 | The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir |  |
THE FOWLER.
And is there care in Heaven? and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is—else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts. But O! the exceeding grace
Of highest God, that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels he sends to and fro,
To serve on wicked man—to serve his wicked foe!
Spenser.
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is—else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts. But O! the exceeding grace
Of highest God, that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels he sends to and fro,
To serve on wicked man—to serve his wicked foe!
Spenser.
I.
I have an old remembrance—'tis as oldAs childhood's visions, and 'tis mingled with
Dim thoughts and scenes grotesque, by fantasy
From out oblivion's twilight conjured up,
Ere truth had shorn imagination's beams,
Or to forlorn reality tamed down
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Of winter twilight, often as the year
Revolves, and hoar-frost grimes the window-sill,
Bring back the lone waste scene that gave it birth,
And make me, for a moment, what I was
Then, on that Polar morn—a little boy,
And Earth again the realm of fairyland.
II
A Fowler was our visitant; his talkAt eve beside the flickering hearth, while howl'd
The outward winds, and hail-drops on the pane
Tinkled, or down the chimney in the flame
Whizz'd as they melted, was of forest and field,
Wherein lay bright wild birds and timorous beasts,
That shunn'd the face of man; and O! the joy,
The passion which lit up his brow, to con
The feats of sleight and cunning skill by which
Their haunts were near'd, or on the heathy hills,
Or 'mid the undergrove; on snowy moor,
Or by the rushy lake—what time the dawn
Reddens the east, or from on high the moon
In the smooth waters sees her pictured orb,
The white cloud slumbering in the windless sky,
And midnight mantling all the silent hills.
III.
I do remember me the very time—
(Though thirty shadowy years have lapsed between)—
'Tis graven as by the hand of yesterday.
For weeks had raved the winds, the angry seas
Howl'd to the darkness, and down fallen the snows;
The redbreast to the window came for crumbs;
Hunger had to the coleworts driven the hare;
The crow at noontide peck'd the travell'd road;
And the wood-pigeon, timorously bold,
Starved from the forest, near'd the homes of man.
It was the dreariest depth of winter-tide,
And on the ocean and its isles was felt
The iron sway of the North; yea, even the fowl—
That through the polar summer months could see
A beauty in Spitzbergen's naked isles,
Or on the drifting icebergs seek a home—
Even they had fled, on southern wing, in search
Of less inclement shores.
(Though thirty shadowy years have lapsed between)—
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For weeks had raved the winds, the angry seas
Howl'd to the darkness, and down fallen the snows;
The redbreast to the window came for crumbs;
Hunger had to the coleworts driven the hare;
The crow at noontide peck'd the travell'd road;
And the wood-pigeon, timorously bold,
Starved from the forest, near'd the homes of man.
It was the dreariest depth of winter-tide,
And on the ocean and its isles was felt
The iron sway of the North; yea, even the fowl—
That through the polar summer months could see
A beauty in Spitzbergen's naked isles,
Or on the drifting icebergs seek a home—
Even they had fled, on southern wing, in search
Of less inclement shores.
Perturb'd by dreams
Pass'd o'er the slow night-watches; many a thought
And many a hope was forward bent on morn;
But weary was the tedious chime on chime,
And hour on hour 'twas dark, and still 'twas dark.
At length we arose—for now we counted five—
And by the flickering hearth array'd ourselves
In coats and 'kerchiefs, for the early drift
And biting season fit; the fowling-piece
Was shoulder'd, and the blood-stain'd game-pouch slung
On this side, and the gleaming flask on that;
In sooth we were a most accordant pair;
And thus accoutred, to the lone sea-shore
In fond and fierce precipitance we flew.
Pass'd o'er the slow night-watches; many a thought
And many a hope was forward bent on morn;
But weary was the tedious chime on chime,
And hour on hour 'twas dark, and still 'twas dark.
At length we arose—for now we counted five—
And by the flickering hearth array'd ourselves
In coats and 'kerchiefs, for the early drift
And biting season fit; the fowling-piece
Was shoulder'd, and the blood-stain'd game-pouch slung
On this side, and the gleaming flask on that;
In sooth we were a most accordant pair;
And thus accoutred, to the lone sea-shore
In fond and fierce precipitance we flew.
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IV.
There was no breath abroad; each in its cave,As if enchanted, slept the winds, and left
Earth in a voiceless trance: around the porch
All stirlessly the darksome ivy clung;
All silently the leafless trees held up
Their bare boughs to the sky; the atmosphere,
Untroubled in its cold serenity,
Wept icy dews; and now the later stars,
As by some hidden necromantic charm,
Dilate, amid the death-like calm profound,
On the white slumber-mantled earth gazed down.—
Words may not tell, how to the temperament,
And to the hue of that enchanted hour,
The spirit was subdued—a wizard scene!
In the far west, the Pentland's gloomy ridge
Belted the pale blue sky, whereon a cloud,
Fantastic, grey, and tinged with solemn light,
Lay, like a dreaming monster, and the moon,
Waning, above its silvery rim upheld
Her horns—as 'twere the Spectre of the Past.
Silently, silently, on we trode and trode,
As if a spell had frozen up our words:—
White lay the wolds around us, ankle-deep
In new-fallen snows, which champ'd beneath our tread;
And, by the marge of winding Esk, which show'd
The mirror'd stars upon its map of ice,
Downwards in haste we journey'd to the shore
Of Ocean, whose drear, multitudinous voice
Unto the listening spirit of Silence sang.
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V.
O leaf! from out the volume of far yearsDissever'd, oft, how oft have the young buds
Of spring unfolded, have the summer skies
In their deep blue o'ercanopied the earth,
And autumn, in September's ripening breeze,
Rustled her harvests, since the theme was one
Present, and darkly all that Future lay,
Which now is of the perish'd and the past!
Since then a generation's span hath fled,
With all its varied whirls of chance and change—
With all its casualties of birth and death;
And, looking round, sadly I feel this world
Another, though the same;—another in
The eyes that gleam, the hearts that throb, the hopes,
The fears, the friendships of the soul; the same
In outward aspect—in the hills which cleave,
As landmarks of historical renown,
With azure peaks the sky; in the green plain,
That spreads its annual wild-flowers to the sun;
And in the river, whose blue course is mark'd
By many a well-known bend and shadowy tree:
Yet o'er the oblivious gulf, whose mazy gloom
Ensepulchres so many things, I see
As 'twere of yesterday—yet robed in tints
Which yesterday has lost, or never had—
The desolate features of that Polar morn,—
Its twilight shadows, and its twinkling stars—
The snows far spreading—the expanse of sand,
Ribb'd by the roaring and receded sea,
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The waning moon above the dim-seen hills.
VI.
At length, upon the solitary shoreWe walk'd of Ocean, which, with sullen voice,
Hollow and never-ceasing, to the north
Sang its primeval song. A weary waste!—
We pass'd through pools, where mussel, clam, and wilk,
Clove to their gravelly beds; o'er slimy rocks,
Ridgy and dark, with dank fresh fuci green,
Where the prawn wriggled, and the tiny crab
Slid sideway from our path, until we gain'd
The land's extremest point, a sandy jut,
Narrow, and by the weltering waves begirt
Around; and there we laid us down and watch'd,
While from the west the pale moon disappear'd,
Pronely, the sea-fowl and the coming dawn.
VII.
Now day with darkness for the mastery strove:The stars had waned away—all, save the last
And fairest, Lucifer, whose silver lamp,
In solitary beauty, twinkling, shone
'Mid the far west, where, through the clouds of rack
Floating around, peep'd out at intervals
A patch of sky;—straightway the reign of night
Was finish'd, and, as if instinctively,
The ocean flocks, or slumbering on the wave
Or on the isles, seem'd the approach of dawn
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Shrill shrieks and pipings desolate—a pause
Ensued, and then the same lone sounds return'd,
And suddenly the whirring rush of wings
Went circling round us o'er the level sands,
Then died away; and, as we look'd aloft,
Between us and the sky we saw a speck
Of black upon the blue—some huge, wild bird,
Osprey or eagle, high amid the clouds
Sailing majestic, on its plumes to catch
The earliest crimson of the approaching day.
VIII.
'Twere sad to tell our murderous deeds that morn.Silent upon the chilly beach we lay
Prone, while the drifting snow-flakes o'er us fell,
Like Nature's frozen tears for our misdeeds
Of wanton cruelty. The eider ducks,
With their wild eyes, and necks of changeful blue,
We watch'd, now diving down, now on the surge
Flapping their pinions, of our ambuscade
Unconscious—till a sudden death was found;
While floating o'er us, in the graceful curves
Of silent beauty, down the sea-mew fell;
The gilinot upon the shell-bank lay
Bleeding, and oft, in wonderment, its mate
Flew round, with mournful cry, to bid it rise,
Then shrieking, fled afar; the sand-pipers,
A tiny flock, innumerable, as round
And round they flew, bewail'd their broken ranks;
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With blood-bedabbled plumes around us rose
A slaughter'd hecatomb; and to my heart
(My heart then open to all sympathies)
It spoke of tyrannous cruelty—of man
The desolator; and of some far day,
When the accountable shall make account,
And but the merciful shall mercy find.
IX.
Soul-sicken'd, satiate, and dissatisfied,An alter'd being homewards I return'd,
My thoughts revolting at the thirst for blood,
So brutalising, so destructive of
The finer sensibilities, which man
In boyhood owns, and which the world destroys.
Nature had preach'd a sermon to my heart:
And from that moment, on that snowy morn—
(Seeing that earth enough of suffering has
And death)—all cruelty my soul abhorr'd,
Yea, loathed the purpose and the power to kill.
| The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir | |