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t
A n '
DELIGHTFUL ANTHOLOGIES
THE OPEN ROAD
Compiled b^ E. V. Lucas. A little book for way-
farers coataining some 195 poems from over 60 authors.
THE FRIENDLY TOWN
Compiled by B. V. Lucas. A little book for the
urbane containinir over 900 selections in verse and
prose from 100 authors.
THE POETIC OLD-WORLD
Compiled by MissL. H. Humphrey. Covers Europe,
including Spain, Belgium, and the British isles, in
some aoo poems from about 90 poets. Sotkie 90, not
originally written in En^^lish, are given in both the
original and the best available translation.
These three books are uniform, with full gilt flexible
covers and pictured cover linings. s6mo. Each, cloth,
$1.50 fp/// leather, $3.50 »//.
POEMS FOR TRAVELERS
Compiled bv Mary R. J. DuBois. i6mo. Cloth,
$1.50 Mti: leather, la.50 net. Covers France, Germany,
Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece in some three
hundred poems from about one hundred and thirty
poets.
A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN
Compiled by E. V. Lucas. Over 900 poems repre-
sentins: some 80 authors. With decorations by F. D.
Bedford. Revistd edition, $3.00. Library edition,
$z.oo net.
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
THE OPEN ROAD
c/f Little Book for Wayfarers
E>"V/LUCAS
COMm,^ BY
r
V-
u
Life is sweet, brother. . . . There*s day and
night, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and
stars, aU sweet things; there's likewise a wind oa
the heath.'* — Lavtngro,
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1914
f^ '9 7 U
ToB.
Along, the country life — how sweet I
But wood and meadow, heath and MU^
The dewy morn, the noonday heat,
Ihe nest half -hid, the poppied wheai.
The peaty purling rill.
The brake fern's odorous retreat.
The hush of eve, serene, discreet —
IVith you are sweeter stilL
•■.»
• •
a 4
• . *■ • • »
• • • • «
« • • • « • •
• «
• •
EXPLANATION
This little book aims at nothing but providing
companionship on the road for city-dwellers
who make holiday. It has no claims to com-
pleteness of any kind: it is just a garland of
good or enkindling poetry and prose fitted to
urge folk into the open air, and, once there, to
keep them glad they came — ^to slip easily from
the pocket beneath a tree or among the heather,
and provide lazy reading for the time of rest,
with perhaps a phrase or two for the feet to
step to and the mind to brood on when the rest
is over.
E. V. L.
April, 1899.
\
And hark! how blithe the Throstle sings 1
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth.
Our minds and hearts to bless —
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health.
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man.
Of moral evil and of good.
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings:
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous form of things;
We murder to dissect
Enough of Science and of Art;
Qose up these barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
IVmiam fVordstffortk
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FAREWELL TO WINTER AND THE TOWN
PAGE
Thb Mbaoows in Spbino . Edward FitMggrald 3
In City Stkbxts • • • Ada Smith 6
Good Counssl • • • John Davidson 7
Thb Lakb Islb ov Innxsfibb IV, B. Yeats 8
Thb Invxxatxon • • , P, B, ShstUy 9
THE ROAD
TiTANIA'S CoVETBiy TO THB
Wayfakes • • . W. Shaksspsart 13
All Day A-Foot • • • Kinneth Grahams 14
The Vagabond • • . R, L, Stevsnson 15
The White Road up athikt
THE Hill . • . IVilliam Barnes 16
The Joys of the Road • . Bliss Carman 18
SoNQ or TBB Ofbn Roao • Walt WkUmam aa
SPRING AND THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH
face
TUKM O' THB YSAK
. K, T. Hinkson
43
March
, Nora Hoppgr
44
The Sfking •
. IVilliam Barnes
44
Apkil • •
. IVilliam Watson
46
In Eaklt Sfking .
. Alice Meynell
46
Song •
. Robert Browning
48
Lynton Veksks .
, T. E, Brown
48
Home Thoughts from
Abroad Robert Browning
49
A May Burden .
•
. Francis Thompson
50
The Sweetness of England
. E. B, Browning
51
(Italy Sweet Tool)
, John Keats
53
Beauty Triumfhant
« «
•
54
Nature and Humanity
. W, Wordsworth
55
The Rural Pan .
. Kenneth Grahame
57
Hymn of Pan
• P. B. Shelley
58
Callicles' Song •
. Matthew Arnold
59
Bacchus • •
• John Keats
6a
THE LOVER SINGS
SONO • • • •
Song • • • •
Song • • . •
The Lady of the Lambs
The Miller's Daughter
Song • • • •
A Matcx • • •
. W. Shakespeare 65
• James Thomson 65
. William Watson 66
• Altce Meynell 67
• Alfred Tennyson 68
• Thomas Campion 68
• A. C. Swinburne 69
vi
fAM
Ski Walks nr BiAtrry
•
. Ldfd ByrM
7«
*' Mr LUVB It LIKE
A
Rxo^
Rxo RosK "
•
. Robert Bums
7^
Song • • •
•
. HartUy Coleridge
7»
Baxxad •
•
. Thomas Hood
73
Song • • •
•
. James Thomson
74
Maxck
Wind
•
. WiUiom Morris
75
Tbb Pamionatx SsxpHno to
Hit LOVB •
. C. Marlowe
76
Song • • •
• AHOH»
77
Hkk Bkautt •
. IV, Shakespeare
78
CONtTAMCY • •
• /. Sylvester
79
Song • • • *
• R. Le Gallienne
8o
StJN AND CLOUD, AND THE WINDY HILLS
Tkk Sun •
. Alice Meynell
83
Hymn of Apollo •
. P. B. Shelley
84
Youth at the Summit .
, Maurice Hewlett
86
Mokning on Etna
. Matthew Arnold
86
Thx Hokizon
. Alice Meynell
87
The Hill Pantheist
. Richard JefFeries
89
•* A Small Sweet Idyll '*
, Alfred Tennyson
91
The South- West Wind
. Alice Meynell
9»
Ode to the West Wind
. P. B, Shelley
94
Clouds
. Alice Meynell
97
The Cloud . •
. P. B. Shelley
98
The Downs • •
. Robert Bridges
VU
I OS
BIRDS, BLOSSOMS. AND TREES
Thb Vert Bikds of tkb Aik . Isaak Walton
Thb Blackbikd • • . William Barnes
SoNO • • • • • Thomas Heywood
Thb Gbben Linnet
Philomela •
Ode to a Nightingale
The Daisies •
To THB Daisy •
To Daffodils
" i wandbked lonely
cloud" • •
Perdita's Gifts .
To Pkimkoses Filled
Morning Dew • •
The Woodlands • •
Tapestry Trees .
The Poet in the Woods
On Solxtxtdb • •
• W. Wordsworth
• Matthew Arnold
• John Keats
• Bliss Carman
.W. Wordsworth
. Robert Herrick
AS A
. W, Wordsworth
• W, Shakespeare
WITH
• Robert Herrick
• William Barnes
• William Morris
• William Cowper
• Abraham Cowley
Bono W. Shakespearg
PAGB
107
108
IIO
III
113
118
118
120
FACE
I2X
122
134
136
127
128
139
IS3
SUMMER SPORTS AND PASTIMES
A Boy's Prayer .
. H. C. Beeching
S34
The Angler's Rest
. iMaak Walton
135
The Angler's Virtues ,
. Gervase Markham
141
The Angleii's Poesy ,
, iMaak Walton
X43
Old MATctf Day* • ,
t . John Nyren
VIU
147
Thb Cricket Ball Sings • E. V, Lucas
Going Down Hill on a
BiCTCi^ • • • , H. C. Besehing
FAGS
ISO
isa
REFRESHMENT AND THE INN
THE KESPBCT DUB TO HUNGl
B3t IV, HOMlftt
«S7
The Power of Malt •
. A. E, Housman
158
In Praise of Ale
. Old Song
159
The Meditative Tankard
• Edward FitMgtrald
160
Two Recipes
. . Gtrvase Markham
161
The Humble Feast
« «
•
163
Salvation Yeo's Testimony
TO
Tobacco
• CharUs KingsUy
164
GARDEN AND ORCHARD
** The Idle Life I Lead "
My Garden •
A Garden Song
The Garden
Of Gardens
Of an Orchard
The Apple •
. Robert Bridges
. T. B, Brown
. Austin Dobson
• Andrew MarveU
. Francis Bacon
. K, T, Hinkson
• John Burroughs
68
69
MUSIC BENEATH A BRANCH
The Scholar-Gipsy
• . Matthew Arnold
179
L'Allbgro • •
• • John Milton
192
Sono • • •
. P, B. Shelley
•
198
•
VAOl
"In TH« HlGRUNDl" .
• J?. L. StiViHson
«00 '
The Solitaky Reapek .
. fV. Wordsworth
201
Ruth
. Thomas Hood
202
Cadmus and Harmon i a
. Matthew Arnold
203
Ode on a Grecian Urn •
. John Keats
20s
The Lotus-Eaters
. Alfred Tennyson
207
The Forsaken Merman
. Matthew Arnold
210
KuBLA Khan
. 5. r. Coleridge
216
Lycidas
. John Milton
218
Ode on Intimations of
lu-
mortality • *
. W, Wordsworth
226
THE SEA AND THE RIVER
Salt and Sunny Days .
. P. B, Marston
239
The Sea Gipsy •
. Richard Hovey
340
Sailor's Song
. T. L. Beddoes
241
The Wander-Lovers
. Richard Hovey
242
The River and the Sea
. R. L, Stevenson
244
The Brook •
. Alfred Tennyson
246
At Sia
. R, L, Stevenson
<48
THE REDDENING LEAF
To Autumn . •
• John Keats
ast
Sweet Fern
. J. G. Whittier
253
Autumn
• R, Le Callienne
254
Carn a-turnen Yoller .
. William Barnes
256
"On Wenlock Edge" .
. A, E. Housman
357
The Joys op Fowling .
. Old Song
258
Tsx Music op the Pack
, Cervase Markham
259
NIGHT AND THE STARS
Hail Twilight, Sovbesign
FAGB
OP One Peaceful Houe "
. W. Wordsworth
162
To THE Evening Stae .
. IViiliam Blake
«63
EVEMEN in the ViLLAGB
• William Bamts
164
Night
. William Blake
«65
To Night , , •
. P. B, Shelley
367
Obion
• Kenneth Grahame
868
Sleep Beneath the Stabs
. R, L, Stevenson
J69
To Sleet • • •
, W, Wordsworth
271
A LITTLE COMPANY OF GOOD COUNTRY PEOPLE
The Babepoot Boy
•
. /. G. Whittier
«7S
The Milkmaid •
•
. Thomas Nabbes
»7S
The Shephebo 0' thb Fabm . William Barnes
279
The Shephebo •
• Maurice Hewlett
281
Walt's Fbieno ,
. Walt Whitman
281
Tom Sueteb
. John Nyren
*83
Uncle an* Aunt •
. William Barnes
284
Will Wimble
. Addison's 'Spectator'
386
A Gentleman of
the
Old
School . •
. Austin Dobson
388
Mb. Hastings
. William Gilpin
192
Jack . . •
. E, V. Lucas
«95
The Vicab .
. W, M, Praed
300
Thx Fiddlxb of Doonkt
. W. B. Yeats
304
XI
A HANDFUL OF PHILOSOPHY
The World is too much
WITH us •
Content •
The Wish .
Give me the Old
To-MORROW •
A Thanksgiving to God
. fV, Wordsworth
. Thomas Dekker
• Abraham Cowley
. R. H. Messinger
• John Collins
. Robert Herrick
The Dirge in *' Cymbelinb " W* Shakespeare
THE RETURN
The Glamour of the Town Charles Lamb
Note or Acknowledgment .
PAGB
308
309
3x0
311
3x5
318
Up-Hill
• Christina Rossetti
320
323
336
The decorative end-papers are from originai
designs by William Hyde,
XU
THE FAREWELL TO WINTER
AND THE TOWN
Come, spur away,
I have no patience for a longer stay.
But must go down.
And leave the chargeable noise of this great town
I will the country see . • .
Thomas Randolph*
Oh, day, if I squander a wavelet of thee,
A mite of my twelve hours' treasury
The least of thy gazes or glances . . .
The shame fall on Asolo, mischief on mel
Thy long, blue, solemn hours serenely flowing.
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good— »
Thy fitful sunshine minutes, coming, going.
As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood.
All shall be mine! . . .
Robert Browning (Pippa Passes').
O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides 1
The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, th«
moist fresh stillness of the woods.
The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all
through the forenoon.
Walt fVhUman.
THE OPEN ROAD
The Meadows in Spring
»T^IS a dull sight
-■• To see the year dying.
When winter winds
Set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, oh I sighing.
When such a time cometh,
I do retire
Into an old room
Beside a bright fire:
Oh, pile a bright fire!
And there I sit
Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels^
While the wind sings —
Oh, -drearily sings I
I never look out
Nor attend to the blast;
3
For all to be seen
Is the leaves falling fast:
Falling, falling!
But close at the hearth,
Like a cricket, sit I,
Reading of summer
And chivalry —
Gallant chivalry I
Then with an old friend
I talk of our youth —
How 'twas gladsome, but often
Foolish, forsooth:
But gladsome, gladsome!
Or to get merry
We sing some old rhyme,
That made the wood ring again
In summer time —
Sweet summer time I
Then go we to smoking,
Silent and snug:
Nought passes between us.
Save a brown jug-
Sometimes !
And sometimes a tear
Will rise in each eye^
4
Seeing the two old friends
So merrily —
So merrily I
And ere to bed
Go we, go we,
Down on the ashes
We kneel on the knee^
Praying together I
Thus, then, live I,
Till, 'mid all the gloom,
By heaven ! the bold sun
Is with me in the room
Shining, shining 1
Then the clouds part.
Swallows* soaring between;
The spring is alive.
And the meadows are green i
I jump up, like mad.
Break the old pipe in twain.
And away to the meadows.
The meadows again!
Edward FitsGerdld.
In City Streets -^^ <^ <^ -Cy
WONDER in the heather there's a bed for
"*• sleepinig^,
Drink for one athirst, ripe blackberries to
eat;
Yonder in the sun the merry hares go leaping,
And the pool is clear for travel-wearied feet.
Sorely throb my feet, a-tramping London high-
ways,
(Ah! the springy moss upon a northern
moor!)
Through the endless streets, the gloomy squares
and byways.
Homeless in the City, poor among the poor !
London streets are gold — ah, give me leaves
a-glinting
'Midst grey dykes and hedges in the autumn
sun!
London water's wine, poured out for all un-
stinting —
God! For the little brooks that tumble as
they run !
Oh, my heart is fain to hear the soft wind
blowing.
Soughing through the fir-tops up on northern
fells I
6
Oh, my eye's an ache to see the brown burns
flowing
Through the peaty soil and tinkling heather-
bells.
Ada Smith,
Good Counsel
(From Fleet Street Eclogues}
AT early dawn through London you must go
Until you come where long black
hedgerows grow,
With pink buds pearled, and here and there a
tree,
And gates and stiles; and watch good country
folk ;
And scent the spicy smoke
Of withered weeds that bum where gardens be ;
And in a ditch perhaps a primrose see.
The rooks shall stalk the plough, larks mount
the skies.
Blackbirds and speckled thrushes sing aloud,
Hid in the warm white cloud
Mantling the thorn, and far away shall rise
The milky low of cows, and farm-yard cries.
John Davidson,
7
The Lake Isle of Innisfree '^^
T WILL arise and go now, and go to Innis-
-*• free,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and
wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for
the honey bee.
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace
comes dropping slow.
Dropping from the veils of the morning to
where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a
purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always, night and
day,
I hear lake-water lapping with low sounds
by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway or on the pave-
ments gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
W. B. Yeats.
8
The Invitation
OEST and brightest, come away,—
-^ Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee, to those in sorrow
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon mom
To hoar February born;
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth.
It kiss'd the forehead of the earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free.
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains^
And like the prophetess of May
Strew'd flowers upon the barren way.
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
Away, away, from men and towns.
To the wild wood and the downs—
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
9
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart
Radiant Sister of the Day
Awake I arise ! and come away I
To the wild woods and the plains, ^
To the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
Round stems that never kiss the sun; '
Where the lawns and pastures be I
And the sandhills of the sea: I
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets.
And wind-flowers and violets ,
Which yet join not scent to hue
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dim and blind,
And the blue moon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal Sun.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
10
THE ROAD
In ita widest sense, *' the open road " is the sign and
symbol of all outdoor life, of all holiday-making in which
the sense of the athlete is awakened, — in a word, of all
that is active and adventurous, from sailing and rowing to
cliff-climbing and moorland tramping. But fascinating as
these are, there is a something even more fascinating in
the thought of the open road when we narrow the mean-
ing and confine it to the paths trod by the feet of men
and horses and cut by their wheels, restrict it, that is,
to those nerves and sinews of the soil which bind village
to village, city to city, and land to land. Think of all
the many and diverse tracks which, once landed at
Calais, if only you keep going eastward, will take you to
Moscow or Tobolsk, westward to Lisbon or Madrid, and
southward to Rome. What is more intellectually exhil-
arating to the mind, and even to the senses, than to
stand looking down the vista of some g^eat road in
France or Italy, or up a long and well-worn horse-track
in Asia or Africa, a path which has not yet been trod
by the foot or the wheel of the gazing wayfarer, or by
the hoof of his horse, and to wonder through what strange
places, by what towns and castles, by what rivers and
streams, by what mountains and valleys it will take him
ere he reaches his destination?
The Spectator*
Titania's Courtesy to the Wayfarer
(From A Midsummer-Night's Dream)
Y^ITANIA. Peas-blossom ! Cobweb! Moth I
•* and Mustard-seed!
(Enter four Fairies,)
First Fairy. Ready.
Second Fairy, And I.
Third Fairy. And I.
Fourth Fairy, Where shall we go?
Titania, Be kind and courteous to this gentle-
man;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks, and dewberries;
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries ;
The honey bags steal from the humble bees,
And, for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs.
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to bed, and to arise;
13
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes ;
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
William Shakespeare,
All Day A-foot -^r^ ^^y <^ <^
(From Pagan Papers)
A DAY'S Ride a Life's Romance was the
•^^ excellent title of an unsuccessful book ;
and indeed the journey should march with the
day, beginning and ending with its sun, to be
the complete thing, the golden round required
of it. This makes that mind and body fare to-
gether, hand in hand, sharing the hope, the ac-
tion, the fruition; finding equal sweetness in
the languor of aching limbs at eve, and in the
first god-like intoxication of motion with
braced muscle in the sun. For walk or ride
take the mind over greater distances than si
throbbing whirl with stiffening joints and
cramped limbs through a dozen counties.
Surely you seem to cover vaster spaces with
Lavengro, footing it with gypsies or driving
his tinker's cart across lonely commons, than
with many a globe-trotter or steam-yachts-
man with diary or log?
Kenneth Grahame.
14
The Vagabond ^Qy
(To an air of Schubert)
GIVE to me the life I love.
Let the lave go by me.
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see.
Bread I dip in the river —
There's the life for a man like me.
There's the life for ever.
Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.
Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger.
Silencing the bird on tree,
Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field-
Warm the fireside haven —
Not to autumn will I yield.
Not to winter even!
IS
Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love.
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.
Robert Louis Stevenson,
The White Road up Athirt the Hill ^
TXT' HEN high hot zuns da strik right
^ ^ down.
An' bum our zweaty fiazen brown,
An' zunny hang^ns that be nigh
Be back'd by hills so blue's the sky;
Then while the bells da sweetly cheem
Upon the champen high-neck'd team
How lively, wi' a friend, da seem
The white road up athirt the hill.
The zwell^n downs, wi' chaky tracks,
A-climmen up ther zunny backs,
Da hide green meads, an' zedgy brooks.
An' clumps o' trees wi' glossy rooks,
i6
An' hearty voice to lafe and zing,
An' churches wi' ther bells to ring,
In parishes al in a string
Wi* white roads up athirt the hills.
At feast, when uncle's vo'ke da come
To spend the da wi' we at huome,
An* we da put upon the buard
The best of al we can avvuord.
The wolden oons do ta'ke an* smoke.
An* younger oons da play an' joke.
An* in the evemen all our vo'ke
Da bring 'em gwain athirt the hill.
Var then the green da zwarm wi' wold
An' young so thick as sheep in vuold.
The billis in the blacksmith's shop
An' mesh-green waterwheel da stop,
An' luonesome in the wheelwright's shed
's a-left the wheelless waggon bed,
While zwarms o' comen-friends da tread
The white road down athirt the hill.
An' when the winden road so white
A-climmen up the hill in zight,
Da lead to pliazen, east ar west
The vust a-know'd an' lov'd the best,
17
How touchen in the zunsheen's glow
Ar in the shiades that clouds da drow
Upon the zunbum'd down below,
's the white road up athirt the hilL
What pirty hollers now the long
White roads da windy roun* among,
Wi* dairy cows in woody nooks,
An* haymiakers among ther pooks,
An* housen that the trees da screen
Vrom zun an' zight by boughs o* green.
Young blushen beauty's huomes between
The white roads up athirt the hills.
William Barnes.
The Joys of the Road
N
OW the joys of the road are chiefly these:
A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees ;
A vagrant's morning wide and blue,
In early fall, when the wind walks, too;
A shadowy highway cool and brown.
Alluring up and enticing down
i8
From rippled water to dappled swamp.
From purple glory to scarlet pomp ;
The outward eye, the quiet will.
And the striding heart from hill to hill;
The tempter apple over the fence;
The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince;
The palish asters along the wood,—
A lyric touch of the solitude;
An open hand, an easy shoe.
And a hope to make the day go through,^
Another to sleep with, and a third
To wake me up at the voice of a bird.
The resonant far-listening mom,
And the hoarse whisper of the com;
The crickets mourning their comrades lost.
In the night's retreat from the gathering frost;
(Or is it their slogan, plaintive and shrill,
As they beat on their corselets, valiant still ?)
A hunger fit for the kings of the sea.
And a loaf of bread for Dickon and me;
A thirst like that of the Thirsty Sword*
And a jug of cider on the board;
19
An idle noon, a bubbling spring,
The sea in the pine-tops murmuring;
A scrap of gossip at the ferry;
A comrade neither glum nor merry.
Asking nothing, revealing naught.
But minting his words from a fund of thought,
A keeper of silence eloquent.
Needy, yet royally well content.
Of the mettled breed, yet abhorring strife.
And full of the mellow juice of life,
A taster of wine, with an eye for a maid.
Never too bold, and nev^r afraid.
Never heart-whole, never heart-sick
(These are the things I worship in Dick)
No fidget and no reformer, just
A calm observer of ought and must,
«
A lover of books, but a reader of man,
No C3mic and no charlatan.
Who never defers and never demands.
But, smiling, takes the world in his hands,—
Seeing it good as when God first saw
And gave it the weight of His will for law.
20
And O the joy that is never won,
But follows and follows the journeying sun.
By marsh and tide, by meadow and stream,
A will-o'-the-wind, a light-o'-dream.
Delusion afar, delight anear.
From morrow to morrow, from year to year.
A jack-o'-lantern, a fairy fire,
A dare, a bliss, and a desire !
The racy smell of the forest loam,
When the stealthy, sad-heart leaves go home;
(O leaves, O leaves, I am one with you,
Of the mould and the sun and the wind and
the dew!)
The broad gold wake of the afternoon;
The silent fleck of the cold new moon;
The sound of the hollow sea's release
From stormy tumult to starry peace;
With only another league to wend;
And two brown arms at the journey's end!
These are the joys of the open road —
For him who travels without a load.
Bliss Carman.
21
Song of the Open Road <::><:> <^
I
AFOOT and light-hearted I take to the open
road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading
wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself
am good- fortune.
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no
more, need nothing.
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, queru-
lous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to
them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them
with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of
them,
I am fiird with them, and I will fill them in
return.)
22
You road I enter upon and look around, I be-
lieve you are not all that is here,
I believe that much unseen is also here.
Here the profound lesson of reception, nor
preference nor denial.
The black with his woolly head, the felon, the
diseased, the illiterate person, are not
denied ;
The birth, the hasting after the physician, the
beggar's tramp, the drunkard's stagger,
the laughing party of mechanics.
The escaped youth, the rich person's carriage,
the fop, the eloping couple.
The early market-man, the hearse, the moving
of furniture into the town, the return
back from the town.
They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none
can be interdicted.
None but are accepted, none but sAiaU be dear
to me.
3
You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my mean-
ings and give them shape!
23
You light that wraps me and all things in
delicate equable showers !
You paths worn in the irregular hollows Dy
the roadsides!
I believe you are latent with unseen existences,
you are so dear to me.
You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong
curbs at the edges !
You ferries ! you planks and posts of wharves !
you timber-lined sides! you distant
ships I
You rows of houses! you window-pierced fa-
cades ! you roofs !
You porches and entrances! you copings and
iron guards !
You windows whose transparent shells might
expose so much!
You doors and ascending steps ! you arches !
You grey stones of interminable pavements!
you trodden crossing^ !
From all that has touched you I believe you
have imparted to yourselves, and now
would impart the same secretly to me,
From the living and the dead you have peopled
your impassive surfaces, and the spirits
thereof would be evident and amicable
with me.
24
The earth expanding right hand and left hand,
The picture alive, every part in its best light,
The music falling in where it is wanted, and
stopping where it is not wanted.
The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay
fresh sentiment of the road.
O highway I travel, do you say to me Do not
leave me?
Do you say Venture not — if you leave me you
are lost?
Do you say / am already prepared, I am well
beaten and undented, adhere to me?
public road, I say back I am not afraid to
leave you, yet I love you.
You express me better than I can express
myself.
You shall be more to me than my poem.
1 think heroic deeds were all conceived in the
open air, and all free poems also,
I think I could stop here myself and do
miracles,
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I
shall like, and whoever beholds me shall
like me,
I think whoever I see must be happy.
25
From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits
and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and
absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they
say.
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating.
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting my-
self of the holds that would hold me.
I inhale g^eat draughts of space.
The east and the west are mine, and the north
*and the south are mine.
I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.
All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women You have
done such good to me I would do the
same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women
as I go.
I will toss a new gladness and roughness
among them.
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be bless-
ed and shall bless me.
Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear
it would not amaze me,
Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women
appeared it would not astonish me.
Now I see the secret of the making of the best
persons.
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and
sleep with the earth.
Here a great personal deed has room,
(Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the
whole race of men.
Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms
laws and modes all authority and all
argument against it).
Here is the test of wisdom:
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
Wisdom cannot be passed from one having it
to another not having it,
27
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of
proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities
and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality
' of things, and the excellence of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight of
things that provokes it out of the soul.
Now I re-examine philosophies and religions.
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not
prove at all under the spacious clouds
and along the landscape and flowing
currents.
Here is realisation.
Here is a man tallied — ^he realises here what
he has in him.
The past, the future, majesty, lOve — if they
are vacant of you, you are vacant of
them.
Only the kernel of every object nourishes;
Where is he who tears off the husks for you
and me?
Where is he that undoes stratagems and ea.
velopes for you and me?
28
Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously
fashioned, it is apropos ;
Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved
by strangers?
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-
baUs?
Here is the efflux of the soul,
The efflux of the soul comes from within
through embower'd gates, ever provok-
ing questions.
These yearnings, why are they? these thoughts
in the darkness, why are they?
Why are there men and women that while
they are nigh me the sunlight expands
my blood?
Why when they leave me do my pennants of
joy sink flat and lank?
Why are there trees I never walk under but
large and melodious thoughts descend
upon me?
(I think they hang there winter and summer
on those trees and always drop fruit as
I pass;)
What is it I interchange so suddenly with
strangers ?
29
What with some driver as I ride on the seat
by his side ?
What with some fisherman drawing his seine
by the shore as L walk by and pause ?
What gives me to be free to a woman's and
man's good-will ? what gives them to be
free to mine?
8
The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is
happiness,
I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all
times,
Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged.
Here rises the fluid and attaching character.
The fluid and attaching character is the fresh-
ness and sweetness of man and woman,
(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher
and sweeter every day out of the roots
of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and
sweet continually out of itself).
Toward the fluid and attaching character
exudes the sweat of the love of young
and old,
30
From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks
beauty and attainments,
Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache
of contact.
AUonsI Whoever you ar^ come travel with
mel
Travelling with me you find what never tires.
The earth never tires.
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at
first,
Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first,
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine
things well envelop'd,
I swear to you there are divine things more
beautiful than words can telL
Mlons! we must not stop here.
However sweet these laid-up stores, however
convenient this dwelling, we cannot re-
main here.
However shelter'd this port and however calm
these waters, we must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that sur-
rounds us, we are permitted to receive
it but a little while.
31
10
Allons ! the inducements shall be greater.
We will sail pathless and wild seas,
We will go where winds blow, waves dash,
and the Yankee clipper speeds by under
full sail.
Allons I with power, liberty, the e^^rth, the ele-
ments,
Health, defiance, gaiety, self-esteem, curiosity;
Allons! from all formules!
From your formules, O bat-eyed and material-
istic priests.
The stale cadaver blocks up the passage— the
burial waits no longer.
Allons I yet take warning !
He travelling with me needs the best blood,
thews, endurance.
None may come to the trial till he or she
bring courage and health.
Come not here if you have already spent the
best of yourself,
Only those may come who come in sweet and
determin'd bodies,
32
No diseased person, no rum drinker or venereal
taint is permitted here.
(I and mine do not convince by argumentSi
similes, rhymes,
We convince by our presence.)
II
Listen! I will be honest with you:
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer
rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is call'd riches.
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you
earn or achieve,
You but arrive at the city to which you were
destin'd, you hardly settle yourself to
satisfaction before you are call'd by an
irresistible call to depart.
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and
mockings of those who remain behind
you,
What beckonings of love you receive you shall
only answer with passionate kisses of
parting,
You shall not allow the hold of those who
spread their reach'd hands toward yoa
33
12
AllonsI after the great Companions, and to
belong to them !
They too are on the road — ^they are the swift
and majestic men — ^they are the greatest
women,
Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas.
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a
mile of land.
Habitues of many distant countries, habitu6s
of far distant dwelling.
Trusters of men and women, observers of
cities, solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms,
shells of the shore.
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides,
tender helpers of children,, bearers of
children.
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves,
lowerers-down of coffins,
Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the
years, the curious years each emerging
from that which preceded it,
Journeyers as with companions, namely their
own diverse phases,
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealised baby-
days»
34
Joumeyers gaily with their own youth, jour-
neyers with their bearded and well-
grain'd manhood,
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, un-
surpassed, content,
Journeyers with their own sublime old age,
of manhood and womanhood.
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the
haughty breadth of the universe,
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-
by freedom of death.
13
Allons ! to that which Is endless as it was be-
ginningless,
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of
nights.
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and
the days and nights they tend to.
Again to merge them in the start of superior
journeys.
To see nothing anywhere but what you may
reach it and pass it,
To conceive no time, however distant, but
what you may reach it and pass it,
To look up or down no road but it stretches
and waits for you, however long but it
stretches and waits for you»
35
To see no being, not God's or any, but you also
go thither.
To see no possession but you may possess it,
enjoying all without labour or purchase,
abstracting the feast yet not abstracting
one particle of it.
To take the best of the farmer's farm and the
rich man's elegant villa, and the chaste
blessings of the well-married couple,
and the fruits of orchards and flowers
of gardens,
To take to your use out of the compact cities
as you pass through,
To carry buildings and streets with you after-
ward wherever you go.
To gather the minds of men out of their
brains as you encounter them, to gather
the love out of their hearts.
To take your lovers on the road with 3*ou, for
all that you leave them behind you.
To know the universe itself as a road, as many
roads, as roads for travelling souls.
All parts away for the progress of souls.
All religion, all solid things, arts, governments
— all that was or is apparent upon this
globe or any globe, falls into niches and
corners before the procession of souls
along the grand roads of the universe.
36
Of tHe progress of the souls of men and women
along the grand roads of the universe,
all other progress is the needed emblem
and sustenance.
Forever alive, forever forward.
Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad,
turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied.
Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men,
rejected by men.
They go! they go! I know that they go, but
I know not where they go.
But I know that they go toward the best^
toward something great
Whoever you are, come forth I . or man or
woman, come forth!
You must not stay sleeping and dallying there
in the house, though you built it, or
though it has been built for you.
Out of the dark confinement ! out from behind
the screen!
It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it
Behold through you as bad as the rest,
Through the laughter, dancing, dining, sup-
ping, of people,
37
Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of
those washed and trimm'd faces,
Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.
No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear
the confession.
Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking
and hiding it goes,
Formless and wordless through the streets of
the cities, polite and bland in the par-
lours.
In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the
public assembly,
Home to the houses of men and women, at
the table, in the bed-room, everywhere,
Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form
upright, death under the breast-bones,
hell under the skull-bones.
Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the
ribbons and artificial flowers.
Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a
syllable of itself.
Speaking of any thing else, but never of itself.
14
Allons! through struggles and wars!
The goal that was named cannot be counter-
manded.
38
Ha.Te the past struggles succeeded?
"What has succeeded? yourself? your nation?
Nature?
Now understand me well — it is provided in the
essence of things that from any frui-
tion of success, no matter what, shall
come forth something to make a greater
struggle necessary.
^y call is the call of battle, I nourish active
rebellion,
He going with me must go well arm'd.
He going with me goes often with spare diet,
poverty, angry enemies, desertions.
IS
Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe — I have tried it — my own feet have
tried it well — be not detained!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten,
and the book on the shelf unopen'd!
Let the tools remain in the workshop ! let the
money remain uneam'd !
Let the school stand ! mind not the cry of the
teacher !
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit ! let the
lawyer plead in the court, and the judge
expound the law.
39
Camerado, I will give you my hand !
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come
travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we
live?
Walt Whitman.
. \
\
\
40
SPRING AND THE BEAUTY
OF THE EARTH
One passage in your Letter a little displeas'd me. The
rest was nothing but kindness* which Robert's letters are
ever brimful of. You say that *' this World to you seems
drain'd of all its sweets! " At first I had hoped you
only meant to intimate the high price of Sugar 1 but I am
afraid you meant more. O, Robert, I don't know what
you call sweet. Honey and the honeycomb, roses and
violets, are yet in the earth. The sun and moon yet
reign in Heaven, and the lesser lights keep up their
pretty twinklings. Meats and drinks, sweet sights and
sweet smells, a country walk, spring and autumn, follies
and repentance, quarrels and reconcilements have all a
sweetness by turns. Good humour and good nature,
friends at home that love you, and friends abroad that
miss you— 'you possess all these things, and more in-
numerable, and these are all sweet things. You may
extract honey from ever3rthing.
Charles Lamb to Robert JJoyd.
Turn o* the Year
THIS is the time when bit by bit
The days begin to lengthen swee^
And every minute gained is joy—
And love stirs in the heart of a boy.
This is the time the sun, of late
Content to lie abed till eight,
Lifts up betimes his sleepy head—
And love stirs in the heart of a maid.
This is the time we dock the night
Of a whole hour of candlelight ;
When song of linnet and thrush is heard —
And love stirs in the heart of a bird.
This is the time when sword-blades green.
With gold and purple damascene.
Pierce the brown crocus-bed a-row —
And love stirs in a heart I know.
Katharine Tynan Hinkson.
43
March
BLOSSOM on the plum.
Wild wind and merry;
Leaves upon the cherry,
And one swallow come.
Red windy dawn, •
Swift rain and sunny;
Wild bees seeking honey.
Crocus on the lawn;
Blossom on the pltun.
Gras$ begins to grow.
Dandelions come;
Snowdrops haste to go
After last month's snow;
Rough winds beat and blow.
Blossom on the plum.
Nora Hopper.
The Spring ^^^ ^^^ '<;> <::y -^
^X T'HEN wintry weather's al a-done
^ ^ An' brooks da sparkje in the zun.
An' naisy build^n rooks da vlee
Wi' sticks toward ther elem tree,
An' we can hear birds zing, and zee
Upon the boughs the buds o' spring,
Thtn I don't^ envy any king,
A-vield Wi' health an' zunsheen.
44
Var then the cowslip's hangen flowV,
A-wetted in the zunny show'r,
Da grow wi* vilets sweet o' smell,
That maidens al da like so well ;
An' drushes' aggs, wi' sky-blue shell.
Da lie in mossy nests among
The tharns, while the da zing thei
zong
At evemen in the zunsheen.
An* God da miake His win' to blow
An' rain to val var high an' low.
An' tell His marnen zun to rise
Var al<alik'; an' g^oun' an' skies
Ha' colors var the poor man's eyes ;
An' in our trials He is near
To hear our muoan an' zee our tear.
An' turn our clouds to zunsheen
An* many times, when I da vind
Things goo awry, and vo'ke unkind;
To zee the quiet veeden herds,
An' hear the zingen o' the birds,
Da still my spurrit muore than words,
Var I da zee that 'tis our sin
Da miake oon's soul so dark 'ithin
When God wood gie us zunsheen.
William Barnes.
45
April
A PRIL, April,
'^*- Laugh thy giriish laughter;
Then, the moment after.
Weep thy giriish tears!
April, that mine ears
Like a lover greetest.
If I tell thee, sweetest.
All my hopes and fears^
April, April,
Laugh thy golden laughter.
But, the moment after.
Weep thy golden tears!
William Watson.
In Early Spring -^^ o ^«^:^ <:^
O SPRING, I know thee ! Seek for sweet
surprise
In the young children's eyes.
But I have learnt the years, and know the yet
Leaf-folded violet.
Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell
The cuckoo's fitful bell.
I wander in a grey time that encloses
June and the wild hedge-roses.
A year's procession of the flowers doth pass
My feet, along tie grass.
And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know
The notes that stir you so,
-♦6
Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear
Beginnings of the year.
In these young days you meditate your part;
I have it all by heart.
I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers
Hidden and warm with showers,
And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall
Alter his interval.
But not a flower or song I ponder is
My own, but memory's.
I shall be silent in those days desired
Before a world inspired.
dear brown birds, compose your old song-
phrases.
Earth, thy familiar daisies.
The poet mused upon the dusky height.
Between two stars towards night,
His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space.
The meaning of his face :
There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,
Hid in his grey young eyes.
My heart and all the Summer wait his choice.
And wonder for his voice.
Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire
But to divine his lyre?
Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries.
But he is lord of his.
Alice MeynelL
47
Song o '^^ -^^ -^^ '^^ K^
(From Pippa Passes)
THE year's at the spring
And day's at the mom ;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
Grod's in His heaven —
All's right with the world !
Robert Browning.
Lynton Verses -^^ '^;^ ^^^ <::>
C WEET breeze that sett'st the summer buds
^ a-swaying.
Dear lambs amid the primrose meadows
playing,
Let me not think I ^
floods upon whose brink
The merry birds are maying,
Dream, softly dream! O blessed mother,
lead me
Unsevered from thy girdle — ^lead me ! feed me I
1 have no will but thine ;
I need not but the juice
Of elemental wine —
Perish remoter use
48
Of strength reserved for conflict yet to come I
Let me be dumb,
As long as I may feel thy hand —
This, this is all — do ye not understand
How the great Mother mixes all our bloods?
O breeze ! O swaying buds !
O lambs, O primroses, O floods!
Thomas Edward Brown.
Home Thoughts from Abroad ^Qy -^^
/^H, to be in England now that April's there,
^^ And whoever wakes in England sees,
some morning unaware.
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood
sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England — now!
And after April, when May follows
And the white-throat builds, and all the
swallows !
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the
hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's
edge—
That's the wise thrush: he sings each song
twice over
49
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture 1
And, though the fields look rough with hoary
dew.
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower I
Robert Browning.
A May Burden
THROUGH meadow-ways as I did
tread.
The corn grew in great lustihead,
And heyl the beeches burgeoned.
By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay!
It is the month, the jolly month.
It is the jolly month of May.
God ripe the wines and corn, I say.
And wenches for the marriage-day,
And boys to teach love's comely play.
By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay I
It is the month, the jolly month,
It is the jolly month of May.
As I went down by lane and lea.
The daisies reddened so, pardie!
SO
" Blushets ! " I said. " I well do see.
By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay!
The thing ye think of in this month,
Heigho ! this jolly month of May."
As down I went by rye and oats.
The blossoms smelt of kisses ; throats
Of birds turned kisses into notes;
By Goddes fay, by (joddes fay!
The kiss it is a growing flower,
I trow, this jolly month of May.
God send a mouth to every kiss,
Seeing the blossom of this bliss
By gathering doth grow, certesl
By Gk)ddes fay, by Goddes fay!
Thy brow-garland pushed all aslant
Tells — ^but I tell not, wanton May!
Francis Thompson.
The Sweetness of England
(From Aurora Leigh)
A
ND when at last
Escaped, so many a green slope built on slope
Betwixt me and the enemy's house behind,
I dared to rest, or wander, in a rest
Made sweeter for the step upon the grass.
And view the ground's most gentle dimplement
SI
(As if God's finger touched but did not press
In making England) such an up and down
Of verdure, — ^nothing too much up or down,
A ripple of land; such little hills, the sky
Can stoop to tenderly and the wheatfields
climb ;
Such nooks of valleys lined with orchises,
Fed full of noises by invisible streams;
And open pastures where you scarcely tell
White daisies from white dew, — at intervals
The mythic oaks and elm-trees standing out .
Self-poised upon their prodigy of shade,—
I thought my father's land was worthy too
Of being my Shakespeare's.
• • • • •
Breaking into voluble ecstasy
I flattered all the beauteous country round,
As poets use, the skies, the clouds, the fields.
The happy violets hiding from the roads
The primroses run down to, carrying gold;
The tangled hedgerows, where the cows push
out
Impatient horns and tolerant churning mouths
'Twixt dripping ash-boughs, — ^hedgerows all
alive
With birds and gnats and large white but-
terflies
Which looked as if the May-flower had caught
Ufe
And palpitated forth upon the wind;
Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist.
Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills;
And cattle grazing in the watered vales,
And cottage-chimneys smoking from the
woods.
And cottage-gardens smelling everywhere,
Confused with smell of orchards.
Elusaheth Barrett Brozvning.
(Italy Sweet Too!
HAPPY is England ! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances
blent :
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne.
And half forget what world or worldling
meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters ;
Enough their simple loveliness for me.
Enough their whitest arms in silence
clinging:
53
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear
their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.
John Keats,)
Beauty Triumphant
(From Endymion)
A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet
breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, we are wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days.
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways
Made for our searching : yea, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the
moon.
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear
riU9
54
That for themselves a cooling covert make '
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake.
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose
blooms :
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink.
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. /
John Keats.
Nature and Humanity
(From Lines Composed near Tintern Abbey")
F,
OR nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days.
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all. — I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood.
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm.
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. — ^That time is past.
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
55
Faint I, nor mouni nor murmur ; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused.
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am
I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods.
And mountains ; and of all that we behold
From this green earth ; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create.
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense.
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
William Wordsworth,
56
)(
The Rural Pan
(From Pagan Papers')
DOTH iron road and level highway are
^-^ shunned by the rural Pan, who chooses
rather to foot it along the sheep-track on the
limitless downs or the thwart-leading footpath
through copse and spinney, not without pleas-
ant fellowship with feather and fur. Nor
does it follow from all this that the god is
unsocial. Albeit shy of the company of his
more showy brother-deities, he loveth the more
unpretentious human kind, especially them
that are adscripti glehoe, addicted to the kindly
soil and to the working thereof: perfect in no
way, only simple, cheery sinners. For he is
only half a god after all, and the red earth
in him is strong. When the pelting storm
drives the wayfarers to the sheltering inn;
among the little group on bench and settle
Pan has been known to appear at times, in
homely guise of hedger-and-ditcher or weather-
beaten shepherd from the downs. Strange lore
and quaint fancy he will then impart, in the
musical Wessex or Mercian he has learned to
speak so naturally; though it may not be till
many a mile away you begin to suspect that
you have unwittingly talked with him who
57
chased the flying Syrinx in Arcady and turned
the tide of fight at Marathon.
Kenneth Grahame,
Hymn of Pan <>y -^^ -^^
"PROM the forests and highlands
•■• We come, we come;
From the river-girt islands.
Where loud waves are dumb
Listening to my sweet pipings.
The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme.
The birds on the myrtle bushes,
The cicale above in the lime.
And the lizards below in the grass.
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was.
Listening to my sweet pipings.
Liquid Peneus was flowing,
And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day.
Speeded by my sweet pipings.
The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,
And the N3rmphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend and follow^
58
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollp,
With envy of my sweet pipings.
I sang of the dancing stars,
I sang of the daedal Earth,
And of Heaven — ^and the giant wars.
And Love, and Death, and Birth, —
And then I changed my pipings, —
Singing how down the vale of Menalus
I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed:
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!
It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed ;
All wept, as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood.
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Callicles' Song <:><:> ^^:>
(From Empedocles on Etna)
'pHROUGH the black, rushing
•*• smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame.
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed frame.
Not here, O Apollo!
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
in cliff to the sea.
59
Where the moon-silver'd inlet<?
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice !
On the sward, at the cliff-top,
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds
Soft luird by the rills,
Lie wrapt in their blankets,
Asleep on the hills.
— ^What Forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower'd broom?
What sweet-breathing Presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night's balmy prime? —
*Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine.
— ^The Leader is fairest.
But all are divine.
60
They are lost in the hollows!
They stream up ag^in!
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train? —
They bathe on this mountain^
In the spring by their road;
Then on to 01)rmpus,
Their endless abode.
— Whose praise do they mention?
Of what is it told?—
What will be for ever;
What was from of old.
First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then.
The rest of Immortals,
The action of men.
The Day in its hotness.
The strife with the palm;
The Night in its silence.
The Stars in their calm.
Matthew Arnold.
bi
Bacchus -^^ <:y -Q^ -Q^
(From Endymion)
A ND as I sat, over the light blue hills
-^^^ There came a noise of revellers : the rills
Into the wide stream came of purple hue —
'Twas Bacchus and his crew I
The earnest trumpet spake, and the silver
thrills
From kissing cymbals made a merry din —
'Twas Bacchus and his kin I
Like to a moving vintage down they came,
Crown'd with green leaves, and faces all on
flame ;
All madly dancing through the pleasant valley,
To scare thee. Melancholy!
John Keats,
62
THE LOVER SINGS
When I walk by myself alone
It doth me good my songs to render.
William IVager
Song
O MISTRESS mine, where are you
roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true Love's
coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty Sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers' meeting.
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty:
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
William Shakespeare.
Song -^^ '*;>'*;>'*;> -^^
LET my voice ring out and over the
earth.
Through all the grief and strife.
With a golden joy in a silver mirth:
Thank God for Life !
65
Let my voice swell out through the great abyss
To the azure dome above.
With a chord of faith in the harp of bliss:
Thank God for Love!
Let my voice thrill out beneath and above.
The whole world through:
O my Love and Life, O my Life and Love,
Thank God for you I
James Thomson.
Song -^ <^ '^;:>>' <^
OH, like a queen's her happy tread.
And like a queen's her golden
head!
But oh, at last, when all is said.
Her woman's heart for me I
We wandered where the river gleamed
'Neath oaks that mused and pines that
dreamed
A wild thing of the woods she seemed.
So proud, and pure, and free !
All heaven drew nigh to hear her sing.
When from her lips her soul took wing;
The oaks forgot their pondering,
The pines their reverie.
66
And oh, her happy queenly tread,
And oh, her queenly golden head !
But oh, her heart, when all is said.
Her woman's heart for me\
William Watson.
The Lady of the Lambs -Cb. -Cb.
SHE walks — the lady of my delight —
A shepherdess of sheep.
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps
them white;
She guards them from the steep.
She feeds them on the fragrant height,
And folds them in for sleep.
She roams maternal hills and bright,
Dark valleys safe and deep.
Her dreams are innocent at night ;
The chastest stars may peep.
She walks — the lady of my delight—
A shepherdess of sheep.
She holds her little thoughts in sight.
Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right ;
She has her soul to keep.
She walks— the lady of my delight —
A shepherdess of sheep.
Alice MeynelU
I
The Miller's Daughter <^ 'Cb'
T is the miller's daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear.
That I would be the jewel
That trembles in her ear:
For hid in ringlets day and night,
I'd touch her neck so warm and bright.
And I would be the girdle
About her dainty, dainty waist.
And her heart would beat against me.
In sorrow and in rest:
And I should know if it beat right,
I'd clasp it round so close and tight
And I would be the necklace.
And all day long to fall and rise
Upon her balmy bosom.
With her laughter or her sighs.
And I would lie so light, so light,
I scarce should be unclasp'd at night.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Song ^ -^:> -^:> -«;> o
O SWEET delight, O more than human
bliss.
With her to live that ever loving is !
To hear her speak whose words are so well
placed
That she by them, as they in her are graced I
68
Those looks to view that feast the viewer's eye.
How blest is he that may so live and die !
Such love as this the Golden Times did know.
When all did reap, yet none took care to sow;
Such love as this an endless summer makes.
And all distate from frail affection takes.
So loved, so blest in my beloved am I:
Which till their eyes do ache, let iron men
envy!
Thomas Campion.
I
A Match <^
F love were what the rose is.
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather.
Blown fields or flowerful closes.
Green pleasure or grey grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf.
If •! were what the words are,
And love were like the tune^
With double sound and single
Delight our lips would mingle.
With kisses glad as birds are
That get sweet rain at noon;
If I were what the words are
And love were like the tune.
69
If you were life, my darling,
And I your love were death,
We*d shine and snow together
Ere March made sweet the weather
With daffodil and starling
And hours of fruitful breath;
If you were life, my darling,
And I your love were death.
If you were thrall to sorrow.
And I were page to joy.
We'd play for lives and seasons
With loving looks and treasons
And tears of night and morrow
And laughs of maid and boy,
If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy.
If you were April's lady.
And I were lord in May,
We'd throw with leaves for hours.
And draw for days with flowers.
Till day like night were shady
.And night were bright like day;
If you were April's lady.
And I were lord in May.
If you were queen of pleasure,
And I were king of pain,
70
We'd hunt down love together.
Pluck out his flying-feather.
And teach his feet a measure.
And And his mouth a rein ;
If you were queen of pleasure.
And I were king of pain.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
She Walks in Beauty
SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less.
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent.
The smiles that win, the tints that glow.
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A b^rt whose love is innocent I
Lprd Byron.
7^
Song ^^ <^ -cy -cy
Y luve IS like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June^
My luve is like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
M
As fair thou art, my bonny lass.
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear
Till a* the seas gang dry.
Till a* the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi* the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile !
And I will come again, my luve,
The* it were ten thousand mile.
Robert Burns.
Song ^^ "Cy -Cy
SHE is not fair to outward view
As many maidens be.
Her loveliness I never knew
Until she smiled on me;
Oh ! then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light
72
But now her looks are coy and cold.
To mine they ne'er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold
The love-light in her eye:
Her very frowns are fairer far
Than smiles of other maidens are.
Hartley Coleridge.
Ballad
IT was not in the winter
Our loving lot was cast: •
It was the time of roses, —
We plucked them as we passed I
That churlish season never frowned
On early lovers yet!
Oh no — ^the world was newly crowned
With flowers, when first we met.
'Twas twilight, and I bade you go.
But still you held me fast;
It was the time of roses, —
We plucked them as we passed!
What else could peer my glowing cheek.
That tears began to stud?
And when I asked the like of Love
You snatched a damask bud,
73
And oped it to the dainty core
Still glowing to the last:
It was the time of roses, —
We plucked them as we passed!
Thomas Hood,
Song <:> -Qy >Qy <:> -*v>
/^^IVE a man a horse he can ride,
^^ Give a man a boat he can sail ;
And his rank and wealth, his strength and
health,
On sea nor shore shall fail.
Give a man a pipe he can smoke,
Give a man a book he can read;
And his home is bright with a calm delight.
Though the room be poor indeed.
Give a man a girl he can love,
As I, O my love, love thee;
And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate,
At home, on land, on sea.
James Thomson,
The Message of the March Wind ''^ -o
(Fragment)
TTj^AIR now is the springtide, now earth lies
"■- beholding
With the eyes of a lover, the face of the sun;
74
Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is en-
folding
The green-growing acres with increase
begun.
Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be
straying
'Mid the birds and the blossoms and beasts
of the field ;
Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing
On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is
healed.
From township to township, o'er down and by
tillage
Fair, far have we wandered and long was
the day;
But now Cometh eve at the end of the village.
Where over the grey wall the church riseth
grey.
There is wind in the twilight; in the white
road before us
The straw from the ox-yard is blowing
about ;
The moon's rim is rising, a star glitters o'er us.
And the vane on the spire-top is swinging
in doubt.
75
Down there dips the highway, toward the
bridge crossing over
. The brook that runs on to the Thames and
the sea.
Draw closer, my sweet, we are lover and lover;
This eve art thou given to gladness and me.
• • • • •
Come back to the inn, love, and the lights and
the fire,
And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling
of feet;
For there in a while shall be rest and desire,
And there shall the morrow's uprising be
sweet
William Morris,
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love '^
/^^OME live with me and be my Love,
^^ And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field.
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks.
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
76
There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle
A gown made of the finest wool.
Which from our pretty lambs we pull.
Fair lined slippers for the cold.
With buckles of the purest gold
A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move.
Come live with me and be my Love.
Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat.
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning :
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.
Christopher Marlowe,
Song '^i^ <^ <::> ^^^ <
THERE is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies blow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow;
77
There cherries grow that none may buy.
Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds fill'd with snow;
Yet them no peer nor prince may buy.
Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry.
Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threatening with piercing frowns to kill
All that approach with eye or hand
These sacred cherries to come nigh,
— ^Till Cherry-Ripe themselves do cry !
Anon.
Her Beauty
'll rHEN in the chronicle of wasted time
^^ I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have exprest
78
Ev'n such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all, you prefiguring;
And for they look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing 5
For we, which now behold these present
days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to
praise.
William Shakespeare.
Constancy -^^ '^i^ <::> ><;^ ^^
WERE I as base as is the lowly plain.
And you, my Love, as high as heaven
above.
Yet should the thoughts of me your humble
swain
Ascend to heaven, in honour of my Love.
Were I as high as heaven above the plain.
And you, my Love, as humble and as low
As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
Whereso'er you were, with you my love
should go.
Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies.
My love should shine on you like to the sun.
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes
Till heaven wax'd bHod, and till the world
were done.
79
Whereso'er I am, below, or else above you,
Whereso'er you are, my heart shall truly
love you.
John Sylvester.
Song ^ ^ -^ci^ ^<;^
SHE'S somewhere in the sunlight strong.
Her tears are in the falling rain.
She calls me in the wind's soft song,
And with the flowers she comes again.
Yon bird is but her messenger.
The moon is but her silver car;
Yea! sun and moon are sent by her.
And every wistful waiting star.
Richard Le Gallienne.
80
SUN AND CLOUD, AND THE
WINDY HILLS
To see the sun to bed and to arise*
Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes*
Bursting the' lazy bonds of sleep that bound him
With all hit fires and travelling glories round him.
Charles Lamb,
The Sun 's;^
(From The Rhythm of Life)
T^HE curious have an insufficient motive for
-*• going to the mountains if they do it to
see the sunrise. The sun that leaps from a
mountain peak is a sun past the dew of his
birth; he has walked some way towards the
common fires of noon. But on the flat country
the uprising is early and fresh, the arc is wide,
the career is long. The most distant clouds,
converging in the beautiful and little-studied
order of cloud perspective (for most painters
treat clouds as though they formed perpen-
dicular and not horizontal scenery), are those
that gather at the central point of sunrise.
On the plain, and there only, can the con-
struction-^but that is too vital a word; I
should rather say the organism — the unity, the
design, of a sky be understood. The light wind
that has been moving all night is seen to have
not worked at random. It has shepherded
some small flocks of cloud afield and folded
83
others. There's husbandry in Heaven. And
the order has, or seems to have, the sun for
its midst. Not a line, not a curve, but con-
fesses its membership in a design declared
from horizon to horizon.
Alice Meynell.
Hymn of Apollo -^^ '^i^ -^ci^ -^^^
THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries,
From the broad moonlight of the sky,
Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,
Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn,
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is
gone.
Then I arise, and, climbing Heaven's blue
dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves.
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;
My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the
caves
Are filled with my bright presence, and the air
Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.
The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the
day;
84
All men who do or even imagine ill
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray;
Good minds and open actions take new might.
Until diminished by the reign of Night
I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers.
With their ethereal colours; the Moon's
globe,
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers.
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe ;
Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may
shine
Are portions of one power, which is mine.
I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven;
Then with unwilling steps I wander down
Into the clouds of the Atlantic even; '
For grief that I depart they weep and frown :
What look is more delightful than the smile
With which I soothe them from the western
isle?
I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself, and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,
All prophecy, all medicine, are mine,
.All light of art or nature; — to my song
Victory and praise in their own right belong.
Percy Bysshe Shelhy.
85 .
Youth at the Summit <:^
(From Pan and the Young Shepherd)
T GOT up the mountain edge, and from the
* top saw the world stretcht out— corn-
lands and forest, the river winding among
meadow-flats, and right oflF, like a hem of the
sky, the moving sea, with snatches of foam,
and larg^ ships reaching forward, out-bound.
And then I thought no more, but my heart
leapt to meet the wind, and I ran, and I ran.
I felt my legs under me, I felt the wind buffet
me, hit me on the cheek; the sun shone, the
bees swept past me singing; and I too sang,
shouted. World, world, I am coming!
Maurice Hewlett
Morning on Etna <:y •^^ <:y -^ry
(From Empedocles on Etna)
T^HE mules, I think, will not be here this
•■• hour.
They feel the cool wet turf under their feet
By the stream-side, after the dusty lanes
In which they have toil'd all night from
Catana,
And scarcely will they budge a yard. O Pan,
How gracious is the mountain at this hour I
A thousand times have I been here alone,
86
Or with the revellers from the mountain towns.
But never on so fair a morn; — the sun
Is shining on the brilliant mountain crests,
And on the highest pines; but further down
Here in the valley is in shade; the sward
Is dark, and on the stream the mist still hangs;
One sees one's footprints crush' d in the wet
grass.
One's breath curls in the air; and on these
pines
That climb from the stream's edge, the long
grey tufts,
Which the goats love, are jewell'd thick with
dew.
Matthew Arnold.
The Horizon^ -^ "^ <^ <^
From The Spirit of Place)
*T^ O mount a hill is to lift with you some-
^ thing lighter and brighter than yourself
or than any meaner burden. You lift the
world, you raise the horizon ; you give a signal
for the distance to stand up. It is like the
scene in the Vatican when a Cardinal, with
his dramatic Italian hands, bids the kneeling
groups to arise. He does more than bid them.
He lifts them, he gathers them up, far and
near, with the upward gesture of both arms;
he takes them to their feet with the compulsion
87
of his expressive force. Or it is as when
a conductor takes his players to successive
heights of music. You summon the sea, you
bring the mountains, the distances unfold un-
looked-for wings and take an even flight. You
are but a man lifting his weight upon the up-
ward road, but as you climb the circle of the
world goes up to face you. ... It is the law
whereby the eye and the horizon answer one
another that makes the way up a hill so full of
universal movement. All the landscape is on
pilgrimage. The town gathers itself closer,
and its inner harbours literally come to light;
the headlands repeat themselves; little cups
within the treeless hills open and show their
farms. In the sea are many regions. A breeze
is at play for a mile or two, and the surface is
turned. There are roads and curves in the
blue and in the white. Not a step of your
journey up the height that has not its replies
in the steady motion of land and sea. Things
rise together like a flock of many- feathered
birds.
Alice Meynell.
88
The Hill Pantheist
(From The Story of my Heart)
MOVING up the sweet short turf, at every
step my heart seemed to obtain a wider
horizon of feeling; with every inhalation of
rich pure air, a deeper desire. The very light
of the sun was whiter and more brilliant here.
By the time I had reached the summit I had
entirely forgotten the petty circumstances and
the annoyances of existence. I felt myself,
myself. There was an intrenchment on the
summit, and going down into the fosse I
walked round it slowly to recover breath. On
the south-western side there was a spot where
the outer bank had partially slipped, leaving a
gap. There the view was over a broad plain,
beautiful with wheat, and inclosed by a perfect
amphitheatre of green hills. Through these hills
there was one narrow groove, or pass, south-
wards, where the white clouds seemed to close
in the horizon. Woods hid the scattered ham-
lets and farmhouses, so that I was quite alone.
I was utterly alone with* the sun and the
earth. Lying down on the grass, I spoke in
my soul to the earth, the sun, the air, and the
distant sea far beyond sight. I thought of the
earth's firmness — ^I felt it bear me up; through
89
the grassy couch there came an influence as
if I could feel the g^eat earth speaking to me.
I thought of the wandering air — its pureness,
which is its beauty; the air touched me and
gave me something of itself. I spoke to the
sea ; though so far, in my mind I saw it, green
at the rim of the earth and blue in deeper
ocean; I desired to have its strength, its mys-
tery and glory. Then I addressed the sun,
desiring the soul equivalent of his light and
brilliance, his endurance and unwearied race.
I turned to the blue heaven over, gazing into
its depth, inhaling its exquisite colour and
sweetness. The rich blue of the unattainable
flower of the sky drew my soul towards it,
and there it rested, for pure colour is rest of
heart. By all these I prayed; I felt an emo-
tion of the soul beyond all definition ; prayer is
a puny thing to it, and the word is a rude sig^
to the feeling, but I know no other.
By the blue heaven, by the rolling sun burst-
ing through untrodden space, a new ocean of
ether every day unveiled. By the fresh and
wandering air encompassing the world ; by the
sea sounding on the shore — the green sea
white-flecked at the margin and the deep
ocean; by the strong earth under me. Then,
returning, I prayed by the sweet thyme, whose
little flowers I touched with my hand; by the
90
slender grass; by the crumble of dry chalky
earth I took up and let fall through my fin-
gers. Touching the crumble of earth, the
blade of g^ass, the thyme flower, breathing the
earth-encircling air, thinking of the sea and
the sky, holding out my hand for the sunbeams
to touch it, prone on the sward in token of
deep reverence, thus I prayed that I might
touph to the unutterable existence infinitely
higher than deity.
Richard Jefferies.
" A Small Sweet Idyll " -s> -s> ^
(From The Princess)
/^^OME down, O maid, from yonder moun-
^^ tain height: ^
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd
sang)
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and
cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come.
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he.
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
91
Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the silver horns.
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine.
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice.
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave .
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-
smoke,
That like a broken purpose waste in air:
So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound.
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro* the lawn.
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
The South-West Wind ^s> o -o
(From The Colour of Life)
THE most certain and most conquering of
all is the south-west wind. You do not
look to the weather-vane to decide what shall
92
be the style of your greeting to his morning.
There is no arbitrary rule of courtesy between
you and him, and you need no arrow to point
to his distinctions, and to indicate to you the
right manner of treating such a visitant.
He prepares the dawn. While it is still
dark the air is warned of his presence, and be-
fore the window was opened he was already in
the room. His sun — for the sun is his — rises
in a south-west mood, with a bloom on the
blue, the grey, or the gold. When the south-
west is cold, the cold is his own cold — round,
blunt, full, and gradual in its very strength. It
is a fresh cold, that comes with an approach,
and does not challenge you in the manner of
an unauthorised stranger, but instantly gets
your leave, and even a welcome to your house
of life. He follows your breath in at your
throat, and your eyes are open to let him in,
even when he is cold. Your blood cools, but
does not hide from him.
He has a splendid way with his sky. In his
flight, which is that, not of a bird, but of a
flock of birds, he flies high and low at once:
high with his higher clouds, that keep long in
the sight of man, seeming to move slowly;
and low with the coloured clouds that breast
the hills and are near the tree-tops. These
the south-west wind tosses up from his soft
93
horizon, round and successive. They are
tinted somewhat like ripe clover-fields, or like
hay-fields just before the cutting, when all the
g^ass is in flower, and they are, oftener than
all other clouds, in shadow. These low-lying
flocks are swift and brief ; the wind casts them
before him, from the western verge to the
eastern.
Alice MeynelL
Ode to the West Wind <i. <:y -^cy
OWILD West Wind, thou breath of
Autumn's being,
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves
dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter
fleeing.
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red.
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low.
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill;
Wild Spirit which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hearl
94
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's
commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are
shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and
ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! there are
spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge.
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim
verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height.
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou
dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing
night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre.
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: Oh
hear!
Thou who didst waken from his summer
dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay.
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams.
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
95
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet the sense faints picturing them!
Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far
below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which
wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear.
And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh,
hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision, — I would ne'er have
striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed !
96
A heavy weight of hours has chained and
bowed
One too like thee — ^tameless, and swift, and
proud.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone.
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou. Spirit
fierce.
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one I
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth ;
And, by the incantation of this verse.
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ?
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Clouds -^^ <:y -Cy O <^
(From The Colour of Life}
THE cloud, moreover, controls the sun, not
merely by keeping the custody of his
rays, but by becoming the counsellor of his
temper. The cloud veils an angry sun, or,
more terribly, lets fly an angry ray, suddenly
97
bright upon tree and tower^ with iron-grey
storm for a background. Or when anger had
but threatened, the cloud reveals him, gentle
beyond hope. It makes peace, constantly, just
before sunset.
It is in the confidence of the winds, and
wears their colours. There is a heavenly
game, on south-west wind days, when the
clouds are bowled by a breeze from behind the
evening. They are round and brilliant, and
come leaping up from the horizon for hours.
This is a frolic and haphazard sky.
All unlike this is the sky that has a centre,
and stands composed about it. As the clouds
marshalled the earthly mountains, so the
clouds in turn are now ranged. The tops of
all the celestial Andes aloft are swept at once
by a single ray, warmed with a single colour.
Promontory after league-long promontory of a
stiller Mediterranean in the sky is called out of
mist and grey by the same finger. The cloud-
land is very great, but a sunbeam makes all its
nations and continents sudden with light.
Alice Meyncll.
The Cloud 'Oy 'Oy '^s> <:>
T BRING fresh showers for the thirsting
•^ flowers
From the seas and the streams;
98
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that
waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast.
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the Blast
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits.
Over earth and ocean with gentle motion
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the Genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills and the crags and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream under mountain or stream
The spirit he loves remains ;
99
8f;899
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue
smile.
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes.
And his burning plumes outspread.
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack.
When the morning star shines dead:
As on the jag of a mountain-crag
Which an earthquake rocks and swings
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And, when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea
beneath,
Its ardours of rest and of love.
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of heaven Si^ve,
With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest^
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden
Whom mortals call the Moon
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor
. By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet.
Which only the angels hear.
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin
roof,
The Stars peep behind her and peer.
100
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee
Like a swarm of golden bees, ^
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, —
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas.
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high.
Are each paved with the moon and
these.
I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl ;
The volcanoes are dim, and the Stars reel and
swim,
When the Whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape.
Over a torrent sea.
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof;
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march.
With hurricane, fire, and snow.
When the Powers of the air are chained to
my chair.
Is the million-coloured bow;
The Sphere-fire above its soft colours wove.
While the moist Earth was laughing
below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky:
lOI
I pass through the pores of the ocean and
shores ;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain, when with never a stain
The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds, and sunbeams with their con-
vex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, —
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from,
the tomb,
I arise, and unbuild it again.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The Downs -^^ '^^ <^ <^ -«;^
OBOLD majestic downs, smooth, fair and
lonely ;
still solitude, only matched in the skies ;
Perilous in steep places.
Soft in the level races.
Where sweeping in phantom silence the cloud-
land flies;
With lovely undulation of fall and rise;
Entrenched with thickets thorned.
By delicate miniature dainty flowers adorned !
1 climb your crown, and lo ! a sight surprising
Of sea in front uprising, steep and wide :
xoa
And scattered ships ascending
To heaven, lost in the blending
Of distant blues, where water and sky divide,
Urging their engines against wind and tide.
And all so small and slow
They seem to be wearily pointing the way they
would go.
The accumulated murmur of soft plashing.
Of waves on rocks dashing, and searching the
sands ;
Takes my ear, in the veering
Baffled wind, as rearing
Upright at the cliff, to the gullies and rifts he
stands ;
And his conquering surges scour out over the
lands ;
While again at the foot of the downs
He masses his strength to recover the topmost
crowns.
Robert Bridges.
V
ZO3
BIRDS, BLOSSOMS, AND
TREES
God's jocund lyttel fowles.
Old Writer,
And. 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoy the air it breathes.
William Wordsworth,
The boles were already dug, and they set to work.
Winterborne's Angers were endowed with a gentle con-
juror's touch in spreading the roots of each little tree,
resulting in a sort of caress under which the delicate
fibres all laid themselves out in their proper directions
for growth. He put most of these roots towards the
south-west; for, he said, in forty years' time, when some
great gale is blowing from that quarter, the trees will
require the strongest holdfast on that side to stand against
it and not fall.
** How they sigh directly we put *em upright, though
while they are lying down they don't sigh at all," said
Mary.
" Do they? " said Giles, " I've never noticed it"
She erected one of the young pines into its hole, and
held up her finger; the soft musical breathing instantly
set in, which was not to cease night or day till the
grown tree should be felled — probably long after the two
planters should be felled themselves.
Thomas Hardy ( " The Woodlanders ").
The Very Birds of the Air
^V T AY more, the very birds of the air, those
•*• ^ that be not hawks, are both so many
and so useful and pleasant to mankind, that I
must not let them pass without some observa-
tions. They both feed and refresh him — feed
him with their choice bodies, and refresh him
with their heavenly voices. I will not under-
take to mention the several kinds of fowl by
which this is done, and his curious palate
pleased by day, and which with their very
excrements aflford him a soft lodging at night
— ^these I will pass by; but not those little
nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth
their curious ditties, with which nature hath
furnished them to the shame of art.
As first the lark, when she means to rejoice,
to cheer herself and those that hear her; she
then quits the earth, and sings as she ascends
higher into the air, and having ended her
heavenly employment, grows then mute and
sad, to think she must descend to the dull earth,
which she would not touch, but for necessity.
107
How do the blackbird and thrassel with
their melodious voices bid welcome to the
cheerful spring, as in their fixed months
warble forth such ditties as no art or instru-
ments can reach to!
Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in
their particular seasons, as namely the leve-
rock, the titlark, the little linnet, and the honest
robin, that loves mankind both alive and dead.
But the nightingale, another of my airy crea-
tures, breathes such sweet loud music out of
her little instriunental throat, that it might
make mankind to think miracles are not ceased.
He that at midnight, when the very labourer
sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very
often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the
natural rising and falling, the doubling and re-
doubling of her voice, might well be lifted
above earth, and say, " Lord, what music hast
Thou provided for the saints in heaven, when
Thou affordest bad men such music on earth ? "
Izaak Walton.
The Blackbird -Q*. -^ -^ -^
OV al the birds upon the wing
Between the zunny show'rs o' spring,
Var al the lark, a-swingen high.
Mid zing sweet ditties to the sky,
io8
An' sparrers, clust*ren roun' the bough.
Mid chatter to the men at plough;
The blackbird, hoppen down along
The hedge, da zing the gayest zong.
'Tis sweet, wi' yerly-waken eyes
To zee the zun when vust da rise,
Ar, halen underwood an' lops
Vrom new-plesh'd hedges ar vrom copse
To snatch oon's nammet down below
A tree where primruosen da grow,
But ther's noo time the whole da long
Lik' evemen wi' the blackbird's zong.
Var when my work is al a-done
Avore the zetten o' the zun,
Then blushen Jian da wa'k along
The hedge to mit me in the drong.
An' stay till al is dim an' dark
Bezides the ashen tree's white bark.
An' al bezides the blackbird's shill
An' runnen evemen-whissle's stiU.
How in my buoyhood I did rove
Wi' pryen eyes along the drove,
Var blackbirds' nestes in the quick-
Set hedges high, an' green, an' thidc;
Ar dim' al up, wi' clingen knees,
Var crows' nestes in swayen trees
109
While frighten*d blackbirds down below
Did chatter o' ther well-know'd foe.
An* we da hear the blackbirds zing
•Ther sweetest ditties in the spring,
When nippen win's na muore da blow
Vrom narthern skies wi' sleet ar snow.
But dreve light doust along between
The'cluose leane-hedges, thick an' green;
An' zoo th' blackbird down along
The hedge da zing the gayest zong.
William Barnes.
Song
PACK, clouds, away, and welcome day.
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft, mount, larks, aloft
To give my love good-morrow !
Wings from the wind to please her mind
Notes from the lark I'll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing.
To g^ve my Love good-morrow;
To give my Love good-morrow
Notes from them both I'll borrow.
Wake from thy nest, Robin-red-breast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
no
And from each hill, let music shrill
Give my fair Love good-morrow I
Blackbird and thrush in every bush.
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow!
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves
Sing my fair Love good-morrow ;
To give my Love good-morrow
Sing, birds, in every furrow!
Thomas Heywood,
The Green Linnet <::><:> -Qy -«;
BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that
shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head.
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of Spring's unclouded weather.
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And flowers and birds once more to greets
My last year's friends together.
One have I mark'd, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:
Hail to Thee, far above the rest
In joy of voice and pinion !
Thou, Linnet; in thy green array
Presiding Spirit here to-day
Dost lead the revels of the May,
And this is thy dominion.
Ill
While birds, and butterflies, and flowery
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowen
Art sole in thy employment;
A Life, a Presence like the air.
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair.
Thyself thy own enjoyment
Amid yon tuft of hazel trees
That twinkle to the gusty breeze*
Behold him perch'd in ecstasies
Yet seeming still to hover;
There, where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.
My dazzled sight he oft deceives—
A brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes.
As if by that exulting strain
He mock'd and treated with disdain
The voiceless Form he chose to feign
While fluttering in the bushes.
WUliam Wordsworth.
112
Philomela
LI ARK! ah, the Nightingale!
^ ^ The tawny-throated !
Hark ! from that moonlit cedar what a burst I
What triumph ! hark ! — ^what pain 1
O Wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Stilly after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain
That wild, unquench'd; deep-sunken^ old-
world pain —
Say, will it never heal?
And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and nighty
And the sweet, tranquil Thames
And moonshine, and the dew.
To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no balm?
Dost thou to-night behold
Here, through the moonlight on this Eng-
lish g^ass.
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes
The too clear web, and thy dirnib Sister's
shame?
113
Dost thou once more assay
Thy flight, and feel come over thee.
Poor Fugitive, the feathery change
Once more, and once more seem to make
resound
With love and hate, triumph and agony,
Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?
Listen, Eugenia —
How thick the bursts come crowding
through the leaves!
Again — thou hearest!
Eternal Passion!
Eternal Pain !
Matthew Arnold,
Ode to a Nightingale
M
Y heart aches, and a drowsy numbness
pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had
drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe- wards had sunk:
Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, —
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of stmimer in full throated ease.
H4
O, for a draught of vintage ! that hath been
Coord a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green.
Dance, and Proven9al song, and sunburnt
mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world
unseen.
And with thee fade away into the forest
dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never
known.
The weariness, the fever, and the fret,
Here, where men sit and hear each other
groan ;
Where palsy shakes a few sad, last gray hairs.
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin,
and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes.
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-mor-
row.
Away I away ! for I will fly to thee.
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards :
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Quster'd around by all her starry Fays ;
But here there is no light.
Save what from heaven is with the breezes
blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding
mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the
boughs.
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast- fading violets covered up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child.
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine.
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer
eves.
Darkling I listen ; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Caird him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Ii6
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul
abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in
vain —
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not bom for death, immortal Bird !
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown :
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick
for home.
She stood in tears amid the alien com;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the
foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self I
Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
117
up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: — Do I wake or sleep?
John Keats.
The Daisies
/^VER the shoulders and slopes of the dune
^^ I saw the white daisies go down to the
sea,
A host in the sunshine, an army in June,
The people God sends us to set our heart free.
The bobolinks rallied them up from the dell.
The orioles whistled them out of the wood;
And all of their saying was, "Earth, it is
well ! "
And all of their dancing was, " Life, thou art
good!"
Bliss Carman.
To the Daisy
"\ 1 riTH little here to do or see
^^ Of things that in the great world be,
Sweet Daisy ! oft I talk to thee,
For thou art worthy:
ii8
Thou unassuming common-place
Of nature with that homely face.
And yet with something of a grace.
Which love makes for thee !
Oft do I sit by thee at ease,
And weave a web of similes,
Loose types of things through all degrees^
Thoughts of thy raising:
And many a fond and idle name
I give to thee, for praise or blame.
As is the humour of the game,
While I am gazing.
A nun demure, of lowly port;
Or sprightly maiden of love's court.
In thy simplicity the sport
Of all temptations;
A queen in crown of rubies dressed
A starveling in a scanty vest;
Are all, as seem to suit thee best,
Thy appellations.
A little Cyclops, with one eye
Staring to threaten and defy —
That thought comes next — ^and instantly
The freak is over.
The shape will vanish, and behold I
A silver shield with boss of gold,
That spreads itself, some fairy bold
In fight to cover.
119
I see thee glittering from afar; —
And then thou art a pretty star
Not quite so fair as many are
In heaven above thee!
Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
Self-poised in air, thou seem'st to rest;
May peace come never to his nest
Who shall reprove thee I
Sweet flower; for by that name at last.
When all my reveries are past,
I call thee, and to that cleave fast.
Sweet silent creature!
That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature !
William Wordsworth,
To Daffodils <^ <:b. <:b.
'AIR Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay.
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong.
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
120
F
We have short time to stay as yoa.
We have as short a spring.
As quick a growth to meet decay.
As you, or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain,
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
Robert Herrick.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
T WANDERED lonely as a cloud
•*• That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees.
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way.
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
121
The waves besides them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee :
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company :
I gazed — and gazed — ^but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought :
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood.
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth,
Perdita's Gifts
(From The mnter's Tale)
DERDITA. Here's flowers for you:
•^ Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun.
And with him rises weeping; these are flowers
Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given
To men of middle age : You are very welcome.
Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of
your flock.
And only live by gazing.
122
Perdita. Out, alas!
You'd be so lean, that blasts of January
Would blow you through and through. — Now
my fairest friend,
I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that
might
Become your time of day; and yours; and
yours
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing. — O Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st
fall
From Dis*s waggon! — daffodils.
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty ; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
' Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses.
That die unmarried ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips, and
The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one ; O, these I lack
To make you garlands of; and, my sweet
friend,
To strew him o'er and o'er.
Florizel, What! like a corse?
Perdita, No, like a bank, for love to lie and
play on:
Not like a corse : or if, — not to be buried,
123
But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your
flowers :
Methinks I play as I have seen them do
In Whitsun pastorals: sure, this robe of mine
Does change my disposition.
Florisel. What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak,
sweet,
I'd have you do it ever : when you sing,
I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;
Pray so ; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too : when you do dance, I wish
you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so, and own
No other function: each your doing.
So singular in each particular.
Crowns what you are doing in the present
deeds.
That all your acts are queens.
William Shakespeare,
To Primroses filled with Morning Dew
\\T H Y do ye weep, sweet babes ? can tears
^^ Speak grief in you.
Who were but born
Just as the modest morn
Teem'd her refreshing dew?
«4 y
Alas, you have not known that shower
That mars a flower.
Nor felt th' unkind
Breath of a blasting wind.
Nor are ye worn with years;
Or warp*d as we.
Who think it strange to see
Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young.
To speak by tears, before ye have a tongue.
Speak, whimp'ring yoimglings, and make
known
The reason why
Ye droop and weep ;
Is it for want of sleep,
Or childish lullaby?
Or that ye have not seen as yet
The violet?
Or brought a kiss
From that Sweet-heart, to this?
— No, no, this sorrow shown
By your tears shed.
Would have this lecture read.
That things of greatest, so of meanest worth.
Conceived with grief are, and with tears
brought forth.
Robert Herrick.
125
The Woodlands <^ <>>. -cy <::y
O SPREAD agen your leaves an* flowVs,
Luonesome woodlands! zunny wood-
lands !
Here underneath the dewy show'rs
warm-air'd spring-time, zunny woodlands.
As when, in drong ar oben groun',
Wi' happy buoyish heart I voun'
The twittVen birds a' builden roun'
Your high-bough'd hedges, zunny woodlands.
Ya gie'd me life, ya gic'd me jay,
Luonesome woodlands, zunny woodlands;
Ya gie*d me health as in my play
1 rambled droo ye, zunny woodlands.
Ya gie'd me freedom var to rove
In airy mead, ar shiady grove;
Ya gie*d me smilen Fanny's love.
The best ov al o't, zunny woodlands.
My vust shill skylark whiver'd high,
Luonesome woodlands, zunny woodlands.
To zing below your deep-blue sky
An' white spring-clouds, O zunny woodlands,
An' boughs o' trees that oonce stood here,
Wer glossy green the happy year
That gie'd me oon I lov'd so dear
An' now ha lost, O zunny woodlands.
126
let me rove agen unspied,
Luonesome woodlands, zunny woodlands.
Along your grcen-bough'd hedges' zide,
As then I rambled, zunny woodlands.
An' wher the missen trees oonce stood,
Ar tongues oonce rung among the wood,
My memory shall miake em good.
Though you've a-lost em, zunny woodlands.
William Barnes,
Tapestry Trees ^> <:>
f^^' I am the Roof-tree and the Keel :
^^ I bridge the seas for woe and weal.
Fir. High o'er the lordly oak I stand.
And drive him on from land to land.
Ash. I heft my brother's iron bane ;
I shaft the spear and build the wain.
Yew. Dark down the windy dale I grow.
The father of the fateful Bow.
Poplar. The war shaft and the milking-bowl
I make, and keep the hay-wain whole.
Olive. The King I bless; the lamps I trim;
In my warm wave do fishes swim.
Apple-tree. I bowed my head to Adam's will ;
The cups of toiling men I fill.
127
Vine. I draw the blood from out the earth;
I store the sun for winter mirth.
Orange-tree. Amidst the greenness of my
night
My odorous lamps hang round and bright
Fig-tree. I who am little among trees
In honey-making mate the bees.
Mulberry-tree. Love's lack hath dyed my
berries red:
For Love's attire my leaves are shed.
Pear-tree. High o'er the mead-flowers' hid-
den feet
I bear aloft my burden sweet
Bay. Look on my leafy boughs, the Crown
Of living song and dead renown!
William Morris.
The Poet in the Woods -*;> <^ -<:>
(From The Task)
"P V'N in the spring and pla)rtime of the year,
•■— ' That calls the unwonted villager abroad
With all her little ones, a sportive train,
To gather king-cups in the yellow mead,
And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick
A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook,
128
These shades are all my own. The tim'rous
hare.
Grown so familiar with her frequent guest,
Scarce shuns me ; and the stock-dove unalarmed
Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends
His long love-ditty for my near approach.
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm
That age or injury has hollowed deep.
Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves
He has outslept the winter, ventures forth
To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun,
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play.
He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird.
Ascends the neighboring beech; there whisks
his brush.
And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds
aloud.
With all the prettiness of feigned alarm.
And anger insignificantly fierce.
William Cowper.
On Solitude <^ <:> <:>
TTAIL, old patrician trees, so great and
-■' -*• good I
Hail, ye plebeian underwood!
Where the poetic birds rejoice.
And for their quiet nests and plenteous food,
Pay with their grateful voice.
129
Hail, the poor muse's richest manor seat!
Ye country houses and retreat,
Which all the happy gods so love,
That for you oft they quit their bright and
great
Metropolis above.
Here nature does a house for me erect,
Nature the wisest architect.
Who those fond artists does despise
That can the fair and living trees neglect.
Yet the dead timber prize.
Here let me careless and unthoughtful lying.
Hear the soft winds above me flying
With all their wanton boughs dispute.
And the more tuneful birds to both replying.
Nor be myself too mute.
A silver stream shall roll his waters near
Gilt with the sunbeams here and there.
On whose enamel'd bank Til walk,
And see how prettily they smile, and hear
How prettily they talk.
Ah wretched, and too solitary he
Who loves not his own company!
He'll feel the weight of 't many a day
Unless he call in sin or vanity
To help to bear 't away.
130
O Solitude, first state of human-kind!
Which blest remained till man did find
Even his own helper's company.
As soon as two (alas!) together join*d,
The serpent made up three.
The god himself, through countless ages thee
His sole companion chose to be,
Thee, sacred Solitude alone,
Before the branchy head of number's tree
Sprang from the trunk of one.
Thou (though men think thine an unactive
part)
Dost break and tame th* unruly heart,
Which else would know no settled pace,
Making it more well manag'd by thy art
With swiftness and with grace.
Thou the faint beams of reason's scattered
light.
Dost like a burning-glass unite.
Dost multiply the feeble heat.
And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright
And noble fires beget.
Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks, I see
The monster London laugh at me,
I should at thee too, foolish city,
131
If it were fit to laugh at misery.
But thy estate I pity.
Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so.
Even thou who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost
Abraham Cowley,
Song -Qy -Qy -^ ^^y
^Fragment)
UNDER the greenwood tree.
Who loves to lie with me.
And tune his merry throat
Unto the sweet bird's note,
Come hither, come hither, come hither I
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Who doth ambition shun.
And loves to live i* the sun.
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
William Shakespeare.
132
SUMMER SPORTS AND
PASTIMES
A BOVS PRAYER
God who created me
Nimble and ligrht of limb.
In three elements free,
To run, to ride, to swim ;
Not when the sense is dim.
But now from the heart of joy,
I would remember Him :
Take the thanks of a boy.
H, C Btecking.
The Angler's Rest
/^ORIDON. I will sing a song, if anybody
^ will sing another; else, to be plain with
you, I will sing none : I am none of those that
sing for meat, but for company : I say, " *Tis
merry in hall when men sing all."
Piscator, Fll promise you FU sing a song
that was lately made at my request by Mr.
William Basse — one that hath made the choice
songs of the "Hunter in his career," and ot
" Tom of Bedlam," and many others of note ;
and this that I will sing is in praise of angling.
Coridon. And then mine shall be the praise
of a countr3rman*s life: what will the rest
sing of?
Peter. I will promise you I will sing an-
other song in praise of angling to-morrow
night; for we will not part till then, but fish
to-morrow, and sup together, and the next day
every man leave fishing, and fall to his
business,
Venator. 'Tis a match; and I will provide
you a song or a catch against then, too, which
135
shall give some addition of mirth to the com-
pany; for we will be civil and as merry as
beggars.
Piscator. 'Tis a match, my masters: let's
e'en say grace, and turn to the fire, drink the
other cup to wet our whistles, and so sing
away all sad thoughts.
Come on, my masters, who begins? I think
it is best to draw cuts, and avoid contention.
Peter, It is a match. Look the shortest
cut falls to Coridon.
Coridon. Well, then, I will begin, for I
hate contention.
G)ridon's Song
Oh, the sweet contentment
The countryman doth find!
Heigh trolollie lollie loe,
Heigh trolollie lollie lee.
That quiet contemplation
Possesseth all my mind;
Then care away,
And wend along with me.
For Courts are full of flattery.
As hath too oft been tried;
Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc.
136
The city full of wantonness.
And both are full of pride:
Then care away, etc.
But, oh! the honest countryman
Speaks truly from his heart;
Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc.
His pride is in his tillage.
His horses and his cart;
Then care away, etc.
Our clothing is good sheep-skins,
Grey russet for our wives ;
Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc.
'Tis warmth, and not gay clothing.
That doth prolong our lives;
Then care away, etc.
The ploughman, though he labour
hard,
Yet on the holiday,
Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc.
No emperor so merrily
Doth pass his time away;
Then care away, etc.
To recompense our tillage.
The heavens afford us showers ;
Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc
137
And for our sweet refreshments
The earth affords us bowers:
Then care away, etc.
The cuckoo and the nightingale
Full merrily do sing,
Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc.
And with their pleasant roundelays
Bid welcome to the spring;
Then care away, etc.
This is not half the happiness
The countryman enjoys;
Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc
Though others think they have as
much,
Yet he that says so lies;
Then come away, turn
Countryman with me. — Jo. ChalkhilL
Piscator, Well sung, Coridon! this song
was sung with mettle, and it was choicely fitted
to the occasion; I shall love you for it as long
as I know you. I would you were a brother
of the angle: for a companion that is cheer-,
ful, and free from swearing and scurrilous J
discourse, is worth gold. I love such mirth
as does not make friends ashamed to look upon
138
one another next morning; nor men that can-
not well bear it, to repent the money they
spend when they be warmed with*drink: and
take this for a rule, you may pick out such
times and such companions, that you may
make yourselves merrier for a little than a
great deal of money ; for, " Tis the company
and not the charge that makes the feast":
and such a companion you prove, I thank you
for it.
But I will not compliment you out of the
debt that I owe you ; and therefore I will begin
my song, and wish it may be so well liked.
The Angler's Song
As inward love breeds outward talk.
The hound some praise, and some the hawk;
Some, better pleased with private sport.
Use tennis; some a mistress court:
But these delights I neither wish
Nor envy, while I freely fish.
Who hunts, doth oft in danger ride;
Who hawks, lures oft both far and wide;
Who uses games shall often prove
A loser ; but who falls in love
Is fettered in fond Cupid's snare:
My angle breeds me no such care.
139
Of recreation there is none
So free as fishing is alone;
All other pastimes do no less
Than mind and body both possess;
My hand alone my work can do
So I can fish and study too.
I care not, I, to fish in seas —
Fresh rivers best my mind do please,
Whose sweet calm course I contemplate.
And seek in life to imitate:
In civil bounds I fain would keep.
And for my past offences weep.
And when the timorous trout I wait
To take, and he devours my bait,
How poor a thing, sometimes I find.
Will captivate a greedy mind;
And when none bite, I praise the wise.
Whom vain allurements ne'er surprise.
But yet, though while I fish I fast,
I make good fortune my repast;
And thereunto my friend invite.
In whom I more than that delight;
Who is more welcome to my dish
Than to my angle was my fish.
140
As well content no prize to take,
As use of taken prize to make :
For so our Lord was pleased, when
He fishers made fishers of men.
Where (which is in no other game)
A man may fish and praise His name.
The first men that our Saviour dear
Did choose to wait upon Him here,
^ Bless*d fishers were, and fish the last
\Food was that He on earth did taste:
I therefore strive to follow those
Whom He to follow Him hath chose.
Coridon. Well sung, brother! you have
paid your debt in good coin. We anglers are
all beholden to the good man that made this
song: come, hostess, give us more ale and let's
drink to him.
Isaak Walton.
The Angler's Virtues <:^ <:^
XTOW for the inward qualities of the
^ ^ minde ; albeit some writers reduce them
to twelve heads, which indeed whosoever en-
joy eth, cannot chuse but be very compleat
in much perfection, yet I must draw them
141
into many more branches. The first, and most
especial whereof is, that a skilful angler ought
to be a general scoller, and seen in all the
Liberal Sciences, as a Grammarian to know
how either to write or discourse of his art in
true and fitting terms, either without affec-
tation or rudeness. He should have sweet-
ness of speech, to perswade and entice others
to delight in an exercise so much laudable.
He should have strength of argtmients to
defend and maintain his profession, against
envy or slander.
He should have knowledge in the Sun,
Moon, and Stars, that by their aspects he may
guesse the seasonableness or unseasonableness
of the weather, the breeding of storms, and
from what coasts the winds are ever delivered.
He should be a good knower of countries, and
well used to High-wayes, that by taking the
readiest paths to every Lake, Brook and River,
his Joumies may be more certain and less
wearisome. He should have knowledge in
proportions of all sorts, whether Circular,
Square, or Diametrical, that when he shall be
questioned of his diurnal progresses, he may
give a Geographical description of the angles
and channels of Rivers, how they fall from
their heads, and what compasses they fetch
in their several windings. He must also have
142
the perfect art of numbering, that in the
sounding of Lakes or Rivers, he may know
how many foot or inches each severally con-
' taineth; and by adding, subtracting or multi-
I plying the same, he may yield the reason of
every River's swift or slow current. He
; should not be imskilful in Musick, that when-
'soever either melancholy, heaviness of his
i thoughts, or the perturbations of his own
j fancies, stirreth up sadness in him, he may
remove the same with some godly H3rmn or
; Anthem, of which David gives him ample
examples.
' Gervase Mariham,
, The Angler's Poesy
AND I do easily believe, that peace and
patience, and a calm content, did co-
habit in the cheerful heart of Sir Henry
Wotton; because I know that when he was
beyond seventy years of age he made this
.description of a part of the present pleasure
that possessed him, as he sat quietly in a
"summer's evening, on a bank, a-fishing. It
is a description of the spring; which, because
it glided as soft and sweetly from his pen, as
that river does at this time, by which it was
. then made, I shall repeat it unto you:
^ 143
This day dame Nature seem'd in love;
The lusty sap began to move;
Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines;
And birds had drawn their valentines.
The jealous trout, that low did lie.
Rose at a well-dissembled fly;
There stood my friend, with patient skill,
Attending of his trembling quill;
Already were the eaves possessed
With the swift Pilgrim's daubed nest;
The groves already did rejoice
In Philomel's triumphing voice.
The showers were short, the weather mild.
The morning fresh, the evening smiled.
Joan takes her neat-rubbed pail, and now
She trips to milk the sand-red cow;
Where, for some sturdy foot-ball swain,
Joan strokes a syllabub or twain.
The fields and gardens were beset
With tulips, crocus, violet;
And now, though late, the modest rose
Did more than half a blush disclose.
Thus all looks gay and full of cheer.
To welcome the new-livery'd year.
These were the thoughts that then pos-
sessed the undisturbed mind of Sir Henry
Wotton. Will you hear the wish of another
angler, and the commendation of his happy
144
life, which he also sings in verse? viz., Ja
Davors, Esq.:
Let me live harmlessly; and near the brink
Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place.
Where I may see my quill or cork down sink
With eager bite of perch, or bleak, or dace ;
And on the world and my Creator think :
Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t'
embrace.
And others spend their time in base excess
Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness.
Let them that list, these pastimes still pursue,
And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill;
So I the fields and meadows green may view,
And daily by fresh rivers walk at will.
Among the daisies and the violets blue.
Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil.
Purple narcissus like the morning rays.
Pale gander-grass, and azure culverkeys.
I count it higher pleasure to behold
The stately compass of the lofty sky;
And in the midst thereof, like burning gold.
The flaming chariot of the world's great
eye;
The watery clouds that, in the air up-roU'd,
With sundry kinds of painted colours fly;
145
And fair Aurora, lifting up her head,
Still blushing, rise from old Tithonus' bed ;
The hills and mountains raisM from the
plains,
The plains extended level with the ground;
The grounds divided into sundry veins.
The veins enclos'd with rivers running
round ;
These rivers making way through nature's
chains
With headlong course into the sea profoimd;
The raging sea, beneath the valleys low.
Where lakes and rills and rivulets do flow ;
The lofty woods, the forests wide and long,
Adorn' d with leaves and branches fresh and
green,
In whose cool bowers the birds, with many a
song,
Do welcome with their choir the summers
queen ;
The meadows fair, where Flora's gifts among
Are intermix' d with verdant grass between;
The silver-scaled fish that softly swim
Within the sweet brook's crystal watery
stream.
146
All these, and many more of His creation
That made the heavens, the angler oft doth
see;
Taking therein no little delectation.
To think how strange, how wonderful they
be!
Framing thereof an inward contemplation
To set his heart from other fancies free ;
And whilst he looks on these with joyful eye,
His mind is wrapt above the starry sky.
Sir, I am glad my memory has not lost these
last verses, because they are somewhat more
pleasant and more suitable to May- day than
my harsh discourse.
Isaak Walton,
Old Match Days -^c^ '^i^^ ^^ -^>y
(From The Cricktttr's Guide}
T^HERE was high feasting held on Broad-
'*• Halfpenny during the solemnity of one
of our grand matches. Oh ! it was a heart-
stirring sight to witness the multitude forming
a complete and dense circle round that noble
green. Half the county would be present, and
all their hearts with us. — Little Hambledon,
pitted against all England, was a proud
147
thought for the Hampshire men. Defeat was
glory in such a struggle — Victory, indeed,
made us only "a little lower than angels."
How those fine brawn-faced fellows of feign-
ers would drink to our success! And then
what stuff they had to drink! — Punch! — ^not
your new Ponche d la Romaine, or Ponche d
la GroseUle, or your modern cat-lap milk
punch — ^punch bedeviled; but good, unsophis-
ticated, John Bull stuff — stark ! — that would
stand on end — ^punch that would make a cat
speak ! Sixpence a bottle ! We had not sixty
millions of interest to pay in those days. The
ale, too! — not the modern horror under the
same name, that drives as many men melan-
choly-mad as the hypocrites do; — not the
beastliness of these days, that will make a^
fellow's insides like a shaking bog, and as j
rotten; but barley-corn, such as would put the
souls of three butchers into one weaver. Ale
that would flare like turpentine — ^genuine Bon-
iface! — This immortal viand (for it was more
than liquor) was vended at twopence per pint
The immeasurable villany of our vintners
would, with their march of intellect (if ever
they could get such a brewing), drive a pint
of it out into a gallon. Then the quantity
the fellows would eat ! Two or three of them
would strike dismay into a round of beet/
148
They could no more have pecked in that style
than they could have flown, had the infernal
black stream (that type of Acheron!) which
soddens the carcass of a Londoner, been the
fertilizer of their clay. There would this com-
pany, consisting most likely of some thou-
sands, remain patiently and anxiously watching
every turn of fate in the g^me, as if the event
had been the meeting of two armies to decide
their liberty. And whenever a Hambledon
man made a good hit, worth four or five runs,
you would hear the deep mouths of the whole
multitude baying away in pure Hampshire—
"Go hard! — go hard! — Tick and turn! — tick
and turn ! " To the honour of my country-
men, let me bear testimony upon this occasion
also, as I have already done upon others.
Although their provinciality in general, and
personal partialities individually, were natur-
ally interested in behalf of the Hambledon
men, I cannot call to recollection an instance
of their wilfully stopping a ball that had been
hit out among them by one of our opponents.
Like true Englishmen, they would give an
enemy fair play. How strongly are all those
scenes, of fifty years by-gone, painted in my
memory! — and the smell of that ale comes
upon me as freshly as the new May flowers.
John Nyren,
149
The Cricket Ball Sings <>y -^^
LEATHER— the heart o' me, leather— the
rind o' me,
O but the soiil of me*s other than that!
Else, should I thrill as I do so exultingly
Climbing the air from the thick o' the bat?
Leather— the heart o' me: ay, but in verity
Kindred I claim with the sun in the sky.
Heroes, bow all to the litde red ball.
And bow to my brother ball blazing on high.
Pour on us torrents of light, good Sun,
Shine in the hearts of my cricketers,
shine;
Fill them with gladness and might, good
Sun,
Touch them with glory, O Brother of
mine.
Brother of mine.
Brother of mine!
We are the lords of them. Brother and
Mate,
I but a little ball, thou but a Great!
Give me the bowler whose fingers embrac-
ing me
Tingle and throb with the joy of the game,
150
One who can laugh at a smack to the
boundary,
Single of purpose and steady of aim.
That is the man for me: striving in sympathy.
Ours is a fellowship sure to prevail.
Willow must fall in the end to the ball —
See, like a tiger I leap for the bail.
Give me the fieldsman whose eyes never stray
from me,
Eager to clutch me, a roebuck in pace:
Perish the unalert, perish the "buttery,"
Perish the laggard I strip in the race.
Grand is the ecstasy soaring triumphantly.
Holding the gaze of the meadow is grand,
Grandest of all to the soul of the ball
Is the finishing grip of the honest brown
hand.
Give me the batsman who squanders his force
on me,
Crowding the strength of his soul in a
stroke;
Perish the muff and the little tin Shrewsbury,
Meanly contented to potter and poke.
He who would pleasure me, he must do
doughtily, —
Bruises and buffetings stir me like wine.
Giants, come all, do your worst with the bail.
Sooner or later you're mine, sirs, you're
mine.
Pour on us torrents of light, good Sun,
Shine in the hearts of my Xi^ricketers,
shine.
Fill them with gladness and might, good
Sun
Touch them with glory, O Brother of
mine.
Brother of mine.
Brother of mine!
We are the Lords of them, Brother and
Mate:
I but a little ball, thou but a Great.
E. V. Lucas.
Going Down Hill on a Bicycle
A Boy's Song
"liriTH lifted feet, hands still,
^^ I am poised, and down the hill
Dart, with heedful mind;
The air goes by in a wind.
Swifter and yet more swift,
Till the heart, with a mighty lift,
Makes the lungs laugh, the throat cry—
" O bird, see ; see, bird, I fly.
"Is this, is this your joy,
O bird, then I, though a boy.
For a golden moment share
Your feathery life in air ! "
Say, heart, is there aught like this
In a world that is full of bliss?
'Tis more than skating, bound
Steel-shod to the level ground.
Speed slackens now, I float
Awhile in my airy boat;
Till when the wheels scarce crawl,
My feet to the pedals fall.
Alas, that the longest hill
Must end in a vale; but still.
Who climbs with toil, wheresoe'er.
Shall find wings waiting there.
H. C, Beeching,
153
REFRESHMENT AND THE INN
But hark! a sound is stealing on my ear-*
A soft and silvery sound — I know it well.
Its tinkling tells me that a time is near
Precious to me — it is the Dinner Bell.
O blessed Bell! thou bringest beef and beer.
Thou bringest good things more than tongue may tell I
Seared is, of course, my heart — ^but unsubdued
Is, and shall be, my appetite for food.
C. S. CalverUy,
If I were King, my pipe should be Premier. .
fV. E. Heniiy. ^
The Respect due to Hunger
(From On Going a Journey)
T GRANT there is one subject on which it
•■• is pleasant to talk on a journey; and that
is, what one shall have for supper when we get
to our inn at night. The open air improves
this sort of conversation or friendly alterca-
tion, by setting a keener edge on appetite.
Every mile of the road heightens the flavour
of the viands we expect at the end of it. How
fine it is to enter some old town, walled and
turreted, just at the approach of nightfall,
or to come to some straggling village, with
the lights streaming through the surrounding
gloom; and then after inquiring for the best
^ entertainment that the place affords, to "take
I one's ease at one's inn ! " These eventful
moments in our lives' history are too precious,
too full of solid, heartfelt happiness to be
frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sym-
pathy. I would have them all to myself, and
drain them to the last drop: they will do to
157
talk of or to write about afterwards. What
a delicate speculation it is, after drinking
whole goblets of tea,
** The cups that cheer, but not inebriate,"
and letting the fumes ascend into the brain,
to sit considering what we shall have for sup-
per—eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered in
onions, or an excellent veal cutlet! Sancho
in such a situation once fixed upon cow-heel;
and his choice, though he could not help it,
is not to be disparaged. Then, in the inter-
vals of pictured scenery and Shandean con-
templation, to catch the preparation and the
stir in the kitchen — Procul, O procul, este
prof ant! These hours are sacred to silence
and to musing, to be treasured up in the
memory, and to feed the source of smiling
thoughts hereafter. I would not waste them
in idle talk.
William Hazhtt.
The Power of Malt -cy -^ -^
{Fragment)
WHY, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant.
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
158
Oh, many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
* For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
A. E, Housman.
In Praise of Ale ^y <N <:^
WHEN as the Chilehe Rocko blowes
And Winter tells a heavy tale .
When Pyes and Dawes and Rookes and Crows
Sit cursing of the frosts and snowes;
Then give me Ale.
Ale in a Saxon Rumken then.
Such as will make Grim Malkin prate;
Rouseth up valour in all men
Quickens the Poet's wit and pen,
Despiseth fate.
Ale that the absent battle fights,
And frames the march of Swedish drum,
Disputes the Prince's lawes and rights.
And what is past and wbaf s to come
Tells mortal wights.
159
Ale that the Plowman's heart up keeps
And equals it with Tyrants' thrones.
That wipes the eye that over weeps.
And lulls in dainty and sure sleeps
His wearied bones.
Grandchild of Ceres, Hurley's daughter,
Wine's emulous neighbour though but stale,
Innobling all the Nymphs of water
And filling each man's heart with laughter —
Ha! Ha! give me ale!
Old Song,
The Meditative Tankard -cy <^ -^^
(From Pohnius)
THE parapet balustrade round the roof of
Castle Ashby, in Northamptonshire, is
carved into the letters, " Nisi Dominus custo-
diat domum, frustra vigilat qui custodit eam."
This is not amiss to decipher as you come up
the long avenue some summer or autumn day,
and to moralise upon afterwarSs at the little
" Rose and Crown " at Yardley, if such good
i6o
Homebrewed be there as used to be before I
knew I was to die.
Edward FitzGerdld.
Two Recipes
1. The Best Marrow-Bone Pye
\ FTER you have mixt the crusts of the
-^*' best sort for pasts, and raised the coffin
in such a manner as you please; you shall first
in the bottome thereof lay a course of marrow
of beef, mixt with currants ; then upon it a lay
of the soals of artichokes, after they have
been boyled and are divided from the thistle;
then cover them with marrow, currants, and
great raisins, the stones pickt out; then lay a
course of potatoes cut in thick slices, after
they have been boiled soft, and are clean
pilled ; then cover them with marrow, currants,
great raisins, sugar, and cinnamon; then lay
a layer of candied eringo roots mixt very
thick with the slices of dates; then cover it
with marrow, currants, great raisins, sugar,
cinnamon, and dates, with a few Damask
prunes, and so bake it; and after it is bak't,
pour into it, as long as it will receive it, white
wine, rosewater, sugar, and cinnamon and
i6i
vinegar mixt together, and candy all the cover
with rosewater and sugar only, and so set it
into the oven a little, and serve it forth.
II. An Excellent Sallet
T^AKE a good quantity of blancht almonds,
-■• and with your shredding knife cut them
grossly; then take as many raisins of the sun
clean washt, and the stones pickt out, as many
figs shred like the almonds, as many capers,
twice as many olives, and as many currants
as of all the rest, clean washt, a good handfull
of the small tender leaves of red sage and
spinage; mixe all these well together with
good store of sugar, and lay them in the bot-
tome of a great dish ; then put unto them vine-
gar and oyl, and scrape more sugar over all;
then take oranges and lemmons, and paring
away the outward pills, cut them into thin
slices, then with those slices cover the sallet
all over, which done, take the fine thin leaf
of the red cole flower, and with them cover
the oranges and lemmons all over; then over
those red leaves lay another course of old
olives, and the slices of well pickled cucum-
bers, together with the very inward heart of
cabbage-lettuce cut into slices ; then adorn the
162
sides of the dish, and the top of the sallet,
with more slices of lemmons and oranges, and
so serve it up.
Gervase Markham,
The Humble Feast -c> <:> -oy
XT OW for a more humble Feast, or an ordi-
•*- ^ nary proportion which any good man
may keep in his family, for the entertainment
of his true and worthy friends, it must hold
limitation with his provision and the season
of the year ; for Summer affords what Winter
wants, and Winter is Master of that which
Summer can but with difficulty have. It is
good then for him that intends to Feast to set
down the full number of his full dishes, that
is, dishes of meat that are of substance, and
not empty, or for shew; and of these sixteen
is a good proportion for one course unto one
messe, as thus, for example: First, a shield
of Brawn with mustard, Secondly, a boyl'd
Capon, Thirdly, a boyPd piece of Beef,
Fourthly, a chine of Beef rosted. Fifthly, a
Neat's tongue rosted, Sixthly, a Pig rosted,
Seventhly, Chewets bak'd, Eighthly, a Goose
\ rosted, Ninthly, a Swan rosted, Tenthly, a
Turkey rosted, the Eleventh, a Haunch of
163
Venison rosted, the Twelfth, a Pasty of Ven-
ison, the Thirteenth, a Kid with a pudding
in the belly, the Fourteenth, an Olive-pye,
the Fifteenth, a couple of Capons, the Six-
teenth, a Custard or Dousets. Now to these
full dishes may be added Sallets, Fricases,
Quelque choses, and devised paste, as many
dishes more, which make the full service no
less than two and thirty dishes, which is as
much as can conveniently stand on one Table,
and in one mess; and after this manner you
may proportion both your second and third
Course, holding fulness in one half of the
dishes, and shew in the other, which will be
both frugall in the spender, contentment to
the guests, and much pleasure and delight to
the beholders.
Gervase Markham.
Salvation Yeo's Testimony to Tobacco o
(From Westward Hoi)
A H sir, no lie, but a blessed truth, as I can
•^*" tell, who have ere now gone in the
strength of this weed three days and nights
without eating; and therefore, sir, the Indians
always carry it with them on their war-
164
parties: and no wonder; for when all things
(were made none was made better than this;
to be a lone man's companion, a bachelor's
friend, a hungry man's food, a sad man's
cordial, a wakeful man's sleep, and a chilly
man's fire, sir ; while for stanching of wounds,
purging of rheum, and settling of the stomach,
there's no herb like unto it under the canopy
of heaven.
Charles Kingsley.
i6s
GARDEN AND ORCHARD
•THE IDLE LIFE I LEAD'*
The idle life I lead
Is like a pleasant sleep*
Wherein I rest and heed
The dreams that by me sweep.
And still of all my dreams
In turn so swiftly past.
Each in its fancy seems
A nobler than the last.
And every eve I say
Noting my step in bliss.
That I have known no day.
In all my life like this.
Robert Bridget
My Garden <:y ' -Qy -C!y <^
A GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot !
-^^ Rose plot.
Fringed pool, '
Femed grot —
The veriest school
Of peace ; and yet the fool
Contends that God is not —
Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign:
'Tis very sure God walks in mine.
Thomas Edward Brown,
A Garden Song -c!y o o
HERE, in this sequestered close
-Bloom the hyacinth and rose;
Here beside the modest stock
Flaunts the flaring hollyhock;
Here, without a pang, one sees
Ranks, conditions, and degrees.
All the seasons run their race
In this quiet resting-place;
169
Peach, and apricot, and fig
Here will ripen, and g^ow big;
Here is store and overplus, —
More had not Alcinous!
Here, in alleys cool and green.
Far ahead the thrush is seen;
Here along the southern wall
Keeps the bee his festival;
All is quiet else — ^afar
Sounds of toil and turmoil are.
Here be shadows large and long;
Here be spaces meet for song;
Grant, O garden-god, that I,
Now that none profane is nigh, —
Now that mood and moment please.
Find the fair PieridesI
Austin Dohson.
The Garden -^^ <::!► o o <
T T OW vainly men themselves amaze,
•■'-■• To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their incessant labours see
Crowned from some single herb, or tree,
Whose short and narrow-verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid.
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose!
170
Fair Quiet, have I found thee here.
And Innocence, thy sister dear?
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men.
Your sacred plants, if here bebw»
Only among the plants will g^ow;
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.
No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely g^een.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame.
Cut in these trees their mistress' name:
Little, alas! they know or heed,
How far these beauties her exceed!
Fair trees! where'er your barks I wound
No name shall but your own be found.
When we have run our passion's heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods, who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race;
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow;
And Pan did after Syrinx speed.
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.
What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
171
The luscious clusters of a vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass.
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less.
Withdraws into its happiness; —
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas.
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Here at the fountain's sliding foot.
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root.
Casting the body's vest aside.
My soul into the boughs does glide :
There, like a bird, it sits and sings.
Then whets and claps its silver wings.
And, till prepared for longer flight.
Waves in its plumes the various light.
Such was that happy garden-state.
While man there walked without a mate:
After a place so pure and sweet.
What other help could yet be meet 1
172
But 'twas beyond a mortars share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises are in one.
To live in paradise alone.
How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers, and herbs, this dial new.
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run.
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we!
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers?
Andrew Marvell,
Of Gardens ^o <>y o
(
A ND because the breath of flowers is far
-^^ sweeter in the air, where it comes and
goes, like the warbling of music, than in the
hand, therefore nothing is mor^ fit for that
delight, than to know what be the flowers and
plants that do best perfume the air. . . .
That which above all others yields the sweet-
est smell in the air, is the violet; especially
the white double violet, which comes twice a
year, about the middle of April, and about
173
Bartholomew-tide. Next to that is the musk
rose; then the strawberry leaves dying, with
a most excellent cordial smell ; then the flower
of the vines — it is a little dust, like the dust
of a bent, which g^ows upon the cluster, in
the first coming forth; then sweet-brier; then
wallflowers, which are very delightful, to be
set under a parlour, or lower chamber window;
then pinks and gilliflowers, especially the mat-
ted pink and clove gilliflower ; then the flowers
of the lime-tree; then the honey-suckles, so
they be somewhat afar off. Of bean-flowers I
speak not, because they are field-flowers; but
those which perfume the air most delightfully,
not passed by as the rest, but being trodden
upon and crushed, are three; that is, bumet,
wild thyme, and water mints. Therefore you
are to set whole alleys of them, to have the
pleastu'e when you walk or tread.
Francis Bacon.
Of an Orchard
GOOD is an Orchard, the Saint saith.
To meditate on life and death,
With a cool well, a hive of bees,
A hermit's grot bebw the trees*
174
Good is an Orchard: very good,
Though one should wear no monkish hood
Right good, when Spring awakes her flute.
And good in yellowing time of fruit
Very good in the grass to lie
And see the network 'gainst the sky,
A living lace of blue and g^een,
And boughs that let the gold between.
The bees are types of souls that dwell
With honey in a quiet cell;
The ripe fruit figures goldenly
The soul's perfection in God's eye.
Prayer and praise in a country home,
Honey and fruit: a man might come,
Fed on such meats, to walk abroad.
And in his Orchard talk with God.
Katharine Tynan Hinkson.
The Apple
(From Winter Sunshine)
THE boy is indeed the true apple-eater, and
is not to be questioned how he came by
the fruit with which his pockets are filled. It
175
belongs to him, and he may steal it if it can-
not be had in any other way. His own juicy
flesh craves the juicy flesh of the apple. Sap
draws sap. His fruit-eating has little refer-
ence to the state of his appetite. Whether
he be full of meat or empty of meat he wants
the apple just the same. Before meal or
after meal it never comes amiss. The farm-*,
boy munches apples all day long. He has
nests of them in the hay-mow, mellowing, to
which he makes frequent visits. ...
The apple is indeed the fruit of youth. As .
we grow old we crave apples less. It is an^
ominous sign. When you are ashamed to be
seen eating them on the street; when you can
carry them in your pocket and your hand not
constantly find its way to them; when your
neighbour has apples and you have none, and
you make no nocturnal visits to his orchard;
when your lunch-basket is without them and
you can pass a winter's night by the fireside
with no thought of the fruit at your elbow,
then be assured you are no longer a boy, either
in heart or years.
John Burroughs.
176
MUSIC BENEATH A BRANCH
He [the poet] doth not only show you the way, but
giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice
any man to enter into it; nay, he doth, as if your journey
should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give
you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may
long to pass farther. . . . He cometh to you with
words set in delightful proportion ... and with a
tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you; with a tale which
holdeth children from play, and old men from the
chimney*corner.
Sir PhUip Sidney.
The Scholar-Gipsy
GO, for they call you. Shepherd, from the
hill;
Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled
cotes !
No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
Nor the cropp'd grasses shoot another head.
But when the fields are still,
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
And only the white sheep are sometimes
seen
Cross and recross the strips of moon-
blanch'd green;
Come, Shepherd, and again begin the quest.
Here, where the reaper was at work of late,
In this high field's dark comer, where he
leaves
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse.
And in the sun all morning binds the
sheaves.
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores
to use;
Here will I sit and wait,
While to my ear from uplands far away
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne ;
With distant cries of reapers in the com —
All the live murmur of a summer's day.
179
Screened is this nook o'er the high, half-
reap'd field,
And here till sun-down, Shepherd ! will I be.
Through the thick corn the scarlet pop-
pies peep
And round green roots and yellowing stalks
I see;
Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep;
And air-swept lindens yield
Their scent, and rustle down their perfum'd
showers
Of bloom on the bent grass where I am
laid.
And bower me from the August sun with
shade ;
And the eye travels down to Oxford's
towers :
And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book —
Come, let me read the oft-read tale again.
The story of that Oxford scholar poor
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain.
Who, tir*d of knocking at Preferment's
door.
One summer morn forsook
His friends, and went to learn the Gipsy-
lore,
And roam'd the world with that wild
brotherhood,
i8o
And came, as most men deem'd, to little
good.
But came to Oxford and his friends no more.
But once, years after, in the country lanes.
Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew,
Met him, and of his way of life enquired;
Whereat he answer'd, that the Gypsy crew.
His mates, had arts to rule as they de-
sired
The workings of men's brains;
And they can bind them to what thoughts
they will:
" And I," he said, " the secret of their art,
When fully learn'd, will to the world im-
part ;
But it needs happy moments for this skill."
This said, he left them, and returned no more.
But rumours hung about the country-side.
That the lost Scholar long was seen to
stray.
Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-
tied.
In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey.
The same the Gipsies wore.
Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in
spring ;
i8i
At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire
moors,
On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-
frock'd boors
Had found him seated at their entering,
hut, mid their drink and clatter, he would fly:
And I myself seem half to know thy looks.
And put the shepherds. Wanderer ! on thy
trace ;
And boys who in lone wheat fields scare the
rooks
I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place ;
Or in my boat I lie
Moor*d to the cool bank in the summer heats.
Mid wide grass meadows which the sun-
shine fills.
And watch the warm, green-muffled Cum-
ner hills.
And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy re-
treats.
For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground !
Thee, at the ferry, Oxford riders blithe.
Returning home on summer-nights, have
met
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-
hithe.
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers
wet,
182
As the slow punt swings round;
And leaning backwards in a pensive dream,
And fostering in thy lap a heap of
flowers
Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wood-
land bowers,
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit
stream.
And then they land, and thou art seen no more.
Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come
To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,
Oft through the darkening fields have seen
thee roam.
Or cross a stile into the public way.
Oft thou hast given them store
Of flowers — ^the frail-leaf d, white anemone —
Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of
summer eves —
And purple orchises with spotted leaves —
But none hath words she can report of thee.
And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's
here
In June, and many a scythe in sunshine
flames.
Men who through those wide fields of
breezy grass
Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the
glittering Thames,
183
To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass.
Have often pass'd thee near
Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown;
Mark'd thine outlandish garb, thy figure
spare,
Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted
air;
But, when they came from bathing, thou
wert gone!
At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills.
Where at her open door the housewife dams.
Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a
gate
To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.
Children, who early range these slopes
and late
For cresses from the rills.
Have known thee watching, all an April
day,
The springing pastures and the feeding
kine;
And marked thee, when the stars come out
and shine.
Through the long dewy grass move slow
away.
In Autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood —
Where most the Gipsies by the turf-edg^d
way
184
Pitch their smok'd tents, and every bush
you see
With scarlet patches tagg'd and shreds of
grey, »
Above the forest-ground call'd Thessaly —
The blackbird, picking food.
Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all ;
So often has he known thee past him
stray,
Rapt, twirling in thy hand a withered
spray.
And waiting for the spark from Heaven to
fall.
And once, in winter, on the causeway chill
Where home through flooded fields foot-
travellers go.
Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden
bridge.
Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the
snow.
Thy face towards Hinksey and its wintry
ridge ?
And thou hast climb*d the hill.
And gained the white brow of the Cumner
range ;
Turn'd once to watch, while thick the
snow-flakes fall,
185
The line of festal light in Qirist-Church
hall—
Then sought thy straw in some sequestered »
.grange. ^
But what — I dream I Two hundred years are
flown
Since first thy story ran through Oxford
halls,
And the grave Glanvil did the tale in-
scribe
That thou wert wander'd from the studious
walls
To learn strange arts, and join a Gypsy-
tribe ;
And thou from earth art gone
Long since, and in some quiet churchyard
laid —
Some country-nook, where o'er thy un-
known grave
Tall grasses and white flowering nettles
wave,
Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade.
— No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours !
For what wears out the life of mortal men ?
'Tis that from change to change their
being rolls;
i86
r'is that repeated shocks, again, again.
Exhaust the energy of strongest souls
And numb the elastic powers.
Till having us*d our nerves with bliss and
teen.
And tir'd upon a thousand schemes our
wit,
To the just-pausing Genius we remit
Our worn-out life, and are — what we have
been.
Thou hast not liv'd, why should'st thou perish,
so?
Thou hadst one aim, one business, one de-
sire;
Else wert thou long since numbered
with the dead !
Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy
fire!
The generations of thy peers are fled,
And we ourselves shall go;
But thou possessest an immortal lot.
And we imagine thee exempt from age
And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page.
Because thou hadst — what we, alas! have
not.
For early didst thou leave the world, with
powers
Fresh, undiverted to the world without,
187
Firm to their mark, not spent on other
things ;
Free from the sick fatigue, the languid
doubt,
Which much to have tried, in much been
baffled, brings.
O Life unlike to ours !
Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,
Of whom each strives, nor knows for
what he strives.
And each half lives a hundred different
lives ;
Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in
hope.
Thou waitest for the spark from heaven ! and
we
Light half-believers of our casual creeds.
Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd.
Whose insight never has borne fruit in
deeds.
Whose vague resolves never have been
fulfilled ;
For whom each vear we see
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments
new;
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose to-morrow the ground won to- 1
day —
Ah ! do not we, Wanderer ! await it too?
I88
Yes, we await it, but it still delays,
And then we suffer! and amongst us One,
Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly
[His seat upon the intellectual throne;
And all his store of sad experience he
Lays bare of wretched days;
Tells us his misery's birth and growth and
signs.
And how the dying spark of hope was fed,
And how the breast was sooth'd, and how
the head.
And all his hourly varied anodynes.
This for our wisest: and we others pine.
And wish the long unhappy dream would
end.
And waive all claim to bliss, and try to
bear
With close-lipp'd Patience for our only
friend,
Sad Patience, too near neighbour to
Despair —
But none has hope like thine!
Thou through the fields and through the
woods dost stray.
Roaming the country-side, a truant boy,
Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,
And every doubt long blown by time away.
189
O born 'in days when wits were fresh and
clear.
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;
Before this strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims.
Its head o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was
rife —
Fly hence, our contact fear!
Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering
wood!
Averse, as Dido did with gesture stem
From her false friend's approach in Hades
turn.
Wave us away, and keep thy solitude !
Still nursing the unconquerable hope.
Still clutching the inviolable shade,
With a free, onward impulse brushing
through.
By night, the silver'd branches of the
glade-
Far on the forest skirts, where none pur-
sue.
On some mild pastoral slope
Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales
Freshen thy flowers as in former years
With dew, or listen with enchanted ears.
From the dark dingles, to the nightingales !
190
But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!
For strong the infection of our mental strife.
Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils
for rest;
And we should win thee from thy own fair
life.
Like us distracted, and like us unblest
Soon, soon thy cheer would die.
Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy
powers.
And thy clear aims be cross and shifting
made ; ^
And then thy glad perennial youth would
fade,
Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.
Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and
smiles !
—As some grave Tyrian trader from the
sea.
Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily.
The fringes of a southward-facing brow
Among the Aegean isles;
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come.
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian
wine,
191
Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steep'd
in brine;
And knew the intruders on his ancient
home.
The young light-hearted Masters of the
waves —
And snatched his rudder, and shook out
more sail;
And day and night held on indignantly
0*er the blue Midland waters with the gale.
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,
To where the Atlantic raves
Outside the Western Straits; and unbent
sails
There, where down cloudy cliffs, through
sheets of foam,
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come ;
And on the beach undid his corded bales.
Matthew Arnold,
L'Allegro -«s>y <>>, <>>, <:>^
TJ ENCE, loathed Melancholy,
-*--■■ Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight
born
In Stygian cave forlorn,
'MoQgst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and
sights unholy!
192
Find out some uncouth cell
Where brooding Darkness spreads his
jealous wings
And the night raven sings;
There, under ebon shades and low-
browed rocks
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth
With two sister Graces more.
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether (as some sager sing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring.
Zephyr, with Aurora playing
As he met her once a-Maying,
There, on beds of violets blue
And fresh-blown roses washed in dew.
Filled her with thee, a daughter fair.
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,
Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
193
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as you go
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew.
To live with her, and live with thee.
In unreproved pleasures free: —
To hear the lark begin his flight.
And, singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies.
Till the dappled dawn doth rise ;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow.
And at my window bid good-morrow.
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine.
Or the twisted eglantine,
While the cock, with lively din.
Scatters the rear of darkness thin.
And to the stack, or the barn-door.
Stoutly struts his dames before;
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering mom,
From the side of some hoar hill.
Through the high wood echoing shrill;
Sometime walking, not unseen.
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green.
Right against the eastern ^ate
Where the great sun begins his state
194
Robed in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight,
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land.
And the milkmaid singeth blithe.
And the mower whets his scythe.
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Straight mine eye hath caught new
pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures:
Russet lawns, and fallows gray.
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied.
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees.
Where, perhaps, some beauty lies.
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks.
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met.
Are at their savoury dinner set
Of herbs, and other country messes.
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.
And then in haste her bower she leaves.
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
195
Or, if the earlier season lead.
To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometfrnes, with secure delight.
The upland hamlets will invite.
When the merry bells ring round.
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid
Dancing in the checkered shade,
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holyday.
Till the livelong daylight fail:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale.
With stories told of many a feat:
How fairy Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinched, and pulled, she said;
And he, by friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set.
When, in one night, ere glimpse of mom,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the com
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full, out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,
196
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold.
In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold.
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear
In saflFron robe, with taper clear.
And pomp, and feast, and revelry.
With mask and antique pageantry;
I Such sights as youthful poets dream
' On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
> Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
; Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce
in notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out.
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
That Orpheus' self may heave his head.
From golden slumber on a bed
197
Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.
These delights if thou canst give.
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
John Milton,
Song
RARELY, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight !
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
Tis since thou art fled away.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoflF at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not
As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief
198
Reproach thee, that thou art not near.
And reproach thou wilt not hear.
Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure :
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of Delight !
The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night,
Auttmin evening, and- the mom
When the golden mists are born.
I love snow, and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;
I love waves, and winds, and storms—
Everything almost
Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.
I love tranquil solitude.
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good;
Between thee and me
What difference? But thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.
199
I love Love — though he has wings.
And like light can flee;
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee —
Thou art love and life ! Oh, come,
Make once more my heart thy home!
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
In the Highlands <>y -«s>y -^y ^Qy
IN the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy
faces.
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses
Her more lovely music
Broods and dies.
O to mount again where erst I haunted ;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
And the low green meadows
Bright with sward;
And when even dies, the million-tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted,
Lo, the valley hollow
Lamp-bestarred !
200
O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render
Through the trance of silence
Quiet breath;
Lo ! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and
passes ;
Only winds and rivers.
Life and Death.
Robert Louis Stevensotu
The Solitary Reaper <:><:> o
«
BEHOLD her, single in the field.
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen ! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound*
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
(More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from a Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
201
Will no one tell me what she sings ?^
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay
Familiar matter of to-day? '
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain.
That has been, and may be again?
Whatever the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work.
And o'er the sickle bending; —
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill.
The music in my heart I bore.
Long after it was heard no more.
William Wordsworth.
Ruth -^ -^ <:^' o <>
O HE stood breast high among the com,
^ Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her cheek an autumn flush.
Deeply ripened; — such a blush
In the midst of brown was bom.
Like red poppies grown with com*
202
Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell.
But long lashes veiled a light.
That had else been all too bright
And her hat, with shady brim,
( Made her tressy forehead dim;
Thus she stood amid the stooks.
Praising God with sweetest looks:
Sure, I said, Heav'n did not mean.
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean;
Lay thy sheaf adown and come.
Share my harvest and my home.
Thomas Hood.
Cadmus and Harmonia
(From Empedocles on Etna)
T^AR, far, from here,
■*• The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay
Among the green Illyrian hills; and there
The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,
And by the sea, and in the brakes.
The g^ass is cool, the sea-side air
Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers
More virginal and sweet than ours.
203
And there, they say, two bright and aged
Snakes,
Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia,
Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore,
In breathless quiet, after all their ills.
Nor do they see their country, nor the place
Where the Sphinx lived among the frown-
ing hills,
Nor the unhappy palace of their race.
Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more.
There those two live, far in the Illyrian
brakes.
They had stay'd long enough to see.
In Thebes, the billow of calamity
Over their own dear children roll'd.
Curse upon curse, pang upon pang,
For years, they sitting helpless in their home;
A grey old man and woman, yet of old
The gods had to their marriage come.
And at the banquet all the Muses sang.
Therefore they did not end their days
In sight of blood; but were rapt, far away.
To where the west wind plays.
And murmurs of the Adriatic come
To those untrodden mountain-lawns; and
there
204 p
Placed safely in changed forms, the Pair
Wholly forget their first sad life, and home.
And all that Theban woe, and stray
For ever, through the glens, placid and dumb.
Matthew Arnold, '
Ode on a Grecian Urn <:> <:> o
T^ HOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
-*• Thou foster-child of silence and slow
time.
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme :
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy
shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both.
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maiden^
loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggles to es-
cape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild
ecstasy ?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play
on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone :
205
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not
leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal — ^yet, do not
grieve ;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy
bliss.
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu
And, happy melodist, unwearied
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd.
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above.
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and
cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching
tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies.
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
206
What little town by river or sea shore.
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious mom?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of
thought
As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral 1
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou
say'st,
" Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — ^that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to
know.
John Keats.
The Lotus-Eaters
n /^OURAGE ! " he said, and pointed toward
^ the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward
soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land
207
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon.
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did
seem.
A land of streams! some, like a downward
smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro* wavering lights and shadows
broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land; far oflf, three mountain-
tops.
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush'd : and, dew'd with showery
drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven
copse.
The charmed sunset lingered low adown
In the red West : thro* mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with p^lm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
208
A land where all things always seem'd the
same!
And round about the keel with faces pale.
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame.
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotus-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem.
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they
gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them.
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake.
His voice was thin, as voices from the g^ave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake.
And music in his ears his beating heart did
make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand.
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar.
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no
more " ;
And all at once they sang, " Our island home
is far beyond the wave; we will no longer
roam."
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
209
The Forsaken Merman
/'^OME, dear children, let us away;
^^-^ Down and away below.
Now my brothers call from the bay ;
Now the great winds shorewards blow;
Now the salt tides seawards flow;
Now the wild white horses play.
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!
Call her once before you go.
Call once yet.
In a voice that she will know:
" Margaret ; Margaret ! '*
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear:
Children's voices, wild with pain.
Surely she will, come again.
Call her once, and come away.
This way, this way.
" Mother dear, we cannot stay."
The wild white horses foam and fret
Margaret ! Margaret !
Come, dear children, come away down.
Call no more.
One last look at the white-walled town.
And the little grey church on the windy shore.
2IO
Then come down.
She will not come though you call all day.
Come away, come away.
Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay.
Through the surf and through the
swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam;
Where the salt weed sways in the stream;
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine.
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by.
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me.
On a red gold throne in the heart of
the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
211
She combed its bright hair, and she tended it
well,
When down swung the sound of the far-off
bell.
She sighed, she looked up through the clear
g^een sea.
She said: " I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the .shore to-day.
Twill be Easter-time in the world — ^ah me !
And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with
thee."
I said : " Go up, dear heart, through the
waves ;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind
sea-caves ! "
She smiled, she went up through the
surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, were we long alone?
"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
Long prayers," I said, " in the world they say.
Come," I said, and we rose through the surf
in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy' down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-
walled town.
Through the narrow paved streets, where all
was still.
To the little grey church on the windy hilL
212
From the church came a murmur of folk at
their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climbed on the graves, on the stones, worn
with rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small
leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar ; we saw her clear :
" Margaret, hist ! come quick, we are
here!
Dear heart," I said, " we are long alone.
The sea grows stormy, the little ones
moan."
But, ah, she gave me never a look.
For her eyes were sealed to the holy book.
" Loud prays the priest ; shut stands
the door."
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!
Down, down, down.
Down to the depths of the sea.
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: " O joy, O joy.
For the humming street, and the child with its
toy.
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well.
213
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessed light of the sun ! "
And so she sings her fill^
Singing most joyfully,
Till the shuttle drops from her hand.
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand;
And over the sand at the sea ;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear
From a sorrow-clouded eye.
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mer-
maiden
And the gleam of her golden hair.
Come away, away, children.
Come, children, come down.
The hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling.
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
214
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
Singing: "Here came a nsortal.
But faithless was she.
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea.-'
But children, at midnight.
When soft the winds blow.
When clear falls the moonlight;
When spring-tides are low:
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starred with broom;
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanched sands a gloom:
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie;
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills.
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side —
And then come back down,
Singing : " There dwells a loved one.
But cruel is she.
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea."
Matthew Arnold.
215
Kubla Khan >cy -^^ <^ <>>.
T N Xanadu did Kubla Khan
•^ A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of. fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous
rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing
tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But 0! that deep romantic chasm which
slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e*er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil
seething,
As if this Earth in fast thick pants were
breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
216
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid.
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there.
And all should cry. Beware \ Beware !
217
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice.
And close your eyes with holy dread.
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Lycidas -^^ <>>.<>>. -^^
VT'ET once more, O ye laurels, and once
^ more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come, to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime.
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer :
Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew.
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Begin, then, sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth
spring ;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string;
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse:
218
So may some gentle muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And, as he passes, turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For we w^ere nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn.
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn.
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of
night.
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
Toward heaven's descent had sloped his west-
ering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered to the oaten flute;
Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven
heel
From the glad sound would not be absent
long:
And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.
But, oh ! the heavy change, now thou art
gone,
Kow thou art gone and never must. return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert
caves.
With wild thyme and the gadding vine over-
grown,
219
And all their echoes, mourn: •
The willows, and the hazel copses green.
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose.
Or taint- worm to the weanling herds that
graze,
Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe
wear
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.
Where were ye. Nymphs, when the remorse-
less deep
Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard
stream :
Ah me! I fondly dream,
Had ye been there: for what could that have
done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus
bore
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son
Whom universal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
220
Alas ! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade.
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
j Were it not better done, as others use,
' To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
t Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair ?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth
raise
(That last infirmity of noble minds)
To scorn delights and live laborious days:
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life. " But not the
praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling
ears ;
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.
Nor in the glistening foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all- judging Jove:
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven except thy
meed." —
O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured
flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with ypcal
reeds,
221
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the herald of the sea
That came in Neptune's plea;
He asked the waves, and asked the febn
winds,
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle
swain ?
And questioned every gust, of rugged winds,
That blows from off each beaked promontory:
They knew not of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer brings.
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed,
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark.
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses
dark.
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
• Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing
slow.
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge
Inwrought with figures dim and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with
woe.
"Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest
pledge ! "—
Last came, and last did go.
The pilot of the Galilean lake.
- Vo massy keys he bore, of metals twain,
The golden opes, the iron shuts amain,
It shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake ;
'How well could I have spared for thee,
young swain,
inow of such as, for their bellies* sake,
Jreep, and intrude, and climb into the fold !
3f other care they little reckoning make
-Than how to scramble at the shearers* feast
And shove away the worthy bidden guest ;
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know
how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the
least
That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs !
What recks it them ? What need they ? They
are sped.
And, when they list, their lean and flashy
songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched
straw :
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they
draw.
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw,
Daily devours apace, and nothing said:
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no
more." —
223
Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian
Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing
brooks.
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely
looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes
That on the g^een turf suck the honeyed
showers.
And purple all the ground. with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The while pink, and the pansy freaked with
jet,
The glowing violet, \
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine.
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed.
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears.
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so, to interpose a little ease.
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise :
Ah me! whilst thee the shores and sounding
seas
224
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled,
Whether beyond the stormy .Hebrides,
Where thou, perhaps under the whelming tide,
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold:
Look homeward, angel, now, and melt with
ruth;
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no
more
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead.
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and, with new spangled
ore,
^ Flames in the forehead of the morning sky :
So Lycidas simk low, but mounted high.
Through the dear might of Him that walked
the waves.
Where, other groves and other streams along.
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves.
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love,
There entertain him all the saints above,
In solemn troops and sweet societies
225
That sing, and, singing, in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks
and rills.
While the still mom went out with sandals
gray;
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay :
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay:
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.
John Milton.
Ode on Intimations of Immortality from
Recollections of Early Childhood <^
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
'T^HERE was a time when meadow, grove,
4" and stream,
The earth, and every common sight.
To me did seem
226
X
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dreanu
It is not now as it hath been of yore; —
Turn wheresoever I may,
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see
no more.
II
The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose ;
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go.
That there hath passed away a glory from the
earth.
Ill
Now, while the Birds thus sing a joyous song.
And while the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief.
And I again am strong.
The Cataracts blow their trumpets from the
steep :
227
At
W
Tl
A-
V
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains
throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of
sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and Sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday; —
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou
happy Shepherd-boy!
IV
Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal.
The fulness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning
This sweet May morning,
And the Children are culling
On every side.
In a thousand valleys far and wide.
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines
warm,
228
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm : —
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear !
— But there's a Tree, of many, one,
A single Field which I have looked upon.
Both of them speak of something that is gone :
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh fronri afar:
Not in entire forge tfulness.
And not in utter nakedness.
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy !
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the East
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
229
At length the Man perceives it die away.
And fade into the light of common day.
VI
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And even with something of a Mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim.
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known.
And that imperial palace whence he came.
VII
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years* darling of a pigmy size !
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his Mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his Father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart.
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral ;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
230
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his "humorous
stage "
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.
VIII
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul's immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind.
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep^
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, —
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a master o*er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou pro-
voke
231
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly
freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
IX
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live.
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth
breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest.
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his
breast : —
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
232
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to
make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake.
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence, in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be.
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.
Can in a moment travel thither
And see the children sport upon the shore.
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor*s sound!
We in thought will join your throng
Ye that pipe and ye that play.
Ye that through your hearts to-day
233
Feel the gladness of the May !
What though the radiance which was once so
bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight.
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the
flower ;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
XI
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and
Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves !
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks, which down their channels
fret.
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they:
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;
234
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are
won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, its fears.
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
William Wordsworth,
V
«35
THE SEA AND THE RIVER
I will go bftck to the great sweet mother.
Mother and lover of men, the sea.
I will go down to her, I and none other,
Qose with her, kiss her and mix her with me;
Oing to her, strive with her, hold her fast;
O fair white mother, in days long past
Bom without sister, bom without brother.
Set free my soul as thy soul is free.
Algernon Charles Swinburne,
As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.
Matthew Arnold.
O to sail in a ship.
To leave this steady unendurable land.
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the side-
walks and the houses.
To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering
a ship.
To sail and sail and sail I
IVatt Whitman.
Salt and Sunny Days
(From To Cicely N. Marston)
OH, silent glory of the summer day!
How, then, we watched with glad and
indolent eyes
The white-sailed ships dream on their shining
way,
Till, fading, they were mingled with the
skies.
Have we not watched her, too, on nights that
steep
The soul in peace of moonlight, softly move
As a most passionate maiden, who in sleep
Laughs low, and tosses in a dream of love?
And when the heat broke up, and in its place,
Came the strong, shouting days and nights,
that run.
All white with stars, across the labouring
ways
Of billows warm with storm, instead of sun,
239
In gray and desolate twilights, when no feet
Save ours might dare the shore, did we not
come
Through winds that all in vain against us beat
Until we had the warm sweet-smelling foam
Full in our faces, and the frantic wind
Shrieked round us, and our cheeks grew
numb, then warm.
Until we felt our souls, no more confined,
Mix with the waves, and strain against the
storm ?
Oh! the immense, illimitable delight
It is, to stand by some tempestuous bay.
What time the great sea waxes warm and
white
And beats and blinds the following wind
with spray!
Philip Bourke Marston,
The Sea Gypsy ^r^^ <>y ^r^^
AM fevered with the sunset,
I am fretful with the bay,
For the wander-thirst is on me
And my soul is in Cathay.
I
There's a schooner in the offing.
With her topsails shot with fire.
And my heart has gone aboard her
For the Islands of Desire.
240
I must forth again to-morrow!
With the sunset I must be
Hull down on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the Sea.
Richard Hovey.
Sailor's Song
" I"0 sea, to sea! The calm is o'er;
-*' The wanton water leaps in sport.
And rattles down the pebbly shore ;
The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort.
And unseen mermaids' pearly song
Comes bubbling up, the weeds among.
Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar:
To sea, to sea ! the calm is o*er.
To sea, to sea! our wide-winged bark
Shall billowy cleave its sunny way.
And with its shadow, fleet and dark.
Break the caved Tritons* azure day,
Like mighty eagle soaring light
O'er antelopes on Alpine height.
The anchor heaves, the ship swings free.
The sails swell full. To sea, to sea !
Thomas Lovell Beddoes*
241
The Wander-Lovers o <:>
DOWN the world with Marna!
That's the life for me !
Wandering with the wandering wind^
V^agabond and unconfined!
Roving with the roving rain
Its unboundaried domain !
Kith and kin of wander-kind
Children of the sea!
Petrels of the sea-drift!
Swallows of the lea!
Arabs of the whole wide girth
Of the wind-encircled earth !
In all climes we pitch our tents.
Cronies of the elements
With the secret Idrds of birth
Intimate and free.
All the seaboard knows us
From Fundy to the Keys ;
Every bend and every creek
Of abundant Chesapeake;
Ardise hills and Newport coves
And the far-off orange groves
Where Floridian oceans break.
Tropic tiger seas.
242
Down the world with Marna,
Tarrying there and here!
Just as much at home in Spain
As in Tangier or Touraine !
Shakespeare's Avon knows us well,
And the crags of Neuf chattel ;
And the ancient Nile is fain
Of our coming near.
Down the world with Marna,
Daughter of the air!
Marna of the subtle grace,
And the vision in her face !
Moving in the measup^s trod
By the angels before God!
With her sky-blue eyes amaze
And her sea-blue hair!
Marna with the trees' life
In her veins a-stir !
Marna of the aspen heart
Where the sudden quivers start!
Quick-responsive, subtle, wild!
Artless as an artless child,
Spite of all her reach of art!
Oh, to roam with her!
Marna with the wind's will.
Daughter of the sea !
Marna of the quick disdain,
Starting at the dream of stain!
243
At a smile with love aglow,
At a frown a statued woe.
Standing pinnacled in pain
Till a kiss sets free!
Down the world with Marna,
Daughter of the fire!
Mama of the deathless hope
Still alert to win new scope
Where the wings of life may spread
For a flight unhazarded!
Dreamy of the speech to cope
With the heart's desire.
Marna of the far quest
After the divine!
Striving ever for some goal
Past the blunder-god's control!
Dreaming of potential years
When no day shall dawn in fears !
That's the Mama of my soul,
Wander-bride of mine!
Richard Hovey.
The River and the Sea o <^ '^
(From Wm o' the MUl)
/^NE evening he asked the miller where the
^^ river went. •
"It goes down the valley," answered he,
and turns a power of mills — six score mills,
244
«
they say, from here to Unterdeck — and it none
the wearier after all. And then it goes out
into the lowlands, and waters the great corn
country, and runs through a sight of fine cities
(so they say) where kings live all alone in
great palaces, with a sentry walking up and
down before the doof". And it goes under
bridges with stone men upon them, looking
down and smiling so curious at the water, and
living folks leaning their elbows on the wall
and looking over too. And then it goes on
and on, and down through marshes and sands,
until at last it falls into the sea, where the
ships are that bring parrots and tobacco from
the Indies. Ay, it has a long trot before it
as it goes singing over our weir, bless its
heart ! "
"And what is the sea?" asked Will.
" The sea ! " cried the miller. " Lord help
vus all, it is the greatest thing God made!
That is where all the water in the world runs
down into a great salt lake. There it lies, as
flat as my hand and as innocent-like as a child ;
but they do say when the wind blows it gets
up into water-mountains bigger than any of
ours, and swallows down great ships bigger
than our mill, and makes such a roaring that
you can hear it miles away upon the land.
There are great fish in it five times bigger
245
than a bull, and one old serpent as long as
our river and as old as all the world, with
whiskers like a man, and a crown of silver
on her head."
R. L. Stevenson,
The Brook -c^ <:^ <:^ ^"O
T COME from haunts of coot and hem,
^ I make a sudden sally.
And sparkle out among the fern.
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down.
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river.
For men may come and men may go.
But I go on for ever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
246
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
^ For men may come and men may go.
But I go on for ever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout.
And here and there a grayling.
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel.
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river.
For men may come and men may go.
But I go on for ever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
247
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go, ^
But I go on for ever.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
At Sea <>y <b^ -Qy -Qy '^:>
"DUT the mere fact of its being a tramp ship
-^ gave us many comforts; we could cut
about with the men and officers, stay in the
wheel-house, discuss all manner of things, and
really be a little at sea. And truly there is
nothing else. I had literally forgotten what
happiness was, and the full mind — full of
external and physical things, not full of cares
and labours and rot about a fellow's behav-
iour. My heart literally sang: I truly care
for nothing so much as that.
From one of R. L. Stevenson's Letters.
248
THE REDDENING LEAF
Laden deep with fmity cluster.
Then September, ripe and hale;
Bees about his basket fluster, —
Laden deep with fruity cluster.
Skies have now a softer lustre;
Barns resound to flap of flaiL
Thou then, too, of woodlands lover.
Dusk October, berry-stained;
Wailed about of parting plover, —
Thou then, too, of woodlands lover.
Fading now are copse and cover;
Forests now are sere and waned.
Austin DohsoHf
Lot sweeten'd with the summer light.
The full juiced apple, waxing over-mellow.
Drops in a silent autumn night.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
To Autumn
O EASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
*^ Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun ;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-
eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel
shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more.
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease.
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clam-
my cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor.
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind ;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
2Si
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy
hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined
flowers :
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look.
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by
hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where
are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music
too, —
While barred ck)uds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly
bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble
soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-
croft ;
And gathering swallows twitter in the
skies.
John Keats.
252
Sweet Fern -Cy o <^ '^:>
npHE subtle power in perfume found
'■' Nor priest nor sibyl vainly learned;
On Grecian shrine or Aztec mound
No censer idly burned.
That power the old-time worships knew,
The Corybantes' frenzied dance,
The P)rthian priestess swooning through
The wonderland of trance.
And Nature holds, in wood and field.
Her thousand sunlit censers still;
To spells of flower and shrub we yield
Against or with our will.
I climbed a hill path strange and new
With slow feet, pausing at each turn;
A sudden waft of west wind blew
The breath of the sweet fern.
That fragrance from my vision swept
The alien landscape; in its stead.
Up fairer hills of youth I stepped.
As light of heart as tread.
I saw my boyhood's lakelet shine
Once more through rifts of woodland
shade ;
1 knew my river's winding line
By morning mist betrayed.
253
With me June's freshness, lapsing brook,
Murmurs of leaf and bee, the call
Of birds, and one in voice and look
In keeping with them all.
A fern beside the way we went
She plucked, and smiling, held it up.
While from her hand the wild, sweet scent
I drank as from a cup.
O potent witchery of smell I
The dust-dry leaves to life return,
And she who plucked them owns the spell
And lifts her ghostly fern.
Or sense or spirit ? Who shall say
What touch the chord of memory thrills?
It passed, and left the August day
Ablaze on lonely hills.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
Autumn ^c^ <:><:> <n^ --Ob'
'T^HE year grows still again, the surging
•^ wake
Of full-sailed summer folds its furrows up.
As after passing of an argosy
Old Silence settles back upon the sea.
And ocean grows as placid as a cup.
Spring, the young morn, and Summer,
the strong noon,
^54
Have dreamed and done and died for Au-
tumn's sake:
Autumn that finds not for a loss so dear
*
Solace in stack and garner hers too soon —
soon —
Autumn, the faithful widow of the year.
Autumn, a poet once so full of song,
Wise in all rhymes of blossom and of bud.
Hath lost the early magic of his tongue,
And hath no passion in his failing blood.
Hear ye no sound of sobbing in the air?
'Tis his. Low bending in a secret lane,
Late blooms of second childhood in his hair,
He tries old magic, like a dotard mage;
Tries spell and spell, to weep and try again :
Yet not a daisy hears, and everywhere
The hedgrow rattles like an empty cage.
He hath no pleasure in his silken skies,
Nor delicate ardours of the yellow land;
Yea, dead, for all its gold, the woodland lies.
And all the throats of music filled with sand.
Neither to him across the stubble field
May stack nor garner any comfort bring.
Who loveth more this jasmine he hath made,
The little tender rhyme he yet can sing.
Than yesterday, with all its pompous yield,
Or all its shaken laurels on his head.
Richard Le Gallienne.
^5S
Cam A-Tumen Yoller
'T^HE copse ha* got his shiady boughs,
^ Wi' blackbirds' evemen whissles;
The hills ha' sheep upon ther brows,
The zummerleaze ha' thissles.
The meads be gay in grassy May,
But O vrom hill to holler,
Let I look down upon a groun'
O' earn a-tumen yoller.
An' pease da grow in tangled beds.
An' beans be sweet to snuflf, O;
The tiaper woats da bend ther heads
The barley's beard is rough, O;
The turnip green is fresh between
The earn in hill ar holler,
But I'd look down upon the groun'
O* wheat a-turnen yoller.
Tis merry when the brawny men
Da come to reap it down, O,
Wher glossy red the poppy head
'S among the sta'ks so brown, O;
Tis merry while the wheat's in hile
Ar when, by hill ar holler.
The leazers thick da stoop to pick
The ears so ripe an' yoller.
William Barnes.
256
On Wenlock Edge
/^^N Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
^^ His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
Twould blow like this through holt and
hanger
Where Uricon the city stood:
'Tis the old wind in the old anger.
But then it threshed another wood.
Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare;
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.
There, like the wind through woods in riot.
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.
The gale, it plies the saplings double.
It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.
A. E. Housman.
257
The Joys of Fowling -«c^ -«c^ -^^
OF all the joys that sporting yields,
Give me to beat the stubble-fields
Quite early in September:
A brace of pointers, staunch and true,
A gun that kills whate'er I view,
I care not whether old or new,
Are things one must remember.
Old Ponto makes a famous point,
As marble stiff,, in ev'ry joint.
I cautiously proceed,
When quickly up the covey fly —
Bang, bang — both barrels then I try —
And lo! a brace before me die.
The shooter's richest meed.
If hares I want for friends in town,
I can tell where to knock them down
Within the furze-bush cover.
A leash T bag, then homeward go,
My spirits all in joyous flow.
And more delight, I'm sure, I know.
Than doth a beauty's lover.
In wintry woods, when leaves are dead>
And hedges beam with berries red,
The pheasant is my spoil.
Fenc'd with high gaiters out I go.
And beat through tangled bushes low;
258
Each joy of mine my spaniels know,
Though wand'ring many a mile.
At night returned, my bag well fiird,
Perchance four brace of pheasants kill'd,
I sit me down in peace,
And envy not ambition's cares,
Nor e'en the crown a monarch wears,
Such joys as mine he seldom shares —
Oh, may that joy ne'er cease.
Old Song.
The Music of the Pack <:> -oy '^i:^
T F you would have your kennel for sweet-
-*• ness of cry, then you must compound it
of some large dogs, that have deep solemn
Mouthes, and are swift in spending, which
must as it were bear the base in the consort;
then a double number of roaring and loud
ringing Mouthes, which must bear the counter
tenor; then some hollow plain sweet Mouthes,
which must bear the mean or middle part;
and so with these three parts of musick you
shall make your cry perfect: and herein you
shall observe that these Hounds thus mixt, do
run just and even together and not hang off
loose from one another, which is the vilest
sight that may be; and you shall understand,
2 59
that this composition is best to be made of the
swiftest and largest deep mouthed dog, the
slowest middle siz'd dog, and the shortest
legg'd slender dog. Amongst these you may
cast in a couple or two small single beagles,
which as small trebles may warble amongst
them: the cry will be a great deal the more
sweet. ... If you would have your ken-
nel for depth of mouth, then you shall com-
pound it of the largest dogs which have the
greatest mouths and deepest slews, such as
your West Countrey, Che-shire and Lanca-
shire dogs are, and to five or six base couple
of mouths shall not add above two couple of
counter tenors, as many means, and not above
one couple of Roarers, which being heard but
now and then, as at the opening or hitting of
a scent, will give much sweetness to the
solemnness and graveness of the cry, and the
musick thereof will be much more delightfull
to the ears of every beholder.
Gervase Markham.
260
NIGHT AND THE STARS
Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour I
Not dull art Thou as undiscerning Night;
But studious only to remove from sight
Day*s mutable distinctions. Ancient Power!
Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower
To the rude Briton, when, in wolf-skin vest
Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest
On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower
Look*d ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen
The self same vision which we now behold.
At thy meek bidding, shadowy Power, brought forth:
These mighty barriers, and the gulf between;
The flood, the stars; — z spectacle as old
As the beginning of the heavens and earth!
iVaiiam Wordsworth,
To the Evening Star
'T^HOU fair-haired Angel of the Evening,
^ Now whilst the sun rests on the moun-
tains, light
Thy bright torch of love — thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed !
Smile on our loves; and while thou drawest
the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timel> sleep. Let thy West Wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering
eyes
And wash the dusk with silver. — Soon, full
soon.
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages
wide.
And the lion glares through the dun forest.
The fleeces of our flocks are covered with
Thy sacred dew; protect them with thine
influence I
miliam Blake.
263
Evemen in the Village '-<;^ 'Oy -^:^
XTOW the light o' the west is a-turn'd to
^ ^ gloom ;
An' the men be at huome vrom ground;
An' the bells be a-zenden al down the Coombe
A muoanen an' dyen sound.
An' the wind is still,
An' the house-dogs da bark,
An' the rooks be a-vled to the elems high an'
dark.
An' the water da roar at mill.
An' out droo yander cottage's winder-piane
The light o' the candle da shoot.
An' young Jemmy the blacksmith is down the
liane
A-playen his jarman-flute.
An' the miller's man
Da zit down at his ease
'Pon the g^rt wooden seat that is under the
trees,
Wi' his pipe an' his cider can.
Tha' da za that 'tis zom'hat in towns to zee
Fresh fiazen vrom day to day:
Tha' mid zee em var me, ef the two or dree
I da love should but smile an' stay.
264
Zoo gi'e me the sky.
An' the air an* the zun,
An* a huome in the dell wher the water da run,
An' there let me live an* die.
William Barnes.
Night -^^l^ -^^l^ -^o -^o
'T^HE sun descending in the west,
^ The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest.
And I must seek for mine.
The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower.
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.
Farewell, green fields and happy grove.
Where flocks have ta*en delight;
Where lambs have nibbled, silent move
The feet of angels bright:
Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom.
On each sleeping bosom.
They look in every thoughtless nest,
Where birds are covered warm ;
They visit caves of every beast.
To keep them all from harm.
265
If they see any weeping .
That should have been sleeping,
They pour sleep on their head,
And sit down by their bed.
When wolves and tigers howl for prey
They pitying stand and weep,
Seeking to drive their thirst away,
And keep them from the sheep.
But if they rush dreadful
The angels most heedful
Receive each mild spirit
New worlds to inherit.
And there the lion's ruddy eyes
Shall flow with tears of gold:
And pitying the tender cries.
And walking round the fold,
Saying: Wrath by His meekness.
And by His health sickness.
Are driven away
From our immortal day.
And now beside thee, bleating lamb,
I can lie down and sleep,
Or think on Him who bore thy name,
Graze after thee, and weep.
For, washed in life's river.
My bright mane for ever
Shall shine like the gold,
As I guard o'er thefold. ^,.^;^^ ^f^^^^
366
X
To Night <::y
SWIFTLY walk o'er the western wave.
Spirit of Night I
Out of the misty eastern cave
Where, all the long and lone daylfght.
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
Which make thee terrible and dear.
Swift be thy flight!
Wrap thy form in a mantle grey.
Star-inwrought,
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land
Touching all with thine opiate wand-
Come, long-sought!
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone.
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree.
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.
Thy brother Death came, and cried,
"Would'st thou me?"
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed.
Murmured like a noontide bee,
267
" Shall I nestle near thy side ?
Would'st thou me ? " — And I replied,
"No, not thee."
#
Death will' come when thou art dead.
Soon, too soon —
Sleep will come when thou art fled.
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night —
Swift be thine approaching flight.
Come soon, soon!
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Orion
(From Pagan Papers)
THE moonless night has a touch of frost,
and is steely-clear. High and dominant
amidst the Populations of the Sky, the restless
and the steadfast alike, hangs the great
Plough, lit with a hard radiance as of the
polished and shining share. And yonder, low
on the horizon, but half resurgent as yet,
crouches the magnificent Hunter: watchful,
seemingly, and expectant: with some hint of
menace in his port.
Yet should his game be up, you would
think, by now. Many a century has passed
since the plough flrst sped a conqueror east
268
and west, clearing forest and draining fen;
policing the valleys with barbed-wires and
Sunday schools, with the chains that are
forged of peace, the irking fetters of plenty:
driving also the whole lot of us, these to
sweat at its tail, those to plod with the patient
team, but all to march in a great chain-gang,
the convicts of peace and order and law : while
the happy nomad, with his woodlands, his wild
cattle, his pleasing nuptialities, has long since
disappeared, dropping only in his flight some
store of flintheads, a legacy of confusion.
Truly, we Children of the Plough, but for yon
tremendous Monitor in the sky, were in right
case to forget that the Hunter is still a
quantity to reckon withal. Where, then, does
he hide the Shaker of the Spear? Why here,
my brother, and here; deep in the breasts of
each and all of us ! And for this drop of
primal quicksilver in the blood what poppy
or mandragora shall purge it hence away?
Kenneth Grahame.
Sleep Beneath the Stars o
(From Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes)
XT IGHT is a dead monotonous period under
-*-^ a roof; but in the open world it passes
lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes,
and the hours are marked by changes in the
269
face of Nature. What seems a kind of tem-
poral death to people choked between walls
and curtains, is only a light and living slum-
ber to the man who sleeps a-field. All night
long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and
freely; even as she takes her rest, she turns
and smiles; and there is one stirring hour un-
known to those who dwell in houses, when a
wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleep-
ing hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are
on their feet. It is then that the cock first
crows, ijot this time to announce the dawn,
but like a cheerful watchman speeding the
course of night. Cattle awake on the
meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy hill-
sides, and change to a new lair among the
ferns ; and houseless men, who have lain down
with the fowls, open their dim eyes and be-
hold the beauty of the night
At what inaudible summons, at what gentle
touch of Nature, are all these sleepers thus re-
called in the same hour to life? Do the stars
rain down an influence, or do we share some
thrill of mother earth below our resting
bodies ? Even shepherds and old country-folk,
who are the deepest read in these arcana,
have not a guess as to the means or purpose
of this nightly resurrection. Towards two in
the morning they declare the thing takes place;
270
and neither know nor inquire further. And
at least it is a pleasant incident. We are dis-
turbed in our slumber only, like the luxurious
Montaigne, " that we may the better and more
sensibly relish it." We have a moment to look
upon the stars. And there is a special
pleasure for some minds in the reflection that
we show the impulse with all out-door crea-
tures in our neighbourhood, that we have es-
caped out of the Bastille of civilisation, and
are become, for the time being a mere kindly
animal and a sheep of Nature's flock.
R, L. Stevenson.
To Sleep '^:^ o
A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by,
-^^ One after one; the sound of rain, and
bees
Murmuring ; the fall of rivers, winds, and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure
sky.
IVe thought of all by turns ; and yet do lie
Sleepless; and soon the small bird's melodies
Must hear first utter'd from my orchard trees.
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.
Even thus last night, and two nights more, I
lay.
And could not win thee, Sleep ! by any stealth :
So do not let me wear to-night away:
Without Thee what is all the morning's
wealth ?
Come, blessed barrier between day and day.
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous
health !
William Wordsworth,
272
A LITTLE COMPANY OF GOOD
COUNTRY PEOPLE
With the open air and a leisurely life.
Homespun, and spaniels, and honey.
An eave-full of swallows, a sun-browned wife.
He's never a thought for money.
r. Farquharson
Simplify, simplify!
H, D. Thoreau.
The Barefoot Boy
T) LES SINGS on thee, little man,
•*^ Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons.
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace;
From my heart I give thee joy, —
I was once a barefoot boy.
Prince thou art, — ^the grown-up man
Only is republican.
Let the million-dollared ride!
Barefoot, trudging at his side,
Thou hast more than he can buy
In the reach of ear and eye, —
Outward sunshine, inward joy:
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy !
Oh for boyhood's pamless play.
Sleep that wakes in laughing day.
Health that mocks the doctor's rules.
Knowledge never learned of schools.
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
275
Of the wild flower's time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell.
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the ground-mole sinks his weU;
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow.
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape*s clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's cunning way.
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans!
For, eschewing books and tasks.
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks.
Face to face with her he talks.
Part and parcel of her joy. —
Blessings on the barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon.
When all things I heard or saw.
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees.
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
276
For my sportf the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond.
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides !
Still as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy.
Fashioned for a barefoot boy.
Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread ;
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy ribbed, the sunset bent.
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold.
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
277
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!
Cheerily, then, my little man.
Live and laugh, as boyhood can!
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod.
Like a colt's for work be shod.
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil:
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy !
John Greenleaf Whittier.
The Milkmaid -^y <:y -^^^ "Qy
WHAT a dainty life the milkmaid leads.
When over the flowery meads
278
She dabbles in the dew
And sings to her cow,
And feels not the pain
Of love or disdain !
She sleeps in the night, though she toils in the
day.
And merrily passeth her time away.
Thomas Nabbes.
The Shepherd o' the Farm -^
I BE the Shepherd o' the farm:
An' be so proud a-roven round
Wi' my long crook a-thirt my yarm.
As ef I wer a king a-crown*d.
An' I da bide al day among
The bleaten sheep, an' pitch ther vuold;
An' when the evemen shiades be long
Da zee 'em al a-penn'd an' tuold.
An' I da zee the frisken lam's,
Wi' swingen tails and woolly lags,
A-playen roun' ther veeden dams.
An' pullen o' ther milky bags.
An' I, bezide a hawtharn tree.
Da zit upon the zunny down.
While shiades o' zummer clouds da vlee
Wi' silent flight along the groun'.
279
An* there, among the many cries
O* sheep an' lam's, my dog da pass
A zultry hour wi' blinken eyes,
An' nose a-stratch'd upon the grass.
But in a twinklen, at my word.
The shaggy rogue is up an' gone
Out roun' the sheep lik' any bird.
To do what he's a-zent upon.
An' wi' my zong, an' wi' my fife.
An' wi' my hut o' turf an' hurdles,
I wou'den channge my shepherd's life
To be a-miade a king o' wordles.
An' I da goo to washen pool,
A-sousen auver head an' ears
The shaggy sheep, to clean ther wool,
An' miake 'em ready var the shears.
An' when the shearen time da Qome,
I be at barn vrom dawn till dark,
Wher zome da catch the sheep, and zome
Da mark ther zides wi' miaster's mark.
An' when the shearen's al a-done.
Then we da eat, an' drink, an' zing
In miaster's kitchen, till the tun
Wi' merry sounds do shiake an' ring.
280
I be the Shepherd o* the farm:
An* be so proud a-roven round
Wi' my long crook a-thirt my yarm.
As ef I were a king a-crown'd.
William Barnes.
The Shepherd -^^ >Qy ^>:^ <:>
(From Pan and the Young Shepherd)
A/OUR shepherd is very near to Earth. He
^ grows up from her lap, he never quite
leaves her bosom; he is her foster-child. He
may hear her heart-beats and drink of her
tears. If she smiles he knoweth why. He has
listened and he knoweth. She telleth him her
secret thoughts; all the day long he may lie
close in her arms. No man so proper for that
sweet bed; no man may be so ready to die
and mingle with her.
Maurice Hewlett.
Walt's Friend ^^^ -^^ -^^ -^^
(From I sing the Body Electric)
I KNEW a man, a common farmer, the
father of five sons.
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them
the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigour, calmness,
beauty of person,
281
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and
white of his hair and beard, the im-
measurable meaning of his black eyes, the
richness and breadth of his manners.
These I used to go and visit him to see, he
was wise also.
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years
old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded,
tan-faced, handsome.
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw
him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved
him with personal love.
He drank water only, the blood show'd like
scarlet through the clear-brown of his
face.
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd
his boat himself, he had a fine one pre-
sented to him by a ship- joiner, he had
fowling-pieces presented to him by men
that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many
grandsons to hunt or fish, you would pick
him out as the most beautiful and vigorous
of the gang.
You would wish long and long to be with
him, you would wish to sit by him in the
boat that you and he might touch each
other. ivalt Whitman.
282
Tom Sueter -^s^ -^^
(From The Cricketer's Guide)
WT HAT a handful of steel-hearted soldiers
^ ^ are in an important pass, such was
Tom in keeping the wicket. Nothing went by
him; and for coolness and nerve in this trying
and responsible post, I never saw his equal.
As a proof of his quickness and skill, I have
numberless times seen him stump a man out
with Brett's tremendous bowling. Add to
this valuable accomplishment, he was one of
the manliest and most graceful of hitters. Few
would cut a ball harder at th^ point of the bat,
and he was, moreover, an excellent short run-
ner. He had an eye like an eagle — rapid and
comprehensive. He was the first who depart-
ed from the custom of the old players before
him, who deemed it a heresy to leave the
crease for the ball; he would get in at it, and
hit it straight off and straight on; and, egad!
it went as if it had been fired. As by the
rules of our club, at the trial-matches no man
was allowed to get more than thirty runs, he
generally gained his number earlier than any
of them. I have seldom seen a handsomer
man than Tom Sueter, who measured about
five feet ten. As if, too. Dame Nature wished
to show at his birth a specimen of her prodi-
283
gality, she gave him so amiable a disposition,
that he was the pet of all the neighbourhood:
so honourable a heart, that his word was never
questioned by the gentlemen who associated
with him;- and a voice, which for sweetness,
power, and purity of tone (a tenor) would,
with proper cultivation, have made him a
handsome fortune. With what rapture have I
hung upon his notes when he has given us a
hunting song in the club-room after the day's
practice was over. . . . Lear was a short
man, of a fair complexion, well looking, and
of a pleasant aspect. He had a sweet counter
tenor voice. Many a treat have I had in hear-
ing him and Sueter join in a glee at the " Bat
and Ball" on Broad Halfpenny:
I have been there, and still would go;
Twas like a little Heaven below!
John Nyken.
Uncle an' Aunt -^s^ >Qy ^>:^ -^^
HOW happy uncle us'd to be
O' zummer time, when aunt an' he
O* Zunday evemens, yarm in yarm.
Did walk about ther tiny farm,
While birds did zing, an* gnats did zwarm,
Droo grass almost above ther knees.
An* roun' by hedges an' by trees
Wi' leafy boughs a-swayen.
284
His hat wer broad, his cuoat wer brown,
Wi' two long flaps a-hangen down,
An* from his knee went down a blue
Knit stocken to his buckled shoe,
An' aunt did pull her gown-tail droo
Her pocket-hole, to keep en neat.
As she mid walk, or teake a seat
By leafy boughs a-swayen.
An' vust they'd goo to zee their lots
O' pot-yarbs in the gearden plots;
An' he, i'-maybe, gwain droo hatch
Would zee aunt's vowls upon a patch
O' zeeds, an' vow if he could catch
Em wi' his gun, they shoudden vlee
Noo mwore into their roosten tree,
Wi' leafy boughs a-swayen.
An' then vrom gearden tha did pass
Drough archet var to zee the grass.
An' if the blooth, so thick an' white.
Mid be at al a-touch'd wi' blight,
An' uncle, happy at the zight,
Did guess what cider there mid be
In al the archet, tree wi' tree,
Wi' tutties all a-swayen.
An' then tha stump'd along vrom there
A-vield, to zee the cows an' meare;
An' she, when uncle come in zight,
Look'd up, an' prick'd her yers upright.
An' whicker'd out wi' al her might;
An' he, a-chucklen, went to zee
The cows below the shiady tree,
Wi' leafy boughs a-swayen.
An' last ov al, they went to know
How vast the grass in mead did grow
An' then aunt zed 'twer time to goo
In huome, a holden up her shoe
To show how wet 'e wer wi' dew.
An' zoo they toddled huome to rest,
Lik' culvers vlee-en to ther nest
In leafy boughs a-swayen.
William Barnes.
Will Wimble ^v^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^
A S I was yesterday morning walking with
'^*" Sir Roger before his house, a country
fellow brought him a huge fish, which, he told
him, Mr. William Wimble had caught that
very morning; and that he presented it with
his service to him, and intended to come and
dine with him. At the same time he delivered
a letter, which my friend read to me as soon as
the messenger left him.
" Sir Roger — ^I desire you to accept of a
jack, which is the best I have caught this
season. I intend to come and stay with you a
week, and see how the perch bite in the Black
286
River. I observe with some concern the last
time I saw you upon the bowling-green that
your whip wanted a lash to it; I will bring
half a dozen with me that I twisted last week,
-which I hope will serve you all the time you are
in the country. I have not been out of the
saddle for six days last past, having been at
Kton with Sir John's eldest son. He takes to
his learning hugely. — ^I am. Sir, Your humble
servant. Will Wimble.''
This extraordinary letter and message that
accompanied it made me very curious to know
the character and quality of the gentleman who
sent them, which I found to be as follows: —
Will Wimble is younger brother to a baro-
net, and descended of the ancient family of
the Wimbles. He is now between forty and
fifty; but being bred to no business and born
to no estate, he generally lives with his elder
brother as superintendent of his game. He
hunts a pack of dogs better than any man in
the country, and is very famous for finding out
a hare. He is extremely well versed in all the
little handicrafts of an idle man. He makes a
May-fly to a miracle, and furnishes the whole
country with angle-rods. As he is a good-
natured, officious fellow, and very much es-
teemed upon account of his family, he is a wel-
287
come guest at every house, and keeps up a
good correspondence among all the gentlemen
about him. He carries a tulip root in his
pocket from one to another, or exchanges a
puppy between a couple of friends that live
perhaps in the opposite sides of the county.
Will is a particular favourite of all the young
heirs, whom he frequently obliges with a net
that he has weaved, or a setting-dog that he
has made himself. He now and then presents
a pair of garters of his own knitting to their
mothers or sisters, and raises a great deal of
mirth among them by inquiring as often as
he meets them " how they wear " ! These
gentleman-like manufactures and obliging little
humours make Will the darling of the country.
Addison's " Spectator!
A Gentleman of the Old School
T TE lived in that past Georgian day,
-*- -*- When men were less inclined to say
That " Time is Gold," and overlay
With toil their pleasure;
He held some land, and dwelt thereon, —
Where, I forget, — ^the house is gone;
His Christian name, I think, was John, —
His surname. Leisure.
288
»t
Reynolds has painted him, — 3. face
Filled with a fine, old-fashioned g^ace.
Fresh-coloured, frank, with ne'er a trace
Of trouble shaded;
The eyes are blue, the hair is drest
In plainest way,— one hand is prest
Deep in a flapped canary vest.
With buds brocaded.
He wears a brown old Brunswick coat,
With silver buttons, — round his throat,
A soft cravat; — in all you note
An elder fashion, —
A strangeness, which to us who shine
In shapely hats, — whose coats combine
All harmonies of hue and line,
Inspires compassion.
He lived so long ago, you see!
Men were untravelled then, but we.
Like Ariel, post o'er land and sea
With careless parting;
He found it quite enough for him
To smoke his pipe in "garden trim,"
And watch, about the fish tank's brim,
The swallows darting.
He liked the well-wheers creaking tongue,-
He liked the thrush that stopped and sung,-
He liked the drone of flies among
His netted peaches;
289
He liked to watch the sunlight fall
Athwart his ivied orchard wall ;
Or pause to catch the cuckoo's call
Beyond the beeches.
His were the times of Paint and Patch,
And yet no Ranelagh could match
The sober doves that round his thatch
Spread tails and sidled;
He liked their ruffling, puffed content,^
For him their drowsy wheelings meant
More than a Mall of Beaux that bent.
Or Belles that bridled.
Not that, in truth, when life began
He shunned the flutter of the fan;
He too had maybe " pinked his man "
In Beauty's quarrel;
But now his " fervent youth " had flown
Where lost things go; and he was grown
As staid and slow-paced as his own
Old hunter. Sorrel.
Yet still he loved the chase, and held
That no composer's score excelled
The merry horn, when Sweetlip swelled
Its jovial riot;
But most his measured words of praise
Caressed the angler's easy ways, —
His idly meditative days, —
His rustic diet.
290
Not that his "meditating" rose
Beyond a sunny summer doze;
He never troubled his repose
With fruitless prying;
But held, as law for high and low,
What God withholds no man can know,
And smiled away enquiry so.
Without replying.
We read — alas, how much we read! —
The jumbled strifes of creed and creed
With endless controversies feed
Our groaning tables;
His books — and they sufficed him — were
Cotton's Montaigne, The Grave of Blair,
A " Walton " — much the worse for wear.
And Aesop's Fables,
One more— r/r^ Bible. Not that he
Had searched its page as deep as we;
No sophistries could make him see
Its slender credit;
It may be that he could not count
The sires and sons to Jesse's fount,—
He liked the " Sermon on the Mount,"—
And more, he read it.
Once he had loved, but failed to wed,
A red-cheeked lass who long was dead;
His ways were far too slow, he said.
To quite forget her;
291
And still when time had turned him gray.
The earliest hawthorn buds in May
Would find his lingering feet astray,
Where first he met her.
In Coelo Quies heads the stone
On Leisure's grave, — now little known,
A tangle of wild-rose has grown
So thick across it;
The " Benefactions " still declare
He left the clerk an elbow-chair,
And " 12 Pence Yearly to Prepare
A Christmas Posset"
Lie softly, Leisure! Doubtless you,
With too serene a conscience drew
Your easy breath, and slumbered through
The gravest issue;
But we, to whom our age allows
Scarce space to wipe our weary brows.
Look down upon your narrow house,
Old friend, and miss you !
Austin Dobson,
Mr. Hastings -cy
(From Forest Scenery)
IV/r R. HASTINGS was low of stature, but
'*' very strong, and very active; of a ruddy
complexion, with flaxen hair. His cloaths
292
were always of green cloth. His house was
of the old fashion ; in the midst of a large park,
well stocked with deer, rabbits, and fish-ponds.
He had a long narrow bowling-green, in it;
and used to play with round sand-bowls. Here
too he had a banqueting-room built, like a
stand, in a large tree. He kept all sorts of
hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and
badger ; and had hawks of all kinds, both long,
and short winged. His g^eat hall was com-
monly strewed with marrow-bones ; and full of
hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers.
The upper end of it was hung with fox-skins
of this, and the last year's killing. Here and
there a pole-cat was intermixed; and hunter's
poles in great abundance. The parlour was a
large room, compleatly furnished in the same
stile. On a broad hearth, paved with brick,
lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and
spaniels. One or two of the great chairs, had
litters of cats in them, which were not to be
disturbed. Of these three or four always at-
tended him at dinner; and a little white wand
lay by his trencher, to defend it, if they were
too troublesome. In the windows, which were
very large, lay his arrows, cross-bows, and
other accoutrements. The corners of the
room were filled with his best hunting and
hawking poles. His oister-table stood at the
293
lower end of the room, which was in constant
use twice a day, all the year round; for he
never failed to eat oisters both at dinner, and
supper; with which the neighbouring town of
Pool supplied him. At the upper end of the
room stood a small table with a double desk;
one side of which held a church-bible; the
other, the book of martyrs. On different
tables in the room lay hawk's hoods; bells;
old hats, with their crowns thrust in, full of
pheasant eggs; tables; dice; cards; and store
of tobacco-pipes. At one end of this room
was a door, which opened into a closet; where
stood bottles of strong beer, and wine; which
never came out but in single glasses, which
was the rule of the house; for he never ex-
ceeded himself; nor permitted others to ex-
ceed. Answering to this closet, was a door
into an old chapel; which had been long dis-
used for devotion; but in the pulpit as the
safest place, was always to be found a cold
chine of beef, a venison-pasty, a gammon of
bacon, or a great apple-pye, with thick crust,
well-baked. His table cost him not much, tho'
it was good to eat at. His sports supplied all,
but beef and mutton; except on Fridays when
he had the best of fish. He never wanted a
London pudding; and he always sang it in
with. My part lies therein^. He drank a
294
glass or two of wine at meals; put syrup of
g^illy-flowers into his sack; and had always a
tun-glass of small-beer standing by him, which
he often stirred about with rosemary. He
lived to be an hundred ; and never lost his eye-
sight, nor used spectacles. He got on horse-
back without help; and rode to the death of
the stag, till he was past fourscore.
William Gilpin.
Jack
EVERY village has its Jack, but no village
ever had quite so fine a Jack as ours:—
So picturesque.
Versatile,
Irresponsible,
Powerful,
Hedonistic,
And lovable a Jack as ours.
2
How Jack lived none knew, for he rarely did
any work.
True, he set night-lines for eels, and in^
variably caught one,
Often two.
Sometimes three;
While very occasionally he had a day's har-
vesting or hay-making.
295
And yet he always found enough money for
tobacco,
With a little over for beer, though he was no
soaker.
3
Jack had a wife.
A soulless, savage woman she was, who dis-
approved volubly of his idle ways.
But the only result was to make him stay out
longer,
(Like Rip Van Winkle).
4
Jack had a big black beard, and a red shirt,
which was made for another.
And no waistcoat
His boots were somebody else's;
He wore the Doctor's coat.
And the Vicar's trousers.
Personally, I gave him a hat, but it was too
small.
S
Everybody liked Jack.
The Vicar liked him, although he never went
to church.
Indeed, he was a cheerful Pagan, with no
temptation to break more than the Eighth
Commandment, and no ambition as a sin-
ner.
296
The Curate liked him, although he had no
simpering daughters.
The Doctor liked him, although he was never
ill.
I liked him too— chiefly because of his per-
petual good temper, and his intimacy with
Nature, and his capacity for colouring
cutties.
The girls liked him, because he brought them
the first wild roses and the sweetest
honeysuckle ;
Also, because he could flatter so outrageously.
But the boys loved him.
They followed him in little bands:
Jack was their hero.
And no wonder, for he could hit a running
rabbit with a stone.
And cut them long, straight fishing-poles and
equilateral catty forks;
And he always knew of a fresh nest.
Besides, he could make a thousand things
with his old pocket-knife.
7
How good he was at cricket too!
On the long evenings he would saunter to the
green and watch the lads at play,
297
And by and by some one would offer him a
few knocks.
Then the Doctor's coat would be carefully
detached, and Jack would spit on his
hands, and brandish the bat,
And away the ball would go, north and south
and east and west,
And sometimes bang into the zenith.
For Jack has little science:
Upon each ball he made the same terrific and
magnificent onslaught.
Whether half volley, or full pitch, or long hop,
or leg break, or off break, or shooter, or
yorker.
And when the stumps fell he would cheer-
fully set them up ag^in, while his white
teeth flashed in the recesses of his beard.
8
The only persons who were not conspicuously
fond of Jack were his wife, and the
schoolmaster, and the head-keeper.
The schoolmaster had an idea that if Jack
were hanged there would be no more
truants ;
His wife would attend the funeral without
an extraordinary show of grief;
And the head-keeper would mutter, "There's
one poacher less."
298
9
Jack was quite as much a part of the village
as the church spire;
And if any of us lazied along by the river in
the dusk of the evening —
Waving aside nebulae of gnats,
Turning head quickly at the splash of a jump-
ing fish,
Peering where the water chuckled over a
vanishing water-rat —
And saw not Jack*s familiar form bending
over his lines.
And smelt not his vile shag,
We should feel a loneliness, a vague impres-
sion that something was wrong.
10
For ten years Jack was always the same.
Never growing older.
Or richer.
Or tidier.
Never knowing that we had a certain pride in
possessing him.
Then there came a tempter with tales of
easily acquired wealth, and Jack went
away in his company.
He has never come back,
299
II
And now the village is like a man who has lost
an eye.
In the gloaming, no slouching figure, with
colossal idleness in every line, leans
against my garden wall, with prophecies
of the morrow's weather ;
And those who reviled Jack most wonder
now what it was they found fault with.
We feel our bereavement deeply.
The Vicar, I believe, would like to offer pub-
lic prayer for the return of the wanderer.
And the Doctor, I know, is a little unhinged,
and curing people out of pure absence
of mind.
For my part, I have hope; and the trousers I
discarded last week will not be given away
just yet. E, V. Lucas,
The Vicar 'Ciry o 'Ciry
OOME years ago, ere time and taste
^ Had turn'd our parish topsy-turvy,
When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste,
And roads as little known as scurvy,
The man who lost his way, between
St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket,
Was always shown across the green.
And glided to the Parson's wicket
300
Back flew the bolt of lissom lath;
Fair Margaret, in her tiny kirtle.
Led the lorn traveller up the path.
Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle
And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray,
Upon the parlour steps collected,
Wagged all their tails, and seem'd to say, —
" Our master knows you — ^you're expected."
Uprose the Reverend Dr. Brown,
Uprose the Doctor's winsome marrow;
The lady laid her knitting down.
Her husband clasp'd his ponderous " Bar-
row" ;
Whatever the stranger's caste or creed.
Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner,
He found a stable for his steed.
And welcome for himself, and dinner.
If, when he reached his journey's end,
And warm'd himself in Court or College,
He had not gain'd an honest friend
And twenty curious scraps of knowledge,—
If he departed as he came.
With no new light on love or liquor, —
Good sooth, the traveller was to blame.
And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar.
His talk was like a stream, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses.
301
It slipt from politics to puns,
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses^
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.
He was a shrewd and sound Divine,
Of loud Dissent the mortal terror;
And when, by dint of page and line,
He 'stablish'd Truth, or startled Error,
The Baptist found him far too deep;
The Deist sigh'd with saving sorrow ;
And the lean Levite went to sleep.
And dream'd of tasting pork to-morrow.
His sermon never said or show'd
That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracioui
Without refreshment on the road
From Jerome, or from Athanasius:
And sure a righteous zeal inspired
The hand and head that penn'd and plann'd
them.
For all who understood admired.
And some who did not understand them.
He wrote, too, in a quiet way.
Small treatises, and smaller verses.
And sage remarks on chalk and clay.
And hints to noble Lords — and nurses;
302
True histories of last year's ghost.
Lines to a ringlet, or a turban,
And trifles for the Morning Post,
And nothings for Sylvanus Urban,
He did not think all mischief fair,
Although he had a knack of joking;
He did not make himself a bear,
Although he had a taste for smdcing;
And when religious sects ran mad,
He held, in spite of all his learning.
That if a man's belief is bad.
It will not be improved by burning.
And he was kind, and loved to sit
In the low hut or garnish'd cottage.
And praise the farmer's homely wit.
And share the widow's homelier pottage:
At his approach complaint grew mild;
And when his hand unbarr'd the shuttei,
The clammy lips of fever smiled
The welcome which they could not utter.
He always had a tale for me
Of Julius Caesar, or of Venus;
From him I learnt the rule of three.
Cat's cradle, leap-frog, and Quae genus:
I used to singe his powder'd wig.
To steal the staff he put such trust in.
And make the puppy dance a jig.
When he began to quote Augustine.
303
Alack the change! in vain I look
For haunts in which my boyhood trifled,^
The level lawn, the trickling brook,
The trees I climb'd, the beds I rifled:
The church is larger than before;
You reach it by a carriage entry;
It holds three hundred people more.
And pews are fitted up for gentry.
Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear
The doctrine of a gentle Johnian,
Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear.
Whose phrase is very Ciceronian.
Where is the old man laid? — look down.
And construe on the slab before you,
" Hie jacet Gvlielmos Brown,
Vir nuUd non donandus lauru."
Winthrop Mackworth Praed,
The Fiddler of Dooney <::> ^<;>y <n^
TX rHEN I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
' ' Folk dance like a wave of the sea ;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Maharabuiee.
I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.
304
When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits.
But call me first through the gate;
For the good are always the merry.
Save by an evil chance.
And the merry love the fiddle.
And the merry love to dance:
And when the folk there spy me.
They all come up to me.
With "Here is the fiddler of Dooney!"
And dance like a wave of the sea.
W. B. Yeats.
305
(
A HANDFUL OF PHILOSOPHY
SANCHO PANZA'S PROVERBS.
There is still sun on the wall.
It requires a long time to know any one.
All sorrows are bearable if there is bread.
Ue who does not rise with the sun does not enjoy tha
day.
Every one is as God made him, and very often worse.
Until death, all is life.
Praying to God and hammering away.
The world is too much with us; late and soon.
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours.
And ar: up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not,— Great God I I'd rUher be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea.
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
William Wordsworth,
Content -^^ <:y <:> -^iy
A RT thou poor, yet hast thou golder
-^"^ slumbers ?
O sweet content !
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
O punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Hence labour bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!
Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?
O sweet content!
Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine
own tears?
O punishment!
Then he that patiently want's burden bears
No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face ;
Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!
Thomas Dekker.
309
The Wish
Tl rELL then; I now do plainly sec,
^^ • This busy world and I shall ne'er
agree ;
The very honey of all earthly joy
Does of all meats the soonest cloy,
And they, methinks, deserve my pity,
Who for it can endure the stings,
The crowd, and buzz, and murmurings
Of this great hive, the city.
Ah, yet, ere I descend to th' grave
May I a small house and large garden have!
And a few friends, and many books, both true.
Both wise, and both delightful too!
And since love ne'er will from me flee,
A mistress moderately fair.
And good as guardian-angels are.
Only belov'd, and loving me!
O fountains, when in you shall I
Myself, eased of unpeaceful thoughts, espy?
O fields ! O woods ! when, when shall I be made
The happy tenant of your shade?
Here's the spring-head of pleasure's flood;
Where all the riches lie, that she
Has coin'd and stamp'd for good.
310
Pride and ambition here.
Only in far-fetched metaphors appear;
Here nought but winds can hurtful murmurs
scatter.
And nought but echo flatter.
The gods, when they descended, hither
From heav'n did always choose their way;
And therefore we may boldly say.
That *tis the way too thither.
How happy here should I,
And one dear she live, and embracing die!
She who is all the world, and can exclude
In deserts solitude.
I should have then this only fear.
Lest men, when they my pleasure see.
Should hither throng to live like me.
And make a city here.
Abraham Cowley.
Give Me the Old <::y <:><:> <:>
Old wine to drink, old wood to burn, old books to read,
and old friends to converse with.
OLD wine to drink! —
Ay, give the slippery juice.
That drippeth from the grape thrown loose.
Within the tun;
Pluck'd from beneath the cliff A'*" ^"^ ^
Of sunny-sided Teneriffe ^y ^
And ripened 'neath the blink ^
Of India's sun!
Peat whisky hot
Tempered with well-boiled water?
These make the long nights shorter —
Forgetting not
Good stout old English porter.
II
Old wood to bum! —
Ay, bring the hill-side beech
From where the owlets meet and screecK,
And ravens croak;
The crackling pine, and cedar sweet;
Bring too, a clump of fragrant peat.
Dug 'neath the fern;
The knotted oak,
A faggot too, perhaps, •
Whose bright flame, dancing, winking.
Shall light us at our drinking;
While the oozing sap
Shall make sweet music to our thinking.
Ill
Old books to read! —
Ay, bring those nodes of wit
312
Which of thy kindness thou hast sent ;
And my content
Makes those, and my beloved beet.
To be more sweet.
'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth
With guiltless mirth,
And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink.
Spiced to the brink.
Lord, 'tis thy plenty-jdropping hand
That soils my land,
And giv'st me, for my bushel sown.
Twice ten for one ;
Thou mak'st my teeming hen to lay
Her egg each day;
Besides, my healthful ewes to bear
Me twins each year ;
The while the conduits of my kine
Run cream, for wine:
All these, and better, thou dost send
Me, to this end, —
That I should render, for my part,
A thankful heart;
Which, fired with incense, I resign.
As wholly thine;
— But the acceptance, that must be,
My Christ, by Thee.
Robert Herrick.
317
The Dirge in " Cymbeline "
FEAR no more the heat o' the sun
Nor the furious winter's rages ;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta*en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great:
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak :
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flash.
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone.
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
No exerciser harm thee !
Nor no witchcraft charm thee I
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee !
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!
William Shakespeare.
318
THE RETURN
The Glamour of the Town
T ET them talk of lakes and mountains and
-■— ' romantic dales — all that fantastic stuff;
give me a ramble by night, in the winter
nights in London — the Lamps lit — ^the pave-
ments of the motley Strand crowded with to
and fro passengers — ^the shops all brilliant,
and stuffed with obliging customers and
obliged tradesmen — give me the old bookstalls
of London — a walk in the bright Piazzas of
Covent Garden. I defy a man to be dull in
such places — perfect Mahometan paradises
upon earth! I have lent out my heart with
usury to such scenes from my childhood up,
and have cried with fullness of joy at the
multitudinous scenes of Life in the crowded
streets of ever dear London. . . • I don't
know if you quite comprehend my low Urban
Taste; but depend upon it that a man of any
feeling will have given his heart and his love
in childhood and in boyhood to any scenes
where he has been bred, as well to dirty streets
321
(and smoky walls as they are called) as to
green lanes, "where live nibbling sheep/* and
to the everlasting hills and the Lakes and
ocean. A mob of men is better than a flock
of sheep, and a crowd of happy faces jostling
into the playhouse at the hour of six is a
more beautiful spectacle to man than the shep^
herd driving his " silly " sheep to fold.
Charles Lamb to Robert Lloyd,
322
NOTE
Thanks are due to many authors and pub-
lishers for their kindness in permitting in this
book the use of copyright poems and prose
passages : to Mrs. Hinkson for two lyrics from
The Wind in the Trees (Grant Richards) ; to
Miss Nora Hopper; to Mrs. Meynell for
extracts from The Rhythm of Life, The
Colour of Life, The Spirit of Plate, and Poems
(all published by Mr. Lane), and for "The
Lady of the Lambs"; to Mr. Charles Baxter
for quotations from R. L. Stevenson's Songs
of Travel, Travels with a Donkey, and The
Merry Men (Chatto and Windus) ; to the
Rev. H. C. Beeching for poems from In a
Gcrden (Lane); to Mr. Robert Bridges for
two numbers from his Shorter Poems (Bell
and Sons) ; to Mr. John Burroughs for a pass-
age on the apple from Winter Sunshine
(David Douglas in England, and Houghton,
Mifflin, and Co., in America) ; to Mr. Bliss
Carman for poems from Songs from Vaga-
bondia and More Songs from Vagahondia,
two of which are from his own pen, and two
323
from that of his collaborator, Mr. Richard
Hovey (Elkin Mathews, in England, and
Small, Maynard and Co., in America) ; to Mr.
John Davidson for a passage from his Fleet
Street Eclogues (Lane) ; to Mr. Bertram
Dobell for two songs from the selection of
James Thomson's poems recently made and
published by him; to Mr. Austin Dobson for
poems from Old World Idylls and At the Sign
of the Lyre (both published by Messrs. Kegan
Paul and Co.) ; to Mr. Kenneth Grahame for
extracts from Pagan Papers (Lane) ; to
Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., for two
of Whittier's poems; to Mr. A. E. Housman
for two extracts from A Shropshire Lad
(Grant Richards) ; to Mr. Maurice Hewlett
for good sentiments from Pan and the Young
Shepherd (Lane) ; to Mr. Le Gallienne for
lyrics from Robert Louis Stevenson and
English Poems (both puolished by Mr. Lane) ;
to Messrs. Longmans for a passage from
Richard Jefferies* Story of My Heart; and to
the same publishers and the Executors of Mr.
William Morris for two extracts from Poems
by the Way; to Messrs. Macmillan for lyrics
from the late T. E. Brown's Old John and
Miss Rossetti's Poems; to Mr. William Sharp
for a quotation from Philip Bourke Marston's
Song Tide (Scott) ; to Messrs. Small, May-
324
nard and Co., and to Mr. Horace L. Traubel,
one of Walt Whitman's literary executors,
for extracts from Leaves of Grass; to the
Misses Smith for a song by the late Ada
Smith; to Mr. Swinburne for "A Match,"
from his Poems and Ballads, First Series
( Chatto and Windus) ; to Mrs. Francis
Thompson for " A May Burden " from his
New Poems (Constable) ; to Mr. William
Watson for two songs from his Collected
Poems (Lane) ; and to Mr. W. B. Yeats for
lyrics from his Poems (Fisher Unwin) and
The Wind among the Reeds (Elkin Mathews).
325
UP-HILL
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole lon^ dayf
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall t meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at the door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yes, beds for all who come. /
Christina G, Rossi
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