The coming of love :: :: University of Virginia Library

(Percy, standing on the deck of “The Petrel,” takes from his pocket a letter which, before he had set sail to return to the south seas, the Melbourne post had brought him—a letter from Rhona, staying then with the Boswells on a patch of heath much favoured by the Boswells, called “Gypsy Heather.” He takes from the envelope a withered heather-spray, encircled by a little scroll of paper on which Rhona has written the words “Remember Gypsy Heather.”)

I

Remember Gypsy Heather?
Remember Jasper's camping-place
Where heath-bells meet the grassy dingle,
And scents of meadow wood and chase,

Wild thyme and whin-flower seem to mingle?
Remember where, in Rington Furze,
I kissed her and she asked me whether
I “thought my lips of teazel-burrs,
That pricked her jis like whin-bush spurs,
Felt nice on a rinkenny moey like hers.”—
Gypsy Heather!

II

Remember Gypsy Heather?
Remember her whom nought could tame
But love of me, the poacher-maiden
Who showed me once my father's game
With which her plump round arms were laden,
Who when my glances spoke reproach
Said, “Things o' fur an' fin an' feather

Like coneys, pheasants, perch an' loach,
An' even the famous ‘Rington roach’
Wur born for Romany chies to poach!”—
Gypsy Heather!

III

Remember Gypsy Heather?
Atolls and reefs, you change, you change
To dells of England dewy and tender,
You palm-trees in yon coral range
Seem “Rington Birches” sweet and slender
Shading the ocean's fiery glare:
We too are in the Dell together—
My body is here, my soul there
With lords of trap and net and snare,
The Children of the Open Air,—
Gypsy Heather!

IV

Remember Gypsy Heather?
Its pungent breath is on the wind,
Killing the scent of tropic water;
I see her suitors, swarthy skinned,
Who pine in vain for Jasper's daughter;
The “Scollard,” with his features tanned
By sun and wind as brown as leather—
His forehead scarred with Passion's brand—
Scowling at Sinfii tall and grand,
Who sits with “Pharaoh” by her hand.—
Gypsy Heather!

V

Remember Gypsy Heather?
Now Rhona sits beneath the tree
That shades our tent, alone and weeping;
And him, the “Scollard,” him I see:
From bush to bush I see him creeping—

I see her mock him, see her run
And free his pony from the tether,
Who lays his ears in love and fun,
And gallops with her in the sun
Through lace the gossamers have spun.—
Gypsy Heather!

VI

Remember Gypsy Heather?
She reaches “Rington Birches”; now,
Dismounting from the “Scollard's” pony,
She sits alone with heavy brow,
Thinking—but not of hare or coney.
The hot sea holds each sight, each sound
Of England's golden autumn weather:
The Romanies now are sitting round
The tea-cloth spread on grassy ground;
Now Rhona dances heather-crowned.—
Gypsy Heather!

VII

Remember Gypsy Heather?
She's thinking of this withered spray
Through all the dance; her eyes are gleaming
Darker than night, yet bright as day,
While round her a gypsy shawl is streaming;
I see the lips—the upper curled,
A saucy rose-leaf, from the nether,
Whence—while the floating shawl is twirled,
As if a ruddy cloud were swirled—
Her scornful laugh at Herne is hurled
Gypsy Heather!

VIII

Remember Gypsy Heather?
In storm or calm, in sun or rain,
There's magic, Rhona, in the writing

Wound round these flowers whose purple stain
Dims the dear scrawl of Love's inditing:
Dear girl, this spray between the leaves
(Now fading like a draggled feather
With which the nesting song-bird weaves)
Makes every wave the vessel cleaves
Seem purple of heather as it heaves.—
Gypsy Heather!

IX

Remember Gypsy Heather?
Oh, Rhona! sights and sounds of home
Are everywhere; the skylark winging
Through amber cloud-films till the dome
Seems filled with love, our love, a-singing
The sea-wind seems an English breeze
Bearing the bleat of ewe and wether
Over the heath from Rington Leas,

Where, to the hymn of birds and bees,
You taught me Romany 'neath the trees.—
Gypsy Heather!

“If you breathe on a heather-spray and send it to your man it'll show him the selfsame heather where it wur born.” —Sinfi Lovell.

Pretty mouth.