THE human spirits saw I on a day, Sitting and looking each a different way; And hardly tasking, subtly questioning, Another spirit went around the ring To each and each: and as he ceased his say, Each after each, I heard them singly sing, Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low, We know not,---what avails to know ? We know not,---wherefore need we know ? This answer gave they still unto his suing, We know not, let us do as we are doing. Dost thou not know that these things only seem ?--- I know not, let me dream my dream. Are dust and ashes fit to make a treasure ?--- I know not, let me take my pleasure. What shall avail the knowledge thou hast sought ?--- I know not, let me think my thought. What is the end of strife ?--- I know not, let me live my life. How many days or e'er thou mean'st to move ?--- I know not, let me love my love. Were not things old once new ?--- I know not, let me do as others do. And when the rest were over past, I know not, I will do my duty, said the last. Thy duty do? rejoined the voice, Ah do it, do it, and rejoice; But shalt thou then, when all is done, Enjoy a love, embrace a beauty Like these, that may be seen and won In life, whose course will then be run; Or wilt thou be where there is none ? I know not, I will do my duty. And taking up the word around, above, below, Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low, We know not, sang they all, nor ever need we know ! We know not, sang they, what avails to know ? Whereat the questioning spirit, some short space, Though unabashed, stood quiet in his place. But as the echoing chorus died away And to their dreams the rest returned apace, By the one spirit I saw him kneeling low, And in a silvery whisper heard him say: Truly, thou know'st not, and thou need'st not know; Hope only, hope thou, and believe alway; I also know not, and I need not know, Only with questionings pass I to and fro, Perplexing these that sleep, and in their folly Imbreeding doubt and sceptic melancholy; Till that, their dreams deserting, they with me Come all to this true ignorance and thee. AH, what is love, our love, she said, Ah, what is human love ? A fire, of earthly fuel fed, Full fain to soar above. With lambent flame the void it lips, And of the impassive air Would frame for its ambitious steps A heaven-attaining stair. It wrestles and it climbs---Ah me, Go look in little space, White ash on blackened earth will be Sole record of its place. Ah love, high love, she said and sighed, She said, the Poet's love ! A star upon a turbid tide, Reflected from above. A marvel here, a glory there, But clouds will intervene, And garish earthly noon outglare The purity serene.
I GIVE thee joy! O worthy word! <1Congratulate->1--A courtier fine, Transacts, politely shuffling by, The civil ceremonial lie, Which, quickly spoken, barely heard, Can never hope, nor e'en design To give thee joy! I give thee joy! O faithful word! When heart with heart, and mind with mind Shake hands; and eyes in outward sign Of inward vision, rest in thine; And feelings simply, truly stirred, Emphatic utterance seek to find, And give thee joy! I give thee joy! O word of power! Believe, though slight the tie in sooth, When heart to heart its fountain opes The plant to water that with hopes Is budding for fruition's flower--- The word, potential made, in truth Shall give thee joy! Shall give thee joy! Oh, not in vain, For erring child the mother's prayer; The sigh, wherein a martyr's breath Exhales from ignominious death For some lost cause! In humbler strain Shall this poor word a virtue bear, And give thee joy!
WHEN panting sighs the bosom fill, And hands by chance united thrill At once with one delicious pain The pulses and the nerves of twain; When eyes that erst could meet with ease, Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun Extatic conscious unison,--- The sure beginnings, say, be these, Prelusive to the strain of love Which angels sing in heaven above? Or is it but the vulgar tune, Which all that breathe beneath the moon So accurately learn---so soon ? With variations duly blent; Yet that same song to all intent, Set for the finer instrument; It is; and it would sound the same In beasts, were not the bestial frame, Less subtly organised, to blame; And but that soul and spirit add To pleasures, even base and bad, A zest the soulless never had. It may be---well indeed I deem; But what if sympathy, it seem, And admiration and esteem, Commingling therewithal, do make The passion prized for Reason's sake ? Yet, when my heart would fain rejoice, A small expostulating voice Falls in: Of this thou wilt not take Thy one irrevocable choice ? In accent tremulous and thin I hear high Prudence deep within, Pleading the bitter, bitter sting Should slow-maturing seasons bring Too late, the veritable thing. For if (the Poet's tale of bliss) A love, wherewith commeasured this Is weak, and beggarly, and none, Exist a treasure to be won, And if the vision, though it stay, Be yet for an appointed day,--- This choice, if made, this deed, if done, The memory of this present past, With vague foreboding might o'ercast The heart, or madden it at last. Let Reason first her office ply; Esteem, and admiration high, And mental, moral sympathy, Exist they first, nor be they brought By self-deceiving afterthought,--- What if an halo interfuse With these again its opal hues, That all o'erspreading and o'erlying, Transmuting, mingling, glorifying, About the beauteous various whole, With beaming smile do dance and quiver; Yet, is that halo of the soul ?--- Or is it, as may sure be said, Phosphoric exhalation bred Of vapour, steaming from the bed Of Fancy's brook, or Passio n's river ? So when, as will be by-and-bye, The stream is waterless and dry, This halo and its hues will die; And though the soul contented rest With those substantial blessings blest, Will not a longing, half-confest, Betray that this is not the love, The gift for which all gifts above Him praise we, Who is Love, the giver? I cannot say---the things are good: Bread is it, if not angels' food; But Love ? Alas ! I cannot say; A glory on the vision lay; A light of more than mortal day About it played, upon it rested; It did not, faltering and weak, Beg Reason on its side to speak: Itself was Reason, or, if not, Such substitute as is, I wot, Of seraph-kind the loftier lot;--- Itself was of itself attested;--- To processes that, hard and dry, Elaborate truth from fallacy, With modes intuitive succeeding, Including those and superseding; Reason sublimed and Love most high It was, a life that cannot die, A dream of glory most exceeding.
SIC ITUR AS, at a railway junction, men Who came together, taking then One the train up, one down, again Meet never ! Ah, much more as they Who take one street's two sides, and say Hard parting words, but walk one way: Though moving other mates between, While carts and coaches intervene, Each to the other goes unseen, Yet seldom, surely, shall there lack Knowledge they walk not back to back, But with an unity of track, Where common dangers each attend, And common hopes their guidance lend To light them to the self-same end. Whether he then shall cross to thee, Or thou go thither, or it be Some midway point, ye yet shall see Each other, yet again shall meet. Ah, joy! when with the closing street, Forgivingly at last ye greet !
AMIDST the fleeting many unforgot, O Leonina ! whether thou wert seen Singling, upon the Isis' margent green, From meaner flowers the frail forget-me-not, Or, as the picture of a saintly queen, Sitting, uplifting, betwixt fingers small, A sceptre of the water-iris tall, With pendent lily crowned of golden sheen; So, or in gay and gorgeous gallery, Where, amid splendours, like to those that far Flame backward from the sun's invisible car, Thou lookedst forth, as there the evening star; Oh, Leonina! fair wert thou to see, And unforgotten shall thine image be. Thou whom thy danglers have ere this forgot, O Leonina! whether thou wert seen Waiting, upon the Isis' margent green, The boats that should have passed there and did not; Or at the ball, admiring crowds between, To partner academical and slow Teaching, upon the light Slavonic toe, Polkas that were not, only should have been; Or, in the crowded gallery crushed, didst hear For bonnets white, blue, pink, the ladies' cheer Multiplied while divided, and endure (Thyself being seen) to see, not hear, rehearse The long, long Proses, and the Latin Verse--- O Leonina ! thou wert tired, I'm sure. Not in thy robes of royal rich array, As when thy state at Dresden thou art keeping; Nor with the golden epaulettes outpeeping From under pink and scarlet trappings gay (Raiment of doctors) through the area led; While galleries peal applause, and Phillimore For the supreme superlative cons-o'er The common-place-book of his classic head; Uncrowned thou com'st, alone, or with a tribe Of volant varlets scattering jest and jibe Almost beside thee. Yet to thee, when rent Was the Teutonic Caesar's robe, there went One portion: and with Julius, thou to-day Canst boast, I came, I saw, I went away !
COME back again, my olden heart!--- Ah, fickle spirit and untrue, I bade the only guide depart Whose faithfulness I surely knew: I said, my heart is all too soft; He who would climb and soar aloft Must needs keep ever at his side The tonic of a wholesome pride. Come back again, my olden heart!--- Alas, I called not then for thee; I called for Courage, and apart From Pride if Courage could not be, Then welcome, Pride ! and I shall find In thee a power to lift the mind This low and grovelling joy above--- 'Tis but the proud can truly love. Come back again, my olden heart!--- With incrustations of the years Uncased as yet,---as then thou wert, Full-filled with shame and coward fears: Wherewith, amidst a jostling throng Of deeds, that each and all were wrong, The doubting soul, from day to day, Uneasy paralytic lay. Come back again, my olden heart! I said, Perceptions contradict, Convictions come, anon depart, And but themselves as false convict. Assumptions hasty, crude and vain, Full oft to use will Science deign; The corks the novice plies to-day The swimmer soon shall cast away. Come back again, my olden heart! I said, Behold, I perish quite, Unless to give me strength to start, I make myself my rule of right: It must be, if I act at all, To save my shame I have at call The plea of all men understood, Because I willed it, it is good. Come back again, my olden heart ! I know not if in very deed This means alone could aid impart To serve my sickly spirit's need; But clear alike of wild self-will, And fear that faltered, paltered still, Remorseful thoughts of after days A way espy betwixt the ways. Come back again, old heart! Ah me! Methinks in those thy coward fears There might perchance a courage be, That fails in these the manlier years; Courage to let the courage sink, Itself a coward base to think, Rather than not for heavenly light Wait on to show the truly right.
WHEN soft September brings again To yonder gorse its golden glow, And Snowdon sends its autumn rain To bid thy current livelier flow; Amid that ashen foliage light When scarlet beads are glistering bright, While alder boughs unchanged are seen In summer livery of green; When clouds before the cooler breeze Are flying, white and large; with these Returning, so may I return, And find thee changeless, Pont-y-wern.
OH, ask not what is love, she said, Or ask it not of me; Or of the heart, or of the head, Or if at all it be. Oh, ask it not, she said, she said, Thou winn'st not word from me! ---Oh, silent as the long long dead, I, Lady, learn of thee. I ask,---thou speakest not,---and still I ask, and look to thee; And lo, without or with a will, The answer is in me. Without thy will it came to me ? Ah, with it let it stay; Ah, with it, yes, abide in me, Nor only for to-day! Thou claim'st it? nay, the deed is done; Ah, leave it with thy leave; And thou a thousand loves for one Shalt day on day receive!
LIGHT words they were, and lightly falsely said; She heard them, and she started,---and she rose, As in the act to speak; the sudden thought And unconsidered impulse led her on. In act to speak she rose, but with the sense Of all the eyes of that mixed company Now suddenly turned upon her, some with age Hardened and dulled, some cold and critical; Some in whom vapours of their own conceit, As moist malarious mists the heavenly stars, Still blotted out their good, the best at best By frivolous laugh and prate conventional All too untuned for all she thought to say--- With such a thought the mantling blood to her cheek Flushed-up, and o'er-flushed itself, blank night her soul Made dark, and in her all her purpose swooned. She stood as if for sinking. Yet anon With recollections clear, august, sublime, Of God's great truth, and right immutable, Which, as obedient vassals, to her mind Came summoned of her will, in self-negation Quelling her troublous earthy consciousness, She queened it o'er her weakness. At the spell Back rolled the ruddy tide, and leaves her cheek Paler than erst, and yet not ebbs so far But that one pulse of one indignant thought Might hurry it hither in flood. So as she stood She spoke. God in her spoke, and made her heard.
O ONLY Source of all our light and life, Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel, But whom the hours of mortal moral strife Alone aright reveal ! Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought, Thy presence owns ineffable, divine; Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought, My will adoreth Thine. With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind Speechless remain, or speechless e'en depart; Nor seek to see---for what of earthly kind Can see Thee as Thou art ?--- If well-assured 'tis but profanely bold In thought's abstractest forms to seem to see, It dare not dare the dread communion hold In ways unworthy Thee, O not unowned, Thou shalt unnamed forgive, In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare; And if in work its life it seem to live, Shalt make that work be prayer. Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies, Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part, And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes In recognition start. But, as thou willest, give or e'en forbear The beatific supersensual sight, So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer Approach Thee morn and night.
WITH graceful seat and skilful hand, Upon the fiery steed, Prompt at a moment to command, As fittest, or concede, O Lady! happy he whose will Shall manliest homage pay To that which yielding ever, still Shall in its yielding sway: Yea, happy he, whose willing soul In perfect love combined With thine shall form one perfect whole, One happy heart and mind ! Fair, fair on fleeting steed to see, Boon Nature's child, nor less, In gorgeous rooms, serene and free, 'Midst etiquette and dress! Thrice happy who, amidst the form And folly that must be, Existence fresh, and true, and warm, Shall, Lady, own in thee ! Such dreams, in gay saloon, of days That shall be, 'midst the dance And music, while I hear and gaze, My silent soul entrance. As here the harp thy fingers wake To sounds melodious, he To thy soul's touch shall music make, And his enstrengthen thee. The notes, diverse in time and tone, The hearts shall image true, That still, in some sweet ways unknown, Their harmonies renew. The mazy dance, an emblem meet, . Shall changeful life pourtray, Whose changes all love's music sweet Expressively obey. Then shall to waltz, though unexiled, And polka sometimes heard, To songs capricious, wayward, wild, Be other strains preferred. The heart that 'midst the petty strife, Whose ferment, day by day, To strange realities of life Converts its trifling play,--- The heart, that here pursued the right, Shall then, in freer air, Expand its wings, and drink the light Of life and reason there: And quickening truth and living law, And large affections clear Shall it to heights on heights updraw, To holiest hope and fear. ---Ah, moralizing premature ! And yet words half-supprest May find some secret thoughts ensure Acceptance half-confest. Full oft concealed high meanings work; And, scorning observation, In gay unthinking guise will lurk A saintly aspiration; No sickly thing to sit and sun Its puny worth, to pause And list, ere half the deed be done, Its echo--self-applause: No idler, who its kindly cares To every gossip mentions, And at its breast a posy wears Of laudable intentions. As of itself, of others so Unrecognised to seek Its aim content, and in the flow Of life and spirits meek. Lo, here is God, and there is God! Believe it not, O Man; In such vain sort to this and that The ancient heathen ran: Though old Religion shake her head, And say in bitter grief, The day behold, at first foretold, Of atheist unbelief: Take better part, with manly heart, Thine adult spirit can; Receive it not, believe it not, Believe it not, O Man! As men at dead of night awaked With cries, "The king is here,' Rush forth and greet whome'er they meet, Whoe'er shall first appear; And still repeat, to all the street, "'Tis he,---the king is here;' The long procession moveth on, Each nobler form they see With changeful suit they still salute, And cry, "'Tis he, 'tis he!' So, even so, when men were young, And earth and heaven was new, And His immediate presence He From human hearts withdrew, The soul perplexed and daily vexed With sensuous False and True, Amazed, bereaved, no less believed, And fain would see Him too: He is ! the prophet-tongues proclaimed; In joy and hasty fear, He is! aloud replied the crowd, Is here, and here, and here. He is ! They are ! in distance seen On yon Olympus high, In those Avernian woods abide, And walk this azure sky: They are, They are ! to every show Its eyes the baby turned, And blazes sacrificial, tall, On thousand altars burned: They are, they are!---On Sinai's top Far seen the lightnings shone, The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke, And God said, I am One. God spake it out, I, God, am One; The unheeding ages ran, And baby-thoughts again, again, Have dogged the growing man: And as of old from Sinai's top God said that God is One, By Science strict so speaks He now To tell us, There is None! Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven's A Mecanique Celeste! And heart and mind of human kind A watch-work as the rest! Is this a Voice, as was the Voice Whose speaking told abroad, When thunder pealed, and mountain reeled, The ancient Truth of God ? Ah, not the Voice; 'tis but the cloud, Of outer darkness dense, Where image none, nor e'er was seen Similitude of sense. 'Tis but the cloudy darkness dense That wrapt the Mount around; While in amaze the people stays, To hear the Coming Sound. Is there no chosen prophet-soul To dare, sublimely meek; Within the shroud of blackest cloud The Deity to seek? 'Midst atheistic systems dark, And darker hearts' despair, His very word it may have heard, And on the dusky air His skirts, as passed He by, to see Have strained on their behalf, Who on the plain, with dance amain, Adore the Golden Calf. 'Tis but the cloudy darkness dense; Though blank the tale it tells, No God, no Truth! yet He, in sooth, Is there---within it dwells; Within the sceptic darkness deep He dwells that none may see, Till idol forms and idol thoughts Have passed and ceased to be: No God, no Truth! ah though, in sooth So stand the doctrine's half; On Egypt's track return not back, Nor own the Golden Calf. Take better part, with manlier heart, Thine adult spirit can; No God, no Truth, receive it ne'er--- Believe it ne'er---O Man ! But turn not then to seek again What first the ill began; No God, it saith; ah, wait in faith God's self-completing plan; Receive it not, but leave it not, And wait it out, O Man! "The Man that went the cloud within Is gone and vanished quite; He cometh not,' the people cries, "Nor bringeth God to sight:' "Lo these thy gods, that safety give, Adore and keep the feast!' Deluding and deluded cries The Prophet's brother-Priest: And Israel all bows down to fall Before the gilded beast. Devout, indeed ! that priestly creed, O Man, reject as sin; The clouded hill attend thou still, And him that went within. He yet shall bring some worthy thing For waiting souls to see: Some sacred word that he hath heard Their light and life shall be; Some lofty part, than which the heart Adopt no nobler can, Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe, And thou shalt do, O Man!
THE Silver Wedding! on some pensive ear From towers remote as sound the silvery bells, To-day from one far unforgotten year A silvery faint memorial music swells. And silver-pale the dim memorial light Of musing age on youthful joys is shed, The golden joys of fancy's dawning bright, The golden bliss of, Woo'd, and won, and wed. Ah, golden then, but silver now! In sooth, The years that pale the cheek, that dim the eyes, And silver o'er the golden hairs of youth, Less prized can make its only priceless prize. Not so; the voice this silver name that gave To this, the ripe and unenfeebled date, For steps together tottering to the grave, Hath bid the perfect golden title wait. Rather, if silver this, if that be gold, From good to better changed on age's track, Must it as baser metal be enrolled, That day of days, a quarter-century back. Yet ah, its hopes, its joys were golden too, But golden of the fairy gold of dreams: To feel is but to dream; until we do, There's nought that is, and all we see but seems. What was or seemed it needed cares and tears, And deeds together done, and trials past, And all the subtlest alchemy of years, To change to genuine substance here at last. Your fairy gold is silver sure to-day; Your ore by crosses many, many a loss, As in refiners' fires, hath purged away What erst it had of earthy human dross. Come years as many yet, and as they go, In human life's great crucible shall they Transmute, so potent are the spells they know, Into pure gold the silver of to-day. Strange metallurge is human life! 'Tis true; And Use and Wont in many a gorgeous case Full specious fair for casual outward view Electrotype the sordid and the base. Nor lack who praise, avowed, the spurious ware, Who bid young hearts the one true love forego, Conceit to feed, or fancy light as air, Or greed of pelf and precedence and show. True, false, as one to casual eyes appear, To read men truly men may hardly learn; Yet doubt it not that wariest glance would here Faith, Hope and Love, the true Tower-stamp discern. Come years again ! as many yet! and purge Less precious earthier elements away, And gently changed at life's extremest verge, Bring bright in gold your perfect fiftieth day! That sight may children see and parents show! If not---yet earthly chains of metal true, By love and duty wrought and fixed below, Elsewhere will shine, transformed, celestial-new; Will shine of gold, whose essence, heavenly bright, No doubt-damps tarnish, worldly passions fray; Gold into gold there mirrored, light in light, Shall gleam in glories of a deathless day.
WHY should I say I see the things I see not, Why be and be not? Show love for that I love not, and fear for what I fear not? And dance about to music that I hear not? Who standeth still i' the street Shall be hustled and justled about; And he that stops i' the dance shall be spurned by the dancers' feet,--- Shall be shoved and be twisted by all he shall meet, And shall raise up an outcry and rout; And the partner, too,--- What's the partner to do ? While all the while 'tis but, perchance, an humming in mine ear, That yet anon shall hear, And I anon, the music in my soul, In a moment read the whole; The music in my heart, Joyously take my part, And hand in hand, and heart with heart, with these retreat, advance; And borne on wings of wavy sound, Whirl with these around, around, Who here are living in the living dance! Why forfeit that fair chance ? Till that arrive, till thou awake, Of these, my soul, thy music make, And keep amid the throng, And turn as they shall turn, and bound as they are bounding,--- Alas ! alas ! alas ! and what if all along The music is not sounding? Are there not, then, two musics unto men?--- One loud and bold and coarse, And overpowering still perforce All tone and tune beside; Yet in despite its pride Only of fumes of foolish fancy bred, And sounding solely in the sounding head: The other, soft and low, Stealing whence we not know, Painfully heard, and easily forgot, With pauses oft and many a silence strange, (And silent oft it seems, when silent it is not) Revivals too of unexpected change: Haply thou think'st 'twill never be begun, Or that 't has come, and been, and passed away; Yet turn to other none,--- Turn not, oh, turn not thou ! But listen, listen, listen,---if haply be heard it may; Listen, listen, listen,---is it not sounding now ? Yea, and as thought of some beloved friend By death or distance parted will descend, . Severing, in crowded rooms ablaze with light, As by a magic screen, the seer from the sight (Palsying the nerves that intervene The eye and central sense between); So may the ear, Hearing, not hear, Though drums do roll, and pipes and cymbals ring; So the bare conscience of the better thing Unfelt, unseen, unimaged, all unknown, May fix the entranced soul 'mid multitudes alone.
SWEET streamlet bason ! at thy side Weary and faint within me cried My longing heart,---In such pure deep How sweet it were to sit and sleep; To feel each passage from without Close up,---above me and about, Those circling waters crystal clear, That calm impervious atmosphere ! There on thy pearly pavement pure To lean, and feel myself secure, Or through the dim-lit inter-space, Afar at whiles upgazing trace The dimpling bubbles dance around Upon thy smooth exterior face; Or idly list the dreamy sound Of ripples lightly flung, above That home, of peace, if not of love.
AWAY, haunt not thou me, Thou vain Philosophy ! Little hast thou bestead, Save to perplex the head, And leave the spirit dead. Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go, While from the secret treasure-depths below, Fed by the skiey shower, And clouds that sink and rest on hill-tops high, Wisdom at once, and Power, Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly ? Why labour at the dull mechanic oar, When the fresh breeze is blowing, And the strong current flowing, Right onward to the Eternal Shore ?
MY wind is turned to bitter north, That was so soft a south before; My sky, that shone so sunny bright, With foggy gloom is clouded o'er: My gay green leaves are yellow-black, Upon the dank autumnal floor; For love, departed once, comes back No more again, no more. A roofless ruin lies my home, For winds to blow and rains to pour; One frosty night befell, and lo, I find my summer days are o'er: The heart bereaved, of why and how Unknowing, knows that yet before It had what e'en to Memory now Returns no more, no more.
LOOK you, my simple friend, 'tis one of those (Alack, a common weed of our ill time), Who, do whate'er they may, go where they will, Must needs still carry about the looking-glass Of vain philosophy. And if so be That some small natural gesture shall escape them, (Nature will out) straightway about they turn, And con it duly there, and note it down, With inward glee and much complacent chuckling, Part in conceit of their superior science, Part in forevision of the attentive look And laughing glance that may one time reward them, When the fresh ore, this day dug up, at last Shall, thrice refined and purified, from the mint Of conversation intellectual Into the golden currency of wit Issue---satirical or pointed sentence, Impromptu, epigram, or it may be sonnet, Heir undisputed to the pinkiest page In the album of a literary lady. And can it be, you ask me, that a man, With the strong arm, the cunning faculties, And keenest forethought gifted, and, within, Longings unspeakable, the lingering echoes Responsive to the still-still-calling voice Of God Most High,---should disregard all these, And half-employ all those for such an aim As the light sympathy of successful wit, Vain titillation of a moment's praise ? Why, so is good no longer good, but crime Our truest, best advantage, since it lifts us Out of the stifling gas of men's opinion Into the vital atmosphere of Truth, Where He again is visible, tho' in anger.
THOUGHT may well be ever ranging, And opinion ever changing, Task-work be, though ill begun, Dealt with by experience better; By the law and by the letter Duty done is duty done: Do it, Time is on the wing! Hearts, 'tis quite another thing, Must or once for all be given, Or must not at all be given; Hearts, 'tis quite another thing ! To bestow the soul away In an idle duty-play!--- Why, to trust a life-long bliss To caprices of a day, Scarce were more depraved than this! Men and maidens, see you mind it; Show of love, where'er you find it, Look if duty lurk behind it! Duty-fancies, urging on Whither love had never gone! Loving---if the answering breast Seem not to be thus possessed, Still in hoping have a care; If it do, beware, beware ! But if in yourself you find it, Above all things---mind it, mind it!
DUTY--that's to say complying With whate'er's expected here; On your unknown cousin's dying, Straight be ready with the tear; Upon etiquette relying, Unto usage nought denying, Lend your waist to be embraced, Blush not even, never fear; Claims of kith and kin connection, Claims of manners honour still, Ready money of affection Pay, whoever drew the bill. With the form conforming duly, Senseless what it meaneth truly, Go to church---the world require you, To balls---the world require you too, And marry---papa and mamma desire you, And your sisters and schoolfellows do. Duty---'tis to take on trust What things are good, and right, and just; And whether indeed they be or be not, Try not, test not, feel not, see not: 'Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise By leading, opening ne'er your eyes; Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave, And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave. 'Tis the stern and prompt suppressing, As an obvious deadly sin, All the questing and the guessing Of the soul's own soul within: 'Tis the coward acquiescence In a destiny's behest, To a shade by terror made, Sacrificing, aye, the essence Of all that's truest, noblest, best: 27 'Tis the blind non-recognition Either of goodness, truth, or beauty Except by precept and submission; Moral blank, and moral void, Life at very birth destroyed, Atrophy, exinanition ! Duty! ----- Yea, by duty's prime condition Pure nonentity of duty!
HERE am I yet, another twelvemonth spent, One-third departed of the mortal span, Carrying on the child into the man, Nothing into reality. Sails rent, And rudder broken,---reason impotent,--- Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare To do and to be done by, well content. So was it from the first, so is it yet; Yea, the first kiss that by these lips was set On any human lips, methinks was sin--- Sin, cowardice, and falsehood; for the will Into a deed e'en then advanced, wherein God, unidentified, was thought-of still. Though to the vilest things beneath the moon For poor Ease' sake I give away my heart, And for the moment's sympathy let part My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon, My painful earnings, lost, all lost, as soon, Almost, as gained; and though aside I start, Belie Thee daily, hourly,---still Thou art, Art surely as in heaven the sun at noon: How much so e'er I sin, whate'er I do Of evil, still the sky above is blue, The stars look down in beauty as before: Is it enough to walk as best we may, To walk, and, sighing, dream of that blest day When ill we cannot quell shall be no more ? Well, well,---Heaven bless you all from day to day! Forgiveness too, or e'er we part, from each, As I do give it, so must I beseech: I owe all much, much more than I can pay; Therefore it is I go; how could I stay Where every look commits me to fresh debt, And to pay little I must borrow yet ? Enough of this already, now away ! With silent woods and hills untenanted Let me go commune; under thy sweet gloom, O kind maternal Darkness, hide my head: The day may come I yet may re-assume My place, and, these tired limbs recruited, seek The task for which I now am all too weak. Yes, I have lied, and so must walk my way, Bearing the liar's curse upon my head; Letting my weak and sickly heart be fed On food which does the present craving stay, But may be clean-denied me e'en to-day, And tho' 'twere certain, yet were ought but bread; Letting---for so they say, it seems, I said, And I am all too weak to disobey! Therefore for me sweet Nature's scenes reveal not Their charm; sweet Music greets me and I feel not; Sweet eyes pass off me uninspired; yea, more, The golden tide of opportunity Flows wafting-in friendships and better,---I Unseeing, listless, pace along the shore. How often sit I, poring o'er My strange distorted youth, Seeking in vain, in all my store, One feeling based on truth; Amid the maze of petty life A clue whereby to move, A spot whereon in toil and strife To dare to rest and love. So constant as my heart would be, So fickle as it must, 'Twere well for others as for me 'Twere dry as summer dust. Excitements come, and act and speech Flow freely forth;---but no, Nor they, nor ought beside can reach The buried world below. -----Like a child In some strange garden left awhile alone, I pace about the pathways of the world, Plucking light hopes and joys from every stem, With qualms of vague misgiving in my heart That payment at the last will be required, Payment I cannot make, or guilt incurred, And shame to be endured. -----Roused by importunate knocks I rose, I turned the key, and let them in, First one, anon another, and at length In troops they came; for how could I, who once Had let in one, nor looked him in the face, Show scruples e'er again ? So in they came, A noisy band of revellers,---vain hopes, Wild fancies, fitful joys; and there they sit In my heart's holy place, and through the night Carouse, to leave it when the cold grey dawn Gleams from the East, to tell me that the time For watching and for thought bestowed is gone. O kind protecting Darkness! as a child Flies back to bury in his mother's lap His shame and his confusion, so to thee, O Mother Night, come I! within the folds Of thy dark robe hide thou me close; for I So long, so heedless, with external things Have played the liar, that whate'er I see, E'en these white glimmering curtains, yon bright stars, Which to the rest rain comfort down, for me Smiling those smiles, which I may not return, Or frowning frowns of fierce triumphant malice, As angry claimants or expectants sure Of that I promised and may not perform, Look me in the face! O hide me, Mother Night! Once more the wonted road I tread, Once more dark heavens above me spread, Upon the windy down I stand, My station, whence the circling land Lies mapped and pictured wide below;--- Such as it was, such e'en again, Long dreary bank, and breadth of plain By hedge or tree unbroken;---lo, A few grey woods can only show How vain their aid, and in the sense Of one unaltering impotence, Relieving not, meseems enhance The sovereign dulness of the expanse. Yet marks where human hand hath been, Bare house, unsheltered village, space Of ploughed and fenceless tilth between (Such aspect as methinks may be In some half-settled colony), From Nature vindicate the scene; A wide, and yet disheartening view, A melancholy world. 'Tis true, Most true; and yet, like those strange smiles By fervent hope or tender thought From distant happy regions brought, Which upon some sick bed are seen To glorify a pale worn face With sudden beauty,---so at whiles Lights have descended, hues have been, To clothe with half-celestial grace The bareness of the desert place. Since so it is, so be it still! Could only thou, my heart, be taught To treasure, and in act fulfil The lesson which the sight has brought; In thine own dull and dreary state To work and patiently to wait: Little thou think'st in thy despair How soon the o'ershaded sun may shine, And e'en the dulling clouds combine To bless with lights and hues divine That region desolate and bare, Those sad and sinful thoughts of thine! Still doth the coward heart complain; The hour may come, and come in vain; The branch that withered lies and dead No suns can force to lift its head. True !---yet how little thou canst tell How much in thee is ill or well; Nor for thy neighbour, nor for thee, Be sure, was life designed to be A draught of dull complacency. One Power too is it, who doth give The food without us, and within The strength that makes it nutritive; He bids the dry bones rise and live, And e'en in hearts depraved to sin Some sudden, gracious influence, May give the long-lost good again, And wake within the dormant sense And love of good;---for mortal men, So but thou strive, thou soon shalt see Defeat itself is victory. So be it: yet, O Good and Great, In whom in this bedarkened state I fain am struggling to believe, Let me not ever cease to grieve, Nor lose the consciousness of ill Within me;---and refusing still To recognise in things around What cannot truly there be found, Let me not feel, nor be it true, That while each daily task I do I still am giving day by day My precious things within away, (Those thou didst give to keep as thine) And casting, do whate'er I may, My heavenly pearls to earthly swine: I HAVE seen higher holier things than these, And therefore must to these refuse my heart, Yet am I panting for a little ease; I'll take, and so depart. Ah hold ! the heart is prone to fall away, Her high and cherished visions to forget, And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay So vast, so dread a debt? How will the heart, which now thou trustest, then Corrupt, yet in corruption mindful yet, Turn with sharp stings upon itself! Again, Bethink thee of the debt! ---Hast thou seen higher holier things than these, And therefore must to these thy heart refuse ? With the true best, alack, how ill agrees That best that thou wouldst choose ! The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above; Do thou, as best thou may'st, thy duty do: Amid the things allowed thee live and love; Some day thou shalt it view.
AS ships, becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail at dawn of day Are scarce long leagues apart descried; When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied, Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas By each was cleaving, side by side: E'en so--but why the tale reveal Of those, whom, year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew, to feel Astounded, soul from soul estranged ? At dead of night their sails were filled, And onward each rejoicing steered--- Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, Or wist, what first with dawn appeared ! To veer, how vain ! On, onward strain, Brave barks ! In light, in darkness too, Through winds and tides one compass guides--- To that, and your own selves, be true. But O blithe breeze! and O great seas, Though ne'er, that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again, Together lead them home at last. One port, methought, alike they sought, One purpose hold where'er they fare,--- O bounding breeze, O rushing seas ! At last, at last, unite them there !
SO spake the Voice; and, as with a single life Instinct, the whole mass, fierce, irretainable, Down on that unsuspecting host swept Down, with the fury of winds that all night Up-brimming, sapping slowly the dyke, at dawn Full through the breach, o'er homestead, and harvest, and Herd roll a deluge; while the milkmaid Trips i' the dew, and remissly guiding Morn's first uneven furrow, the farmer's boy Dreams out his dream: so over the multitude Safe-tented, uncontrolled and uncon- trollably sped the Avenger's fury.
BESIDE me,---in the car,---she sat, She spake not, no, nor looked to me: From her to me, from me to her, What passed so subtly stealthily ? As rose to rose that by it blows Its interchanged aroma flings; Or wake to sound of one sweet note The virtues of disparted strings. Beside me, nought but this !---but this, That influent as within me dwelt Her life, mine too within her breast, Her brain, her every limb she felt: We sat; while o'er and in us, more And more, a power unknown prevailed, Inhaling, and inhaled,---and still 'Twas one, inhaling or inhaled. Beside me, nought but this;---and passed; I passed; and know not to this day If gold or jet her girlish hair, If black, or brown, or lucid-grey Her eye's young glance: the fickle chance That joined us, yet may join again; But I no face again could greet As hers, whose life was in me then. As unsuspecting mere a maid As, fresh in maidhood's bloomiest bloom, In casual second-class did e'er By casual youth her seat assume; Or vestal, say, of saintliest clay, For once by balmiest airs betrayed Unto emotions too too sweet To be unlingeringly gainsaid: Unowning then, confusing soon With dreamier dreams that o'er the glass Of shyly ripening woman-sense Reflected, scarce reflected, pass, A wife may-be, a mother she In Hymen's shrine recalls not now, She first in hour, ah, not profane, With me to Hymen learnt to bow. Ah no!---Yet owned we, fused in one, The Power which e'en in stones and earths By blind elections felt, in forms Organic breeds to myriad births; By lichen small on granite wall Approved, its faintest feeblest stir Slow-spreading, strengthening long, at last Vibrated full in me and her. In me and her---sensation strange ! The lily grew to pendent head, To vernal airs the mossy bank Its sheeny primrose spangles spread, In roof o'er roof of shade sun-proof Did cedar strong itself outclimb, And altitude of aloe proud Aspire in floreal crown sublime; Flashed flickering forth fantastic flies, Big bees their burly bodies swung, Rooks roused with civic din the elms, And lark its wild reveillez rung; In Libyan dell the light gazelle, The leopard lithe in Indian glade, And dolphin, brightening tropic seas, In us were living, leapt and played: Their shells did slow crustacea build, Their gilded skins did snakes renew, While mightier spines for loftier kind Their types in amplest limbs outgrew; Yea, close comprest in human breast, What moss, and tree, and livelier thing, What Earth, Sun, Star of force possest, Lay budding, burgeoning forth for Spring. Such sweet preluding sense of old Led on in Eden's sinless place The hour when bodies human first Combined the primal prime embrace, Such genial heat the blissful seat In man and woman owned unblamed, When, naked both, its garden paths They walked unconscious, unashamed: Ere, clouded yet in mistiest dawn, Above the horizon dusk and dun, One mountain crest with light had tipped That Orb that is the Spirit's Sun; Ere dreamed young flowers in vernal showers Of fruit to rise the flower above, Or ever yet to young Desire Was told the mystic name of Love.
* * * * FAREWELL, my Highland lassie ! when the year returns around, Be it Greece, or be it Norway, where my vagrant feet are found, I shall call to mind the place, I shall call to mind the day, The day that's gone for ever, and the glen that's far away; I shall mind me, be it Rhine or Rhone, Italian land or France, Of the laughings and the whispers, of the pipings and the dance; 1 God be with you! 38 I shall see thy soft brown eyes dilate to wakening woman thought, And whiter still the white cheek grow to which the blush was brought; And oh, with mine commixing I thy breath of life shall feel, And clasp the shyly passive hands in joyous Highland reel; I shall hear, and see, and feel, and in sequence sadly true, Shall repeat the bitter-sweet of the lingering last adieu; I shall seem as now to leave thee, with the kiss upon the brow, And the fervent benediction of---o theos meta sou! Ah me, my Highland lassie! though in winter drear and long Deep arose the heavy snows, and the stormy winds were strong Though the rain, in summer's brightest, it were raining every day, With worldly comforts few and far, how glad were I to stay! I fall to sleep with dreams of life in some black bothie spent, Coarse poortith's ware thou changing there to gold of pure con- tent, With barefoot lads and lassies round, and thee the cheery wife, In the braes of old Lochaber a laborious homely life; But I wake---to leave thee, smiling, with the kiss upon the brow, And the peaceful benediction of--o theos meta sou! * * * * * * ON the mountain, in the woodland, In the shaded secret dell, I have seen thee, I have met thee! In the soft ambrosial hours of night, In darkness silent sweet I beheld thee, I was with thee, I was thine, and thou wert mine! When I gazed in palace-chambers, When I trod the rustic dance, Earthly maids were fair to look on, Earthly maidens' hearts were kind: Fair to look on, fair to love: But the life, the life to me, 'Twas the death, the death to them, In the spying, prying, prating Of a curious cruel world. At a touch, a breath they fade, They languish, droop, and die; Yea, the juices change to sourness, And the tints to clammy brown; And the softness unto foulness, And the odour unto stench. Let alone and leave to bloom; Pass aside, nor make to die, ---In the woodland, on the mountain, Thou art mine, and I am thine. So I passed.---Amid the uplands, In the forests, on whose skirts Pace unstartled, feed unfearing Do the roe-deer and the red, While I hungered, while I thirsted, While the night was deepest dark, Who was I, that thou shouldst meet me ? Who was I, thou didst not pass ? Who was I, that I should say to thee, Thou art mine, and I am thine ? To the air from whence thou camest Thou returnest, thou art gone; Self-created, dis-created, Re-created, ever fresh, Ever young !----- As a lake its mirrored mountains At a moment, unregretting Unresisting, unreclaiming Without preface, without question, On the silent shifting levels Lets depart, Shows, effaces and replaces ! For what is, anon is not; What has been, again's to be; Ever new and ever young Thou art mine, and I am thine. Art thou she that walks the skies, That rides the starry night ? I know not---------- For my meanness dares not claim the truth Thy loveliness declares. But the face thou-show'st the world is not The face thou show'st to me. And the look that I have looked in Is of none but me beheld. I know not; but I know I am thine, and thou art mine. And I watch: the orb behind As it fleeteth, faint and fair In the depth of azure night, In the violet blank, I trace By an outline faint and fair Her whom none but I beheld. By her orb she moveth slow, Graceful-slow, serenely firm, Maiden-Goddess ! while her robe The adoring planets kiss. And I too cower and ask, Wert thou mine, and was I thine ? Hath a cloud o'ercast the sky ? Is it cloud upon the mountain-sides Or haze of dewy river-banks Below ?--- Or around me, To enfold me, to conceal, Doth a mystic magic veil, A celestial separation, As of curtains hymeneal, Undiscerned yet all excluding, Interpose ? For the pine-tree boles are dimmer, And the stars bedimmed above; In perspective brief, uncertain, Are the forest-alleys closed, And to whispers indistinctest The resounding torrents lulled. Can it be, and can it be ? Upon Earth and here below, In the woodland at my side Thou art with me, thou art here. 'Twas the vapour of the perfume Of the presence that should be, That enwrapt me ! That enwraps us, O my Goddess, O my Queen! And I turn At thy feet to fall before thee; And thou wilt not: At thy feet to kneel and reach and kiss thy finger-tips; And thou wilt not: And I feel thine arms that stay me, And I feel---------- O mine own, mine own, mine own, I am thine, and thou art mine!
IF, when in cheerless wanderings, dull and cold, A sense of human kindliness hath found us, We seem to have around us An atmosphere all gold, 'Mid darkest shades a halo rich of shine, An element, that while the bleak wind bloweth, On the rich heart bestoweth Imbreathed draughts of wine; Heaven guide, the cup be not, as chance may be, To some vain mate given up as soon as tasted! No, nor on thee be wasted, Thou trifler, Poesy ! Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere Youth fly, with life's real tempest would be coping; The fruit of dreamy hoping Is, waking, blank despair.
IS it true, ye gods, who treat us As the gambling fool is treated, O ye, who ever cheat us, And let us feel we're cheated ! Is it true that poetical power, The gift of heaven, the dower Of Apollo and the Nine, The inborn sense, "the vision and the faculty divine,' All we glorify and bless In our rapturous exaltation, All invention, and creation, Exuberance of fancy, and sublime imagination, All a poet's fame is built on, The fame of Shakespeare, Milton, Of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Is in reason's grave precision, Nothing more, nothing less, Than a peculiar conformation, Constitution, and condition Of the brain and of the belly? Is it true, ye gods who cheat us ? And that's the way ye treat us ? Oh say it, all who think it, Look straight, and never blink it! If it is so, let it be so, And we will all agree so; But the plot has counterplot, It may be, and yet be not.
TRUTH is a golden thread, seen here and there In small bright specks upon the visible side Of our strange being's party-coloured web. How rich the converse! 'Tis a vein of ore Emerging now and then on Earth's rude breast, But flowing full below. Like islands set At distant intervals on Ocean's face, We see it on our course; but in the depths The mystic colonnade unbroken keeps Its faithful way, invisible but sure. Oh, if it be so, wherefore do we men Pass by so many marks, so little heeding ?
WHENCE com'st thou, shady lane, and why and how, Wherein with idle heart ten years ago I wandered, and with childhood's paces slow, So long unthought of, and remembered now ? Again in vision clear thy pathwayed side I tread, and view thine orchard plots again With yellow fruitage hung, and glimmering grain Standing or shocked through the thick hedge espied. This hot still noon of August brings the sight, This quelling silence as of eve or night, Wherein Earth (feeling as a mother will After her travail's latest bitterest throes) Looks up, so seemeth it, one half repose, One half in effort, straining, suffering still. SO I, as boyish years went by, went wrong Plainly and grievously. For fond conceit Led me astray, and my weak heart that long In the wild wood of daily deeds had sought A passage worthy her immortal part, And found there none, or where mayhap she found Had dared not duly follow, weary of pause Went greedily at last as chance her led E'en by the worst and meanest: or say rather Powerless to stand alone, and without faith To lay her hand upon the outstretched arm Of heavenly guidance, which in happy moments Her eye was strong to see, she in the end Out of sheer weakness was fill fain to lean On every common passer. So I went wrong, Grievously wrong; but folly crushed itself, And vanity o'ertoppling fell, and time, And healthy discipline, and some neglect In those half friendships half-resolves had made, Labour, and solitary thoughts revived Somewhat at least of that original life. Oh well do I remember then the days When on some grassy slope, what time the sun Was sinking and the solemn eve came down With its blue vapour upon field and wood And elm-embosomed spire, once more again I fed on sweet emotions, and my soul With love o'erflowed or hushed itself in fear Unearthly, yea celestial, once again My heart was hot within me, and meseemed I too had in my body breath to sound The magic horn of song, I too possessed Upwelling in my being's depths a fount Of the true poet-nectar, whence to fill The golden urns of verse. -----
WHEN the dews are earliest falling When the evening glen is grey, Ere thou lookest, ere thou speakest, My beloved, I depart, and I return to thee,--- Return, return, return. Dost thou watch while I traverse Haunts of men, beneath the sun--- Dost thou list while I bespeak them With a voice whose cheer is thine ? O my brothers ! men, my brothers, You are mine, and I am yours; I am yours to cheer and succour, I am yours for hope and aid: Lo, my hand to raise and stay you, Lo, my arm to guard and keep, My voice to rouse and warn you, And my heart to warm and calm: My heart to lend the life it owes To her that is not here, In the power of her that dwelleth Where you know not---no, nor guess not--- Whom you see not; unto whom,--- Ere the evening star hath sunken, Ere the glow-worm lights its lamp, Ere the weariest workman slumbers,--- I return, return, return.
ENOUGH, small Room,---tho' all too true Much ill in thee I daily do,--- Enough to make thy memory blest, And thoughts of thee a place of rest, If midst the ills that crowd me here, Unvarying clouds that still appear To dull Life's social atmosphere, (Oh shame that things so base have power To bind me down a single hour) Vainglorious words of fond conceit, Self-pleasures of successful wit, And heartless jests and coward lies And hollow sleek complacencies,--- Enough,---if, ever and anon In thee secluded and alone, On the dry dust of this weak breast With conscious faultiness opprest, And social levities distrest, Hath fallen from sunny skies above An April shower of genuine love: If homeward thoughts and thoughts of one Sincerely sought nor all unwon, Of words once said and things once done Mid simpler hearts and fresher faces In happier times and holier places, With penitential thoughts combine, And hopes that ere life's day decline Such lot may yet once more be mine, And though with toil recalled and pain My purer soul return again, And I be wiser to retain.
TRAFFIC, to speak from knowledge but begun, I saw, and travelling much, and fashion---Yea, And if that Competition and Display Make a great Capital, then thou art one, One, it may be, unrivalled neath the sun. But sovereign symbol of the Great and Good, True Royalty, and genuine Statesmanhood, Nobleness, Learning, Piety was none. If such realities indeed there are Working within unsignified, 'tis well; The stranger's fancy of the thing thou art Is rather truly of a huge Bazaar, A railway terminus, a gay Hotel, Anything but a mighty Nation's heart.
WOULD that I were,---O hear thy suppliant, thou, Whom fond belief still ventures here to see,--- Would that I were not that which I am now Nor yet became the thing I wish to be! What wouldst thou ? Poor suggestion of today Depart, vain fancy and fallacious thought! Would I could wish my wishes all away, And learn to wish the wishes that I ought.
MATTHEW and Mark and Luke and holy John Evanished all and gone ! Yea, he that erst, his dusky curtains quitting Through Eastern pictured panes his level beams transmitting, With gorgeous portraits blent, On them his glories intercepted spent, Southwestering now, through windows plainly glassed, On the inside face his radiance keen hath cast, And in the lustre lost, invisible and gone, Are, say you, Matthew, Mark and Luke and holy John ? Lost, is it? lost, to be recovered never ? However, The place of worship the meantime with light Is, if less richly, more sincerely bright, And in blue skies the Orb is manifest to sight.
HEARKEN to me, ye mothers of my tent; Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech; Adah, let Jabal hither lead his goats, And Tubal Cain, O Zillah, hush the forge; Naamah her wheel shall ply beside, and thou My Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string. Yea, Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string. Hear ye my voice, beloved of my tent, Dear ones of Lamech listen to my speech. For Eve made answer, Cain, my son, my own, O first mysterious increase of my womb, O, if I cursed thee, O my child, I sinned, And He that heard me, heard and said me nay; My first, my only one, thou shalt not go. And Adam answered also, Cain, my son, He that is gone forgiveth, we forgive: Rob not thy mother of two sons at once, My child, abide with us and comfort us. Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear; Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. For Cain replied not. But, an hour more, sat Where the night through he sat, his knit brows seen, Scarce seen, amidst the foldings of his limbs. But when the sun was bright upon the field To Adam still and Eve still waiting by And weeping, lift he up his voice and spake. Cain said, The sun is risen upon the Earth; The day demands my going; and I go. As you from Paradise, so I from you; As you to exile, into exile I: My Father and my Mother, I depart. As betwixt you and Paradise of old, So betwixt me, my Parents, now and you Cherubims I discern and in their hand A flaming sword that turneth every way, To keep the way of my one tree of life, The way my spirit yearns to, of your love. Yet not, O Adam, and O Eve, fear not. For He that asked me, Where is Abel, He Who called me cursed from the Earth, and said, A fugitive and vagabond thou art, He also said, when fear had slain my soul, There shall not touch thee man nor beast; fear not. Lo, I have spoke with God, and He hath said, Fear not; and let me go as He hath said. Cain also said (O Jubal, touch thy string),--- Moreover, in the darkness of my mind, When the night's night of misery was most black, A little star came twinkling up within, And in myself I had a guide that led, And in myself had knowledge of a soul. Fear not, O Adam and O Eve: I go. Children of Lamech, listen to my speech. For when the years were multiplied, and Cain Eastward of Eden, in this land of Nod, Had sons and sons of sons, and sons of them, Enoch and Irad and Mehujael My father, and my children's grandsire he, It came to pass, that Cain who dwelt alone Met Adam at the nightfall in the field; Who fell upon his neck, and wept, and said, My son, hath God not spoken to thee, Cain ? And Cain replied, when weeping loosed his voice: My dreams are double, O my father; good And evil. Terror to my soul by night And agony by day, when Abel stands A dead black shade and speaks not neither looks, Nor makes me any answer when I cry Curse me, but let me know thou art alive. But comfort also like a whisper comes, In visions of a deeper sleep, when he, Abel, as whom we knew, yours once and mine, Comes with a free forgiveness in his face, Seeming to speak, solicitous for words, And wearing ere he go the old first look Of unsuspecting, unforeboding love. Three nights are gone, I saw him thus, my Sire. Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech. For Adam said, Three nights ago to me Came Abel in my sleep as thou hast said, And spake, and bade, Arise my father, go Where in the land of exile dwells thy son. Say to my brother, Abel bids thee come, Abel would have thee; and lay thou thy hand, My father, on his head that he may come; Am I not weary, Father, for this hour ? Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear: Children of Lamech, listen to my speech: And, son of Zillah, sound thy solemn string. For Adam laid upon the head of Cain His hand, and Cain bowed down, and slept and died. And a deep sleep on Adam also fell, And in his slumber's deepest he beheld, Standing before the gate of Paradise With Abel, hand in hand, our father Cain. Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear; Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. Though to his wounding did he slay a man, Yea, and a young man to his hurt he slew, Fear not ye wives nor sons of Lamech fear: If unto Cain was safety given and rest, Shall Lamech surely and his people die ?
I SAW again the spirits on a day, Where on the earth in mournful case they lay; Five porches were there, and a pool, and round, Huddling in blankets, strewn upon the ground, Tied-up and bandaged, weary, sore and spent, The maimed and halt, diseased and impotent. For a great angel came, 'twas said, and stirred The pool at certain seasons, and the word Was, with this people of the sick, that they Who in the waters here their limbs should lay Before the motion on the surface ceased Should of their torment straightway be released. So with shrunk bodies and with heads down-dropt, Stretched on the steps, and at the pillars propt, Watching by day and listening through the night, They filled the place, a miserable sight. And I beheld that on the stony floor He too, that spoke of duty once before, No otherwise than others here to-day Foredone and sick and sadly muttering lay. "I know not, I will do---what is it I would say ? "What was that word which once sufficed alone for all, "Which now I seek in vain, and never can recall?' "I know not, I will do the work the world requires "Asking no reason why, but serving its desires; "Will do for daily bread, for wealth, respect, good name, "The business of the day---alas, is that the same ?' And then, as weary of in vain renewing His question, thus his mournful thought pursuing, "I know not, I must do as other men are doing.' But what the waters of that pool might be, Of Lethe were they, or Philosophy; And whether he, long waiting, did attain Deliverance from the burden of his pain There with the rest; or whether, yet before, Some more diviner stranger passed the door With his small company into that sad place, And breathing hope into the sick man's face, Bade him take up his bed, and rise and go, What the end were, and whether it were so, Further than this I saw not, neither know.
THROUGH the great sinful streets of Naples as I past, With fiercer heat than flamed above my head My heart was hot within me; till at last My brain was lightened, when my tongue had said Christ is not risen ! Christ is not risen, no, He lies and moulders low; Christ is not risen. What though the stone were rolled away, and though The grave found empty there!--- If not there, then elsewhere; If not where Joseph laid Him first, why then Where other men Translaid Him after; in some humbler clay Long ere to-day Corruption that sad perfect work hath done, Which here she scarcely, lightly had begun. The foul engendered worm Feeds on the flesh of the life-giving form Of our most Holy and Anointed One. He is not risen, no, He lies and moulders low; Christ is not risen. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; As of the unjust, also of the just--- Christ is not risen. What if the women, ere the dawn was grey, Saw one or more great angels, as they say, Angels, or Him himself? Yet neither there, nor then, Nor afterward, nor elsewhere, nor at all, Hath He appeared to Peter or the Ten, Nor, save in thunderous terror, to blind Saul; Save in an after-Gospel and late Creed He is not risen indeed, Christ is not risen Or what if e'en, as runs the tale, the Ten Saw, heard, and touched, again and yet again ? What if at Emmaus' inn and by Capernaum's lake Came One the bread that brake, Came One that spake as never mortal spake, And with them ate and drank and stood and walked about? Ah! "some' did well to "doubt' ! Ah! the true Christ, while these things came to pass, Nor heard, nor spake, nor walked, nor dreamt, alas ! He was not risen, no, He lay and mouldered low, Christ was not risen. As circulates in some great city crowd A rumour changeful, vague, importunate, and loud, From no determined centre, or of fact, Or authorship exact, Which no man can deny Nor verify; So spread the wondrous fame; He all the same Lay senseless, mouldering, low. He was not risen, no, Christ was not risen ! Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; As of the unjust, also of the just--- Yea, of that Just One too. This is the one sad Gospel that is true, Christ is not risen. Is He not risen, and shall we not rise ? Oh, we unwise ! What did we dream, what wake we to discover ? Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains, cover! In darkness and great gloom Come ere we thought it is <1our>1 day of doom, From the cursed world which is one tomb, Christ is not risen ! Eat, drink, and die, for we are men deceived, Of all the creatures under heaven's wide cope We are most hopeless who had once most hope We are most wretched that had most believed. Christ is not risen. Eat, drink, and play, and think that this is bliss! There is no Heaven but this! There is no Hell;--- Save Earth, which serves the purpose doubly well, Seeing it visits still With equallest apportionments of ill Both good and bad alike, and brings to one same dust The unjust and the just With Christ, who is not risen. Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved, Of all the creatures under this broad sky We are most hopeless, that had hoped most high, And most beliefless, that had most believed. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; As of the unjust, also of the just--- Yea, of that Just One too. It is the one sad Gospel that is true, Christ is not risen. Weep not beside the Tomb, Ye women, unto whom He was great solace while ye tended Him; Ye who with napkin o'er His head And folds of linen round each wounded limb Laid out the Sacred Dead; And thou that bar'st Him in thy Wondering Womb. Yea, Daughters of Jerusalem, depart, Bind up as best ye may your own sad bleeding heart; Go to your homes, your living children tend, Your earthly spouses love; Set your affections <1not>1 on things above, Which moth and rust corrupt, which quickliest come to end: Or pray, if pray ye must, and pray, if pray ye can, For death; since dead is He whom ye deemed more than man, Who is not risen, no, But lies and moulders low, Who is not risen. Ye men of Galilee! Why stand ye looking up to heaven, where Him ye ne'er may see, Neither ascending hence, nor hither returning again ? Ye ignorant and idle fishermen! Hence to your huts and boats and inland native shore, And catch not men, but fish; Whate'er things ye might wish, Him neither here nor there ye e'er shall meet with more. Ye poor deluded youths, go home, Mend the old nets ye left to roam, Tie the split oar, patch the torn sail; It was indeed "an idle tale', He was not risen. And oh, good men of ages yet to be, Who shall believe <1because>1 ye did not see, Oh, be ye warned! be wise! No more with pleading eyes, And sobs of strong desire, Unto the empty vacant void aspire, Seeking another and impossible birth That is not of your own and only Mother Earth. But if there is no other life for you, Sit down and be content, since this must even do: He is not risen. One look, and then depart, Ye humble and ye holy men of heart! And ye! ye ministers and stewards of a word Which ye would preach, because another heard,--- Ye worshippers of that ye do not know, Take these things hence and go; He is not risen. Here on our Easter Day We rise, we come, and lo! we find Him not; Gardener nor other on the sacred spot, Where they have laid Him is there none to say! No sound, nor in, nor out; no word Of where to seek the dead or meet the living Lord; There is no glistering of an angel's wings, There is no voice of heavenly clear behest: Let us go hence, and think upon these things In silence, which is best. Is He not risen? No--- But lies and moulders low--- Christ is not risen.
SO in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone, I with my secret self held communing of mine own. So in the southern city spake the tongue Of one that somewhat overwildly sung; But in a later hour I sat and heard Another voice that spake, another graver word. Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said, Though He be dead, He is not dead. In the true Creed He is yet risen indeed, Christ is yet risen. Weep not beside His tomb, Ye women unto whom He was great comfort and yet greater grief; Nor ye faithful few that went with Him to roam, Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home; Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief; Though He be dead, He is not dead, Not gone, though fled, Not lost, though vanished; Though He return not, though He lies and moulders low; In the true Creed He is yet risen indeed, Christ is yet risen. Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground, Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around. Whate'er befell, Earth is not hell; Now, too, as when it first began, Life yet is Life and Man is Man. For all that breathe beneath the heaven's high cope, Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope. Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief: Or at the least, faith unbelief. Though dead, not dead; Not gone, though fled; Not lost, not vanished. In the great Gospel and true Creed, He is yet risen indeed; Christ is yet risen.
THOU shalt have one God only; who Would be at the expense of two ? No graven images may be Worshipped, except the currency: Swear not at all; for for thy curse Thine enemy is none the worse: At church on Sunday to attend Will serve to keep the world thy friend: Honour thy parents; that is, all From whom advancement may befall: Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive Officiously to keep alive: Do not adultery commit; Advantage rarely comes of it: Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, When it's so lucrative to cheat: Bear not false witness; let the lie Have time on its own wings to fly: Thou shalt not covet; but tradition Approves all forms of competition. The sum of all is, thou shalt love, If any body, God above: At any rate shall never labour <1More>1 than thyself to love thy neighbour.
WHAT we, when face to face we see The Father of our souls, shall be, John tells us, doth not yet appear; Ah! did he tell what we are here! A mind for thoughts to pass into, A heart for loves to travel through, Five senses to detect things near, Is this the whole that we are here? Rules baffle instincts---instincts rules, Wise men are bad---and good are fools, Facts evil---wishes vain appear, We cannot go, why are we here ? O may we for assurance' sake, Some arbitrary judgement take, And wilfully pronounce it clear, For this or that 'tis we are here? Or is it right, and will it do, To pace the sad confusion through, And say:---It doth not yet appear, What we shall be, what we are here ? Ah yet, when all is thought and said, The heart still overrules the head; Still what we hope we must believe, And what is given us receive; Must still believe, for still we hope That in a world of larger scope, What here is faithfully begun Will be completed, not undone. My child, we still must think, when we That ampler life together see, Some true result will yet appear Of what we are, together, here.
HOPE evermore and believe, O man, for e'en as thy thought So are the things that thou see'st; e'en as thy hope and belief. Cowardly art thou and timid ? they rise to provoke thee against them; Hast thou courage ? enough, see them exulting to yield. Yea, the rough rock, the dull earth, the wild sea's furying waters (Violent say'st thou and hard, mighty thou think'st to destroy), All with ineffable longing are waiting their Invader, All, with one varying voice, call to him, Come and subdue; Still for their Conqueror call, and, but for the joy of being conquered (Rapture they will not forego), dare to resist and rebel; Still, when resisting and raging, in soft undervoice say unto him, Fear not, retire not, O man; hope evermore and believe. Go from the east to the west, as the sun and the stars direct thee, Go with the girdle of man, go and encompass the earth. Not for the gain of the gold, for the getting, the hoarding, the having, But for the joy of the deed; but for the Duty to do. Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action, With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth. Go; say not in thy heart, And what then were it accomplished, Were the wild impulse allayed, what were the use or the good ! Go, when the instinct is stilled, and when the deed is accomplished, What thou hast done and shalt do, shall be declared to thee then. Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit Say to thyself: It is good: yet is there better than it. This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little; Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it.
SAY not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been, things remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field. For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back through creeks and inlets making Came, silent, flooding in, the main, And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright.
O LAND of Empire, art and love! What is it that you show me ? A sky for Gods to tread above, A soil for pigs below me! O in all place and shape and kind Beyond all thought and thinking, The graceful with the gross combined, The stately with the stinking! Whilst words of mighty love to trace, Which thy great walls I see on, Thy porch I pace or take my place Within thee, great Pantheon, What sights untold of contrast bold My ranging eyes must be on! What though uprolled by young and old In slumbrous convolution Neath pillared shade must lie displayed Bare limbs that scorn ablution, Should husks that swine would never pick Bestrew that patterned paving, And sores to make a surgeon sick For charity come craving ? Though oft the meditative cur Account it small intrusion Through that great gate to quit the stir Of market-place confusion, True brother of the bipeds there, If Nature's need requireth, Lifts up his leg with tranquil air And tranquilly retireth: Though priest think fit to stop and spit Beside the altar solemn, Yet, boy, that nuisance why commit On this Corinthian column ?--- O richly soiled and richly sunned, Exuberant, fervid, and fecund ! Are these the fixed condition On which may Northern pilgrim come To imbibe thine ether-air, and sum Thy store of old tradition ? Must we be chill, if clean, and stand Foot-deep in dirt in classic land ? So is it: in all ages so, And in all places man can know, From homely roots unseen below In forest-shade in woodland bower The stem that bears the ethereal flower Derives that emanative power; From mixtures fetid foul and sour Draws juices that those petals fill. Ah Nature, if indeed thy will Thou own'st it, it shall not be ill ! And truly here, in this quick clime Where, scarcely bound by space or time, The elements in half a day Toss off with exquisitest play What our cold seasons toil and grieve, And never quite at last achieve; Where processes, with pain and fear Disgust and horror wrought, appear The quick mutations of a dance, Wherein retiring but to advance, Life, in brief interpause of death, One moment sitting, taking breath, Forth comes again as glad as e'er In some new figure full as fair, Where what has scarcely ceased to be, Instinct with newer birth we see--- What dies already, look you, lives; In such a clime, who thinks, forgives; Who sees, will understand; who knows, In calm of knowledge find repose, And thoughtful as of glory gone, So too of more to come anon, Of permanent existence sure, Brief intermediate breaks endure. O Nature, if indeed thy will, Thou ownest it, it is not ill! And e'en as oft on heathy hill, On moorland black, and ferny fells, Beside thy brooks and in thy dells, Was welcomed erst the kindly stain Of thy true earth, e'en so again With resignation fair and meet The dirt and refuse of thy street My philosophic foot shall greet, So leave but perfect to my eye Thy columns set against thy sky !
WHEN on the primal peaceful blank profound, Which in its still unknowing silence holds All knowledge, ever by withholding holds--- When on that void (like footfalls in far rooms), In faint pulsations from the whitening East Articulate voices first were felt to stir, And the great child, in dreaming grown to man, Losing his dream to piece it up began; Then Plato in me said, "'Tis but the figured ceiling overhead, With cunning diagrams bestarred, that shine In all the three dimensions, are endowed With motion too by skill mechanical, That thou in height, and depth, and breadth, and power, Schooled unto pure Mathesis, might proceed To higher entities, whereof in us Copies are seen, existent they themselves In the sole Kingdom of the Mind and God. Mind not the stars, mind thou thy Mind and God.' By that supremer Word O'ermastered, deafly heard Were hauntings dim of old astrologies; Chaldean mumblings vast, with gossip light From modern ologistic fancyings mixed, Of suns and stars, by hypothetic men Of other frame than ours inhabited, Of lunar seas and lunar craters huge. And was there atmosphere, or was there not? And without oxygen could life subsist ? And was the world originally mist?--- Talk they as talk they list, I, in that ampler voice, Unheeding, did rejoice.
THE skies have sunk and hid the upper snow, Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie, The rainy clouds are filing fast below, And wet will be the path, and wet shall we. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. Ah dear, and where is he, a year agone Who stepped beside and cheered us on and on ? My sweetheart wanders far away from me, In foreign land or o'er a foreign sea. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. The lightning zigzags shot across the sky, (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie,) 67 And through the vale the rains go sweeping by, Ah me, and when in shelter shall we be ? Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. Cold, dreary cold, the stormy winds feel they O'er foreign lands and foreign seas that stray. (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.) And doth he e'er, I wonder, bring to mind The pleasant huts and herds he left behind ? And doth he sometimes in his slumbering see The feeding kine, and doth he think of me, My sweetheart wandering wheresoe'er it be ? Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. The thunder bellows far from snow to snow, (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie) And loud and louder roars the flood below. Heigh ho! but soon in shelter shall we be. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. Or shall he find before his term be sped, Some comelier maid that he shall wish to wed ? (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie,) For weary is work, and weary day by day To have your comfort miles on miles away. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. Or may it be 'tis I shall find my mate, And he returning see himself too late ? For work we must, and what we see, we see, And God he knows, and what must be, must be, When sweethearts wander far away from me. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. The sky behind is brightening up anew, (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie), The rain is ending, and our journey too; Heigh ho! aha! for here at home are we:--- In, Rose, and in, Provence and La Palie.
'TIS true, Monseigneur, I am much to blame; But we must all forgive; especially Subjects their King; would I were one to do so What could I do ? and how was I to help it? 'Tis true it should not be so; true indeed, I know I am not what I would I were. I would I were, as God intended me, A little quiet harmless acolyte, Clothed in long serge and linen shoulder-piece, Day after day To pace serenely through the sacred fane, Bearing the sacred things before the priest, Curtsey before that altar as we pass, And place our burden reverently on this. There---by his side to stand and minister, To swing the censer and to sound the bell, Uphold the book, the patin change and cup--- Ah me--- And why does childhood ever change to man ? Oh, underneath the black and sacred serge Would yet uneasy uncontented blood Swell to revolt? Beneath the tippet's white Would harassed nerves by sacred music soothed, By solemn sights and peaceful tasks composed, Demand more potent medicine than these, Or ask from pleasure more than duty gives ? Ah, holy father, yes. Without the appointed, Without the sweet confessional relief, Without the welcome all-absolving words, The mystic rite, the solemn soothing forms, Our human life were miserable indeed. And yet methinks our holy Mother Church Deals hardly, very, with her eldest born, Her chosen, sacred, and most Christian Kings. To younger pets, the blind, the halt, the sick, The outcast child, the sinners of the street, Her doors are open and her precinct free: The beggar finds a nest, the slave a home, Even thy altars, O my Mother Church--- <10 templa quam dilecta.>1 We, the while, Poor Kings, must forth to action, as you say; Action, that slaves us, drives us, fretted, worn, To pleasure, which anon enslaves us too; Action, and what is Action, O my God ? Alas, and can it be In this perplexing labyrinth I see, This waste and wild infinity of ways Where all are like, and each each other meets, Quits, meets, and quits a many hundred times, That this path more than that conducts to Thee? Alas, and is it true Ought I can purpose, say, or will, or do, My fancy choose, my changeful silly heart Resolve, my puny petty hand enact, To that great glory can in ought conduce Which from the old eternities is Thine ? Ah never, no ! If ought there be for sinful souls below To do, 'tis rather to forbear to do; If ought there be of action that contains The sense of sweet identity with God, It is, methinks, it is inaction only. To walk with God I know not; let me kneel. Ah yes, the livelong day To watch before the altar where they pray: To muse and wait, On sacred stones lie down and meditate. No, through the long and dark and dismal night We will not turn and seek the city streets, We will not stir, we should but lose our way; But faithful stay And watch the tomb where He, our Saviour, lies Till his great day of Resurrection rise. Yes, the commandments you remind me, yes, The Sacred Word has pointed out the way, The Priest is here for our unfailing guide; Do this, not that, to right hand and to left, A voice is with us ever at our ear. Yes, holy Father, I am thankful for it; Most thankful I am not, as other men, A lonely Lutheran English Heretic; If I had so by God's despite been born, Alas, methinks I had but passed my life In sitting motionless beside the fire, Not daring to remove the once-placed chair, Nor stir my foot for fear it should be sin. Thank God indeed, Thank God for his infallible certain creed. Yes, the commandments, precepts of good life, And counsels of perfection and the like,--- "Thou knowest the commandments'---Yes indeed, Yes, I suppose. But it is weary work; For Kings I think they are not plain to read; Ministers somehow have small faith in them. Ah, holy father, would I were as you. But you, no less, have trials as you say; Inaction vexes you, and action tempts, And the bad prickings of the animal heats, As in the palace, to the cell will come. Ah, well a day! Would I were out in quiet Paraguay, Mending the Jesuits' shoes!--- You drive us into action as our duty. Then action persecutes and tortures us. To pleasures and to loving soft delights We fly for solace and for peace; and gain Vexation, Persecution also here. We hurry from the tyranny of man Into the tyranny yet worse of woman. No satisfaction find I any more In the old pleasant evil ways; but less, Less, I believe, of those uneasy stirs Of discontented and rebellious will That once with self-contempt tormented me. Depraved, that is, degraded am I---Sins, Which yet I see not how I should have shunned, Have, in despite of all the means of grace, Submission perfect to the appointed creed, And absolution-plenary and prayers, Possessed me, held, and changed---yet after all Somehow I think my heart within is pure.
WHAT voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost ? "'Tis better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.' The tricolor a trampled rag Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track By sentry boxes yellow-black Lead up to no Italian flag. I see the Croat soldier stand Upon the grass of your redoubts; The Eagle with his black wing flouts The breadth and beauty of your land. Yet not in vain, although in vain, O men of Brescia, on the day Of loss past hope, I heard you say Your welcome to the noble pain. You said, "Since so it is, good-bye Sweet life, high hope; but whatsoe'er May be, or must, no tongue shall dare To tell, ""The Lombard feared to die.''' You said (there shall be answer fit) "And if our children must obey, They must; but thinking on this day 'Twill less debase them to submit.' You said (Oh not in vain you said), "Haste, brothers, haste while yet we may: The hours ebb fast of this one day When blood may yet be nobly shed.' Ah! not for idle hatred, not For honour, fame, nor self-applause, But for the glory of the cause, You did, what will not be forgot. And though the Stranger stand, 'tis true, By force and fortune's right he stands; By fortune which is in God's hands, And strength which yet shall spring in you. This voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost, "'Tis better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.'
OR shall I say, Vain word, false thought, Since Prudence hath her martyrs too, And Wisdom dictates not to do, Till doing shall be not for nought? Not ours to give or lose is life; Will Nature when her brave ones fall, Remake her work ? or songs recall Death's victim slain in useless strife ? That rivers flow into the sea Is loss and waste, the foolish say, Nor know that back they find their way, Unseen, to where they wont to be. Showers fall upon the hills, springs flow, The river runneth still at hand, Brave men are born into the land, And whence the foolish do not know. No! no vain voice did on me fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost, <1"'Tis>1 better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.'
THESE vulgar ways that round me be, These faces shabby, sordid, mean, Shall they be daily, hourly seen And not affect the eyes that see ? Long months to play the censor's part, Lie down at night and rise at morn In mere defiance and stern scorn Is scarcely well for human heart. Accept, O soul, not in disdain, But patience, faith and simple sooth; Poise all things in the scales of truth, And one day they shall pay thy pain.
IT fortifies my soul to know That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe'er I stray and range, Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.
YET once again, ye banks and bowery nooks, And once again, ye dells and flowing brooks, I come to list the plashing of your fountains And lie within the foldings of your mountains. Yet once again, ye mossy flowery plots, And once again, ye leaf-enguarded grots, And breathing fields and soft enclosing shades, And once again, ye fair and loving maids, I come to twist my fingers in your tresses, And watch your eyes and laugh in your caresses, And beg or steal or seize your pouting kisses, And live and die in your oblivious blisses; Yet once again, ye banks and bowers, I hie to you, And once again, ye loves and graces, fly to you. I come, I come, upon the heart's wings fly to you, Ye dreary lengths of brick and flag, good-bye to you, Ambitious hopes and money's mean anxieties, And worldly-wise decorum's false proprieties, And politics and news and fates of nations too, And philanthropic sick investigations too And company, and jests, and feeble witticisms, And talk of talk, and criticism of criticisms; I come, I come, ye banks and bowers, to hide in you, And once again, ye loves and joys, confide in you. Yet once again, and why not once again ? The leaves they tumbled, but the boughs remain; Cold winds they blew, and biting frosts they dried them, But didn't wholly kill the old life inside them; What winter numbed, sweet spring anon revisiteth, And vernal airs to vernal stir soliciteth, No scruples fond, no shy fastidious tarrying here, Sweet air and earth forthwith are intermarrying here; To intermixtures subtle, strange, mysterious A voice, an impulse soft, sublime, imperious, Calls all around us; shall we deaf remain ? Yet once again, and why not once again, Yet once again, ye leafy bowers, I hide in you And once again, ye tender loves, confide in you. I come, I come, upon the soul's wings hie to you, Ye weary lines of printer's ink, good-bye to you, With all the tomes of all the hundred pages there, The mighty books of all the World's great sages there, Grammarians old, and modern fine Philologists, And Poets gone, and going Ideologists, From old solemnities, new trivialities, Philosophies, economies, moralities, I come, I come, ye banks and bowers, I hie to you, And once again, ye loves and graces, fly to you. Yet once again---how often once again ? The days die fast, old age comes on amain: Age, loss, decay. Ah come, if come they will, The leaf shall fall, the tree subsisteth still: Age, weakness, death. Ah come, if come they must, Age, weakness, death; and over our cold dust The joyous spring shall lead, as erst, her flowers To deck, as erst, our fresh reviving bowers, And with the spring and flowers the youth and maid Shall laugh and kiss and play as we have played, Shall part and meet and kiss old kisses o'er And sing old verses we had sung before, "Yet once again, ye banks and bowers, we hie to you, And once again, ye loves and graces, fly to you'.
NOW the birds have ceased their singing And the sun has sunk below And the bedtime bell is ringing Let us go! Let us go! Business ceases, joy decreases, We have had enough we know; Where our slumber soft and peace is We will go, We will go! If to wake us up to-morrow Rays of day shall prick our eyes, For that morrow's joy or sorrow We will rise, We will rise. When the carts begin to clatter, Then it will be time we know, Surely now it cannot matter, Let us go, Let us go. When the birds have ceased their singing And all's over for to-day And the bedtime bell's done ringing, Wherefore stay, Wherefore stay ? No! No! Let us go! Let us go!
Go, foolish thoughts, and join the throng Of myriads gone before; To flutter and flap and flit along The airy limbo shore. Go, words of sport and words of wit, Sarcastic points and fine, And words of wisdom wholly fit With folly's to combine. Go, words of wisdom, words of sense, Which, while the heart belied, The tongue still uttered for pretence, The inner blank to hide. Go, words of wit, so gay, so light, That still were meant express To soothe the smart of fancied slight By fancies of success. Go, broodings vain o'er fancied wrong; Go, love-dreams vainer still; And scorn that's not, but would be, strong; And Pride without a Will. Go, foolish thoughts, and find your way Where myriads went before, To linger, languish and decay Upon the limbo shore.
WHO is this Man that walketh in the field, O Eleazar, steward to my lord ? And Eleazar answered her and said, Daughter of Bethuel, it is other none But my lord Isaac, son unto my lord; Who, as his wont is, walketh in the field In the hour of evening meditating there. Therefore Rebekah hasted where she sat, And from her camel lighting to the earth Sought for a veil, and put it on her face. But Isaac also, walking in the field, Saw from afar a company that came, Camels, and a seat as where a woman sat; Wherefore he came, and met them on the way. Whom, when Rebekah saw, she came before, Saying, Behold the handmaid of my lord, Who for my lord's sake travel from my land. But he said, O thou blessed of our God, Come, for the tent is eager for thy face. Shall not thy husband be unto thee more than Hundreds of kinsmen living in thy land? And Eleazar answered, Thus and thus, Even according as thy father bade, Did we; and thus and thus it came to pass; Lo! is not this Rebekah, Bethuel's child ? And as he ended Isaac spoke and said, Surely my heart went with you on the way, When with the beasts ye came unto the place. Truly, O child of Nahor, I was there, When to thy mother and thy mother's son Thou madest answer, saying, I will go. And Isaac brought her to his mother's tent.
THESE are the words of Jacob's wives; the words Which Leah spake and Rachel to his ears, When in the shade at eventide he sat By the tent-door, a palm tree overhead, A spring beside him, and the sheep around. And Rachel spake and said, The nightfall comes; Night, which all day I wait for, and for thee. And Leah also spake, The day is done; My lord with toil is weary, and would rest. And Rachel said, Come, O my Jacob, come; And we will think we sit beside the well, As in that day the long long years agone When first I met thee with my father's flock. And Leah said, Come, Israel, unto me; And thou shalt reap an harvest of fair sons, E'en as before I bare thee goodly babes; For when was Leah fruitless to my lord ? And Rachel said, Ah come, as then thou cam'st; Come once again to set thy seal of love, As then, down bending, when the sheep had drunk, Then settedst it, my shepherd---O sweet seal !--- Upon the unwitting half-foretasting lips, Which shy and trembling thirsted yet for thine As cattle thirsted never for the spring. And Leah answered, Are not these their names, As Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, four ? Like four young saplings by the water's brim, Where straining rivers through the great plain wind, Four saplings soon to rise to goodly trees, Four trees whose growth shall cast an huger shade Than ever yet on river-side was seen. And Rachel said, And shall it be again As when dissevered far, unheard, alone, Consumed in bitter anger all night long, I moaned and wept, while, silent and discreet, One reaped the fruit of love that Rachel's was Upon the breast of him that knew her not ? And Leah said, And was it then a wrong That, in submission to a father's word, Trembling yet hopeful to that bond I crept, Which God hath greatly prospered, and my lord Content in after-wisdom not disowned, Joyful in after-thankfulness approved ? And Rachel said, But we will not complain, Though all life long an alien unsought third She trouble our companionship of love. And Leah answered, No; complain we not, Though year on year she loiter in the tent, A fretful, vain, unprofitable wife. And Rachel answered, Ah! she little knows What in old days to Jacob Rachel was. And Leah said, And wilt thou dare to say, Because my lord was gracious to thee then, No deeper thought his riper cares hath claimed, No stronger purpose passed into his life ? That, youth and maid once fondly, softly touched, Time's years must still the casual dream repeat, And all the river far, from source to sea, One flitting moment's chance reflection bear ? Also she added, Who is she to judge Of thoughts maternal, and a father's heart? And Rachel said, But what to supersede The rights which choice bestowed hath Leah done ? What which my handmaid or which hers hath not? Is Simeon more than Naphthali? is Dan Less than his brother Levi in the house ? That part that Billah and that Zilpah have, That, and no more, hath Leah in her lord, And let her with the same be satisfied. Leah asked then, And shall these things compare (Fond wishes, and the pastime and the play) With serious aims and forward-working hopes--- Aims as far-reaching as to Earth's last age, And hopes far-travelling as from East to West? Rachel replied, That love which in his youth, Through trial proved, consoles his perfect age, Shall this with project and with plan compare ? Or is forever shorter than all time, And love more straitened than from East to West? Leah spake further, Hath my lord not told How in the visions of the night his God, The God of Abraham and of Isaac, spake And said, Increase, and multiply, and fill With sons to serve Me this thy land and mine, And I will surely do thee good, and make Thy seed as is the sand beside the sea, Which is not numbered for its multitude ? Shall [Rachel] bear this progeny to God ? But Rachel wept and answered, And if God Hath closed the womb of Rachel until now, Shall He not at His pleasure open it? Hath Leah read the counsels of the Lord ? Was it not told her in the ancient days How Sarah, mother of great Israel's sire, Lived to long years insulted of her slave Or e'er to light the Child of Promise came, Whom Rachel too to Jacob yet may bear ? Moreover Rachel said, Shall Leah mock, Who stole the prime embraces of my love, My first long-destined, long-withheld caress ? But not, she said, methought, but not for this, In the old days did Jacob seek his bride; Where art thou now, O thou that sought'st me then ? Where is thy loving tenderness of old ? And where that fervency of faith to which Seven weary years were even as a few days ? And Rachel wept and ended, Ah, my life ! Though Leah bear thee sons on sons, methought The Child of love, late-born, were worth them all. And Leah groaned and answered, It is well: She that hath kept from me my husband's heart Will set their father's soul against my sons. Yet, also, not, she said, I thought, for this, Not for the feverish nor the doting love Doth Israel, father of a Nation, seek; Nor to light dalliance as of boy and girl Incline the thoughts of matron and of man, Or lapse the wisdoms of maturer mind. And Leah ended, Father of my sons, Come, thou shalt dream of Rachel if thou wilt, So Leah fold thee in a wife's embrace. These are the words of Jacob's wives, who sat In the tent door, and listened to their speech, The spring beside him, and above the palm, While all the sheep were gathered for the night.
My sons, and ye the children of my sons, Jacob your father goes upon his way, His pilgrimage is being accomplished. Come near, and hear him ere his words are o'er. Not as my father's or his father's days, As Isaac's days or Abraham's, have been mine; Not as the days of those that in the field Walked at the eventide to meditate, And haply to the tent returning found Angels at nightfall waiting at their door. They communed, Israel wrestled with the Lord. No, not as Abraham's or as Isaac's days, My sons, have been Jacob your father's days, Evil and few, attaining not to theirs In number, and in worth inferior much. As a man with his friend, walked they with God, In his abiding presence they abode, And all their acts were open to his face. But I have had to force mine eyes away, To lose, almost to shun, the thoughts I loved, To bend down to the work, to bare the breast, And struggle, feet and hands, with enemies; To buffet and to battle with hard men, With men of selfishness and violence; To watch by day and calculate by night, To plot and think of plots, and through a land Ambushed with guile, and with strong foes beset, To win with art safe wisdom's peaceful way. Alas! I know, and from the outset knew, The first-born faith, the singleness of soul, The antique pure simplicity with which God and good angels communed undispleased, Is not; it shall not any more be said That of a blameless and a holy kind The chosen race, the seed of promise, comes. The royal high prerogatives, the dower Of innocence and perfectness of life, Pass not unto my children from their sire As unto me they came of mine; they fit Neither to Jacob nor to Jacob's race. Think ye, my sons, in this extreme old age And in this failing breath, that I forget How on the day when from my father's door, In bitterness and ruefulness of heart, I from my parents set my face and felt I never more again should look on theirs,--- How on that day I seemed unto myself Another Adam from his home cast out, And driven abroad into a barren land, Cursed for his sake, and mocking still with thorns And briars that labour and that sweat of brow He still must spend to live ? Sick of my days, I wished not life, but cried out, Let me die; But at Luz God came to me; in my heart He put a better mind, and showed me how, While we discern it not and least believe, On stairs invisible betwixt his heaven And our unholy, sinful, toilsome earth Celestial messengers of loftiest good Upward and downward pass continually. Many, since Jacob on the field of Luz Set up the stone he slept on, unto God, Many have been the troubles of my life; Sins in the field and sorrows in the tent, In mine own household anguish and despair, And gall and wormwood mingled with my love. The time would fail me should I seek to tell Of a child wronged and cruelly revenged (Accursed was that anger, it was fierce, That wrath, for it was cruel), or of strife And jealousy and cowardice, with lies Mocking a father's misery; deeds of blood, Pollutions, sicknesses, and sudden deaths, These many things against me many times. The ploughers have ploughed deep upon my back, And made deep furrows; blessed be his name Who hath delivered Jacob out of all, And left within his spirit hope of good. Come near to me, my sons: your father goes, The hour of his departure draweth nigh. Ah me! this eager rivalry of life, This cruel conflict for pre-eminence, This keen supplanting of the dearest kin, Quick seizure and fast unrelaxing hold Of vantage-place; the stony-hard resolve, The chase, the competition, and the craft Which seems to be the poison of our life And yet is the condition of our life! To have done things on which the eye with shame Looks back, the closed hand clutching still the prize! Alas ! what of all these things shall I say ? Take me away unto thy sleep, O God! I thank thee it is over, yet I think It was a work appointed me of thee. How is it? I have striven all my days To do my duty to my house and hearth, And to the purpose of my father's race, Yet is my heart therewith not satisfied.
O THOU whose image in the shrine Of human spirits dwells divine; Which from that precinct once conveyed, To be to outer day displayed, Doth vanish, part, and leave behind. Mere blank and void of empty mind, Which wilful fancy seeks in vain With casual shapes to fill again--- O thou that in our bosoms' shrine Dost dwell, because unknown, divine ! I thought to speak, I thought to say, "The light is here,' "behold the way,' "The voice was thus ' and "thus the word,' And "thus I saw ' and "that I heard,'--- But from the lips but half essayed The imperfect utterance fell unmade. O thou, in that mysterious shrine Enthroned, as we must say, divine ! I will not frame one thought of what Thou mayest either be or not. I will not prate of "thus' and "so', And be profane with "yes' and "no.' Enough that in our soul and heart Thou, whatsoe'er thou may'st be, art. Unseen, secure in that high shrine Acknowledged present and divine, I will not ask some upper air, Some future day, to place thee there; Nor say, nor yet deny, Such men Or women saw thee thus and then: Thy name was such, and there or here To him or her thou didst appear. Do only thou in that dim shrine, Unknown or known, remain, divine; There, or if not, at least in eyes That scan the fact that round them lies. The hand to sway, the judgment guide, In sight and sense thyself divide: Be thou but there,---in soul and heart, I will not ask to feel thou art.
"OLD things need not be therefore true,' O brother men, nor yet the new; Ah ! still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again ! The souls of now two thousand years Have laid up here their toils and tears, And all the earnings of their pain,--- Ah, yet consider that again ! We! what do <1we>1 see ? each a space Of some few yards before his face; Does that the whole wide plan explain ? Ah, yet consider it again ! Alas! the great World goes its way, And takes its truth from each new day; They do not quit, nor can retain, Far less consider it again!
ACROSS the sea, along the shore, In numbers more and ever more, From lonely hut and busy town, The valley through, the mountain down, What was it ye went out to see, Ye silly folk of Galilee ? The reed that in the wind doth shake ? The weed that washes in the lake ? The reeds that waver, the weeds that float ?--- A young man preaching in a boat. What was it ye went out to hear By sea and land from far and near ? A teacher ? Rather seek the feet Of those who sit in Moses' seat. Go humbly seek, and bow to them, Far off in great Jerusalem. From them that in her courts ye saw, Her perfect doctors of the law, What is it came ye here to note ?--- A young man preaching in a boat. A prophet ! Boys and women weak ! Declare, or cease to rave; Whence is it he hath learned to speak? Say, who his doctrine gave ? A prophet ? Prophet wherefore he Of all in Israel tribes ?--- <1He teacheth with authority,>1 <1And not as do the Scribes.>1
TO spend uncounted years of pain, Again, again, and yet again, In working out in heart and brain The problem of our being here; To gather facts from far and near, Upon the mind to hold them clear, And, knowing more may yet appear, Unto one's latest breath to fear The premature result to draw--- Is this the object, end and law, And purpose of our being here ?
IT is not sweet content, be sure, That moves the nobler Muse to song, Yet when could truth come whole and pure From hearts that inly writhe with wrong? It is not calm and peaceful breasts That see or read the problem true; They only know on whom 't has prest Too hard to hope to solve it too. 90 Our ills are worse than at their ease Mere blameless happy souls suspect; They only study the disease, Alas, who live not to detect.
EACH for himself is still the rule, We learn it when we go to school--- The devil take the hindmost, o! And when the schoolboys grow to men, In life they learn it o'er again--- The devil take the hindmost, o! For in the church, and at the bar, On 'Change, at court, where'er they are, The devil takes the hindmost, o! Husband for husband, wife for wife, Are careful that in married life The devil take the hindmost, o! From youth to age, whate'er the game, The unvarying practice is the same--- The devil take the hindmost, o! And after death, we do not know, But scarce can doubt, where'er we go, The devil takes the hindmost, o! Tol rol de rol, tol rol de ro, The devil take the hindmost, o !
BLESSED are those who have not seen, And who have yet believed The witness, here that has not been, From heaven they have received. Blessed are those who have not known The things that stand before them, And for a vision of their own Can piously ignore them. So let me think whate'er befall, That in the city duly Some men there are who love at all, Some women who love truly; And that upon two million odd Transgressors in sad plenty, Mercy will of a gracious God Be shown---because of twenty.
PUT forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane, East wind and frost are safely gone; With zephyr mild and balmy rain The summer comes serenely on; Earth, air, and sun and skies combine To promise all that's kind and fair:--- But thou, O human heart of mine, Be still, contain thyself, and bear. December days were brief and chill, The winds of March were wild and drear, And, nearing and receding still, Spring never would, we thought, be here. The leaves that burst, the suns that shine, Had, not the less, their certain date:--- And thou, O human heart of mine, Be still, refrain thyself, and wait.
Is it this, then, O world-warrior, That, exulting, through the folds Of the dark and cloudy barrier Thine enfranchised eye beholds ? Is, when blessed hands relieve thee From the gross and mortal clay, This the heaven that should receive thee ? "Tete d'arme'e.' Now the final link is breaking Of the fierce, corroding chain, And the ships, their watch forsaking, Bid the seas no more detain. Whither is it, freed and risen, The pure spirit seeks away, Quits for what the weary prison ? "Tete d'armee.' Doubtless---angels, hovering o'er thee In thine exile's sad abode, Marshalled even now before thee, Move upon that chosen road ! Thither they, ere friends have laid thee Where sad willows o'er thee play, Shall already have conveyed thee ! "Tete d'armee.' Shall great captains, foiled and broken, Hear from thee on each great day, At the crisis, a word spoken--- Word that battles still obey--- "Cuirassiers here, here those cannon; Quick, those squadrons, up---away ! To the charge, on---as one man, on!' "Tete d'armee.' (Yes, too true, alas! while sated Of the wars so slow to cease, Nations, once that scorned and hated, Would to Wisdom turn, and Peace; Thy dire impulse still obeying Fevered youths, as in the old day, In their hearts still find thee saying, "Tete d'armee.') Oh, poor soul!---Or do I view thee, From earth's battle-fields withheld, In a dream, assembling to thee Troops that quell not, nor are quelled, Breaking airy lines, defeating Limbo-kings, and, as to-day, Idly to all time repeating "Tete d'armee' ? And what the words that with his failing breath Did England hear her aged soldier say ? I know not. Yielding tranquilly to death, With no proud speech, no boast, he passed away. Not stirring words, nor gallant deeds alone, Plain patient work fulfilled that length of life; Duty, not glory---Service, not a throne, Inspired his effort, set for him the strife. Therefore just Fortune, with one hasty blow, Spurning her minion, Glory's, Victory's lord, Gave all to him that was content to know In service done its own supreme reward. The words he said, if haply words there were, When full of years and works he passed away, Most naturally might, methinks, refer To some poor humble business of to-day. "That humble simple duty of the day Perform,' he bids; "ask not if small or great: Serve in thy post; be faithful, and obey; Who serves her truly, sometimes saves the State.'
FAREWELL, farewell ! Her vans the vessel tries, His iron might the potent engine plies; Haste, winged words, and ere 'tis useless, tell, Farewell, farewell, yet once again, farewell. The docks, the streets, the houses past us fly, Without a strain the great ship marches by; Ye fleeting banks take up the words we tell, And say for us yet once again, farewell. The waters widen---but with calm disdain The proud ship cleaves the liquid yielding plain; She knows the seas, she hears the true waves swell, She seems to say farewell, again farewell. The billows whiten and the deep seas heave; Fly once again, sweet words, to her I leave, With winds that blow return, and seas that swell, Farewell, farewell, say once again, farewell. Fresh in my face and rippling to my feet The winds and waves an answer soft repeat, In sweet, sweet words far brought they seem to tell, Farewell, farewell, yet once again, farewell. Night gathers fast; adieu, thou fading shore ! The land we look for next must lie before; Hence, foolish tears ! weak thoughts, no more rebel, Farewell, farewell, a last, a last farewell. Yet not, indeed, ah not till more than sea And more than space divide my love and me, Till more than waves and winds between us swell, Farewell, a last, indeed, a last farewell.
YE flags of Piccadilly, Where I posted up and down, And wished myself so often Well away from you and Town,--- Are the people walking quietly And steady on their feet, Cabs and omnibuses plying Just as usual in the street? Do the houses look as upright As of old they used to be, And does nothing seem affected By the pitching of the sea ? Through the Green Park iron railings Do the quick pedestrians pass ? Are the little children playing Round the plane-tree in the grass? This squally wild north-wester With which our vessel fights, Does it merely serve with you to Carry up some paper kites? Ye flags of Piccadilly, Which I hated so, I vow I could wish with all my heart You were underneath me now!
COME home, come home! and where an home hath he Whose ship is driving o'er the driving sea? To the frail bark here plunging on its way To the wild waters shall I turn and say Ye are my home ? Fields once I walked in, faces once I knew, Familiar things my heart had grown unto, Far away hence behind me lie; before The dark clouds mutter and the deep seas roar Not words of home. Beyond the clouds, beyond the waves that roar There may indeed, or may not be, a shore, Where fields as green and friendly hearts as true The old foregone appearance may renew As of an home. But toil and care must add day on to day, And weeks bear months and months bear years away, Ere, if at all, the way-worn traveller hear A voice he dare believe say in his ear Come to thy home. Come home, come home! and where an home hath he Whose ship is driving o'er the driving sea ? Through clouds that mutter and o'er seas that roar Is there indeed, or is there not a shore That is our home ?
GREEN fields of England ! wheresoe'er Across this watery waste we fare, Your image at our hearts we bear, Green fields of England, everywhere. Sweet eyes in England, I must flee Past where the waves' last confines be, Ere your loved smile I cease to see, Sweet eyes in England, dear to me. Dear home in England, safe and fast If but in thee my lot be cast, The past shall seem a nothing past To thee, dear home, if won at last; Dear home in England, won at last.
COME back, come back, behold with straining mast And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast; With one new sun to see her voyage o'er, With morning light to touch her native shore. Come back, come back. Come back, come back, while westward labouring by, With sail-less yards, a bare black hulk we fly, See how the gale we fight with, sweeps her back, To our last home, on our forsaken track. Come back, come back. Come back, come back, across the flying foam We hear faint far-off voices call us home, Come back, ye seem to say; ye seek in vain; We went, we sought, and homeward turned again. Come back, come back. Come back, come back; and whither back or why ? To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try; Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street; Dream with the idlers, with the base compete. Come back, come back. Come back, come back; and whither and for what? To finger idly some old Gordian knot, Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, And with much toil attain to half-believe. Come back, come back. Come back, come back; yea back, indeed, do go Sighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow; Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings, And wishes idly struggle in the strings; Come back, come back. 98 Come back, come back, more eager than the breeze, The flying fancies sweep across the seas, And lighter far than ocean's flying foam The heart's fond message hurries to its home. Come back, come back! Come back, come back! Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back; The long smoke wavers on the homeward track, Back fly with winds things which the winds obey, The strong ship follows its appointed way.
SOME future day when what is now is not, When all old faults and follies are forgot, And thoughts of difference passed like dreams away, We'll meet again, upon some future day. When all that hindered, all that vexed our love As tall rank weeds will climb the blade above, When all but it has yielded to decay, We'll meet again upon some future day. When we have proved, each on his course alone, The wider world, and learnt what's now unknown, Have made life clear, and worked out each a way, We'll meet again,---we shall have much to say. With happier mood, and feelings born anew, Our boyhood's bygone fancies we'll review, Talk o'er old talks, play as we used to play, And meet again, on many a future day. Some day, which oft our hearts shall yearn to see, In some far year, though distant, yet to be, Shall we indeed,---ye winds and waters, say!--- Meet yet again, upon some future day?
WERE I with you, or you with me, My love, how happy should we be; Day after day it is sad cheer To have you there, while I am here. My darling's face I cannot see, My darling's voice is mute for me, My fingers vainly seek the hair Of her that is not here, but there. In a strange land, to her unknown, I sit and think of her alone; And in that happy chamber where We sat, she sits, nor has me there. Yet still the happy thought recurs That she is mine, as I am hers, That she is there, as I am here, And loves me, whether far or near. The mere assurance that she lives And loves me, full contentment gives; I need not doubt, despond, or fear, For, she is there, and I am here.
WERE you with me, or I with you, There's nought, methinks, I might not do; Could venture here, and venture there, And never fear, nor ever care. To things before, and things behind, Could turn my thoughts, and turn my mind, On this and that, day after day, Could dare to throw myself away. Secure, when all was o'er, to find My proper thought, my perfect mind, And unimpaired receive anew My own and better self in you.
THAT out of sight is out of mind Is true of most we leave behind; It is not, sure, nor can be true, My own and dearest love, of you. They were my friends, 'twas sad to part; Almost a tear began to start; But yet as things run on they find That out of sight is out of mind. For men that will not idlers be Must lend their hearts to things they see; And friends who leave them far behind, Being out of sight are out of mind. I do not blame; I think that when The cold and silent see again, Kind hearts will yet as erst be kind, 'Twas out of sight was out of mind. I knew it, when we parted, well, I knew it, but was loth to tell; I knew before, what now I find, That out of sight was out of mind. That friends, however friends they were, Still deal with things as things occur, And that, excepting for the blind, What's out of sight is out of mind. But love <1is,>1 as they tell us, blind; So out of sight and out of mind Need not, nor will, I think, be true, My own and dearest love, of you.
THE mighty ocean rolls and raves, My child, to part us with its waves; But arch on arch from shore to shore, In a vast fabric reaching o'er, With careful labours daily wrought By steady hope and tender thought, The wide and weltering waste above--- Our hearts have bridged it with their love. There fond anticipations fly To rear the growing structure high; Dear memories upon either side Combine to make it large and wide. There happy fancies day by day New courses sedulously lay; There soft solicitudes, sweet fears, And doubts accumulate, and tears. While the pure purpose of the soul, To form of many parts a whole, To make them strong and hold them true From end to end is carried through, Then while the waters war between, Upon the masonry unseen, Secure and swift, from shore to shore, With silent footfall travelling o'er, Our sundered spirits come and go, Hither and thither, to and fro, Pass and repass, now linger near, Now part, anew to reappear. With motions of a glad surprise, We meet each other's wondering eyes, At work, at play, while people talk, And when we sleep, and when we walk. 102 Each dawning day my eyelids see You come, methinks, across to me, And I, at every hour anew, I start to fly to bliss and you.
AM I with you, or you with me? Or in some blessed place above, Where neither lands divide nor sea, Are we united in our love ? Oft while in longing here I lie, That wasting ever still endures, My soul out from me seems to fly, And half-way, somewhere, meet with yours. Somewhere---but where I cannot guess--- Beyond, may be, the bound of space, The liberated spirits press And meet, bless heaven, and embrace. It seems not either here nor there, Somewhere between us up above, A region of a clearer air, The dwelling of a purer love.
O SHIP, ship, ship, That travellest over the sea, What are the tidings, I pray thee, Thou bearest hither to me ? Are they tidings of comfort and joy, That shall make me seem to see The sweet lips softly moving And whispering love to me ? Or are they of trouble and grief, Estrangement, [sorrow, and] doubt, To turn into torture my hopes, And drive me from Paradise out? O ship, ship, ship, That comest over the sea, Whatever it be thou bringest, Come quickly with it to me.
WHERE lies the land to which the ship would go ? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from ? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face, Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace; Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below The foaming wake far widening as we go. On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave! The dripping sailor on the reeling mast Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past. Where lies the land to which the ship would go ? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from ? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
HOW in all wonder Columbus got over, That is a marvel to me, I protest, Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover, Frobisher, Dampier, Drake, and the rest. Bad enough all the same, For them that after came, But, in great Heaven's name, How <1he>1 should ever think That on the other brink Of this huge waste terra firma should be, Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me. How a man ever should hope to get thither, E'en if he knew of there being another side; But to suppose he should come any whither, Sailing right on into chaos untried, Across the whole ocean, In spite of the motion, To stick to the notion That in some nook or bend Of a sea without end He should find North and South Amerikee, Was a pure madness as it seems to me. What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy, Judged that the earth like an orange was round, None of them ever said, "Come along, follow me, Sail to the West, and the East will be found.' Many a day before Ever they'd touched the shore Of the San Salvador, Sadder and wiser men They'd have turned back again; And that <1he>1 did not, but did cross the sea, Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me. And that he crossed and that we cross the sea Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.
AMID these crowded pews must I sit and seem to pray, All the blessed Sunday morning while I wish to be away, While in the fields I long to be or on the hill-tops high, The air of heaven about me, above, the sacred sky ? Why stay and form my features to a "foolish face of' prayer, Play postures with the body, while the Spirit is not there ? Not there, but wandering off to woods, or pining to adore Where mountains rise or where the waves are breaking on the shore. In a calm sabbatic chamber when I could sit alone, And feed upon pure thoughts to work-day hours unknown, Amidst a crowd of lookers-on why come, and sham to pray, While the blessed Sunday morning wastes uselessly away ? Upon the sacred morning that comes but once a week, Where'er the Voice is speaking, there let me hear it speak; Await it in the chamber, abroad to seek it roam, The Worship of the heavens attend, the Services of home. Pent-up in crowded pews am I really bound to stay, And to edify my neighbours make a sad pretence to pray, And where the Truth indeed speaks, neglect to hear it speak, On the blessed Sunday morning that comes but once a week ?
LIPS, lips, open ! Up comes a little bird that lives inside, Up comes a little bird, and peeps and out he flies. All the day he sits inside, and sometimes he sings, Up he comes and out he goes at night to spread his wings. Little bird, little bird, whither will you go ? Round about the world, while nobody can know. Little bird, little bird, whither do you flee ? Far away round the world while nobody can see. 106 Little bird, little bird, how long will you roam? All round the world and around again home. Round the round world, and back through the air, When the morning comes, the little bird is there. Back comes the little bird, and looks, and in he flies, Up wakes the little boy, and opens both his eyes. Sleep, sleep, little boy, little bird's away, Little bird will come again, by the peep of day; Sleep, sleep, little boy, little bird must go Round about the world, while nobody can know. Sleep, sleep sound, little bird goes round, Round and round he goes---sleep, sleep sound.
COME, Poet, come ! A thousand labourers ply their task, And what it tends to scarcely ask, And trembling thinkers on the brink Shiver, and know not how to think. To tell the purport of their pain, And what our silly joys contain; In lasting lineaments pourtray The substance of the shadowy day; Our real and inner deeds rehearse, And make our meaning clear in verse: Come, Poet, come ! for but in vain We do the work or feel the pain, And gather up the seeming gain, Unless before the end thou come To take, ere they are lost, their sum. Come, Poet, come ! To give an utterance to the dumb, And make vain babblers silent, come; A thousand dupes point here and there, Bewildered by the show and glare; And wise men half have learned to doubt Whether we are not best without. Come, Poet; both but wait to see Their error proved to them in thee. Come, Poet, come ! In vain I seem to call. And yet Think not the living times forget. Ages of heroes fought and fell That Homer in the end might tell; O'er grovelling generations past Upstood the Doric fane at last; And countless hearts on countless years Had wasted thoughts, and hopes, and fears, Rude laughter and unmeaning tears, Ere England Shakespeare saw, or Rome The pure perfection of her dome. Others, I doubt not, if not we, The issue of our toils shall see; Young children gather as their own The harvest that the dead had sown, The dead forgotten and unknown.
UPON the water, in the boat, I sit and sketch as down I float: The stream is wide, the view is fair, I sketch it looking backward there. The stream is strong, and as I sit And view the picture that we quit, It flows and flows, and bears the boat, And I sit sketching as we float. Still as we go the things I see, E'en as I see them, cease to be; Their angles swerve, and with the boat The whole perspective seems to float. Each pointed height, each wavy line, To wholly other forms combine; Proportions vary, colours fade, And all the landscape is remade. Depicted neither far nor near And larger there and smaller here, And varying down from old to new, E'en I can hardly think it true. Yet still I look, and still I sit, Adjusting, shaping, altering it; And still the current bears the boat And me, still sketching as I float.
O STREAM, descending to the sea, Thy mossy banks between, The flowrets blow, the grasses grow, The leafy trees are green. In garden plots the children play, The fields the labourers till, And houses stand on either hand,--- And thou descendest still. O life, descending unto death, Our waking eyes behold Parent and friend thy lapse attend, Companions young and old; Strong purposes our minds possess, Our hearts affections fill, We toil and earn, we seek and learn,--- And thou descendest still. O end, to which our currents tend, Inevitable sea, To which we flow, what do we know, What shall we guess of thee? A roar we hear upon thy shore As we our course fulfil; Scarce we divine a sun will shine And be above us still.
CEASE, empty Faith, the Spectrum saith, I was, and lo, have been; I, God, am nought: a shade of thought, Which, but by darkness seen, Upon the unknown yourselves have thrown, Placed it and light between. At morning's birth on darkened earth, And as the evening sinks, Awfully vast abroad is cast The lengthened form that shrinks In midday light, and shuns the sight, And underneath you slinks. From barren strands of wintry lands Across the seas of time, Borne onward fast ye touch at last An equatorial clime; In equatorial noon sublime At zenith stands the sun, And lo, around, far, near, are found Yourselves, and Shadow none. A moment ! yea, but when the day Indeed was perfect day! A moment! so! and light we know With dark exchanges aye, Nor morn nor eve shall shadow leave Your sunny paths secure, And in your sight that orb of light Shall humbler orbs obscure. And yet withal, 'tis shadow all Whate'er your fancies dream, And I (misdeemed) that was, that seemed, Am not, whate'er I seem.
O HAPPY mother, while the man wayworn Sleeps by his ass and dreams of daily bread, Wakeful and heedful for thy infant care, O happy mother, while thy husband sleeps, Art privileged, O blessed one, to see Celestial strangers sharing in thy task, And visible angels waiting on thy child. Take, O young soul, O infant heaven-desired, Take and fear not the cates, although of earth, Which to thy hands celestial hands extend. Take and fear not: such vulgar meats of life Thy spirit lips no more must scorn to pass; The seeming ill, contaminating joys, Thy sense divine no more be loth to allow. The pleasures as the pains of our strange life Thou art engaged, self-compromised, to share. Look up, upon thy mother's face there sits No sad suspicion of a lurking ill, No shamed confession of a needful sin. Mistrust her not, albeit of earth she too. Look up ! the bright-eyed cherubs overhead Strew from mid air fresh flowers to crown the feast. Look! thy own father's servants these, and thine, Who at his bidding and at thine are here. In thine own word was it not said long since Butter and honey shall he eat, and learn The evil to refuse and choose the good ? Fear not, O babe divine, fear not, accept. O happy mother, privileged to see, While the man sleeps, the sacred mystery.
TRUNKS the forest yielded with gums ambrosial oozing, Boughs with apples laden beautiful, Hesperian, Golden, odoriferous, perfume exhaling about them, Orbs in a dark umbrage luminous and radiant; To the palate grateful, more luscious were not in Eden, Or in that fabled garden of Alcinous; Out of a dark umbrage sounds also musical issued, Birds their sweet transports uttering in melody, Thrushes clear-piping, wood-pigeons cooing, arousing Loudly the nightingale, loudly, the sylvan echoes; Waters transpicuous flowed under, flowed to the list'ning Ear with a soft murmur, softly soporiferous; Nor, with ebon locks too, there wanted, circling, attentive Unto the sweet fluting, girls, of a swarthy shepherd. Over a sunny level their flocks are lazily feeding They of Amor musing rest in a leafy cavern.
FROM thy far sources, 'mid mountains airily climbing, Pass to the rich lowland, thou busy sunny river; Murmuring once, dimpling, pellucid, limpid, abundant, Deepening now, widening, swelling, a lordly river. Through woodlands steering, with branches waving above thee, Through the meadows sinuous, wandering irriguous; Farms, hamlets leaving, towns by thee, bridges across thee, Pass to palace garden, pass to cities populous. Murmuring once, dimpling, 'mid woodlands wandering idly, Now with mighty vessels loaded, a mighty river. Pass to the great waters, though tides may seem to resist thee, Tides to resist seeming, quickly will lend thee passage, Pass to the dark waters that roaring wait to receive thee; Pass them thou wilt not, thou busy sunny river.
OVER a mountain-slope with lentisk, and with abounding Arbutus, and the red oak overtufted, 'mid a noontide Now glowing fervidly, the Leto-born, the divine one, Artemis, Arcadian wood-rover, alone, hunt-weary, Unto a dell cent'ring many streamlets her foot unerring Had guided. Platanus with fig-tree shaded a hollow, Shaded a waterfall, where pellucid yet abundant Streams from perpetual full-flowing sources a current: Lower on either bank in sunshine flowered the' oleanders: Plenteous under a rock green herbage here to the margin Grew with white poplars o'ercrowning. She, thither arrived, Unloosing joyfully the vest enfolded upon her, Swift the divine shoulders discovering, swiftly revealing Her maidenly bosom and all her beauty beneath it, To the river waters overflowing to receive her Yielded her ambrosial nakedness. But with an instant Conscious, with the' instant the' immortal terrific anger Flew to the guilty doer: that moment, where amid amply Concealing plane leaves he the' opportunity, pursued Long fruitlessly, possessed, unwise, Actaeon, of hunters, Hapless of Arcadian and most misguided of hunters, Knew the divine mandate, knew fate directed upon him. He, crouching, furtively, with audacious tremulous glance, Espied approaching, saw descending, disarraying, And the' unclad shoulders awestruck, awestruck let his eyes see The maidenly bosom, but not---dim fear fell upon them--- Not more had witnessed. Not, therefore, less the forest through Ranging, their master ceasing thenceforth to remember, With the' instant together trooping came as to devour him His dogs from the' ambush.---Transformed suddenly before them, He fled, an antlered stag wild with terror to the mountain. She, the liquid stream in, her limbs carelessly reclining, The flowing waters collected grateful about her.
IT was the afternoon; and the sports were now at the ending.
Long had the stone been put, tree cast, and thrown the hammer;
Up the perpendicular hill, Sir Hector so called it,
Eight stout gillies had run, with speed and agility wondrous;
Run too the course on the level had been; the leaping was over:
Last in the show of dress, a novelty recently added,
Noble ladies their prizes adjudged for costume that was perfect,
Turning the clansmen about, as they stood with upraised elbows,
Bowing their eye-glassed brows, and fingering kilt and sporran.
It was four of the clock, and the sports were come to the ending,
Therefore the Oxford party went off to adorn for the dinner.
Be it recorded in song who was first, who last, in dressing.
Hope was first, black-tied, white-waistcoated, simple, His Honour;
For the postman made out he was heir to the Earldom of Ilay,
(Being the younger son of the younger brother, the Colonel,)
Treated him therefore with special respect; doffed bonnet, and ever
Called him his Honour: his Honour he therefore was at the cottage.
Always his Honour at least, sometimes the Viscount of Ilay.
Hope was first, his Honour, and next to his Honour the Tutor.
Still more plain the Tutor, the grave man, nicknamed Adam,
White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square-cut waistcoat
Formal, unchanged, of black cloth, but with sense and feeling be-
neath it;
Skilful in Ethics and Logic, in Pindar and Poets unrivalled;
<1Shady>1 in Latin, said Lindsay, but <1topping>1 in Plays and Aldrich.
Somewhat more splendid in dress, in a waistcoat work of a lady,
Lindsay succeeded; the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay,
Lindsay the ready of speech, the Piper, the Dialectician,
This was his title from Adam because of the words he invented,
Who in three weeks had created a dialect new for the party;
This was his title from Adam, but mostly they called him the Piper.
Lindsay succeeded, the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay.
Hewson and Hobbes were down at the <1matutine>1 bathing; of
course too
Arthur, the bather of bathers <1par excellence,>1 Audley by surname,
Arthur they- called him for love and for euphony; they had been
bathing,
Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite
Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended,
Only a step from the cottage, the road and larches between them.
Hewson and Hobbes followed quick upon Adam; on them followed
Arthur.
Airlie descended the last, effulgent as god of Olympus;
Blue, perceptibly blue, was the coat that had white silk facings,
Waistcoat blue, coral-buttoned, the white-tie finely adjusted,
Coral moreover the studs on a shirt as of crochet of women:
When the fourwheel for ten minutes already had stood at the
gateway,
He, like a god, came leaving his ample Olympian chamber.
And in the fourwheel they drove to the place of the clansmen's
meeting.
So in the fourwheel they came; and Donald the innkeeper showed
them
Up to the barn where the dinner should be. Four tables were in it;
Two at the top and the bottom, a little upraised from the level,
These for Chairman and Croupier, and gentry fit to be with them,
Two lengthways in the midst for keeper and gillie and peasant.
Here were clansmen many in kilt and bonnet assembled;
Keepers a dozen at least; the Marquis's targeted gillies;
Pipers five or six, among them the young one, the drunkard;
Many with silver brooches, and some with those brilliant crystals
Found amid granite-dust on the frosty scalp of the Cairn-Gorm;
But with snuff-boxes all, and all of them using the boxes.
Here too were Catholic Priest, and Established Minister standing;
Catholic Priest; for many still clung to the Ancient Worship,
And Sir Hector's father himself had built them a chapel;
So stood Priest and Minister, near to each other, but silent,
One to say grace before, the other after the dinner.
Hither anon too came the shrewd, ever-ciphering Factor,
Hither anon the Attache/, the Guardsman mute and stately,
Hither from lodge and bothie in all the adjoining shootings
Members of Parliament many, forgetful of votes and blue-books,
Here, amid heathery hills, upon beast and bird of the forest
Venting the murderous spleen of the endless Railway Committee.
Hither the Marquis of Ayr, and Dalgarnish Earl and Croupier,
And at their side, amid murmurs of welcome, long-looked for,
himself too
Eager, the grey, but boy-hearted Sir Hector, the Chief and the
Chairman.
Then was the dinner served, and the Minister prayed for a blessing,
And to the viands before them with knife and with fork they beset
them; -
Venison, the red and the roe, with mutton; and grouse succeeding;
Such was the feast, with whisky of course, and at top and bottom
Small decanters of Sherry, not overchoice, for the gentry.
So to the viands before them with laughter and chat they beset them.
And, when on flesh and on fowl had appetite duly been sated,
Up rose the Catholic Priest and returned God thanks for the dinner.
Then on all tables were set black bottles of well-mixed toddy,
And, with the bottles and glasses before them, they sat, digesting,
Talking, enjoying, but chiefly awaiting the toasts and speeches.
Spare me, O great Recollection ! for words to the task were unequal,
Spare me, O mistress of Song! nor bid me remember minutely
All that was said and done o'er the well-mixed tempting toddy;
How were healths proposed and drunk "with all the honours,'
Glasses and bonnets waving, and three-times-three thrice over,
Queen, and Prince, and Army, and Landlords all, and Keepers;
Bid me not, grammar defying, repeat from grammar-defiers
Long constructions strange and plusquam-Thucydidean,
Tell how, as sudden torrent in time of speat
MORN, in yellow and white, came broadening out from the mountains,
Long ere music and reel were hushed in the barn of the dancers.
Duly in <1matutine>1 bathed before eight some two of the party,
Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite
Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended.
There two plunges each took Philip and Arthur together,
Duly in <1matutine>1 bathed, and read, and waited for breakfast:
Breakfast, commencing at nine, lingered lazily on to noon-day.
Tea and coffee were there; a jug of water for Hewson;
Tea and coffee; and four cold grouse upon the sideboard;
Gaily they talked, as they sat, some late and lazy at breakfast,
Some professing a book, some smoking outside at the window.
By an aurora soft-pouring a still sheeny tide to the zenith,
Hewson and Arthur, with Adam, had walked and got home by
eleven;
Hope and the others had staid till the round sun lighted them
bedward.
They of the lovely aurora, but these of the lovelier women
Spoke---of noble ladies and rustic girls, their partners.
Turned to them Hewson, the chartist, the poet, the eloquent
speaker.
Sick of the very names of your Lady Augustas and Floras
Am I, as ever I was of the dreary botanical titles
Of the exotic plants, their antitypes, in the hot-house:
Roses, violets, lilies for me! the out-of-door beauties;
Meadow and woodland sweets, forget-me-nots and heartsease !
Pausing awhile, he proceeded anon, for none made answer.
Oh, if our high-born girls knew only the grace, the attraction,
Labour, and labour alone, can add to the beauty of women,
Truly the milliner's trade would quickly, I think, be at discount,
All the waste and loss in silk and satin be saved us,
Saved for purposes truly and widely productive-----
That's right,
Take off your coat to it, Philip, cried Lindsay, outside in the garden,
Take off your coat to it, Philip.
Well, then, said Hewson, resuming;
Laugh if you please at my novel economy; listen to this, though;
As for myself, and apart from economy wholly, believe me,
Never I properly felt the relation between men and women,
Though to the dancing-master I went, perforce, for a quarter,
Where, in dismal quadrille, were good-looking girls in abundance,
Though, too, school-girl cousins were mine---a bevy of beauties,---
Never, (of course you will laugh, but of course all the same I shall
say it,)
Never, believe me, I knew of the feelings between men and women,
Till in some village fields in holidays now getting stupid,
One day sauntering "long and listless,' as Tennyson has it,
Long and listless strolling, ungainly in hobbadiboyhood,
Chanced it my eye fell aside on a capless, bonnetless maiden,
Bending with three-pronged fork in a garden uprooting potatoes.
Was it the air ? who can say ? or herself, or the charm of the labour ?
But a new thing was in me; and longing delicious possessed me,
Longing to take her and lift her, and put her away from her slaving.
Was it embracing or aiding was most in my mind ? hard question!
But a new thing was in me, I, too, was a youth among maidens:
Was it the air? who can say? but in part 't was the charm of the
labour.
Still, though a new thing was in me, the poets revealed themselves
to me,
And in my dreams by Miranda, her Ferdinand, often I wandered,
Though all the fuss about girls, the giggling, and toying, and coying
Were not so strange as before, so incomprehensible purely;
Still, as before (and as now), balls, dances, and evening parties,
Shooting with bows, going shopping together, and hearing them
singing,
Dangling beside them, and turning the leaves on the dreary piano,
Offering unneeded arms, performing dull farces of escort,
Seemed like a sort of unnatural up-in-the-air balloon-work,
(Or what to me is as hateful, a riding about in a carriage,)
Utter removal from work, mother earth, and the objects of living.
Hungry and fainting for food, you ask me to join you in snapping---
What but a pink-paper comfit, with motto romantic inside it ?
Wishing to stock me a garden, I'm sent to a table of nosegays;
Better a crust of black bread than a mountain of paper confections,
Better a daisy in earth than a dahlia cut and gathered,
Better a cowslip with root than a prize carnation without it.
That I allow, said Adam.
But he, with the bit in his teeth, scarce
Breathed a brief moment, and hurried exultingly on with his rider,
Far over hillock, and runnel, and bramble, away in the champaign,
Snorting defiance and force, the white foam flecking his flanks, the
Rein hanging loose to his neck, and head projecting before him.
Oh, if they knew and considered, unhappy ones! oh, could they
see, could
But for a moment discern, how the blood of true gallantry kindles,
How the old knightly religion, the chivalry semi-quixotic
Stirs in the veins of a man at seeing some delicate woman
Serving him, toiling---for him, and the world; some tenderest
girl, now
Over-weighted, expectant, of him, is it ? who shall, if only
Duly her burden be lightened, not wholly- removed from her,
mind you,
Lightened if but by the love, the devotion man only can offer,
Grand on her pedestal rise as urn-bearing statue of Hellas;---
Oh, could they feel at such moments how man's heart, as into Eden
Carried anew, seems to see, like the gardener of earth uncorrupted,
Eve from the hand of her Maker advancing, an helpmeet for him,
Eve from his own flesh taken, a spirit restored to his spirit,
Spirit but not spirit only, himself whatever himself is,
Unto the mystery's end sole helpmate meet to be with him;---
Oh, if they saw it and knew it; we soon should see them abandon
Boudoir, toilette, carriage, drawing-room, and ball-room,
Satin for worsted exchange, gros-de-naples for plain linsey-woolsey,
Sandals of silk for clogs, for health lackadaisical fancies !
So, feel women, not dolls; so feel the sap of existence
Circulate up through their roots from the far-away centre of all
things,
Circulate up from the depths to the bud on the twig that is topmost l
Yes, we should see them delighted, delighted ourselves in the seeing,
Bending with blue cotton gown skirted-up over striped linsey-
woolsey,
Milking the kine in the field, like Rachel, watering cattle,
Rachel, when at the well the predestined beheld and kissed her,
Or, with pail upon head, like Dora beloved of Alexis,
Comely, with well-poised pail over neck arching soft to the shoulders,
Comely in gracefullest act, one arm uplifted to stay it,
Home from the river or pump moving stately and calm to the
laundry;
Ay, doing household work, as many sweet girls I have looked at,
Needful household work, which some one, after all, must do,
Needful, graceful therefore, as washing, cooking, and scouring,
Or, if you please, with the fork in the garden uprooting potatoes.---
Or,---high-kilted perhaps, cried Lindsay, at last successful,
Lindsay, this long time swelling with scorn and pent-up fury,
Or high-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them,
Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above them,
Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the
wash-tub !
Laughter ensued at this; and seeing the Tutor embarrassed,
It was from them, I suppose, said Arthur, smiling sedately,
Lindsay learnt the tune we all have learnt from Lindsay,
<1For oh, he was a roguey, the Piper o' Dundee.>1
Laughter ensued again; and the Tutor, recovering slowly,
Said, Are not these perhaps as doubtful as other attractions ?
There is a truth in your view, but I think extremely distorted;
Still there is a truth, I own, I understand you entirely.
While the Tutor was gathering his purposes, Arthur continued,
Is not all this the same that one hears at common-room breakfasts,
Or perhaps Trinity wines, about Gothic buildings and Beauty ?
And with a start from the sofa came Hobbes; with a cry from the
sofa,
Where he was laid, the great Hobbes, contemplative, corpulent,
witty,
Author forgotten and silent of currentest phrases and fancies,
Mute and exuberant by turns, a fountain at intervals playing,
Mute and abstracted, or strong and abundant as rain in the tropics;
Studious; careless of dress; inobservant; by smooth persuasions
Lately decoyed into kilt on example of Hope and the Piper,
Hope an Antinous mere, Hyperion of calves the Piper.
Beautiful ! cried he upleaping, analogy perfect to madness !
O inexhaustible source of thought, shall I call it, or fancy!
Wonderful spring, at whose touch doors fly, what a vista disclosing !
Exquisite germ ! Ah no, crude fingers shall not soil thee;
Rest, lovely pearl, in my brain, and slowly mature in the oyster.
While at the exquisite pearl they were laughing and corpulent
oyster,
Ah, could they only be taught, he resumed, by a Pugin of women,
How even churning and washing, the dairy, the scullery duties,
Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to charms and
attractions,
Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and artistical handling
And the removal of slops to be ornamentally treated.
Philip who speaks like a book (retiring and pausing he added),
Philip here, who speaks---like a folio, say'st thou, Piper ?
Philip shall write us a book, a Treatise upon <1The Laws of>1
<1Architectural Beauty in Application to Women;>1
Illustrations, of course, and a Parker's Glossary pendent,
Where shall in specimen seen be the sculliony stumpy-columnar,
(Which to a reverent taste is perhaps the most moving of any,)
Rising to grace of true woman in English the Early and Later,
Charming us still in fulfilling the Richer and Loftier stages,
Lost, ere we end, in the Lady-Debased and the Lady-Flamboyant:
Whence why in satire and spite too merciless onward pursue her
Hither to hideous close, Modern-Florid, modern-fine-lady ?
No, I will leave it to you, my Philip, my Pugin of women.
Leave it to Arthur, said Adam, to think of, and not to play with.
You are young, you know, he said, resuming, to Philip,
You are young, he proceeded, with something of fervour to Hewson,
You are a boy; when you grow to a man you'll find things alter.
You will then seek only the good, will scorn the attractive,
Scorn all mere cosmetics, as now of rank and fashion,
Delicate hands, and wealth, so then of poverty also,
Poverty truly attractive, more truly, I bear you witness.
Good, wherever it's found, you will choose, be it humble or stately,
Happy if only you find, and finding do not lose it.
Yes, we must seek what is good, it always and it only;
Not indeed absolute good, good for us, as is said in the Ethics,
That which is good for ourselves, our proper selves, our best selves.
Ah, you have much to learn, we can't know all things at twenty.
Partly you rest on truth, old truth, the duty of Duty,
Partly on error, you long for equality.
Ay, cried the Piper,
That's what it is, that confounded <1e/galite/,>1 French manufacture,
He is the same as the Chartist who spoke at a meeting in Ireland,
<1What, and is not one man, fellow-men, as good as another?>1
<1Faith,>1 replied Pat, <1and a deal better too!>1
So rattled the Piper:
But undisturbed in his tenor, the Tutor.
Partly in error
Seeking equality, <1is not one woman as good as another?>1
I with the Irishman answer, <1Yes, better too;>1 the poorer
Better full oft than richer, than loftier better the lower.
Irrespective of wealth and of poverty, pain and enjoyment,
Women all have their duties, the one as well as the other;
Are all duties alike ? Do all alike fulfil them ?
However noble the dream of equality, mark you, Philip,
Nowhere equality reigns in all the world of creation,
Star is not equal to star, nor blossom the same as blossom;
Herb is not equal to herb, any more than planet to planet.
There is a glory of daisies, a glory again of carnations;
Were the carnation wise, in gay parterre by greenhouse,
Should it decline to accept the nurture the gardener gives it,
Should it refuse to expand to sun and genial summer,
Simply because the field-daisy, that grows in the grass-plat beside it,
Cannot, for some cause or other, develope and be a carnation ? 191
Would not the daisy itself petition its scrupulous neighbour ?
Up, grow, bloom, and forget me; be beautiful even to proudness,
E'en for the sake of myself and other poor daisies like me.
Education and manners, accomplishments and refinements,
Waltz, peradventure, and polka, the knowledge of music and drawing
All these things are Nature's, to Nature dear and precious.
We have all something to do, man, woman alike, I own it;
We have all something to do, and in my judgement should do it
In our station; not thinking about it, but not disregarding;
Holding it, not for enjoyment, but simply because we are in it.
Ah! replied Philip, Alas ! the noted phrase of the prayer-book,
<1Doing our duty in that state of life to which God has called us,>1
Seems to me always to mean, when the little rich boys say it,
Standing in velvet frock by mama's brocaded flounces,
Eying her gold-fastened book and the watch and chain at her bosom,
Seems to me always to mean, Eat, drink, and never mind others.
Nay, replied Adam, smiling, so far your economy leads me,
Velvet and gold and brocade are nowise to my fancy.
Nay, he added, believe me, I like luxurious living
Even as little as you, and grieve in my soul not seldom,
More for the rich indeed than the poor, who are not so guilty.
So the discussion closed; and, said Arthur, Now it is my turn,
How will my argument please you? To-morrow we start on our
travel.
And took up Hope the chorus.
To-morrow we start on our travel.
Lo, the weather is golden, the weather-glass, say they, rising;
Four weeks here have we read; four weeks will we read hereafter;
Three weeks hence will return and think of classes and classics.
Fare ye well, meantime, forgotten, unnamed, undreamt of,
History, Science, and Poets! lo, deep in dustiest cupboard,
Thookydid, Oloros' son, Halimoosian, here lieth buried !
Slumber in Liddell-and-Scott, O musical chaff of old Athens,
Dishes, and fishes, bird, beast, and sesquipedalian blackguard !
Sleep, weary ghosts, be at peace and abide in your lexicon-limbo !
Sleep, as in lava for ages your Herculanean kindred,
Sleep, and for aught that I care, "the sleep that knows no waking,'
Aschylus, Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, and Plato.
Three weeks hence be it time to exhume our dreary classics.
And in the chorus joined Lindsay, the Piper, the Dialectician.
Three weeks hence we return to the <1shop>1 and the <1wash-hand-stand->1
<1basin>1
(These are the Piper's names for the bathing-place and the cottage)
Three weeks hence unbury <1Thicksides>1 and <1hairy>1 Aldrich.
But the Tutor enquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam,
Who are they that go, and when do they promise returning ?
And a silence ensued, and the Tutor himself continued,
Airlie remains, I presume, he continued, and Hobbes and Hewson.
Answer was made him by Philip, the poet, the eloquent speaker:
Airlie remains, I presume, was the answer, and Hobbes, perad-
venture;
Tarry let Airlie May-fairly, and Hobbes, brief-kilted hero,
Tarry let Hobbes in kilt, and Airlie "abide in his breeches;'
Tarry let these, and read, four Pindars apiece an it like them!
Weary of reading am I, and weary of walks prescribed us;
Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary,
Eager to range over heather unfettered of gillie and marquis,
I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics.
And to the Tutor rejoining, Be mindful; you go up at Easter,
This was the answer returned by Philip, the Pugin of Women.
Good are the Ethics, I wis; good absolute, not for me, though;
Good, too, Logic, of course; in itself, but not in fine weather.
Three weeks hence, with the rain, to Prudence, Temperance,
Justice,
Virtues Moral and Mental, with Latin prose included,
Three weeks hence we return, to cares of classes and classics.
I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics.
But the Tutor enquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam,
Where do you mean to go, and whom do you mean to visit?
And he was answered by Hope, the Viscount, His Honour, of Ilay.
Kitcat, a Trinity <1coach,>1 has a party at Drumnadrochet,
Up on the side of Loch Ness, in the beautiful valley of Urquhart;
Mainwaring says they will lodge us, and feed us, and give us a
lift too:
Only they talk ere long to remove to Glenmorison. Then at
Castleton, high in Braemar, strange home, with his earliest party,
Harrison, fresh from the schools, has James and Jones and Lauder.
Thirdly, a Cambridge man I know, Smith, a senior wrangler,
With a mathematical score hangs-out at Inverary.
Finally, too, from the kilt and the sofa said Hobbes in conclusion,
Finally Philip must hunt for that home of the probable poacher,
Hid in the braes of Lochaber, the Bothie of <1What-did-he-call-it.>1
Hopeless of you and of us, of gillies and marquises hopeless,
Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary,
There shall he, smit by the charm of a lovely potato-uprooter
Study the question of sex in the Bothie of <1What-did-he-call-it.>1
SO in the golden morning they parted and went to the westward.
And in the cottage with Airlie and Hobbes remained the Tutor;
Reading nine hours a day with the Tutor Hobbes and Airlie;
One between bathing and breakfast, and six before it was dinner,
(Breakfast at eight, at four, after bathing again, the dinner)
Finally, two after walking and tea, from nine to eleven.
Airlie and Adam at evening their quiet stroll together
Took on the terrace-road, with the western hills before them;
Hobbes, only rarely a third, now and then in the cottage remaining,
E'en after dinner, eupeptic, would rush yet again to his reading;
Other times, stung by the oestrum of some swift-working conception,
Ranged, tearing-on in his fury, an Io-cow, through the mountains,
Heedless of scenery, heedless of bogs, and of perspiration,
On the high peaks, unwitting, the hares and ptarmigan starting.
And the three weeks past, the three weeks, three days over,
Neither letter had come, nor casual tidings any,
And the pupils grumbled, the Tutor became uneasy,
And in the golden weather they wondered, and watched to the
westward.
There is a stream, I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist
Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books,
Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great
mountains,
Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, enveloped
Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample
Spreads, to convey it, the glen with heathery slopes on both sides:
Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls and narrows;
But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river,
Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite,
Scarce by a channel deep-cut, raging up, and raging onward,
Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step it.
There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden bridge goes,
Carrying a path to the forest; below, three hundred yards, say,
Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats of shingle,
Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley.
But in the interval here the boiling, pent-up water
Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a bason,
Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury
Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror;
Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under;
Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam uprising
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness.
Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent birch boughs,
Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway,
Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection.
You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water,
Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bathing.
Here, the pride of the plunger, you stride the fall and clear it;
Here, the delight of the bather, you roll in beaded sparklings,
Here into pure green depth drop down from lofty ledges.
Hither, a month agone, they had come, and discovered it; hither
(Long a design, but long unaccountably left unaccomplished,)
Leaving the well-known bridge and pathway above to the forest,
Turning below from the track of the carts over stone and shingle,
Piercing a wood, and skirting a narrow and natural causeway
Under the rocky wall that hedges the bed of the streamlet,
Rounded a craggy point, and saw on a sudden before them
Slabs of rock, and a tiny beach, and perfection of water,
Picture-like beauty, seclusion sublime, and the goddess of bathing.
There they bathed, of course, and Arthur, the Glory of headers,
Leapt from the ledges with Hope, he twenty feet, he thirty;
There, overbold, great Hobbes from a ten-foot height descended,
Prone, as a quadruped, prone with hands and feet protending;
There in the sparkling champagne, ecstatic, they shrieked and
shouted.
"Hobbes's gutter' the Piper entitles the spot, profanely,
Hope "the Glory' would have, after Arthur, the Glory of headers:
But, for before they departed, in shy and fugitive reflex
Here in the eddies and there did the splendour of Jupiter glimmer,
Adam adjudged it the name of Hesperus, star of the evening.
Hither, to Hesperus, now, the star of evening above them,
Come in their lonelier walk the pupils twain and Tutor;
Turned from the track of the carts, and passing the stone and
shingle,
Piercing the wood, and skirting the stream by the natural causeway,
Rounded the craggy point, and now at their ease looked up; and
Lo, on the rocky ledge, regardant, the Glory of headers,
Lo, on the beach, expecting the plunge, not cigarless, the Piper.---
And they looked, and wondered, incredulous, looking yet once
more.
Yes, it was he, on the ledge, bare-limbed, an Apollo, down-gazing,
Eyeing one moment the beauty, the life, ere he flung himself in it,
Eyeing through eddying green waters the green-tinting floor under-
neath them,
Eying the bead on the surface, the bead, like a cloud, rising to it,
Drinking-in, deep in his soul, the beautiful hue and the clearness,
Arthur, the shapely, the brave, the unboasting, the Glory of headers;
Yes, and with fragrant weed, by his knapsack, spectator and critic,
Seated on slab by the margin, the Piper, the Cloud-compeller.
Yes, they were come; were restored to the party, its grace and its
gladness,
Yes, were here, as of old; the light-giving orb of the household,
Arthur, the shapely, the tranquil, the strength-and-contentment-
diffusing,
In the pure presence of whom none could quarrel long, nor be
pettish,
And, the gay fountain of mirth, their dearly beloved of Pipers.
Yes, they were come, were here: but Hewson and Hope---where
they then ?
Are they behind, travel-sore, or ahead, going straight, by the
pathway ?
And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-compeller.
Hope with the uncle abideth for shooting. Ah me, were I with him !
Ah, good boy that I am, to have stuck to my word and my reading!
Good, good boy to be here, far away, who might be at Balloch!
Only one day to have stayed who might have been welcome for seven,
Seven whole days in castle and forest--gay in the mazy
Moving, imbibing the rosy, and pointing a gun at the horny!
And the Tutor impatient, expectant, interrupted,
Hope with the uncle, and Hewson---with him ? or where have you
left him ?
And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-com-
peller.
Hope with the uncle, and Hewson---Why, Hewson we left in
Rannoch,
By the lochside and the pines, in a farmer's house,---reflecting---
Helping to shear, and dry clothes, and bring in peat from the
peat-stack.
And the Tutor's countenance fell, perplexed, dumb-foundered
Stood he,---slow and with pain disengaging jest from earnest.
He is not far from home, said Arthur from the water,
He will be with us to-morrow, at latest, or the next day.
And he was even more reassured by the Piper's rejoinder.
Can he have come by the mail, and have got to the cottage before us ?
So to the cottage they went, and Philip was not at the cottage;
But by the mail was a letter from Hope, who himself was to follow.
Two whole days and nights succeeding brought not Philip,
Two whole days and nights exhausted not question and story.
For it was told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur,
Often by word corrected, more often by smile and motion,
How they had been to Iona, to Staffa, to Skye, to Culloden,
Seen Loch Awe, Loch Tay, Loch Fyne, Loch Ness, Loch Arkaig,
Been up Ben-nevis, Ben-more, Ben-cruachan, Ben-muick-dhui;
How they had walked, and eaten, and drunken, and slept in kitchens,
Slept upon floors of kitchens, and tasted the real Glen-livat,
Walked up perpendicular hills, and also down them,
Hither and thither had been, and this and that had witnessed,
Left not a thing to be done, and had not a copper remaining.
For it was told withal, he telling, and he correcting
How in the race they had run, and beaten the gillies of Rannoch,
How in forbidden glens, in Mar and midmost Athol,
Philip insisting hotly, and Arthur and Hope compliant,
They had defied the keepers; the Piper alone protesting,
Liking the fun, it was plain, in his heart, but tender of game-law;
Yea, too, in Mealy glen, the heart of Lochiel's fair forest,
Where Scotch firs are darkest and amplest, and intermingle
Grandly with rowan and ash---in Mar you have no ashes,
There the pine is alone, or relieved by the birch and the alder---
How in Mealy glen, while stags were starting before, they
Made the watcher believe they were guests from Achnacarry.
And there was told moreover, he telling, the other correcting,
Often by word, more often by mute significant motion,
Much of the Cambridge <1coach>1 and his pupils at Inverary,
Huge barbarian pupils, Expanded in Infinite Series,
Firing-off signal guns (great scandal) from window to window,
(For they were lodging perforce in distant and numerous houses,)
Signals, when, one retiring, another should go to the Tutor:---
Much too of Kitcat, of course, and the party at Drumnadrochet,
Mainwaring, Foley, and Fraser, their idleness horrid and dog-cart;
Drumnadrochet was <1seedy,>1 Glenmorison <1adequate,>1 but at
Castleton, high in Braemar, were the <1clippingest>1 places for bathing
One by the bridge in the village, indecent, <1the Town-Hall>1 christened,
Where had Lauder howbeit been bathing, and Harrison also,
Harrison even, the Tutor; another like Hesperus here, and
Up the water of Eye half-a-dozen at least, all <1stunners.>1
And it was told, the Piper narrating and Arthur correcting,
Colouring he, dilating, magniloquent, glorying in picture,
He to a matter-of-fact still softening, paring, abating,
He to the great might-have-been upsoaring, sublime and ideal,
He to the merest it-was restricting, diminishing, dwarfing,
River to streamlet reducing, and fall to slope subduing,
So was it told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur,
How under Linn of Dee, where over rocks, between rocks,
Freed from prison the river comes, pouring, rolling, rushing,
Then at a sudden descent goes sliding, gliding, unbroken,
Falling, sliding, gliding, in narrow space collected,
Save for a ripple at last, a sheeted descent unbroken,---
How to the element offering their bodies, downshooting the fall, they
Mingled themselves with the flood and the force of imperious water.
And it was told too, Arthur narrating, the Piper correcting,
How, as one comes to the level, the weight of the downward impulse
Carries the head under water, delightful, unspeakable; how the
Piper, here ducked and blinded, got stray, and borne-off bv the
current
Wounded his lily-white thighs, below, at the craggy corner.
And it was told, the Piper resuming, corrected of Arthur,
More by word than motion, change ominous, noted of Adam,
How at the floating-bridge of Laggan, one morning at sunrise,
Came, in default of the ferryman, out of her bed a brave lassie;
And, as Philip and she together were turning the handles,
Winding the chain by which the boat works over the water,
Hands intermingled with hands, and at last, as they stept from the
boatie,
Turning about, they saw lips also mingle with lips; but
That was flatly denied and loudly exclaimed at by Arthur:
How at the General's hut, the Inn by the Foyers Fall, where
Over the loch looks at you the summit of Meafourvonie,
How here too he was hunted at morning, and found in the kitchen
Watching the porridge being made, pronouncing them smoked for
certain,
Watching the porridge being made, and asking the lassie that made
them,
What was the Gaelic for <1girl,>1 and what was the Gaelic for <1Pretty;>1
How in confusion he shouldered his knapsack, yet blushingly
stammered,
Waving a hand to the lassie, that blushingly bent o'er the porridge,
Something outlandish---<1Slan-something, Slan leat,>1 he believed,
<1Caleg Looach,>1
That was the Gaelic it seemed for "I bid you good-bye, bonnie
lassie;'
Arthur admitted it true, not of Philip, but of the Piper.
And it was told by the Piper, while Arthur looked out at the
window,
How in thunder and rain---it is wetter far to the westward,---
Thunder and rain and wind, losing heart and road, they were
welcomed,
Welcomed, and three days detained at a farm by the lochside of
Rannoch;
How in the three days' detention was Philip observed to be smitten,
Smitten by golden-haired Katie, the youngest and comeliest
daughter;
Was he not seen, even Arthur observed it, from breakfast to bed-
time,
Following her motions with eyes ever brightening, softening ever ?
Did he not fume, fret, and fidget to find her stand waiting at table ?
Was he not one mere St. Vitus' dance, when he saw her at nightfall
Go through the rain to fetch peat, through beating rain to the
peat-stack ?
How too a dance, as it happened, was given by Grant of Glenurchie,
And with the farmer they went as the farmer's guests to attend it;
Philip stayed dancing till daylight,---and evermore with Katie;
How the whole next afternoon he was with her away in the shearing
And the next morning ensuing was found in the ingle beside her
Kneeling, picking the peats from her apron,---blowing together,
Both, between laughing, with lips distended, to kindle the embers;
Lips were so near to lips, one living cheek to another,---
Though, it was true, he was shy, very shy,---yet it wasn't in nature,
Wasn't in nature, the Piper averred, there shouldn't be kissing;
So when at noon they had packed up the things, and proposed to be
starting,
Philip professed he was lame, would leave in the morning and follow;
Follow he did not; do burns, when you go up a glen, follow after ?
Follow, he had not, nor left; do needles leave the loadstone ?
Nay, they had turned after starting, and looked through the trees at
the corner,
Lo, on the rocks by the lake there he was, the lassie beside him,
Lo, there he was, stooping by her, and helping with stones from the
water
Safe in the wind to keep down the clothes she would spread for the
drying.
There they had left him, and there, if Katie was there, was Philip,
There drying clothes, making fires, making love, getting on too by
this time,
Though he was shy, so exceedingly shy.
You may say so, said Arthur,
For the first time they had known with a peevish intonation,---
Did not the Piper himself flirt more in a single evening
Namely, with Janet the elder, than Philip in all our sojourn ?
Philip had stayed, it was true; the Piper was loth to depart too,
Harder his parting from Janet than e'en from the keeper at Balloch;
And it was certain that Philip was lame.
Yes, in his excuses,
Answered the Piper, indeed !---
But tell me, said Hobbes, interposing,
Did you not say she was seen every day in her beauty and bedgown
Doing plain household work, as washing, cooking, scouring ?
How could he help but love her ? nor lacked there perhaps the
attraction
That, in a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-woolsey,
Barefoot, barelegged, he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows,
Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes ?
Is not Katie as Rachel, and is not Philip a Jacob ?
Truly Jacob, supplanting an hairy Highland Esau ?
Shall he not, love-entertained, feed sheep for the Laban of Rannoch ?
Patriarch happier he, the long servitude ended of wooing,
If when he wake in the morning he find not a Leah beside him!
But the Tutor enquired, who had bit his lip to bleeding,
How far off is the place ? who will guide me thither to-morrow ?
But by the mail, ere the morrow, came Hope, and brought new
tidings;
Round by Rannoch had come, and Philip was not at Rannoch;
He had left that noon, an hour ago.
With the lassie ?---
With her ? the Piper exclaimed, Undoubtedly! By great Jingo!
And upon that he arose, slapping both his thighs like a hero,
Partly, for emphasis only, to mark his conviction, but also
Part, in delight at the fun, and the joy of eventful living.
Hope couldn't tell him, of course, but thought it improbable
wholly;
Janet, the Piper's friend, he had seen, and she didn't say so,
Though she asked a good deal about Philip, and where he was
gone to:
One odd thing by the bye, he continued, befell me while with her;
Standing beside her, I saw a girl pass; I thought I had seen her,
Somewhat remarkable-looking, elsewhere; and asked what her name
was;
Elspie Mackaye, was the answer, the daughter of David! she's
stopping
Just above here, with her uncle. And David Mackaye, where lives he ?
It's away west, she said, they call it Tober-na-vuolich.
So in the golden weather they waited. But Philip returned not.
Sunday six days thence a letter arrived in his writing.---
But, O Muse, that encompassest Earth like the ambient ether,
Swifter than steamer or railway or magical missive electric
Belting like Ariel the sphere with the star-like trail of thy travel,
Thou with thy Poet, to mortals mere post-office second-hand
knowledge
Leaving, wilt seek in the moorland of Rannoch the wandering hero.
There is it, there, or in lofty Lochaber, where, silent upheaving,
Heaving from ocean to sky, and under snow-winds of September,
Visibly whitening at morn to darken by noon in the shining,
Rise on their mighty foundations the brethren huge of Ben-nevis ?
There, or westward away, where roads are unknown to Loch Nevish,
And the great peaks look abroad over Skye to the westernmost
islands ?
There is it? there ? or there ? we shall find our wandering hero ?
Here, in Badenoch, here, in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, in
Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan,
Here I see him and here: I see him; anon I lose him!
Even as cloud passing subtly unseen from mountain to mountain,
Leaving the crest of Ben-more to be palpable next on Ben-vohrlich,
Or like to hawk of the hill which ranges and soars in its hunting,
Seen and unseen by turns, now here, now in ether eludent.
Wherefore as cloud of Ben-more or hawk over-ranging the
mountains,
Wherefore in Badenoch drear, in lofty Lochaber, Lochiel, and
Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan,
Wandereth he, who should either with Adam be studying logic,
Or by the lochside of Rannoch on Katie his rhetoric using;
He who, his three weeks past, past now long ago, to the cottage
Punctual promised return to cares of classes and classics,
He who, smit to the heart by that youngest comeliest daughter,
Bent, unregardful of spies, at her feet, spreading clothes from her
wash-tub ?
Can it be with him through Badenoch, Morrer, and Ardnamurchan,
Can it be with him he beareth the golden-haired lassie of Rannoch ?
This fierce, furious walking--o'er mountain-top and moorland,
Sleeping in shieling and bothie, with drover on hill-side sleeping,
Folded in plaid, where sheep are strewn thicker than rocks by Loch
Awen,
This fierce, furious travel unwearying---cannot in truth be
Merely the wedding tour succeeding the week of wooing!
No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not; I see him,
Lo, and he sitteth alone, and these are his words in the mountain.
Spirits escaped from the body can enter and be with the living;
Entering unseen, and retiring unquestioned, they bring,---do they
feel too ?---
Joy, pure joy, as they mingle and mix inner essence with essence;
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her !.
Joy, pure joy, bringing with them, and when they retire leaving after
No cruel shame, no prostration, despondency; memories rather
Sweet, happy hopes bequeathing. Ah ! wherefore not thus with the
living ?
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her !
Is it impossible, say you, these passionate, fervent impulsions,
These projections of spirit to spirit, these inward embraces,
Should in strange ways, in her dreams, should visit her, strengthen
her, shield her?
Is it possible, rather, that these great floods of feeling
Setting-in daily from me towards her should, impotent wholly,
Bring neither sound nor motion to that sweet shore they heave to ?
Efflux here, and there no stir nor pulse of influx!
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her !
Surely, surely, when sleepless I lie in the mountain lamenting,
Surely, surely, she hears in her dreams a voice, "I am with thee,'
Saying, "although not with thee; behold, for we mated our spirits,
Then, when we stood in the chamber, and knew not the words we
were saying;'
Yea, if she felt me within her, when not with one finger I touched
her,
Surely she knows it, and feels it, while sorrowing here in the moor-
land.
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her !
Spirits with spirits commingle and separate; lightly as winds do,
Spice-laden South with the ocean-born Zephyr; they mingle and
sunder;
No sad remorses for them, no visions of horror and vileness;
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold
her !
Surely the force that here sweeps me along in its violent impulse,
Surely my strength shall be in her, my help and protection about her,
Surely in inner-sweet gladness and vigour of joy shall sustain her,
Till, the brief winter o'er-past, her own true sap in the springtide
Rise, and the tree I have bared be verdurous e'en as aforetime:
Surely it may be, it should be, it must be. Yet ever and ever,
Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her !
No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not: behold, for
Here he is sitting alone, and these are his words in the mountain
And, at the farm on the lochside of Rannoch in parlour and
kitchen
Hark ! there is music---the flowing of music, of milk, and of whiskey;
Lo, I see piping and dancing! and whom in the midst of the battle
Cantering loudly along there, or, look you, with arms uplifted
Whistling, and snapping his fingers, and seizing his gay-smiling
Janet,
Whom ?---whom else but the Piper ? the wary precognizant Piper,
Who, for the love of gay Janet, and mindful of old invitation,
Putting it quite as a duty and urging grave claims to attention,
True to his night had crossed over: there goeth he, brimfull of music,
Like to cork tossed by the eddies that foam under furious lasher,
Like to skiff lifted, uplifted, in lock, by the swift-swelling sluices,
So with the music possessing him, swaying him, goeth he, look you,
Swinging and flinging, and stamping and tramping, and grasping
and clasping
Whom but gay Janet?---Him rivalling Hobbes, briefest-kilted of
heroes,
Enters, O stoutest, O rashest of creatures, mere fool of a Saxon,
Skill-less of philabeg, skill-less of reel too,---the whirl and the
twirl o't:
Him see I frisking, and whisking, and ever at swifter gyration
Under brief curtain revealing broad acres---not of broad cloth.
Him see I there and the Piper---the Piper what vision beholds not?
Him and His Honour and Arthur, with Janet our Piper, and is it,
Is it, O marvel of marvels! he too in the maze of the mazy,
Skipping, and tripping, though stately, though languid, with head on
one shoulder,
Airlie, with sight of the waistcoat the golden-haired Katie consoling ?
Katie, who simple and comely, and smiling and blushing as ever,
What though she wear on that neck a blue kerchief remembered as
Philip's,
Seems in her maidenly freedom to need small consolement of
waistcoats !---
Wherefore in Badenoch then, far-away, in Lochaber, Lochiel, in
Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, or Ardnamurchan,
Wanders o'er mountain and moorland, in shieling or bothie is
sleeping,
He, who,---and why should he not then ? capricious ? or is it rejected ?
Might to the piping of Rannoch be pressing the thrilling fair fingers,
Might, as he clasped her, transmit to her bosom the throb of his
own,---yea,---
Might in the joy of the reel be wooing and winning his Katie ?
What is it Adam reads far off by himself in the Cottage ?
Reads yet again with emotion, again is preparing to answer ?
What is it Adam is reading ? What was it Philip had written ?
There was it writ, how Philip possessed undoubtedly had been,
Deeply, entirely possessed by the charm of the maiden of Rannoch;
Deeply as never before ! how sweet and bewitching he felt her
Seen still before him at work, in the garden, the byre, the kitchen;
How it was beautiful to him to stoop at her side in the shearing
Binding uncouthly the ears, that fell from her dexterous sickle,
Building uncouthly the stooks,1 which she laid-by her sickle to
straighten;
How at the dance he had broken through shyness; for four days after
Lived on her eyes, unspeaking what lacked not articulate speaking;
Felt too that she too was feeling what he did.---Howbeit they
parted !
How by a kiss from her lips he had seemed made nobler and stronger,
Yea, for the first time in life a man complete and perfect,
So forth ! much that before has been heard of.---Howbeit they
parted.
What had ended it all, he said, was singular, very.---
I was walking along some two miles off from the cottage
Full of my dreamings---a girl went by in a party with others;
She had a cloak on, was stepping on quickly, for rain was beginning;
But as she passed, from her hood I saw her eyes look at me.
So quick a glance, so regardless I, that although I had felt it,
You couldn't properly say our eyes met. She cast it, and left it:
It was three minutes perhaps ere I knew what it was. I had seen her
Somewhere before I am sure, but that wasn't it; not its import;
No, it had seemed to regard me with simple superior insight,
Quietly saying to itself---Yes, there he is still in his fancy,
Letting drop from him at random as things not worth his considering
All the benefits gathered and put in his hands by fortune,
Loosing a hold which others, contented and unambitious,
Trying down here to keep-up, know the value of better than he does.
Was it this ? Was it perhaps ?---Yes, there he is still in his fancy,
Doesn't yet see we have here just the things he is used-to elsewhere;
People here too are people, and not as fairy-land creatures;
He is in a trance, and possessed; I wonder how long to continue;
It is a shame and a pity---and no good likely to follow.---
Something like this, but indeed I cannot attempt to define it.
Only, three hours thence I was off and away in the moorland,
Hiding myself from myself if I could; the arrow within me.
Katie was not in the house, thank God: I saw her in passing,
Saw her, unseen myself, with the pang of a cruel desertion;
What she thinks about it, God knows; poor child; may she only
Think me a fool and a madman, and no more worth her remembering.
Meantime all through the mountains I hurry and know not whither,
Tramp along here, and think, and know not what I should think.
Tell me then, why, as I sleep amid hill-tops high in the moorland,
Still in my dreams I am pacing the streets of the dissolute city,
Where dressy girls slithering-by upon pavements give sign for
accosting,
Paint on their beautiless cheeks, and hunger and shame in their
bosoms;
Hunger by drink, and by that which they shudder yet burn for,
appeasing,---
Hiding their shame---ah God !---in the glare of the public gas-lights ?
Why, while I feel my ears catching through slumber the run of the
streamlet,
Still am I pacing the pavement, and seeing the sign for accosting
Still am I passing those figures, nor daring to look in their faces ?
Why, when the chill, ere the light, of the daybreak uneasily wakes me,
Find I a cry in my heart crying up to the heaven of heavens,
No, Great Unjust Judge ! she is purity; I am the lost one.
You will not think that I soberly look for such things for sweet
Katie;
No, but the vision is on me; I now first see how it happens,
Feel how tender and soft is the heart of a girl; how passive
Fain would it be, how helpless; and helplessness leads to destruction.
Maiden reserve torn from off it, grows never again to reclothe it,
Modesty broken-through once to immodesty flies for protection.
Oh, who saws through the trunk, though he leave the tree up in the
forest,
When the next wind casts it down,---is <1his>1 not the hand that smote it ?
This is the answer, the second, which, pondering long with
emotion,
There by himself in the cottage the Tutor addressed to Philip.
I have perhaps been severe, dear Philip, and hasty; forgive me;
For I was fain to reply ere I wholly had read through your letter;
And it was written in scraps with crossings and counter-crossings
Hard to connect with each other correctly, and hard to decipher;
Paper was scarce, I suppose: forgive me; I write to console you.
Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market;
Knowledge needful for all, yet cannot be had for the asking.
There are exceptional beings, one finds them distant and rarely,
Who, endowed with the vision alike and the interpretation,
See, by their neighbours' eyes and their own still motions enlightened,
In the beginning the end, in the acorn the oak of the forest,
In the child of to-day its children to long generations,
In a thought or a wish a life, a drama, an epos.
There are inheritors, is it? by mystical generation,
Heiring the wisdom and ripeness of spirits gone-by; without labour
Owning what others by doing and suffering earn; what old men
After long years of mistake and erasure are proud to have come to,
Sick with mistake and erasure possess when possession is idle.
Yes, there is power upon earth, seen feebly in women and children,
Which can, laying one hand on the cover, read-off, unfaltering,
Leaf after leaf unlifted, the words of the closed book under,
Words which we are poring at, hammering at, stumbling at, spelling.
Rare is this; wisdom mostly is bought for a price in the market;---
Rare is this; and happy, who buy so much for so little,
As I conceive have you, and as I will hope has Katie.
Knowledge is needful for man,---needful no less for woman,
Even in Highland glens, were they vacant of shooter and tourist.
Not that, of course, I mean to prefer your blindfold hurry
Unto a soul that abides most loving yet most withholding;
Least unfeeling though calm, self-contained yet most unselfish;
Renders help and accepts it, a man among men that are brothers,
Views, not plucks the beauty, adores, and demands no embracing,
So in its peaceful passage whatever is lovely and gracious
Still without seizing or spoiling, itself in itself reproducing.
No, I do not set Philip herein on the level of Arthur
No, I do not compare still tarn with furious torrent,
Yet will the tarn overflow, assuaged in the lake be the torrent.
Women are weak, as you say, and love of all things to be passive,
Passive, patient, receptive, yea, even of wrong and misdoing,
Even to force and misdoing with joy and victorious feeling
Passive, patient, receptive; for that is the strength of their being
Like to the earth taking all things, and all to good converting.
Oh 'tis a snare indeed !---Moreover, remember it, Philip,
To the prestige of the richer the lowly are prone to be yielding,
Think that in dealing with them they are raised to a different region,
Where old laws and morals are modified, lost, exist not;
Ignorant they as they are, they have but to conform and be yielding.
But I have spoken of this already, and need not repeat it.
You will not now run after what merely attracts and entices,
Every-day things highly coloured, and common-place carved and
gilded.
You will henceforth seek only the good: and seek it, Philip,
Where it is---not more abundant perhaps, but---more easily met
with;
Where you are surer to find it, less likely to run into error,
In your station, not thinking about it, but not disregarding.
So was the letter completed: a postscript afterward added,
Telling the tale that was told by the dancers returning from Rannoch.
So was the letter completed: but query, whither to send it ?
Not for the will of the wisp, the cloud, and the hawk of the moorland,
Ranging afar thro' Lochaber, Lochiel, and Knoydart, and Moydart,
Have even latest extensions adjusted a postal arrangement.
Query resolved very shortly, when Hope, from his chamber
descending,
Came with a note in his hand from the Lady, his aunt, at the Castle;
Came and revealed the contents of a missive that brought strange
tidings;
Came and announced to the friends in a voice that was husky with
wonder,
Philip was staying at Balloch, was there in the room with the
Countess
Philip to Balloch had come and was dancing with Lady Maria.
Philip at Balloch, he said, after all that stately refusal,
He there at last---O strange ! O marvel, marvel of marvels !
Airlie, the Waistcoat, with Katie, we left him this morning at
Rannoch;
Airlie with Katie, he said, and Philip with Lady Maria.
And amid laughter Adam paced up and down, repeating
Over and over, unconscious, the phrase which Hope had lent him,
Dancing at Balloch, you say, in the Castle, with Lady Maria.
SO in the cottage with Adam the pupils five together
Duly remained, and read, and looked no more for Philip,
Philip at Balloch shooting and dancing with Lady Maria.
Breakfast at eight, and now, for brief September daylight,
Luncheon at two, and dinner at seven, or even later,
Five full hours between for the loch and the glen and the mountain,---
So in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets,
So they read and roamed, the pupils five with Adam.
What if autumnal shower came frequent and chill from the
westward,
What if on browner sward with yellow leaves besprinkled
Gemming the crispy blade, the delicate gossamer gemming
Frequent and thick lay at morning the chilly beads of hoar-frost,
Duly in <1matutine>1 still, and daily, whatever the weather,
Bathed in the rain and the frost and the mist with the Glory of
headers
Hope. Thither also at times, of cold and of possible gutters
Careless, unmindful, unconscious, would Hobbes, or e'er they
departed,
Come, in heavy pea-coat his trouserless trunk enfolding,
Come, under coat over-brief those lusty legs displaying,
All from the shirt to the slipper the natural man revealing.
Duly there they bathed and daily, the twain or the trio,
Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite
Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended;
Beautiful, very, to gaze-in ere plunging; beautiful also,
Perfect as picture, as vision entrancing that comes to the sightless,
Through the great granite jambs the stream, the glen, and the
mountain,
Beautiful, seen by snatches in intervals of dressing,
Morn after morn, unsought for, recurring; themselves too seeming
Not as spectators, accepted into it, immingled, as truly
Part of it as are the kine in the field lying there by the birches.
So they bathed, they read, they roamed in glen and forest;
Far amid blackest pines to the waterfalls they shadow,
Far up the long, long glen to the loch, and the loch beyond it,
Deep under huge red cliffs, a secret; and oft by the starlight,
Or the aurora perchance, racing home for the eight o'clock mutton.
So they bathed, and read, and roamed in heathery Highland;
There in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets
Bathed and read and roamed, and looked no more for Philip.
List to a letter that came from Philip at Balloch to Adam.
I am here, O my friend !---idle, but learning wisdom.
Doing penance, you think; content, if so, in my penance.
Often I find myself saying, while watching in dance or on horseback
One that is here, in her freedom, and grace, and imperial sweetness,
Often I find myself saying, old faith and doctrine abjuring
Into the crucible casting philosophies, facts, convictions,---
Were it not well that the stem should be naked of leaf and of tendril,
Poverty-stricken, the barest, the dismallest stick of the garden;
Flowerless, leafless, unlovely, for ninety-and-nine long summers,
So in the hundredth, at last, were bloom for one day at the summit,
So but that fleeting flower were lovely as Lady Maria.
Often I find myself saying, and know not myself as I say it,
What of the poor and the weary ? their labour and pain is needed.
Perish the poor and the weary! what can they better than perish,
Perish in labour for her, who is worth the destruction of empires ?
What! for a mite, for a mote, an impalpable odour of honour,
Armies shall bleed; cities burn; and the soldier red from the
storming
Carry hot rancour and lust into chambers of mothers and daughters:
What! would ourselves for the cause of an hour encounter the battle,
Slay and be slain; lie rotting in hospital, hulk, and prison;
Die as a dog dies; die mistaken perhaps, and dishonoured.
Yea,---and shall hodmen in beer-shops complain of a glory denied
them,
Which could not ever be theirs more than now it is theirs as spec-
tators ?
Which could not be, in all earth, if it were not for labour of hodmen ?
And I find myself saying, and what I am saying, discern not,
Dig in thy deep dark prison, O miner! and finding be thankful;
Though unpolished by thee, unto thee unseen in perfection,
While thou art eating black bread in the poisonous air of thy cavern,
Far away glitters the gem on the peerless neck of a Princess,
Dig, and starve, and be thankful; it is so, and thou hast been aiding.
Often I find myself saying, in irony is it, or earnest?
Yea, what is more, be rich, O ye rich ! be sublime in great houses,
Purple and delicate linen endure; be of Burgundy patient;
Suffer that service be done you, permit of the page and the valet,
Vex not your souls with annoyance of charity schools or of districts,
Cast not to swine of the sty the pearls that should gleam in your
foreheads.
Live, be lovely, forget them, be beautiful even to proudness,
Even for their poor sakes whose happiness is to behold you;
Live, be uncaring, be joyous, be sumptuous; only be lovely,---
Sumptuous not for display, and joyous, not for enjoyment;
Not for enjoyment truly; for Beauty and God's great glory !
Yes, and I say, and it seems inspiration--of Good or of Evil!
Is it not He that hath done it, and who shall dare gainsay it?
Is it not even of Him, who hath made us ?---Yea,for <1the lions,>1
<1Roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from God!-->1-
Is it not even of Him, who one kind over another
All the works of His hand hath disposed in a wonderful order ?
Who hath made man, as the beasts, to live the one on the other,
Who hath made man as Himself to know the law---and accept it!
You will wonder at this, no doubt! I also wonder!
But we must live and learn; we can't know all things at twenty.
List to a letter of Hobbes to Philip his friend at Balloch.
All Cathedrals are Christian, all Christians are Cathedrals,
Such is the Catholic doctrine; 'tis ours with a slight variation;
Every Woman is, or ought to be, a Cathedral,
Built on the ancient plan, a Cathedral pure and perfect,
Built by that only law, that Use be suggester of Beauty,
Nothing concealed that is done, but all things done to adornment,
Meanest utilities seized as occasions to grace and embellish.---
So had I duly commenced in the spirit and style of my Philip,
So had I formally opened the Treatise upon <1the Laws of>1
<1Architectural Beauty in Application to Women,>1
So had I writ.---But my fancies are palsied by tidings they tell me,
Tidings---ah me, can it be then ? that I, the blasphemer accounted,
Here am with reverent heed at the wondrous Analogy working
Pondering thy words and thy gestures, whilst thou, a prophet
apostate,
(How are the mighty fallen !) whilst thou, a shepherd travestie,
(How are the mighty fallen!) with gun,---with pipe no longer,
Teachest the woods to re-echo thy game-killing recantations,
Teachest thy verse to exalt Amaryllis, a Countess's daughter ?
What, thou forgettest, bewildered, my Master, that rightly considered
Beauty must ever be useful, what truly is useful is graceful ?
She that is handy is handsome, good dairy-maids must be good-
looking,
If but the butter be nice, the tournure of the elbow is shapely,
If the cream-cheeses be white, far whiter the hands that made them,
If---but alas, is it true ? while the pupil alone in the cottage
Slowly elaborates here thy System of Feminine Graces,
Thou in the palace, its author, art dining, small-talking and dancing,
Dancing and pressing the fingers kid-gloved of a Lady Maria.
These are the final words, that came to the Tutor from Balloch.
I am conquered, it seems ! you will meet me, I hope, in Oxford,
Altered in manners and mind. I yield to the laws and arrangements,
Yield to the ancient existent decrees: who am I to resist them ?
Yes, you will find me altered in mind, I think, as in manners,
Anxious too to atone for six weeks' loss of your Logic.
So in the cottage with Adam, the Pupils five together,
Read, and bathed, and roamed, and thought not now of Philip,
All in the joy of their life, and glory of shooting-jackets.
<1Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin>1
BRIGHT October was come, the misty-bright October,
Bright October was come to burn and glen and cottage;
But the cottage was empty, the <1matutine>1 deserted.
Who are these that walk by the shore of the salt sea water ?
Here in the dusky eve, on the road by the salt sea water ?
Who are these ? and where ? it is no sweet seclusion;
Blank hill-sides slope down to a salt sea loch at their bases,
Scored by runnels, that fringe ere they end with rowan and alder;
Cottages here and there outstanding bare on the mountain,
Peat-roofed, windowless, white; the road underneath by the water.
There on the blank hill-side, looking down through the loch to
the ocean,
There with a runnel beside, and pine-trees twain before it,
There with the road underneath, and in sight of coaches and
steamers,
Dwelling of David Mackaye and his daughters Elspie and Bella,
Sends up a column of smoke the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich.
And of the older twain, the elder was telling the younger,
How on his pittance of soil he lived, and raised potatoes,
Barley, and oats, in the bothie where lived his father before him;
Yet was smith by trade, and had travelled making horse-shoes
Far; in the army had seen some service with brave Sir Hector
Wounded soon, and discharged, disabled as smith and soldier;
He had been many things since that,---drover, schoolmaster,
Whitesmith,---but when his brother died childless came up hither;
And although he could get fine work that would pay, in the city,
Still was fain to abide where his father abode before him.
And the lassies are bonnie,---I'm father and mother to them,---
Bonnie and young; they're healthier here, I judge, and safer:
I myself find time for their reading, writing, and learning.
So on the road they walk by the shore of the salt sea water,
Silent a youth and maid, and elders twain conversing.
This was the letter that came when Adam was leaving the cottage.
If you can manage to see me before going off to Dartmoor,
Come by Tuesday's coach through Glencoe (you have not seen it),
Stop at the ferry below, and ask your way (you will wonder,
There however I am) to the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich.
And on another scrap, of next day's date, was written:
It was by accident purely I lit on the place; I was returning,
Quietly, travelling homeward, by one of these wretched coaches;
One of the horses cast a shoe; and a farmer passing
Said, Old David's your man; a clever fellow at shoeing
Once; just here by the firs; they call it Tober-na-vuolich.
So I saw and spoke with David Mackaye, our acquaintance.
When we came to the journey's end, some five miles further,
In my unoccupied evening I walked back again to the bothie.
But on a final crossing, still later in date, was added:
Come as soon as you can; be sure and do not refuse me.
Who would have guessed I should find my haven and end of my
travel,
Here, by accident too, in the bothie we laughed about so ?
Who would have guessed that here would be she whose glance at
Rannoch
Turned me in that mysterious way; yes, angels conspiring,
Slowly drew me, conducted me, home, to herself; the needle
Which in the shaken compass flew hither and thither, at last, long
Quivering, poises to north. I think so. But I am cautious;
More, at least, than I was in the old silly days when I left you.
Not at the bothie now; at the changehouse in the clachan;
Why I delay my letter is more than I can tell you.
There was another scrap, without or date or comment,
Dotted over with various observations, as follows:
Only think, I had danced with her twice, and did not remember.
I was as one that sleeps on the railway; one, who dreaming
Hears thro' his dream the name of his home shouted out; hears and
hears not,---
Faint, and louder again, and less loud, dying in distance;
Dimly conscious, with something of inward debate and choice,---and
Sense of claim and reality present, anon relapses
Nevertheless, and continues the dream and fancy, while forward
Swiftly, remorseless, the car presses on, he knows not whither.
Handsome who handsome is, who handsome does is more so;
Pretty is all very pretty, it's prettier far to be useful.
No, fair Lady Maria, I say not that; but I <1will>1 say,
Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered,
Interchange of service the law and condition of beauty:
Any way beautiful only to be the thing one is meant for.
I, I am sure, for the sphere of mere ornament am not intended:
No, nor she, I think, thy sister at Tober-na-vuolich.
This was the letter of Philip, and this had brought the Tutor:
This is why tutor and pupil are walking with David and Elspie.---
When for the night they part, and these, once more together,
Went by the lochside along to the changehouse near in the clachan,
Thus to his pupil anon commenced the grave man Adam.
Yes, she is beautiful, Philip, beautiful even as morning:
Yes, it is that which I said, the Good and not the Attractive!
Happy is he that finds, and finding does not leave it!
Ten more days did Adam with Philip abide at the changehouse,
Ten more nights they met, they walked with father and daughter.
Ten more nights, and night by night more distant away were
Philip and she; every night less heedful, by habit, the father.
Happy ten days, most happy; and, otherwise than intended,
Fortunate visit of Adam, companion and friend to David.
Happy ten days, be ye fruitful of happiness! Pass o'er them slowly,
Slowly; like cruse of the prophet be multiplied, even to ages!
Pass slowly o'er them ye days of October; ye soft misty mornings,
Long dusky eves; pass slowly; and thou great Term-Time of Oxford,
Awful with lectures and books, and Little-goes and Great-goes,
Till but the sweet bud be perfect, recede and retire for the lovers,
Yea, for the sweet love of lovers, postpone thyself even to doomsday !
Pass o'er them slowly, ye hours! Be with them, ye Loves and
Graces !
Indirect and evasive no longer, a cowardly bather,
Clinging to bough and to rock, and sidling along by the edges,
In your faith, ye Muses and Graces, who love the plain present,
Scorning historic abridgement and artifice anti-poetic,
In your faith, ye Muses and Loves, ye Loves and Graces,
I will confront the great peril, and speak with the mouth of the
lovers,
As they spoke by the alders, at evening, the runnel below them,
Elspie a diligent knitter, and Philip her fingers watching.
FOR she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not her
blushes,
Elspie confessed at the sports long ago with her father she saw him,
When at the door the old man had told him the name of the bothie;
There after that at the dance; yet again at a dance in Rannoch---
And she was silent, confused. Confused much rather Philip
Buried his face in his hands, his face that with blood was bursting.
Silent, confused, yet by pity she conquered her fear, and continued.
Katie is good and not silly; be comforted, Sir, about her;
Katie is good and not silly; tender, but not like many
Carrying off, and at once for fear of being seen, in the bosom
Locking-up as in a cupboard the pleasure that any man gives them,
Keeping it out of sight as a prize they need be ashamed of;
That is the way, I think, Sir, in England more than in Scotland;
No, she lives and takes pleasure in all, as in beautiful weather,
Sorry to lose it, but just as we would be to lose fine weather.
And she is strong to return to herself and feel undeserted.
Oh, she is strong, and not silly; she thinks no further about you;
She has had kerchiefs before from gentle, I know, as from simple.
Yes, she is good and not silly; yet were you wrong, Mr. Philip,
Wrong, for yourself perhaps more than for her.
But Philip replied not,
Raised not his eyes from the hands on his knees.
And Elspie continued.
That was what gave me much pain, when I met you that dance at
Rannoch,
Dancing myself too with you, while Katie danced with Donald;
That was what gave me such pain; I thought it all a mistaking,
All a mere chance, you know, and accident,---not proper choosing ---
There were at least five or six---not there, no, that I don't say,
But in the country about,---you might just as well have been courting.
That was what gave me much pain, and (you won't remember that,
though,)
Three days after, I met you, beside my uncle's, walking
And I was wondering much, and hoped you wouldn't notice,
So as I passed I couldn't help looking. You didn't know me.
But I was glad, when I heard next day you were gone to the teacher.
And uplifting his face at last, with eyes dilated,
Large as great stars in mist, and dim, with dabbled lashes,
Philip, with new tears starting
You think I do not remember,
Said,---suppose that I did not observe ! Ah me, shall I tell you ?
Elspie, it was your look that sent me away from Rannoch.
It was your glance, that, descending, an instant revelation,
Showed me where I was, and whitherward going; recalled me,
Sent me, not to my books, but to wrestlings of thought in the
mountains.
Yes, I have carried your glance within me undimmed, unaltered,
As a lost boat the compass some passing ship has lent her,
Many a weary mile on road, and hill, and moorland:
And you suppose, that I do not remember, I had not observed it!
O, did the sailor bewildered observe when they told him his bearings ?
O, did he cast overboard, when they parted, the compass they
gave him ?
And he continued more firmly, although with stronger emotion:
Elspie, why should I speak it? you cannot believe it, and should
not:
Why should I say that I love, which I all but said to another ?
Yet should I dare, should I say, O Elspie, you only I love; you,
First and sole in my life that has been and surely that shall be;
Could---O, could you believe it, O Elspie, believe it and spurn not!
Is it---possible,---possible, Elspie ?
Well,---she answered,
And she was silent some time, and blushed all over, and answered
Quietly, after her fashion, still knitting, Maybe, I think of it,
Though I don't know that I did: and she paused again; but it may be,
Yes,---I don't know, Mr. Philip,---but only it feels to me strangely
Like to the high new bridge, they used to build at, below there,
Over the burn and glen on the road. You won't understand me.
But I keep saying in my mind--this long time slowly with trouble
I have been building myself, up, up, and toilfullv raising
Just like as if the bridge were to do it itself without masons,
Painfully getting myself upraised one stone on another,
All one side I mean; and now I see on the other
Just such another fabric uprising, better and stronger,
Close to me, coming to join me: and then I sometimes fancy,---
Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and
bridges,---
Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down, and
Dropping the great key-stone in the middle: there in my dreaming,
There I feel the great key-stone coming in, and through it
Feel the other part---all the other stones of the archway,
Joined into mine with a strange happy sense of completeness. But,
dear me,
This is confusion and nonsense. I mix all the things I can think of.
And you won't understand, Mr. Philip.
But while she was speaking,
So it happened, a moment she paused from her work, and, pondering,
Laid her hand on her lap: Philip took it: she did not resist:
So he retained her fingers, the knitting being stopped. But emotion
Came all over her more and yet more, from his hand, from her
heart, and
Most from the sweet idea and image her brain was renewing.
So he retained her hand, and, his tears down-dropping on it,
Trembling a long time, kissed it at last. And she ended.
And as she ended, uprose he; saying, What have I heard ? Oh,
What have I done, that such words should be said to me ? Oh, I see it,
See the great key-stone coming down from the heaven of heavens !
And he fell at her feet, and buried his face in her apron.
But as under the moon and stars they went to the cottage,
Elspie sighed and said, Be patient, dear Mr. Philip,
Do not do anything hasty. It is all so soon, so sudden.
Do not say anything yet to any one.
Elspie, he answered,
Does not my friend go on Friday ? I then shall see nothing of you:
Do not I go myself on Monday?
But oh, he said, Elspie;
Do as I bid you, my child; do not go on calling me Mr.;
Might I not just as well be calling you Miss Elspie ?
Call me, this heavenly night, for once, for the first time, Philip.
Philip, she said and laughed, and said she could not say it;
Philip, she said; he turned, and kissed the sweet lips as they said it.
But on the morrow Elspie kept out of the way of Philip;
And at the evening seat, when he took her hand by the alders,
Drew it back, saying, almost peevishly,
No, Mr. Philip,
I was quite right, last night; it is too soon, too sudden.
What I told you before was foolish perhaps, was hasty.
When I think it over, I am shocked and terrified at it.
Not that at all I unsay it; that is, I know I said it,
And when I said it, felt it. But oh, we must wait, Mr. Philip !
We mustn't pull ourselves at the great key-stone of the centre;
Some one else up above must hold it, fit it, and fix it;
If we try ourselves, we shall only damage the archway,
Damage all our own work that we wrought, our painful upbuilding.
When, you remember, you took my hand last evening, talking,
I was all over a tremble: and as you pressed the fingers
After, and afterwards kissed it, I could not speak. And then, too,
As we went home, you kissed me for saying your name. It was
dreadful.
I have been kissed before, she added, blushing slightly,
I have been kissed more than once by Donald my cousin, and others;
It is the way of the lads, and I make up my mind not to mind it;
But, Mr. Philip, last night, and from you, it was different quite, Sir.
When I think of all that, I am shocked and terrified at it.
Yes, it is dreadful to me.
She paused, but quickly continued,
Smiling almost fiercely, continued, looking upward.
You are too strong, you see, Mr. Philip ! just like the sea there,
Which <1will>1 come, through the straits and all between the mountains,
Forcing its great strong tide into every nook and inlet,
Getting far in, up the quiet stream of sweet inland water,
Sucking it up, and stopping it, turning it, driving it backward,
Quite preventing its own quiet running: and then, soon after,
Back it goes off, leaving weeds on the shore, and wrack and un-
cleanness:
And the poor burn in the glen tries again its peaceful running
But it is brackish and tainted, and all its banks in disorder.
That was what I dreamt all last night. I was the burnie,
Trying to get along through the tyrannous brine, and could not;
I was confined and squeezed in the coils of the great salt tide, that
Would mix-in itself with me, and change me; I felt myself changing;
And I struggled, and screamed, I believe, in my dream. It was
dreadful.
You are too strong, Mr. Philip! I am but a poor slender burnie,
Used to the glens and the rocks, the rowan and birch of the woodies,
Quite unused to the great salt sea; quite afraid and unwilling.
Ere she had spoken two words, had Philip released her fingers:
As she went on, he recoiled, fell back, and shook, and shivered;
There he stood, looking pale and ghastly; when she had ended,
Answering in hollow voice,
It is true; oh quite true, Elspie;
Oh, you are always right; oh, what, what have I been doing!
I will depart to-morrow. But oh, forget me not wholly,
Wholly, Elspie, nor hate me, no, do not hate me, my Elspie.
But a revulsion passed through the brain and bosom of Elspie;
And she got up from her seat on the rock, putting by her knitting;
Went to him, where he stood, and answered:
No, Mr. Philip,
No, you are good, Mr. Philip, and gentle; and I am the foolish;
No, Mr. Philip, forgive me.
She stepped right to him, and boldly
Took up his hand, and placed it in hers; he daring no movement;
Took up the cold hanging hand, up-forcing the heavy elbow.
I am afraid, she said, but I will! and kissed the fingers.
And he fell on his knees and kissed her own past counting.
But a revulsion wrought in the brain and bosom of Elspie;
And the passion she just had compared to the vehement ocean,
Urging in high spring-tide its masterful way through the mountains,
Forcing and flooding the silvery stream, as it runs from the inland;
That great power withdrawn, receding here and passive,
Felt she in myriad springs, her sources, far in the mountains,
Stirring, collecting, rising, upheaving, forth-outflowing
Taking and joining, right welcome, that delicate rill in the valley,
Filling it, making it strong, and still descending, seeking
With a blind forefeeling descending ever, and seeking,
With a delicious forefeeling, the great still sea before it;
There deep into it, far, to carry, and lose in its bosom,
Waters that still from their sources exhaustless are fain to be added.
As he was kissing her fingers, and knelt on the ground before her,
Yielding backward she sank to her seat, and of what she was doing
Ignorant, bewildered, in sweet multitudinous vague emotion,
Stooping, knowing not what, put her lips to the hair on his forehead:
And Philip, raising himself, gently, for the first time, round her
Passing his arms, close, close, enfolded her, close to his bosom.
As they went home by the moon, Forgive me, Philip, she
- whispered;
I have so many things to think of, all of a sudden;
I who had never once thought a thing,---in my ignorant Highlands.
BUT a revulsion again came over the spirit of Elspie,
When she thought of his wealth, his birth and education:
Wealth indeed but small, though to her a difference truly;
Father nor mother had Philip, a thousand pounds his portion,
Somewhat impaired in a world where nothing is had for nothing;
Fortune indeed but small, and prospects plain and simple.
But the many things that he knew, and the ease of a practised
Intellect's motion, and all those indefinable graces
(Were they not hers, too, Philip ?) to speech, and manner, and
movement,
Lent by the knowledge of self, and wisely-instructed feeling---
When she thought of these, and these contemplated daily,
Daily appreciating more, and more exactly appraising ---
With these thoughts, and the terror withal of a thing she could not
Estimate, and of a step (such a step!) in the dark to be taken,
Terror nameless and ill-understood of deserting her station,---
Daily heavier, heavier upon her pressed the sorrow,
Daily distincter, distincter within her arose the conviction,
He was too high, too perfect, and she so unfit, so unworthy,
(Ah me ! Philip, that ever a word such as that should be written !)
It would do neither for him nor for her; she also was something,
Not much indeed, it was true, yet not to be lightly extinguished.
Should <1he->1--<1he,>1 she said, have a wife beneath him ? herself be
An inferior there where only equality can be ?
It would do neither for him nor for her.
Alas for Philip !
Many were tears and great was perplexity. Nor had availed then
All his prayer and all his device. But much was spoken
Now, between Adam and Elspie; companions were they hourly:
Much by Elspie to Adam, enquiring, anxiously seeking
From his experience seeking impartial accurate statement
What it was to do this or do that, go hither or thither,
How in the after life would seem what now seeming certain
Might so soon be reversed; in her quest and obscure exploring
Still from that quiet orb soliciting light to her footsteps;
Much by Elspie to Adam, enquiring, eagerly seeking:
Much by Adam to Elspie, informing, reassuring
Much that was sweet to Elspie, by Adam heedfully speaking,
Quietly, indirectly, in general terms, of Philip,
Gravely, but indirectly, not as incognisant wholly,
But as suspending until she should seek it, direct intimation;
Much that was sweet in her heart of what he was and would be,
Much that was strength to her mind, confirming beliefs and insights
Pure and unfaltering, but young and mute and timid for action;
Much of relations of rich and poor, and of true education.
It was on Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright October,
Then when brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded,
And amid russet of heather and fern green trees are bonnie;
Alders are green, and oaks; the rowan scarlet and yellow;
One great glory of broad gold pieces appears the aspen,
And the jewels of gold that were hung in the hair of the birch-tree,
Pendulous, here and there, her coronet, necklace, and ear-rings,
Cover her now, o'er and o'er; she is weary and scatters them from her.
There, upon Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright October,
Under the alders knitting, gave Elspie her troth to Philip.
For as they talked, anon she said,
It is well, Mr. Philip.
Yes, it is well: I have spoken, and learnt a deal with the teacher.
At the last I told him all, I could not help it;
And it came easier with him than could have been with my father;
And he calmly approved, as one that had fully considered.
Yes, it is well, I have hoped, though quite too great and sudden;
I am so fearful, I think it ought not to be for years yet.
I am afraid; but believe in you; and I trust to the teacher:
You have done all things gravely and temperate, not as in passion;
And the teacher is prudent, and surely can tell what is likely.
What my father will say, I know not; we will obey him:
But for myself, I could dare to believe all well, and venture.
O Mr. Philip, may it never hereafter seem to be different!
And she hid her face---
Oh, where, but in Philip's bosom!
After some silence, some tears too perchance, Philip laughed, and
said to her,
So, my own Elspie, at last you are clear that I'm bad enough for
you.
Ah, but your father won't make one half the question about it
You have---he'll think me, I know, nor better nor worse than
Donald,
Neither better nor worse for my gentlemanship and book-work,
Worse, I fear, as he knows me an idle and vagabond fellow,
Though he allows, but he'll think it was all for your sake, Elspie,
Though he allows I did some good at the end of the shearing.
But I had thought in Scotland you didn't care for this folly.
How I wish, he said, you had lived all your days in the Highlands!
This is what comes of the year you spent in our foolish England.
You do not all of you feel these fancies.
No, she answered,
And in her spirit the freedom and ancient joy was reviving,
No, she said, and uplifted herself, and looked for her knitting
No, nor do I, dear Philip, I don't myself feel always,
As I have felt, more sorrow for me, these four days lately,
Like the Peruvian Indians I read about last winter,
Out in America there, in somebody's life of Pizarro;
Who were as good perhaps as the Spaniards; only weaker;
And that the one big tree might spread its root and branches,
All the lesser about it must even be felled and perish.
No, I feel much more as if I, as well as you, were,
Somewhere, a leaf on the one great tree, that, up from old time
Growing, contains in itself the whole of the virtue and life of
Bygone days, drawing now to itself all kindreds and nations,
And must have for itself the whole world for its root and branches.
No, I belong to the tree, I shall not decay in the shadow;
Yes, and I feel the life-juices of all the world and the ages
Coming to me as to you, more slowly no doubt and poorer;
You are more near, but then you will help to convey them to me.
No, don't smile, Philip, now, so scornfully !---While you look so
Scornful and strong, I feel as if I were standing and trembling
Fancying the burn in the dark a wide and rushing river;
And I feel coming unto me from you, or it may be from elsewhere,
Strong contemptuous resolve; I forget, and I bound as across it.
But after all, you know, it may be a dangerous river.
Oh, if it were so, Elspie, he said, I can carry you over.
Nay, she replied, you would tire of having me for a burden.
O sweet burden, he said, and are you not light as a feather ?
But it is deep, very likely, she said, over head and ears too.
O let us try, he answered, the waters themselves will support us,
Yea, very ripples and waves will form to a boat underneath us;
There is a boat, he said, and a name is written upon it,
Love, he said, and kissed her.---
But I will read your books, though,
Said she, you'll leave me some, Philip.
Not I, replied he, a volume.
This is the way with you all, I perceive, high and low together.
Women must read,---as if they didn't know all beforehand:
Weary of plying the pump, we turn to the running water,
And the running spring will needs have a pump built upon it.
Weary and sick of our books, we come to repose in your eye-light,
As to the woodland and water, the freshness and beauty of Nature,
Lo, you will talk, forsooth, of the things we are sick to the death of.
What, she said, and if I have let you become my sweetheart,
I am to read no books! but you may go your ways then,
And I will read, she said, with my father at home as I used to.
If you must have it, he said, I myself will read them to you.
Well, she said, but no, I will read to myself, when I choose it;
What, you suppose we never read anything here in our Highlands,
Bella and I with the father, in all our winter evenings!
But we must go, Mr. Philip---
I shall not go at all, said
He, if you call me Mr. -Thank heaven ! that's over for ever.
No, but it's not, she said, it is not over, nor will be.
Was it not then, she asked, the name I called you first by ?
No, Mr. Philip, no---you have kissed me enough for two nights;
No---come, Philip, come, or I'll go myself without you.
You never call me Philip, he answered, until I kiss you.
As they went home by the moon that waning now rose later,
Stepping through mossy stones by the runnel under the alders,
Loitering unconsciously, Philip, she said, I will not be a lady,
We will do work together, you do not wish me a lady;
It is a weakness perhaps and a foolishness; still it is so;
I have been used all my life to help myself and others;
I could not bear to sit and be waited upon by footmen,
No, not even by women---
And, God forbid, he answered,
God forbid you should ever be aught but yourself, my Elspie!
As for service, I love it not, I; your weakness is mine too,
I am sure Adam told you as much as that about me.
I am sure, she said, he called you wild and flighty.
That was true, he said, till my wings were clipped. But, my Elspie,
You will at least just go and see my uncle and cousins,
Sister, and brother, and brother's wife. You should go, if you liked it,
Just as you are; just what you are, at any rate, my Elspie.
Yes, we will go, and give the old solemn gentility stage-play
One little look, to leave it with all the more satisfaction.
That may be, my Philip, she said; you are good to think of it.
But we are letting our fancies run-on indeed; after all, it
May all come, you know, Mr. Philip, to nothing whatever,
There is so much that needs to be done, so much that may happen.
All that needs to be done, said he, shall be done, and quickly.
And on the morrow he took good heart and spoke with David;
Not unwarned the father, nor had been unperceiving;
Fearful much, but in all from the first reassured by the Tutor.
And he remembered how he had fancied the lad from the first;
and
Then, too, the old man's eye was much more for inner than outer,
167
And the natural tune of his heart without misgiving
Went to the noble words of that grand song of the Lowlands,
<1Rank is the guinea stamp, but the man's a man for a' that.>1
Still he was doubtful, would hear nothing of it now, but insisted
Philip should go to his books; if he chose, he might write; if after
Chose to return, might come; he truly believed him honest.
But a year must elapse, and many things might happen.
Yet at the end he burst into tears, called Elspie, and blessed them;
Elspie, my bairn, he said, I thought not, when at the doorway
Standing with you, and telling the young man where he would
find us,
I did not think he would one day be asking me here to surrender
What is to me more than wealth in my Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich.
SO on the morrow's morrow, with Term-time dread returning,
Philip returned to his books, and read, and remained at Oxford,
All the Christmas and Easter remained and read at Oxford.
Great was wonder in College when postman showed to butler
Letters addressed to David Mackaye, at Tober-na-vuolich,
Letter on letter, at least one a week, one every Sunday:
Great at that Highland post was wonder too and conjecture,
When the postman showed letters to wife, and wife to the lassies,
And the lassies declared they couldn't be really to David;
Yes, they could see inside a paper with E. upon it.
Great was surmise in College at breakfast, wine, and supper,
Keen the conjecture and joke; but Adam kept the secret,
Adam the secret kept, and Philip read like fury.
This is a letter written by Philip at Christmas to Adam.
There may be beings, perhaps, whose vocation it is to be idle,
Idle, sumptuous even, luxurious, if it must be:
Only let each man seek to be that for which nature meant him.
If you were meant to plough, Lord Marquis, out with you, and do it;
If you were meant to be idle, O beggar, behold, I will feed you.
If you were born for a groom, and you seem, by your dress, to
believe so,
Do it like a man, Sir George, for pay, in a livery stable;
Yes, you may so release that slip of a boy at the corner,
Fingering books at the window, misdoubting the eighth com-
mandment.
Ah, fair Lady Maria, God meant you to live, and be lovely;
Be so then, and I bless you. But ye, ye spurious ware, who
Might be plain women, and can be by no possibility better!
---Ye unhappy statuettes, and miserable trinkets,
Poor alabaster chimney-piece ornaments under glass cases,
Come, in God's name, come down! the very French clock by you
Puts you to shame with ticking; the fire-irons deride you.
You, young girl, who have had such advantages, learnt so quickly,
Can you not teach ? O yes, and she likes Sunday school extremely,
Only it's soon in the morning. Away! if to teach be your calling
It is no play, but a business: off! go teach and be paid for it.
Lady Sophia's so good to the sick, so firm and so gentle.
Is there a nobler sphere than of hospital nurse and matron ?
Hast thou for cooking a turn, little Lady Clarissa ? in with them,
In with your fingers ! their beauty it spoils, but your own it enhances;
For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are meant for.
This was the answer that came from the Tutor, the grave man,
Adam.
When the armies are set in array, and the battle beginning,
Is it well that the soldier whose post is far to the leftward
Say, I will go to the right, it is there I shall do best service ?
There is a great Field-Marshal, my friend, who arrays our battalions;
Let us to Providence trust, and abide and work in our stations.
This was the final retort from the eager, impetuous Philip.
I am sorry to say your Providence puzzles me sadly;
Children of Circumstance are we to be ? you answer, On no wise !
Where does Circumstance end, and Providence where begins it ?
What are we to resist, and what are we to be friends with ?
If there is battle, 'tis battle by night: I stand in the darkness,
Here in the melee of men, Ionian and Dorian on both sides,
Signal and password known; which is friend and which is foeman ?
Is it a friend ? I doubt, though he speak with the voice of a brother.
Still you are right, I suppose; you always are, and will be;
Though I mistrust the Field-Marshal, I bow to the duty of order.
Yet is my feeling rather to ask, where <1is>1 the battle ?
Yes, I could find in my heart to cry, notwithstanding my Elspie,
O that the armies indeed were arrayed ! O joy of the onset!
Sound, thou Trumpet of God, come forth, Great Cause, to array us,
King and leader appear, thy soldiers sorrowing seek thee.
Would that the armies indeed were arrayed, O where is the battle !
Neither battle I see, nor arraying, nor King in Israel,
Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation,
Backed by a solemn appeal, "For God's sake do not stir, there!'
Yet you are right, I suppose; if you don't attack my conclusion,
Let us get on as we can, and do the thing we are fit for;
Every one for himself, and the common success for us all, and
Thankful, if not for our own, why then for the triumph of others,
Get along, each as we can, and do the thing we are meant for.
That isn't likely to be by sitting still, eating and drinking.
These are fragments again without date addressed to Adam.
As at return of tide the total weight of ocean,
Drawn by moon and sun from Labrador and Greenland,
Sets-in amain, in the open space betwixt Mull and Scarba,
Heaving, swelling, spreading, the might of the mighty Atlantic;
There into cranny and slit of the rocky, cavernous bottom
Settles down, and with dimples huge the smooth sea-surface
Eddies, coils, and whirls; by dangerous Corryvreckan:
So in my soul of souls through its cells and secret recesses,
Comes back, swelling and spreading, the old democratic fervour.
But as the light of day enters some populous city,
Shaming away, ere it come, by the chilly day-streak signal,
High and low, the misusers of night, shaming out the gas lamps---
All the great empty streets are flooded with broadening clearness,
Which, withal, by inscrutable simultaneous access
Permeates far and pierces to the very cellars lying in
Narrow high back-lane, and court, and alley of alleys:---
He that goes forth to his walks, while speeding to the suburb,
Sees sights only peaceful and pure; as labourers settling
Slowly to work, in their limbs the lingering sweetness of slumber;
Humble market-carts, coming-in, bringing-in, not only
Flower, fruit, farm-store, but sounds and sights of the country
Dwelling yet on the sense of the dreamy drivers; soon after
Half-awake servant-maids unfastening drowsy shutters
Up at the windows, or down, letting-in the air by the doorway;
School-boys, school-girls soon, with slate, portfolio, satchel,
Hampered as they haste, those running, these others maidenly
tripping;
Early clerk anon turning out to stroll, or it may be
Meet his sweetheart---waiting behind the garden gate there;
Merchant on his grass-plat haply, bare-headed; and now by this
time
Little child bringing breakfast to "father' that sits on the timber
There by the scaffolding; see, she waits for the can beside him;
Meantime above purer air untarnished of new-lit fires:
So that the whole great wicked artificial civilised fabric---
All its unfinished houses, lots for sale, and railway outworks---
Seems reaccepted, resumed to Primal Nature and Beauty:---
---Such---in me, and to me, and on me the love of Elspie!
Philip returned to his books, but returned to his Highlands after;
Got a first, 'tis said; a winsome bride, 'tis certain.
There while courtship was ending, nor yet the wedding appointed,
Under her father he studied the handling of hoe and of hatchet:
Thither that summer succeeding came Adam and Arthur to see him
Down by the lochs from the distant Glenmorison; Adam the tutor,
Arthur, and Hope; and the Piper anon who was there for a visit;
He had been into the schools; plucked almost; all but a <1gone-coon;>1
So he declared; never once had brushed up his <1hairy>1 Aldrich;
Into the great might-have-been upsoaring sublime and ideal
Gave to historical questions a free poetical treatment;
Leaving vocabular ghosts undisturbed in their lexicon-limbo
Took Aristophanes up at a shot; and the whole three last weeks
Went, in his life and the sunshine rejoicing, to Nuneham and
Godstowe :
What were the claims of Degree to those of life and the sunshine ?
There did the four find Philip, the poet, the speaker, the chartist,
Delving at Highland soil, and railing at Highland landlords,
Railing, but more, as it seemed, for the fun of the Piper's fury.
There saw they David and Elspie Mackaye, and the Piper was almost,
Almost deeply in love with Bella the sister of Elspie;
But the good Adam was heedful; they did not go too often.
There in the bright October, the gorgeous bright October,
When the brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded,
And amid russet of heather and fern green trees are bonnie,
Alders are green, and oaks, the rowan scarlet and yellow,
Heavy the aspen, and heavy with jewels of gold the birch-tree,
There, when shearing had ended, and barley-stooks were garnered,
David gave Philip to wife his daughter, his darling Elspie;
Elspie the quiet, the brave, was wedded to Philip the poet.
So won Philip his bride. They are married and gone---But oh, Thou
Mighty one, Muse of great Epos, and Idyll the playful and tender,
Be it recounted in song, ere we part, and thou fly to thy Pindus,
(Pindus is it, O Muse, or AEtna, or even Ben-nevis ?)
Be it recounted in song, O Muse of the Epos and Idyll,
Who gave what at the wedding, the gifts and fair gratulations.
Adam, the grave careful Adam, a medicine chest and tool-box,
Hope a saddle, and Arthur a plough, and the Piper a rifle,
Airlie a necklace for Elspie, and Hobbes a Family Bible,
Airlie a necklace, and Hobbes a Bible and iron bedstead.
What was the letter, O Muse, sent withal by the corpulent hero ?
This is the letter of Hobbes the kilted and corpulent hero.
So the last speech and confession is made, O my eloquent
speaker !
So <1the good time>1 is <1coming,>1
<1Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits,>1
<1Unto the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,>1
<1Come, let us go,---to a land wherein gods of the old time wandered,>1
<1Where every breath even now changes to ether divine.>1
<1Come, let us go,- though withal a voice whisper, "The world that we>1
<1live in,>1
<1Whithersoever we turn, still is the same narrow crib;>1
<1'Tis but to prove limitation, and measure a cord, that we travel;>1
<1Let who would 'scape and befree go to his chamber and think;>1
<1'Tis but to change idle fancies for memories wilfully falser;>1
<1'Tis but to go and have been.'---Come, little bark! let us go.>1
<1Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages,>1
<1 Here, even yet, amid loss, change, and corruption abide?>1
<1Does there a spirit we know not, though seek, though we find, compre->1
<1hend not,>1
<1Here to entice and confuse, tempt and evade us, abide?>1
<1Lives in the exquisite grace of the column disjointed and single,>1
<1Haunts the rude masses of brick garlanded gayly with vine,>1
<1E'en in the turret fantastic surviving that springs from the ruin,>1
<1E'en in the people itself? is it illusion or not?>1
<1Is it illusion or not that attracteth the Pilgrim transalpine,>1
<1Brings him a dullard and dunce hither to pry and to stare?>1
<1Is it illusion or not that allures the barbarian stranger,>1
<1Brings him with gold to the shrine, brings him in arms to the gate?>1
<1Yet to the wondrous St. Peter's, and yet to the solemn Rotonda,>1
<1Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican walls,>1
<1Yet may we go, and recline, while a whole mighty world seems above us>1
<1Gathered and fixed to all time into one roofing supreme>1 ;
<1Yet may we, thinking on these things, exclude what is meaner around us>1 ;
<1Yet, at the worst of the worst, books and a chamber remain>1 ;
<1Yet may we think, and forget, and possess our souls in resistance.>1---
<1Ah, but away from the stir, shouting, and gossip of war,>1
<1Where, upon A pennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle,>1
<1Where amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind,>1
<1Where under mulberry-branches the diligent rivulet sparkles,>1
<1Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ply,>1
<1Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated,>1
<1Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,->1--
<1Ah, that I were,far away from the crowd and the streets ofthe city,>1
<1Under the vine-trellis laid, 0 my beloved, with thee!>1
<1Eastward, or Northward, or West? I wander and ask as I wander,>1
<1Weary, yet eager and sure, Where shall I come to my love?>1
<1Whitherward hasten to seek her? Ye daughters of Italy, tell me,>1
<1Graceful and tender and dark, is she consorting with you?>1
<1Thou that out-climbest the torrent, that tendest thy goats to the summit,>1
<1Call to me, child of the Alp, has she been seen on the heights?>1
<1Italy, farewell I bid thee! for whither she leads me, I follow.>1
<1Farewell the vineyard! for I, where I but guess her, must go.>1
<1Weariness welcome, and labour, wherever it be, it at last it>1
<1Bring me in mountain or plain into the sight of my love.>1
<1There is a city, upbuilt on the quays of the turbulent Arno,>1
<1Under Fiesole's heights,---thither are we to return?>1
<1There is a city that fringes the curve of the inflowing waters,>1
<1Under the perilous hill fringes the beautiful bay,--->1
<1Parthenope do they call thee?---the Siren, Neapolis, seated>1
<1Under Vesevus's hill,---are we receding to thee?--->1
<1Sicily, Greece, will invite, and the Orient;---or are we to turn to>1
<1England, which may after all be for its children the best?>1