 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
EDITORIAL
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.
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.
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,
63
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.
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.
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
64
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.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |