University of Virginia Library

BOOK VI. SONNETS OF THE NORTH-EAST COAST.

I. ON SHINING SANDS.

When I lament how many seem to go
Blurring the heaven reflected at their feet,
Unthinking that the upward gaze is sweet,
Not daring, oceanwards, to breast the blow
Of those long crashing walls of falling snow,
And, out beyond, the hurricance to meet,
Their blind lives ventureless and incomplete
Because so little of the world they know,—
A voice makes answer, You, who breast the foam
And look into the face of heaven, forget
The downcast hearts, sad eyes, and feebler hands:
For these the shores in glory shining wet
Make life's dull level seem an Angel's home;
These find their rainbows on the foam-wreathed sands.

II. GEORGE WISHART,

MARTYRED AT SAINT ANDREWS, MARCH 1, 1545.

Deep in the Castle donjon by the sea
He heard the waves with intermittent shock
Boom—and the winds his misery seemed to mock
With voice of freedom—but his soul was free.
He knew false Peter held the prison key,
And one lie told, his fetters would unlock:
Willing he stood, self-shut within the rock,
And from that rock he drank perpetually,
Rock-natured grown. But since by that stern road
Of hissing faggot and slow shrivelling flame
Alone could fullest liberty be won,
Whilst the grim Cardinal looked moveless on,
He bore the Cross, contemptuous of the shame,
And passed through fire and tempest straight to God.

IV. ON READING, AFTER HIS DEATH, PRINCIPAL SHAIRP'S LAST PUBLIC LECTURE ON HOGG, THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

King of the half-forgotten world of fays,
When Mab was queen among the Elfin band
A blight has fallen upon our northern land,
No Brownies dance down Ettrick's forest braes,
Where Douglas runs to Yarrow, but thy praise
Lives through his lips who well could understand
How Nature into flame thy fancy fanned,
And drank thy full imagination's rays.
No more on Hawkshaw Rig the shepherd's son
Weaves, to the murmur of melodious streams,
What tales he learned beside his mother's knee,
But somewhere on a lily-blossomed lea,
He leads the pure Kilmeny gently on,
And finds another friend to share his dreams.

VI. ON THE LINKS, SAINT ANDREWS.

Nerves at full stretch, with cool considerate hand,
The golfer strikes, away the white ball flies,
And lost to sight, for all but practised eyes,
Scatters the dew, or runs along the sand.
Now by nice care, and choice of weighted wand,
Mid language strange, “cliques” “bunkers” “puts” and “tries,”
The ball, that flew, creeps on, and halting, dies:
Dropped to the tomb towards which its course was planned.
Another course there is, with diverse goals,
Two walk those Links, and neither are agreed:
Love with its angel wish to help and save,
Hate with desire to harm the woman's seed:
And o'er life's hill and hollow speed our souls,
By foe and friend close-followed to the grave.

VII. TO M. K. ON HER EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY.

SAINT ANDREWS.

Dear girl, of all the shells to-morrow's tide
Shall from the bounteous ocean cast ashore,
Though each some sweet congratulation bore,
One shell must needs be added, one beside
All others to be cherished! It will hide
Within its whispering-gallery at the core
A jewel for thine ear; sought out the more,
Lest oceanwards ungathered it may slide
For Aphrodite's keeping. Happy girl,
Upon whose brow the eighteenth March has set
Grace and sweet bloom, be wise, the god of Love
Works even of friendship sorrow. Pure the pearl
I offer for your birthday coronet:
Pearl is but pain with rainbow overwove.

VIII. FAREWELL TO SAINT ANDREWS.

Farewell, thou city of the thousand years,
High o'er the reefs the Achaian sailors knew,
And Acca with his bold Northumbrian crew
Made famous. Strong sea-music in thine ears
Works its continual charm, and still thy seers
From thought's high cliff the storms of doubt may view,
And guide to safety. Still in royal hue,
Though kings are past, young scholarhood appears.
Shades haunt thee—bishops, kings, one fair queen's face,
Protesting martyr, Rome's fierce Cardinal,
And that stern Preacher, he who shook thy towers
And broke thine altars; great amongst them all,
Those pillars of thine Academic bowers,
Gracious in wisdom one—one wise in grace.

IX. BAMBOROUGH CASTLE.

High on its rock the ruddy castle glowed,
Like some huge monster, crawled from out the seas,
The isles of Farne, Northumbria's Cyclades,
Broke the blue tide that toward the fortress flowed;
Thither his forty keels bold Ida rowed,
There Aidan bent the saintliest of knees,
And Oswald's hand, that heard the beggar's pleas
And could not taste corruption, alms bestowed.
No saints seek refuge now, no warriors come,
Thy use is gone, thou tower-encircled steep—
But like the spring of Bebban's basalt well
Thou dost renew thy strength; thy citadel
Is garrisoned with girls who learn to keep
By arts of peace the inviolable home.

X. GRACE DARLING.

She lies beneath her canopy of stone,
No sun comes nigh her now, nor any star,
But that tower-beacon, where the islets are,
Guards well her memory and the brave deeds done.
And still the oar by which her fight was won
Rests in her hand, and though the salt winds scar
Her face, and bruise her sleep, that tale of war
'Twixt soul and wave triumphantly goes on.
Land of the island warrior, since the day
That Saxon Ida and his forty prows
Brought force and passion and the sea-king's pride
To climb yon castle rock, this little bay
Has seen how deeds of battle fade, and knows
How only thoughts of mercy can abide.

XI. AT ALNMOUTH.

Not for the dead, not for the dead, O Lord,
But for the living ever in Thy sight,
The souls made perfect in the perfect light,
Whose hands are ever on truth's keenest sword,
For these we sorrow, and in full accord
Aln, as she winds from Percy's castled height,
Makes moan, yet runs unlingering to the bight
By yonder mound, where dead men's bones are stored.
But in this amphitheatre of green
There is such mimic gladiatorial show,
The net, the ball, the golf-club blow on blow,
That Aln runs back and brims her banks between:
Life, thoughtless life, as innocent as gay,
Has such strong power to charm, she needs must stay.

XII. WARKWORTH CASTLE HILL.

Here, like a shy sad lover, comes the sea
And strives in vain to circle round thy waist,
Thou haughty hill, as proud as thou art chaste,
But still abashed must leave thee fancy-free.
Then when the rains have soaked the moorland lea,
The river woos thee, thou art nigh embraced
By one who knows the girdle to thy taste
And offers liquid gold for silver fee.
But never yet has that tower-circled brow
Stooped to be kissed of river or of wave;
Thou art unfettered as the winds that rave,
And, such a sense of freedom thou hast won,
That even Fitzpatrick's bastions are laid low
To let thee kiss the stars and woo the sun.