The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

There's an old University town
Between the Don and the Dee
Looking over the grey sand dunes,
Looking out on the cold North Sea.
Breezy and blue the waters be,
And rarely there you shall fail to find
The white horse-tails lashing out in the wind,
Or the mists from the land of ice and snow
Creeping over them chill and slow.
Sitting o' nights in his silent room,
The student hears the lonesome boom
Of the breaking waves on the long sand reach,
And the chirming of pebbles along the beach;
And gazing out on the level ground,
Or the hush of keen stars wheeling round,
He feels the silence in the sound.

So, hearkening to the City's stir,
Alone in some still house of God
Whose solemn aisles are only trod
By rarely-coming worshipper,
At times, beneath the fret and strife,
The far-off hum, the creaking wain,
The hurrying tread of eager gain,
And all the tide of alien life,
We catch the Eternal Silence best,
And unrest only speaks of rest.
O'er the College Chapel a grey stone crown
Lightsomely soars above tree and town,
Lightsomely fronts the Minster towers,
Lightsomely chimes out the passing hours
To the solemn knell of their deep-toned bell;
Kirk and College keeping time,
Faith and Learning, chime for chime.
The Minster stands among the graves,
And its shadow falls on the silent river;
The Chapel is girt with young Life's waves,
And the pulses of hope there are passioning ever.—
But death is in life, and life is in death;
Being is more than a gasp of breath:
We come and go, we are seen and lost,
Now in glimmer, and now in gloom;
And oft this body is the tomb,
And the Life is then with the silent host.

In the old University town,
Looking out on the cold North Sea,
'Twixt the Minster towers and the College crown,
On a winter night as the snow came down
In broad flakes tremulously,
Falling steady, and falling slow,
Nothing seen but the falling snow,
A youth, with strained and weary looks,
Sat by a table piled with books,

And a shaded lamp that gleamed among
Pages of writing, large and strong.
A glance of sharp impatience flashed
Out of his dark and deep-set eye,
As he lifted his head, and hastily dashed
The hair from a forehead broad and high:
For there was a crash and a clamour and ringing
In the room overhead, and a chorus singing,
As the bell tolled midnight from near the graves,
And ere its slow deep note had died,
The chime from the College crown replied,
And then came the boom of the breaking waves.

Some twenty and three years he had seen,
Or more perchance; 'tis hard to tell
The age of a face so strong and keen,
The years of a form that was hardened well
By the winter's cold and the summer's heat,
And the mountain winds and the rain and sleet.
Big-boned, with the look of unformed power;
In body and brain and passion strong:
Over his square brow fell a shower
Of black hair, waving and thick and long.
It was a great brown hand that gripp'd
The pliant quill o'er the blotted sheet,—
No soft and clerkly finger slipt
Over the pages, glib and fleet;
More like that of a man with sword equipt,
Grasping the hilt his foe to meet.
An eager, strenuous spirit, meaning
To do with might what he had to do,
And rarely trusting, never leaning,
But self-reliant and bold and true;
A nature rugged and hard and strong;
Yet, as among the rocks and fells,
Where most the storms rage loud and long,
The deepest silence also dwells,
And there are brightest mossy wells
Among the nodding heather bells:
So in his stormy spirit dwelt
The hush of that religious sense,
The silence of that great reverence
Which the strong and brave have always felt;
Nor less the tender beauty wrought
By fresh well-springs of feeling deep
And Love, that whether we wake or sleep,
Brightens and sweetens every lot.

In the room overhead a clamour rang,
But hushed for a moment, as some one sang
Cheery and clearly, each note like a bell
Floating the words off, round and well.

PARTY OF STUDENTS IN THE UPPER ROOM

First Student.
—Look, how Darrel is moping; ask him to sing;
They are dull fellows poets, unless they can get
All the say to themselves: there he stands in a pet,
Like a hen on one leg with her head 'neath her wing.

Second Student.
Nay, let him alone; Cupid hit him last night;
I heard the sharp twang of his bow, and it broke his
Poor Muse's wing, who came down, in sad plight,
With a flutter of anapæsts, dactyls, and trochees.

Third Student.
—Ralph, come, pluck up heart, man, and give us a stave:
Love is life to the poet, like wind to a ship,
It will give you a song, though she give you the slip,
Which you'll sing at her wedding, or else o'er her grave;
For the song is as much as the Love to the poet;—
'Tis the fruit, and the passion was but soil to grow it.

Song— She is a Woman

She is a woman to love, to love,
As flowers love light,
And all that is best in you is at its best,
When she enters your heart as a welcome guest,
Making it bright.

She is a woman to love, to love
With a love sincere,
For all that is bad in you hides away,
Like the bats and the owls from the glory of day,
When she is near.

She is a woman to love, to love
As maid or wife,
And all of her that is sweet and true—
Which is all of her—she will give to you,
To perfect life.

You cannot help but love, but love,
Nobody can,
She carries a charm with her everywhere
In her gait, in her glance, in her voice, in her hair,
Bewitching man.

What is it in her you love, you love?
Is it her face,
Beaming with beauty along the way?
Is it her wit so nimble and gay?
Is it her grace?

None of them truly, but one and all,
And the something unseen
Which should lie behind beauty and wit and art—
The noble nature, the soul, the heart,
With its joy serene.

Hear her laugh, as the children play,
See her bring
Light to the eyes of the old and weak;
And oh how wisely her lips can speak
As well as sing!

That is a woman to love, to love,
And to wonder at,
For whether she talks, or walks, or rides,
'Tis as if she had never done aught besides
But perfect that.

First Student.
—A fig for your love-ditties! Cupid's an ass,
And the wise man will drown the small elf in his glass.

Second Student.
—Ha, ha! lads, I told you our Ralph had been hit:
Now, guess the rare mixture of beauty and wit.

Third Student.
—Nay, we name not the name of a damsel of honour;
Enough that such verses come showering upon her.
Now for something more stirring. I sing like a horse;
But here's for the old land of heather and gorse.

Sings—Up in the North

Up in the North, up in the North,
There lies the true home of valour and worth;

Wild the wind sweeps over moorland and glen,
But truth is trusty, and men are men,
And hearts grow warmer the farther you go,
Up to the North with its hills and snow.
Ho for the North, yo ho!

Out of the North, out of the North,
All the free men of the nations came forth;
Kings of the sea, they rode, like its waves,
Crash on the old Roman empire of slaves,
And the poor cowed serfs and their Cæsars saw
Rise from its ruins, our Freedom and Law.
Ho for the North, yo ho!

Up in the North, up in the North,
O but our maids are the fairest on earth,
Simple and pure as the white briar-rose,
And their thoughts like the dew which it clasps as it blows;
There are no homes but where they be,
Woman made home in the north countrie.
Ho for the North, yo ho!

O for the North, O for the North!
O to be there when the stars come forth!
The less that the myrtle or rose is given,
The more do we see there the glory of heaven;
And care and burden I leave behind
When I turn my face to the old North wind.
Ho for the North, yo ho!

First Student.
—Pshaw! your patriotsong now is only sonorous;
And, besides, people laugh at us talking so grand,
And praising ourselves, and our crusty old land.
Come, set us a catch with a rattling good chorus.

Third Student.
—Nay, none of your catches. Ralph, let's have a stave
With a touch of the pathos, like that which you gave
At the Doctor's last evening: I noted his eye:
How he sipped his glass daintily while it was dry!
How he gulped it in tumblers a frigate might float,
With the tear in his eye, and the lump in his throat!
You may roar out a chorus, lads: but to my thinking,
There is nothing like pathos, for good steady drinking.

All.
—Ay, ay, Ralph, touch up the feelings a bit;
And let each prime his glass: weeping's drier than wit.

Darrell.
—But nothing will please you. Well, never mind;
The birds sing their songs to the trees and the wind.

Song— Mysie Gordon

Now where is Mysie Gordon gone?
What should take her up the glen,
Turning, dowie and alone,
From smithy lads and farming men?—
Never seen where lasses, daffing
At the well, are blithely laughing,
Dinging a' the chields at chaffing:
Bonnie Mysie Gordon.

Mysie lo'ed a student gay,
And he vowed he lo'ed her well:
She gave all her heart away,
He lo'ed naething but himsel':

Then he went to woo his fortune,
Fleechin', preachin', and exhortin',
Got a Kirk, and now is courtin'—
But no his Mysie Gordon.

Every night across the moor,
Where the whaup and pewit cry,
Mysie seeks his mither's door
Wi' the saut tear in her eye.
Little wots his boastfu' Minnie,
Proud to tell about her Johnnie,
Every word's a stab to bonnie
Love-sick Mysie Gordon.

A' his letters she maun read,
A' about the lady braw;
Though the lassie's heart may bleed,
Though it even break in twa;
Wae her life may be and weary,
Mirk the nicht may be and eerie,
Yet she'll gang, and fain luik cheerie,
Bonnie Mysie Gordon.

Whiles she thinks it maun be richt;
She is but a landward girl;
He a scholar, and a licht
Mickle thocht o' by the Earl.
Whiles she daurna think about it,
Thole her love, nor live without it,
Sair alike to trust, or doubt it,
Waesome Mysie Gordon.

Mysie doesna curse the cuif,
Doesna hate the lady braw,
Doesna even haud aloof,
Nor wish them ony ill ava:
But she leaves his proudfu' mither,
Dragging through the dowie heather
Weary feet by ane anither;
Bonnie Mysie Gordon.

First Student.
—A sell! a sell! why, I've emptied my glass:
And it's only a fellow that jilted his lass.

Second Student.
—I wonder now Ralph, you can look in my face!
We asked you for pathos, and lo! commonplace.

Third Student.
—Silence there! Ralph, you must try it again.
Hark! how the sea moans: give us a strain
Caught from the wail of the lonesome main.

Song— The False Sea

I

Singing to you,
And moaning to me;
Nothing is true
In the false, cruel sea.
Where its lip kisses
The sands, they are bare,
Where its foam hisses,
Nothing lives there;
When it is smiling,
Hushed as in sleep,
It is beguiling
Some one to weep.

II

They went seafaring,
With light hearts and free,
And full of the daring
That's bred of the sea:
It crept up the inlet,
And bore them away
Where it laughed in the sunlight,
And dimpled the bay,
Singing to them,
But moaning to me,
Tripping it came,
The cold, cruel sea.

III

I heard the oars dipping,
I heard her bows part
The waves with a rippling
That went through my heart.

And I saw women weeping
And wringing their hands
For the dead that were sleeping
That night on the sands:
For nothing is true
In the false cruel sea
Which is singing to you,
And moaning to me.

Long and loud the clamour rose,
Bells were ringing, doors were banging,
Feet were tramping, glasses clanging;
Seemed the racket ne'er would close:
And listening to the uproar loud
Thus his thoughts upon him crowd.