University of Virginia Library

THE BIRTHDAY.

1. PART THE FIRST.

Come in your mellowed hues, long vanished years!
Come in your softened outline, passing slow
O'er the charmed mirror, as I gaze entranced—
There first I see, when struggling into life,
Dawned the first ray of infant consciousness;
There first I see a tender, watchful group,
Hailing delightfully that token faint.
Two Parents then, inestimable wealth!
Two Parents me, their only darling, blessed:
And one—the good, the gentle, the beloved!—
My Mother's Mother. Still methinks I see
Her gracious countenance. The unruffled brow,
The soft blue eye, the still carnationed cheek
Unwrinkled yet, though sixty passing years
Of light and shade—ah! deeply shaded some—
Had streaked with silvery grey her tresses fair.
Even now methinks that placid smile I see,
That kindly beamed on all, but chief on me,
Her age's darling! Nor of hers alone:
One yet surviving in a green old age,
Her Mother lived; and, when I saw the light,
Rejoicing hailed her daughter's daughter's child.
Nor from that kindred patriarchal group
Be thou excluded, long-tried humble friend!
Old faithful Servant! Sole survivor now
Of those beloved, for whom thine aged hands
The last sad service tremblingly performed,
That closed their eyes, and for the long, long sleep
Arrayed them in the vestments of the grave.
Yes, thou survivest still to tend and watch
Me, the sad orphan of thy Master's house!
My cradle hast thou rocked; with patient love,
Love all enduring, all indulgent, borne
My childhood's wayward fancies, that from thee
Never rebuke or frown encountered cold.
Revive, dear healthful pastimes! active sports
Of childhood's enterprising age, revive!
Elastic aye! untiring, unsubdued
By labour, disappointment, or fatigue:
Thy toil enjoyment—thy defeated hope
The spur to fresh exertion—thy fatigue
The healthful anodyne that medicines thee
To renovating slumbers light and sweet.
Full oft I pause with reminiscent eye
Upon the little spot of border-ground
Once called “my garden.” Proud accession that
To territorial right and power supreme!
To right possessive, the exclusive mine,
So soon asserted, e'en by infant tongue.
Methinks the thick-sown parallels I see
Of thriving mustard—herb of rapid growth!
The only one whose magical increase
Keeps pace with young impatience, that expects
Ripe pulse to-morrow from seed sown to-day.
To-morrow and to-morrow passes on,
And still no vestige of the incipient plant.
No longer to be borne, the third day's sun
Beholds the little fingers delving deep
T' unearth the buried seed; and up it comes,
Just swelling into vegetable life;
Of which assured, into the mould again
'Tis stuck, a little nearer to the top.
Such was the process horticultural
I boldly practised in my new domain:
As little chance of rest, as little chance
To live and thrive, had slip or cutting there,
Which failing in three days to sprout amain,
Was twitched impatient up, with curious eye
Examined, and if fibrous threads appeared,
With renovated hope replanted soon.
But thriving plants were there, though not of price.
No puny children of a foreign soil,
But hardy natives of our own dear earth,
From many a field and bank and streamlet side
Transplanted careful, with the adhering mould.
The primrose, with her large indented leaves
And many blossoms pale, expanded there,
With wild anemone, and hyacinth,
And languid cowslip, lady of the mead,
And violets' mingled hues of every sort,
Blue, white, and purple. The more fragrant white
Even from that very root, in many a patch
Extended wide, still scents the garden round.
Maternal love received the childish gift,
A welcome offering, and the lowly flower,
A rustic stranger, bloomed with cultured sweets;
And still it shares their bed, encroaching oft—
So ignorance presumes—on worthier claims.
She spared it in the tenderness of love,
Her child's first gift; and I, for her dear sake,
Who prized the pale intruder, spare it now.
Loved occupations! blameless, calm delights!
Your relish has not palled upon my sense;
I taste ye with as keen enjoyment still
As in my childish days; with zeal as warm,
More temperate, less impatient, still I tend
My flowery charge, with interest unimpaired
Watching the tender germ and swelling bud,
Pruning the weak or too luxuriant shoot,
And timely propping with assiduous care
The slender stalks with heavy blossoms bowed.
I will not tell how lately and how oft
In dreams I've wandered 'mongst the blooming tribes,
Continuing thus in sleep the pleasing task,
My summer evening's toil. I will not tell
How lately, stealing forth on moonless night,
I've sought by lantern light the dewy buds
Of peeping larkspur, searching 'mong the leaves
For nightly spoilers, from the soft light earth
That issue forth to feed on the young plant,
Their favourite dainty. No, I will not tell,
Lest wisdom laugh to scorn such puerile cares
In age mature, how lately they've been mine.
The gladness! the unspeakable deep joy!
When Nature, putting off her russet stole
Of wintry sadness, decks herself afresh
In bloom and beauty, like a virgin bride.
With lovely coyness, shrinkingly she comes;
For oft in clouds, and mist, and arrowy sleet,
The sun, her bridegroom, veils his glorious face,
And on his setting hour too often hangs
The breath of lingering frosts, repelling long
All but the hardiest children of the spring.
Of these, the earliest pursuivants, appear,
Studding the brown earth with their golden stars,
The clustering aconites, a pigmy race,
Fearless of wintry blast, whose fiercest rage
Passes innocuous o'er their lowly bed.
But soon through every border the moist earth
Breaks up its even surface, every clod
Expands and heaves with vegetable life;
And tender cones of palest green appear,
The future hyacinths, and arrowy points
Of bolder crocus; and the bashful heads
Of snowdrops, trembling on their slender stalks;
And next, of many hues, hepaticas,
The red, the milk-white, and the lovelier blue—
A vegetable amethyst!—come forth,
The impatient blossoms bursting into sight
Before the tardier leaves; but those at length
Expand their outward circle, fencing round
With its broad fringe the tufted bloom within.
But Winter oft, tenacious of his sway,
Enviously lingers on the skirts of Spring,
Binds up in frozen chains the stubborn soil,
Nips the young leaf, and checks the tender germ.
In such ungenial seasons oft I've watched
Week after week, and shivered at the sight,
Beneath some shelving bank or garden wall
Long wreaths of snow, that on the border mould,
In drifted thickness heaped, continuous lie.
Elsewhere divested of that livery pale,
The cold Earth reassumes her natural hues,
And slow returning verdure: but in vain
To the stiff surface heave the tender heads
Of budding flowers, or if they struggle through,
Deep in their sheltering leaves concealed they lie.
At length succeeds a thaw—a rapid thaw;
And from the heavens a dazzling sun looks down,
Arousing Nature from her torpid thrall.
Yielding and moist becomes the darkening mould.
And from that snow-heaped border melts away
The drifted wreath;—it shrinks and disappears,
And lo! as by enchantment, in its place
A rainbow streaks the ground—a flowery prism
Of crocus tribes innumerous, to the Sun
Expanding wide their gold and purple stars.
A Christian moral—to the pious mind
All things present one—may be found e'en here.
Adversity, like that pale wreath of snow,
Falls on the youthful heart, a seeming load
Of deadly pressure, crushing its young hopes;
But seeming such, for after certain space
Continuing there, and if it finds the soil
Not wholly sterile, to the frozen mass
Of its own latent virtues it imparts
A fertilising warmth, that penetrates
The surface of obdurate worldliness.
Then from the barren waste, no longer such,
Upspring a thousand amaranthine flowers
“Whose fragrance smells to heaven.” Desires chastised,
Enlarged affections, tender charities,
Long-suffering mercy, and the snowdrop buds
Of heavenly meekness:—These, and thousands more
As beautiful, as kindly, are called forth,
Adversity! beneath thy fostering shade.

2. PART THE SECOND.

Hard by that flourishing domain, that strip
Of border ground, my garden, late described,
On a grass plot by the house door there stood
An aged willow, whose long flexile boughs
With their light shadows checkered the green turf;
Beneath the sheltering arms of that old tree
Pastime, to me delightful, oft I found
On balanced seat, upborne by a strong limb
Selected for the trust with cautious care,
Anxious as his, who for an arctic voyage
Of unknown peril, far discovery,
Selects the timbers for some strong-ribbed bark:
Even with like caution did my father choose
The transverse bough to which his hands made fast
With firmness doubly sure the swinging cords;
Committing to their strength a freight to him
More precious, than to Solomon of old
The yearly lading of his treasure-ships
From Tarshish and from Ophir—ay, than those
To the great Hebrew—than the wealth of worlds—
Far, far more precious to my father's heart
That bending bough's light weight—his only child.
Right pleasant pastime! the clear cutting air
To cleave with rapid motion, self-impelled—
For I was dexterous at the sport—to sway
With pendulous slow motion, dying off
To scarce perceptible, until at last
Settling to perfect stillness; which, howe'er,
A breath, a finger's motion would disturb.
So 'twas my luxury to sit and dream,
Building in cloud-land many a castle fair,
Albeit no genii of the ring or lamp
Came at my bidding; in those dreamy moods
I conjured up as gorgeous palaces—
Gardens as dazzling bright with jewelled fruit
As e'er Aladdin's wondering eyes beheld,
And peopled them with living forms, to me,
Deep read in magic lore, familiar all.
Then the Commander of the Faithful strayed,
And dark Mesrour, and that devoted slave
Giafar, the pearl of ministers, whose head
So lightly on his patient shoulders sat,
Ready to leave them headless, at a nod
From his most gracious master. Stately walked
Beside her mighty lord his jealous spouse,
Scornful Zobeide, their attendant slaves
Close following; the fair Noushatoul; and he
The Caliph's favourite, jester of the court,
Facetious Abon Hassan. Hunchback, too,
And that loquacious Barber, and his train
Of luckless brethren, came at my command.
Then, with King Saladin and Queen Gulnare,
A car of pearl and coral bore me off
Through submarine dominions—overarched
With liquid chrysolite the billowy vault;
Or with the exiled brethren far I strayed,
Amgrad and Assad, or that happier prince
Who found the hall of statues, found and won
That ninth, so far surpassing all the rest.
Anon I ventured on a darker realm,
Peopled with awful shapes—magicians dire,
Happak and Ulin, and their hideous crew,
The Sultan Misnar's leagued inveterate foes.
How my heart beat, as in the dead of night
With him and his suspected slave I trod
Those rocky passages, hewn roughly out
In the earth's entrails! How I held my breath,
Expecting the result, when through the ring
The severed rope slid rapidly away!
How my young feelings sympathised with hers,
The duteous Una's, when on Tigris' banks,
A weeping orphan, she was left forlorn;
And when in urgent peril—hapless maid!
In that dark forest from her side she missed
The guardian peppercorns! But oh! the joy
When in the shaggy monarch of the woods,
A brave protector—brave and kind—she found.
I saw her by his side—in his thick mane
I saw her small white fingers fondly twined;
Majestically gentle, at her feet
I saw the royal brute lie fawning dowr;
I saw all this—and murmured half aloud,
“Oh how I wish I had a lion too!”
Fantastic shadows! fearful, gay, grotesque!
Still with a child's delight I reperuse
The pages where ye live; recall ye still—
Ay, all your marvellous annals—with as keen
And undiminished interest as of yore
When I convened ye at my sovereign will
In that green bower beneath the willow-tree,
Where moments flew uncounted as I sat
With eyes half-closed, excluding outward things;
And as the spell within worked languidly,
Or kindled into action, truth, and life,
Slower or faster swung my airy car—
Not quite at rest, for that had broke the charm—
Unconscious I so tranced in waking dreams,
That mine own impulse checked or urged it on.
But I was not sole tenant of the tree,
Not then companionless: above my head
Among the thicker branches, there secure
From the swing's reach, our old grey parrot hung—
Poor Poll! we were in truth well-sorted mates.
Wert thou my prototype? or I in sooth
The shadow of thy graces and thy wit?
As Jacko in the fable proveth plain
That man, the servile copyist! apes his.
Associates though we were in that green bower,
Yet little kindness, Poll! betwixt us grew;
For many an ancient grudge in either heart
Kept us asunder, and the hag Mistrust
Widened the unhealed wounds of former feuds.
Thou wert, in truth, the aggressor in those feuds,
For, Poll! it ill became thy reverend years,
With spiteful vengeance of that hard sharp beak
The unsuspecting freedom to repulse
Of baby fondness, first encouraged, too,
By coaxing treachery—“Scratch poor Polly's head.”
And when thy victim, smarting with the pain
Of that unkind reception, wept aloud,
'Twas most ungenerous, Poll! to flout and jeer,
And mock with imitative whine, and cry,
And peevish whimper, and convulsive sob,
Concluding all with boisterous ha! ha! ha!
Then comments indiscreet of mutual friends—
Such oftenest the result—but served to increase
And whet the growing animosity.
The frowning hearer, when I gabbled o'er
Some tedious lesson, not a word whereof
Informed my far-off senses, bade me note
How Poll as glibly ran her lesson o'er
Of words by her as little understood.
The mincing nursemaid, sedulous to improve
The graces of her charge, reproached me oft
With turned-in toes—“for all the world like Poll.”
And when my heart with rage rebellious swelled—
Alas! 'twas a rebellious little heart—
And angrily I stamped the tiny foot,
And screamed aloud, the bird screamed louder still;
And I was told to mark how even Poll
Despised and laughed to shame the naughty girl.
As babyhood's first lisping years wore on,
Monitions such as these their influence lost,
And to the noisy mimic's flout and jeer
A careless callous listener I became;
But distance due was still between us kept
With strict punctilio—an armed, neutral peace,
Never infringed by familiarity.
So there together in the willow-tree
Our several pastimes Poll and I pursued;
Some much resembling still, for to and fro,
Exalted in her wiry globe, she swung,
As if to mimic there my sport below.
Thou wert the only creature, bird or beast,
Excluded from my lavish fondness, Poll!
Fowls of the air, and beasts, and creeping things,
Ay, reptiles—slimy creatures—all that breathed
The breath of life, found favour in my sight;
And strange disgust I've seen (I thought it strange)
Wrinkle their features who beheld me touch,
Handle, caress the creatures they abhorred;
Enchase my finger with the palmer-worm
Or caterpillar's green, cold, clammy ring,
Or touch the rough back of the spotted toad.
One of that species, for long after years,
Even till of late, became my pensioner—
A monstrous creature!—It was wont to sit
Among the roots of an old scraggy shrub,
A huge Gum-Cystus: All the summer long
“Princess Hemjunah”—titled so by me
In honour of that royal spell-bound fair
So long compelled in reptile state to crawl—
“Princess Hemjunah” there, from morn to eve,
Made her pavilion of the spicy shrub;
And they who looked beneath it scarce discerned
That living clod from the surrounding mould,
But by the lustre of two living gems
That from the reptile's forehead upward beamed
Intelligent, with ever-wakeful gaze.
There daily on some fresh green leaf I spread
A luscious banquet for that uncouth guest—
Milk, cream, and sugar,—to the creature's taste
Right welcome offering, unrejected still.
Spring reappeared, and trees and shrubs put forth
Their budding leaves, and e'en those mangled trunks,
Though later, felt the vegetable life
Mount in their swelling sap, and all around
The recently dismembered parts, peeped out
Pink tender shoots disparting into green,
And bursting forth at last, with rapid growth,
In full redundance, healthful, vigorous, thick;
And June returned with all her breathing sweets,
Her opening roses and soft southern gales;
And music poured from every bending spray;
E'en the old mangled Cystus bloomed once more,
But my poor Princess never came again.
But what have I to do—distasteful theme!—
With towns and cities? Thither unawares
Wild fancy wandered, but, recalled as soon,
Wings back her way, and lights at home once more—
Lights down amid the furred and feathered court
That owned my sovereign sway—a motley train!
Rabbits and birds, and dormice, cats and kittens,
And dogs of many a race, from ancient Di,
My father's faithful setter, to black Mungo
And mine own favourite spaniel—most mine own.
My poor old Chloe! gentle playfellow!
Most patient, most enduring was thy love;
To restless childhood's teasing fondness proof,
And its tormenting ingenuity.
Methinks I see thee in some corner stuck,
In most unnatural posture, bolt upright,
With rueful looks and drooping ears forlorn,
Thy two fore-paws, to hold my father's cane—
Converted to a musket—cramped across.
Then wert thou posted like a sentinel
Till numbers ten were slowly counted o'er—
That welcome tenth! the signal sound to thee
Of penance done and liberty regained!
Down went the cane, and from thy corner forth,
With uproar wild and madly frolic joy,
Bounding aloft, and wheeling round and round
With mirth-inviting antics, didst thou spring.
And the grave teacher—grave no longer—shared
The boisterous pupil's loud unbridled glee.
Then were there dismal outcries, shrill complaints,
From angry Jane, of frocks and petticoats
All grim with muddy stains and ghastly rents.
“'Twas all in vain,” the indignant damsel vowed—
“'Twas all in vain to toil for such a child—
For such a Tom-boy! Climbing up great trees—
Scrambling through brake and bush, and hedge and ditch,
For paltry wild-flowers. Always without gloves,
Grubbing the earth up like a little pig
With her own nails, and, just as bad as he,
Racing and romping with that dirty beast.”
Then followed serious—“But the time will come
You'll be ashamed, Miss, of such vulgar ways:
You a young lady!—Not much like one now.”
Too oft unmoved by the pathetic zeal
Of such remonstrance, pertly I replied,
“No, Mistress Jane! that time will never come.
When I'm grown up I'll romp with Chloe still,
As I do now; and climb and scramble too
After sweet wild-flowers just as much as now;
And ‘grub the earth,’ and ‘never put on gloves.’
Then if I dirt my hands and tear my frock,
You'll not dare scold when I'm a woman grown;
For who would mind your scolding, Mistress Jane?”
Alas, poor maid! an arduous task was thine—
A hopeless, labour, recommencing still,
Like theirs, the unhappy sisters, doomed to pour
Eternal streams in jars that never fill.
Next in degree to the old faithful dog,
Next in my favouring fondness, Juba ranked.
Sprung of a race renowned, in Juba's veins
The mettled blood of noble coursers ran.
Foaled on my father's land, his sprightly youth
Sported, like mine, those pleasant meads among,
And when I saw him first, a new-born thing,
Tottering and trembling by the old mare's side
On his long slender limbs, I called him then,
And thenceforth he was called, “My little horse.”
And soon those slender, flexile limbs were braced
With sinewy strength, and soon that feeble frame
Expanded into vigorous, noble bulk;
From his broad swelling chest arched proudly up,
With graceful curve, the yet unbridled neck;
Free to the winds, the flowing mane and tail
In their wild beauty streamed exuberant out,
Or lashed the glossy chestnut of his sides
With dark dishevelled flakes; and his small ears,
With flexile beauty oft inverting quick
Their black-fringed edges; and those large bright eyes,
Flashing with all the fire of youth and joy,
And freedom uncontrolled! I see him now,
My gallant Juba! racing round the field,
Fleet as the whirlwind, with down-arching neck,
Yet stately in its bend, and clattering hoofs,
And long back-streaming tail. In mid career,
Self-checked and suddenly, he stops abrupt,
Back on his haunches gathering proudly up
His bulk majestic, and with head flung back
Disdainfully aside, and eyes of flame,
And nostrils wide distended, firmly forth
He straightens one black, sinewy, slender limb,
The other, gathered inward, touches scarce
The ground with its bent hoof. Then loud and clear
Echoes o'er hill and dale his long shrill neigh,
And e'er the sound expires, with snort and stamp
Away he starts, and scours the field again.
But oft at sight of me—full well he knew
His fairy mistress—oft at sight of me,
With whinnying welcome, and familiar eye,
Yet shyly curious, he came trotting up
Expectant, the accustomed feast to claim,
Apple or crust, that I was wont to bring.
Go where you will, the sensitive finds out
Whereon to expatiate largely—to pour forth
The flood of her pathetic eloquence.
A plodding clown to market drives along
His swine obstreperous: right and left they run
In sheer perversity: so right and left
Resounds the whip, but scarcely reaches them,
Whate'er their horrid dissonance implies.
No matter—feeling's champion cannot hear
Unmoved the cry of innocence oppressed;
So forth she steps, and speaks, with hand on heart,
Tender remonstrance to the boor, who stands
Scratching his bushy pate, with hat pushed up,
And eyes and mouth distended with surprise,
Vented at last, when the oration ends,
In one expressive expletive—“Anan!”
Martyrs of sensibility! farewell!
I leave ye to your earwigs and your flies.
But, gentle sportsman! yet a word with you
Ere to the starting-point I come again
From this long ramble unpremeditate.
Your sylvan sports you call most innocent,
Manly, and healthful. Are they always such?
Healthful I grant—for while the sons of sloth
Doze half their sleepy lives in morning dreams,
Ye are awake and stirring with the lark;
And like the lark ye meet on breezy hill,
In dewy forest glade, on perfumed heath
The breath of morning and her roseate smile.
Most healthful practice—and so far most pure.
But is it innocent, for murderous sport,
To scare sweet peace from her beloved haunts?
To sadden and deface with death the scene
Where all breathes life, and love, and harmony?
And is it manly, with assembled rout
Of horses, dogs, and men, to hunt to death
A poor defenceless, harmless, fearful wretch,
The panting hare? For life—for life she flies,
And turns, and winds, and doubles in her course
With art instinctive—unavailing all.
Now the wild heath, the open plain she tries;
Now scuds for refuge to the pleasant brake,
Where many a morning she was wont to sit
In her old form, all spangled round with dew;
No rest—no respite—danger presses near—
'Tis at her heels. They burst the thicket now,
Yet still she moves not—for she cannot move;
Stiffened with terror, motionless she sits
With eyes wide staring, whence, I've heard some say,
Large tears roll down, and on her panting sides
The soft fur wet with dews of agony.
Finish the picture ye who list—I turn
Disgusted from the task. But can I pass
Regardless the more lingering, torturing death
Too oft inflicted? We behold, indeed,
The furred and feathered trophies of his skill,
Disgorged from that fell gulf, the sportsman's bag;
Not pleasing to all hearts, I trow, the sight
Of even that lifeless spoil. But could we see—
Ah! could we follow to their sad retreats
Those more unhappy that escape with life,
But maimed and bleeding! To the forest depths
They crawl or flutter; there with dabbled plumes—
All stiff with clotted gore their burnished gold—
The graceful pheasant cowers beneath some tree,
Whose pleasant branches he shall mount no more.
Down droops the shattered wing, and crimson drops
Mark where the shot has entered in his breast.
There are no surgeons 'mongst the woodland tribes
To set such fractures—no purveyors there
To cater for the wounded, helpless bird;
Nay, his own species, with unnatural hate—
As if, like some of humankind, they feared
Contagion from approach to misery—
Drive the poor sufferer from their gay resorts;
So to some lonely nook he creeps away
To starve and die, abandoned and unseen.
Such wretched fate my little hare's had been,
But he, whose erring shot performed but half
Its deadly mission, brought it gently home
To be my guest and plaything, if it lived;
And to my loving care its life was given.
I nursed it fondly, every want and wish
Promptly contenting. So I won at last
Its grateful confidence; but not like those,
Beloved of Cowper, did my hare abide
Long after years in pleased captivity.
Nature prevailed; and when the prickly furze
Girdled our meadow with its golden belt
Of odorous blossoms, to that tempting brake,
Where harboured some of his own kind, my hare
Cast many a wistful look, as by my side
He leapt and frolicked in the garden near;
Yet long the powerful instinct he withstood
Prompting to liberty. Compunctious thought
Perhaps it was of gratitude to me
That kept him still a prisoner on parole.
How oft in human hearts such strife springs up
'Twixt inclination and the scrupulous doubts
Of rigid conscience! Bold at first, we cry,
“Satan, avaunt!” to the seducing fiend,
And he retires; but seldom in despair.
Wise by experience, close at hand lurks he,
Watching the time through some unguarded chink
To slip into the “swept and garnished” hold
Of his old citadel. Perchance disguised
Like whispering Prudence, or in Feeling's mask,
Or Reason's pompous robe, he enters in.
Then Hesitation, with her shaking hand
And ever-shifting balance, weighs the cause;
And if a mote, a hair, a dust prepond—,
No matter how it came there, or why left—
On Inclination's side, down drops the scale.
A cause less trivial fixed at last the fate
Of my poor Puss. One morning by my side
In that same garden well content she sat
Nibbling some fresh-picked dainty, when, behold!
With horrid bark, in bursts a stranger dog—
One who had never learnt respect for hares—
And scents the victim; but in vain, for they
Who follow close restrain his savage speed,
And Puss escapes, o'erleaps the shallow fence,
And scuds across the mead, and safely gains
That prickly covert, which, beheld from far,
Had filled her heart with wandering wishes long.
From that day forth the hare, no longer mine,
Made her abode in that same hollow bank
Thick set with bushes, whence I saw her oft
Come forth at morn and even to sport and feed;
And oft the truant slave, the wild maroon,
With bold assurance leapt the garden fence
For purposes of plunder. Base return
For kind protection to her helpless state
So long accorded! nay, extended still
To shield her from the penalty of guilt;
For direful wrath in Ephraim's bosom rose—
The dragon he, whose guardianship had rule
Within the garden—when he found at morn
Traces yet recent of the plunderer's work.
His early lettuces all nibbled round,
And ranks of tender pease—his fondest pride!—
Laid down in patches, where the audacious thief,
Squatting composedly, had munched her fill.
Dire was the wrath of Ephraim!—much raved he
Of traps, and guns, and vengeance—whence restrained
By interdiction of the higher powers,
He muttered 'twixt his teeth reflections keen
About the blind indulgence of some folk
For children's whimsies—“Who could keep, forsooth,
A garden as it should be kept—not he—
If noxious varmint was encouraged there?
What was the use of hares but for the spit?
He wished with all his heart that the whole race
Was killed and spitted. Everything he did
Was crossed and thwarted—mischief was at work
In every corner. If he could but ketch
Them folk that meddled when his back was turned
Among his mousetraps! 'Twas a thing unknown
That mousetraps should be set from day to day
With toasted cheese, and never catch a mouse.”
Ah, friend! “there are more things in heaven and earth”
Than were dreamt of in thy philosophy.
Yet Ephraim had his shrewd suspicions too,
Though darkly hinted. There was meaning couched,
Though little terror in his threatenings vague;
For he too loved me well—the kind old man!
And would have torn from his own reverend head
The few white locks ere hurt a hair of mine.
Who but old Ephraim treasured up for me
The earliest strawberry, cunningly matured
On the red plane of sun-reflecting tile?
Who laid aside for me the longest string
Of clear white currants? With inviting smile,
Who dangled temptingly above my head
Twin cherries?—luscious prize! soon caught and won—
Who but old Ephraim, for his “little Queen,”
Picked out—his favourite emblem of herself—
The smallest pippin with the pinkest cheek?
It pleased him that I took delight to watch
His rural labours—that I asked the names
Of seeds and plants, and when to sow and set,
And their fixed season to bear flower and fruit.
With patient seriousness he made reply
To questions multiplying faster still
Than he could answer. But it puzzled oft
His honest head—no learned Pundit he—
To solve the curious questions I proposed,
Why such and such things were; to which most part
One answer served—incontrovertible,
Oracular—“they were, because they were.”
Oh! what a deal of mischief were unmade
If Ignorance always on perplexing points
Replied as prudently—if folks at least
Pretended to teach only what they know.
Young ladies! how especially for you
'Twould simplify the training! No she-Crichtons,
No petticoat professors would engage
To teach all 'OLOGIES and 'OGRAPHIES,
And everything in all the world—of course
Accomplishments included—all complete
In all their branches. What a load of rubbish,
Now crammed, poor dears! into your hapless brains,
Would leave the much abused organ room
To expand, and take in healthful nutriment.
Wise, honest Ephraim! Shall I leave unsung
Thy skill in fashioning small wooden toys,
Small tools, adapted to my pigmy grasp?
His hand is eagerly stretched out on whom
Fortune bestows a sceptre; his no less
To whom she gives the baton of command,
The marshal's truncheon; and she smiles herself
At his more solemn transport, from beneath
The penthouse of enormous wig, who eyes
The seals of office dangling in his reach.
And bearded infants—babies six feet high,
Scramble for glittering baubles; ribbons, stars,
And garters, that she jingles on a pole
For prizes to the foremost in the race,
Or who leaps highest, or with supplest joints
Who twists, and turns, and creeps, and wriggles best.
But none with greater eagerness than I
From Ephraim's hand received the finished spade
Whose small dimension might have served at need
Some kitchen damsel for a tasting spoon,
Albeit proportioned aptly for my use;
And other tools he fashioned, rakes and hoes,
And oh! sublime perfection of his craft,
Most precious specimen! his genius last
Shaped out a wheelbarrow, and I attained,
Possessed of that long-coveted machine,
The climax of my wishes. What delight
To cram it with such offsets, plants, and bulbs
As Ephraim from his own neat borders cast;
Then to wheel off the load, no matter what,
To my own garden. Nought came then amiss
Or out of season. Scions of tall trees,
And bushy shrubs, that, had they taken root
And flourished, would have filled the small domain;
And ragged pinks, with huge old scraggy roots,
Past hope of e'er producing flower or bud,
And plants full blown, that nothing lacked—but roots.
But not unfrequently the wheelbarrow
Was freighted with a living, yelping load—
Old Chloe's puppies: she the while, poor fool!
Trotting beside with anxious look and whine
Much eloquent of wonder and dismay
And half displeased remonstrance, at the enforced
And early travels of her progeny.
Many there are among Creation's Lords
Whom Fashion wheels abroad—a listless load!—
As blind and senseless as those noisy whelps,—
As blind to all the wonders in their way
Of Art and Nature: with as senseless noise
Chattering among themselves their mother-tongue
In foreign lands, disdaining to acquire
The useless knowledge—spiritless pursuit!—
Of a strange people's customs, arts, and speech;
And who return with minds as unenlarged,
And skulls as empty, to their native land,
As to their kennel Chloe's brood returned.
But they, poor innocents! were safe restored,
With simple unsophisticated minds;
While two-legged puppies bring a cargo home
Of affectation, pedantry, and vice.
It is not all who having eyes can see,
Or having ears can hear: that truth we learn
From everyday experience. How it frets
One's soul to be associated with those
Deaf hearers, blind beholders! Frets one more,
That all the outward organs they possess,
As it appears, unblemished. So we're led
To utter freely what we warmly feel;
And then it proves that all the wires and pipes
That should communicate 'twixt eyes and ears
And the indwelling Soul, to empty cells
Lead only, sending back response nor sound.
Say with a friend we contemplate some scene
Of natural loveliness, from which the heart
Drinks in its fill of deep admiring joy;
Some landscape scene, all glorious with the glow
Of summer evening, when the recent shower,
Transient and sudden, all the dry white road
Has moistened to red firmness; every leaf,
Washed from the dust, restored to glossy green;—
In such an evening oft the setting Sun,
Flaming in gold and purple clouds, comes forth
To take his farewell of our hemisphere;
Sudden the face of Nature brightens o'er
With such effulgence, as no painter's art
May imitate with faint similitude.
The rain-drops dripping fast from every spray
Are liquid topazes; bright emeralds those
Set on the green foil of the glistening leaves,
And every little hollow, concave stone,
And pebbly wheel-track, holds its sparkling pool
Brimming with molten amber. Of those drops
The Blackbird lights to drink; then scattering thick
A diamond shower among his dusty plumes,
Flies up rejoicing to some neighbouring elm,
And pours forth such a strain as wakens up
The music of unnumbered choristers.
Thus Nature to her great Creator hymns
An hallelujah of ecstatic praise.
And are our voices mute? Oh, no! we turn,
Perhaps with glistening eyes, and our full heart
Pours out in rapturous accents, broken words,
Such as require no answer, but by speech
As little measured, or that best reply,
Feeling's true eloquence, a speaking look.
But other answer waits us; for the friend—
Oh, heaven! that there are such—with a calm smile
Of sweet no-meaning, gently answers—“Yes,
Indeed it's very pretty—Don't you think
It's getting late, though—time to go to tea?”
Some folks will tell you, of all things on earth
They most like reading; poetry with them
Is quite a passion; but somehow it is,
They never find a moment's leisure time
For things they dote on. What a life is theirs!
There's the new poem—they would give the world
To skim it over, but it cannot be;
That trimming must be finished for the ball.
If you indeed, who read aloud so well,
With so much feeling, would but take the book—
'Twould be so nice to listen! such a treat!
And all the while the trimming might go on.
You cannot have the heart to disappoint
Wishes expressed so sweetly. Down you sit
But unreluctant to the task, which soon
Absorbs your every feeling. 'Tis perhaps
Of Roderick, that immortal Goth, you read—
Immortalised in verse that cannot die
Till Poesy is dead, and every heart
Warmed with her sacred fire a senseless clod.
Less learned critics condescend to admire
Some amateur production—yours perhaps;
These, little skilled in jargon technical
Of conoscenti, murmur gentle praise.
Holding your drawing to their eyes quite close,
As 'twere a newspaper, and they perplexed
To make out the small print, “Dear me!” they cry,
“How nice! how natural! how very soft!”
These phrases serve, or some as richly fraught
With meaning, for all subjects and all styles;
Or, if with more discriminating taste,
They own a preference, it falls, be sure,
On the most worthless, whose tame character
Is in this gentle phrase—“So very soft!”
Inflict not on me, Stars! the killing blight
Of such companionship. Oh! rather far
Assign me for my intimate and friend
One who says plainly, “I confess to me
Painting's but coloured canvass, music noise,
And poetry prose spoilt, those rural scenes
Whereon you gaze enraptured, nothing more
Than hill and dale and water, wooded well
With stout oak timber groaning for the axe.”
'Twixt such a heart and mine there must be still
A bar, oft painfully perceived indeed,
And never overstepped: But I could feel
Respect—affection—confidence for such,
If dignified with sound clear-judging sense
And piety, that gem beyond all price,
Wherewith compared all gifts are valueless.

3. PART THE THIRD.

Old friend! old stone! old way-mark! art thou gone?
I could have better spared a better thing
Than sight of thy familiar shapeless form,
Defaced and weather-stained. But thus it is
Where'er I turn me, wheresoe'er I look,
Change, change, change, change, is everywhere at work
In all mine ancient haunts. Grammercie, though!
Reform—improvement, is the proper word.
We live, God wot! in an improving age,
And our old world, if it last long enough,
Will reach perfection. Lo! conceptions vast
Germ not alone in patriot statesman's mind
Or great philanthropist's. Our public men—
Ours in this rural district nook o' the world,
“Armed with a little brief authority,”
Wield it like Jove's own thunder, and affect
The Olympic nod. Would they had nodded off
Their sapient heads, ere, in an evil hour,
Beautiful elms! your spreading branches fell,
Because, forsooth, across the King's highway,
Conspiring with the freeborn, “chartered” air,
Your verdant branches treasonably waved,
And swung perchance the pendant dewdrops off
On roof of royal mail, or in the eyes
Of sleepy coachman, wakened so full well
For safety of his snoring “four insides,”
Unconscious innocents!—or on his pate—
His awful pate—even his, mine ancient foe,
Your ruthless enemy—the man of power,
Of measurement, and Acts of Parliament,
The great road dragon—man of flinty heart—
Belike ye showered the liquid crystal down,
Irreverend boughs! and so your fate was sealed.
But, veteran oak! what rank offence was thine?
In memory of man thou hadst not flung
One flickering shadow 'thwart the royal road,
Nor intercepted sunbeam from the head
Of noontide traveller. Only left of thee
The huge old trunk, still verdant in decay
With ivy garlands, and a tender growth—
Like second childhood—of thine own young shoots;
And there, like giant guardian of the pass,
Thou stoodst, majestic ruin! thy huge roots,
Whose every fretted niche and mossy cave
Harboured a primrose, grappling the steep bank,
A wayside rampart. Lo! they've rent away
The living bulwark now—a ghastly breach,
A crumbling hollow left to mark its site
And the proud march of utilitarian zeal.
My father loved the patient angler's art;
And many a summer day, from early morn
To latest evening, by some streamlet's side
We two have tarried. Strange companionship!
A sad and silent man—a joyous child.
Yet were those days, as I recall them now,
Supremely happy. Silent though he was,
My father's eyes were often on his child,
Tenderly eloquent, and his few words
Were kind and gentle. Never angry tone
Repulsed me, if I broke upon his thoughts
With childish question. But I learnt at last,
Learnt intuitively, to hold my peace
When the dark hour was on him, and deep sighs
Spoke the perturbed spirit: only then
I crept a little closer to his side,
And stole my hand in his, or on his arm
Laid my cheek softly, till the simple wile
Won on his sad abstraction, and he turned
With a faint smile, and sighed, and shook his head,
Stooping toward me: so I reached at last
Mine arm about his neck, and clasped it close,
Printing his pale brow with a silent kiss.
That was a lovely brook, by whose green marge
We two, the patient angler and his child,
Loitered away so many summer days!
A shallow sparkling stream, it hurried, now
Leaping and glancing among large round stones,
With everlasting friction chafing still
Their polished smoothness, on a gravelly bed
Then softly slipped away with rippling sound,
Or all inaudible where the green moss
Sloped down to meet the clear reflected wave
That lipped its emerald bank with seeming show
Of gentle dalliance; in a dark, deep pool
Collected now, the peaceful waters slept,
Embayed by rugged headlands, hollow roots
Of huge old pollard willows. Anchored there,
Rode safe from every gale a sylvan fleet
Of milk-white water-lilies, every bark
Worthy as those on his own sacred flood
To waft the Indian Cupid. Then the stream
Brawling again o'er pebbly shallows ran,
On, on to where a rustic, rough-hewn bridge,
All bright with mosses and green ivy wreaths,
Spanned the small channel with its single arch;
And underneath the bank on either side
Shelved down into the water, darkly green
With unsunned verdure, or whereon the sun
Looked only when his rays at eventide
Obliquely glanced between the blackened piers
With arrowy beams of orient emerald light
Touching the river and its velvet marge.
'Twas there, beneath the archway, just within
Its rough misshapen piles, I found a cave,
A little secret cell—one large flat stone
Its ample floor, imbedded deep in moss,
And a rich tuft of dark blue violet;
And fretted o'er with curious groining dark,
Like vault of Gothic chapel, was the roof
Of that small cunning cave—“The Naiad's Grot”
I named it learnedly, for I had read
About Egeria, and was deeply versed
In heathenish stories of the guardian tribes
In groves, and single trees, and sylvan streams
Abiding co-existent. So methought
The little Naiad of our brook might haunt
That cool retreat, and to her guardian care
My wont was ever, at the bridge arrived,
To trust our basket, with its simple store
Of home-made, wholesome cates, by one at home
Provided for our banquet-hour at noon.
A joyful hour! anticipated keen,
With zest of youthful appetite I trow,
Full oft expelling unsubstantial thoughts
Of Grots and Naiads, sublimated fare.
The busy, bustling joy, with housewife airs—
Directress, handmaid, lady of the feast—
To spread that “table in the wilderness”!
The spot selected with deliberate care,
Fastidious from variety of choice,
Where all was beautiful: some pleasant nook
Among the fringing alders, or beneath
A single spreading oak, or higher up
Within the thicket, a more secret bower,
A little clearing, carpeted all o'er
With creeping strawberry, and greenest moss
Thick veined with ivy. There unfolded smooth
The snowy napkin, carefully secured
At every corner with a pebbly weight,
Was spread prelusive—fairly garnished soon
With the contents, most interesting then,
Of the well-plenished basket: simple viands,
And sweet brown bread, and biscuits for dessert,
And rich, ripe cherries; and two slender flasks,
Of cyder one, and one of sweet new milk,
Mine own allotted beverage, tempered down
To wholesome thinness by admixture pure
From the near streamlet. Two small silver cups
Set out our grand buffet—and all was done.
But there I stood immovable, entranced,
Absorbed in admiration, shifting oft
My ground contemplative to reperuse
In every point of view the perfect whole
Of that arrangement, mine own handiwork.
Then glancing skyward, if my dazzled eyes
Shrank from the sunbeams, vertically bright,
Away, away, toward the river's brink
I ran to summon from his silent sport
My father to the banquet, tutored well,
As I approached his station, to restrain
All noisy outbreak of exuberant glee,
Lest from their quiet haunts the finny prey
Should dart far off to deeper solitudes.
The gentle summons met observance prompt,
Kindly considerate of the famished child:
And all in order left; the mimic fly
Examined and renewed, if need required,
Or changed for other sort, as time of day,
Or clear or clouded sky, or various signs
Of atmosphere or water, so advised
The experienced angler; the long line afloat,
The rod securely fixed, then into mine
The willing hand was yielded, and I led
With joyous exultation that dear guest
To our green banquet-room. Not Leicester's self,
When to the hall of princely Kenilworth
He led Elizabeth, exulted more
With inward gratulation at the show
Of his own proud magnificence, than I,
When full in view of mine arrangèd feast,
I held awhile my pleased companion back,
Exacting wonder, admiration, praise,
With pointing finger, and triumphant “There!”
Our meal concluded—or, as Homer says,
“Soon as the rage of hunger was appeased”—
And by the way, our temperate sylvan feast
Deserved poetic illustration more
Than those vast hecatombs of filthy swine,
Where Trojans, Greeks, and half-immortals gorged,
Sharpening their wits for council. Process strange!
But most effectual, doubtless, as we see
Clearly illustrated in this our day,
In this our favoured isle, where all affairs
(Glory to Britain's intellectual age!)
Begin and end with feasting. Statesmen meet
To eat and legislate; to eat and hang

There exists, or did exist, in one of the Channel Islands, a singular convivial custom connected with the execution of criminals. The members of Court meet to celebrate the occasion with a dinner, and a few non-professional friends are invited “to come and eat a dead man.”

Judges assemble; chapters congregate
To eat and order spiritual affairs;
Philhellenists to eat and free the Greeks;
Committees of Reform, Relief, Conversion,
Eat with amazing unction: and so on,
Throughout all offices, sects, parties, grades,
Down to the Parish worthies, who assemble

It may be almost superfluous to mention that this line, and, indeed, the whole paragraph, was written previous to the passing of the Municipal Reform Bill.

In conclave snug to eat, and starve the poor.
The stream, the mead, herb, insect, flower, and leaf,
Sunbeam and shadow, all, as I have said,
Were books to me, companionable things;
But lack of other volume, Man's device,
Was none, when, turning from the outspread scroll
Of beauteous Nature, sweet repose I sought
In varied pleasure. In a certain pouch,
Ample and deep, the Fisher's coat within,
Lurked an old clumsy russet-covered book,
That with permitted hand extracted thence—
(I see the smile to the young smiling thief
Vouching impunity)—for many an hour
Furnished enjoyment, flavoured not the less
For oft renewed experience intimate.
Just where the river with a graceful curve
Darkened and deepened in the leafy gloom
Of a huge pollard oak, a snug retreat
I found me at the foot of that old tree,
Within the grotto-work of its vast roots,
From whose fantastic arches, high upheaved,
Sprang plumy clusters of the jewelled fern,
And adder's-tongue, and ivy wreaths hung down
Festooning elegant, soft greenest moss
Flooring the fairy cave, the tempered light,
As through an emerald roof, stole gently in,
Caressingly, and played in freckling gleams
On the dark surface of the little pool,
Where as it seemed the lingering stream delayed
As loath its brawling course to recommence
In glaring sunshine. Ah! could we delay
Time's current, as it bears us through some reach
Where the rough stream sinks waveless, peace-embayed!
“Ay, ay, sir! thank ye kindly, snug enough;
And many thanks to Miss, God bless her heart!”
He added, with a loving look at me,
Who had stolen round by this to my old friend,
Admiring much his bruin-like aspect.
A knowing twinkle with that loving look
Was mingled; and his bluff good-natured face
Brightened with kindliness, as he went on:—
“I'll lay my life on't, Miss will never guess
What I've got here, all cuddled up so warm
Under my old greatcoat. And yet, Lord love her!
The thing's for her, whatever it may be!”
Then came a ragged row of Magazines,
And songs, and hymn-books; ‘Kettlewell on Death,’
And ‘Glass's Cookery.’ Treatises abstruse
On moles and warts, and virtues of all herbs,
And ailments manifold that flesh is heir to.
What wonder if respect akin to awe
For her who owned and studied those grave tomes
Impressed the simple neighbours? For myself—
Unblushingly I do confess it now—
Not without tremor, half delight, half fear,
I entered, clinging to the Nursemaid's hand,
Through the clipt laurel porch, that small neat room,
So nicely sanded round the clean-swept hearth,
Where sat expectant—(Mistress Jane, I trow,
Had her appointments for occult discourse
And cup of fragrant Hyson)—the wise woman,
With her strange primmed-up smile, the round claw table
Set out before her with its precious freight
(In Sheffield tea-tray) of old real china,
The sugar-basin a scooped cocoa-nut
Curiously carved all o'er and ebon-stained,
On three small toddling silver feet, rimmed round
With the same precious metal; silver tongs
Stuck for effect among the sparkling knobs,
With two thin tea-spoons of the treasured six;
There on its trivet the bright kettle sang,
Its cheek all ruddy with rich firelight glow;
And piping hot the buttered oven-cake
Smoked on the fender ledge, all ready quartered.
Inviting preparations not alone
To black-eyed Jane: the treat had charms for me
More irresistible;—that buttered cake!—
Forbidden dainty—tea with cream and sugar!
True, but just finished was my nursery meal—
Dry bread and milk and water. “What of that?
The precious lamb had walked a weary way,
And sure must need refreshment. One small piece
Of nice hot buttered cake would do her good,
And tea, a saucerful, to wash it down.”
So urged the Dame: Jane shook her head and smiled—
Conscience made faint resistance—the rich steam
Rose fragrant to my nostrils, and—I fell.
Long did I meditate—yea, often dream
By day and night, at school-time and at play,—
Alas! at holiest seasons, even at church
The vision haunted me,—of that rare thing,
And his surpassing happiness to whom
Fate should assign its fellow. Thereupon
Sprang up crude notions, vague incipient schemes
Of future independence: not like those
Fermenting in the youthful brain of her
Maternally, on fashionable system,
Trained up betimes i' the way that she should go
To the one great end—a good establishment.
Yet similar in some sort were our views
Toward contingent power. “When I'm a woman
I'll have,” quoth I,—so far the will and when
Tallied exactly, but our difference lay
Touching the end to be achieved. With me,
Not settlements, and pin-money, and spouse
Appendant, but in unencumbered right
Of womanhood—a house and cuckoo clock!
Hark! as I hang reflective o'er my task,
The pen fresh nibbed and full, held idly yet;
What sound comes clicking through the half-closed door,
Distinct, monotonous?—'Tis even so;
Years past, the pledge, self-plighted, was redeemed;
There hangs with its companionable voice
The cuckoo clock in this mine house.—Ay, mine;
But left unto me desolate. Such end
Crowns oft Ambition's most successful aim—
Success than disappointment more defeating;—
Passionate longing grasps the ripened fruit
And finds it marred, a canker at the core:
What shall I dare desire of earthly good
The seeming greatest; what in prayer implore
Or deprecate, of that my secret soul
In fondness and in weakness covets most
Or deepest dreads, but with the crowning clause,
The sanctifying—“Lord! Thy will be done?”
Farther a-field we journeyed, Jane and I,
When summer days set in, with their long, light
Delicious evenings. Then, most happy child!
Most favoured!—I was sent a frequent guest,
Secure of welcome, to the loveliest home
Of all the country, o'er whose quiet walls
Brooded the twin-doves, Holiness and Peace:
There with thine aged partner didst thou dwell,
Pastor and master! servant of thy Lord,
Faithful as he, the labours of whose love
Recorded by thy pen, embalm for aye
The name of Gilpin heired by thee—right heir
Of the saint's mantle. Holy Bernard's life,
Its apostolic graces unimpaired,
Renewed in William's, virtuous parish priest!

THE LEGEND OF SANTAREM.

THE PAUPER'S DEATHBED.

SONNET.—1818.

[Autumnal leaves and flowerets! lingering last—]

Autumnal leaves and flowerets! lingering last—
Pale sickly children of the waning year!
A lovelier race shall yet succeed ye here,
When Nature, her long wintry torpor past
O'er the brown woods and naked earth doth cast
Her vernal mantle. From its prison cell,
Through mould and bark, the struggling germ shall swell,
Bright buds, and beauteous blossoms, following fast—
Oh! I was wont a deep delight to taste,
When the first primrose reared her modest head,
And early violet on the wintry waste,
The renovated soul of sweetness shed!
And they will wake again—and I shall be,
Mine own belovèd home! far, far from them and thee!

CONTE A MON CHIEN.

“SUFFICIENT UNTO THE DAY IS THE EVIL THEREOF.”

FAREWELL TO MY FRIENDS.

TO A DYING INFANT.

MY OLD DOG AND I.

RANGER'S GRAVE.

THE MARINER'S HYMN.

SONNET,

WRITTEN ON READING TASSO'S LIFE.

Rest, weary spirit, from thy labours past—
Thy doubts, thy wrongs, thy painful wanderings o'er,
Through troubled seas, thy bark has reached at last,
The quiet haven of a friendly shore.
Yes—“after death”—around thy pallid brow
They wreathed the laurel, long, too long denied,
For which, in all the ambitious ardent glow
Of conscious worth, thy once proud spirit sighed.
But when the mortal scene was closing fast
Around thee, Tasso! on that proferred crown
What cold, contemptuous glances didst thou cast!
Earth could no longer chain the spirit down,
That, fixing on a heavenly crown its trust,
Bequeathed the earthly to its mouldering dust.

THE BROKEN BRIDGE.

SONNET.

[What if the tale was true, as some believe]

What if the tale was true, as some believe,
That Tasso's love to Leonora gave?
Oh! happy Leonora, to receive
Such fame-conferring vows from such a slave!
Darling of many hearts! Of short-lived fame
The favoured minion! born in courts to shine!
Yet but for him, for his illustrious name,
What deathless annals had recorded thine?
These are thy triumphs, Genius! flames that burn
With brightening glory through the mists of time—
When earth-born spirits to the earth return,
Thine mounting from thine ashes soars sublime;
And where they moulder, Contemplation's eye
With awful reverence dwells, when kings forgotten lie.

THE LADYE'S BRYDALLE.

TO MY BIRDIE.

TO MY OLD CANARY.

TO THE MEMORY OF ISABEL SOUTHEY.

SONNET.

[Traveller of Life! what plant of virtues rare]

Traveller of Life! what plant of virtues rare
Seeketh thy curious eye? 'Mongst earth's excess,
Will none but the exotic, Happiness,
Content thine eager longing? Fruitless care!
It groweth not beneath our clouded skies.
But when amongst the groves of Paradise
The soft winds wanton, haply they may bear,
From thence to earth, some vagrant flower or leaf,
Some fluttering petal, exquisite as brief
Its odorous beauty!—Oh, if to thy share
It fall, one blossom on thy path to find—
Quick! snatch it to thine heart, ere the rough wind
Despoil its freshness. It will fade e'en there;
Thou canst not quite exclude this cold world's nipping air.

THERE IS A TONGUE IN EVERY LEAF.

ON THE NEAR PROSPECT OF LEAVING HOME.—1818.

AUTUMN FLOWERS.

TO DEATH.

ONCE UPON A TIME.

THAT'S WHAT WE ARE.

Careful and troubled about many things—
Alas! that it should be so with us still,
As in the days of Martha—I went forth,
Harassed and heartsick, with hot, aching brow,
Thought-fevered—haply to escape myself.
Beauteous that bright May morning—all about,
Sweet influences of earth, and air, and sky,
Harmoniously accordant. I alone—
The troubled spirit that had driven me forth—
In dissonance with that fair frame of things,
So blissfully serene. God had not yet
Let fall the weight of chastening, that makes dumb
The murmuring lip and stills the rebel heart,
Ending all earthly interests; and I called,
O heaven! that incomplete experience—Grief.
It would not do. The momentary sense
Of soft refreshing coolness passed away,
Back came the troublous thoughts, and all in vain
I strove with the tormentors: all in vain
Applied me with forced interest to peruse
Fair Nature's outspread volume: all in vain
Looked up admiring at the dappled clouds
And depths cerulean. Even as I gazed,
The film, the earthly film, obscured my vision,
And in a lower region, sore perplexed,
Again I wandered, and again shook off,
With vext impatience, the besetting cares,
And set me straight to gather, as I walked,
A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice;
And in few moments, of all hues I held
A glowing handful. In few moments more
Where were they? Dropping as I went along
Unheeded on my path; and I was gone—
Wandering far off, in maze of thought perplext.
He raised his eyes to mine with a strange look
And strangely meaning smile; and I repeated—
For not a word he spoke—my witless question.
Then with a deep distinctness he made answer,
Distinct and slow, looking to where I pointed,
Thence full into my face, and what he said
Thrilled through my very heart—“That's what we are!”
And other words of that Divinest Speaker—
Words to all mourners of all time addressed—
Seemed spoken to me as I went along
In prayerful thought, slow musing on my way—
“Believe in me. Let not your hearts be troubled.”
And sure I could have promised in that hour,
But that I knew myself how fallible,
That never more should cross or care of life
Disquiet or distress me. So I came,
Chastened in spirit, to my home again,
Composed ann comforted, and crossed the threshold
That day “a wiser, not a sadder.” woman.

DEPARTURE.

THE CHILD'S UNBELIEF.

THE GREENWOOD SHRIFT.

THE WARNING.

THE THREE FRIENDS.

STANZAS ACCOMPANYING A PICTURE.

MY GARDEN.

THE YOUNG GREY HEAD.

Grief hath been known to turn the young head grey—
To silver over in a single day
The bright locks of the beautiful, their prime
Scarcely o'erpast: as in the fearful time
Of Gallia's madness, that discrownèd head
Serene, that on the accursèd altar bled,
Miscalled of Liberty. Oh, martyred Queen!
What must the sufferings of that night have been?—
That one—that sprinkled thy fair tresses o'er
With Time's untimely snow! But now no more,
Lovely, august, unhappy one, of thee—
I have to tell an humbler history;
A village tale, whose only charm, in sooth,
If any, will be sad and simple truth.
“Mother,” quoth Ambrose to his thrifty dame—
So oft our peasant's use his wife to name,
“Father” and “Master” to himself applied,
As life's grave duties matronise the bride—
“Mother,” quoth Ambrose, as he faced the north,
With hard-set teeth, before he issued forth
To his day labour, from the cottage door—
“I'm thinking that to-night, if not before,
There'll be wild work. Dost hear old Chewton roar?
It's brewing up down westward; and look there!
One of those sea-gulls—ay, there goes a pair.
And such a sudden thaw! If rain comes on,
As threats, the waters will be out anon.
That path by the ford's a nasty bit of way—
Best let the young ones bide from school to-day.”
“Do, mother, do!” the quick-eared urchins cried,
Two little lasses, to the father's side
Close clinging, as they looked from him, to spy
The answering language of the mother's eye.
There was denial, and she shook her head:
“Nay, nay—no harm will come to them,” she said,
“The mistress lets them off, these short dark days,
An hour the earlier; and our Liz, she says,
May quite be trusted—and I know 'tis true—
To take care of herself and Jenny too.
And so she ought—she seven come first of May,
Two years the oldest: and they give away
The Christmas bounty at the school to-day.”
The mother's will was law—alas for her
That hapless day, poor soul! She could not err,
Thought Ambrose; and his little fair-haired Jane,
Her namesake, to his heart he hugged again,
When each had had her turn, she clinging so
As if that day she could not let him go.
But Labour's sons must snatch a hasty bliss
In nature's tenderest mood. One last fond kiss—
“God bless my little maids!” the father said,
And cheerly went his way to win their bread.
Then might be seen, the playmate parent gone,
What looks demure the sister pair put on—
Not of the mother as afraid or shy,
Or questioning the love that could deny,
But simply, as their simple training taught,
In quiet, plain straightforwardness of thought
(Submissively resigned the hope of play),
Towards the serious business of the day.
To me there's something touching, I confess,
In the grave look of early thoughtfulness,
Seen often in some little childish face
Among the poor. Not that wherein we trace
(Shame to our land, our rulers, and our race!)
The unnatural sufferings of the factory child,
But a staid quietness, reflective, mild,
Betokening, in the depths of those young eyes,
Sense of life's cares, without its miseries.
Was there no sinking at the mother's heart,
When, all equipt, they turned them to depart?
When down the lane she watched them as they went,
Till out of sight, was no forefeeling sent
Of coming ill? In truth I cannot tell:
Such warnings have been sent, we know full well,
And must believe—believing that they are—
In mercy then—to rouse—restrain—prepare.
And, now I mind me, something of the kind
Did surely haunt that day the mother's mind,
Making it irksome to bide all alone
By her own quiet hearth. Though never known
For idle gossipry was Jenny Gray,
Yet so it was, that morn she could not stay
At home with her own thoughts, but took her way
To her next neighbour's half a loaf to borrow—
Yet might her store have lasted out the morrow.
And with the loan obtained, she lingered still:
Said she—“My master, if he'd had his will,
Would have kept back our little ones from school
This dreadful morning; and I'm such a fool,
Since they've been gone, I've wished them back. But then
It won't do in such things to humour men,
Our Ambrose specially. If let alone
He'd spoil those wenches. But it's coming on,
That storm he said was brewing, sure enough.
Well, what of that? To think what idle stuff
Will come into one's head! and here with you
I stop, as if I'd nothing else to do—
And they'll come home drowned rats. I must be gone
To get dry things, and set the kettle on.”
His day's work done, three mortal miles and more
Lay between Ambrose and his cottage door.
A weary way, God wot! for weary wight.
But yet far off the curling smoke's in sight
From his own chimney, and his heart feels light.
How pleasantly the humble homestead stood,
Down the green lane by sheltering Shirley Wood!
How sweet the wafting of the evening breeze
In spring-time, from his two old cherry-trees,
Sheeted with blossom! And in hot July,
From the brown moor-track, shadowless and dry,
How grateful the cool covert to regain
Of his own avenue, that shady lane,
With the white cottage, in a slanting glow
Of sunset glory, gleaming bright below,
And jasmine porch, his rustic portico!
With what a thankful gladness in his face
(Silent heart-homage—plant of special grace!),
At the lane's entrance, slackening oft his pace,
Would Ambrose send a loving look before;
Conceiting the caged blackbird at the door,
The very blackbird strained its little throat
In welcome with a more rejoicing note;
And honest Tinker, dog of doubtful breed,
All bristle, back, and tail, but “good at need,”
Pleasant his greeting to the accustomed ear;
But of all welcomes, pleasantest, most dear,
The ringing voices, like sweet silver bells,
Of his two little ones. How fondly swells
The father's heart, as, dancing up the lane,
Each clasps a hand in her small hand again,
And each must tell her tale, and “say her say,”
Impeding, as she leads, with sweet delay
(Childhood's blest thoughtlessness) his onward way.
And when the winter day closed in so fast,
Scarce for his task would dreary daylight last;
And in all weathers, driving sleet and snow,
Home by that bare, bleak moor-track must he go,
Darkling and lonely. Oh! the blessed sight—
His pole-star—of that little twinkling light
From one small window, through the leafless trees,
Glimmering so fitfully, no eye but his
Had spied it so far off. And sure was he,
Entering the lane, a steadier beam to see,
Ruddy and broad as peat-fed hearth could pour,
Streaming to meet him from the open door.
Then, though the blackbird's welcome was unheard,
Silenced by winter, note of summer bird
Still hailed him—from no mortal fowl alive,
But from the cuckoo-clock just striking five.
And Tinker's ear and Tinker's nose were keen—
Off started he, and then a form was seen
Darkening the doorway; and a smaller sprite,
And then another, peered into the night,
Ready to follow free on Tinker's track,
But for the mother's hand that held her back.
And yet a moment—a few steps—and there,
Pulled o'er the threshold by that eager pair,
He sits by his own hearth, in his own chair;
Tinker takes post beside, with eyes that say,
“Master, we've done our business for the day.”
The kettle sings, the cat in chorus purrs,
The busy housewife with her tea-things stirs;
The door's made fast, the old stuff curtain drawn.
How the hail clatters! Let it clatter on.
How the wind raves and rattles! What cares he?
Safe housed, and warm beneath his own roof-tree,
With a wee lassie prattling on each knee.
Such was the hour—hour sacred and apart—
Warmed in expectancy the poor man's heart.
Summer and winter, as his toil he plied,
To him and his the literal doom applied,
Pronouuced on Adam. But the bread was sweet
So earned for such dear mouths. The weary feet,
Hope-shod, stept lightly on the homeward way.
So specially it fared with Ambrose Gray
That time I tell of. He had worked all day
At a great clearing, vigorous stroke on stroke
Striking, till, when he stopt, his back seemed broke,
And the strong arm dropt nerveless. What of that?
There was a treasure hidden in his hat,
A plaything for the young ones. He had found
A dormouse nest, the living ball coiled round
For its long winter sleep; and all his thought,
As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of nought
But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes,
And graver Lizzy's quieter surprise,
When he should yield, by guess, and kiss, and prayer,
Hard won, the frozen captive to their care.
'Twas a wild evening—wild and rough. “I knew,”
Thought Ambrose; “those unlucky gulls spoke true,
And Gaffer Chewton never growls for nought.
I should be mortal 'mazed now if I thought
My little maids were not safe housed before
That blinding hail-storm—ay, this hour and more.
Unless by that old crazy bit of board,
They've not passed dry-foot over Shallow-ford,
That I'll be bound for, swollen as it must be . . .
Well! if my mistress had been ruled by me . . .”
But checking the half-thought as heresy,
He looked out for the home-star. There it shone,
And with a gladdened heart he hastened on.
He's in the lane again—and there below
Streams from the open doorway that red glow,
Which warms him but to look at. For his prize
Cautious he feels—all safe and snug it lies.
“Down, Tinker! down, old boy!—not quite so free:
The thing thou sniffest is no game for thee.
But what's the meaning?—no look-out to-night!
No living soul astir! Pray God all's right!
Who's flittering round the peat-stack in such weather?
Mother!” You might have felled him with a feather
When the short answer to his loud “Hillo!”
And hurried question—“Are they come?”—was—“No!”

LITTLE LEONARD'S “GOOD-NIGHT.”

“HOW SWIFT IS A GLANCE OF THE MIND!”

AN EXILE'S SONG.

ON THE REMOVAL OF SOME FAMILY PORTRAITS.

SONNET.—1818.

[Dark rolling clouds, in wild confusion driven]

Dark rolling clouds, in wild confusion driven,
Obscure the full-orbed moon. In all the heaven
One only star—the appointed evening light—
Beams mildly forth; like friendly Pharos bright,
That, kindled on some towering summit, streams
Wide o'er the ocean-paths. Its far-off beams
First seen by him who on the silent deck
Paces his lonely watch—a glimmering speck,
Doubtful in distance. But his homeward eye
Is keen the faithful beacon to descry,
And mine, like his, impatient to explore—
With friends and kindred thronged—the distant shore,
Is fixed on that lone star, whose lovely ray
Points to a happier home the heavenward way.

WILD FLOWERS.

TO LITTLE MARY.

SONNET.—1821.

[Stay, flaming chariot! fiery coursers, stay]

Stay, flaming chariot! fiery coursers, stay,
Soft gleams of setting sunshine, that doth cast
A lustrous line along the dark wide waste!
Oh! wherefore must ye fade so swift away?
Wherefore, oh! wherefore, at the close of day
Shine out so glorious, when Night's sable pall
Will drop around so soon, and cover all?
Beautiful beam! bright traveller! stay, oh, stay!
And let my spirit on your parting ray
Glide from this world of error, doubt, distress—
(Oh! I am weary of its emptiness)—
To happier worlds, where there is peace for aye,
Peace! less abiding here than Noah's dove,
When we shall never part from those we love!

THE LEGEND OF THE LIDO.

THE RIVER.

SUNDAY EVENING.

THE CHURCHYARD.

TO THE SWEET-SCENTED CYCLAMEN.

THE WELCOME HOME.—1820.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

WHEN SHALL WE MEET AGAIN?

THE LANDING OF THE PRIMROSE.

THE DYING MOTHER TO HER INFANT.

THE LAST JOURNEY.

THE SPELL OF MUSIC.

TOO LATE.

THE EVENING WALK.

My lonely ramble yester-eve I took,
Along that pleasant path that by the brook,
Skirting its flowery margin, winds away
Through fields all fragrant now with new-mown hay.
I could not choose but linger as I went,
A willing idler, with a child's content,
Gathering the widflowers on that streamlet's edge,
Spared by the mower's scythe, a fringing ledge
Of spiky purple, epilobium tall,
Veronicas, and cuplike coronal
Of golden crowsfoot, waving meadow-sweet,
And wilding rose, that dipt the stream to meet.
And that small brook, so shallow and so clear!
The mother-ewe, without a mother's fear,
Led her young lamb from off the shelving brink,
Firm in the midway stream to stand and drink.
'Twas pleasant, as it dipped and gazed, to see
Its wonder at the watery mimicry,
As here and there, the ripple glancing by,
Imaged an up-drawn foot, a round black eye,
Wide staring, and a nose to meet his own
That seemed advancing from below. Anon,
From the dark hollow of a little cove,
By an old oak root richly groined above,
Where lay the gathered waters, still and deep,
A vaulted well: e'en thence there seems to peep
A round white staring face, that starts away
As he himself starts back in quick dismay.
Again advancing, with a bolder stare,
He butts defiance. Lo! it meets him there,
And answers threat with threat. He stands at bay,
Perplexed, and ripe for warfare or for play.
Who had not loitered, gazed, and smiled like me,
Pleased with the pretty wanton's antic glee?
And cried “O Nature!” from a thankful heart,
“How graceful and how beautiful thou art!”
But all around me in that pleasant place
Was rife with beauty, harmony, and grace.
The glow of sunset mantled earth and sky,
The evening breeze came softly shivering by,
Laden with incense. 'Mongst the tedded hay,
The fresh-discovered carpet, emerald green,
Outspread its velvet softness,—sight, I ween,
Tempting to wistful gaze of lowing kine,
That in their stale, embrownèd pastures pine,
Loathing and restless, and impatient wait
The tardy opening of that barrier gate.
The mower's whetstone there abandoned thrown;
Silent his whistling scythe—himself was gone;
But gamesome Echo, as he trudged away,
Caught up the burden of his rustic lay;
Then, as the double cadence died remote,
From an old thorn-bush near came dropping out
A sweeter strain, so tremulously low
At first, as if the very soul of woe
Wailed in its music; but that dying close
Melted in air, and on the fall arose
A burst of rapture, swelling clear and strong,
In all the wild exuberance of song.
Methought, as all unseen I hearkened nigh,
The little minstrel sang exultingly—
“Man to his home is gone, and leaveth free
The weary world at last to peace and me.”
Peace! peace! but not all peace. E'en there was heard
The voice of mourning: a bereavèd bird
(Ah! piteous contrast to that minstrel blithe)
Hovered about the spot where late the scythe,
Wide sweeping, had to prying eyes revealed
Her lowly nest, so cunningly concealed.
There, by rude hands displaced and scattered, lay
The downy cradle of her young; and they—
The callow nurslings, they with chirpings shrill
And quivering pinions, from her loaded bill
That late received their portions—where are they?
Gone—in close wiry cell to pine away,
Where never parent bird's returning strain
Shall wake them up to life and love again.
So, loitering, lingering, musing as I went,
Homeward at last my devious steps I bent,
Leaving the meadows, by the forest road
That skirts the common. Many a neat abode,
Dwelling of rural industry, I passed,
And little fields and gardens, from the waste
Cribbed, long and narrow. Oh! invidious eye,
That passeth not these poor encroachments by
With look averted, if it may not see
In strictness of judicial trust, or free
To gaze unharmful on the poor man's toil,
That blesseth not the increase of the soil.
Stirring with life was every cottage door:
The humble owner there, his labour o'er,
Stood in the sunset, watching down the west
The round, red orb descending: to his breast
One hugged a little infant: one, with knife
Of clumsy fashion, for the neat goodwife
Wrought some rude implement, or made repair
In the old milking-stool or crazy chair:
One stood intently poring o'er the stye
Where munched his pig, with calculating eye
Measuring its growth, and counting o'er and o'er,
How much the profits of so many score;
And many a one still found some task to do
In his small garden, and performed it too
With cheerful heart, as if such toil were play,
After the heat and burden of the day:
And many a one, as close I passed him by,
Bade me “Good-night” with rustic courtesy—
A homely salutation, that to me
Endeareth evening; seemeth then to be,
So oft I've thought, a kindlier sympathy
'Twixt all God's creatures. Should I reason WHY,
Vain were the attempt. I only feel 'tis so;
Yet one perhaps of deeper search might show
The source whence those mysterious feelings flow.
Is it perchance, as darkness draweth nigh—
Type of the grave, where soon we all shall lie—
And sleep, the type of death, comes stealing on,
When, all our strength and all our cunning gone,
The strongest sinews and the wisest head
Shall lie alike defenceless as the dead?—
Is it that then, by some mysterious cause,
Man toward man in closer union draws?—
That then, perhaps, as in the dying hour,
Distinctions fade of rank, and wealth, and power,
And human hearts instinctively confess
The mutual bond of mutual helplessness,
Mutual dependence—ay, of great and small—
On One—the God and Father of us all?
Slowly the straggling cottagers I passed,
Still homeward wending, till I reached at last—
There was I ever wont to stand and gaze—
A lonely dwelling, that in bygone days,
But two years back, or little more, had been
The neatest tenement on Rushbrook Green.
A better sort of cottage, it contained
Two upper rooms, whose windows, lattice-paned,
Peered through the thatch and overhanging leaves
Of a young vine. On one side, from the eaves
Sloped down—addition trim of later date—
A long, low penthouse, oft with heart elate
Eyed by the builder:—“There for sure,” said he,
“When winter comes, how snug our cow will be.”
And the goodwife, like fashionable wives,
Had her own pin-money. Her straw-roofed hives,
Ranged all a-row against the southern wall,
Yielded in prosperous seasons, at the fall,
Such profits as she spread with honest pride
Before her well-pleased partner. Then, beside,
She had her private treasure, hoarded up
For Christmas holiday; a sparkling cup
Of rich brown mead, a neighbour's heart to cheer
On winter evenings; and throughout the year,
For passing guest, a kindly-proffered treat
Of mild metheglin, mild, and pale, and sweet.
There was no garden kept like Isaac Rae's.
Soon after sunrise in the longest days,
And in the twilight, his hard taskwork done
(His long day's labours in the summer sun),
There might you see him, toiling, toiling on,
Till every fading streak of day was gone.
'Tis true, no garden could with Isaac's vie
Round all the common, crammed so curiously,
And yet so neat and fruitful. Then the wall—
For hedge it were almost a sin to call
The living rampart—that was Isaac's pride;
And there he clipt and clipt, and spied and spied,
That from the quickset line, so straight and true,
No vagrant twig should straggle into view.
There were no children kept like Isaac Rae's,
And he had seven. “Well, my Phœhebe says,”
Himself once told me, just three years agone,
Presenting proud his last-born little one,—
“She says—the Lord sends hungry mouths, 'tis true,
But then He sends the meat to fill them too;
For we have never wanted, thanks to Him!
Nor sha'n't, while Isaac Rae has life and limb
To labour for them; nor it sha'n't be said
His children ever broke the parish bread,
Not while the Lord is good to us, and still
Gives me the strength to labour, with the will.”
The will continued,—but the strength,—alas!
There came a painful accident to pass.
His master's team—for many years the same
His voice had guided, every horse by name,
Like household dogs, accustomed to obey
Its tones familiar—one unlucky day,
Startled to sudden madness, broke away
From all command; and struggling to restrain
Their headlong progress—struggling all in vain—
His footing failed—he fell—and he was gone—
Right o'er his chest the wheel came crushing on.
And yet he lived and lived. Oh, lingering death!
How terrible thou art, when every breath
Is drawn with painful gasp, and some poor heart,
Of mother, child, or wife, for every start
That shakes the sufferer, feels a deadlier throe—
Feels, as I've heard poor Phoebe say, as though
Each time a drop of blood were wrung from thence.
It was the will of All-wise Providence
That Isaac long should linger in his pain,
Yet never known to murmur or complain,
No, nor to wish the tedious time away,
Was he, while helpless on his bed he lay,
Nor one impatient, fretful word to say,
Helpless and hopeless;—yet, a little space
Hope faintly dawned. In the kind surgeon's face—
A man of kind and Christian heart was he—
The ever-watchful wife was quick to see
A changed expression, but she dared not say
“Is there a hope?” lest it should fade away,
That blessed gleam, and leave her dark once more;
So she was mute, but followed to the door
With asking eyes. He, kindly cautious, said—
“There is a chance—but—” so unfinished
Leaving the sentence. 'Tis a cruel task
To look discouragement on eyes that ask
Only for leave to hope,—a hard one, too,
Having permitted hope, to keep in view,
Dashing her timid joy, the spectre fear.
At length they whispered in the poor man's ear
That he might live. He only shook his head.
But when a low consulting reached his bed
About the county hospital—how there
Patients were treated with the kindest care—
How all that medicine, all that skill could do,
Was done for them—and how they were brought through
The tedious time of slow recovery,
Better than in their own poor homes could be,—
Then lifted he his feeble voice to say,
“Send me not there—Oh! send me not away
From my poor home—my true and tender wife
And loving little ones, to end my life
In a strange place, with all strange faces near:
My father and my mother both died here—
Here in this very room in peace they died,
And sleep in our own churchyard side by side;
And I shall soon be with them where they lie;
Send me not hence, in a strange place to die;
I shall not linger long—'twill soon be past—
Oh! let me see my children to the last.”
He had his wish—they sent him not away;
So there upon his own poor bed he lay
Yet a few weeks, awaiting his release,
And there at last he closed his eyes in peace:
In Christian peace he yielded up his breath;
But oh! for him there was a sting in death—
His wife!—his little ones!—and they were seven,
All helpless infants. . . . But for trust in Heaven,
Trust in His word who sayeth, “Leave to me
Thy fatherless children,” great assuredly
The dying father's parting pang had been.
I saw the widow ere the closing scene,
The funeral, was over. There she sate
('Twas on a Sabbath morning), calm, sedate,
Composed, and neat, as she had ever been
On the Lord's Day, when I so oft had seen
Her and her husband, and their eldest three,
Hastening to church; and now prepared was she
And her seven orphans, all in decent show
Of humble mourning, that same path to go,
Following the father's coffin. They were there,
The little creatures! huddling round her chair,
Troubled and mute, with eyes upon her face
(Some tearful) fixed, and all as if to trace
Its meekly mournful meaning—all save he,
The youngest Innocent: upon her knee
He clambered up, and crowed with baby glee,
And stroked her face, and lisped his father's name.
Then might be seen, convulsive through her frame,
A universal shudder. Nor alone
Struck to her heart the call. A wailing moan
Among the elder orphans rose, and one—
The boy of whom his father was so proud—
Fell on his mother's neck, and wept aloud.
Her eyes were misty, but no tears she shed,
Kissing with quivering lips the boy's fair head,
As on her breast, the face concealed, it lay.
And then, to all around, who came to pay—
Neighbours and friends—to the respected dead
Their last sad tribute, some few words she said
Of thankfulness to each, and spoke of him
Calmly, while many an eye with tears grew dim.
The funeral moved; and through the humble door
He passed, who left it to return no more.
Against the side part, as 'twas carried by,
They jarred the coffin; then a stifled cry
Escaped the widow, and a sign, as though
From that insensate form to ward the blow
She felt upon her heart. A moment all
In silence stopt, while one arranged the pall;
Then sounded slow the bearers' heavy tread,
As to his last long home they bore the dead.
The staff and stay of all the house was gone,
And evil days came darkly hurrying on;
And yet with all the energy of love—
A widowed mother's!—that lone woman strove
(The poor have little leisure for their grief)
To feed her little ones without relief
Of parish pittance. “He would grieve,” she thought,
“To know his wofe and babes so low were brought.
The hand is cold that toiled for us, 'tis true;
But I can still work hard; and Jemmy too
Grows helpful, and he'll earn a trifle soon
T'ward his own keep. The cottage is our own.
And for the garden . . . I can dig there now,
Though not like him indeed. And then our cow—”
But then she stopt and sighed. Alas! she knew
There was a heavy debt, contracted too
To a hard creditor, of whom 'twas known
That he severely reckoned for his own.
“But then,” thought she, “it may not all be true
Folks tell of him; and when I humbly sue
Only for patience—for a longer day,
He will not take my children's bread away.”
Thou hadst to learn sad truth, poor simple one!
How ten times harder than the hard flint stone
That human heart may be whose god is gold.
The prayer was spurned—the widow's cow was sold.
That stroke fell heavy, but it crushed not quite
The noble spirit that still kept in sight
Its faithful purpose. “All's not gone,” she said;
“Their father's words upon his dying bed
Were—‘Phoebe, keep them from the workhouse walls
Whilst thou hast strength. There's not a sparrow falls
But One above takes note thereof; and He
Will not forsake thy little ones and thee.’”
Such now, so silent and so desolate,
Is Isaac's cottage. At its crazy gate
I linger oft; and yester-even I stayed
Till tender twilight with her stealthy shade
Veiled the red sunset. “Here is peace,” said I,
“In man's abode, in earth, in air, and sky;
But the heart shrinketh from this deathlike rest.”
I thought upon the skylark's ruined nest,
Upon her prisoned young, their captive lay,
And on the orphan babes of Isaac Rae.
Then from the cottage wall depended still,
A broken hoop, that oft with emulous skill
I'd seen the happy creatures urge along;
And in one corner lay a little prong,
Fashioned for childish hand, a wooden toy,
The father's shaping for his eldest boy.
I said how the loose vine swung to and fro,
Its long stems creaking with a sound of woe;
But round the little casement still remained
A tall blush-rose tree, there by Phoebe trained,
And loose depending o'er the interior gloom,
One pale, dew-sprinkled flower, the first to bloom,
Hung down like weeping beauty o'er the tomb.

“'TIS HARD TO DIE IN SPRING.”

LAMENT FOR LILIAS.

THE NIGHT-SMELLING STOCK.

PAST AND PRESENT.

THE WINTRY MAY.—1837.

I WEEP, BUT NOT REBELLIOUS TEARS.

“IT IS NOT DEATH.”

ABJURATION.

ONCE UPON A TIME.

“I NEVER CAST A FLOWER AWAY.”

A FAIR PLACE AND PLEASANT.

MY EVENING.

THE PRIMROSE.

ARCHBISHOP GERSON.

A ROMISH LEGEND.