The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

We have walks as the evenings lengthen; sometimes over the moor,
Many-tinted and shadowed; brisk is the air there and pure
Among the brown heath and the bracken that now from its snake-like bonds,
Under the sun's deft fingers, is slowly uncoiling its fronds;
Close-packed now, by and by they, overlapping, will hide
The flower of the slender orchis purpling close by their side.
Dry on the knolls is the whin-bush, massing its golden bloom;
The cotton-grass low in the marshes tosses its small white plume;
And from the hollows is wafted the scent of bog-myrtle or birch
Fragrant after the rain; but, best of all, is the search
Among the roots of the heather for stag-moss' antlers green
Branching over the earth, far-spreading, and rarely seen.
Here and there is a cottage, too, looking just like the heath,
Green on the roof with house-leek, brown with its turf-wall beneath.
Children play at the door, they are dirty and happy and fair,
Sunbrowned all of their faces, sun-bleached their lint-white hair;
The mother is milking the cow, the dog lies coiled in the sun,
The fowls for the roost are making and the labourer's day is done.
Sometimes we rest on a bank, and hear in the evening calm,
Just as the stars come out, the sough of their grateful psalm.

Often we go to the sea-marge, where the long sands give place
To a belt of dark red storm-beaten crags, which grimly face
The baffled billows that lie ever panting below at their feet,
Or gurgling in black-throated caves where still they mine and beat.
Perched on the cliff is a village and far in the cove below
The boats are beached on the shingle, waiting the tide to flow;
Hard-visaged, bunchy women are baiting the lines in hope,
Or carrying laden creels, slow, up the long, shelving slope,
Or spreading their fish on the rocks, or welcoming men from the sea,
As the lugger trips daintily in, and the flapping sail is free.

One thing strikes me about my husband's way with the folk,
Whether the moorland shepherds, or fishermen perched on the rock.
Freely we enter their homes, for he seems to be known to them all,
And knows who is there in the corner, and who in the bed in the wall,
And the idiot dreamily singing by the grandam racked with pain,
And the lad that went off to the sea, and has never come back again—

164

All the home life of the people, their good and their evil hap.
So every door flies open just after a warning tap,
And everywhere he is met with a welcome glad and free;
The dogs come fawning upon him, the children get up on his knee,
Great, rough hands are held out to give him a hearty grip,
And the mother's face is shining as he kisses the baby's lip.
Of course they are happy to see me, too, for my husband's sake,
Only they daintily touch me, as fearful perchance I may break,
And, making ungainly curtseys, they have not a word to say;
But oh, I am proud to see him so loved in this lovingest way.

Sometimes I think, for myself, I would like to tidy the room,
To open the window a bit, and get rid of the smoke and the gloom,
To teach the children a lesson, or read a page from the Book
To the sick man tossed on his pillow, or the old man propped in his nook.
But he does not try, in the least, to do any good, and yet
Somehow they seemed to like him all the better for it.
He is just like one of themselves, and talks of the weather and crops,
The ewes and gimmers and lambs, or the luggers and nets and ropes,
The take of fish, or the beds of mussels they have for bait,
Or the old man's aching bones, or the teething baby's state,
Laughing and joking with all, or telling a story, perhaps,
To the children gaping around him, while grandfather nods and naps;
Yet somehow, all the time, he seems as if reading a book
Full of nature and humour, and leaves with a thoughtful look.

Once I hinted that I would gladly be doing some good
Among these neighbours of ours: and he said in his gentlest mood,
“Yet, I suppose it is right to do all the good that you can;
Only don't break up the peace of their homes, with a cut-and-dry plan
Of tracts and visits and lessons, and scolding the women for dirt,
And tramping on everyone's toes, and sitting on everyone's skirt.
For when you know them as I do, and all their sorrows and cares,
The brave hearts they keep through it all, their patience, their faith, and the prayers,
Self-forgetting, that thrill here loud on the stormy shore
For those on the stormy sea, they never may look on more,
Then you may feel like me, half-ashamed of the good you can do,
Compared with the good you are getting from lives so human and true.
But try it—you're better than I—only mind they have hearts like your own;
And hearts philanthropic, at times, have the trick of the old heart of stone.”