 | Under Green Leaves |  |
97
THE COBBLER.
[_]
Ben Arthur, or the Cobbler, rises in great majesty and grandeur at the head of Loch Long to the height of 2,400 feet—his fantastic peak cracked and shattered into every conceivable form. From one point it resembles the figure of a cobbler. Hence the popular name of the mountain.— Tourists' Guide.
I
Far away! up, in his rocky throne,The gaunt old Cobbler dwells alone.
Around his head the lightnings play
Where he sits with his lapstone, night and day,
No one seeth his jerking awl,
No one heareth his hammer fall;
But what he doth when mists enwrap
The bald and barren mountain-top,
And cover him up from the sight of man,
No one knoweth—or ever can.
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II
Oft in the night, when storms are loud,He thunders from the drifting cloud,
And sends his voice o'er sea and lake
To bid his brother Bens awake;
And Lomond, Lawers, and Venue,
Answer him back with wild halloo;
And Cruachan shouts from his splinter'd peaks,
And the straths respond when the monarch speaks;
And hill with hill and Ben with Ben,
Talk wisdom—meaningless to men.
III
And oft he sings, this Cobbler old,And his voice rings loud from his summits cold,
And the north wind helps him with organ-swell,
And the rush of streams as they leap the fell.
But none interprets right or wrong
The pith and burden of his song,
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Oppress'd with the gift of the second sight,
Who tells the shepherds of Glencroe
What the Cobbler thinks of our world below.
IV
“Cobble?” he saith, “we cobble all,Wise and simple, great and small.
The king from under his golden crown,
Over his troubled realm looks down,
For the state machine is out of gear,
And grates and creaks on the people's ear:
‘Cobble it up!’ he cries, forlorn,
‘To last us till to-morrow morn;
'Twill serve my time if that be done—
Cobble and patch—and let it run!’
V
“And statesmen look—the cold and proud—On the sweating, moiling, groaning crowd,
100
Of the discontent that will not sleep;
And half reluctant, half afraid,
To touch the ills themselves have made,
They take the bristle and awl in hand,
And cobble, cobble, through the land.
‘Strike your hammers, wax your thumbs,
After us the deluge comes!
VI
“The sage puts out his sleepy head,From the hole in the wall where he was bred,
And looks at the world, that seems to him
To be going wrong in the foglight dim.
‘A shoe!’ quoth he, ‘an ancient shoe,
Letting the mire and the water through.
I can mend it, I opine,
I've the leather, the wax, the twine;
I'm the man for the public weal,
Patch and cobble it, toe and heel!’
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VII
“From ancient days till Time's last hourYour cobblers have been men of power.
Your Alexander, who was he?
As great a cobbler as could be.
And who your kings of later birth,
The lords and demi-gods of earth?—
Your Tamerlanes, and Ghengis-Khans,
Your Peters, Pauls, and Suleimans?
And great Napoleons, red with gore?
Cobblers! cobblers! nothing more!
VIII
“And from the very dawn of time,In every country, age, and clime,
Who were the Solons, Zenos, Dracos?
Who the Stagyrites and Platos?
Who the stoics and the schoolmen,
Hammering words with brutum fulmen?
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Dark expounders, drifting doubters?
Great and little—sane ones, mad ones?—
Cobblers all! and very bad ones!
IX
“And ye who seek to loose and bind,—Ye great reformers of mankind,—
Who think the soul a mere machine,
That you can trim, and oil, and clean,
And all men's passions—broad as day—
But dust that you can brush away;
Who think you've all the skill and leather
To put a proper shoe together:
You're only cobblers like the rest,—
Bungling cobblers at the best.”
X
Sitting above the mountain-springs,'Tis thus the ancient Cobbler sings;
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Ring through the mist that keeps him warm,
When he catches the clouds, you may hear the strain,
As they break from his hoary head in rain.
And when the summer thunders jar
There comes loud chorus from afar:
“All are cobblers—high or low,
“Quoth the Cobbler of Glencroe.”
Arroquhar, Argyleshire,
August, 1856.
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