University of Virginia Library

II. THE SEAT IN THE GROVE.

Waterwards stoop'd a willow there, and bore
Its elbow'd root a-kimbo from the shore:
There sat I, joyfully. Oh what a strain
Of the eye's music vibrated the brain!
Fix'd were the heavens above me all in blue,
As if they could not dream of other hue;
And the pure clouds were still, self-gather'd in,
Round, solid-seeming, and edged clear and clean,
Save where it look'd as though some hand had been,—
Some angel's fingers,—loosening their white hair,
Out-combing it upon the azure air.
Behind me, branch above branch tiptoe tried
Which should hold highest up its leafy pride
Above the green bank's high receding side;
A crumbling bank, to whose red substance moor'd
By many a delicate-intruded cord
Were hosts of field forget-me-nots, which made
A sapphire light far through the deep green shade;—
Forget-me-not, the lover's blue-eyed pet,
Whose name he prays his love not to forget,
When he has spoken it, until she dies;—
Forget-me-not, the flower that alway lies
Dearest unto the maiden's gentle bosom;—
The flower about whose sweet refreshful blossom
The sweetest little stars of yellow hue
Shine, each from its own private heaven of blue,
Till stars on stars, and skies on skies, uplifted
On rough-leaved stems, unite over the rifted
Red mother-earth. Ah, what a heavenly calm
Blue eye they make the bank to smile with! Psalm
By minster-choir sung, can not more praise
God's goodness than these flowers do, when they raise
Their cheerful faces for the love of day.
This bank was further wed, far and away,
To widths of greenness other than of grasses:
Oft clubb'd together were thick nettley masses
Of deep green spitefulness; loth, I'll be bound,
No fairest hand to grieve. Meanwhile, around,
The deeply cover'd and disguisëd ground,
Muffled close in a lighter green, receives,
In lesser celandine's heart-hinting leaves,
A jaundice from the hot increasing sun,
To atone for yellow blossoms o'er and done.
Herb-Robert, too, by his mild reds is seen
Amid the sapphire and the varied green;
Sapphire and green, which the red campion tries
To make ev'n yet cooler to the eyes
By contrast of his hot and vivid dyes.
Meanwhile some fairy,—Puck himself, mayhap,—
Hath in green sheath wake-robin tried to wrap,
And stuck him for a feather in earth's cap;
But the sport comes undone; for, upward pointing
His shrouded treasures for the light's anointing,
Already is his vesture part unfurl'd.
I caution thee, wake-robin, that the world
Tempt thee not from beneath that nettle's shade;
For never child who once thee has survey'd
At but a moment's glance, but straight will tear
Thy lush envelopment, to lay all bare
The ruddy treasures now half-hidden there.
Here, too, is speedwell, heaven-blue darling small,
Germander speedwell, frailest flower of all.
Out go its little hands toward holy heaven:—
What hath it done? What needs it be forgiven?
Why this appeal to the all-loving skies?
Here too, with melancholy memories, rise
Those many verdant cenotaphs, the leaves
Of dear departed violets. Spring yet grieves
Their early passage from this fleeting state,
And leaving of their green homes desolate.
A little higher, roots of silverweed
Soft silky tongues are thrusting up, to feed
On the new air, and taste the spring-tide sun;
And here ground ivy hiddenly doth run,
Blooming in budded blues along the ground.
Here, too, are many other treasures found,
The flower-jewels of the banks and fields
And lonely places; such as Nature yields
To all her friends. But now, what shall I say
About the birds, and their melodious play?
About the trees, that ripen'd every hour
Maturer shadow for this wandering bower?
About the sunshine, streaming down the side
Of this and that tree which it glorified?
About the vagrant bees, that came along,
Each with his scrip, and burly beggar's song?
About the glorious dragon-flies, that threw
Hither and thither their four wings, and drew
Blue lustre from the sun with their bright bodies blue?
And then, what a most comfortable note,
How snug and cosy, gurgled in the throat
Of the wood-pigeons; making one to find
A sort of fire-side feeling in the mind
Of warm'd delight and dear home-friendliness,—
Not quite without a hint, nevertheless,
Of sweetly smother'd moaning in the tone;—
A grief that Comfort deems her very own.
Just so is ‘Thank God’ sharpened with ‘Alas,’
When round the fire we sit at home, and pass
The happy glance, then for one moment think
How delicate our joy; o'er what a brink
It leans; for that the faces which we just
Look'd on so gratefully, are only dust
At one remove;—but instantly the sadness
Glides back into the trusting, loving gladness.—
To special notice, too, must have fair claim
That liquid mention of the cuckoo's name
Which fitfully from off the island came;
Whereat I said, Are there no wood-gods now?
The fairies, do they never lift a brow
Curious, from behind a branch o'erbent
To lick with its green tongues the soft-hair'd Trent?
Else I might think, upon some up-swoll'n root
In yonder isle, a mellow two-holed flute
Some fay or dryad hidden sat and play'd,
While cleverly self-hidden in the shade.
But, chief of all, note now how gently flow'd
With a broad body down his reedy road,—
As though in haste, anxious to be caressing
Those isles just by there, made for his possessing,—
That mid-link of a triple chain, whose ends
Are cloud and ocean, his enduring friends,
From and to whom he borrows and he lends,—
That preacher of Time's lapse, aye eloquent,—
That liquid present participle, Trent,
Passing, ne'er past. How gently down he went!
With what a dreamful whisperiness possest,
Mist-like arising from the restless rest
Of water-cords gush'd out along his breast;—
How tenderly his stream flow'd, with the sky
Deep in its bosom,—as might sink and lie
A blessing in the heart of duteous child!
Flags from his breast, too, would not be exiled;—
Nor fish, soft-gliding, waving their light fins;—
Sometimes a gallant way one of them wins,
Maugre the stream, with tremblings of his sides;
Anon his forkëd helm he turns, and glides
Off to his fellows in the deeper stream;
Then back again as swiftly, with a gleam
Of his white flashing side; then up he rises
Sometimes, and with a hungry leap surprises
The surface into waves and drops, which, falling,
And on the sun for recognition calling,
Are turn'd to special gold before they sink,
And leave a ripple which the river's brink
Might soon feel swelling to its shoremost sedge,
But the ridged currents cut it with their edge
And plane it down. While thus the river roll'd,
Beyond it many a field wide place did hold,
Joyful to show its wealth of green and gold;—
Green, of the grasses, which were now just fledging
Their waving ears unto a flossy edging;
And gold, of dandelions, fiercely burning
Against the sun, whose anger was fast turning
Into white blindness their presumptuous gaze.
Kingcups were there, too, with their gentler blaze,
Shining back softly on the shining sun,
Like gratitude on service kindly done.
Afar off, to the left, confusedly, all
A-row, nine poplars stood,—nine sentries tall
Guarding the farmer's stacks and stead and stall,
Rustling their plumes o'er the thin-shadow'd field;
And, opposite, the church at Beeston held
Its little turret on its manly shoulder,
As father might his child, to be beholder
Of some far spectacle. Many a home
Half-cover'd from the eye by the green foam
Of foliage toss'd up by vague winds, was set
About the distant meadows. Thus I let
Mine eyes drink the ripe vintage of the scene
In various draughts of blue, and grey, and green;
Pleasured,—yet sad, so little to be free
To accomplish what so strongly yearn'd in me.