The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

I will not answer for my wife's reports;
Quite true, no doubt, in the main, as true at least
As the most excellent women can report
People they don't much like; not meant to bear
Lawyer's cross-questioning, which they detest
With a good conscience, conscious that they speak
True to the idea, if the facts hang loose
At one point, at another have been joined
Ingeniously. Men are so troublesome!
Rose was not faultless, as her lovers swore,
Nor yet so faulty as my Hester thought:
Women judge women hardly; hit perchance
The likeness true enough by instinct keen
That, piecing trivial incidents, detects
The soul of character; but they have no shading,
No softening tints, no generous allowance
For circumstance, to make the picture human,
And true because so human. Rose was human;
And for a woman born of such a mother,
And for a woman reared in such a world,
And for a woman dowered with queenly beauty
Set out for sale, and buzzed by flatterers
All her life long, was even womanly,
And better truly than she might have been.

So stately as she left my lady's chamber,
Her full eyes flashing scorn, yet with her scorn
Contending to retain a mother still,
If no more shrined in natural reverence,
Yet cloaked with charity. But in the hall
Her heart failed, and she pressed her forehead flushed
On the cold fluting of a marble pillar,
And wept to feel her life so desolate,

And wept still more because the world had made it
So desolate, yet was the world her all;
She loathed it, but she knew it was her all.
Thus she with passionate rebellion wept,
Printing the fluted pillar on her brow,
And then with weary, lifeless steps she went
Heavily to her father's chamber door.

The Squire was banished to a little room
That overlooked a paved court and a mews.
A small, close chamber, lined with dusty books
And dingy maps; and savage crania
Grinned from high shelves, with clubs and arrow-heads
And tools of flint, and shields of hide embossed.
There were great cobwebs on the windows dim,
Where bloated spiders watched their webs, and heard
The blue-fly knock his head against the pane,
And buzz about their snares. And through the room,
On table and chair, were globes and glasses tall,
Retorts and crucibles, electric jars
And batteries, and microscopes and prisms
And balances, and fossil plants and shells,
Disorderly and dusty; and the floor
Was carpeted with papers and thick-dust,—
Papers and books and instruments and dust.

A grey old man sat in that dim grey room
Wrapt in a dressing-gown of soft grey stuff,
And puzzling o'er a paper wearily
Of circles, squares and pentagons, and lines
Of logarithms, he strove to disentangle.
He was a little, brisk, bald-headed man,
With fiery eyes, and forehead narrow and high
And far-retiring: one who could have led
A regiment to the belching cannon's mouth
If wisely ordered when; or might have headed
The cheery hunt across the stubble field,
Taking the fences gallantly, nor turning
From the wide brook to seek the safer ford.
But being held in London half the year,
And with no taste for politics or fashion,
Or such religion as he came across,
He took to Science, made experiments,
Bought many nice and costly instruments,
Heard lectures, and believed he understood
Beetle-browed Science wrestling with the fact
To find its meaning clear; but all in vain.
He thought he thought, and yet he did not think,
But only echoed still the common thought,
As might an empty room. The forehead high
And fiery eye had no reflexion in them
To brood and hatch the secret of the world.
He could but skim and dip, like restless swallow
Fly-catching on the surface of all knowledge

Anthropologic and Botanical
And Chemical, and what was last set forth
By charlatan to stun the vulgar sense.
But yet a strain of noble chivalry
Ran through his nature, and a faint crisp humour
Rippled his thought, and would have been a joy
Had life been kindlier; but his cheeriest smile
Verged on a sneer, and ran to mocking laughter.
Yet under all his pottering at science,
And deeper than his feeble cynic sneer,
Lay a great love, to which he fondly clung,
For Rose, the stately daughter of his house.

LOQUITUR PATER

I will not hear of it. No more;
Besides, I'm busy, as I said;
You come and knock, knock at my door,
And drive all thought clean from my head,
Just when at last I've caught the thread,
Subtle and brittle and sought-for long,
That would most surely bind a throng
Of facts together, firmly wed
By doctrine of Science clear and strong.

I labour and experiment,
I methodise and meditate,
I watch the bias and the bent
Of the mind's idols. Still I wait
And verify and speculate,
When rat-tat-tat! my mind's a blank;
My thread of thought, a tangled hank;
My ordered facts, confusion great;—
And it's always you women I have to thank.

You've heard of Newton's dog that spoiled
The calculations of long years,
And of that brutish maid whose soiled
And sooty fingers used the tears
Of genius and its hopes and fears,
Page after page, to light her fire—
A horrible and impious pyre!
So all my laboured thought appears
To melt, like the snow, into slush and mire.

I say it's worse than Suttee, or
The sacrifice of beautiful youth,
This waste of thought long-waited for,
This fruitless birth of still-born truth.
What matters for the silly, smooth,
Meaningless face of widow trim,
Slow roasting to a drowsy hymn?
But you do rob the world in sooth,
When the lights of Science are quenched or dim.

Is't not enough to have your maids
Scrubbing and brooming at my door,
With whispers shrill, and sudden raids
On cobwebs that have taught me more
Wisdom and beauty, than a score
Of chattering girls? Only last night
I found my favourite beetle quite
Crushed and mangled upon the floor;
And the jade held to it she did quite right.

A plague on maids! and him who first
Invented them! They're all the same.
I've tried them saucy, tried them curst,
I've tried them sluts, and tried to tame
Their natural instincts, and to shame
Their ignorance, and to abate
Their furious and unfeeling hate
Of fellow-creatures; but my claim
Was vain as appeal to the wheels of Fate.

Whate'er they do not understand
Is dirt, and must be brushed away;
They'd broom all science from the land
And scour from heaven the Milky Way.
I plan by night, I work by day
With chemic and electric Force,
And tremble as I watch the course
Of Nature; all in vain, for they
Baffle in some way my best resource.

And now you come, like all the rest,
My daughter, but a woman still,
My daughter, whom I thought the best
Of possible daughters, trained with skill,
And schooled in Science to fulfil
The part of Cuvier's daughter true;
And when I hope and trust in you,
You fall in love, and coo and bill,
And want to know what I mean to do.

Of course, the fellow came to me,
And talked of marriage, love, and trash,
As if he thought I did not see
He meant just settlements and cash.
But there's my banker gone to smash,
Shares fallen to nothing, farmers' rents
Begged off, and half my Three per Cents
Gone to save Charlie from a smash;
And where is the money for settlements?

O yes! He did not care for that,
He did not woo you for your gold,
He wished for nothing, cared not what
You brought or did not bring him; told
His means and prospects, and was bold
To think that love like his and yours,
Would work miraculous works and cures,
Keep you from hunger, debt, and cold,
And all the evils that man endures.

The old story, Rose; the silly stuff
Of fools and beggars superfine!
Why! he has hardly means enough
To keep you in gloves and flowers and wine.
You could not dress, you could not dine,
You could not keep a maid or horse,
Or drive but in a cab, or worse;—
The man's a fool; no child of mine
Could marry a beggar like him, of course.

I marvel at his impudence;
A fellow with some paltry three
Hundred a-year! A grain of sense—
But that he hasn't—had made him see
The silliness of plaguing me.
His genius and his prospects! Well;
Can you eat prospects? Will they sell?
And will his trumpery genius be
A dinner, or only a dinner-bell?

There there; don't cry: I do not mean
He is not all that you would say—
A handsome fellow, as I've seen,
And true and modest in his way:
And it is hard to say you nay;
Yet why should your old father lose
His one ewe-lamb? Why, should he choose
To steal my only joy away,
Since Charlie went to the dogs and Jews?

And that reminds me, Charlie says
Your friend's a screw, and awful close:
But then he's poor, and no doubt pays
His way, which Charlie never does.
That makes a difference, for those
May freely give and lend, whose purse
Is shut to all their creditors.
I wish I knew their secret, Rose,
How never to pay, and be never the worse.

Well, yes; I liked him, as you say,
And praised him to my friends; and he
May wed their daughters any day
He likes,—that's no concern to me.
But this I could not bear to see,
My Rose stuck in his button-hole,
And shunned, like any stainèd soul,
By a world that hates all poverty—
And the world is perfectly right, on the whole.

But tush! with marriage and affiance;
The Medium waits me at the door,
That Pythoness of modern science,
Who brings back Intellect once more
To hear and wonder and adore.
She photographed by electric light
My old Grandmother's ghost last night,
The very cap and wig she wore,
While the spirit sat by me there bolt upright.

I did not see Her; but I saw
The portrait like as like could be,
And felt a kind of creeping awe,
And old religion back in me;
A hand was laid upon my knee,
And there was music in the air,
The very song she whiled my care
Away with in my infancy;
And she lives in some kind of a sphere somewhere.

And conscience twitched me, like a spasm,
For hitherto I had no faith
In anything but protoplasm;
I held that spirit was but breath,
And all the Future silent death.
And what, if Science shall restore
The faith it robbed me of before?
For call it spirit, ghost, or wraith,
One was there who did not come in by the door.

It's wonderful what now we do;
This is a mighty age indeed,
With march of Intellect so true,
From prejudice and bondage freed,
And pious fraud, and worn-out creed!
We weigh the farthest stars in scales,
We comprehend the wandering gales,
We summon spirits at our need
From the shadowy world which love bewails.

I don't deny, that heretofore
The spirits have not much to tell,
That Shakespeare's something of a bore,
That Milton proses about Hell,
That Scott has lost his wizard spell,
That Plato has forgot his Greek,
That Byron's dull, and Goethe weak;
But then, deal tables could not well
Utter the thoughts they might wish to speak.

We wait for better instruments—
Wind harps to suit the spirit hand,
Sweet lutes to place beside the rents
In the dim walls of the spirit-land.
No Maestro with his cunning wand
Beethoven's symphonies could get
From bones and bagpipes. We are yet
But groping 'mong the secrets grand
Of the mystic spiritual Alphabet.

At any rate, this is the age
Of miracles proper,—wonders done
By careful reading the dark page
Of Nature, searching one by one
Her secrets till there shall be none.
And he who reads them is the true
Prophet-Apostle of this new
Annus mirabilis, whose sun
Shines its great light now on me and you.

Wonders of Science! marvels high,
Beyond our wildest dream or hope,
Found in the sunlight and the sky
By spectroscope and telescope!
Miracles in a dirty drop
Of water from a stagnant pool!
And every lichened rock is full
Of history; and there's a crop
Of marvels now in a table or stool!

Now, go to your mother, Rose, she'll give
Excellent counsel in Heaven's name;
Right worldly wisdom, as I live,
And all in pious phrase and frame.
I wish I knew that little game,
It is a secret worth the knowing,
To clothe with Scripture language glowing
The devil's plain common-sense, and claim
The Word of truth for truth's o'er-throwing.

What? You have only come from her?
Well, I'm a beast, a perfect brute,
To fret and fume and stamp and stir
With fretful word, and angry foot,
While my poor girl stands still and mute,
With that taste in her mouth, where all
Nauseous bitters scriptural
Are mingled by a branch-and-root
Right Low-church Evangelical.

But come, now, tell me what she said.
Yet what needs asking that? Of course,
Her heart was broken, and she prayed
For “Death” to come on his pale horse,
And all the world was waxing worse;
And then she blamed your wicked views
And touched upon the elected Jews
Going to Zion back in force—
And they can't go sooner than I would choose.

And still beneath the grieving saint,
You found the nether millstone hard;
She's not a fool, nor given to faint,
But maundered nonsense by the yard,
Until she had you off your guard,
Then lisped soft words that stung you sore,
And hints that maddened you still more.
You bit the peach and for reward
Cracked your teeth on the stony core.

I know it all; the winding stream
Of pious babble linked along,
As loose as some fantastic dream,
Oblivious of all right and wrong,
Here swirling round in eddies strong
'Neath twisted roots of old dead thought,
There slushing among mud and rot,
And chill as salt and snow among
The tremblings of feeling highly wrought.

Our modern science has not left
A leg for faith to stand upon;
Of all its miracles bereft,
Its history to myth all gone;
Yet would it surely hold its own
But for that nether millstone bit
That lieth in the heart of it.
A little mercy would atone
For failure of reason, and lack of wit.

She is your mother, and my wife?
Well, yes! and may be I have been
No wise guide for a troubled life,
To lead it to the peace serene.
A brighter girl was never seen;
There's none of you who may compare,
A moment, with her beauty rare,
Her perfect sense, and insight keen.—
How she headed the hunt on that wild black mare!

Ah! well; that's past. And I am vexed
If I have added to your pain.
I did not mean it. I'm perplexed
With Charlie's gambling debts again.
Do what I will, 'tis all in vain:
He plays to-night, and prays tomorrow,
Now tries to preach, and now to borrow
Among the Jews; and then is fain
To come to me when he comes to sorrow.

Now, kiss me, Rose, and let me go;
And put this business quite away
Out of your thoughts. You surely know.
'Tis easier far for me to say
A yea to any one than nay;
And yea to thee, was pleasant still,
And nay, against my heart and will;
But it would quench my light of day,
If aught should happen to thee of ill.

Even when you leave me for a home,
Happy and honoured, it will be
The last bright day shall ever come
With sunshine to my home and me;
And the years afterwards will flee
Like drift of dry and barren sand
Along the shore, between the land
And the low moaning of the sea
That creeps with the great mist, hand in hand.

If you had loved with love supreme,
Which to itself is all in all;
If you were lapt in blissful dream,
Which wakens not at any call,
But still loves on whate'er befall;
If worldly custom, pride, and show,
And all your wonted life might flow
Past you unheeded, and the small
Tattle of fools, like the winds that blow;

If I could think you loved like this,
And had no half-heart for the world,
If perfect Love were perfect bliss,
Whose spotless flag you had unfurled,
And its serene defiance hurled
At toil, contempt, and hardships great—
But you have ne'er confronted Fate:
Your love is rosy, scented, curled,
And dreams of a carriage, and man to wait.

My dear, you know it not; but yet
That is the truth; I've read your heart:
You are no heroine; you would fret
To play a common, obscure part,
To watch the coming baker's cart,
To tremble at the butcher's bill,
To patch and darn and hem, and still
To make yourself look neat and smart
In a twopenny print and a muslin frill.

There's nothing of the hero, Rose,
In any of us. We could fight,
I daresay, if it came to blows,
Almost like the old Norman knight
Who won our lands—Heaven bless his might!
We could not win them if we tried—
We can but shoot and fish and ride,
And lightly spend what came so light,
And I don't know we can do ought beside.

Indeed, you must not think of it.
For us there's nought but common-place.
A dinner good, a dress to fit,
A ride to hunt, a pretty lace,
Old wine, old china, and old lace:
We can no more. I've tried to know
Science, but Science will not show
Her secrets to the trifling race
Of Dilettanti, brisk or slow.

You don't like this, you don't like that;
You don't like horsey-hunting squires,
You don't like parsons sleek and fat,
You don't like those whose only fires
Are the quenched ashes of their sires:
Nor do you love this Thorold so,
That you with him, like Eve, would go
Into a world of thorns and briers,
Glad to be with him in weal or woe.

That is the curse upon us, Rose;
We cannot dare a noble fate,
And yet our hearts find no repose
In all our empty show and state:
We can be neither small nor great;
With strong desire and feeble power
We hanker through our weary hour,
Like flowers that try to blossom late,
In a sickly struggle with frost and shower.

Our race is run: the Norman knight
Is distanced by the engineer;
The cotton-spinner beats us quite
When all the battle is to clear
A hundred thousand pounds a-year:
That is the glory of our age,
Six figures on the Ledger's page—
And no bad glory either, dear,
As glory goes among saint and sage.

Our life is all a poor illusion,
And nothing is that seems to be;
Our knowledge only breeds confusion,
Our love is moonshine on the sea,
Our faith is but the shadow we
Cast on the cloud that bounds our view;
And to be virtuous and true
Is trouble, plague, and misery,
If we have not the funds when the bills come due.