The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

Potts, in his dusty chamber, writes,
A dilettante lord to please:
A ray of country sunshine lights
The foggy region ruled by these;
Flock, kind advisers, critics sage,
To damn the simple country clown,—
The mud of English patronage
Grows round his feet, and keeps him down.

‘This little mean-faced duodecimo,
“Poems by Edward Crowhurst, Labourer,”
This coarsely-printed little book of rhymes,
Contains within the goodliest gift of song
The gods have graced us with for many a day:
A crystal clearness, as of running brooks.
A music, as of green boughs murmuring,
A peeping of fresh thoughts in shady places
Like violets new-blown, a gleam of dew drops,
A sober, settled, greenness of repose,—
And lying over all, in level beams,
Transparent, sweet, and unmistakable,
The light that never was on sea or land.

‘Let all the greater and the lesser lights
Regard these lines upon a Wood in Spring,
Or those which follow, call'd “the Barley-Bird,”
And then regard their laurels. Melody
More sweet was never blown through pastoral pipe
In Britain, since the Scottish Ramsay died.
Nor let the squeamish dreamers of our time,
Our rainbow bards, despise such song as this,
Wealthy in images the poor man knows,
And household chords that make the women weep.
Simply yet subtly, Edward Crowhurst works:
Singing of lowly truths and homely things—
Death snatching up a cotter's child at play,

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Light flashing from far worlds on dying eyes
That never saw beyond their native fields,
The pathos and the power of common life;
And while, perchance, his deeper vein runs on
Less heeded, by a random touch is waken'd
A scent, a flowër-tint, a wave of wings,
A sense of rustling boughs and running brooks,
Touch'd by whose spell the soul is stirr'd, and eyes
Gaze on the dark world round them, and are dim.

‘This Mister Crowhurst is a poor young man,
Uneducated, doom'd to earn his bread
By working daily at the plough; and yet,
Sometimes in midst of toil, sometimes at night,
Whenever he could snatch a little time,
Hath written down (he taught himself to write!)
His simple verses. Is it meet, we ask,
A nature so superb should languish thus?
Nay, he deserves, if ever man deserved,
The succour of the rich and high in place,
The opportunity to labour less,
And use those truly wondrous gifts of his
In modest competence; and therewithal,
Kindness, encouragement, and good advice,
Such as the cultured give. Even now, we hear,
A certain sum of money is subscribed,
Enough to furnish well his present needs.
Among the donors, named for honour here,
We note the noble Earl of Chremiton,
Lord Phidippus, Lord Gnathos, Lady Dee,
Sir Charles Toroon. But more must yet be done.
We dare to put the case on public grounds,
Since he who writes so nobly is, indeed,
A public benefactor,—with a claim
On all who love to listen and to look,
When the fresh Saxon Muse, in homespun gear,
The free breeze blowing back her loosen'd hair,
Wanders barefooted through the dewy lanes
And sings aloud, till all the valleys ring
For pleasure, and the echoes of the hills
Make sweet accord!’

—Conservative Review.