University of Virginia Library

I was his master; and from me
He learnt at a sitting his A B C:
And step by step I led him through
Grammar and History, Latin and Greek,
And the science of Form and Number too,
And Rhetoric that he might fitly speak
As only the well-trained orator can,
For speech is the noblest gift of man;
But speech that is not by the laws and books
Is but as the cawing of jays and rooks,
Or the meaningless babble of running brooks:
And from the first it was plain to me
What his rôle in the world must be.
It was my mind that was stamped on his,
When his was soft as the melted wax;
Yet it was not wax, but gold; and it is
Strong too and sharp, as the woodman's axe,
To hew him a way through the tangled bush,
And also to smite his foe at a push—
Just the mind that is sure to win
Whatever the tussle it may be in,
For in this world they only tell
Who learn to hit out straight and well.
Therefore I follow his proud success,
Day by day, as he rises higher,
Read what he says in the public Press,
And note what the critics all admire;
And this bit and that, which the whole world praises
For its lofty thought, or its happy phrases,
Or its insight clear, or the counsel wise
That in its large suggestion lies—
I could not have said it so well as he,
But I know there is something in it of me;
I could not have worked out so perfect a thought,
But I gave him at first the true key-note;
For I was his master, and from me
He learnt, as I told you, his A B C.

Ah, sir, only to think that you
Had not the fitting words at command
To utter the thought that you felt was true;
And what it may grow in a master's hand!
At times, I can hardly detect the seed,
When it blossoms out in the perfect flower,
For it had been only a trifling weed
If left to ripen, by sun and shower,
In the poor soil of a mind like mine:
Yet the germ of it all was there, I know,
Though only he could have made it grow
Into a glory so divine.
Wonderful, sir, that genius should
Transform your thought, like its natural food,
And breathe into it a life so rich
The author of it shall hardly find
What of it now is his, and which
First smote the spark from the glowing mind!

A chit of a thing when he came to me;
No shears had ever yet come on his head,
And his mother could hardly bear to see
The golden curls which at last were shed,
That he might be like the rest of the boys
Who jeered at him, till she polled his hair.—
She kept it among her treasured joys,
Wrapt up in her marriage lines with care.
And I felt with her, as I must confess:
He was so beautiful before,
So touched with a sweet and tender grace;
And now we had made him commonplace,
Like the louts that were playing about the door.
A little ago he seemed just a child,
Thoughtful yet bidable, gentle and mild,
My little Nazarite, five years old,
With his great black eyes, and his hair unpolled;
And I felt he would be my Samson yet,
Not for his brute strength and clumsy sport,
But for his humour, and for his wit,
Quick to reason, and keen to retort,
And for a memory that forgot
Of all you might teach him never a jot.
Already I saw what he was to be,
When he shook the curls of his golden hair;
And now as the small face looked at me,
I thought, ah! what if his strength was there?
And I felt my eyes like her's grow dim,
He was so changed when we gazed at him.
That was a foolish thought, but love
Makes all of us foolish now and then,
And he who thinks he is far above
Such things is the foolishest among men;
Fond may be foolish, yet love is wise;
They call it blind, but the seeing eyes
See best by the light in the heart that lies.

Oh but our work went merrily now,
Blithe as the birds that sing on the bough,
For all the lore of the ancient times
Came with as natural ease to him
As song to the thrush on the stately limes
Piping aloud in the evening dim.
It was not work, it was liker play,
Teaching my pupil day by day;
Yet sometimes it was dreadful too,
He kept such a resolute grip of all
The gods and heroes mythical,
They were all so real to him and true,
And all their loves had hates he knew,
Better than what went on around
Among the boys on the playing ground;
And in his innocence he would talk
Of Jove and Leda in our walk,
And of the foam-born beautiful One,
And the myths of the all-embracing Sun.
But all is pure to the pure in heart,
And chaste as the marble of highest Art.

Ah! sir, you cannot know what it is,
How it wears the patience down to the bone
To toil through a summer day like this,
Sharpening fools on the grinding stone,
While stolid or sullen they grow by fits,
And nothing will put an edge on their wits;
We have to be pedants and too precise,
Or nothing would flourish but sloth and vice.
But oh the joy! when you chance to find
One who can answer to all your mind,
Who hungers for learning, as hawk for its prey,
And never forgets a word you say—
A bright young soul to be trained with skill,
Ready to take what shape you will,
Believing, loving, intent to know,
And clear as a mirror the truth to show,
But not like a mirror to let it go.
That was a gladness he gave to me
From the day that I taught him his A B C.

Only once had I ever seen
Such another, who so combined
Memory, fancy, and reason keen;
And he from the first had always been
Sickly in body, though strong in mind.
Ah the sorrow I had for him,
As he wasted slow with an inward fire,
And his eye grew brighter, as mine grew dim
With the dying of hope in a deep desire!
A beautiful spirit! and when he parted
From the shrunken form, and the aching pain,
I said, as I sat down broken-hearted,
That I never should love, as I had, again,
Spending my life on him day by day,
Only to steal his life away.
For I ought to have noted the hectic streak,
When first it flushed on his pallid cheek,
And I—I had only worked him still
Because he worked with so ready a will,
And his mother, I kept the truth from her—
And what, if I had been his murderer?
Yet here was another like the first,
But brighter still; and now if he
Were also to die, I should be accursed
Of all proud mothers that heard of me.
Therefore I said, it shall not be;
We will not always be poring on books,
We will not study with sickly looks;
We will go up to the breezy hills,
And scent the smell of the old pinewood;
Or down where the sea-spray flies, and fills
The air with a breath that is also good.
It is stupid indeed to be spending hours
Only seeking for vulgar health;
But then we can gather the lore of flowers,
And drink in the wonder of nature's wealth,
And fight off Death with the weeds and shells,
And the strong, rich life in the sea that dwells.
So rarely a day then came and went,
But we heard the plash of the rushing wave;
And often a day on the hills was spent,
Where the mountain ash, or the pine trees brave
The mist and the cloud and the stormwind's shock,
With roots clawed fast to the grey-brown rock.
I watched if a fire ever burned in his eye,
I watched if a flush ever dyed his cheek;
Not his mother herself would have watched as I;
Yet I only watched him; I did not speak;
For thinking of health may bring disease,
And I did but talk of the hills and trees,
And the bright sea-pools, and the running brooks,
And the dainty gulls, and the cawing rooks,
And how they were better than musty books.
That was not true; but you have to hide
Your thoughts from the eager ones at your side.

So passed the school-years, gathering in
Harvest of wisdom from the wise,
Harvest of pictures for the eyes,
Harvest of song for the heart within—
Harvest richer than all before,
For it was not books that we read alone,
But God's handwriting, on earth and stone,
Penned by Him in the days of yore,
Though it's only now we begin to spell
The sacred writing, and read it well.
Oh so glad were those years to me!
Oh so fruitful of freshest thought!
Watching the gull or the guillemot,
Or searching the rock-pools by the sea,
Or learning from the nest-building swallows,
Or noting the woodman and his craft,
As he felled the pine trees, and bound the raft,
Or poled it down through the rushing shallows!
At first, I grudged the hours it took,
At first, I sighed for the half-read book,
And carried its thoughts about with me,
Until I found that we could not see
The world without for the world within,
Nor gather the health we were there to win.
So the books and the maps were laid aside
That we might look forth open-eyed,
As Homer did, on the world wide.
And good are the pictures still, I find,
Then hung in the chambers of the mind.

What a career was his at college!
Never the like of it seen before,
Since Crichton, Admirable for know-ledge,
Startled the schools with his wondrous lore.
Not Faust was a defter spirit than he
In Letters and Arts and Philosophy;
Medals, scholarships, honours poured
Down on his head with one accord,
And yet the small head was not turned,
But only for yet more learning burned.
People would glance at the Honours' List,
And say, “Is there nothing he cannot do?”
For ne'er at the head of it was he missed;
His name was the first that came in view
In Classics and Logic and Rhetoric too,
Which are the things that the wise of old,
More than all others, received to hold.
Yet some folk, envious, hinted that such
Prodigies rarely came to much.
I knew better. I worked with him
Night after night, till the lamp grew dim,
Night after night, till the day would break:
For I said, he will carry to many lands
My name like Ascham's, and for his sake
I too of fame shall yet partake;
For I am the clockwork, he the hands.
Oh, I was proud of him; who but he?
For was he not also a part of me?
Of course, he was more than I; yet so
What I, too, might have been, he would show.
And when at length he was capped, the town
Gathered to see him, and shout his praises,
As, smothered in prize-books, he sat down,
And blushed at the Principal's eloquent phrases;
But his mother and I were hid in a nook,
And mingled our silent tears, and shook.

Ah! is there anything leaves no sorrow—
The mark of the human—on its way,
When the hope, that brightened the looked-for morrow,
Drifts past at length into yesterday?
Well, well! it is idle to moralise,
Wasting breath upon empty sighs;
And we have ourselves, no doubt, to blame,
When bubbles burst we have fondly blown;
And if you have properly played the game,
Shall you grieve that one of the tricks is gone,
Which you hoped to win with the cards you had?
Or vow that your partner's play was bad?
I was foolish and vain, sir; for I thought
I was filling his mind like an empty bottle,
When we read Justinian now, and wrought
At the politics, too, of Aristotle.
But he was not a vessel that I could fill;
He was a man with his own strong will,
And I was wrong when I took it ill.

Why is it people smile at me
In a pitying, patronising way?—
They've always done it, even when they
Were learning with my eyes to see
The beauty of classic verse of prose:—
They tried to hide it, but yet I saw.
What can it be? I am not like those
Beautiful youths, I know, who draw
All hearts to them by their witching look.
In a drawing-room now I lose my head,
Till I get in a corner, and find a book,
And lose myself in its thoughts instead.
It is true, I am awkward in company,
And blush if a lady but speaks to me,
And never do find the right word to say,
And my legs or arms are in my way,
And I've no small talk, nor a spark of wit,
And my laugh is not mirthful—can that be it?
Well, well; I am nothing, and ne'er shall be,
Unless my pupils interpret me;
Just like a language few will take
The pains to learn, though it hide a store
Of precious wisdom and curious lore,
And those who learn it a name will make.
But I hoped that he would esteem it more.

Yet his mother herself would sometimes say,
He has no heart; he is only brain;
There is nothing he loves in a perfect way,
There is none that he would not grieve and pain
To gain his end. And I also felt,
Though he had no passion of youthful vice,
But was ever as pure and cold as ice,
Yet was it ice that nought could melt;
And he never was young like other boys,
Nor made them his friends, nor loved their joys.
He was fain to argue and to dispute,
Even when he saw that he was wrong;
It was idle his arguments to refute,
For when he was beaten by reasons strong,
He would ride away on a jest or two,
In the triumph of laughter mocking you.
At the lowly in heart too he would sneer,
And the simple in heart he held for fools,
And there were times when he made me fear
He cared for us only as his tools.
Yet maybe we led him, ourselves, to think
That only for him did we keep our lamps trim,
That all our wells were for him to drink,
And all existed only for him.
And oh, what a mind he had! what power!
What subtlest insight to detect
The hidden analogies few suspect!
As the wild bee travels from flower to flower,
And brings quick life to the barren seed,
So would he bring from far afield
What made the commonest thing to yield
Undreamt of meaning, and life indeed.

So it came at last that, in gown and wig,
I heard him plead in a fitting cause.
How the words rolled from him round and big!
Not Tully himself more versed in the laws
Of Rhetoric, how to turn and wind
Round judge or jury, and win their ear,
Then flash a metaphor into their mind,
Or a stroke of wit that they smile to hear,
And, when he has got them well in hand,
Close with a peroration grand—
Or touching, if that is the vein most fit;
But, with our British mind, I know
Hard reasoning, and a harder hit
Will often farther than pathos go,
Or pictures of clients in stricken woe.
He hit the nail on the head, I saw:
Not once did he miss a point of Law,
Or fail the heart of the case to seize,
Or to persuade and rouse and please:
Nothing was showy or juvenile,
Nothing merely for ornament;
Every word was in perfect style,
Every plea to the marrow went,
Clenched with a telling precedent.—
Oh, what a gift is that, to stand
Before the majesty of the Law,
And hold your argument clear in hand,
And state the matter without a flaw!
I had studied the case myself at night,
And seen it, I reckoned, as clear as light:
But I felt, as I heard him pleading now,
The cold sweat beading upon my brow,
And there was a ringing in my brain,
And all was dark, till he made it plain.
I could not have spoken a word for awe
Of the ermined majesty of the Law.

Now when he finished, the Judge looked down,
And complimented his able friend:
The Bar had done, he was free to own,
All that the Bar could to defend
A weighty cause in a weighty way,
And to fulfil the hope which they,
And all who knew of his honours won
In other fields, had formed of him.
So the grave Judge. When he had done,
My head went round, and my eyes grew dim,
And something I said—I know not well
What it was,—but a silence fell
On all the court; and I seemed to see
A little boy at his A B C,
Sitting thoughtfully at my knee.

Of course, it was wrong in me to go
In the hour of his triumph thus, and show
My threadbare coat, and my withered face
At such a time, and in such a place;
Though it's true my coat was thin and bare
That he might be garmented fitly there.
But it cut me, at first, to the quick, when he
Turned with a freezing look from me—
Maybe, I had said something wild;
My head was dazed when I thought of the child,
And what he had grown with the help of me,
And what in the future he yet might be:—
Still it was wrong, and I see it now,
So to intrude with empty and vain
Thoughts of myself; and I ought to bow
To the fit rebuke, though it gave me pain,
As I crept away home in the dripping rain.
Of course, he loves me, I surely know it,
But that was not the right time to show it;
And nobody likes, in the hour of his pride,
To have shabby old friends creeping up to his side.

What a brain he has for clearness and power!
What a grasp of principles and details!
What would take you a year, he will seize in an hour;
And then his courage too never fails.
He may be Lord High Chancellor yet,
But he will write as a scholar no less
(To think that a part of me may be set
To give law from the woolsack, or teach from the press!)
None of your idle poems, or flash
Essays, biographies, tales, or trash,
But solid works for the thoughtful few,
Writ with a golden pen and true.
I know it is in him. I put it there,
And he will bring it out clear and fair,
When legal briefs and affairs of state
Slacken enough to give him leisure.—
But that must be soon, for I may not wait
Many more days for the Psalmist's date,
When years are a burden, and not a pleasure.
Hard, hard he works for the fame he seeks
Through the busy term, and the holiday weeks;
Yet he never is weary, never complains,
Knows nothing of sickness, or aching pains,
Or a wish for rest, or bile-clogged brains.
That is the fruit of our happy days
By the windy shores, and the wooded braes.
Wonderful, wonderful! such a man!
If he would only, now and then,
Drop me a hasty scrape of his pen,
When he has leisure to write, and can!
It's hardly reasonable, I know,
In me to be looking for that, although
I spent the wealth of my life on him,
And all the knowledge of studious years,
And filled his cup, as it were to the brim,
With the lore that now in his life appears.
But what of that, sir? And what had I
Been but a grave to bury it in,
Were it not for the scholar I trained to fly
With the bravest of them that mount up high
Riches and honours and fame to win?
And he has won them, and shall win yet
The ermined robe, and the coronet,
And a noble name, and mine shall be
Blended with his, too, in history.
And I've thought, now and then, in that coming day,
When they talk of us, they will maybe say,
I was the Moses that saw the Lord,
He but the Aaron that gave the word.
But that is when I am vain and proud,
And sit by the fire, and think aloud,
Wondering why he only writes
A scrap to say that he has no time;
And I'm ready to think that is nearly a crime,
As I brood and fret through the long dull nights.
But I ought to be grateful, indeed, that he
Finds even a moment to think of me,
With his hands so full, and his mind so strained,
And the splendid place by his genius gained;
For they say he is not more in request
At the Courts of Law than in stately Halls,
Where his wit has made him a welcome guest,
And Beauty swims through its routs and balls.
Ay, ay! and still I am sitting alone
Among the old books by the old hearth-stone.
But I do not grudge him; I only hope,
When his cup is full, he will spill me a drop,
For my work is done, and my days are dim,
And my heart grows thirsty to hear from him,
As the shadows of the Eternal fold
Around my head that is grey and old.