Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Poems

By Robert Leighton: 2nd ed

Leighton, Robert (1822-1869)

POEMS

[The world rejoices when the living spring]

RECORDS.

SONNETS.

THE WOODLAND-TEMPLE.

THE WORLD'S FALSENESS.

IF THOU WOULD'ST BE A POET.

SCOTTISH POEMS.

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POEMS

[The world rejoices when the living spring]

The world rejoices when the living spring
That well'd in secret through some great good heart,
Breaks up into the light. But wherefore give
Your little secrets to a busy world?—
Alas! do I not live, and breathe God's air
That makes one brotherhood of great and small?
The poorest heart, when it beats out its life
In sweet sincerity, becomes a fount
Where all might quench some thirst—e'en while they smiled
At weaknesses reveal'd, and sins confess'd.—
In this I rest my hope, that what may seem
Needless obtrusion pleads its own excuse;
Since much of what I give, was in its day
The impulse that I could not choose but write.

RECORDS.

II. [Was ever greater truant! I who know]

Was ever greater truant! I who know
That my salvation lies in thee alone—
Who never gave a brief hour of my heart
All over to thee, but the angels came
And bathed my blind lids with their dews of Heaven,
Till I, of poorest insight, even I
Could see the fine light wherein poets dream!
Yet have I left thee, Poesie, as if
Thou, and not I, were the uplifted one.

O blame the weight of the restraining earth,
And not the heart that would for thee aye beat;
Nor yet the head that sees how truly thou
Must be the God-sent mistress of my love.
I never slight thee but my mind becomes
A sunless plot that lies to the bleak north,
And ever seems to be in the year's back end:
A dismal, dreary place, of stunted growth,
And only by the lapwing's desolate cry
Startled at times into a lone weird life.
If thou art long away my heart runs waste,
Rank weeds o'errun the garden of my brain,
And choke the flowers which thou hast planted there.
But give thee hearty welcome,—like a sun
Thou swimm'st into my being, and my heart
Is jubilant as May; and, like a sky
Of unseen larks, life rings, I know not whence.

If through my being I could shape thy course
Like a bold river with broad cliffy banks,
My life would be the rich and joyous vale
Through which it runs. But I am undefined,
And can but give thee flat and sedgy bounds.—
Full forced and lavish as thy bounteous source,
Thou leapest from God's hills into my heart,
But suddenly art lost within a marsh,
And thy clear voice grows husky in the reeds.
It is a sluggish and a fruitless land!

O is there no rich soil beneath this mire?
I'll drain the fens, or sink with all my work!—
My thirsty nature gulps the living stream,
And gives none out: it stagnates, and is seen
Only in miry pools. But through my life
I'll bank a river's bed: the fenny lands
Shall pay dear tribute in a thousand rills,
And give an earthy warmth unto the flow
That comes from Heaven's hills; which else were clear
But chilly as the light of winter stars:
Chilly to human hearts, though to the gods
The life-blood of their veins.

O pure and cold
The things we cannot reach! Duty is cold;
Stern Virtue, God Himself!—We bask in Sloth,
As on a grassy slope at summer noon;
Vice draws us to it like an evening fire;
And Godlessness is like a tropic air,

It slackens thought and gives an unnerved bliss.
A sensuousness clings to us like a shell:
From Duty, Virtue, God, we shrink like snails
Into this Frailty, and deem all safe.
Weak fools! but wiser Fate! a passing foot
May crush us out on Duty, Virtue, God.

To him that shrinks from frost the frost is cold.
Let him go forth and meet it, and it warms
More kindly than red brands. The way to life
Is towards forbidding things: growth in approach;
In nearness, love; and reach'd, the soul's great life.

God gives out His divinity in rays
That reach the earth; and Poesie is one.
Souls faithful to the lode grow up to God,
Each missioned by the genius of his ray.
But faithless truants meet as faithless guides
That lead into the sloughs: a wandering lamp
Hangs out before; the furies dog behind;
And thus they grope about the miry night.
And when each morn God's sun wakes up the day,
He finds them ever groping where they were!
Nor shuns he them like sanctimonious saint,
But with his bright and all-embracing eye
Seeks to reclaim them.

Brothers of the dark,
Our sun breaks every day: we heed him not—

The insulted, slighted, most forgiving sun!
A revell'd night are our lost yesterdays,
All huddled into one, each day shut out.
Forget them as one night—what loss in that?
Eternity is round it. Be next dawn
Our first income of light. God never breathes
But through the infinitude each faithful soul
Receives its special want. O, brothers, watch!
We've singed our wings like moths in a false light,
And cannot with the larks meet dawn i' the clouds:
But see! the sky is ruffling in the east
Like a calm sea before a landing ship,
And we are on the shore with leaping hearts
To meet long parted friends. Soon will the sun
Lie high and dry upon the eastern strand,
And earth be stirring as a disembarkment.
We'll lose each other then. Each waiting heart
Fill'd with its own lost ray, base loves shall pale,
Like tapers of the night when day's let in,
And truer vision come with truer light.

Henceforth I live and die with my heart's love.
We rise or fall together. If I fail
To woo her as the world deems worthily,
Still have I peace of mind in having given
My poor best up to my most worthy love.
Failure in this were peace and joy at last.
Successes fanning from all other points
Were misery, so this were left unstrived.

I give her all my being in the faith
That he who gives his all of love and will
Can never fail, but—though the outer works
Of his dear acts become no worshipp'd fane,
Be all unworthy of a world's regard,
And fail to it—still bears within himself
The true wage of success—the having done.
And he has built his temple to the gods.

Lead where thou wilt, I'll follow. Deeper trust
Is with me now than when, in the young time,
Thou led'st me into sunny showers of thought,
Wherein my utterance was like that of dreams—
All clear and full while in the dream; but, waked,
Dim, poor and meaningless; until again
Thy show'ry light came, and the same weak words
Were big with their lost meaning.—In the night
The earth's green loses meaning, and her flowers
Are all one eyeless black: but when she walks
In beamy day, the meadows and the flowers
Get back their lost expression. Who shall say
The night, and not the day, brings out the true?

`Thou art my sunlight. I have learn'd to know
The highest as the truest; to trust more,
Light that discovers even a changeful sense,
Than Dark that may confound it, but gives none.—
O if thou art indeed a ray from God,
And if in thee I have my highest reach,
My deepest ecstasy, my best of life,—

What then but give a dedicated heart?
What then! but that the Universal Love
Beats like a heart in nature, pulsing out
Its deep flood to extremities of soul,
And moves us, all unconscious and despite
Our partial likings, to the good in all.

But, Poesie, thou art God's broadest beam—
The secret life, the charm of all our loves.
If I may not go heart and hand with thee,
Come thou and go with me. If I must cling
To things that in my soul I do not love—
Things that yet share the universal good—
Be with me; be the light to show the good.

III. [Bewilder'd in a maze of crowding themes]

Bewilder'd in a maze of crowding themes,
O'erwhelm'd with multiplicity of books—
Each calling out “Lo, here! I am the way”—
And seeing more to do than can be done,
I idly stand, not knowing what to do:
And with a dim perception of a journey,
I loiter here in doubt which way to take.
Thou fool, do anything—take any way
That is not labell'd to thy conscience wrong;
For all are from one source, and to one end.

Know thou, the smallest atom is a door
Into God's temple, and if we but had
The secret of its opening, one step,
At anytime, would lead us into paradise.
And never doubt but that we are surrounded
With pleaders, great and small, that bid us come.
The heaving ocean everlastingly
With its big errand pants, and twice a day
Entreats a special hearing. Canst receive
That universal language? Listen well;
For all things speak it, and it is the tongue
That Spirits use:—
Yon silvery slipper'd brook,
That, with a ceaseless prattle from the hills,
Comes nimbly tripping o'er the mossy stones,
Cannot contain its joy: “Come thou with me—
Into my being let thy spirit slip,
Gliding as in a dream, and I will take
Thee to the green banks of thy spirit home”:—
The monarch sun that draws the adoring gaze
Of worlds, has still a special word for man:
“Though outward light should blind thy outward eye,
Turn not thy gaze from me; thy inner orb
Will open to new seeing and new light;
And know thou this: the outward mortal is
A symbol of the inward everlasting”:—
The stars in their long watches of the night,
Are ever shedding incense on our hearts,
Loving a lone heart more than gilded altar:
“O not with searching telescope canst thou

Our glory reach, not in round numbers tell
The mystery of our nature: If thou wouldst
Receive the God-sent message of the stars,
Then hang upon us with a poet's eye
That loves us for our beauty, and seeks not
Too curiously our secrets, yet drinks in
The unseen essence that enriches him,
And makes him the most wise astronomer”:—
And who on autumn night ne'er felt the moon
Creep through him like a maiden's soul that is
With love's fine fire a-glow? Old Night's fair child,
That in chaste maidenhood must aye remain—
Rich in a dower of renewing youth:
Wherefore her office is to woo young hearts
And lead them gently to a higher love.
O I have seen—about the harvest time—
When most young hearts into their moon-age pass—
I have, myself, seen then, upon the air,
Rushing between our own earth and the moon,
Thousands of bright and starry threads of fire;—
They were not star-lights shooting to the earth,
But emanated from love-kindled souls
Upon the earth, and centred in the moon.
I've seen a Poet on the dreamy shore—
The ocean in deep slumber at his feet,
With scarce the motion of a sleeper's breast,
The full moon lapping all in milky light,
He, like a statue, staring into her—.
Become, methought, so lustrous in himself,
That, even in that shiny night, he glow'd

Like palest marble on a ground of black:
And thus he stood, drawing down light from heaven,
Until the moon went out and earth was dark;
Yet he was not; and then it was I saw
The light he drew was not the moon's alone,
But that which flows inside of hers—unseen
Till garner'd in the cumulating soul.
But not the waters and the stars alone!
All things, in sea and air and on the earth,
Are half invisible to outward sight,
Walling the Eden of our destiny.
But yet they tell, in mutterings and shadows,
The mysteries beyond; and he that once
Has caught the unknown tongues, been startled with
The shadows, like a wing swept o'er his soul,
Is ever after glorified, has found
The opening and the everlasting way.

We may not enter wholly but by death,
Which is our passport. For the present 'tis
Enough for us to listen from without,
And read the words and signs that on us break—
Deep in the forest fanes, 'mid Druid oaks,
Where silence is so silent that it may
Be strangely heard in many whisper'd voices
That speak together from behind the trees:—

Away among the glens, where, like a god,
The eagle sits upon its thronèd peak,
Gleaming like gold far up amid blue air,

And drawing out the earth-stains of our hearts,
To the dispersion of his airy cliffs:—

On mountain ridges where the young winds come
Out of the vales to play. We listening hear
Them rustling up the heath, but mark them not
Until they burst in kisses on our cheeks:
Then rush they on in laughter like wild maids,
While all the mountain gullies laugh in turn,
And spread their arms like lovers to receive
The dimpled beauties falling out of breath:—

By mountain tarn whereto the weary sun
Has clomb the hills to drink, and where the stars
Come stealthily at night to bathe, like nymphs
That shame to strip until the sun has gone:—

By ruin'd castles, where the warrior's eye
Gleams down dark centuries upon our souls
And wakes them to the clang of wilder'd days;
Or where the gray walls start into old mirth
At thought of all the ancient revelrie
That brimm'd them o'er. Lay thou a deep ear there,
And thou wilt hear the music as of yore,
Bursting the hall-doors open, like a tide
That breaks in waves upon the night's black shore.
And if thou'lt wait until the morning star
Bedew the east with luscious dropping light,
And lay thine ear close to the castle wall,
Thou'lt hear strange things! At that hour maids of old,
Troubled with love's unrest, rose from their dreams,
And to that lattice-gazing star sighed out
The burden of their hearts: from donjon cell

The lips that scorn'd to mourn, unconsciously
Told out their sorrows in deep stifled moans,
As that heart-seeking star crept on their gloom:
And from that wilder'd time those sighs and moans
Have hung about the crumbling walls:—maybe
The souls that bore them come at fitting times
To live old woes transform'd to eternal joys;
For heavenly spirits love to haunt those places
That in their earth-life drank deep of their thought.
The noted places of the earth are hung
With cobwebs of the gone, in spirit weaved.
Linger about them in humility,
And leave thyself to the upturning mood,
And thou'lt be swathed in the eternities
Whose outward shreds have pass'd:—

In temples, when
The organ rolls its breath in volumes round
The pillar'd galleries, and woman's voice
Out of the tumult like a rocket shoots,
And into the big music comes again
In bells of falling melody. Their creeds?
The under current of them all is thine,
And earnest hearts can hear the stream's deep tone
Beneath the surface clamour of the foam:—

In crowded streets, where we may best throw off
Our self-oppression and be most alone,
Catching the varied mind that passes by—
Now moved to inward laughter, now to tears:—

In summer, when the sultry day lies down
At noon to rest, lull'd by the hymn of bees,

And all things tarry for a drowsy hour
Till she arise to go along with them.
In that noon hour, when all things are at stand,
Thou mayest pass beyond them and behold
Glimpses of that they tell us of, but hide:—

In winter, when the snow coats hill and plain,
And all green things have crept in from the cold,
And farm-stead noises beat across the fields,
And the cracking ice chinks in the stony delf,
And the hard blue air is full of tinkling sounds,
And under all the faint and far-off hum
Of coming Spring, moving within the earth;
When in blank trees the spirit is not dead
But works an unseen change—look in and know:—

In children's eyes, ere yet the I, the Me,
Has swum within them, and whilst yet we may,
Unwearied, gaze into their azure wells
And see no mote of earth, but all the soft
Infinitude of heaven that engulfs
The gazer's soul in depths of skiey light:—

In books that so bewilder and perplex
The brain with multiplicity. Shut out
Their number for the time: one master-book
Disposes to the influx of All Thought,
Doing the thing that numbers can but do.
The thought lives not on pages but in space;
The printed characters mysteriously
Open the mind's pores and the thought flows in.
And may not books—our idolizèd books—
Be but the anvil sparks of beaten soul—

The left materials of wondrous work,
That please a child more than the work itself?
The maker of a book has the great good,
The reader only gleans a gather'd field.
All work yields up its wealth to him that works;
It will not be transferr'd, and therefore books
Are but our stepping-stones into the mines.

I see no heaven beaming in that eye!
O if thou still art lost and blindly grope,
Thy vision dark amidst excess of light,
Go to the desert where God's awful rest
Is on the fetter'd air, and nothing but
Blank rocks can bide the unutterable pause;
Go with a mind as naked as the rocks,
All memories stript off, all shreds of creeds—
A very child, unswaddled as from God,
But with thy garner'd consciousness of Thought,—
And that which thou hast ever fail'd to find,
Will, as the light finds out the dark, find thee,
And gather as a dawn into a day,
And be thy Light—be thee, as light is day.

IV. [Through all my years of waken'd thought I've been]

Through all my years of waken'd thought I've been
Haunted in spirit by a sullen grief,
Which sleeps, or is not heard, amid the move
Of work or strife; but, like the owl i' the tow'r,

Hoots out within me in my twilight hours,
Or when some cloud brings on a fancied night
And makes unnatural pause to earth and soul.

And I have thought this brooding trouble came
Out of my life's misfortunes; or arose
From conscious errors—duties left undone,
Returning on me, crying to be done;
Or from my heart's poor weaknesses that leave
A festering spot in memory. And I
Have labour'd to outreason this and that—
To make my heart pure, and to pluck and prune
Weeds and unwholesome growths. I thought, as each
Seem'd to infect my life, if this one thing
Were wrung out of my blood, O I could breathe
Freely the air of peace, and nothing else
Could choke my joy again. And so it was,
That when with pain and struggle I could drag
My grief out to the light, and drive 't away,
My being open'd all its cells and drew
A deep long draught of joy, that seem'd to exhaust
The bluest clefts of heaven—one glad breath!—
But when I look'd into myself again,
Alas! my ghost was there in another shape.
I had but dragg'd to light an effect, the cause
Pass'd through my grasp, like air—a ghost indeed!

It haunts a house deserted—haply one
That has not yet been fill'd. There is, I know,
A Presence in whose life all phantoms die.

Thou say'st that God is ever everywhere:
But if He be not in my consciousness,
He's not in me.—There is a twofold life—
The life we all have, and the life with God,
Which few, or none on earth, partake in full.
Yet is a human soul the only thing
That can receive that God-life; and for this
It is immortal. Had we never known
The light of that existence, we had lived
Contented in our blindness and the dark.
I have but seen enough to know my want—
My only want; for that, supplied, supplies
All other wants of the soul, or makes them none.
And, like a dungeon'd prisoner, I've groped
Around my years of night to find the dawn:
The faintest glimmer piercing through my cell
Has fill'd me with the liberty of day.

I have been very lonely! I have shunn'd
What we name company to be less lone,
And sought my comfort in the wilds. But not
Alltimes to find: for I have gone and come
Bewilder'd as a day of mist and cloud,
That sets in night without one beam of sun,
Or patch of blue, to tell that Heaven is.—
And I have shunn'd the duties of my day
As waste of soul, and envied nobler art—
Forgetting that the artist gives his work
The stamp of its nobility. The gods
Are with us in our sphere: accomplish that—

We cannot choose but step into a higher.
Though Cromwell was a king by right of brain,
He won his sceptre with a captain's sword.

The duties God assigns me I would leave
For those assign'd to others; therefore stand
Powerless between. Heaven's ends will not be moved
Save in accomplish'd act. I have not learn'd
To know God's features in my daily work,
Else were it all-sufficient—it alone.
The food each labouring spirit needs the most
Is in its nearest duty—beauteous growth
Of the eternal being in the act.
For Right and Duty, Conscience and the Truth,
Are God's own breath, by which weak men have been
Inspired with a divinity of strength.

Ye who in spirit are not yet awake,
Dream while your night remains; for, soon or late,
The morn breaks sleep, and then farewell dream things—
The satisfaction of a plenteous board,
The joy of wine-cups, and the light exchange
Of surface friendships, rumours and vague thoughts;
Which vanish till again, in after time,
With a diviner meaning they come back.
The one sole want dawns on the awaken'd soul—
The want for God in all, and all in God—
This utter vagueness to the soul that sleeps;
But O how truly all in all, he knows

Who once has seen the Eternal. Life's unrest
Is his thereafter, till he grows to God;
But that unrest the token of his growth.

Therefore I argue not against my grief,
Which being Heaven-sent, leads back to Heaven.

V. [I sadden when amid the stars I look—]

I sadden when amid the stars I look—
And think the earth is only one of them.
Imagination soars beyond all ken,
Yet is no nearer to an end of stars.
Away into the painful deeps of space
Oppressèd thought speeds on its endless way,
But still unnumber'd worlds lie all around,
And this globed earth becomes a winking point,
Unmark'd, unknown from millions of the same.

And so I cannot look amid the stars,
And link the earth as one upon my vision,
But straight a blighting sadness on me falls:
I lose all faith in man's high destiny,
More than may well belong to a race of ants;
And nothing can I see for him in time,
But eat and sleep that he may live and work,

Then die that he may make room for another.
O, there is nothing else! What could there be
For him who is but an atom of a whole—
A grain work'd in amongst the myriads
That make the solid rock?

But whilst I heave
My sadness on the night, the stars, like eyes—
Most earnest, pitying eyes—beweep the lie
That festers in my brain. Ye pulsing stars!
We revel nightly in your nectar'd light
Until we reel in joy like drunken gods:
Ye flood us into trances with your beauty;
But are ye conscious of the power ye own?
Constant and true ye are; but do ye crave
For ever, as do we, more of God's truth?
Have ye a sense of duty? Know ye aught
Of right and wrong? Dream ye of buried time,
Or brood ye, prophet-like, on years unborn?
Ah, no! Ye roll out innocent as tears
Upon the cheek of Night, and have no sense
Of that emotion out of which ye came—
No feeling of the light that in you gleams.
Ye have no heart-eye, blear'd with the regret
Of wasted years, wild wandering in the Now,
Or radiant with the orient dawn of hope.
There is in you no show of comprehension:
Brighter than eyes ye are, yet want perception.

Then why should we who have all these be sad,

And feel ourselves eclipsèd by the stars?
Earth, thou'rt a star, yet art beneath our feet:
Man is thy lord, and thou his vassal nurse:
And all the proud orbs of the arching sky
Bow down to his high thought.—I am not sad,
Nor feel I now the glory of the stars
Oppress and dwarf me into littleness:
Believing, this that sees and comprehends
Is greater than that seen and comprehended.

Believing? Thou must know and feel that truth:
Believing only, and repeating thus
The thoughts that are as old as poet's song,
Will never make thee greater than the stars;
And thou art dead as they, unless that truth
Be in thy soul as blood is in thy frame.

VI. [The ways are closed upon me. When I try]

The ways are closed upon me. When I try
To get admittance to the busy mart,
No one hears what I say, and straight a wall
Runs up about me; buyers and sellers pass,
But no one asks me—Will I buy or sell?
And when the day grows dusk, and cheery groups
Wear off, well pleased, a good day's business done,
None asks me—Will I go? I have no key
To fit the lock of any of their hearts.
Duck-like they breast the world's tide and float on,

Sleek and unruffled. If I tempt the stream,
I fall into some eddy and am drawn
By hidden currents back against the feathers.
Our meetings, too, at nights, disgorge me up
The same unalter'd thing. That gastric juice,
That mellows all their natures into chyme,
Slimes me but works no chemical effect.

The meanest thing should have a way on earth.
Have I not mine? Ah! when that mid-day sun
Shall, like an after-dinner alderman,
Full-faced and flush'd with wine, wink in yon west,
And eve's one star come through the gauzy light
To tend like loving wife her winey lord—
Who like ripe fruit drops heavily to bed—
And kneeling on the earth she gives her soul
To Heaven in a flood of glowing prayer,
And quietly beside her lord lies down,—
O then my hour is come!—I move as light
That has its time and orbit. With the stars
My way is through the night. Our light is pale
And dim and distant to the earth; but earth
Knows not the glow we have amongst ourselves:
The fogs that hide us are not ours but hers.

God lights both stars and souls; their glory is
Their measure of His being. Who would shine
In His full light must tarry like the stars
And bide God's time—not in hibernal coil,
But with a watchful soul laid bare to Heaven,

And in a ceaseless prayer, drinking in
The light that moves him onward to his rise.

No one, however dim, is wholly dark;
For life and darkness cannot be in one.
But whoso, charmèd with another's blaze,
Would also be of that peculiar hue,
Draws in a borrow'd light that dwarfs his own.
He is the garner of another's wealth,
To be repaid with interest, beggaring him.

Thou see'st that heaven of stars! Not man, the race—
The multitudinous, crowded, scatter'd race—
Seems more confused, more purposeless than that.
Yet each particular orb has its own course,
And threads the ambiguities of space
Unerringly, because moved by the Law
That shaped its course and it, and is to it
Necessity of movement. Fretful soul—
Fretful because of freedom—thou shalt know
That under thy free gift lies that same Law:
It is thy root of being, grows in thee,
And will press out that freedom, which is but
Thy present mode of growth and source of ill.
The time will be when we shall pace the heavens
In glorious constellations like the stars;
Blissful as they, but conscious of our bliss;
Moved only by necessity of Right,
Which is the highest reach of a free soul.
The time will be hereafter—might be now,

Did we obey the tide of that deep Will
Beneath the turbid currents of our own,
And take with joy the motion that it gives.

My disobedience drives me to the night:
My way should not be with the stars alone:
The same deep spirit that bears up the dark
Brings in the living day, and bides all day
Amidst the ways of men. If I have not
Found what I sought in them, have been like one
Breathing an element that gives no life,
It was for want of truer seeking: Thou,
The life of all the elements, wast there—
The life that in defeat gives victory,
And gain in loss.—I will not shun the field
Of this world's battle: if I may not ride
Proudly with shining helm and nodding plume,
On the topmost surge of deeds, I will, unmark'd,
Pass through it like a spirit, as Thou dost;
Be with the stout hearts in the cloud of war,
And help them to Thy bosom when they fall.

VII. [When we two were dear friends I sway'd between]

When we two were dear friends I sway'd between
God and the World. It, with its ceaseless round
Of precept and example, pull'd me on,
And daily grew in force. The Spirit Soul
That lies unseen and trodden in the dust,

Came only when the World would throw me off—
In solitude and sorrow came and whisper'd—
“The World hath thrown thee off, but thou hast fallen
On that which doth the giddy World bear up.
The surge hath cast thee down, but thou hast found
The deep sea's rest. The surge itself but frets
To find a rest like thine: it looks above,
In envy of yon heaven's quiet blue,
And scrambles to get up:—ah, witless surge!
That ceaseless climbing lengthens thy unrest;
Thou must at last return into the deep
Still bosom of thy being; peace is there—
The unfathom'd peace that can alone be thine.
Yon blue serenity does not exist,
Save in the eye's delusion: when the hand
Draws near to take the bliss, it is not there.”
Thus would the Spirit voice, but again the din
Of rolling day would deafen me, and my heart
Would follow in the pageantry of day;
Deeming the voice that spake had been my own,
Hanging sour grapes in the World, heaping down
On the hard relentless ground to break my fall,
And turning failure to commodity—
The last shift of weak hearts. And so the World
Would have me all again: its pageantry
Became the only real—all else dream:
What eyes and hands can grasp take thou and live:
Nothing there is behind this show but death.

Once-friend, it's well we are no longer friends,
But hate each other—O how much we hate!

As much as e'er we loved in olden time,
When all the ground-work of our natures lay
In keeping, like the bases of two cones
Together laid, and meeting in all points.
The figures are reversed; the broad affections
That friendship builds upon, lie in us both
All on the offturned sides that cannot touch;
And we that in our fitness were as one,
Now meet but in one point—and that is hate.

Yet say I it is well; else thy gilt course,
With the authority of added years,
Had drawn my wavering, undecided step,
And given me smooth progression in thy wake.
I had been still sway'd in my old unrest,
Or all bought over to a faithless peace.
But came the sudden, unprepared-for throe
That heaved us from each other. Had the chain
That bound us in our love withstood that wrench,
Then more than ever had we been one heart.
I will not say with whom the weakness was—
Although I have my thought—but snapt a link
That never can be welded. Our next love
Must forge itself a chain to bind us with.

It was the whole upheaving of our natures;
And gather'd years were scatter'd to the blast.
We rock'd in peace upon one tide; a wave
That raked the ocean deeps rose up between,
And in two currents broke. One took in-shore
Into the crisping bay where streamers flaunt

From idly cabled ships, and summer friends
Come wooing the mild air; and with it thou
Went proudly on, hail'd by the summer friends.
The other took me like a prey, and drove
In triumph out to sea. A lesser force
Could not have cross'd the bar, had left me there
To wreck amongst the breakers; but this met
And bore them down. In the meeting crash methought
The face of heaven was blurr'd, and I engulf'd
As in a horrid dream: but soon I woke,
Not from but as it seem'd within my dream—
Not to old life, but into a new birth.
It was the passing into that deep sea
Which is the under-being of all things—
The deep calm it, and they the curling waves
That ever and anon are lost in it.
The things I held to as stabilities,
Now thaw'd away; and that faint ghost-like thing
That came of old and comforted my woes,
Was a still inlet of the unfathom'd deep
That now lay more reveal'd; it was no ghost
Of a night-shrouded brain, which morning's sun
Would scorch into its grave, but the up-reach
Of that deep Life, whereof the universe
Itself is but the ghost.

There is no heart
That is not penetrated with that Life:
Our Heaven is as the fulness of our share;
And he of scrimpèd measure cannot see

The bliss of him whose full cup overflows.
That which he has he takes and never doubts,
But calls him mystic who has more than that,
Him purblind who has less. There comes to all
A deep sense of the true—itself its proof:
Doubt has no wedge-room when the inflow comes:
It carries its own warrant like plain sight,
And he that sees believes. Therefore I rest
In this blue deep, nor cast one wistful look
Back to the shallows of a doubtful shore.—
Day after day waves up the beach of time,
With ceaseless chafe and melancholy note
To him that is time's slave: but to the ear
That lays its hearing in the eternal sea,
Comes not the fretted murmur of the days.

We may not search our nearest brother's heart,
Nor sound the secret fathoms of his soul;
And thou, dear enemy, art not reveal'd
In all thy depth to me. But certain winds
Have blown thy heart's throbs hither, and I know
Thou art not yet at peace: the World still spurs
Thy bleeding sides; thou may'st not shake it off;
For if it probes thy flank, it pats thy neck—
A coaxing cruel rider that will take
His hire out of the poor hack's blood and bones.

We are reversed in everything but hate;
But thy hate comes from the right side for me,
And if I curse thee, it is with deep thanks.

That bar of hatred that between us lies,
I've beaten on the anvil of my heart
Till now methinks it turns to love—red hot.
We'll grow to love each other for the heart
We put into our hate. Friendship suspects:
In open enmity what chance of guile?
We know each other true in our dislike,
And have no dread of falseness. When we meet—
As meet we shall upon another stage,
Where each shall bear to view the alphabet
Of his most inward life—and when we read
How step by step throughout this little war
Was taken and mistaken—tracing back
The thing to its first germ—ah then, the first
Of all our quarrel will be as the seed
From which the fruit-tree sprang—that seend not found.
And when we note how true we both have been
To our own sense of right, what then but love
And admiration for that thoroughness?—
In this faith let us live—love even now:
How else than thus can enemies be loved?

VIII. [I could not think what gave her that fine beauty]

I could not think what gave her that fine beauty,
Until I saw her dead; for in her face
There was no line a sculptor would have prized:
And yet methought all heaven was in that face!

I could not look into it and retain
A single hold of earth: and when I gazed
Within her eyes they drank out all my soul,
And left me as a statue, with the gleam
Of adoration in its stony front.

But when I saw her dead upon her bier,
I turn'd with loathing, and I could have rush'd
Down from this upper earth into my grave,
To be where she was not. Ill-favour'd thing!
O what a dream I've had that she was fair!
Either it was a dream, or that stretch'd form
Held nothing of the beauty I adored.—
That form was all one settled ashy hue;
No colour came and went, no wreathing thought
Moved o'er its pale pinch'd lips. I stole one look
Into its staring eyes;—they knew not me,
Nor spoke one thought—those eyes that had so oft
Enfolded all my soul within their lids.
I touch'd its cold cheek—God! my blood shrank back,
And stopp'd its pulses like a frozen brook.
There was no trace of that fine something there
That flow'd in all the motions of her being.

If that still form was hers, it was not her:
For through her frame there ran a wondrous speech
E'en when she spoke no word. External things
Leapt eagerly into her centring breast,
And came again all dripping with the dew
Of her new thought. And when she spoke, it seem'd

The utterance of a company of minds,
That even in condemnation gives support
To that which is condemn'd. Most erring souls,
When they approach'd her, could not hold their sins,
But, child-like, blabb'd them out, and came away
Ennobled and amazed to find what good
Sprang up when she took off their loads of sin.

Yet had she no great gift that one could see.
I thought it was her beauty that I loved,
And sat for whole hours pondering it. I saw
Two silver fountains welling in her eyes—
A constant flowing up of crystal thought
That kept them ever clear, though trouble stirr'd.
A dreamy summer day was in her hair;
And fancies chased each other o'er her face,
Like skiey shadows o'er a field of grain.
And when I touch'd her hand, O then methought
I stood before the east at early dawn,
And saw the crowding beauty of the morn—
Young day still in its cradle of the sea
Rocking and dreaming—streaks of fringy light
That moved like curtains—and the lonely star,
Like a young mother watching the baby day,
With half her love on it, half on her lord
Coming from his far voyage in the east.
A poem fill'd her veins, and when she moved,
Listen'd, or read, or lifted up her eyes,
It lived along the surface of her being,
In wavy lines of beauty.

But she died—
Ay, even in the midst of all this beauty!
Whate'er it was that went—life, spirit, soul—
It took all with it, left not one fair shred.
The lines that hemm'd her living, hemm'd her dead,
And still I looked for beauty, but could find
Only lost beauty's secret in dead lines.

IX. [If thou should'st die, my little one!—This dread]

If thou should'st die, my little one!—This dread
Comes ever with the look thou gav'st me now.
It flashes through my thoughts, and then my heart
Shakes with the muffled thunder, and big drops
Fall from this cloud, my brain.—If thou should'st die,
How blank to me were life! The round of life
Must ever have a centring point of love,
And thou art mine. Thou lost, I were unsphered.

I cannot form in thought thy loss, or see
How that which leaps and speaks through thy sweet frame
Should ever leave it; yet must feel it may;
Must feel that restless little bell, thy voice,
That keeps a jubilee within my heart;
Those little pattering feet that all the day

Like kittens gambol up and down the house;
And those pure eyes that open through to God,
Revealing to my gaze deep views of Heaven;
All, all that makes my little darling up,
May change and lie before me still as sleep!
Yet not with sleep's red roses on thy cheeks,
Budding all night, blooming at break of day;
Nor with the living dream within thy veins
That charms off the iconoclast, decay;
But like a pretty wreath of virgin snow
That melts the while we look, and by next morn
Is not to mortal eye.

My little one,
I harp upon this thought, and almost dream
Thou art already dead, and wear my heart
With the imagined grief. But, O deep joy!
I waken from my thought, and thou art here,
Sparkling beside me. O live on and be
The little fountain where I come at eve,
After the sweating day, to cool my brain.

Oft in the heat of strife will come the thirst
Of love upon me, and my parch'd heart sinks
Amid distasteful work. A sudden thought
Of thee, my little one, leaps in my breast,
And soon my heart is at its post again,
Slaked with this gush of love, and work is joy:
And sweet anticipations ebb and flow
Like waves within a bay, each higher up,

Until the full tide of my joy is reach'd
In clasping thee unto my flooded heart.

The homeliest soul will sicken of its home,
Seeing a wingèd cloud in the blue vault;
Or hearing through the city's maddening din
The abandon'd carol of a cagèd lark;
Or seeing primroses brought into town;
Or reading of dreamy isles in the sunny south,
Of marble palaces, Italian skies.
But when I wander and new scenes fill up
The circle of my thought, amidst them all
Comes ever and anon across my brain,
A sweep as if 'twere from a soft dove-wing;—
I pause—sweet heart! it is the thought of thee.
And then I feel, if not a present bliss,
Thou art to me the deep reservèd hope,
Which is the secret life of present bliss.

Come near, my Beautiful, and let me gaze
My soul all out into those beaming eyes,
Until I lose my being all in thee.
For is not love a losing of one's self
In that which is belov'd? Love feels no self:
For though it springs in self, yet, like a flower,
It lives not for the soil, but yields up all
Its breathing essence to the wooèd air.

It is not only grief that likes to weep
Itself out in lone tears. Sweet, I must hide

These coming drops of love, lest, wondering, thou
Should'st ask, amidst thy prattle, what they mean.
Thou could'st not know they were for love, all love,
That are to thee tell-tales of hurt alone.

There, go and play, my darling,—I would read.
Alas! my book has gone out like a fire
In which a sunbeam strikes. I see no red
Thought burning in it. Newer light from God
Has fallen on my eyes and on my book,
And dazzled them to blindness. I have look'd
Into this lovely beam until my eyes
Are kindled, and can see nought but the light
That flames in it and them.

If it should set!
Alas, if thou should'st die! And yet, sometimes
I think 'twere well for me thou didst die now,
And to the heaven of my memory
Pass with the morning dew upon thy head,
And be to me a fresh green thought for aye.
For I may lose thee quite if thou abide
To suffer living change. The hours drink out
The beauty of the morn: what charm'd us then,
We cannot find in all the after day.

I have lost many pets by living death,
And so might thee. The young of anything
Finds the most honey'd corner in my heart:
But if it stay until the streaks of dawn
Have parted from it one by one, ah then

My heart has lost its tenant, though it lives:
It has not even the ghost of that lost love
To haunt its desolate chambers, since the thing
Is still embodied and denies the ghost.
But drag it from my heart before its time,
E'en in affection's increase, with the glow
Of rising light upon it, and methinks
My heart could cease not to be haunted by
The sweet idea of the loved thing lost.

Sometimes this strange throe moves me: thou at hand,
And some suggestive weapon in my grasp,
I feel a pushing on to lift my arm
And slay thy life! I dare not fight the thought,
But drop the weapon like a coward and flee
From it and thee, chased by the hounding thought.—
If I could neither lay the thought nor flee,
But did the strange remorseful deed, O God!
What a terrific breaking up of soul
Would shake my frame! But then the drenching love!—
Like a black cloud I'd burst, nor cease to weep
Till I had rain'd myself into the grave
Beside my murder'd joy.—Dark sobbing cloud!
Wrapt up in thy own grief—all heaven around
Is blue as angel's eyes, and the glad earth
Sunny and green, save this one little spot
Made black by thee. But it too shall be green,
When thou hast water'd it with all thy tears.

My precious one, and could I wish thee dead—
Dead, that thou might'st escape the living death?
False wish!—O thou canst never die to me,
More than myself to myself: for I see much
Of that same self in thee: the lines that bank
Our beings in, have by one stream been mark'd;
And when thou liftest up those archèd brows
The light of my own soul looks out to me.—
The years can not estrange thee: though they roll
Thy budding youth all out and take thy bloom,
My heart will glory in the mellow fruit.
O thou art link'd unto me, blood and soul:
Thy change must have its parallel in me.

It is a cruel thing that love may be
On my side only; that a heart all warm
Must cleave unto another dead and cold,
And be unsightly as a growing branch
Upon a rotten tree. Pray God, my love,
That I, in life, may never die to thee;
For there the fear is most. Thou art too full
Of love's sweet essences for death to take;
And so I rest without the fear of loss.
But I am prone as ether to be lost
And disappear out of most loving hearts.

Let us maintain the integrity of love
By being true to ourselves. A leal whole heart
Is as abiding in love's firmament
As any star in heaven. Let us give

Clear vantage to the light that burns within,
And like the stars be clear unto ourselves.
They are not self-polluted—see, they shine
No dimlier for all the murky nights.
And this should be great joy—that we, each one,
Might be a world of beauty in ourselves,
Unstain'd by circumstance as stars by cloud:
For though they seem torn out of their high spheres,
Trampled beneath the plashy feet of storms,
Yet when the storm has fretted past, we see
They have been lying in unthought-of peace.

Give me thy little hand. How heavenly soft!
It has no feel of this world's hardening work,
And emblems thy young soul, which bears not yet
The hards of earth upon it.—Wherefore should
Our Innocents put off the charmèd life
Which manhood does but struggle to regain?
We cast off child-content, and then begin
A life-long struggle for a child's content.—
Soft as it is, in this small hand I read
Lines prophesying burdens and earth-strifes.—
The azure innocence drops from thine eye:
Thou reck'st not of my augur. But my past
Gives me thy future now—and would, my love,
I might fore-bear the burden of thy griefs
And leave thee all the joys. Yet God forbid
That I should rob thee of thy jewel'd sorrows!—
I could not wish the past one grief the less,
But would my griefs had been more wisely borne,

And yielded more soul-treasure. I have found
My richest jewels in the hardest rock,
But spoil'd them oft in breaking it; lost more
Through leaving much unbroken. Like a bee
I've ever tried to avoid the stony road,
And sought the lanes to nestle among flowers.
But took not duty with me like the bee:
My task sat like a beggar in the dust,
Neglected, and a busy world pass'd on.

But, ah, sweet Ignorance! thou canst not take
The meaning from my lips: thy soft brows lift,
Thine eyes give out a recognising glance,
Only at certain words, as bee and flowers,
Which fall like gleams of sunshine on thy brain,
Chased by immediate shade.—Yet is it known
The spirit has a deeper speech than words,
A hearing that receives unspoken thought.
Some presences are felt like a sweet air
Blowing upon our souls, some like hell's breath.
If either come amongst us we take on
The good or evil odour. Therefore thou
May'st thus take on the nature of my thought:
And inasmuch as these pangs of regret
Make strong my future self, so may they thee.
Doubt not the unspoken precept: it doth pass
From soul to soul as dawn upon the earth—
Not with forced light, but gently leads in day,
Which soon is all in all; and we can trace
No footmark of a struggle with the night.

But strength of me or precept thou need'st none:
They could but help to give that which thou hast—
Thy rich inheritance of child-content.—
I do but speak my overflow of love.
It does not wait my time: tide-like it comes.
It ebbs and flows between us, and each wave
Throws up its thousand pearls upon our hearts.—
The World doth hold us poor, and we ourselves
Oft join the World in feeling we are poor—
Poor! and with all this treasure in our hearts—
Wealth richlier possessed than gold could be!
To have is but to love; and he whose heart
Is fullest of the love of godliest things
Is still the richest man, whatelse he lack.—
This is the very alchymy of truth:
God keep it aye within us.—There now, love,
Go play thyself, and leave me here alone,
To open up the coffers of my heart
And count how rich I am in loving thee.

X. [I wonder when I'll die, and what will be]

I wonder when I'll die, and what will be
The circumstances that surround my death,
The immediate cause and nature of my end?
Whether some fierce disease on a sleepless bed,
Watch'd by sad anxious eyes in which I'll read
My untimely epitaph before I go:—
Or slow consuming fire, that, day by day,

Smoulders within and makes no show of blight,
But wears the cheek of bloom, till, suddenly,
My unconscious path ends at a churchyard gate?—
I turn—too late! Death hems me in and points
Into his rank green fold, where I may count
The steps that lie between me and my grave?—
Or will some sudden accident cut short
My flooding tide of life, and I that left
A joyous home, waved on by blessing hearts,
All jocund as the morn, be carried back
A mangled, mindless corse? that home's dear mirth
Gulp'd up in one wild spasm of despair;
My little lambkins pressing round their dam
In wondering affright; the meal prepar'd
With tentful care, breathing of my return,
Left but to feed their anguish!—I am there,
But at no board sit down: sweet lives that clomb
About me, clustering like wreaths of flowers,
Crush'd by the stricken pillar they adorned!—
Or shall I ripen on to gray old age,
Losing by slow and unperceived degrees
My hold of love and life, enjoying both
Up to the last with all my room of heart,
Until it close, and I drop to my rest,
When home and hearts so flooded with me now,
Are either gone or fill'd with richer love,
And earth and I can spare alike each other?

Along the vista of a natural life
I gaze amidst dim shadows to its close,

And wonder if I'll travel to that close,
Or fall half journeyed in the chasmed way.
How darkly do we grope—thick dark ahead
That swallows up the glimmer from behind!
Each step is through a curtain of dense cloud.
Though light be on our feet, this present step
May edge the very brink of Death's dark pit.
We dare more than we know, and hearts would fail
If eyes could see the footing that we have.

How dear to each his little span of life!
Beggars and kings set on it the same price.
It stamps the gold of each: that life let out,
What then are regal crowns and raked-up pence?
Yet for some petty gain we risk that life
Which gives the worth we gain; or stake it on
Some sharp pin-point of honour—worth a pin.—
O full of contradiction! dear yet cheap!
At rustle of a leaf we start with fright,
And that dear life knocks wildly in our breasts,
As if it fear'd the falling of its house
And wanted out—and yet, 'twas but a leaf!
A trifling insult jostles our conceit,
And life becomes a button to toss up,
To see who'll lose or have it.

Is there aught
In this quick fear and sudden rush to save?
Is it a secret monitor that prompts
To cling to life because it is so short—

A tacit protest 'gainst the immortal life?
Or is there deeper truth in the mood that sets
Life cheaply on a straw—an inwrought sense,
Deeper than all our guesses, that comes up
And moves us to the ready risk of life,
Knowing, despite our fears, that loss of breath
Is not in very deed lost life, but change,
As sunset is no loss to the sunken sun,
Who even now reigns in as true a day
As when he fill'd the azure of our noon?

Which is the deeper truth—the one that moves
To fear and trembling in this hour of breath,
Lest it should briefly end? Or that which prompts
To lavishment and heedlessness of life,
As if our portion were the exhaustless air?—
And in what moods of being does each rise?

O ever in our lowest grades of sense,
Or when we use false shifts to bring about
Ends otherwise all good, or when our hearts
Are in the heaping up of cumbrous wealth,
We tremble for our safety and fear Death,
Lest it should come between us and our heaps,
Let fall the cloak that blinded our false shifts,
Or take us from the luxury of sense.—
But in our highest walks where Duty leads,
Not falteringly in doubt, but to the Right
Pressing still onward,—then is life itself
Sunk in the Right, and asks no separate care.

If Right be gulf'd in Death, Duty leaps in,
With eye full on the Right, but blind to Death.
The soul's integrity we buy with life,
And hold ourselves the gainers: yet if life
We had not after that, where were the gain?

Since, then, the mood we deem the most divine,
Gives suff'rance to the lightlying of life—
Which is this self, and gives the all we have,—
I hold the deeper truth is stirring here—
The truth that Death is but a form of speech,
And is no more the loss of life to the Dead
Than sunset loss of light to the sunken sun,
Who march'd as freely down this cloudless eve
As when he clomb the morn all pearl'd with dew.

O be our life unclouded, and our setting
Will not be streak'd with fears; nor will our path
On to that setting be a maze of doubt.
The sun draws up the vapours that obscure him;
And doubts and fears are vapours of the brain:
The heavens are bright beyond. To a pure soul
No one may guess what clear insights would come.
Seek we the wholly pure in the present hour,
And as 'twill leave no dark past to bedim
The ever-starting memory with remorse,
So will it raise no further banks of cloud
To threat our journey with a weeping day:
And, living out the fulness of the Now,
The heart will have no room for a dreaded When.

XI. [My heart has choked me through this live-long day—]

My heart has choked me through this live-long day—
This day of duties closed. Each act of mine
To-day has been a death-pang: I have died
A former life in each. Our daily work
That we have done for years, O sad to feel
That this time is the last, and that to-morrow
Strange hands will take it up!

I shut the books
Whose each particular folio my hand
Can find without the exercise of thought—
The books that hold no character but mine.—
Now have I kiss'd the inkstand and the desk,
And given up possession of the key.
I look my last on each particular thing,
And see it draped in garments which my soul
Unconsciously has weaved. I did not think
How ivy-like my love had grown on them,
Till now I come to tear myself away.

How will it be with them when I have left?
Ah, shall I take away their mantling green,
And leave them bare and cold till they are clothed
With other verdure by a richer mind?
Will those whose custom 'tis to come and go
Feel desolation when I am not here?
I know there will be many, round whose hearts
My being throws its arms, as their's round mine:

For we, without one word of plighted faith,
Have grown to know ourselves true brother men,
And wear our souls to each other in our eyes.
They will be haunted like an empty house;
My absence, like the passing of a ghost,
Will cross them when they see my accustom'd place.
Our wants, more than our havings, fill the mind,
And oft a thing's not ours till it is lost.

Farewell, old duties that I held as tasks
Not over-willingly perform'd! Now ye
Ascend to Heaven and are angels' work—
The higher, that you were most truly done,
Despite the unwillingness. For I have learn'd
To know how good a thing is tasteless work
When faithfully perform'd. The man transmutes
The meanest office to a golden reign,
Or blasts an angel's work with smoke of hell.
Men grieve their hearts at being out of place,
Unknowing that each man must place himself,
Not vainly fleeing from the post he holds,
But drawing round his feet the charmèd ring
That makes all sacred ground on which he treads.

We have to learn God's uses of the world,
And put our own aside like worn-out clothes.
Most of our business waits yet to be done
To yield the noblest fortunes. It is big
With mines scarce broken on. We have been fool'd
With coin, bright coin, that bears the current stamp,

But is not gold. We have not known the gold:
We have not known that in the ways of trade
The soul might be ennobled and enrich'd—
Yea, that this is God's very use of trade.—
Let us begin our business to this end—
This end so strangely missed; if gained, not prized.—
I go to make my fortune; and the world
Will count me poor, unfortunate. How rich
I may be even then, the Heavens will know.

Farewell, old duties! Wherefore do I leave
Your sweet content—content now that I leave?
Have I drunk all the sweets ye held for me,
And am—not knowing—even at the dregs;
So that my further draughts were bitterness?
Or, with accomplish'd difficulty, did
Your true life pass away, and leave me nought
To garner in my soul when that was gone—
Nought but the soft and soul-corroding ease?
I ask my weeping heart, Why does it leave?
It has no answer: like a drooping girl,
It leans against my breast and points to Fate.
O heart, I see so little of myself
In the beginning of my life's chief acts,
That I begin to think there is a hand,
Behind the scenes, that moves us to the stage,
Then leaves us there to play our parts.

And now
I stand behind the curtain that divides

Two acts in my life's drama. I can hear
The dense hum of the audience that will watch
Each movement of my acting. But I stand
Alone here with my throbbing heart and God.
This interval of pause is like a pool
That breaks the onflow of a brawling stream;
And, gazing deep into the abyss of life,
I see the sands of time o'er which it runs,
With all the purposes of life reveal'd
Like pebbles at the bottom of the pool,
Which in the turbid current are not seen;
And under all the great clear eye of God
Like the blue sky reflected.—O my heart!
Would I might shape thy beating all for God,
That when again I come in the World's gaze,
His eye may be the only one I feel.

The doubts of coming time, the sad and sweet
Regrets of a sublimed and hallow'd past,
Divide my brooding mind as hence I go:
They crush the present out. But if God's light
Abided in my soul and never set,
My present were an all-sufficing Now.
For he that lives for ever in that light
Partakes of all its attributes—regrets
No good outlived, nor dreads the ill unborn,
But in the abundant present breathes full life.

O, there are blessed lives on which God show'rs
His spirit down like rain; more blessed ones

Through which He is a never failing stream;
And both are rich and bounteous as green meads.
With me the springs are buried deep in earth;
And would I drink the spirit, I must dig,
And oft be disappointed. For the most,
My life's an arid waste, panting with thirst,
Which nothing but the living stream may quench.

Farewell, aunt England! I have been caress'd
In thy kind lap of Lancashire so long,
That now I'll scarcely know the Doric voice
Of my old mother Scotland, and shall feel
That going home is going most from home.
Thou art my heart's home, England. When I look
Into the camera within my brain,
I see the moving picture of thy woods,
With all their sylvan glades, rich waste of fields
That give free crossing to th' exploring foot;
Thy warm green lanes, and hedges thickly laced
With bramble, honeysuckle, and sweet dog-rose;
Thy wandering streams, that lead through bosky dells
And meads of rarest green.—But most of all
The Ribble winds herself about my heart;
For, from her cradle in the hills of York
Down to her green grave in the Irish Sea,
I know her every winding, and can tell
Where be her fords and bridges. That last bridge,
That spans near where her meady lips grow salt
With immemorial courtship of the tides—
O, memory! the river of my heart

That bridge will span until it cease to flow;
And those black eyes that lighted me like lamps,
Night after night, across it—still will dash
Their light athwart the dark nights of my soul,
And strike a fitful glare when memory's cloud
Obscures my present and diviner light.

Ah, was it vain to woo and not to win?
And, after dreaming years of love, to wake
And count my object better lost than won?

It was not vain: my object was not lost;
But rather gained by loss, since still for me
She is the gorgeous picture that love drew,
Undimm'd by the possession. Those dream'd years
Stand rounded in my past, not broken up
By dire reality. I can go back
Into them as a temple, and bow down
Before the image love has glorified,
And drink the joy of worship.

Dost thou think
She was not worthy of a bended knee?
Love sanctifies a thing of little worth;
And he that worships the recipient
Of his most sacred passion, worships well.
The cup that holds the precious wine of love
Is even to be prized for that it holds.—
O, I have pour'd my love into her heart!
As in a fount, it well'd up in her eyes;

But all came back again to her own breast,
And but the beggar's portion came to me:
Yet am I richer for it to this day.

Our errors seem all purposeless as weeds;
But they are weeds from which the quiet soul
Distils a balm that medicines our lives.—
There is a wise assimilating power
Within the mortal frame, that works and builds
Without decree of ours, and from the wide,
The universal bosom, draws the store
That makes the individual—not alone
From that we bring to it, as daily bread,
But air, light, heat, and things we know not of:
So in the mind there is a kindred power—
By us unwill'd as that which moves the heart—
And years that we think lost have been work'd in
Most richly through our natures. Who can say
What serves our Being most? Oft, like the beasts,
'Twill turn away from dainty things we give,
And crop a thistle.—I have labour'd much
To bring unto my soul the richest food,
Laid up great store of books, have sought wise friends,
And hanker'd after churches. Yet when done,
I find me nibbling at life's poison'd weeds,
Or battening on barrenness; my books
Shelved and not open'd yet; wise friends, when found,
Deserted; and the church door never cross'd.—
Our nature is above us; we may think

We educate ourselves; but we forget
This higher nature educates the we.

Farewell again, sweet land—my second home!
Within thy beds of roses I have known
The thorn more than the rose, but could not see
How bee-like I have been in gathering
These loads of honey'd love that clog my flight.—
My heaven was dull and leaden till I near'd
The margin of my setting:—I am gone,
And scarcely can I think yon golden sky
Is that which I have left. Shine on my back;
For I have turn'd me to another day;
And though I look through mist into the dawn,
The day will brighten, and the larks will sing.

XII. [I marvel not that, in the ignorant time]

I marvel not that, in the ignorant time,
Men gave each element its god, and crouch'd
In spirit as in frame, when through their woods
Fire like a demon ran; or when the wind
Beat on their sheltering bields, and with the rain
Grappled to death; or when the thunder spoke
In answer to the sign the lightning made,
Causing great discontent among the hills.—
This black and fiery warfare rushing through

The accustom'd quiet of their blue ceil'd earth—
What wonder they deem'd spirits were abroad!
Was not wild motion life? big noises speech?
To them they were; and deeplier to us
So should they be—all motion, and all sound.
For Soul is there, though too familiar thought,
Incrusted with the daily use of names,
Becomes dead thought and misses it. And things—
Not only the imperious elements,
But common work-world and domestic things—
Have all their own peculiar and quaint tongues,
By which, unseen, we know them. Is it soul
In them that speaks to soul in us? or what?
“A silly question,” sayest thou? But think!
The sound of things inanimate is speech—
Of sentient origin. Whatelse is sound?
Thou can'st not tell though thou exhaust all speech.
And motion, thou may'st call it force—dead force:
But, whether 'tis the swoop of giant storms,
Or fairy dimple on a dreaming lake,
Still say I, it is life. Else, how receive
In our life-veins the pulses from without
That make us one with Nature? Day and night,
That ever through us come in throbs of beauty;
Sunshine, and shadow, and the breezy grass;
The woods that nod in slumber, or awake
To throw their tresses loose upon the wind;
The raking clouds that drive athwart the moon;
The wandering sea that never finds a home:
The lake that never leaves one; and the rivers

That come from rural poverty, like youth,
To push their lives in cities and grow rich—
Yea, very rich, but troubled, in their deeps:—
Why speak these to our life, if they have none?—
That river's soul runs through me! I could be,
With little change, its worshipper, O God!
But that it flows from Thee, and Thou hast all.

I should live in a world of active duty—
My wants demand it. But my heart repines,
And leaves me to a world of idle thought,
Or that of outer Nature—the mere change
Of day and night and season, sun and moon:
Or vagrant fancy, or the fool's desire
For other place than this which is his own.—
A patch of blue in heaven, a pacing cloud,
A sun-gleam, or the carol of a bird,
Makes beggars of my duties, and they plead
In vain—although with God's own voice they speak.

To-day there is a tumult in the air,
A roaring as of furies in the bay,
A rumbling as of heavy toothèd wheels
Up there within the chimney; window panes
Batter'd and dim with gusty blads of rain;
The very wind seems roll'd in sheets of rain,
The houses dash'd, the steeples drench'd, the streets
Pelted and plash'd, and fill'd with runnels brown.
But, loud o'er all, the tumult in the air,
The roaring as of furies in the bay!

There had been eerie whistlings over night,
And wailings on the house-tops, which ran through
Our weird unblessèd dreams. Ere we awoke,
The storm had also come into our dreams;
So that my spirit out of sleep was borne,
E'en on the storm's wing; and, for very joy
In this rough day, it cannot light again
Among the working homes. Yea, I have come
To find it here upon this bellowing strand,
And sent my duties to fill up the debt
That runs to mortal ruin. Let them go—
I do not like them; they oppress my soul:
It has not room to breathe in them. Behold!
On this wave-welter'd shore, in wind and rain,
How freely beats the heart! how near it feels
To that in Nature beating! For I stand
Within the pressure of great agencies
That come by It impell'd. The broken heavens
Drag almost to the sea, and landward rush,
With terror stricken, like a routed host.
The waves, white crested, and with yells of war,
Pursue them:—one last dash at flying heaven!—
They only plunge and tumble on the shore,
Crest-fallen and disappointed.

But the roar
Comes most from yonder heads that bluffly stand
Knee-deep i' the sea, and sentinel the bay.
The rout comes round them, swept on wind and wave;
And hark! the storm's wild throat—too high for bass—

Has crack'd its voice upon them, and 'tis shrill,
Air-rending, as a trumpet. Not a sail,
Or any human shadow, moves within
That circuit of dim air and weltering sea;
But out beyond the curtain of thick drift,
How many well-reef'd barks and stout-braced hearts
Now stand at bay i' the storm! A lonely bird
That seems far blown and driven from the deep,
Hoary and sea-like, glides around my head,
And gazes into me with strange pale eyes—
Most melancholy eyes! Be still my heart!
And yet those eyes, how painfully near they come!
And those long spectral wings!—Why did I wince?
It put me in a circle, in a spell,
And shut all else from eye and ear. But see!
The lonely bird beats windward out of sight;
It's spell breaks, and again the welt'ring sea,
The trumpet-sounding cliffs, the wind and rain
Leap through these senses into me.—

O God!
We know not by what miracle the soul
Receives into itself the outer world:
But in such gleams of beauty does it come,
Methinks it is its spirit we receive—
In very deed 'tis Thee! God, give me work
In which my fitness and Thy glory meet,
As in this vagrancy they seem to do;
Or as we see in the commission'd men;
And it shall have my knee, my hand, my heart,

My toiling days,—ay, and my sleepless nights;
Which neither toil nor weariness could feel,
With me the chosen one to do their work,
And Thou in all their hours. O grant me this!

The tempest has God's voice to day: I feel
My words are driven back into my throat;
The tide keeps frowning on me to go back,
And foot by foot it claims the beach; the wind
Takes the salt spray and blows it in my eyes:
My very thoughts are beaten back: the day
Seems all a driving back. O God of day!
Thou hear'st the faintest breathing of a soul
Rising through all the tempest. If that soul
Deem not the after-stirrings come from Thee,
As answer, to console or to command,
But that itself creates them, it were well
To audience them as if they came from Heaven,
And soon they will approve themselves. For truth
Is not imagined; it has been with Thee
In all eternity: and when it comes,
It carries its own proof in needing none.

God takes unnumber'd tongues. The elements
Have bidden me to whence I came.—

You dream!
The outward fact was still the inward dream
Until men saw it clearly. All may see
Alike the face of things: but pierce the skin,
And seek their spirit with the inward eye,

Then who shall say to any one “You dream?”
As who can say the loved do not possess
That beauty which their lovers see in them:
The deeper truth to the intenser sight?
In things dissimilar to other eyes
The Poet shows a likeness; then all eyes
Can see how like they are. Nor is his view
The final. There's a meaning in each thing
That fills all depths of vision up to God's;
And all are satisfied till vision deepens
And wants the deeper.

That which starts a thought—
If only by suggestion—speaks, since mind
Had, but for the suggestion, miss'd the thought.
And had not Nature first reveal'd her truths,
Mind were as empty as a cast-up shell,
With one eternal sound of vacancy.

I pray'd God give me nobler work! The storm
Straight seem'd to bid me back to that I left;—
And how God answers prayer, who shall say?
The duties which a man at any time
May find before his hand, are wholly his,
Though all the world cry, How unlike the man!
In them, or in the cause that made them his,
His double will be found, his inner self,
Whose outward haunting gives him never peace,
Till in fulfilment it find wholesome life,
Or rest in honest failure.—Wouldst thou find

Thy heart's elected work, pass through, not round,
The task that even error has made thine.
For in the midst of uncongenial toil,
E'en by the way of doing it, a man
May raise the office that he longs to fill.—
No man may shape the world to suit himself:
But—form'd his own heart's model—let him work
At anything, and we shall see how soon
It draws about a man a fitting garb.

And this, or nothing, from the Day's rude throat
I could translate—this when my inward ear
Would listen: when it closed, the outward shell
Took nothing but the hoarseness of the Day.
And thus all things speak inwardly—they speak
Like oracles, that seem to disappoint,
Because we take the outward meaning only.—
A King was prophesied, surpassing all
Earth's former kings in glory. When He came,
No one believed the meek and lowly man
Of Nazareth, in very truth was He.
So when we seek high missions, and are told
They wait us in the drudgery despised,
Who is it has the faith to find them there?

XIII. [Scotland, my Mother! thrice I've left thy hearth]

Scotland, my Mother! thrice I've left thy hearth
To seek my crust 'mong strangers—left each time
Alone, in sadness, never to return,
Yet, by some fate undreamt of, still return'd.

When shall this heart find an abiding home?
Alas! too many has it found—heart-homes,
Loved spots where it has been, and fain would bide—
But none for me! Ah, where the homestead, where
The kindred soil in which my tendrill'd years
Might spread and deepen on to rooted age—
Green shoots up-springing, and all things around
Engraven with my life, until they read
As pages of my history? But no:
I see no dawn of that—blank dark all round!

Once more I leave the Doric land—this time,
A part that rings with glorious deeds of old:
Kyle's capital, made famous by the lives,
To Scotland dear, of Wallace and the Bruce,
And where even England's Cromwell graved his name.
But O, more glorious by the minstrel chief
Who sang of Tam O'Shanter and the Brigs,
And whose heart-warbled melodies have borne
The seuch of Coila's streams o'er all the earth.
O favour'd land, whom Providence has given

Not wealth of beauty only, but a voice
To sing it to the world—farewell, farewell!

'Tis but my lips that say that word, my heart
Bids no farewell, and could not if I would.
No: be my outward being where it may,
While memory, and thought, and Burns remain,
I live in Kyle. Still, in the summer eve
My soul will wander by the “Hermit Ayr”—
At noon sit dreamily by “Bonnie Doon”—
“Brown Carrick hill” fill all my musing moods
With its mysterious beauty—and yon isle,
With Goatfell, framed in sunsets. Hill and dale,
And river, bridge and road where he has been,
Live in a double glory—in their own,
And in the light of that impassion'd eye:
For God, who breathes the miracle of beauty,
Gives to the Poet the creative soul
That makes a beauty kindred to His own.

If not my first, thou art my dearest home.
And where my next? I leave, but whither go?
I blush to think there is for me no place
That begs my work; but, rather, that mere bread
May lead me like a beggar! Would my faith
In missions were confirm'd—that for each one
Throughout the ravell'd labours of the world,
His special work awaited him! I'd rise
Like morning, with hope's star upon my brow,
And feel earth beckon'd me. The world accords

Divine appointment to her greatest sons,
Who turn her destinies by arm or pen:
But wherefore not the least? In sight of God,
Who are the greatest? And what acts of man,
Little or great, most pregnant of results?
The flash that leaps from heaven fills all men's eyes,
But with amazement passes; while the spark
That falls unseen from some lone widow's lamp
May fire a city. Fields are won and lost,
Run red with blood, their thousands heap'd in death,
Yet in a little while are green again.
A lonely thinker gives the world a thought,
Which in due season overruns the earth,
Brings wealth to nations, bread to all that work.
A ten years' war rose from a woman's cheek;
A Reformation, from a cutty stool.
The veriest acts work an eternal change,
And none can tell the outcome.

All, or none,
Have special missions waiting them from God,
And here, or somewhere in this endless life,
Must find them. None so worthless, none,
But, like the pettiest artery, performs
A necessary part amid the whole.
Not Shakspeare only, but the multitude,
Gave birth to Shakspeare's universal line.
So, Washington was but the brain whose strength
Drew upwards from the obscurest heart that beat
With Independence. Take the least away,

And Washington had not been Washington.—
God's thoughts are circles: lives, things, and events
That we deem useless, are the arcs which, join'd,
Make up the round.

Shall even the trees put forth
Each its appointed leaf and bloom and fruit—
The birds and insects live and build and sing—
All in their own unerring way—yet man
Be left to blind experiment and doubt?
They are God's slaves, and cannot err,
While man, you say, is free! Ay, so he is;
And therefore often misses his true end.
Yet is he only free within the bounds:
Error and wrong cannot be driven far:
On one side only is there endless scope,
And that is towards the right, the true, the good;
And he alone that is God's willing slave
Is truly free—yea, even free as God.

The conscience-beat of Right that stirs amid
The conflicts of the heart—this is God's will.
It bids us to our missions: we are deaf;
Or, hearing, heed not, and still live at waste,
In half successes, disappointing gains,
Failures and fears, that seek to whip us right.
Who thinks of missions? None. Yet even we—
You, I—might find our God-appointed work,
Would we but rise in His name and begin.

There ever is a Right, a Best to do,
Here where we are, and now. In simple trust
Do that, and ever that, nor mind results.—
To make thy life an embodied thought of God—
Be it all failure in the world's loose speech—
That, only, is success—how done or where.

And whence the love of home, this heart for place?
Not from the dusky grandeur of the hill,
The clouding tree before the cottage door,
The haunting stream—no, nor the mantling hearth;
But that through them, unconsciously, the heart
Has caught the gleam of God; and that is love.
It is the very home of every soul,
And everything in nature is the door.

If we by thought, at any time, can pass
Into this all-sufficing mystery,
The soul's true home, then farewell all regret!
Be where we may, we are at home and peace.

XIV. [I cry for rest! e'en cast a weary eye]

I cry for rest! e'en cast a weary eye
Within a quiet grave, if then my soul
Might find a heaven of meditative rest.
And O for one, the humblest though it were,

Of all the sanctuaries of still life
That lie secluded in this restless age,
Inherited perhaps by an Abuse!
But here I pant and whirl from place to place,
Bearing these wretched samples of my wares—
Goods! goods transform'd to evils in my thoughts—
Plague-spots, that fester in my very dreams!
Day after day, town after town—no end!
All days and places shuffled in a heap,
Each morn I need to search my jumbled brain
To find my when and where.

Yet, in this whirl,
I ever fall to momentary rest.
All peaceful things absorb me. In the stream
Of rushing cities I am often swirl'd
Into some grass-grown street; and, ere I know,
Shut from the buying, selling, cheating world.
Cathedrals with their quiet cloister'd yards,
Their soft-wing'd swallows and their ancient daws,
Do with me what they please—make me a monk.
And if to straggling suburbs business leads,
Some hedge-row, or a meadow's deeper green,
Takes me beyond all business: or a well,
Sun-lit within the sombre of a wood;
A daisy folding on a bank at eve;
A rain-drop on a thorn; a sleeping tree.—
O peaceful, thoughtful rest! thee and a crust!
But thus to be for ever on the bound,
My sacred aims, and hoarded, unread books,

Heart-breaks—which not to know at all were bliss—
Gardens of honey'd beds in which my soul,
With joy could work away its busy hours!

But I repine at Justice—with the Right
Make faithless argument. What have I done
To gain or to deserve the envied place?
My life has been a wandering, broken waste;
A constant shunning of the beaten roads;
And in this wilderness of no results
I fret for those reach'd by the beaten roads.

Of opportunity and thoughtful rest
I mourn the want, yet use not what I have:
My evenings squander'd with contented fools;
Long nights in sleep, or, for unneeded sleep,
Turning and moaning, and the morning light
Falling in vain on my sloth-blinded eyes.
O till that waste of time is all wrought up,
'Tis shame, and squander'd breath, to ask for more.
He ever drifts from opportunity
Who knows not to haul in the slack of time.
'Twere meanness to hold other than I have,
If this be my deserving. If the yoke
Unfit me, let me feel its galling just,
And in the pride of Right lose my complaint.
The world is full enough of well-placed men:
Théy serve old ends, but give it nothing new.
An unshaped man, put in their steads, would bring
New ways, new thoughts, to the exhausted spheres.

In my unfitting office I may find
What none else could, what nowhere else I can.
Why seek to do what is already done?
Or fill a place already snugly fill'd?
For ease—ignoble ease? O be thyself,
And let thy office shape to thee, or cease.

Come, then, my wretched budget, come my cross!
I'll kiss and bear thee on from town to town.
For thou art mine in being mine: by right
Or wrong, or fault, or weakness, thou art mine;
And, till that right's wrought out, that fault retrieved,
That weakness strengthen'd, or that wrong made right,
I may not lay thee down. Come then, my cross!

XV. [The half of man's allotted term I've lived]

The half of man's allotted term I've lived
In glorious idleness—in work that gave,
With bread enough, rich hours of rosy eves,
Of morns with dewy eyes, of bright blue noons;
And while my compeers moil'd as if their souls
Would leave them did they bate a single jot,
My foot would be afar upon the heath
With idle winds, or with the musing tide
Upon the lazy shore; and all quaint nooks,
Green lanes, old woods, lone tarns, and forest pools,
Knew me at most untimely business hours.
Wherever I abode my heart took on

The image of the place; it grew within
Like second nature, with a soft slow growth.

And then the sweet debauchery of books,
That led my soul into a trance of thought,
Without the rack of thinking!

Blessed time!
Of all that indolence and sloth could yield,
I drank my fill; and though I often dream'd
The hand of stern necessity had snatch'd
My golden leisure, and made me a slave,
I had no faith in dreams, and still delay'd
The nobler use of leisure:—to reclaim
The wastes of mind; to bring from the unknown
The trophy of a thought; to give men's hearts
The thrill of some new beauty; to restore
The ravel that impatient hurry breeds;
To break down all oppression, and declare
The universal brotherhood of man;
To seek God's mystery, to breathe new life
In dead beliefs, and bring to fretful hearts
The heaven of peace that rests alone in God.

Alas for precious leisure—precious now!
Now that my portion is the hour cut off
From needed sleep, the moment from a meal,
The blessed seventh day, for which thank Heaven,
Though friends in loving kindness take it all!—
Alas for leisure! I have none! The hours

Come howling round me, mad with work, till oft
I can but stand and look them all at bay:
But no—there's no abeyance—one by one,
Singly they must be taken, or I fall.

Moiling and toiling from the dawn to dusk—
Toiling and moiling in the blinding gas!
Tis hard to work with only hands and brain,
Without the heart to help—the heart that longs
To bring its own loved work within its reach.

The hours, like noisy carriers, bring their loads
And heave them down before me, then are gone,
Uncaring for the care they leave behind.
The beat of brain within, the haste without,
The unceasing, surging roar along the streets,
The noisome vapours, and the stifled air,
With all the heartless seeking after gold—
O, memories of green and quiet fields,
But I am tired of this!—My only peace
Is not my own, but second-hand—it comes
In looking at repose:—the week-day church,
Within the rails so placid, while without
Is Babel; or the massive pillar'd hall,
That puts to shame this littleness of haste,
And with its big thought slows the passing foot;
Or Age—contented, almost vacant, age—
Sunning itself upon a garden walk,
Amid the hive of streets; or even the glimpse
Of idle alehouse scenes—fat easy men

On benches, in a canopy of smoke,
And drawling out stale sentences, 'bout—nothing.

But why complain? I've had my share and more,
Though, like a foolish child, I've raked the sweets
Into the few first bites, and left the rest
Untempting, tasteless, to a stomach cloy'd.
Alas, had I but known! the plain hard fare,
Without the sweets, had rear'd a stouter heart.

My life has fed on lonely idleness,
With varied wanderings by land and sea,
And now this daily treadmill-round of work,
This constant smother of my own idea,
And feeble working out of thoughts not mine,
Kills all the man within me.—O! to be
Again let loose into the untamed life,
Free of restraint, and vagrant as the wind!

The wind itself—the free wind—moves in chains:
Within increasing circles freedom rules:
Necessity, God's mystery, bounds all.
Our highest freedom is to do the right,
As clearly and as stoutly as we may,
And wheresoe'er that leads us, still 'tis well.

Heaven knows that, with my present eyes, I see
Wrong turnings at all stages of my life:
But did I then? Each seem'd my one best road.
Who knows but that it was; that, while it led

To disappointment, the expected good
Was gain'd in Heaven's own way? So in this slough
Through which I swelter, Heaven alone can tell
What buried treasures lie. The school-boy's task,
Which seem'd his penalty, becomes in time
His strength and blessing. In the world's great school
Our lessons are as little understood,
And even more abhorr'd. But ripening time
Brings fruit to all. What though the many die
Unblest by the fruition! If we pass
Like sunrise onward in eternal day,
A time will come for all; and who may know
What tasks and trials now do best prepare
Each for his unknown sphere? The dead dry rules
Of language, that seem'd worthless to the youth,
Are to the man the wings of living thought.
And so the work of life, that seems mean toil,
Transform'd, will soar hereafter.

And so ends
My sorrow in philosophy. But shall
My hope of high achievement also end—
My life-long hankering after work in which
Head, heart, and hand might join—and I tame down
Into an unaspiring useful tool?
Is fine ambition vain, save when the act
Goes with it? And unwrought deeds, seen afar
In the despairing night, are they false stars?
If so, where be our guides, since life's dense fog
Lies all before us, our next step unknown?

O, trust thy best ideal, cherish still
The glory that the young heart burn'd to reach:
It was not there for nothing: work and wait.

Though hard necessity of daily bread
Drive in another path, and fate and chance
And weakness all combine to cramp the hope,
Still, think towards the achievement. Living thought,
Like Nature, works all things unto its ends,
And uses up what cannot be opposed.
None ever reach'd his heart's goal in the way
Himself plann'd or desired, but in God's way;
And when 'twas reach'd, he saw the hindrances
Were steps whereby the ascent was overcome.
In lives and rivers, the impediments
Give each a voice peculiarly its own.
Be mine the brave endurance of a stream,
By countless barriers turn'd off from my course;
Yet, after toilsome windings, still come round
Upon my loved intent—my seaward way.

XVI. [Each morning as I thread my accustom'd way]

Each morning as I thread my accustom'd way,
This heaven of beauty in her face I meet—
Soft Grecian lines that put Art to despair,
And eyes that give the thankless stones their light,
Which is to me a heavenly secret still.—

She comes to worship at the Roman shrine;
'Tis all I know; for I am nought to her!
And what is she to me? More than I know.

O not the sweet exchange of love for love!
For I have wealth of that, and crave no more.
I seek not to awake one slumbering pulse
In that rapt being, raise one lash to steal
The fringèd mystery beneath those lids:
An unapproach'd divinity be she,
Now and for ever, name and home, all, all
Within the mystic circle. But the joy
Of passing in her beauty—that is mine.
To me she is the bright bow 'mid the storm,
The star that crosses the blue gulfs in clouds,
The bud awaking from its winter dream,
Or aught of sweet ineffable surprise
That leaves the gazer touch'd with light from Heaven.—
For we should know all beauty is of God—
The underlying presence gleaming through
The outward forms. We may not understand,
By any lesser theory, how this
Fine ecstasy of beauty finds the soul.
The minster bell's deep boom strikes on my ear:
It strikes a deeper note amid my thoughts.
Can mere vibrations of surrounding air,
Outbeaten from the steeple's brazen lips,
Breaking on cartilage and nerve—can these,
Material as they are, or seem to be,
Mingle with spirit, and grow thought? Ah, no!

They are the scabbards for the gleaming steel
That so mysteriously cuts to the quick.—
And when the organ's myriad lips create,
Of air, the warbling miracle which finds
Strange concord in the soul, O is it air
That pierces to extremities of sense,
And works this wonder on the guest within?
Ah—call me not irreverent—'tis God,
The mystery of harmony and air!—
So, when our gazing wonder is absorb'd
Within the bosom of a simple flower,
Is it the delicately-blended hues
And the delicious odour that enchant?
Ay, these. But what are these? O think, and think!
The very God of Heaven is in the flower.

We cannot get beyond the fact of beauty:
It is to be adored, not analysed:
We seek to analyse, and it recedes
Into the deeper beauty. For in truth
The merest thing in Nature is a spirit:
All outward forms of beauty take their form
And beauty from the inward. Can it be
That when the outward forms have gone to dust
The inward are within the world of spirits?—
No empty world is that, but full as this
With all that we deem excellent.—And so,
'Tis heaven to me to meet this beauteous face—
The angel in the woman—Heaven indeed,
To think that earthly beauty may not die,

But deepen to the Heavenly—to feel
That we may give, without the fear of loss,
Unstinted heart to everything we love.—
Our loves are only half lived: there is still
Some timid apprehension of an end
That reins the heart, and breaks its full free bound.

O glorious earth! how much there is in thee
To love and worship! How much more would come
Could we dispel all petty fears and take,
With trustful hearts, the fulness of each day,
Believing that the soul, divinely fill'd
With love, can never lose the things it loves!
For seeming loss is still a deeper gain;
The object passes more into the mind,
And mind alone possesses. When death comes,
It lets us more and more back to the things
Which now we mourn as lost.—Ah, I have left
The dim mysterious woods, the brooding hills,
The daisied meadows and the haunted streams,
To rack my brains for bread, miles deep in streets.
Yet oft amidst my toil, far through my soul,
The woods, the hills, the meadows and the streams
Come robed in brighter glory than of yore;
In sleep, the prototype of death, they come
With an intenser beauty—or I go
In rapture back to them: and so when death
Gives free emancipation, I shall soon—
Ay, very soon—be where I long to be.

O nothing can be lost; and we can make
All things our own by loving them. What need
Of fearing or repining? Even I
Might be a very lord of Earth and Time.—
Away, all cant about position, wealth!
A thought dissolves it. Greatly live, each, all;
For God's true wealth is free to each and all—
The wealth of thought, the heritage of love.

XVII. [When in the blaze of life I see old mates]

When in the blaze of life I see old mates
Rich, in command, and courted; while, with years
Fast undermining, I obscurely serve,
I hardly can suppress the envious whine.
Yet, could I ope' the ledgers of each heart,
As I can do my own, and cast all up,
Who knows which side the balance might be on?

Debtor and creditor, how stands my account?
A drudging clerk—most helpless trade!—condemn'd,
For bread, to give my all, my golden hours,
From morn, up through the day into the night,
Unearthing old accounts in ill-kept books,
Brain-rack'd with balances, sear'd with per cents,
Buried in bills, cash, interest and goods:
Perhaps for one who, if he could, would turn

The whole earth with its beauty into cash,
All mankind but himself, their loves and hopes,
Fine aspirations, deep inventions—all,
Would realize in cash, and grasp the whole;
Who grudges breathing-time, feeds on the toil
Of servants, brain and body, gloats as if
Each drop of sweat came out a golden coin,
And all for him; whose avaricious soul
Knows not the taste of peace, but quakes in fear
Of bankruptcies, embezzlements and ruin;
Who chuckles oft, and grins, but cannot laugh,
For very want of room about his heart.

The dread of being slave to such a slave!
So runs my account. On the same side I find
Items against me of a smaller mark,
But great in count—perhaps the roots of all:—
Procrastination with its crust of sloth—
Faith in to-morrow, indolent to-day;—
The amiable propensity that sees
An equal good in opposites, and hence
Indifference, indecision, and the trains
Of life-long rues that follow,—for success
Oft comes from blindness to the opposing right.—
One item more,—'tis sundries—useful term!
Embracing petty failings and defects,
Unknown to me, but yet by others seen,
And swelling the result, who knows how much?

So much for that side. On the other stand—

A mind that hates all bondage, and owns none,
But, 'mid life's hard necessities, lives free
From all that slaves the thought;—an open love
For all the forms of being, finding good
In tavern and temple, sinner and saint;
Deep joy within the courts of Heaven; light joy—
If sadness too—along the flaunting streets;—
An appetite for Beauty, that devours
Nature's and Art's rich feasts, and yet can live
Upon their simplest meals—the dusty ray
That briefly slants at noon across my desk,
Like God's enchanting wand, a touch from Heaven—
The happy smoke, from sooty dens let free
To sail away into the sea of light—
The myriad reflex of the painter's dreams
Shop windows freely give—and wandering notes
Of street musician, be they e'er so rude;—
A sweet immunity from avarice,
Which reckons that, at least, if nothing's gain'd,
No thought, no toil is lost in the attempt;—
The economy that never can be poor,
But richer grows by lessening its wants;—
Rare health, impervious to the damps of life,
Social and physical—from battering storms
Shaking my feathers for another flight;—
A deepening belief in Right and Truth,
That they are not our thought, but from above—
The moral gravity that sways events
To highest good, however bad they seem;—
The love of books, which finds in them the gold

That buys up all conditions;—above all,
A share in that fine alchymy whose touch
Reveals the God in all things, gives the peace
That passeth understanding.—These I note
Of personal inheritance. Then comes
This item out of self; a happy home—
A small, poor home, but O how rich to me!
Enrich'd by one who sheds around the hearth
Perpetual summer, flowering into love;
And little busy hearts that round her swarm,
Half hid in folds, like bees in smothering blooms;
An Eden to my soul, and when at morn
I leave, I straight begin to long for even.

So, now, I've cast up both sides. If to you
The balance seems against me, O believe
With me it is far otherwise! For each
Appraises his effects by his own guage.
If Shakspeare is my gold, Australia's mines
Would fail to make me rich. All things are poor
To him that may not bathe them deep in love;
And of the things I love, great store have I.

My envious cloud soon passes: 'tis the rack
That scuds on sunny wings in summer skies,
Interpreting how deep the blue beyond!

XVIII. [Farewell, my Channing! I will call thee mine]

Farewell, my Channing! I will call thee mine,
For love gives full possession. Two rich years,
Obscurely and unknown to thee, I've lived
Upon thy wealth of thought; and through each week
Have hunger'd, hunger'd for thy Sabbath feast.—
But thou art gone, as if the hand of death
Had on the instant beckon'd thee away.—
E'en through that sermon which became our last,
A hope possess'd me almost to the end;
But when the closing word fell from thy lips,
Methought the door of Heaven slamm'd in my face,
And left me outside weeping, thou within.—
That beauteous temple of thy ministry,
Its heavenward pillars and its pictured light,
Breathed inwardly the very soul of Art.
It was a living beauty—it is now
Only a splendid tomb, fill'd with regret.

And who of all thy creed—if creed be thine,
Whose universal heart has room for all—
Shall fitly fill thy place? Many will come;
And flowing essays, brimm'd with noble thoughts,
And very like to sermons, we shall have;
But who shall be the preacher? They will come;
And when they've pass'd the ordeal, we shall find
New laurel round thy name, and in our hearts
A deeper pang of grief. And adverse minds

That held thee as a dreamer, misty, vague,
Will, from the mere transparency that follows,
Grow doubly clear, and learn to read thy dreams.

However low our scale of mind, we think
That all beyond our easy reach is dream;
And he best pleases our conceit who says
Just what we know, or plainly comprehend.
Thus do we keep the comfortable plain.
But would we catch the beams that wake the soul
To new and wondrous life, choose him that takes
The panting heights; and though in cloud and mist
We lose him oft, yet, ever and anon,
The gleams break through, the misty curtain lifts,
And we behold our leader and his thought,
Standing all brightness on a sun-brow'd hill.

Ah, such wert thou! Thy theme, however low,
Soon beat the Heavenly chords: for God, the sum
Of all true preaching, was thy all in all.
If thou did'st ever harp upon that chord,
'Twas glorious sameness, and, like blessed bread,
Came with a daily sweetness. Thou would'st stand
Possess'd in thought, thy utterance half choked;
And we could almost fear thy burden'd thought
Was not for us, when lo! it came, like some
Rock-barrier'd spring, in unexpected ways.
No measured strain, of which, the first part given,
And we might end the sentence: it was more
An inspiration through thee, thou thyself

As much surprised as we. For thou wert still
The worshipper, and not alone the priest.

The thought unlived in giving it, falls dead—
It matters not how true it be. But thine
Came ever molten, burn'd with life, and fill'd
The heart in unknown depths.—And thine the aim
To knit up fritter'd lives, and give to each
The quickening truth that God has work for him;
That to the unknown meaning of the world
His life gives new solution; that within
The crucible of being he may drop
Some needed chemical. Ah, then, how great
The need of being faithful to his star,
That lode which draws his genius to fulfil
God's end in him, and reap the inward bliss
Which faithfulness matures through weal or woe.

Thine was no terror-God in far-off heaven,
But closely here, and, in the strictest sense,
Father and nourisher of living souls:
From whom in daily breakings-through of Truth,
And change of Beauty, we draw endless life.
For whatsoever thing wakes love in us—
E'en to the lowest appetite—does so
Because of God therein; and love is life.
Love most, live most; and he that highliest loves,
The highliest lives. We deem it strange that God,
Whom outward eye has never yet beheld,
Can be the object of our fullest love:

But who has ever seen the thing belov'd?
'Tis inward all; and when it passes forth
The visible's unlovable,—as earth
Would be unlovely dross did God withdraw.—
Things rise to truth and beauty in so far
As God lives freely through them. See that flower,
Whose natural conditions give no check
To the Divine inflowing, and what soul
Can get beyond its beauty? When I drink
The wonder from its cup, my brain is turn'd
To sweet stupidity. If simple plants
Live, and are beautified by God in them,
So, surely, man. He lives from God to God,
A constant inspiration; and the sole
Condition of his growth is evermore
Obedience to the inward voice of Right.

We pray for health and peace and all good things.
But if I rightly understood thy prayers,
They were for more of God and more of God—
The one true light that pales the rest, and gives
That perfect day our cravings blindly seek.—
God comes to us in every faithful act,
In every glimpse of beauty, in all Truth,—
But most immediately in lonely prayer.
True prayer, even while it asks, receives—
If not what most we seek, what most we need.
'Tis not so much a cause as a result;
And God is with us ere the lip be moved.
That we can pray is answer to our prayer.

To raise amidst our thoughts a little crypt,
Sacred to God, and through this porch of prayer,
Daily to enter, for the briefest term,
And leave outside our follies, strifes and sins,
Were sweet redemption and a growing Heaven
For us, who cannot, without ceasing, pray.

Thy every Sabbath gave us some new heart,—
The after week was upward. Thou art gone!
And in the stand-still of my grief I feel
The ground already slipping. On the heights
To keep our footing, is to climb and climb.
We cease to climb, the shingly slopes give way,
And we are passing downward.—Thou art gone!
And in our clouded ken, there's no one left
To tell us of the light beyond the clouds.—
Farewell! Could we not bravely lose thee now,
It would belie thy teachings: this our faith—
That God's true servants serve most by their loss.
The Christ that preach'd the Sermon on the Mount,
Began His ministry upon the Cross.

XIX. [For one whole week I breathed Orcadian air—]

For one whole week I breathed Orcadian air—
So far up in the north that, all the time,
I felt among cloud-islands of the skies.
And Autumn lay asleep among the isles;
The fiords all had still'd their roaring throats,

Afraid to wake her, and, into themselves,
Murmur'd a drowsy bass; the grim-brow'd cliffs
Bent forward, half relax'd their savage looks
At seeing them reflected in the pools.—
As oft I stood upon a tiptoe hill,
The lesser islands sail'd out in the bays,
And promontories drifted into isles.
It was enchanted land—some other world—
That hung within the void; and rounding all,
Beneath it as above, was calm blue sky.

High over all, the weather-beaten head
Of Hoy rises. On his scarrèd brow
He wears a precious stone—a carbuncle—
Enough, 'tis thought, to buy Orcadia.
From certain points its fiery beams are seen;
And many an islander has mark'd the spot,
Then clomb the footless heights to snatch the prize,
And be for ever rich. In vain his search!
The bright delusion's never to be found.
But when he has retraced the perilous steep,
The thing he sought is in its place again,
And laughs at him. So are we ever fool'd
On earth by things that glitter. Wealth and fame
When reach'd are never found. But, failing oft,
We learn at last our truest wealth is love,—
Best fame, approving conscience.

Up the cliffs
Of Hoy, there's another precious stone,

Suggesting richer wealth than diamond,
Ruby or pearl—yea, all the ruck of gems.
The breezy front of that high beetled rock
Presents, as if medallion'd on the sky,
By Nature chissel'd, the exact profile
Of Walter Scott. There has the wizzard brow
Hung brooding o'er the isles from time unknown,
And seen enacted all the stirring lore
Of pirates, smugglers, jarls and old sea-kings.
O storied Prince! from that high stand, on this,
Its northern bound, look southward and behold
Thy legendary empire.

In the north
Both Nature and Antiquity had freaks
Of writing thoughts in stone. In yonder holm,
All solitary, far from human strife,
Some desert soul has hewn itself a house
Out of the solid rock. Tradition gives
No record but its name—The Dwarfie Stone.
Yet oft a history is in a name:
And we in this may read the gnarl'd dwarf,
Unhuman held, uncanny, to be fear'd,—
Retiring to the desert from the gaze
Of superstitious, half averted eyes,
Knowing no kindred but his own weird thoughts,
The trailing clouds, the shrieking winds, the sprite
That whistles 'mong the rocks before a storm;
Perhaps the visitings of troubled ghosts,
Or deeper stir of the eternal God;—

And, driven thus within himself, becoming
Wrapp'd with the visions of the inner world,
That make him fear'd the more; unearthly light
Gathering within his eyes, and lonely thought
Ensphering him in visionary mist;
Till, like a thing in fairy waters dipt,
He takes mysterious change, and comes to be
The weird but innocent tyrant of the isles.

And in Orcadia we find the rocks
That Miller read—the very rocks that gave
To him their “testimony,” in a type
Already ancient when our Adam came,
To which his Eden's but a minute since,
The fabled flood the rain that fell e'en now:
Those marvellous stone scriptures that reveal
What monsters trod the earth and swam the seas,
Or crawl'd in slime of half-created earth,
Age after age, ere yet the eye of man
Was there to watch; and how the aged woods,
Year after year, put on their roofs of green,
And waited eras with their oaken aisles,
Without one Druid soul to dedicate
Their silences to prayer: whose only sounds
Were of the winds and rains, the beasts that made
Fierce loves and fiercer wars, heaven's fiery bolts
That rent the groaning oaks, the old-world screams
Of birds to us unknown; but surely not
The linkèd music of our modern woods;
For in my heart I read that merle and thrush,

Yea, all the voices of our woodland quires
Were given to Eve in paradise, long, long
After the writing of those books of stone.

Inland the explorer turns—if inland be,
Where all is island, even the islands cleft
With reaches of the sea—and he beholds
Stennis, the mystic Stonehenge of the north,
Upon a tongue of springy sward that parts
Two bleak, half-salted lochs. A stranger, he
Knows not what sight awaits him, passing down
The easy sloping road, when starts in view
A curve of visionary things, that shine
Like ghosts amid the sunlight, white or gray,
As pass the sailing shadows of the clouds.
With wondering gaze and speculative thought,
He nears and nears them, while by slow removes
They've rank'd themselves into a giant ring
Of hoary stones, and, in the centre, one
Of huger bulk than any of the rest.

Speak! ye dumb priests of eld, and say what kind
Of men they were that set you thus on end,
And to what purpose? Not a single word!
The yellowhammer sits on your bald crowns,
And mocks my queries with its moorland pipe:
Methinks a whisper runs from each to each,
But 'tis the wind upon your flinty sides,
And not your inward voices. Ye have slept
The dream of many ages, and your own

Is harden'd into stone. It will not yield
To us the reflex of its inner self,
Long cross'd Time's dusky gulf, though living still
In some far circle of eternal light.
Yet underneath the springy sward, and through
The solid hearts of these old stones, I feel
The beating thought that raised them; and within
This almost mythic temple I am bow'd
With worship deeper than mere stones evoke.
A haunted place—the ancient forms of men,
And their devotion gone, all long, long gone!
But these gray stones that heard their songs and pray'rs,
Ring with their spirits yet; this grass has lived
Perennially since then—the same they trod:
Yon sun, so old and young, look'd down on them,
And saw their rites: he looks the same on me.
O, Druid! we are one; I feel thy thoughts
Now climbing up to God. The form of thought
Goes with the age—the thought is for all time.

In sight of Stennis there's another waif
Of the forgotten times. On the dark heath
There is a circular mound—as many such,
In outside look, among those isles there be:
But most are only heap'd-up earth and stones,
O'ergrown with Nature's coverlet of green.
In this one, when the antiquarian spade,
Only the other day, upturn'd the sod,
Some blocks of unlimed masonry appear'd.
Then pick and labouring crowbar came to work,

And pick'd and prized, when lo! this ponderous roof—
For such 'twas found to be—fell, groaning, in,
And darkness, the freed prisoner, leapt out.
All eyes were in amaze, and, looking down,
Beheld a chamber, square, and all compact,
Its firm walls built of uncemented flags,
Knit flat upon each other. On three sides,
Recesses, breast high, open'd into cells
About the size of beds, paved, roof'd and wall'd
With single flags. A passage on the fourth,
Some twenty feet in length, each side one block,
Led outward from the chamber; would have led
Into the open day, but for the earth
That choked its outer entrance, and the sod
That green'd the whole into a grassy mound.

And what its history? Who knows? who knows?
No implement of peace or war was found,
No relic of the living or the dead.—
Yet may itself tell all. Upon the slabs
That pillar the four corners, and around
The lintels of the cells, are many lines
Of Runic writ, but all so out of date
That none in all the north can read one word:
They wait the coming Daniel. At one place—
And strangely out of place among the Runes—
Was found a dragon artfully engraved;
The doing, clearly, of some after age;
And 'twas inferr'd from this, that once before
The place had been discover'd, and this now

Only a re-discovery.—Nothing more
Is to be known until the dragon speak,
And older Runes reveal. But only think
With what sweet faith the gravers cut their thoughts
Into the during stone—that, while it lasts,
Their names and day might live! These unearth'd walls,
Shut from the washing rains and beating winds,
Are fresh as when first quarried from the earth;
But who shall wake a living soul within
Their mummied characters, and make them tell—
E'en tell how long their histories are dead!

The quaint Orcadian towns—Kirkwall, Stromness!—
Their streets about as wide as one might span
With good long arms outstretch'd—like closes paved—
And crooked as the inside of a whelk—
Gables and angles jutting to the front—
And while in other towns, stables and sheds
Are in the rear of houses, these have piers,
Where, in the olden time, each house kept moor'd
Its own sea steed, and in the later days
The skipper snugg'd his schooner and enjoy'd
His winter ease: secluded havens and safe—
Suggesting rolls of silk, and pipes of wine,
And tales of starlight smuggling.—In our age
Of lighted towns, how fine to realize
The antique dream of darkness in the streets!
Stromness is yet in innocence of gas—
In subterranean gloom, with, here and there,

A lamp that fights to keep its oily soul
Amid the drowning dark; and when we grope
Our doubting way about the winding streets,
Meetings, not unromantic, oft take place.

But Kirkwall, the metropolis of the isles,
Shines with the modern flame; which throws its glare
Against the ancient palaces of earls,
And halls of old sea-kings. For here we find
The strong palatial gateways, the paved courts
And thick-wall'd mansions of the lordly times,
Degraded into hostelries and shops.
And here Saint Magnus lifts his sacred pile
In bold cathedral beauty, seen afar
By islanders at labour in their fields,
Or drawing the sea's produce from the fiords,
And by the straining eyes that pass in ships.
For though all earth, with its Mosaic floor
Of heath and rock, green plain, and shore, and sea,
And yon far ceiling of the dreamy blue,
Should be our God-built temple, yet we think
We reach some inner worship in those shrines
That men have built to God; and thus, far seen,
They work a Sabbath in the gazer's heart.

Saint Magnus, though I may refuse thy creed,
These massive, grim, red, weather-beaten walls,
Their dim old epitaphs, with sea devices,
And even thy two brass platters that receive
The weekly pence—large, round and rude, like shields

Of sea-gods, with quaint mottoes round their rims,
In stout old English of a northern ring,—
Saint Magnus, these, with Christ's dear life that breathes
Through every stone, and consecrateth all,
Put out the creeds, and leave thee a pure shrine,
Wherein the universal heart might kneel—
Yea, all that know the everlasting God.

Within an ancient hostelry I lay;
The revellers of night had dropt to rest;
And Dawn's gray eye was opening, when I heard
A gathering of noises in the streets:
The bleat of sheep, the short sharp bark of dogs,
The nickering of ponies, the mix'd rowte
Of bullocks, some like groans, and some as shrill
Almost as trumpets, and the shouts of men—
Drovers that whoop'd and whistled through their teeth.
And when I rose the bay was molten gold;
The steamer and her shadow, keel to keel,
Lay dreamily at anchor: her thick smoke
Curl'd up in one straight column and dissolved
Into the viewless air: her decks were pack'd
With all those noisy breakers of my sleep,
Now quietly resign'd: boats, gunwale deep
With passengers and luggage from the shore,
Pass'd others lightly coming for their loads.
Before the sun had reach'd halfway to noon
We had embark'd. The steamer's jarring bell
Clash'd out its last alarum to the shore,
Amid the roar of the impatient steam.

But soon that labouring giant found its work
Among the ponderous cranks, and he was still'd.
We steer'd to sea, clove through the gleaming calm,
Pass'd little isles and weather-eaten rocks
On either side, still keeping out to sea;
And soon Orcadia pass'd into the clouds.

XX. [As through the world's great show of Sixty-two]

As through the world's great show of Sixty-two
I wander'd, gazed and marvell'd, in my soul
A solemn humiliation most prevail'd.
In all that concentration of man's art,
I had no hand; none ask'd me, Would I help?
That beauty, ingenuity and skill—
The outcome of the world's far forward day—
Were none of mine. The savage, with his tools
Of shell and flint, contributed his craft,
And help'd the world to move: the beasts that range
The pathless desert gave as much as I.
My only claim was, that I went to see.
And that was something. He that, looking on,
Says in his heart, Well done! makes smoother way
For all that is to follow, and thus aids
The onward move unconsciously. But he
Who is himself no doer, and who looks
Not to admire, but only to pick flaws—

Though perfect even as his own conceit—
What is he but a drag upon the age?—
So if I did not add one thing of use
Or beauty, I could freely give my heart,
With all its plaudits. If in my own vein
I also could work out a thought or two,
And lay them on the altar of our day,
Then might I through my offering find peace.—
For what had all those things once been but thoughts,
Embodied now in forms? the whole a thought
Of Albert, the good prince, who was indeed
A king—unknown as such till he was lost.

In those bright summer days of Sixty-two,
All hearts, all trains, all boats seem'd making up
For London; and, when there, 'buses and cabs,
And keen pedestrians, through every street,
All crowded to one centre with one aim,
Which seem'd to make broad-cloth and fustian one,
And nations all one brotherhood. For there,
Britons and Franks, the Russian and the Turk,
Forgot their wars; the three-times-injured Pole
Almost, if not forgot, forgave his wrongs.
There came the ancient Dane, the blue-eyed Swede,
And Norway's hardy sons; the brave Magyar;
The German, drowsy with deep thought and smoke;
The mountain Swiss, whom tyrants could not bow;
The Greek of great descent—alas, how great!
Italia's sons, all music; and the Don,
Proud of Castilian blood. And from the East,

The old, old East, Caliphs and Viziers came,
In whose loose sumptuous garments we re-read
All the Arabian tales. E'en China sent
A few celestial eyes to be enlarged
In the barbarian's show. From isles unknown,
And countries far, far inland, came strange men
Of every hue. And even the embattled States,
Unmatch'd for ingenuity, could spare
From deadly strife, their sons—alas, too few!

And so, we came, and met, and fraternized—
All brothers from all countries of the earth—
And merged all tongues in one; for vocal speech
Gave over to the universal eye
Its office, and we spake the world-wide tongue.

Beneath that glass-domed roof we never thought
About this outer world, its cares and toils,
But wander'd in a bright enchanted land—
A dream, a fairy world, a very heaven,
Where all that heart could wish for, straight appear'd.—
We enter'd, and the falling waters brought
Anthems of mossy dingles in our ears;
And on their scented breath our spirits pass'd
Into forgetful sweetness. But anon,
The deep-lung'd organ roll'd its music clouds
Far through the mazy aisles; or clarion lips
Blew martial strains that stirr'd the creeping blood,
Until the oaten warble of the flutes
Brought back its dreamy pace.

Through endless courts,
Interminable galleries and aisles,
We wander'd, each one by his genius drawn
To linger longest where its charm was most.
Some hung in rapture o'er a glittering stone,
No bigger than a walnut, but in price
Almost a fable; or a trophy, framed
Of gold and studded gems, in value rank'd
Beyond all common count. What are those gems?
The histories of the rocks we greatly know,
And rest much satisfied: but can we guess
The fine creative secrets that have made
The diamond, the emerald, the sapphire?
Creations rare as genius among men,
And therefore to be gazed at.

Some pass'd by
The jewell'd wonders with a slighting glance,
And sought the industrial courts; there to behold
The myriad skill'd machinery at work.
The clicking looms wove out their pictured hues
Like dawn, as if behind their flickering skeins
A guiding spirit moved; and queer machines,
Fed with some raw material, did work
That only heads and hands, we thought, could do.
Models of engines, too, in brass and steel,
Supplied with tiny arteries of steam,
Work'd noiselessly as thought.—Ah! there it was—
Within those busy courts—my wasted life
The most upbraided me. Those things had come

Out of the brains of men since I was born,
And made a new world, while I drowsed and dream'd.

Then, in the agricultural domains,
What troops of swarthy farmers, landed squires,
And buxom, rosy matrons! They would stand
In knots around some new-invented churn,
Or patent cheese-press, or the plough that turns
Four furrows at a time; and thus, with heads
Lean'd wisely to one side, discuss their points—
How that the new surpass'd, by far, the old,
Or how that, after all, say what you will,
The good old implement was still the thing!

Among the minerals and chemicals
There was not much to catch the thoughtless eye;
But let the mind once look at them, and soon
The day was gone in wonder. There we saw,
Before us laid, the vitals of the earth;
The ores, so little use ere yet man's thought
Was breathed into them—with the living brain
To fuse, refine and fashion them, the wealth
Of nations and their warlike arbiters;—
And all the essences that chemistry
Has found for us in most unlikely things—
Rank poisons even in our wholesome food,
And in most noxious refuse sweetest balms;—
Compacts of Nature loosen'd and reduced
To single elements, their secrets bared,
All save the one great secret that combined

The sever'd parts: it pass'd unseen beneath
The chemist's eye, pass'd like a soul at death.
This was the elixir that, in old times,
The men accounted wizards tried to find,
By crucible and fire. It is the same
That gives the poesie to poets' lines,
But passes, likewise, if they are analyzed:
The same that mystics in their visions see,
But, bringing other eyes to be enrich'd,
Can show them nothing: for of old 'twas written,
That never man by search might find it out.

But on, on through the gorgeous wilderness—
For we are busy people when at home,
And here our time is short. From court to court
We visited the nations of the earth,
With all their waving flags and countless products;
Our hovering eyes, like bees in plots of flowers,
Afraid to light, lest in some special bloom
We lose the wingèd day. On through the courts,
And dipping out into the dazzling aisles,
And passing carelessly a world of things,
The poorest one of which were in our eyes
A household god, if in our little homes.—
But there were some creations there, that stood
In rings of gazing eyes all through the days,—
As that death-struggle of two Danes in bronze,
With quaint home-legends round its pedestal
In sorrowing bas-reliefs: it was, in sooth,
A long day's study, and it went far back

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Among the deep affections of the heart.
Or that all-beauteous form, that marble dream,
Our Gibson's tinted Venus, whose blue eyes
And breathing limbs made all pale sculpture dead,
To him who once on that sweet vision gazed.—
But wherefore name, where everything deserved
A special note? 'Twere best to leave them all
Without report,—as when, in Shakspeare's page,
I first began to mark the golden lines,
But gave it up on finding every line,
If not all gold, at least so deftly turn'd,
That it became a part of England's tongue,
For aye to be remember'd.

But aloft,
To winding galleries the dense crowds press.
Some linger o'er the products of the looms—
The snow-white linens, and the gorgeous silks,
And cottons, many hued; but most pass on
To the great halls, wherein the limner's art
Had clad the walls with pictured histories,
And legends, allegories, famous dreams,
Of tragedy and farce. And there, to stand
Before the very work that Hogarth did,
And Wilkie, Etty, Landseer and Maclise!
The master-works wherewith, at second-hand,
The graver's skill has dower'd all our homes.
But here again, to name, I feel the old
Shakspearian futility, and leave,
Without the risk of dragging one great work

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Into obscurer light, out of its heaven
Of silent admiration, speechless gaze.

And now, though shut in from the outer world,
We see the day has sloped far down the west.
The twilight shadows creep along the walls,
And we have scarcely yet begun to see
The world's great show. So let us now begin.—
Alas! the deep bell swings, and clang on clang
Rolls far and wide along the vaulted aisles.
The vast concave is all one volumed clang;
The startled multitudes fall into streams
And ripple off; and we that still remain,
To snatch a lingering look, are netted out
By guardians of the peace in narrowing lines.

Thus leave we the great domes and vaulted roofs
All night unto the watcher's measured tramp,
And creeping shadows from the moon and stars,
And spirits of their daily visitants,
Revisiting in what are call'd their dreams;
Until the morning rises and repeats
Our yesterday. And so at last we leave,
With no complete conception, but souls fill'd
With one grand wonder, which gives all our days
An under-stream of grandeur to the end.

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XXI. [The poetry of earth is learnt in youth]

The poetry of earth is learnt in youth,
Through every open pore. When years have baked
Hard crusts about the soul, the beauty-throbs
Of Nature cannot reach it. I am stirr'd
More with the memory, the dream of things,
Than with the present fact. The setting day
Set through me one time, and the morning light
Came inwardly, and gave me richer blood.
But now they pass outside, and scarcely move
A pulse in all my being. I go far
To pay my homage to some world-famed lake,
Or mountain that puts on its crown of gold
An hour before the dawn;—but when I seek
To live the admiration, it grows dim.
The village pond and sunny bank, I find,
Have been more potent in their day, and yet
I turn'd no foot to see them.

But we know
The spiritual breathings never come
To conscious expectation. Ghosts appear,—
But not when watch'd for. And the mystic light,
That steals, unsought, into the poet's eye,
And gives him Nature's imagery, comes not
When gazers call. Stars drop their lustry dew
Into the very eye of glaring Day,
Yet Day sees none. The things we seek, we miss:

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But something else we do not seek, we get.
So, when I journey'd far to view the lake,
Or clomb laboriously the sun-crown'd hill,
And got not what I went for, who shall say
I got not something even more divine?—
Believe, that every wind blows some new seed
Within the fallow patches of the heart.
We see its flower, but whence or when it comes,
We never know. Though we are grown-up men
To that which we have learnt, we still are babes
To all that is beyond, and fed like babes.
We cry for more, still more—our wiser nurse
Knows that we have enough, and places us
Where needs, not wishes, may be best supplied.

A piece of business takes me to converse
With some much favour'd man. His fields and herds,
His gardens, and his far-outlooking house,
Raise painful questionings. They are to him
Only as so much money. Were they mine,
How much more fully could I draw their wealth!
'Tis folly! Let him keep them—he that needs
The riches he unconsciously receives,
And they so largely give. I have enough
Of the divinity of woods and glebes;
But many empty corners in my brain
Which Nature cannot fill. I must go back
To duties that for me hold out no charm.
That which we would be, we already are,
And do not need to be it. The desire

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Arises from the fitness; and if earth
Were other than a school, 'twere well to do
The thing that each is fittest for. But no—
The world can do with failure and bad work,
So long as better'd men grow out of them.

The best philosophy still brings us back
To cheerful, child-like trust, our highest truths,
And most immediate duties. These accept—
These live and do, and so be one with God—
A willing part of that great wave that moves
The eras onward to the unknown shore:
Or, if a shoreless wave, still good for all.

XXII. [A summer week was closing in the dusk]

A summer week was closing in the dusk,
When, after many years, full of events,
I enter'd once again my mother-town.—
The ancient steeple boom'd, and shook the streets
With old-remember'd clangour, and the spires
Struck out the hours and quarters in known tongues.
But in the crowded streets I was unknown,
And wander'd like a ghost that sees, unseen.
Companions of my youth came past. How old,
And burden'd with the world they seem'd! Ah, me!
Can I, who feel so young, look old to them?
And some I knew as poor and dull of brain,

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Seem'd now the portly leaders of the town!
Whilst others, born of leaders, seem'd their slaves,
And pass'd with skulking cringe. The Provost's son,
Who carried off the prizes in our class,
Now wheel'd a brewer's barrow, and the lad
That swept the school was Provost. Gray old men,
An age before my time, came shuffling past;
But through their wrinkles I could recognize
The features of their prime. Through lighted panes
I look'd into the shops, and heads inside,
That I had known as rattle-brains, were now
Moider'd with money, with accounts perplex'd.
And some were eaten to the bones with care,
While others laugh'd and fatten'd. I mistook
The joyous maiden of my earliest youth—
Now sadly overlarded—for her mother.
And by her stood herself, her very self—
Not one whit changed in twenty changeful years—
Who lifted up her sweet blue eyes, and mine
Fell lost within them; yet she turn'd away,
Unconsciously, and look'd elsewhere. Alas!
It was the daughter of my sweet Blue-eyes!

But in my wand'rings, ere the darkness fell,
I turn'd me down an old and grimy close,
And stood before the house where first I breathed;
Now tenantless and haunted, all its panes
Stoned in, its casements broken, and its doors
Seal'd up with rust and mould; its sooty sides
Streak'd and begrimed with rivulets of rain;

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Shut off from noise, yet in the midst of noise;
But all so quiet, I could hear the rats,
'Mid rattling plaster, squeaking in the walls.
And then, the dank thick smell! 'twould kill me now;
Yet I remember well, it was the same
'Mid which, in those unsanitary days,
I lived and throve. And wonderfully well
We live in any vile condition'd place,
So long as ignorance conceals the risk:
But once our fears are chemically waked,
We sicken where we throve. And so in morals:—
Friend, you may practice all your tricks of trade,
And yet escape damnation: but for me,
I do them at my peril. The false act
Soon withers with my victim; but its roots
Are here, and grow up nettles in my breast.

The old town went to bed in drenching rain.
All night we heard the plashing in the streets,
The choking conduits, and the bocking spouts.
But, drenching as it was, the summer night
Drank up the floods, and Sabbath morning found
A sweet baptismal beauty over all.

The kirk-bells rang the quiet Sabbath in—
Along the drowsy streets, up to the hills,
And down the sleeping river out to sea.
A solemn hush fill'd all the town—how strange,
That absence of all noise can fill a place!
The tiny bugle of a bee was heard—

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Perhaps imagined; and a butterfly,
Stray'd from its clover fields, pass'd through the streets

When to the churches crowds had thicken'd past,
And thinn'd away again, I turn'd my steps
To that green temple with the azure roof,
Wherein of old I worshipp'd, with the ban
Of friendly censure on me. For to seek
Religion in the Sabbath fields, and read
God's scriptures in the wild-flowers, was to break
The most imperiling of the ten commands,
And make me dangerous, and to be shunn'd
By every sound believer. But the years
Have only deepen'd my old love and faith:
The thin partition, that divides the seen
From the unseen, grows thinner, and the stones
Beneath my feet begin to throb. O Earth!
The beauty that I loved was not youth's dream,
Nor mine an erring faith, that Nature's lips
To loving hearts make utterance divine.
And now to find old haunts e'en deeplier fill'd
With inner being, gave old love and faith
Sweet reminiscence and approval deep.

I left the town, and took the slope that leads
Up to the round green hill that overlooks
The sweep of twenty miles: and as I clomb
The alter'd road, here levell'd and there wall'd,
I came to dim remember'd marks, like scars
Forgotten in the face of one we know.

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And portions of the road, that were of old
Traversed by stepping stones, had to be cross'd
Upon the self-same stones. The ones that splash'd
I knew, and took them with a tentful step.—
And there, the single ash, by gusty nights
Blown into gnarly knots. Ah, me! these years
Have I been roaming up and down the earth,
And every night drawn to a shelter'd bed,
Whilst thou, unhoused, in this bleak nook hast borne
The torture of the winds. But hence thy tough
And knotty strength. If we had never crept
From wind and wet, but given them brave front,
Much of thy rude health had been ours, and less
Of wheeze and rheum, and dread of blessed air.

I slowly clomb the hill, each step a thought,
And on its southern peak, as on a cloud,
I stood. The little world lay all beneath,
And noon sat high amid the spotless blue.
So calm and still, a steamboat's heavy beat
Far up the river came, and up the hill.
Her lazy smoke, between the sky and sea,
Trail'd, like the fabled serpent of the deep.
And where the river with the ocean meets,
The dreamy capes lay out against the sky
Like streaks of cloud. Around me, near and far,
Each clump of trees, with its old nodding tower,
Came to me like a mother's evening tale.
And at my feet the old town lay. I stood
Above its thin blue sheet of Sabbath smoke,

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That like a calm lake hung upon the air.
I stood above the swallows, and they skimm'd
The fields of azure far above the streets.
I stood above the sparrows and the daws
That clamour'd round the steeple. Above all
I stood, and deep within my being came
The spirit of the picture. But no words
Can give it out again. I only name
The objects that it breathed in.

Then I turn'd
Inland, and from a northern peak re-lived
Old haunts of youth. Far in the background rose
The sharp blue hills, outlined against the sky,
And sunny gleams ran into dusky glens,
And I could hear, methought, the eagle's cry
Deep, deep within them. Nearer by, a wood
Of dark firs slept and dream'd of old weird days.
Imagination could not bring a voice
From that wood's silence: it was dead asleep.
And nearer still, the legendary holmes,
Broomy and green, with many a fairy ring;
Their burn that sings, its loneliness to cheer;
Their old meal-mill, built in against a bank,
Its dusty roof o'ergrown with grass and corn,
Its door choked up with docks, its water-wheel
Half hid in nettles and o'er-run with moss.
And nearer yet, green lanes, where I could see
The flaxen heads of children plucking flowers,
And hear their ringing voices. Close at hand,

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The sweet red-linnet sat among the whins,
And piped a Doric song. But what avails
This bald vocabulary? I would give
The living something that came out of things,
And flow'd through all my being—this I'd give
To quicken you, but offer only words.

The sunset drew me to a western green
That looks far upland 'mong the golden hills.—
A crowd was on the green; for through the land
The fervour of revived religion ran.
Long evening shadows slanted to the east,
The river, widened to a lake of gold,
Lay mirroring the sunset; and a psalm,
On wings of simple harmony, arose,
And pass'd into the evening as a part
Of its own beauty. Amidst bended eyes,
A white-hair'd elder, with upturnèd brow
To listening Heaven, breathed the prayer of all.
Then some spoke fierce reproof, some dove-like hope,
Some dealt damnation, and some sprinkled balm.
But there was one that spoke, who seem'd to lead
The order of the worship. Him I knew
In early youth, his years scarce more than mine.
And this is he, dull pate! so glib, so pat,
So confident, so full of telling texts,
So spirit-stirring, and withal so changed!
His words were manna to their hungry souls;
But—shall I own it?—they were gall to me.
Here has he rested peacefully at home,

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And all the affluence of a mind matured,
Comes graciously unto him. I have ranged
From land to land, and sail'd the thoughtful seas,
And heard and seen a world-deal more than he,
And crept from blind belief to unbelief,
And struggled out of that,—yet here I stand,
My mind a ravell'd skein, loose ends of thought,
With no continuous thread of any kind:
And place me where he speaks, I'd find my thoughts
All run to dusty wool, no threads at all,
And which, if beaten out, would only blind!

The true or false, the good or bad, he knows,
Without misgiving, and can set it down
Without a reservation. But, with me,
The true and false are somewhat false and true;
And when I come to know a thing, it turns
Some other side and passes into doubt.

Yet is not each new doubt an upward step?
And since no human faculty need hope
To bound the last remove of any thought,
'Tis weakness to be fixed and say we know.

Thank God, I know not anything, but live
In thoughtful ignorance, and give wide marge
To opposite beliefs, despising none,
Yet taking none as final. Thus, each day
Breaks like a new creation; every look
Takes some new wonder out of things seal'd up

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As known and done with; and a child-like trust
Of boundless possibilities retains
The full free joy of childhood in the man.

And are we not all children, we that hold
The everlasting heritage of life?
We do not lay aside exhausted thoughts:
They open into inner cells, and keep
A reach beyond the thinker. He that stops
At any point, believing it the last,
Has not the thought exhausted, but himself.

If I have envied thee and thy brave gift
Of marshall'd speech, wherewith thou seem'st to storm
The very walls of Heaven, and all hearts
Take captive with thee, yet I am consoled.
The broken sentence of a backward soul,
The pray'r begun in words, lost in a sigh,
The helpless, begging tear, the upward look,
May scale those walls and breach an entrance there,
When rounded periods only beat the air.

XXIII. [I often think our wants have given us more]

I often think our wants have given us more
Than our possessions; for a thing possess'd,
Soon ceases to be thought of—and possess'd.

Deep buried in these streets of filth and din,

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And jostling crowds, how doubly sweet to me
The country village and the mountain-side!
The woods and meadows come into my mind,
And live in me, since I may not in them.
The morning milk-cart brings with it the farm,
And gives it to my longings, and the squire,
Who comes in search of life, enriches me
With the domain that he has left behind.
Their fields and herds, their gardens, woods and lawns,
Could sink no trulier into my heart
Were I the squire and farmer. They are mine
Without their trouble—bought with golden love.
There is no truer purchase: love a thing,
'Tis thine. The whole world cannot break the bond,
Or make it any stronger. We forget
That by the mind alone are things possess'd.
Our long day-dream we spend in making them,
By some imagined outward bond, our own:
Misfortune wakens us, or death at last,
And all our tenures melt, save that of love.

So given are we to realize our wants,
That when I've been condemn'd to country life—
For which my city days so much had pined—
I straight began the city to re-live.
The country served the lungs with sweet new air,
Gave bracing to the limbs, bronze to the cheeks—
Grew admirable cabbages: but life
Fell also into vegetable sloth.
I felt a need of the great city's crush,

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Its theatres and churches, halls and marts,
Its virtues and its vices—yea, its crimes—
To stir the under-currents that impel
The tide of being. If I seldom mix'd
In these when with them, but still lived recluse,
The conscious might have, seem'd to be enough.
I lived them in the faces that I pass'd.
The preacher's fervour and the actor's passion
Break through stone walls, give spirit to the winds:
We breathe them in the air along the streets.
We catch the unheard music of the halls
In people's steps: and the romance of ships
Comes to us in the sailor's swarthy face,
As through the streets he swings.—In sooth, it needs
Not the material presence of a thing
To have it and enjoy it. If I lose
A much prized book that I have barely read,
How eagerly I read it in the loss,
And make it doubly mine! I almost think
A wish'd-for book, that we have never read,
And only know its theme, is thus made ours.
'Twould seem the craving someway draws the thoughts
From Nature's store, or from the author's brain;
And when we get the book, we already know
Its best conclusions.—There's one sea of mind—
The very God in whom all souls exist—
From whom they draw, forever, life and thought,
In ways to them unknown. All books, and arts,
And sciences, are scoopings from that sea;
And they grow old and stagnate; but the sea

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Is new and fresh forever. It supplies
The well-springs of all being. We have known
Of knowledge got by study, and dear sight
Burnt out with midnight books: but genius draws
The selfsame knowledge from the springs that break
Far down in its own nature.

Thus, there needs
Be no vain frets that one has not been born
In lines more pleasant, and with stronger aids.
These could have help'd him only to escape
His own ideal. Let him blithely tread
His own forbidding path, and he will find
The things he dreamt lay in the pleasant lines,—
And which, thus found, shall make his life unique.

XXIV. [He came again, the pastor we had lost—]

He came again, the pastor we had lost—
Came from the long death-grapple in the West,
With battles in his soul, and on his cheek
The bronze of roofless camps. For he had been
To give his country, not the arm that smites,
But that which nerves all arms—a dauntless heart,
Brave from immortal trust, strong by the right,
Wise through the beat of liberty for all.
And he had been in hospitals and fields,

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Tending the sick in body and in soul,
And watching the great movements of the war;
And, haply, throwing in the loaded thought
That burst, through other hands, into a deed.

But now the tide of Southern victory,
That long had set against the North, recoil'd;
And, beaten down into its slimy deeps,
Gave murmur of defeat and coming peace.
Freedom could freely breathe again, could see
The rivets dropping from the bond-man's chains,
The starry flag of liberty unshorn
Of any of its stars; forgiving peace
Receiving back her brave but wayward sons;—
And he whom we had lost could spare himself
From patriotic cares to visit us.

It was the autumn season when he came—
The time of sunny skies and wingèd clouds.
Our lovely chapel, which he loved so well,
Seem'd smiling amid tears, as light and shade
Alternately pass'd through it; and some eyes,
That I could name, spoke welcome through their tears.

New from the clanging war, how still to him
Our autumn skies and gorse-clad hills, our vales,
Dotted with villages and gleaming spires,
And, all around, our wealth of golden fields!—
On such a picture he had look'd, and such
He made the key-note of his thoughts to us.

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O, paradise of beauty, love and joy—
Bountiful earth, thus in thy autumn peace,
The counterpart of Heaven! How is it men
Cannot give up their warrings, and at once
Enter upon the golden reign of love?
Enough in thy abundant lap for all,
And much, O, earth, to spare; and, for the soul,
A benison of beauty without end!

Could the beatitudes of Heaven be here
Enter'd upon, there were no need of earth.
These glimpses of pure bliss come to foreshow
The future that awaits us—earthly strife,
The purifying furnace that prepares
The ore of nature for the golden reign.—
Not even the divinest men shall rest,
Nor they that dream of poesy and peace,
Till fused in fiery troubles manifold.—
Our Milton journey'd into Italy
To realize a paradise:—“Come back!
Thy country is in flames!”—And he came back.
There was no paradise on earth for him—
Unless it were that one in his own soul,
Which keeps him still immortal on the earth.—
Even He that brought the gospel of good will
And peace for all men, could Himself find none,
Without the blood and scourges of the Cross.—
So, too, with him whom we had lost and found—
Found only for a day, again to lose.
Our island home, at peace with all the world,

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And prosperously at rest within itself,
Where peacefully he did his Master's work,
Became no place for him, when came the boom
Of treacherous battle from his own loved home.

What wonder that he struck some notes of war—
He that had stood upon the mangled fields,
Amidst the fallen, while the fierce pursuit
Swept on to other fields, and left behind
The dying and the dead? At Gettysburg
He walked among the ranks of gory death,
Where friends and foes, and armaments of war
Lay mass'd in charnel heaps of blood-glued wreck,
And groans and hymns, curses and prayers arose!—
Yet all around this hell of war, birds sang,
And flowers sweeten'd the infected air.
The great blue sky, uplifting the black pall
Of fiery battle, look'd serenely down.
The moon, too, came in peace, and watch'd all night;
And peacefully the glittering camps of heaven
Lit up their tented field and look'd on this.—
O God! how is it that the moon and stars,
And the serene blue sky, did not weep blood
And shudder, when they saw that charnel field?
Was it in mockery they look'd such peace?
Or did their calm foreshadow the great Heaven,
Whose proffer of sweet rest and endless life
Dwarfs into nothing even the direst means
Whereby its earth-born children may come home?

119

Then, when the strife is over, and results
Are reckon'd up, how great the seeming loss
Even to Victory! yet, in the end,
How great may be the gain, e'en to Defeat!
He cannot lose who battles for the right.
Nor can the path of nations be too stern,
Our individual journey be too bleak,
For Duty to attempt. The way may seem
In front to mock us with a wall of rock:
But on, still on! and see how soon that wall
Will open out, to our enraptured gaze,
The pleasant valley, with its peaceful homes!

O faithless memory! I vainly seek
Thus to re-live his thoughts—those thoughts that came
With more than all earth's riches on our minds,
And with such vivid beauty that I felt
“Now they are mine for ever!”—Are they lost?
Or, like the food we eat, the air we breathe,
Transform'd into our being?—Even so;
For then, as ever after he had spoken,
What strength we felt! what nearness unto God!
Duty, how clear! how steadfast the resolve
To do that duty, whatsoe'er betide!—
Yet, ask me what he said—I cannot tell.—
If, understandingly, we hear or read,
And with a sort of rapture in the heart,
Then though, out of that mood, we cannot say
That this, or that, is what we heard or read,
Still is it none the less enwoven within;

120

And, as life's web unfolds, it will be seen
In golden threads long after.

'Twas the dream
Of one bright Sabbath day. But we awoke,
And he was gone—gone as before he went,
Not knowing what a debtor he had made
Of one who was too poor to give him thanks!

[_]

Poem XXV. is missing.

198

SONNETS.

VII. THE DRUNKARD'S SONNET.

List, friend, and I will tell you what I am
Since to deep draughts I have myself given o'er.
My coat, you see, is bare, and a sad qualm
Gripes in my purse and makes it retch full sore:
This eye, that once was pure as any star,
Is now a half-burnt coal; and this same face
That has no meaning in't, whose features are
Expression's grave, once mirror'd every grace:
The God-breathed soul that with a Heavenly light
Illumed this frame, is sear'd and scorch'd away:
All mind, all feeling, all impulsive might
Have stolen like vapour from this senseless clay.
Is not that all our Heaven that hath me left?
Is not this Hell—to know I am bereft?

208

THE WOODLAND-TEMPLE.

Eliza.
We have stray'd,
Unconsciously, into my favourite grove.
'Tis one of Nature's temples, built of elms.
This little path amid the grass, that leads
Nowhere, but still returns upon itself,
These feet have worn, for none comes here but me.—
Would'st know the service of my leafy church?

Jane.
Ay. Be it e'er so simple, e'er so rude,
I doubt not even Heaven will lend an ear.

Eliza.
Three times a-day, at morn, and noon, and even,
Do sweet religious bells call me to prayer.
First, at the gray and earliest wink of dawn,
The mellow-throated blackbirds of this brake,
Send soft devotional peals along my sleep;
And when I waken into real thought,
'Tis not like tearing from a blessed dream,
But a continuation of the dream,—
For still the soft peals come. Then I arise,
And, stepping forth into the morn, behold
The sun at orisons upon a bank,
Far in the east, and with his lowly beams
Clasping the whole earth to his loving breast.

209

The grass, the hedges, yea, the rankest weeds
So dazzle with the sapphire dew, that earth
Seems all a paradise, whose very dust
Is pearls and precious stones.—The dimpling well,
That laves the entrance to this hallowed grove,
Receives my first obeisance. There I drink.
Pure water is the symbol of pure life:
The morning draught should be a daily pledge;
And, inasmuch as 'tis the God-given wine,
That comes direct from Nature, so we reach
The immediate Presence, even by that thought.—
It is the ruling feature of all things,
And that which makes each kin to all, that we,
By passing into them, still come to God.
What can we more beyond the Eternal Thought,
Which in itself is sermon, hymn, and prayer—
The sole heart of my service? So, I pace
This quiet sward to find it; and, when found,
It is the inauguration of a day
On which all things go heavenward: the birds
Sing hymns, the flowers in sweet odours pray;
The herd-boy's whistle, and the mower's song,
With sound of sharpening scythes, seem all to ring
Of innocence and Eden.—I return
To household duties, to a simple meal,
And find the consecration on them all.

Jane.

And this your matin-service! But I see
It's all thought service. You should give, I think,
At least one voiced hymn to the morning; thus:—

210

O Morning, with thy star divinely fair—
Thy hope before thee in the east ascending,
Come to our cushion'd earth, God's footstool, where
Immortal hearts are bending.

We have high hope as thou for brighter day—
The hope in heaven, the action still aspiring:
We are, like thee, beclouded on our way;
But not, like thee, untiring.

Teach us thy steady and unwearied way
To higher excellence; thy regularity;
Thy patient strength throughout the adverse day;
Thy universal charity.

Give us thy young heart, never to feel old,
Though years pass from us and have no returning;
Since out of death, our night, we shall unfold,
And rise like thee, bright Morning!

Eliza.
The thoughts are good, and wonderfully sung,
Considering how untunable the measure.—
I would augment my service with a hymn,
And have a heart for music; but my ear
Is spoil'd, I think, with living near a wood.
Therefore I'll leave that part to you.

Jane.
Describe
Your noontide service, then; and if a hymn
Arise by nature from it, I shall sing.
All song should seem spontaneous, if 'tis not.

211

Eliza.

At noon there is a brief bar of the day,
In which all Nature, even Time, doth rest.
Few know of that, for in this rushing world,
Many divinities of daily presence
Are pass'd unseen. It is the merest span—
Yea, to the onward harmony of time,
'Tis as the rest in music. Yet, thus brief,
It is, of all the day, the very break
For Heavenly thought and prayer.

A little while
Before the dial points to noon, I seek
The bank beneath yon leaf-beclouded elm,
Amid whose branches is a little world
Of green and gold and flickering beams, and bees
Whose tiny pipes keep up a honey'd drone,
Awaking thoughts of fairy-land. And there,
On that imaginative bank, I watch
The climbing day, the pant of Nature. Soon,
The larks drop singing from the clouds, and quench
Midway their song, as falling stars their light;
The little drones up in the slumbrous tree,
Sing smotheringly and cease; the lisping brooks
Grow deeper throated, hum a quiet bass;
The sunny winds lie down outside the woods.
Anon, the Day takes his last upward step,
And, on the golden pinnacle of noon,
Stands still to breathe, one breath, before he turns
With meek brow down upon the western vale.

212

That breathing was the time—a pause too brief
For anything but thought, for thought enough
To reach the inner sanctities of Heaven,—
To reach them and return on wings of prayer.

The day moves on again. Ere you can note
The start, each little cloud has broken out
In lark notes, and rains music. In the woods
The winds have entered on their gleaming wings,
And leaves are in a flutter of delight;
My canopy, the tree, is in full blast,
Its hives of bees have tuned their honey'd pipes.
So Nature's organ, with its myriad stops,
Plays me from church, dower'd with a glimpse of Heaven.

Jane.
Somewhat indefinite service, is it not?

Eliza.
I do not know; but if it be, 'tis well—
You have the greater license for the hymn.

Jane.

When Nature rests at noon, and seems
To tarry on the endless path,
'Tis not the faintness of her beams,
The love of ease, the rest of sloth.

For oft it takes no stronger will,
No deeper life to do than be;
So is that quiet Nature still
The all of good and fair we see.

213

The ocean-deeps drink in more heaven,
At peace within their molten calm,
Than when on high and tempest-riven,
They shout their grand impassion'd psalm.

Nor is that calm a stagnant ease;
The tides hold on to ebb and flow,
And thoughts are passing in the seas,
Which only God may truly know.

When hearts have cast up sin by sin,
And know the tranquil joy of rest,
There will be peace as deep within
The fathoms of the human breast.

Spare me your comments, and proceed to eve.

Eliza.

When day is burning out, there, in the west,
And leaving but its embers, red and black;
When gloaming loans ring with the throstle's pipe,
And sing the day's good-evening to the night;
When daisies sleep and blue-bells do not ring,
Labour at rest and lovers whispering,
I to my bosky temple come again.

It is the hour of falling dews; the soul
Has its own dew of thought, and then it comes
Divinely from the stars: that bright lone one,
Venus, amid whose beams Love loves to stray,
On whose excess of beauty poets thrive;
And all the unnumber'd lesser beads of light
That break out on Night's Ethiop brow like sweat,

214

As up the dark he labours; and the moon,
That beauteous lunatic who dotes on Night,
Hangs on his skirt, lies in his breast, falls out,
Then turns her back and leaves him, till some days
Of cloud and weeping bring her back again:
Yea, all that walk the eternal rounds of space,
On what God's-errand we shall never know:
Yet while their unknown message speeds; or hearts
Live on their waste, the dewy light they spill!

My evening service has a starry cast—
A glare of moonshine in it, you will say,
And vacancy of space: but, save that star,
The Conscience, whose fine light the fumes of hell
May dim but not put out, which pure hearts know
To be the very life of God in us,
I know of nought that leads so straight to God
As those fine wonders which the skies beget.—
To think of space, to know it has no bound,
Nor could have, needs a mind like space itself,
Eterne, with but illusionary bounds.
The mind, once born to illimitable thoughts,
Must live them through illimitable time.
They could not enter in a mind that ends.

O wilderness of silence that lies out
Beyond the glimmer of the farthest star,
Or in whose unimaginable deeps
There is no end of stars! our wings of thought
Not long sustain their flight through thee, but flag

215

As thy horizon ever more recedes;
They fail, and we, the living souls of thought,
Should fall like plummets from the spheres of flight;
But the divine necessity of God
Is round us, and receives us, and we find
Answer and rest more blessed than we sought.

In all my services, a thought of God
Is still my full amen: I can no more.
In very truth, we need no more; for that,
Breathing the soul of everything, supplies
The very soul of all our life's deep wants.

Parent of Heaven and earth and moving things!
By whatsoever name with us, or none;
However dimly reach'd, whom yet we know
To be the soul of life, the heart of love,
The essence of all beauty, and the power
Whereby the planets roll and dewdrops fall,—
O grant that we may know Thee more and more,
Not as the past and future God, but now
And here, on plain unconsecrated ground!
We grandly see Thee in the unfrequent storm
That rends the woods and cracks the quarried rocks!
O may we know Thee in the simplest air
That gathers odours on the thymy banks,
And cheaply brings them any summer day!
We meekly say the thunder is Thy voice;
And e'en philosophy, 'mid causes lost,
At last takes up the thought. So may we know

216

That voice as Thine, which in our wilful hearts
Whispers the simple truth, the honest right.
Then, knowing it is Thine, may it command
Our ready act, however dim the end!

Jane.
Amen. The Conscience is indeed God's voice;
It cannot be out-reason'd; therefore 'tis
The reflex of a higher mind than ours.
As well earth burn the sun out with her fires,
As we by argument put out this light.

Eliza.
See! Evening, with the eyelids almost closed,
Looks through their long dusk lashes, half in dream,
And passes softly into deeper sleep.
Sing us a hymn, and then we'll go along.

Jane.

Day pass'd from earth, and sky and cloud
Laid him in a golden shroud:
Tears, sad but beautiful, were lying
On the earth when Day was dying.

When our course is run, O may
You and I be like the Day—
Not die but with accomplish'd duty,
And pass amid increase of beauty.

Then, when lost to mortal sight—
Lost in blank imagined night,
Our places vacant, friends repining,
We, like Day, elsewhere be shining.

217

THE WORLD'S FALSENESS.

Had'st thou, O World, aught of a lasting nature;
Did'st taste as sweet as thou art sweet to see;
O if thy heart bore out thy outward feature,
Then would I live for thee.

But thou art false! thy pleasures leave us longing;
Our longings, got, are not what we desired:
We throng towards things that fade and mock our thronging—
Shadows that leave us tired!

And I am wearied of them! I have follow'd
Earth's vanities too long; all earth can give,
Have tasted; its deep draughts of joy have swallow'd,—
Yet discontented live!

Its sweetest sweets, half tasted, turn to sour;
E'en lasting sweets bring loathing with their sweetness;
Most potent spells of pleasure lose their power—
Showing their incompleteness.

Most treacherous ice is all around! to which
A venturous thought is e'en too great a load;
And all gives way beneath our shivering touch—
Until we come to God.

249

And even He may be a dream! Our faith,
Our love of Him, our wonder, and our trust,
May into air, by the bleak wind of death,
Be blown away as dust.

Yet in this doubt is there not more reality
Than in the most substantial thing of sense?
Not more of truth and heart-sustaining quality
Than aught else can dispense?

O nothing is more real! all beside,
Our breath can blow away; but this it cannot:
And, knowing nought so strong in this world wide,
O why not rest upon it!

IF THOU WOULD'ST BE A POET.

If thou would'st be a poet, and have a mind
For beauty and high thought, and be not blind
To the fine haze that floats throughout the earth,
And gives to seeming worthless things great worth—
Not only temp'rate must thou be, and chaste,
Keeping from all wild stimulants that waste
The inborn strength of the soul—thou also must
Be in thy heart all honest, true, and just;
Believing that the cheater cheats himself,
And loses, though he gain a world of pelf.

Alas! that we should lose our trust in Right,
And dream that there is any other light
But will mislead us! Let not such a dream
Be thine, dear friend. Put all thy faith in Him
That breathes the Right within us evermore:
For he that holds it not as his heart's core,
Can be no poet truly. Earth to him
Is nought but earth, and Heaven far off and dim:
The mind-freeing mystery of Earth and Life
Is hidden from him, and the jar and strife
Of this work-world, to him are what they seem:
He never dreams that they are but a dream.
This breeze that comes o'er the Atlantic-wave,
Brings nought but coolness to him; and the lave
Of ocean up the beach, speaks with no tongue.
Nor is he like the poet, ever young;

267

Loving to bask on sunny banks at noon;
Or wondering at the big, red, rising moon;
Drunk with the glory of her midway sailing,
Or sadly, lonely, watching her light failing
When struggling with the blue waves of the west.
Nothing in Nature can his soul invest
With that fine web she weaves for poets' brains:
She will have true hearts, free from slavish chains.
Let not the world have any hold of thee:
Surround it quite. Deal not with cheatery.
Think deeply; briefly speak; and then—ah me!
I would, my friend, I were as thou wilt be.

SCOTTISH POEMS.

THE GUID GRAY CAT:

A WITCH STORY OF THE SEA.

I. Part I.

The ship rides in the roads o' Leith,
Awaiting the westlin' breeze;
Wi' the first fair gale she is bound to sail
Far, far across the seas.

And she has in baith meat and drink,
Wad fend a score o' men;
Eneuch to sair them a' and mair,
Till she comes back again;
But for every man there is on board,
O' mice there's ten times ten.

Now mice maun hae their meat and drink
As weel as ither folk;
For mice and men, fu' weel ye ken,
Are Nature's common stock.

294

But the Mate has gane to an eldrin dame,—
And a queer auld dame was she;
For she gat her life frae the Witch o' Fife,
And eke her gramarie.

“I've heard o' your name, my skilly auld dame—
And a good death may ye dee;
Now ye'll try your might on a cantrip sleight,
And rewarded ye shall be.

The micè that skip about our ship
Are growin' sae bauld and sae crouse,
They mind not the ban nor the face of man
No more than he were a louse.

The mice that skip about our ship—
There's a thousand if there's one;
Sae ye'll gie me a charm to get rid o' the swarm,
Or they'll eat us, skin and bone.”

“Now, woe betide the mariner
That plays his pranks on mice!
This is ane score that I have not power
Quharon to give advice.

But I'll gie to you ane guid gray cat,
Quhase marrow's no in Fife:
An' she'll thin your ship quhare'er they skip—
Gif that they're no owre rife.

295

But gif it be as ye haif said,
They be sae mony an' sae croose,
I dreid me that ane guid gray cat
Will be of littil use.

Sae, ye'll leave my cat gif it be true
That sae your ship is swarmin';
For I wald not that my guid gray cat
Suld be eaten up by sic vermin.”

“No fear, no fear, my guid auld dame—
No fear at-all of that;
For I vow and swear, if I e'er come hame,
I'll bring you the guid gray cat.”

Now he has gotten the guid gray cat,
And he's put her in a seck;
He's ta'en her to the ship, and gi'en her the slip,
And she loups out on the deck.

She had not paced the deck but twice,
When the fire flash'd frae her e'e,
And she girn'd and she spurn'd, for the scented the mice,
And lang'd their bluid to pree;
Then, wi'a squeel, and a spring, and a wheel,
Doon through the hatch flew she.

296

II. Part II.

The morning comes, the dawning glooms,
The westlin' wind doth blaw,
And it snorts and spits in spitefu' fits,
Wi' rain, and sleet, and snaw,
Whilk sperge and snift athort the lift;
Lord Arthur's Seat looks through the drift,
And the loom o' Berwick Law.

The sailors sing a fareweel sang
To the land o' their love and birth;
The anchor's weigh'd, and the sails are set,
And the ship scuds doon the firth.

The westlin' wind blaws on behind;
It wafts them out o' the Forth;
And, when they fell in the ocean's swell,
They turn'd them to the north.

The up and spak' the gallant Mate,
As they sat at their dine,—
“Ye'll take this slice of beef, my boy,
Unto that Cat of mine.”

The boy has ta'en the slice o' beef,
And gane aboot the deck;
And aye he cries upo' the Cat,
But she winna answer back:—

297

“O, poosie, poosie baudrins,
What the deevil di' ye mean?'
And aye the laddie cries and cries,
But nae poosie can be seen.

The first day that the ship was out,
She made near Aberdeen:
The mornin's mist had ta'en its flicht,
The afternoon was bonnie and bricht,
And the heavens at nicht, wi' starlet's licht,
Were in a glorious sheen.

The second day that the ship was out,
She made the Moray Firth;
And there she lay the lee-lang day,
For a calm fell ower the earth.

The wind was husht, and a darksome mist
Cam' brooding ower the ocean,
And the ship did shog like a heavy log,
Wi' a rolling, lurching motion.

And the mist cam' round like a prison-bound,
'Twas drear as drear could be;
And nocht was seen to glad the een,
But the dead swell o' the sea.

O, up and spak' the gallant Mate,
As they sat at their dine,
“Go take this slice of beef, my boy,
Unto that Cat of mine.”

298

The boy has ta'en the slice o' beef,
And gane aboot the deck,
And aye he cries upo' the Cat,
But she winna answer back.

“O, poosie, poosie baudrins,
What the deevil di' ye mean?”
And aye the laddie cries and cries,
But nae poosie can be seen.

The breeze sprang up at dead o' nicht,
The ship made a sudden bound,
And she scoured the seas before the breeze,
Like a hare before a hound.

They sailèd on, and on they sail'd,
And aye they held them north;
And the morrow's sun, ere it was noon,
Saw them through the Pentland Firth.

They sailèd on, and on they sail'd
Upon their watery path;
And the third nicht that the ship was out,
She was sailin' by Cape Wrath.

The fourth day that the ship was out,
They saw the Lewis Isle:
The main-land loom'd, the dun cluds gloom'd,
And they lookit fu' o' guile;

299

And then they rent, and the rain gat vent,
And the sleet was sent wi' a sniftin' sklent,
And wi' a fiendish, fell intent,
The Kelpie laucht the while.

O the Kelpie he's a spitefu' dog,
A weird, unchancie chiel';
He haunts the sea-shore and the bog—
He's a bairn o' the de'il;
For he lauchs his fill when things gang ill,
And he greets when things gang weel.

O, up and spak' the gallant Mate,
As they sat at their dine,
“Go take this slice of beef, my boy,
Unto that Cat of mine.”

The boy has ta'en the slice o' beef,
And gane aboot the deck,
And aye he cries upo' the Cat,
But she winna answer back.

“O, poosie, poosie baudrins,
What the deevil di' ye mean?”
And aye the laddie cries and cries,
But nae poosie can be seen.

The next day that the ship was out,
St. Kilda's Isle she made;
And twa days there she dodg'd about,
For the wind was richt ahead.

300

She dodg'd about and she dodg'd about,
But nae muckle did she gang;
O the winds were chill, and the days were dull,
And the nichts were mirk and lang.

And ilka nicht a witch-like licht
Cam' sparklin' frae the sea,
Till the ocean below wi' lichts did glow,
Like stars in the heavens hie.

The porpoise flew, and his track shone blue,
As he scuddit through the faem;
The big whale blew, and the water he threw
Gaed up like a brimstane flame,
Whilk burst on hie and dazzilt the e'e
As a shour o' blue licht doon came.

The seventh day that the ship was out,
She was wearin' near Rock-all;
But alas! and alake! how the heart doth quake
To think what did befall!
What tongue can tell the dangers fell
Of hurricane and squall!

The dawn had scarce begun to peep
When the cluds cam' crowdin' round,
And the ocean wauken'd frae his sleep,
Like a giant frae a swound,
Wi' a far-aff snore, lang, hoarse, and deep—
The very flesh wi' fear did creep,
To hear the boding sound.

301

Then Boreas, frae his norland cave,
Cam' forth wi' a fiend-like roar;
He peal'd alang frae wave to wave,
And boom'd frae shore to shore.

He tore the brine frae the foamy waves,
And spat about the spray;
And he hollow'd the deep like yawning graves
Awaiting for their prey.

Thick vapour rises frae the sea,
And wings alang the lift;
And, wi' sweesh and sweep across the deep,
Brine mingles wi' the drift.

Nae sun was seen in the heavens to sheene
Wi' a kindly cheerin' licht;
For his beams they couldna pierce the gloom,
And day was dark as nicht.

Then the lightning gleam'd, and the water steam'd,
As it skimm'd alang the sea;
And the thunder hurl'd like a broken world
Gone into eternitie.

The big waves dash'd, and roar'd, and lash'd
Each other into wrath;
The sea-birds wheel'd, and shriek'd, and squeel'd,
As they sang the dirge of death.

302

The gallant ship rides in the swell,
Her bare yards brave the gale;
But she heaves on high like a pearly shell,
And her tall masts creak and quail;
Her shrouds are moaning, her timbers groaning,—
The mariner's cheek is pale.

And clinging to the mizen-shrouds,
Each, wet and trembling, stands,
While the waves wash o'er, with a dread uproar—
Blenching the face and hands.

But, see yon mountain of the deep,
Rolling along in wrath!
His crest is white, and his sides are steep,
All other waves before him leap—
Clearing his wayward path;
And in his desolating sweep
Destruction lies, and death!

The sailors eye him coming on,
And well they know his pow'r;
Each in his hand has grasp'd a rope,
And all expectant cow'r.

Then with a smash, and a heavy crash,
The watery monster leaps
Down on the deck, bestrewing wreck
And ruin where he sweeps.

303

The decks are swept, and the surge has crept
In at every yawning seam;
And the gallant Mate rolls on the deck,
As he were in a wrangling dream.

The red blood oozes frae a wound
That gaps in his manly head:
“Come bear a hand,” the Captain cries,
“Be handy now, my gallant boys,
And put our Mate to bed.”

The white foam oozes frae his mouth,
As the blood does frae his wound,
And they carry him down the cabin stair—
All in a deadly swound.

Still Boreas roars his dreadful roar,
And still the sea o'erwhelms;
The thunder hurls yet more and more,
As if the giant columns
That stud the mighty dome of heaven
Were by some dire convulsion driven
In tumbling ruin; while the volumes
Of lurid light that start and gleam,
As if they joy'd in the alarm
Of elemental madness, seem
The moving spirits of the storm!

'Tis thus the day drives on, and still
The mariner's cheek is pale;

304

And it shines like death in the lightnings glare,
As he turns to heaven with a look of pray'r,—
For he deems there is some kind spirit there
That may hearken to his wail.

III. Part III.

If't warna for the ills we dree,
O whar wad be our pleasure?
If't warna for our povertie,
Wad riches be a treasure?

How awesome was the storm this day!
How fearsome was its micht!
But the wrath o' heaven hath roll'd away,
And left a beauteous nicht.

Now Boreas hies him hame again,
And sobs as he were in a swoon,
And the lazy waves nae sooner rise
Than they brak and tummle doon.

The Kelpie skoils across the main,
Frae some crannie dark and deep;
And he blubbers like a pettit wean,
When it waukens owre sune frae its sleep:
The mariners listen to the strain,
And their hearts wi' gladness leap;
For they ken it bodes weel to the earth again
When they hear him wail and weep.

305

It's now the dead hour o' the nicht;
The stars dance round wi' glee,
And shoot through the air a flickerin' licht,
That faintly illumes the sea.

The waves are asleep in the bed o' the Deep,
The wind is asleep on his lip,
And the ship is at rest on his stifled breast,—
But, wow, she's a frichtsome ship!

O whar be a' her sails and tether,
That were like the driven snaw?
Bauld Boreas heis'd them on his shuither,
And bore them clean awa'!

And whar be now her bonnie masts,
That taper'd to the starns?
Bauld Boreas took them, ane by ane,
And brak them wi' his horns!

When the mid-watch was called, and the men were tauld
To keep a guid “look out,”
The Mate cam' up the cabin stair,
Wi' his head intil ane clout:
He was charm'd out o' his deadlie swound,
But still his wound did sting and stound,
And his een reel'd round about.

He stood upon the quarter-deck,
And thocht o' the day's turmoil;

306

And as he gazed upo' the wreck,
He heard ane hellish skoil,
Like that whilk aft at nicht is heard
Frae some back-coort or lumber yaird,
When, free frae tyrant man's regaird,
Baudrins maks love the while.

His hair stood up, and lifted hie,
Baith swaddlin' clout and hat;
And fear fill'd his dilatit e'e—
“O heavens! what was that?”
When, lookin' doon upo' the deck,
He saw—The guid gray cat!

But alter'd was she now, I ween,
Frae what she wont to be:
Her form was o' the faint mune-sheen,
Twa gleamin' stars were now her een,
Frae whilk came sparks o' red and green;
And fearsome 'twas to see
Her clenchin' paws, and girnin' jaws,
Whence spewin' came a bluid-red flame,
While frae her back did flee
Blue specks o' licht, like needle-points,
Sae dazzling to the e'e.

She stood upon her hinder legs,
Like to a rampant horse;
And the deck aroun' was a' bestrewn
Wi' mony a moose's corse.

307

Their forms were o' the clear sky-blue,
Like little cluds o' licht;
And winding through, their forms between,
Sma' string-like streams o' bluid were seen,
Frae whilk a vapour, thin and green,
Rose up into the nicht.

Then, out and spak' the gallant Mate,
While his heart did dunt with fear,—
“When wilt thou cease to vex, O Fate!
What devilment is here?

“Is this a glamour ower my een—
A wilderment o' sicht?
Or is it all a frenzied dream—
A veesion o' the nicht?”

He rubbit round about his brow,
And in about his e'e—
“I'm sure I am not sleepin' now—
O, what is this I see?”

She gash'd at him her girnin' jaws,—
He started and was mute;
And in her throat he heard ane whauze,—
Then spak' the ghastly brute.

Her husky voice did sound richt strange—
Ilk wird was like death's knell;
Her breath arose to his very nose,
And he faund a dank, dank smell.

308

“Lang, lang an' deadly wals the fray,
An' mony a moose I slew,
Quhilk's bodies lie aroond me here,
I wite, ane ghastly crew.

“But on they cam', an' they cam' on,
Ane wild, ane countless pow'r;
They flew at me, I flew at them,
An' I wappit them aboot like stour.

“An' aye I focht, an' sairlie I focht,
Till I weaker an' weaker grew;
For there wals not ane vein in my hail bodie
But wals bitten through an' through.

“Then I sunk, an' I sunk, quhile my hert's bluid ran,
An' the gurgle in my throt wals heard;
But, just as my hert-strings brak in twa,
I mindit the Witch's word!

“Then I swoon'd awa, frae amid them a',
As I pairtit wi' earthly life;
Yet I wauken'd again on the warm hearth-stane,
At my grannie's fireside, in Fife.

“But ane woman can ne'er be ane witch again,
Quhan ance by mice scho's fell'd;
Sae I noo maun maen as weary a ane,
As e'er in witchland dwell'd!

309

“Now woe betide thee, mariner,
And an ill death mat thou dee;
'Twas thou vile man, and none but thou,
That brocht this dule on me.”

Then out and spak' the gallant Mate,
And a fearsome man was he,—
“Ye lee, ye lee, ye vile, vile brute,
Sae loud as I hear ye lee!”

“O ho!” quoth the Cat, as she bristl'd up,
“Dost thou think to daunton me?
Be calm, bauld sir, nor be so wroth,
Though thou ha'e guid cause to be;
For thou'st brocht on thysel' ane judgment fell,
Quhilk sall last to eternitie.

“Quha was't that brocht me till this schip,
Quhilk's hould is like ane hell?
Quha was't that brocht me till this schip?
Quha wals it but thysel'?

“But ye'll rue it yet—ay, ye'll rue it yet,
For my vengeance I maun ha'e!
Look aroond yer deck, and behold the wreck,
An' think o' the storm this day:—
Quhat white cloot's that aboot yer head?
Quhat gar'd ye lie as ye'd been dead?
Come tell me that, I say!
Quhan ye lay an' sprawl'd, an' graen'd, an' swoon'd,
Wals I not there! ha! ha! I'll be bound
I wals not far away.”

310

“Then, by my faith,” quoth the gallant Mate,
“I, too, revenged shall be!”
And as he spak' he seized ane spoke,
And was gaun to lat it flee.

But she fix'd on him ane furious glare
That thrill'd him to the bane;
He sank subdued in a suppliant mood,
And he gave ane heavy grane.

Then ower his lips there cam' ane pray'r,
And he breath'd it ferventlie;
Then cam' ane voice through the midnicht air,
Said, “Fear not, look and see!

“Be this a lesson for thy life—
Deal not with gramarie:
By witchcraft's aid thou hast been misled,
But, for this time, thou art free;
Thy pray'r has been heard, thou hast thy reward—
Fear not, but look and see!”

He lookit before him on the deck,
And lo! what saw he there?
Ane monstrous fiend a' cover'd ower
Wi' black and towsie hair;
Like to ane man in arms and face,
But legs and horns like cattle beas;—
His bluidshot een and smeeky phiz,
Wi' wizen'd mouth, and hookit niz,
Shaw'd deevilment in his air.

311

He held ane three-taed grape on hie,
Wi' the goblin Cat thereon:
She wriggl't and wrung, and the fire did flee,
While the deck as wi' a meteor shone.

He keekit up unto the Cat—
And ane auld-farrent look ga'e he;—
“Ha! ha! you're a witch, but I'll let you know,
You must get your pow'r from me.”

Then keekit he unto the Mate—
And ane auld-farrent look ga'e he;
Then laid his finger til his nose,
And winkit wi' his e'e;
Then frae the deck wi' ane spring he rose,
An whirr'd out ower the sea.

Away he reel'd and away he wheel'd,
Like a comet through the darkness o' nicht;
And fire-sparks flasht as on he dasht,
And a livid flake flush'd in his wake,
Wi' a luminatin' licht;—
The goblin Cat she yell'd and squeel'd
Till the sea-birds wauken'd wi' the fricht,
And they rose on high through the midnicht sky,
And follow'd to see the sicht.

Now, there sprang up a broad bricht flame,
Where the sky and the ocean close;
The surroundin' air was scorch'd wi' the glare,
And volumes o' smoke uprose.

312

And into the midst o' this bricht flame,
There was a rugged rent,
Like to a cave, but no eye could see
How far the cavern went.

It spewed out fire, and it vomited forth
What seem'd like clods o' burning earth;
And fumes of smoke from the cavern broke,
And demons cross'd, and danced, and toss'd;
And loathsome things were seen to crawl
Where lava streams through the flames did fall;
Grim, wither'd heads and limbs were strewn,
And serpents twined between,
And grizzl't hags, brunt black and broon,
Danced round the dismal scene.

When the black fiend came to this michtie flame,
He yell'd ane fearful yell;
And the Gray Cat gowl'd, and the grizzl't hags howl'd;
He entered in, and at once the scene
Doon into the deep sea fell;
Then were heard loud jars o' bursting bars
As they open'd the gates o' hell:—
But here ane veil comes over my tale,
For the rest I durst not tell.

Then look'd the Mate all o'er the deck;
But nothing met his eye:

313

The ghosts o' the mice had dwam'd awa',
Like the glimmering stars on high,
When the ruddy morn shoots out his horn
And frichts them frae the sky.

He knelt him down upon his knee
And tried another pray'r;
He bless'd the voice most gratefully,
That whisper'd through the air;
And in his pray'r he own'd that he
Had been ane wicked one;
But, on his knees, he vow'd to be
Henceforth ane haly man.

By this the stars were winkin' dim,
For dawn began to peep;
The sun upturn'd his rosy rim,
And creepit frae the deep;—
The mune lang syne had dous'd her glim,
And laid her doon to sleep.

And now the Mate—his matins done—
He call'd all hands on deck,
And sent them, every mother's son,
To clear away the wreck.
But how it fared with them, or fell,
I leave it for the Mate to tell;
My tale was of THE GUID GRAY CAT,
And there has been enough of that.

314

THE AULD WIFE'S LAMENT FOR HER COW.

O, wae's my heart, puir Doddie's dead!
A better coo ne'er crapt the mead;
'Twas a' by her I wan my bread—
O the worthy beastie!

She baited by the green road-side,
Or by the burnie's wimplin' tide;
Wi' her I didna need to bide—
O the trusty beastie!

319

Content wi' thrissle, girse, or thorn,
She wadna touch the mester's corn,
But luit it ripen and be shorn—
O the thochtfu' beastie!

She never haikit like a hound,
But keepit aye on hamely ground,
And never needit to be bound—
O the cannie beastie!

Nae horns had she, nor bell nor hawk,
But dark-broon sides and gowden back,
Her sonsie wame as white as cauk—
O the bonnie beastie!

Her milk like yellow cream distill'd,
Three times a-day the cog she fill'd,
And but a wee while gaed she yell'd—
O the usefu' beastie!

She was to me baith milk and bread,
But, wae's my heart, puir Doddie's dead,
And I may lay my weary head
Doon aside my beastie!

320

JEAN.

The ither day, doon by the burn,
Near whar it, wanderin', tak's a turn,
I met, neat as a new-made preen,
A winsome lass-they ca' her Jean.

And since my heart first got the knell,
I've lo'ed her mair than words can tell:
A' ither joys I'd gi'e to ken
If Jeanie Lo'ed me back again.

The burnies they may cease to row,
The gowans they may cease to grow,
The starns they a' may cease to sheene,
Ere I can cease to think o' Jean.

O that we were twa streamlets clear,
And side by side gin we'd keep near,
Until our tracks a turnie taen,
And made us twa row into ane!

321

THE SNUFFIE AULD MAN.

By the cosie fire-side, or the sun-ends o' gavels,
The snuffie auld bodie is sure to be seen.
Tap, tappin' his snuff-box, he snifters and sneevils,
And smachers the snuff frae his mou' to his een.
Since tobacco cam' in, and the snuffin' began,
There hasna been seen sic a snuffie auld man.

His haurins are dosen'd, his een sair bedizzen'd,
And red round the lids as the gills o' a fish;
His face is a' bladdit, his sark-breest a' smaddit—
As snuffie a picture as ony could wish.
He maks a mere merter o' a' thing he does,
Wi' snuff frae his fingers an' draps frae his nose.

And wow but his nose is a troublesome member—
Day and nicht, there's nae end to its snuffie desire;
It's wide as the chimlie, it's red as an ember,
And has to be fed like a dry whinnie-fire.
It's a troublesome member and gi'es him nae peace,
Even sleepin', or eatin', or sayin' the grace.

The kirk is disturb'd wi' his hauchin' and sneezin',
The dominie stoppit when leadin' the psalm;
The minister, deav'd out o' logic and reason,
Pours gall in the lugs that are gapin' for balm.
The auld folks look surly, the young chaps jocose,
While the bodie himsel' is bambazed wi' his nose.

322

He scrimps the auld wife baith in garnal and caddy;
He snuffs what wad keep her in comfort and ease;
Rapee, Lundyfitt, Prince's Mixture, and Taddy,—
She looks upon them as the warst o' her faes.
And we'll ne'er see an end o'her Rooshian war
While the auld carl's nose is upheld like a Czar.

SPUNK JANET'S CURE FOR LOVE.

I've vow'd to forget him again and again;
But vows are as licht as the air is, I trow;
For something within me aye comes wi' a sten',
And dunts on my heart till I gi'e up the vow.

I gaed to Spunk Janet, the spaewife, yestreen—
I've often heard folk o' her wisdom approve:—
Quoth she, “It's your fortune you're wantin', I ween?”—
“Na! Janet,” quoth I, “will ye cure me o'love?”

“I'll try it,” quoth she; “say awa' wi' your tale,
And tell me the outs and the ins o' it a';
Does love mak' ye lichtsome', or does't mak' ye wail?
Ye see, lass, I ken it does ane o' thae twa.”

“Aweel, then, to tell you the truth o' it, Janet,
There's sometimes I'm clean overflown' wi' glee,
And ither times, woman, I'm no fit to stan' it,—
Ye'd think I wad greet out the sicht o' my ee.”

“But then there's the laddie, I never can get him,
And here am I ready and willin' to pay,
Gin ye'll play some cantrip to mak' me forget him—
The thochts o' him deave me by nicht and by day.”

326

“Ill e'en try my skill on't,” quoth Janet, “I shall,—
The cost o' my coonsel is but half-a-croon,—
Hooever, i' the first place, ye ken the Witch-walle,
That bonnie clear spring at the end o' the toon:—

“When the sun frae his bed is beginnin' to teet,
Gang ye ilka mornin', blaw weet or blaw wind,
And sit by the wallie and dip in your feet,
Withoot e'er a thocht o' the lad in your mind.

“Do this for a week, and the cure will be wrocht—
But, mind ye, tak' care o' what comes in your head!
If e'er it should chance that the lad be your thocht,
Like mist o' the mornin' the cantrip will fade!”

Thus ended Spunk Janet: I paid her the fee;
And by her directions I promised to bide:
To-morrow the cantrip begins, I maun be,
By the first peep o'day, at the Witch-wallie's side.

The cauld o' the water I weel may endure;
But then, there's the thocht, it's the warst o' it a':
For if ower the thochts o' my mind I had pow'r,
I wadna ha'e needed Spunk Janet ava!

327

JANNY MERSHALL'S CANDY, O.

[_]

Tune—“I'm ower young to marry yet.”

Chorus—

O, Janny Mershall, Janny Mershall,
Janny Mershall's candy, O;
I always like to patronize
Janny Mershall's candy, O.

When going along the Nethergate,
There's nought can be so handy, O,
As dropping in to get a stick
Of Janny Mershall's candy, O.

Ye'll get a stick as straight's a rash,
A crookit ane, or bandy, O:
The grandest treat, for little cash,
Is Janny Mershall's candy, O.

The ladies fine come in the street,
Wi' dresses a' fu' dandy, O;
And weel they like their mou's to weet
Wi' Janny Mershall's candy, O.

There's no a lass in a' Dundee,
Frae modest dame to randy, O,
But wha wad want her cup o' tea
For Janny Mershall's candy, O.

328

There's no a loon in a' the toon,
A Jeamie, Jock, or Sandy, O,
But wha wad want his piece at noon
For Janny Mershall's candy, O.

When weety winter wi' the hoast,
Is like to rive and rend ye, O,
The best o' cures, at little cost,
Is Janny Mershall's candy, O.

Some uses draps o' peppermint
To kill the smell o' brandy, O,
But, by my shuith, I'm weel content
Wi' Janny Mershall's candy, O.

Then come awa', baith great and sma',
And let your purse attend ye, O
And, while ye find a baubee in'd,
Buy Janny Mershall's candy, O.

LADY MARGARET.

Wild Boreas, wi' an eerie crune,
Is drivin' ower the hills o' Seidlie;
Loud the thunder roars abune,
And rends the air wi' awsome medlie.

The lichtnin' loups in ilka glen,
The drenchin' clouds are black and drearie,
The burn is brawlin' through the den,
The far-aff sea moans hoarse and eerie.

The lady sits in her lane ha',
List'nin' the winds, and deeply sighin';
A bairnie—bonnie lauchin' thing—
Upon the lady's knee is lyin'.

“O but this is a weary nicht
For us, my babe, to be alane!
Ohon! whar may thy daddie be?
Whar may the strife o' war hae gane?

“Twas but yestreen I dream'd a dream—
An awsome dream—nae guid forbodin';
Tartans, dyed wi' purple stream,
Lay thickly strew'd upon Culloden.”

336

And aye the lady, musing, sits,
And aye the tears come in her eye;
When, though the ravings o' the storm,
She, startled, hears a feeble cry.

“If this be house o' friend or foe,
If there be ony ane within,
O think upon this awfu' nicht,
And ope' the door and let me in.

“O whether ye be friend or foe,
Ye'll let the past forgotten be;
I only ask a shelterin' bield,
Whar I may close my weary e'e.”

“Now, wha be ye at my ha' door,
When Boreas blaws sae loud and surly?
The Garberlunzie, auld and puir?
Or some auld doited singin' carlie?”

“O let me in! O let me in!
O let me in, thou kind, kind ladie!
Ah, think ye o' the sleetie rain!
And think ye o' my bluidie plaidie!

“O were I at my ain ha' door,
And were I near my ain dear ladie!
I wadna mind how winds should roar,
Nor wad I mind my bluidie plaidie.”

337

“O wha be ye at my ha' door?
And what can mak' ye mourn sae sairly?
Do you ken aucht o' my guidman?
Or ken ye aucht aboot Prince Charlie?”

Nae answer did the mourner gi'e!
The ladie, list'ning, heard him musin';
Now faint and low, now loud and hie,
In raving words o' dark confusion.

And, vow, the ladie's heart was sair,
To hear a voice sae sad and waesome;
While faint and fainter grew his moan,
Till it faintly left his weary bosom.

Now Lady Margaret has come down,
But ah, the broken-hearted ladie!
It was nae Gaberlunzie man,
Lay, streekit in a bluidie plaide.

“And is it then my ain guidman!
And is it then my bairnie's daddie!
Ah no! ah no! it canna be!”
Then sank she on his lifeless bodie.

338

THE NICHT I PARTED FRAE MY MAGGIE.

O dreary was the gloamin' sky—
The low'rin' clouds were dark and raggie:
But duller, drearier was I
That nicht I parted frae my Maggie!

'Twas Sabbath nicht, the kirk was skelt,
And we were at the kirk-gate standin';
I ken na how my Maggie felt;
But O, my heart was at the rendin'!

Her winsome looks, sae form'd to move,
Made on my heart a deep impression;
I lang'd to tell her o' my love,
But couldna mak' the sweet confession.

342

We parted, and each hameward gaed:
Eerie thochts my brain were hauntin';
And O! at hame I couldna bide;
I felt as something were awantin'.

Though drearier cam' on the nicht,
And though the drizzly rain was fallin',
I wander'd out to get a sicht—
My hinmost sicht—o' Maggie's dwellin'.

I gazed upo' the windows high;
A streamy licht was frae them shinin';—
Ah, she was in the licht, and I
Stood in the dark wet street, repinin'.

O had I haen the power to tell
How love was in my bosom swellin',
I micht been gazin' on hersel',
Instead o' glow'rin' on her dwellin'!

Adieu, adieu, thou bonnie gem!
Fareweel, thou dewy-lippit blossom!
O could I pluck thee frae thy stem,
And plant thee here within my bosom!

The parting tears that dim my e'e,
Will rattle doon my cheek to-morrow;
Yet, were I sure she cared for me,
My hope wad soothe my present sorrow!

343

OUR AIN AULD TOON.

Our ain auld toon! O, our ain auld toon!
There is magic in thy name, there is music in the soun'!
When I look upo' thy hallans that sae smeeky are and dun—
When I look upo' thy spires, as they pierce into the air—
When I look upo' thy winnocks, as they glisten i' the sun—
There comes a feeling ower me that I'm hardly fit to bear;
And the tear is in my e'e, for the day it has come roun'
When I maun turn my back upon our ain auld toon.

When I look at the auld steeple, and listen to its bell,
That seems an eldritch tale fu' dowie-like to tell;
And when I look alang the clorty crookit streets,
And see the artless bairnies, sae frolicksome, at play,—
There comes a thrill within me, and my heart wi' rapture beats,
As I think upo' my bairnhood—a short-lived sunnie day;—
For these were a' my haunts when I was a careless loon,
And never had a thocht to leave our ain auld toon.

But ah! we've little skill in the workings o' the mind;
It is fickle at the best, and it changes like the wind;
The thochts, and the fancies, and the feelings o' the bairn
Grow dim and fade awa' as years come ower the frame.
Our life is like a day, and in its sunnie morn
Our wishes are content wi' the pleasures of our hame;
But when the morning's past, and our life is near its noon,
We may tak' anither thocht, and leave our ain auld toon.

344

When I was a wee-bit laddie, and wanton'd ower the lea,
The singin' o' the birdie, or the bummin' o' the bee
Wad ha'e brocht a charm upon me, and fixed me to the spot,
And there I'd stand entranced, wi' the tear into my e'e;
And then the torments o' the schule I easily forgot,—
For the sylvan haunts o' woods and fields were sweeter far to me:
And aft on bonnie simmer days I'd liked to play the troon;
For the sun-glints seem'd to wile me frae our ain auld toon.

But, our ain auld toon, oh I couldna leave ye lang!
Just as far's yon birken wood, and nae farther wad I gang;
Or whar yon bickerin' burnie gaes birlin' doon the brae,
And clatters a' the day, as it seems to chase itsel';
Or westward by yon bonnie green at gloamin' wad I gae,
When the wavelets come a-wooing to the beach, their love to tell;
Or I'd sclammer up yon hill, and frae its tap look doon
Into the very heart of our ain auld toon.

But the day is come at last, e'en the very moment's near;
And my friends are on the craig, and the boat is at the pier.
I try to hide the tear as it steals into my e'e,
And I try to crush the sigh as it rises in my breast;
But to see sae mony friends a' gather'd here for me,
Brings waefu' notions ower me, and they winna bide at rest.
O my head is a' bambazed, and my heart is in a swoon—
I maun confess I'm wae to leave our ain auld toon!

345

I left it ance before, and laith I was to part;
For youth's first smile o'love had begun to warm my heart;
And though I left our ain auld toon, my heart was left behind;
And my thochts dwelt aye on ane, and I liked to lisp her name;
And, a' the lee-lang day, in love-sick grief I pined;
And at midnicht's dreamy hour my sick heart socht its hame;—
But my time was thrown awa', for I couldna settle doon
Till I wan back again to our ain auld toon.

O love, ye are a bonnie thing when ye are young and new;
Ye saften a' within us, and ye mak' us pure and true;
And ye flush'd ower my young heart sae bonilie the while,
Like a smile upo' the face of a bairn when asleep;
For like a smile ye gather'd, but ye faded like a smile!
And I ken na why ye faded, since ye were sae pure and deep.—
Though my hour o'love was lang, yet it left me unco soon!
Now its friendship mak's me wae to leave our ain auld toon.

But the boat has left the pier, and she waddles ower the firth,
And our ain auld toon to me seems the bonniest spot on earth:
My friends seem dearer too, though to me they aye were dear;
And the joys I've haen wi' them come again upo' my mind:
How can I do but greet to see them on the pier,
As they daunder slowly up, and wave and look behind?

346

And when I think on what I've dune, my heart it gi'es a stoun'—
O, am I no a fule to leave our ain auld toon?

Now we maun leave the boat, for the water we ha'e crost;
And amid the hurry-burry I seem as I were lost:
I dinna hear around me the traveller's reproach
On some unlucky chields that against his wish ha'e ackit:
While I should see my luggage safely carried to the coach,
I leav't to ony ane that may ha'e the will to tak' it.
Nae guard, nae coachman, do I see, nor hear the trumpet's soun'—
My heart, my soul is centred in our ain auld toon!

I am mounted on the coach, high upo' the backmost seat;
And the crackin' o' the whup, and the gallopin' o' feet,
And the soundin' o' the horn, and the birrin' o' the wheels,
Tend to alter for a while the tenour o' my mind.
We pass by mony a scene, but my heart nae interest feels;
There's just ae scene that I care for, to a' the rest I'm blind;
And at ilk heicht upon the road, I rise and look aroun',
Just to get anither sicht of our ain auld toon!

But I shanna see't again, for we're past the hinmost heicht,
And e'en the very Law, it has nodded out o' sicht!
I look fu' lang and wistfully upo' yon cloud o' smoke
That hovers ower the spot where the dear auld toon doth lie!
O my heart is grite and sair, and I feel as I wad choke!

347

I wad greet, but wad be seen, and I fain wad hide the sigh;
But I canna keep it in, as I turn and sit me doon,
For I canna get ae blink of our ain auld toon!

Our ain auld toon! O, our ain auld toon!
There is magic in the name, there is music in the soun'!
Though vanish'd from my sight, I can image it in thought,
And live again the happy days that I have lived before;
And in my dreams by night I will seek the blessed spot,
Though I should wake to sorrowing upon a foreign shore!
O the sun may cease to sheene, and the warld to rin roun';
But I never, never can forget our ain auld toon!

A DREAM-VISIT TO A HAUNT OF MY BOYHOOD.

Between Dundee and Invergowrie kirk,
There is a lonely spot owergrown wi' brier,
Some scranky twigs of ash, and some o' birk,
Whar maistly aye the sun is shinin' clear.

And, scatter'd round, gray rocks, like ruins, lie—
They ha'e a grandeur in their very gloom;
Lang wither'd grass shoots upwards, rank and high,
Through bristly whins that aften are in bloom.

348

Ah, 'tis a bonnie spot! I aft gaed there,
When Sabbath stillness hung ower all aroun',
And no a voice disturb'd the hallow'd air,
Except the birdie warblin' ower its tune.

There, leanin' on a rock, the hail half day,
I eagerly a list'ning ear wad keep,
To hear the hollow gurglin' o' the Tay,
As 'tween the rocks at intervals she'd creep.

Last nicht I wander'd to that lonely scene;
Though 'twas the dead o'nicht, the sky was clear;
But nicht grew day—the orb o' day did sheene—
And never did a day mair bricht appear!

There was the rock—I almost ca'd it mine,
Because it was the rock I used to choose—
And there I sat me doon for auld-lang-syne,
A while upon the by-gane days to muse.

A' things around me here reflections bring:
Here lie the big gray stanes, owergrown wi' fog:
There lies the wither'd ash—puir broken thing—
The very tree whareon I used to shog!

And there's the figured stane—dim to the sicht—
I thocht a relic o' some ither days,
And pu'd, and pu'd, and pu'd wi' a' my micht,
And did, at last, succeed that stane to raise.

349

Beneath, the sod was damp—white roots o' grass—
Wirms in their holes were drawing in their tails—
Across and slantways glary streaks did pass,
That lookit like the slimy marks o' snails.

There, stane, just as I left you still ye stand;
And there's the mark o' whar ye lay before:
Maybe some grannie, dead, could gi'en, aff hand,
Lang screeds 'bout you o' legendary lore.

But what's the meanin' o' sae mony birds?
There ne'er was half sae mony on thir braes!
And hark! I think I hear some whisperin' wirds:—
“Come let us bear him up,” a blackie says.

This was the biggest blackie e'er I saw:
Had his neb but been black, as it was red,
I'd taen him for some muckle hoodie-craw,—
He'd funds o' mither-wit in yon big head!

Then did he gi'e his neck a gracefu' bend,
And, haupin', came in-ower, no ony shy:—
“I'll shortly tell,” says he, “what we intend;
Auld friend, we're gaun to lift ye to the sky!

“There will ye get a cloud whereon to rest—
There will ye get a lyre whereon to play—
There, on your head, ye'll get a flowery crest,
And float about the air the lee-lang day.

350

“And should ye wish to get into the mune,
Or ony ither orb, a while to bide;
Sune as the wish comes in your head, as sune
Towards the place desired ye'll saftly glide.

“And dinna think, because ye canna see,
That in the clouds nae earthly beauties are;
There, plenty of our kind, woods, burnies be—
Than earthly beauties they are bonnier far!

“If ye to wander through the woods incline—
If rocky dingles should be your desire—
There's mony a place whereat the twa combine,
And send a thousand echoes to the lyre!”

Thus spak' the blackie, and he ended here;
Then maikently and gracefully turn'd round,
And noddit to the whins and to the brier,
And then I heard a chirpin' kind o' sound.

Of ilka singin' bird in Scotia's land,
Around about the blackie cam' a pair;
And ilka pair between them had a wand,
Whereon they bore me lichtly through the air.

But how we landed at our journey's end
Is what I winna tak' in hand to say;
For here a darkness round us did extend,
And nicht was nicht, and was nae langer day!