The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Sixth of December.—The Family Circle.—The Old Nurse.—The First Sorrow.—Education.—Drawing.—The Landscape.—Parental Hopes.—Cutting-out.—Dolls.—Needlework.—Fairy Sports.—The First Writing-Lesson.—Solitary Childhood.—The Garden.—Spring.

Dark gloomy day of Winter's darkest month!
Scarce through the lowering sky your dawning light
In one pale watery streak breaks feebly forth.
No sunbeam through that congregated mass
Of heavy rolling clouds will pierce to-day.
Beams of the cheering sun! I court ye not.
Best with the saddened temper of my soul
Accords the pensive stillness Nature wears;
For Memory, with a serious reckoning, now
Is busy with the past—with other years,

When the return of this, my natal day,
Brought gladness to warm hearts that loved me well.
As wayworn Pilgrim on the last hill-top
Lingers awhile, and, leaning on his staff,
Looks back upon the pleasant plain o'erpast,
Retracing far, with retrospective eye,
The course of every little glancing stream
And winding valley path, late hurried o'er,
Perchance, with careless unobservant eye,
Fixed on some distant point of fairer promise—
As with long pause the highest summit gained—
Dividing, like the Tyrolean ridge,
Summer from winter,—that wayfaring man
Leans on his staff, and looks a long farewell
To all the lovely land: So linger I,
Life's lonely Pilgrim, on the last hill-top,
With thoughtful, tender, retrospective gaze,
Ere, turning, down the deep descent I go,
Of the cold shadowy side.

Fair sunbright scene!
Not sunny all—ah, no!—I love to dwell,
Seeking repose and rest, on that green track,
Your farthest verge, along whose primrose path
Danced happy Childhood, hand in hand with Joy,
And dove-eyed Innocence—unawakened yet
Their younger sister Hope—while flowers sprang up
Printing the fairy footseps as they passed.
Return, ye golden hours! old times! return:
Even ye, ye simple pleasures, I invoke,
With rose-hues tinting life's delightful dawn!
Yes, I invoke ye, dear departed days!
I call ye from the land of shadows back,
Mellowed by softening Time, but not obscured,
Distinct in twilight beauty, such as steals,

Like grey-robed Vestal in some pageant's train,
With slow advance on sunset's crimson wake.

Come in your mellowed hues, long vanished years!
Come in your softened outline, passing slow
O'er the charmed mirror, as I gaze entranced—
There first I see, when struggling into life,
Dawned the first ray of infant consciousness;
There first I see a tender, watchful group,
Hailing delightfully that token faint.
Two Parents then, inestimable wealth!
Two Parents me, their only darling, blessed:
And one—the good, the gentle, the beloved!—
My Mother's Mother. Still methinks I see
Her gracious countenance. The unruffled brow,
The soft blue eye, the still carnationed cheek
Unwrinkled yet, though sixty passing years
Of light and shade—ah! deeply shaded some—
Had streaked with silvery grey her tresses fair.
Even now methinks that placid smile I see,
That kindly beamed on all, but chief on me,
Her age's darling! Nor of hers alone:
One yet surviving in a green old age,
Her Mother lived; and, when I saw the light,
Rejoicing hailed her daughter's daughter's child.
Nor from that kindred patriarchal group
Be thou excluded, long-tried humble friend!
Old faithful Servant! Sole survivor now
Of those beloved, for whom thine aged hands
The last sad service tremblingly performed,
That closed their eyes, and for the long, long sleep
Arrayed them in the vestments of the grave.
Yes, thou survivest still to tend and watch

Me, the sad orphan of thy Master's house!
My cradle hast thou rocked; with patient love,
Love all enduring, all indulgent, borne
My childhood's wayward fancies, that from thee
Never rebuke or frown encountered cold.

Come nearer.—Let me rest my cheek even now
On thy dear shoulder, printed with a mark
Indelible of suffering borne for me:
Fruit of contagious contact long endured,
When on that pillow lay my infant head
For days and nights, a helpless dying weight,
So thought by all; as almost all but thee
Shrank from the little victim of a scourge
Yet uncontrolled by Jenner's heaven-taught hand.
And with my growth has grown the debt of love;
For many a day beside my restless bed,
In later years thy station hast thou kept,
Watching my slumbers, or with fondest wiles
Soothing the fretful, feverish hour of pain:
And when at last, with languid frame I rose,
Feeble as infancy, what hand like thine,
With such a skilful gentleness, performed
The handmaid's office?—tenderly, as when
A helpless babe thou oft hadst robed me thus.
Oh, the vast debt!—yet to my grateful heart
Not burdensome, not irksome to repay:
For small requital dost thou claim, dear Nurse!
Only to know thy fondly lavished cares
Have sometimes power to cheer and comfort me:
Then in thy face reflected, beams the light,
The unwonted gladness, that irradiates mine.
Long mayst thou sit as now, invited oft,
Beside my winter fire, with busy hands

And polished needles knitting the warm wool;
Or resting with meek reverence from thy work,
When from that Book, that blessed Book! I read
The words of Truth and Life,—thy hope and mine.

There shalt thou oft, Time's faithful chronicler!
Tell o'er to my unwearied ear old tales
Of days and things that were—and are no more.
Yes, thou shalt tell, with what a noble air,
On wedding, or on christening festival,
The portly form of my Granduncle moved;
In what fair waving folds the snowy lawn,
Bordered with costly point, redundant flowed,
Beneath his goodly amplitude of chin;
And how magnificent in rich brocade,
And broidered rosebuds, and rough woven gold,
Half-down his thigh the long flapped waistcoat fell.
A comely raiment! that might put to shame
The shrunken garb of these degenerate days.
Then shall I hear enumeration proud
Of female glories—silks that “stood on end!”
Tabbies and damasks, and rich Paduasoys,
And flowing sacks, and full-trimmed negligees,
And petticoats whose gorgeous panoply,
Stiffened with whalebone ribs the circuit vast,
With independent grandeur stood sublime.

Describe again, while I attend well pleased,
That ancient manor of my Norman race,
In all its feudal greatness: In thy time,
Of simple girlhood, to thy wondering mind,
Still most magnificent, nor yet forsaken
By the “old family.” The ancient gateway
Surmounted by heraldic sculpture proud;

The round tower dovecote with its thousand holes—
Seignorial right, with jealous care maintained—
And my Great-grandam with her stately presence—
I mind it well—among her maidens throned
At the eternal tapestry. I smile;—
But more, good sooth! in sadness than in mirth.
I've seen the ancient gateway where it stands
An isolated arch. The noble trees,
A triple avenue, its proud approach,
Gone as they ne'er had been; the dovecote tower
A desecrated ruin; the old house—
Dear Nurse! full fain am I to weep with thee
The faded glories of “the good old time.”

Return, digressive Fancy! Maiden mild
Of the dark dreamy eye, pale Memory!
Uphold again the glass, reflecting late
My happy self in happy childhood's dawn,
By that dear guardian group encircled close.

Already changed!—already clouded o'er
With the Death-shadow that fair morning sky—
The kindred band is broken. One goes hence,
The very aged. Follows soon, too soon,
Another most endeared, the next in age.
Then fell from childhood's eyes the earliest tears
Shed for Man's penal doom. Unconscious half,
Incomprehensive of the awful truth;
But flowing faster, when I looked around
And saw that others wept; and faster still,
When clinging round my Nurse's neck, with face
Half-buried there, to hide the bursting grief,
I heard her tell how in the churchyard cold,
In the dark pit, the form I loved was laid.

Bitter exceedingly the passionate grief
That wrings to agony the infant heart:
The first sharp sorrow:—ay, the breaking up
Of that deep fountain, never to be sealed,
Till we with Time close up the great account.
But that first outbreak, by its own excess
Exhausted soon; exhausting the young powers:
The quivering lip relaxes into smiles,
As soothing slumber, softly stealing on;
Less and less frequent comes the swelling sob,
Till like a summer breeze it dies away;
While on the silken eyelash, and the cheek
Flushed into crimson, hang the large round drops—
Well I remember, from that storm of grief
Diverted soon, with what sensations new
Of female vanity—inherent sin!
I saw myself arrayed in mourning frock
And long crape sash—Oh, many a riper grief
Forgets itself as soon before a glass
Reflecting the becomingness of weeds!

Soon came the days when fond parental care
'Gan mingle easy tasks with childish play.
Right welcome lessons! conned with willing mind:
For it was told me, by such labour won,
And exercise of patience, I should gain
Access to countless treasures hid in books.
“What! shall I read myself, and when I will,
All those fine stories Jane can tell sometimes
When she's good-natured?—but not half so well—
Oh, no! not half—as Cousin Marianne.
What! shall I read about the sea of glass
The lady walked on to the ivory hill?
And all about those children at the well

That met the fairy, and the toads, and frogs,
And diamonds; and about the talking bird,
And dancing water, and the singing bough,
And Princess Fairstar? Shall I read all that,
And more, and when I will, in printed books?
Oh, let me learn!”—And never student's brain,
Fagging for college prize, or straining hard,
In prospect of tremendous little go,
To fetch up Time's leeway in idlesse lost,
Applied with such intensity as mine.

And soon attained, and sweet the fruit I reaped.
Oh, never ending, ever new delight!
Stream swelling still to meet the eager lip!
Receiving as it flows fresh gushing rills
From hidden sources, purer, more profound.
Parents! dear parents! if the latent powers
Called into action by your early cares—
God's blessing on them!—had attained no more
Than that acquaintance with His written will,
Your first most pious purpose to instil,
How could I e'er acquit me of a debt
Might bankrupt Gratitude? If scant my stores
Of human learning;—to my mother tongues,
A twofold heritage, wellnigh confined
My skill in languages;—if adverse Fate—
Heathenish phrase!—if Providence has fixed
Barriers impassable 'cross many a path
Anticipation with her Hope-winged feet,
Youthfully buoyant, all undoubting trod;—
If in the mind's infirmity, erewhile,
Thoughts that are almost murmurs whisper low
Stinging comparisons, suggestions sad,
Of what I am, and what I might have been—

This Earth, so wide and glorious! I fast bound,
A human lichen, to one narrow spot—
A sickly, worthless weed! Such brave bright spirits,
Starring this nether sphere, and I—lone wretch!
Cut off from oral intercourse with all—
“The day far spent,” and oh, how little known!—
The night at hand, alas! and nothing done;—
And neither “word, nor knowledge, nor device,
Nor wisdom, in the grave whereto I go.”

When thoughts like these arise, permitted tests,
Proving my frailty, and Thy mercy, Lord,
Let but Thy ministering angel draw mine eyes
To yonder Book; and, lo! this troublous world
Fades from before me like a morning mist,
And, in a spirit not mine own, I cry,
“Perish all knowledge but what leads to Thee!”

And, was it chance, or thy prevailing taste,
Beloved instructress! that selected first,
Part of my daily task, a portion short,
Culled from thy ‘Seasons,’ Thomson?—Happy choice,
Howe'er directed, happy choice for me!
For as I read, new thoughts, new images,
Thrilled through my heart with undefined delight,
Awakening so th' incipient elements
Of tastes and sympathies that with my life
Have grown and strengthened; often on its course,
Yea, on its darkest moments, shedding soft
That rich warm glow they only can impart—
A sensibility to Nature's charms
That seems its living spirit to infuse,
A breathing soul, in things inanimate,
To hold communion with the stirring air,

The breath of flowers, the ever-shifting clouds,
The rustling leaves, the music of the stream,
To people solitude with airy shapes,
And the dark hour, when Night and Silence reigns,
With immaterial forms of other worlds;
But best and noblest privilege, to feel
Pervading Nature's all-harmonious whole,
The Great Creator's presence, in His works.

Those happy evenings, when, on seat high raised,
By ponderous folio, placed on cushioned chair
Close to the table drawn, with candles snuffed,
And outspread paper, and long pencil, shaved
To finest point—to my unpractised hand
Not trusted yet the sharply dangerous knife,
Like all forbidden things, most coveted—
Oh, blissful hour! when thus installed on high,
In fulness of enjoyment, shapes uncouth,
Chaotic groups, I traced. The first attempt,
Two crooked strokes, that, nodding inward, prop
A fellow pair—a transverse parallel.
The House thus roofed, behold from either end
Tall chimneys twain sprout up like asses' ears,
From which, as from a fiery forge beneath,
Ascend huge volumed smoke-wreaths to the sky.
Next in the stately front, strokes—one—two—three;
There gaps the door, as wide as half the house,
And thick on either hand come cross-barred squares,
Hight windows, that for number would tire out
The patience of that keenly prying wight,
The tax-collector; while from one, be sure,
Looks out some favourite form of absent friend,
Whose house that goodly fabric represents.
Close on each side, two poles, surmounted high

By full round wigs, assume the name of trees;
And up the road, that widens farthest off,
In brave contempt of stiff perspective rule,
Comes coach-and-six, containing—who but me,
And all my friends, to visit that fine house!
Then follow man and horse—a gallant steed,
With legs, and mane, and tail, and all complete,—
The rider so secure upon his back,
He need but stretch his legs, and touch the ground.
Thick flies the dust—out flies the brandished whip—
On, on they go; and if they reach the house,
That horseman tall may take it on his palm.
As erst Glumdalclitch handled Gulliver.
And now a five-barred gate, and sundry pales,
And up aloft a flight of birds, so huge
They must be cranes at least, migrating hence;
Some cocks and hens before the door convened—
A dog and cat, and pig with curly tail,
And lo! the Landscape in all parts complete!

And never artist of the olden time,
Renowned Lorraine, or wonder-working Cuyp,
Or he, the mighty genius of the storm,
Sublime Salvator, on his masterpiece
Such looks of sweet complacency bestowed
As I on mine. And other eyes beheld,
As pleased, as partial; and parental hearts
From the bewildered and incongruous maze
Sweet inference drew of future excellence,
Saw combination in the motley whole,
Conceptions picturesque in crooked strokes,
And taste and genius manifest throughout.
Discernment keen! that with excursive eye
Pierces the dark dropped curtain, wisely dropped!

That shrouds futurity. As he of old,
The fated Goth, in that Toledan cave
Saw shadowed out, “as in a glass revealed,”
Things uncreated yet, that were to be;
But he beheld the downfall of his hopes,
His line extinct, his empire overthrown.
Appalling vision! type of woes foredoomed—
Far fairer that, less faithfully fulfilled,
The pageant that in long perspective view
Reveals, undoubted, to a parent's eye
The future glories of his infant race—
He, while the fairy people round his chair
Hold their gay revel, from the mimic sport
Auspicious omen draws, and sage portent.

That fair, bold boy, with high undaunted brow,
And broad white chest and shoulders, who bestrides
His father's cane—a gallant war-horse feigned,
Himself the warlike rider, and with shout
And brandished arm, and voice of proud command,
Marshals his legions—chairs and cushions ranged
In rank and file—and prances round the room,
The valiant leader of that well-trained host;—
Is not the future hero manifest,
The laurelled victor, in that noble boy?
And he, with curly pate and bright black eyes,
And dimpled mouth of arch significance—
He ever ready with his “quips and cranks,”
And shifts, and windings, and keen subterfuge,
Detected misdemeanour to excuse,
Averting dexterous the suspended rod—
Already fancy hears that prating tongue,
Subtle, ingenious, disputatious, bold,
The organ of a future barrister;

Or round that chubby face, with prouder hope,
Adjusts an awful majesty of wig:
Lo! on that cushion, where he sits sublime
(His woolsack now), the future Chancellor.
That gentle child, with pale transparent cheek,
And large mild eyes, by silken fringes veiled,
Clouds darkly shading their celestial blue,
That melt in dewy sadness if he hears
Some moving tales, how “once two hapless babes
Were left alone to perish in a wood,
And there in one another's arms they died,
And Robin Redbreast covered them with leaves”—
That gentle child must be a man of peace—
He cannot brave the buffets of the world;
And yet, with all his meekness—who can tell?—
The boy may live to be a bishop yet.
And little Annie—what will Annie be?
The fair-haired prattler! she, with matron airs,
Who gravely lectures her rebellious doll—
“Annie will be papa's own darling child,
Dear papa's blessing.” Ah, she tells thee truth!—
The pretty mockbird with his borrowed notes
Tells thee sweet truth! Already, is she not
Thy darling child? Thy blessing she will prove,
The duteous prop of thy declining years.
Thy sons will rove, as various fortune leads,
Haply successful in their several paths,
And, like thyself, in course of years, become
The careful fathers of a hopeful race;
Then will ambitious thoughts and worldly cares
Engross their hearts, and haply steal from thee
A portion of thy former influence then—
But she will never change. That tender heart,
Though wedded love and infant claimants dear

May waken there new interests—new and sweet—
Thine in that loving heart will ne'er decrease;
'Tis rich in kind affections, and can give—
Ay, largely give—without despoiling thee:
Thou wilt partake her ever watchful cares;
Her husband, for her sake, will cherish thee;
Her children will be taught to honour thee;
And while they fondly swarm about thy chair,
Or climb thy knees, th' endearing witchery
Will half renew again her infant days.
It is not love that steals the heart from love;
'Tis the hard world, and its perplexing cares;
Its petrifying selfishness, its pride,
Its low ambition, and its paltry aims.

Those happy evenings! ay, 'twas there I left—
The landscape finished, young invention sought,
Not often baffled, springs of fresh delight,
And found them frequent, Goldsmith, in thy work
Of ‘Animated Nature’—precious book!
Illustrated with pictures, that to me
Rivalled at least the subjects they adorned;
Then with sharp scissors armed—a jealous loan
With many a solemn charge conceded slow—
And fair unwrinkled paper, soon began
The imitative labour: and anon
Wide o'er the table ranged a motley herd,
A heterogeneous multitude, before
Never assembled thus, since that old time
When Noah to the finished ark called in
Of every species the allotted pair.
There first the unwieldy elephant advanced,
Majestic beast! on whose stupendous bulk
Raja or Sultan might have sat sublime;

Next in the line of march, ill-mated pair!
With branching antlers and slight flexile limbs,
Comes on the graceful dweller of the north;
He whose winged swiftness, like an arrow's flight,
Wafts the rude sledge, that bears o'er Lapland snows
The stinted native of those cheerless plains.
The Arab's faithful servant follows next,
The patient camel, useful to the last—
Who, when he sinks upon the burning sand
Beneath his burthen, slakes his master's thirst,
Slain for its sake, with the long-hoarded draught.
Then came the warrior bison, strong ally
Of his rude lord, grim guardian of his herds,
And sharer of his cabin comforts few.

Thus had I learnt of each brief history
From those illumined pages, to relate,
Too oft, I fear, to undelighted ears,
When with triumphant pleasure I displayed
The wonders of that paper menagerie—
But not as then will I enumerate now,
From the grim lion to the timorous hare,
Each by his several title, name, and style—
Or notice, but with glancing mention brief,
Those higher aims of art, creating shapes—
Not likenesses of aught in heaven or earth—
That with self-gratulating pride I called
Orlando and Rogero—names renowned!
And Bradamant, and fair Angelica—
For I had read with eager interest,
Half comprehending,that romantic tale.
And thine immortal Epic, sightless Bard!
In Pope's smooth verse revealed to ears unlearned,
Supplied a subject that, recalled, e'en now

Provokes me to a smile; so strange the choice;
That novel illustration so uncouth.
'Twas when forth issuing from the Cyclops' cave
The wily Ithacan Ulysses came,
Locked in the shaggy fleeces of the ram,
Behind his Centaur flock. Incongruous pairs!
Biped and quadruped together linked.
Ulysses never bound his trembling crew
More carefully beneath the guardian's fleece
Than I secured their paper effigies
To sheep, for height and bulk, proportions huge!
Worthy, indeed, to be a giant's flock.

How vivid still, how deep the hues, the imprint
Left by those childish pastimes! Later joys,
Less puerile, more exciting have I known—
Ah! purer none; from earth's alloy so free—
But Memory hoards no picture so distinct,
In freshness as of yesterday, as those
Life's first impressions, exquisite and strong—
Their stamp, compared to that of later days,
Like a proof print from the engraver's plate,
The first struck off—most forcibly imprest.
Lo! what a train like Bluebeard's wives appear,
So many headless, half dismembered some,
With battered faces—eyeless—noseless—grim
With cracked enamel, and unsightly scars—
Some with bald pates, or hempen wigs unfrizzed,
And ghastly stumps, like Greenwich pensioners;
Others mere Torsos—arms, legs, heads, all gone!
But precious all. And chief that veteran doll,
She from whose venerable face is worn
All prominence of feature; shining brown,
Like chestnut from its prickly coating freed,

With equal polish as the wigless skull—
Well I remember, with what bribery won
Of a fair rival—one of waxen mould—
Long coveted possession!—I was brought
The mutilated favourite to resign.
The blue-eyed fair one came—perfection's self!
With eager joy I clasped her waxen charms;
But then—the stipulated sacrifice!
“And must we part?” my piteous looks expressed—
Mute eloquence! “And must we part, dear Stump!”
“Oh! might I keep ye both!”—and both I kept.

Unwelcome hour, I ween, that tied me down
Restless, reluctant, to the sempstress' task!
Sight horrible to me, th' allotted seam
Of stubborn Irish, or more hateful length
Of handkerchief, with folded edge tacked down,
All to be hemmed; ay, selvidge sides and all.
And so they were in tedious course of time,
With stitches long and short, “cat's teeth” yclept;
Or jumbled thick and thin, oblique, transverse,
At last, in sable line imprinted grim.
But less distasteful was the sampler's task;
There green and scarlet vied; and fancy claimed
Her privilege to crowd the canvass field
With hearts and zigzags, strawberries and leaves,
And many a quaint device; some moral verse,
Or Scripture text, enwrought; and, last of all,
Last, though not least, the self-pleased artist's name.

And yet, with more alacrity of will,
I fashioned various raiment; caps, cloaks, gowns;
Gay garments for the family of dolls;
No matter how they fitted—they were made;

Ay, and applauded, and rewarded too
With silver thimble. Precious gift! bestowed
By a kind aunt; one ever kind and good,
Mine early benefactress! Since approved
By time and trial mine unchanging friend;
Yet most endeared by the affecting bond
Of mutual sorrows, mutual sympathies.

Yet was that implement, the first possessed,
Proudly possessed, indeed, but seldom worn.
Easier to me, and pleasanter, to poke,
As one should poke a skewer, the needle through
With thumb and finger, than in silver thrall
To imprison the small tip, too tiny still
For smallest thimble ever made to fit.
Dear aunt! you should have sought in wizard lore
The name of some artificer, empowered
By royal patent of the Elfin Court
To make Mab's thimble—if the sprightly Queen
Ever indeed vouchsafes in regal sport,
With needle, from the eyelash of a fly,
Plucked sharp and shining, and fine cobweb-thread,
To embroider her light scarf of gossamer.
Not oft, I doubt; she better loves to rove
Where trembling harebells on the green hillside
Wave in their azure beauty; or to slide
On a slant sunbeam down the fragrant tube
Of honeysuckle or sweet columbine,
And sip luxurious the ambrosial feast
Stored there for nature's alchymist, the bee;
Then satiate, and at rest, to sleep secure,
Even in that perfumed chamber, till the sun
Has ploughed with flaming wheels the Atlantic wave,
And the dark beetle, her mailed sentinel,

Winds his shrill signal to invite her forth.
Not on her waking hour such pomp attends,
As when on Ohio's banks magnolias tall
Embalm the dews of night, and living sparks
Glance through the leaves, and star the deep serene.
But even here, in our romantic isle,
The pearl of ocean, girdled with its foam!
Land of the rainbow! even here she loves
The dewy freshness of the silent hour,
Whose gentle waftings have their incense too,
To scatter in her paths; the faint perfume
Of dog-rose pale, or aromatic breath
Of purple wild thyme, clouding the green sward;
And though in air no sparkling myriads dart
Their glancing fires to light the Fairy Queen,
Earth hath her stars, a living emerald each!
And by the lustre of those dewy gems
She trips it deftly with her merry train
In mossy dells, around the time-scarred trunk
Of giant oak, or neath the wych-elm's shade,
Beside some deep dark pool, where one bright star
Trembles reflected, or in velvet meads,
Where, though the limpid blade of tender grass
Bends not beneath the “many-twinkling” feet,
Dark circles on the paler sward defined
Reveal at morning where the dance has been;
Oft thickly studded with a mushroom belt,
The fungus growth of one short summer's night,
The ring so geometrically drawn,
As if the gnomes, with scientific skill,
Forming the fairy sports, had mimicked there
The circling rampart of a Celtic camp,
Or with more apt similitude designed
The Druid's holy ring of pale-grey stones.

There oft the milkmaid, when with shining pail
She seeks the glistening pasture, finds dispersed
The relics of the banquet, leaves and flowers,
From golden kingcups cropped, and poplars white,
The cups and trenchers of the midnight feast.
Ah, lucky lass! when stirring with the lark,
On dairy charge intent, she thither hies,
And finds her task forestalled—the cool tiled floor
Flooded, fresh sluiced—stool, shelf, and slab bright rubbed—
Scalded and sweet the glazy milk-pans all,
And scoured to silver sheen the ready pail,
And, brighter still, within its circle left,
The glittering sixpence—industry's reward.

Me more delighted in the fairy's haunts
To sport, like them an airy gleesome sprite,
Than, prisoner of an hour—e'en that too long—
The needle's task monotonous to ply.
But I have lived to prize the humble art—
To number with the happiest of my life
Those quiet evenings, when with busy hands
I plied the needle, listening as I wrought—
By that mechanical employ, more fixed
Attention apt to rove—to that dear voice
Which from some favourite author read aloud.
The voice is silent, and the task laid by—
Distasteful now, when silence, with a tongue
More audibly intelligent than speech
For ever whispers round me, “She is gone.”

A day to be remembered well was that,
When, by my father taught, I first essayed
The early rudiments of penmanship.
Long-wished-for lesson! by prudential love—

Wisely considerate of my infant years—
Withheld, till granted slow in fair exchange
For some relinquished pleasure; 'twas received
A twofold grant—a boon and a reward.
So I began, long rigorously confined
To rows of sloping strokes. Not sloping all;
At first in straggling piles they jostled rude,
Like raw recruits, till into order drilled,
Maintaining equal distance on their march,
Even and close they ranged like veteran troops,
In ranks symmetrical; and then at last
My long restrained ambition was indulged
In higher flights, with nicer art to shape
The involutions of the alphabet.
Unsteady and perplexed the first attempts—
Great A's, that with colossal strides encroached
On twice the space they should have occupied,
And I's like T's, and R's whose lower limbs
Beyond the upper bulged unseemly out,
And sprawling W's, and V's, and Y's,
Gaping prodigiously, like butter-boats.
But soon succeeded to those shapeless scrawls
Fair capitals and neat round characters,
Erelong in words and sentences combined;
At first restrained between two guiding lines,
Then ranged on one—that one continued long,
Spite of ambitious daring, that would fain
Have strayed, from limit and restriction free;
For ardently I longed to scrawl at will
The teeming fancies of a busy brain,
Not half content, not satisfied, albeit
My father, with a kind and ready pen,
Vouchsafed assistance to the infant muse.

Smile, gentle reader—if so be, in sooth,
Reader shall e'er these simple records scan,—
But not in mockery of supposed conceit
Proud of precocious genius. I too smile
In sad humility, experience-taught,
At thought of the young daring, by fond hearts
Built on exultingly. Alas, dear friends!
No heaven-born genius, as ye simply deemed,
Stirred in my childish heart the love of song;
'Twas feeling, finely organised perhaps
To keen perceptions of the beautiful,
The great in art or nature, sight or sound,
The working of a restless spirit, long
For every pastime cast upon itself—
I was an only child, and never knew
The social pleasures of a schoolgirl's life.
All these, with other circumstance combined,
As those first lessons from the books I named,
And rural occupations, tuned my soul
Aye, every trembling chord, to poesie.
Books were my playfellows, and trees and flowers,
And murmuring rivulets, and merry birds,
And painted insects, all were books to me,
And breathed a language, from the dawn of sense
Familiar to my heart: what marvel, then,
If, like an echo, wakened by the tone
Of Nature's music, faint response I made?
And so I stood beside my father's knee,
Dictating, while he wrote, wild rhapsodies
Of “vales and hills enamelled o'er with flowers,
Like those of Eden, white with fleecy flocks”—
Of “silver streams, by spring's warm breath unbound,
And winter past and gone.”

Most simple themes,
Set to a few low notes monotonous,
Like the first chirping of a nestling bird,
Quavering uncertain! But parental hearts
Hailed them as heavenly music, to their ear
Prelusive of rich volumed harmonies.
Fond hopes! illusive as the march-fire's light;
Yet, not like that, in utter darkness quenched.
Nature in me hath still her worshipper,
And in my soul her mighty spirit still
Awakes sweet music, tones, and symphonies,
Struck by the master-hand from every chord.
But prodigal of feeling, she withholds
The glorious power to pour its fulness out;
And in mid-song I falter, faint at heart,
With consciousness that every feeble note
But yields to the awakening harmony
A weak response—a trembling echo still.

Revive, dear healthful pastimes! active sports
Of childhood's enterprising age, revive!
Elastic aye! untiring, unsubdued
By labour, disappointment, or fatigue:
Thy toil enjoyment—thy defeated hope
The spur to fresh exertion—thy fatigue
The healthful anodyne that medicines thee
To renovating slumbers light and sweet.
Full oft I pause with reminiscent eye
Upon the little spot of border-ground
Once called “my garden.” Proud accession that
To territorial right and power supreme!
To right possessive, the exclusive mine,
So soon asserted, e'en by infant tongue.
Methinks the thick-sown parallels I see

Of thriving mustard—herb of rapid growth!
The only one whose magical increase
Keeps pace with young impatience, that expects
Ripe pulse to-morrow from seed sown to-day.
To-morrow and to-morrow passes on,
And still no vestige of the incipient plant.
No longer to be borne, the third day's sun
Beholds the little fingers delving deep
T' unearth the buried seed; and up it comes,
Just swelling into vegetable life;
Of which assured, into the mould again
'Tis stuck, a little nearer to the top.
Such was the process horticultural
I boldly practised in my new domain:
As little chance of rest, as little chance
To live and thrive, had slip or cutting there,
Which failing in three days to sprout amain,
Was twitched impatient up, with curious eye
Examined, and if fibrous threads appeared,
With renovated hope replanted soon.
But thriving plants were there, though not of price.
No puny children of a foreign soil,
But hardy natives of our own dear earth,
From many a field and bank and streamlet side
Transplanted careful, with the adhering mould.
The primrose, with her large indented leaves
And many blossoms pale, expanded there,
With wild anemone, and hyacinth,
And languid cowslip, lady of the mead,
And violets' mingled hues of every sort,
Blue, white, and purple. The more fragrant white
Even from that very root, in many a patch
Extended wide, still scents the garden round.

Maternal love received the childish gift,
A welcome offering, and the lowly flower,
A rustic stranger, bloomed with cultured sweets;
And still it shares their bed, encroaching oft—
So ignorance presumes—on worthier claims.
She spared it in the tenderness of love,
Her child's first gift; and I, for her dear sake,
Who prized the pale intruder, spare it now.
Loved occupations! blameless, calm delights!
Your relish has not palled upon my sense;
I taste ye with as keen enjoyment still
As in my childish days; with zeal as warm,
More temperate, less impatient, still I tend
My flowery charge, with interest unimpaired
Watching the tender germ and swelling bud,
Pruning the weak or too luxuriant shoot,
And timely propping with assiduous care
The slender stalks with heavy blossoms bowed.
I will not tell how lately and how oft
In dreams I've wandered 'mongst the blooming tribes,
Continuing thus in sleep the pleasing task,
My summer evening's toil. I will not tell
How lately, stealing forth on moonless night,
I've sought by lantern light the dewy buds
Of peeping larkspur, searching 'mong the leaves
For nightly spoilers, from the soft light earth
That issue forth to feed on the young plant,
Their favourite dainty. No, I will not tell,
Lest wisdom laugh to scorn such puerile cares
In age mature, how lately they've been mine.
The gladness! the unspeakable deep joy!
When Nature, putting off her russet stole
Of wintry sadness, decks herself afresh

In bloom and beauty, like a virgin bride.
With lovely coyness, shrinkingly she comes;
For oft in clouds, and mist, and arrowy sleet,
The sun, her bridegroom, veils his glorious face,
And on his setting hour too often hangs
The breath of lingering frosts, repelling long
All but the hardiest children of the spring.
Of these, the earliest pursuivants, appear,
Studding the brown earth with their golden stars,
The clustering aconites, a pigmy race,
Fearless of wintry blast, whose fiercest rage
Passes innocuous o'er their lowly bed.
But soon through every border the moist earth
Breaks up its even surface, every clod
Expands and heaves with vegetable life;
And tender cones of palest green appear,
The future hyacinths, and arrowy points
Of bolder crocus; and the bashful heads
Of snowdrops, trembling on their slender stalks;
And next, of many hues, hepaticas,
The red, the milk-white, and the lovelier blue—
A vegetable amethyst!—come forth,
The impatient blossoms bursting into sight
Before the tardier leaves; but those at length
Expand their outward circle, fencing round
With its broad fringe the tufted bloom within.
But Winter oft, tenacious of his sway,
Enviously lingers on the skirts of Spring,
Binds up in frozen chains the stubborn soil,
Nips the young leaf, and checks the tender germ.
In such ungenial seasons oft I've watched
Week after week, and shivered at the sight,
Beneath some shelving bank or garden wall
Long wreaths of snow, that on the border mould,

In drifted thickness heaped, continuous lie.
Elsewhere divested of that livery pale,
The cold Earth reassumes her natural hues,
And slow returning verdure: but in vain
To the stiff surface heave the tender heads
Of budding flowers, or if they struggle through,
Deep in their sheltering leaves concealed they lie.
At length succeeds a thaw—a rapid thaw;
And from the heavens a dazzling sun looks down,
Arousing Nature from her torpid thrall.
Yielding and moist becomes the darkening mould.
And from that snow-heaped border melts away
The drifted wreath;—it shrinks and disappears,
And lo! as by enchantment, in its place
A rainbow streaks the ground—a flowery prism
Of crocus tribes innumerous, to the Sun
Expanding wide their gold and purple stars.
A Christian moral—to the pious mind
All things present one—may be found e'en here.
Adversity, like that pale wreath of snow,
Falls on the youthful heart, a seeming load
Of deadly pressure, crushing its young hopes;
But seeming such, for after certain space
Continuing there, and if it finds the soil
Not wholly sterile, to the frozen mass
Of its own latent virtues it imparts
A fertilising warmth, that penetrates
The surface of obdurate worldliness.
Then from the barren waste, no longer such,
Upspring a thousand amaranthine flowers
“Whose fragrance smells to heaven.” Desires chastised,

Enlarged affections, tender charities,
Long-suffering mercy, and the snowdrop buds
Of heavenly meekness:—These, and thousands more
As beautiful, as kindly, are called forth,
Adversity! beneath thy fostering shade.