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92
Fairyland Lost and Regained.
(ON RE-VISITING WORKINGTON IN CUMBERLAND.)
There is, or there was, for I scarce know which,
Or I once believed there to be,
A home with all golden treasures rich,
On the shore of a Northern Sea.
Or I once believed there to be,
A home with all golden treasures rich,
On the shore of a Northern Sea.
I knew it well, when a child I played
With the shells on that pebbly strand;
Never were shells in such hues arrayed
As the shells of my Fairyland!
With the shells on that pebbly strand;
Never were shells in such hues arrayed
As the shells of my Fairyland!
I knew it well, on the thymy flat
When I gathered a harebell blue;
Never was harebell so wondrous as that
In my Fairyland which grew!
When I gathered a harebell blue;
Never was harebell so wondrous as that
In my Fairyland which grew!
I knew it well, when the marvellous ships
Lay moored at the harbour quay;
But the gladdest thing was to watch the dips
Of the boat coming in from the sea.
Lay moored at the harbour quay;
But the gladdest thing was to watch the dips
Of the boat coming in from the sea.
93
I have been there again, as a grey-haired man:
Ah me that I'd stayed away!
I knew the spot where a child I ran
With the shells and the flowers to play:—
Ah me that I'd stayed away!
I knew the spot where a child I ran
With the shells and the flowers to play:—
It is not others have marred the spot;
Nor Time with his pitiless hand
That has wrought the changes which blur and blot
The light of my Fairyland;
Nor Time with his pitiless hand
That has wrought the changes which blur and blot
The light of my Fairyland;
It was no weird trick of a fairy elf
That the child or the man beguiled:—
It is I myself that have robbed myself,
The man that has robbed the child!
That the child or the man beguiled:—
It is I myself that have robbed myself,
The man that has robbed the child!
Ah me! for the stunted flowers that stoop
Their smoke-sickened bells on the lea!
Ah me! for the sordid collier-sloop
That steers for the harbour quay!
Their smoke-sickened bells on the lea!
Ah me! for the sordid collier-sloop
That steers for the harbour quay!
Ah me! for the shells that were once so fair!
For the hues with which they shone!
There are refuse heaps of the shells still there,
But the grace and the tint are gone.
For the hues with which they shone!
There are refuse heaps of the shells still there,
But the grace and the tint are gone.
And yet—and yet—there are pictures twain;
And both I have surely seen:
I saw it once, and I saw it again—
And who shall judge between?
And both I have surely seen:
I saw it once, and I saw it again—
And who shall judge between?
94
The child he saw it all tenderly lit
With the light of childish glee:
The man he came and he looked on it,
And he saw—what he could see.
With the light of childish glee:
The man he came and he looked on it,
And he saw—what he could see.
And who shall say that the child's pure eye
Saw not a truer thing
Than to his critical phantasie
The man's worn sight could bring?
Saw not a truer thing
Than to his critical phantasie
The man's worn sight could bring?
For I think that sight is the truest sight
Of God's own beautiful world
That seeth His teachings of love and of light
In the meanest place unfurled.
Of God's own beautiful world
That seeth His teachings of love and of light
In the meanest place unfurled.
And even as it is good to be
A child in heart and in mind,
So I think full often the child can see,
Where the full-grown man is blind.
A child in heart and in mind,
So I think full often the child can see,
Where the full-grown man is blind.
And of my two pictures the first I choose,
When Fairyland round me smiled:
The man's scant vision I will to lose,
And to see as saw the child!
When Fairyland round me smiled:
The man's scant vision I will to lose,
And to see as saw the child!
(1870.)
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