lipped! with snowy lids - Soft closed on living eyes! O unkissed cheeks, - Half-sunk in pillowy pressure, and round arms - In the sweet pettishness of silver dreams - Flung warm into the cold unheeding air! - Sleep! soft bedewer of infantine eyes, - Pouter of rosy little lips! plump hands - Are doubled into deeply-dimpled fists - And stretched in rosy langour, curls are laid - In fragrance on the rounded baby-face, - Kiss-worthy darling! Stiller of clear tongues - And silvery laughter! Now the musical noise - Of little feet is silent, and blue shoes - No more come pattering from the nursery door. - Death is not of thee, Sleep! Thy calm domain - Is tempered with a dreamy bliss, and dimmed - With haunted glooms, and richly sanctified - With the fine elements of Paradise. - Burn in the gleaming sky, ye far-off Stars! - And thou, O inoffensive Crescent! lift - The wonder of thy softness, the white shell - Of thy clear beauty, till the wholesome dawn - Wither thy brightness pale, and borrowed pride! - - But sleep supine, on indolent afternoon - Ere the winds wake, and holy mountain airs - Descend, is sweet. Oh, let the bard describe - The sacred spot where, underneath the round - Green odoriferous sycamore, he lay - Sleepless, yet half-asleep, in that one mood - When the quick sense is duped, and angel wings - Make spiritual music. Sweet and dim - The sacred spot, belovëd not alone - For its own beauty: but the memories, - The pictures of the past which in the mind - Arise in fair profusion, each distinct - With the soft hue of some peculiar mood, - Enchant to living lustre what before - Was to the untaught vision simply fair. - In a fair valley, carpeted with turf - Elastic, sloping upwards from the stream, - A rounded sycamore in honied leaves - Most plenteous, murmurous with humming bees, - Shadows a well. Darkly the crystal wave - Gleams cold, secluded; on its polished breast - Imaging twining boughs. No pitcher breaks - Its natural sleep, except at morn and eve - When my good mother thro’ the dewy grass - Walks patient with her vessels, bringing home - The clear refreshment. Every blowing Spring, - A snowdrop, with pure streaks of delicate green - Upon its inmost leaves, from withered grass - Springs whitely, and within its limpid breast - Is mirror’d whitely. Not a finger plucks - This hidden beauty; but it blooms and dies, - In lonely lustre blooms and lonely dies— - Unknown, unloved, save by one simple heart - Poetic, the creator of this song. - And after this frail luxury hath given - Its little life in keeping to the soul - Of all the worlds, a robin builds its nest - In lowly cleft, a foot or so above - The water. His dried leaves, and moss, and grass - He hither carries, lining all with hair - For softness. I have laid the hand that writes - These rhymes belovëd, on the crimson breast, - Sleek-soft, that panted o’er the five unborn; - While, leaf-hid, o’er me sang the watchful mate - Plaintive, and with a sorrow in the song, - In silvan nook where anchoret might dwell - Contented. Often on September days, - When woods were efflorescent, and the fields - Refulgent with the bounty of the corn, - And warming sunshine filled the breathless air - With a pale steam,—in heart-confused mood - Have I worn holidays enraptured there; - For, O dear God! there is a pure delight - In dreaming: in those mental-weary times, - When the vext spirit finds a false content - In fashioning delusions. Oh, to lie - Supinely stretched upon the shaded turf, - Beholding thro’ the openings of green leaves - White clouds in silence navigating slow - Cerulean seas illimitable! Hushed - The drowsy noon, and, with a stilly sound - Like harmony of thought, the Luggie frets— - Its bubbling mellowed to a musical hum - By distance. Then the influences faint, - Those visionary impulses that swell - The soul to inspiration, crowding come - Mysterious: and phantom memory - (Ghost of dead feeling) haunts the undissolved, - The unsubvertive temple of the soul! - - But as thro’ loamy meadows lipping slow - Eats the fern-fringëd Luggie; and in spray - Leaps the mill-dam, and o’er the rocky flats - Spreads in black eddies; so my firstborn song - Hastes to the end in heedless vagrancy. - O ravishingly sweet the clacking noise - Of looms that murmur in our quiet dell! - No fairer valley Dyer ever dreamed— - Dyer, best river-singer, bard among - Ten thousand. Reader, hasten ye and come, - And see the Luggie wind her liquid stream - Thro’ copsy villages and spiry towns; - And see the Bothlin trotting swift of foot - From glades of alder, eager to combine - Her dimpling harmony with Luggie’s calm - Clear music, like the music of the soul. - But where you see the meeting, reader, stay, - O stay and hear the music of the looms. - Thro’ homely rustic bridge with ivy shagged - (Which you shall see if ever you do come - A summer pilgrim to our valley fair), - The Luggie flows with bells of foam-like stars - About its surface. A smooth bleaching-green - Spreads its soft carpet to the open doors - Of simple houses, shining-white. Blue smoke - Curls thro’ the breathing air to the tree-tops - Thin spreading, and is lost. A humming noise - Industrious is heard, the clack of looms, - Whereon sit maidens, homely fair, and full - Of household simpleness, who sing and weave, - And sing and weave thro’ all the easy hours, - Each day to-morrow’s counterpart, and smooth - Memory the mirror wherein golden Hope, - Contented, sees herself. Here dwell an old - Couple whose lives have known twice forty years - (My mother’s parents), their sage spirits touched - With blest anticipation of a home - Celestial bright, wherein they may fulfil - The life which death discovers. Last winter night - I, an accustomed visitant, beheld - The dear old pair. He in an easy chair - Lay dozing, while beside her noiseless wheel - She sat, her brow into her lap declined, - And half asleep! Sure sign, my mother said, - Of the conclusion of mortality. - A boy of ten, their grandson, on the floor - Lay stretched in early slumber; all the three - Unconscious of my entrance. A strange sight, - Fraught with strange lessons for the human soul. - In the first portion of her married life, - This woman, now, alas! so weary, old, - Bore daughters five; of well-beloved sons - An equal number. Some of them died young, - But six are yet alive, and dwelling all - Within a mile of her own house. The flower, - The idol of the mother, and her pride, - Dear magnet of all hopes, embodiment - Of heavenly blessings, was the youngest son, - Youngest of all. Me often has she told - How not a man could fling the stone with him; - That in his shoes he outran racers fleet - Barefooted; dancing on the shaven green - On summer holidays and autumn eves - (As to this day they do) his laugh was clearest, - Lightest his step; and he could thrill the hearts - Of simple women by a natural grace, - And perilous recital of love tales. - I cannot tell by what mysterious means, - Day-dream, or silver vision of the night, - Or sacred show of reason, picturing - A smooth ambition and calm happiness - For years of weaker age—but suddenly - In prime of life there flowered in his soul - An inextinguishable love to be - A minister of God. When holy schemes - Govern the motions of the spirit, ways - Are found to compass them. With wary care, - Frugality praiseworthy, and the strength - Of two strong arms, he in the summer months - Hoarded a competence equivalent - To all demands, until the session’s end. - Whate’er by manual labour he had gained - Thro’ the clear summer months in verdant fields, - With brooks of silver laced, and cool’d with winds, - Was spent in winter in the smoky town. - But when, his annual course of study past, - He with his presence blessed his father’s house, - With what a sacred sanctity of hope - Eager his mother dreamed, or garrulous - Spake of him everywhere—his foreign ways, - And midnight porings o’er _uncanny_ books. - His father, with a stern delight suffused, - Grew a proud man of some importance now - In his own eyes; for who in all the vale - Had e’er a son so noble and so learned, - So worthy as his own? - So time wore on: but when three years complete - Had perfected their separate destinies, - A change stole o’er the current of their lives, - As a cloud-shadow glooms the crystal stream. - Their son came home, but with his coming came - Sorrow. A hue too beautifully fair - Brighten’d his cheek, as sunlight tints a cloud. - His face had caught a trick of joy more sad - Than visible grief; and all the subtle frame - Of human life, so wonderfully wrought, - A mystery of mechanism, was wearing - In sore uneasy manner to the grave. - What need to tell what every heart must know - In sympathy prophetical? Long time, - A varied year in seasons four complete - (For the white snowdrop o’er my mother’s well - Twice oped its whitest leaves among the green), - He lay consuming. It must needs have been - A weary trial to the thinking soul, - Thus with a consciousness of coming death, - The grim Attenuation! evermore - Nearing insatiate. At her spinning-wheel - His mother sat; and when his voice grew faint, - A simple whistle by his pillow lay, - And at its sound she entered patient, sad, - Her soothing love to minister, her hope - To nourish to its fading. But his breath - Grew weaker ever; and his dry pale lips - Closing upon the little instrument, - Could not produce a faintly audible note! - A little bell, the plaything of a child, - Now at his bedside hung, and its clear tones - Tinkled the weary summons. Thus his time - Narrowed to a completion, and his soul, - Immortal in its nature, thro’ his eyes - Yearning, beheld the majesty of Him - Great in His mystery of godliness, - Fulfiller of the dim Apocalypse! - Twelve years have passed since then, and he is now - A happy memory in the hearts of those - Who knew him; for to know him was to love. - And oft I deem it better, as the fates, - Or God, whose will is fate, have proven it; - For had he lived and fallen (as who of us - Doth perfectly? and let him that is proud - Take heed lest he do fall) he would have been - A sadness to them in their aged hours. - But now he is an honour and delight; - A treasure of the memory; a joy - Unutterable: by the lone fireside - They never tire to speak his praise, and say - How, if he had been spared, he would have been - So great, and good, and noble as (they say) - The country knows; although I know full well - That not a man in all the parish round - Speaks of him ever; he is now forgot, - And this his natal valley knows him not.— - And this his natal valley knows him not? - The well-belovëd, nothing?—the fair face - And pliant limbs, poor indistinctive dust? - The body, blood, and network of the brain - Crumbled as a clod crumbles! Is this all? - A turf, a date, an epitaph, and then - Oblivion, and profound nonentity! - And thus his natal valley knows him not. - Trees murmur to the passing wind, streams flow, - Flowers shine with dewdrops in the shady glens, - All unintelligent creation smiles - In loving-kindness; but, like a light dream - Of morning, man arises in fair show, - Like the hued rainbow from incumbent gloom - Elicited, he shines against the sun— - A momentary glory. Not a voice - Remains to whisper of his whereabouts: - The palpable body in its mother’s breast - Dissolves, and every feature of the face - Is lost in feculent changes. O black earth! - Wrap from bare eyes the slow decaying form, - The beauty rotting from the living hair, - The body made incapable thro’ sin - God’s Spirit to contain. Earth, wrap it close - Till the heavens vibrate to the trump of doom! - - This is not all: for the invisible soul - Betrays the soft desire, the quenchless wish, - To live a purer life, more proximate - To the prime Fountain of all life. The power - Of vivid fancy and the boundless scenes - (High coloured with the colouring of Heaven), - Creations of imagination, tell - The mortal yearnings of immortal souls! - Now, while around me in blind labour winds - Howl, and the rain-drops lash the streaming pane; - Now, while the pine-glen on the mountain side - Roars in its wrestling with the sightless foe, - And the black tarn grows hoary with the storm;— - Amid the external elemental war, - My soul with calm comportment—more becalmed - By the wild tempest furious without— - Sits in her sacred cell, and ruminates - On Death, severe discloser of new life. - When the well-known and once embraceable form - Is but a handful of white dust, the soul - Grows in divine dilation, nearer God. - Therefore grieve not, my heart, that unsustained - His memory died among us, that no more, - While yet the grass is hoary and the dawn - Lingers, he shyly thro’ untrodden fields - Brushes his early path: that he no more - Beneath the beech, in lassitude outstretched, - Ponders the holy strains of Israel’s King; - For in translated glory, and new clothed - With Incorruptible, he purer air - Breathes in a fairer valley. There no storm - Maddens as now; no flux, and no opaque, - But all is calm, and permanent, and clear, - God’s glory and the Lamb illumine all! - - Now ends this song—not for self-honour sung, - But in the Luggie’s service. It hath been - A crownëd vision and a silver dream, - That I should touch this valley with renown - Eternal, make the fretting waters gleam - In light above the common light of earth. - The shoreless air of heaven is purer here, - The golden beams more keenly crystalline, - The skies more deeply sapphired. For to me, - About these emerald fields and lawny hills, - There linger glories which you cannot see, - And influences which you cannot feel, - Delight and incommunicable woe! - My home is here; and like a patient star, - Shining between untroubled Paradise - And my own soul, a mother shines therein, - The sole perfection of true womanhood: - A father—with the wisdom which pertains - To grey experience, and that stern delight - In naked truth, and reason which belongs - To the intense reflective mind—hath told - His fifty winters here. And all the hopes - Which gild the present; all the sad regrets - Which dull the past, are present to my soul - In the external forms and colourings - Of this dear valley. Therefore do I yearn - To make its stream flow in undying verse, - Low-singing thro’ the labyrinthine dell! - - And let forgiving charity preclude - Harsh judgments from the singer: not that he - Fearfully would forestal the righteous word, - Blameworthy, spoken in kindness, and that truth - Which sanctions condemnation. Yet, dear Lord, - A youthful flattering of the spirit, touched - With a desire unquenchable, displays - My hope’s delirium. Oh! if the dream - Fade into nothing, into worse than nought, - Blackness of darkness like the golden zones - Of an autumnal sunset, and the night - Of unfulfilled ambition closes round - My destiny, think what an awful hell - O’erwhelms the conquer’d soul! Therefore, O men - Who guard with jealousy and loving care - The honour of our sacred literature, - Read with a kindness born of trustful hope, - Forgiving rambling schoolboy thoughts, too plain - To utter with a spasm, or clothe in cold - Mosaic fretwork of well-pleasing words, - Forgiving youth’s vagaries, want of skill, - And blind devotional passion for my home! - -[A] Psalm cxlvii. 16-18. - -[B] I am almost certain this name of the bird is merely local, -but I know no other.—[Mr. Robt. Gray, a well-known authority, says the -bird alluded to is the Missel-Thrush.—ED.] - - - - -In the Shadows. - -_A POEM IN SONNETS._ - - -Induction. - - Enter, scared mortal! and in awe behold - The chancel of a dying poet’s mind, - Hung round, ah! not adorned, with pictures bold - And quaint, but roughly touched for the refined. - The chancel not the charnel house! For I - To God have raised a shrine immaculate - Therein, whereon His name to glorify, - And daily mercies meekly celebrate. - So in, scared breather! here no hint of death— - Skull or cross-bones suggesting sceptic fear; - Yea rather calmer beauty, purer breath - Inhaled from a diviner atmosphere. - -I. - - If it must be; if it must be, O God! - That I die young, and make no further moans; - That, underneath the unrespective sod, - In unescutcheoned privacy, my bones - Shall crumble soon,—then give me strength to bear - The last convulsive throe of too sweet breath! - I tremble from the edge of life, to dare - The dark and fatal leap, having no faith, - No glorious yearning for the Apocalypse; - But, like a child that in the night-time cries - For light, I cry; forgetting the eclipse - Of knowledge and our human destinies. - O peevish and uncertain soul! obey - The law of life in patience till the Day. - -II. - - “Whom the gods love die young.” The thought is old; - And yet it soothed the sweet Athenian mind. - I take it with all pleasure, overbold, - Perhaps, yet to its virtue much inclined - By an inherent love for what is fair. - This is the utter poetry of woe— - That the bright-flashing gods should cure despair - By love, and make youth precious here below. - I die, being young; and, dying, could become - A pagan, with the tender Grecian trust. - Let death, the fell anatomy, benumb - The hand that writes, and fill my mouth with dust— - Chant no funereal theme, but, with a choral - Hymn, O ye mourners! hail immortal youth auroral! - -III. - - With the tear-worthy four, consumption killed - In youthful prime, before the nebulous mind - Had its symmetric shapeliness defined, - Had its transcendent destiny fulfilled.— - May future ages grant me gracious room, - With Pollok, in the voiceless solitude - Finding his holiest rapture, happiest mood; - Poor White for ever poring o’er the tomb; - With Keats, whose lucid fancy mounting far - Saw heaven as an intenser, a more keen - Redintegration of the Beauty seen - And felt by all the breathers on this star; - With gentle Bruce, flinging melodious blame - Upon the Future for an uncompleted name. - -IV. - - Oh many a time with Ovid have I borne - My father’s vain, yet well-meant reprimand, - To leave the sweet-air’d, clover-purpled land - Of rhyme—its Lares loftily forlorn, - With all their pure humanities unworn— - To batten on the bare Theologies! - To quench a glory lighted at the skies, - Fed on one essence with the silver morn, - Were of all blasphemies the most insane. - So deeplier given to the delicious spell - I clung to thee, heart-soothing Poesy! - Now on a sick-bed rack’d with arrowy pain - I lift white hands of gratitude, and cry, - Spirit of God in Milton! was it well? - -V. - - Last night, on coughing slightly with sharp pain, - There came arterial blood, and with a sigh - Of absolute grief I cried in bitter vein, - That drop is my death-warrant: I must die. - Poor meagre life is mine, meagre and poor! - Rather a piece of childhood thrown away; - An adumbration faint; the overture - To stifled music; year that ends in May; - The sweet beginning of a tale unknown; - A dream unspoken; promise unfulfilled; - A morning with no noon, a rose unblown— - All its deep rich vermilion crushed and killed - I’ th’ bud by frost:—Thus in false fear I cried, - Forgetting that to abolish death Christ died. - -VI. - - Sweetly, my mother! Go not yet away— - I have not told my story. Oh, not yet, - With the fair past before me, can I lay - My cheek upon the pillow to forget. - O sweet, fair past, my twenty years of youth - Thus thrown away, not fashioning a man; - But fashioning a memory, forsooth! - More feminine than follower of Pan. - O God! let me not die for years and more! - Fulfil Thyself; and I will live then surely - Longer than a mere childhood. Now heart-sore, - Weary, with being weary—weary, purely. - In dying, mother, I can find no pleasure - Except in being near thee without measure. - -VII. - - Hew Atlas for my monument; upraise - A pyramid for my tomb, that, undestroyed - By rank, oblivion, and the hungry void, - My name shall echo through prospective days. - O careless conqueror! cold, abysmal grave! - Is it not sad—is it not sad, my heart— - To smother young ambition, and depart - Unhonoured and unwilling, like death’s slave? - No rare immortal remnant of my thought - Embalms my life; no poem, firmly reared - Against the shock of time, ignobly feared— - But all my life’s progression come to nought. - Hew Atlas! build a pyramid in a plain! - Oh, cool the fever burning in my brain! - -VIII. - - From this entangling labyrinthine maze - Of doctrine, creed, and theory; from vague - Vain speculations; the detested plague - Of spiritual pride, and vile affrays - Sectarian, good Lord, deliver me! - Nature! thy placid monitory glory - Shines uninterrogated, while the story - Goes round of this and that theology, - This creed, and that, till patience close the list. - Once more on Carronben’s wind-shrilling height - To sit in sovereign solitude, and quite - Forget the hollow world—a pantheist - Beyond Bonaventura! This were cheer - Passing the tedious tale of shallow pulpiteer. - -IX. - - A vale of tears, a wilderness of woe, - A sad unmeaning mystery of strife; - Reason with Passion strives, and Feeling ever - Battles with Conscience, clear eyed arbiter. - Thus spake I in sad mood not long ago, - To my dear father, of this human life, - Its jars and phantasies. Soft answered he, - With soul of love strong as a mountain river: - We make ourselves—Son, you are what you are - Neither by fate nor providence nor cause - External: all unformed humanity - Waiteth the stamp of individual laws; - And as you love and act, the plastic spirit - Doth the impression evermore inherit. - -X. - - Last Autumn we were four, and travelled far - With Phœbe in her golden plenilune, - O’er stubble-fields where sheaves of harvest boon - Stood slanted. Many a clear and stedfast star - Twinkled its radiance thro’ crisp-leaved beeches, - Over the farm to which, with snatches rare - Of ancient ballads, songs, and saucy speeches, - He hurried, happy mad. Then each had there - A dove-eyed sister pining for him, four - Fair ladies legacied with loveliness, - Chaste as a group of stars, or lilies blown - In rural nunnery. O God! Thy sore - Strange ways expound. Two to the grave have gone - Without apparent reason more or less. - -XI. - - Now, while the long-delaying ash assumes - The delicate April green, and, loud and clear, - Through the cool, yellow, mellow twilight glooms, - The thrush’s song enchants the captive ear; - Now, while a shower is pleasant in the falling, - Stirring the still perfume that wakes around; - Now, that doves mourn, and from the distance calling, - The cuckoo answers, with a sovereign sound,— - Come, with thy native heart, O true and tried! - But leave all books; for what with converse high, - Flavoured with Attic wit, the time shall glide - On smoothly, as a river floweth by, - Or as on stately pinion, through the grey - Evening, the culver cuts his liquid way. - -XII. - - Why are all fair things at their death the fairest: - Beauty the beautifullest in decay? - Why doth rich sunset clothe each closing day - With ever-new apparelling the rarest? - Why are the sweetest melodies all born - Of pain and sorrow? Mourneth not the dove, - In the green forest gloom, an absent love? - Leaning her breast against that cruel thorn, - Doth not the nightingale, poor bird, complain - And integrate her uncontrollable woe - To such perfection, that to hear is pain? - Thus, Sorrow and Death—alone realities— - Sweeten their ministration, and bestow - On troublous life a relish of the skies! - -XIII. - - And, well-belovëd, is this all, this all? - Gone, like a vapour which the potent morn - Kills, and in killing glorifies! I call - Through the lone night for thee, my dear first-born - Soul-fellow! but my heart vibrates in vain. - Ah! well I know, and often fancy forms - The weather-blown churchyard where thou art lain— - The churchyard whistling to the frequent storms. - But down the valley, by the river side, - Huge walnut-trees—bronze-foliaged, motionless - As leaves of metal—in their shadows hide - Warm nests, low music, and true tenderness. - But thou, betrothed! art far from me, from me. - O heart! be merciful—I loved him utterly. - -XIV. - - Father! when I have passed, with deathly swoon, - Into the ghost-world, immaterial, dim, - O may nor time nor circumstance dislimn - My image from thy memory, as noon - Steals from the fainting bloom the cooling dew! - Like flower, itself completing bud and bell, - In lonely thicket, be thy sorrow true, - And in expression secret. Worse than hell - To see the grave hypocrisy—to hear - The crocodilian sighs of summer friends - Outraging grief’s assuasive, holy ends! - But thou art faithful, father, and sincere; - And in thy brain the love of me shall dwell - Like the memorial music in the curved sea-shell. - -XV. - - From my sick-bed gazing upon the west, - Where all the bright effulgencies of day - Lay steeped in sunless vapours, raw and gray,— - Herein (methought) is mournfully exprest - The end of false ambitions, sullen doom - Of my brave hopes, Promethean desires: - Barren and perfumeless, my name expires - Like summer-day setting in joyless gloom. - Yet faint I not in sceptical dismay, - Upheld by the belief that all pure thought - Is deathless, perfect: that the truths out-wrought - By the laborious mind cannot decay, - Being evolutions of that Sovereign Mind - Akin to man’s; yet orbed, exhaustless, undefined. - -XVI. - - The daisy-flower is to the summer sweet, - Though utterly unknown it live and die; - The spheral harmony were incomplete - Did the dew’d laverock mount no more the sky, - Because her music’s linkëd sorcery - Bewitched no mortal heart to heavenly mood. - This is the law of nature, that the deed - Should dedicate its excellence to God, - And in so doing find sufficient meed. - Then why should I make these heart-burning cries, - In sickly rhyme with morbid feeling rife, - For fame and temporal felicities? - Forgetting that in holy labour lies - The scholarship severe of human life. - -XVII. - - O God, it is a terrible thing to die - Into the inextinguishable life; - To leave this known world with a feeble cry, - All its poor jarring and ignoble strife. - O that some shadowy spectre would disclose - The Future, and the soul’s confineless hunger - Satisfy with some knowledge of repose! - For here the lust of avarice waxeth stronger, - Making life hateful; youth alone is true, - Full of a glorious self-forgetfulness: - Better to die inhabiting the new - Kingdom of faith and promise, and confess, - Even in the agony and last eclipse, - Some revelation of the Apocalypse! - -XVIII. - - Wise in his day that heathen emperor, - To whom, each morrow, came a slave, and cried— - “Philip, remember thou must die;” no more. - To me such daily voice were misapplied— - Disease guests with me; and each cough, or cramp, - Or aching, like the Macedonian slave, - Is my _memento mori_. ’Tis the stamp - Of God’s true life to be in dying brave. - “I fear not death, but dying”[C]—not the long - Hereafter, sweetened by immortal love; - But the quick, terrible last breath—the strong - Convulsion. Oh, my Lord of breath above! - Grant me a quiet end, in easeful rest— - A sweet removal, on my mother’s breast. - -[C] This is a saying of Socrates. - -XIX. - - October’s gold is dim—the forests rot, - The weary rain falls ceaseless, while the day - Is wrapp’d in damp. In mire of village way - The hedge-row leaves are stamp’d, and, all forgot, - The broodless nest sits visible in the thorn. - Autumn, among her drooping marigolds, - Weeps all her garnered sheaves, and empty folds, - And dripping orchards—plundered and forlorn. - The season is a dead one, and I die! - No more, no more for me the spring shall make - A resurrection in the earth and take - The death from out her heart—O God, I die! - The cold throat-mist creeps nearer, till I breathe - Corruption. Drop, stark night, upon my death! - -XX. - - Die down, O dismal day! and let me live. - And come, blue deeps! magnificently strewn - With coloured clouds—large, light, and fugitive— - By upper winds through pompous motions blown. - Now it is death in life—a vapour dense - Creeps round my window till I cannot see - The far snow-shining mountains, and the glens - Shagging the mountain-tops. O God! make free - This barren, shackled earth, so deadly cold— - Breathe gently forth Thy spring, till winter flies - In rude amazement, fearful and yet bold, - While she performs her custom’d charities. - I weigh the loaded hours till life is bare— - O God! for one clear day, a snowdrop, and sweet air! - -XXI. - - Sometimes, when sunshine and blue sky prevail— - When spent winds sleep, and, from the budding larch, - Small birds, with incomplete, vague sweetness, hail - The unconfirmed, yet quickening life of March,— - Then say I to myself, half-eased of care, - Toying with hope as with a maiden’s token— - “This glorious, invisible fresh air - Will clear my blood till the disease be broken.” - But slowly, from the wild and infinite west, - Up-sails a cloud, full-charged with bitter sleet. - The omen gives my spirit deep unrest; - I fling aside the hope, as indiscreet— - A false enchantment, treacherous and fair— - And sink into my habit of despair. - -XXII. - - O Winter! wilt thou never, never go? - O Summer! but I weary for thy coming; - Longing once more to hear the Luggie flow, - And frugal bees laboriously humming. - Now, the east wind diseases the infirm, - And I must crouch in corners from rough weather. - Sometimes a winter sunset is a charm— - When the fired clouds, compacted, blaze together, - And the large sun dips, red, behind the hills. - I, from my window, can behold this pleasure; - And the eternal moon, what time she fills - Her orb with argent, treading a soft measure, - With queenly motion of a bridal mood, - Through the white spaces of infinitude. - -XXIII. - - Oh, beautiful moon! Oh, beautiful moon! again - Thou persecutest me until I bend - My brow, and soothe the aching of my brain. - I cannot see what handmaidens attend - Thy silver passage as the heaven clears; - For, like a slender mist, a sweet vexation - Works in my heart, till the impulsive tears - Confess the bitter pain of adoration. - Oh, too, too beautiful moon! lift the white shell - Of thy soft splendour through the shining air! - I own the magic power, the witching spell, - And, blinded by thy beauty, call thee fair! - Alas! not often now thy silver horn - Shall me delight with dreams and mystic love forlorn! - -XXIV. - - ’Tis April, yet the wind retains its tooth. - I cannot venture in the biting air, - But sit and feign wild trash, and dreams uncouth, - “Stretched on the rack of a too easy chair.” - And when the day has howled itself to sleep, - The lamp is lighted in my little room; - And lowly, as the tender lapwings creep, - Comes my own mother, with her love’s perfume. - O living sons with living mothers! learn - Their worth, and use them gently, with no chiding - For youth, I know, is quick; of temper stern - Sometimes; and apt to blunder without guiding. - So was I long, but now I see her move, - Transfigured in the radiant mist of love. - -XXV. - - Lying awake at holy eventide, - While in clear mournfulness the throstle’s hymn - Hushes the night, and the great west, grown dim, - Laments the sunset’s evanescent pride: - Lo! behold an orb of silver brightly - Grow from the fringe of sunset, like a dream - From Thought’s severe infinitude, and nightly - Show forth God’s glory in its sacred gleam. - Ah, Hesper! maidenliest star that ere - Twinkled in firmament! cool gloaming’s prime - Cheerer, whose fairness maketh wondrous fair - Old pastorals, and the Spenserian rhyme:— - Thy soft seduction doth my soul enthral - Like music, with a dying, dying fall! - -XXVI. - - There are three bonnie Scottish melodies, - So native to the music of my soul, - That of its humours they seem prophecies. - The ravishment of Chaucer was less whole, - Less perfect, when the April nightingale - Let itself in upon him. Surely, Lord! - Before whom psaltery and clarichord, - Concentual with saintly song, prevail, - There lurks some subtle sorcery, to Thee - And heaven akin, in each woe-burning air! - _Land of the Leal_, and _Bonnie Bessie Lee_, - And _Home, sweet Home_, the lilt of love’s despair. - Now, in remembrance even, the feelings speak, - For lo! a shower of grace is on my cheek. - -XXVII. - - “Thou art wearin’ awa’, Jean, - Like snaw when it’s thaw, Jean; - Thou art wearin’ awa’ - To the land o’ the leal.” - - O the impassable sorrow, mother mine! - Of the sweet, mournful air which, clear and well, - For me thou singest! Never the divine - Mahomedan harper, famous Israfel, - Such rich enchanting luxury of woe - Elicited from all his golden strings! - Therefore, dear singer sad! chant clear, and low, - And lovingly, the bard’s imaginings, - O poet unknown! conning thy verses o’er - In lone, dim places, sorrowfully sweet; - And O musician! touching the quick core - Of pity, when thy skilful closes meet— - My tears confess your witchery as they flow, - Since I, too, _wear_ away like the enduring snow. - -XXVIII. - - Uplift in unparticipated night - Oh indefinable Being! far retired - From mortal ken in uncreated light: - While demonstrating glories unacquired - When shall the wavering sciences evolve - The infinite secret, Thee? What mind shall scan - The tenour of Thy workmanship, or solve - The dark, perplexing destiny of man? - Oh! in the hereafter border-land of wonder, - Shall the proud world’s inveterate tale be told, - The curtain of all mysteries torn asunder, - The cerements from the living soul unrolled? - Impatient questioner, soon, soon shall death - Reveal to thee these dim phantasmata of faith. - -XXIX. - - And thus proceeds the mode of human life - From mystery to mystery again; - From God to God, thro’ grandeur, grief, and strife, - A hurried plunge into the dark inane - Whence we had lately sprung. And is’t for ever? - Ah! sense is blind beyond the gaping clay, - And all the eyes of faith can see it never. - We know the bright-haired sun will bring the day, - Like glorious book of silent prophecy; - Majestic night assume her starry throne; - The wondrous seasons come and go: but we - Die, unto mortal ken for ever gone. - Who shall pry further? who shall kindle light - In the dread bosom of the infinite? - -XXX. - - O thou of purer eyes than to behold - Uncleanness! sift my soul, removing all - Strange thoughts, imaginings fantastical, - Iniquitous allurements manifold. - Make it into a spiritual ark; abode - Severely sacred, perfumed, sanctified, - Wherein the Prince of Purities may abide— - The holy and eternal Spirit of God. - The gross, adhesive loathsomeness of sin, - Give me to see. Yet, O far more, far more, - That beautiful purity which the saints adore - In a consummate Paradise within - The Veil,—O Lord, upon my soul bestow, - An earnest of that purity here below. - - - - -Miscellaneous Poems. - - -A Winter Ramble. - - John Frost, old Nature’s jeweller, had beautified the leas, - And the lustre of his fretwork was twinkling on the trees, - As we ramble o’er the meadows in a meditative ease. - - We had left the town behind us for a roaming holiday, - Beneath an arc of gloom, all dark and indistinct it lay, - And the fog was wreathed about it like a robe of iron-gray. - - But a carpeting of leaflets, and a canopy of blue, - And the mystery of ether as the warming sunshine grew, - Sent a mellow thrill of happiness our eager spirits through. - - And over lanes, where Winter bluff had shook his hoary beard, - Where in the naked hedgerows the broodless nests appear’d, - And the brown leaves of the beech-tree were with silver gloss - veneer’d. - - We wandered and we pondered till half the morn was spent, - And the red orb through the tangled boughs his cunning vigour sent, - And the valley mists all melted at his glance omnipotent. - - Dim on a sloping hill-side, clothed in a misty pall, - Stands a turret grey and hoary, where the ancient ivies crawl, - Their Arab arms round casement, sill, and door, and mould’ring wall. - - And there we halted half-an-hour within a roofless hall, - ’Neath a bower of wildest ivy hanging downwards from the wall, - Bearing in its grand luxuriance a flower funereal. - - There we talked of the gay plumes erst bent to pass the lintel old, - The maidens that were moved to smile at gallant wooers bold, - The jovial nights of brave carouse, the wine-cups manifold. - - And all the faded glories of the mediæval time, - When the age was in its manhood, and the land was in its prime, - And manly deeds were chanted in a bold heroic rhyme. - - Then, plucking each a sprig, bedecked with simple yellow flower, - We scrambled sadly downwards from our old enchanted bower, - And the glory of the sunshine fell upon us like a shower. - - Once more beneath the concave of a clear effulgent sky, - Where flocks of cawing rooks to the mansion wavered by— - A mansion standing coldly ’mid a windy rookery. - - And over breezy mountains, where the poacher, with his gun, - Stood lonely as a boulder-stone ’tween earth and shining sun, - We wandered and we pondered till the winter day was done. - - -The Home-Comer. - - Oh, many a leaf will fall to-night, - As she wanders through the wood! - And many an angry gust will break - The dreary solitude. - I wonder if she’s past the bridge, - Where Luggie moans beneath; - While rain-drops clash in slanted lines - On rivulet and heath. - Disease hath laid his palsied palm - Upon my aching brow; - The headlong blood of twenty-one - Is thin and sluggish now. - ’Tis nearly ten! A fearful night, - Without a single star - To light the shadow on her soul - With sparkle from afar: - The moon is canopied with clouds, - And her burden it is sore;— - What would wee Jackie do, if he - Should never see her more? - Aye, light the lamp, and hang it up - At the window fair and free; - ’Twill be a beacon on the hill - To let your mother see. - And trim it well, my little Ann, - For the night is wet and cold, - And you know the weary, winding way - Across the miry wold. - All drenched will be her simple gown, - And the wet will reach her skin: - I wish that I could wander down, - And the red quarry win— - To take the burden from her back, - And place it upon mine; - With words of kind condolence, - To bid her not repine. - You have a kindly mother, dears, - As ever bore a child, - And heaven knows I love her well - In passion undefiled. - Ah me! I never thought that she - Would brave a night like this, - While I sat weaving by the fire - A web of phantasies. - How the winds beat this home of ours - With arrow-falls of rain; - This lonely home upon the hill - They beat with might and main. - And ’mid the tempest one lone heart - Anticipates the glow, - Whence, all her weary journey done, - Shall happy welcome flow. - ’Tis after ten! Oh, were she here, - Young man altho’ I be, - I could fall down upon her neck, - And weep right gushingly! - I have not loved her half enough, - The dear old toiling one, - The silent watcher by my bed, - In shadow or in sun. - - -My Brown Little Brother of Three. - - “Happy child! - Thou art so exquisitely wild, - I think of thee with many tears, - For what may be thy lot in future years.” - - WORDSWORTH. - - The goldening peach on the orchard wall, - Soft feeding in the sun, - Hath never so downy and rosy a cheek - As this laughing little one. - The brook that murmurs and dimples alone - Through glen, and grove, and lea, - Hath never a life so merry and true - As my brown little brother of three. - From flower to flower, and from bower to bower, - In my mother’s garden green, - A-peering at this, and a-cheering at that, - The funniest ever was seen;— - Now throwing himself in his mother’s lap, - With his cheek upon her breast, - He tells his wonderful travels, forsooth! - And chatters himself to rest. - And what may become of that brother of mine, - Asleep in his mother’s bosom? - Will the wee rosy bud of his being, at last - Into a wild flower blossom? - Will the hopes that are deepening as silent and fair - As the azure about his eye, - Be told in glory and motherly pride, - Or answered with a sigh? - Let the curtain rest: for, alas! ’tis told - That Mercy’s hand benign - Hath woven and spun the gossamer thread - That forms the fabric fine. - Then dream, dearest Jackie! thy sinless dream, - And waken as blythe and as free; - There’s many a change in twenty long years, - My brown little brother of three. - - -The “Auld Aisle”—a Burying-Ground. - - This is my last and farewell place on earth, - In this unlevel square of soft green-sward. - I love it well. Beneath no trailing vine, - No prairie grass, no moaning yew tree’s shade, - Within no hollow hard sarcophagus, - No barrëd tomb, I hope _I_ e’er shall lie; - But, happed with daisy-mingled grass, where oft, - On Sabbath eve, when everything is still, - And every little glen within itself - Is heard to chaunt its masses o’er the sun, - Already shrouded with his blood-stained robes, - Some mindful ones will drop a ready tear - To nurture a white daisy, and will breathe - A gushing prayer of sighs to him below. - _I_ shall not feel their footsteps over _me_; - _I_ shall not hear their long-known voices speak; - For I’ll be dead. Oh! dead! and yet why weep? - Oh! earthly hearts are weak to think of death! - And ’tis a cutting thought to see our hopes - All shivered like a bunch of autumn leaves, - And sunset games, and love—delightful love— - All buried in a grave. Yet it _must_ come. - - The wreck of centuries is buried here; - The very monuments are hoar with age; - The empty tower that sentinels them all - Wails when the gusts wild wander o’er the earth, - And creaks the rusty gate with careless Time. - Methinks I see the silent funeral - Wend slowly up this hill with soulless load. - Backward swings sullen the disusëd gate, - And quiet, with measured steps, they enter here, - And cross the moundy sward, amongst the stones, - To where the red clay gapes. How mournfully - Are the last rites paid to a fleshly frame! - Behold the old man with the sunken eyes - And broken heart. This was his eldest-born. - A black-eyed boy he was, and in his youth - He was his joy and hope. And oft he gazed - Into his laughing face, and dreamed of times - When in _his_ youthful strength he would _him_ shield, - And help him to the stone before the door - In summer time, when streamlets murmured clear. - So he grew up, but scorned the homely ways - Of the grey place of his nativity. - He saw the sun rise from behind the hills, - His well-thumbed book firm clasped in his young hand. - He saw it sink within the breezy glen, - And all the birds shrink from its burning face - To shade in nests, his book firm clasped in hand. - But most he pondered over nature’s book— - The bubbled rill and the green-bladed corn, - The lowly wild-flowers and the leafy trees - Alive with music. His father wondered strange, - And prouder grew of his bold quiet son, - Who spoke without restraint or lowly eye - Unto God’s minister. And he would tell - At other fire-sides of his wondrous ways, - The oft-trimmed lamp when others were indrawn; - Nor did he check the working of the mind - And wearing of the flesh. _He_ knew no harm. - So time grew older still, and he went off, - With paler face and heavier looks, to where - The sons of learning prosecute their toils. - - But here he pined like a transplanted flower - Borne from its native soil. No grass was here, - Where he might lie, and watch the mighty clouds - All floating in the blue. No lark was here, - In love with angels, but the place was lone - And dark and cold. No milkmaid’s song was here, - Hushed when he passed upon the mountain side, - And anxious eye that gazed till he was gone. - And ’mid the throng of battling human kind, - No simple eye nor horny hand sought his, - Or voice, with homely accents, spoke relief. - All was unknown, unheeded, but his books, - Which were his very self, his only friend. - - And rich he was in lore, and strong in hope, - But heaven was panting for an inmate more: - In heaven his place was vacant; as at home. - And time grew older still, and he came home - To see his father, but he ne’er went back. - His body could not hold his restless soul, - That longed, with eagle strength, to pierce the clouds, - And so it burst this yielding bond on earth, - Already, by a lengthened struggle, weak. - His father saw him die. He never left - His bedside; but with eyes that seemed as glazed, - For ever staring at the sharpened face, - He stood and stood and wept not. In that time - His son saw heaven and chided all delay. - His father knew not of the words of blame - That blest his dying breath. He seized the clay, - And clutched it desperately unto his breast. - The arms fell down, nor gave returning press. - And that crush broke the doting father’s heart. - This is the grave beside that white gravestone: - Hold back the nettles while I read its lay:— - - -Epitaph. - - _Beneath me lies the rotting faded mask_ - _Of a young mind that studied heaven well;_ - _Ne’er in the sun of pleasure did he bask,_ - _But loved hope’s shadow and fair virtue’s dell._ - _He died while on the road to yonder sky,_ - _And every one that wanders careless here,_ - _Tread soft, and hark! Is not time hurrying by?_ - _Begone and pray; the Day of Judgment’s near!_ - - I have seen children playing in this place, - Have heard the voice of psalms sound plaintive here, - And sighs commingle with these strains of love, - For memory is dewy with salt tears. - - Yet some lie here unknown to all. They came - Parentless, and they died and buried were - By careless hands, that threw the wormy clods - All hastily upon the coffin lid - And then went home. Perhaps some empty chair, - Like to a last year’s nest, still waits for them. - Perhaps a nightly prayer still ascends - Among the breathings of a family home, - To hasten their return. Let us away - And gather stones and place them at their heads. - - Could all the tales that wait around the graves, - Like volumes of wet sighs, be garnered up: - How hollow would each swelling heap resound. - - Here one who died in mirth, and while the laugh, - The merry laugh of joy did paint his face, - Death frowned, and smote the smiling victim dead. - - Here one who wept to see the flushing sun - Glide reddening from his window bars, and set - To rise again, and dry the silent dew - From his damp grave. - - Here one who lingered long, - And every morn the fields missed knots of flowers - Borne to his bedside. And his eyes grew wild - When the sun’s withering gaze stared in upon them, - And he would press them to his fluttering heart, - And face the mighty orb, defiant-like, - As if to hurl it from the empty sky, - For daring thus to blight his darling flowers. - Poor fellow, he was mad. - - May God forbid - That clownish foot should crush the gentle clay, - Or break the daisy stalks or primrose buds, - That bloom beside the low white marble stone - In yon lone spot. - - -To Jeanette. - - “I did hear you talk - Far above singing; after you were gone, - I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched - What stirred it so! Alas! I found it love.” - - I’ve sung of flowers in loving way, - And pluck’d them too for half a day, - And into posies wrought them, till - Orion glared above the hill: - But never, never saw I one - As fair as thee beneath the sun, - And never, never shall I know - A lovelier where’er I go. - Yet ’tis not for thy beauty, dear - Jeanette, nor yet the sunny cheer - About thy face, I love thee so! - But something of thy soul doth flow - Into my heart, and I am wild - With tender passion as a child. - - I write thy name, and kiss it, dear - Jeanette, in most impulsive fear! - I whisper it into my heart, - And then its music makes me start - In sudden gladness. I am fain - To let the echo die again! - Thy image groweth out of air - Until, entranced, I pause and stare - Into thy dear ideal eyes— - The shadow of God’s paradise. - - I am in love with thee, thou dear - Jeanette, and keep my spirit clear - For thy embrace. It cannot be - That thou wilt keep aloof from me - Like that immortal Florentine - Whom Tasso lov’d. O I would pine - Into a pale accusing dream - To haunt thy pillow, and would seem - So fond and sad, thy heart would fret - For its unkindness, good Jeanette! - - O many a long glad summer day - I laughed at love, and deemed his sway - The tinkle of an idle tongue, - A fancy only to be sung. - But thou all-beautiful! hast more - Of this, the thrilling passion—love— - In one soft tress of plaited gold, - Than blessed Petrarch could unfold. - I love thee, dear Jeanette! I love - Thee, O how dearly! Far above - All singing is my love for thee, - Thou paradise of ecstasy! - Make me immortal with a kiss - Of earnest pressure, and all bliss - Is mine for ever, ever! Dear - Jeanette, beloved, adored in fear! - - -The Poet and his Friend. - - I spent a day—the landmark of a life— - With one, a hero in the realms of rhyme: - Ardent, yet calm—in human wisdoms rife, - And burning to be something in his time. - Through autumn foliage by a river side, - Through glen of ivied trees and hazel dell, - Each heart by its own sunshine glorified, - We wandered wildly wise; till it befel, - Beneath a faded elm, we came upon a well. - - And, sitting by the still translucent water, - In pleasaunce sweet we quaffed the liquid cold; - Lo! as we drank, there passed a fairer daughter - Of Beauty than Fidessa. Then the old— - Yet never old, immortal song of glory, - Breathing of summer bower and emerald lea, - And fountain bubbling coldly—Spenser’s story - Thrilled all our brains to living ecstasy: - Such power had maiden floating onward maidenly. - - And pondered we, above that placid wave, - How we were thrown upon a colder day; - Yet, by the sword of Arthur! quite as brave, - As wondrous willing for the haughty fray - As Arthegal and Guyon. So we rose - And joined our hands in fervent heat, and swore - By old Renown’s endeavours, and by those - Who battled well and won, to dream no more, - But through a sea of fears to struggle for the shore. - - I think no good of him who takes his ease, - As pigeon-livered in the human game - As Braggadocio: on the tranquil seas - All ships sail nobly; but whoe’er is tame - To face the waves when fringed with windy spray, - Is but a coward. Let him live, then rot! - No man shall speak of him, no pilgrim lay - A twist of wild-flowers on the common spot - That marks his meagre dust—the poltroon is forgot. - - But, good friend! we shall fight. Even he who fails - In a great cause is noble. Time will show - The best and worst of it; and while it hails - Some worthy Song-kings of the long-ago, - Perhaps our names will echo with the rest, - And in no feebleness. Meantime, oh fight! - In the thick hurry of the battle press’d, - Clothed on with resolution, the soul’s might— - Be Hector or Achilles!—God defend the right! - - -The Two Streams. - - O cool the summer woods - Of dear Gartshore, where bloom - Soft clouds of white anemones - Among their own perfume. - And clear the little brooklet, - Singing an endless lay, - Winding its nameless waters - Close by the white highway. - And here in sweet sensation, - And soul-uneasy swoon, - I’ve lain for many a golden - Hour of a summer noon. - The cushats _crooned_ around me - Their murmuring amorous song; - And in a brooding drowsiness, - The echoes swooned along; - Till all the sweet sensations - Grew into utter pain, - And I was fain to wander - All sadly home again. - There have been brotherhoods in song, - And human friendships true; - There have been lovers unto death, - Yes, and right many too. - But never in the march of time, - And ne’er in mortal knowing, - From history or nobler rhyme, - Hath there been such constant flowing: - One from mountains far away, - One from glades of emerald shining, - Flowing, flowing evermore - For a delicate combining. - If upon a summer’s day, - When the air is blue and bracing, - You for Merkland take your way, - Sweet uneasy fancies chasing; - You may see the famous grove— - If not famous, then most surely - Ripe for fame, which is but love— - Where they mingle most demurely. - Not in song and babbling play - Which no poet could unravel; - But in tender simple way, - On a bed of golden gravel. - Where I sit I see them now,— - Bothlin with her endless winding - From a mountain’s purple brow, - Sacred contemplation finding; - In still nooks of shady rest, - Gleaming greenly ’neath the holly: - Youth, she says, is often blest - With a touch of melancholy. - Luggie from the orient fields - Wiser is, yet hath a beauty, - Which the snowy conscience yields - To the softened face of duty. - All she does bespeaks a grace, - Yet the grace hath that of sadness - We behold in many a face, - Where we had expected gladness. - But when Bothlin meets her there, - See the change to sudden glory! - Surely such another pair - Never met in classic story. - I could sing for half a day, - And my spirit never weary - Fashioning the vernal lay - With a linnet’s impulse cheery. - But some night in leafy June, - You the place yourself may see; - When the light is in the moon, - Like the passion that’s in me. - - -Evening. - - The evening now is still and calm, - As if sad Eloïsa’s soul - Had breathed a spiritual balm - Throughout the softened whole. - Within the azure of the sky - There shineth not a single star; - But in a soft serenity - The Crescent cometh from afar. - In darker lines the firs that shade - The house of Merkland round and round, - Come out, and from the fragrant glade - No liquid notes resound: - I heard the birds this live-long day, - In sweet unwrinkled blending, - As if this merry month of May - Should never have an ending. - O could I utter thoughts that rise, - O could I sing the tender - Softness of the summer skies, - In all their virgin splendour! - O crescent Moon, like pearlëd bark - To ferry souls to glory; - O silent deepening of the dark - O’er vale and promontory! - Alas, that I should live, and be - A churl in soul, while slowly - God makes the solemn eve, and breathes - A calm thro’ hearts unholy! - - -The Love-Tryst. - - Seven sycamores of wondrous fairness, smooth, - And mealy green of trunk, and murmurous - In multitudinous sun-twinkling leaves, - This valley grace. Three fairer than the rest, - Which in the silent worship of my heart - I fondly call the brothers of Bridgend, - O’er cottage floors when doors are wide for heat - And often on the face of cradled child, - Throw dusky shadows. And when lenient winds - Blow motion, the cool shadows flicker, and play - Upon the floors, and glimpse the countenance - Of the sweet baby, till the mother laughs, - And bending downward, kisses. But of all - The trees that ever tufted hill or vale, - That ever took the breeze or sheltered nest, - Or rung with flowing melody of birds, - The strangest and the dearest, best and first, - Waves audibly upon a windy hill - Above the Luggie. In the front of Spring, - When the first crocus gleams among the grass, - One half shines out full-leaved, the other bare: - And when the Autumn violet hath lost - Its fragrance, and the meadow-hay is mown, - One half shines out full-leaved, the other bare. - There are two trees, whose marriageable boughs - Twine, each with each, and throw a common shade, - A chestnut and an elm. The former opes - Its oily buds whene’er the teeming south - Breathes life and warm intenerating balm, - But fades in early Autumn; while supreme - In vigorous development, the elm - Full-foliaged glimmers till October’s end. - At the twin roots and facing the rich west - A summer seat is rustically carved, - A sylvan shelter from the mid-day sun: - But nor in mid-day, nor when decent eve - Gather her purples have I rested there; - But when thro’ crisp and fleecy clouds the moon - O’er the soft orient sheds a milder dawn, - Then tripping up the dewy lea, with step - Light as an antelope, a maiden came, - And all her radiance in my bosom laid; - And on this seat, while high among the leaves - Rain murmured, and the glory of the moon - Was dimmed, I whispered all my passion-tale. - Ah me, ah me! her silken hair down-slid, - Her smooth comb dropt among the grass, and both - Stooped searching, and her burning cheek met mine: - And starting suddenly upward, with her face - Rosed to the beating temples, meek she gazed, - Half sad, and the blue languish of her eyes - Drooped tearful. And in madness and delight, - I with my left arm zoned her little waist, - And with my right hand smoothed the silken hair - From her fair brow, snow-cold; and, by the doves - That bill and coo in Venus’ pearly car! - There was a touch of lips. Then creeping close - Into my bosom like a little thing - That was confused, she cradled pantingly. - Thus, while the rain was murmuring overhead, - And the out-passioned moon thro’ vaporous gloom - Dipt queenly, whispered I my perilous tale. - Ah me, ah me! a tender answer came; - For with her softling finger-tips she touched - My hand, warm laid upon her heart, and pressed - A meek approval with averted face. - O poet-maker, darling love, sweet love, - Awakener of manhood, and the life - Of life. But let me not like talking fool - Prate all thy virgin whiteness, all thy sweet - Deliciousness, for thou art living yet! - And as the rose that opens to the sun - Its downy leaves, scents sweetest at the core, - So all thy loveliness is but the robe - That clothes a maiden chastity of soul. - - O hasten, hasten down your azure road, - And darken all the golden zones of heaven, - Bright Sun, for I am weary for my love. - - -An Epistle to a Friend. - - Ah well-a-day, for human plans, - And Fancy’s bright creations, - With all the purple-wingéd brood - Of young imaginations! - I’ve tried, this weary winter’s day, - All poignant cares to banish, - By quaffing goblets, rosy-brimm’d, - Of dear poetic Rhenish. - - Not all the sweets of Castaly— - That river Heliconian, - Adorn’d with swans of queenly snow, - Of ancient brood Strymonian; - Not all the maiden Muses nine, - With tresses loosely flowing, - Could magnetise a single line, - Or set my quill a-going; - - Until I thought of thee, dear friend— - Best loved, though long unheeded; - Then forth the virgin pages came, - And quick my fingers speeded. - This very hour I’ll make amends, - This lonely hour quiescent, - When all the stars are in the blue, - ’Mid lustre irridescent. - - And, from the slopes I know right well, - All shagg’d with bending thistle, - The homeless wind comes with a swell, - And enters with a whistle; - Till brightlier glows the cosy fire, - And cheerier my bosom, - In thinking on the shivering woods, - And vales without a blossom. - - You know the Luggie, natal stream!— - On earth to us none dearer— - Where Lady Luna, mirror’d, burns, - With all her handmaids near her. - The time may come when haughty Fame - With laurel shall console us; - Then we shall halo it with song - Till it outflow Pactolus! - - The woods, the vales, the hawthorn dales, - The hoary hamlet Caurnie - Shall be of goodlier report - Than genius-hallowed Ferney. - And though I speak like boaster vain, - I speak not without thinking; - Already on thy noble brow - I see a chaplet twinkling! - - Heaven knows! amid the march of Time - I am a simple dreamer; - Can see more in the patient moon— - Yon radiant crescent-gleamer— - Than all the banner’d pomp of war, - Or progress politician; - Than all the mockeries of rank, - And haughtiness patrician. - - No golden key, however bright, - Can pass the fragrant portal - Of Fame’s grand temple-dome, or make - A simpleton immortal. - Then what is wealth to our desire? - (A burning tear-drop pays us) - A rushlight to the morning star, - To Homer but a Crœsus. - - Then, Willie, though a careless dog, - In brotherhood excuse me, - Nor with neglect, and haughty look, - Most wantonly abuse me. - I’ve suffer’d much and suffer’d long, - Dear heart! since last we ponder’d - On gentle love, within that hall - Where ancient ivies wander’d. - - Nor think my love one jot the less— - Than love I sought in passion— - Because I thus have treated thee - In unpoetic fashion. - Let this suffice for evermore: - I plead a self-conviction, - And thy frank spirit never shall - Increase my sad affliction. - - Then sure I’ll see thee yet again, - Before another morrow - Steals up the east—shall see thee, friend! - In a delightful sorrow. - With silent gratitude, I speak - A blessing on our meeting, - And may the light of friendship touch - Our spirits at the greeting! - - -A Vision of Venice. - - Behold! a waking vision crowns my soul - With beatific radiance, and the light - Of shining hope;—a golden-memoried dream - That clings unto my youth, as clung the strange - Leonine phantom to that mystic man, - Lean Paracelsus. It has grown with me - Like destiny, or that which seems to be - My destiny, ambition: and its glow - Inflames my fancy, as if some clear star - Had burst in silvery light within my brain. - From the smooth hyaline of that far sea - The pictured Adriatic rises, fair - As dream, a kingly-built and tower’d town; - Column and arch and architrave instinct - With delicatest beauty; overwrought - With tracery of interlacèd leaves - For ever blooming on white marble, hush’d - In everlasting summer, windless, cold: - The city of the Doges! - - From the calm - Transparent waters float some thrilling sounds - Of Amphionic music, and the words - Are Tasso’s, where he passions for his love, - That lady Florentine so lily-smooth, - Clothed on with haughtiness! - - At the black stair - Of palace rising shadowy from the wave, - Two singing gondolieri wait a freight - Of loveliness. A tremulous woman, robed - In dazzling satin, and whose dimpled arms, - And milky heaving breasts of living snow - Shine through their veil diaphanous, floats down - From the wide portal; and the ivory prow - Of the soft-cushion’d gondola (as she - Steps lightly from the marble to her place) - Dips, rises, dips again; then through the blue - Swift glides into the sunset. - - Oh, the glow - Of that rich sunset dims whate’er I see - In this my own dear valley! O’er the hills— - Those craggy Euganean hills, whose peaks - Wedge the clear crystalline—a blazonry - Of clouds pavilion’d, folded, interwound - Inextricably, load the breezeless west - With awe and glory. The effulgence gleams - Upon a vision’d Belmont, home of her - Who loved as Shakespeare’s women do; and gleams - Upon those walls wherein Othello’s spear - Stabb’d clinging innocence; where that poor wife, - The love-Cassandra Belvidera, gave - Her soul in martyrdom to love and woe. - - And shall I never that far town behold, - Crested with sparkling columns, fiery towers, - Praxitelean masonry?—behold - VENICE, the mart of nations, ere I die? - By Heaven! her common merchants princes were - Unto the continents; her traffickers - The honourable of the earth! She stood - A crownèd city, and the fawning sea - Licked her white feet; and the eternal sun - Kissed with departing beam her brow of snow! - - * * * * * - - Woe to this Venice, with her crown of pride! - The Lady of the kingdoms, the perfection - Of beauty, and the joy of the whole earth! - Through her pavilions shall the crannying winds - Whistle, and all her borders in the sea - Crumble their Parian wonder. Woe to her, - Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower! - Her sober-suited nightingales, with notes - Of smooth liquidity and softened stops, - Solace the brakes; and ’mid her ancient streets - Tawny, the gleaming and harmonious sea - Makes silvery melody of bygone days. - O white Enchantment! Ocean-spouse of old! - When thy high battlements and bulging domes, - By sunset purpled, trembled in the wave! - Now o’er thy towers the Lord hath spread his hand, - And as a cottage shalt thou be removed; - Like Nineveh, or cloudy Babylon! - - -The Anemone. - - I have wandered far to-day, - In a pleased unquiet way; - Over hill and songful hollow, - Vernal byeways, fresh and fair, - Did I simple fancies follow; - Till upon a hill-side bare, - Suddenly I chanced to see - A little white anemone. - - Beneath a clump of furze it grew; - And never mortal eye did view - Its rathe and slender beauty, till - I saw it in no mocking mood; - For with its sweetness did it fill - To me the ample solitude. - A fond remembrance made me see - Strange light in the anemone. - - One April day when I was seven, - Beneath the clear and deepening heaven, - My father, God preserve him! went - With me a Scottish mile and more; - And in a playful merriment - He deck’d my bonnet o’er and o’er— - To fling a sunshine on his ease— - With tenderest anemones. - - Now, gentle reader, as I live, - This snowy little bloom did give - My being most endearing throes. - I saw my father in his prime; - But youth it comes, and youth it goes, - And he has spent his blithest time: - Yet dearer grown thro’ all to me, - And dearer the anemone. - - So with the spirit of a sage - I pluck’d it from its hermitage, - And placed it ’tween the sacred leaves - Of _Agnes’ Eve_ at that rare part - Where she her fragrant robe unweaves, - And with a gently beating heart, - In troubled bliss and balmy woe, - Lies down to dream of Porphyro. - - Let others sing of that and this, - In war and science find their bliss; - Vainly they seek and will not find - The subtle lore that nature brings - Unto the reverential mind, - The pathos worn by common things, - By every flower that lights the lea, - And by the pale anemone. - - -The Yellowhammer. - - In fairy glen of Woodilee, - One sunny summer morning, - I plucked a little birchen tree, - The spongy moss adorning; - And bearing it delighted home, - I planted it in garden loam, - Where, perfecting all duty, - It flowered in tassel’d beauty. - - When delicate April in each dell - Was silently completing - Her ministry in bud and bell, - To grace the summer’s meeting; - My birchen tree of glossy rind - Determined not to be behind; - So with a subtle power - The buds began to flower. - - And I could watch from out my house - The twigs with leaflets thicken; - From glossy rind to twining boughs - The milky sap ’gan quicken. - And when the fragrant form was green - No fairer tree was to be seen, - All Gartshore woods adorning, - Where doves are always mourning. - - But never dove with liquid wing, - Or neck of changeful gleaming, - Came near my garden tree to sing - Or _croodle_ out its meaning. - But this sweet day, an hour ago, - A yellowhammer clear and low, - In love and tender pity - Thrilled out his dainty ditty. - - And I was pleased, as you may think, - And blessed the little singer: - ‘O fly for your mate to Luggie brink, - Dear little bird! and bring her; - And build your nest among the boughs, - A sweet and cosy little house - Where ye may well content ye, - Since true love is so plenty. - - And when she sits upon her nest, - Here are cool shades to shroud her.’ - At this the singer sang his best, - O louder yet, and louder; - Until I shouted in my glee, - His song had so enchanted me. - No nightingale could pant on - In joy so wise and wanton. - - But at my careless noise he flew, - And if he chance to bring her - A happy bride the summer thro’ - ’Mong birchen boughs to linger, - I’ll sing to you in numbers high - A summer song that shall not die, - But keep in memory clearly - The bird I love so dearly. - - -The Cuckoo. - - Last night a vision was dispelled, - Which I can never dream again; - A wonder from the earth has gone, - A passion from my brain. - I saw upon a budding ash - A cuckoo, and she blithely sung - To all the valleys round about, - While on a branch she swung. - Cuckoo, cuckoo! I looked around, - And like a dream fulfilled, - A slender bird of modest brown, - My sight with wonder thrilled. - I looked again and yet again; - My eyes, thought I, do sure deceive me, - But when belief made doubting vain, - Alas, the sight did grieve me. - For twice to-day I heard the cry, - The hollow cry of melting love; - And twice a tear bedimmed my eye— - I _saw_ the singer in the grove, - I saw him pipe his eager tone, - Like any other common bird, - And, as I live, the sovereign cry - Was not the one I always heard. - - O why within that lusty wood - Did I the fairy sight behold? - O why within that solitude - Was I thus blindly overbold? - My heart, forgive me! for indeed - I cannot speak my thrilling pain: - The wonder vanished from the earth, - The passion from my brain. - - -Fame. - -_A Fragment._ - - O Glorious Fame! next grandest word to God, - Father of all things beautiful and grand, - Of all the thoughts ideal and sublime - That grace the annals of our literature. - Thou stirrer of the heart to noble deeds! - Thou powerful antidote to cringing fear - Of battle, rolling ’mid the billowy smoke - That wreaths its curls blue over flood and field! - In the cold, creaking garret, or beside - The entrance to a theatre, or where - Luxury pillows soft the somnolent head, - Or where the dew-bent daisy droops to kiss - The dark grey eggs of lark, companion sweet! - There thou dost lift their souls above this world, - And teachest them in language fair and wild, - To ope their hearts in strains of poesy. - Ah, noble Fame! how deeply I adore - Thy altar, smelling sweet with fond applause! - Sages may shun, philosophers may scorn; - But, ah! to a young heart, how glorious - The thought that he, by well-earned merit, shall - Be spoken of, yea praised, ’neath the roof-tree - Of peasant, or beneath the monarch’s dome! - That learned men will wonder, and in joy - Will lift their hands and shake astonished heads; - That by the fireside, while the flick’ring lamp - Doth send its shadow-forming light athwart. - The genius young shall read, and read, and read - Until the warning bell strike one short hour, - Then fling it past, and, pillowed on his couch, - Dream of the happy-gifted one that wrote it; - That maidens, high in rank and fair in form, - Shall speak to one another of that man - Who, bathing in the pure Castalian fount, - Arose, and from his form with pearlets clad - Shook off the diamonds in bright profusion, - That, while the clouds do tell their pattering beads, - And through the forest roars the wailing wind - Sporting with the brown leaves that wheel aloft, - A joyous family, seated by a fire - That roars in laughter at the storm without, - Talked of the poet— - - -Honeysuckle. - - Stop! taste the balmy essence of this flower, - That fondly twines about the dark-green fir; - The air is sweet, and, like a mild-eyed saint, - It liveth doing good. The balmy gale - Far wafts its odours to the lowly door - Of yon small cot thatched with the dying heath, - And the old dame doth bless the laden wind. - I do not think that e’er a tender eye - Looked on thee but with love,—that e’er a tongue - Spoke of thee but with blessings and with praise. - Thy lean red shanks cling round the dusty trunk, - And send their white shoots through the brown rough bark, - So true, so fond and frail-like that when one - Looks on thee, his mind’s eye sees round God’s throne - White spirits breathing hymns and fed with love. - Ye sweet, sweet flowers! ye must have mutual love, - For when one stalk, with its own beauty, droops, - With oily leaves and breathing blossoms heavy, - The others haste their sister to upraise, - And, winding round it with affection’s grasp, - Lift it from off the earth’s dark dreaded breast. - How many nosegays have I often culled - Of thee, fair guiltless thief, for even thy name - Tells how thou _sucklest_ nature’s _honeyed_ sweets, - And leav’st her less wherewith to bless the rest. - Thou art not _very_ beauteous; many flowers, - With high-fringed crests and gaudy-spotted leaves, - Outstrip thy homely dress; but tell me one - That blesseth ether with more fragrant smell? - ’Tis ever thus. Furred robes and shining silks - Oft hide a poppy’s smell—a dastard mind; - And homely garments oft adorn a breast - That heaves at pity’s tale and tale of wrong, - And, known by none, yet is a friend to all. - - -Where the Lilies used to Spring. - - When the place was green with the shaky grass, - And the windy trees were high; - When the leaflets told each other tales, - And the stars were in the sky; - When the silent crows hid their ebon beaks - Beneath their ruffled wing— - Then the fairies watered the glancing spot - Where the lilies used to spring! - - When the sun is high in the summer sky, - And the lake is deep with clouds; - When gadflies bite the prancing kine, - And light the lark enshrouds— - Then the butterfly, like a feather dropped - From the tip of an angel’s wing, - Floats wavering on to the glancing spot - Where the lilies used to spring! - - When the wheat is shorn and the burns run brown, - And the moon shines clear at night; - When wains are heaped with rustling corn, - And the swallows take their flight; - When the trees begin to cast their leaves, - And the birds, new-feathered, sing— - Then comes the bee to the glancing spot - Where the lilies used to spring! - - When the sky is grey and the trees are bare, - And the grass is long and brown, - And black moss clothes the soft damp thatch, - And the rain comes weary down, - And countless droplets on the pond - Their widening orbits ring— - Then bleak and cold is the silent spot - Where the lilies used to spring! - - -Snow. - - Flowers upon the summer lea, - Daisies, kingcups, pale primroses— - These are sung from sea to sea, - As many a darling rhyme discloses. - Tangled wood and hawthorn dale - In many a songful snatch prevail; - But never yet, as well I mind, - In all their verses can I find - A simple tune, with quiet flow, - To match the falling of the snow. - - O weary passed each winter day, - And windily howled each winter night; - O miry grew each village way, - And mists enfolded every height; - And ever on the window pane - A froward gust blew down with rain, - And day by day in tawny brown - The Luggie stream came heaving down:— - I could have fallen asleep and dreamed - Until again spring sunshine gleamed. - - And what! said I, is this the mode - That Winter kings it now-a-days? - The Robin keeps its own abode, - And pipes his independent lays. - I’ve seen the day on Merkland hill, - That snow has fallen with a will, - Even in November! Now, alas; - The whole year round we see the grass:— - Ah, winter now may come and go - Without a single fall of snow. - - It was the latest day but one - Of winter, as I questioned thus; - And sooth! an angry mood was on, - As at a thing most scandalous;— - When lo! some hailstones on the pane - With sudden tinkle rang amain, - Till in an ecstasy of joy - I clapp’d and shouted like a boy— - Oh, rain may come and rain may go, - But what can match the falling snow! - - It draped the naked sycamore - On Foordcroft hill, above the well; - The elms of Rosebank o’er and o’er - Were silvered richly as it fell. - The distant Campsie peaks were lost, - And farthest Criftin with his host - Of gloomy pine-trees disappeared, - Nor even a lonely ridge upreared.— - Oh, rain may come and rain may go, - But what can match the falling snow! - - Afar upon the Solsgirth moor, - Each heather sprig of withered brown - Is fringed with thread of silver pure - As slow the soft flakes waver down; - And on Glenconner’s lonely path, - And Gartshore’s still and open strath, - It falleth, quiet as the birth - Of morning o’er the quickening earth.— - Oh, rain may come and rain may go, - But what can match the falling snow! - - And all around our Merkland home - Is laid a sheet of virgin lawn; - On fairer, softer, ne’er did roam - The nimble Oread or Faun. - There is a wonder in the air, - A living beauty everywhere; - As if the whole had ne’er been planned, - But touched by Merlin’s famous wand, - Suddenly woke beneath his hand - To potent bliss in fairy show— - A mighty ravishment of snow! - - -October. - - Sweet Muse and well-beloved, with my decline - Declining, like a rose crushed unawares, - Having too early knowledge of decay, - Too subtle pleasure to behold the tree - Shed its thin foliage on the sluggish stream,— - What a sweet subject for thy silver sounds! - - O for a quill pluck’d from the soaring wing - Of an archangel, dipped in holy dew, - To catch thy latest looks, thou loveliest - October, o’er the many-coloured woods! - October! vastlier disconsolate - Than Saturn guiding melancholy spheres, - Through ante-mundane silence and ripe death. - Ere the last stack is housed, and woods are bare, - And the vermilion fruitage of the brier - Is soaked in mist, or shrivelled up with frost; - Ere warm Spring nests are coldly to be seen - Tenantless, but for rain and the cold snow, - While yet there is a loveliness abroad,— - The frail and indescribable loveliness - Of a fair form Life with reluctance leaves, - Being there only powerful,—while the earth - Wears sackcloth in her great prophetic grief:— - - Then the reflective melancholy soul,— - Aimlessly wandering with slow falling foot - The heath’ry solitude, in hope to assuage - The cunning humour of his malady,— - Loses his painful bitterness, and feels - His own specific sorrows one by one - Taken up in the huge dolour of all things. - - O the sweet melancholy of the time - When gently, ere the heart appeals, the year - Shines in the fatal beauty of decay! - When the sun sinks enlarged on Carronben, - Nakedly visible without a cloud, - And faintly from the faint eternal blue - (That dim, sweet harebell-colour) comes the star - Which evening wears;—when Luggie flows in mist, - And in the cottage windows one by one, - With sudden twinkle household lamps are lit, - What noiseless falling of the faded leaf! - - Sweet on a blossoming summer’s afternoon, - When Fancy plays the wizard in the brain, - Idly to saunter thro’ a lusty wood! - But sweeter far—by how much sweeter, God - Alone hath knowledge—in a pensive mood, - Outstretched on green moss-velvet floss’d with thyme, - To watch the fall o’ the leaf before the moon - Shines out in sweet completion circular. - For when the sunset hath withdrawn its gold - And glimmering, like the surcease - Of rich, low melody, erst inaudible streams - Find voices in their still unwearied flow; - And winds that have been much above the moors - And mountains, have a deadly feel of cold, - Forespeaking clear blue dawns and frosty chill. - - -The Roman Dyke. - - Ah! frail memorial of a thousand years! - Thou seem’st a stranger in a foreign land: - No pitying hand thy fragments, fall’n, uprears, - But useless, graceless, thou art left to stand. - And yet, across this foggy, rain-slash’d wall, - The savage tatoo’d Caledonians slew, - With gory club, the high-nosed Romans, who - With joy retreated at Antonius’ call. - That stone which now I touch has handled been - By brawny Romans, who, in Latin talked - Of their fantastic foes, as, oft-times seen, - With sacred tramp of liberty they stalked. - And have they e’er been slaves? that dyke shall tell: - The Romans, Saxons, Southrons, Swedes, they’ve braved, - And, like proud eagles, scorned to be enslaved; - As freemen now they stand—as freemen then they fell. - On that side scorn the paths of slavery; - Here—kiss the hallowed dust of Liberty! - - - - -Miscellaneous Sonnets. - - -Ezekiel. - - Ezekiel, thus from the Lord God: Behold, - Mount Seir, I am against thee! Desolate, - Most desolate thy cloudy and dark fate. - Between the lips of talkers bad and bold, - Thy towns forsaken, and thy rivers rolled - Thro’ silent wastes, are taken up, and great - The joy at thy high glories ruinate. - While all the earth is wanton, thou art cold, - For thy most cruel lifting of the spear - ’Gainst Israel in her time of consternation. - Slain men shall fill thy mountains, O mount Seir! - Sith thou hast blood pursued, fell tribulation - Shall curse thy blessings, mock’d and undeplored:— - As I live, thou shalt know I am the Lord! - - -The Mavis. - - Sweet Mavis! at this cool delicious hour - Of gloaming, with a pensive quietness - Hushes the odorous air,—with what a power - Of impulse unsubdued, thou dost express - Thyself a spirit! While the silver dew - Holy as manna on the meadow falls, - Thy song’s impassioned clarity, trembling through - This omnipresent stillness, disenthrals - The soul to adoration. First I heard - A low thick lubric gurgle, soft as love, - Yet sad as memory, thro’ the silence poured - Like starlight. But the mood intenser grows, - Precipitate rapture quickens, move on move - Lucidly linked together, till the close. - - -Despondency. - - O Mystery of love and human grief, - And hope, half-prophet ever prone to tears! - My heart is lonely as a withered leaf - Upon the winter tree. The passing years - Are barren to me of all happiness, - And, like a hoary anchorite, I feed - Upon my past, and, _fetisch-like_, it dress - With glory and clear jewels not its own. - O Love, and Childhood! and those happy times - When ignorance was patron to my need, - When every hour was like a linnet flown - In song, and beautiful in simple rhymes. - Would that my feelings knew the quiet flow - Of thy clear waters, Luggie! singing as they go! - - -The Moon. - -I. - - Come, light-foot Lady! from thy vaporous hall, - And, with a silver-swim into the air, - Shine down the starry cressets one and all - From Pleiades to golden Jupiter! - I see a growing tip of silver peep - Above the full-fed cloud, and lo! with motion - Of queenly stateliness, and smooth as sleep, - She glides into the blue for my devotion. - O sovran Beauty! standing here alone - Under the insufferable infinite, - I worship with dazed eyes and feeble moan - Thy lucid persecution of delight. - Come, cloudy dimness! Dip, fair dream, again! - O God! I cannot gaze, for utter pain. - -II. - - With what a calm serenity she smooths - Her way thro’ cloudless jasper sown with stars! - Chaster than virtue, sweeter than sweet truths - Of maidenhood, in Spenser’s knightly wars. - For what is all Belphœbe’s golden hair, - The chastity of Britomart, the love - Of Florimel so faithful and so fair, - To thee, thou Wonder! And yet far above - Thy inoffensive beauty must I hold - Dear Una, sighing for the Red-cross Knight - Thro’ all her losses, crosses manifold. - And when the lordly lion fell in fight, - Who, who can paragon her tearful woe? - Not thou, O Moon! didst ever passion so. - - -The Luggie. - -I. - - Long yearnings had my soul to gaze upon - Fair Italy with atmosphere of fire; - On tawny Spain; on th’ immemorial land - Where Time has dallied with the Parthenon - In beautiful affection and desire. - But when last even, effluently bland, - I saw sweet Luggie wind her amber waters - Thro’ lawns of dew and glens of glimmering green, - And saw the comeliness of Scotland’s daughters, - Their speaking eyes and modest mountain mien,— - I blest the Godhead over all presiding, - Who placed me here, removed from human strife, - Where Luggie, in her clear unwearied gliding, - Is but the image of my inner life. - -II. - - The Avon is a famous rivulet, - The mountain Duddon and the “bonnie Doon” - Flow ever-shining in the sun of song, - While plaintive Yarrow moaneth evermore. - But there is one which I must halo yet - With verse, as with a gleam of morning glory; - Must set its woodland murmurings to tune, - As through summer groves it steals along; - Must gather inspiration from its love - Of visible beauty and traditions hoary, - And spiritual presences sublime. - Dear Luggie! thou are mine by right of birth, - And daily brotherhood and poet’s rhyme. - O could I make thee famous o’er the earth! - -III. - - Pactolus singeth over golden sand; - Scamander, old and blood-empurpled river, - Rolls yet her stream divine; and Castaly - Flows lucid in the light of ancient song; - Whilst thou, sweet Luggie! fairest of this land, - And fair as any of that famous throng, - In pastoral, still loveliness, must be - Bald as a marshy brooklet nameless ever! - Nay, by the spirit of beauty and dear pleasure, - Sure I shall sing thee as my first delight, - Nurse of my soul, companion of my leisure! - And if in aftertime thy waters roll - More worthily, more spiritually bright, - It will be sunshine to my perfect soul. - - -Thomas the Rhymer. - - Listen, O spirit of that ancient bard! - Thou weird Ezekiel of an age of lies - And human fantasy! If ’neath the skies - One being liveth, worthy to be heard, - Whisper the awful _sesame_ that unstarr’d - To thee the riddle of those mysteries, - Dumb evermore to gazing of all eyes - Mortal and uninspired! O thou that warr’d - With man and custom, I do think of thee - As something of a glory, something grand - Beyond what ever satisfied this land - With earnest of a strange divinity, - Penn’d in thy passionately-breathing moods, - Prophetic peopler of old solitudes! - - -The Lime-Tree. - - A Lime-tree broad of bough and rough of trunk - Deepens a shadow, as the evening cool, - Over the Luggie gathering in deep pool - Contemplative, its waters summer-shrunk; - The Lammas floods have sucked away the mould - About its roots, and now in bare sunshine - Like knot of snakes they twine and intertwine - Fantastic implication, fold in fold. - Secure in covert, ’neath the fringing fern - Lurks the bright-speckled trout, untroubled, save - When boyhood with a glorious unconcern - Eagerly plunges in the sleeping wave. - Here the much-musing poet might recapture - The inspiration flown, the vagrant rapture. - - -The Brooklet. - - - O deep unlovely brooklet, moaning slow - Thro’ moorish fen in utter loneliness! - The partridge cowers beside thy loamy flow - In pulseful tremor, when with sudden press - The huntsman flusters thro’ the rustled heather. - In March thy sallow-buds from vermeil shells - Break, satin-tinted, downy as the feather - Of moss-chat that among the purplish bells - Breasts into fresh new life her three unborn. - The plover hovers o’er thee, uttering clear - And mournful—strange, his human cry forlorn: - While wearily, alone, and void of cheer - Thou glid’st thy nameless waters from the fen, - To sleep unsunned in an untrampled glen. - - -Maidenhood. - - A sacred land, to common men unknown, - A land of bowery glades and greenwoods hoary, - Still waters where white stars reflected shone, - And ancient castles in their ivied glory. - Fair knights caparison’d in golden mail, - And maidens whose enchantment was their beauty, - Met but to whisper each the passion-tale, - For love was all their pleasure and their duty. - Here cedar bark, as with a moving will, - Floated thro’ liquid silver, all untended; - Here wrong and baseness ever came to ill, - And virtue with delight was sweetly blended. - This land, dear Spenser! was thy fair creation, - Made thro’ fine glamour of imagination. - - -Sleep. - - O precious Morphia! I sanctify - The soothing power that in a painless swoon - Laps my weak limbs, giving me strength to lie, - Till sacred dawn increases unto noon: - Then when, from highest meridional height, - The sun devolves, and cooling breezes wake, - It is a comfort and divine delight - The weary bed exhausted to forsake, - And bathe my temples in the blessed air. - But when day wanes, and the wind-moaning night - Deepens to darkness, then thy virtue rare, - O dream-creative liquid! brings delight, - Thy silver drops, diffusive, kindly steep - The senses in the golden juice of sleep. - - -The Days of Old Mythology. - - O for the days of old Mythology, - When dripping Naiads taught their streams to glide! - When, ’mid the greenery, one would oft-times spy - An Oread tripping with her face aside. - The dismal realms of Dis by Virgil sung, - Whose shade led Dante, in his virtue bold, - All the sad grief and agony among, - O’er Acheron, that mournful river old, - Ev’n to the Stygian tide of purple gloom! - Pan in the forest making melody! - And far away where hoariest billows boom, - Old Neptune’s steeds with snorting nostrils high! - These were the ancient days of sunny song; - Their memory yet how dear to the poetic throng. - - -Discontentment. - - O if we never knew the genial hour - When Happiness sits by us like a god - Dispensing treasures, we would never know - The barren sadness of the common day, - The weariness, and discontentment sour - At human life—its ordinary load - Of hopes deferred, and presences that flow - Smilingly past us, syrens in the dream - Of young imagination, fancy-fed. - O I have seen such beauties with the gleam - Of fairy sunshine on them, and I long - Upon their bosoms this my life away - To dally, like the lover in a song, - And be a luting swain, Arcadian bred! - - -Snow. - - But yestermorn the February snow - Lay printless as the heaven upon this field, - And, with a rapture in my bosom born, - In sudden awe and reverence I kneeled - Alone beneath the glory of the sky - And omnipresent deity. To-day - The spirit of the beautiful no more - Over the wondering earth, in earnest glow - Touches to beauty all the landscape grey,— - Bringing a vision from her palace high - To this sublunar planet. Now, forlorn - As Ariadne on Cretan shore - For many bitter-cold and weary days - She knoweth not her old immortal ways. - - -The Thrush. - - One Candlemas, a gentle day of Spring, - I was abroad betimes while the red sun - Rose large and stately with a purpled ring - Of mist about him, and a mantle dun. - Thro’ naked boughs he ominously glared, - Till, soul-constrained, in sudden awe I stood, - And with a Persian’s adoration stared. - When lo! from a round beech-tree in the wood, - The only tree to which the brown leaves clung, - A mavis warbled forth his mellow lay; - And ever as his ditty clear he sung - The passion swelled his breast of downy grey. - Dear bird! since then thy melody I know - The boldest in intent, the fullest in its flow. - - -Stars. - - O cold blue night, and deep the cloudless sky - Gleams, sown with lucid keen and trembling stars;— - A ravishment of glory shines on high, - And the rapt soul yearns upward. Fiery Mars - Shines with a baleful redness in the west; - While mail’d Orion, frozenly severe, - Stands like an armed skeleton opprest - With centuries of sentinelship. Thro’ clear - Smooth ether the keen-silvered Plough upheaves - Its seven diamonds; and far away - Poor Cassiopeia for her daughter grieves— - Andromeda cold-touch’d by windy spray, - While faintly watching with tear-misted eyne, - Perseus flying shoreward o’er the gleaming brine. - - - - -My Epitaph. - - - _Below lies one whose name was traced in sand. - He died, not knowing what it was to live: - Died, while the first sweet consciousness of manhood - And maiden thought electrified his soul, - Faint beatings in the calyx of the rose. - Bewildered reader! pass without a sigh, - In a proud sorrow! There is life with God, - In other kingdom of a sweeter air; - In Eden every flower is blown:_ AMEN. - - _DAVID GRAY._ - _September 27, 1861._ - - - - -Gray’s Monument. - - -At the inauguration of the Monument erected to the Poet’s Memory in the -“Auld Aisle” Burying Ground, Kirkintilloch, July 29, 1865, Mr. Bell -said:— - -David Gray, was born on the 29th January, 1838, and reared in his -father’s house here at Merkland till he reached his fourteenth year. -His parents, seeing as they did his disposition and his genius, thought -they might find means to bring up their son for the Church. With that -view he was sent into Glasgow, and as he required funds to aid him -in the prosecution of his studies, at that very early age he became -a pupil-teacher in the city. He contrived also to attend the famous -University there for four successive sessions. But during all that time -his mind was brimming over with poetry, which rose like a rising tide -above his Latin, above his Greek, above his theological studies. He had -a very ardent and ambitious fancy; he had high aspirations; he had an -earnest belief that he was born to be a poet, and to attain fame. In -one so young it might have been thought that this was an overweening -conception of his own powers. But in reality it was not. A poet is -also a _vates_ or prophet, and there is no reason why he should not -be permitted sometimes to prophesy of himself. David Gray prophesied -of himself that his name would yet be known to his fellow-countrymen -as a poet and a teacher, for every true poet is a true teacher. In -May, 1860, when he had so far completed his studies in Glasgow, and -had arrived at the age of nearly 22, he started alone for London. -He had read of the great literary world of the metropolis, and he -was fired with an ambition to mingle in it and to make himself, if -possible, known to some of the men there. He was fortunate in forming -the acquaintance, very soon after going to London, of Mr. Monckton -Milnes, now Lord Houghton, who at once formed a correct appreciation -of the poet’s character and genius. Lord Houghton has himself put it -upon record that he found in David Gray what appeared to him to be the -making of a great man. He has also recorded of him that upon first -seeing him he was strongly reminded of the poet Shelley. Gray had a -light, well-built form; he had a full brow and an out-looking eye; -and he had a sensitive, melancholy mouth. So Lord Houghton speaks of -him. He formed also in London other acquaintances of value, including -Mr. Oliphant, then Private Secretary to Lord Elgin, now member for the -Stirling Burghs. As to Sydney Dobell, the poet, I do not know that he -actually formed the personal acquaintance of that gentleman; but he had -frequent correspondence with Mr. Dobell, and received from him valuable -letters, and suggestions, and assistance. He formed the acquaintance -of a very estimable woman—Miss Marian James—herself an authoress of -great reputation. Nearer at home he had already attained the friendly -companionship of some whom he valued much. I am delighted to see two of -those gentlemen present to-night—Mr. W. Freeland, David Gray’s early -and attached friend, now of the _Herald_ Office, Glasgow, and Mr. -James Hedderwick, himself a poet and an editor of great reputation. He -had not, however, been long in London till he was seized with a cold -which rapidly assumed the character of consumption. Lord Houghton and -others, feeling deeply interested in him, got him sent to the South of -England for a time; but the disease making rapid progress, David Gray -was seized with an irresistible home-sickness, and notwithstanding -all the kindness, and all the attention of his friends in the South, -in January, 1861, he made his re-appearance at his father’s house -down there in Merkland. He lived there from January, 1861, to the 3d -December of the same year, when he died. That is the brief record of -this young poet’s life—almost all the incidents in it, all the events -connected with it. But who can record, or who shall attempt to record -the thousand thoughts and emotions that passed through his mind, that -illuminated his fancy, and that kindled his genius? Who shall say how -these familiar woods, and fields, and glens, and streams were to him -dearer, a thousand times dearer and more romantic, than any woods, -or fields, or glens, or streams in any other part of the world. No -man but a true poet has that warm affection for home scenes, for his -country, for his native land, for the friends of his youth; no man but -a true poet has those sentiments in their height and in their depth; -and if ever a man entertained them, the poetical remains of David -Gray prove that he had them in a deep, pathetic, and most earnest -manner. Upon his death-bed, within three days of his death, he received -what appears to me to be a particularly beautiful letter from Marian -James, breathing that _alma gentile_ which none but a refined and pure -woman possesses. I never saw David Gray, but I have seen to-night the -humble room in which he was born; I have seen the home in which he -was afterwards reared—a simple, rural house, belonging to a simple, -honest, and upright family, such a family as Scotland is always proud -of—and of such families I am proud to know that Scotland possesses her -thousands and tens of thousands. I saw his mother to-night, and was -deeply impressed with the apparent simplicity and earnestness of her -character. I owe her my gratitude and my thanks for her presenting -me with a book which belonged to her son, and which contains many -of his private markings. I shall always retain it as a valuable and -most esteemed possession. David Gray’s poetical susceptibility was of -the most conspicuous description. He had a most refined perception -of the beautiful; he had a perception of an interminable vista of -beauty and truth. He had noble and pure thoughts, and he has been -enabled to express those noble and pure thoughts in very noble and -pure language. “The Luggie” is a most remarkable poem, containing -many very fine passages, inspired partially, no doubt, by a careful -perusal of Thomson’s “Seasons” and Wordsworth’s “Excursion,” and not, -therefore, so entirely original as some of the author’s subsequent -poems; but with passages breaking out in it every now and then which -neither Thomson nor Wordsworth suggested, and which are entirely the -conceptions of David Gray’s own genius. “The Luggie,” as has been well -said, “may not possess in itself much to attract the painter’s eye, -but it has sufficed for a poet’s love.” The series of sonnets entitled -“In the Shadows”—written by the poet during his last illness—many of -them bearing relation to his own condition, his own life, and his -own prospects—appear to me to possess a solemn beauty not surpassed -by many of the finest passages in Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” totally -distinct and unlike the “In Memoriam,” but as genuine, as sincere, -as heart-stirring, and often as poetical. In the author’s own words, -they admit you “to the chancel of a dying poet’s mind;” you feel when -you are reading these sonnets that they are written in the sure and -immediate prospect of death; but they contain thoughts about life, -about the past, and about the future, most powerful and most beautiful. -I am not going to ask you to take all this for granted. I think, -upon an occasion like this, we ought to show some little reason for -the faith that is in us; and, if it will not fatigue you too much, I -propose in a few minutes to read two or three of those passages and -those sonnets which strike me as worthy of all admiration. I feel -confident that these works are destined to take their place amongst -standard poetical works in the library of every man of literary taste. -We are here, as you have said, upon the occasion of the erection of -a monument to David Gray—a monument erected on the spot where he is -buried, in a beautiful old churchyard, standing upon the brow of a -hill, from which a fine and extensive view of the surrounding valley -and hills is commanded. It is a granite monument, and will last, I -hope, for centuries. I am sure that in this neighbourhood it will -often be visited by persons who feel something like kindred emotions -with David Gray, and they will be proud of this neighbourhood that -it gave birth in that humble cottage to a man who has added so much -charm to its natural scenery. It was felt at the same time, I believe, -by the gentlemen in Glasgow who took the principal charge of it, -that a great or imposing monument was not the thing that was wanted. -A plain, simple, enduring record of respect and esteem was what was -wished. Therefore, although the fund I know could have been trebled, -quadrupled, with ease, it was thought that when a certain moderate -sum was obtained that was enough, and by the aid of the genius of -our townsman, Mr. Mossman, I venture to say that an appropriate and -suitable monument has now been erected on that spot. I may mention -that I find the names in the list of subscribers very varied. Among -the Glasgow subscribers I find the name of Mrs. Nichol, widow of the -late Professor of Astronomy in our University, who I know took a great -interest in David Gray from first to last, and who, I know also, -with her usual benevolence, aided in smoothing his dying pillow. I -find the name of William Logan, one of the most earnest and attached -friends that David Gray ever had; I find Lord Houghton; I find Mr. -Bailie Cochrane; I find Mr. Stirling of Keir, the Hon. Julia Fane, the -Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, Mr. Macmillan, Mr. MacLehose, Mr. J. -A. Campbell, Mr. Hutton, editor of the London _Spectator_, and many -other names. Now Lord Houghton was requested to write an appropriate -inscription for this monument. I know it was a labour of love with -him, and I know he was anxious to write such an epitaph as would be -thought suitable both here and elsewhere; and I venture to say, and I -hope you will agree with me, that he has admirably succeeded in the -simplicity and truth of that epitaph which has now been engraved on the -monument. Such is the young man whose fame we shall not willingly let -die, because they who read his works aright derive moral improvement -and intellectual benefit from them—because, young as he was when he -died, he cherished pure and noble thoughts, and because he has left -those pure and noble thoughts as a record to us of his life, and as an -incentive to us to endeavour to cherish similar thoughts. Therefore, -we owe him a debt of gratitude; and, therefore, without attempting to -raise him upon a pinnacle too high—for his life was cut short before -the highest aims of his ambition were attained—let it go forth that no -true poet in this land, be his position in life what it may, be his -birth humble or great—no true poet, no great teacher of the hearts of -men, will ever find an ungrateful country in Scotland, as long as it -remembers its great poets—as long as it knows that it is the land -of Burns. In “The Luggie,” which you are aware is a descriptive and -pastoral poem, there are varied moods of thought. There is a good deal -of mere description of beautiful scenery, but that, whilst exquisitely -done, is also intermingled with many thoughts and feelings which add a -richness to the charm of the poet’s description. No mere description -of external and lifeless nature, unless brought home to the heart by -allusions to human emotion, can ever produce a very strong effect. But -David Gray seems to have understood admirably how to combine those -two qualities in his descriptive picture, and whilst he describes -beautiful external nature, he always takes care at the same time to -attract and touch the feelings. I am happy to know that David Gray -died in true Christian faith, and amity with all men. I know from the -esteemed clergyman who attended him weekly for many a day, that he had -those true Christian sentiments which become a man, and most of all -become a great man, upon his death-bed. I have had the very greatest -satisfaction in being present to-night. I felt it to be an honour to -be requested to come here and express my sentiments on such a subject. -It is an honour which I feel, and it is a pleasure which I feel still -more, for when a man has passed through this world now for a good -many years, as I have done, there can be nothing dearer to his heart -than expressing sympathy with the great and good, and feeling those -expressions of sympathy reflected from the hearts and the eyes of a -sympathising audience. - - The Monument bears the following inscription:— - - - THIS MONUMENT OF - AFFECTION, ADMIRATION, AND REGRET, - IS ERECTED TO - - DAVID GRAY, - - THE POET OF MERKLAND, - BY FRIENDS FROM FAR AND NEAR, - DESIROUS THAT HIS GRAVE SHOULD BE REMEMBERED - AMID THE SCENES OF HIS RARE GENIUS - AND EARLY DEATH, - AND BY THE LUGGIE, NOW NUMBERED WITH THE STREAMS - ILLUSTRIOUS IN SCOTTISH SONG. - - _Born 29th January, 1838; Died 3rd December, 1861._ - - GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. - - - - - _Second Edition, just ready, in Extra Fcap. 8vo, Price 6s. 6d._ - - _OLRIG GRANGE_, - - A Poem in Six Books. Edited by HERMANN KUNST, - Philol. Professor. - - - The Tatler in Cambridge. - “One could quote for ever, if a Foolscap Sheet were - inexhaustible; but I must beg my Readers, if they want to have - a great Deal of Amusement, as well as much Truth beautifully - put, to go and order the Book at once. I promise them they will - not repent.” - - The Examiner. - “The demoralizing influence of our existing aristocratic - institutions, on the most gifted and noblest members of - the aristocracy has never been so subtly and so powerfully - delineated as in ‘Olrig Grange.’” - - The Pall Mall Gazette. - “‘Olrig Grange,’ whether the work of a raw or of a ripe - versifier, is plainly the work of a ripe and not a raw student - of life and nature.... It has dramatic power of a quite - uncommon class; satirical and humorous observation of a class - still higher, and a very pure and healthy, if perhaps a little - too scornful, moral atmosphere.” - - The Spectator. - “The story is told in powerful and suggestive verse. The - composition is instinct with quick and passionate feeling, - to a degree that attests the truly poetic nature of the man - who produced it.... The author exhibits a fine and firm - discrimination of character, a glowing and abundant fancy, a - subtle eye to read the symbolism of nature, and great wealth - and mastery of language, and he has employed it for worthy - purposes.” - - The Academy. - “The pious self-pity of the worldly mother, and the despair of - the worldly daughter, are really brilliantly put.” - - “The story is worked out with quite uncommon power.” - - New Poem, by the author of “OLRIG GRANGE.” - - _AUSTEN LYELL_. A Poem in Six Books. Extra - Fcap. 8vo, Cloth. [_Immediately._ - - _SONGS AND FABLES_. By the late PROFESSOR - W. MACQUORN RANKINE, with 10 Illustrations by J. B. - (Mrs. Blackburn). Extra Fcap. 8vo, Cloth. - [_Immediately._ - - GLASGOW: JAMES MACLEHOSE, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY. - LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. - - - - - _In One Vol., Extra Fcap. 8vo., Cloth, Price 5s._ - - _HILLSIDE RHYMES_: - - AMONG THE ROCKS HE WENT, - AND STILL LOOKED UP TO SUN AND CLOUD - AND LISTENED TO THE WIND. - - Scotsman. - “Let anyone who cares for fine reflective poetry read for - himself and judge. Besides the solid substance of thought which - pervades it, he will find here and there those quick insights, - those spontaneous felicities of language which distinguish the - man of natural power from the man of mere cultivation.... Next - to an autumn day among the hills themselves commend us to poems - like these, in which so much of the finer breath and spirit of - those pathetic hills is distilled into melody.” - - Glasgow Herald. - “The author of ‘Hillside Rhymes’ has lain on the hillsides, - and felt the shadows of the clouds drift across his half-shut - eyes. He knows the sough of the fir-trees, the crooning of the - burns, the solitary bleating of the moorland sheep, the quiet - of a place where the casual curlew is his only companion, and a - startled grouse-cock the only creature that can regard him with - enmity or suspicion. The silence of moorland nature has worked - into his soul, and his verse helps a reader pent within a city - to realize the breezy heights, the sunny knolls, the deepening - glens, or the slopes aglow with those crackling flames with - which the shepherds fire the heather.” - - - - - _Just Ready, in Extra Fcap. 8vo, Cloth, Price 7s. 6d._ - - _HANNIBAL_: - - - A Historical Drama. By JOHN NICHOL, B.A., Oxon., - Professor of English Language and Literature in the University - of Glasgow. - - The Saturday Review. - “After the lapse of many centuries, an English Poet is found - paying to the great Carthaginian the worthiest poetical tribute - which has as yet, to our knowledge, been offered to his noble - and stainless name.” - - The Athenæum. - “Probably the best and most accurate conception of Hannibal - ever yet given in English. Professor Nichol has done a really - valuable work. From first to last of the whole five acts there - is hardly a page that sinks to the level of mediocrity.” - - The Dublin Telegraph. - “Professor Nichol has just given us a volume which bids fair to - open a new era in poetry, and secures to the author a position - among the first poets of the day.” - - The Morning Post. - “Glasgow has good reason to be proud of her Professor of - English Literature, in which he now takes a prominent place by - right of his admirable classic drama. Criticism will award him - a regal seat on Parnassus, and laurel leaves without stint.” - - GLASGOW: JAMES MACLEHOSE, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY. - LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Poetical Works of David Gray, by David Gray - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF DAVID GRAY *** - -***** This file should be named 55716-0.txt or 55716-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/7/1/55716/ - -Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Paul Marshall, Bryan Ness -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian -Libraries) - - -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. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project -Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you -charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you -do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the -rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose -such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and -research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do -practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is -subject to the trademark license, especially commercial -redistribution. - - - -*** START: FULL LICENSE *** - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project -Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at -http://gutenberg.org/license). - - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy -all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. -If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the -terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or -entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement -and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" -or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the -collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an -individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are -located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from -copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative -works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg -are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project -Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by -freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of -this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with -the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by -keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project -Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in -a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check -the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement -before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or -creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project -Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning -the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United -States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate -access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently -whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, -copied or distributed: - -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/license - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived -from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is -posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied -and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees -or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work -with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the -work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 -through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the -Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or -1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional -terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked -to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the -permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any -word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or -distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than -"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version -posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), -you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a -copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon -request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other -form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided -that - -- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is - owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he - has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the - Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments - must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you - prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax - returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and - sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the - address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to - the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." - -- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or - destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium - and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of - Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any - money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days - of receipt of the work. - -- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set -forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from -both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael -Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the -Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm -collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain -"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or -corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual -property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a -computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by -your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with -your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with -the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a -refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity -providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to -receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy -is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further -opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER -WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO -WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. -If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the -law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be -interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by -the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any -provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance -with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, -promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, -harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, -that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do -or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm -work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any -Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. - - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers -including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists -because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from -people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. -To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 -and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive -Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at -http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent -permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. -Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered -throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at -809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email -business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact -information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official -page at http://pglaf.org - -For additional contact information: - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To -SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any -particular state visit http://pglaf.org - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. -To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate - - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm -concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared -with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project -Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. - - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. -unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/55716-0.zip b/old/55716-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 960435f..0000000 --- a/old/55716-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h.zip b/old/55716-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 9abfd50..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/55716-h.htm b/old/55716-h/55716-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 5ffd600..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/55716-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4989 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Poetical Works of David Gray, by Henry Glassford Bell. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -.covernote {visibility: hidden; display: none;} -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} - -h1,h2,h3,h4 { text-align: center; clear: both; } - -h1 { page-break-before: always; } -h2 { page-break-before: avoid; } -h3 { page-break-before: avoid; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0em; } -h4 { page-break-before: avoid; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em; } - -p { margin-top: .51em; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.5em; margin-bottom: .49em; } -p.no-indent { margin-top: .51em; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0em; margin-bottom: .49em;} -p.author { margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 5%; text-align: right;} -p.indent { text-indent: 1.5em;} -p.f90 { font-size: 90%; text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -p.f120 { font-size: 120%; text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -p.f150 { font-size: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -p.f200 { font-size: 200%; text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } - -.space-above1 { margin-top: 1em; } -.space-above2 { margin-top: 2em; } -.space-below1 { margin-bottom: 1em; } -.space-below2 { margin-bottom: 2em; } -.space-below3 { margin-bottom: 3em; } - -hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%; } -hr.r20 {width: 20%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 40%; margin-right: 40%; } -hr.r25 {width: 25%; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em; margin-left: 37.5%; margin-right: 37.5%; } -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%; } -hr.full {width: 95%; margin-left: 2.5%; margin-right: 2.5%; } - -ul.index { list-style-type: none; } -li.isub0 {text-indent: 0em;} - -table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} -.tdl {text-align: left;} -.tdr {text-align: right;} -.tdc {text-align: center;} - -.pagenum { - /* visibility: hidden; */ - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; -} - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 15%; - margin-right: 15%; -} - -.bbox {border: solid 2px;} - -.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0; } -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} -.u {text-decoration: underline;} - -img {max-width: 100%; height: auto;} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} -.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} -.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: super; - font-size: .8em; - text-decoration: - none; -} - -.poetry-container { text-align: center; } -.poem { display: inline-block; - text-align: left; } -.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} - - .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i0t {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em; margin-top: 0.3em;} - .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 0.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i2t {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em; margin-top: 0.3em;} - .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 1.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i5 {display: block; margin-left: 2.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 3em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i7 {display: block; margin-left: 3.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i9 {display: block; margin-left: 4.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i11 {display: block; margin-left: 5.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i15 {display: block; margin-left: 7.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i16 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i19 {display: block; margin-left: 9.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i20 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i25 {display: block; margin-left: 12.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i26 {display: block; margin-left: 13em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i28 {display: block; margin-left: 14em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i32 {display: block; margin-left: 16em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem span.i34 {display: block; margin-left: 17em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - -@media screen, print -{ - img.drop-cap - { float: left; - margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; - } - span.drop-cap:first-letter - { color: transparent; - visibility: hidden; - margin-left: -0.9em; - } -} -@media handheld { .pagenum {display:none;} - .covernote {visibility: visible; display: block;} - img.drop-cap - { display: none; } - - span.drop-cap:first-letter - { color: inherit; - visibility: visible; - margin-left: 0; - } -} - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -Project Gutenberg's The Poetical Works of David Gray, by David Gray - -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/license - - -Title: The Poetical Works of David Gray - A New and Enlarged Edition - -Author: David Gray - -Editor: Henry Glassford Bell - -Release Date: October 9, 2017 [EBook #55716] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF DAVID GRAY *** - - - - -Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Paul Marshall, Bryan Ness -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian -Libraries) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="figcenter covernote"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Book Cover." width="575" height="798" /> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> - -<p class="f200"><b>THE POEMS OF DAVID GRAY.</b></p> -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">PUBLISHED BY<br />JAMES MACLEHOSE, GLASGOW.</p> - -<p class="center">MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><ul class="index"> -<li class="isub0"><i>London</i>,    <i>Hamilton, Adams and Co.</i>  </li> -<li class="isub0"><i>Cambridge</i>,     <i>Macmillan and Co.</i>  </li> -<li class="isub0"><i>Edinburgh</i>,   <i>Edmonston and Douglas</i>.  </li> -<li class="isub0"><i>Dublin</i>,      <i>W. H. Smith and Son</i>.  </li> -</ul></div> - -<p class="center space-below2">MDCCCLXXIV.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="center space-above2"></p> -<h1><small>THE</small><br /><big>POETICAL WORKS</big><br /><small>OF</small><br /><big><i>DAVID GRAY</i></big></h1> - -<p class="f90">A NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION, EDITED BY</p> -<p class="center space-below2">HENRY GLASSFORD BELL</p> - -<p class="center">Glasgow</p> -<p class="f120">JAMES MACLEHOSE</p> -<p class="f90 space-below2">PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY</p> -<p class="center space-below2">LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO.<br />1874</p> -<p class="center space-below2"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="f90 space-below2">PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY<br /> -MACLEHOSE AND MACDOUGALL,<br /> GLASGOW.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center">TO</p> -<p class="f120 space-below1">The Memory of</p> -<p class="f120"><b><i>HENRY GLASSFORD BELL</i></b>,</p> -<p class="f90 space-below2">LATE SHERIFF OF LANARKSHIRE,</p> -</div> - -<p class="center"><i>THIS VOLUME</i>,<br /> -<i>ON WHICH HIS LATEST LITERARY LABOUR<br />WAS BESTOWED</i>,</p> - -<p class="center space-below1">IS</p> -<p class="center">Affectionately Dedicated.</p> -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="chapter"><h2><i>INTRODUCTORY NOTE.</i></h2></div> - -<p>This new Edition of the Works of David Gray, containing, it is -believed, all the maturely finished poems of the author, is a double -memorial. It commemorates “the thin-spun life” of a man of true -genius and rare promise, and the highly cultured judgment and tender -sympathies of a critic who has passed away in the vigorous fulness of -his years.</p> - -<p>A specimen page of “The Luggie,” forwarded with an appreciative -letter from a friend, reached the author on the day before his death. -He received it as “good news”—the fragmentary realization of his -ambitious dreams—and, in the hope that his name might not be wholly -forgotten, said he could now enter “without tears” into his rest. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> - -<p>Within a week before his removal from amongst us, Mr. Glassford Bell -was engaged in correcting the proofs of the present edition. He had -selected from a mass of MSS. and other material what new pieces he -thought worthy of insertion in this enlarged edition—he had rearranged -the whole and finally revised the greater part of the volume, which it -was his intention to preface with a Memoir and Criticism. He looked -forward to accomplishing this labour of love in a period of retirement -from more active work which he had proposed to pass in Italy.</p> - -<p>It has been thought inadvisable to commit to other hands the -unexpectedly interrupted task. For a statement of the few and -simple vicissitudes of the Poet’s career, as well as a brief but -discriminating estimate of his rank in our literature, the reader is -referred to the speech—at the close of the volume—delivered by -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> -Mr. Bell, nine years ago, on the inauguration of the Monument in the -“Auld Aisle” Burying-ground. Of the movement which resulted in this -tribute to departed genius, the late Sheriff was one of the most active -promoters. Himself a poet, and a generous patron of all genuine art, -the West of Scotland has known no “larger heart” or “kindlier hand.” -There is something suggestive in the fact that his last effort was to -throw another wreath on the early tomb of David Gray.</p> - -<p class="no-indent"><i>March, 1874.</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="f150"><b><i>CONTENTS.</i></b></p> -</div> -<table class="space-below2" border="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents." cellpadding="0"> - <tbody><tr> - <td class="tdc"> </td> - <td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">page</span></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Luggie</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a01"> 1</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">In the Shadows</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a02">63</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><br /><big>Miscellaneous Poems</big>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Winter Ramble</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a03">99</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Home-Comer</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a04">104</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">My Brown Little Brother of Three</span>,  </td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a05">108</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The “Auld Aisle,”</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a06">111</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">To Jeanette</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a07">120</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Poet and His Friend</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a08">124</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Two Streams</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a09">127</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Evening</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a10">132</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Love-Tryst</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a11">134</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Epistle to a Friend</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a12">139</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Vision of Venice</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a13">145</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Anemone</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a14">150</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Yellowhammer</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a15">154</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Cuckoo</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a16">158</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Fame</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a17">161</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Honeysuckle</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a18">164</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Where the Lilies Used to Spring</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a19">167</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Snow</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a20">170</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">October</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a21">175</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Roman Dyke</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#a22">179</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><br /><big>Sonnets</big>.</td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ezekiel</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b01">183</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Mavis</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b02">184</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Despondency</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b03">185</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Moon</span>, I., II.,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b04">186</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Luggie</span>, I., II., III.,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b05">188</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Thomas the Rhymer</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b06">191</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Lime-Tree</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b07">192</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Brooklet</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b08">193</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Maidenhood</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b09">194</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Sleep</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b10">195</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Days of Old Mythology</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b11">196</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Discontentment</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b12">197</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Snow</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b13">198</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Thrush</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b14">199</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Stars</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b15">200</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">My Epitaph</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b16">201</a></td> - </tr><tr> - <td class="tdl"><br/><span class="smcap">Gray’s Monument</span>,</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#b17"><br />203</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></td> - </tr> - </tbody> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="f200"><b>The Luggie</b>.</p> -</div> -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a01" id="a01"></a>The Luggie.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="35" height="45" alt="T" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">THAT impulse which all beauty gives the soul</span> -<span class="i4">Is languaged as I sing. For fairer stream</span> -<span class="i0t">Rolled never golden sand unto the sea,</span> -<span class="i0">Made sweeter music than the Luggie, gloom’d</span> -<span class="i0">By glens whose melody mingles with her own.</span> -<span class="i0">The uttered name my inmost being thrills,</span> -<span class="i0">A word beyond a charm; and if this lay</span> -<span class="i0">Could smoothly flow along and wind to the end</span> -<span class="i0">In natural manner, as the Luggie winds</span> -<span class="i0">Her tortuous waters, then the world would list</span> -<span class="i0">In sweet enthralment, swallowed up and lost,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -<span class="i0">As he who hears the music that beguiles.</span> -<span class="i0">For as the pilgrim on warm summer days</span> -<span class="i0">Pacing the dusty highway, when he sees</span> -<span class="i0">The limpid silver glide with liquid lapse</span> -<span class="i0">Between the emerald banks—with inward throe</span> -<span class="i0">Blesses the clear enticement and partakes,</span> -<span class="i0">(His hot face meeting its own counterpart</span> -<span class="i0">Shadowy, from an unvoyageable sky)</span> -<span class="i0">So would the people in these later days</span> -<span class="i0">Listen the singing of a country song,</span> -<span class="i0">A virelay of harmless homeliness;</span> -<span class="i0">These later days, when in most bookish rhymes,</span> -<span class="i0">Dear blessed Nature is forgot, and lost</span> -<span class="i0">Her simple unelaborate modesty.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And unto thee, my friend! thou prime of soul</span> -<span class="i0">’Mong men; I gladly bring my firstborn song!</span> -<span class="i0">Would it were worthier for thy noble sake,</span> -<span class="i0">True poet and true English gentleman!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thy favours flattered me, thy praise inspired:</span> -<span class="i0">Thy utter kindness took my heart, and now</span> -<span class="i0">Thy love alleviates my slow decline.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Beneath an ash in beauty tender leaved,</span> -<span class="i0">And thro’ whose boughs the glimmering sunshine flow’d</span> -<span class="i0">In rare ethereal jasper, making cool</span> -<span class="i0">A chequered shadow in the dark-green grass,</span> -<span class="i0">I lay enchanted. At my head there bloomed</span> -<span class="i0">A hedge of sweet-brier, fragrant as the breath</span> -<span class="i0">Of maid belovëd when her cheek is laid</span> -<span class="i0">To yours in downy pressure, soft as sleep.</span> -<span class="i0">A bank of harebells, flowers unspeakable</span> -<span class="i0">For half-transparent azure, nodding, gleamed</span> -<span class="i0">As a faint zephyr, laden with perfume,</span> -<span class="i0">Kissed them to motion, gently, with no will.</span> -<span class="i0">Before me streams most dear unto my heart,</span> -<span class="i0">Sweet Luggie, sylvan Bothlin—fairer twain</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Than ever sung themselves into the sea,</span> -<span class="i0">Lucid Ægean, gemmed with sacred isles—</span> -<span class="i0">Were rolled together in an emerald vale;</span> -<span class="i0">And into the severe bright noon, the smoke</span> -<span class="i0">In airy circles o’er the sycamores</span> -<span class="i0">Upcurled—a lonely little cloud of blue</span> -<span class="i0">Above the happy hamlet. Far away,</span> -<span class="i0">A gently-rising hill with umbrage clad,</span> -<span class="i0">Hazel and glossy birch and silver fir,</span> -<span class="i0">Met the keen sky. Oh, in that wood, I know,</span> -<span class="i0">The woodruff and the hyacinth are fair</span> -<span class="i0">In their own season; with the bilberry</span> -<span class="i0">Of dim and misty blue, to childhood dear.</span> -<span class="i0">Here, on a sunny August afternoon,</span> -<span class="i0">A vision stirred my spirit half-awake</span> -<span class="i0">To fling a purer lustre on those fields</span> -<span class="i0">That knew my boyish footsteps; and to sing</span> -<span class="i0">Thy pastoral beauty, Luggie, into fame.</span> -<span class="i0">Now, while the nights are long, by the dear hearth</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of home I write; and ere the mavis trills</span> -<span class="i0">His smooth notes from the budding boughs of March,</span> -<span class="i0">While the red windy morning o’er the east</span> -<span class="i0">Widens, or while the lowly sky of eve</span> -<span class="i0">Burns like a topaz;—all the dear design</span> -<span class="i0">May reach completion, married to my song</span> -<span class="i0">As far as words can syllable desire.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">May yet the inspiration and delight</span> -<span class="i0">That proved my soul on that Autumnal day,</span> -<span class="i0">Be with me now, while o’er the naked earth</span> -<span class="i0">Hushfully falls the soft, white, windless snow!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Once more, O God, once more before I die,</span> -<span class="i0">Before blind darkness and the wormy grave</span> -<span class="i0">Contain me, and my memory fades away</span> -<span class="i0">Like a sweet-coloured evening, slowly sad—</span> -<span class="i0">Once more, O God, thy wonders take my soul.</span> -<span class="i0">A winter day! the feather-silent snow</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thickens the air with strange delight, and lays</span> -<span class="i0">A fairy carpet on the barren lea.</span> -<span class="i0">No sun, yet all around that inward light</span> -<span class="i0">Which is in purity,—a soft moonshine,</span> -<span class="i0">The silvery dimness of a happy dream.</span> -<span class="i0">How beautiful! afar on moorland ways,</span> -<span class="i0">Bosomed by mountains, darkened by huge glens,</span> -<span class="i0">(Where the lone altar raised by Druid hands</span> -<span class="i0">Stands like a mournful phantom), hidden clouds</span> -<span class="i0">Let fall soft beauty, till each green fir branch</span> -<span class="i0">Is plumed and tassel’d, till each heather stalk</span> -<span class="i0">Is delicately fringed. The sycamores,</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ all their mystical entanglement</span> -<span class="i0">Of boughs, are draped with silver. All the green</span> -<span class="i0">Of sweet leaves playing with the subtle air</span> -<span class="i0">In dainty murmuring; the obstinate drone</span> -<span class="i0">Of limber bees that in the monkshood bells</span> -<span class="i0">House diligent; the imperishable glow</span> -<span class="i0">Of summer sunshine never more confessed</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The harmony of nature, the divine</span> -<span class="i0">Diffusive spirit of the Beautiful.</span> -<span class="i0">Out in the snowy dimness, half revealed</span> -<span class="i0">Like ghosts in glimpsing moonshine, wildly run</span> -<span class="i0">The children in bewildering delight.</span> -<span class="i0">There is a living glory in the air—</span> -<span class="i0">A glory in the hush’d air, in the soul</span> -<span class="i0">A palpitating wonder hush’d in awe.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Softly—with delicate softness—as the light</span> -<span class="i0">Quickens in the undawned east; and silently—</span> -<span class="i0">With definite silence—as the stealing dawn</span> -<span class="i0">Dapples the floating clouds, slow fall, slow fall,</span> -<span class="i0">With indecisive motion eddying down,</span> -<span class="i0">The white-winged flakes—calm as the sleep of sound,</span> -<span class="i0">Dim as a dream. The silver-misted air</span> -<span class="i0">Shines with mild radiance, as when thro’ a cloud</span> -<span class="i0">Of semi-lucent vapour shines the moon.</span> -<span class="i0">I saw last evening (when the ruddy sun,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Enlarged and strange, sank low and visibly,</span> -<span class="i0">Spreading fierce orange o’er the west), a scene</span> -<span class="i0">Of winter in his milder mood. Green fields,</span> -<span class="i0">Which no kine cropped, lay damp; and naked trees</span> -<span class="i0">Threw skeleton shadows. Hedges thickly grown,</span> -<span class="i0">Twined into compact firmness with no leaves,</span> -<span class="i0">Trembled in jewelled fretwork as the sun</span> -<span class="i0">To lustre touched the tremulous waterdrops.</span> -<span class="i0">Alone, nor whistling as his fellows do</span> -<span class="i0">In fabling poem and provincial song,</span> -<span class="i0">The ploughboy shouted to his reeking team;</span> -<span class="i0">And at the clamour, from a neighbouring field</span> -<span class="i0">Arose, with whirr of wings, a flock of rooks</span> -<span class="i0">More clamorous; and thro’ the frosted air,</span> -<span class="i0">Blown wildly here and there without a law,</span> -<span class="i0">They flew, low-grumbling out loquacious croaks.</span> -<span class="i0">Red sunset brightened all things; streams ran red</span> -<span class="i0">Yet coldly; and before the unwholesome east,</span> -<span class="i0">Searching the bones and breathing ice, blew down</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The hill with a dry whistle, by the fire</span> -<span class="i0">In chamber twilight rested I at home.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But now what revelation of fair change,</span> -<span class="i0">O Giver of the seasons and the days!</span> -<span class="i0">Creator of all elements, pale mists,</span> -<span class="i0">Invisible great winds and exact frost!</span> -<span class="i0">How shall I speak the wonder of thy snow?</span> -<span class="i0">What though we know its essence and its birth,</span> -<span class="i0">Can quick expound in philosophic wise,</span> -<span class="i0">The how, and whence, and manner of its fall;</span> -<span class="i0">Yet, oh, the inner beauty and the life—</span> -<span class="i0">The life that is in snow! The virgin-soft</span> -<span class="i0">And utter purity of the down-flake</span> -<span class="i0">Falling upon its fellow with no sound!</span> -<span class="i0">Unblown by vulgar winds, innumerous flakes</span> -<span class="i0">Fall gently, with the gentleness of love!</span> -<span class="i0">Between its spotless-clothëd banks, in clear</span> -<span class="i0">Pellucid luculence, the Luggie seems</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Charmed in its course, and with deceptive calm</span> -<span class="i0">Flows mazily in unapparent lapse,</span> -<span class="i0">A liquid silence. Every field is robed,</span> -<span class="i0">And in the furrow lies the plough unused.</span> -<span class="i0">The earth is cherished, for beneath the soft</span> -<span class="i0">Pure uniformity, is gently born</span> -<span class="i0">Warmth and rich mildness fitting the dead roots</span> -<span class="i0">For the resuscitation of the spring.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Now while I write, the wonder clothes the vale,</span> -<span class="i0">Calmed every wind and loaded every grove;</span> -<span class="i0">And looking thro’ the implicated boughs</span> -<span class="i0">I see a gleaming radiance. Sparkling snow</span> -<span class="i0">Refined by morning-footed frost so still</span> -<span class="i0">Mantles each bough; and such a windless hush</span> -<span class="i0">Breathes thro’ the air, it seems the fairy glen</span> -<span class="i0">About some phantom palace, pale abode</span> -<span class="i0">Of fabled <i>Sleeping Beauty</i>. Songless birds</span> -<span class="i0">Flit restlessly about the breathless wood,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Waiting the sudden breaking of the charm;</span> -<span class="i0">And as they quickly spring on nimble wing</span> -<span class="i0">From the white twig, a sparkling shower falls</span> -<span class="i0">Starlike. It is not whiteness, but a clear</span> -<span class="i0">Outshining of all purity, which takes</span> -<span class="i0">The winking eyes with such a silvery gleam.</span> -<span class="i0">No sunshine, and the sky is all one cloud.</span> -<span class="i0">The vale seems lonely, ghostlike; while aloud</span> -<span class="i0">The housewife’s voice is heard with doubled sound.</span> -<span class="i0">I have not words to speak the perfect show;</span> -<span class="i0">The ravishment of beauty; the delight</span> -<span class="i0">Of silent purity; the sanctity</span> -<span class="i0">Of inspiration which o’erflows the world,</span> -<span class="i0">Making it breathless with divinity.</span> -<span class="i0">God makes His angels spirits—that is, winds—</span> -<span class="i0">His ministers a flaming fire. So, heart!</span> -<span class="i0">(Weak heart that fainted in thy loneliness)</span> -<span class="i0">In the sweet breezes spirits are alive;</span> -<span class="i0">God’s angels guide the thunder-clouds; and God</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Speaks in the thunder truly. All around</span> -<span class="i0">Is loving and continuous deity;</span> -<span class="i0">His mercy over all His works remains.</span> -<span class="i0">And surely in the glossy snow there shines</span> -<span class="i0">Angelic influence—a ministry</span> -<span class="i0">Devout and heavenly, that with benign</span> -<span class="i0">Action, amid a wondrous hush lets fall</span> -<span class="i0">The dazzling garment on the fostered fields.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So thus with fair delapsion softly falls</span> -<span class="i0">The sacred shower; and when the shortened day</span> -<span class="i0">Dejected dies in the low streaky west,</span> -<span class="i0">The rimy moon displays a cold blue night,</span> -<span class="i0">And keen as steel the east wind sprinkles ice.</span> -<span class="i0">Thicker than bees, about the waxing moon</span> -<span class="i0">Gather the punctual stars. Huge whitened hills</span> -<span class="i0">Rise glimmering to the blue verge of the night,</span> -<span class="i0">Ghostlike, and striped with narrow glens of firs</span> -<span class="i0">Black-waving, solemn. O’er the Luggie stream</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Gathers a veiny film of ice, and creeps</span> -<span class="i0">With elfin feet around each stone and reed,</span> -<span class="i0">Working fine masonry; while o’er the dam</span> -<span class="i0">Dashing, a noise of waters fills the clear</span> -<span class="i0">And nitrous air. All the dark wintry hours</span> -<span class="i0">Sharply the winds from the white level moors</span> -<span class="i0">Keen whistle. Timorous in homely bed</span> -<span class="i0">The schoolboy listens, fearful lest gaunt wolves</span> -<span class="i0">Or beasts, whose uncouth forms in ancient books</span> -<span class="i0">He has beheld, at creaking shutters pull</span> -<span class="i0">Howling. And when at last the languid dawn</span> -<span class="i0">In windy redness re-illumes the east</span> -<span class="i0">With ineffectual fire, an intense blue</span> -<span class="i0">Severely vivid o’er the snowy hills</span> -<span class="i0">Gleams chill, while hazy half-transparent clouds</span> -<span class="i0">Slow-range the freezing ether of the west.</span> -<span class="i0">Along the woods the keenly vehement blasts</span> -<span class="i0">Wail, and disrobe the mantled boughs, and fling</span> -<span class="i0">A snow-dust everywhere. Thus wears the day:</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -<span class="i0">While grandfather over the well-watched fire</span> -<span class="i0">Hangs cowering, with a cold drop at his nose.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Now underneath the ice the Luggie growls,</span> -<span class="i0">And to the polished smoothness curlers come</span> -<span class="i0">Rudely ambitious. Then for happy hours</span> -<span class="i0">The clinking stones are slid from wary hands,</span> -<span class="i0">And <i>Barleycorn</i>, best wine for surly airs,</span> -<span class="i0">Bites i’ th’ mouth, and ancient jokes are crack’d.</span> -<span class="i0">And oh, the journey homeward, when the sun,</span> -<span class="i0">Low-rounding to the west, in ruddy glow</span> -<span class="i0">Sinks large, and all the amber-skirted clouds,</span> -<span class="i0">His flaming retinue, with dark’ning glow</span> -<span class="i0">Diverge! The broom is brandished as the sign</span> -<span class="i0">Of conquest, and impetuously they boast</span> -<span class="i0">Of how this shot was played—with what a bend</span> -<span class="i0">Peculiar—the perfection of all art—</span> -<span class="i0">That stone came rolling grandly to the <i>Tee</i></span> -<span class="i0">With victory crown’d, and flinging wide the rest</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -<span class="i0">In lordly crash! Within the village inn,</span> -<span class="i0">What time the stars are sown in ether keen,</span> -<span class="i0">Clear and acute with brightness; and the moon</span> -<span class="i0">Sharpens her semicircle; and the air</span> -<span class="i0">With bleakly shivering sough cuts like a scythe,</span> -<span class="i0">They by the roaring chimney sit, and quaff</span> -<span class="i0">The beaded ‘<i>Usqueba</i>’ with sugar dash’d.</span> -<span class="i0">Oh, when the precious liquid fires the brain</span> -<span class="i0">To joy, and every heart beats fast with mirth</span> -<span class="i0">And ancient fellowship, what nervy grasps</span> -<span class="i0">Of horny hands o’er tables of rough oak!</span> -<span class="i0">What singing of <i>Lang Syne</i> till teardrops shine</span> -<span class="i0">And friendships brighten as the evening wanes!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Now the dead earth, wrapt solemnly, expects</span> -<span class="i0">The punctual resurrection of the Spring.</span> -<span class="i0">Shackled and bound, the coldly vigilant frost</span> -<span class="i0">Stiffens all rivers, and with eager power</span> -<span class="i0">Hardens each glebe. The wasted country owns</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The keen despotic vehemence of the North;</span> -<span class="i0">And, with the resignation that obtains</span> -<span class="i0">Where he is weak and powerless, man awaits,</span> -<span class="i0">Under God’s mercy, the dissolvent thaw.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O All-beholding, All-informing God</span> -<span class="i0">Invisible, and <span class="smcap">only</span> through effects</span> -<span class="i0">Known and belov’d, unshackle the waste earth!</span> -<span class="i0">Soul of the incomplete vitality</span> -<span class="i0">In atom and in man! Soul of all Worlds!</span> -<span class="i0">Leave not Thy glory vacant, nor afflict</span> -<span class="i0">With fear and hunger man whom Thou hast made.</span> -<span class="i0">Thou from Thy chambers waterest the earth;</span> -<span class="i0">Thou givest snow like wool; and scatterest wide</span> -<span class="i0">Hoarfrost like ashes. Casting forth Thy ice</span> -<span class="i0">Like morsels, who can stand before Thy cold?</span> -<span class="i0">Thou sendest forth Thy word, and lo! they melt;</span> -<span class="i0">Causing Thy wind to blow, the waters flow.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Soon the frozen air receives the subtle thaw:</span> -<span class="i0">And suddenly a crawling mist, with rain</span> -<span class="i0">Impregn’d, the damp day dims, and drizzling drops</span> -<span class="i0">Proclaim a change. At night across the heavens</span> -<span class="i0">Swift-journeying, and by a furious wind</span> -<span class="i0">Squadron’d, the hurrying clouds range the roused sky,</span> -<span class="i0">Magnificently sombrous. The wan moon,</span> -<span class="i0">Amazed, gleams often through a cloudy rack,</span> -<span class="i0">Then, shuddering, hides. One earnest wakeful star</span> -<span class="i0">Of living sapphire drooping by her side,</span> -<span class="i0">A faithful spirit in her lone despair,</span> -<span class="i0">Outshines the cloudy tempest. Then the shower</span> -<span class="i0">Falls ceaseless, and night murmurs with the rain.</span> -<span class="i0">And in the sounding morning what a change!</span> -<span class="i0">The meadows shine new-washed; while here and there</span> -<span class="i0">A dusky patch of snow in shelter’d paths</span> -<span class="i0">Melts lonely. The awakened forest waves</span> -<span class="i0">With boughs unplumed. The white investiture</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of the fair earth hath vanished, and the hills</span> -<span class="i0">That in the evening sunset glowed with rose</span> -<span class="i0">And ineffectual baptism of gold,</span> -<span class="i0">Shine tawdry, crawled upon by the blind rain.</span> -<span class="i0">Now Luggie thunders down the ringing vale,</span> -<span class="i0">Tawnily brown, wide-leaving yellow sand</span> -<span class="i0">Upon the meadow. The South-West, aroused,</span> -<span class="i0">Blustering in moody kindness, clears the sky</span> -<span class="i0">To its blue depths by a full-wingëd wind,</span> -<span class="i0">Blowing the diapason of red March.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Blow high and cleanse the sky, O South-West wind!</span> -<span class="i0">Roll the full clouds obedient; overthrow</span> -<span class="i0">White crags of vapour in confusion piled</span> -<span class="i0">Precipitate, high-toppling, undissolved;</span> -<span class="i0">And while with silent workings they are spread</span> -<span class="i0">And scattered, broken into ruinous pomp</span> -<span class="i0">By Thy invisible influence, what calm</span> -<span class="i0">And sweet disclosure of the upper deep</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Cerulean, the atmospheric sea!</span> -<span class="i0">Blow high and sift the earth, thou South-West wind!</span> -<span class="i0">Now the dull air grows rarer, and no more</span> -<span class="i0">The stark day thickens towards evenfall;</span> -<span class="i0">Nor from the solid cloud-gloom drips the rain:</span> -<span class="i0">But in a sunset mild and beautiful</span> -<span class="i0">The day sinks, till in clear dilucid air,</span> -<span class="i0">As in a chamber newly decorate,</span> -<span class="i0">The golden Phœbe reddens with the wind.</span> -<span class="i0">No more through hoary mists and low-hung clouds</span> -<span class="i0">The eternal hills—bones of the earth—upheave</span> -<span class="i0">Their deity for worship: but severe</span> -<span class="i0">Against the clear sky outlined, each sharp crag</span> -<span class="i0">Uplifts its scarred magnificence to Heaven.</span> -<span class="i0">From breezy ledge the eagle springs aloft,</span> -<span class="i0">And, beating boldly up against the wind</span> -<span class="i0">With inconceivable velocity,</span> -<span class="i0">Stretches to upper ether, and renews</span> -<span class="i0">Haughty communion with the regal sun!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Blow high, O deep-mouth’d wind from the South-West!</span> -<span class="i0">And in the caves and hollows of the rocks</span> -<span class="i0">Moan mournfully, for desolation reigns.</span> -<span class="i0">Through the unknown abysses and foul chasms,</span> -<span class="i0">Sacred to horror and eternal damps</span> -<span class="i0">And darkness ever-cumbent, blindly howl</span> -<span class="i0">Till the hoarse dragons, wailing in their woe</span> -<span class="i0">Infernal, answer from accursed dens.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Pleasant to him who long in sick-room pent,</span> -<span class="i0">Surveying still the same unchanging hills</span> -<span class="i0">Belted with vapour, muffled up in cloud;</span> -<span class="i0">The same raw landscape soaked in ceaseless rain;</span> -<span class="i0">Pleasant to him the invigorating wind.</span> -<span class="i0">Roused from reclusive thought by the deep sound</span> -<span class="i0">And motion of the forest (as a steed</span> -<span class="i0">When shrills the silver trumpet of the onset),</span> -<span class="i0">He rushes to communion with old forms.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Like a fair picture suddenly uncovered</span> -<span class="i0">To an impatient artist, the fair earth,</span> -<span class="i0">Touched with the primal glory of the Spring,</span> -<span class="i0">Flings an indefinite glamour on his soul.</span> -<span class="i0">With indistinct commotion he perceives</span> -<span class="i0">All things, and his delight is indistinct.</span> -<span class="i0">Earth’s forms and ever-living beauty strike</span> -<span class="i0">Amazement through his spirit, till he feels</span> -<span class="i0">As one new-born to being undeflowered.</span> -<span class="i0">The sudden music from the budding woods,</span> -<span class="i0">The lark in air, startles and overjoys.</span> -<span class="i0">O Laverock! (for thy Scottish name to me</span> -<span class="i0">Sounds sweetest) with unutterable love</span> -<span class="i0">I love thee, for each morning as I lie</span> -<span class="i0">Relaxed and weary with my long disease,</span> -<span class="i0">One from low grass arises visibly</span> -<span class="i0">And sings as if it sang for me alone.</span> -<span class="i0">Among a thousand I could tell the tones</span> -<span class="i0">Of this, my little sweet hierophant!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -<span class="i0">To fainting heart and the despairing soul</span> -<span class="i0">What is more soothing than the natural voice</span> -<span class="i0">Of birds? One Candlemas, many years ago,</span> -<span class="i0">When weak with pain and sickness, it infused</span> -<span class="i0">Into my soul a bliss delectable.</span> -<span class="i0">For suddenly into the misty air</span> -<span class="i0">A mellow, smooth and liquid music, clear</span> -<span class="i0">As silver, softer than an organ stop</span> -<span class="i0">Ere the bass grumbles, rose. The blunted winds,</span> -<span class="i0">No longer edged severely with keen frost,</span> -<span class="i0">Forgot to whisper, and a summer-calm</span> -<span class="i0">Pervaded soul and sense. No violet</span> -<span class="i0">As yet breathed perfume; from the darkling sward</span> -<span class="i0">No snowdrop boldly peeped; and even the ash,</span> -<span class="i0">Whence flowed the sound, unfolded not her buds</span> -<span class="i0">To blacken while the embryo gathered green.</span> -<span class="i0">And yet this hardy herald of the Spring</span> -<span class="i0">Chaunted rich harmony, daintily carved out</span> -<span class="i0">Her voice, and through her sleek throat sobb’d her soul</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -<span class="i0">In a delicious tremble. As she tuned</span> -<span class="i0">Her pliant song, slow from the closing sky</span> -<span class="i0">The sacred snow fell calm. Yet through the shower,</span> -<span class="i0">Hushing all nature into silence, clear</span> -<span class="i0">The <i>Feltie-flier</i><a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> trilled her slippery close</span> -<span class="i0">In panting rapture, from the whitening ash.</span> -<span class="i0">I stood all wonder; and to this late hour</span> -<span class="i0">Remember the dear song with ravishment;</span> -<span class="i0">Nor ever comes a merry Candlemas day</span> -<span class="i0">But I am out to hear. And if perchance</span> -<span class="i0">Some warbler sprinkle on the vacant air</span> -<span class="i0">Its homeless notes, the bird seems to my heart</span> -<span class="i0">The individual bird of comely grey</span> -<span class="i0">That sang her pliant strain through falling snow.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Now, when the crumbling glebe is by the wind</span> -<span class="i0">Unbound, and snows adown the mountains hoar</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Glide liquid, from the furrow loose the plough.</span> -<span class="i0">Enyoke the willing horses, and upturn</span> -<span class="i0">With deep-pressed share the saponaceous loam.</span> -<span class="i0">From morn to even with progression slow</span> -<span class="i0">The ploughboy cuts his awkward parallels,</span> -<span class="i0">And soberly imbrowns the decent fields.</span> -<span class="i0">It was a hazy February day</span> -<span class="i0">Ten years ago, when I, a boy of ten,</span> -<span class="i0">Beheld a country ploughing-match. The morn</span> -<span class="i0">Lighted the east with a dim smoky flare</span> -<span class="i0">Of leaden purple, as the rumbling wains</span> -<span class="i0">Each with a plough light-laden (while behind</span> -<span class="i0">Trotted a horse sleek-comb’d and tail bedight</span> -<span class="i0">With many coloured ribbons) by our home</span> -<span class="i0">Went downwards to the rich fat meadow-grounds</span> -<span class="i0">Bounding the Luggie. Many a herd of beeves</span> -<span class="i0">Dew-lapp’d had fattened there, and headlong oft</span> -<span class="i0">O’er the hoof-clattering turf they wildly ran,</span> -<span class="i0">Lashing with swinging tail the thirsty flies.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -<span class="i0">But now the smooth expanse of level green</span> -<span class="i0">Was quickly to be changed to sober brown;</span> -<span class="i0">And twenty ploughs by twenty ploughmen held</span> -<span class="i0">To cut with shining share the living turf.</span> -<span class="i0">Oh many a wintry hour, thro’ wind and rain,</span> -<span class="i0">In valleys gloom’d, or by the bleak hill-side</span> -<span class="i0">Lonely, these twenty had themselves inured</span> -<span class="i0">And stubborn’d to perfection. Many a touch</span> -<span class="i0">And word of honest kindness had been used</span> -<span class="i0">To the dear faithful horses <i>snooving</i> on</span> -<span class="i0">In quiet patience, jutting noble chests.</span> -<span class="i0">Now the big day, expected long, was come:</span> -<span class="i0">And, with proud shoulders yoked, conscious they stood</span> -<span class="i0">Patient and unrefusing; while behind,</span> -<span class="i0">All ready stripped, brown brawny arms displayed—</span> -<span class="i0">Arms sinewed by long labour—eager swains</span> -<span class="i0">O’er-leaning slight, with cautious wary hold</span> -<span class="i0">The plough detain. At the commencing sign</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -<span class="i0">A simultaneous noise discordant tears</span> -<span class="i0">The air thick-closing to a hazy damp.</span> -<span class="i0">Sudden the horses move, and the clear yokes,</span> -<span class="i0">Well polished, clatter. With an artful bend</span> -<span class="i0">The gleaming coulter takes the grass and cuts</span> -<span class="i0">The greenly tedded blades with nibbling noise</span> -<span class="i0">Almost unheard. The smooth share follows fast;</span> -<span class="i0">And from its shining slope the clayey glebe</span> -<span class="i0">In neat and neighbouring furrows sidelong falls.</span> -<span class="i0">Thus till the dank, raw-cold, and unpurged day</span> -<span class="i0">Gathering its rheumy humours threatens rain;</span> -<span class="i0">And the bleak night steals up the forlorn east.</span> -<span class="i0">And when the careful verdict is preferr’d</span> -<span class="i0">By the wise judge (a gray-hair’d husbandman,</span> -<span class="i0">Himself in his fresh youth a ploughboy keen),</span> -<span class="i0">Some bosoms fire exultant. Others, slow</span> -<span class="i0">Their reeking horses harnessed, lag along</span> -<span class="i0">Heart-sad and weary; and the rumbling noise</span> -<span class="i0">Of homeward-going carts for miles away</span> -<span class="i0">Is heard, till night brings silence and repose.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But never with sad motions of the soul,</span> -<span class="i0">Despairing, yoked his sleek and smoking team</span> -<span class="i0">For homeward journey my belovëd friend!</span> -<span class="i0">He the great prize, the guinea all of gold,</span> -<span class="i0">Gained thrice and grew a very famous man;</span> -<span class="i0">Till Death, the churl accurs’d, him in his prime</span> -<span class="i0">Bore to the border-land of wonder. Then</span> -<span class="i0">I felt the blank in life when dies a friend.</span> -<span class="i0">Inexplicable emptiness and want</span> -<span class="i0">Unsatisfied! The unrepealable law</span> -<span class="i0">Consumed the living while the dead decayed.</span> -<span class="i0">No more, no more thro’ glorious nights of May</span> -<span class="i0">We wander, chasing pleasure as of old.</span> -<span class="i0">First night of May! and the soft-silvered moon</span> -<span class="i0">Brightens her semicircle in the blue;</span> -<span class="i0">And ’mid the tawny orange of the west</span> -<span class="i0">Shines the full star that ushers in the even!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -<span class="i0">On the low meadows by the Luggie-side</span> -<span class="i0">Gathers a semi-lucent mist, and creeps</span> -<span class="i0">In busy silence, shrouding golden furze</span> -<span class="i0">And leafy copsewood. Thro’ the tortuous dell</span> -<span class="i0">Like an eternal sound the Luggie flows</span> -<span class="i0">In unreposing melody. And here,</span> -<span class="i0">Three perfect summers gone, my dear first friend</span> -<span class="i0">Was with me; and we swore a sudden oath,</span> -<span class="i0">To travel half-a-dozen miles and court</span> -<span class="i0">Two sisters, whose sweet faces sunshine kissed</span> -<span class="i0">To berry brown and country comeliness—</span> -<span class="i0">Kiss-worthier than the love of Solomon.</span> -<span class="i0">So singing clearly with a merry heart</span> -<span class="i0">Old songs—<i>It was upon a Lammas nicht</i>;</span> -<span class="i0">And that sweet thing by gentle Tannahill,</span> -<span class="i0">Married to music sweeter than itself;</span> -<span class="i0"><i>The Lowland Lassie</i>—thro’ dew-silvered fields</span> -<span class="i0">We hastened ’mid the mist our footsteps raised</span> -<span class="i0">Until we reached the moorland. From its bed</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Among the purplish heather whirring rose</span> -<span class="i0">The plover, wildly screaming; and from glens</span> -<span class="i0">Of moaning firs the pheasant’s piercing shriek</span> -<span class="i0">Discordant sounded. Then, ’mong elder trees</span> -<span class="i0">Throwing antique fat shadows, soon we saw</span> -<span class="i0">The window panes, moon-whitened; and low heard</span> -<span class="i0">Bawtie, the shaggie collie, grumble out</span> -<span class="i0">His disapproval in a sullen growl.</span> -<span class="i0">But slyly wearing nearer, cried my friend,</span> -<span class="i0">“Whisht, Bawtie! Bawtie!” and the fellow came</span> -<span class="i0">Whining, and laid a wet nose in his palm</span> -<span class="i0">Obedient, while I tinkled on the panes</span> -<span class="i0">A fairy summons to the souls within.</span> -<span class="i0">The door creaked musically, and a face</span> -<span class="i0">Peeped smiling, till I whispered, “Open, Kate!”</span> -<span class="i0">And thro’ the moonshine came the low sweet quest—</span> -<span class="i0">“Oh! is it you?” My answer was a kiss.</span> -<span class="i0">Then entering the kitchen paved with stone,</span> -<span class="i0">We kicked the sparkling faggot till it blazed;</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And sitting round it, many a tale of love</span> -<span class="i0">Was told, until the chrysolite of dawn</span> -<span class="i0">Burned in the east, and from the mountain rolled</span> -<span class="i0">The sarcenet mists far-flaming with the morn.</span> -<span class="i0">This was my first of May three years ago:</span> -<span class="i0">Now in a churchyard by the Bothlin side—</span> -<span class="i0"><i>The Auld Aisle</i>—moulders my first friend, and keeps</span> -<span class="i0">An early tryste with God, the All in All.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We sat at school together on one seat,</span> -<span class="i0">Came home together thro’ the lanes, and knew</span> -<span class="i0">The dunnock’s nest together in the hedge,</span> -<span class="i0">With smooth blue eggs in cosy brightness warm.</span> -<span class="i0">And as two youngling kine on cold Spring nights</span> -<span class="i0">Lie close together on the bleak hill-side</span> -<span class="i0">For mutual heat, so when a trouble came</span> -<span class="i0">We crept to one another, growing still</span> -<span class="i0">True friends in interchange of heart and soul.</span> -<span class="i0">But suddenly death changed his countenance,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And grav’d him in the darkness far from me.</span> -<span class="i0">O Friendship, prelibation of divine</span> -<span class="i0">Enjoyment, union exquisite of soul,</span> -<span class="i0">How many blessings do I owe to thee,</span> -<span class="i0">How much of incommunicable woe!</span> -<span class="i0">The daisies bloom among the tall green blades</span> -<span class="i0">Upon his grave, and listening you may hear</span> -<span class="i0">The Bothlin make sweet music as she flows;</span> -<span class="i0">And you may see the poplars by her brink</span> -<span class="i0">Twinkle their silvery leaflets in the sun.</span> -<span class="i0">O little wandering preacher, Bothlin brook!</span> -<span class="i0">Wind musically by his lonely grave.</span> -<span class="i0">O well-known face, for ever lost! and voice,</span> -<span class="i0">For ever silent! I have heard thee sing</span> -<span class="i0">In village inns what time the silver frost</span> -<span class="i0">Curtained the panes in silent ministry,</span> -<span class="i0">Sing old Scotch ballads full of love and woe,</span> -<span class="i0">While the assimilative snow fell white and calm</span> -<span class="i0">With ceaseless lapse. And I have seen thee dance</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Wild galliards with the buxom lasses, far</span> -<span class="i0">In lone farm-houses set on whistling hills,</span> -<span class="i0">While the storm thickened into thunder-cloud.</span> -<span class="i0">Dear mentor in all rustic merriment,</span> -<span class="i0">Ever as hearty as the night was long!</span> -<span class="i0">I miss thee often, as I do to-night,</span> -<span class="i0">And my heart fills; and thy belovëd songs</span> -<span class="i0">The music and the words ring in my ears,</span> -<span class="i0"><i>Then Lowland lassie wilt thou go</i>—until</span> -<span class="i0">My eyes are full of tears, dear heart! dear heart!</span> -<span class="i0">And I could pass the perilous edge of death</span> -<span class="i0">To see thy dear, clear face, and hear again</span> -<span class="i0">The old wild music as of old, of old.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But as the Luggie with a plaintive song</span> -<span class="i0">Twists thro’ a glen of greenest gloom, and gropes</span> -<span class="i0">For open sunshine; and, the shadows past,</span> -<span class="i0">Glides quicker-footed thro’ divided meads</span> -<span class="i0">With sliding purl, so from that tale of gloom</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -<span class="i0">My song with happier motions seeks the calm</span> -<span class="i0">And quiet smoothness of a silver end.</span> -<span class="i0">From orient valleys where as lucent dew</span> -<span class="i0">As ever jewelled Hermon, falls and shines</span> -<span class="i0">Fulfilled by sunrise; where slant arrow-showers</span> -<span class="i0">Of golden beams make every twinkling drop</span> -<span class="i0">A diamond, and every blade of grass</span> -<span class="i0">A glory;—comes the earth-born wanderer</span> -<span class="i0">Sweet Luggie, singing. Over the mill-dam</span> -<span class="i0">Sounding, a cataract in miniature,</span> -<span class="i0">White-robed it dashes thro’ unceasing mist.</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ ivied bridge, adown its rocky bed</span> -<span class="i0">Shadowed by wavy limes whose branches bend</span> -<span class="i0">Kissing the wave to ripples, on it purls</span> -<span class="i0">Abrupt, capricious, past the hazel bower</span> -<span class="i0">Where marriageable maid is being woo’d;</span> -<span class="i0">And as on sward of velvet by her side</span> -<span class="i0">Her lover low reclines, while his dear tongue</span> -<span class="i0">Voices warm passion—she confiding lays</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -<span class="i0">All her mild beauty in his manly breast</span> -<span class="i0">Blushing. Ah, Luggie! sure you murmur now</span> -<span class="i0">Clearly and dearly o’er thy pumy stones!</span> -<span class="i0">And when amid a pause of thought they hear</span> -<span class="i0">Thy babblement of music, never a shade</span> -<span class="i0">Darkens their souls. Thy song is happiness,</span> -<span class="i0">A revelation of sweet sympathies</span> -<span class="i0">By them interpreted; for never yet</span> -<span class="i0">Was Nature sullen when the spirit shone.</span> -<span class="i0">This is in twilight, when that only star</span> -<span class="i0">White Hesperus from chastest azure grows;</span> -<span class="i0">And as night trails her thousand shadows slow</span> -<span class="i0">Over the spinning world, the streamlet sings</span> -<span class="i0">Her mother earth asleep. O Autumn nights!</span> -<span class="i0">When skies are deeply blue, and the full moon</span> -<span class="i0">Soars in voluptuous whiteness, Juno-like,</span> -<span class="i0">A passionate splendour; when in the great south</span> -<span class="i0">Orion like a frozen skeleton</span> -<span class="i0">Hints of his ancient hugeness and mail’d strength;</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And Cassiopeia glimmers cold and clear</span> -<span class="i0">Upon her throne of seven diamonds!</span> -<span class="i0">In the thick-foliaged brake, the nightingale</span> -<span class="i0">Of Scotland, chirping stonechacker, prolongs</span> -<span class="i0">With <i>whit, whit, chirr-r</i> the day’s full melody.</span> -<span class="i0">Far-sounding thro’ blue silence and smooth air,</span> -<span class="i0">The drumming noise of the hoarse waterfall</span> -<span class="i0">Is heard unheeded all by homely fires,</span> -<span class="i0">And heard unheeded all in hazel bower</span> -<span class="i0">Where love wings hours of serene joy; and still</span> -<span class="i0">As roams with <i>eerie</i> wail the unbodied wind</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ ghostly glen of pine, the maiden clings</span> -<span class="i0">More closely, till two firm entwining arms</span> -<span class="i0">Press comfort; and there is a touch of lips.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Now in this season—ere the flickering leaves,</span> -<span class="i0">Touch’d with October’s fiery alchemy,</span> -<span class="i0">Grow sere and crisp—is shorn the meadow-hay.</span> -<span class="i0">Mingled with spiral orchis, dim blue-bell</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of delicatest azure, crowfoot smooth,</span> -<span class="i0">And ox-eye flaunting with faint flowers wild,</span> -<span class="i0">Nameless to me—the fragrant rye-grass grew.</span> -<span class="i0">Now with a measured sweep the keen-edged scythe</span> -<span class="i0">Cuts all to wither in the imbrowning sun.</span> -<span class="i0">Two golden days o’erpast (with eves of cloud</span> -<span class="i0">Magnificently coloured, heaped and strewn</span> -<span class="i0">Confusedly) the country lasses come</span> -<span class="i0">Bare-armed, bare-ancled; and ’mid honest mirth</span> -<span class="i0">And homely jests with tinkling laughter winged,</span> -<span class="i0">Gather the fading balm. With kindling eyes,</span> -<span class="i0">And all the life of maidenhood aflame</span> -<span class="i0">In little tremulous pants,—they carry light</span> -<span class="i0">The warm load to the stack.</span> -<span class="i32">Oh, many a time</span> -<span class="i0">The old man, building slow the rising stack,</span> -<span class="i0">Saw and reproved not our wild merriment:</span> -<span class="i0">Remembering, half-sad, his own fresh youth</span> -<span class="i0">When beauty was a magic to the soul</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And a fair face a charm; when a lip-touch</span> -<span class="i0">Was necromancy; and the perfect life</span> -<span class="i0">A wondrous yearning after womanhood.</span> -<span class="i0">But at the breathless nerve-dissolving noon,</span> -<span class="i0">When hot the undiminished sun downthrows</span> -<span class="i0">Direct his beams, they from the field retire</span> -<span class="i0">To cool consoling grove, or haply seek</span> -<span class="i0">The drowsy pool by beechen shadow chilled,</span> -<span class="i0">To lave the limbs relaxed. With eager leap,</span> -<span class="i0">Headlong they plunge from the enamelled bank</span> -<span class="i0">Into the liquid cold, and slowly move</span> -<span class="i0">With measured strokes and palms outspread; while oft,</span> -<span class="i0">When the clear water rises o’er the lip</span> -<span class="i0">Dallying, they uptilt the swelling chest</span> -<span class="i0">In unspent vigour.</span> -<span class="i26">Oh, the pleasant time!</span> -<span class="i0">Pleasant beneath embowering trees, when day</span> -<span class="i0">Hides with her silken mists the distant scene</span> -<span class="i0">And breathes afar a nerve-dissolving steam—</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Pleasant in sweet consolatory shade</span> -<span class="i0">To wander pensive. Then the soul serenes</span> -<span class="i0">The turbulent passions, and in devout trance,</span> -<span class="i0">Unconscious of celestial power, reveals</span> -<span class="i0">The God reflected in fair natural forms.</span> -<span class="i0">For as the Sun disdains the vulgar gaze</span> -<span class="i0">In his uplifted sphere, yet in the broad</span> -<span class="i0">Grey Ocean shews a softer face, so God</span> -<span class="i0">In nature shines. Oh, sweet the bowery path</span> -<span class="i0">Of fair Glenconner, where in volant youth</span> -<span class="i0">I saw the heroes of divine Romance.</span> -<span class="i0">No pathway winding through fresh orange groves,</span> -<span class="i0">Leading to white Campanian city, set</span> -<span class="i0">Inviolably by the sapphire sea,</span> -<span class="i0">Can fair Glenconner’s umbrage-shadowed way</span> -<span class="i0">Excel. The bird-embowering beechen boughs,</span> -<span class="i0">Kissing each other, on the dusty way</span> -<span class="i0">Throw trembling shadows; and when warm west winds</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Roam hither in voluptuous unconcern,</span> -<span class="i0">There is a music and a fragrancy</span> -<span class="i0">Upon Glenconner, like the music hymned</span> -<span class="i0">By quires angelic on cerulean floors.</span> -<span class="i0">Deem not I speak in vanity, or speak</span> -<span class="i0">In false hyperbole, as poets do</span> -<span class="i0">When languaging in love the radiance</span> -<span class="i0">Of maids; but there is beauty and delight</span> -<span class="i0">And passive feeling sweeter than all sense,</span> -<span class="i0">To him who walks beneath the boughs, and hears</span> -<span class="i0">The humming music like the sound of seas.</span> -<span class="i0">There have I dreamed for hours—and gathered there</span> -<span class="i0">The homely inspiration which fulfils</span> -<span class="i0">The yearning of my soul. There have I felt</span> -<span class="i0">The unconfined divinity which lies</span> -<span class="i0">In beauty; and when the eternal stars</span> -<span class="i0">Have twinkled silver thro’ illumined leaves,</span> -<span class="i0">I could not choose but worship.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i34">O fair eves</span> -<span class="i0">Of undescribable sweetness long ago!</span> -<span class="i0">When gloaming caught me musing unawares,</span> -<span class="i0">Musing alone beneath the whispering leaves</span> -<span class="i0">That overshade Glenconner. Hour of calm</span> -<span class="i0">Suggestive thought, when, like a robe, the earth</span> -<span class="i0">Puts on a shadowy pensiveness, and stills</span> -<span class="i0">The music of her motions multiform.</span> -<span class="i0">Day lingered in the west; and thro’ a sky</span> -<span class="i0">Of thinly-waning orange, sullen clouds</span> -<span class="i0">Of amethyst, with flamy purple edged,</span> -<span class="i0">Moved evenly in sluggish pilotage.</span> -<span class="i0">The windless shades of quiet eventide</span> -<span class="i0">Slow gathered, and the sweet concordant tones</span> -<span class="i0">Of melody within the leafy brake</span> -<span class="i0">Died clearly, till the Mavis piped alone;</span> -<span class="i0">Then softly from the jasper sky, a star</span> -<span class="i0">Drew radiant silver, brightening as the west</span> -<span class="i0">Darkened. But ere the semicircled moon</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Shed her white light adown the lucent air,</span> -<span class="i0">The Mavis ceased, and thro’ the thin gloom brake</span> -<span class="i0">The Corncraik’s curious cry, the sylvan voice</span> -<span class="i0">Of the shy bird that haunts the bladed corn;</span> -<span class="i0">And suddenly, yet silently, the blue</span> -<span class="i0">Deepened, until innumerous white stars</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ crystal smooth and yielding ether drooped,</span> -<span class="i0">Not coldly, but in passionate June glow.</span> -<span class="i0">The Corncraik now, ’mong tall green bladed corn</span> -<span class="i0">Breasted her eggs with feathers dew-besprent,</span> -<span class="i0">And stayed her human cry. The silence left</span> -<span class="i0">A gap within the soul, a sudden grief,</span> -<span class="i0">An emptiness in the low sighing air.</span> -<span class="i0">Then swooning through full night, the summer’d earth</span> -<span class="i0">Bosom’d her children into tender rest;</span> -<span class="i0">Now delicately chambered ladies breathe</span> -<span class="i0">Their souls asleep in white-limb’d luxury.</span> -<span class="i0">O Virgins purest lipped! with snowy lids</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Soft closed on living eyes! O unkissed cheeks,</span> -<span class="i0">Half-sunk in pillowy pressure, and round arms</span> -<span class="i0">In the sweet pettishness of silver dreams</span> -<span class="i0">Flung warm into the cold unheeding air!</span> -<span class="i0">Sleep! soft bedewer of infantine eyes,</span> -<span class="i0">Pouter of rosy little lips! plump hands</span> -<span class="i0">Are doubled into deeply-dimpled fists</span> -<span class="i0">And stretched in rosy langour, curls are laid</span> -<span class="i0">In fragrance on the rounded baby-face,</span> -<span class="i0">Kiss-worthy darling! Stiller of clear tongues</span> -<span class="i0">And silvery laughter! Now the musical noise</span> -<span class="i0">Of little feet is silent, and blue shoes</span> -<span class="i0">No more come pattering from the nursery door.</span> -<span class="i0">Death is not of thee, Sleep! Thy calm domain</span> -<span class="i0">Is tempered with a dreamy bliss, and dimmed</span> -<span class="i0">With haunted glooms, and richly sanctified</span> -<span class="i0">With the fine elements of Paradise.</span> -<span class="i0">Burn in the gleaming sky, ye far-off Stars!</span> -<span class="i0">And thou, O inoffensive Crescent! lift</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The wonder of thy softness, the white shell</span> -<span class="i0">Of thy clear beauty, till the wholesome dawn</span> -<span class="i0">Wither thy brightness pale, and borrowed pride!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But sleep supine, on indolent afternoon</span> -<span class="i0">Ere the winds wake, and holy mountain airs</span> -<span class="i0">Descend, is sweet. Oh, let the bard describe</span> -<span class="i0">The sacred spot where, underneath the round</span> -<span class="i0">Green odoriferous sycamore, he lay</span> -<span class="i0">Sleepless, yet half-asleep, in that one mood</span> -<span class="i0">When the quick sense is duped, and angel wings</span> -<span class="i0">Make spiritual music. Sweet and dim</span> -<span class="i0">The sacred spot, belovëd not alone</span> -<span class="i0">For its own beauty: but the memories,</span> -<span class="i0">The pictures of the past which in the mind</span> -<span class="i0">Arise in fair profusion, each distinct</span> -<span class="i0">With the soft hue of some peculiar mood,</span> -<span class="i0">Enchant to living lustre what before</span> -<span class="i0">Was to the untaught vision simply fair.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -<span class="i0">In a fair valley, carpeted with turf</span> -<span class="i0">Elastic, sloping upwards from the stream,</span> -<span class="i0">A rounded sycamore in honied leaves</span> -<span class="i0">Most plenteous, murmurous with humming bees,</span> -<span class="i0">Shadows a well. Darkly the crystal wave</span> -<span class="i0">Gleams cold, secluded; on its polished breast</span> -<span class="i0">Imaging twining boughs. No pitcher breaks</span> -<span class="i0">Its natural sleep, except at morn and eve</span> -<span class="i0">When my good mother thro’ the dewy grass</span> -<span class="i0">Walks patient with her vessels, bringing home</span> -<span class="i0">The clear refreshment. Every blowing Spring,</span> -<span class="i0">A snowdrop, with pure streaks of delicate green</span> -<span class="i0">Upon its inmost leaves, from withered grass</span> -<span class="i0">Springs whitely, and within its limpid breast</span> -<span class="i0">Is mirror’d whitely. Not a finger plucks</span> -<span class="i0">This hidden beauty; but it blooms and dies,</span> -<span class="i0">In lonely lustre blooms and lonely dies—</span> -<span class="i0">Unknown, unloved, save by one simple heart</span> -<span class="i0">Poetic, the creator of this song.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And after this frail luxury hath given</span> -<span class="i0">Its little life in keeping to the soul</span> -<span class="i0">Of all the worlds, a robin builds its nest</span> -<span class="i0">In lowly cleft, a foot or so above</span> -<span class="i0">The water. His dried leaves, and moss, and grass</span> -<span class="i0">He hither carries, lining all with hair</span> -<span class="i0">For softness. I have laid the hand that writes</span> -<span class="i0">These rhymes belovëd, on the crimson breast,</span> -<span class="i0">Sleek-soft, that panted o’er the five unborn;</span> -<span class="i0">While, leaf-hid, o’er me sang the watchful mate</span> -<span class="i0">Plaintive, and with a sorrow in the song,</span> -<span class="i0">In silvan nook where anchoret might dwell</span> -<span class="i0">Contented. Often on September days,</span> -<span class="i0">When woods were efflorescent, and the fields</span> -<span class="i0">Refulgent with the bounty of the corn,</span> -<span class="i0">And warming sunshine filled the breathless air</span> -<span class="i0">With a pale steam,—in heart-confused mood</span> -<span class="i0">Have I worn holidays enraptured there;</span> -<span class="i0">For, O dear God! there is a pure delight</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -<span class="i0">In dreaming: in those mental-weary times,</span> -<span class="i0">When the vext spirit finds a false content</span> -<span class="i0">In fashioning delusions. Oh, to lie</span> -<span class="i0">Supinely stretched upon the shaded turf,</span> -<span class="i0">Beholding thro’ the openings of green leaves</span> -<span class="i0">White clouds in silence navigating slow</span> -<span class="i0">Cerulean seas illimitable! Hushed</span> -<span class="i0">The drowsy noon, and, with a stilly sound</span> -<span class="i0">Like harmony of thought, the Luggie frets—</span> -<span class="i0">Its bubbling mellowed to a musical hum</span> -<span class="i0">By distance. Then the influences faint,</span> -<span class="i0">Those visionary impulses that swell</span> -<span class="i0">The soul to inspiration, crowding come</span> -<span class="i0">Mysterious: and phantom memory</span> -<span class="i0">(Ghost of dead feeling) haunts the undissolved,</span> -<span class="i0">The unsubvertive temple of the soul!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But as thro’ loamy meadows lipping slow</span> -<span class="i0">Eats the fern-fringëd Luggie; and in spray</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Leaps the mill-dam, and o’er the rocky flats</span> -<span class="i0">Spreads in black eddies; so my firstborn song</span> -<span class="i0">Hastes to the end in heedless vagrancy.</span> -<span class="i0">O ravishingly sweet the clacking noise</span> -<span class="i0">Of looms that murmur in our quiet dell!</span> -<span class="i0">No fairer valley Dyer ever dreamed—</span> -<span class="i0">Dyer, best river-singer, bard among</span> -<span class="i0">Ten thousand. Reader, hasten ye and come,</span> -<span class="i0">And see the Luggie wind her liquid stream</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ copsy villages and spiry towns;</span> -<span class="i0">And see the Bothlin trotting swift of foot</span> -<span class="i0">From glades of alder, eager to combine</span> -<span class="i0">Her dimpling harmony with Luggie’s calm</span> -<span class="i0">Clear music, like the music of the soul.</span> -<span class="i0">But where you see the meeting, reader, stay,</span> -<span class="i0">O stay and hear the music of the looms.</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ homely rustic bridge with ivy shagged</span> -<span class="i0">(Which you shall see if ever you do come</span> -<span class="i0">A summer pilgrim to our valley fair),</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The Luggie flows with bells of foam-like stars</span> -<span class="i0">About its surface. A smooth bleaching-green</span> -<span class="i0">Spreads its soft carpet to the open doors</span> -<span class="i0">Of simple houses, shining-white. Blue smoke</span> -<span class="i0">Curls thro’ the breathing air to the tree-tops</span> -<span class="i0">Thin spreading, and is lost. A humming noise</span> -<span class="i0">Industrious is heard, the clack of looms,</span> -<span class="i0">Whereon sit maidens, homely fair, and full</span> -<span class="i0">Of household simpleness, who sing and weave,</span> -<span class="i0">And sing and weave thro’ all the easy hours,</span> -<span class="i0">Each day to-morrow’s counterpart, and smooth</span> -<span class="i0">Memory the mirror wherein golden Hope,</span> -<span class="i0">Contented, sees herself. Here dwell an old</span> -<span class="i0">Couple whose lives have known twice forty years</span> -<span class="i0">(My mother’s parents), their sage spirits touched</span> -<span class="i0">With blest anticipation of a home</span> -<span class="i0">Celestial bright, wherein they may fulfil</span> -<span class="i0">The life which death discovers. Last winter night</span> -<span class="i0">I, an accustomed visitant, beheld</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The dear old pair. He in an easy chair</span> -<span class="i0">Lay dozing, while beside her noiseless wheel</span> -<span class="i0">She sat, her brow into her lap declined,</span> -<span class="i0">And half asleep! Sure sign, my mother said,</span> -<span class="i0">Of the conclusion of mortality.</span> -<span class="i0">A boy of ten, their grandson, on the floor</span> -<span class="i0">Lay stretched in early slumber; all the three</span> -<span class="i0">Unconscious of my entrance. A strange sight,</span> -<span class="i0">Fraught with strange lessons for the human soul.</span> -<span class="i0">In the first portion of her married life,</span> -<span class="i0">This woman, now, alas! so weary, old,</span> -<span class="i0">Bore daughters five; of well-beloved sons</span> -<span class="i0">An equal number. Some of them died young,</span> -<span class="i0">But six are yet alive, and dwelling all</span> -<span class="i0">Within a mile of her own house. The flower,</span> -<span class="i0">The idol of the mother, and her pride,</span> -<span class="i0">Dear magnet of all hopes, embodiment</span> -<span class="i0">Of heavenly blessings, was the youngest son,</span> -<span class="i0">Youngest of all. Me often has she told</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -<span class="i0">How not a man could fling the stone with him;</span> -<span class="i0">That in his shoes he outran racers fleet</span> -<span class="i0">Barefooted; dancing on the shaven green</span> -<span class="i0">On summer holidays and autumn eves</span> -<span class="i0">(As to this day they do) his laugh was clearest,</span> -<span class="i0">Lightest his step; and he could thrill the hearts</span> -<span class="i0">Of simple women by a natural grace,</span> -<span class="i0">And perilous recital of love tales.</span> -<span class="i0">I cannot tell by what mysterious means,</span> -<span class="i0">Day-dream, or silver vision of the night,</span> -<span class="i0">Or sacred show of reason, picturing</span> -<span class="i0">A smooth ambition and calm happiness</span> -<span class="i0">For years of weaker age—but suddenly</span> -<span class="i0">In prime of life there flowered in his soul</span> -<span class="i0">An inextinguishable love to be</span> -<span class="i0">A minister of God. When holy schemes</span> -<span class="i0">Govern the motions of the spirit, ways</span> -<span class="i0">Are found to compass them. With wary care,</span> -<span class="i0">Frugality praiseworthy, and the strength</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of two strong arms, he in the summer months</span> -<span class="i0">Hoarded a competence equivalent</span> -<span class="i0">To all demands, until the session’s end.</span> -<span class="i0">Whate’er by manual labour he had gained</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ the clear summer months in verdant fields,</span> -<span class="i0">With brooks of silver laced, and cool’d with winds,</span> -<span class="i0">Was spent in winter in the smoky town.</span> -<span class="i0">But when, his annual course of study past,</span> -<span class="i0">He with his presence blessed his father’s house,</span> -<span class="i0">With what a sacred sanctity of hope</span> -<span class="i0">Eager his mother dreamed, or garrulous</span> -<span class="i0">Spake of him everywhere—his foreign ways,</span> -<span class="i0">And midnight porings o’er <i>uncanny</i> books.</span> -<span class="i0">His father, with a stern delight suffused,</span> -<span class="i0">Grew a proud man of some importance now</span> -<span class="i0">In his own eyes; for who in all the vale</span> -<span class="i0">Had e’er a son so noble and so learned,</span> -<span class="i0">So worthy as his own?</span> -<span class="i0">So time wore on: but when three years complete</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Had perfected their separate destinies,</span> -<span class="i0">A change stole o’er the current of their lives,</span> -<span class="i0">As a cloud-shadow glooms the crystal stream.</span> -<span class="i0">Their son came home, but with his coming came</span> -<span class="i0">Sorrow. A hue too beautifully fair</span> -<span class="i0">Brighten’d his cheek, as sunlight tints a cloud.</span> -<span class="i0">His face had caught a trick of joy more sad</span> -<span class="i0">Than visible grief; and all the subtle frame</span> -<span class="i0">Of human life, so wonderfully wrought,</span> -<span class="i0">A mystery of mechanism, was wearing</span> -<span class="i0">In sore uneasy manner to the grave.</span> -<span class="i0">What need to tell what every heart must know</span> -<span class="i0">In sympathy prophetical? Long time,</span> -<span class="i0">A varied year in seasons four complete</span> -<span class="i0">(For the white snowdrop o’er my mother’s well</span> -<span class="i0">Twice oped its whitest leaves among the green),</span> -<span class="i0">He lay consuming. It must needs have been</span> -<span class="i0">A weary trial to the thinking soul,</span> -<span class="i0">Thus with a consciousness of coming death,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The grim Attenuation! evermore</span> -<span class="i0">Nearing insatiate. At her spinning-wheel</span> -<span class="i0">His mother sat; and when his voice grew faint,</span> -<span class="i0">A simple whistle by his pillow lay,</span> -<span class="i0">And at its sound she entered patient, sad,</span> -<span class="i0">Her soothing love to minister, her hope</span> -<span class="i0">To nourish to its fading. But his breath</span> -<span class="i0">Grew weaker ever; and his dry pale lips</span> -<span class="i0">Closing upon the little instrument,</span> -<span class="i0">Could not produce a faintly audible note!</span> -<span class="i0">A little bell, the plaything of a child,</span> -<span class="i0">Now at his bedside hung, and its clear tones</span> -<span class="i0">Tinkled the weary summons. Thus his time</span> -<span class="i0">Narrowed to a completion, and his soul,</span> -<span class="i0">Immortal in its nature, thro’ his eyes</span> -<span class="i0">Yearning, beheld the majesty of Him</span> -<span class="i0">Great in His mystery of godliness,</span> -<span class="i0">Fulfiller of the dim Apocalypse!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Twelve years have passed since then, and he is now</span> -<span class="i0">A happy memory in the hearts of those</span> -<span class="i0">Who knew him; for to know him was to love.</span> -<span class="i0">And oft I deem it better, as the fates,</span> -<span class="i0">Or God, whose will is fate, have proven it;</span> -<span class="i0">For had he lived and fallen (as who of us</span> -<span class="i0">Doth perfectly? and let him that is proud</span> -<span class="i0">Take heed lest he do fall) he would have been</span> -<span class="i0">A sadness to them in their aged hours.</span> -<span class="i0">But now he is an honour and delight;</span> -<span class="i0">A treasure of the memory; a joy</span> -<span class="i0">Unutterable: by the lone fireside</span> -<span class="i0">They never tire to speak his praise, and say</span> -<span class="i0">How, if he had been spared, he would have been</span> -<span class="i0">So great, and good, and noble as (they say)</span> -<span class="i0">The country knows; although I know full well</span> -<span class="i0">That not a man in all the parish round</span> -<span class="i0">Speaks of him ever; he is now forgot,</span> -<span class="i0">And this his natal valley knows him not.—</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And this his natal valley knows him not?</span> -<span class="i0">The well-belovëd, nothing?—the fair face</span> -<span class="i0">And pliant limbs, poor indistinctive dust?</span> -<span class="i0">The body, blood, and network of the brain</span> -<span class="i0">Crumbled as a clod crumbles! Is this all?</span> -<span class="i0">A turf, a date, an epitaph, and then</span> -<span class="i0">Oblivion, and profound nonentity!</span> -<span class="i0">And thus his natal valley knows him not.</span> -<span class="i0">Trees murmur to the passing wind, streams flow,</span> -<span class="i0">Flowers shine with dewdrops in the shady glens,</span> -<span class="i0">All unintelligent creation smiles</span> -<span class="i0">In loving-kindness; but, like a light dream</span> -<span class="i0">Of morning, man arises in fair show,</span> -<span class="i0">Like the hued rainbow from incumbent gloom</span> -<span class="i0">Elicited, he shines against the sun—</span> -<span class="i0">A momentary glory. Not a voice</span> -<span class="i0">Remains to whisper of his whereabouts:</span> -<span class="i0">The palpable body in its mother’s breast</span> -<span class="i0">Dissolves, and every feature of the face</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Is lost in feculent changes. O black earth!</span> -<span class="i0">Wrap from bare eyes the slow decaying form,</span> -<span class="i0">The beauty rotting from the living hair,</span> -<span class="i0">The body made incapable thro’ sin</span> -<span class="i0">God’s Spirit to contain. Earth, wrap it close</span> -<span class="i0">Till the heavens vibrate to the trump of doom!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">This is not all: for the invisible soul</span> -<span class="i0">Betrays the soft desire, the quenchless wish,</span> -<span class="i0">To live a purer life, more proximate</span> -<span class="i0">To the prime Fountain of all life. The power</span> -<span class="i0">Of vivid fancy and the boundless scenes</span> -<span class="i0">(High coloured with the colouring of Heaven),</span> -<span class="i0">Creations of imagination, tell</span> -<span class="i0">The mortal yearnings of immortal souls!</span> -<span class="i0">Now, while around me in blind labour winds</span> -<span class="i0">Howl, and the rain-drops lash the streaming pane;</span> -<span class="i0">Now, while the pine-glen on the mountain side</span> -<span class="i0">Roars in its wrestling with the sightless foe,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And the black tarn grows hoary with the storm;—</span> -<span class="i0">Amid the external elemental war,</span> -<span class="i0">My soul with calm comportment—more becalmed</span> -<span class="i0">By the wild tempest furious without—</span> -<span class="i0">Sits in her sacred cell, and ruminates</span> -<span class="i0">On Death, severe discloser of new life.</span> -<span class="i0">When the well-known and once embraceable form</span> -<span class="i0">Is but a handful of white dust, the soul</span> -<span class="i0">Grows in divine dilation, nearer God.</span> -<span class="i0">Therefore grieve not, my heart, that unsustained</span> -<span class="i0">His memory died among us, that no more,</span> -<span class="i0">While yet the grass is hoary and the dawn</span> -<span class="i0">Lingers, he shyly thro’ untrodden fields</span> -<span class="i0">Brushes his early path: that he no more</span> -<span class="i0">Beneath the beech, in lassitude outstretched,</span> -<span class="i0">Ponders the holy strains of Israel’s King;</span> -<span class="i0">For in translated glory, and new clothed</span> -<span class="i0">With Incorruptible, he purer air</span> -<span class="i0">Breathes in a fairer valley. There no storm</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Maddens as now; no flux, and no opaque,</span> -<span class="i0">But all is calm, and permanent, and clear,</span> -<span class="i0">God’s glory and the Lamb illumine all!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Now ends this song—not for self-honour sung,</span> -<span class="i0">But in the Luggie’s service. It hath been</span> -<span class="i0">A crownëd vision and a silver dream,</span> -<span class="i0">That I should touch this valley with renown</span> -<span class="i0">Eternal, make the fretting waters gleam</span> -<span class="i0">In light above the common light of earth.</span> -<span class="i0">The shoreless air of heaven is purer here,</span> -<span class="i0">The golden beams more keenly crystalline,</span> -<span class="i0">The skies more deeply sapphired. For to me,</span> -<span class="i0">About these emerald fields and lawny hills,</span> -<span class="i0">There linger glories which you cannot see,</span> -<span class="i0">And influences which you cannot feel,</span> -<span class="i0">Delight and incommunicable woe!</span> -<span class="i0">My home is here; and like a patient star,</span> -<span class="i0">Shining between untroubled Paradise</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And my own soul, a mother shines therein,</span> -<span class="i0">The sole perfection of true womanhood:</span> -<span class="i0">A father—with the wisdom which pertains</span> -<span class="i0">To grey experience, and that stern delight</span> -<span class="i0">In naked truth, and reason which belongs</span> -<span class="i0">To the intense reflective mind—hath told</span> -<span class="i0">His fifty winters here. And all the hopes</span> -<span class="i0">Which gild the present; all the sad regrets</span> -<span class="i0">Which dull the past, are present to my soul</span> -<span class="i0">In the external forms and colourings</span> -<span class="i0">Of this dear valley. Therefore do I yearn</span> -<span class="i0">To make its stream flow in undying verse,</span> -<span class="i0">Low-singing thro’ the labyrinthine dell!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And let forgiving charity preclude</span> -<span class="i0">Harsh judgments from the singer: not that he</span> -<span class="i0">Fearfully would forestal the righteous word,</span> -<span class="i0">Blameworthy, spoken in kindness, and that truth</span> -<span class="i0">Which sanctions condemnation. Yet, dear Lord,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -<span class="i0">A youthful flattering of the spirit, touched</span> -<span class="i0">With a desire unquenchable, displays</span> -<span class="i0">My hope’s delirium. Oh! if the dream</span> -<span class="i0">Fade into nothing, into worse than nought,</span> -<span class="i0">Blackness of darkness like the golden zones</span> -<span class="i0">Of an autumnal sunset, and the night</span> -<span class="i0">Of unfulfilled ambition closes round</span> -<span class="i0">My destiny, think what an awful hell</span> -<span class="i0">O’erwhelms the conquer’d soul! Therefore, O men</span> -<span class="i0">Who guard with jealousy and loving care</span> -<span class="i0">The honour of our sacred literature,</span> -<span class="i0">Read with a kindness born of trustful hope,</span> -<span class="i0">Forgiving rambling schoolboy thoughts, too plain</span> -<span class="i0">To utter with a spasm, or clothe in cold</span> -<span class="i0">Mosaic fretwork of well-pleasing words,</span> -<span class="i0">Forgiving youth’s vagaries, want of skill,</span> -<span class="i0">And blind devotional passion for my home!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a02" id="a02"></a>In the Shadows.</h3></div> -<p class="f120"><i>A POEM IN SONNETS.</i></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> -<hr class="r5" /> -<h4>Induction.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_e.jpg" width="28" height="45" alt="E" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">ENTER, scared mortal! and in awe behold</span> -<span class="i5">The chancel of a dying poet’s mind,</span> -<span class="i0t">Hung round, ah! not adorned, with pictures bold</span> -<span class="i0">And quaint, but roughly touched for the refined.</span> -<span class="i0">The chancel not the charnel house! For I</span> -<span class="i0">To God have raised a shrine immaculate</span> -<span class="i0">Therein, whereon His name to glorify,</span> -<span class="i0">And daily mercies meekly celebrate.</span> -<span class="i0">So in, scared breather! here no hint of death—</span> -<span class="i0">Skull or cross-bones suggesting sceptic fear;</span> -<span class="i0">Yea rather calmer beauty, purer breath</span> -<span class="i0">Inhaled from a diviner atmosphere.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>I.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_i.jpg" width="32" height="45" alt="I" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">IF it must be; if it must be, O God!</span> -<span class="i5">That I die young, and make no further moans;</span> -<span class="i0t">That, underneath the unrespective sod,</span> -<span class="i2">In unescutcheoned privacy, my bones</span> -<span class="i0">Shall crumble soon,—then give me strength to bear</span> -<span class="i2">The last convulsive throe of too sweet breath!</span> -<span class="i0">I tremble from the edge of life, to dare</span> -<span class="i2">The dark and fatal leap, having no faith,</span> -<span class="i0">No glorious yearning for the Apocalypse;</span> -<span class="i2">But, like a child that in the night-time cries</span> -<span class="i0">For light, I cry; forgetting the eclipse</span> -<span class="i2">Of knowledge and our human destinies.</span> -<span class="i0">O peevish and uncertain soul! obey</span> -<span class="i2">The law of life in patience till the Day.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>II.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_w_quot.jpg" width="47" height="45" alt="“W" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">“WHOM the gods love die young.” The thought is old;</span> -<span class="i7">And yet it soothed the sweet Athenian mind.</span> -<span class="i0t">I take it with all pleasure, overbold,</span> -<span class="i2">Perhaps, yet to its virtue much inclined</span> -<span class="i0">By an inherent love for what is fair.</span> -<span class="i2">This is the utter poetry of woe—</span> -<span class="i0">That the bright-flashing gods should cure despair</span> -<span class="i2">By love, and make youth precious here below.</span> -<span class="i0">I die, being young; and, dying, could become</span> -<span class="i2">A pagan, with the tender Grecian trust.</span> -<span class="i0">Let death, the fell anatomy, benumb</span> -<span class="i2">The hand that writes, and fill my mouth with dust—</span> -<span class="i0">Chant no funereal theme, but, with a choral</span> -<span class="i0">Hymn, O ye mourners! hail immortal youth auroral!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>III.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_w.jpg" width="45" height="45" alt="W" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">WITH the tear-worthy four, consumption killed</span> -<span class="i8">In youthful prime, before the nebulous mind</span> -<span class="i2">Had its symmetric shapeliness defined,</span> -<span class="i0">Had its transcendent destiny fulfilled.—</span> -<span class="i2">May future ages grant me gracious room,</span> -<span class="i0">With Pollok, in the voiceless solitude</span> -<span class="i2">Finding his holiest rapture, happiest mood;</span> -<span class="i0">Poor White for ever poring o’er the tomb;</span> -<span class="i2">With Keats, whose lucid fancy mounting far</span> -<span class="i0">Saw heaven as an intenser, a more keen</span> -<span class="i0">Redintegration of the Beauty seen</span> -<span class="i4">And felt by all the breathers on this star;</span> -<span class="i0">With gentle Bruce, flinging melodious blame</span> -<span class="i0">Upon the Future for an uncompleted name.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>IV.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">OH many a time with Ovid have I borne</span> -<span class="i6">My father’s vain, yet well-meant reprimand,</span> -<span class="i2">To leave the sweet-air’d, clover-purpled land</span> -<span class="i0">Of rhyme—its Lares loftily forlorn,</span> -<span class="i0">With all their pure humanities unworn—</span> -<span class="i2">To batten on the bare Theologies!</span> -<span class="i2">To quench a glory lighted at the skies,</span> -<span class="i0">Fed on one essence with the silver morn,</span> -<span class="i2">Were of all blasphemies the most insane.</span> -<span class="i0">So deeplier given to the delicious spell</span> -<span class="i2">I clung to thee, heart-soothing Poesy!</span> -<span class="i0">Now on a sick-bed rack’d with arrowy pain</span> -<span class="i2">I lift white hands of gratitude, and cry,</span> -<span class="i0">Spirit of God in Milton! was it well?</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>V.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_l.jpg" width="29" height="46" alt="L" /> -</div> -<span class="i3 drop-cap">LAST night, on coughing slightly with sharp pain,</span> -<span class="i5">There came arterial blood, and with a sigh</span> -<span class="i0t">Of absolute grief I cried in bitter vein,</span> -<span class="i2">That drop is my death-warrant: I must die.</span> -<span class="i0">Poor meagre life is mine, meagre and poor!</span> -<span class="i2">Rather a piece of childhood thrown away;</span> -<span class="i0">An adumbration faint; the overture</span> -<span class="i2">To stifled music; year that ends in May;</span> -<span class="i0">The sweet beginning of a tale unknown;</span> -<span class="i2">A dream unspoken; promise unfulfilled;</span> -<span class="i0">A morning with no noon, a rose unblown—</span> -<span class="i2">All its deep rich vermilion crushed and killed</span> -<span class="i0">I’ th’ bud by frost:—Thus in false fear I cried,</span> -<span class="i0">Forgetting that to abolish death Christ died.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>VI.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_s.jpg" width="30" height="46" alt="S" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">SWEETLY, my mother! Go not yet away—</span> -<span class="i6">I have not told my story. Oh, not yet,</span> -<span class="i0t">With the fair past before me, can I lay</span> -<span class="i2">My cheek upon the pillow to forget.</span> -<span class="i0">O sweet, fair past, my twenty years of youth</span> -<span class="i2">Thus thrown away, not fashioning a man;</span> -<span class="i0">But fashioning a memory, forsooth!</span> -<span class="i2">More feminine than follower of Pan.</span> -<span class="i0">O God! let me not die for years and more!</span> -<span class="i2">Fulfil Thyself; and I will live then surely</span> -<span class="i0">Longer than a mere childhood. Now heart-sore,</span> -<span class="i2">Weary, with being weary—weary, purely.</span> -<span class="i0">In dying, mother, I can find no pleasure</span> -<span class="i0">Except in being near thee without measure.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>VII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_h.jpg" width="35" height="45" alt="H" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">HEW Atlas for my monument; upraise</span> -<span class="i6">A pyramid for my tomb, that, undestroyed</span> -<span class="i2">By rank, oblivion, and the hungry void,</span> -<span class="i0">My name shall echo through prospective days.</span> -<span class="i2">O careless conqueror! cold, abysmal grave!</span> -<span class="i0">Is it not sad—is it not sad, my heart—</span> -<span class="i0">To smother young ambition, and depart</span> -<span class="i2">Unhonoured and unwilling, like death’s slave?</span> -<span class="i0">No rare immortal remnant of my thought</span> -<span class="i2">Embalms my life; no poem, firmly reared</span> -<span class="i2">Against the shock of time, ignobly feared—</span> -<span class="i0">But all my life’s progression come to nought.</span> -<span class="i2">Hew Atlas! build a pyramid in a plain!</span> -<span class="i2">Oh, cool the fever burning in my brain!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>VIII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_f.jpg" width="27" height="46" alt="F" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">FROM this entangling labyrinthine maze</span> -<span class="i6">Of doctrine, creed, and theory; from vague</span> -<span class="i2">Vain speculations; the detested plague</span> -<span class="i0">Of spiritual pride, and vile affrays</span> -<span class="i2">Sectarian, good Lord, deliver me!</span> -<span class="i0">Nature! thy placid monitory glory</span> -<span class="i0">Shines uninterrogated, while the story</span> -<span class="i0">Goes round of this and that theology,</span> -<span class="i2">This creed, and that, till patience close the list.</span> -<span class="i0">Once more on Carronben’s wind-shrilling height</span> -<span class="i0">To sit in sovereign solitude, and quite</span> -<span class="i2">Forget the hollow world—a pantheist</span> -<span class="i0">Beyond Bonaventura! This were cheer</span> -<span class="i0">Passing the tedious tale of shallow pulpiteer.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>IX.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_a.jpg" width="38" height="45" alt="A" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">A VALE of tears, a wilderness of woe,</span> -<span class="i6">A sad unmeaning mystery of strife;</span> -<span class="i0t">Reason with Passion strives, and Feeling ever</span> -<span class="i0">Battles with Conscience, clear eyed arbiter.</span> -<span class="i2">Thus spake I in sad mood not long ago,</span> -<span class="i0">To my dear father, of this human life,</span> -<span class="i2">Its jars and phantasies. Soft answered he,</span> -<span class="i0">With soul of love strong as a mountain river:</span> -<span class="i2">We make ourselves—Son, you are what you are</span> -<span class="i0">Neither by fate nor providence nor cause</span> -<span class="i2">External: all unformed humanity</span> -<span class="i0">Waiteth the stamp of individual laws;</span> -<span class="i2">And as you love and act, the plastic spirit</span> -<span class="i2">Doth the impression evermore inherit.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>X.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_l.jpg" width="29" height="46" alt="L" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">LAST Autumn we were four, and travelled far</span> -<span class="i6">With Phœbe in her golden plenilune,</span> -<span class="i2t">O’er stubble-fields where sheaves of harvest boon</span> -<span class="i0">Stood slanted. Many a clear and stedfast star</span> -<span class="i2">Twinkled its radiance thro’ crisp-leaved beeches,</span> -<span class="i0">Over the farm to which, with snatches rare</span> -<span class="i2">Of ancient ballads, songs, and saucy speeches,</span> -<span class="i0">He hurried, happy mad. Then each had there</span> -<span class="i2">A dove-eyed sister pining for him, four</span> -<span class="i0">Fair ladies legacied with loveliness,</span> -<span class="i2">Chaste as a group of stars, or lilies blown</span> -<span class="i0">In rural nunnery. O God! Thy sore</span> -<span class="i2">Strange ways expound. Two to the grave have gone</span> -<span class="i0">Without apparent reason more or less.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XI.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_n.jpg" width="34" height="46" alt="N" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">NOW, while the long-delaying ash assumes</span> -<span class="i6">The delicate April green, and, loud and clear,</span> -<span class="i0t">Through the cool, yellow, mellow twilight glooms,</span> -<span class="i2">The thrush’s song enchants the captive ear;</span> -<span class="i0">Now, while a shower is pleasant in the falling,</span> -<span class="i2">Stirring the still perfume that wakes around;</span> -<span class="i0">Now, that doves mourn, and from the distance calling,</span> -<span class="i1">The cuckoo answers, with a sovereign sound,—</span> -<span class="i0">Come, with thy native heart, O true and tried!</span> -<span class="i2">But leave all books; for what with converse high,</span> -<span class="i0">Flavoured with Attic wit, the time shall glide</span> -<span class="i2">On smoothly, as a river floweth by,</span> -<span class="i0">Or as on stately pinion, through the grey</span> -<span class="i0">Evening, the culver cuts his liquid way.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_w.jpg" width="45" height="45" alt="W" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">WHY are all fair things at their death the fairest:</span> -<span class="i7">Beauty the beautifullest in decay?</span> -<span class="i2">Why doth rich sunset clothe each closing day</span> -<span class="i0">With ever-new apparelling the rarest?</span> -<span class="i2">Why are the sweetest melodies all born</span> -<span class="i0">Of pain and sorrow? Mourneth not the dove,</span> -<span class="i0">In the green forest gloom, an absent love?</span> -<span class="i2">Leaning her breast against that cruel thorn,</span> -<span class="i0">Doth not the nightingale, poor bird, complain</span> -<span class="i2">And integrate her uncontrollable woe</span> -<span class="i0">To such perfection, that to hear is pain?</span> -<span class="i2">Thus, Sorrow and Death—alone realities—</span> -<span class="i0">Sweeten their ministration, and bestow</span> -<span class="i2">On troublous life a relish of the skies!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XIII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_a.jpg" width="38" height="45" alt="A" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">AND, well-belovëd, is this all, this all?</span> -<span class="i6">Gone, like a vapour which the potent morn</span> -<span class="i0t">Kills, and in killing glorifies! I call</span> -<span class="i2">Through the lone night for thee, my dear first-born</span> -<span class="i0">Soul-fellow! but my heart vibrates in vain.</span> -<span class="i2">Ah! well I know, and often fancy forms</span> -<span class="i0">The weather-blown churchyard where thou art lain—</span> -<span class="i2">The churchyard whistling to the frequent storms.</span> -<span class="i0">But down the valley, by the river side,</span> -<span class="i2">Huge walnut-trees—bronze-foliaged, motionless</span> -<span class="i0">As leaves of metal—in their shadows hide</span> -<span class="i2">Warm nests, low music, and true tenderness.</span> -<span class="i0">But thou, betrothed! art far from me, from me.</span> -<span class="i0">O heart! be merciful—I loved him utterly.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XIV.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_f.jpg" width="27" height="46" alt="F" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">FATHER! when I have passed, with deathly swoon,</span> -<span class="i6">Into the ghost-world, immaterial, dim,</span> -<span class="i2">O may nor time nor circumstance dislimn</span> -<span class="i0">My image from thy memory, as noon</span> -<span class="i0">Steals from the fainting bloom the cooling dew!</span> -<span class="i2">Like flower, itself completing bud and bell,</span> -<span class="i0">In lonely thicket, be thy sorrow true,</span> -<span class="i2">And in expression secret. Worse than hell</span> -<span class="i0">To see the grave hypocrisy—to hear</span> -<span class="i2">The crocodilian sighs of summer friends</span> -<span class="i2">Outraging grief’s assuasive, holy ends!</span> -<span class="i0">But thou art faithful, father, and sincere;</span> -<span class="i2">And in thy brain the love of me shall dwell</span> -<span class="i2">Like the memorial music in the curved sea-shell.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XV.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_f.jpg" width="27" height="46" alt="F" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">FROM my sick-bed gazing upon the west,</span> -<span class="i6">Where all the bright effulgencies of day</span> -<span class="i2">Lay steeped in sunless vapours, raw and gray,—</span> -<span class="i0">Herein (methought) is mournfully exprest</span> -<span class="i2">The end of false ambitions, sullen doom</span> -<span class="i0">Of my brave hopes, Promethean desires:</span> -<span class="i0">Barren and perfumeless, my name expires</span> -<span class="i2">Like summer-day setting in joyless gloom.</span> -<span class="i0">Yet faint I not in sceptical dismay,</span> -<span class="i2">Upheld by the belief that all pure thought</span> -<span class="i2">Is deathless, perfect: that the truths out-wrought</span> -<span class="i0">By the laborious mind cannot decay,</span> -<span class="i2">Being evolutions of that Sovereign Mind</span> -<span class="i2">Akin to man’s; yet orbed, exhaustless, undefined.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XVI.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="35" height="45" alt="T" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">THE daisy-flower is to the summer sweet,</span> -<span class="i6">Though utterly unknown it live and die;</span> -<span class="i0">The spheral harmony were incomplete</span> -<span class="i2">Did the dew’d laverock mount no more the sky,</span> -<span class="i2">Because her music’s linkëd sorcery</span> -<span class="i0">Bewitched no mortal heart to heavenly mood.</span> -<span class="i2">This is the law of nature, that the deed</span> -<span class="i0">Should dedicate its excellence to God,</span> -<span class="i2">And in so doing find sufficient meed.</span> -<span class="i0">Then why should I make these heart-burning cries,</span> -<span class="i2">In sickly rhyme with morbid feeling rife,</span> -<span class="i0">For fame and temporal felicities?</span> -<span class="i0">Forgetting that in holy labour lies</span> -<span class="i2">The scholarship severe of human life.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XVII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O GOD, it is a terrible thing to die</span> -<span class="i6">Into the inextinguishable life;</span> -<span class="i0">To leave this known world with a feeble cry,</span> -<span class="i2">All its poor jarring and ignoble strife.</span> -<span class="i0">O that some shadowy spectre would disclose</span> -<span class="i2">The Future, and the soul’s confineless hunger</span> -<span class="i0">Satisfy with some knowledge of repose!</span> -<span class="i2">For here the lust of avarice waxeth stronger,</span> -<span class="i0">Making life hateful; youth alone is true,</span> -<span class="i2">Full of a glorious self-forgetfulness:</span> -<span class="i0">Better to die inhabiting the new</span> -<span class="i2">Kingdom of faith and promise, and confess,</span> -<span class="i0">Even in the agony and last eclipse,</span> -<span class="i0">Some revelation of the Apocalypse!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XVIII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_w.jpg" width="45" height="45" alt="W" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">WISE in his day that heathen emperor,</span> -<span class="i7">To whom, each morrow, came a slave, and cried—</span> -<span class="i0t">“Philip, remember thou must die;” no more.</span> -<span class="i2">To me such daily voice were misapplied—</span> -<span class="i0">Disease guests with me; and each cough, or cramp,</span> -<span class="i2">Or aching, like the Macedonian slave,</span> -<span class="i0">Is my <i>memento mori</i>. ’Tis the stamp</span> -<span class="i2">Of God’s true life to be in dying brave.</span> -<span class="i0">“I fear not death, but dying”<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a>—not the long</span> -<span class="i2">Hereafter, sweetened by immortal love;</span> -<span class="i0">But the quick, terrible last breath—the strong</span> -<span class="i2">Convulsion. Oh, my Lord of breath above!</span> -<span class="i0">Grant me a quiet end, in easeful rest—</span> -<span class="i0">A sweet removal, on my mother’s breast.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XIX.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">OCTOBER’S gold is dim—the forests rot,</span> -<span class="i6">The weary rain falls ceaseless, while the day</span> -<span class="i2">Is wrapp’d in damp. In mire of village way</span> -<span class="i0">The hedge-row leaves are stamp’d, and, all forgot,</span> -<span class="i0">The broodless nest sits visible in the thorn.</span> -<span class="i2">Autumn, among her drooping marigolds,</span> -<span class="i2">Weeps all her garnered sheaves, and empty folds,</span> -<span class="i0">And dripping orchards—plundered and forlorn.</span> -<span class="i0">The season is a dead one, and I die!</span> -<span class="i2">No more, no more for me the spring shall make</span> -<span class="i2">A resurrection in the earth and take</span> -<span class="i0">The death from out her heart—O God, I die!</span> -<span class="i0">The cold throat-mist creeps nearer, till I breathe</span> -<span class="i0">Corruption. Drop, stark night, upon my death!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XX.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_d.jpg" width="33" height="45" alt="D" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">DIE down, O dismal day! and let me live.</span> -<span class="i6">And come, blue deeps! magnificently strewn</span> -<span class="i0t">With coloured clouds—large, light, and fugitive—</span> -<span class="i2">By upper winds through pompous motions blown.</span> -<span class="i0">Now it is death in life—a vapour dense</span> -<span class="i2">Creeps round my window till I cannot see</span> -<span class="i0">The far snow-shining mountains, and the glens</span> -<span class="i2">Shagging the mountain-tops. O God! make free</span> -<span class="i0">This barren, shackled earth, so deadly cold—</span> -<span class="i2">Breathe gently forth Thy spring, till winter flies</span> -<span class="i0">In rude amazement, fearful and yet bold,</span> -<span class="i2">While she performs her custom’d charities.</span> -<span class="i0">I weigh the loaded hours till life is bare—</span> -<span class="i0">O God! for one clear day, a snowdrop, and sweet air!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXI.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_s.jpg" width="30" height="46" alt="S" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">SOMETIMES, when sunshine and blue sky prevail—</span> -<span class="i6">When spent winds sleep, and, from the budding larch,</span> -<span class="i0t">Small birds, with incomplete, vague sweetness, hail</span> -<span class="i2">The unconfirmed, yet quickening life of March,—</span> -<span class="i0">Then say I to myself, half-eased of care,</span> -<span class="i2">Toying with hope as with a maiden’s token—</span> -<span class="i0">“This glorious, invisible fresh air</span> -<span class="i2">Will clear my blood till the disease be broken.”</span> -<span class="i0">But slowly, from the wild and infinite west,</span> -<span class="i2">Up-sails a cloud, full-charged with bitter sleet.</span> -<span class="i0">The omen gives my spirit deep unrest;</span> -<span class="i2">I fling aside the hope, as indiscreet—</span> -<span class="i0">A false enchantment, treacherous and fair—</span> -<span class="i0">And sink into my habit of despair.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O WINTER! wilt thou never, never go?</span> -<span class="i6">O Summer! but I weary for thy coming;</span> -<span class="i0">Longing once more to hear the Luggie flow,</span> -<span class="i2">And frugal bees laboriously humming.</span> -<span class="i0">Now, the east wind diseases the infirm,</span> -<span class="i2">And I must crouch in corners from rough weather.</span> -<span class="i0">Sometimes a winter sunset is a charm—</span> -<span class="i2">When the fired clouds, compacted, blaze together,</span> -<span class="i0">And the large sun dips, red, behind the hills.</span> -<span class="i2">I, from my window, can behold this pleasure;</span> -<span class="i0">And the eternal moon, what time she fills</span> -<span class="i2">Her orb with argent, treading a soft measure,</span> -<span class="i0">With queenly motion of a bridal mood,</span> -<span class="i0">Through the white spaces of infinitude.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXIII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">OH, beautiful moon! Oh, beautiful moon! again</span> -<span class="i6">Thou persecutest me until I bend</span> -<span class="i0">My brow, and soothe the aching of my brain.</span> -<span class="i2">I cannot see what handmaidens attend</span> -<span class="i0">Thy silver passage as the heaven clears;</span> -<span class="i2">For, like a slender mist, a sweet vexation</span> -<span class="i0">Works in my heart, till the impulsive tears</span> -<span class="i2">Confess the bitter pain of adoration.</span> -<span class="i0">Oh, too, too beautiful moon! lift the white shell</span> -<span class="i2">Of thy soft splendour through the shining air!</span> -<span class="i0">I own the magic power, the witching spell,</span> -<span class="i2">And, blinded by thy beauty, call thee fair!</span> -<span class="i0">Alas! not often now thy silver horn</span> -<span class="i0">Shall me delight with dreams and mystic love forlorn!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXIV.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t_quot.jpg" width="39" height="45" alt="’T" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">’TIS April, yet the wind retains its tooth.</span> -<span class="i6">I cannot venture in the biting air,</span> -<span class="i0">But sit and feign wild trash, and dreams uncouth,</span> -<span class="i2">“Stretched on the rack of a too easy chair.”</span> -<span class="i0">And when the day has howled itself to sleep,</span> -<span class="i2">The lamp is lighted in my little room;</span> -<span class="i0">And lowly, as the tender lapwings creep,</span> -<span class="i2">Comes my own mother, with her love’s perfume.</span> -<span class="i0">O living sons with living mothers! learn</span> -<span class="i2">Their worth, and use them gently, with no chiding</span> -<span class="i0">For youth, I know, is quick; of temper stern</span> -<span class="i2">Sometimes; and apt to blunder without guiding.</span> -<span class="i0">So was I long, but now I see her move,</span> -<span class="i0">Transfigured in the radiant mist of love.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXV.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_l.jpg" width="29" height="46" alt="L" /> -</div> -<span class="i3 drop-cap">LYING awake at holy eventide,</span> -<span class="i4">While in clear mournfulness the throstle’s hymn</span> -<span class="i2t">Hushes the night, and the great west, grown dim,</span> -<span class="i0">Laments the sunset’s evanescent pride:</span> -<span class="i0">Lo! behold an orb of silver brightly</span> -<span class="i2">Grow from the fringe of sunset, like a dream</span> -<span class="i0">From Thought’s severe infinitude, and nightly</span> -<span class="i2">Show forth God’s glory in its sacred gleam.</span> -<span class="i0">Ah, Hesper! maidenliest star that ere</span> -<span class="i0">Twinkled in firmament! cool gloaming’s prime</span> -<span class="i2">Cheerer, whose fairness maketh wondrous fair</span> -<span class="i2">Old pastorals, and the Spenserian rhyme:—</span> -<span class="i0">Thy soft seduction doth my soul enthral</span> -<span class="i0">Like music, with a dying, dying fall!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXVI.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="35" height="45" alt="T" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">THERE are three bonnie Scottish melodies,</span> -<span class="i6">So native to the music of my soul,</span> -<span class="i0">That of its humours they seem prophecies.</span> -<span class="i2">The ravishment of Chaucer was less whole,</span> -<span class="i0">Less perfect, when the April nightingale</span> -<span class="i2">Let itself in upon him. Surely, Lord!</span> -<span class="i2">Before whom psaltery and clarichord,</span> -<span class="i0">Concentual with saintly song, prevail,</span> -<span class="i2">There lurks some subtle sorcery, to Thee</span> -<span class="i0">And heaven akin, in each woe-burning air!</span> -<span class="i2"><i>Land of the Leal</i>, and <i>Bonnie Bessie Lee</i>,</span> -<span class="i0">And <i>Home, sweet Home</i>, the lilt of love’s despair.</span> -<span class="i2">Now, in remembrance even, the feelings speak,</span> -<span class="i2">For lo! a shower of grace is on my cheek.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXVII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">“<small>Thou art wearin’ awa’, Jean,</small></span> -<span class="i9"><small>Like snaw when it’s thaw, Jean;</small></span> -<span class="i9"><small>Thou art wearin’ awa’</small></span> -<span class="i11"><small>To the land o’ the leal.</small>”</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O THE impassable sorrow, mother mine!</span> -<span class="i6">Of the sweet, mournful air which, clear and well,</span> -<span class="i0">For me thou singest! Never the divine</span> -<span class="i2">Mahomedan harper, famous Israfel,</span> -<span class="i0">Such rich enchanting luxury of woe</span> -<span class="i2">Elicited from all his golden strings!</span> -<span class="i0">Therefore, dear singer sad! chant clear, and low,</span> -<span class="i2">And lovingly, the bard’s imaginings,</span> -<span class="i0">O poet unknown! conning thy verses o’er</span> -<span class="i2">In lone, dim places, sorrowfully sweet;</span> -<span class="i0">And O musician! touching the quick core</span> -<span class="i2">Of pity, when thy skilful closes meet—</span> -<span class="i0">My tears confess your witchery as they flow,</span> -<span class="i0">Since I, too, <i>wear</i> away like the enduring snow.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXVIII.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_u.jpg" width="32" height="44" alt="U" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">UPLIFT in unparticipated night</span> -<span class="i6">Oh indefinable Being! far retired</span> -<span class="i0">From mortal ken in uncreated light:</span> -<span class="i2">While demonstrating glories unacquired</span> -<span class="i0">When shall the wavering sciences evolve</span> -<span class="i2">The infinite secret, Thee? What mind shall scan</span> -<span class="i0">The tenour of Thy workmanship, or solve</span> -<span class="i2">The dark, perplexing destiny of man?</span> -<span class="i0">Oh! in the hereafter border-land of wonder,</span> -<span class="i2">Shall the proud world’s inveterate tale be told,</span> -<span class="i0">The curtain of all mysteries torn asunder,</span> -<span class="i2">The cerements from the living soul unrolled?</span> -<span class="i0">Impatient questioner, soon, soon shall death</span> -<span class="i0">Reveal to thee these dim phantasmata of faith.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXIX.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_a.jpg" width="38" height="45" alt="A" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">AND thus proceeds the mode of human life</span> -<span class="i6">From mystery to mystery again;</span> -<span class="i0t">From God to God, thro’ grandeur, grief, and strife,</span> -<span class="i2">A hurried plunge into the dark inane</span> -<span class="i0">Whence we had lately sprung. And is’t for ever?</span> -<span class="i2">Ah! sense is blind beyond the gaping clay,</span> -<span class="i0">And all the eyes of faith can see it never.</span> -<span class="i2">We know the bright-haired sun will bring the day,</span> -<span class="i0">Like glorious book of silent prophecy;</span> -<span class="i2">Majestic night assume her starry throne;</span> -<span class="i0">The wondrous seasons come and go: but we</span> -<span class="i2">Die, unto mortal ken for ever gone.</span> -<span class="i0">Who shall pry further? who shall kindle light</span> -<span class="i0">In the dread bosom of the infinite?</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>XXX.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O THOU of purer eyes than to behold</span> -<span class="i6">Uncleanness! sift my soul, removing all</span> -<span class="i2">Strange thoughts, imaginings fantastical,</span> -<span class="i0">Iniquitous allurements manifold.</span> -<span class="i0">Make it into a spiritual ark; abode</span> -<span class="i2">Severely sacred, perfumed, sanctified,</span> -<span class="i2">Wherein the Prince of Purities may abide—</span> -<span class="i0">The holy and eternal Spirit of God.</span> -<span class="i2">The gross, adhesive loathsomeness of sin,</span> -<span class="i0">Give me to see. Yet, O far more, far more,</span> -<span class="i0">That beautiful purity which the saints adore</span> -<span class="i2">In a consummate Paradise within</span> -<span class="i0">The Veil,—O Lord, upon my soul bestow,</span> -<span class="i0">An earnest of that purity here below.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> -<div class="chapter"><h2>Miscellaneous Poems.</h2></div> -<hr class="r5" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a03" id="a03"></a>A Winter Ramble.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_j.jpg" width="35" height="45" alt="J" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">JOHN Frost, old Nature’s jeweller, had beautified the leas,</span> -<span class="i6">And the lustre of his fretwork was twinkling on the trees,</span> -<span class="i0">As we ramble o’er the meadows in a meditative ease.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We had left the town behind us for a roaming holiday,</span> -<span class="i0">Beneath an arc of gloom, all dark and indistinct it lay,</span> -<span class="i0">And the fog was wreathed about it like a robe of iron-gray.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But a carpeting of leaflets, and a canopy of blue,</span> -<span class="i0">And the mystery of ether as the warming sunshine grew,</span> -<span class="i0">Sent a mellow thrill of happiness our eager spirits through.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And over lanes, where Winter bluff had shook his hoary beard,</span> -<span class="i0">Where in the naked hedgerows the broodless nests appear’d,</span> -<span class="i0">And the brown leaves of the beech-tree were with silver gloss veneer’d.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We wandered and we pondered till half the morn was spent,</span> -<span class="i0">And the red orb through the tangled boughs his cunning vigour sent,</span> -<span class="i0">And the valley mists all melted at his glance omnipotent.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Dim on a sloping hill-side, clothed in a misty pall,</span> -<span class="i0">Stands a turret grey and hoary, where the ancient ivies crawl,</span> -<span class="i0">Their Arab arms round casement, sill, and door, and mould’ring wall.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And there we halted half-an-hour within a roofless hall,</span> -<span class="i0">’Neath a bower of wildest ivy hanging downwards from the wall,</span> -<span class="i0">Bearing in its grand luxuriance a flower funereal.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There we talked of the gay plumes erst bent to pass the lintel old,</span> -<span class="i0">The maidens that were moved to smile at gallant wooers bold,</span> -<span class="i0">The jovial nights of brave carouse, the wine-cups manifold.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And all the faded glories of the mediæval time,</span> -<span class="i0">When the age was in its manhood, and the land was in its prime,</span> -<span class="i0">And manly deeds were chanted in a bold heroic rhyme.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then, plucking each a sprig, bedecked with simple yellow flower,</span> -<span class="i0">We scrambled sadly downwards from our old enchanted bower,</span> -<span class="i0">And the glory of the sunshine fell upon us like a shower.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Once more beneath the concave of a clear effulgent sky,</span> -<span class="i0">Where flocks of cawing rooks to the mansion wavered by—</span> -<span class="i0">A mansion standing coldly ’mid a windy rookery.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And over breezy mountains, where the poacher, with his gun,</span> -<span class="i0">Stood lonely as a boulder-stone ’tween earth and shining sun,</span> -<span class="i0">We wandered and we pondered till the winter day was done.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a04" id="a04"></a>The Home-Comer.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">OH, many a leaf will fall to-night,</span> -<span class="i5">As she wanders through the wood!</span> -<span class="i0">And many an angry gust will break</span> -<span class="i0">The dreary solitude.</span> -<span class="i0">I wonder if she’s past the bridge,</span> -<span class="i0">Where Luggie moans beneath;</span> -<span class="i0">While rain-drops clash in slanted lines</span> -<span class="i0">On rivulet and heath.</span> -<span class="i0">Disease hath laid his palsied palm</span> -<span class="i0">Upon my aching brow;</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The headlong blood of twenty-one</span> -<span class="i0">Is thin and sluggish now.</span> -<span class="i0">’Tis nearly ten! A fearful night,</span> -<span class="i0">Without a single star</span> -<span class="i0">To light the shadow on her soul</span> -<span class="i0">With sparkle from afar:</span> -<span class="i0">The moon is canopied with clouds,</span> -<span class="i0">And her burden it is sore;—</span> -<span class="i0">What would wee Jackie do, if he</span> -<span class="i0">Should never see her more?</span> -<span class="i0">Aye, light the lamp, and hang it up</span> -<span class="i0">At the window fair and free;</span> -<span class="i0">’Twill be a beacon on the hill</span> -<span class="i0">To let your mother see.</span> -<span class="i0">And trim it well, my little Ann,</span> -<span class="i0">For the night is wet and cold,</span> -<span class="i0">And you know the weary, winding way</span> -<span class="i0">Across the miry wold.</span> -<span class="i0">All drenched will be her simple gown,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And the wet will reach her skin:</span> -<span class="i0">I wish that I could wander down,</span> -<span class="i0">And the red quarry win—</span> -<span class="i0">To take the burden from her back,</span> -<span class="i0">And place it upon mine;</span> -<span class="i0">With words of kind condolence,</span> -<span class="i0">To bid her not repine.</span> -<span class="i0">You have a kindly mother, dears,</span> -<span class="i0">As ever bore a child,</span> -<span class="i0">And heaven knows I love her well</span> -<span class="i0">In passion undefiled.</span> -<span class="i0">Ah me! I never thought that she</span> -<span class="i0">Would brave a night like this,</span> -<span class="i0">While I sat weaving by the fire</span> -<span class="i0">A web of phantasies.</span> -<span class="i0">How the winds beat this home of ours</span> -<span class="i0">With arrow-falls of rain;</span> -<span class="i0">This lonely home upon the hill</span> -<span class="i0">They beat with might and main.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And ’mid the tempest one lone heart</span> -<span class="i0">Anticipates the glow,</span> -<span class="i0">Whence, all her weary journey done,</span> -<span class="i0">Shall happy welcome flow.</span> -<span class="i0">’Tis after ten! Oh, were she here,</span> -<span class="i0">Young man altho’ I be,</span> -<span class="i0">I could fall down upon her neck,</span> -<span class="i0">And weep right gushingly!</span> -<span class="i0">I have not loved her half enough,</span> -<span class="i0">The dear old toiling one,</span> -<span class="i0">The silent watcher by my bed,</span> -<span class="i0">In shadow or in sun.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a05" id="a05"></a>My Brown Little Brother of Three.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i16">“<small>Happy child!</small></span> -<span class="i4"><small>Thou art so exquisitely wild,</small></span> -<span class="i4"><small>I think of thee with many tears,</small></span> -<span class="i2"><small>For what may be thy lot in future years.</small>”</span> -<span class="i19"><small><span class="smcap">Wordsworth.</span></small></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="35" height="45" alt="T" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">THE goldening peach on the orchard wall,</span> -<span class="i5">Soft feeding in the sun,</span> -<span class="i0">Hath never so downy and rosy a cheek</span> -<span class="i0">As this laughing little one.</span> -<span class="i0">The brook that murmurs and dimples alone</span> -<span class="i0">Through glen, and grove, and lea,</span> -<span class="i0">Hath never a life so merry and true</span> -<span class="i0">As my brown little brother of three.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -<span class="i0">From flower to flower, and from bower to bower,</span> -<span class="i0">In my mother’s garden green,</span> -<span class="i0">A-peering at this, and a-cheering at that,</span> -<span class="i0">The funniest ever was seen;—</span> -<span class="i0">Now throwing himself in his mother’s lap,</span> -<span class="i0">With his cheek upon her breast,</span> -<span class="i0">He tells his wonderful travels, forsooth!</span> -<span class="i0">And chatters himself to rest.</span> -<span class="i0">And what may become of that brother of mine,</span> -<span class="i0">Asleep in his mother’s bosom?</span> -<span class="i0">Will the wee rosy bud of his being, at last</span> -<span class="i0">Into a wild flower blossom?</span> -<span class="i0">Will the hopes that are deepening as silent and fair</span> -<span class="i0">As the azure about his eye,</span> -<span class="i0">Be told in glory and motherly pride,</span> -<span class="i0">Or answered with a sigh?</span> -<span class="i0">Let the curtain rest: for, alas! ’tis told</span> -<span class="i0">That Mercy’s hand benign</span> -<span class="i0">Hath woven and spun the gossamer thread</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That forms the fabric fine.</span> -<span class="i0">Then dream, dearest Jackie! thy sinless dream,</span> -<span class="i0">And waken as blythe and as free;</span> -<span class="i0">There’s many a change in twenty long years,</span> -<span class="i0">My brown little brother of three.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a06" id="a06"></a>The “Auld Aisle”—a Burying-Ground.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="35" height="45" alt="T" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">THIS is my last and farewell place on earth,</span> -<span class="i5">In this unlevel square of soft green-sward.</span> -<span class="i0">I love it well. Beneath no trailing vine,</span> -<span class="i0">No prairie grass, no moaning yew tree’s shade,</span> -<span class="i0">Within no hollow hard sarcophagus,</span> -<span class="i0">No barrëd tomb, I hope <i>I</i> e’er shall lie;</span> -<span class="i0">But, happed with daisy-mingled grass, where oft,</span> -<span class="i0">On Sabbath eve, when everything is still,</span> -<span class="i0">And every little glen within itself</span> -<span class="i0">Is heard to chaunt its masses o’er the sun,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Already shrouded with his blood-stained robes,</span> -<span class="i0">Some mindful ones will drop a ready tear</span> -<span class="i0">To nurture a white daisy, and will breathe</span> -<span class="i0">A gushing prayer of sighs to him below.</span> -<span class="i0"><i>I</i> shall not feel their footsteps over <i>me</i>;</span> -<span class="i0"><i>I</i> shall not hear their long-known voices speak;</span> -<span class="i0">For I’ll be dead. Oh! dead! and yet why weep?</span> -<span class="i0">Oh! earthly hearts are weak to think of death!</span> -<span class="i0">And ’tis a cutting thought to see our hopes</span> -<span class="i0">All shivered like a bunch of autumn leaves,</span> -<span class="i0">And sunset games, and love—delightful love—</span> -<span class="i0">All buried in a grave. Yet it <i>must</i> come.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The wreck of centuries is buried here;</span> -<span class="i0">The very monuments are hoar with age;</span> -<span class="i0">The empty tower that sentinels them all</span> -<span class="i0">Wails when the gusts wild wander o’er the earth,</span> -<span class="i0">And creaks the rusty gate with careless Time.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Methinks I see the silent funeral</span> -<span class="i0">Wend slowly up this hill with soulless load.</span> -<span class="i0">Backward swings sullen the disusëd gate,</span> -<span class="i0">And quiet, with measured steps, they enter here,</span> -<span class="i0">And cross the moundy sward, amongst the stones,</span> -<span class="i0">To where the red clay gapes. How mournfully</span> -<span class="i0">Are the last rites paid to a fleshly frame!</span> -<span class="i0">Behold the old man with the sunken eyes</span> -<span class="i0">And broken heart. This was his eldest-born.</span> -<span class="i0">A black-eyed boy he was, and in his youth</span> -<span class="i0">He was his joy and hope. And oft he gazed</span> -<span class="i0">Into his laughing face, and dreamed of times</span> -<span class="i0">When in <i>his</i> youthful strength he would <i>him</i> shield,</span> -<span class="i0">And help him to the stone before the door</span> -<span class="i0">In summer time, when streamlets murmured clear.</span> -<span class="i0">So he grew up, but scorned the homely ways</span> -<span class="i0">Of the grey place of his nativity.</span> -<span class="i0">He saw the sun rise from behind the hills,</span> -<span class="i0">His well-thumbed book firm clasped in his young hand.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -<span class="i0">He saw it sink within the breezy glen,</span> -<span class="i0">And all the birds shrink from its burning face</span> -<span class="i0">To shade in nests, his book firm clasped in hand.</span> -<span class="i0">But most he pondered over nature’s book—</span> -<span class="i0">The bubbled rill and the green-bladed corn,</span> -<span class="i0">The lowly wild-flowers and the leafy trees</span> -<span class="i0">Alive with music. His father wondered strange,</span> -<span class="i0">And prouder grew of his bold quiet son,</span> -<span class="i0">Who spoke without restraint or lowly eye</span> -<span class="i0">Unto God’s minister. And he would tell</span> -<span class="i0">At other fire-sides of his wondrous ways,</span> -<span class="i0">The oft-trimmed lamp when others were indrawn;</span> -<span class="i0">Nor did he check the working of the mind</span> -<span class="i0">And wearing of the flesh. <i>He</i> knew no harm.</span> -<span class="i0">So time grew older still, and he went off,</span> -<span class="i0">With paler face and heavier looks, to where</span> -<span class="i0">The sons of learning prosecute their toils.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But here he pined like a transplanted flower</span> -<span class="i0">Borne from its native soil. No grass was here,</span> -<span class="i0">Where he might lie, and watch the mighty clouds</span> -<span class="i0">All floating in the blue. No lark was here,</span> -<span class="i0">In love with angels, but the place was lone</span> -<span class="i0">And dark and cold. No milkmaid’s song was here,</span> -<span class="i0">Hushed when he passed upon the mountain side,</span> -<span class="i0">And anxious eye that gazed till he was gone.</span> -<span class="i0">And ’mid the throng of battling human kind,</span> -<span class="i0">No simple eye nor horny hand sought his,</span> -<span class="i0">Or voice, with homely accents, spoke relief.</span> -<span class="i0">All was unknown, unheeded, but his books,</span> -<span class="i0">Which were his very self, his only friend.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And rich he was in lore, and strong in hope,</span> -<span class="i0">But heaven was panting for an inmate more:</span> -<span class="i0">In heaven his place was vacant; as at home.</span> -<span class="i0">And time grew older still, and he came home</span> -<span class="i0">To see his father, but he ne’er went back.</span> -<span class="i0">His body could not hold his restless soul,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -<span class="i0">That longed, with eagle strength, to pierce the clouds,</span> -<span class="i0">And so it burst this yielding bond on earth,</span> -<span class="i0">Already, by a lengthened struggle, weak.</span> -<span class="i0">His father saw him die. He never left</span> -<span class="i0">His bedside; but with eyes that seemed as glazed,</span> -<span class="i0">For ever staring at the sharpened face,</span> -<span class="i0">He stood and stood and wept not. In that time</span> -<span class="i0">His son saw heaven and chided all delay.</span> -<span class="i0">His father knew not of the words of blame</span> -<span class="i0">That blest his dying breath. He seized the clay,</span> -<span class="i0">And clutched it desperately unto his breast.</span> -<span class="i0">The arms fell down, nor gave returning press.</span> -<span class="i0">And that crush broke the doting father’s heart.</span> -<span class="i0">This is the grave beside that white gravestone:</span> -<span class="i0">Hold back the nettles while I read its lay:—</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i15"><big><b>Epitaph</b>.</big></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Beneath me lies the rotting faded mask</i></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Of a young mind that studied heaven well;</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Ne’er in the sun of pleasure did he bask,</i></span> -<span class="i2"><i>But loved hope’s shadow and fair virtue’s dell.</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>He died while on the road to yonder sky,</i></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And every one that wanders careless here,</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Tread soft, and hark! Is not time hurrying by?</i></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Begone and pray; the Day of Judgment’s near!</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I have seen children playing in this place,</span> -<span class="i0">Have heard the voice of psalms sound plaintive here,</span> -<span class="i0">And sighs commingle with these strains of love,</span> -<span class="i0">For memory is dewy with salt tears.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yet some lie here unknown to all. They came</span> -<span class="i0">Parentless, and they died and buried were</span> -<span class="i0">By careless hands, that threw the wormy clods</span> -<span class="i0">All hastily upon the coffin lid</span> -<span class="i0">And then went home. Perhaps some empty chair,</span> -<span class="i0">Like to a last year’s nest, still waits for them.</span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps a nightly prayer still ascends</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Among the breathings of a family home,</span> -<span class="i0">To hasten their return. Let us away</span> -<span class="i0">And gather stones and place them at their heads.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Could all the tales that wait around the graves,</span> -<span class="i0">Like volumes of wet sighs, be garnered up:</span> -<span class="i0">How hollow would each swelling heap resound.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Here one who died in mirth, and while the laugh,</span> -<span class="i0">The merry laugh of joy did paint his face,</span> -<span class="i0">Death frowned, and smote the smiling victim dead.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Here one who wept to see the flushing sun</span> -<span class="i0">Glide reddening from his window bars, and set</span> -<span class="i0">To rise again, and dry the silent dew</span> -<span class="i0">From his damp grave.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i20">Here one who lingered long,</span> -<span class="i0">And every morn the fields missed knots of flowers</span> -<span class="i0">Borne to his bedside. And his eyes grew wild</span> -<span class="i0">When the sun’s withering gaze stared in upon them,</span> -<span class="i0">And he would press them to his fluttering heart,</span> -<span class="i0">And face the mighty orb, defiant-like,</span> -<span class="i0">As if to hurl it from the empty sky,</span> -<span class="i0">For daring thus to blight his darling flowers.</span> -<span class="i0">Poor fellow, he was mad.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i32">May God forbid</span> -<span class="i0">That clownish foot should crush the gentle clay,</span> -<span class="i0">Or break the daisy stalks or primrose buds,</span> -<span class="i0">That bloom beside the low white marble stone</span> -<span class="i0">In yon lone spot.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a07" id="a07"></a>To Jeanette.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i16">“<small>I did hear you talk</small></span> -<span class="i2"><small>Far above singing; after you were gone,</small></span> -<span class="i2"><small>I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched</small></span> -<span class="i2"><small>What stirred it so! Alas! I found it love.</small>”</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_i.jpg" width="32" height="45" alt="I" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">I ’VE sung of flowers in loving way,</span> -<span class="i5">And pluck’d them too for half a day,</span> -<span class="i0t">And into posies wrought them, till</span> -<span class="i0">Orion glared above the hill:</span> -<span class="i0">But never, never saw I one</span> -<span class="i0">As fair as thee beneath the sun,</span> -<span class="i0">And never, never shall I know</span> -<span class="i0">A lovelier where’er I go.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Yet ’tis not for thy beauty, dear</span> -<span class="i0">Jeanette, nor yet the sunny cheer</span> -<span class="i0">About thy face, I love thee so!</span> -<span class="i0">But something of thy soul doth flow</span> -<span class="i0">Into my heart, and I am wild</span> -<span class="i0">With tender passion as a child.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I write thy name, and kiss it, dear</span> -<span class="i0">Jeanette, in most impulsive fear!</span> -<span class="i0">I whisper it into my heart,</span> -<span class="i0">And then its music makes me start</span> -<span class="i0">In sudden gladness. I am fain</span> -<span class="i0">To let the echo die again!</span> -<span class="i0">Thy image groweth out of air</span> -<span class="i0">Until, entranced, I pause and stare</span> -<span class="i0">Into thy dear ideal eyes—</span> -<span class="i0">The shadow of God’s paradise.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I am in love with thee, thou dear</span> -<span class="i0">Jeanette, and keep my spirit clear</span> -<span class="i0">For thy embrace. It cannot be</span> -<span class="i0">That thou wilt keep aloof from me</span> -<span class="i0">Like that immortal Florentine</span> -<span class="i0">Whom Tasso lov’d. O I would pine</span> -<span class="i0">Into a pale accusing dream</span> -<span class="i0">To haunt thy pillow, and would seem</span> -<span class="i0">So fond and sad, thy heart would fret</span> -<span class="i0">For its unkindness, good Jeanette!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O many a long glad summer day</span> -<span class="i0">I laughed at love, and deemed his sway</span> -<span class="i0">The tinkle of an idle tongue,</span> -<span class="i0">A fancy only to be sung.</span> -<span class="i0">But thou all-beautiful! hast more</span> -<span class="i0">Of this, the thrilling passion—love—</span> -<span class="i0">In one soft tress of plaited gold,</span> -<span class="i0">Than blessed Petrarch could unfold.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -<span class="i0">I love thee, dear Jeanette! I love</span> -<span class="i0">Thee, O how dearly! Far above</span> -<span class="i0">All singing is my love for thee,</span> -<span class="i0">Thou paradise of ecstasy!</span> -<span class="i0">Make me immortal with a kiss</span> -<span class="i0">Of earnest pressure, and all bliss</span> -<span class="i0">Is mine for ever, ever! Dear</span> -<span class="i0">Jeanette, beloved, adored in fear!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a08" id="a08"></a>The Poet and his Friend.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_i.jpg" width="32" height="45" alt="I" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">I SPENT a day—the landmark of a life—</span> -<span class="i5">With one, a hero in the realms of rhyme:</span> -<span class="i0t">Ardent, yet calm—in human wisdoms rife,</span> -<span class="i2">And burning to be something in his time.</span> -<span class="i0">Through autumn foliage by a river side,</span> -<span class="i2">Through glen of ivied trees and hazel dell,</span> -<span class="i0">Each heart by its own sunshine glorified,</span> -<span class="i2">We wandered wildly wise; till it befel,</span> -<span class="i2">Beneath a faded elm, we came upon a well.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And, sitting by the still translucent water,</span> -<span class="i2">In pleasaunce sweet we quaffed the liquid cold;</span> -<span class="i0">Lo! as we drank, there passed a fairer daughter</span> -<span class="i2">Of Beauty than Fidessa. Then the old—</span> -<span class="i0">Yet never old, immortal song of glory,</span> -<span class="i2">Breathing of summer bower and emerald lea,</span> -<span class="i0">And fountain bubbling coldly—Spenser’s story</span> -<span class="i2">Thrilled all our brains to living ecstasy:</span> -<span class="i2">Such power had maiden floating onward maidenly.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And pondered we, above that placid wave,</span> -<span class="i2">How we were thrown upon a colder day;</span> -<span class="i0">Yet, by the sword of Arthur! quite as brave,</span> -<span class="i2">As wondrous willing for the haughty fray</span> -<span class="i0">As Arthegal and Guyon. So we rose</span> -<span class="i2">And joined our hands in fervent heat, and swore</span> -<span class="i0">By old Renown’s endeavours, and by those</span> -<span class="i2">Who battled well and won, to dream no more,</span> -<span class="i2">But through a sea of fears to struggle for the shore.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I think no good of him who takes his ease,</span> -<span class="i2">As pigeon-livered in the human game</span> -<span class="i0">As Braggadocio: on the tranquil seas</span> -<span class="i2">All ships sail nobly; but whoe’er is tame</span> -<span class="i0">To face the waves when fringed with windy spray,</span> -<span class="i2">Is but a coward. Let him live, then rot!</span> -<span class="i0">No man shall speak of him, no pilgrim lay</span> -<span class="i2">A twist of wild-flowers on the common spot</span> -<span class="i2">That marks his meagre dust—the poltroon is forgot.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But, good friend! we shall fight. Even he who fails</span> -<span class="i2">In a great cause is noble. Time will show</span> -<span class="i0">The best and worst of it; and while it hails</span> -<span class="i2">Some worthy Song-kings of the long-ago,</span> -<span class="i0">Perhaps our names will echo with the rest,</span> -<span class="i2">And in no feebleness. Meantime, oh fight!</span> -<span class="i0">In the thick hurry of the battle press’d,</span> -<span class="i2">Clothed on with resolution, the soul’s might—</span> -<span class="i2">Be Hector or Achilles!—God defend the right!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a09" id="a09"></a>The Two Streams.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O COOL the summer woods</span> -<span class="i5">Of dear Gartshore, where bloom</span> -<span class="i0">Soft clouds of white anemones</span> -<span class="i0">Among their own perfume.</span> -<span class="i0">And clear the little brooklet,</span> -<span class="i0">Singing an endless lay,</span> -<span class="i0">Winding its nameless waters</span> -<span class="i0">Close by the white highway.</span> -<span class="i0">And here in sweet sensation,</span> -<span class="i0">And soul-uneasy swoon,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -<span class="i0">I’ve lain for many a golden</span> -<span class="i0">Hour of a summer noon.</span> -<span class="i0">The cushats <i>crooned</i> around me</span> -<span class="i0">Their murmuring amorous song;</span> -<span class="i0">And in a brooding drowsiness,</span> -<span class="i0">The echoes swooned along;</span> -<span class="i0">Till all the sweet sensations</span> -<span class="i0">Grew into utter pain,</span> -<span class="i0">And I was fain to wander</span> -<span class="i0">All sadly home again.</span> -<span class="i0">There have been brotherhoods in song,</span> -<span class="i0">And human friendships true;</span> -<span class="i0">There have been lovers unto death,</span> -<span class="i0">Yes, and right many too.</span> -<span class="i0">But never in the march of time,</span> -<span class="i0">And ne’er in mortal knowing,</span> -<span class="i0">From history or nobler rhyme,</span> -<span class="i0">Hath there been such constant flowing:</span> -<span class="i0">One from mountains far away,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -<span class="i0">One from glades of emerald shining,</span> -<span class="i0">Flowing, flowing evermore</span> -<span class="i0">For a delicate combining.</span> -<span class="i0">If upon a summer’s day,</span> -<span class="i0">When the air is blue and bracing,</span> -<span class="i0">You for Merkland take your way,</span> -<span class="i0">Sweet uneasy fancies chasing;</span> -<span class="i0">You may see the famous grove—</span> -<span class="i0">If not famous, then most surely</span> -<span class="i0">Ripe for fame, which is but love—</span> -<span class="i0">Where they mingle most demurely.</span> -<span class="i0">Not in song and babbling play</span> -<span class="i0">Which no poet could unravel;</span> -<span class="i0">But in tender simple way,</span> -<span class="i0">On a bed of golden gravel.</span> -<span class="i0">Where I sit I see them now,—</span> -<span class="i0">Bothlin with her endless winding</span> -<span class="i0">From a mountain’s purple brow,</span> -<span class="i0">Sacred contemplation finding;</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -<span class="i0">In still nooks of shady rest,</span> -<span class="i0">Gleaming greenly ’neath the holly:</span> -<span class="i0">Youth, she says, is often blest</span> -<span class="i0">With a touch of melancholy.</span> -<span class="i0">Luggie from the orient fields</span> -<span class="i0">Wiser is, yet hath a beauty,</span> -<span class="i0">Which the snowy conscience yields</span> -<span class="i0">To the softened face of duty.</span> -<span class="i0">All she does bespeaks a grace,</span> -<span class="i0">Yet the grace hath that of sadness</span> -<span class="i0">We behold in many a face,</span> -<span class="i0">Where we had expected gladness.</span> -<span class="i0">But when Bothlin meets her there,</span> -<span class="i0">See the change to sudden glory!</span> -<span class="i0">Surely such another pair</span> -<span class="i0">Never met in classic story.</span> -<span class="i0">I could sing for half a day,</span> -<span class="i0">And my spirit never weary</span> -<span class="i0">Fashioning the vernal lay</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -<span class="i0">With a linnet’s impulse cheery.</span> -<span class="i0">But some night in leafy June,</span> -<span class="i0">You the place yourself may see;</span> -<span class="i0">When the light is in the moon,</span> -<span class="i0">Like the passion that’s in me.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a10" id="a10"></a>Evening.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="35" height="45" alt="T" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">THE evening now is still and calm,</span> -<span class="i7">As if sad Eloïsa’s soul</span> -<span class="i0">Had breathed a spiritual balm</span> -<span class="i2">Throughout the softened whole.</span> -<span class="i0">Within the azure of the sky</span> -<span class="i2">There shineth not a single star;</span> -<span class="i0">But in a soft serenity</span> -<span class="i2">The Crescent cometh from afar.</span> -<span class="i0">In darker lines the firs that shade</span> -<span class="i2">The house of Merkland round and round,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Come out, and from the fragrant glade</span> -<span class="i2">No liquid notes resound:</span> -<span class="i0">I heard the birds this live-long day,</span> -<span class="i2">In sweet unwrinkled blending,</span> -<span class="i0">As if this merry month of May</span> -<span class="i2">Should never have an ending.</span> -<span class="i0">O could I utter thoughts that rise,</span> -<span class="i2">O could I sing the tender</span> -<span class="i0">Softness of the summer skies,</span> -<span class="i2">In all their virgin splendour!</span> -<span class="i0">O crescent Moon, like pearlëd bark</span> -<span class="i2">To ferry souls to glory;</span> -<span class="i0">O silent deepening of the dark</span> -<span class="i2">O’er vale and promontory!</span> -<span class="i0">Alas, that I should live, and be</span> -<span class="i2">A churl in soul, while slowly</span> -<span class="i0">God makes the solemn eve, and breathes</span> -<span class="i2">A calm thro’ hearts unholy!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a11" id="a11"></a>The Love-Tryst.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_s.jpg" width="30" height="46" alt="S" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">SEVEN sycamores of wondrous fairness, smooth,</span> -<span class="i5">And mealy green of trunk, and murmurous</span> -<span class="i0">In multitudinous sun-twinkling leaves,</span> -<span class="i0">This valley grace. Three fairer than the rest,</span> -<span class="i0">Which in the silent worship of my heart</span> -<span class="i0">I fondly call the brothers of Bridgend,</span> -<span class="i0">O’er cottage floors when doors are wide for heat</span> -<span class="i0">And often on the face of cradled child,</span> -<span class="i0">Throw dusky shadows. And when lenient winds</span> -<span class="i0">Blow motion, the cool shadows flicker, and play</span> -<span class="i0">Upon the floors, and glimpse the countenance</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of the sweet baby, till the mother laughs,</span> -<span class="i0">And bending downward, kisses. But of all</span> -<span class="i0">The trees that ever tufted hill or vale,</span> -<span class="i0">That ever took the breeze or sheltered nest,</span> -<span class="i0">Or rung with flowing melody of birds,</span> -<span class="i0">The strangest and the dearest, best and first,</span> -<span class="i0">Waves audibly upon a windy hill</span> -<span class="i0">Above the Luggie. In the front of Spring,</span> -<span class="i0">When the first crocus gleams among the grass,</span> -<span class="i0">One half shines out full-leaved, the other bare:</span> -<span class="i0">And when the Autumn violet hath lost</span> -<span class="i0">Its fragrance, and the meadow-hay is mown,</span> -<span class="i0">One half shines out full-leaved, the other bare.</span> -<span class="i0">There are two trees, whose marriageable boughs</span> -<span class="i0">Twine, each with each, and throw a common shade,</span> -<span class="i0">A chestnut and an elm. The former opes</span> -<span class="i0">Its oily buds whene’er the teeming south</span> -<span class="i0">Breathes life and warm intenerating balm,</span> -<span class="i0">But fades in early Autumn; while supreme</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -<span class="i0">In vigorous development, the elm</span> -<span class="i0">Full-foliaged glimmers till October’s end.</span> -<span class="i0">At the twin roots and facing the rich west</span> -<span class="i0">A summer seat is rustically carved,</span> -<span class="i0">A sylvan shelter from the mid-day sun:</span> -<span class="i0">But nor in mid-day, nor when decent eve</span> -<span class="i0">Gather her purples have I rested there;</span> -<span class="i0">But when thro’ crisp and fleecy clouds the moon</span> -<span class="i0">O’er the soft orient sheds a milder dawn,</span> -<span class="i0">Then tripping up the dewy lea, with step</span> -<span class="i0">Light as an antelope, a maiden came,</span> -<span class="i0">And all her radiance in my bosom laid;</span> -<span class="i0">And on this seat, while high among the leaves</span> -<span class="i0">Rain murmured, and the glory of the moon</span> -<span class="i0">Was dimmed, I whispered all my passion-tale.</span> -<span class="i0">Ah me, ah me! her silken hair down-slid,</span> -<span class="i0">Her smooth comb dropt among the grass, and both</span> -<span class="i0">Stooped searching, and her burning cheek met mine:</span> -<span class="i0">And starting suddenly upward, with her face</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Rosed to the beating temples, meek she gazed,</span> -<span class="i0">Half sad, and the blue languish of her eyes</span> -<span class="i0">Drooped tearful. And in madness and delight,</span> -<span class="i0">I with my left arm zoned her little waist,</span> -<span class="i0">And with my right hand smoothed the silken hair</span> -<span class="i0">From her fair brow, snow-cold; and, by the doves</span> -<span class="i0">That bill and coo in Venus’ pearly car!</span> -<span class="i0">There was a touch of lips. Then creeping close</span> -<span class="i0">Into my bosom like a little thing</span> -<span class="i0">That was confused, she cradled pantingly.</span> -<span class="i0">Thus, while the rain was murmuring overhead,</span> -<span class="i0">And the out-passioned moon thro’ vaporous gloom</span> -<span class="i0">Dipt queenly, whispered I my perilous tale.</span> -<span class="i0">Ah me, ah me! a tender answer came;</span> -<span class="i0">For with her softling finger-tips she touched</span> -<span class="i0">My hand, warm laid upon her heart, and pressed</span> -<span class="i0">A meek approval with averted face.</span> -<span class="i0">O poet-maker, darling love, sweet love,</span> -<span class="i0">Awakener of manhood, and the life</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of life. But let me not like talking fool</span> -<span class="i0">Prate all thy virgin whiteness, all thy sweet</span> -<span class="i0">Deliciousness, for thou art living yet!</span> -<span class="i0">And as the rose that opens to the sun</span> -<span class="i0">Its downy leaves, scents sweetest at the core,</span> -<span class="i0">So all thy loveliness is but the robe</span> -<span class="i0">That clothes a maiden chastity of soul.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O hasten, hasten down your azure road,</span> -<span class="i0">And darken all the golden zones of heaven,</span> -<span class="i0">Bright Sun, for I am weary for my love.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a12" id="a12"></a>An Epistle to a Friend.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_a.jpg" width="38" height="45" alt="A" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">AH well-a-day, for human plans,</span> -<span class="i6">And Fancy’s bright creations,</span> -<span class="i0t">With all the purple-wingéd brood</span> -<span class="i2">Of young imaginations!</span> -<span class="i0">I’ve tried, this weary winter’s day,</span> -<span class="i2">All poignant cares to banish,</span> -<span class="i0">By quaffing goblets, rosy-brimm’d,</span> -<span class="i2">Of dear poetic Rhenish.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Not all the sweets of Castaly—</span> -<span class="i2">That river Heliconian,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Adorn’d with swans of queenly snow,</span> -<span class="i2">Of ancient brood Strymonian;</span> -<span class="i0">Not all the maiden Muses nine,</span> -<span class="i2">With tresses loosely flowing,</span> -<span class="i0">Could magnetise a single line,</span> -<span class="i2">Or set my quill a-going;</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Until I thought of thee, dear friend—</span> -<span class="i2">Best loved, though long unheeded;</span> -<span class="i0">Then forth the virgin pages came,</span> -<span class="i2">And quick my fingers speeded.</span> -<span class="i0">This very hour I’ll make amends,</span> -<span class="i2">This lonely hour quiescent,</span> -<span class="i0">When all the stars are in the blue,</span> -<span class="i2">’Mid lustre irridescent.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And, from the slopes I know right well,</span> -<span class="i2">All shagg’d with bending thistle,</span> -<span class="i0">The homeless wind comes with a swell,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -<span class="i2">And enters with a whistle;</span> -<span class="i0">Till brightlier glows the cosy fire,</span> -<span class="i2">And cheerier my bosom,</span> -<span class="i0">In thinking on the shivering woods,</span> -<span class="i2">And vales without a blossom.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">You know the Luggie, natal stream!—</span> -<span class="i2">On earth to us none dearer—</span> -<span class="i0">Where Lady Luna, mirror’d, burns,</span> -<span class="i2">With all her handmaids near her.</span> -<span class="i0">The time may come when haughty Fame</span> -<span class="i2">With laurel shall console us;</span> -<span class="i0">Then we shall halo it with song</span> -<span class="i2">Till it outflow Pactolus!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The woods, the vales, the hawthorn dales,</span> -<span class="i2">The hoary hamlet Caurnie</span> -<span class="i0">Shall be of goodlier report</span> -<span class="i2">Than genius-hallowed Ferney.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And though I speak like boaster vain,</span> -<span class="i2">I speak not without thinking;</span> -<span class="i0">Already on thy noble brow</span> -<span class="i2">I see a chaplet twinkling!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Heaven knows! amid the march of Time</span> -<span class="i2">I am a simple dreamer;</span> -<span class="i0">Can see more in the patient moon—</span> -<span class="i2">Yon radiant crescent-gleamer—</span> -<span class="i0">Than all the banner’d pomp of war,</span> -<span class="i2">Or progress politician;</span> -<span class="i0">Than all the mockeries of rank,</span> -<span class="i2">And haughtiness patrician.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">No golden key, however bright,</span> -<span class="i2">Can pass the fragrant portal</span> -<span class="i0">Of Fame’s grand temple-dome, or make</span> -<span class="i2">A simpleton immortal.</span> -<span class="i0">Then what is wealth to our desire?</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -<span class="i2">(A burning tear-drop pays us)</span> -<span class="i0">A rushlight to the morning star,</span> -<span class="i2">To Homer but a Crœsus.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then, Willie, though a careless dog,</span> -<span class="i2">In brotherhood excuse me,</span> -<span class="i0">Nor with neglect, and haughty look,</span> -<span class="i2">Most wantonly abuse me.</span> -<span class="i0">I’ve suffer’d much and suffer’d long,</span> -<span class="i2">Dear heart! since last we ponder’d</span> -<span class="i0">On gentle love, within that hall</span> -<span class="i2">Where ancient ivies wander’d.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Nor think my love one jot the less—</span> -<span class="i2">Than love I sought in passion—</span> -<span class="i0">Because I thus have treated thee</span> -<span class="i2">In unpoetic fashion.</span> -<span class="i0">Let this suffice for evermore:</span> -<span class="i2">I plead a self-conviction,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And thy frank spirit never shall</span> -<span class="i2">Increase my sad affliction.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then sure I’ll see thee yet again,</span> -<span class="i2">Before another morrow</span> -<span class="i0">Steals up the east—shall see thee, friend!</span> -<span class="i2">In a delightful sorrow.</span> -<span class="i0">With silent gratitude, I speak</span> -<span class="i2">A blessing on our meeting,</span> -<span class="i0">And may the light of friendship touch</span> -<span class="i2">Our spirits at the greeting!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a13" id="a13"></a>A Vision of Venice.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_b.jpg" width="30" height="46" alt="B" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">BEHOLD! a waking vision crowns my soul</span> -<span class="i5">With beatific radiance, and the light</span> -<span class="i0t">Of shining hope;—a golden-memoried dream</span> -<span class="i0">That clings unto my youth, as clung the strange</span> -<span class="i0">Leonine phantom to that mystic man,</span> -<span class="i0">Lean Paracelsus. It has grown with me</span> -<span class="i0">Like destiny, or that which seems to be</span> -<span class="i0">My destiny, ambition: and its glow</span> -<span class="i0">Inflames my fancy, as if some clear star</span> -<span class="i0">Had burst in silvery light within my brain.</span> -<span class="i0">From the smooth hyaline of that far sea</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -<span class="i0">The pictured Adriatic rises, fair</span> -<span class="i0">As dream, a kingly-built and tower’d town;</span> -<span class="i0">Column and arch and architrave instinct</span> -<span class="i0">With delicatest beauty; overwrought</span> -<span class="i0">With tracery of interlacèd leaves</span> -<span class="i0">For ever blooming on white marble, hush’d</span> -<span class="i0">In everlasting summer, windless, cold:</span> -<span class="i0">The city of the Doges!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i26">From the calm</span> -<span class="i0">Transparent waters float some thrilling sounds</span> -<span class="i0">Of Amphionic music, and the words</span> -<span class="i0">Are Tasso’s, where he passions for his love,</span> -<span class="i0">That lady Florentine so lily-smooth,</span> -<span class="i0">Clothed on with haughtiness!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i28">At the black stair</span> -<span class="i0">Of palace rising shadowy from the wave,</span> -<span class="i0">Two singing gondolieri wait a freight</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of loveliness. A tremulous woman, robed</span> -<span class="i0">In dazzling satin, and whose dimpled arms,</span> -<span class="i0">And milky heaving breasts of living snow</span> -<span class="i0">Shine through their veil diaphanous, floats down</span> -<span class="i0">From the wide portal; and the ivory prow</span> -<span class="i0">Of the soft-cushion’d gondola (as she</span> -<span class="i0">Steps lightly from the marble to her place)</span> -<span class="i0">Dips, rises, dips again; then through the blue</span> -<span class="i0">Swift glides into the sunset.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i32">Oh, the glow</span> -<span class="i0">Of that rich sunset dims whate’er I see</span> -<span class="i0">In this my own dear valley! O’er the hills—</span> -<span class="i0">Those craggy Euganean hills, whose peaks</span> -<span class="i0">Wedge the clear crystalline—a blazonry</span> -<span class="i0">Of clouds pavilion’d, folded, interwound</span> -<span class="i0">Inextricably, load the breezeless west</span> -<span class="i0">With awe and glory. The effulgence gleams</span> -<span class="i0">Upon a vision’d Belmont, home of her</span> -<span class="i0">Who loved as Shakespeare’s women do; and gleams</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Upon those walls wherein Othello’s spear</span> -<span class="i0">Stabb’d clinging innocence; where that poor wife,</span> -<span class="i0">The love-Cassandra Belvidera, gave</span> -<span class="i0">Her soul in martyrdom to love and woe.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And shall I never that far town behold,</span> -<span class="i0">Crested with sparkling columns, fiery towers,</span> -<span class="i0">Praxitelean masonry?—behold</span> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Venice</span>, the mart of nations, ere I die?</span> -<span class="i0">By Heaven! her common merchants princes were</span> -<span class="i0">Unto the continents; her traffickers</span> -<span class="i0">The honourable of the earth! She stood</span> -<span class="i0">A crownèd city, and the fawning sea</span> -<span class="i0">Licked her white feet; and the eternal sun</span> -<span class="i0">Kissed with departing beam her brow of snow!</span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="r25" /> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Woe to this Venice, with her crown of pride!</span> -<span class="i0">The Lady of the kingdoms, the perfection</span> -<span class="i0">Of beauty, and the joy of the whole earth!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Through her pavilions shall the crannying winds</span> -<span class="i0">Whistle, and all her borders in the sea</span> -<span class="i0">Crumble their Parian wonder. Woe to her,</span> -<span class="i0">Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower!</span> -<span class="i0">Her sober-suited nightingales, with notes</span> -<span class="i0">Of smooth liquidity and softened stops,</span> -<span class="i0">Solace the brakes; and ’mid her ancient streets</span> -<span class="i0">Tawny, the gleaming and harmonious sea</span> -<span class="i0">Makes silvery melody of bygone days.</span> -<span class="i0">O white Enchantment! Ocean-spouse of old!</span> -<span class="i0">When thy high battlements and bulging domes,</span> -<span class="i0">By sunset purpled, trembled in the wave!</span> -<span class="i0">Now o’er thy towers the Lord hath spread his hand,</span> -<span class="i0">And as a cottage shalt thou be removed;</span> -<span class="i0">Like Nineveh, or cloudy Babylon!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a14" id="a14"></a>The Anemone.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_i.jpg" width="32" height="45" alt="I" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">I HAVE wandered far to-day,</span> -<span class="i5">In a pleased unquiet way;</span> -<span class="i0t">Over hill and songful hollow,</span> -<span class="i0">Vernal byeways, fresh and fair,</span> -<span class="i0">Did I simple fancies follow;</span> -<span class="i0">Till upon a hill-side bare,</span> -<span class="i0">Suddenly I chanced to see</span> -<span class="i0">A little white anemone.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Beneath a clump of furze it grew;</span> -<span class="i0">And never mortal eye did view</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Its rathe and slender beauty, till</span> -<span class="i0">I saw it in no mocking mood;</span> -<span class="i0">For with its sweetness did it fill</span> -<span class="i0">To me the ample solitude.</span> -<span class="i0">A fond remembrance made me see</span> -<span class="i0">Strange light in the anemone.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">One April day when I was seven,</span> -<span class="i0">Beneath the clear and deepening heaven,</span> -<span class="i0">My father, God preserve him! went</span> -<span class="i0">With me a Scottish mile and more;</span> -<span class="i0">And in a playful merriment</span> -<span class="i0">He deck’d my bonnet o’er and o’er—</span> -<span class="i0">To fling a sunshine on his ease—</span> -<span class="i0">With tenderest anemones.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Now, gentle reader, as I live,</span> -<span class="i0">This snowy little bloom did give</span> -<span class="i0">My being most endearing throes.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -<span class="i0">I saw my father in his prime;</span> -<span class="i0">But youth it comes, and youth it goes,</span> -<span class="i0">And he has spent his blithest time:</span> -<span class="i0">Yet dearer grown thro’ all to me,</span> -<span class="i0">And dearer the anemone.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So with the spirit of a sage</span> -<span class="i0">I pluck’d it from its hermitage,</span> -<span class="i0">And placed it ’tween the sacred leaves</span> -<span class="i0">Of <i>Agnes’ Eve</i> at that rare part</span> -<span class="i0">Where she her fragrant robe unweaves,</span> -<span class="i0">And with a gently beating heart,</span> -<span class="i0">In troubled bliss and balmy woe,</span> -<span class="i0">Lies down to dream of Porphyro.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Let others sing of that and this,</span> -<span class="i0">In war and science find their bliss;</span> -<span class="i0">Vainly they seek and will not find</span> -<span class="i0">The subtle lore that nature brings</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Unto the reverential mind,</span> -<span class="i0">The pathos worn by common things,</span> -<span class="i0">By every flower that lights the lea,</span> -<span class="i0">And by the pale anemone.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a15" id="a15"></a>The Yellowhammer.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_i.jpg" width="32" height="45" alt="I" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">IN fairy glen of Woodilee,</span> -<span class="i6">One sunny summer morning,</span> -<span class="i0t">I plucked a little birchen tree,</span> -<span class="i0">The spongy moss adorning;</span> -<span class="i0">And bearing it delighted home,</span> -<span class="i0">I planted it in garden loam,</span> -<span class="i0">Where, perfecting all duty,</span> -<span class="i0">It flowered in tassel’d beauty.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When delicate April in each dell</span> -<span class="i0">Was silently completing</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Her ministry in bud and bell,</span> -<span class="i0">To grace the summer’s meeting;</span> -<span class="i0">My birchen tree of glossy rind</span> -<span class="i0">Determined not to be behind;</span> -<span class="i0">So with a subtle power</span> -<span class="i0">The buds began to flower.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And I could watch from out my house</span> -<span class="i0">The twigs with leaflets thicken;</span> -<span class="i0">From glossy rind to twining boughs</span> -<span class="i0">The milky sap ’gan quicken.</span> -<span class="i0">And when the fragrant form was green</span> -<span class="i0">No fairer tree was to be seen,</span> -<span class="i0">All Gartshore woods adorning,</span> -<span class="i0">Where doves are always mourning.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But never dove with liquid wing,</span> -<span class="i0">Or neck of changeful gleaming,</span> -<span class="i0">Came near my garden tree to sing</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Or <i>croodle</i> out its meaning.</span> -<span class="i0">But this sweet day, an hour ago,</span> -<span class="i0">A yellowhammer clear and low,</span> -<span class="i0">In love and tender pity</span> -<span class="i0">Thrilled out his dainty ditty.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And I was pleased, as you may think,</span> -<span class="i0">And blessed the little singer:</span> -<span class="i0">‘O fly for your mate to Luggie brink,</span> -<span class="i0">Dear little bird! and bring her;</span> -<span class="i0">And build your nest among the boughs,</span> -<span class="i0">A sweet and cosy little house</span> -<span class="i0">Where ye may well content ye,</span> -<span class="i0">Since true love is so plenty.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And when she sits upon her nest,</span> -<span class="i0">Here are cool shades to shroud her.’</span> -<span class="i0">At this the singer sang his best,</span> -<span class="i0">O louder yet, and louder;</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Until I shouted in my glee,</span> -<span class="i0">His song had so enchanted me.</span> -<span class="i0">No nightingale could pant on</span> -<span class="i0">In joy so wise and wanton.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But at my careless noise he flew,</span> -<span class="i0">And if he chance to bring her</span> -<span class="i0">A happy bride the summer thro’</span> -<span class="i0">’Mong birchen boughs to linger,</span> -<span class="i0">I’ll sing to you in numbers high</span> -<span class="i0">A summer song that shall not die,</span> -<span class="i0">But keep in memory clearly</span> -<span class="i0">The bird I love so dearly.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a16" id="a16"></a>The Cuckoo.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_l.jpg" width="29" height="46" alt="L" /> -</div> -<span class="i3 drop-cap">LAST night a vision was dispelled,</span> -<span class="i4">Which I can never dream again;</span> -<span class="i0t">A wonder from the earth has gone,</span> -<span class="i0">A passion from my brain.</span> -<span class="i0">I saw upon a budding ash</span> -<span class="i0">A cuckoo, and she blithely sung</span> -<span class="i0">To all the valleys round about,</span> -<span class="i0">While on a branch she swung.</span> -<span class="i0">Cuckoo, cuckoo! I looked around,</span> -<span class="i0">And like a dream fulfilled,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -<span class="i0">A slender bird of modest brown,</span> -<span class="i0">My sight with wonder thrilled.</span> -<span class="i0">I looked again and yet again;</span> -<span class="i0">My eyes, thought I, do sure deceive me,</span> -<span class="i0">But when belief made doubting vain,</span> -<span class="i0">Alas, the sight did grieve me.</span> -<span class="i0">For twice to-day I heard the cry,</span> -<span class="i0">The hollow cry of melting love;</span> -<span class="i0">And twice a tear bedimmed my eye—</span> -<span class="i0">I <i>saw</i> the singer in the grove,</span> -<span class="i0">I saw him pipe his eager tone,</span> -<span class="i0">Like any other common bird,</span> -<span class="i0">And, as I live, the sovereign cry</span> -<span class="i0">Was not the one I always heard.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O why within that lusty wood</span> -<span class="i0">Did I the fairy sight behold?</span> -<span class="i0">O why within that solitude</span> -<span class="i0">Was I thus blindly overbold?</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -<span class="i0">My heart, forgive me! for indeed</span> -<span class="i0">I cannot speak my thrilling pain:</span> -<span class="i0">The wonder vanished from the earth,</span> -<span class="i0">The passion from my brain.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a17" id="a17"></a>Fame.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i15"><i>A Fragment.</i></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O GLORIOUS Fame! next grandest word to God,</span> -<span class="i5">Father of all things beautiful and grand,</span> -<span class="i0">Of all the thoughts ideal and sublime</span> -<span class="i0">That grace the annals of our literature.</span> -<span class="i0">Thou stirrer of the heart to noble deeds!</span> -<span class="i0">Thou powerful antidote to cringing fear</span> -<span class="i0">Of battle, rolling ’mid the billowy smoke</span> -<span class="i0">That wreaths its curls blue over flood and field!</span> -<span class="i0">In the cold, creaking garret, or beside</span> -<span class="i0">The entrance to a theatre, or where</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Luxury pillows soft the somnolent head,</span> -<span class="i0">Or where the dew-bent daisy droops to kiss</span> -<span class="i0">The dark grey eggs of lark, companion sweet!</span> -<span class="i0">There thou dost lift their souls above this world,</span> -<span class="i0">And teachest them in language fair and wild,</span> -<span class="i0">To ope their hearts in strains of poesy.</span> -<span class="i0">Ah, noble Fame! how deeply I adore</span> -<span class="i0">Thy altar, smelling sweet with fond applause!</span> -<span class="i0">Sages may shun, philosophers may scorn;</span> -<span class="i0">But, ah! to a young heart, how glorious</span> -<span class="i0">The thought that he, by well-earned merit, shall</span> -<span class="i0">Be spoken of, yea praised, ’neath the roof-tree</span> -<span class="i0">Of peasant, or beneath the monarch’s dome!</span> -<span class="i0">That learned men will wonder, and in joy</span> -<span class="i0">Will lift their hands and shake astonished heads;</span> -<span class="i0">That by the fireside, while the flick’ring lamp</span> -<span class="i0">Doth send its shadow-forming light athwart.</span> -<span class="i0">The genius young shall read, and read, and read</span> -<span class="i0">Until the warning bell strike one short hour,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Then fling it past, and, pillowed on his couch,</span> -<span class="i0">Dream of the happy-gifted one that wrote it;</span> -<span class="i0">That maidens, high in rank and fair in form,</span> -<span class="i0">Shall speak to one another of that man</span> -<span class="i0">Who, bathing in the pure Castalian fount,</span> -<span class="i0">Arose, and from his form with pearlets clad</span> -<span class="i0">Shook off the diamonds in bright profusion,</span> -<span class="i0">That, while the clouds do tell their pattering beads,</span> -<span class="i0">And through the forest roars the wailing wind</span> -<span class="i0">Sporting with the brown leaves that wheel aloft,</span> -<span class="i0">A joyous family, seated by a fire</span> -<span class="i0">That roars in laughter at the storm without,</span> -<span class="i0">Talked of the poet—</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a18" id="a18"></a>Honeysuckle.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_s.jpg" width="30" height="46" alt="S" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">STOP! taste the balmy essence of this flower,</span> -<span class="i5">That fondly twines about the dark-green fir;</span> -<span class="i0t">The air is sweet, and, like a mild-eyed saint,</span> -<span class="i0">It liveth doing good. The balmy gale</span> -<span class="i0">Far wafts its odours to the lowly door</span> -<span class="i0">Of yon small cot thatched with the dying heath,</span> -<span class="i0">And the old dame doth bless the laden wind.</span> -<span class="i0">I do not think that e’er a tender eye</span> -<span class="i0">Looked on thee but with love,—that e’er a tongue</span> -<span class="i0">Spoke of thee but with blessings and with praise.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Thy lean red shanks cling round the dusty trunk,</span> -<span class="i0">And send their white shoots through the brown rough bark,</span> -<span class="i0">So true, so fond and frail-like that when one</span> -<span class="i0">Looks on thee, his mind’s eye sees round God’s throne</span> -<span class="i0">White spirits breathing hymns and fed with love.</span> -<span class="i0">Ye sweet, sweet flowers! ye must have mutual love,</span> -<span class="i0">For when one stalk, with its own beauty, droops,</span> -<span class="i0">With oily leaves and breathing blossoms heavy,</span> -<span class="i0">The others haste their sister to upraise,</span> -<span class="i0">And, winding round it with affection’s grasp,</span> -<span class="i0">Lift it from off the earth’s dark dreaded breast.</span> -<span class="i0">How many nosegays have I often culled</span> -<span class="i0">Of thee, fair guiltless thief, for even thy name</span> -<span class="i0">Tells how thou <i>sucklest</i> nature’s <i>honeyed</i> sweets,</span> -<span class="i0">And leav’st her less wherewith to bless the rest.</span> -<span class="i0">Thou art not <i>very</i> beauteous; many flowers,</span> -<span class="i0">With high-fringed crests and gaudy-spotted leaves,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Outstrip thy homely dress; but tell me one</span> -<span class="i0">That blesseth ether with more fragrant smell?</span> -<span class="i0">’Tis ever thus. Furred robes and shining silks</span> -<span class="i0">Oft hide a poppy’s smell—a dastard mind;</span> -<span class="i0">And homely garments oft adorn a breast</span> -<span class="i0">That heaves at pity’s tale and tale of wrong,</span> -<span class="i0">And, known by none, yet is a friend to all.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a19" id="a19"></a>Where the Lilies used to Spring.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_w.jpg" width="45" height="45" alt="W" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">WHEN the place was green with the shaky grass,</span> -<span class="i6">And the windy trees were high;</span> -<span class="i0t">When the leaflets told each other tales,</span> -<span class="i2">And the stars were in the sky;</span> -<span class="i0">When the silent crows hid their ebon beaks</span> -<span class="i2">Beneath their ruffled wing—</span> -<span class="i0">Then the fairies watered the glancing spot</span> -<span class="i2">Where the lilies used to spring!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When the sun is high in the summer sky,</span> -<span class="i2">And the lake is deep with clouds;</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -<span class="i0">When gadflies bite the prancing kine,</span> -<span class="i2">And light the lark enshrouds—</span> -<span class="i0">Then the butterfly, like a feather dropped</span> -<span class="i2">From the tip of an angel’s wing,</span> -<span class="i0">Floats wavering on to the glancing spot</span> -<span class="i2">Where the lilies used to spring!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When the wheat is shorn and the burns run brown,</span> -<span class="i2">And the moon shines clear at night;</span> -<span class="i0">When wains are heaped with rustling corn,</span> -<span class="i2">And the swallows take their flight;</span> -<span class="i0">When the trees begin to cast their leaves,</span> -<span class="i2">And the birds, new-feathered, sing—</span> -<span class="i0">Then comes the bee to the glancing spot</span> -<span class="i2">Where the lilies used to spring!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">When the sky is grey and the trees are bare,</span> -<span class="i2">And the grass is long and brown,</span> -<span class="i0">And black moss clothes the soft damp thatch,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -<span class="i2">And the rain comes weary down,</span> -<span class="i0">And countless droplets on the pond</span> -<span class="i2">Their widening orbits ring—</span> -<span class="i0">Then bleak and cold is the silent spot</span> -<span class="i2">Where the lilies used to spring!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a20" id="a20"></a>Snow.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_f.jpg" width="27" height="46" alt="F" /> -</div> -<span class="i4 drop-cap">FLOWERS upon the summer lea,</span> -<span class="i4">Daisies, kingcups, pale primroses—</span> -<span class="i0t">These are sung from sea to sea,</span> -<span class="i0">As many a darling rhyme discloses.</span> -<span class="i0">Tangled wood and hawthorn dale</span> -<span class="i0">In many a songful snatch prevail;</span> -<span class="i0">But never yet, as well I mind,</span> -<span class="i0">In all their verses can I find</span> -<span class="i0">A simple tune, with quiet flow,</span> -<span class="i0">To match the falling of the snow.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O weary passed each winter day,</span> -<span class="i0">And windily howled each winter night;</span> -<span class="i0">O miry grew each village way,</span> -<span class="i0">And mists enfolded every height;</span> -<span class="i0">And ever on the window pane</span> -<span class="i0">A froward gust blew down with rain,</span> -<span class="i0">And day by day in tawny brown</span> -<span class="i0">The Luggie stream came heaving down:—</span> -<span class="i0">I could have fallen asleep and dreamed</span> -<span class="i0">Until again spring sunshine gleamed.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And what! said I, is this the mode</span> -<span class="i0">That Winter kings it now-a-days?</span> -<span class="i0">The Robin keeps its own abode,</span> -<span class="i0">And pipes his independent lays.</span> -<span class="i0">I’ve seen the day on Merkland hill,</span> -<span class="i0">That snow has fallen with a will,</span> -<span class="i0">Even in November! Now, alas;</span> -<span class="i0">The whole year round we see the grass:—</span> -<span class="i0">Ah, winter now may come and go</span> -<span class="i0">Without a single fall of snow.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">It was the latest day but one</span> -<span class="i0">Of winter, as I questioned thus;</span> -<span class="i0">And sooth! an angry mood was on,</span> -<span class="i0">As at a thing most scandalous;—</span> -<span class="i0">When lo! some hailstones on the pane</span> -<span class="i0">With sudden tinkle rang amain,</span> -<span class="i0">Till in an ecstasy of joy</span> -<span class="i0">I clapp’d and shouted like a boy—</span> -<span class="i0">Oh, rain may come and rain may go,</span> -<span class="i0">But what can match the falling snow!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">It draped the naked sycamore</span> -<span class="i0">On Foordcroft hill, above the well;</span> -<span class="i0">The elms of Rosebank o’er and o’er</span> -<span class="i0">Were silvered richly as it fell.</span> -<span class="i0">The distant Campsie peaks were lost,</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -<span class="i0">And farthest Criftin with his host</span> -<span class="i0">Of gloomy pine-trees disappeared,</span> -<span class="i0">Nor even a lonely ridge upreared.—</span> -<span class="i0">Oh, rain may come and rain may go,</span> -<span class="i0">But what can match the falling snow!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Afar upon the Solsgirth moor,</span> -<span class="i0">Each heather sprig of withered brown</span> -<span class="i0">Is fringed with thread of silver pure</span> -<span class="i0">As slow the soft flakes waver down;</span> -<span class="i0">And on Glenconner’s lonely path,</span> -<span class="i0">And Gartshore’s still and open strath,</span> -<span class="i0">It falleth, quiet as the birth</span> -<span class="i0">Of morning o’er the quickening earth.—</span> -<span class="i0">Oh, rain may come and rain may go,</span> -<span class="i0">But what can match the falling snow!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And all around our Merkland home</span> -<span class="i0">Is laid a sheet of virgin lawn;</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -<span class="i0">On fairer, softer, ne’er did roam</span> -<span class="i0">The nimble Oread or Faun.</span> -<span class="i0">There is a wonder in the air,</span> -<span class="i0">A living beauty everywhere;</span> -<span class="i0">As if the whole had ne’er been planned,</span> -<span class="i0">But touched by Merlin’s famous wand,</span> -<span class="i0">Suddenly woke beneath his hand</span> -<span class="i0">To potent bliss in fairy show—</span> -<span class="i0">A mighty ravishment of snow!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a21" id="a21"></a>October.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_s.jpg" width="30" height="46" alt="S" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">SWEET Muse and well-beloved, with my decline</span> -<span class="i5">Declining, like a rose crushed unawares,</span> -<span class="i0t">Having too early knowledge of decay,</span> -<span class="i0">Too subtle pleasure to behold the tree</span> -<span class="i0">Shed its thin foliage on the sluggish stream,—</span> -<span class="i0">What a sweet subject for thy silver sounds!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O for a quill pluck’d from the soaring wing</span> -<span class="i0">Of an archangel, dipped in holy dew,</span> -<span class="i0">To catch thy latest looks, thou loveliest</span> -<span class="i0">October, o’er the many-coloured woods!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -<span class="i0">October! vastlier disconsolate</span> -<span class="i0">Than Saturn guiding melancholy spheres,</span> -<span class="i0">Through ante-mundane silence and ripe death.</span> -<span class="i0">Ere the last stack is housed, and woods are bare,</span> -<span class="i0">And the vermilion fruitage of the brier</span> -<span class="i0">Is soaked in mist, or shrivelled up with frost;</span> -<span class="i0">Ere warm Spring nests are coldly to be seen</span> -<span class="i0">Tenantless, but for rain and the cold snow,</span> -<span class="i0">While yet there is a loveliness abroad,—</span> -<span class="i0">The frail and indescribable loveliness</span> -<span class="i0">Of a fair form Life with reluctance leaves,</span> -<span class="i0">Being there only powerful,—while the earth</span> -<span class="i0">Wears sackcloth in her great prophetic grief:—</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then the reflective melancholy soul,—</span> -<span class="i0">Aimlessly wandering with slow falling foot</span> -<span class="i0">The heath’ry solitude, in hope to assuage</span> -<span class="i0">The cunning humour of his malady,—</span> -<span class="i0">Loses his painful bitterness, and feels</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -<span class="i0">His own specific sorrows one by one</span> -<span class="i0">Taken up in the huge dolour of all things.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O the sweet melancholy of the time</span> -<span class="i0">When gently, ere the heart appeals, the year</span> -<span class="i0">Shines in the fatal beauty of decay!</span> -<span class="i0">When the sun sinks enlarged on Carronben,</span> -<span class="i0">Nakedly visible without a cloud,</span> -<span class="i0">And faintly from the faint eternal blue</span> -<span class="i0">(That dim, sweet harebell-colour) comes the star</span> -<span class="i0">Which evening wears;—when Luggie flows in mist,</span> -<span class="i0">And in the cottage windows one by one,</span> -<span class="i0">With sudden twinkle household lamps are lit,</span> -<span class="i0">What noiseless falling of the faded leaf!</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sweet on a blossoming summer’s afternoon,</span> -<span class="i0">When Fancy plays the wizard in the brain,</span> -<span class="i0">Idly to saunter thro’ a lusty wood!</span> -<span class="i0">But sweeter far—by how much sweeter, God</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Alone hath knowledge—in a pensive mood,</span> -<span class="i0">Outstretched on green moss-velvet floss’d with thyme,</span> -<span class="i0">To watch the fall o’ the leaf before the moon</span> -<span class="i0">Shines out in sweet completion circular.</span> -<span class="i0">For when the sunset hath withdrawn its gold</span> -<span class="i0">And glimmering, like the surcease</span> -<span class="i0">Of rich, low melody, erst inaudible streams</span> -<span class="i0">Find voices in their still unwearied flow;</span> -<span class="i0">And winds that have been much above the moors</span> -<span class="i0">And mountains, have a deadly feel of cold,</span> -<span class="i0">Forespeaking clear blue dawns and frosty chill.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="a22" id="a22"></a>The Roman Dyke.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_a.jpg" width="38" height="45" alt="A" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">AH! frail memorial of a thousand years!</span> -<span class="i6">Thou seem’st a stranger in a foreign land:</span> -<span class="i0t">No pitying hand thy fragments, fall’n, uprears,</span> -<span class="i2">But useless, graceless, thou art left to stand.</span> -<span class="i0">And yet, across this foggy, rain-slash’d wall,</span> -<span class="i2">The savage tatoo’d Caledonians slew,</span> -<span class="i2">With gory club, the high-nosed Romans, who</span> -<span class="i0">With joy retreated at Antonius’ call.</span> -<span class="i0">That stone which now I touch has handled been</span> -<span class="i2">By brawny Romans, who, in Latin talked</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -<span class="i0">Of their fantastic foes, as, oft-times seen,</span> -<span class="i2">With sacred tramp of liberty they stalked.</span> -<span class="i0">And have they e’er been slaves? that dyke shall tell:</span> -<span class="i2">The Romans, Saxons, Southrons, Swedes, they’ve braved,</span> -<span class="i2">And, like proud eagles, scorned to be enslaved;</span> -<span class="i0">As freemen now they stand—as freemen then they fell.</span> -<span class="i0">On that side scorn the paths of slavery;</span> -<span class="i0">Here—kiss the hallowed dust of Liberty!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -<span class="i0"> </span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"><h2>Miscellaneous Sonnets.</h2></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b01" id="b01"></a>Ezekiel.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_e.jpg" width="28" height="45" alt="E" /> -</div> -<span class="i4 drop-cap">EZEKIEL, thus from the Lord God: Behold,</span> -<span class="i5">Mount Seir, I am against thee! Desolate,</span> -<span class="i2t">Most desolate thy cloudy and dark fate.</span> -<span class="i0">Between the lips of talkers bad and bold,</span> -<span class="i0">Thy towns forsaken, and thy rivers rolled</span> -<span class="i2">Thro’ silent wastes, are taken up, and great</span> -<span class="i2">The joy at thy high glories ruinate.</span> -<span class="i0">While all the earth is wanton, thou art cold,</span> -<span class="i2">For thy most cruel lifting of the spear</span> -<span class="i0">’Gainst Israel in her time of consternation.</span> -<span class="i2">Slain men shall fill thy mountains, O mount Seir!</span> -<span class="i0">Sith thou hast blood pursued, fell tribulation</span> -<span class="i2">Shall curse thy blessings, mock’d and undeplored:—</span> -<span class="i2">As I live, thou shalt know I am the Lord!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b02" id="b02"></a>The Mavis.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_s.jpg" width="30" height="46" alt="S" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">SWEET Mavis! at this cool delicious hour</span> -<span class="i5">Of gloaming, with a pensive quietness</span> -<span class="i0t">Hushes the odorous air,—with what a power</span> -<span class="i2">Of impulse unsubdued, thou dost express</span> -<span class="i0">Thyself a spirit! While the silver dew</span> -<span class="i2">Holy as manna on the meadow falls,</span> -<span class="i0">Thy song’s impassioned clarity, trembling through</span> -<span class="i2">This omnipresent stillness, disenthrals</span> -<span class="i0">The soul to adoration. First I heard</span> -<span class="i2">A low thick lubric gurgle, soft as love,</span> -<span class="i0">Yet sad as memory, thro’ the silence poured</span> -<span class="i0">Like starlight. But the mood intenser grows,</span> -<span class="i2">Precipitate rapture quickens, move on move</span> -<span class="i0">Lucidly linked together, till the close.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b03" id="b03"></a>Despondency.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O MYSTERY of love and human grief,</span> -<span class="i6">And hope, half-prophet ever prone to tears!</span> -<span class="i0t">My heart is lonely as a withered leaf</span> -<span class="i0">Upon the winter tree. The passing years</span> -<span class="i0">Are barren to me of all happiness,</span> -<span class="i0">And, like a hoary anchorite, I feed</span> -<span class="i0">Upon my past, and, <i>fetisch-like</i>, it dress</span> -<span class="i0">With glory and clear jewels not its own.</span> -<span class="i0">O Love, and Childhood! and those happy times</span> -<span class="i0">When ignorance was patron to my need,</span> -<span class="i0">When every hour was like a linnet flown</span> -<span class="i0">In song, and beautiful in simple rhymes.</span> -<span class="i0">Would that my feelings knew the quiet flow</span> -<span class="i0">Of thy clear waters, Luggie! singing as they go!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b04" id="b04"></a>The Moon.</h3></div> - -<h4>I.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_c.jpg" width="34" height="45" alt="C" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">COME, light-foot Lady! from thy vaporous hall,</span> -<span class="i6">And, with a silver-swim into the air,</span> -<span class="i0t">Shine down the starry cressets one and all</span> -<span class="i2">From Pleiades to golden Jupiter!</span> -<span class="i0">I see a growing tip of silver peep</span> -<span class="i2">Above the full-fed cloud, and lo! with motion</span> -<span class="i0">Of queenly stateliness, and smooth as sleep,</span> -<span class="i2">She glides into the blue for my devotion.</span> -<span class="i0">O sovran Beauty! standing here alone</span> -<span class="i2">Under the insufferable infinite,</span> -<span class="i0">I worship with dazed eyes and feeble moan</span> -<span class="i2">Thy lucid persecution of delight.</span> -<span class="i0">Come, cloudy dimness! Dip, fair dream, again!</span> -<span class="i0">O God! I cannot gaze, for utter pain.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>II.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_w.jpg" width="45" height="45" alt="W" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">WITH what a calm serenity she smooths</span> -<span class="i7">Her way thro’ cloudless jasper sown with stars!</span> -<span class="i0t">Chaster than virtue, sweeter than sweet truths</span> -<span class="i2">Of maidenhood, in Spenser’s knightly wars.</span> -<span class="i0">For what is all Belphœbe’s golden hair,</span> -<span class="i2">The chastity of Britomart, the love</span> -<span class="i0">Of Florimel so faithful and so fair,</span> -<span class="i2">To thee, thou Wonder! And yet far above</span> -<span class="i0">Thy inoffensive beauty must I hold</span> -<span class="i2">Dear Una, sighing for the Red-cross Knight</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ all her losses, crosses manifold.</span> -<span class="i2">And when the lordly lion fell in fight,</span> -<span class="i0">Who, who can paragon her tearful woe?</span> -<span class="i0">Not thou, O Moon! didst ever passion so.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b05" id="b05"></a>The Luggie.</h3></div> - -<h4>I.</h4> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_l.jpg" width="29" height="46" alt="L" /> -</div> -<span class="i3 drop-cap">LONG yearnings had my soul to gaze upon</span> -<span class="i4">Fair Italy with atmosphere of fire;</span> -<span class="i0t">On tawny Spain; on th’ immemorial land</span> -<span class="i0">Where Time has dallied with the Parthenon</span> -<span class="i2">In beautiful affection and desire.</span> -<span class="i0">But when last even, effluently bland,</span> -<span class="i2">I saw sweet Luggie wind her amber waters</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ lawns of dew and glens of glimmering green,</span> -<span class="i2">And saw the comeliness of Scotland’s daughters,</span> -<span class="i0">Their speaking eyes and modest mountain mien,—</span> -<span class="i2">I blest the Godhead over all presiding,</span> -<span class="i0">Who placed me here, removed from human strife,</span> -<span class="i2">Where Luggie, in her clear unwearied gliding,</span> -<span class="i0">Is but the image of my inner life.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>II.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="35" height="45" alt="T" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap">THE Avon is a famous rivulet,</span> -<span class="i4">The mountain Duddon and the “bonnie Doon”</span> -<span class="i0">Flow ever-shining in the sun of song,</span> -<span class="i0">While plaintive Yarrow moaneth evermore.</span> -<span class="i0">But there is one which I must halo yet</span> -<span class="i0">With verse, as with a gleam of morning glory;</span> -<span class="i0">Must set its woodland murmurings to tune,</span> -<span class="i0">As through summer groves it steals along;</span> -<span class="i0">Must gather inspiration from its love</span> -<span class="i0">Of visible beauty and traditions hoary,</span> -<span class="i0">And spiritual presences sublime.</span> -<span class="i0">Dear Luggie! thou are mine by right of birth,</span> -<span class="i0">And daily brotherhood and poet’s rhyme.</span> -<span class="i0">O could I make thee famous o’er the earth!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h4>III.</h4></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_p.jpg" width="30" height="45" alt="P" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">PACTOLUS singeth over golden sand;</span> -<span class="i4">Scamander, old and blood-empurpled river,</span> -<span class="i0t">Rolls yet her stream divine; and Castaly</span> -<span class="i2">Flows lucid in the light of ancient song;</span> -<span class="i0">Whilst thou, sweet Luggie! fairest of this land,</span> -<span class="i2">And fair as any of that famous throng,</span> -<span class="i0">In pastoral, still loveliness, must be</span> -<span class="i2">Bald as a marshy brooklet nameless ever!</span> -<span class="i0">Nay, by the spirit of beauty and dear pleasure,</span> -<span class="i2">Sure I shall sing thee as my first delight,</span> -<span class="i0">Nurse of my soul, companion of my leisure!</span> -<span class="i2">And if in aftertime thy waters roll</span> -<span class="i0">More worthily, more spiritually bright,</span> -<span class="i2">It will be sunshine to my perfect soul.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b06" id="b06"></a>Thomas the Rhymer.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_l.jpg" width="29" height="46" alt="L" /> -</div> -<span class="i3 drop-cap">LISTEN, O spirit of that ancient bard!</span> -<span class="i4">Thou weird Ezekiel of an age of lies</span> -<span class="i0t">And human fantasy! If ’neath the skies</span> -<span class="i0">One being liveth, worthy to be heard,</span> -<span class="i0">Whisper the awful <i>sesame</i> that unstarr’d</span> -<span class="i0">To thee the riddle of those mysteries,</span> -<span class="i0">Dumb evermore to gazing of all eyes</span> -<span class="i0">Mortal and uninspired! O thou that warr’d</span> -<span class="i0">With man and custom, I do think of thee</span> -<span class="i0">As something of a glory, something grand</span> -<span class="i0">Beyond what ever satisfied this land</span> -<span class="i0">With earnest of a strange divinity,</span> -<span class="i0">Penn’d in thy passionately-breathing moods,</span> -<span class="i0">Prophetic peopler of old solitudes!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b07" id="b07"></a>The Lime-Tree.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_a.jpg" width="38" height="45" alt="A" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">A LIME-TREE broad of bough and rough of trunk</span> -<span class="i5">Deepens a shadow, as the evening cool,</span> -<span class="i2">Over the Luggie gathering in deep pool</span> -<span class="i0">Contemplative, its waters summer-shrunk;</span> -<span class="i0">The Lammas floods have sucked away the mould</span> -<span class="i2">About its roots, and now in bare sunshine</span> -<span class="i2">Like knot of snakes they twine and intertwine</span> -<span class="i0">Fantastic implication, fold in fold.</span> -<span class="i0">Secure in covert, ’neath the fringing fern</span> -<span class="i2">Lurks the bright-speckled trout, untroubled, save</span> -<span class="i0">When boyhood with a glorious unconcern</span> -<span class="i2">Eagerly plunges in the sleeping wave.</span> -<span class="i0">Here the much-musing poet might recapture</span> -<span class="i0">The inspiration flown, the vagrant rapture.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b08" id="b08"></a>The Brooklet.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O DEEP unlovely brooklet, moaning slow</span> -<span class="i6">Thro’ moorish fen in utter loneliness!</span> -<span class="i0">The partridge cowers beside thy loamy flow</span> -<span class="i2">In pulseful tremor, when with sudden press</span> -<span class="i0">The huntsman flusters thro’ the rustled heather.</span> -<span class="i2">In March thy sallow-buds from vermeil shells</span> -<span class="i0">Break, satin-tinted, downy as the feather</span> -<span class="i2">Of moss-chat that among the purplish bells</span> -<span class="i0">Breasts into fresh new life her three unborn.</span> -<span class="i2">The plover hovers o’er thee, uttering clear</span> -<span class="i0">And mournful—strange, his human cry forlorn:</span> -<span class="i2">While wearily, alone, and void of cheer</span> -<span class="i0">Thou glid’st thy nameless waters from the fen,</span> -<span class="i0">To sleep unsunned in an untrampled glen.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b09" id="b09"></a>Maidenhood.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_a.jpg" width="38" height="45" alt="A" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">A SACRED land, to common men unknown,</span> -<span class="i6">A land of bowery glades and greenwoods hoary,</span> -<span class="i0t">Still waters where white stars reflected shone,</span> -<span class="i2">And ancient castles in their ivied glory.</span> -<span class="i0">Fair knights caparison’d in golden mail,</span> -<span class="i2">And maidens whose enchantment was their beauty,</span> -<span class="i0">Met but to whisper each the passion-tale,</span> -<span class="i2">For love was all their pleasure and their duty.</span> -<span class="i0">Here cedar bark, as with a moving will,</span> -<span class="i2">Floated thro’ liquid silver, all untended;</span> -<span class="i0">Here wrong and baseness ever came to ill,</span> -<span class="i2">And virtue with delight was sweetly blended.</span> -<span class="i0">This land, dear Spenser! was thy fair creation,</span> -<span class="i0">Made thro’ fine glamour of imagination.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b10" id="b10"></a>Sleep.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O PRECIOUS Morphia! I sanctify</span> -<span class="i6">The soothing power that in a painless swoon</span> -<span class="i0">Laps my weak limbs, giving me strength to lie,</span> -<span class="i2">Till sacred dawn increases unto noon:</span> -<span class="i0">Then when, from highest meridional height,</span> -<span class="i2">The sun devolves, and cooling breezes wake,</span> -<span class="i0">It is a comfort and divine delight</span> -<span class="i2">The weary bed exhausted to forsake,</span> -<span class="i0">And bathe my temples in the blessed air.</span> -<span class="i2">But when day wanes, and the wind-moaning night</span> -<span class="i0">Deepens to darkness, then thy virtue rare,</span> -<span class="i2">O dream-creative liquid! brings delight,</span> -<span class="i0">Thy silver drops, diffusive, kindly steep</span> -<span class="i0">The senses in the golden juice of sleep.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b11" id="b11"></a>The Days of Old Mythology.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O FOR the days of old Mythology,</span> -<span class="i6">When dripping Naiads taught their streams to glide!</span> -<span class="i0t">When, ’mid the greenery, one would oft-times spy</span> -<span class="i2">An Oread tripping with her face aside.</span> -<span class="i0">The dismal realms of Dis by Virgil sung,</span> -<span class="i2">Whose shade led Dante, in his virtue bold,</span> -<span class="i0">All the sad grief and agony among,</span> -<span class="i2">O’er Acheron, that mournful river old,</span> -<span class="i0">Ev’n to the Stygian tide of purple gloom!</span> -<span class="i2">Pan in the forest making melody!</span> -<span class="i0">And far away where hoariest billows boom,</span> -<span class="i2">Old Neptune’s steeds with snorting nostrils high!</span> -<span class="i0">These were the ancient days of sunny song;</span> -<span class="i0">Their memory yet how dear to the poetic throng.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b12" id="b12"></a>Discontentment.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O IF we never knew the genial hour</span> -<span class="i5">When Happiness sits by us like a god</span> -<span class="i0t">Dispensing treasures, we would never know</span> -<span class="i0">The barren sadness of the common day,</span> -<span class="i0">The weariness, and discontentment sour</span> -<span class="i0">At human life—its ordinary load</span> -<span class="i0">Of hopes deferred, and presences that flow</span> -<span class="i0">Smilingly past us, syrens in the dream</span> -<span class="i0">Of young imagination, fancy-fed.</span> -<span class="i0">O I have seen such beauties with the gleam</span> -<span class="i0">Of fairy sunshine on them, and I long</span> -<span class="i0">Upon their bosoms this my life away</span> -<span class="i0">To dally, like the lover in a song,</span> -<span class="i0">And be a luting swain, Arcadian bred!</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b13" id="b13"></a>Snow.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_b.jpg" width="30" height="46" alt="B" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">BUT yestermorn the February snow</span> -<span class="i5">Lay printless as the heaven upon this field,</span> -<span class="i0t">And, with a rapture in my bosom born,</span> -<span class="i0">In sudden awe and reverence I kneeled</span> -<span class="i0">Alone beneath the glory of the sky</span> -<span class="i0">And omnipresent deity. To-day</span> -<span class="i0">The spirit of the beautiful no more</span> -<span class="i0">Over the wondering earth, in earnest glow</span> -<span class="i0">Touches to beauty all the landscape grey,—</span> -<span class="i0">Bringing a vision from her palace high</span> -<span class="i0">To this sublunar planet. Now, forlorn</span> -<span class="i0">As Ariadne on Cretan shore</span> -<span class="i0">For many bitter-cold and weary days</span> -<span class="i0">She knoweth not her old immortal ways.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b14" id="b14"></a>The Thrush.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">ONE Candlemas, a gentle day of Spring,</span> -<span class="i6">I was abroad betimes while the red sun</span> -<span class="i0">Rose large and stately with a purpled ring</span> -<span class="i0">Of mist about him, and a mantle dun.</span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ naked boughs he ominously glared,</span> -<span class="i0">Till, soul-constrained, in sudden awe I stood,</span> -<span class="i0">And with a Persian’s adoration stared.</span> -<span class="i0">When lo! from a round beech-tree in the wood,</span> -<span class="i0">The only tree to which the brown leaves clung,</span> -<span class="i0">A mavis warbled forth his mellow lay;</span> -<span class="i0">And ever as his ditty clear he sung</span> -<span class="i0">The passion swelled his breast of downy grey.</span> -<span class="i0">Dear bird! since then thy melody I know</span> -<span class="i0">The boldest in intent, the fullest in its flow.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b15" id="b15"></a>Stars.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_o.jpg" width="35" height="44" alt="O" /> -</div> -<span class="i5 drop-cap">O COLD blue night, and deep the cloudless sky</span> -<span class="i6">Gleams, sown with lucid keen and trembling stars;—</span> -<span class="i0">A ravishment of glory shines on high,</span> -<span class="i0">And the rapt soul yearns upward. Fiery Mars</span> -<span class="i0">Shines with a baleful redness in the west;</span> -<span class="i0">While mail’d Orion, frozenly severe,</span> -<span class="i0">Stands like an armed skeleton opprest</span> -<span class="i0">With centuries of sentinelship. Thro’ clear</span> -<span class="i0">Smooth ether the keen-silvered Plough upheaves</span> -<span class="i0">Its seven diamonds; and far away</span> -<span class="i0">Poor Cassiopeia for her daughter grieves—</span> -<span class="i0">Andromeda cold-touch’d by windy spray,</span> -<span class="i0">While faintly watching with tear-misted eyne,</span> -<span class="i0">Perseus flying shoreward o’er the gleaming brine.</span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"><h3><a name="b16" id="b16"></a>My Epitaph.</h3></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div> - <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_b_italics.jpg" width="45" height="44" alt="B" /> -</div> -<span class="i6 drop-cap"><i>Below lies one whose name was traced in sand.</i></span> -<span class="i6"><i>He died, not knowing what it was to live:</i></span> -<span class="i0t"><i>Died, while the first sweet consciousness of manhood</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And maiden thought electrified his soul,</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Faint beatings in the calyx of the rose.</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Bewildered reader! pass without a sigh,</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>In a proud sorrow! There is life with God,</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>In other kingdom of a sweeter air;</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>In Eden every flower is blown:</i> <span class="smcap">Amen</span>.</span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i25"><i>DAVID GRAY.</i></span> -<span class="i0"><i>September 27, 1861.</i></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"><h2><a name="b17" id="b17"></a>Gray’s Monument.</h2></div> - -<p>At the inauguration of the Monument erected to the Poet’s Memory in -the “Auld Aisle” Burying Ground, Kirkintilloch, July 29, 1865, Mr. -Bell said:—</p> - -<p>David Gray, was born on the 29th January, 1838, and reared in his -father’s house here at Merkland till he reached his fourteenth year. -His parents, seeing as they did his disposition and his genius, -thought they might find means to bring up their son for the Church. -With that view he was sent into Glasgow, and as he required funds to -aid him in the prosecution of his studies, at that very early age he -became a pupil-teacher in the city. He contrived also to attend the -famous University there for four successive sessions. But during all -that time his mind was brimming over with poetry, which rose like a -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -rising tide above his Latin, above his Greek, above his theological -studies. He had a very ardent and ambitious fancy; he had high -aspirations; he had an earnest belief that he was born to be a poet, -and to attain fame. In one so young it might have been thought -that this was an overweening conception of his own powers. But in -reality it was not. A poet is also a <i>vates</i> or prophet, and there -is no reason why he should not be permitted sometimes to prophesy -of himself. David Gray prophesied of himself that his name would -yet be known to his fellow-countrymen as a poet and a teacher, for -every true poet is a true teacher. In May, 1860, when he had so far -completed his studies in Glasgow, and had arrived at the age of -nearly 22, he started alone for London. He had read of the great -literary world of the metropolis, and he was fired with an ambition -to mingle in it and to make himself, if possible, known to some -of the men there. He was fortunate in forming the acquaintance, -very soon after going to London, of Mr. Monckton Milnes, now Lord -Houghton, who at once formed a correct appreciation of the poet’s -character and genius. Lord Houghton has himself put it upon record -that he found in David Gray what appeared to him to be the making -of a great man. He has also recorded of him that upon first seeing -him he was strongly reminded of the poet Shelley. Gray had a light, -well-built form; he had a full brow and an out-looking eye; and he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> -had a sensitive, melancholy mouth. So Lord Houghton speaks of him. -He formed also in London other acquaintances of value, including Mr. -Oliphant, then Private Secretary to Lord Elgin, now member for the -Stirling Burghs. As to Sydney Dobell, the poet, I do not know that -he actually formed the personal acquaintance of that gentleman; but -he had frequent correspondence with Mr. Dobell, and received from -him valuable letters, and suggestions, and assistance. He formed the -acquaintance of a very estimable woman—Miss Marian James—herself -an authoress of great reputation. Nearer at home he had already -attained the friendly companionship of some whom he valued much. I -am delighted to see two of those gentlemen present to-night—Mr. W. -Freeland, David Gray’s early and attached friend, now of the <i>Herald</i> -Office, Glasgow, and Mr. James Hedderwick, himself a poet and an -editor of great reputation. He had not, however, been long in London -till he was seized with a cold which rapidly assumed the character of -consumption. Lord Houghton and others, feeling deeply interested in -him, got him sent to the South of England for a time; but the disease -making rapid progress, David Gray was seized with an irresistible -home-sickness, and notwithstanding all the kindness, and all the -attention of his friends in the South, in January, 1861, he made his -re-appearance at his father’s house down there in Merkland. He lived -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -there from January, 1861, to the 3d December of the same year, when -he died. That is the brief record of this young poet’s life—almost -all the incidents in it, all the events connected with it. But who -can record, or who shall attempt to record the thousand thoughts and -emotions that passed through his mind, that illuminated his fancy, -and that kindled his genius? Who shall say how these familiar woods, -and fields, and glens, and streams were to him dearer, a thousand -times dearer and more romantic, than any woods, or fields, or glens, -or streams in any other part of the world. No man but a true poet -has that warm affection for home scenes, for his country, for his -native land, for the friends of his youth; no man but a true poet has -those sentiments in their height and in their depth; and if ever a -man entertained them, the poetical remains of David Gray prove that -he had them in a deep, pathetic, and most earnest manner. Upon his -death-bed, within three days of his death, he received what appears -to me to be a particularly beautiful letter from Marian James, -breathing that <i>alma gentile</i> which none but a refined and pure woman -possesses. I never saw David Gray, but I have seen to-night the -humble room in which he was born; I have seen the home in which he -was afterwards reared—a simple, rural house, belonging to a simple, -honest, and upright family, such a family as Scotland is always proud -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> -of—and of such families I am proud to know that Scotland possesses -her thousands and tens of thousands. I saw his mother to-night, and -was deeply impressed with the apparent simplicity and earnestness -of her character. I owe her my gratitude and my thanks for her -presenting me with a book which belonged to her son, and which -contains many of his private markings. I shall always retain it -as a valuable and most esteemed possession. David Gray’s poetical -susceptibility was of the most conspicuous description. He had a -most refined perception of the beautiful; he had a perception of -an interminable vista of beauty and truth. He had noble and pure -thoughts, and he has been enabled to express those noble and pure -thoughts in very noble and pure language. “The Luggie” is a most -remarkable poem, containing many very fine passages, inspired -partially, no doubt, by a careful perusal of Thomson’s “Seasons” -and Wordsworth’s “Excursion,” and not, therefore, so entirely -original as some of the author’s subsequent poems; but with passages -breaking out in it every now and then which neither Thomson nor -Wordsworth suggested, and which are entirely the conceptions of -David Gray’s own genius. “The Luggie,” as has been well said, “may -not possess in itself much to attract the painter’s eye, but it has -sufficed for a poet’s love.” The series of sonnets entitled “In the -Shadows”—written by the poet during his last illness—many of them -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -bearing relation to his own condition, his own life, and his own -prospects—appear to me to possess a solemn beauty not surpassed by -many of the finest passages in Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” totally -distinct and unlike the “In Memoriam,” but as genuine, as sincere, -as heart-stirring, and often as poetical. In the author’s own words, -they admit you “to the chancel of a dying poet’s mind;” you feel -when you are reading these sonnets that they are written in the -sure and immediate prospect of death; but they contain thoughts -about life, about the past, and about the future, most powerful -and most beautiful. I am not going to ask you to take all this for -granted. I think, upon an occasion like this, we ought to show some -little reason for the faith that is in us; and, if it will not -fatigue you too much, I propose in a few minutes to read two or -three of those passages and those sonnets which strike me as worthy -of all admiration. I feel confident that these works are destined -to take their place amongst standard poetical works in the library -of every man of literary taste. We are here, as you have said, -upon the occasion of the erection of a monument to David Gray—a -monument erected on the spot where he is buried, in a beautiful old -churchyard, standing upon the brow of a hill, from which a fine and -extensive view of the surrounding valley and hills is commanded. It -is a granite monument, and will last, I hope, for centuries. I am -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -sure that in this neighbourhood it will often be visited by persons -who feel something like kindred emotions with David Gray, and they -will be proud of this neighbourhood that it gave birth in that -humble cottage to a man who has added so much charm to its natural -scenery. It was felt at the same time, I believe, by the gentlemen in -Glasgow who took the principal charge of it, that a great or imposing -monument was not the thing that was wanted. A plain, simple, enduring -record of respect and esteem was what was wished. Therefore, although -the fund I know could have been trebled, quadrupled, with ease, it -was thought that when a certain moderate sum was obtained that was -enough, and by the aid of the genius of our townsman, Mr. Mossman, I -venture to say that an appropriate and suitable monument has now been -erected on that spot. I may mention that I find the names in the list -of subscribers very varied. Among the Glasgow subscribers I find the -name of Mrs. Nichol, widow of the late Professor of Astronomy in our -University, who I know took a great interest in David Gray from first -to last, and who, I know also, with her usual benevolence, aided in -smoothing his dying pillow. I find the name of William Logan, one of -the most earnest and attached friends that David Gray ever had; I -find Lord Houghton; I find Mr. Bailie Cochrane; I find Mr. Stirling -of Keir, the Hon. Julia Fane, the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, Mr. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -Macmillan, Mr. MacLehose, Mr. J. A. Campbell, Mr. Hutton, editor of -the London <i>Spectator</i>, and many other names. Now Lord Houghton was -requested to write an appropriate inscription for this monument. I -know it was a labour of love with him, and I know he was anxious to -write such an epitaph as would be thought suitable both here and -elsewhere; and I venture to say, and I hope you will agree with me, -that he has admirably succeeded in the simplicity and truth of that -epitaph which has now been engraved on the monument. Such is the -young man whose fame we shall not willingly let die, because they -who read his works aright derive moral improvement and intellectual -benefit from them—because, young as he was when he died, he -cherished pure and noble thoughts, and because he has left those pure -and noble thoughts as a record to us of his life, and as an incentive -to us to endeavour to cherish similar thoughts. Therefore, we owe -him a debt of gratitude; and, therefore, without attempting to raise -him upon a pinnacle too high—for his life was cut short before the -highest aims of his ambition were attained—let it go forth that no -true poet in this land, be his position in life what it may, be his -birth humble or great—no true poet, no great teacher of the hearts -of men, will ever find an ungrateful country in Scotland, as long as -it remembers its great poets—as long as it knows that it is the land -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -of Burns. In “The Luggie,” which you are aware is a descriptive and -pastoral poem, there are varied moods of thought. There is a good -deal of mere description of beautiful scenery, but that, whilst -exquisitely done, is also intermingled with many thoughts and -feelings which add a richness to the charm of the poet’s description. -No mere description of external and lifeless nature, unless brought -home to the heart by allusions to human emotion, can ever produce a -very strong effect. But David Gray seems to have understood admirably -how to combine those two qualities in his descriptive picture, and -whilst he describes beautiful external nature, he always takes care -at the same time to attract and touch the feelings. I am happy to -know that David Gray died in true Christian faith, and amity with all -men. I know from the esteemed clergyman who attended him weekly for -many a day, that he had those true Christian sentiments which become -a man, and most of all become a great man, upon his death-bed. I -have had the very greatest satisfaction in being present to-night. I -felt it to be an honour to be requested to come here and express my -sentiments on such a subject. It is an honour which I feel, and it is -a pleasure which I feel still more, for when a man has passed through -this world now for a good many years, as I have done, there can be -nothing dearer to his heart than expressing sympathy with the great -and good, and feeling those expressions of sympathy reflected from -the hearts and the eyes of a sympathising audience. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p> - -<p class="space-above2 space-below2">The Monument bears the following inscription:—</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">this monument of<br />affection, admiration, -and regret,<br />is erected to</span></p> - -<p class="center">DAVID GRAY,</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">the poet of merkland,<br />by friends from far and near,<br /> -desirous that his grave should be remembered<br />amid the scenes of his rare genius<br /> -and early death,<br />and by the luggie, now numbered with the streams<br /> -illustrious in scottish song.</span></p> - -<p class="center space-above1"><i>Born 29th January, 1838;<br />Died 3rd December, 1861.</i></p> -<hr class="r25" /> -<p class="center space-above2 space-below2">GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.</p> -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center"><i>Second Edition, just ready, in Extra Fcap. 8vo, Price 6s. 6d.</i></p> -</div> -<p class="f200"><i>OLRIG GRANGE</i>,</p> -<p class="center">A Poem in Six Books. Edited by <span class="smcap">Hermann Kunst</span>, Philol. Professor.</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>The Tatler in Cambridge.</b></p> -<p class="blockquot">“One could quote for ever, if a Foolscap Sheet -were inexhaustible; but I must beg my Readers, if they want to have a -great Deal of Amusement, as well as much Truth beautifully put, to go -and order the Book at once. I promise them they will not repent.”</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>The Examiner.</b></p> -<p class="blockquot">“The demoralizing influence of our existing -aristocratic institutions, on the most gifted and noblest members of -the aristocracy has never been so subtly and so powerfully delineated -as in ‘Olrig Grange.’”</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>The Pall Mall Gazette.</b></p> -<p class="blockquot">“‘Olrig Grange,’ whether the work of a raw or of -a ripe versifier, is plainly the work of a ripe and not a raw student -of life and nature.... It has dramatic power of a quite uncommon -class; satirical and humorous observation of a class still higher, -and a very pure and healthy, if perhaps a little too scornful, moral atmosphere.”</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>The Spectator.</b></p> -<p class="blockquot">“The story is told in powerful and suggestive -verse. The composition is instinct with quick and passionate feeling, -to a degree that attests the truly poetic nature of the man who -produced it.... The author exhibits a fine and firm discrimination -of character, a glowing and abundant fancy, a subtle eye to read the -symbolism of nature, and great wealth and mastery of language, and he -has employed it for worthy purposes.”</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>The Academy.</b></p> -<p class="blockquot">“The pious self-pity of the worldly mother, and -the despair of the worldly daughter, are really brilliantly put.”</p> - -<p class="blockquot">“The story is worked out with quite uncommon power.”</p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="center">New Poem, by the author of “<span class="smcap">Olrig Grange</span>.”</p> - -<p class="center"><big><i>AUSTEN LYELL</i></big>. A Poem in Six Books.</p> -<p class="center">Extra Fcap. 8vo, Cloth.</p> -<p class="author">[<i>Immediately.</i></p> -<hr class="r20" /> -<p class="center"><big><i>SONGS AND FABLES</i></big>.</p> -<p class="center">By the late <span class="smcap">Professor W. Macquorn Rankine</span>,<br /> -with 10 Illustrations by J. B. (Mrs. Blackburn).<br />Extra Fcap. 8vo, Cloth.</p> -<p class="author">[<i>Immediately.</i></p> -<hr class="r20" /> -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Glasgow</span>: JAMES MACLEHOSE, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY.<br /> -LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center"><i>In One Vol., Extra Fcap. 8vo., Cloth, Price 5s.</i></p> -<p class="f200"><i>HILLSIDE RHYMES</i>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">among the rocks he went,</span></span> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">and still looked up to sun and cloud</span></span> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">and listened to the wind.</span></span> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>Scotsman</b>.</p> -<p class="blockquot"> “Let anyone who cares for fine reflective poetry -read for himself and judge. Besides the solid substance of thought -which pervades it, he will find here and there those quick insights, -those spontaneous felicities of language which distinguish the man of -natural power from the man of mere cultivation.... Next to an autumn -day among the hills themselves commend us to poems like these, in which -so much of the finer breath and spirit of those pathetic hills is -distilled into melody.”</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>Glasgow Herald</b>.</p> -<p class="blockquot"> “The author of ‘Hillside Rhymes’ has lain on -the hillsides, and felt the shadows of the clouds drift across his -half-shut eyes. He knows the sough of the fir-trees, the crooning of -the burns, the solitary bleating of the moorland sheep, the quiet of -a place where the casual curlew is his only companion, and a startled -grouse-cock the only creature that can regard him with enmity or -suspicion. The silence of moorland nature has worked into his soul, -and his verse helps a reader pent within a city to realize the breezy -heights, the sunny knolls, the deepening glens, or the slopes aglow -with those crackling flames with which the shepherds fire the heather.”</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center"><i>Just Ready, in Extra Fcap. 8vo, Cloth, Price 7s. 6d.</i></p> -<p class="f200"><i>HANNIBAL</i>:</p> - -<p class="center space-above1">A Historical Drama. By <span class="smcap">John Nichol</span>, B.A., Oxon.,</p> -<p class="center">Professor of English Language and Literature in the</p> -<p class="center space-below2">University of Glasgow.</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>The Saturday Review</b>.</p> -<p class="blockquot">“After the lapse of many centuries, an English -Poet is found paying to the great Carthaginian the worthiest poetical -tribute which has as yet, to our knowledge, been offered to his noble -and stainless name.”</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>The Athenæum</b>.</p> -<p class="blockquot">“Probably the best and most accurate conception -of Hannibal ever yet given in English. Professor Nichol has done a -really valuable work. From first to last of the whole five acts there -is hardly a page that sinks to the level of mediocrity.”</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>The Dublin Telegraph</b>.</p> -<p class="blockquot">“Professor Nichol has just given us a volume -which bids fair to open a new era in poetry, and secures to the author -a position among the first poets of the day.”</p> - -<p class="f120 space-above1"><b>The Morning Post</b>.</p> -<p class="blockquot">“Glasgow has good reason to be proud of her -Professor of English Literature, in which he now takes a prominent -place by right of his admirable classic drama. Criticism will award him -a regal seat on Parnassus, and laurel leaves without stint.”</p> - -<hr class="r20" /> -<p class="center space-below3"><span class="smcap">Glasgow</span>: -JAMES MACLEHOSE, PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY.<br /> LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<div class="footnotes"> -<p class="f150 u space-below2"><b>Footnotes:</b></p> -<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent"> -<a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> -Psalm cxlvii. 16-18.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent"> -<a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> -I am almost certain this name of the bird is merely local, but I know -no other.—[Mr. Robt. Gray, a well-known authority, says the bird -alluded to is the Missel-Thrush.—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span>]</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent"> -<a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> -This is a saying of Socrates.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="transnote bbox"> -<p class="f120 space-above1">Transcriber's Notes:</p> -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="indent">The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is in the public domain.</p> -<p class="indent">Uncertain or antiquated spellings or ancient words were not corrected.</p> -<p class="indent">Typographical errors have been silently corrected but other variations - in spelling and punctuation remain unaltered.</p> -<p class="indent">Added subsection “Miscellaneous Poems” to Table of Contents as it is - included in the text.</p> -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Poetical Works of David Gray, by David Gray - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF DAVID GRAY *** - -***** This file should be named 55716-h.htm or 55716-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/7/1/55716/ - -Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Paul Marshall, Bryan Ness -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian -Libraries) - - -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. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project -Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you -charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you -do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the -rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose -such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and -research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do -practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is -subject to the trademark license, especially commercial -redistribution. - - - -*** START: FULL LICENSE *** - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project -Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at -http://gutenberg.org/license). - - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy -all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. -If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the -terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or -entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement -and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" -or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the -collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an -individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are -located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from -copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative -works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg -are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project -Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by -freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of -this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with -the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by -keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project -Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in -a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check -the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement -before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or -creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project -Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning -the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United -States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate -access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently -whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, -copied or distributed: - -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/license - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived -from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is -posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied -and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees -or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work -with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the -work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 -through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the -Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or -1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional -terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked -to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the -permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any -word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or -distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than -"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version -posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), -you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a -copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon -request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other -form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided -that - -- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is - owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he - has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the - Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments - must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you - prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax - returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and - sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the - address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to - the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." - -- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or - destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium - and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of - Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any - money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days - of receipt of the work. - -- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set -forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from -both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael -Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the -Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm -collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain -"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or -corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual -property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a -computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by -your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with -your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with -the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a -refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity -providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to -receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy -is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further -opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER -WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO -WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. -If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the -law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be -interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by -the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any -provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance -with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, -promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, -harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, -that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do -or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm -work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any -Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. - - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers -including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists -because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from -people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. -To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 -and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive -Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at -http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent -permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. -Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered -throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at -809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email -business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact -information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official -page at http://pglaf.org - -For additional contact information: - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To -SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any -particular state visit http://pglaf.org - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. -To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate - - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm -concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared -with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project -Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. - - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. -unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - -</pre> - -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index b458d9a..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_a.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_a.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index e029391..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_a.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_b.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_b.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d0d0d0d..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_b.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_b_italics.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_b_italics.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 4c48365..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_b_italics.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_c.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_c.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index bde2622..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_c.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_d.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_d.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 74758aa..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_d.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_e.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_e.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 071928a..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_e.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_f.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_f.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 95b73fe..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_f.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_h.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_h.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 44d862a..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_h.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_i.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_i.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 7811df6..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_i.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_j.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_j.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 8a087aa..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_j.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_l.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_l.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ed591ab..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_l.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_n.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_n.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index aeb7a3f..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_n.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_o.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_o.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 86fd193..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_o.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_p.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_p.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 547528f..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_p.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_s.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_s.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 5678bec..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_s.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_t.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_t.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 79ab244..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_t.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_t_quot.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_t_quot.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 060009a..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_t_quot.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_u.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_u.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 1b63057..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_u.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_w.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_w.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index e6af9ca..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_w.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/55716-h/images/letter_w_quot.jpg b/old/55716-h/images/letter_w_quot.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ab36cfc..0000000 --- a/old/55716-h/images/letter_w_quot.jpg +++ /dev/null |
