University of Virginia Library

‘Democrat! Socialist!’ Sir William said;
‘What is a democrat and socialist?
An arrant knave that feigns to be a fool!
Pooh! pooh! this lad of mine's too wise for that!
And if he have a maggot in his brain,
There's nothing that will cure it sharp and fast
Like being, as he'll be when I am gone,
Sir Michael Villiers of Villiers Keep! You cure
Your churchman's madness with a mitre, sir;
You give your democrat a handled name;
You set your socialist to owning land,
And dower him with responsibility;
And straight, no democrat, no socialist,
But a true blue. What, do you think I say
Michael is not sincere? Forsooth, not I;
There's no sincerer soul on English ground.
But he is young, and hot young brains will seethe,
And hot young hearts will waste their store of blood
In beating far too fast. He's a good lad,
And does his duty, and he loves me too;
But no one who has never felt his hand
Close with the owner's grip can comprehend
The owner's duties. It is true, indeed,
He has been son and more than son to me,
And held my pursestrings lately as myself;
But he's not master yet. Well, by-and-by,
He'll sober down, and wed, and get an heir,
And teach him better than his uncle could
The duty of a landed gentleman:
For Michael knows his duty very well.
He has made me see my duty better, sir,
Than I had seen it, I'm ashamed to own,
Ere his keen eyes had looked into the ways
Of my good agent and the hand he played
In that poor God-forgotten country, where
My sister, may God bless her, died sometime.
(She dreamt strange things before our Michael came:
Perhaps they somehow haunt my nephew still.)
I knew not, no, nor cared; I know and care
A little now; it's owing to the boy.
It would not be enough for him, you see,
As used to be for me, and more's the shame,
To hunt at Lisnagh every other year,
And make the little village tradesmen thrive,
Nor laugh too much to see them write themselves
‘Purveyors to Her Majesty the Queen,
The Lord Lieutenant, and Sir William Villiers.’
Then back to merry England once again.
I did my duty to my English lands
Better than that; and better still for him;
Though yet, I know, there's room for betterment.
Look through his eyes, you'll see a trifle more
Than through the eyes of men like you and me:
And to see more is not so bad a thing.
Let the lad call himself whate'er he like,
He is the stuff that God makes good men of.’