The Collected Poems of T. E. Brown

I wonder if the purple ring
That rises on a belt of blue
Provokes the little bashful thing
To guess what may ensue,
When he has pierced the screen, and holds the further clue.

I wonder if beyond the verge
He dim conjectures England's coast:
The land of Edwards and of Henries, scourge
Of insolent foemen, at the most
Faint caught where Cumbria looms a geographic ghost.

I wonder if to him the sycamore
Is full of green and tender light;
If the gnarled ash stands stunted at the door,
By salt sea-blast defrauded of its right;
If budding larches feed the hunger of his sight.

I wonder if to him the dewy globes
Like mercury nestle in the caper leaf;
If, when the white narcissus dons its robes,
It soothes his childish grief;
If silver plates the birch, gold rustles in the sheaf.

I wonder if to him the heath-clad mountain
With crimson pigment fills the sensuous cells;
If like full bubbles from an emerald fountain
Gorse-bloom luxuriant wells;
If God with trenchant forms the insolent lushness quells.

I wonder if the hills are long and lonely
That North from South divide;
I wonder if he thinks that it is only
The hither slope where men abide,
Unto all mortal homes refused the other side.

I wonder if some day he, chance-conducted,
Attains the vantage of the utmost height,
And, by his own discovery instructed,
Sees grassy plain and cottage white,
Each human sign and pledge that feeds him with delight.

At eventide, when lads with lasses dally,
And milking Pei sits singing at the pail,
I wonder if he hears along the valley
The wind's sad sough, half credulous of the tale
How from Slieu-whallian moans the murdered witches' wail.

I wonder if to him “the Boat,” descending
From the proud East, his spirit fills
With a strange joy, adventurous ardour lending
To the mute soul that thrills
As booms the herald gun, and westward wakes the hins.

I wonder if he loves that Captain bold
Who has the horny hand,
Who swears the mighty oath, who well can hold,
Half-drunk, serene command,
And guide his straining bark to refuge of the land.

I wonder if he thinks the world has aught
Of strong, or nobly wise,
Like him by whom the invisible land is caught
With instinct true, nor storms, nor midnight skies
Avert the settled aim, or daunt the keen emprise.

I wonder if he deems the English men
A higher type beyond his reach,
Imperial blood, by Heaven ordained with pen
And sword the populous world to teach;
If awed he hears the tones as of an alien speech;

Or, older grown, suspects a braggart race,
Ignores phlegmatic claim
Of privileged assumption, holding base
Their technic skill and aim,
And all the prosperous fraud that binds their social frame.

Young rebel! how he pants, who knows not what
He hates, yet hates: all one to him
If Guelph, or Buonaparte, or sans-culotte,
If Strafford or if Pym
Usurp the clumsy helm—if England sink or swim!

Ah! crude, undisciplined, when thou shalt know
What good is in this England, still of joys
The chiefest count it thou wast nurtured so
That thou may'st keep the larger equipoise,
And stand outside these nations and their noise.

OLD JOHN

Old John, if I could sit with you a day
At Abram's feet upon the asphodel,
There, while the grand old patriarch dreamed away,
To you my life's whole progress I would tell;
To you would give accompt of what is well,
What ill performed; how used the trusted talents,
Since last we heard the sound of Braddan bell—
“A wheen bit callants.”

You were not of our kin nor of our race,
Old John, nor of our church, nor of our speech;
Yet what of strength, or truth, or tender grace

I owe, 'twas you that taught me. Born to teach
All nobleness, whereof divines may preach,
And pedagogues may wag their tongues of iron,
I have no doubt you could have taught the leech
That taught old Chiron.

For so it is, the nascent souls may wait,
And lose the flexile aptness of their years;
But if one meets them at the opening gate
Who fans their hopes and modifies their fears,
Then thrives the soul: the various growth appears,
Or meet for sunny blooms or tempests' grappling—
No wind uproots, drought quells, frost nips, blight sears
The well-fed sapling.

Old John, do you remember how you ran
Before the tide that choked the narrowing firth,
When Cumbria took you, ere you came to Man,
From distant Galloway that saw your birth?
Methinks I hear you with athletic mirth
Deride the baffled sleuth-hounds of the ocean,
As on you sped, not having, where on earth
You were, a notion.

What joy was mine! what straining of the knees
To test the peril of that strenuous mile,
To hear the clamour of the yelping seas!
And step for step to challenge you the while,
And see the sunshine of your constant smile!
I loved you that you dared the splendid danger;
I loved you that you landed on our Isle
A helpless stranger.

Old John, Old John! the air of heaven is calm,
No ripple curls upon the glassy sea;
But, as you wave on high the golden palm,
Though love subdues the thrill of victory,
You must remember how at Trollaby
Your five-foot-one of sinew tough and pliant
Threw Illiam of the Union Mills, and he
Was quite a giant.

O wholesome food for keen and passionate hearts,
Tempering the fine pugnacity of youth
With timely culture of all generous arts,
Rejecting menial tricks and wiles uncouth!
Old John, your soul was valiant for the truth;
But ever 'twas a chivalrous contention:
Love whispered justice, and the mild-eyed ruth
Kissed grim dissension.

Old John, if in the battle of this life
I have not sought your precepts to fulfil,
If ever I have stirred ignoble strife,
If ever struck foul blow, as bent to kill,
Not conquer, by the love you bear me still,
O! intercede that I may be forgiven.
Stern Protestant—not pray to saints? I will
To you in Heaven.

Old John, you must have much to do indeed
If I am all forgotten from your mind.
Ah! blame me not: I cannot hold a creed
That would impute you selfish or unkind.
Ask Luther, Calvin; ask the old man blind
That painted Eden; ask the grim Confession
Of Augsburg what black error lurks behind
Such intercession.

Old John, you were an interceder here;
For me you interceded with great cries.
How have I stood with mingled love and fear,
And not a little merriment! My eyes
Beheld you not, Old John; your groans and sighs
And gasps I heard by listening at the gable,
Inside of which you knelt, and shook the skies—
But first the stable.

It was a mighty “wrastling” with the Lord:
The hot June air was feverish with the heat
And agony of that great monochord;
Our old horse, standing on his patient feet,

Ripped from the rack the hay that smelt so sweet;
And, when there came a pause, their breath soft pouring
I heard the cows; while prone upon “the street”
Our swine were snoring.

You prayed for all, but for my father most—
“The Maister,” as you called him—that on rock
Of sure foundation he might keep the post,
And (by a change of metaphor) might stock
God's heritage with vines to endure the shock
Of time and sense, being planted with his planting;
That so (another trope) of all the flock
Not one be wanting.

Old John, I think you must have met him there,
My father, somewhere in the fields of rest:
From doubt enlarged, released from mortal care,
Earth's troubles heave no more his tranquil breast.
O! tell him what you once to me confessed,
That, all the varied modes of rhetorick trying,
You ever liked “the Maister's” sermons best
When he was crying.

Old John, do you remember how we picked
Potatoes for you in the days of old?
Bright flashed the grep, and with its sharp prong pricked
The pink-fleshed tubers. We were blithe and bold.
Dear John, what jokes you cracked! what tales you told!
So garrulous to cheer your “little midges,”
What time the setting sun shot shafts of gold
Athwart the ridges!

And when the season changed, and hay was mown,
You weighed the balance of our emulous powers,
How “Maister” Hugh was strong the ponderous cone
To pitchfork; but to build the fragrant towers
Was none like “Maister Wulliam.” Blessed hours!
The empty cart we young ones scaled—glad riders!—
And screamed at beetles exiled from their bowers,
And homeless spiders.

But when the corn was ripe, and truculent churls
Forbade us, as we culled the cushaged stook,
Your eye flashed fire, your voice was loosed in skirls
Of rage. Old Covenanter, how could you look
The very genius of the pastoral crook—
Tythe-twined, established, dominant? “In our ashes
Still live our wonted fires.” You could not brook,
You said, “their fashes.”

A perfect treasury of rustic lore
You were to me, Old John: how nature thrives,
In horse or cow, their points; if less or more
Convex the grunter's spine; the cackling wives
Of Chanticleer how marked; the bird that dives,
And he that gobbles reddening—all the crises
You told, and ventures of their simple lives,
Also their prices.

The matchless tales your own great Wizard penned
To us were patent when you gave the key:
I knew Montrose; stern Clavers was my friend;
I carved the tombs with Old Mortality;
I sailed with Hatterick on the stormy sea;
Curled Cavalier, and Roundhead atrabiliar,
The shifts of Caleb Balderstone, to me
Were quite familiar.

But most of all, where all was most, I liked
To hear the story of the martyrs' doom:
The camp remote by stubborn hands bedyked;
The bones that bleached amid the heather bloom;
The gray-haired sire; the intrepid maid for whom
Old Solway piled his waters monumental,
And gave that glorious heart a glorious tomb
Worth Scotia's rental.

Old John, such stories were to me a proof
That 'neath the dimpling of the temporal tides
A power is working still in our behoof,
A primal power that in the world abides.

In virgins' hearts it lives, and tender brides
Confess it. Veil your crests, ye powers of evil!
It is an older power, and it derides
Your vain upheaval.

Old John, do you remember Injebreck,
And that fine day we went to get a load
Of perfumed larch? From many a ruddy fleck
The resin oozed and dropped upon the road;
And ever as we trudged you taught the code
Traditional of woodcraft. Night came sparkling
With all her gems, and devious to Tromode
The stream ran darkling.

But we the westward height laborious clomb;
Then from Mount Rule descended on the Strang,
And saw afar the pleasant lights of home,
Whereat your cheering speech—“We'll nae be lang”!
Also a wondrous chirp of eld you sang,
Till, when we came to Braddan Bridge, the clinging
Of that inveterate awe enforced a pang
That stopped the singing.

Yet when we gained the vantage of the hill,
And breathed more freely on the gentler slope,
Then quickly we recovered, as men will:
For Life's sweet buoyancy with Death can cope,
Being strung by Nature for that genial scope:
And so, when you had ceased from your dejection,
You talked with me of God, and faith, and hope,
And resurrection.

'Twas thus I learned to love the various man,
Rich patterned, woven of all generous dyes,
Like to the tartan of some noble clan,
Blending the colours that alternate rise.
So ever 'tis refreshing to mine eyes
To look beyond convention's flimsy trammel,
And see the native tints, in anywise,
Of God's enamel.

Old John, you were not of the Calvinists;
“The doctrine o' yElaction,” you declared—
You gentlest of all gentle Methodists—
“A saul-destroying doctrine.” Whoso dared
God's mercy limit, he must be prepared
For something awful, not propounded clearly,
But dark as deepest doom that Dante bared,
Or very nearly.

On Sunday morning early to the “class,”
Then Matins, as it's called in ritual puff
Correct, then Evensong—but let that pass:
Our curate frowns. Nor then had you enough;
But, with your waistcoat pocket full of snuff,
You scorned the flesh, suppressed the stomach's clamour,
And went where you could get “the rael stuff”
Absolved from grammar.

And who shall blame you, John? Our prayers are good—
Compact of precious fragments, passion-clips
Of many souls, cemented with the blood
Of suffering. So we kiss them with the lips
Of awful love; but when the irregular grips
Of zeal constrain the cleric breast or laic,
Into a thousand fiery shreds it rips
Our old mosaic.

And so it was with you, Old John! The form
Was excellent; but you were timely nursed
Upon a Cameronian lap, the storm
Of that great strife inherited: the thirst
For God was in you from the very first!
The rushing flood, the energy ecstatic,
O'erwhelmed you that you could not choose but burst
All bonds prelatic.

No gentler soul e'er took its earthward flight
From Heaven's high towers, or clove the ethereal blue
With softer wings, or full of purer light—
Sweet Saint Theresa, bathed in virgin dew,

Your sister was; but Jenny Geddes was too!
The false Archbishop feared the accents surly
Of your firm voice—you were John Knox, and you
Balfour of Burley.

Then is it wonderful in me you found
Disciple apt for every changing mood?
I also had a root in Scottish ground.
No tale of ancient wrong my spirit wooed
In vain: I loved the splendid fortitude,
Although we served in different battalions—
Your folk were Presbyterians, mine were lewd
Episcopalians.

What joy it was to you the day I came
To visit that dear home, no longer mine!
I sat belated, having seen the flame
Of sunset flash from well-known windows. Nine
Was struck upon the clock, and yet no sign
Of my departure; then some admiration
Of what I purposed; then I could divine
A consultation.

That I should sleep with you was their intent,
And so we slept, being comrades old and tried
It was to me a very sacrament,
As you lay hushed and reverent at my side.
Your comely portance filled my soul with pride
To think how human dignity surpasses
The estimate of those who “can't abide
The lower classes.”

And, severed by a curtain on a string,
Slept Robert, and his wife, your daughter, slept;
Slept little Beenie, and the bright-eyed thing
You Maggie called—she to her mother crept
And snuggled in the dark. The night wind swept
“Aboon the thatch”; came dawn, and touched each rafter
With tongue of gold; then from the bed I leapt
As light as laughter.

But I must “break my fast” before I went:
And so I sat, and shared the pleasant meal;
And all were up, and happy, and content;
And last you prayed. May Fashion ne'er repeal
That self-respect, those manners pure and leal!
My countrymen, I charge you never stain them;
But, as you love your Island's noblest weal,
Guard and maintain them.

O faithfullest! my debt to you is long:
Life's grave complexity around me grows.
From you it comes if in the busy throng
Some friends I have, and have not any foes;
And even now, when purple morning glows,
And I am on the hills, a night-worn watchman,
I see you in the centre of the rose,
Dear, brave, old Scotchman!

Fork.

Marked with the Cushag (ragwort).

CHALSE A KILLEY

To Chalse in Heaven

So you are gone, dear Chalse!
Ah! well: it was enough—
The ways were cold, the ways were rough—
O Heaven! O home!
No more to roam—
Chalse, poor Chalse.

And now it's all so plain, dear Chalse!
So plain—
The wildered brain,
The joy, the pain—
The phantom shapes that haunted,
The half-born thoughts that daunted—
All, all is plain
Dear Chalse!
All is plain.

Yet where you're now, dear Chalse,
Have you no memory
Of land and sea,
Of vagrant liberty?
Through all your dreams
Come there no gleams
Of morning sweet and cool
On old Barrule?
Breathes there no breath,
Far o'er the hills of Death,
Of a soft wind that dallies
Among the Curragh sallies-
Shaking the perfumed gold-dust on the streams?
Chalse, poor Chalse!

Or is it all forgotten, Chalse?
A fever fit that vanished with the night—
Has God's great light
Pierced through the veiled delusions,
The errors and confusions;
And pointed to the tablet, where
In quaint and wayward character,
As of some alien clime,
His name was graven all the time?
All the time!
O Chalse! poor Chalse.

Such music as you made, dear Chalse!
With that crazed instrument
That God had given you here for use—
You will not wonder now if it did loose
Our childish laughter, being writhen and bent
From native function—was it not, sweet saint?
But when such music ceases,
'Tis God that takes to pieces
The inveterate complication,
And makes a restoration
Most subtle in its sweetness,
Most strong in its completeness,
Most constant in its meetness;

And gives the absolute tone,
And so appoints your station
Before the throne—
Chalse, poor Chalse.

And yet while you were here, dear Chalse,
You surely had more joy than sorrow:
Even from your weakness you did borrow
A strength to mock
The frowns of fortune, to decline the shock
Of rigorous circumstance,
To weave around your path a dance
Of “airy nothings,” Chalse; and while your soul,
Dear Chalse! was dark
As an o'erwanèd moon from pole to pole,
Yet had you still an arc
Forlorn, a silvery rim
Of the same light wherein the cherubim
Bathe their glad brows, and veer
On circling wings above the starry sphere—
Chalse, poor Chalse.

Yes, you had joys, dear Chalse! as when forsooth,
Right valiant for the truth,
You crossed the Baldwin hills,
And at the Union Mills,
Inspired with sacred fury,
You helped good Parson Drury
To “put the Romans out,”
A champion brave and stout—
Ah! now, dear Chalse, of all the radiant host,
Who loves you most?
I think I know him, kneeling on his knees—
Is it Saint Francis of Assise?
Chalse, poor Chalse.

Great joy was yours, dear Chalse! when first I met you
In that old Vicarage
That shelters under Bradda: we did get you
By stratagem most sage
Of youthful mischief—got you all unweeting

Of mirthful toys—
A merry group of girls and boys,
To hold a missionary meeting;
And you did stand upon a chair,
In the best parlour there;
And dear old Parson Corrin was from home,
And I did play a tune upon a comb;
And unto us
You did pronounce a speech most marvellous,
Dear Chalse! and then you said
And sthrooghed the head—
“If there'll be no objection,
We'll now purseed to the collection”—
Chalse, poor Chalse!

And do you still remember, Chalse,
How at the Dhoor —
Near Ramsey, to be sure—
I got two painters painting in the chapel
To make with me a congregation?
And you did mount the pulpit, and did grapple
With a tremendous text, and warn the nation
Of drunkenness; and in your hand
Did wave an empty bottle, so that we,
By palpable typology,
Might understand—
Dear Chalse, you never had
An audience more silent or more sad!

And have you met him, Chalse,
Whom you did long to meet?
You used to call him dear and sweet—
Good Bishop Wilson—has he taken you
In hand, dear Chalse? And is he true,
And is he kind,
And do you tell him all your mind,
Dear Chalse—
All your mind?
And have you yet set up the press;
And is the type in readiness,

Founded with gems
Of living sapphire, dipped
In blood of molten rubies, diamond-tipped?
And, with the sanction of the Governor,
Do you, a proud compositor,
Stand forth, and prent the Hemns? —
Chalse, poor Chalse!

Stroked.

Proceed.

A well of “black water” on the Andreas Road.

Print the Hymns.

IN THE COACH

No. I— Jus' the shy

Yes, comin' home from the North Sea fishin' we were, past John o' Grotes,
Past the Pentlands and Cape Wrath theer, twenty boats
There'd be of us, and eight men and boys to every one, and how many are you making that?
A hunderd-and-sixty, says you—You're smart though, what?
And sure enough it is—aw this ciphrin' and figgurin' and recknin', aw grand! grand!
Well, when we hauled to the southward, the wind turned a foul, you'll understand;
So we made for a bay though, the lot of us: ter'ble narra it was to get in—
That bay—but spreadin' out astonishin',
And the room you navar seen—acres! acres! So swings to an anchor for all
As aisy as aisy, and plenty to spare, just that we could call
The time o' day and that: it's comfible, you know, like yandhar, and mayve a matthar
Of ten fathom—good houldin', fuss-rate ridin', couldn' be batthar.
And at the top of the bay there was a castle, ter'ble though,
Aw, bless ye, ter'ble uncommon, and the gardens theer all in a row,
And all above one another; and some guns that was took from the Rooshians, and a tower, and a flag goin' a-haulin'—
I don' know the burgee, but as broad as a good tarpaulin;

And over the door, cut to a dot, aw, open your eyes the widest you can!
Over the door, if you plaze, over the door, what next? God bless us! the three legs of Man!
That was the thing. My gough! the wondher we had;
And this and that; but at last Billy Fargher said
It muss ha' been some of these ould Earls or Dukes, or their daughters, or their nieces, or their cousins
(Of coorse, there'd be dozens)
That got married on yandhar lek—
At laste you'd expeck
There'd be some workin' in and out; and blood is blood,
That's aisy understood;
And navar ashamed of the ould flag, not her; but heisin' it to the wind, and carvin' it on the stone, like defyin',
Lek as bould as a lion.
Now there was a ter'ble great lady livin' in this Castle, mind!
Aye, a lady, bless ye! and no mistake, grand, no doubt, but kind.
And she come to see us, aye, and she said she was once on the Islan',
And the people was that good to her, and that civil, and that smilin',
And that plazzant, she said, that she couldn' forget it, she said,
No, she said; and it wasn' no use, she said,
They were nice people, she said, the nice you couldn' tell;
That's what she said, and she liked them well.
And she wouldn' take no res' of us but we muss promise then and theer
To have dinner with her, aye! dinner, think of that now! a hunderd-and-sixty of us—what? aw, I'll sweer.
Dinner though; so promised sure enough; and the day come,
And there wasn' a sowl of us went, not a sowl, by gum!
No! and the pipers blawin',
And the curks drawin',
And the preparation they'd be havin', so I'm toul',
And there wasn' a sowl, no, not a sowl.
And what for was that? What for? Just the shy, the shy,
That's the what for, and that's the why,

And that's the way with the Manx; aw, it is though, aw, they are, they are,
Mos' despard shy; aw, it's a pity for all, but star'
They will, and wink and nudge and poke and bother,
And spit theer and laugh, and look like axin' one another—
“Are you goin', and you?” and takin' rises, and all to that,
Till you can't tell is it your granny's cat
Or what is it that's doin' on you, but you feel jus' a reg'lar fool,
And all the time bitendin' to be as cool as cool.
Aw dear! it's a pity! a pity! aw, a rum lot!
But, whether or not,
The great lady was agate of us again,
'Deed for sure she was, and she seen the men
Was shy of the dinner; but it's lek she thought
It was on account of not knowin' how to behave theerselves the way they ought
With theer knives and theer plates and the lek; so axed them to tay—
Aw, she muss ha' been a kind lady anyway!
And we promised faithful, and the day come, and she sent and she sent,
And there wasn' a one of us went.
The shy, did ye say? Sartinly, nothin' but the shy,
That's the way we are; aye,
Treminjus though. I was raelly sorry for her, I was, I tell ye,
And all the throuble that was at her theer, fit for a melya,
And the disappointed—what? and, altogather, my chiarn!
These Manx chaps isn' fit, no they ar'n'—
Ter'ble boghs!
Well the wind veered round, and we all sailed for the southward,
Excep' two boats. Now, d'ye think she'd ha' bothered
About such dunkies? Well, that's jus' what she did,
Perseverin', aye! and considherin', and waitin'. ‘Turn your quid!”
Says Juan Jem, lek futhee, lek no hurry! you know
Lek aisy all! lek keep her so!

Lek wait and see! Patient, is it? But anyway the strong
The kindness was in her—that's it, and the long-
Suff'rin’ lek, and navar not no capers of takin' offince.
My gough! it's many a time I've thought of it since.
What did she do but down to these chaps that was lavin' behind—
Sixteen of them, aye—and axed them theer as kind as kind—
To tay? most sartin; what else? and I tell ye they took heart and went,
And enjoyed theerselves to the full the same's it might be you or any other gent.
But the res'? you're wond'rin'. Chut!
Jus' thè shy, and nothin' but
The shy. Aw, no use a' talkin',
The shy it's shawkin'.
No raison, says you: not a bit.
Amazin', says you. Well, that's all you'll get,
That is the raison, and the for and the why—
Jus' the shy!

Hoisting.

Corks.

Pretending.

Like, likely.

Harvest-home.

Lord.

Poor creatures.

Was leaving: were left.

Yes, ma'am! no, ma'am!

Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am;
We called him Joe, ma'am;
Eighteen—
My name's Cregeen—
Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am;
Had to go, ma'am
Faver? aye;
Young to die;
Eighteen for spring.
(Chorus of sympathisers) “Poor thing! poor thing!”

Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am;
I'm rather low, ma'am—
Bombay—
Not at say.
Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am;
Just so, ma'am,

Clane groun',
And the Pazon in his gown;
No stone, just marks.
(Chorus as before) “She's thinkin' of these sharks.”

Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am,
Not like home, ma'am—
The clothes he died in
The corp was plied in.
Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am;
But just to sew, ma'am,
Something sof',
Plazed enough,
But couldn' be—
(Chorus as before) “My chree! my chree!”

Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am,
We were callin' him Joe, ma'am—
His chiss come,
Not like to some;
Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am,
Come by Crow, ma'am,
From Liverpool:
And, of a rule,
Not amiss.
(Chorus as before) “She's got his chiss! she's got his chiss!”

Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am,
These feerns will grow, ma'am,
So I'm tould.
But I'm makin' very bould.
Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am—
Rather slow, ma'am,
Is this coach;
But I hope I don't encroach—
In my head the pain's.
(Chorus as before) “In her heart she manes.”
Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am.

Dear Heart!

Chest.

Ferns.

Conjergal Rights

Conjergal rights! conjergal rights!
I don't care for the jink of her and I don't care for the jaw of her,
But I'll have the law of her.
Conjergal rights! yis, yis, I know what I'm sayin'
Fuss-rate, Misthress Corkhill, fuss-rate, Misther Cain,
And all the people in the coach—is there a man or a woman of the lot of ye—
Well now, that's what I wudn' have thought of ye,
I wudn' raelly—No, I haven' got a little sup,
Not me—is there one of ye that wudn' stand up
For conjergal rights?
No, ma'am, tight's
Not the word, not a drop since yesterday. But lizzen, good people, lizzen!
I'll have her in the coorts, I'll have her in prison—
It's the most scandalous thing you ever—What! this woman and her daughter—
It's clane murder, it's abslit manslaughter,
Aye, and I wudn' trus' but beggamy, that's what it is—Married yesterday mornin'
In Kirk Breddhan Church, and not the smallest taste of warnin',
Takes her to her house in Castletown,
And jus' for I axed a quashtin —and I'll be boun'
It's a quashtin any one of you wud have axed—picks a quarrel, makes a row,
The two of them, aye, the two of them—bow-wow!
Hammer and tungs! sends for a pleeceman, puts me to the door—
But I'll owe her! I'll owe her!
Aisy, Mr. Cretney? No, I'll not be aisy;
It's enough to make a body crazy,
That's what it is, and the supper on the table,
And the hoss in the stable.
And I said nothin', nor I done nothin'. Aw, if there's law in the land,
Law or justice, I'll have it, d'ye understand?

Do ye see the thing? My grayshurs! married is married,
Isn' it? what? and me that carried
The woman's box. And that isn' all; what raison? what sense?
Think of the expense! think of the expense!
Don't ye know? God bless me! The certif'cake, that's hafe-a-crown,
And the licence, that's five shillin', money down, money down!
And not a farlin' off for cash, these Pazons, not a farlin';
And said she was my darlin'
And all to that, guy heng! it's thrue! it's thrue!
And look at me now! boo-hoo-oo-oo!
Yis, cryin' I am, and no wondher—
You don't see me it's that dark in the coach. By the livin' thundher
I'm kilt mos'ly, that's what I am, almos' kilt
With throuble and disthress and all. A jilt,
You say, a jilt? But married, married, married, d'ye hear?
Married, Misthress Creer,
Married afore twelve at Kirk Breddhan,
Married, a reg'lar proper weddin'
And no mistake,
And this woman . . . O my gough! don't spake of her! don't spake!
It's me that's spakin'? Yis, and I will! I will!
Who's to spake if I amn'? But still—
It's lek you don't see, the coach is so dark, and no light from these houses,
But feel of this new coat, and the pair of new trousis,
Bought o' puppose, o' puppose! what else?
Bran new; and the shirt and the frells,
And the cuffs and the collar, every d---thing
As bran and as new as a gull's wing—
And all to plaze her, and to look accordin'
To the occasion, and to do her credit, and ho'rdin'
The teens of months. And O, if I'd only borrowed them from a neighbour!
That's the thing, but bought them, bought them! and even so they might ha' been chaber,

Yis, they might, at another shop. But you don' see the way I'm goin',
No, no, you don'—
But I'd lek you to—the tears! I'm jus' slushin' the sthraw
With the tears, makin' the coach all damp for the people—yis, I know I am, but I'll have the law, I'll have the law.
Just a quashtin about a bit of proppity,
The house, in fac', the very house we come into, d'ye see?
The house, her house! Of coorse! of coorse! But goodness grayshurs!
Who doesn' know the law about a thing like that? the iggorant! the ordashurs!
If ever there was a thing on God's earth
That was mine, it was yandhar house! But it isn' worth
Talkin'—no! There's people that'll go against anything.
But what! no suttlement goin' a-makin',
Nor nothin', jus' everything goin' a-takin'
Undher the common law of matrimony theer—
At my massy! at my massy! With your lave, Mr. Tear,
At my massy, sir. You'll 'scuse me.
But you know the law. Married—my chree! my chree!
What iss “married,” if that isn'? it's as plain as a dus'bin—
Your own dear lovin' husbin'
As kind as kind!
See the beauty of it! And “all that's thine is mine,”
Isn' it sayin' that in the Bible?
And surely the woman is li'ble
As well as the man; and to “love, honour, and obey,”
Isn' that what they say?
But it's my heart, that's it! my poor broken heart! aw dear! aw dear!
And my feelin's! my feelin's! and that son of mine girnin' from ear to ear,
And his lip, and his imprince, and his disrespeck,
And the waste and the neglec'—
O, it's awful! it's awful! O, the wounds that there's no healin's!
O, my feelin's! my feelin's!
But I'll see aburt, I will, I'll see aburt—
The dirt!

The wife of my bosom! Don't be mockin'!
I heard a woman laughing: its shockin'
That a woman'd laugh at the lek of such doin's, yis, it is,
Downright wickedness—
A woman that I could name—
Fie for shame! fie for shame!
But I'll have law. Look here! Is James Gell a lawyer?
You'll hardly uphould me
He isn', will ye? James Gell—the Attorney-Gineral: well, that's the man that tould me.
Did I spake to him about it? was I axin' him afore
I was anything to her?
Sartinly! my gough! was I goin' to run my neck into a noose,
And navar no 'pinion nor . . . I'm not such a goose
As yandhar ither, I've gorrit in writin', yis, I have,
I've gorrit here—aw, you'll get lave! you'll get lave!
Not aisy to read, but God bless me! where's my specs?
But lar't! lar't!
It's my feelin's: O, my heart! my heart!
My poor heart! my poor heart! boo-hoo-oo-oo! Aye, and you'd think there'd be
Some semperthy,
Some . . . Crow, open this door and let me out! there's no regard with ye
For a man's . . . I'll not ride another yard with ye . . .
Theer then! theer! No, I'll have none of your goodnights . . .
Conjergal rights! conjergal rights!

Question.

Tongs.

Go hang!

On purpose.

Cheaper.

Settlement to be made.

Mercy.

About it.

Got it.

Let it be.

Going to meet him

A.

Yes, yes, I'll be seein' him, seein' Billy
This very night—aw, I'm almost silly
With the thought. Yes, Mrs. Quayle, just a year away,
And he's comin' home this very day.
Billy! Billy! aw, the foolish I am!
And you'll 'scuse me, ladies, won't ye now? Aw, I'll be as qui't as a lamb,

Yes, I will: and it isn' right
To be carryin' on like this afore people, but aw, the delight!
O! I wonder how he'll be loókin'; he's that handsome and gud,
Aw yes, aw dear! I wud, I wud,
I wud fly, I wud die! O the darling! O! it's shockin',
And I can't keep qui't, no, I can't, no, I can't, and it's no use o' talkin'.
But I'll try, Mrs. Quayle, you know me; yes, I'll try, I'll do my best,
O! I will though, and only proper lek. But how'l he be drest?
O Billy, Billy! will he have his white ducks? ho, ho!
It's me that'd make them like the driven snow;
But these Liverpool washerwomen—chut! the nasty things! aw, I'll be bail
No notion whatever, no, they haven'; what did ye say, Mrs. Quayle?
Not to be expectin' too much and I'll not be disappointed? and I'd batthar—
What, Mrs. Quayle, batthar what, what? what? I've got the latthar!
He's comin'! he's comin'! “On the spree,” did ye say?
Like the way
With such, Mrs. Quayle? With such!
Mrs. Quayle! Mrs. Quayle! Who then? whuch?
This coach is chokin' me, give me air—
No, no! it isn' fair,
Navar! no, navar! navar!
No, no! you're clavar,
You've seen a dale,
Mrs. Quayle,
A dale, no doubt, but that you'll navar see,
For I love Billy, and Billy loves me!
Is that plain? don't you know that? It cudn'! it cudn'!
But ye come upon me that sudden.
No, no! that's not Billy, nor natur', nor nothin'; that's foolishness—
But I can't rest—
This coach is close—the hot I am and the coul'!

(Chorus of conscious women)
“Poor sowl! poor sowl!”

B.

Now then, now then, what do you say now?

Here he is, and I think you'll allow,
Eh, Mrs. Quayle, you'll allow, I think,
Not the smallest sign of drink.
And I ast your pardon humble I do—
I'm forgettin' myself. But is it you?
Is it you? is it you? Whisper then,
The millish ven!
Close, Billy, close—
God knows
I love you, Billy, and you love me,
Don't you, Billy? my chree! my chree!
Aw, just to hear—
Chut! I'm foolish, but O, the dear!
The—Steady, did ye say? yis, Billy, yis!
Steady it is.
Now, Mrs. Quayle, is he drunk or sober?
Poor ould Billy! And last October
He sailed, poor chap! And it's me that's drunk—
With joy you mane? And have you got your trunk—
What am I talkin'? your chiss—dear me! and didn' I see't
Comin' along the street—
Of coorse, and mended—
You tould me. O! isn' all this beautiful? isn' it splendid?
Closer, Billy, closer then!
Crid shen?
Nothin', but . . . lizzen, Billy, whisp'rin's free
I love Billy, and he loves me . . .
Do you, Billy? as God's above,
Do you love
Me, Billy? The word, Billy, as soft as soft—
What am I thinkin' of?
Aw, ye said it, ye said it. And now I'll trouble ye
Is he drunk or sober, this young man, W.
Sayle, by name? Aw, you'll 'scuse me, won't ye?
Aw I didn' mane to 'front ye,
Aw nothin' of the surt! Only, ye see, the glad
I am it's fit to drive me mad.
And I'm rather young . . . at laste, not that oul',
You'll 'scuse me, won't ye . . .

(Chorus of conscious women)
“Poor sowl! poor sowl!”

Sweet dear.

What's that?

The Pazons

What's the gud of these Pazons? They're the most despard rubbage go'n',
Reg'lar humbugs they are. Show me a Pazon, show me a drone!
Livin' on the fat of the land, livin' on the people's money
The same's the drones is livin' on the beeses honey.
Aw bless ye! the use of them? not the smallest taste in the world, no!
Grindin' down the honest workin' man, just so;
Suckin' the blood of the poor and needy,
And as greedy's greedy.
See the tithes, see the fees, see the glebes and all;
What's the call
For the lek? and their wives go'n' a takin' for ladies, and their childhar go'n' sendin' to College
Like the fuss of the land. Aw, it bates all knowledge
The uprisement of the lek! And fingerin' with their piannas,
Them that shud be singin' their hosannahs
To the King of glory constant. Clap them in the pulfit theer,
What can they do! Aw, come down the steer! come down the steer,
And don't be disgracin' yourself that way! That's what I've been thinkin' many a time—
And let a praecher take his turn, a local, aye, just try'm!
Aw, give your people a chance to get salvation.
“Blow ye the trumpet in Zion!” That's the style, and the prespiration
Pourin' out all over his body! See the wrestlin',
And the poor Pazon with his collec' and his pestlin'
And his gosp'lin'. Gospel! Let it sound abroad,
The rael gospel of God!
Aw then the happy I am!
Give us the Lamb! give us the Lamb!
But he can't, I tell ye, he can't—
What's that young man sayin' theer—rant?
Rant indeed, is that what he's learnin'
At Oxfoot College, to revile the spirit that's burnin'

In the hearts of the faithful? Aye, and let it burn, let it blaze!
But here's the Pazon, if ye plaze,
Cocked up with his little twinkle of a farlin' rush,
And 'll hauk and blush,
And his snips and his snaps
And his scrips and his scraps,
And endin' up with the Lord's Prayer quite sudden
Lek the ould woman's sauce to give a notion of a puddin',. . .
Aye, puddin', and drabbin' with their swishups and dishups
Of the stale ould broth of the law! If all the hands of all the bishops
Was goin' crookin' over his head, he wudn' be a praecher,
Not him, nor a taecher.
You can't be married without a Pazon? Can't I though?
Can't I, Masther Crow?
Give me the chance: I'm a married man with a fam'ly comin',
But if it plazed the Lord to take Mrs. Creer, d'ye think there's a woman
'd refuse to go with me before the High Bailiff down
At Castletown,
And ger' a slick of matrimony put upon us?
Honest?
Yes, honest thallure: but holy, “holy matrimony,” they're say'n'—
Holy your grandmother!—At laste, I mane,
And astin' your pardon, Mrs. Clague!
But the idikkilis people is about the lek o' yandhar—Aisy with your leg,
Masthar Callow; thank ye! that'll do—
Yis, Mrs. Clague, and crizzenin's and funarls too—
Shuperstition, just shuperstition, the whole kit,
Most horrid, just popery, clane popery, that's it—
Aye, popery and schamin' and a lie and a delusion and snares
To get money out of the people, which is the Lord's and not theirs!
Money, money every turn,
Money, money—pay or burn!
And where does it come from? I said it before, and I say it again,
Out of the sweat of the workin' man,

Aw these priests! these priests! these priests—
Down with them, I say. The brute beasts
Has more sense till us, that's willin' to pay blackmail
To a set of rascals, to a pack of——Good evenin', Pazon Gale!
Good evenin', sir, good evenin'! Step up, sir! Make room,
Make room for our respected Vicar—And may I persume
To ax how is Mrs. Gale, sir, and the family?
Does this weather agree—
Rather damp, I dessay! And the Governor's got knighted?
I'm delighted to see you, sir, delighted, delighted!

First.

Stair.

Enough.

Noah's Ark

(On the road)

“Good gracious! what in the world is this?”—“A lil cauf, ma'am.”
“Why, you don't mean to say . . .?”—“I'll take it by the scruff, ma'am;
We'll just lave it at the door.
It's belongin' to Mr. Moore.”
“And to think the abominable brute
Was sucking at my boot!
Mr. Crow! Mr. Crow!
I'd have you to know . . .”
“Jus' a lil cauf, ma'am,
Jus' a lil cauf.”

(Arrival at Ramsey)

“Mercy on us! what next?”—“A lil dunkey, ma'am.”
“A little what? Good heavens!”—“Aw, ye needn' be funky, ma'am;
I'll get him out as qui't . . .
Good people, bring a light!”
“But a solitary female in the dark . . .
With half the beasts in Noah's ark.
Mr. Crow! Mr. Crow!
I'd have you to know . . .”
“Jus' a lil dunkey, ma'am,
Jus' a lil dunkey.”

MATER DOLOROSA

Aw, Billy, good sowl! don't cuss! don't cuss!
Ye see, these angels is grand to nuss;
And it's lek they're feedin' them on some nice air,
Or dew or the lek, that's handy there,
O Billy, look at my poor poor bress!
O Billy, see the full it is!
But . . . O my God! . . . but navar mind!
There's no doubt them sperrits is very kind—
And of coorse they're that beautiful it's lekly
The childher is takin to them directly—
Eh, Billy, eh? . . . And . . . O my head!
Billy, Billy, come to bed! . . .
And the little things that navar knew sin—
And everything as nate as a pin:
And the lovely bells goin' ding-a-lingin'—
And of coorse we've allis heard of their singin'.
But won't he want me when he'll be wakin'?
Will they take him up when he's wantin' takin'?
I hope he'll not be left in the dark—
He was allis used to make a wark
If a body'd lave him the smallest minute—
Dear me! the little linnet—
But I forgot—it's allis light
In yandhar place . . . All right! all right!
I forgot, ye see, . . . I'm not very well . . .
Light, was I sayin'? but who can tell?
Bad for the eyes, though . . . but a little curtain
On a string, ye know—aw certain! certain!
Let me feel your face, Billy! Jus' us two!
Aw, Billy, the sorry I am for you!
Aw 'deed it is, Billy,—very disthressin'
To lave your childher to another pessin—
But . . . all the little rooms that's theer—
And Jesus walkin' up the steer,
And tappin' lek—I see! I see!—
O Jesus Christ, have pity on me!
But He'll come, He'll come! He'll give a look
Jus' to see the care that's took—

O! there's no doubt He's very gud—
O, I think He wud, I think He wud!
But still . . . but still . . . but I don't know . . .
O Billy! I think I'd like to go—
What's that, Billy? did ye hear a cry?
O Illiam, the sweet it'd be to die!

THE CHRISTENING

Hould him up!
Hould him up!
Joy! joy!
Hould him up! hould him up!
Is that the boy?
Hould him up!

Stand out of the way, women,
Stand out of the way!
Here, Misthress Shimmin!
Here, I say!
Here! here!
Aw dear!
Is this him?
Every limb
Taut and trim—
Here's a hull!
Here's a breast—
Like a bull!
He's got my finger in his fess —
He hess! he hess!

Look at the grip!
Is that a smile upon his lip?
He can't do that!
What! what!

Smile!
My gough! what a chile!

Feel the gristle!
Feel it though!
Stop! I'll whistle—
Whew——! bo!
What's he doin'?
Is it cooin'
You call it when he goes like yandhar?
See his eyes the way they wandhar!
Hullo! hullo!
Where'll you go? where'll you go?
Keep her so!

There's a look!
There's another!
The little rook!
What's he wantin'
With this gallivantin'?
Ah! the mother! ah! the mother!
Yiss! yiss! muss hev a kiss!
Aw, Kitty, Kitty bogh!
Aw my gough!
Kitty darlin'! Kitty then!
And me so far away!
The hard it muss ha' ben!
Were you freckened, Kitty, eh?
Navar mind!
Here I am!
As consigned!
And, axin' your pardon, Misthress Shimmin, ma'am,
Here's the joy!
Here's our boy, Kitty!
Here's our boy!

Listen! I'll tell you a thing—
By jing!
I've calkerlated it to a dot,
But whether or not—

The very night Kitty was tuk—
Just three days,
If you plaze,
Out of Dantzic, there was a sea struck—
Jemmy 'll remember—
Every timber
Shuck!

Close-hauled, you know, and I navar tould ye,
But behould ye!
In the trough there, rowlin' in it,
Just that minute—
I saw a baby, as plain,
Passin' by on a slant of rain
To leeward, and his little shiff
Streamin' away in the long gray driff.
I saw him there—you didn' regard me—
But his face was toward me—
Oughtn't I to know him?
Well, I saw him afore Kitty saw him!
I saw him, and there he ess,
There upon his mother's breast,
The very same, I'll assure ye;
And I think that'll floor ye!
And his body all in a blaze of light—
A dirty night!
“Where was he goin'?”
Who's knowin'?
He was in a hurry in any case,
And the Baltic is a lonesome place—
But here he is, all right!
Here he is now! joy! joy!
God bless the boy!

Have you tould the Pazon? what did he say?
Has he seen him—ould Pazon Gale?
Aw, you tould the Pazon anyway!
Tould! he'll turn the scale
At thirty pound,
I'll be bound.

Did you put it in the papers?
No, no! What capers!
No, no!
Splendid though!
Upon my life—
Catharine, wife
Of Mounseer
Eddard Creer,
Esqueer,
Otherwise dadaa,
Of a son and heer!
Hip-hip-hip-hip, hooraa!

Bless my sowl! am I draemin'?
He'll make a seaman
Will yandhar lad—
Aw, the glad!
Yiss! yiss! Misthress Shimmin, certainly!
Go down to the smack,
Jemmy, and see—
Yiss! Misthress Shimmin
And all the rest of the women—
'Scuse me, ladies! rather 'cited—
Just the delighted, you know, the delighted!
And every raison to suppose
(See him cockin' his nose!)
That the best of care
And ceterar——
I'll get that with Misthress Shimmin—did ye say?
Eh?

Go, Jemmy, they're lyin' quite handy,
A bottle of rum and another of brandy,
In the starboard locker theer—
And, Jemmy! there's a taste of gin—
Aw, navar fear!
Tell the chaps to finish it—
All the kit—
And listen—tell ould Harper
We'll take and warp her

Inside
On the morning's tide—
About hafe-past four 'll be time to begin—
My gough! but we'll have a chrizzenin'!

Fist.

Has.

Poor Kitty.

Must have been.

Frightened.

Shift.

See.

Is.

PEGGY'S WEDDING

“Is that you, Peggy? my goodness me!
And so dark still I can hardly see!
Wait, woman, wait!
I'll come down: ye needn' go on hommerin' at such a rate.
Here's the master snorin'
Like a mill, and you to be breakin' the door in—
It's just disthractin', that's what it is—
Aisy, woman! yis! yis!—
There's people 'll snore—where's that perricut?
There's people 'll hommer—my gough! that slut!
I'm comin'! I'm comin'!
God bless the woman!
I navar heard such a row——

“Aw dear! aw dear! aw, the craythur! aw, poor Peggy, what's the matter with you now?
Come in! come in! the sowl! the sowl!
What is it, Peggy, what? and where have you left Dan Cowle?
Is he outside in the street?—well, where is he then?
Did you call at the halfway-house? did he get—aw, bless these men!
Did he fall on the road? No, ye say, no?
Well then where did he go?
Is he lyin' in the ditch?
Did he lave you, or did you lave him—which?
You left him?
So I suppose it's not a man you're wantin' at all, but a cherubim?
Aye! aye!
Middlin' high!

“And you that were married only yesterday, and the weddin' out of this house—
To be comin' home in the mornin' all ragg'd and rumpled like a reg'lar trouse —
Peggy, Peggy! You'd like to blow the fire, just to feel
You're at home again—eh, Peggy? Don't kneel! don't kneel!
Don't be foolish, Peggy. There! take the bellows,
And blow away!
And we'll have a cup o' tay,
And then you'll tell us.
Why—Dan Cowle! Dan Ballabroo!
A dacent man, and well-to-do!
Dan! Dan Cowle! dear heart!
And the beautiful ye went away in the cart!
And you've tuk and left him! left Dan!
Left the man!”

“Man! did ye say? aw Misthriss, Misthriss! what are ye talkin'?
Man! do ye call that craythur a man, because he's a thing that's walkin'
On two legs, and a tongue in his head? a beautiful surt
Of a man—you call him a man, I call him a dirt!
That's what I call him—a dirt, and a sneak, and a dunkey—
Man! if that chap's a man, he's a cross 'twix a man and a monkey!
And a touch of a divil, and a touch of a fool . . .
Listen, Misthriss, listen! We warn' half-way up Barrule,
When I thought he'd ha' stayed a bit—and only raisonable he shud—
At Kinvigs's—bein' a thing lek that's general understood—
What's halfway-houses for, I'd like to know—
Just so!
You wouldn' be agen that?
What?

“Certainly! and company waitin'—and just a drop to warm a body—
And dear me! what is there in half a glass of rum, or a whole glass, for the matter of that, to harm a body?

And well you know it isn' the dhrink I regard—
Well you know that—but still a body's hardly prepar'd
To pass the only public-house on the road, drivin' home on your weddin' night—
It isn' right,
Nor correck, nor friendly, nor in any surt of a concatenation
Lek accordin' to your station—
And disappintin' people that way, when they're trustin'
Your proper feelin's, is quite disgustin'.

“So I lays my hand on his arm, just by way of signifyin'—
Nothin' more—and behould ye! he cocks hisself up as stiff and as dignifyin',
And rip! and rup! and chip! and chup!
And ‘There's nobody up,’ he says. Nobody up?
And glasses jinglin', and windows blazin',
And people comin' out, and shoutin' amazin'
To stop! But no! but sticks his elbers like skewers in a body—
‘What!’ I says, ‘not a glass of toddy?
Just for neighbourly dacency?’
‘It's surprisin' how early they're goin' to bed,’ says he.
‘Goin' to bed!’ says I. ‘Yes,’ he says—middlin' snarly—
‘Kinvigs's was allis early,’ he says, ‘partic'lar early’—
And his ould hoss gallopin', and heisin' his hind-quarters, and workin'
Like a see-saw, and bumpin' and jerkin',
And sent me flyin', with my head in the bottom of the cart, and my feet in the air,
And the rest of me—anywhere.

“So he puts out his hand—
‘Bless my sowl!’ he says, ‘I thought it was gone!’
‘What?’ says I. ‘The box,’ he says, maenin' my box, and my weddin' bonnet
Smashed to jammy—‘I wish you'd sit upon it,’
He says—the box, of coorse! So I thought I'd be a little lovin'
And that—and I comes up lek gradjal, lek shiftin' and shovin'
Lek agen him in a way. And I says, ‘I'd like to be with you,’ says I,

‘My own husband,’ I says; for I thought it better to try
Was there just a taste
Of anything of a husband in him. So he put his arm round my waist—
Not round either—for he couldn' do that—
Not for the stout I am, bein' allis a gintale figger, but just like a lath—
Flat
Agen the back o' my stays, and not the smallest curl
Or squeeze in the ould pump-handle, not the smallest in the worl'—
And his eyes on the box—and ‘There it's goin'!’
He says, and waein' and woin'—
And as restless! And then we got on the mountain; and the ling
Was smellin' very sweet in the dark, and a stream began ting-ting-ting
Down the other way—very pleasant, and it got couldher,
And I thought it was only a 'spectable thing to put my head on his shouldher.

“O dear! he got as crabbit
As an ould buck rabbit;
And he hitched and he hunched, and he cribbed and he crunched,
Till he was all bunched
In a lump; and anyway his blades that sharp
And snaggy you might as well ha' leaned your head on the backbone of a carp.

“So I didn' care, and I sat up as straight
And as indepandin'. It was gettin' late
When we come to his house; and there was a falla theer standin' on the look-out
On the very top of the midden, and jumps down, and grips the hoss, and gives a big shout,
And ‘Look here!’ he says, ‘who's goin’ to pay me? ‘Pay!’
Thinks I—and this ould fool goin' seerchin' away
In all his pockets—and gev a start,
And ‘Bless my heart!’

He says, ‘hev I lost it? hev I lost it?’ and twisses and wriggles
Hisself into knots—and the other chap stands and sniggles—
A young chap—And ‘Dear me!’ says Dan, ‘it must ha' dropt out on the road comin'—
It's very disthressin',’ he says. ‘Faith then! you're a rummin,’
Says the chap, and like to buss —
‘What's the use o' talkin'?’ says Dan Cowle, ‘I've lost my puss.
Where's your puss, Peggy? maybe,’ he says, ‘you'll not mind
Payin' the man,’ he says—‘if you'll be so kind,’
He says—but oh! that creepin', and that sneakin', and that slewin', and that screwin',
Like a conger just. And ‘What's a doin'?’
Says I; ‘isn' it your own cart you got?’
‘Well——no——it's not,’
He says, ‘I must confess—
The fact of the matter is,’ he says,
‘My own cart is bruk very bad,
And I borrowed this one for the occasion.’ So I paid the lad.

“‘Aye, aye! his cart is bruk very bad,’ says the chap,
‘Likewise his trap,
And the phaeton, and the barooch, and the jantin'-car, and the family coach-and-four’—
And he gev a roor
Out of hisself, this young divil—
And ‘Hurrah for the weddiners!’ he says. ‘Be civil! be civil!’
Says Dan, ‘be civil, young man, it would well become ye’—
But says I—‘Take your money and your cart,’ I says, ‘and be off with ye, ye scum ye!
Be off!’ I says, ‘stir your stumps!’
(These Foxdale lumps
Is pirriful. ) And Dan with the box on the street, and pokin'
The key in the door—and, you know, I seen the chimbley wasn' smokin',

Nor nothin'—nor no cowhouse about that I could see,
Nor no garden, nor a bush, let alone a tree—
But just a crock
Standin' on a rock,
And water runnin' in it very free
At the gable, and slishin' and slushin', and muckin' the street
Under one's feet.

“And this is the man that tould me he'd make me
So comfible!
But still
You'll not mistake me,
You know me, Misthriss, don't ye? and you know I wouldn' flinch,
No, not even if I was deceived—no, not an inch!
On I'd go, through the smooth and the rough,
Content enough—
For richer for poorer, for better for wuss—
Lost his puss!
Had he? lost two! lost twenty!
Give me a man with a lovin' heart, Misthriss, with a lovin' heart—
That's plenty—
Plenty for me—navar mind the cart—
With a lovin' heart, and some wit about him—
And I'd navar doubt him,
Misthriss—no! For better for wuss—
Them's the words, and didn' the Pazon say them? And I'd nuss
His childher, and I'd work, and I'd slave, and I'd die
Before I'd be beat—and still a lie
Is a dirty thing—fore or aft,
As the sailors is sayin'—
But listen again—
Misthriss! Misthriss! you don't know half.

“So we got in, however, and he groped about, and he found a flint-and-steel,
And he skinned his ould knuckles all like a priddha peel,

Streck-streckin' away; and, when he gor a light at last,
You navar seen such a rookery. A dresser there was—
Yis—but hardly a plate or a bason, or any other surt o' war',
And a hape of mouldy turmits in a corner there—could, comfortless things they are—
And a rot-hole, or a shot-hole, I don't know which, and I don't care etha',
And a barrel that looked like male, with a flag or a slate on the top of it, and a medha,
And a pot, and nothin' in it, and no fire, if there had been, and as for bed or beddin'—
Well, I dedn' throuble, no, faith, I dedn'.

“It was a house that if you were inside you'd see about as much sky as roof,
A surt o' mixthar o' the two, and a touch of harry-long-legses and spiders—aw, it's the troof! it's the troof,
The troof I'm tellin'! And the scraas hangin' in rags and strings of dirt as black
You couldn' tell were they scraas, or strips tore from a rotten ould sack,
Or nettin' or somethin'. And I can tell ye the chap begun, as a body might say,
To look rather ashamed of hisself—I think so—in a way—
Yis—he didn' look at me for a bit at all,
But cocked his face agen the wall.

“And—‘It's too late,’ he says, ‘it's too late for supper, I suppose’—
And ye might have sniffed and sniffed till ye straint your nose
Afore you'd ha' got a smell of supper in yandhar place—
But he turned at last, and I saw his face—
Workin', workin', workin' most terrible,
And screwin' the eye, and workin' still—

And—‘Let's sit down a bit,’ he says, and he studdied the candle, if ye plaze, and he looks up as innocent as a linnet,
And he says, ‘That's a nice puss you've got,’ he says; ‘how much is there in it?’
And I tould him £4: 16s. and 2½d. farlin'—
So he says, ‘That's a nice little bit o' money, my darlin'—
Let's see it,’ he says.
So I gev it to him, ye know;
And he counted it out, I tell ye, every coin of it, very slow—
Very slow he counted—and then—what d'ye think?
Whips it in his pocket! ‘A nice lump of jink!’
Says Dan; and he snuggled up closer to me, and he began to fiddle and fiddle,
Lek tryin' to span me round the middle—
Some surt o' coortin'? thinks I, he's improvin', I doubt—
The ould villyan! He was just tryin' to find out
Had I any more stitched up in my stays!
And a man with such ways—
Would you call him a man? now would ye, Misthriss? would ye, though?
That was the fiddlin'—aye! he said it, he said it hisself, the ould crow!
Yis, and his dirty ould mouth all of a pucker, and grippin' and nippin',
And declarin' he felt the shillin's slippin'
Between the quiltin's—aw dear! aw dear!
But I was enough for him—navar fear!

“I says—‘This is no place for me,’ I says; and up I jumps—
‘I'm off,’ I says; and he rattles his ould stumps—
And—‘Off?’ he says—‘Why you've not opened your box yet!’
‘Clear out o' the road!’ I says. ‘I hevn' seen your frocks yet,’
He says, ‘nor the sheetin' nor nothin’!—just give us that key—
It's every bit my proppity!’ he says. ‘Out o' the way!’

I says, and I gript the box. But if I gript it, he gript it, and he shouted and bawled,
And backards and forrards we tugged and we hauled;
And we staggered this way, and we staggered that way,
And higgledy-piggledy, and I cannot tell what way—
But I gev him a run in on the dresser, and his ould back bent,
And——down he went!

“And the crockery—what there was—all smashed—well to be sure!
And the turmits rowlin' on the floor—
So the box was mine, and I out on the door.
‘Murdher! tieves!’ and he run after me full trot—
‘You're a robber!’ he says; ‘you've robbed me! everything you got
Belongs to me—I'll bring a shuit,’ he says; ‘I'll bring a shuit
For damagers!’ he says—the ould brute—
‘I'll have your life!’ he says,
‘Ar'n' you my wife?’ he says—
‘Murdher!’ he says, ‘murdher!’—‘Murdher—your granny,’
I says—‘Good-bye, Dan Cowle! good-bye, Danny!’
And I left him standin' in the road; and here I am, as you see—
And, Misthriss! no more weddin's, aw good sakes! no, no more weddin's for me!”

Petticoat.

Slattern.

Sort.

Against.

Burst.

Lads.

Pitiful, detestable.

Potato.

Got.

Turnips.

Rat-hole.

Either.

Small, one-handled tub.

Truth.

Strips of sod laid on the rafters under the thatch.

THE PEEL LIFE-BOAT

Of Charley Cain, the cox,
And the thunder of the rocks,
And the ship St. George—
How he balked the sea-wolf's gorge
Of its prey—
Southward bound from Norraway;

And the fury and the din,
And the horror and the roar,
Rolling in, rolling in,
Rolling in upon the dead lee-shore!

See the Harbour-master stands,
Cries—“Have you all your hands?”
Then, as an angel springs
With God's breath upon his wings,
She went;
And the black storm robe was rent
With the shout and with the din. . . .

And the castle walls were crowned,
And no woman lay in swound,
But they stood upon the height
Straight and stiff to see the fight,
For they knew
What the pluck of men can do:
With the fury and the din. . . .

“Lay aboard her, Charley lad!”
“Lay aboard her!—Are you mad?
With the bumping and the scamper
Of all this loose deck hamper,
And the yards
Dancing round us here like cards,”
With the fury and the din. . . .

So Charley scans the rout,
Charley knows what he's about,
Keeps his distance, heaves the line—
“Pay it out there true and fine!
Not too much, men!
Take in the slack, you Dutchmen!”
With the fury and the din. . . .

Now the hauser's fast and steady,
And the traveller rigged and ready.
Says Charley—“What's the lot?”
“Twenty-four.” Then like a shot—

“Twenty-three,”
Says Charley, “'s all I see”—
With the fury and the din. . . .

“Not a soul shall leave the wreck,”
Says Charley, “till on deck
You bring the man that's hurt.”
So they brought him in his shirt—
O, it's fain
I am for you, Charles Cain—
With the fury and the din. . . .

And the Captain and his wife,
And a baby! Odds my life!
Such a beauty! Such a prize!
And the tears in Charley's eyes.
Arms of steel,
For the honour of old Peel
Haul away amid the din. . . .

Sing ho! the seething foam!
Sing ho! the road for home!
And the hulk they've left behind,
Like a giant stunned and blind
With the loom
And the boding of his doom—
With the fury and the din. . . .

“Here's a child! don't let it fall!”
Says Charley, “Nurse it, all!”
O the tossing of the breasts!
O the brooding of soft nests,
Taking turns,
As each maid and mother yearns
For the babe that 'scaped the din. . . .

See the rainbow bright and broad!
Now, all men, thank ye God,
For the marvel and the token,
And the word that He hath spoken!

With Thee,
O Lord of all that be,
We have peace amid the din,
And the horror and the roar,
Rolling in, rolling in,
Rolling in upon the dead lee-shore.

CATHERINE KINRADE

[_]

[“Another unfortunate creature was soon afterwards subjected to the same treatment, although it was admitted she had ‘a degree of unsettledness and defect of understanding,’ and, as was certified by the clergy, that she had submitted ‘with as much submission and discretion as can be expected of the like of her,’ and ‘considering the defect of her understanding.’ The records state—‘Forasmuch as neither Christian advice nor gentle modes of punishment are found to have any effect on Kath. Kinred of Kirk Christ, a notorious strumpet, who had brought forth three illegitimate children, and still continues to stroll about the country, and lead a most vicious and scandalous life on other accounts; all which tending to the great dishonour of the Christian name, and to her own utter destruction without a timely and thorough reformation. It is therefore hereby ordered (as well for the further punishment of the said delinquent as for the example of others) that the said Kath. Kinred be dragged after a boat in the sea at Peel, on Wed., the 17th inst. (being the fair of St. Patrick), at the height of the market. To which end, a boat and boat's crew are to be charged by the general sumner, and the constable and soldiers of the garrison are, by the Governor's order, to be aiding and assisting in seeing this censure performed. And in case any owner, master, or crew of any boat are found refractory, by refusing or neglecting to perform this service for the restraining of vice, their names are to be forthwith given in by the general sumner, to the end they may be severally fined for their contempt, as the Governor's order directs. Dated at Bishop's Court this 15th day of March, 1713. ‘Thos. Sodor and Man. ‘William Walker.’

[_]

“It was certified by the Sumner General so long after as July 13th ensuing, that ‘St. Patrick's day being so stormy and tempestuous that no boat could perform the within censure, upon St.

German's day about the height of the market the within Kath. Kinred was dragged after a boat in the sea according to the within order.’ However, poor Katherine Kinred is not yet done with, for on the 27th Oct., 1718, having had a fourth bastard child, and ‘after imprisonment, penance, dragging in the sea, continuing still remorseless,’ and notwithstanding her ‘defect of understanding,’ she is again ‘ordered to be twenty-one days closely imprisoned, and (as soon as the weather will permit) dragged in the sea again after a boat, and also perform public penance in all the churches of this island.’ After undergoing all this, she is apparently penitent, ‘according to her capacity,’ and is ordered by the Bishop ‘to be received into the peace of the Church, according to the forms appointed for that purpose.’ ‘Given under my hand this 13th day of Aug., 1720.’” See Manx Society's Publications, vol. xi. pp. 98, 99.]

None spake when Wilson stood before
The throne—
And He that sat thereon
Spake not; and all the presence-floor
Burnt deep with blushes, as the angels cast
Their faces downwards. Then at last,
Awe-stricken, he was 'ware
How on the emerald stair
A woman sat, divinely clothed in white,
And at her knees four cherubs bright,
That laid
Their heads within her lap. Then, trembling, he essayed
To speak:—“Christ's mother, pity me!”
Then answered she:—
“Sir, I am Catherine Kinrade.”
Even so—the poor dull brain,
Drenched in unhallowed fire,
It had no vigour to restrain—
God's image trodden in the mire
Of impious wrongs—whom last he saw
Gazing with animal awe
Before his harsh tribunal, proved unchaste,
Incorrigible, woman's form defaced
To uttermost ruin by no fault of hers—
So gave her to the torturers;
And now—some vital spring adjusted,
Some faculty that rusted

Cleansed to legitimate use—
Some undeveloped action stirred, some juice
Of God's distilling dropt into the core
Of all her life—no more
In that dark grave entombed,
Her soul had bloomed
To perfect woman—swift celestial growth
That mocks our temporal sloth—
To perfect woman—woman made to honour,
With all the glory of her youth upon her.
And from her lips and from her eyes there flowed
A smile that lit all Heaven; the angels smiled;
God smiled, if that were smile beneath the state that glowed
Soft purple—and a voice:—“Be reconciled!”
So to his side the children crept,
And Catherine kissed him, and he wept.
Then said a seraph:—“Lo! he is forgiven.”
And for a space again there was no voice in Heaven.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN HOM-VEG AND BALLURE'S RIVER

Hom-Veg
Hould on then, I tell ye! Do ye see yandhar wall,
You sniffikan' dirt, and the other as tall
Lek opposite lek, and sides like a sewer's,
A' puppus to stop such perseedin's as yours—
Masther D., that have built them, because he's intarmint
To bring you to raison, you bothersome varmint!
In a million of years you've stole a good fut
From the bank, yes you have. Aw, it's aisy to “chut”
And blackguard and give sauce. But I'll tell ye! look here!
It's just go'n a' stoppin'. What capers! Don' keer?
You inslin' monkey! I'll see about that!
You slippery vagabone! Rat-a-tat-tat!

You'll go your own way, will ye? navar say die!
You're a freeborn river—Aye man, aye!
I've got ye! I've got ye! Now, aisy, magellya !
Be dacen', be dacen', be dacen', I tell ye.
And I know there's a tongue at ye, tongue thallure
But none of your tongue or your cheek at Ballure!
Such ramblin' and amblin',
Such bustlin' and scramblin',
Such booin' and sthooin'
And hullabalooin'!
Such work, you young Turk,
Wiss a jump and a jerk
And a shy and a toss,
Like a runaway hoss,
And the jiggin' and joggin',
And all the lape-froggin'—
Ondacen' it is;
And the buzz and the bizz,
And the fuss and the fizz—
And altogathar, ye 'nointed young divil,
Be civil! will ye? Will ye be civil?
Will ye? won't ye? Str'ight then, str'ight!
Nither the leff nor nither the right—
And no nizin', no, nor a sigh nor a mutter,
Just humblin'-bumblin' 'twix your gutter.
D'ye hear? d'ye hear?

River
O dear! O dear!

Hom-Veg
What did they larn ye up in the mountain?
Nothin', I think, that's much accountin'.

River
No, no!
Only to go,
To flow,
To fling my spray in the sunny glow,
To splash,

To dash,
Heels over head with a crazy crash.

Hom-Veg
So that's your arly eddication
Lek accordin' to your station?
And just the smallest taste of a mill
'd ha been a dale more 'spectable.
But times is changed. So that'll do.

River
O wirrasthru! O wirrasthru!
O, that beast of an arch! O, that beast of a wall!

Hom-Veg
Aisy, for all!

River
O the ferns and the cushags!

Hom-Veg
Hushags! hushags!
Lek we're say'n' to the pigs.

River
O the barley-rigs!
O the bees and the bells
And the lovely smells!
O the winds a blowin'!

Hom-Veg
What's all this O-in'?

River
O heaven! O earth!
Thay gave me birth.

Hom-Veg
Goodness grayshurs! you're as good as a play.
And ar'n' ye lavin' them anyway?
No sense nor nothin'—the little sinner!
I wish he'd be off, for I'm wantin' my dinner.
Now what can you expec'?
The tip of the ear, or the scruff of the neck—

River
And must I no more
Speed down to the shore
With a frisk and a frolic?
You old man diabolic,
With a shout and a rout
And an in and an out,
And a sly little kiss for the toes
Of the woman that's washin' the clothes?

Hom-Veg
Did ye avar? I navar! the rip!
Kissin', is it? What lip!
I'm clane inshamed,
And the lek that shud'n' be named;
But young people now—but it's in the blood—

River
Good-bye then, good-bye then! old stick-in-the-mud!
O the strong! O the free!
O the space, and the strength of the sea!

Insignificant.

My boy.

Enough.

Noise.

A cry of woe.

GOB-NY-USHTEY

(Water's Mouth)

I saw a little stream to-day
That sprang right away
From the cornice of rock—
Sprang like a deer, not slid;

And the Tritons to mock—
Old dissolute Tritons—“Hurroo!”
They said, “We'll teach him a thing or two,
This upland babe.” And I've no doubt they did.
But, as he lightly fell, midway
His robe of bright spray
He flung in my face,
Then down to the soles and the cods
With his sweet young grace.
Ah, what will the stripling learn,
From those rude mates—that mountain burn,
What manners of th' extremely early gods?

FAILAND

Ha, little one!
Would'st like a torrent run
That spurns the mountain steep,
And falls in thunder? O, brave leap! brave leap!
'Twas excellently done.
Nay, I am not in fun!
You silly thing, that you should slink
And hide among the cresses! only think!
Pooh! 'tis a very Nile! there, there! that's right!
Flash out again into the light!
Have at the biggest stone—O, nobly meant!
I swear it was magnificent!

And thus I chaffed the stream, but I was wrong:
He never dreamt of fountains
Rock-scooped in mighty mountains;
He never made pretence
To power; but in his own sweet innocence
He danced, and sang thereto a simple song;
And after that one frolic,
To sneer at which were well-nigh diabolic,
He sang it all day long.

PORTBURY

Yes, you are weary, and it is most right—
This is a blessed light
Wherein you ask to sleep:
How soft it falls! How delicately creep
The perfumed airs upon your breast!
Sleep on! sleep on! rest! rest!

Ah, it was glorious fun up there,
You little devil-may-care!
Such flowers to kiss, such pebbles to chide,
Such crabbed old carls of roots to deride,
Flouting them with your saucy riot!
Yes, yes! But now be quiet!

For after all the stones were rough,
And you've had fun enough.
See! it is O, so peaceful here!
Ah! feel this lily—is it not most dear?
Coax it with curling of your liquid limbs!
And, as it delicately swims,
Let nothing but its shadow cumber
The lightness of your slumber!

The great sea calls—be still!
And fear not any ill!
For all the Loves will pet you,
Nor kindly Jove forget you,
When those bold Tritons with the rush
Of many arms seize you and make you blush!—
Ah, hush! hush! hush!

THE DHOON

“Leap from the crags, brave boy!
The musing hills have kept thee long,
But they have made thee strong,
And fed thee with the fulness of their joy,
And given direction that thou might'st return
To me who yearn
At foot of this great steep—
Leap! leap!”

So the stream leapt
Into his mother's arms,
Who wept
A space,
Then calmed her sweet alarms,
And smiled to see him as he slept,
Wrapt in that dear embrace:
And with the brooding of her tepid breast
Cherished his mountain chillness—
O, then—what rest!
O, everywhere what stillness!

WASTWATER TO SCAWFELL

I love to kiss thy feet
With tend'rest lip of wave;
To feel that thou art big and brave,
And beautiful and strong;
Nor any glare of lightning-sheet,
Nor thunder-crash, nor all the storms that rave
Combined, avail to do thee wrong.

Bare-breasted to the blast,
Thou art at grips with him

Steadfast, yet through each awful limb
I feel the rock-veins start,
And muscular thrillings darkly passed,
And rigid throes, and a pulsation dim,
And all the working of thy heart.

Me too he smites—I quiver,
Yet, 'neath the scourge, to thee
I cling, and kiss thee in an agony,
Of thy great love secure:
Love that is helpless to deliver,
Only it strengthens, whisp'ring unto me:—
“Endure, O friend!” and I endure.

Dear thus; but even dearer
When on my waveless breast,
Smoothed glassy in a mirrored trance of rest,
Thy perfect shadow sleeps,
And, waxing clearer still and clearer,
Limns its fine edge till, all of thee possessed,
I faint within my yearning deeps.

Once, when the world was young,
To us at least unknown
All law of severance that dooms thee lone,
And me forbids to rise;
When first I felt thy shadow flung,
I thought thyself descended from thy throne
To bless me with a swift surprise.

Fond thought! but mine no more;
Ah, no! it was not thou!
The beldame years have preached me that enow.
But O, if thou couldst glide
Into my arms, how I would pour
Around thee sleeping, side, and breast, and brow—
Storm-furrowed brow, and breast, and side!

What would I do,
O God! if that were true!
With wreaths of diamond spray
I would bind thee every way—

O! I'd crown thee, and I'd drown thee,
And I'd bathe thee, and I'd swathe thee
With the swirling and the curling,
And the splashing and the flashing
Of my arms;
And I'd float to thee in bubbles,
And I'd woo thee in sweet troubles
Of a gurgling soft and reedy,
Of a rippling foamed and beady,
Till with a refluent sliding,
Till with a hushed subsiding,
I would hold thee in the hollows
Where the storm-trump never follows,
Never pierces with the clang of its alarms.

Be still, my heart, be still!
Dreams are but dreams, they say;
The ordered world is one both night and day,
And we are but the gear,
Nor have we aught of voice or will,
But, borne on her great zones, we must obey,
Nor move but with the moving sphere.

So, when in meek compliance,
I hear the distant roar
That comes of jubilant waves on ocean's shore,
When on the nether plain
The iron monster snorts defiance,
And boasts himself the slave of fate no more,
Exulting in his fiery pain,
I heed the challenges of change
Not once, nor once would leave
The dale, like that proud stream so proud t'achieve
His course of giddy mirth.
We ask not for such chartered range:
We are content with her to joy and grieve
Who is our mother, and did us conceive,
The children of the earth.

THE WELL

I am a spring—
Why square me with a kerb?
Ah, why this measuring
Of marble limit? Why this accurate vault
Lest day assault,
Or any breath disturb?
And why this regulated flow
Of what 'tis good to feel, and what to know?
You have no right
To take me thus, and bind me to your use,
Screening me from the flight
Of all great wings that are beneath the heaven,
So that to me it is not given
To hold the image of the awful Zeus,
Nor any cloud or star
Emprints me from afar.
O cruel force,
That gives me not a chance
To fill my natural course:
With mathematic rod
Economising God;
Calling me to pre-ordered circumstance
Nor suffering me to dance
Over the pleasant gravel,
With music solacing my travel—
With music, and the baby buds that toss
In light, with roots and sippets of the moss!
A fount, a tank:
Yet through some sorry grate
A driblet faulters, till around the flank
Of burly cliffs it creeps; then, silver-shooting,
Threads all the patient fluting
Of quartz, and violet-dappled slate:
A puny thing, on whose attenuate ripples
No satyr stoops to see
His broken effigy,
No naiad leans the languor of her nipples.

One faith remains—
That through what ducts soe'er,
What metamorphic strains,
What chymic filt'rings, I shall pass
To where, O God, Thou lov'st to mass
Thy rains upon the crags, and dim the sphere.
So, when night's heart with keenest silence thrills,
Take me, and weep me on the desolate hills!

ROMAN WOMEN

I

Close by the Mamertine
Her eyes swooped into mine.
O Jove supreme!
What gleam
Of sovereignty! what hate—
Large, disproportionate!
What lust
August!
Imperial state
Of full-orbed throbbings solved
In vast and dissolute content—
Love-gluts revolved
In lazy rumination, rent,
As then, by urgence of the immediate sting!
The tiger spring
Is there; the naked strife
Of sinewy gladiators, knife
Slant-urged, Locusta drugs,
Suburran rangings, Messalina hugs;
Neronic crapula-pangs
I' the dizzy morning; gangs
Of captives:—“Pretty men enough,
Eh, Livia?” Puff

Of lecherous torches; ooze
Of gutter-creeping gore; the booze
Gnathic, Trimalchial; hot hiss
Of leno in the lobby—This,
And more. No wonder if her brow
Is arched to empire even now!
No wonder
If bated thunder
Sleeps in her silken lashes!
If flashes
Of awful splendour light the purple mud
That clogs the spherèd depths palatial!
No wonder if a blotch of blood
Lies murd'rous in the centre of the ball!

II

That look was Heaven or Hell,
As you shall please to take it—
Enormity of love, or lust so fell
The Devil could not slake it—
And so—and so—
She passes—I shall never know.

III

Ah! now
I have you, Julia, Brutus' mate,
Such lip, such brow,
Such port, such gait:
A body, where the act of every sense,
Compounds a final excellence—
Ah, glorious woman! Whence
This perfect good,
If not from juice
Of finer blood,
Perfumed with use
Of ardours pure, intense
With strains of sweet control?
Clear soul,
If unpropitious starr'd,

You wear the fitting vesture,
You have the native gesture,
And your most wanton thought mounts guard
On chastity's fair fence.

IV

Woman, a word with you!
Round-ribbed, large-flanked,
Broad-shouldered (God be thanked!),
Face fair and free,
And pleasant for a man to see—
I know not whom you love; but—hark! be true:
Partake his honest joys;
Cling to him, grow to him, make noble boys
For Italy.

V

Pomegranate, orange, rose,
Chewed to a paste
(Her flesh);
A miscellaneous nose,
No waist;
Mouth ript and ragg'd,
Ears nipt and jagg'd,
As fresh
From bull-dog grapplings; tongue
Beet-root, crisp, strong,
Now curled against the teeth,
Lip-cleaving now, like flower from sheath.
Now fix'd, now vibrant, blowing spray
Of spittle on the King's highway.

VI

Pretty? I think so;
Crushed, I admit it, and crumpled and bruised,
And smashed out of shape,
The poor little ape,
And sorely and sadly abused

Yes, I should say so—
Like a streamlet defiled at the source,
Condemned in advance—
Not a ghost of a chance—
Invertebrate morals, of course!

Pretty? yes, pretty—
For the sighs and the sobs and the tears
Have got mixed with the mesh
Of her wonderful flesh,
And leavened the growth of the years.

Pretty, and more—
For she sighs not, and sobs not, nor weeps;
But the sobs and the sighs
And the tears of her eyes
Dissolve in the physical deeps.
And they soften and sweeten the whole,
And in abject submission
To any condition
She fashions the ply of her soul.

VII

Good wife, good mother—yes, I know.
But what a glow
Of elemental fires!
What breadth, what stately flow
Of absolute desires—
How bound
To household task
And daily round,
It boots not ask!

Good mother, and good wife—
These women seem to live suspended life.
As lakes, dark-gleaming till the night is done,
Expect the sun,
So these,
That wont to hold Jove's offspring on their knees,
Take current odds,
Accept life's lees,
And wait returning Gods.

VIII

Ah! naughty little girl,
With teeth of pearl,
You exquisite little brute,
So young, so dissolute—
Ripe orange brushed
From an o'erladen tree, chance-crushed
And bruised and battered on the street,
And yet so merry and so sweet!
Ah, child, don't scoff—
Yes, yes, I see—you lovely wretch, be off!

IX

This is the Forum of Augustus—see
The continuity
Of all these Forums, and the size—
(By Jove, those eyes!).

Three pillars of the peristyle—that's all;
A fragment of the wall;
Some doubtful traces of the cella—
(Down the Bonella!).

Corinthian capitals—observe how fine
The helices entwine—
Your Bädeker a minutino—
(Ha! the Baccino!).

The Arco de' Pantani shows the ground
Has risen all around.
Of course you know we're far above the level
Of—(Gone? The Devil!).

Bädeker tells how many feet we stand
Above old Rome. He's grand!
He is so plain, is Bädeker—
(Again she's there!).

I really—'pon my word, you know, this book
This Bädeker—(Look! look!)—
This English Bädeker's so plain—
(She's there again!).

You don't seem quite to—(What a heavenly boddice!)—
You don't—(A perfect goddess!)—
I mean, you seem a bit distrait—
(O, blue! O, green! O—blazes—Fire away!).

X

“You seem so strange to me,
You merman from the Northern sea”—
“A barnacle from Noah's ark?”
“Well—yes—a sort of shark!”
“Ah, blow then, darling, blow!
Blow in my ears, and let the warm breath flow,
And search the inmost vault
Of my sad brain. Blow, love—
Blow in the cooing of the dove,
Blow out the singing of the salt!”

XI

A little maiden, fifteen years or under—
And, as the curtain swings with heavy lurch,
Behold, she stands within St. Peter's Church—
O wonder! wonder! wonder!

And yet not so—her birthright rather seems it
She claims, whose breast the brooding sunshine warms
To absolute sense of colours and of forms—
Her birthright 'tis she deems it.

Or nothing deems—but, very sweet and grave,
Yet proud withal to be at last in Rome,
And see the shops, and see St. Peter's Dome,
She passes up the nave.

And if some angel spreads a silver wing
I know not—Visibly accompanying her
Are but her mother and her grandmother—
The lovely little thing!

Such soil, such children, representing clearly
The land they live in; so that if this pet
Of subtlest variance had the alphabet,
You'd think it nature merely.

And if, where stemming crags the torrent shatter,
She stood before the sunlit waterfall,
And wrapp'd the rainbow round her like a shawl,
It were a simple matter.

Now Mary and her dead Son—she has seen them:—
“Yes, darling, wrought by Michael Angelo”!
And now, too short to reach to Peter's toe,
They lift her up between them;

And, having kissed, she soft unclasps her mother,
As graduated woman from to-day;
And blushing thinks, how Seppe's sick till they
Shall marry one another.

And when to-night her Seppe comes to meet her,
And, for the one poor kiss she gave to Peter,
Exacts a vengeful twenty, if she can
For kisses, she will tell him all the plan
Of Peter's Church, and What a tiny kiss
It was, “Seppino; not like this, or this!”
And how, hard by, the hungry Englishman
Looked just as if he'd eat her!

XII

Why does she stare at you like that? The glow
Flew sheeted,
As from the furnace seven times heated
For Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego.
Is it immediate sense
Of difference?
Of complement? And so—
While we want sun and grapes,
This burning creature gapes
For ice and snow!

XIII

O Englishwoman on the Pincian,
I love you not, nor ever can—
Astounding woman on the Pincian!

I know your mechanism well-adjusted,
I see your mind and body have been trusted
To all the proper people:
I see you straight as is a steeple;
I see you are not old;
I see you are a rich man's daughter;
I see you know the use of gold,
But also know the use of soap-and-water;
And yet I love you not, nor ever can—
Distinguished woman on the Pincian!

You have no doubt of your preëminence,
Nor do I make pretence
To challenge it for my poor little slattern,
Whose costume dates from Saturn—
My wall-flower with the long, love-draggled fringes
But then the controversy hinges
On higher forms; and you must bear
Comparisons more noble. Stare, yes, stare—
I love you not, nor ever can,
You peerless woman on the Pincian.

No, you'll not see her on the Pincian,
My Roman woman, wife of Roman man!
Elsewhere you may—
And she is bright as is the day;
And she is sweet, that honest workman's wife,
Fulfilled with bounteous life:
Her body balanced like a spring
In equipoise of perfect natural grace;
Her soul unquestioning
Of all but genial cares; her face,
Her frock, her attitude, her pace
The confluence of absolute harmonies—
And you, my Lady Margaret,
Pray what have you to set
'Gainst splendours such as these?
No, I don't love you, and I never can,
Pretentious woman on the Pincian!

But morals—beautiful serenity
Of social life, the sugar and the tea,
The flannels and the soup, the coals,
The patent recipés for saving souls,
And other things: the chill dead sneer
Conventional, the abject fear
Of form-transgressing freedom—I admit
That you have these; but love you not a whit
The more, nor ever can,
Alarming female on the Pincian!

Come out, O woman, from this blindness!
Rome, too, has women full of loving-kindness,
Has noble women, perfect in all good
That makes the glory of great womanhood—
But they are Women! I have seen them bent
On gracious errand; seen how goodness lent
The grave, ineffable charm
That guards from possibility of harm
A creature so divinely made,
So softly swayed
With native gesture free—
The melting-point of passionate purity.
Yes—soup and flannels too,
And tickets for them—just like you—
Tracts, books, and all the innumerable channels
Through which your bounty acts—
Well—not the tracts,
But certainly the flannels—
Her I must love, but you I never can,
Unlovely woman on the Pincian.

And yet—
Remarkable woman on the Pincian!—
We owe a sort of debt
To you, as having gone with us of old
To those bleak islands, cold
And desolate and grim,
Upon the ocean's rim,

And shared their horrors with us—not that then
Our poor bewildered ken
Could catch the further issues, knowing only
That we were very lonely!
Ah well, you did us service in your station;
And how the progress of our civilisation
Has made you quite so terrible
It boots not ask; for still
You gave us stalwart scions,
Suckled the young sea-lions,
And smiled infrequent, glacial smiles
Upon the sulky isles—
For this and all His mercies—stay at home!
Here are the passion-flowers!
Here are the sunny hours!
O Pincian woman, do not come to Rome!

IN MEMORIAM

Half-mast the flag by sweet St. Mary's shore,
Half-mast the schooner in Port Erin bay:
Death has been with us in the night, of prey
Insatiate from a fold thrice robbed before;
And now he climbs to me upon the hoar
And ruinous rock, and shrouds the gladsome day
With sullen gloom, nor any word will say
That might to strength my sinking heart restore.
Speak, Death, O, speak! What high command restrains
The dark disclosure? Is it thine own will
Thou workest, I adjure thee, shape of fear?
Then from the awful face a shadow wanes,
And, clad in robes of light unspeakable,
God's loveliest angel sits beside me here.

SONG

Look at me, sun, ere thou set
In the far sea;
From the gold and the rose and the jet
Look full at me!

Leave on my brow a trace
Of tenderest light;
Kiss me upon the face,
Kiss for good-night.

DUNOON

Little Maggie sitting in the pew,
Eyes of light and lips of dew!
What is that to you? what is that to you—
Little Maggie sitting in the pew?
Grinding like a saw-mill,
Worthy Doctor “Cawmill,”
What has he to do,
He so lank and prosy,
With Maggie plump and rosy—
Little Maggie sitting in the pew?
Is burd Maggie stupid?
No, by sweet Saint Cupid!
Rhythmic little sinner,
All that is within her
Chiming like a psalm
In the stellar calm;
Gracious warmth of blood
Making fancies bud
With a tender folly
Into belled corollæ;

Radiating gleams
Of half-conscious dreams,
Floating her on blisses
Of potential kisses;
Filling all the presence
With a balmy pleasance,
With a kind confusion,
With a quick elusion
Of all ponderous matter
That would fain come at her—
What is that to you,
Little Maggie, little Maggie, sitting in the pew?
Cubic, orthodox,
Sink the ordered blocks:
Doctrinal adamant,
Riven with the fiery rant
And hammered with the hammer of John Knox;
Cemented with the cant
Of glutinous emotion;
Riveted with logic
Hard-gripped, presbyterous,
Something, mayhap, to us!
But Maggie, with a “mawgic”
Of which we have no notion,
Upborne upon the tide
Of her young life, has power to hide,
With unbroken sweetness
With a soul-completeness,
All the rock and rubble;
Knowing of no trouble;
Fleckèd only
With shadows of those lofty things and lonely,
That from the seventh sphere
Pencil their diamond traces
Nowhere but on the mere
Of hearts that stir not from their places.

THE LAUGH

An empty laugh, I heard it on the road
Shivering the twilight with its lance of mirth;
And yet why empty? Knowing not its birth,
This much I know, that it goes up to God;
And if to God, from God it surely starts,
Who has within Himself the secret springs
Of all the lovely, causeless, unclaimed things,
And loves them in His very heart of hearts.
A girl of fifteen summers, pure and free,
Æolian, vocal to the lightest touch
Of fancy's winnowed breath—Ah, happy such
Whose life is music of the eternal sea!
Laugh on, laugh loud and long, O merry child,
And be not careful to unearth a cause:
Thou art serenely placed above our laws,
And we in thee with God are reconciled.

“NE SIT ANCILLÆ”

Poor little Teignmouth slavey,
Squat, but rosy!
Slatternly, but cosy!
A humble adjunct of the British navy,
A fifth-rate dabbler in the British gravy—
How was I mirrored? In what spiritual dress
Appeared I to your struggling consciousness?

Thump! bump!
A dump
Of first a knife and then a fork!
Then plump
A mustard-pot! Then slump, stump, frump.

The plates
Like slates—
And lastly fearful wrestling with a cork!
And so I thought:—“Poor thing!
She has not any wing
To waft her from the grease,
To give her soul release
From this dull sphere
Of baccy, beef, and beer.”

But, as it happed,
I spoke of Chagford, Chagford by the moor,
Sweet Chagford town. Then, pure
And bright as Burton tapped
By master hand,
Then, red as is a peach,
My little maid found speech—
Gave me to understand
She knew “them parts”;
And to our several hearts
We stood elate,
As each revealed to each
A mate—
She stood, I sate,
And saw within her eyes
The folly of an infinite surprise.

WHITEHAVEN HARBOUR

O, can't she? Listen! There's a volley!
Stand to your guns, my Ipswich boy!
Chain-shot ahoy!
“Ah, ain't she jolly”
(Young Ipswich telegraphing

To us upon the quay)!
“Some credit chaffing
With her!” Decidedly—
“The gen'lemen are looking.” Yes, we are,
My noble Ipswich tar—
“Ain't her eyes brown?”
(Says telegraph)
“Ah, can't she laugh?
And ain't she all so nice and pert?”
Yes, yes! stand up and flirt!
Flirt for the honour of your native town!
Flirt! flirt! my man of Ipswich. Not so bad!
A good sufficient lad!
See how the strong young hearts
Dance to the tongue-tips; lightning darts
From eye to eye:
The maiden is not shy!
See the two Manxmen on the schooner there,
Who stare
With all their souls in silent admiration
Of such a very excellent flirtation!
Quite out of it—
Those Manxmen—wait a bit—
Poor fellows! Shall we hail them? No?
Ah well, let's go.

IBANT OBSCURÆ

To-night I saw three maidens on the beach,
Dark-robed descending to the sea,
So slow, so silent of all speech,
And visible to me
Only by that strange drift-light, dim, forlorn,
Of the sun's wreck and clashing surges born.

Each after other went,
And they were gathered to his breast—
It seemed to me a sacrament
Of some stern creed unblest:
As when to rocks, that cheerless girt the bay,
They bound thy holy limbs, Andromeda.

ST. BEE'S HEAD

I have seen cliffs that met the ocean foe
As a black bison, with his crouching front
And neck back-coiled, awaits the yelping hunt,
That reck not of his horns protruding low.

And others I have seen with calm disdain
O'erlook the immediate strife, and gaze afar:
Eternity was in that gaze; the jar
Of temporal broil assailed not its domain.

Some cliffs are full of pity: in the sweep
Of their bluff brows a kindly tolerance waits,
And smiles upon the petulant sea, that rates,
And fumes, and scolds against the patient steep.

And some are joyous with a hearty joy,
And in mock-earnest wage the busy fight:
So may you see a giant with delight
Parrying the buffets of a saucy boy!

Remonstrant others stand—a wild surprise
Glares from their crests against the insolent throng;
Half frightened, half indignant at the wrong,
They look appealing to those heedless skies.

And other some are of a sleepy mood,
Who care not if the tempest does its worst:
What is't to them if bounding billows burst,
Or winds assail them with their jeerings rude?

But like not unto any one of these
Is that tall crag, that northward guards the bay,
And stands, a watchful sentry, night and day
Above the pleasant downs of old St. Bee's.

Straight-levelled as the bayonet's dread array,
His shelves abide the charge. Come one, come all!
The blustering surges at his feet shall fall
And writhe and sob their puny lives away!

AN OXFORD IDYLL

Ah little mill, you're rumbling still,
Ah sunset flecked with gold!
Ah deepening tinge, ah purple fringe
Of lilac as of old!
Ah hawthorn hedge, ah light-won pledge
Of kisses warm and plenty,
When she was true, and twenty-two,
And I was two-and-twenty.
I don't know how she broke her vow—
She said that I was “horty”;
And there's the mill a goin' still,
And I am five-and-forty.
And sooth to tell, 'twas just as well,
Her aitches were uncertain;
Her ways though nice, not point-device;
Her father liked his “Burton.”
But there's a place you cannot trace,
So spare the fond endeavour—
A cloudless sky, where Kate and I
Are twenty-two for ever.

Magdalen Walk.

SCARLETT ROCKS

I thought of life, the outer and the inner,
As I was walking by the sea:
How vague, unshapen this, and that, though thinner,
Yet hard and clear in its rigidity.
Then took I up the fragment of a shell,
And saw its accurate loveliness,
And searched its filmy lines, its pearly cell,
And all that keen contention to express
A finite thought. And then I recognised
God's working in the shell from root to rim,
And said:—“He works till He has realised—
O Heaven! if I could only work like Him!”

LIME STREET

You might have been as lovely as the dawn,
Had household sweetness nurtured you, and arts
Domestic, and the strength which love imparts
To lowliness, and chastened ardour drawn
From vital sap that burgeons in the brawn
Around the dreadful arms of Hercules,
And shapes the curvature of Dian's knees,
And has its course in lilies of the lawn.
Even now your flesh is soft and full, defaced
Although it be, and bruised. Unblenched your eyes
Meet mine, as misinterpreting their call,
Then sink, reluctant, forced to recognise
That there are men whose look is not unchaste—
O God! the pain! the horror of it all!

HOTWELLS

Is it her face that looks from forth the glare
Of those dull stony eyes?
Her face! that used to light with meek surprise,
If I but said that she was fair!

Can it have come to this, since at the gate
Her lips between the bars
Fluttered irresolute to mine, for it was late
Beneath the misty stars!

It was our last farewell, our last farewell—
O heaven above!
And now she is a fearful thing of Hell—
My dove! my dove!
A hollow thing carved rigid on the shell
Of her that was my love!

Yet, if the soul remain,
There crouched and dumb behind the obdurate mask,
This would I ask:—
Kill her, O God! that so, the flesh being slain,
Her soul my soul may be again.

TO K. H.

O far withdrawn into the lonely West,
To whom those Irish hills are as a grave
Cairn-crowned, the dead sun's monument,
And this fair English land but vaguely guessed—
Thee, lady, by the melancholy wave
I greet, where salt winds whistle through the bent,
And harsh sea-holly buds beneath thy foot are pressed.

What is thy thought? 'Tis not the obvious scene
That holds thee with its grand simplicity
Of natural forms. Thou musest rather

What larger life may be, what richer sheen
Of social gloss in lands beyond the sea,
What nobler cult than where, around thy father,
The silent fishers pray in chapel small and mean.

Yes, thou art absent far—thy soul has slipt
The visual bond, and thou art lowly kneeling
Upon a pavement with the sacred kisses
Of emerald and ruby gleamings lipped;
And down the tunnelled nave the organ, pealing,
Blows music-storm, and with far-floating blisses
Gives tremor to the bells, and shakes the dead men's crypt.

This is thy thought; for this thou heav'st the sigh.
Yet, lady, look around thee! hast thou not
The life of real men, the home,
The tribe, and for a temple that old sky,
Whereto the sea intones the polyglot
Of water-pipes antiphonal, and the dome,
Round-arched, goes up to God in lapis lazuli?

CLIFTON

I'm here at Clifton, grinding at the mill
My feet for thrice nine barren years have trod;
But there are rocks and waves at Scarlett still,
And gorse runs riot in Glen Chass—thank God!

Alert, I seek exactitude of rule,
I step, and square my shoulders with the squad;
But there are blaeberries on old Barrule,
And Langness has its heather still—thank God!

There is no silence here: the truculent quack
Insists with acrid shriek my ears to prod,
And, if I stop them, fumes; but there's no lack
Of silence still on Carraghyn—thank God!

Pragmatic fibs surround my soul, and bate it
With measured phrase, that asks the assenting nod;
I rise, and say the bitter thing, and hate it—
But Wordsworth's castle's still at Peel—thank God!

O broken life! O wretched bits of being,
Unrhythmic, patched, the even and the odd!
But Bradda still has lichens worth the seeing,
And thunder in her caves—thank God! thank God!

FIVES'-COURT

Sometimes at night I stand within a court
Where I have play'd by day;
And still the walls are vibrant with the sport,
And still the air is pulsing with the sway
Of agile limbs that now, their labours o'er,
To healthful sleep their strength resign—
But how of those who play'd with me langsyne,
And sleep for evermore?

THE LILY-POOL

What sees our mailie in the lily-pool,
What sees she with that large surprise?
What sees our mailie in the lily-pool
With all the violet of her big eyes—
Our mailie in the lily-pool?

She sees herself within the lily-pool,
Herself in flakes of brown and white—
Herself beneath the slab that is the lily-pool,
The green and liquid slab of light
With cups of silver dight,
Stem-rooted in the depths of amber night
That hold the hollows of the lily-pool—
Our own dear lily-pool!

And does she gaze into the lily-pool
As one that is enchanted?
Or does she try the cause to find
How the reflection's slanted,
That sleeps within the lily-pool?
Or does she take it all for granted,
With the sweet natural logic of her kind?
The lazy logic of the lily-pool,
Our own bright, innocent, stupid lily-pool!

She knows that it is nice—our lily-pool:
She likes the water-rings around her knees;
She likes the shadow of the trees,
That droop above the lily-pool;
She likes to scatter with a silly sneeze
The long-legged flies that skim the lily-pool—
The peaceful-sleeping, baby lily-pool.

So may I look upon the lily-pool,
Nor ever in the slightest care
Why I am there;
Why upon land and sea
Is ever stamped the inevitable me;
But rather say with that most gentle fool:—
“How pleasant is this lily-pool!
How nice and cool!
Be off, you long-legged flies! O what a spree!
To drive the flies from off the lily-pool!
From off this most sufficient, absolute lily-pool!”

A cow without horns.

“NOT WILLING TO STAY”

I saw a fisher bold yestreen
At his cottage by the bay,
And I asked how he and his had been,
While I was far away.

But when I asked him of the child
With whom I used to play,
The sunniest thing that ever smiled
Upon a summer's day—
Then said that fisher bold to me—
And turned his face away:—
“She was not willing to stay with us—
She was not willing to stay.”

“But, Evan, she was brave and strong,
And blithesome as the May;
And who would do her any wrong,
Our darling of the bay?”
His head was low, his breath was short,
He seemed as he would pray,
Nor answer made in any sort
That might his grief betray;
Save once again that fisher bold
Turned, and to me did say:—
“She was not willing to stay with us,
She was not willing to stay.”

Then I looked upon his pretty cot,
So neat in its array,
And I looked upon his garden-plot
With its flowers so trim and gay;
And I said:—“He hath no need of me
To help him up the brae;
God worketh in his heart, and He
Will soon let in the day.”
So I left him there, and sought yon rock
Where leaps the salt sea-spray;
For ah! how many have lost their loves
That were “not willing to stay” with them,
That were not willing to stay!

ECCLESIASTES

We came from church, she from the Down was coming;
She with a branch of may,
We laden with persistence of the humming
Wherein men think they pray;
She winning to her faded face a beauty
From the kissed buds, we having heard “the duty
Performed,” with needful prayer-book thumbing;
We proper, she so gay.

Yet, as we met, her little joy was dashed
By our spruce decency;
She hung her head as who must be abashed
In her poor liberty;
Forgetting how in that damp city cellar
The sick child pines, whom none but God did tell her
To bring bright flowers Himself has splashed
With dew for such as she.

Or was it but the natural rebound
To what thou truly art,
O worn with life! whose soul-depths He would sound,
And prick upon His chart?
Is this thy “service”? Stay! for very grace!
One moment stay, and lift the faded face!
O woman! woman! thou hast found
The way into my heart.

INDWELLING

If thou couldst empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf,
And say—“This is not dead,”—
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art all replete with very thou,
And hast such shrewd activity,
That, when He comes, He says:—“This is enow
Unto itself—'Twere better let it be:
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me.”

SALVE!

To live within a cave—it is most good.
But, if God make a day,
And some one come, and say:—
“Lo! I have gathered faggots in the wood!”
E'en let him stay,
And light a fire, and fan a temporal mood!

So sit till morning! When the light is grown
That he the path can read,
Then bid the man God-speed!
His morning is not thine; yet must thou own
They have a cheerful warmth—those ashes on the stone.

IN MEMORIAM

Paul Bridson

Take him, O Braddan, for he loved thee well—
Take him, kind mother of my own dear dead!
And let him lay his head
On thy soft breast,
And rest—
Rest.

He loved thee well; and thee, my father, thee
Also he loved. O, meet him! reassure
That heart thou prov'dst so pure—
Whisper release!
And peace—
Peace!

O countrymen, believe me! here is laid
A Manxman's heart the simplest and the truest:
O Spring, when thou renewest
Thy sunny hours,
Bring flowers—
Flowers!
And bring them of thy sweetest
And bring them of thy meetest
And, till God's trumpet wake him,
Take him, O Braddan, take him!

IN MEMORIAM: A. F.

Ob. Oct. 12, 1879

Aug. 1875

Bright skies, bright sea—
All happy things
That, borne on wings,
Cleave the long distance, glad and free—
A boat—swift swirls
Of foam-wake—boys and girls
And innocence and laughter—She
Was there, and was so happy; and I said:—
“God bless the children!”

Oct. 1879

Dead!
Dead, say you? “Yes, the last sweet rose
Is gathered”—Close, O close,
O, gently, gently, very gently close
Her little book of life, and seal it up
To God, who gave, who took—O bitter cup!
O bell!
O folding grave—O mother, it is well—
Yes, it is well. He holds the key
That opens all the mysteries; and He
Has blessed our children—it is well.

CANTICLE

When all the sky is pure
My soul takes flight,
Serene and sure,
Upward—till at the height
She weighs her wings,
And sings.

But when the heaven is black,
And west-winds sigh,
Beat back, beat back,
She has no strength to try
The drifting rain
Again.

So cheaply baffled! see!
The field is bare—
Behold a tree—
Is't not enough? Sit there,
Thou foolish thing,
And sing!

WHITE FOXGLOVE

White foxglove, by an angle in the wall,
Secluded, tall,
No vulgar bees
Consult you, wondering
If such a dainty thing
Can give them ease.
Yet what was that? Sudden a breeze
From the far moorland sighed,
And you replied,
Quiv'ring a moment with a thrill
Sweet, but ineffable.

Was it a kiss that sought you from the bowers
Of happier flowers,
And did not heed
Accessible loveliness,
And with a quaint distress
Hinted the need,
And paused and trembled for its deed,
And so you trembled, too,
No roseate hue
Revealing how the alarmèd sense
Blushed quick—intense?

Ah me!
Such kisses are for roses in the prime,
For braid of lime,
For full-blown blooms,
For ardent breaths outpoured
Obvious, or treasure stored
In honied rooms
Of rare delight, in which the looms
Of nature still conspire
To sate desire.
Not such are you beside the wall,
Cloistered and virginal.

'Twas your wild purple sisters there that passed
Unseen, and cast
The spell. They hold
The vantage of the heights,
And in you they have rights,
And they are bold:
They know not ever to be cold
Or coy, but they would play
With you alway.
Wherefore their little sprites a-wing
Make onslaught from the ling.

So spake I to the foxglove in my mood,
But was not understood.
Rather she shrank, and in a tenfold whiteness
Condemned what must have seemed to her my lightness.

OCTAVES

I know a weaver and his wife,
And he is fair, and she is dark—
That breeds no strife
Within their peaceful ark.
The fairest man in all our town
Is he, light-flaxen, with a plus
Of marigold; her brown
Is brown of Stradivarius.

She keeps the humblest kind of shop,
Sells “goodies” to the little ones,
The knob, the drop
Acidulous; he runs
The timely threads, the boding tints
He summons in accordant row;
Babes buying peppermints
Observe the gath'ring purpose grow.

Hums the dull loom; I enter; pauses
The shopping, and the weaving. Straight
Her loud “O Lawses!”
Proclaim me designate
The erst beloved. I feel the dribble
Of fire volcanic in my soul
Long quenched—Cumœan Sibyl?
Nay, but the Delphic aureole!

Wrinkled and wizen? Every line
Is furrowed with sweet longings; flames
Disused entwine
Our hearts; the once dear names,
The ties no fateful force can sunder,
Recur. Unthought occasion wiles
Our lips; the children wonder,
I hesitate, the weaver smiles.

POETS AND POETS

He fishes in the night of deep sea pools:
For him the nets hang long and low,
Cork-buoyed and strong; the silver-gleaming schools
Come with the ebb and flow
Of universal tides, and all the channels glow.

Or, holding with his hand the weighted line,
He sounds the languor of the neaps,
Or feels what current of the springing brine
The cord divergent sweeps,
The throb of what great heart bestirs the middle deeps.

Thou also weavest meshes, fine and thin,
And leaguer'st all the forest ways;
But of that sea and the great heart therein
Thou knowest nought: whole days
Thou toil'st, and hast thy end—good store of pies and jays.

OPIFEX

As I was carving images from clouds,
And tinting them with soft ethereal dyes
Pressed from the pulp of dreams, one comes, and cries:—
“Forbear!” and all my heaven with gloom enshrouds.

“Forbear! Thou hast no tools wherewith to essay
The delicate waves of that elusive grain:
Wouldst have due recompense of vulgar pain?
The potter's wheel for thee, and some coarse clay!

“So work, if work thou must, O humbly skilled!
Thou hast not known the Master; in thy soul
His spirit moves not with a sweet control;
Thou art outside, and art not of the guild.”

Thereat I rose, and from his presence passed,
But, going, murmured:—“To the God above,
Who holds my heart, and knows its store of love,
I turn from thee, thou proud iconoclast.”

Then on the shore God stooped to me, and said:—
“He spake the truth: even so the springs are set
That move thy life, nor will they suffer let,
Nor change their scope; else, living, thou wert dead.

“This is thy life: indulge its natural flow,
And carve these forms. They yet may find a place
On shelves for them reserved. In any case,
I bid thee carve them, knowing what I know.”

IN MEMORIAM: J. MACMEIKIN

Died April 1883

Excellent Manxman, Scotia gave you birth,
But you were ours, being apt to take the print
Of island forms, the mood, the tone, the tint,
Nor missed the ripples of the larger mirth.
A lovely soul has sought the silent firth;
Yet haply on our shores you still may hint
A delicate presence, though no visible dint
Betrays where you have touched the conscious earth.
You walk with our loved “Chalse”; you help him speak
A gracious tongue, to us not wholly clear,
And sing the “Hymns”—fond dream that wont to dwell
In his confusion. Friend of all things weak,
Go down to that sweet soil you held so dear!
Go up to God, and joys unspeakable!

“GOD IS LOVE”

At Derby Haven in the sweet Manx land
A little girl had written on the sand
This legend:—“God is love.” But, when I said:—
“What means this writing?” thus she answered:—
“It's father that's at say,
And I come here to pray,
And . . . God is love.” My eyes grew dim—
Blest child! in Heaven above
Your angel sees the face of Him
Whose name is love.

THE INTERCEPTED SALUTE

A little maiden met me in the lane,
And smiled a smile so very fain,
So full of trust and happiness,
I could not choose but bless
The child, that she should have such grace
To laugh into my face.

She never could have known me; but I thought
It was the common joy that wrought
Within the little creature's heart,
As who should say:—“Thou art
As I; the heaven is bright above us;
And there is God to love us.
And I am but a little gleeful maid,
And thou art big, and old, and staid;
But the blue hills have made thee mild
As is a little child.
Wherefore I laugh that thou may'st see—
O, laugh! O, laugh with me!”

A pretty challenge! Then I turned me round,
And straight the sober truth I found.
For I was not alone; behind me stood,
Beneath his load of wood,
He that of right the smile possessed—
Her father manifest.

O, blest be God! that such an overplus
Of joy is given to us:
That that sweet innocent
Gave me the gift she never meant,
A gift secure and permanent!
For, howsoe'er the smile had birth,
It is an added glory on the earth.

METABOAH

The fashions change, for change is dear to men.
“Παντων γλυκυτατον μεταβολη,”
Opined the Greek who had the widest ken:—
“Change of all things that be
Is sweetest.” Yet since Leda's egg swans strive
To innovate no curvature on that,
And gannets dive as Noah saw them dive
O'er sunken Ararat.

JESSIE

When Jessie comes with her soft breast,
And yields the golden keys,
Then is it as if God caressed
Twin babes upon His knees—
Twin babes that, each to other pressed,
Just feel the Father's arms, wherewith they both are blessed.

But when I think if we must part,
And all this personal dream be fled—
O, then my heart! O, then my useless heart!
Would God that thou wert dead—
A clod insensible to joys or ills—
A stone remote in some bleak gully of the hills!

A WISH

Of two things one: with Chaucer let me ride,
And hear the Pilgrims' tales; or, that denied,
Let me with Petrarch in a dew-sprent grove
Ring endless changes on the bells of love.

DANTE AND ARIOSTO

If Dante breathes on me his awful breath,
I rise and go; but I am sad as death—
I go; but, turning, who is that I see?
I whisper:—“Ariosto, wait for me!”

BOCCACCIO

Boccaccio, for you laughed all laughs that are—
The Cynic scoff, the chuckle of the churl,
The laugh that ripples over reefs of pearl,
The broad, the sly, the hugely jocular;
Men call you lewd, and coarse, allege you mar
The music that, withdrawn your ribald skirl,
Were sweet as note of mavis or of merle—
Wherefore they frown, and rate you at the bar.

One thing is proved: To count the sad degrees
Upon the Plague's dim dial, catch the tone
Of a great death that lies upon a land,
Feel nature's ties, yet hold with steadfast hand
The diamond, you are three that stand alone—
You, and Lucretius, and Thucydides.

TO E. M. O.

Chance-child of some lone sorrow on the hills,
Bach finds a babe: instant the great heart fills
With love of that fair innocence,
Conveys it thence,
Clothes it with all divinest harmonies,
Gives it sure foot to tread the dim degrees
Of Pilate's stair—Hush! hush! its last sweet breath
Wails far along the passages of death.

CAROL

Three kings from out the Orient
For Judah's land were fairly bent,
To find the Lord of grace;
And as they journeyed pleasantlie,
A star kept shining in the sky,
To guide them to the place.
“O Star,” they cried, “by all confest
Withouten dreed, the loveliest!”

The first was Melchior to see,
The emperour hight of Arabye,
An aged man, I trow:
He sat upon a rouncy bold,
Had taken of the red red gold,
The babe for to endow.
“O Star,” he cried. . . .

The next was Gaspar, young and gay,
That held the realm of far Cathay—
Our Jesus drew him thence—
Yclad in silk from head to heel,
He rode upon a high cameel,
And bare the frankincense.
“O Star,” he cried. . . .

The last was dusky Balthasar,
That rode upon a dromedar—
His coat was of the fur.
Dark-browed he came from Samarkand,
The Christ to seek, and in his hand
Upheld the bleeding myrrh.
“O Star,” he cried, “by all confest
Withouten dreed, the loveliest.”

M. T. W.

Far swept from Lundy, spanned from side to side
With heaven's blue arch, the ocean waters flow;
Sweet May has piled her pyramids of snow,
And the fair land is glorious as a bride,
That chooses summer for her hour of pride:
The lordly sun, with his great heart a-glow,
Is fain to kiss all things that bud and blow,
And Maurice sleeps, nor hears the murmuring tide.
Fine spirit, wheresoe'er, a quester keen,
You mark the asphodel with prints of pearl,

Breathing the freshness of the early lawns;
O darling, clad in light of tend'rest sheen,
Hard by the nest of some celestial merle
We yet shall see you when the morning dawns.

THE ORGANIST IN HEAVEN

When Wesley died, the Angelic orders,
To see him at the state,
Pressed so incontinent that the warders
Forgot to shut the gate.
So I, that hitherto had followed
As one with grief o'ercast,
Where for the doors a space was hollowed,
Crept in, and heard what passed.
And God said:—“Seeing thou hast given
Thy life to my great sounds,
Choose thou through all the cirque of Heaven
What most of bliss redounds.”
Then Wesley said:—“I hear the thunder
Low growling from Thy seat—
Grant me that I may bind it under
The trampling of my feet.”
And Wesley said:—“See, lightning quivers
Upon the presence walls—
Lord, give me of it four great rivers,
To be my manuals.”
And then I saw the thunder chidden
As slave to his desire;
And then I saw the space bestridden
With four great bands of fire;
And stage by stage, stop stop subtending,
Each lever strong and true,
One shape inextricable blending,
The awful organ grew.

Then certain angels clad the Master
In very marvellous wise,
Till clouds of rose and alabaster
Concealed him from mine eyes.
And likest to a dove soft brooding,
The innocent figure ran;
So breathed the breath of his preluding,
And then the fugue began—
Began; but, to his office turning,
The porter swung his key;
Wherefore, although my heart was yearning,
I had to go; but he
Played on; and, as I downward clomb,
I heard the mighty bars
Of thunder-gusts, that shook heaven's dome,
And moved the balanced stars.

TO E. M. O.

Oakeley, whenas the bass you beat
In that tremendous way,
I still could fancy at your feet
A dreadful lion lay.
Askance he views the petulant scores,
But, when you touch a rib, he roars.

A SERMON AT CLEVEDON

Good Friday

Go on! Go on!
Don't wait for me!
Isaac was Abraham's son—
Yes, certainly—
And as they clomb Moriah—

I know! I know!
A type of the Messiah—
Just so! just so!
Perfectly right; and then the ram
Caught in the—listening? Why of course I am!
Wherefore, my brethren, that was counted—yes—
To Abraham for righteousness—
Exactly, so I said—
At least—but go a-head!
Now mark
The conduct of the Patriarch—
“Behold the wood!”
Isaac exclaimed—By Jove, an Oxford hood!
“But where”—
What long straight hair!
“Where is the lamb?”
You mean—the ram:
No, no! I beg you pardon!
There's the Churchwarden,
In the Clerk's pew—
Stick tipped with blue—
Now Justification—
“By Faith?” I fancy; Aye, the old equation;
Go it, Justice! Go it, Mercy!
Go it, Douglas! Go it, Percy!
I back the winner,
And have a vague conception of the sinner—
Limbs nude,
Horatian attitude,
Nursing his foot in Sublapsarian mood—
More power
To you my friend! you're good for half-an-hour.
Dry bones! dry bones!
But in my ear the long-drawn west wind moans,
Sweet voices seem to murmur from the wave;
And I can sit, and look upon the stones
That cover Hallam's grave.

A FABLE

For Henricus D., Esq., Jun.

In the old old times
The harebells had their chimes,
I can tell you, and could sing out loud and brave;
But Queen Titania said
That they quite confused her head,
And she really must request—
And, in short, she gave no rest
To her silly Lord and Master,
Till his royal word he'd passed her
That the little darling harebells,
The merry little harebells,
Should be for ever silent as the grave.

Then to each little root
Sank down so sad and mute
Even the tiniest little tremor of a tinkle.
But when evening is come,
And the noisy day is dumb,
And the stars above the vale begin to twinkle,
Then, shy as is a fly,
Poor Oberon will come,
And lean him to the whispers
Of the lovely little lispers,
And he'll listen, and he'll listen, and he'll sigh.

THE PESSIMIST

OR THE RAVEN AND THE JACKDAW

[_]

(Manx pronunciation, Jăck-dāw)

“Croak—croak—croak!
Life's a pig-in-a-poke.”
“Indeed!” says the little Jackdaw.

“Croak—croak—croak!
And a cruel joke!”
“Dear me!” says the little Jackdaw.

“Croak—croak—croak!
It's a tyrant's yoke!”
“How?” says the little Jackdaw.

“Croak—croak—croak!
We must vanish like smoke.”
“Why?” says the little Jackdaw.

“Croak—croak—croak!
Ask the elm! ask the oak!”
“What?” says the little Jackdaw

“Croak—croak—croak!
Your feelings you cloke!”
“Where?” says the little Jackdaw.

“Croak—croak—croak!
Do you like your own folk?”
“Yes!” says the little Jackdaw.

“Croak—croak—croak!
With despair don't you choke?”
“No!” says the little Jackdaw.

“Croak—croak—croak!
You're a d---d little bloke!”
“Always was” says the little Jackdaw.

100

ON THE SINKING OF THE VICTORIA

“Has Nelson heard?”

“Has Nelson heard?”
Death's angel spake what time the sea was rent
With that big plunge. Far hand-clap, and the word—
“Content.”

Content; even so,
Great sailor, let the immortal signal fly—
Enough! we know our duty, and we know
To die.

To die. No loud
Thunder of battle shakes the furious scene;
And, if we die in silence, are you proud,
O Queen?

O Queen, 'tis thus
For you we die, no matter where or when
Or how we die, the while you say of us—
“O, nobly died! O glorious Englishmen!”

ΧΡΙΣΜΑ

To his Godson

Childe Dakyns, I'd have had thee born
To other heritage than ours,
To larger compass, nobler scorn,
Faith, courage, hope than dowers
The old and impotent world. So had thy powers
Been tuned to primal rhythms: in Noah's ark

101

Thou might'st have dreamed thy dove-bemurmured dream;
Or lain and heard old Nimrod's sleuth-hounds bark,
Echoing great Babel's towers;
Or played with Laban's teraphim.

Or nearer, yet remote from us,
Thou might'st have grown a civic man
Protagonist to Aeschylus;
Or blocked Pentelican
For Phidias; or, foremost in the van,
Whose lithe-armed grapplings broke the Orient's pride,
Thou might'st have fought on Marathon's red beach;
Or, olive-screened by fair Ilissus' side,
Surprised the sleeping Pan;
Or heard the martyr-sophist preach.

Perchance, to higher ends devote,
A fisher on Gennesareth,
Thou might'st have heard him from the boat,
And loved him unto death,
Who, with the outgoing of his latest breath,
Desired the souls of men: thy thought to lay
His pillow in the stern, when blast on blast
Came sweeping from the ridge of Magdala;
Thy charge to ward all scathe
From that supreme enthusiast.

Or, still in time for purpose true,
Though haply fallen on later years,
Thou might'st have stemmed the Cyprian blue
With Richard and his peers,
Cross-dight as chosen God's own cavaliers;
Or borne a banner into Crecy fight;
Or with Earl Simon on the Lewes fields
Stood strong-embattled for the Commons' right,
Or scattered at Poitiers
The wall of Gallic shields.

Or, borne with Raleigh to the West,
Thou might'st have felt the glad emprise
Of men who follow a behest
Self-sealed, and spurn the skies

102

Familiar; leaving to the would-be wise
These seats; as wondering not in any zone
If some sweet island bloom beneath their prow:
“Let the daft Stuart maunder on his throne!
Let slack-knee'd varlets bow!
We will away!—the world has room enow!”

Childe Dakyns, it may not be so!
The long-breathed pulse, the aim direct
The forces that concurrent flow,
Charged with their sure effect—
Sure joy, childe Dakyns, must thou not expect;
But fever-throb; but agues of desire,
Like zig-zag lightnings scrabbled on a cloud;
Irresolute execution; paling fire
Of Hope; life's springs by cold Suspicion bowed—
All these thou needs must know;
And I will meet thee somewhere in the crowd.

Ah then, childe Dakyns, what of generous ire,
Of Honour, Truth, of Chastity's bright snow,
The pitying centuries have allowed
To us forlorn, thou child elect,
Grant me to see it on thy forehead glow!

University of Virginia Library

I. ASPECTS AND CHARACTERS

BRADDAN VICARAGE

OLD JOHN

CHALSE A KILLEY

IN THE COACH

No. I— Jus' the shy

Yes, ma'am! no, ma'am!

Conjergal Rights

Going to meet him

A.

B.

The Pazons

Noah's Ark

(On the road)

(Arrival at Ramsey)

MATER DOLOROSA

THE CHRISTENING

PEGGY'S WEDDING

THE PEEL LIFE-BOAT

CATHERINE KINRADE

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN HOM-VEG AND BALLURE'S RIVER

GOB-NY-USHTEY

(Water's Mouth)

FAILAND

PORTBURY

THE DHOON

WASTWATER TO SCAWFELL

THE WELL

ROMAN WOMEN

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

IN MEMORIAM

SONG

DUNOON

THE LAUGH

“NE SIT ANCILLÆ”

WHITEHAVEN HARBOUR

IBANT OBSCURÆ

ST. BEE'S HEAD

AN OXFORD IDYLL

SCARLETT ROCKS

LIME STREET

HOTWELLS

TO K. H.

CLIFTON

FIVES'-COURT

THE LILY-POOL

“NOT WILLING TO STAY”

ECCLESIASTES

INDWELLING

SALVE!

IN MEMORIAM

Paul Bridson

IN MEMORIAM: A. F.

Ob. Oct. 12, 1879

Aug. 1875

Oct. 1879

CANTICLE

WHITE FOXGLOVE

OCTAVES

POETS AND POETS

OPIFEX

IN MEMORIAM: J. MACMEIKIN

Died April 1883

“GOD IS LOVE”

THE INTERCEPTED SALUTE

METABOAH

JESSIE