SMOKE.
THE IRONWORKERS
Under the rolling smoke, the brave black smoke,
Our work is wrought;
Fashion’d strong with every sturdy stroke
That does wild music from the roofs provoke
In echoes brought.
A rare bold sport
Rather than labour stern, or blunting task;
A toil to ask
Not blench from. Merrily round the fire
We work our will,
Producing still
Some new form daily to our hearts’ desire.
Delicate iron bands
That, as with fairy hands,
Heavenward aspire
To carry roofs, sun pierced and ever gleaming,
Wherein the varied race
Of fruit or flowers finds place,
While the weak Northern rays through mist are streaming.
Or lofty gate
Of palace or of temple set apart;
The hallowed gaols of art,
Where low estate
Is never welcome; ever warmly bidden
To enter and abide. Far better hidden
Life’s earnest prime behind the factory gate.
Always the rolling smoke, the brave black smoke,
Is overhead,
Like floating incense looming through the sky,
It tells the prayer of work goes on hard by
Where zeal new energies of life evokes;
While iron red
From earthy bed
Blackens to use beneath the smith’s firm strokes.
Under the rolling smoke, the brave black smoke,
Our lot is laid.
Our ever-flaming altar spreads on high
This great scroll as a witness in the sky
Of effort made.
Here, rare workmanship, we, day by day,
Strive to display,
Not heeding if our work make weal or woe.
We do our best,
Ye will the rest,
To meet whose wants me make our furnace glow.
Pleasant are our rough hands
That work the world’s demands
And never tire,
Bringing to shape forms past the quaintest dreaming.
Hot, and with grimy arms
We weave the Earth’s new charms,
Only a hymn of praise our toil esteeming.
Under the rolling smoke, the brave black smoke,
Our work is wrought;
Not a cloud, the summer air to choke,
But banner of our craft, the floating smoke
Ensigns our labour, with bright meanings fraught.
WHEREFORE HORRIBLE SPRING?
From Béranger
When winter was here, from my window on high
I saw her sweet face up at hers where she sat.
We never had met, but ’twas plain she and I
From falling in love were not hinder’d by that.
Between the bare boughs of these lindens how oft
Kind kisses we blew I’ve no patience to sing,
For there are the leaves now all quiv’ring aloft —
Ah! why are you here again, horrible Spring?
Yes, there are the leaves, and no more I behold
My kind little neighbour put forth her dear head
To scatter the bread-crumbs, when, tamed by the cold,
The robins, her pensioners, wait to be fed.
The minute her casement she open would throw,
The Loves with our errands were all on the wing.
What is there for beauty to equal the snow?
Ah! why are you here again, horrible Spring?
And ’twere not for you I should still with the dawn
Behold her new-risen in simplest array;
So, radiant and lovely, great painters have drawn
Aurora enclosing the curtains of day.
At eve, in the heavens though stars might be bright,
I watched for her taper my planet to bring;
How lonely I felt when she put out her light;
Ah! why are you here again, horrible Spring?
Ever dear to my heart must the winter remain;
How glad I should be if I only could hear
The sharp little tinkling of sleet on the pane,
Than whispering of zephyrs more dulcet and dear.
Your fruits and your flowers are odious and vile,
Your long sunny days only sadness can bring;
More sunny by far was the light of her smile.
Ah! why are you here again, horrible Spring?
VOICES
Through hoary centuries, through History’s page,
Like tongues of fire unquench’d, undimm’d by age,
Whisper the voices, living, clear and true,
The crust of Time and changes piercing through;
Sometimes like trumpets’ martial tones they ring —
Anon, scarce heard, in trembling accents sing,
Yet there is life in what they tell and say,
A life nor years nor days can sweep away:
From out the Past, from out the silent grave,
From the lone deep where beats the ceaseless wave,
They yearn, they rise, they plead with deathless tone:
From hill, from field, from cot, from kingly throne
They bring their witness; – if we list or learn,
The days shall tell of each one in his turn: —
Oh, who shall say a voice, however weak,
Its message doth not bear – its lesson speak!
THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOW.
THREE VOICES
The Child speaks
Tweet, tweet, tweet!
The birds cry out of the sky.
Tweet, tweet, tweet,
Mother I want to fly.
Up, and up, and up,
Above the poplars tall,
Mother, if I had wings,
I would fly and never fall!
The Mother speaks
Sweet, sweet, sweet!
So the swallows are here again,
Flying over the village street,
And out to the open plain.
Sweet, sweet, sweet!
As they cried three springs ago,
When Will led me through the fields
Down to the church below.
Three years have come and gone,
Through warm summer and winter cold
I have carried his dinner afield,
And led the cattle to fold.
Three years have come and gone,
And my child is just two years old,
And the swallows are crying again Sweet, sweet,
And my tale is told.
The Grandmother speaks
Fleet, fleet, fleet,
Are those the swallows I hear?
The sound was sudden and sweet,
And this is the spring of the year.
To my dim eyes they seem
But a sudden light as they pass;
But I know how they skim o’er the stream,
And over the churchyard grass.
Their wings are a sudden light,
Thy tunes will not be long,
For my spirit is nearer its flight
Than that of the young and the strong;
Fleet, fleet, fleet, my days are waning fast,
I hear them cry, for out of the sky,
“There are wings for the soul at last.”
SWALLOWS
A NEW season is begun. Parliament met to-day. London is getting full, and the price of coals has fallen. The celandine (swallow-flower) is beginning to cover the hedgerow banks of the Isle of Wight with yellow stars, and the swallows themselves will soon be with us again.
I may mention as another agreeable sign of spring the return of “Pen and Pencil,” not to the old nest, but under shelter of the old hospitality.
The Rhodians used to salute the return of the swallows with a traditional popular song, the Chelidonisma; perhaps some lady present may gratify us with a chant of the like purport. My own aim this evening is merely to give some brief natural history notes on the British swallows, drawn partly from books and partly from my own observation.
There are about sixty species of the family of Hirundinidæ, but only four kinds (counting the swift as one) are habitual visitors of the British Islands – the chimney swallow, the house martin, the bank martin (Hirundo rustica, urbica, and riparia), and fourthly the swift (Cypselus).
The chimney swallow (rustica) has a brownish-red throat, back of blue-black lustre, under part of body reddish-white, and a long forked tail. It is a bold bird, and trusting to its superior speed, dashes at a hawk whenever it sees one. It always builds near men, and makes its cup-shaped nest inside chimneys and old wells, in barns, gateways, sheds, and arches of bridges. There are four or five spotted eggs, and it brings out two broods each year. The chimney swallow has a sweet little song of its own, and is one of the earliest birds heard of a summer morning, beginning soon after two o’clock. It is said to grow very tame in confinement, but I never saw and should not like to see one in a cage. These are the most abundant of our swallows, and the same birds return year after year, while their little time endures, to the same localities, and often very likely to the same nests.
The house martin (urbica), or window swallow or martlet, is smaller and less agile than its cousin just described, and has a far shorter tail. Its feet and toes are downy. It comes later than the chimney swallow, builds amidst towns, on the outside of houses, under eaves and in window niches, and chooses a northern aspect to avoid the direct rays of the sun, which would crack its mud nest. Martlets sometimes build on the face of cliffs, as may be seen at the Giant’s Causeway. It has four or five white eggs, and brings out two broods. As a vocalist it can only get as far as a chirp, or at most a small twitter. Its body is white below, and purple on the back and wings. The house martin does not, like the chimney swallow, sweep the ground and water in its flight.
The bank swallow (riparian) or sand martin, which is so sociable with its own kind but not with man, digs horizontal and serpentine holes in banks, sloping upwards to avoid rain, where it lays in a careless nest four or six white eggs. It has sometimes, but perhaps not always, two broods. These are the smallest and wildest of our swallows; nearly mute, or with only a tiny chirp; and, when they can, frequent large spaces of water. They often fly waveringly with a quick fluttering of wings, somewhat like butterflies, and anon sail circling like other swallows. They use their old caves for some years, but may often be seen digging new ones. They are probably driven out sometimes by the fleas which, as I have often seen, abound in their habitations. Birds, indeed, free and airy as their life seems, suffer much from vermin, and the poor baby swallows are terribly preyed upon. The sand martin is mouse-coloured on the back and brownish-white below. It is the earliest to arrive in England, and may be expected now in three weeks or so. Next we may look for the chimney swallow with his long tail – then for the house martin, and latest of all comes the swift (Cypselus), which some naturalists say is no true swallow, having several anatomical peculiarities, the most noticeable being that all four toes go forward. No other bird, I think (save the Gibraltar swift), has a similar foot. The swift can cling well to the face of a wall, but cannot perch in the usual bird fashion, and gets on very badly on the ground, finding it difficult to rise on the wing. Once in the air, with its long wings in motion, it is truly master of the situation. It is one of the speediest, if not the speediest, and can keep on the wing for sixteen hours, which is longer than any other bird. The swifts are most active in sultry thundery weather. They fly in rain, but dislike wind. They are the latest day-birds in summer, and their one very shrill note may be heard up to nearly nine o’clock. Sometimes they get excited and dart about screaming, perhaps quarrelling, but usually the swallows, all of them, agree well among themselves, though they also keep a proper distance. The swifts build high in holes of walls and rocks. The Tower of London is one of their London palaces. The nest is bulky and has two white eggs. There is but one brood in the season, and the swift leaves town for Africa in August, going earliest, although he was the latest to come.
Swallows for several weeks after their arrival in England play about before beginning their nests —
“Like children coursing every room
Of some new house.”
They wait for fit weather to go away, and may then be seen sitting in rows as though meditating on their journey, perhaps dimly sorry to part —
“With a birdish trouble, half-perplexed.”
Utterly mysterious and inscrutable to us are the feelings of our lower fellow-creatures on this earth, and how the bird of passage, “lone-wandering but not lost,” finds its distant goal, is beyond man’s wit to explain.
After this I fear tedious sketch of our four winged friends, I will only add another word or two as to the name swallow, a rather odd word, entirely different from the Greek χελῖδών, and the Latin hirundo (which, unlike as it may appear, philologists tell us is formed from the Greek name). The Italians call the bird rondine (evidently from the Latin), and the French hirondelle. We get our word from the Anglo-Saxon, swalewe, and the modern German is schwalbe. What does this mean? I must own with regret that it seems to me most likely that the name is given on account of the voracity of this bird, which is engaged in swallowing gnats, beetles, bees, may-flies, dragon-flies, and all kinds of flies from break of day till sunset. The Anglo-Saxon verb to swallow is swelgan. Fain would I take the word swelgel, air, sky; but the Spanish name for our bird seems conclusive for the baser derivation. The Spaniards call it golondrina (evidently from gola, throat); and it may be added, make a cruel kind of amusement out of the gulosity of the swallows, by angling for them with fishing-flies from the walls of the Alhambra, round which the birds dart in myriads on a summer’s day – descendants of those that played round the heads of the Moorish kings, who perhaps were kinder to their visitors.
THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOWS
“Out in the meadows the young grass springs,
Shivering with sap,” said the larks, “and we
Shoot into air with our strong young wings,
Spirally up over level and lea;
Come, O Swallows, and fly with us
Now that horizons are luminous!
Evening and morning the world of light,
Spreading and kindling, is infinite!”
Far away, by the sea in the south,
The hills of olive and slopes of fern
Whiten and glow in the sun’s long drouth,
Under the heavens that beam and burn;
And all the swallows were gathered there
Flitting about in the fragrant air,
And heard no sound from the larks, but flew
Flashing under the blinding blue.
Out of the depth of their soft rich throats
Languidly fluted the thrushes, and said:
“Musical thought in the mild air floats,
Spring is coming, and winter is dead!
Come, O Swallows, and stir the air,
For the buds are all bursting unaware,
And the drooping eaves and the elm-trees long
To hear the sound of your low sweet song.”
Over the roofs of the white Algiers,
Flashingly shadowing the bright bazaar,
Flitted the swallows, and not one hears
The call of the thrushes from far, from far;
Sighed the thrushes; then, all at once,
Broke out singing the old sweet tones,
Singing the bridal of sap and shoot,
The tree’s slow life between root and fruit.
But just when the dingles of April flowers
Shine with the earliest daffodils,
When, before sunrise, the cold, clear hours
Gleam with a promise that noon fulfils, —
Deep in the leafage the cuckoo cried,
Perched on a spray by a rivulet-side,
“Swallows, O Swallows, come back again
To swoop and herald the April rain!”
And something awoke in the slumbering heart
Of the alien birds in their African air,
And they paused, and alighted, and twittered apart,
And met in the broad white dreamy square,
And the sad slave woman, who lifted up
From the fountain her broad-lipped earthen cup,
Said to herself with a weary sigh,
“To-morrow the swallows will northward fly!”
AULD LANG SYNE;
OR, THE LAW IN 1874
In 1868 it was determined by Lord Cairns, then Lord Chancellor, that a revised edition of the statutes of the realm should be published containing only such statutes as were actually in force.
In looking over the first volume, which contains statutes passed between 1235 and 1685, one is struck by the number of stringent Acts of Parliament forming part of our present law, which nevertheless are habitually neglected.
Now that the destroying hands of the Gladstonian iconoclasts are stayed there can be no more useful task than to look around us and see how many of these relics of the embodied wisdom of our ancestors still remain to us, rusted indeed but ready for our use.
In enumerating a few of these enactments I have two objects in view. First, I would remind those whose province it is to administer law and justice to the subjects of Queen Victoria of powers with which they are armed; and, secondly, I would offer timely warning to those against whom these powers, when again exercised, which the present healthy state of public feeling assures us they will be, must inevitably be directed.
To begin then. Can there be a more appalling spectacle than the “Monstrous Regiment of Women?” Well, we have our weapons of defence ready in 3 Henry VIII. c. 11., 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 8, and 5 Elizabeth c. 4. s. 17. What a sound and vigorous ring is there in the first of these statutes with the pains and penalties it enacts against ignorant persons practising physic or surgery, “such,” it goes on to say, “as common artificers, smythes, wevers and women.” And how discreetly liberal is the second of these statutes, which indicates a legitimate field for women’s activity, and allows them, in common with all other unqualified persons, to cure outward sores, such as “a pyn and the web in the eye, uncoomes of hands, scaldings, burnings, sore mouths, saucelin, morfew” and the like, by herbs, ointments, baths, poultices, and plasters. But most practical, perhaps, of all these three statutes is the statute of Elizabeth, which, making no exception, sweeps within its enactments all women under the age of forty who have failed to fulfil the great end of their being, matrimony.
“And bee it further enacted that twoo justices of the peace the maior or other head officer of any citie burghe or towne corporate and twoo aldermen, or twoo other discrete burgesses of the same citie burghe or towne corporate yf ther be no aldermen, shall and may by vertue hereof appoint any suche woman as is of thage of twelfe yeres and under thage of fourtye yeres and unmarried and foorthe of service, as they shall thinck meete to serve, to be reteyned or serve by the yere or by the weeke or daye, for such wages and in such reasonable sorte and maner as they shall thinck meete: And yf any such woman shall refuse so to serve, then yt shalbe lawfull for the said justices of peace maior or head officers to comit suche woman to warde untill she shalbe bounden to serve as aforesaid.”
The effect of enforcing this law would be salutary indeed. Under the existing state of things men are frequently employed upon duties so disagreeable and ill-paid that Providence can only have intended them for women. Why then do we not take advantage of the power, nay, the duty of sending women to their proper sphere and mission which is entrusted to our magistrates and discreet burgesses? As the wages will be fixed by these authorities, the burden to the rate-payers need not be great. And we should thus silence the demand which, I am told, women are beginning to make not only for work (as if their male relations were not always ready and willing to find them plenty), but even for remunerative work.
But I pass from our women to our agricultural labourers. We have lately heard much debate on the conduct of commanding officers who, when labourers at harvest-time were holding out for wages, allowed their soldiers to help in getting in the harvest. But such aid would never have been required had not the fifteenth section of the same statute of Elizabeth been unaccountably overlooked.
“Provided always that in the time of hey or corne harvest, the justices of peace and every of them, and also the cunstable or other head officer of every towneshipe, upon request and for thavoyding of the los of any corne grayne or heye, shall and may cause all suche artificers and persons as be meete to labour, by the discretions of the said justices or cunstables or other head officers or by any of them, to serve by the daye for the mowing reaping shearing getting or inning of corne grayne and heye, according to the skill and qualite of the person; and that none of the said persons shall refuse so to doo, upon payne to suffer imprisonement in the stockes by the space of twoo dayes and one night.”
Nor need our farmers at any other times in the year fear a deficiency of labour if they will but invoke the aid of the fifth section of the same statute, whereby every person between the ages of twelve and sixty not being employed in any of a few callings mentioned in the Act, nor being a gentleman born, nor being a student or scholar in any of the universities or in any school, nor having real estate worth forty shillings a year or goods and chattels worth £10, nor being the heir-apparent of any one with real estate worth £10 a year or goods and chattels worth £40, is declared compellable to be retained to serve in husbandry by the year with any person that keepeth husbandry.
Again we have Acts of 1275 and 1378 (3 Edward I., and 2 Richard II.), as our defences against those who are described as “devisors of false news and of horrible and false lies of prelates dukes earls barons” and, comprehensively, “other nobles and great men of the realm,” and also of various officials enumerated, with a like comprehensive “and of other great officers of the realm.” The Act of Richard II. reiterates and confirms that of Edward I., and under these Acts “all persons so hardy as to devise speak or tell any false news, lies, or such other false things” about great people, incur the penalty of imprisonment “until they have brought him into Court who was the first author of the tale.” What a check would the carrying out of these provisions put upon the impertinences of Own Correspondents, social reformers, gossips, novelists, caricaturists, and moralists! It will be a happy day for England when the many thoughtless or malignant persons who now permit themselves to retail stories inconvenient to members of the aristocracy or to the dignitaries of the country, suffer the punishment of their infraction of the law. To take but one instance of the great need there exists for the protection of our upper classes – an instance, as it chances, which enables me to show that I would not wish the private character of even a political enemy to be traduced – I may remind you that if the statutes of Scandalum Magnatum were enforced there would not now be at large persons ascribing to the late Prime Minister himself the authorship of the Greenwich stanza on the Straits of Malacca.
There are many other statutes on which I might enlarge. I might remind coroners of duties which they have forgotten, and the clergy of rights which they are allowing to lapse, but time will not permit me.
It is true that when I read my Statute Book I meet with some provisions of which I do not comprehend the necessity. As a Protestant I do not see why I should be imprisoned for three years and fined besides, if I carry off a nun from a convent with her consent; and as a botanist I do not see why, since January, 1660, I have been prohibited from setting or planting so much as a single tobacco plant in my garden. Still, all are parts of one stupendous whole, parts of the sacred fabric built by our forefathers in “Auld Lang Syne.” Touch one stone and the British Constitution may crumble. And as a humble member of the Great Constitutional Party I desire to raise my protest against the canker of decay being left to eat insidiously into our ancient and revered legislative code, by our suffering any Acts of Parliament which appear on our Statute Book as parts of the living Law of the Land to drop into disuse, as if, contrary to the doctrine of the highest legal authorities, an Act of Parliament unrepealed could become obsolete.