Later Poems of Alexander Anderson :: :: University of Virginia Library

The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht,
Wi' muckle faucht an' din—
“O, try and sleep, ye waukrife rogues,
Your faither's comin' in”—
They never heed a word I speak;
I try to gi'e a froon,
But aye I hap them up, an' cry,
“O, bairnies, cuddle doon.”

Wee Jamie wi' the curly heid—
He aye sleeps next the wa'—
Bangs up an' cries, “I want a piece”—
The rascal starts them a'.
I rin an' fetch them pieces, drinks,
They stop awee the soun',
Then draw the blankets up an' cry,
“Noo, weanies, cuddle doon.”

But ere five minutes gang, wee Rab
Cries oot, frae 'neath the claes,
“Mither, mak' Tam gi'e owre at ance,
He's kittlin' wi' his taes.”
The mischief's in that Tam for tricks,
He'd bother half the toon;
But aye I hap them up an' cry,
“O, bairnies, cuddle doon.”

At length they hear their faither's fit,
An', as he steeks the door,
They turn their faces to the wa',
While Tam pretends to snore.
“Ha'e a' the weans been gude?” he asks,
As he pits aff his shoon.

“The bairnies, John, are in their beds,
An' lang since cuddled doon.”

An' just afore we bed oorsel's,
We look at oor wee lambs;
Tam has his airm roun' wee Rab's neck,
An' Rab his airm roun' Tam's.
I lift wee Jamie up the bed,
An', as I straik each croon,
I whisper, till my heart fills up,
“O, bairnies, cuddle doon.”

The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht
Wi' mirth that's dear to me;
But sune the big warl's cark an' care
Will quaten doon their glee.
Yet, come what will to ilka ane,
May He who rules aboon
Aye whisper, though their pows be bald,
“O, bairnies, cuddle doon.”

WAUKEN UP.

[_]

A Sequel to “Cuddle Doon.”

Wull I ha'e to speak again
To thae weans o' mine?
Eicht o'clock, an' weel I ken
The schule gangs in at nine.
Little hauds me but to gang
An' fetch the muckle whup—
O, ye sleepy-heidit rogues,
Wull ye wauken up?

Never mither had sic faught—
No' a moment's ease;

Cleed Tam as ye like, at nicht
His breeks are through the knees.
Thread is no' for him ava'—
It never hauds the grup;
Maun I speak again ye rogues—
Wull ye wauken up?

Tam, the very last to bed,
He winna rise ava'
Last to get his books an' sklate—
Last to won awa'.
Sic a limb for tricks an' fun—
Heeds na' what I say,
Rab and Jamie—but thae plagues—
Wull they sleep a' day?

Here they come, the three at ance,
Lookin' gleg an' fell,
Hoo they ken their bits o' claes
Beats me fair to tell.
Wash your wee bit faces clean,
An' here's your bite an' sup—
Never was mair wiselike bairns
Noo they've waukened up.

There, the three are aff at last,
I watch them frae the door,
That Tam, he's at his tricks again,
I coont them by the score.
He's put his fit afore wee Rab,
An' coupit Jamie doon,
Could I but lay my han's on him
I'd mak' him claw his croon.

Noo to get my wark on han'
I'll ha'e a busy day,

But losh! the hoose is unco quate
Since they are a' away.
A dizzen times I'll look the clock
When it comes roun' to three,
For, cuddlin' doon, or waukenin' up,
They're dear, dear bairns to me.

THE LAST TO CUDDLE DOON.

I sit afore a half-oot fire,
An' I am a' my lane,
Nae frien' or fremit daun'ers in,
For a' my fowk are gane.
An' John, that was my ain gudeman,
He sleeps the mools amang—
An auld frail body like mysel'—
It's time that I should gang.

The win' moans roun' the auld hoose en',
An' shakes the ae fir tree,
An' as it sughs it waukens up
Auld things fu' dear to me.
If I could only greet, my heart
It wadna be sae sair;
But tears are gane, an' bairns are gane,
An' baith come back nae mair.

Ay, Tam, puir Tam, sae fu' o' fun,
He faun' this warld a fecht,
An' sair, sair he was hauden doon,
Wi' mony a weary wecht.
He bore it a' until the en',
But, when we laid him doon,
The grey hairs there afore their time
Were thick amang the broon.

An' Jamie wi' the curly heid,
Sae buirdly, big an' braw,
Was cut doon in the pride o' youth
The first amang them a'.
If I had tears for thae auld een,
Then could I greet fu' weel,
To think o' Jamie lyin' deid
Aneath the engine wheel.

Wee Rab—what can I say o' him?
He's waur than deid to me,
Nae word frae him thae weary years
Has come across the sea.
Could I but ken that he was weel,
As here I sit this nicht,
This warld wi' a' its faucht an' care
Wad look a wee thing richt.

I sit afore a half-oot fire
An' I am a' my lane,
Nae frien' ha'e I to daun'er in,
For a' my fowk are gane.
I wuss that He wha rules us a',
Frae where He dwalls aboon,
Wad touch my auld grey heid, and say—
“It's time to cuddle doon.”

RAB COMES HAME.

Was that a knock? Wha can it be?
I hirple to the door;
A buirdly chiel' is stan'in' there,
I never saw afore.

He tak's a lang, lang look at me,
An' in his kindly een
A something lies I canna name,
That somewhere I ha'e seen.

I bid him ben; he tak's a chair,
My heart loups up wi' fricht,
For he sits doon as John wad do
When he cam' hame at nicht.
He spreads baith han's upon his knees,
But no' ae word he speaks;
Yet I can see the big, roun' tears
Come happin' doon his cheeks.

Then a' at ance his big, strong airms
Are streekit out to me—
“Mither, I'm Rab, come hame at last,
An' can ye welcome me?”
“O, Rab!”—my airms are roun' his neck—
“The Lord is kind indeed;”
Then hunker doon, an' on his knees
I lay my auld grey heid.

“Hoo could ye bide sae lang frae me,
Thae weary, weary years,
An' no' ae word—but I maun greet,
My heart is fu' o' tears;
It does an' auld, frail body guid,
An' oh! it's unco sweet.
To see ye there, though through my tears,
Sae I maun ha'e my greet.

“Your faither's lang since in his grave
Within the auld kirkyaird,
Jamie an' Tam they lie by him—
They werena to be spared;

An' I was left to sit my lane
To think on what had been,
An' wussin' only for the time
To come an' close my een.

“But noo ye're back, I ken fu' weel
That no' a fremit han'
Will lay me, when my time comes roun',
Beside my ain gudeman.”
Noo, wad it be a sin to ask
O' Him that rules aboon,
To gi'e me yet a year or twa
Afore I cuddle doon?

THE TWO SOWERS.

Death came to the earth, by his side was Spring,
They came from God's own bowers,
And the earth was full of their wandering,
For they both were sowing flowers.

“I sow,” said Spring, “by the stream and the wood,
And the village children know
The gay glad time of my own sweet prime,
And where my blossoms grow.

“There is not a spot in the quiet wood
But hath heard the sound of my feet,
And the violets come from their solitude
When my tears have made them sweet.”

“I sow,” said Death, “where the hamlet stands,
I sow in the churchyard drear;
I drop in the grave with gentle hands,
My flowers from year to year.

“The young and the old go into their rest,
To the sleep that awaits them below;
But I clasp the children unto my breast,
And kiss them before I go.”

“I sow,” said Spring, “but my flowers decay
When the year turns weak and old,
When the breath of the bleak wind wears them away,
And they wither and droop in the mould.

“But they come again when the young earth feels
The new blood leap in her veins,
When the fountain of wonderful life unseals,
And the earth is alive with the rains.”

“I sow,” said Death; “but my flowers unseen
Pass away from the land of men,
Nor sighs nor tears through the long sad years
Ever bring back their bloom again.

“But I know they are wondrous bright and fair
In the fields of their high abode;
Your flowers are the flowers that a child may wear,
But mine are the blossoms of God.”

Death came to the earth, by his side was Spring;
The two came from God's own bowers;
One sowed in night and the other in light,
Yet they both were sowing flowers.

CARLYLE.

England, amid thy great in this great time
One man, white-haired, with misty, flashing eyes
Looms from the rest, in his life's toil sublime,
And all that hath the power to make us wise.

We hail him teacher, not as now they teach,
With soulless flow of ever-ready words;
He shapes his own life to his uttered speech,
As deft musicians to the air the chords.

So in this age when the quick growth of creeds
Grows up, as if to choke God's primal plan,
Ye who still waver in your higher needs,
Come and look nearer at this grey old man.

The Hebrew spirit, with its fervent fire,
Its vatic utterances of rapt word force
Is in him, bursting in explosive ire,
Like lightning when it takes its blinding course.

And Cant, girt in her armour o'er and o'er,
Lifting her putrid wings as if to fly,
Sinks in the slime of her own tracks, before
The word bolts of this thunderer to die.

He will not rest himself on other ground
Than that which God's own workers have made smooth;
All other is to him the heave and bound,
And the volcanic motion of untruth.

This struggle for firm footing for his feet
Hath made his inner vision far and clear,
Piercing the under current, and the heat
That nourishes the action we have here.

Stern Cromwells, Luthers, Knoxes unto him
Rise from the world's wild clamour, and serene
Stand in heroic light that cannot dim
The virtue and the duty that have been.

All work is noble, but a nobler kind
Is that whose task is ever piercing through
The mummy folds of ignorance to find
True worth in man and hold it up to view.

High privilege this; but he upon whose head
It lights must ever walk and speak in fear,
Knowing the ages listen what is said,
And God above him bending down his ear.

Thus has he ever written, knowing well
What kind of heed to give the countless strings
Of those who, like the Corybantes, yell
When some slow good grows out of human things.

Not looking to the right nor to the left,
But conscious of the guide he had within,
He, armed with his strong battle words, has cleft
Paths for the feebler soul to take and win.

“Thou shalt believe in God,” he cries, “and own
The sacredness of this poor life, though dim;
It is a part of His, in darkness thrown
Upon the earth to wander back to Him.

“Let no cant be within thy soul, but stand
Upon thy manhood, thy most sure defence,
Working at all true work with willing hand,
And growing up to God-like reverence.”

For reverence with this man is the source
Of all those virtues which, like golden threads,
Draw man still upward with an unseen force
To where his spirit with the higher weds.

Be thou real also, be no sham or quack,
Half seen as manhood sickens and expires,
Two beings in thee resting back to back,
And turning vane-like as the world desires.

It may be that the force in him for this
Has borne him past his distance, as a steed,
The nostrils filling out with snorting hiss,
Tears up the ground before he checks his speed.

For all the early earnestness to wage
Battle with evil, is in him the soul
Of all his thought and life, that now in age
Moves grandly ripening to the wrought-for goal.

Then, brother, take him for thy teacher, let
The spirit of his words flash full on thine,
And thou shalt feel a dignity in sweat,
And all thy life and labour half divine.

I too can feel a pride to think I stand
A worker on a dusty railway here,
Pointing to this man with a feeble hand,
As one by whom the weaker ought to steer.

But he has strengthened me, as teachers ought
Who wrestle onward to the purer change,
Has fused more earnestness into my thought,
And made this manhood take a higher range.

Enough, the shadows lengthen far ahead
When the sun turns his feet to meet the west;
So this man's power shall broaden out and spread
When he, too, takes his well-earned sleep and rest.

But the full day beats on us, and the night
Is yet afar; so with strong heart and limb
Let us go onward, upward, and upright,
Until we take a twilight rest like him.

A VILLAGE SCENE—EVENING.

The merry children are playing
In the little village street;
The old men sit by the doorway:
Their evening rest is sweet.

And careful mothers are busy,
They hurry out and in;
Or pause by the door for a moment
To smile at their children's din.

And farther away in the distance,
From the playground comes a shout,
As quick-eyed youths at their pastimes
Run, strong of limb, about.

The old men sit by the doorway;
The children play in the street;
The dead are up in the churchyard,
Their rest is long and sweet.

OH, FOR THOSE DAYS.

Oh, for those days that had no doubt,
When I, a simple village laddie,
Sang with much glee the rhyme about
The devil's grave in old “Kirkcaldy!”
“Some say the de'il's dead,” thus it ran;
I thought it very nice and witty,
So sang, unwitting, when a man,
He'd rise and pay me for my ditty.

Of course, I knew not then how much
He works with men and all their actions—
How all their plans are at a touch
Split into half-a-dozen factions.
Nor had I read those books that teach
The line between the good and evil;
Nor knew I what poor Faust could preach
When in the clutches of the devil.

I sang with little thought of this,
Or any such dim speculations;
And proved that ignorance was bliss
By very candid demonstrations.
He never came to me, nor did
I bother him with my intrusions,
But followed where I wished, and hid
Myself from all his deep illusions.

At last when halfway through my 'teens,
And life became a shade impassioned,
He rose up, full of all his spleen,
Just as my various bents were fashioned.
Then found I, to my grief, that he
Had risen from his grave, to wander,
A very poodle, after me,
To act as sworn and faithful pander.

He seemed at first so very sweet,
So full of nice polite attention,
I could have kissed his very feet,
Like others whom I need not mention.
He led me into many things,
Each very simple, fresh and pleasing,
Yet leaving always after stings,
That at the first were very teasing.

But in a little while they ceased,
And left me to my own enjoyment;
Nor did they come to mar my feast,
Like Banquo at the same employment
Of pale Macbeth; but, if their sting
I felt, true to my human nature,
I bounced and blamed some other thing
In philosophic nomenclature.

Ah, well, I'm rough and bearded now,
And given less to quick impulses;
Nor can I run away and bow
To that which one swift moment dulces.
But still I yearn to have that heart
I had when, yet a simple laddie,
I sang that song with little art
About that grave in old Kirkcaldy.

THE DYING COVENANTER.

Let me lie upon the heather
Where the heath fowl have abode,
In my hand the open Bible,
On my lip the psalm of God.
I have kept the faith and conquered,
Slipped not foot nor quailed an eye;
Gather round, and in the moorland
See a Covenanter die.

In the might of kingly sanction,
As the mountain torrents sweep,
Came the foe, athirst for slaughter,
And their oaths were loud and deep.
But we drew ourselves together,
Broke the still, yet pitying calm
With the music of our fathers,
And the worship of the psalm.

Then we heard our leader's question,
“Is there one within our band
Faint of heart to go to battle
For his God and for his land?

Is there one who, seeing foemen
Coming from the plain below,
Puts his sword back in the scabbard?”
And we sternly answered, “No.

“For we fight against oppression,
For the weak against the strong,
For the right to God's own freedom,
And against the wrong of wrong,
For our homes in glen and valley,
For a thing of grander worth,
The old worship of our fathers
In the kirk and by the hearth.”

Then we took a deeper breathing
For the fight that was so near,
Put our Bibles in our bosoms,
With no sign of doubt or fear,
Felt upon our lips a prayer,
Drew forth to a man the sword,
Rushed upon the ranks of Satan,
For our Covenant and the Lord.

Ye have seen, beside the river,
The tall bulrush, thick and strong,
Bend before the summer whirlwind
As it swept in might along.
Lo, the foe at the first onslaught
Backward went in their alarm,
Ours we knew would be the battle,
For the Lord held up His arm.

Ay, we knew that He was with us,
Israel's mighty God of old.
Felt His spirit clasp our spirit,
And His presence made us bold;

And we raised our thrilling slogan
Till it ran from tongue to tongue—
“God and Covenant, God and Covenant!”
And the bleak, bare moorland rung.

Had you seen the wild rough troopers,
Pale with very rage and hate,
As our steel still sent them backwards
To a flight or sterner fate.
“Canting dogs!” they cried, “and martyrs
For their heaven's paltry crown.”
“Soldiers now,” we hurled for answer,
And we shore the godless down.

Ay, they well may con their lessons
In their revels of to-night,
Tell, with all their newest curses,
That the babes of God can fight.
Did they think us sheep for slaughter,
Weak as weakest children be?
So they want that question answered,
Let them turn to their Dundee.

How the frown upon his forehead
(For I saw him in the fight)
Deepened till it burst in anger,
As the thunder peals by night!
And, when column after column
Shrank and withered at our brunt,
Onward came he like some devil,
With his black steed to the front.

“Are ye cowards?” forth he thundered,
As he rallied back his men.
“Fly from those that ye have hunted
Like the hare by field and glen?

What am I to send for answer
In your own, and in my name?
Give me better, or, by heaven!
Die, and so escape the shame!”

Ye have seen, beside the river,
The tall bulrush, thick and strong,
Springing upward when the whirlwind
Spent its force and passed along;
So came backward horse and trooper
On our firm, yet desperate few,
But our trust was not in princes,
And we knew what God could do.

Wild and high the conflict thickened
As a thunder-spout adds force
To the stream, and in the struggle
Down went rider, down went horse.
Foot by foot we drove them backward,
But they went like sullen seas,
Till I came against a war-horse,
And I knew it was Dundee's.

Swift as lightning's gleam at midnight,
When the stars are hidden dark,
Swift my sword upon the charger,
And I did not miss my mark.
Back he reared upon his rider,
And the two fell on the plain;
Had we not been such a handful
Black Dundee was with the slain.

But his troopers rallied round him,
Fought like devils at their need,
Drove us back and raised their master,
Brought him up another steed,

Made a front to stand our onset;
But they shrank as on they came,
Like the willow in the winter,
Like the heath before the flame.

Then we raised a shout of triumph
As the whelps of Satan fled,
But my death-wound came that moment,
And I fell among the dead.
Steeds and men, like one great whirlwind,
Thundered o'er me, and I knew
That our God had swept the godless
As the sun sweeps off the dew.

Closer, closer come around me,
Lift the grand old psalm again,
For I want to hear its music
Ere I pass away from men.
Shame to Scotland and to Scotsmen,
If they turn away in pride
From the songs that were our bucklers
On the bare, bleak mountain-side.

Let the Bible still lie open,
That my failing sight may see
My own blood upon that promise
Of the crown awaiting me.
I have kept the faith nor faltered,
Slipped not foot nor quailed an eye;
Gather round, and in the moorland
See a Covenanter die.

ROBERT BURNS.

[_]

On the Inauguration of the Burns' Monument at Kilmarnock, August, 1879.

“See projected through time
For him an audience interminable.”
Walt Whitman.

Ho! stand bare-browed with me to-day, no common name we sing,
And let the music in your hearts like thunder-marches ring;
We hymn a name to which the heart of Scotland ever turns,
The master singer of us all, the ploughman—Robert Burns.

How shall we greet such name that stands a beacon in the years?
With smiles of joy and love, or bursts of laughter and sweet tears?
Greet him with all—a fitting meed for him who came along,
And wove around our lowly life the splendours of his song.

What toil was his; but, know ye not, that ever in their pride
The unseen heaven-sent messengers were walking side by side;
He felt their leaping fire, and heard far whispers shake and roll,
While visions, like the march of kings, went surging through his soul.

“Thou shalt not sing,” they cried, “of men low set in sordid life,
Nor statesmen strutting their brief hour in rancour and in strife,

Nor the wild battle-field where death stalks red, and where the slain
Lie thicker than in harvest fields the sheaves of shining grain.

“Sing thou the thoughts that come to thee, to lighten all thy brow,
When, with a glory all around, thou standest by the plough,
Sing the sweet loves of youth and maid, the streams that glide along,
And let the music of the lark leap up within thy song.

“Sing thou of Scotland till she feels the rich blood fill her veins,
And rush along like mimic storms at all thy glorious strains;
A thousand years will come and pass, and other poets be,
But still within her heart of hearts shall beat the soul of thee.”

He came, and on his lips lay fire that winged his fervid song,
And scathed like lightning all that rose to walk behind a wrong;
He sang, and on the lowly cot beside the happy stream,
A halo fell upon the thatch, with heaven in its gleam.

And love grew sweeter at his touch, for full in him there lay
A mighty wealth of melting tones, and all their soft sweet way;
He shapes their rapture and delight, for unto him was given
The power to wed to burning words the sweetest gift of heaven.

O blessing on this swarthy seer, who gave us such a boon,
And still kept in his royal breast his royal soul in tune;
Men looked with kindlier looks on men, and in far distant lands
His very name made brighter eyes and firmer clasp of hands.

The ploughman strode behind his plough, and felt within his heart
A glory like a crown descend upon his peaceful art;
The hardy cotter, bare of arm, who wrestled with the soil,
Rose up his rugged height, and blessed the kingly guild of toil.

And sun-browned maidens in the field among the swaying corn,
Their pulses beating with the soft delight of love new born,
Felt his warm music thrill their hearts, and glow to finger tips,
As if the spirit of him who sang was throbbing on their lips.

What gift was this of his to hold his country's cherished lyre,
And strike, with glowing eye, the chords of passion's purest fire;
Say, who can guess what light was shed upon his upturned brow,
When in the glory of his youth he walked behind the plough?

What visions girt with glorious things, what whispers of far fame,
That from the Sinai of his dreams like radiant angels came;

What potent spells that held him bound, or swift, and keen and strong,
Lifted to mighty heights of thought this peasant king of song!

Hush, think not of that time when Fame her rainbow colours spread,
And all the rustling laurel-wreath was bound about his head;
When in the city, 'mid the glare of fashion's living light,
He moved—the whim of those that wished to see the novel sight.

Oh, heavens! and was this all they sought? to please a moment's pride,
Nor cared to know for one short hour this grand soul by their side;
But shook him off with dainty touch of well-gloved hand, and now—
Oh, would to God that all his life had been behind the plough?

And dare we hint that after this a bitter canker grew,
That all his aspirations sank, and took a paler hue;
That dark and darker grew the gloom till in the heedless town,
The struggling giant in his youth heart-wearied laid him down?

What were his thoughts, that sad last hour, of earth—ah, who can tell!—
When, by the column of his song our laurelled Cæsar fell?
We ask but questions of the Sphinx; we only know that death,
Unclasped his singing robes in tears, but left untouched the wreath.

Thou carper; well we know at times he sung in wilder mirth,
Till the rapt angel of his song had one wing on the earth;
But canst thou wild volcanoes tame, to belch their hidden fire,
Without one stain of darker red to shame its glowing pyre?

Back to thy native herd, and spend thy little shrunken day,
And if thou sting—for sting thou must—let it be common clay;
There live, nor step across this pale, but leave the right to heaven
To judge how far this soul has dimmed the splendours it has given.

For us who look with other eyes he stands in other light,
A great one stumbling on with hands outstretched to all the right;
Who, though his heart had shrunk beneath the doom that withers all,
Still wove a golden thread of song to stretch from cot to hall.

And now as when the mighty gods had fanes in ancient days,
And up the fluted columns swept great storms of throbbing praise,
So we to all, as in our heart this day with tender hand,
Uprear the marble shape of him, the Memnon of our land.

And sweeter sounds are ours than those which from that statue came,
When the red archer in the East smote it with shafts of flame;
We hear those melodies that made a glory crown our youth,
And wove around the staider man their spells of love and truth.

And still we walk within their light—a light that cannot die;
It streams forth from a purer sun and from a wider sky;
It crowns this heaven-born deputy of Song's supremest chords,
And leaps like altar flame along his soul-entrancing words.

Lo! take the prophet's reach of sight, and pass beyond the gloom,
Where thousands of our coming kind in thronging legions loom;
They, too, will come as we this hour with passionate worship wrung,
And place upon those mute, white lips, the grand great songs he sung.

Ho! then, stand bare of brow with me, no common name we sing,
And let the music in your hearts like thunder marches ring;
We hymn a name to which the heart of Scotland ever turns,
The master singer of us all, our ploughman—Robert Burns!

WALT WHITMAN.

Strong poet of the sleepless gods that dwell
As far above the stars as we beneath,
Whose melody disdaining the soft sheath
Of dainty modern music, snaps the spell,
And careless of all form or fettering plan
Clothes itself slovenly in rough, free words,
And strikes with no soft touch the inner chords
That vibrate with the strong and healthy man.
What if the ages that are yet to be,
Emerging from the bloodless wars of thought,
Seize hollow custom, and at one keen blow
Smite off its seven heads, and having smote,
Turn round, and with their larger veins aglow
With new found vigour mould themselves to thee?

GOETHE.

Up went the finger, but that royal eye,
Whose cunning saw through human life, was dim,
And fast becoming traitor unto him
Who used it with such magic. Ever nigh
And nigher, death crept to the feeble heart;
But, as the misty darkness came apace,
There slowly rose upon the sinking face
The soul's desire of Faust—the better part,
Which, working through a long, long life, became
A second being. Wrapt in earthly bands,
That now were giving way for other lands,
Whose light, slow dawning, was not held the same
As his—but as a darkness unto him—
“More light.” It came, and all grew still and dim.

GETHSEMANE.

I will go into dark Gethsemane,
In the night when none can see;
I will kneel by the side of Christ my Lord,
And He will kneel down with me.

I will bow my head, for I may not look
On that brow with its bloody dew,
Nor into those eyes of awful pain,
With the dread cross shining through.

Then my soul rose up, as a man will rise
Who hath high, stern words to speak,
And said, “Now what wilt thou do by Him
With that sweat on brow and cheek?

“Canst thou drink from the cup he proffers thee?
Canst thou quaff it at a breath?
For the dregs are sorrow and scorn and shame,
The crown of thorns and death.

“Stand thou from afar, for thou canst not know
That hour in Gethsemane.
Thou canst only know, in thine own dim way,
That He strove that night for thee.”

So I stand afar, and I bow my head;
But I dare not look into those eyes,
Whose depths have the depths of the night around,
With the starlight in the skies.

And my soul, as a friend will talk to a friend,
Still whispers and speaks unto me,
“Thou canst only know in thine own dim way
That hour in Gethsemane.”

THE POET.

Like a great tree beside the stream of l fe
The visioned poet stands,
And scatters forth his leaves of thought all rife,
As if from fairy hands.

And down, forever down the stream they float,
And work into the heart,
And there, by virtue of the magic thought,
Can never more depart.

But sleep unseen through all the weary day,
And waken up betimes
In the sweet night to cheer our gloom away
With their most pleasant chimes.

And in the hurry and the fret, the jar
Of restless things they come,
And act like oil upon the tempest's war
Till all the strife is dumb.

The labour of the wood and field, the slim
White clouds within the sky,
Have secrets Nature only shows to him
Who hath a poet's eye.

The unheard music and the gentle tones
Which float along her breast,
Give up their being unto him alone,
To tell it to the rest.

He is the necromancer who hath thrown
Open a wealth untold,
And placed within our hands the fabled stone
Whose touch turns all to gold.

O, noble poet, firm in thy great faith,
And in thy truth and love,

I prize thee as I do the dead, whose death
Has swelled the ranks above.

So in all earnestness my spirit sends
Its homage unto thee;
But this is naught, for from the sky descends
Thine immortality.

ON THE STATUES OF GOETHE AND SCHILLER AT FRANKFORT-ON-THE MAINE.

Two master spirits of German song, they stand
Each by the side of each; the sculptor's thought
Has guided the sure chisel, as it ought,
And placed the laurel wreath in Goethe's hand.
He holds it with that calm repose of face,
True reflex of his life, and looks straight on;
While Schiller, as if hearing some high tone
Playing within his life, has time to place
His finger tips within the wreath, but lifts
His vision upward; type, too, of his life,
That struggled, through thick clouds of early strife,
To the calm sunshine of all noble gifts.
Two spirits of melody—one broad and wise,
The other pure, and yearning still to rise.

SHE'S AN AWFU' LASSIE JENNY.

She's an awfu' lassie, Jenny,
No' her like in a' the toon,
For her heid is fu' o' mischief,
And her hair is hingin' doon.

What a faught maun ha'e her mither
Frae the mornin' till the nicht,
But she's awfu' like her granny,
An' that pits wee Jenny richt.

I ha'e tried to coort wee Jenny
But she'll no' ha'e me ava',
She wad raither ha'e a penny
To buy sweeties or a ba',
When I speak o' oor sweetheartin',
Just as lown as lown can be,
Wad ye think it for a moment?
She pits oot her tongue at me.

She's an awfu' lassie Jenny,
Yet a denty, bonnie quean,
An' there's licht, an' love, an' lauchter
A' at ance within her een.
Yet I ken fu' weel her mither
Maun get mony an unco fricht,
But she's awfu' like her granny
An' that pits wee Jenny richt.

YARROW.

The simmer day was sweet an' lang,
It had nae thocht o' sorrow,
As my true love and I stood on
The bonnie banks o' Yarrow.

I took her han' in mine an' said,
“Noo smile, my winsome marrow;
The next time that we come again
You'll be my bride on Yarrow.”

A tear stood in her sweet blue ee,
An' sair she sighed in sorrow,
“I dinna like the sugh that rins
Alang your bonnie Yarrow.

“It soun's like some auld dirge o' wae,
It chills my bosom thorough,
An' it makes me creep close to your side;
Oh, I dinna like your Yarrow.

“For aye I think on the wae an' dule
That auld, auld sang brings o'er me;
An' aye I see that bluidy fecht,
An' the deid, deid men afore me.”

I clasped my true love in my arms,
I kissed her sweet lips thorough,
Her breast lay saft against my ain,
On the bonnie banks o' Yarrow.

“A tear is in your sweet blue ee,
A tear that speaks o' sadness.
Noo what should dim its happy hue,
This simmer day o' gladness?

“The Yarrow rins fu' fresh an' sweet,
The licht shines bricht an' clearly,
An' why should ae sad thocht be ours,
We wha lo'e ither dearly?

“The Yarrow rins, an' as it rins
Nae sadness can it borrow
Frae that auld sang that's far awa',
When I'm wi' thee on Yarrow.”

I pu'd a daisy at my feet,
A daisy sweet an' bonnie,
I put it in my true love's breast,
For she was fair as ony.

But aye she sighed, an' aye she said,
“I fear me for the morrow.
Oh, tak' awa' your bonnie flower,
For see, it grew on Yarrow.

“The bluid still dyes its crimson tips,
It speaks o' dule an' sadness,
An' the deid that lay on the gowany brae,
An' woman's wailing madness.”

I took the daisy from her breast,
I flung it into Yarrow,
An doon the stream wi' heavy heart
I cam' wi' my sweet marrow.

Oh simmer months, hoo swift ye flew,
Wi' a' your bloom an' blossom!
Oh Death, how waefu' was thy touch
That took her to thy bosom!

For my true love, sae sweet an' fair,
Lies in her grave sae narrow,
An' in my heart is that eerie moan
She heard that day in Yarrow.

THE STEPPING STONES.

We met upon the stepping stones,
She blushed and looked at me;
The river turned its short, sharp moans
Into sweet melody.

I heard the music in my heart,
I said, “Sweet maid, I find
That I will have to turn again,
And let you come behind.”

Thereat she hung her dainty head,
The river's melody
Grew sweeter, and methought it said,
“The maid will follow thee.”

I turned upon the stepping stone,
The maiden came behind;
She whispered in her sweetest tone,
“Dear sir, but you are kind.”

“Nay, nay,” I said, and took her hand;
“But shall I turn again,
Or wait until a tender band
Be bound about us twain?”

She hung her head, then, blushing, said,
“Dear sir, but you are kind;
If you will cross the stepping stones,
I will not stay behind.”

ROW, KELLO, ROW.

Row, Kello, row frae rocky linns,
An' through amang thy grassy braes,
Where gowans grow an' hawthorns blaw,
An' sunshine sleeps on summer days.
Slip saftly by the quarry howm,
Where hingin' hazels hap thy tides;
Then murmur through aneath the brig,
An' by the cot where Annie bides.

Row, Kello, row to where the Nith
Half waits to clasp thy floods sae clear,
But leave ahin' the happy soun'
That Annie still delights to hear.

She walks by thee when gloamin' dims
An' darkens doon the vocal glen,
But what her ain sweet thochts can be
Nane but hersel' an' thee may ken.

Row, Kello, row when summer flings
A wealth o' licht the hills alang,
An' row when autumn's yellow han'
Shakes doon the nits the leaves amang.
An' row when winter's rouky breath
Strips a' the cleedin' frae the tree,
But leave to Annie still the thochts
At gloamin' when she walks by thee.

THE DOVE.

A dove went up, and struck the air
Impatiently with all her wing;
I said, “O bird thy journeying
Is like the flight of thought. But where,

“In all the regions of the sky,
When weary, and you wish to roam
No longer, do you find a home?”
And meekly did the dove reply—

“I own no fancy; I am free,
And, shooting through the yielding air,
I look and find that all is fair,
And beautiful and sweet to me.

“And wish, when tired, no sweeter rest
Than drooping down with folded wing
Within a wood whose shadows cling
Across the river's dreaming breast.”

“Well said, O bird, whose days are rife
With all the peace of rest and love,
And linked to quiet things that move
Around the orb of poet-life.”

THE PIPER'S TREE.

Come in, gudeman, to your ain fireside,
There's a cauld, cauld grup in the air,
An' the win' blaws snell frae Corsencon,
For the winter's snaw is there.

It sughs down Glenmuckloch Dryfestane glens
Wi' an eerie, eerie soun',
It whussles an' roars in the muckle tree
That stan's afore Nethertoon.

Come in, come in to the weans an' me,
The fire is lowin' bricht;
If ye stan' ony langer there, ye'll get
Your death o' cauld this nicht.

Do you hear me speak? What can mak' him turn
His back on his ain dear wife,
Wha has stood by him through mony a faucht
For fifty years o' her life?

Is he coontin' his purse? Oh, waes me noo,
Oh, wae for my bairns an' me;
The curse that my grannie tauld me has come—
He has sat on the Piper's Tree!

For after she tauld me, when I was a wean,
That, whaever sat by nicht
On the Piper's Tree, took a lust for gowd,
And made it their hale delicht.

An' the sign o' the Piper's curse was this:
That, whaever it micht be,
They wad coont their purse at pleuch or cairt,
Wi' a greedy look in their ee.

Come in, gudeman, for my heart is sair,
Come in to the lowin' licht,
An' I'll tell ye the doom o' the Piper's Tree,
For the gude o' us a' this nicht.

Langsyne, afore my grannie was born,
On a nicht o' win' an' rain,
Auld Eadie Buchan, the miser, was faun',
Lyin' dead on his ain hearthstane.

He was killed for the sake o' the siller he had,
For he made it his only pride,
But, whaever it was that had dune the deed,
They fled frae the kintra side.

An' years an' years gaed by, until
The tale took anither turn,
An' they said that his gowd was aneath a tree
By the side o' the Laggeray Burn.

But a curse wad be sure to fa' on him
Wha wad try to howk for it there,
For ilk' coin was red wi' bluid, and still
The miser's ghaist was there.

But lang Tam Cringan lauched an' lauched,
An' said, wi' a lood guffaw,
“It's an auld wife's story to fricht the bairns,
As a bogle frichts a craw.”

But aye after that he was seen to stan'
By himsel' an' coont his purse,
While the look in his ee was the look that comes
At the back o' the Piper's curse.

In a week after that what a change took place,
For white, white grew his hair;
He never lookit ye straucht in the face,
An' he jokit an' leuch nae mair.

He dwined and dwined on his feet, until
He took to his bed an' lay,
But the neebors whispered, “Afore he dees
He has something yet to say.”

So ae drear nicht, as they sat by his bed,
He said, wi' mony a mane,
“Since the nicht that I socht for the miser's gowd
My peace o' mind has been gane.

“An' I canna rest wi' this wecht on my breast,
Sae, afore I steek my ee,
I maun tell ye sichts that I saw, an' the soun's
That I heard by the Piper's Tree.

“For days an' days, like ane in a dream,
I daun'ered oot an' in;
For my heart was set on the miser's wealth,
Though I kenned fu' weel 'twas a sin.

“I coontit my purse ilk' hour o' the day,
An' whenever I heard the clink
O' the siller I faun' my heart grow hard,
An' closer an' closer shrink,

“Till at length, with an aith, I said to mysel',
In the heicht o' greed an' despair,
‘I will venture the lastin' gude o' my saul,
For the sake o' the siller there.’

“Sae I slippit oot on a munelicht nicht,
Took a gude stoot pick an' shule,
Stood aneath the Piper's Tree an' heard
The Laggeray Burn sing dule.

“I wrocht, an' I wrocht, as ane will work
Wha works for life an' death,
Till the black sweat fell in draps frae my brow,
An' I scarce could draw my breath.

“But, aye the deeper I howkit, my heart
Grew harder an' harder still;
An' every thocht that cam' into my heid
Was a thocht o' sin an' ill.

“I faun' that if even a brither o' mine
Had come to help me there,
The sin o' his bluid wad been on my heid,
For the sake o' gettin' his share.

“But a' at ance, an' abune my heid,
I heard the bagpipes play,
An' at the soun' the munelicht fled
Frae hill, an' glen, an' brae.

“An' I saw the glint o' an eerie licht,
That seemed like a ghaist to rise
Frae the breckaned heicht o' the steep Knowe Hill,
Where gude Saint Connel lies.

“An' doon it cam' like a wauf o' the win',
Wi' the sugh o' the Laggeray Burn,
An' aye the bagpipes skirled an' played,
But my heid I couldna turn.

“I faun' the sweat rin cauld doon my back,
An' trickle into my shune,
But I hadna the power to lift my heid,
To see wha played abune.

“But, just as that licht gaed flauffin' by,
I saw what made me grue,
A lang, thin shape, wi' its heid bent doon,
An' a red, red mark on its broo.

“An' I saw its han's gang up an' doon,
What they did I couldna tell,
But I thocht they were coontin' the ghaists o' coin,
As I used to do mysel'.

“It glided doon to the side o' the Nith,
Then turned as if to come back,
But the win' took it doon till it sank frae my sicht
On the lang green howms o' the Rack.

“An' aye the bagpipes skirled an' played,
An' looder an' looder grew;
An' aye the hair stood up on my heid,
An' the cauld sweat fell frae my broo.

“Then a' at ance the bagpipes ceased,
While an eerie, ghaistly cry
Rang oot on the nicht, an' took to the air
To dee on the hills ootbye.

“‘Howk on,’ it said, ‘an' gang deeper yet,
It wants but an hour o' twal';
I wuss ye may licht on the miser's gowd,
For I want to be sure o' yer saul.’

“Then I lookit up, an' abune my heid
(Oh, whatna sicht did I see
In the mirk, mirk nicht by the deein' mune,
On the tap o' the Piper's Tree!)

“I saw twa een that werena like een,
They were red as a lowin' peat;
A pair o' horns that were three feet lang,
An' feet that werena like feet.

“But I saw nae mair, for, wi' ae lood cry
That took the last o' my breath,
I lap frae the hole that was like my grave,
An' I ran for life an' death.”

Oh, ye needna lauch at me, gudeman,
For grannie wadna lee,
An' said there was mair than fowk wad own
O' truth in the Piper's Tree.

That nicht Tam Cringan dee'd, an' juist
As they laid him oot in his shrood,
They heard a soun' like the bagpipes skirl,
An' it cam' frae the Laggeray Wood.

Fu' weel did they ken wha was playin' there;
The thocht sent the bluid frae their cheek,
An' siccan a fear was on ane an' a'
That name o' them daur to speak.

The soun' cam' up like a risin' win'
When the winter nichts are lang,
They heard it skirl at the chimla tap,
Till a voice was heard in the thrang—

“Howk on,” it cried, “for the miser's gowd,
Howk on wi' a' your micht;
Had the deid ye watch got my wuss, I ken
Where his saul wad ha'e been the nicht.”

The win' fell doon, an' the eerie soun'
Creepit up to the hills ootbye,
An' there they sat wi' the deid at their side
Till the licht cam' into the sky.

It's an auld wife's havers, ye say, gudeman!
But still, to this very day,
When the mune draps owre the Kirkland Hills
Ye can hear the bagpipes play.

But nane daur venture up the burn
To see wha is playin' there,
For they ken o' the curse that is sure to fa'
Wi' its weird baith lang an' sair.

Sae ye needna lauch at me, gudeman,
For my grannie wadna lee,
An' said there was mair than fowk wad own
O' truth in the Piper's Tree.

AIMLESS LONGINGS.

I am full of an aimless longing
As I wander about to-day;
I turn from the light and shadow
As they chase each other at play.

I hear a wild bird calling—
A lonely cry from the hill;
And the haunting sense in my bosom,
Grows deeper and lonelier still.

What it can be I know not,
I cannot read it aright;
And I wander as men will wander
That stray from the path in the night.

Is it a sense of something
That to-day still follows me;
That out of my life has vanished,
As a ship goes down at sea?

BALLOCHMYLE.

A sweet love-song, whose early touch—
Ere yet the master-hand grew strong
To strike the chords that felt at such
The wondrous magic of his song—
Was with me, speaking soft and sweet
From leaf-clad tree, and from the smile

Of half-hid flowers among my feet,
That summer night in Ballochmyle.

The Ayr was hushed from bank to bank;
Its murmur, coming through the trees,
Was as of fairies when they prank
Their moonlight revels o'er the leas.
It mingled with the tender tone
Of lover's earnest plea and wile,
As I stood listening all alone,
That summer night in Ballochmyle.

There was no breath of wind to stir
The grass that grew beside my feet,
But silent as a worshipper,
When thought and silence are most sweet,
I stood: I felt my heart grow warm
With that soft dew of unshed tears
That comes, when, as beneath a charm,
We slip back into vanished years.

The spot was fair, but fairer still
In that high light which falls from song—
So fair that, bending to its will,
I only did this gentle wrong—
I plucked some grass, a token meet,
To take with me. No idle toil!
Since it perchance had kissed the feet
Of her, the “Lass o' Ballochmyle.”

The night came on, and in the sky,
A little space of which was seen
Between the trees, upon the eye
One star shone out with wondrous sheen.
It wore the tender look of love,
As if some link to me unknown

Had bound it to this spot, and strove
To make this haunted place its own.

Sweet dream! for here love's very soul
Might dwell, and feel no taint of earth,
But wander to its passionate goal,
Or dream, and, dreaming grow to birth.
Here might his feet for ever stay,
And here his heart for ever dream,
Without one wish to roam or stray
Beyond the music of the stream.

The moon rose up, and, all at once,
From leafy branch and trembling grass,
A murmur, like a sweet response,
Came forth, and sweet to hear it was.
And with that murmur came the light,
That flung o'er all a tender smile;
And deepened still the fairy sight
That held me bound in Ballochmyle.

But is there not a softer gleam,
Which is not of the moon, that lies
On grassy bank and wood and stream,
And touching makes them sanctities—
A light that, shining far apart,
Is only for the inner eye,
That sees the glory of that art
Which speaks in burning melody?

Hush! do I wake or dream? for lo!
A spirit wanders up the glen,
And as he comes a deeper glow
Bathes all that lies within his ken.
He moves as in some mood of thought,
And in the glory which he throws

Around him his dark eye has caught
That frenzy which the poet knows.

He leans against a tree, he turns
His eye upon the shining stream,
And in its burning depths there yearns
The first sunrise of passion's dream.
Where have I seen that swarthy face
Which now is radiant with the light
Of that high look that wears no trace
Of earth or death to mortal sight?

Lo! yet another spirit comes
With lighter foot and fairer face,
Each leaf in murmurous music hums
As on she moves with pensive pace.
The Ayr grows hushed, and will not speak,
And only one sweet breath of wind
Kisses the roses on her cheek,
And sways the grass that throbs behind.

She pauses, slowly turns her eye
On him, the poet spirit, bent
In half-adoring ecstasy,
As to some angels heaven-sent.
Then with a low yet tender sigh
She beckons him: they both pass on,
And all the light grows dim, and I
Am left in Ballochmyle alone.

I wake up. Am I still beneath
The spell of all that early tone,
Whose music, like the spring's sweet breath,
Hath made this fairy spot its own?
The star shines through the open space,
The moonlight quivers all around,

And lays sweet hands of tender grace
Upon this consecrated ground.

Oh, early love-song haunting yet
The spot where the immortal trod,
And breathing, where his feet were set,
The music of the singing god.
Oh, maid for ever young! for who,
When caught and held by magic song,
Can feel the years that bear from view
The common lot that plods along?

Ah me! we pass. But through this wood
Our swarthy singer still will roam,
And muse in high poetic mood
Apart from all the years to come.
While she, his sister-spirit, strong
In her unfading beauty's smile,
Will move throughout the land of song,
“The bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle.”

THINKING OF MICHAEL.

[_]

(A Letter from the “Dead.”—Upon the tin water-bottle of one of the dead men brought out of the Seaham Pit, Michael Smith, there was scratched, evidently with a nail, the following letter to his wife:—“Dear Margaret,— There was forty of us altogether at 7 a.m., some was singing hymns, but my thought was on my little Michael, I thought that him and I would meet in heaven at the same time. Oh, my dear wife, God save you and the children. Be sure and learn the children to pray for me. Oh, what a terrible position we are in.—Michael Smith, 54, Henry Street.” The Little Michael he refers to was his child whom he had left at home ill. The lad died on the day of the explosion.)

In the chamber of death underground,
Came these words to touch men to the heart,
Bring tears to the eyes, and a sound
Of a sorrow that strikes like a dart.

Hear you not that low wail coming through
The death-gloom of that chamber so grim?
“I was thinking of Michael and you
When the others were singing a hymn.

“I thought—not of death that would come—
It was nothing, dear wife, unto me;
I was thinking of you and our home,
And how little Michael would be.
My God, what a fate we can view
In this deep vault that drips like our tears!
But still I was thinking of Michael and you,
With the sound of a hymn in my ears.

“Then I thought I would meet him above,
Both at once enter in at the gate,
Clasp his hand, hear his whisper of love,
With no hint of the earth and my fate,
Lead him into the light of that land,
Where no shadow may enter to dim—
All this in the midst of a band
Of my mates who were singing a hymn.

“Oh, pray for me, wife, when at night
Our children climb up on your knee;
When the hearth is still dark from the blight,
Oh, teach them a prayer for me!
Let their voices go up to our God,
Who through this dark shadow can see;
He will hear from the heights of His sinless abode
Their prayers for you and for me.

“Farewell! and afar in the years
That will deaden thy sorrow's deep smart,
And thine eyes only soften with tears
When my name stirs and leaps at thy heart,

You will say, when you think upon me
And this death-cavern, rugged and grim,
‘He was thinking how Michael would be
When the others were singing a hymn.’”

Oh, fathers and mothers that peer
Down into that terrible mine,
See ye not, far too deep for a tear,
A love that was almost divine?
That father, waiting for death to come,
But still, in the midst of his fears,
Thinking of poor little Michael at home,
With the sound of a hymn in his ears.

CONNELBUSH.

I hear the winds of summer rush
Above my head to-day,
As here I sit by Connelbush
To dream one hour away.

Beside the old green walls are seen,
Half hid amid the grass,
Stray flowers that peep out from their screen
In sorrow as you pass.

The garden lies a wilderness
Of growth untrained and free;
There is no hand to touch and dress
To bounds the life I see.

The walls still stand to mourn and sigh
For mirth that once was there,
In other years when youth was high
And days and nights were fair.

And still the winds round Connelbush
Blow sweet through glen and wood,
As when we heard them with the rush
Of youth through all our blood.

But still they do not seem to blow
With that sweet force we felt
When, in the years of long ago,
Our hearts were quick to melt.

The garden fence is broken down,
Unhinged the garden gate,
The roof of thatch has sunk and flown,
And all is desolate.

There is no welcome at the door,
No kindly voice to greet;
And on the path is heard no more
The sound of human feet.

I hear the tinkle of the stream
That slips beneath the grass;
I hear, and as I hear I dream,
And into visions pass.

I enter through the narrow door,
The fire gleams bright within;
And all, as it was once of yore,
Is full of mirth and din.

I hear the sound of dancing feet,
Of rustic revelry,
Of voices rising clear and sweet—
And each is known to me.

Beside the fire, and in her place,
Sits one to sympathise;
The light is on her kindly face,
And in her kindly eyes.

She watches with a quiet smile
The mirth and pastime there,
And, watching, she is young the while,
Though snow-white is her hair.

Beside her, in the hearth's sweet blaze
And leaning on her knee,
Is one—a woman in her ways—
Though but a child is she.

She, too, is full of quick reply
When laughing questions pass;
And catches with a ready eye
The wiles of lad and lass.

Another, too, who bears a part
In all this rustic life—
True woman of a daughter's heart,
Who art as true a wife.

Thou walkest other paths this hour,
For life's paths so divide;
And thine are full of gracious dower,
With children by thy side.

What can I wish to-day for thee,
If human joys should last,
But that the future years may be
As calm as were the past.

Hush, as I look a strange sad shade
Falls down upon the hearth,
And dame and grandchild slowly fade,
And pass from all the mirth.

Ah, me, that shade is death, and they
Look through its tender haze
With that half-joy that fades away,
And saddens as we gaze.

Fades, too, the sound of dance and song
The last good-night is said,
And up the pathway pass along
The last fond youth and maid.

The twilight sinks, the shadows fall,
A sense of something lost
Comes down and settles over all,
And haunts it like a ghost.

The ashes dwindle in the grate,
The last dull spark is gone,
The walls and roof are desolate,
And here I stand alone.

The winds blow sweet by Connelbush,
They fan my brow and cheek,
And in the pauses, when they hush,
I hear the streamlet speak.

I mark on hills the shadowings
That march in sad array
From clouds that float above, like wings
Of angels flung away.

And from low-lying meadow lands
Along the Nith I hear,
Uprising from haymaking bands,
Sweet laughter swift and clear.

And down the valley, further on,
Lies Sanquhar dim, and grey,
Still guarded by its pile of stone,
That crumbles day by day.

I look, and right in front is seen,
Beyond the wood and stream,
A long and narrow bank of green,
On which the metals gleam.

And up and down, with rush and roar,
Trains crash with seven-leagued stride;
Ah me, this moaning human shore
Must have its iron tide.

But here from lonely Connelbush
All life has fled away,
And nought is heard but winds that rush
And sport with its decay.

No welcome at the door to wake
The silence into mirth;
No sound but that of winds that shake
The weeds upon the hearth.

Farewell, but as I turn, my thought
Perforce is backward set,
And shadows all this lonely cot
With mists of vain regret.

Alas for human dreams that leave,
Instead of after-glow,
Cold memories that pine and grieve,
And sadden as we go.

Till, battling with the years, at last
They sink into decay,
And lie a ruin in the past,
Like Connelbush to-day.

A VOICE IS IN THE WIND TO-DAY.

A voice is in the wind to-day,
And sweet its breath is blowing;
O, welcome summer wind I say,
From where the flowers are growing.

I feel the smell of meadows sweet,
With many blossoms showing,
As if the touch of fairy feet,
Set all their beauty glowing.

I know each spot where violets peep,
I bless them in their growing;
But O their breath is sweet to keep,
When summer winds are blowing.

“What makes them smell so sweet to-day?
Say wind, and good betide thee;”
And the wind came like a child from play,
And laughed and stood beside me.

The wind said, “I am from the hill,
With scents of blossom laden;
But I, to make them sweeter still,
In passing kissed a maiden.”

THE SORROW OF THE SEA.

A day of fading light upon the sea;
Of sea-birds winging to their rocky caves;
And ever, with its monotone to me,
The sorrow of the waves.

They leap and lash among the rocks and sands,
White-lipped, as with a guilty secret tossed,
Forever feeling with their foamy hands
For something they have lost.

Far out, and swaying in a sweet unrest,
A boat or two against the light are seen,
Dipping their sides within the liquid breast
Of waters da k and green.

And farther still, where sea and sky have kissed,
There falls as if from heaven's own threshold, light
Upon faint hills that, half-enswathed in mist,
Wait for the coming night.

But still, though all this life and motion meet,
My thoughts are wingless and lie dead in me,
Or dimly stir to answer, at my feet,
The sorrow of the sea.

ONE STAR ALONE.

One star alone from the blue sky
Looks down upon the simple stream,
With such a quiet, loving eye,
That I perforce must dream.

And so I wish, if my rough brow
Should seam and furrow with the strife,
The star that leaps and kindles now
Might light my path of life.

That I, when weary with the fight,
And wishing for a rest at length,
Might look and draw from out its light
A comfort and a strength.

And gird my soul with stronger powers
To fight the lower thought and deed,
That agitate this life of ours
As winds will shake the reed.

But still in moods of calmer tone,
I feel a longing to retire,
And watch the broad world all alone,
And plod, but not aspire.

For I have thought, and still I think,
'Tis wiser that our lives should be
Like this fair stream within its brink,
So quiet, so calm and free.

Or like that star above, which beams
For ever down in holy mirth,
Than wed the heart to idle dreams,
Whose goal is still the earth.

O let me spend my little hour
In all the calm that Nature gives—
Profuse in plenitude of dower
Where each mute being lives.

For in the hush of her sweet face,
The soul will burst its earth-forged bands,
And wing its flight to purer space
In other purer lands.

Therefore it comes that still I love
The dim, sweet twilight, and the light
That comes, like whispers, from above,
And shines on me to-night.

A SOUND IS IN MY EAR TO-DAY.

A sound is in my ear to-day,
And playful fancies with it throng;
It follows me and all the way
It haunts me like a snatch of song.

I know not what it all may mean,
I dimly ask myself, and say,
“Something that thou hast heard or seen,
In some forgotten summer day.

“A summer day when paradise
Lay near to earth as near could be,
When all the hills were red with fire,
And heather humming with the bee.”

And it is this; an upland gleam
Of sunshine such as warms and thrills;
The tinkle of a quiet stream,
That broke the stillness of the hills.

THE LIFE-BOAT.

The sea, as by some inner demon stung,
Hath burst its glassy prison, and on high
A thousand waves in black despair are flung
In foaming supplication to the sky.

They yawn with fangs half-hidden by the spray,
And hiss and roar with madness in their breath,
And, blind with hate, for ever seek their prey,
To drag it downward to their gulfs of death.

The winds are in high holiday; they shear
Their way through spray and cloud, and high and strong
Put forth their mighty strength until they bear
The billows downward as they roar along.

Between the waves there seethes a mimic hell,
Gaping with foam-flecked maw to swallow all—
For who can quench such thirst? or weave a spell
Over the anger of their carnival?

Lo, how they toss, as if from hand to hand,
That ship far out where help seems all in vain,
And thin white faces turning to the land
Whose only hope is to despair again.

Their ship is but a plaything for the sea,
A speck for winds to buffet and to toss—
Who will put out! although his life should be
Within his hand, to fling away like dross?

“Out with the life-boat! Willing hands are here,
Stout muscles, ay, and stouter hearts to fight,
Give way, give way, and with a voice of cheer,
We must save lives before the fall of night.”

Between them and the ship that staggers on,
The waves like liquid phalanxes of steel
Rise up to bar their way with hiss and moan,
Till the staunch life-boat shakes from deck to keel.

But still she cleaves her way through stormy rifts;
In front the swooping sea-gulls show her path,
Until she seems a speck that sinks and lifts
Amid a thousand howling gulfs of wrath.

And those who stand in horror on the shore,
Watching the hell of shaking darkness there,
Hear their hearts throb an answer to its roar,
Now touching hope and now again despair.

Will they come back? The moments lengthen out,
Until they seem like hours to those who wait.
At last that far-off speck has put about;
But who can say what yet shall be its fate?

The storm, as if unconscious of defeat,
Re-marshals all its seething ranks of waves,
And, led by shrieking winds with foam-hid feet,
Swoops on the staunch true hearts, and roars and raves.

But battling still with every wave that strives
To bear them back with rushing surge and sweep,
They gain the shore at last with human lives
Wrenched from the white teeth of the tigerish deep.

Brave hearts beneath rough bosoms! Well we knew
How ye would rise to God and Christ's own plan,
And stand heroic in the tasks ye do.
Grand is the sea, but grander still is man!

WILD FLOWERS FROM ALLOWAY AND DOON.

No book to-night; but let me sit
And watch the firelight change and flit,
And let me think of other lays
Than those that shake our modern days.
Outside, the tread of passing feet
Along the unsympathetic street
Is naught to me; I sit and hear
Far other music in my ear,
That, keeping perfect time and tune,
Whispers of Alloway and Doon.

The scent of withered flowers has brought
A fresher atmosphere of thought,
In which I make a realm, and see
A fairer world unfold to me;
For grew they not upon that spot
Of sacred soil that loses naught
Of sanctity by all the years
That come and pass like human fears?
They grew beneath the light of June,
And blossomed on the banks of Doon.

The waving woods are rich with green,
And sweet the Doon flows on between;
The winds tread light upon the grass,
That shakes with joy to feel them pass;

The sky, in its expanse of blue,
Has but a single cloud or two;
The lark, in raptures clear and long,
Shakes out his little soul in song,
But far above his notes, I hear
Another song within my ear
Rich, soft, and sweet, and deep by turns—
The quick, wild passion-throbs of Burns.

Ah! were it not that he has flung
A sunshine by the songs he sung
On fields and woods of “Bonnie Doon,”
These simple flowers had been a boon
Less dear to me; but since they grew
On sacred spots which once he knew,
They breathe, though crushed and shorn of bloom,
To-night within this lonely room,
Such perfumes, that to me prolong
The passionate sweetness of his song.
The glory of an early death
Was his; and the immortal wreath
Was wrought round brows that had not felt
The furrows that are roughly dealt
To age; nor had the heart grown cold
With haunting fears that, taking hold,
Cast shadows downward from their wing,
Until we doubt the songs we sing.
But his was lighter doom of pain,
To pass in youth, and to remain
For ever fair and fresh and young,
Encircled by the youth he sung.

And so to me these simple flowers
Have sent through all my dreaming hours
His songs again, which, when a boy,
Made day and night a double joy.

Nor did they sink and die away
When manhood came with sterner day,
But still amid the jar and strife,
The rush and clang of railway life,
They rose up, and at all their words
I felt my spirit's inner chords
Thrill with their old sweet touch, as now,
Though middle manhood shades my brow;
For though I hear the tread of feet
Along the unsympathetic street,
And all the city's din to-night,
My heart warms with that old delight,
In which I sit and, dreaming, hear
Singing to all the inner ear,
Rich, clear, and soft, and sweet by turns,
The deep, wild passion-throbs of Burns.

A BLACKBIRD'S NEST.

[_]

(In the month of May, 1884, might be seen, at the Forth Bridge Works, South Queensferry, a blackbird sitting on her nest, which was built on an elevated projecting beam in the engineering shed, in close proximity to the driving-shed, and immediately above a powerful steam-engine.)

She sits upon her nest all day,
Secure amid the toiling din
Of serpent belts that coil and play,
And, moaning, ever twist and spin.

What cares she for the noise and whirr
Of clanking hammers sounding near?
A mother's heart has lifted her
Beyond a single touch of fear.

Beneath her, throbbing anvils shout,
And lift their voice with ringing peal,
While engines groan and toss about
Their tentacles of gleaming steel.

Around her, plates of metal, smote
And beat upon by clutch and strain,
Take shape beneath the grasp of thought—
The mute Napoleon of the brain.

She careth in nowise for this,
But, as an anxious mother should,
Dreams of a certain coming bliss—
The rearing of her callow brood.

Thou little rebel, thus to fly
The summer shadows of the trees,
The sunlight of the gracious sky,
The tender toying of the breeze.

What made thee leave thy leafy home,
The deep hid shelter of the tree,
The sounds of wind and stream, and come
To where all sounds are strange to thee?

Thou wilt not answer anything;
Thy thoughts from these are far away;
Five little globes beneath thy wing,
Are all thou thinkest on to-day.

ONE RED ROSE.

One red rose you took from my hand—
O the light was sweet that summer day—
One red rose from her queenly band,
That was far too sweet to pine away.

“Come I will pluck thee,” I said to the rose—
O the light was sweet that summer day—
“And give thee to one who is pure, God knows,
To wear thee though blooming from May to May.”

I plucked the rose with a leaf or two—
O the light was sweet that summer day—
Rose bloom on the breast of one who is true,
Whatever her sisters may hint or say.

Then the rose made answer, “What if I fade”—
O the light was sweet that summer day—
“Fade on the breast on which I am laid,
And my beams grow dark in their sad decay.”

Then I thus made answer and said to the rose—
O the light was sweet that summer day—
“Die, and the breath of your incense grows
A memory sweet, that shall last for aye.”

THE POET'S VISION.

The poet looks on human things,
And, as his mood is, so he sings,
And lets his fingers touch the strings.

And as they stray the chords along,
He gives the passionate lover song,
And greater strength to help the strong.

He lifts the weak; with flashing eye,
He launches bolts at tyranny
That slowly withers ere it die.

When war looms like a red eclipse,
He grasps with whitening finger tips
The sword—the bugle at his lips.

And when 'mid wheeling drifts of smoke,
The charging front ranks interlock,
His is the spirit in each stroke.

He sees beneath the veil of things,
The undercurrent as it swings;
The touch that heals, the prick that stings.

The inward wound that inward bleeds,
The doubts that undermine our creeds,
Our holiest faiths, our highest needs.

The madness and the dull despair,
The bitter canker everywhere,
He sees and builds a beacon there.

He sees through life, he sees afar,
And at the end death as a bar,
And stopping there he lights a star.

For unto him is freely given
The fire that flashed, and fell from heaven,
To make him strive as he has striven.

MARY MORRISON.

That nicht the dancin' schule was dune,
We had a ball to end the spree;
An' Willie Stewart played the tune,
An' cockit up fu' gleg his ee.
But dim that nicht an' a' I see,
An' gane that time o' mirth an' fun;
But ae thing still comes back to me,
I danced wi' Mary Morrison.

Noo, could it be an auld love sang
The Master-spirit left us here
Was in my head an' workin' thrang—
I hadna time to think or spier?

It took me a' my time to steer
Through couples till the dance was dune;
But aye a voice was in my ear,
Ye've danced wi' Mary Morrison.

What lang dreich years ha'e fled since then,
What things ha'e come, what things ha'e gane,
And some are in a foreign lan',
Some sleep aneath their ain heid stane.
The lads an' lasses unco fain
Are far an' wide as leaves are blown,
An' here I'm sittin' a' my lane,
But where is Mary Morrison?

THE AUTUMN LEAF.

Ah, dear, we part for ever,
You with a longing sigh,
I with a heart that never
Can thrill with beauty nigh.
I know that time discloses
Brief joy and longer grief;
To you the time of roses
To me the autumn leaf.

I take the leaf and wear it,
With all the pain it brings;
The bitter winds they tear it
As to my brow it clings.
But time, the still offender,
Gives of his gifts the chief;
To you the rose's splendour,
To me the autumn leaf.

A little time for mating
Is all the gods allow,
A little room for hating
And then they veil the brow.
They give where love reposes
A space as swift and brief
To you the time of roses
To me the autumn leaf.

A DREAM OF YARROW.

Upon the rails I work away,
The rails sae slim an' narrow,
But in my heart this summer day
I hear the rush o' Yarrow.

I hum the sang, the auld, auld sang,
That thrills us to the marrow,
An' as I sing I lie in thocht
Upon the Banks o' Yarrow.

What care I for the ringin' clank
O' rail, an' key, an' hammer;
The engines roarin' up an' doon,
Wi' shriek an' dusty clamour?

Up Mail an' doon Express may pass
Wi' roar, an' shriek, an' rattle,
An' smoke an' steam may whirl aboot,
As over some wild battle;

But I have still my double life
To cheer me in my sorrow,
An' so within my heart to-day
I hear the rush o' Yarrow.

I see the birks wave in the win',
The simmer sunshine glintin',
The flowers that keek frae oot each nook,
Wi' a' their gowden tintin';

I hear the birds amang the trees
Sing with a touch of sorrow,
For still I think that as they sing,
They ken they lilt in Yarrow.

O, sweet love-sang o' auld, auld days,
What hauntin' magic hovers
Around each simple note an' line,
An' speaks of love and lovers!

Hush, who is this frae Tinnis' Bank,
That comes with wail an' weeping,
An' kneels to clasp within her arms
A form that still seems sleeping?

Her hair hings doon upon his face—
(He never heeds his marrow);
Her pale lips redden wi' the blood
O' him that lies in Yarrow.

Wha can it be that lifts his heid,
An' kisses his lips thorough?
But Mary Scott, the boast o' a',
The bonnie Flower o' Yarrow.

The very birks they ken her name,
They sigh it in their sorrow;
It's in the win' frae Yarrow braes;
It's in the rush o' Yarrow.

O, sweet love-sang o' auld, auld days,
What hauntin' magic hovers
Around each simple note an' line,
An' speaks of love an' lovers!

That as I work an' toil away
Upon the rails sae narrow,
I hear far down within my heart
The soughin' o' the Yarrow.

But as I dream within my ear,
The engines as they thunder
Along the gleaming of the rail
Shriek out in smoky wonder:—

“What! in this time of rail and wheel,
When brain meets brain to marrow,
Can there still be a single fool
Who thinks and dreams of Yarrow?”

Ah, yes, I whisper to myself,
The music that has bound us,
Has tones that will not chord with those
The past has flung around us.

The solo of the sounding wire,
The smoky engine's whistle,
Have drowned the sound of Yarrow stream,
The green trees' waving rustle.

But I have still my double life
To cheer me in my sorrow,
An' so within my heart to-day
I hear the rush o' Yarrow.

IN YARROW.

A dream of youth has grown to fruit,
Though years it was in blossom;
It lay, like touch of summer light,
Far down within my bosom:

It led me on from hope to hope,
Made rainbows of each morrow,
And now my heart has had its wish—
I stood to-day in Yarrow.

And as I stood, my old sweet dreams
Look back their long-lost brightness;
My boyhood came, and in my heart
Rose up a summer lightness.
I heard faint echoes of far song
Grow rich and deep, and borrow
The low, sweet tones of early years—
I stood to-day in Yarrow.

O, dreams of youth, dreamed long ago,
When every hour was pleasure!
O, hopes that came when Hope was high,
Nor niggard of her treasure!—
Ye came to-day, and, as of old,
I could not find your marrow;
Ye made my heart grow warm with tears—
I stood to-day in Yarrow.

That touch of sorrow when our youth
Was in its phase of sadness,
For which no speech was on the lip
To frame its gentle madness,
Rests on each hill I saw to-day,
Till I was left with only
That pleasure which is almost pain,
The sense of being lonely.

The haunting sense of love, that now
Beats with a feebler pinion
Above the shattered domes that once
Soared high in his dominion,

And in the air of all that time,
Nor joy nor sadness wholly,
Seem all to mix and melt away
In pleasing melancholy.

Why should it be that, as we dream,
A tender song of passion,
Of lovers loving long ago
In the old Border fashion,
Should touch and hallow every spot,
Until its presence thorough
Is in the very grass that throbs
With thoughts of love and Yarrow?

We know not; we can only deem
The heart lives in the story,
And gives to stream and hill around
A lover's tearful glory,
Until it bears us back to feel
The light of that far morrow
That touched the ridge on Tinnis hill,
Then fell on winding Yarrow.

Ah, not on Yarrow stream alone
Fell that most tender feeling,
But like a light from out a light,
An inmost charm revealing,
It lay, and lies on vale and hill,
On waters in their flowing;
And only can the heart discern
The source of its bestowing.

Yes! we may walk by Yarrow stream
With speech, and song, and laughter,
But still far down a sadness sleeps,
To wake and follow after.

And soft regrets that come and go,
The light and shade of sorrow,
Are with me still, that I may know
I stood to-day in Yarrow.

JOE SIEG.

Who are the heroes we hail to-day,
And circle their brows with wreaths of bay?

Is it the warrior back again,
To be girt by throngs of his fellowmen?

The statesman fighting in keen debate
For the laws that will make his country great?

Or the poet, whose spirit in his song
Withers like fire the front of wrong?

Yes, these are heroes on whom we may call,
But a greater still is behind them all.

Who? And we shout, with a ringing cheer,
“Joe Sieg, the railway engineer,

“Who did his duty and never thought
He did any more than a driver ought.

Look at Sieg, I say, as he stands
With the levers clutched in his oily hands,

And hearing naught but the grind of the wheel
On the clanking rail underneath his heel;

Or, lighting his pipe for a whiff or two,
Yet looking ahead as drivers do.

Now, any one seeing him thus would have said,
With a very doubtful shake of the head:—

“Poor stuff after all out of which to plan
Your hero when action calls for the man.”

So you would think, but listen and hear
The story of Sieg, the engineer.

Down the Pennsylvanian line,
In the light of an afternoon's sunshine,

Came Sieg with a train of cars behind,
And hundreds of lives that were his to mind.

Little thought he of danger near
As he watched for signals set at clear.

If he thought at all, and that thought could be said,
As he stood on the footplate looking ahead,

It was this: to do what a driver could do—
Run sharp to his time, nor be overdue.

So along the metals in smoke and glare,
With Sieg at his post by the levers there,

Engine and cars like a whirlwind tore
Till, just as the stoker threw open the door

Of the furnace, at once through each black flue came
The quick back-draught, bringing with it the flame

That, scorching with lightning fingers of pain,
Drove Sieg and his stoker back in the train.

Back they went, bearing all the brunt
Of the fiery tongues that were hissing in front.

They caught at the cars in their wild desire,
That in less than a moment were muffled in fire.

The engine like some wild steed that is free,
Shot ahead with a shriek of defiant glee.

Behind were hundreds of lives in a tomb
That was hot with the breath of their awful doom.

To leap from the trai would be certain death,
To stay would be food for the flame's wild breath.

Now was the time for your hero to plan;
The hour had come, and Sieg was the man.

Not a moment he stood, for at once he saw
His duty before him, and that was law.

Not a single thought of himself came near
To shake his grand brave spirit with fear.

Only there rose, like a flash, in his eye,
As in those when the last stern moment is nigh,

A look that would do all that duty could claim,
And with one wild rush Sieg was into the flame.

The red tongues quivered and clutched at him;
They tore the flesh from his arm and limb;

They wove, like scarlet demons, between
The engine and him a fiery screen.

But he fought his way to his terrible fate
Till he felt his feet touch the tender plate.

Then, blind with the flame and its scorching breath,
And weak from his terrible struggle with death,

He groped for the levers, clutched them at length,
And, with one wild effort of failing strength,

'Mid the hissing of fire and the engine's roar,
Threw off the steam, and could do no more.

When the engine at last was brought to a stand,
Not a life was lost out of all that band.

No life, did I say? Alas! there was one,
But not till his duty was nobly done.

For, back in the tender, silent and grim,
Blackened and scalded in body and limb,

Lay Sieg, who had without aid, and alone,
Saved hundreds of lives and lost his own.

That is the story, plain and clear,
Of Sieg, the railway engineer.

Honour to him, and no stint of praise
From the best of hearts in these modern days.

Honour to Sieg! I say, and hail
This last Jim Bludso of the rail,

Who did his duty, and never thought
He did any more than a driver ought.”

BANNOCKBURN.

I heard beneath my feet the clear sharp ring
Of grinding rail and wheel,
I felt, as on we sped with rush and swing,
The carriage sway and reel.

Outside, the metals on the other track
Like two thin lights were seen;
Ahead the signals, on a ground of black,
Glimmered red, white, and green.

I saw from windows, as if hung in air,
'Mid handles gleaming white,
Pointsmen that clutched and drew the levers there,
And set the points aright.

At times from out the dark there roared and crashed,
With sudden whistle blast,
An engine, and a gleaming head-light flashed
A moment, then shot past;

But not until I saw, as in a land
Misty with whirling steam,
Driver and stoker on the footplate stand
Ghost-like as in a dream.

Then all my thoughts began to wander out
To meet the march of Time,
With all his triumph poets rave about
And prophesy in rhyme.

The higher man, the broader laws to be;
The life of larger powers,
A furlong farther from the moaning sea
Of what to-day is ours.

Till, fraught with wonder at such Atlas-toil,
Wherever I might turn,
A voice said, “We are passing sacred soil,
The Field of Bannockburn.”

“The Field of Bannockburn!” that name to me
Came like a spell of might;
I rose and put the window down, to see
That glorious spot by night.

Ahead, the dark, as in a sudden breeze
Went swaying up and down;
Behind, but faint and dim, by twos and threes,
The lights of Stirling town.

To right and left I shot an eager glance;
A heavy murky wall
Rose up, and spread a drear and cold expanse
Of darkness over all:

Not over all; for, when the stoker drew
The furnace doors apart,
A shaft of light rose upward, and shot through
The clouds like some huge dart.

Then I drew back, but as I took my seat
My former dream was gone;
The iron music underneath my feet
Sang with another tone.

The roar of wheel on rail had now become
One long continuous tread
Of thirty thousand men by trump and drum
To battle sternly led.

The engine's whistle was the trumpet shout,
The mighty battle cry,
Calling on men to sternly face about
And for their country die.

My blood was up. I saw the standard shake
Its folds upon the breeze,
And men from out the heavy columns break,
And fall upon their knees.

I saw the glitter of an axe on high,
And, keen to overwhelm,
Flash like a sudden bolt from out the sky,
And crush a shining helm;

A war-steed, rearing with his nostrils burst,
And eye-balls gleaming white,
Rush from beneath his falling rider, first
Fruit of the coming fight;

Then rolling onward full of death and doom,
A flood of chivalry,
Led on by streaming flags that rose like spume
Thrown from a roaring sea;

A billowy sea of steeds and riders grim
Mailed to the very lips—
Each one the bearer of some doom, like him
In the Apocalypse.

A sound of cutting hoofs that mar and smite
The turf; a long deep roar,
As if a muffled ocean smote by night
Upon an unseen shore!

From right to left with trumpet blast and blare,
A gleam of English steel
Sweeping on thirty thousand Scotsmen there,
On fire from head to heel!

On, on they came. At last they reach the pits,
A quiver and a shock
Breaks through the front rank, as a river splits
Upon a stubborn rock.

Then with one shout that quivered with its wrath
Our Scottish lions leapt,
And, like a torrent from its mountain path,
Down on the foe they swept.

A clash of sword and spear, of shield on shield,
The flash of eye to eye,
Wherein was but one thought, to keep the field,
Or, losing it, to die!

So went the storm of battle, fever red,
From thinning rank to rank;
The careless earth beneath the heaps of dead
Their life-blood slowly drank.

A waver through the English hosts, and then,
Like some retreating sea,
They fled, and, fleeing, left their heaps of slain,
And Scotland once more free.

Hark! that long shout from thousands as they yearn
To make their hearts as one,
That shout has made this Field of Bannockburn
Another Marathon!

I wake up from my dream. I hear no more
The battle shout prevail,
Nor underneath my feet the rush and roar
Of wheels upon the rail.

Far other music now is mine again;
The battle clangours cease,
With all the wiser years that proffer men
The white results of peace.

For lo! I hear on either side of me
The busy tramp of feet,
And, like a lower lane of stars, I see
The lights of Princes Street.

CAMERON'S STONE.

A pilgrim of the wilds to-day,
I lie by Cameron's stone,
And let my fancy roam and play,
And take sweet flights alone.

Air's Moss lies stretching out its bound,
All wild and weird to see;
And all the silence round and round
Falls like a spell on me.

From Wellwood's low and distant vale,
By fits a sudden wind
Comes upward with a weary wail,
That still no rest can find.

The heath-fowl wing their rapid flight,
The sailing curlew screams,
And on Cairntable's distant height
A speck of sunshine gleams.

But here I lie and dream and brood,
By Cameron's simple stone,
With all the soul of solitude
In converse with my own.

O, sacred spot whereon I rest!
The heather, with its bloom,
Seems conscious that its purple crest
Is on a martyr's tomb.

For here stern men in one small band
Set foot upon the sod,
And with red swords within their hand
Stood up for faith and God.

But that dread time has fled away,
As sinks a flooded stream,
And will not come again to-day,
Except within a dream.

Down drops the mist upon the moss,
As if God from on high
Had flung His winding sheet round those
Whose hour was come to die.

Yet stern and firm they stood like men
Who in the spirit knew
That, though the mist was all around,
God's face was gleaming through.

And hark, like incense rising up,
To deepen all the calm,
The voice of Hebrew David yet
Within the grand old psalm.

And far across the moss it floats,
Low, plaintive, wild, and sweet—
The music of the soul to God
That rolls around His feet;

The heath-fowl stop their flight to hear,
The curlews cease to scream,
And Nature listens all the while
As if in one wide dream.

The wailing wind sinks down, and like
A chidden thing is mute;
The very heather seems to feel
The red dew at its root;

Ay, ere another hour be past,
The red dew will be seen,
And with its purple stain the heath
And make a darker green.

But still the glorious psalm goes forth,
And fills the earth and sky,
Like some wild threnody for men
To sing before they die.

Roll on, thou melody of God,
And, wafted by the wind,
Take up to heaven the hearts of those
Whose souls will come behind.

The psalm has died away, but hush!
A deeper sound is heard,
At which rough cheeks flush up, and hearts
Grow strangely touched and stirred.

It is the voice of Cameron
That rises upward now—
I tell thee there is nought on earth
Can blanch that fearless brow.

Mark ye the Bible in his hand,
He holds it with such might
That, as he lifts it up on high,
The finger tips grow white—

God's truth is graven on his heart
As if by living fire,
He quails not, though each moment brings
The wild, fierce troopers nigher;

The very moss beneath his feet
Becomes as solid stone,
Whereon he stands erect to brave
The world's worst wrath alone.

Talk not to me of noble deeds,
When thou hast in thy land
A Covenanter on the hill,
The Bible in his hand.

O, grandest manhood yet on earth!
The dim far sunken time
Comes back again until we stand
With angels in our prime.

O, failing one whose faith unfixed
With every movement sways,
Look back, and in thy spirit kneel
With Cameron as he prays.

Hush! far across the moss there comes
The sudden neigh of steed,
As the rough trooper reins him in,
And checks his hasty speed.

The clank of scabbard, too, on heel,
The voice of high command,
That seems an echo warrant come
To capture all the band.

And Cameron heard that sound, nor paled,
But raised his hand on high—
“My God, be near to us this day,
And teach us how to die.”

Then, turning to his band, he said,
“The Bibles to your breast;
The hour is come in which your faith
Must stand the last dread test.

“Unsheath your swords and fling at once
The useless sheaths away,
The Bible is no shield 'gainst those
Who come to kill and slay.

“Come, Hamilton, lift up thy head,
Unbend that gloomy brow;
I tell thee, man, the crown of heaven
Is half upon it now.

“I know it. In a dream last night
Heaven's doors were opened wide;
I saw myself before the Throne,
And eight were by my side.

“I knew them. Each had on his brow
The martyr's diadem—
Ay, Paterson, thou well mayest look,
For thou wert one of them.

“Dick, Fowler, Gray, and Gemmel, too,
Stood in that mighty light,
And where each blood spot had been on
That place grew wondrous bright.

“Then, lo! methought the same sweet psalm
That we have sung this hour
Rose up and rolled through heaven's court
A miracle of power.

“It ceased; and, kneeling down, I felt
Laid on me ere I wist,
Soft as a summer's mid-day wind,
The mighty palm of Christ.

“I tell thee Watson, when I woke,
That touch was glowing there;
I could not sleep, but rose in awe,
And passed the night in prayer.

“I prayed, and all the weight of earth
Fell from me like a clod,
My very soul went out, and rose
Half way to heaven and God.

“And all this day that touch of heaven
Is on my head and brow;
It is the nail-pierced hand of Christ,
I feel it even now.

“It burns and glows to strengthen me
In this one hour so grim,
Nor will He take it off until
I pass to stand by Him.

“Enough. Gird up your loins who stand
By Cameron's side to-day;
Shame on us if we shrink and let
The props of faith give way!

“Lo, in the coming time, they yet
Will point it out to men,
When God Himself set down His foot
On moor and in the glen.

“‘Here,’ they will say, ‘our fellows stood
Girt in their glorious faith,
And with the psalm upon their lips
Went up to God through death.’

“In that time mighty iron things
Will bound be into yoke,
And make their pathway through these hags
Half hid in fire and smoke.

“But now—we stand like sentinels
Within the waning night,
To seal with blood the law that gives
Our kindred wider right.

“Then let them these poor hands cut off,
And nail them up to view,
So be it that they point to Heaven,
I care not what they do.

“Lift up this head upon a spike,
Though but a clayey clod
It still may seem a finger-post
To point the way to God.”

Yes, noble Cameron, speak thou on,
And nerve thy little band;
The sword is not one space too soon
Within their strong right hand.

For lo, as if the taint of hell
Were in the moorland calm,
There rises up with shout and oath
The devil's godless psalm—

And leaping curses smite the air,
And shouts come thick and fast,
As on they rush upon the band
Still faithful to the last.

But, hark, “For God and Covenant,”—
That glorious battle cry,
Hear how it peals from out the heart,
And strikes against the sky.

Yea, let the horde of Satan come—
They come to feel and see
How strong within the sight of God
His faithful few can be.

They come with sudden plunge and shock,
The foremost but to reel—
By heavens! Earlshall shrinks back
At Covenanters' steel!

His eye fills up with deeper thirst,
His brow takes darker hue—
“The black fiend seize these singing knaves,
They fight like devils too.”

Ay, double thrice that band, and they
Would tame thy troopers' pride,
And show how Scotsmen fight for God
Upon the mountain side—

But back they rush like wolves on sheep;
Hear Cameron's voice again—
“Lord, take the ripe unto Thyself,
And let the green remain.”

Thou glorious one! fight on, nor faint—
The buckler of the Lord
Must surely be before the breast
When faith takes up the sword.

Dick, Gray, and Gemmel by his side,
Strike out with dripping glaive;
At each firm stroke of their right hand
A trooper finds his grave.

The God of Jacob sees them fight,
The Mighty One who stands
And holds the earth and seas within
The hollow of His hands.

The Lord of Hosts He will not turn
From us His face to-day,
Though swift and strong on every side
The devil comes to slay.

Back, Cameron, back! man, see you not
Brave Hamilton is down?
“Yea, said I not that brow of his
Felt heaven's golden crown?

“And, Watson, too, stretched at my feet,
With bloody cheek and brow;
If there be truth in dreams, how bright
Must be his raiment now!

“And Michael, he has fallen too,
That Christ his wounds may bind;
Come, Paterson, stand thou by me,
We will not lag behind.”

O, well the mist upon the moss
May darkly settle down,
And hide the struggle yet to be
Ere Cameron wins the crown;

For in its folds the fight goes on,
Swift blow on blow is dealt—
Steel rings against blue steel, and the
Death-grips of men are felt.

The shout, “For God and Covenant,”
Still rings against the sky,
While for each Covenanter dead
Three troopers by him lie.

“Curse on that knave,” hissed Earlshall,
And darker grew his frown,
“What, will that braggart fear us all?
Press on and cut him down.”

Now, Cameron, by thy faith in God,
Take with no coward hand
The crown of martyrdom, and head
In heaven thy sainted band.

Think on thy dream last night, and feel
Once more within the mist
Upon thy head, as though thou wert
A child, the hand of Christ.

Ay, let me catch that eye of thine
That, flashing, sees afar
The heavens unfold and show the throne
By which thy fellows are.

The crown at last! he sinks, my God!
The very moorland calls
Up to the misty sky above
That noble Cameron falls.

He falls, but not within his blood,
Upon the mossy sod,
He falls into the arms of Christ
That lift him up to God.

DEAD FLOWERS.

Those simple daisies which you view,
Last year, when summer winds did wave,
And clouds were white with sunshine, grew
Upon the Ettrick Shepherd's grave.

But not of him they speak, nor draw
My thoughts back to that early time
When, rapt in that one dream, he saw
The shadows lift from fairy clime.

Nor yet of Ettrick, as it goes
To join the Yarrow's haunting tone,
That each may murmur as it flows
A music something like his own.

Nor even of Saint Mary's Lake,
Amid those hills from which he drew
The legendary past, to wake
Its far-off melodies anew.

No; not of these I think, though each
Is rich in spells of magic song;
These daisies touch a chord to which
All sadder thoughts of death belong.

And so I turn, and for a space
Within the sacred Past I stand,
To feel the sunshine of a face,
The kindly pressure of a hand.

All just the same as when she gave
These dead flowers as a welcome thing;
Alas! and now upon her grave
The grass is thinking of the spring.

It seems but as a day since then—
How slow, yet swift, the years have sped—
And here, beside the streets of men,
She slumbers with the holy dead.

She should have lain among the hills,
In some old churchyard, where each sound
Is of the wind, the tinkling rills,
And cry of lonely things around;

Or where old ballads grew to life,
Far back within the shadowy years,
That sang of rugged Border strife,
Or passions born of love and tears.

For, loyal to their old-world chords,
She felt her heart in unison
With all their rich but simple words,
That took new music from her own.

True woman of the faithful heart,
And kindly as the summer air;
A nature such as could impart
Its genial presence everywhere.

In her the friend was friend indeed;
A larger sense of sympathy,
That overstepped the pales of creed,
Drew her to all in charity.

And now this death that waits for each,
An unseen shade by all, has come;
The Scottish music of her speech,
So sweet, is now for ever dumb.

So pass the leal ones of this earth,
To leave us with a holier claim;
To touch us with their spirit-birth,
And whisper they are still the same.

These simple flowers of withered hue,
Last year when summer winds did wave,
Were plucked by her because they grew
Upon the Ettrick Shepherd's grave.

This year, when summer pours her light,
And daisies are to beauty blown,
Some hands will pluck their blossoms white,
Because they grow upon her own.

Jean Logan Watson, author of “Bygone Days in Our Village,” “Round the Grange Farm,” and other books full of quaint simplicity and freshness, and breathing from every page the delightful personality of the writer. Her sudden death was deeply felt by a large circle of friends, and has left a blank that can never be filled. She died 7th October, 1885, and sleeps in the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh.—A.A.

PATRICK LAING.

The deid sleep soun' in the auld kirkyaird,
At the fit o' the hills sae steep;
They dream sweet dreams aneath the swaird,
An' lang an' still is their sleep.

The whaup comes doon wi' an eerie cry,
An' the peesweep flaps a' day,
But they canna wauken the deid that lie
At rest in their shroods o' clay.

The grass grows lang an' waves at the heid
An' fit o' each sunk thruch-stane,
“Oh, waes me,” it sighs, “for the faithfu' deid
That canna come back again.”

Then the win's tak' it up an' they cry to me,
As I lie on the grassy swaird,
“We ha'e ane that kent hoo to live an' dee,
And he sleeps in the auld kirkyaird.”

For when hate like a clud hung owre the lan',
For the faith that his faithers knew,
He took to the hills, wi' the sword in his han',
To fecht for the gude an' true.

An' when the storm o' his life grew still
They laid him doon to his rest,
In the auld kirkyaird at the fit o' the hill,
Wi' the green swaird on his breast,

An' what though nae stane can be seen at his held,
There is Ane wha dwalls abune,
That kens o' his grave where the grasses wave,
Wi' its kindly heart within.

An' when at the last the trumpet blast
Shall bid the heavens be bared,
Then God will min' o' that ae leal heart
That sleeps in the auld kirkyaird.

THE BRIG O' GLENAIRLIE.

I dream this nicht, an' my thochts gae back
To that happy time sae early,
When we twa stood in the simmer licht
On the narrow brig o' Glenairlie.
The mavis was thrang in the Eliock wuds,
An' O, he pipit rarely;
But sweeter than a', love sang to us twa,
On the narrow brig o' Glenairlie.

The Nith ran doon wi' a happy soun',
By the hazel bushes hingin',
Then slippit into a pool to hear
The rich, deep mavis-singin'.
The lilt that he sang in the Eliock wuds
Beat a' the ithers fairly;
But sweeter than a', love sang to us twa,
On the narrow brig o' Glenairlie.

The Nith still rins wi' the same low soun',
By the hazel bushes hingin';
The mavis still lilts in the Eliock wuds,
But we dinna heed his singin'.
But what wad we gie to hear ance mair
The sang we miss sae sairly;
That sweeter than a', love sang to us twa,
That day on the brig o' Glenairlie.

THE HILLS REMAIN.

The hills remain; they lift their brows
Against the splendour of the skies;
The dawn a paler crimson grows,
Each night the purple sunlight dies.

The sea still rolls to Homer's song,
The clouds re-shape themselves and flow;
The voices of the wind are strong,
They come and pass unseen, and go.

Spring with a new life round her feet,
A thousand buds to shape are blown;
And Summer with her perfect heat,
Completing all she smiles upon.

Autumn that bends her drooping brow,
And weaves dead leaves within her hair;
And Winter underneath the bough,
With all his snowflakes resting there.

The streams still flash from hill and glen,
They reach the rivers and are one;
They moan to reach the sea, as when
The Memnon murmured to the sun.

These still remain, but we, alas,
Who watch the changes day by day—
This doom is on us that we pass,
We only go a little way.

THE PASTOR'S POOL.

I stood in the summer evening
By the side of the Pastor's Pool;
Above, the manse in the woodland
Lay hid in the shadows cool.

The Nith ran on with a murmur
That was soft and sweet to the ear,
For the streams that we heard in childhood
Are the streams that we always hear.

Beside me the gray-haired pastor
Stood; and the light from the west
Fell down on his head like a blessing
Ere the sun sank into his rest.

His voice was low and gentle,
And the light in his kindly eye
Was that which was touching the river,
The field, the wood, and the sky.

And round by the dear old churchyard,
Where the dead sleep night and day,
From the single street of the village
Came the voices of children at play.

We heard their shouts of laughter
Take the air so sweet and still,
And ever above in the sunlight
Was the churchyard on the hill.

Then a sadness came over the pastor,
And a silence between us lay;
For he too was busy thinking
As he heard the children play.

Wa he thinking of one who had vanished
And gone to his early rest,
When life and the dreams of manhood
Were stirring within his breast;

Who, full of the promise and eager
For the life that lay before,
Grew weary, and voice and footstep
Were heard in the manse no more?

Ah, yes; for the mists of a sorrow
Rose up in his kindly eyes,
And their glance grew dim, as the twilight
Takes the light from out the skies.

Then his voice grew softer and softer,
For his talk was of solemn things,—
Of this life with its lights and shadows,
And death with dust on his wings;

Of the struggle and battle onward
With weary stumbling tread,
Our eyes on the dim sad future,
And our feet on the graves of the dead;

Of the thoughts that rise upward within us
And fly to the dim to be,
As the rivers that rising inland
Forever rush to the sea.

But over all in his converse,
In his voice's rise and fall,
Was the light that Hope has kindled
Round the shores of death for us all.

And still as he talked that evening,
The sunset sank away,
While round by the dear old churchyard
Came the voices of children at play.

Ah, often here in the city,
When weary of all the street,
My thoughts fly back to the woodland
And the manse in its shadows sweet.

Then again I stand for a moment,
In the light of a waking dream;
The gray-haired pastor beside me,
And at our feet the stream:

All just as we stood that evening,
When the west was soft and red;
And again I see the sunshine
Like a blessing upon his head.

NANNIE NICOLSON.

Oh, Jenny, she is fair an' braw,
An' Daisy fu' o' lovin' wiles;
Then Mary has a broo o' snaw,
An' lips an' cheeks just made for smiles.
I lo'e the three wi' a' my will,
For roun' my heart their spells are thrown;
But there's anither dearer still,
My bonnie Nannie Nicolson!

I like to look on Effie's face,
Where spring an' simmer wed their beams;
An' Annie sweet in stately grace,
She moves through a' my wauken dreams.
I lo'e the five, though weel I ken
That I can only wed wi' one.
O, tell me where it a' will en',
My bonnie Nannie Nicolson!

The sheep may wan'er where they like,
Or at dyke-sides lie doon an' dee;
My faithfu' collie, honest tyke,
He won'ers what's gane wrang wi' me.
I've lost mysel' amang them a',
I wish this weary life were done;
O, come to me, an' set me free,
My bonnie Nannie Nicolson!

A BALLADE OF TOBACCO SMOKE.

What fretting loads we mortals bear
Through life, whose fading rainbows mock
And Time, who drives a splendid pair
Of steeds he never will unyoke,

Sweeps his lean fingers through our hair,
He scarcely leaves a decent lock,
Yet chide him not, if still he spare
The dreams seen through tobacco smoke.

We each must have our little care
To add by contrast to our joke,
A laugh that spreads in vain its snare
To catch the lips of solemn folk.
Well, let us walk through all the fair,
And watch the crowds that sway and shock;
They follow what we see elsewhere—
The dreams seen through tobacco smoke.

Dreamers of dreams in ships of air,
Whose keels have never entered dock,
I wish you may have sounder ware
Than did Alnaschar when he woke!
Statesmen, when strife is high, forswear
For half an hour the wordy stroke,
I fain would hint of better fare—
The dreams seen through tobacco smoke!

Envoi.

Prince, when you weary of the chair
From which you govern realms and folk,
Your faithful bard would have you share
The dreams seen through tobacco smoke.

WE ARE THE SLAVES.

We are the slaves of those that died
A thousand years ago;
We walk in all our little pride,
We walk and do not know.

Dead hands are still within our hands,
They lead us on and on;
And never nearer do they stand,
Than when we are alone.

They give us thoughts, they give us creeds,
Born of a distant day,
And highest gifts for highest needs,
We cannot fling away.

They build an unseen wall around,
And though we do not know,
We walk within its narrow bound,
That hems us as we go.

Some stronger spirits that burst out,
And seek another shade;
They come at times with half a doubt,
To see the wreck they made.

How strange it is, that, far and wide,
And wander as we will,
Dead men still stand on either side,
To grasp and mould us still!

A CITY REVERIE.

Here in the city as I sit,
The twilight filling all the room,
I dream, and as my fancies flit,
They weave this picture on their loom:—

A little hamlet, clean and fair,
On either side soft green-clad hills,
And on their foreheads, here and there,
A rocky pathway for the rills;

A hamlet of a single street,
From end to end the children play,
And workers sit, for rest is sweet
After the labour of the day.

A river in the Western beam
Turns silver as it murmurs on;
I hear its music, and I dream,
For boyhood mingles with its tone.

And more than boyhood—youth is there,
And years of toil upon the line;
But yet to me those years were fair
And sweet with what of song is mine.

For all behind the little town,
Four threadlike metals glance and gleam,
Where, hourly, thunder up and down
Swart genii of the land of steam.

They roar and rush in wild desire,
And, moaning in their deep despair,
Belch forth from hearts of molten fire
Smoke-pythons to the shaking air.

What marvel, then, that I was stirred
Within that narrow clanging clime;
That through my songs there should be heard
The ring of wheels within their rhyme.

The twilight deepens on apace,
The vision fades away from me;
But yet another takes its place,
I look, and this is what I see:—

A church and churchyard on the hill,
Where the white sentinels are seen
Guarding the dead that sleep their fill
Beneath their little tents of green.

A sacred spot to me, for there,
Beside a single thorn, the dust
Of those I held as good and fair
Sleep on in perfect love and trust.

They took their youth to higher lands
That mortal eye has never seen;
I cannot reach them with my hands,
Or whisper to them what has been.

I only know that, far apart,
They cannot share my hopes and fears;
That somewhere heart may answer heart,
That theirs is not an eye for tears.

So let them sleep; the grasses grow
Above them; they sleep not alone;
And sweet that sleep would be to know
A mother's dust is with their own.

For she, too, wearied, fell asleep,
And rests beside them as was meet,
For after eighty years the deep
Long silence of the grave is sweet.

I, too, can see, with fears that haunt
From out the years that are to be,
A dull, cold light that falls aslant
A grave that will be made for me.

So be it, for the shadow slips
That muffles all, and death above,
A smile of pity on his lips,
Shakes dust upon the dreams we love.

And then we pass to join the dead,
To share the silence which they crave,
While the great world with iron tread
Roars on and never heeds a grave.

Away with visions! let them sink;
Weak moments have their weaker thought,
And weakest of them all to shrink
In fear, nor front our common lot.

The city stirs: outside I hear
The passionate fervour of the street;
It comes like music to my ear,
O, life is strong, and life is sweet;

And there its thousand pulses, rife
With vigour, ring their perfect tone,
I, too, must mingle with that life
That I may strengthen all my own.

LANGSYNE, WHEN LIFE WAS BONNIE.

Langsyne, when life was bonnie,
An' a' the skies were blue,
When ilka thocht took blossom,
An' hung its head wi' dew,
When winter wasna winter,
Though snaws cam' happin' doon;
Langsyne, when life was bonnie,
Spring gaed a twalmonth roun'.

Langsyne, when life was bonnie,
An' a' the days were lang,
When through them ran the music
That comes to us in sang,
We never wearied liltin'
The auld love-laden tune;
Langsyne, when life was bonnie
Love gaed a twalmonth roun'.

Langsyne, when life was bonnie,
An' a' the warld was fair,
The leaves were green wi' simmer,
For autumn wasna there.
But listen hoo they rustle,
Wi' an eerie, weary soun',
For noo, alas, 'tis winter
That gangs a twalmonth roun'.

IN MEMORIAM.

The Rev. John Donaldson, M.A., Kirkconnel. “Ave Atque Vale.”

A brooding quiet rests to-day
On all the well-known hills around;
Spring lingers slowly by the way,
Like one who listens for a sound.

In front she sends a messenger,
A softer feeling through the air,
And in bright nooks beloved of her,
She plants a primrose here and there.

The earth is waiting for the life
That stirs to-day, and not in vain;
The promise of the spring is rife
With consecrations of the rain.

And here once more, as in a dream,
I stand and watch the sunshine glance
Upon the ripples of the stream
That glides and murmurs by the manse.

But deep upon the Pastor's Pool
A sense of loss and shadow lies;
To me this sweet spring day is full
Of death and all its mysteries.

100

The manse is silent; not for him
Spring with her wand of wondrous spell;
He sleeps amid the silence dim—
The good gray head we knew so well.

The dear, old pastor, kind and wise,
Large-hearted, full of quiet grace,
The kindliness within his eyes,
The sympathy upon his face.

The old-world courtliness of speech,
The tender spirit quickly stirred;
The large experience that could teach,
And claim for all a kindly word.

Broad as the Master whom he served,
And tolerant as the summer air;
The pity that nor failed nor swerved
Was with him, and was always there.

High culture born of classic lore,
A richer culture of the heart,
A quiet scorn of aught that wore
The mean device of idle art.

Through all these gifts and learning ran,
Deep down and in a simple way,
The manliness that made the man,
As light completes and makes the day.

Such was our friend we shall not see,
Yet sweet the friendship that has been;
I speak to him—he speaks to me
Across the grave that lies between.

To-night the manse receives its dead,
To-night his slumbers will be fair;
To-night around that good gray head
The darkness will be sacred there.

101

To-morrow with his kindred dust
His own shall lie; the grass will grow
Above him; earnest of that trust
And faith he held that sleeps below.

Around him, and beneath the stone
Whereon their simple name appears,
In rain and sunshine slumber on
The dead of those long fifty years.

He stood beside them when their brow
Grew white beneath the shadowy hand
Of that last terror—death, and now
He comes to join their silent band.

And he will sleep with them through all
The seasons as they come and go;
Spring, blushing as her footsteps fall,
And winter with his drifts of snow.

The years will wax and wane, and bring
Their breathing space of Sabbaths still;
But other voices then will sing
Within the church upon the hill.

And stranger forms will press the grass,
Where headstones mark the dead below,
Or read, half careless, as they pass,
The dim remembered names they show.

Change, change in this mysterious din
Of human life that smiles or grieves;
Time sitting at his loom takes in
New colours in the web he weaves.

So be it; but the years in store
May bring whatever is most meet;
But we behind shall see no more
His gracious presence in the street.

102

And I, his friend, no more shall hear
The rich deep music of his speech,
Except when Fancy cheats the ear
By placing it within my reach.

Shall never see his kindly eyes
Light up with welcome; for the last
Farewell is taken; darkness lies
On him and them, and all is past.

Henceforth the churchyard on the hill,
Dear to us all, and pure and fair,
Shall in our hearts be dearer still
Because the Pastor slumbers there.

THE HOUSE OF THE SINGING BIRDS.

I sat in the house of the master,
With the Pentland Hills in view,
And in at the open window
The light of summer shone through.

Our talk was of singers and sages,
But ever through all our words
There ran, like the sweetest of music,
The twitter and song of the birds.

The room was alive with their singing—
Then what was our speech to theirs?
For they sang without our sorrows,
They sang without our cares.

And one on the master's finger,
He piped the sweetest of all,
In his heart was the joy of summer,
In his voice its madrigal.

103

And I said to myself, “O, poet,
The songs that I hear from thee,
Are those that I yearn and strive for,
But their music is hidden from me.

“I stand on ways that are trodden
With the weary tramp of feet;
And the hollow sound of their marching
Have made my own less sweet.

“For I hear, not the swell of triumph,
Nor the eager shouts of my kind;
I only hear the murmur
Of those who have fallen behind.

“For I, too, linger and listen
And dream, while far ahead
The heavy columns are marching,
But behind are the sick and the dead.

“My songs have therefore the echo
Of the weary ones who lie
By the wayside, watching the columns
That are daily marching by.”

But that bird on the master's finger,
That tiny feathered thing,
Was the best of all the poets,
For he sang as they cannot sing.

In his voice was the throb and rapture
Which they struggle in vain to reach,
For their's but bear the burden
That is under human speech.

They sing, but what is their singing?
And what are their paltry words
To the music that had no sadness
In the house of the singing birds?

104

Oh, what would I give for the music
That would chase all sorrow away,
As that bird's on the master's finger,
And to sing as he sang that day!

MAY SONG.

Come let us lift our voice, and sing
A song to greet the May,
When all the woodland echoes ring,
And light and shadow play.
The grass is springing at our feet,
The fleecy cloud is seen,
Then let us sing a song for May
When all the fields are green.

A thrill of life is in the air,
Whose breathing is the wind,
It comes and goes, and everywhere
A music stays behind.
A thousand leaves burst into leaf
Where late no bud was seen;
Then let us sing a song for May
When all the fields are green.

The spirit of the May is here—
It walks from place to place,
And where it rests its unseen feet
A flower upturns its face.
The joy of life and love is rife
To crown her summer's queen;
Then let us sing a song for May
When all the fields are green.

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TOSHIE NORRIE.

O bonnie Toshie Norrie
To Inverard is gane,
An' wi' her a' the sunshine
That made us unco fain.
The win' is cauld an' gurly,
An' winter's in the air,
But where dwells Toshie Norrie,
O, it's aye simmer there!

O, bonnie Toshie Norrie,
What made you leave us a'?
Your hame is no' the Hielands,
Though there the hills are braw.
Come back wi' a' your daffin',
An' walth o' gowden hair,
For where dwells Toshie Norrie,
O, it's aye simmer there!

O, bonnie Toshie Norrie,
The winter nichts are lang,
An' aft we sit an' weary
To hear an auld Scots sang;
Come back, and let your music,
Like sunshine, fill the air,
For where dwells Toshie Norrie,
O, it's aye simmer there!

THE UNKNOWN SINGER.

Far down within my heart she stands
With downcast eyes and folded hands,

And singing as she sang that day
Within a village far away.

106

Amid the winter wind and rain
A simple song with sad refrain,

Such as a poet sings with lips
Half closed by sorrow's finger tips.

And still the old-world melody
Comes with its burden unto me.

I hear it in the thronging street
And in the sound of human feet.

But who the singer, in whose heart
So much of sorrow had a part,

That all his song with tears was wet,
And dim with shadowy regret?

We know not. What to him was name,
And all the idle voice of fame?

Far better that his song was sung
To haunt the heart and ear and tongue,

As in that village far away
Beneath a sky of gloomy grey,

I heard it with its sad refrain
Amid the winter wind and rain.

IF I WERE SOMEWHAT YOUNGER.

If I were somewhat younger
In years—say twenty-five;
And you a little older,
Then love might surely thrive,
And bind about your brow in time,
The orange flower instead of rhyme.

107

My years are in their autumn,
When all the trees are bare;
But yours are in their springtime,
When all is sweet and fair,
And Hope is holding out to you
Her blossoms that are ever new.

Your feet are on the roses,
And mine upon dead leaves;
Your winds have low sweet music,
And mine a sound that grieves;
The blossom of your life is sweet,
But mine — its leaves are at my feet.

A BALLADE OF PIPES.

I like to see in graceful row
My modest pipes upon the wall,
For there they make a dainty show,
And ever ready at my call.
I praise them with a smoker's drawl
To friends, but when they go away
I put them back, and, free from thrall,
I take the ever-ready clay.

Your meerschaum makes the fancy glow
As up the bowl the colours crawl;
But still there is the inward throe
For fear of blotch or sudden fall.
Your briar can stand an overhaul,
Does yeoman service night or day;
I smoke them both, but after all
I take the ever-ready clay.

108

It matters not what visions grow
From hookahs, whether short or tall,
Chibouques in bearded lips, and slow,
Soul-soothing whiffs for great and small.
Somehow upon the taste they pall,
Whether from Stamboul or Cathay;
Smoke them who will in Turkish hall,
I take the ever-ready clay.

Envoi.

Friends, when the evening fire is low,
When visions have their best display,
Put past your briar and meerschaum—so—
And take the ever-ready clay.

O MAVIS SINGIN' IN THE WOOD.

O mavis singin' in the wood,
When a' the hills are white wi' snaw;
O mavis singin` in the wood,
Though cauld win's wither as they blaw,
I dinna see on hedge or tree
A single bud to herald spring,
Nor fin' the Wast win' touch my cheek,
An' yet ye sing, an' yet ye sing.

O mavis liltin' in the wood,
Ye sing frae where I canna see,
Yet ilka note that swells thy throat
Brings simmer nearer unto me.
The sunshine sweetens roun' the cloud,
The gowans wauken at my feet,
The win' turns round frae East to Wast,
Ye sing sae sweet, ye sing sae sweet.

109

LINES ON AN OLD COMMUNION CUP.

I lift this old Communion Cup,
And, lo!—what visions gather up
Like white clouds on a summer day
When all the winds have fled away!

For I can deem its sacred rim
May have been touched by Balfour grim;
Or Peden, in whose fitful eye
Rose up the light of prophecy;
Or Cameron, ere the heather knew
On wild Aird's Moss a darker hue;
Or Renwick, in the dew of youth,
Before he gave his life for truth.

I hear, far out among the hills,
Whose voices are the lonely rills,
The bleat of sheep, the curlew's cry,
The wail of winds that wander by.
I see a band of earnest men
For whom Truth waves her torch again,
To draw them onward with its fire,
To dare to struggle and aspire.
The simple faith to worship God
In the old ways their fathers trod
Has brought them there; and now they stand,
As outlaws in their native land,
To claim that right, and nature there
Joins in the spirit of their prayer.

I mark their faces stern and keen,
And eyes that flash forth what they mean.
A sword is in each strong right hand,
Ready to leap forth at command.

110

A Bible in the left—the Crown
For which they fight—and eyebrows down
In that stern will that cannot bend,
But dares and suffers to the end.

I look again, and maidens there
Bloom forth like summer sweet and fair.
Beside their lovers sit, who know
That one swift onset of the foe
Might change the coming bridal wreath
To cypress and the leaves of death.
And sober matrons, in whose eyes
Fear, with its troubled shadow lies,
For husbands, sons, whose blood ere night
May dye the bracken with its blight.

Hush! upward on the moorland calm,
The wailing pathos of the psalm,
And far along the bleak, grey hill
It floats in echoes, then is still.
Hark to the preacher. Eyes are there,
And hearts that hang upon the prayer;
And treasure, as a miser seeks
To hoard his gold, the words he speaks.
O, sacred task, to speak to men
Who turn and search for truth again.
No higher task has yet been given,
Than bearing messages from heaven.

The vision sinks to rise again
On flashing swords and dying men;
Gray heads have fallen low, and eyes
Stare blindly to the passive skies;
The psalm has sunk amid the yell
Of curses from the mouth of hell.

111

The very Bible on the green
Lies torn and open, and between
The leaves, where promises are fair,
It's owner's blood is resting there.
“How long,” was once the cry of old,
When men who rose were stern and bold;
How long? 'Tis not for us to think,
God knows it; let the vision sink.

So ran my thoughts, that, thronging up,
At sight of this Communion Cup,
Made pictures till the inward eye
Saw underneath a lonely sky
Gray-bearded men and matrons trim,
Touch with hushed lips its holy rim,
Till in the spirit Fancy lent
To colour all her dream, I bent,
And, part of all the sacred scene,
Touched with my own where theirs had been.

THE HILLS IN THE HIELANDS.

The hills in the Hielands are bonnie,
Wi' the licht an' the shadow at play;
An' the winds that mak' redder the heather
Far up on the cliff an' the brae.
The white clouds are floatin' abune them,
Like snawdrifts that never can fa',
The hills in the Hielands are bonnie,
The hills in the Hielands are braw!

The streets o' the city grow weary
For want o' the glint an' the sheen;
An' the wast wind has never a murmur
O' woods that are wavin' wi' green:

112

But O, for the bound o' the red deer,
An' the curlew that bugles to a';
The hills in the Hielands are bonnie,
The hills in the Hielands are braw.

I sigh for the roar o' the river
Far down in the depths o' the glen,
The rush an' the whirr o' the blackcock
As he springs frae the side o' the ben;
For the sweep o' the sky-cleavin' eagle,
Whose wings are the bounds o' his law—
The hills in the Hielands are bonnie,
The hills in the Hielands are braw.

Then, O, to be up in the Hielands,
Where the winds draw not bridle nor stay;
Where the forests are tossing their banners,
An' the breckans are thick on the brae.
Where the loch lies in shadow or sunshine,
Or leaps to the winds as they blaw;
The hills in the Hielands are bonnie,
The hills in the Hielands are braw.

THE OLD FAMILIAR WAYS.

I walk the old familiar ways
Beside my native stream,
I think of half-forgotten days,
And as I think I dream.

O, early years when Hope was fair,
As any bride could be,
When all the blossom in her hair
I thought would bloom for me.

113

She stood beside me as I wrought
Within the four-foot way;
She walked beside me as I thought,
And toil was far away.

I heard her speak; no sweeter voice
Could touch a human ear;
I heard, and could not but rejoice,
It was so sweet to hear.

But weary years, long weary years,
Have come and fled since then;
And I have had my hopes and fears,
Within the streets of men.

The orange blossom, too, has shed
Its bloom upon the air,
The wreath that clasped her glowing head,
Is now no longer there.

Yet, walking in the old dear ways
This sunless summer day,
A sadness crowns those early days
I would not wish away.

THE THRUSH.

“Within a mile o' Edinburgh toon,”
Beneath the gray of an afternoon,
When the wind was bleak in its blowing,
He sang from the top of a leafless tree
A song of hope and of spring to be,
And of flowers by the pathways growing.

The gray of the sky that was overhead,
Lay like a veil of the colour of lead
On the Pentland hills before me;

114

It touched the hills beyond the Forth,
It was east and west, and south and north,
And to pensive sadness bore me.

I thought if I could flutter a wing,
Like that glorious bird, and try to sing,
My note would be one of sorrow;
It would ring with the pain of things that die,
Of the dreams that pass and the hopes that fly,
Of the night and not of the morrow.

But he—he sang when no leaf was seen,
When the hedges had never a breath of green
To hint where the buds would be springing.
Thou fool! he was all to himself and strong,
And though there was summer far down in his song,
He sang for the sake of the singing.

DURISDEER HILLS.

Just a peep from a carriage window,
As we stood for a moment still,
Just one look—and no more—till the engine
Gave a whistle sharp and shrill.

But I saw in that moment the heather,
That lay like a purple sheet
On the hills that watch over the hamlet
That sleeps like a child at their feet.

O, sweet are those hills when the winter
Flings round them his mantle of snow,
And sweet when the sunshine of summer
Sets their fair green bosoms aglow.

115

But sweeter and grander in autumn,
When the winds are soft with desire,
When the buds of the heather take blossom,
And run to their summits like fire.

And still as we tore through the valley,
With shrieks now and then as of scorn,
Though the uplands were golden with harvest,
And lasses were lifting the corn;

Though the river lay gleaming like silver,
Or dark in the shadows that fell
From trees that were spreading their branches
Like sorcerers weaving a spell,

I saw each and all through the heather
That purple lay spread like a sheet
On the hills that watch over the hamlet,
That sleeps like a child at their feet.

BONNIE BESSIE LOGAN.

O, bonnie Bessie Logan
Is dainty, young, and fair;
The very wind that's blawin',
It lingers in her hair.
Sae lichtsome is her footstep
As she comes o'er the lea;
But bonnie Bessie Logan
Is owre young for me.

O, bonnie Bessie Logan,
The lads are at the stile,
Or half-way up the loanin'
To catch your winsome smile;

116

I fain wad be amang them,
If sic a thing could be,
But bonnie Bessie Logan
Is owre young for me.

O, bonnie Bessie Logan,
I saw you late yestreen;
A rose was on your bosom,
And love was in your een.
I doot the lad that pu'd it
Is sure to win his plea,
For bonnie Bessie Logan
Is owre young for me.

I STAND WITH MY SHOULDER TO SHOULDERS.

[_]

(From the German of Schienenleger.)

I stand with my shoulder to shoulders,
In the long, sad battle of life;
I keep in the ranks of my fellows,
I add my voice to the strife.

The fight is a stumbling onward,
Where each must stand to his part;
Though he feels the warm blood trickling
From an unseen wound in his heart.

At times when the marching is over,
And the tents are pitched for the night,
I can hear the poets singing
Somewhere from an unseen height.

They sing of love and gladness,
Of the golden primal plan,
Of the forging of bosom to bosom,
And the brotherhood of man.

117

But I who am weary and footsore,
And faint from the wounds that bleed,
I turn away from their singing,
I am out of touch with their creed.

But still I can hear their music,
Like the rise and fall of the wind,
And it wakens the dim, far voices
Of the years that are left behind.

Then I whisper—“O, ye poets
That stand on the hills of life,
Your eyes are upon the battle,
But ye stand apart from the strife.

“Ye know not the deep, fierce anger
Of the columns that rally and wheel;
Ye are out of the reach of the bullet,
And beyond the sweep of the steel.

“But I who lay claim to no laurel,
I bow to the will of the Fates,
Take my place in the ranks of my fellows
And accept their loves and their hates.”

A BALLADE OF “CHURCHWARDENS.”

Why, hang it all, let life go by,
It is but bubbles we pursue;
They burst at last, and then we sigh
And pay what folly claims as due.
We have our time to smile and sigh,
Who knows the false from all the true?
Let us enjoy before we die,
Churchwardens and a friend or two.

118

For these are things that will not fly
Nor fade, as other pleasures do;
Nay, trust me, for I would not lie—
At least I would not lie to you.
There is a time when earth and sky
Unite—when lovers bill and coo—
A happy time; but let us try
Churchwardens and a friend or two.

Alas! what grief when you descry
White strangers—just a very few—
Among your hair. A friendly eye
Detects them, though you never knew.
Well, let them come, nor look awry,
But trust the gods to pull you through;
They'll do it if they but supply
Churchwardens and a friend or two.

Envoi.

Prince should your royal eyes espy
A white hair—this is entre nous—
Remember you are very nigh
Churchwardens and a friend or two.

THE SECRET OF NATURE.

The great Earth said to the poet,
“What are your paltry wrongs,
That still you must worship your sorrows,
And fashion them into songs?

“You see your fellows go downward,
You watch the decay of the leaf;
But yours is not the secret,
Or yours would not be the grief.

119

“I, too, have many sorrows,
But I let their voices be heard
In the roar of the winds and oceans
When my great strong bosom is stirred.

“But still in the rush of the whirlwind,
In the sway and surge of the sea,
There is not in all their music
One touch of pity for me.

“The stern, swift years stride onward,
As a battle column will range,
And ever in front their outposts,
With their miracles of change.

“The rivers widen their channels,
The seas have their grasp on the land;
I watch the beginnings of planets,
I know and I understand.

“Men pass as the shadows on mountains,
They come to me for their rest;
I lay them into my bosom,
As an infant is laid to the breast.

“I lull them into a silence
Till nothing can be so sweet;
They slumber, and are forgotten
In the echoes of other feet.

“For race follows race, and they vanish,
And I have no sound that grieves;
What tree would blossom and flourish
If it thought of its last year's leaves?

“I am struck with the lightnings of cannon,
And rent with the earthquake of wars,
I yearn and look upward for pity,
Which can only be had of the stars.

120

“I hear the poets wailing,
But my ear is deaf to their moan,
They dimly guess at my meaning,
But their sorrow is all their own.

“I have a purpose within me,
As a body has the soul,
But I care not to utter its message
When I understand the whole.

“You watch your fellows go downwards,
You see the decay of the leaf,
But yours is not the secret,
Or yours would not be the grief.”

WE DANCED AT NIGHT IN THE FARM HOUSE.

We danced at night in the farm-house,
While, fifty yards away,
We could hear the rush of the engines
When the fiddle had ceased to play.

But up got the lads and lasses
With many a merry glance;
And down went they all through the mazes
Of the dear old country dance.

There were gentle whispers and touches
Love only can hear and feel;
And pressure of dainty fingers
In the changes of the reel.

But the old man sat in the arm-chair,
By the fire that was sinking fast;
In his eyes was the look of the dreamer
Who is thinking of the past.

121

And I sat and watched the shadows
Of the firelight sink and flee,
But my thoughts were of him and his dreamings,
And what those dreams could be.

Were they thick with the well-reaped harvest
Of those long, dim eighty years?
The shadows of vanished sunbeams,
The mists of long-shed tears?

The changes all around him,
The homely customs fled;
Of his long past youth and manhood,
Of his friends with the lonely dead?

Were his thoughts of her who was with him
In the flower of her noble life,
Of her who had stood beside him
A true and a tender wife?

Did he feel once more the children
Lay their hands upon his knee?
Did he see in their eyes the promise
Of what each one would be?

Ah, vain is each idle question
That may spring from our hopes and fears;
We cannot know the thinking
Of him who is eighty years.

The old man sat in his arm-chair,
And still on his kindly face
The sinking firelight flickered,
And the thoughts I could not trace.

And still danced the lads and the lasses,
While, fifty yards away,
We could hear the roar of the engines
When the fiddle had ceased to play.

122

CHARITY.

In quiet, holy light she stands,
But not for her the folded hands.

She scorns the life that moves apart
In selfish solitude of heart,

But knits herself to tasks that bend
Their footsteps to some noble end.

Here is a life of deeds from which
She keeps the hollow fame of speech!

She cares not for the praise or blame
That whirls, like wind, around a name.

She holds no creed; within her breast
The spirit of Christ hath perfect rest;

And thus she sees with fearless sight
The shadow lying by the light,

Nor turns away, for in her eyes
Dwells the blue calm of summer skies,

Whose soft and tender glories fall,
Not over one, but over all.

AN APRIL AFTERNOON.

A gladness pulses through the earth,
And with a gentle sound
The rain comes down to give green birth
To all the buds around.

It is a tender afternoon,
As sweet as sweet can be,
And all the winds are in one tune—
They sing their songs to me.

123

I see the river full of light
That, gliding slowly by,
Takes onward with it to the sight
A little breadth of sky.

The birds are up and on the wing,
They pipe by glen and wood,
They have but one sweet wish to sing,
Nor wonder why they should.

A tender spirit over all,
Like one vast blessing lies,
And where his unseen fingers fall,
A thousand wonders rise.

For field and tree and waving grass
Flush into green and blow—
The earth is younger than it was
A thousand years ago.

THE SHADOW OF THE PAST.

As of old the river is singing,
The woods are thick and green,
The wind is swaying the branches,
That the light may fall between.

From the grass at my feet are peeping
The sweet forget-me-nots,
Their azure heads are hanging
With the dews of their own pure thoughts.

There is no change in the river,
No change in the green of the tree,
Yet a something that cannot be spoken
Is resting on all that I see.

124

As of old the river is flowing,
And summer is heard in its tide;
I pace along the footpath,
But a dead man walks by my side.

There is no whisper spoken,
I hear no footsteps fall;
But I know in my heart he is with me
By the silence that settles on all.

In that silence a strange sad longing
For what we can never attain
Wells up, as a streamlet rises
In a sudden fall of the rain.

There is no whisper spoken,
No sound of human speech,
But spirit is touching spirit,
And each is looking at each.

His with the full, clear vision
Of those who have done with the years;
Mine, with the shadow of sorrow,
And the mists of human tears.

Up and down by the river
That flows and will always flow;
Up and down in the sunlight,
With footsteps sad and slow;

Up and down in the sunlight,
That falls on all that I see;
My heart alive with its longings,
And a dead man walking with me.

125

THE MESSAGE OF THE BEE.

The humble bee is hiding
In the blossom's golden cells;
He, and he only, can tell me
Where the queen of the fairies dwells.

He is out on a royal message,
He has her high command
To bring his tribute of honey
To her table in fairyland.

And this is why he is ranging
From blossom to blossom to-day;
He is busy making nectar
For the lips of elf and fay.

He will carry the golden treasure
To all their kith and kin,
To a bank in a wood where a portal
Will open to let him in.

This tiniest of portals
Lies hid as violets hide,
Two blue-bells stand as sentries,
They guard it on either side.

He will hum, as he enters, the password,
And they—they will nod in the sun,
Then stand again to their duty,
And this is all that is done.

I, too, have seen this portal,
And a child can understand
That there is no other doorway
To the realms of fairyland.

126

KILLIN.

The little village sleeps to-day,
Save but for children at their play.
The white clouds show their snowy breast
Above Glen-Aylmer's grassy crest.
And far away on Corsencon
A single shadow rests alone;
While Nith, shrunk into quietude,
Hath not one voice to make one brood.
All rests to-day; and as I lie,
With idle heart and idle eye,
I dream, and as I dream I hear
The brawling Dochart in my ear.

He sings; and all the silence fills
With outlines of the Highland Hills.
I smell the heather which they wind
About them, as in wish to bind
Upon their brows a purple wreath
To veil their craggy fronts beneath.
Ben Lawers looks upon Loch Tay
Hid half in mist, and far away
Ben More uprears his shoulder grim,
As if the whole belonged to him.
And farther on Schiehallion seeks
A misty mantle for his peaks.
These rise, but ever in my ear
The angry Dochart I can hear.

Thou river rushing on to seek
A barrier for thy wrath to wreak
Itself upon, wert thou the source
Of all that sullen fire and force
That leapt within the veins of those
Who held their own and slew their foes?

127

Perchance they took their stubborn pride
And thirst of rapine from thy tide!
Vain question! they have passed away
From Highland glen and Highland brae,
And take their sleep by thee, nor hear
Thy torrents thunder in their ear.

There, too, amid the hills they deem
That Fingal rests and dreams his dream,
The mists descend, and leave a trace
Of dews upon his resting-place.
They weep soft tears upon the stone
That seem but shed for him alone;
Meet place it is for Highland chief,
The wild winds lift their voice of grief,
And wail for him who rests beneath
Their coronachs of gloom and death.
For fancy sees the warrior grim
Still lying huge of arm and limb,
His broadsword resting by his side,
Whose keen edge shore the foeman's pride.
His white beard like a mantle holds
His heart within its snowy folds.
Vain fancy!—sheath and steel are rust,
And he himself is into dust.
No more the battle-slogans rend
The air, nor from th hills descend
The rushing clans with sudden cry,
The fire of conflict in their eye,
Before the thunder of whose way
The lightnings of the broadsword's play.
All, all have gone, and sunk and still
And peaceful as the windless hill,
Upon whose side they take their rest,
The heather waving o'er their breast.

128

Thou Highland girl that dwellest by
The Lochy, with its softer sigh,
Far from thy gentle life be still
The tempest of the cloudy hill;
The winds of heaven be in thy hair,
With fragrance of the heather there;
Thy dark, sweet eyes be still as bright,
With all their charms of liquid light.
Quick be thy foot, and light thy heart,
And thou thyself be still a part
Of all that calm and beauty seen
In wood and strath, in glen and green.
And in the night when slumber brings
Its dreams to thee of happy things
That, bending, touch with finger tips
The parted crimson of thy lips;
Still may there murmur through them all,
The gentle Lochy's rise and fall.

O, friend of mine, to whom I owe
What only I myself can know,
Those scenes grow very dear to me,
Because I looked on them with thee,
And thou—dost thou remember still
The sunshine warm on loch and hill;
The clouds that rose within our ken,
Like messengers from Ben to Ben;
The headlong waterfalls that broke
To die in drifts of spray and smoke;
The long still nights when darkness came,
With far-off murmurs through the same,
The lonely bird that, somewhere, smote
The silence with a single note;
The hush of streams whose monotone
Drew down the silence as its own?

129

Thou dost; and those long walks in which
The way grew light with quips of speech,
For Ossian's song in parody
Was heard; and many a travestie
Of sober rhyme was made to play
Its part to fit our holiday.

How those three summer days come back,
With all their sunshine in their track.
And Highland lake and hill and sky
Grow dear to all my dreaming eye,
But dearer each and all to me
Because I looked on them with thee.

Mr Andrew Stewart, editor of “The People's Friend.”

A DAY DREAM ON THE RAIL.

I stood upon the four-foot way
Amid the haunts I knew so well,
The sunshine of an April day
Was over all with tender spell.

The primrose and the violet,
That little fairy of the grass,
On sloping hill and bank were set
To show which way the spring did pass.

Across the river, from a tree
Whose top was in the balmy air,
A mavis sang—he sang to me—
And field and wood grew still more fair.

I stood like one who dreams, nor cares
To mingle with the life around,
But lives within the realms he shares,
And will not overstep their bound.

130

For all my inner life was stirred,
As in the golden time of thought,
Till, as I live, again I heard
The cuckoo sing his double note.

It came behind me from the hill,
The voice and spirit of the spring;
And I, to keep the magic still,
I did not turn to hear him sing.

Why shatter all the simple creed
Of boyhood? for I held it then
That he—this bird—came at their need,
And brought the gift of spring to men.

That he was mateless, only he—
A single voice, a double call
That sent a thrill of prophecy,
With coming summer through it all,

That were he seen by mortal eye
The charm would fail, and there would pass
A brighter glory from the sky,
A greener colour from the grass.

An idle thought perchance to think,
And yet the pity of it seems
The man should rise and snap the link
And strike the boy from out his dreams.

The loss is his; for, looking back
Through all the years he left behind,
A sunshine settles on the track
His footsteps never more will find.

And all along the four-foot way,
That sunny day in perfect spring,
The past was with me like the day,
And lent my thoughts their swiftest wing.

131

And I looked back, and, looking, felt
This manhood, with its rougher strife,
Pass, as the summer mists, and melt
In that clear light of earlier life.

And I once more upon the line
Stood as a toiler; heard the crash
Of engines; saw their muscles shine
Like sunshine through the steam and flash;

Knew the red secret of the birth
Of those huge things that pant and beat,
Who toil for men, and span the earth,
And shriek for spaces for their feet.

They gave me songs to sing: I sang
Their splendours as they flashed along;
The roar of wheels on rails that rang
And shot their echoes through my song;

The white smoke-serpents, coil on coil,
That shot up at each monster's will—
And I was happy then, for toil
Was sweet, but song was sweeter still.

I heard it through the eager day
In whispers, but when all the night
Fell, and the stars were on their way,
It broke into a keen delight.

And then I sang: my songs may be
Of simple note and feeble wing;
The bird that sits upon the tree—
He pipes though no one hears him sing.

And yet it were a pleasant thought
When death has flung his mists between,
To think that in these fields should float
A little touch of what has been.

132

A memory for friends to keep
Till, as the quick, sad years go by,
They, too, pass onward to their sleep,
And dying with them as they die.

JENNY.

I sat—in church, of course—and heard
The parson thunder forth his sermon.
“The text!” you say—well that's absurd,
You ask me what I am not firm on.
But entre nous, remember that,
For I am half afraid of libel,—
My text was in the pew, where sat
Sweet Jenny busy with her Bible.

Of course, you saw that charming girl—
By Jove, those eyes of hers were witching;
And then what lips! and, O, each curl—
No wonder that I thought of hitching.
Had I been with her in the pew
And touched her hand, without a falter
I should have risen full in view
And thought I stood before the altar.

The sermon might be good or bad;
Good, I should say—I knew the preacher—
But really, Jenny, though it's sad
To say it, was my only teacher.
I looked into her soft brown eyes,
And, as I saw their gospels beaming,
I thought of far-off Paradise,
And dreamt, and Eve was in my dreaming.

133

What meetings we had by the stile,
When sunset made the earth a glory:
The clasp of hands, the tender smile,
The whisper and the old, old story.
Oh! love and youth, and all the power
That beats strong as a wave that's tidal;
The golden ring, the orange flower,
And all the passion of the bridal.

I saw myself a happy man,
And rich, though owning scarce a penny;
A home that love itself might plan,
An angel in it—that was Jenny.
Around her all the air took light,
She was, as Patmore sings divinely—
“The Angel in the House,” so bright,
And ruling my affairs benignly.

Years came and went, and all the rest,
And, though my hair was growing thinner,
I had that curve about the vest
Which spoke of the domestic dinner.
Gone, too, the ways that youth will range,
Ere manhood brings us to an anchor,
And in their place—no bad exchange—
A growing balance with my banker.

My lot was such from day to day,
That any little whiff of trouble
But came to make, when passed away,
My simple, sober pleasures double.
I had—but here there came a flaw
That overset my fancy's cradle,
I turned, and at my elbow saw
A douce Scots elder with the ladle.

134

Gone was my dream that was so sweet;
I felt just like that Eastern fellow
Who kicked his basket with his feet
And lost what nearly turned him yellow.
Well, well, “we are such stuff,” supply
The rest yourself—I took a penny,
And in the ladle with a sigh
Dropped it, and all my hopes of Jenny.

AN OLD-WORLD BALLAD.

I lie an' look doon on the clachan,
This best o' a' simmer days,
An' doon by the side o' the burnie
The lasses are bleachin' their claes.

I hear them lauchin' an' daffin',
I catch the skance o' their feet
As they rin wi' their cans for mair water
To jaw on the snaw o' the sheet.

Then ane starts liltin' an' singin',
And the sang comes up to the heicht;
It's a' aboot lads and their lasses
That coort in the lown o' the nicht;

The lads an' the lasses coortin'
Aneath the spread o' the birk,
Or castin' sheeps' een at ilk ither
As they stan' at the psalms in the kirk.

An' O, but the sang comes bonnie,
On a gliff o' the win' up the brae,
An' as sweet as the scent in the meadows
When fowk are teddin' their hay.

135

Then anither ane sang, but her singin'
Brocht the warm tears into my een;
For an auld-warld sorrow was sabbin'
In an' oot through the words atween.

A sang o' a deid knicht lyin'
At the back o' a rickle o' stanes;
An' you heard the deid grass rustle,
An' the sugh o' the win' through his banes.

A licht dee'd oot o' the sunshine,
A shadow fell doon on the hill;
The win' held its breath for a moment,
An' the grass beside me was still.

A' this by an unkenned singer,
An' O, but the heart was sair
For the knicht away in the muirlands,
An' the grass growin' up through his hair.

How strange that an old-world ballad,
Away far back in the years,
Should still have the same sad magic,
To touch the source of our tears.

An' a' this is mine as I listen,
This best o' a' simmer days;
Hearin' naething ava' but the liltin'
O' lasses thrang bleachin' their claes.

THE CHURCHYARD TREE.

Grey tree within the churchyard old,
Why stir thy leaves to-night?
Why moan thy branches in the cold
And shake as with affright?

136

The grass grows rank, and dull decay
Eats with its mossy stains
The stones where names are worn away
By centuries of rains.

But there has come no change for thee
Save what each season forms;
Broad summer ever fair to see,
And winter with its storms.

Thou, too, hast seen the young and old
Laid in their last, long rest,
Thy leaves have fallen on their mould
Like blessings on their breast.

And thou hast heard, amid the calm
Of long past Sabbath days,
The preacher's voice, the sound of psalm
That rose in humble praise.

But now instead of psalm on high
Thou hast the curlew shrill,
The bleating of the sheep that lie
Along Glen Aylmer Hill.

The shadow of the sailing cloud,
The long, long summer day,
The whisper of the stream, half loud,
That tinkles on its way.

Grey tree within the churchyard old,
How stir thy leaves to-night,
How moan thy branches in the cold,
Why shake as with affright?

Why should I think of thee within
The narrow eager street,
Who standest far from all the din,
Where every sound is sweet.

137

The rippling streamlet half in view,
The curlew loud and shrill;
The shepherd's sudden whistle to
His helpmate on the hill:

All these are sweet, and I could sleep
Like any wearied child,
Were I but there one day to keep
A tryst amid the wild.

Perchance my early dreams that sunk,
As ships gone down at sea
When the wild waves with hate are drunk,
Might come again to me.

And I should steep myself in rest,
As trees when winds have fled,
And draw the canker from the breast,
The fever from the head.

The thoughts that only come to chill,
As all such thoughts must do,
And fling on lonely stream and hill
A sadder light to view;

A sense of something passed away,
A look that speaks of tears,
Such looks as lovers give when they
Meet after many years.

Come back, come back, O, early dreams,
When love and hope were high;
Come back, thou voice within the streams,
Thou light within the sky.

Touch, as ye touched in days of old,
Each mute though breathing thing;
And wove with sunshine as with gold,
A link from spring to spring.

138

Bring back those hours in which I bent,
And heard in tender awe
Love speak with passionate tones, that sent
A thrill through all I saw.

They come not—nay, will never come—
Though springs bloom to the last;
The voices that I heard are dumb,
They were but for the past.

Grey tree within the churchyard old,
How sound thy leaves to-night!
How moan thy branches in the cold,
And toss in wild affright!

Thou know'st the storm in all its might,
The spring and summer thrills;
And thou hast known the staid delight
That beams along the hills.

But thou hast never known the keen
Wild throbbing of the street,
Nor heard in narrow ways between,
The sound of pitiless feet.

Thou hast not heard the low, sad cry
Of pent-up breathing life;
The rush of passions fierce and high—
The winds of human strife.

Thou hast not known our human fears—
The fears we cannot name;
Nor hast thou felt the doom of tears
That follows wrong and shame.

These must be ours, but thine are still
The murmur of the stream,
The light and shadow on the hill,
The sunshine and the gleam.

139

TO MY FRIEND.

[_]

Written by the poet for the toast of the Editor of “The People's Friend,” Mr Andrew Stewart, at the Dinner and Presentation to Mr James Nicholson, Glasgow, January 12th, 1895.

The years have sped since first we met,
Here, in the city's toil and roar;
Brief space in looking back, and yet,
Those years now number twenty-four.

What changes have they brought to all—
What thoughts that make for higher ends,
What shadows that perforce must fall,
To make us only closer friends.

Perchance this were a fitting time
To gently touch with kindly hand
Those brothers of a band of rhyme
Now silent in the other land.

One in whose soul the city rang
With throbbings as at fever-heat;
Whose song was as an anvil-clang,
Heard far above the rush of feet.

He, turning from the toil and strife
With half-ignoble thoughts of rest,
Sank when the sun of midmost life
Had scarcely turned to face the west.

Another, keen, and swift, and bold,
With ready jest and quip to tell—
A bright Mercutio grown old,
He, too, has bidden us farewell.

140

And others who have left the light,
The light that death can only stem,
Perchance are with us here to-night,
Because to-night we think of them.

They whisper in our inner ear,
Faint, as befits a spirit tongue,
And far down in our heart we hear,
Their ave atque vale sung.

So be it—they have passed, and we,
Who still are forward in the strife,
Must close our thinning ranks, and see
We keep pace in the march of life,

And only halt a space to greet
Some noble brother in the fight;
One to whom worthy praise is meet
As is our honoured guest to-night.

He, too, has seen with eager eye
Truth ready with her trumpet blast;
He too, though falling out to die,
Will grasp his colours to the last.

But I—I wander from my theme—
I turn again, O, friend to thee;
The guider of my early dream,
Whose hand was first held out to me.

For I was all alone—no voice
Had touch of sympathy with mine,
Till through the clang of railway noise
A voice came, and that voice was thine.

It spoke of cheer, it whispered hope
To one who, half afraid to climb,
Stood looking at the rugged slope
Where lay his little field of rhyme.

141

And so he strove, well pleased to hear,
From where the railway echoes rang,
His songs had fallen upon thy ear,
And then it was to thee he sang.

The toil was naught; it only made
Song sweeter when the shadows fell,
And all the valleys lay in shade,
And all the hills he knew so well.

Enough; the years have sped along;
For what they brought with them, O friend,
A rough camp-follower of song
Will thank thee to the very end.

Alex. G. Murdoch.

James Smith.

THE LILY O' THE BANKS O' CREE.

Saft fa's the sun on Anwoth Hills
When simmer smiles an' a' is fair;
But what is licht to them or me,
When she I lo'e is bidin' there?
The licht that's in her bonnie een
Is mair than simmer unto me;
Sweet Jenny, pride o' Anwoth Hills,
The Lily o' the Banks o' Cree.

When morning o'er the Solway breaks
In purple smiles, and seas and skies
Touch each in love, and earth again
Becomes a balmy paradise;
A dearer licht to me than a'
Is that which beams frae Jenny's ee;
Sweet Jenny, pride o' Anwoth Hills,
The Lily o' the Banks o' Cree.

142

Fu' bonnilie in Kirkdale glen
The primrose peeps frae grassy nook,
An' modestly the violet blows,
As if afraid to meet your look;
But fairer far than ony flower,
By wimplin' burn or grassy lea,
Is Jenny, pride o' Anwoth Hills,
The Lily o' the Banks o' Cree.

A WHIFF OF NATURE.

I stand alone on the hillside,
The scent of heather about;
I am so free of the city
That I leap and dance and shout.

The curlew and the lapwing,
They look for a moment at me,
Then they whoop and dive together,
For they understand my glee.

I can fancy I hear them singing
As I see them flying along—
“Here is a weary old fellow
Who is still in love with our song.

“Let us sing him our shrillest and wildest,
That it may sink in his heart,
And be with him again in the city
When he turns his face to depart.”

And over moss and moorland,
They swoop and wheel and sing,
Till the very ferns beside me
Begin to quiver and swing.

143

And ever, as if from dreamland,
The wind brings this echo along—
“Here is a weary old fellow,
Who is still in love with our song.”

THE VOICES OF SINGERS.

I hear the voices of singers,
Whose songs stir the pulses of men;
They stand on their mountains of vision,
Each answers each other again.

They are rapt in a whirlwind of passion;
They rise white-lipped at a wrong;
The world turns half round to listen,
For they are the eagles of song.

But between the gusts of their music
And the pomp and march of their words
There comes from the depth of the woodland
The chirp and the twitter of birds.

They sing, and their songs are the sweeter
If no one is standing nigh,
For what should they care for us mortals,
When they sing to the earth and the sky.

And I who toil by the wayside,
In the weary dust and heat,
I pause for a moment to listen,
For the singing is soft and sweet.

It breathes of the spirit of gladness,
And sunshine that flickers and plays;
Of streams that chatter and murmur
Through the length of the summer days.

144

What of the songs of the singers
That float from the heights above?
What of the songs of the woodlands
That are full of light and of love?

The songs from the mountains of vision,
They thrill my ear and depart,
But the twitter that comes from the woodland
Sinks deep down into my heart.

A WISH.

I wish my little life had been
In concert with each lowly thing,
To wander where the fields are green
And beating with the pulse of spring.

To feel the summer send its blood
Through all the earth, until my own
Took newer life, and, like a bud,
Burst into blossom fully blown.

To watch the dying of each year,
Not as we sit by dying men,
But knowing winter dull and drear
Would pass, and after life again

To walk through all the changing round
Of seasons till my winter came,
And I had reached the utmost bound
Of life, then sink, as sinks a flame.

And rest within some quiet place,
Where all day long, from day to day,
The seasons as they came would trace
Their certain changes where I lay.

145

THE PAINTER AND THE FAIRY.

(To Sir Noel Paton.)

I lay in the depths of dreamland,
Above me the sky was clear,
And only a single blue-bell
Was nodding close to my ear.

I watched it swaying and bending,
As if a fairy's hand
Had lightly touched it in passing
To her home in fairyland.

Then all at once from the blossom
That was nodding at my head
Came the tiniest of voices,
And this was what it said—

“O, poet, dreaming in dreamland,
With eyes half hid by the hand,
Well is it for one sweet moment
Thou canst enter our own sweet land.

“But bring not the toil of the city
To this realm of sinless elves,
For a single echo would alter
The law that rules ourselves.

“We care not at all for mortals,
For their nature is not as ours;
We are spirits that haunt the woodland,
And our kinsfolk are the flowers.

“The seasons pass, but we know not,
For us no rough winds blow;
We do not know the meaning
Of the falling of the snow.

146

“We come with the flowers of summer,
We fade with the flowers that die;
But we come up again when April
Smiles up at the blue of the sky.

“We cannot be seen of mortals,
For their purer vision is gone,
And this is why we may always
Be seen of the flowers alone.

“But what of the dreaming painter
Who came to us in his youth?
He saw us hold our revels,
For his heart was the heart of truth.

“What of the grand old painter?
Is he weary of cities and men?
Will he never come back to our revels
In our fairyland again?

“He saw us play in the moonlight,
He saw us dance by the stream,
He held our hands for a moment,
Does he still remember his dream?”

And I, who was idly lying
Where the dreams rose dim and sweet,
Heard the whisper of the blue-bell
And thus made answer meet—

“The painter is still in the city,
In the throng of the streets of men,
But the thoughts in his bosom wander
To your haunts by stream and glen.

“He still can hear you calling,
Though his hair is as white as snow,
For the heart in the old man's bosom
Is the heart of long ago.

147

“In his quiet hours he is dreaming
Of the moonlight falling between
The trees that make arches together
For the march of your Fairy Queen.

“He hears in such moments of silence
A tiny trumpet blown
Far off in the realms of dreamland,
And he knows that it is your own.

“Then his fancy sees the procession
Wind downward by the streams,
And full on the little pennons
A touch of moonlight gleams.

“He sees the blossoms waving
Their banners of yellow and blue,
While the humble bee is piping
A march to guide it through.

“Then it halts for a single moment
On a spot of brighter green,
And the painter feels on his forehead
The lips of the Fairy Queen,

“As light as when in the silence
The petal falls from the cup,
And not a breath is stirring,
Yet the painter wakens up.

“He smiles at his freaks of fancy,
If freaks of fancy they seem;
But the tears are wet on his eyelids,
For he still remembers his dream.

“But his thoughts are sadder and higher
In the streets of toiling men;
He has turned from his early visions,
And will never come back again.

148

“No more will he see you playing
In the moonlight's tender glow,
Though the heart that beats in his bosom
Is the heart of long ago.”

Then a sigh went through the woodland,
A long soft sigh of regret;
It bowed the head of the primrose,
And it touched the violet.

It shook the leaves of the bindweed
Where the summer shadows were cool;
It stirred the tiniest ripple
On the mirror of the pool.

I woke, but was it from dreamland,
And where had my fancies been?
Was it the blue-bell's whisper,
Or that of the Fairy Queen?

JOHN STUART BLACKIE.

Last of the Scots his country knew so well,
And loved and honoured, ripe and full of years
He slips into his rest, amid our tears
As still we stand, nor care to say farewell.
True heart that beat full stroke to the rich spell
Of Scottish song, and all that most endears
The loyal heart to heart to make them peers
Takes newer strength beneath the passing knell.
Sleep thou in kindly soil, as best beseems
A Scot; thou hast no other wish to crave.
Far happier thou than he who dreamt his dreams,
Then passed to where the dreams and shadows flee.
He sleeps afar, where night and day the sea
Circles and moans beneath his mountain grave.

Robert Louis Stevenson.

149

THAT WEARY GOWF.

I tried the gowfin' when at Troon,
The links are bonnie there to see,
A warm September day flung doon
Its licht to gladden heart an' ee;
I had a cleek alang wi' me,
I made it wheel, I wasna slack,
Then to the caddie said, “Now tee
The ba', an' stan' a wee bit back.”

A' games o' skill come never wrang
To ane wha has the nerve an' han',
Its just like croonin' a bit sang,
Or what a fule micht understan';
A' that ye need is just the plan,
An' where to fix a steady ee,
Then whirl the cleek, an' strike, an' than
Gang on to where the ba' may be.

I swung on high my shinin' cleek,
I struck, the caddie turned his back;
I thocht it better no' to speak,
Nor enter into ony crack.
But what a day to ha'e a walk,
Sae saft the turf, see green an' sweet,
An' then the sea laid oot a track
O' white waves to my very feet.

I dinna think I need to say
What mair I did in sic a case,
Some things are better hid away,
It gi'es ane better heart o' grace.
A bunker is an awfu' place,
An' tries the temper weel nae doot,
Ye dicht the sweit frae aff your face,
An' tine a' houps o' gettin' oot.

150

My frien' wha took me roun' the links,
An' got the cleek for me that day,
I aften wonder what he thinks
When he looks back upon my play.
I did my best to mak' my way,
But O, my shuider-banes were sair,
In fact, it's waur than mawin' hay,
My fingers—but I'll say nae mair.

They tell this story still at Troon,
That just when nicht begins to fa',
They hear a voice, wi' eerie soun',
That cries oot, “Ha'e ye seen a ba'?”
An' then a cleek plays clink, an' a'
The san' springs up twa yairds or three—
What can that story mean ava',
And did that voice belang to me?

WRITTEN ON THE TOP OF BEN CRUACHAN.

Well worth the climbing—what a glorious sight!
An empire all beneath us. Far away,
In the bright sunshine of the summer day,
Loch Awe, one blaze of silver, lies in sight,
With all its islands narrowed from this height
To dots like shadows. Westward, we survey
Loch Etive, and still farther Oban bay,
Morven, and other hills in lonely night,
Gray with old legends, nearer streams that bound
'Mid rocks, as if strong Thor had once held high
Revel with thunder hammer far and near,
Glorious! I stand and bare my brow, and cry
In wild delight at all I see around,
“Well worth the toil to be one moment here.”

151

BROKEN MELODIES.

What lark remembers when he sings,
From where the clouds are dim and grey,
His brothers of the former springs,
Who sang their songs and passed away?

They shrank unseen within the night,
Like hearts that sicken at a wrong,
Or mounting in the open light
Fell from their world of happy song.

Some feathers, left for winds to blow
Among the hills where shepherds tread,
Is all that Nature keeps to show
A little bunch of song is dead.

For she is lavish: all the year
Her splendid service daily sings;
And perfect to her perfect ear
Her immemorial music rings.

If one should fail from out the band,
He sinks unknown and dies unwept;
And she—she only waves her wand,
And still the perfect chord is kept.

But we who stand with feet on earth,
The lesser poets of our time,
Whose songs have most imperfect birth,
And jarring music in their rhyme,

We sing; and discords only rise,
Because our hearts are out of tune,
And cannot touch the harmonies
That round a summer day in June.

Our songs are but of doubts and fears
That haunt us with their shadowy wing;
The rainbows that we see through tears
Fade into sadness as we sing.

152

The sorrows of the singing race
Are with us turn we as we may;
We touch the strings, and only trace
The plaint of others passed away.

The riper spirits sing their songs;
They watch the ever-changing show,
Like Nature, who can see no wrongs,
But lets her seasons come and go.

The weaklings we—our piping bears
Half-light, half-shadow, and the gleam
So mingles with our little cares,
And colours all our daily dream.

Not so the lark. To-day he sings,
Unmindful of—though others may—
His brethren of the former springs
Who sang their songs and passed away.

A CHAMBER HUSHED AND DIM.

The dead man in the chamber dim
Lay, with the silence over him.

The weary feet and weary breast
Of eighty-five were now at rest.

Peace held him in its clasp. His face
Wore that sad pity for our race

Which seems in gentle words to call,
“Thou knowest nothing: I know all.”

The bird beside the window sang,
Till all the little chamber rang—

Sang with his fullest voice and breath,
A song that had no touch of death.

153

“So strange,” I said, in awe and fear,
“This song is for his Master's ear,

“Who took delight in him, and brought
The little daily wants he sought;

“And for that reason should be known
Unto his Master's ear alone.”

I crept out of the little room,
And left it to its sacred gloom.

Outside the light that summer yields
Was resting on the woods and fields.

The hills took shadows, and they drew
Upon themselves a greener hue.

The winds were playing soft and low
The music of long years ago.

No leaf was stirless in the mirth
That overran the joyous earth.

A tiny speck of soft delight,
The daisy at my feet was white.

The lark, a higher poet, strong,
Sent down his rippling showers of song,

The very stream by which I stood
Had lost for once its sadder mood;

And flung a liquid finger up
To tempt a backward butter-cup

To blossom, so that it might rest
A shadow on its limpid breast.

There was no death in all I saw—
Life, full life, was the common law.

I was the only thing that stood
An alien from the general good.

154

For still I saw through all and these
The shadows of the mysteries

That follow men from birth to death,
To watch the passing of their breath.

And so, as background to the day,
With all its manifold display,

I saw a grave beside the wall,
Within the distant river's call,

And in a chamber hushed and dim,
The dead man—silence over him—

Whose weary feet and weary breast
Of eighty-five had now their rest.

And by the window, loud and clear,
As though to reach the dead man's ear,

A little bird whose spirit sang
Till all the silent chamber rang.

TWO BROWN EYES.

Ah, what to me is Homer's song
With Greek and Trojan life alive,
Virgil's that flood-like bears along
The fall of Troy, and all the strive
Of gods and men that now survive
Within its music's rise and fall—
Two eyes when one is twenty-five,
Two soft brown eyes are worth them all.

The Roman Livy, Xenophon,
Whose pages teem with fighting Greeks,
Catullus, with his amorous tone
For lovers whose sweet plaint he speaks.

155

He sings of soft, warm blushing cheeks,
And hearts that throb at love's sweet call
All in dead tongues the scholar seeks—
But two brown eyes are worth them all.

I toss aside my weary books,
Like Faust, and say let others strive
For money, and wear misers' looks,
And all their days and nights contrive
To add a little to their hive,
For me I sing this madrigal,
Two eyes when one is twenty-five,
Two soft brown eyes are worth them all.

LORD OF THE AIR.

[_]

(From the German of Schienenleger.)

Over the meadow is singing
A lark as loud as can be;
He is lord of the air, and his music
Falls down with the sunshine on me.

It falls as soft as the murmur
Of faint sweet summer rain,
But the mirth that lies hid in its rapture,
Is a mirth that brings me pain.

I turn away from the river,
For its music is sad and strange;
It, too, has a whisper of sorrow,
And that whisper speaks of change.

I turn from the hills around me,
For every one that I see
Seems to have a rift in its friendship,
And its looks have altered to me.

156

But still above the meadow
The lark is singing his song;
There is no jar in his music,
For his little soul is strong.

And I, who listen, a dreamer,
That is thinking of human things,
Were that heart of his in my bosom,
I could sing to-day as he sings.

LOVE IS SWEET.

Whisper, dear, that love is sweet,
Sweeter far than anything;
Brighter than the flowers that grow
In the nooks of happy spring.
Love is sweet,
Sweeter far than anything;
Whisper, dear, that love is sweet.

Whisper, dear, that love is sweet,
Sweeter than when poets sing;
And the music wanders near,
Soft as waftings of a wing.
Love is sweet,
Sweeter far than anything;
Whisper, dear, that love is sweet.

Whisper, dear, that love is sweet,
Naught upon this earth can bring
Such delight as heart to heart,
When their thoughts together cling.
Love is sweet,
Sweeter far than anything;
Whisper, dear, that love is sweet.

157

LIFE'S LITTLE DAY.

The gods that dwell within the calm
Where winds have never lifted wings,
Hear, as they bend, a moaning psalm
From lips of men and human things.

It bears the burden of despair,
That finds an ample voice in songs,
The high gods hear it in that air,
And know it speaks a thousand wrongs.

It wails—“Our life is far too brief,
Grant us a little longer day;
Or make us equal with the leaf,
It comes again, we pass away.

“There is so much for us to know—
The wider bounds of growing powers;
The infant harvests that we sow
Are reaped by other hands than ours.

“So much to do, so much to feel,
With men still seeking higher goals,
Who spin their spider webs of steel
To clutch this planet as it rolls;

“Who slowly move amid our fears
At all the wild results we see,
Who work within the toiling years
And shape the miracles to be.

“So much to do for all our kind,
To widen love, to lighten pain,
To move the heart, to shape the mind,
And stand upon a nobler plane.

“Let us but see the end of all,
When brain and thought have had their way,
Let not the shadows on us fall—
Grant us a little longer day.”

158

The gods that dwell without our reach,
They bend and listen all the while;
They answer not—the lips of each
Have scorn that mingles with their smile.

FAREWEEL TO MY HAME.

Fareweel to my hame at the fit o' the glen,
To the red rowan tree hingin' owre at the en',
To the burnie near by, that, wi' saft, happy sang,
Made it heaven to me when the simmer was lang.
What though I may rove to far lan's that are fine,
They canna bring back ae sweet glint o' langsyne;
The lintie that sings when the sunshine is braw
Is dearer, an' better, an' sweeter than a'.

The sky may be bricht, an' nae clud may be seen,
An' richer the fields an' far deeper the green;
But the grey licht o' hame is the licht I wad see,
An' the coo o' the cushies are sweeter to me.
My father and mother are baith lyin' still
In the quate auld kirkyaird on the tap o' the hill;
They sleep free frae cares that ha'e now flown awa',
Oh! sair is my heart—yet fareweel to them a'.

Though I maunna come back, yet in dreams o' the nicht
I will still see their graves lyin' warm in the licht,
An' dear will they be in the sunshine or rain,
As things that I never may look on again.
Fareweel to my hame at the fit o' the glen,
To the burnies an' wuds, an' to a' that I ken;
My heart grows fu' sair, an' the sad tears doon fa',
For noo I maun tak' fond fareweel o' them a'.

159

HOW SWEET WAS LIFE LANGSYNE.

How sweet was life langsyne, langsyne,
When youth was in its May;
When tears were tears, and love was love,
An' flowers grew all the way;
When hopes were thick as simmer dews,
An' thochts cam' half-divine;
An' a' the nicht wi' dreams was bricht—
How sweet was life langsyne.

How sweet was life langsyne, langsyne,
The sky was blue abune;
The thrush, although nae leaf was seen,
Had simmer in his tune.
He brocht the wast win' as he sang,
The gowans white an' fine;
The heavens cam' nearer to the earth—
How sweet was life langsyne.

How sweet was life langsyne, langsyne,
It had nae thocht o' wrang;
The pulse was fleet, an' led the feet
To realms o' love an' sang.
No shadow had the light that fell,
No fennel had the wine—
The glow of heaven was over all—
How sweet was life langsyne.

AULD JOHNNIE NODDLE.

Auld Johnnie Noddle sleeps through a' the day,
Sleeps until the sun gangs doon an' a' the licht away;
Then he waukens up an' niddles up an' doon,
On his heid a great big hat wi' a lang croon.

160

When a wean begins to nod an' spurls wi' legs an' han's
Auld Johnnie Noddle at the window stan's,
Pits his face against the peen to see what he can see,
For Auld Johnnie Noddle—a queer man is he.

Auld Johnnie Noddle do ye no' think shame?
Stan'in' glowrin' in at weans when ye should be at hame,
Weel I ken what mak's ye wear sic a lang, lang croon—
It's to pit the weans in that winna sleep fu' soun'.

Auld Johnnie Noddle gang awa' this nicht,
Twenty bairns are waur than mine—gie them a' a fricht;
If a wean, an' I ha'e ane lyin' on my knee,
Tries wi' a' his micht to sleep, ye should let him be.

Auld Johnnie Noddle—see I draw the blin',
Sic a face as yours I ken frichts this bairn o' mine,
Daur ye come aboot the door when the wean is soun',
Aff will gang your big hat wi' the lang croon.

A BORDER KEEP.

A roofless Border keep that once
Held reiver bold its walls within,
Heard question high and stern response,
And clash of spear and battle din.

To-day there is no sound at all
Save sounds that hint of perfect peace;
The cattle grazing by the wall,
The stream whose murmurs never cease.

The bird that whistles for his mate,
A low sweet whistle half-aloud;
The lark that sings in lonely state
Far up upon his throne of cloud.

161

A HILLSIDE GRAVEYARD.

I push the little gate aside,
I leave behind all human pride,
For here the grass is waving wide.

With careless eye I read each name
That seems to crave a moment's claim
From dull oblivion's heavy blame.

And underneath in quiet lie,
With faces to the silent sky,
The villagers of times gone by.

Vain hope! They cannot come again;
They hold no place in field or glen,
Nor in the daily talk of men.

Only, perchance, when nights are long,
And fires in shepherds' cots are strong,
Between the pauses of a song

A name or two may rise and fall,
But half remembered at the call—
A moment's pause, and that is all.

Enough, they lived their little life,
Where pleasant ways and speech were rife,
Far from the city's grinding strife.

A simple faith, to soothe and guide,
Was theirs from youth to manhood's pride,
And closed their eyelids when they died.

I pace a little farther on,
Then pause beside a simple stone,
Where all the grass is overgrown;

A simple stone whose records keep
The tender names of those that sleep,
Unheeding time that still will creep.

162

With dull slow footsteps over all
They sleep, nor answer any call,
Close to the old, grey churchyard wall.

I read each name through misty tears,
Their pilgrimage of weary years,
With all its little hopes and fears.

At length I reach my father's name,
An open space below the same
That waits for mine—that space I claim.

HILL SHADOWS.

A bird on the moorland is calling
As a spirit may shriek in its dream,
Or a ghost wail forth in the darkness
For a touch of a single beam.

I know not what lonely secret
May be hid in that weary cry,
But it chords with the winds and their music,
And the wide grey vault of the sky.

Can that bird be the spirit of sorrow
That dwells on the moors and the hills,
Where the clouds have darker shadows,
And a sadder voice in the rills?

Can it be that, when crying, he voices
A touch of that dim despair
In the long, wide stretch of the moorland
And the lone mute things that are there?

I know not; but still, as I listen
To the sorrow I hear in his call,
I bear the half in my bosom,
And it gives a colour to all.

163

A WINDOW IN THRUMS.

I

A little cottage just atop the brae,
That now within its patch of ground is shown,
Stood for long years unnoted and unknown,
And light and shadow each in turn did play
Through one small window, till there came a day
When one came upward, not as by his own
Fancy but by genius led alone.
He paused like one whose feet are far astray,
Then reaching forth a consecrating hand
Touched the low walls, and lo! each little room
Became immortal with its humble band.
For Hendry still will bend above his loom,
Jess ever watch, and Leebie take a part
In all; a yearning in her sister's heart.

II

I will not enter; I but came to see
One little window and the humble door
That now is as a temple—nothing more—
I want to keep my dream, for unto me
The beings at whose touch they were to be,
Live in our fancy, and by fancy's shore,
Dwell in the light that crowns them evermore,
And makes them part of our humanity.
Hush! standing here in all this summer day,
Light all around and glorious clouds above,
I hear faint spirit whispers all around,
As if that little patch were holy ground,
And tender with a dear unspoken love,
And see one sad face as I turn away.

164

III

Nay, but another look before we part,
A day-dream we may fashion as we will,
And see with open eyes before us still,
As fancy comes and goes and plies her art,
Hendry and Jess, and Leeb of loyal heart,
Rich in all homely ways of homely skill—
These are not visions that the light can kill,
They stay with us, and in a higher air,
Touched with that light which genius only gives,
Live, not the common round that mortal lives.
Shall we think of that other standing there,
Bearing the burden of his inward pain,
And desolate amid the desolate rain?

Jamie.

IF ANY SONG THAT I HAVE SUNG.

If any song that I have sung
Should rest a moment on the lips,
Or linger kindly on the tongue
Of friends, when death, whose finger tips

Creep over mouths of men, has set
His icy touch against my own,
And I have passed beyond the fret
Of life, and am no longer known

Or seen within the simple street,
Or by the meadows and the rills;
But sunk within the past, as fleet
As shadows fade among the hills.

If such a song should linger still
On lips behind me, let it be
A voice that wakens at its will,
And, singing, brings no thought of me.

165

THE PLEASURES THAT ARE OLDEN.

We left the dear old house behind,
And where the moon was glancing,
We stood amid the low soft wind,
To hear the feet still dancing.
The moonlight fell upon her hair,
Made golden still more golden;
There are no pleasures half so fair
As pleasures that are olden.

For what to us were dancing feet,
And what the fiddle playing,
When all the moonlight fell so sweet
And soft the winds were straying.
I felt her hair upon my cheek
Touch like an angel's blessing;
My heart had not one wish to speak,
So sweet was the caressing.

The years they come, the years they go,
And as they still go stealing,
They take away the early glow
And all the finer feeling.
But still I feel against my cheek
That touch of hair so golden;
There are no pleasures that can speak
Like pleasures that are olden.

JOSEPH THOMSON.

He sleeps among the hills he knew,
They look upon his early rest,
The winds that in his childhood blew—
They stir the grass upon his breast.

166

His grave is green in that sweet vale
Where the fair river flows the same;
It rolls, and gathers to its tale
The added memory of his name.

And youth is his: though time extends
The growing years from spring to spring,
He still will be to all his friends
Secure from what their touches bring.

Calm then will be his wished for rest
After the weary toil of feet,
To sleep—the grass above his breast—
And know that perfect peace is sweet.

O better thus than he should lie,
To mingle with no kindred earth,
In the lone desert where the sky
Burns all things into fiery dearth,

And where not even one kindly eye
Could note the grave wherein he slept;
The dusky savage passing by
Would heed it not as on he swept.

But this was not to be: he lies
Near to the murmur of his rills;
He rests beneath our Scottish skies,
And in the silence of his hills.

His feet had travelled far in lands
Where all was strange and ever new;
And he was girt by swarthy bands
That round his eager footsteps drew.

But yet, when spending all his strength,
And when the shadow by his side
The beckoning finger raised at length,
It was not in those lands he died.

167

The roar of London and the rush
Of all that mighty life he heard—
And then the silence and the hush
By which his early youth was stirred.

Within this hush he sleeps; no call
To feel the wild desire to roam
Around the hills he knew, and all
The well-known fields and paths of home.

His grave is green in that sweet vale
Where the fair Nith flows on the same;
It rolls, and gathers to its tale
The dear possession of his name.

SAM ADAMSON.

Sam Adamson, the driver, he
Flung a bunch of waste to me.

“That's to keep your hands,” he said,
Then he turned and looked ahead.

What a night it was! The rain
Dashed against the cabin pane,

While the winds in frenzy flew—
Tore the very clouds in two.

“Stand well in,” said Sam, “I fear
You will find it stormy here.

“Now, then, Jim, the brake,” and he
Drew the levers back, and we

With a rush, and roar, and grind,
Plunged into the rain and wind.

Then I stood well in. Ahead
Naught but lights—green, white, and red.

168

Changing as we came in view,
When the shrieking whistle blew.

Over all the sweep and dash
Of the storm I heard the crash

Of the great wheels that, with a clang,
Struck the rails until they rang—

Rang and clicked, as if to beat
Time to the huge demon's feet.

The red spirit hid in steam
From footplate to buffer beam

Bound him till, in very ire,
This swart god of steel and fire,

Each huge muscle, white with strength,
Shook through all his mighty length,

Till his deep breath growing red
Made it crimson overhead.

And at times as on we swung,
Back the furnace doors were flung.

Then the stoker bent and fed
Coiling flames of molten red,

Licking tongues, with hiss and glare,
Like a knot of pythons there.

I, who sang the engine long
Years before in many a song,

Felt the old desire to sing
As I saw him rush and swing;

Felt the grinding of each wheel
Answer piston-strokes of steel;

Felt his molten bosom beat
Till it shook my very feet;

169

Knew that all this mass of might
By a fellow on my right

Could be led at his command
Like an infant by the hand.

How this miracle of man,
With a brain to shape and plan,

How he works till everywhere
Genii of the earth and air

Come. He rubs the lamp, and, lo!
Mightier than Prospero,

Bends them with his potent mind
To knee-service of his kind.

Whush—the brake—a shriek or two
From the whistle; we are due,

And at last we stand within
The wild city's restless din.

While the engine, back again,
All his black girth drenched with rain,

Glad to see his journey through,
Gives a weary sigh or two.

Said Sam Adamson, as he
Took the bunch of waste from me,

“Hope you feel yourself all right;
We have had a dirty night;”

Adding, as he wiped his brow,
“Seems a little better now.”

170

AN AULD, AULD STORY.

O, there's nocht can tak' us back like the broom upon the brae,
In the auld, auld times that are noo sae far away,
When we gaed an' cam' thegither frae the schule in summer heat,
It's an auld, auld story, but it's sweet, sweet, sweet.

Is the broom still growin' bonnie on the brae abune the burn?
If I thocht it was as yellow—O, it's there my feet would turn,
For my heart is thick wi' fancies, an' a saft, sweet westlin' win'
Brings its scent up through the years that are noo sae far ahin'.

It canna be sae yellow as it used to be langsyne—
An' the burn has lost its music that was aye sae sweet an' fine.
I winna gang an' listen, it wad only mak' me sair,
For the voice it had in boyhood, is a voice it has nae mair.

We canna noo turn back, for it wad only bring us pain.
We've left a something far ahin' we canna fin' again.
But let the broom wave yellow, an' the burn blink in the heat,
It's an auld, auld story, but it's sweet, sweet, sweet.

A PERFECT DAY.

This is a perfect day to lie
Without one single thought but eye
The wonder of the earth and sky.

171

The clouds that slowly form above,
Or like to snowy vessels move
Through silent seas of peace and love.

The leaf that sways upon the tree,
The very blade of grass I see,
And how it ever came to be.

The streamlets tinkling as they fall,
The birds half hidden as they call,
The winds that send a thrill through all.

The impulse that unfolds the flowers,
By cot or hall or palace towers,
This little fleeting life of ours.

I wonder for I cannot grasp
The secret hidden in their clasp—
Death only can undo the hasp.

It is enough to-day for me
To put aside the mystery,
And wonder at the things I sec.

THE SISTERS.

“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it.”

Two sisters stood by the window,
The winds were in their hair;
And cheek to cheek they watched and saw,
The smooth sea sleeping there.

“O sister,” said one, “my heart beats high
For the moving of the sea;
I wait for the rising of the dead,
That will bring my lover to me.

172

“But the sea is calm and no stir is seen,
Yet I know the breath of the Lord
Will blow like a wind on the depths and bring
My lover to keep his word.”

“And I,” said the other sister, “wait
For the moving of the sea;
For there, far down in its gulfs, is one
Who on earth was false to me.

“He sleeps in the depths, with a thousand things
That lie in the caverns there;
And I know, as he sleeps, that upon his breast
Is a lock of my sister's hair.”

And cheek to cheek the sisters stood,
And breathed as with one breath;
Their eyes set fast on the sleeping sea,
With its hidden things of death.

WHEN FIRST I SAW THE TWEED

When first I saw the Tweed, the light
Of autumn, tender, sad and grey,
Lay on the Eildon's triple height,
And lent a sadness to the day.

It fell on field and wood around,
Soft as a single leaf may fall;
It mingled with the river's sound,
And gave a meaning unto all.

And, as I slowly walked, I felt
An unseen presence step with me,
That gave to field and woodland belt
A universal memory.

173

I heard the Tweed, but in its voice
That came to me another rang;
I lent myself to dreams by choice—
I knew the mighty minstrel sang.

And, lo, as at a trumpet call,
I saw knights, grim of look, and bold,
Crash through the lists, or, dying, fall
Within their harness as of old;

I saw the royal pageant glide
In pennoned and in plumed array,
And barons in their armoured pride,
And silken ladies, glad and gay;

Grim warders on each Border keep,
To cry the foray when it nears—
I saw the rough-clad troopers sweep,
The moonlight gleaming on their spears,

All this, as in a mirror, passed,
A dim old world of sunken things,
To waken, as it did at last,
When one great Wizard touched the strings.

He sleeps beside the Tweed to-day,
Whose music mingles with his dream;
And this is why my footsteps stray,
And why I linger by the stream.

Thou river of the minstrel's heart,
Whose latest murmur reached his ear,
Thou soundest, as though far apart—
His only is the voice I hear.

Flow, then, around his sacred dust,
Through the long years that are to be,
And leave the Eildons to their trust,
To sentinel his memory.

174

A CASTLE OLD AND GREY.

I never see a castle
That is gaunt and grey and grim,
But my thoughts at once go backward
To the past so misty and dim.

To the time when tower and turret,
Kept watch far over the vale;
And along the sounding draw-bridge
Rode knights in their suits of mail.

I see the sunshine glancing
On helmet, pennon, and spear;
And hear from the depth of the forest,
A bugle calling clear.

I fill the hall with visions
Of ladies rich in their bloom;
And stately knights in armour,
And waving with feather and plume.

If I climb the broken stairway,
Where the stone is smooth and fine,
I hear a rustle and whisper,
And footsteps in front of mine.

Whisper of youth and maiden,
As they met in the long ago;
His deep and strong and manly,
Hers tender and sweet and low.

But maiden and youth have vanished,
Away from the scene and the light;
Gone, too, the high-born lady,
And the plumed and armoured knight.

Only the grey old castle,
Of crumbling stone and lime,
Still stands to speak of the ages,
And the iron footsteps of Time.

175

THE CAGED LARK.

Within an unseen cage he sings,
Hung high above t e rush of feet,
He ruffles up his little wings,
This poet of the noisy street.

I stop and look, but all in vain,
He pipes not near a single cloud,
And yet though soft as April rain
His melody is clear and loud.

What makes him sing? He cannot see
The green fields of his native place,
Nor hill and stream, nor glen and tree,
Nor haunts that suit his singing race.

Perchance a single sunbeam floats
About him where the space is dim;
He feels the light, and all his notes
Gush out: it is enough for him.

Bold heart! he knows in his own way
What that sweet touch of sunshine brings
From far-off fields the summer day
Whose light is that to which he sings.

Ah, would that I who stand and hear
His music, he himself unseen,
Could make my doubting heart his peer,
And sing of seasons that have been.

In vain. The narrow streets surround
A dull unthinking brain, and I
Can only touch a note where sound
Is heard, and only heard to die.

But he—he is so strong, and rife
With that large heart of his, that he
Draws from a spot of early life
Enough to make his melody.

176

And so he sings, hung far above
The daily round of eager feet,
And pours out from his heart of love
A gush of song upon the street.

THE GAME OF LIFE.

I heard a voice—the voice of Fate—
That whispered when the hour was late—
“The past claims all things soon or late.

“The little children on the street,
The youth, strong-limbed and swift of feet,
The bridegroom and the bride so sweet.

“The old man and his life-long mate,
Who watch the fire within the grate
At night when shadows form and wait.

“The king, who wears but for an hour
The golden circle of his power
And feels it a most dangerous dower.

“The warrior, who lays aside
The blood-red banner of his pride,
The sword whose steel perchance is dyed.”

All these and more—they pass from view,
But Life, still eager to pursue,
Whispers, “Shall we the game renew?”

So this came from the lips of Fate—
“Make the first move, I only wait,
The past claims all things soon or late.”

177

WHAT OF THE DIM OLD LEGENDS?

What of the dim old legends,
What of the story and song
That put this planet to slumber
Ere it grew to be mighty and strong?

Far back in the misty ages
It heard them in its sleep,
And it smiled, as smiles an infant
When its hand has something to keep.

It played with the toys of childhood,
And found such playing sweet,
And then when it grew to be older
It flung them down at its feet.

It grew into youth and manhood
When higher needs had to be,
And fashioned for prayer and worship
The gods and the creeds we see.

And slowly growing upward
It flung those creeds away,
And hurled from column and temple
The gods of marble and clay.

Then it saw with clearer vision
The forces of things that move,
And built high fanes to a worship
Of a wider and deeper love.

It moves with the roll of the ages,
It has faith in what is unseen,
It gathers the long procession
Of the years and what they mean.

But does it ever look backward
In this march of the mighty mind,
To see the wreck of its playthings
It has left so far behind?

178

OMAR KHAYYAM.

Was it of wine and all its purple glow,
Or roses when the seasons bade them blow,
That Omar Khayyam, he of Nashapur,
Sang in the centuries of long ago?

Or was the wine and blossom but a veil
To hide the doubts that fight and still prevail;
That life is but a rose that fades and dies,
And all the leaves are scattered to the gale;

That we but live a moment ere we die,
Let not the fleeting days go idly by;
But seize the cup and blossom ere they shrink,
And all the odours and the incense fly.

Or did the Preacher from another land
Reach forth, and touch him with a brother's hand,
Saying, “I touch thee with my spirit, and lo!
Come thou, and be with us, and all our band.”

Or he who, in despair, once thought to fight
The Voice that answered from the whirlwind's might;
Did he too touch him from the mystic east,
And set his spirit yearning for the light?

We know not; rather unto human things,
He looked himself and, touching all the strings,
Sang till his fingers struck the lower chords—
The hope that wavers, and the doubt that stings.

Perchance he saw with eager, open eyes,
This web of human life with all its dyes,
Woven with hand unseen within the dark,
And no one sees the shuttle as it flies.

This web of human life, so interwrought,
With warp and woof and colours rarely sought;

179

We see it being woven and in our heart
There lives the hunger of all eager thought.

Did Omar fail to catch the world-wide light,
And failing, could not read the problem right,
But left us, groping for the single path
That leads us from the shadows of the night?

Not sure himself, and hearing no reply
To questions put with eager lip and eye,
He turned to watch the roses bud and blow,
And all the idle moments saunter by.

AT THE GRAVE OF KEATS.

He sleeps beneath the violets,
That grow above him like regrets,
That he, so sick at heart should come
Here in the splendid past of Rome,
And lay him down to rest, nor crave
The glory of an English grave,
Where Fame might whisper soft and clear—
“An English poet's dust is here.”

But the gods loved him, and they drew
His spirit to theirs as winds the dew,
Until his music took the tone
And changing sorrow of their own.
Such sorrow as the waves will make,
When winds from slumber half awake,
And overhead is spread on high
The lonely distance of the sky.

They beat above him with the wreath
Of early song and early death;

180

They wove it round pale brows that felt
The glory of the doom they dealt.
That he should find an early home
Within their past and that of Rome,
Whose fading splendour should receive
The melody for which they grieve.

“Sleep then,” they said, “with flowers above,
And feel the doom of those we love—
Immortal youth apart from fears,
No dread of slowly waning years,
No time to touch the pulse or shake
The dews from off the heart, nor wake
The shadows into life, but be
Immortal as our love for thee.”

He sleeps with violets above
Whom Shelley's heart and England love.
He sleeps. O let him slumber on,
The past of Rome around him thrown.
So let him rest, nor for him crave
The glory of an English grave;
For Fame will whisper soft and clear—
“An English poet's dust is here.”

THE POET'S CHOICE.

Life said to the soul of the poet—
“Of the gifts I can offer to thee,
Thou hast turned from them all, and taken
A touch of sweet melody.

“Thine is the choice and thine only,
The joy and shadow it brings,

181

For by singing comes the sorrow
That is heard through human things.

“But I cannot give thee the laurel,
I can only inspire thy song;
And stand by thy side in battles
On the fields of right and wrong.

“Another than I must crown thee,
He must by thee be unseen,
Thou shalt only hear his whispers,
And thy heart shall know what they mean.

“Thou shalt see a brighter sunshine
Resting on wood and field;
And also a deeper shadow
With the fears that it may yield.

“In thy breast shall be the longing
For that which can never be known;
And the sorrows that fall on thy fellows
Shall be lighter than thine own.

“Thou shalt have to wrestle with passions
Far deeper and stronger than theirs;
If thou fallest thine is the burden
And the deep, long shame that it bears.

“Thou shalt ever be inly haunted,
As the low-winds haunt the trees,
With life and its wonderful changes,
And its endless mysteries.

“And ghostly feet shall follow,
To be heard of the inner ear,
Thine own, wherever they wander,
And none but thyself shall hear.”

182

IN A MANSE GARDEN.

Beside the manse the river flows
This sweet and tender summer day,
While soft winds wanton round the rose,
Or dally with the leaves and play.

There is so much of life to meet
The compass of the dreaming eye;
So much of what is fair and sweet
To linger for a moment by.

I sit upon the old stone seat,
I watch the valley far below
Through which, as if on silver feet,
The rippling wavelets dance and flow.

I know the woods, I know the fields,
And, as the brooding eye is cast
Upon them, each in silence yields
A something from the fading past.

A sense of youth when hope was high,
And life was sweet as sweet could be,
When overhead the smiling sky
Was blue and very fair to see.

I turn away: I slowly walk
The garden path; the scent of flowers
That hang upon the dewy stalk
Sheds sweetness through the summer hours.

The slightest stir is in the air;
Like nuns with hands upon their breast
Each blossom hangs, and everywhere
There is the perfect sleep of rest.

I pace the garden walk—I hear
A well-known whisper as I go;

183

It lingers gently in my ear,
Although the sound is faint and low.

I know the voice, and as I stand
I question half in doubt and fear—
“Now, where should be the kindly hand
When voice and footsteps are so near?”

No answer. Could there only be
One single touch, as friends may give
Each unto each, with “Lo! you see,
I touch thee knowing that I live.”

I know what spirit walks with me
This tender, silent summer day,
Though from one blossom that I see
A single petal drops away.

THE CRICKET'S SONG.

He will not sing his loudest song,
This poet full of love and mirth,
Until the shadows which belong
To night are deep upon the hearth.

And then he sings; the little room
Is full of his persistent glee;
I almost fancy that the gloom
Trembles, so loud of voice is he.

He fills the space around; his spell
Is over all in perfect bliss,
He pipes, and yet I could not tell
A single moment where he is.

And as I listen, far away,
I stray to dearer, earlier years,

184

When other hearts by night and day
Took kindly to his former peers.

They fed them, and when all the night
Drew down to make the shadows cling,
The room was full of their delight,
Such joy it was for them to sing.

Those hearts, alas! have done with time;
This latest singer of his race,
After long silence, comes to chime
This carol and to take their place.

And how he chirps! The little room
Is all too narrow for his mirth;
But let him sing to cheer the gloom,
This one true poet of the hearth.

I hear him; I am full of tears,
And cannot share his shrill delight;
Those hands that fed his early peers
Are lying on my own to-night.

THE CRICKET'S SILENCE.

Last year I sat within my room,
And heard the cricket in the gloom
Chirp out his palpitating lay,
As if he were on holiday.

I sat and heard him, for he brought
Sad things to sadden all my thought,
And, full of fancy, I could hear
Whispers that caught my eager ear.

And I was touched by ghostly hands
That reached to me from higher lands;

185

One touched me on the head; I bent,
I knew the touch and what it meant.

To-night no cricket can be seen
Or heard to chirp and trill between
The pauses; and the lonely hearth
Is lonelier wanting all his mirth.

Can he have met that fate which flings
Its shadow over human things,
And fled away from all I view,
Silent, like other voices, too?

I know not; only as I sit
And watch the firelight shadows flit,
The voice that trilled its rich delight
Last year is dumb to me to-night.

EVANESCENCE.

We are but shadows, and we pass
Like sunshine on the waving grass;

Shadows that live a little time,
As summer lives and breathes her prime.

We go; but she—she never grieves,
But forms her birth of infant leaves

For the next season, and they blow
Full, as a thousand years ago

They grew, and spread to winds unseen
Their paradise of dewy green.

So be it. In their high estate
The gods that rule our human fate

Have fixed it; and their high stern doom
Is, that our race must have a tomb.

186

Ah, who so bold of heart can say
The high gods shall not have their sway.

We fight in vain; our paltry life
Sinks like a bubble in the strife.

But all the seasons still renew
The colour which they hold their due.

But man. He only lives to pass
Like floating shadows on the grass.

SWEET SEVENTEEN.

Never through all the years to be
Can there be such a night as that night we know,
When we two stood by a hawthorn tree,
High up on a hill where the night winds blow.
Never can come such another night,
When your whisper was warm with a maiden's love,
And the stars above us were burning bright,
They will never again shine so sweet above.

Well, well, it is something after all,
In the short fleet years that the high gods give,
If into our lives some moments fall,
So full and sweet that we know we live.
And such was that night when the wind was south,
Soft as your breath, and the sighs between,
And I clasped you, dear, and felt on my mouth
The kiss of a girl of seventeen.

The years may come, and the years may go,
Draw strength from the blood and light from the eye;
There is something yet that they do not know,
A something that will not fade or die.

187

And I turn myself to the gods and say,
If they hear in their halls of idle bliss,
It is out of your power to snatch away
That starry night and that long sweet kiss.

BLYTHE WILLIE STEWART.

I'm growin' auld, an' no' sae yauld,
Nor yet sae gleg as I ha'e been;
But whiles, when I am a' my lane,
I licht my pipe an' steek my een.

Then in a crack auld things come back—
Auld things I canna weel forget;
An' in my ear at ance I hear
Blithe Willie Stewart's fiddle yet.

O, weel could Willie Stewart play,
An' jig his elbow gleg an' fell—
The best bow han' in a' Scotlan',
He aften tauld me sae himsel'.

An' wha like him could start a reel,
Or country dance in barn or ha'?
It weel was kent through a' the toon
That Willie Stewart beat them a'.

What nichts we had in Willie's hoose
When by the fire we gathered roun',
When he spak' oot fu' sharp an' croose—
“Nellie, come rax the fiddle doon.”

An' he would gi'e the bow a screw,
An' then, wi' mony a jink an' sweep,
Play till we daun'ered to oor beds
To hear him playin' in' our sleep.

188

He learnt us a', forbye, to dance,
For nane could teach like him ava';
His gleg blue een would gi'e a glance
Alang the couples in a raw.

An' “Move away,” he cried, an' laid
The bow upon the fiddle strings;
An, though I ha'e to say't mysel',
We did some maist surprisin' things.

I min' a waddin' I was at,
A dozen guid Scotch miles away;
I danced until they a' did glowre,
An' whisper—“Whaur does he come frae?”

I think they thocht that I had come
Across the seas frae foreign lan's,
Till ane came up and said—“I see
Ye've been through Willie Stewart's han's.”

He hasna left his like ahin',
An' wha are they that tak' his place?
Ane wan'ered half a mile frae hame,
Anither lost his fiddle-case.

They can do nocht but scart an' scrape
Among the strings like ony hen;
To hear them at it is eneuch
To pit what hair ane has on en'.

I carena for your foreign airs
Wi' names that break your jaws to speak;
Wi' a' their quavers an' their slides,
They turn my heart to hear their squeak.

But gi'e me Willie at his best,
His brain clear wi' a glass or twa;
An' I wad wager half a croon
That he wad fairly ding them a'.

189

I'm growin' auld, an' no' sae yauld,
An' gettin' stiff aboot the knee;
An' whiles I think a foursome reel
Wad be the very death o' me.

But if blithe Willie could come back
To life the bow and play the reel—
Say “Lady Mary Ramsay”—fegs!
I think I yet could shake my heel.

Auld Willie's gane wi' a' his fun,
The fate o' men an' human things;
His fiddle's hingin' on the wa',
An' wha is left to touch its strings?

The best bow han' in a' the lan'
Is kirkyaird dust, as we maun be;
But still we'll min' the sweet langsyne,
An' Willie wi' his gleg blue ce.

ALEXANDER BROWN,

Man and Poet.

True man and poet, in whose verse is seen
The golden tints of autumn and the thought
That links these unto man and to his lot,
That passes as the shadow that has been;
Thine eyes have sentinelled the changeful scene
In which we live and pass, as doth the mote
Within the beam, yet ever quick to note
Hope bending over graves whose grass is green.
There be far louder voices on the hill
Of which Fame shrills her trumpet. Let it be.
Calm only follows when the clamours end,
And in that tender calm thou singest still;
But sweeter than thy singing unto me
Is this—the boon of calling thee my friend.

190

ISA IN THE GARDEN.

Isa in the garden stands,
And the winds, with unseen hands,
Lift the midnight of her hair
From her brow so white and fair.

Isa plucks with finger-tips
One sweet rose; her crimson lips
Match the colour and the tone,
But the dew is all their own.

And I think, as Isa stands
With the rose within her hands,
Other sounds are in her ear
Than the river's gliding near.

Whispers soft as whispers be
When love lends its voice, and she
Hears its thrilling music stream
Through the wonder-gate of dream.

And then gentle whispers say—
“Isa, Isa, come away,
We have in our fairy bower
One sweet spray of orange flower;

“This we keep to clasp your brow
When your heart has breathed its vow,
And you move away beside
One who claims you as his bride.”

Isa smiles as still she stands
With the rose within her hands,
So I turn away and leave
Isa yet a maiden Eve.

191

THE PORTRAIT.

[_]

(Recited by the poet on the occasion of the presentation of his Portrait, painted by W. S. MacGeorge, R.S.A., December 16th, 1891.)

So thanks again; in after years
That down the slope of time will range,
With fading hopes and many fears,
And the slow certitude of change.

When fancy veils with folded wing
Her dreamless eyes, and drops her wand,
She will not stoop to lift and bring
One vision from her fairy land.

When the dull blood takes languid pace,
And all the weary brain will tire;
When thoughts but kindle up a space,
Then flicker like a sinking fire.

When looking backward here we see
A narrow strip of dusty road,
Now dim within the past, that we
From boyhood up to manhood trod.

Along that road were toil and strife
And clang from dusky things of steam,
But still to sweeten all that life
Was something of the poet's dream.

And this made all things sweet and fair,
Touched the hard hours with glowing light;
Made other sunshine in the air,
And moonshine on our dreams by night.

What though those dreams of heart and brain
Have fled with all the goals they miss;
The toil was nothing—rather gain—
When it has led us up to this.

192

And so in after years, when I
Am busy with the fading past,
And dreaming as the shadows fly,
Like ghosts, from sinking embers cast,

Then it may be that, looking on
This other self, my thoughts will range
And whisper to myself alone,
“Thou changest,” this can never change.

And gazing still at what I see,
The past with all this night shall blend,
Until it fades and leaves with me
The dream-face of each kindly friend.

IN AN ALBUM,

At High Creoch, Gatehouse.

You ask me for a line or two—
I never write in rainy weather—
But I suppose that I must do
My best to string some rhymes together.
What shall it be? “A song,” you say,
“Stuck full of doves and all that fashion;”
Alas! I cannot pipe that way,
Or imitate an early passion.

Besides, to really write a song
To some young maiden who could love me;
Two double verses—not too long—
I'd like to have the sun above me.
I'd like to have him shine upon
The paper—and if this were granted,
The rhymes would trip up, one by one,
In order just as they were wanted.

193

Of course I own that you have heard
Of poets who were more unbending,
Who could at any time, when stirred,
Spin out their couplets without ending.
All this I grant, but bear in mind
My muse has but a humble pinion,
And cannot reach her higher kind,
Or even sit in their dominion.

But look! against the window pane
The wind like any fiend is dashing;
A steady flood of drenching rain,
Which saves, of course, a lot of washing.
But, for a poet out of town
For holiday, it stands to reason,
To ask his muse to flutter down
'Tis scarcely just the proper season.

Enough, I say, come Muse of mine—
Who, strange to say, has lately missed me—
And give me something in the line
Of Leigh Hunt's charming “Jenny Kissed Me.”
A fact! she did, or, let me see,
I think we both laid lips together.
At anyrate, take this from me—
I never write in rainy weather.

THE COVENANTER'S TRYST.

I am auld an' frail, an' I scarce can gang,
Though whiles when I tak' a turn,
It's only when the sun blinks oot
On the braes by the Vennel Burn.

194

Then I tak' a look at the Kirkland Heichts,
An' up at Glen Aylmer Hill,
Then a kinder look at the auld kirkyaird
Where the dead sleep soun' an' still.

It's a dear kirkyaird at the fit o' the hills,
For it hauds the dust o' ane
Wha was true as the steel o' his ain gude sword,
An' stood by his kith an' kin.
He tak's his rest, wi' nae stane at his heid,
But I ken that Ane in the skies
Could come this nicht to the auld kirkyaird
An' point oot where he lies.

O, sleep ye soun', bauld Patrick Laing,
As ye ha'e been sleepin' for years;
I am frail and feckless, but still in my heart
Your name is saft wi' my tears.
The sands o' my life are unco few,
An' I ha'ena an hour to tyne,
But I ken fu' weel in the auld kirkyaird
Your dust will welcome mine.

An' there we twa will sleep fu' soun'
Wi' the green grass owre oor head,
Till the years bring roun' the richt to a'
For which Scottish bluid ran red.
Then the Lord will come doon in the licht o' the sun,
When the last sweet day shall dawn;
An' we'll rise frae oor graves, an' He'll meet us there,
An' tak' us baith by the han'.

The Cairn Hills lie on the other side
Wi' the sweet Nith rowin' atween,
An' there sleep twa leal frien's o' mine—
Aul' frien's o' the days that ha'e been.

195

They are waitin' for me as I for them,
An' it canna langer be,
For I ken that baith ha'e a tryst wi' the Lord,
An' He has a tryst wi' me.

I ken fu' weel that they wait an' wait
Till they hear the trumpet ca',
Then Hair an' Corson will rise an' cry—
“The time has come for us a'.”
An' I mysel', a frail, auld man
That unco weel can be spared,
Will meet them baith at the fit o' the hill,
At the tree in the auld kirkyaird.

They dee'd as only men should dee,
For their faither's faith an' hame,
An' they lie wi' their face to the open sky,
Wi' nae touch on their cheek o' shame.
It will a' come richt, when the Lord in his micht,
Comes doon frae heaven to see,
For I ha'e a tryst in the auld kirkyaird,
An' the Lord has a tryst wi' me.

I ha'e heard bauld Cameron preach the Word
On the side o' a Sanquhar brae,
While I sat wi' the sword atween my knees,
As ane wha should watch an' pray;
An' I had my plaid drawn owre my heid,
An' open upon my knee
The Word o' Ane that I brawly kenned
Wad keep min' o' His tryst wi' me.

I ha'e lain in hags when the winter nicht
Was bitter an' lang an' cauld,
I ha'e shared my plaid wi' Renwick, too,
When the winds were snell an' bauld;

196

An' Peden, worn wi' the fire o' the Word,
An' thinly cled for the storm—
I ha'e lain a' nicht wi' my back to the win'
To keep puir Sandy warm.

I ha'e seen dark Clavers turn his back,
On his lips the snarl o' a dog,
An' strike spurs deep in his deein' steed
As he fled frae wild Drumclog;
But I saw him again at Bothwell Brig,
An' the hilt an' point o' his sword
Were red with the blood o' the saints that day
That fell with their trust in the Lord.

I am stiff wi' the midnicht rains that fell
As I lay in Blagannoch Moss;
But little I care for a rickle o' banes—
I gi'ed them a' for the Cross.
I ha'e focht the fecht, I ha'e set my faith
Where I trust though I canna see—
It wad be a ferly, atweel, if the Lord
Should fail in His tryst wi' me.

A' the leal, true hearts that were ance wi' me
They are free frae their care an' pain,
An' I am the last that is left to tell
O' the things that are sunk an' gane.
There is peace ance mair, an' I sleep in a bed
As soun' as soun' can be;
But this nicht I fin' that I canna lie doon,
For the Lord has a tryst wi' me.

Could my wife but lay her han' in mine,
As she used to do langsyne;
But Marion Dryfe is years in her grave,
An' a lanely hearth is mine.

197

But her dochter's weans are unco guid,
An' do a' they can for me;
I hear her speak an' I hear her fit
As they hing about my knee.

Hark! voices are comin' doon in the win',
I ha'e heard them mony a day—
Peden, Renwick, Corson, an' Hair,
An' Cameron shout for the fray.
But higher an' sweeter abune them a'
A Voice keeps cryin' to me—
“John Harkness, hast thou min' o' our tryst
That I set langsyne wi' thee?”

Pit the weans to their bed—gang a' to your bed,
I canna langer be spared;
I hear a Voice that nane o' ye hear,
An' it comes frae the auld kirkyaird.
It's growin' dark—pit some peats on the fire,
An' lay the Book on my knee;
For I ha'e a tryst wi' the Lord this nicht,
An' the Lord has a tryst wi' me.

THE QUICK AND DEAD.

The silent dead go marching down,
With not a single banner flown;
But if you only bend your ear
Their funeral marches you can hear.

They step to time; the march is slow,
In deep, thick columns as they go;
And over all the still, thick air
Falls with a silence everywhere.

198

The living meet them on their way,
With banners flying, and display;
Quick step and sounds of drum and fife
Lead out the teaming ranks of life.

You hear the shout of quick command,
You see the lifting of a hand;
But ever on they press to see
The hidden goals of things to be.

The armies of the quick and dead
They pass each other; one with tread
Joyous to meet the coming fight
That looms before their eager sight.

The other marches deep and slow,
But ever voiceless as they go,
With not a single banner flown,
And not a single trumpet blown.

JOHN CROSBIE'S SHOON.

Ane sings the lassie that he lo'es,
Gangs daft aboot her lips an' een;
Anither, burns, an' heichts, an' howes,
An' a' the places he has seen.
For me, sic things I dinna heed;
But could I lilt an' raise a tune,
I'd do my best to gi'e a screed,
An' try an' sing John Crosbie's shoon.