University of Virginia Library

SONNETS

APRIL.

Yonder comes April, on her lip a smile
And in her eye a tear! She has the look
Of one whose face is as an open book
Yet thinks her harmless secret safe the while.
Her half-aversion is a childish wile
To win a welcome from you; in the nook
Of the sweet eye a tear has just forsook
Lurks a blue ring that would a saint beguile!
—How shall we welcome her? Why, as a child
Returning from a ramble, half afraid
Her absence may have vexed her mother mild,
While through the pathless woods alone she strayed;
And waiting till her father once has smiled
And spread his arms and called his little maid.

NIGHT.

Night lifts her shadowy arms above the earth,
And breathes a benediction o'er the town;
And eyes are closed, and aching heads go down,
And silence sits by the forsaken hearth.
And now in dreams to pale neglected Worth
Come recognition and a cool green crown,
And these have friends for every waking frown
And those for every misery now have mirth.
O blessèd sleep! that like a curtain nightly
Drops on this tragi-comedy of man.
And blessèd, too, ye heaven-sent dreams, that rightly
Transform the piece to the original plan.
But best the buskined close—however lightly
Hope slipped the sock on when the play began!

A BACK-LYING FARM.

“THY WILL BE DONE.”

A Painting by Sir Noel Paton.

I.—THE PAINTING.

'Twas in the painter's choice: he might have framed
A figure more commanding, and a face
Earthlier fairer and of finer grace,
And none that loves the Saviour would have blamed.
But wiser he: so should a form that aimed
At drawing all men to him take a place
No ways superior to the common race,
In proof he was not of their state ashamed.
And so—no hero, cased as if in mail
With adventitious halo of romance;
No strong-built athlete, never known to ail,
Proud of his strength, defiant in his glance;
But looking as if liable to fail,
With nothing to commend him or enhance.

II.—TO THE PAINTER.

TENANTLESS.

A level waste, where sheep are starving drear,
And lapwings breed, and sapless windle-straws,
Weakly submissive to the gusty flaws,
For ever round the waste forlornly veer,—
In midst whereof, most desolate, appear
Four grey walls round an empty house: you pause
As you pass by, and ask what fool he was
That built, and brought his household darlings, here?
No pathway through the waste leads to the door
That fronts the snow-cold hills; the lake between,
When, as to-day, a north wind's blowing keen,
Sends to the very doorstep, cold and hoar,
Patches of flying foam:—a dreary scene!
Thank heaven! to be lived in by child no more!

ON GRANTON PIER.

Well, this is what I saw on Granton pier:
In front, the Firth!—“Oh, that is nothing new!”
Ay, but you never saw a bonnier blue
Than its glad waters wore; the day was clear,
And—you may laugh—to me they seemed to rear
Their waves in actual joy! Now, this is true—
One of the waves took wings, became a mew,
And sunward rose upon a new career!
Across the Firth I saw the coast of Fife
With here a cliff and there a nestling town;
And here and there the hillsides showed the strife
Of April green contesting winter brown;
And eastward far the horizon's edge was rife
With clean white sails that rose and sank adown.

ON LOMOND HILL.

The top at last! . . . All hail, celestial blue!
Mother of Freedom, where the winds are nurst
And the clouds fly, and sunbeams through them burst,
Gilding this old earth till it shines anew!
From thy broad bosom also drops the dew
As duly on the grass as at the first
Ere storms were known, and the green earth was curst,
And Man from Nature within walls withdrew.
—Yonder, far o'er the Firth, what smoky blot
Stains the pure ether? Ah! I know it: there
The Town-Witch, crooning o'er her seething-pot,
Compounds and brews for man infernal fare!
Thee and thy stews, black Witch! from this high spot
I solemnly for one whole week forswear!