University of Virginia Library

ENGLISH JOURNAL

TO THE NIGHTINGALE

[MAID of Walkherd, meet again]

SIGHING FOR RETIREMENT

THE FOREST MAID

ON THE NEGLECT OF TRUE MERIT

FASHION and Folly always follow Fame,
Which Merit, slowly paced, is slow to claim.
The gaudy and the mean men love to praise,
But quiet Merit lives for other days.
There's pleasant CRUIKSHANK, hearty RIPPINGILLE,
And quiet HILTON, of diviner skill;
There's simple ETTY, never vain or proud,
Are left as common men among the crowd:
But Fame keeps watch and looks for other days,
And Merit claims for them diviner praise;
The others left behind have nought to claim,
And Merit wonders how they got to Fame;
For Merit still will live above the mean,
And CRUIKSHANK is what HOGARTH would have been.

THE SEQUEL TO JOHN BARLEYCORN

A WALK IN THE FOREST

I LOVE the Forest and its airy bounds,
Where friendly CAMPBELL takes his daily rounds;
I love the break neck hills, that headlong go,
And leave me high, and half the world below;
I love to see the Beach Hill mounting high,
The brook without a bridge, and nearly dry.
There's Bucket's Hill, a place of furze and clouds,
Which evening in a golden blaze enshrouds:
I hear the cows go home with tinkling bell,
And see the woodman in the forest dwell,
Whose dog runs eager where the rabbit's gone;
He eats the grass, then kicks and hurries on;
Then scrapes for hoarded bone, and tries to play,
And barks at larger dogs and runs away.

TO WORDSWORTH

WORDSWORTH I love; his books are like the fields,
Not filled with flowers, but works of human kind;
The pleasant weed a fragrant pleasure yields,
The briar and broomwood shaken by the wind,
The thorn and bramble o'er the water shoot
A finer flower than gardens e'er give birth,
The aged huntsman grubbing up the root—
I love them all as tenants of the earth:
Where genius is, there often die the seeds;
What critics throw away I love the more;
I love to stoop and look among the weeds,
To find a flower I never knew before:
WORDSWORTH go on—a greater poet be,
Merit will live, though parties disagree!

THE WATER LILIES

THE Water Lilies, white and yellow flowers,
How beautiful they are upon the lake!
I've stood and looked upon the place for hours,
And thought how fine a garden they would make.
The pleasant leaves upon the water float;
The dragon-fly would come and stay for hours,
And when the water pushed the pleasure boat,
Would find a safer place among the flowers:
They lay like Pleasure in a quiet place,
Close where the moor-hen loved her nest to make,—
They lay like beauty with a smiling face,
And I have called them ‘Ladies of the Lake!’
I've brought the longest pole and stood for hours,
And tried for years, before I got those flowers!

THE FRIGHTENED PLOUGHMAN

A WALK ON HIGH BEACH, LOUGHTON

I LOVED the Forest walks and beechen woods,
Where pleasant STOCKDALE showed me far away
Wild Enfield Chase, and pleasant Edmonton;
While Giant London, known to all the world,
Was nothing but a guess among the trees,
Though only half a day from where we stood.
Such is ambition! only great at home,
And hardly known to quiet and repose.
I loved the Forest walk, and often stood
To hear boys halloo to their wilder sheep;
While quiet TURNER sat upon a hill,
And gentle HOWARD cut his sticks and sang.
The Sticker trailed her faggot on the ground,
And all the Forest seemed to live with joy.

LONDON VERSUS EPPING FOREST

THE brakes, like young stag's horns, come up in Spring,
And hide the rabbit holes and fox's den;
They crowd about the forest everywhere;
The ling and holly-bush, and woods of beach,
With room enough to walk and search for flowers;
Then look away and see the Kentish heights.
Nature is lofty in her better mood,
She leaves the world and greatness all behind;
Thus London, like a shrub among the hills,
Lies hid and lower than the bushes here.
I could not bear to see the tearing plough
Root up and steal the Forest from the poor,
But leave to freedom all she loves, untamed,
The Forest walk enjoyed and loved by all!

GREATNESS OF MIND

GREAT men are always kind, however rare,
And more like common men than others are;
The poor man saw the King and wondered on,
To find him only like his neighbour JOHN:
Greatness will live with Kindness everywhere;
The sun shines brighter when the days are clear;
Time mellows fruit, and suns bring on the flowers,
And Greatness lives with Kindness in all hours:
Fame makes them giants with her idle praise,
Though common men at home, like common days:
But Pride is ever low, and will deride;
It nothing knows, for Ignorance is Pride.
Pride would be great, but Folly laughs aloud,
And Pride sinks down to nothing in the crowd.

THE GIPSY CAMP

THE snow falls deep; the Forest lies alone:
The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes,
Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back;
The Gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up,
And seeks his squalid camp, half hid in snow,
Beneath the oak, which breaks away the wind,
And bushes close, with snow like hovel warm:
There stinking mutton roasts upon the coals,
And the half-roasted dog squats close and rubs,
Then feels the heat too strong and goes aloof;
He watches well, but none a bit can spare,
And vainly waits the morsel thrown away:
'Tis thus they live—a picture to the place;
A quiet, pilfering, unprotected race.

THE TRUE SPIRITUAL WORSHIP

LOVE AND BEAUTY

THE COURTSHIP

THE COWSLIPS

THE dancing Cowslips come in pleasant hours;
Though seldom sung, they're everybody's flowers:
They hurry from the world, and leave the cold;
And all the meadows turn from green to gold:
The shepherd finds them where he went to play,
And wears a nosegay in his mouth all day:
The maiden finds them in the pleasant grove,
And puts them in her bosom with her love;
She loves the ladysmocks: and just beyond
The water blobs close to the meadow-pond.
I've often gone—about where blackthorns stood—
And got the Bedlam-Cowslips in the wood;
Then found the blackbird's nest, and noisy jay
And up and threw the Cowslips all away!

THE MOCK BIRD

I'VE often tried, when tending sheep and cow,
With bits of grass and peels of oaten straw,
To whistle like the birds. The thrush would start
To hear her song, and pause, and fly away;
The blackbird never cared, but sang again;
The nightingale's fine song I could not try;
And when the thrush would mock her song, she paused,
And sang another song no bird could do!
She sang when all were done, and beat them all.
I've often sat and mocked them half the day,
Behind the hedge-row, thorn, or bullace tree:
I thought how nobly I could act in crowds.
The woods and fields were all the books I knew,
And every leisure thought was Love and Fame.

THE BOTANIST'S WALK

THE Forest meets the blessings of the Spring;
The chestnut throws her sticky buds away,
And shows her pleasant leaves and snow-white flowers;
The nightingale is loud, and often heard
The notes of every song, and hardly known,
She hides and sings, a stranger all the day;
The spurge, with caper-flowers of yellow green—
And called ‘wild capers’, when I went in woods
To look for nests and hear the nightingale;
Dog-mercury shoots; the sloe is full of flowers;
A willow flowers, and just above the ground,
The furze, like myrtle, scarce a finger long,
Is every where, and full of golden flowers;
And butterflies, the colour of the flowers—
As if the winds had blown them from their stalks—
Are all about, and every where is Spring!