AULD LANG SYNE,
WHERE HOME WAS
’Twas yesterday; ’twas long ago:
And for this flaunting grimy street,
And for this crowding to and fro,
And thud and roar of wheels and feet,
Were elm-trees and the linnet’s trill,
The little gurgles of the rill,
And breath of meadow flowers that blow
Ere roses make the summer sweet.
’Twas long ago; ’twas yesterday.
Our peach would just be new with leaves,
The swallow pair that used to lay
Their glimmering eggs beneath our eaves
Would flutter busy with their brood,
And, haply, in our hazel-wood,
Small village urchins hide at play,
And girls sit binding bluebell sheaves.
Was the house here, or there, or there?
No landmark tells. All changed; all lost;
As when the waves that fret and tear
The fore-shores of some level coast
Roll smoothly where the sea-pinks grew.
All changed, and all grown old anew;
And I pass over, unaware,
The memories I am seeking most.
But where these huddled house-rows spread,
And where this thickened air hangs murk
And the dim sun peers round and red
On stir and haste and cares and work,
For me were baby’s daisy-chains,
For me the meetings in the lanes,
The shy good-morrows softly said
That paid my morning’s lying lurk.
Oh lingering days of long ago,
Not until now you passed away.
Years wane between and we unknow;
Our youth is always yesterday.
But, like a traveller home who craves
For friends and finds forgotten graves,
I seek you where you dwelled, and, lo,
Even farewells not left to say!
RIVER.
AN AUTUMN IDYL
“Sweet Thames! ran softly, till I end my song.”
Spenser, Prothalamion.
LAURENCE. FRANK. JACK
LAURENCE
Here, where the beech-nuts drop among the grasses,
Push the boat in, and throw the rope ashore.
Jack, hand me out the claret and the glasses; —
Here let us sit. We landed here before.
FRANK
Jack’s undecided. Say, formose puer,
Bent in a dream above the “water wan;”
Shall we row higher, for the reeds are fewer,
There by the pollards, where you see the swan?
JACK
Hist! That’s a pike. Look, – note against the river,
Gaunt as a wolf, – the sly old privateer,
Enter a gudgeon. Snap, – a gulp, a shiver; —
Exit the gudgeon. Let us anchor here.
FRANK. (In the grass.)
Jove, what a day! Black Care upon the crupper
Nods at his post, and slumbers in the sun,
Half of Theocritus, with a touch of Tupper
Churns in my head. The frenzy has begun.
LAURENCE
Sing to us then. Damoetas in a choker
Much out of tune, will edify the rooks.
FRANK
Sing you again. So musical a croaker
Surely will draw the fish upon the hooks.
JACK
Sing while you may. The beard of manhood still is
Faint on your cheeks, but I, alas! am old.
Doubtless you yet believe in Amaryllis; —
Sing me of Her, whose name may not be told.
FRANK
Listen, O Thames. His budding beard is riper
Say, by a week. Well, Laurence, shall we sing?
LAURENCE
Yes, if you will. But, ere I play the piper,
Let him declare the prize he has to bring.
JACK
Hear then, my Shepherds. Lo to him accounted
First in the song – a Pipe I will impart;
This, my Belovèd, marvellously mounted,
Amber and foam – a miracle of art.
LAURENCE
Lordly the gift. O Muse of many numbers,
Grant me a soft alliterative song.
FRANK
Me, too, O Muse. And when the umpire slumbers,
Sting him with gnats a summer evening long.
LAURENCE
Not in a cot, begarlanded of spiders,
Not where the brook traditionally purls,
No; in the Row, supreme among the riders,
Seek I the gem, the paragon of girls.
FRANK
Not in the waste of column and of coping,
Not in the sham and stucco of a square;
No; on a June-lawn to the water sloping
Stands she I honour, beautifully fair.
LAURENCE
Dark-haired is mine, with splendid tresses plaited
Back from the brows, imperially curled;
Calm as a grand, far-looking Caryatid
Holding the roof that covers in a world.
FRANK
Dark-haired is mine, with breezy ripples swinging
Loose as a vine-branch blowing in the morn;
Eyes like the morning, mouth for ever singing, —
Blythe as a bird, new risen from the corn.
LAURENCE
Best is the song with music interwoven;
Mine’s a musician, musical at heart,
Throbs to the gathered grieving of Beethoven —
Sways to the right coquetting of Mozart.
FRANK
Best? You should hear mine trilling out a ballad,
Queen at a picnic, leader of the glees;
Not too divine to toss you up a salad,
Great in “Sir Roger” danced among the trees.
LAURENCE
Ah, when the thick night flares with dropping torches,
Ah, when the crush-room empties of the swarm,
Pleasant the hand that, in the gusty porches,
Light as a snowflake, settles on your arm.
FRANK
Better the twilight and the cheery chatting, —
Better the dim, forgotten garden-seat,
Where one may lie, and watch the fingers tatting,
Lounging with Bran or Bevis at her feet.
LAURENCE
All worship mine. Her purity doth hedge her
Round with so delicate divinity, that men
Stained to the soul with money-bag and ledger
Bend to the Goddess, manifest again.
FRANK
None worship mine. But some, I fancy, love her,
Cynics to boot, I know the children run
Seeing her come, for naught that I discover
Save that she brings the summer and the sun.
LAURENCE
Mine is a Lady, beautiful and queenly,
Crown’d with a sweet, continual control,
Grandly forbearing, lifting life serenely
E’en to her own nobility of soul.
FRANK
Mine is a Woman, kindly beyond measure,
Fearless in praising; faltering in blame,
Simply devoted to other people’s pleasure.
Jack’s sister Florence. Now you know her name.
LAURENCE
“Jack’s sister Florence!” Never, Francis, never!
Jack, do you hear? Why, it was She I meant.
She like the country! Ah! she’s far too clever.
FRANK
There you are wrong. I know her down in Kent.
LAURENCE
You’ll get a sunstroke, standing with your head bare.
Sorry to differ. Jack, the word’s with you.
FRANK
How is it, umpire? Though the motto’s threadbare,
“Cœlum non animum,” is, I take it, true.
JACK
“Souvent femme varie,” as a rule, is truer.
Flatter’d, I’m sure – but both of you romance.
Happy to further suit of either wooer,
Merely observing – you haven’t got a chance.
LAURENCE
Yes. But the Pipe —
FRANK
The Pipe is what we care for.
JACK
Well, in this case, I scarcely need explain.
Judgment of mine were indiscreet, and therefore —
Peace to you both. – The pipe I shall retain.
RIVER
Three rivers fell to strife, about their own renown,
Producing rival claims to wear the rivers’ crown.
Proud Amazon was one, and yellow Tiber next,
And third, an English Thames – all three most fierce and vex’d.
Said Amazon: “The length of my majestic stream
Makes me amazed that you, two tiny rills, should deem
You can be e’en compared with me – enormous me!
Of rivers I’m the king! – Let that acknowledged be!”
“Absurd!” cried Tiber. “Size– and all that sort of thing
Are never reckon’d points in fixing on a king.
But Rome was mine! And mine her conquests, laws, and fame,
In fact, her total past is coupled with my name!”
“Be silent!” said the Thames; “I’m greater than you both!
Not hist’ry and not miles can match with present growth.
I’m proud to say I own a trading wealthy place,
By Anglo-Saxons built – that fearless, active race!”
The contest grew more sharp, they roll’d their waves in storm;
Thermometers, if there, had shown the waters warm.
Thames wreck’d some twenty ships, and Amazon still more,
While Tiber caused dire dread to Romans as of yore.
At length the mighty sea, lamenting such a fray,
By these wise words prevailed their envious wrath to stay.
“Dear streams! you once were one – to me you all return.
Oh! cease then – being one – with jealousies to burn!”
FOOTPATH
BETWEEN THE PATHWAY AND RIVER
“Follow that pathway till you come to some arches, and turn under them, and you will find the Blind School,” was the answer given whenever we stopped in our bewildered pilgrimage to inquire: but no arches were visible, save one disreputable old bridge, under which no self-respecting school seemed likely to find shelter; so we went on hopelessly, asking the way from waggoners and countrymen, who all seemed interested in the question, but were unable to give us any guidance. A pitiless hailstorm rattled on our umbrellas and splashed the mud upon our boots: while the path, it was evident, was leading us on towards the river, not the school; so at last in despair we turned, and flying before the storm sought refuge under the despised railway bridge, where a group of children were playing dry and comfortable, while we were wet and muddy. Once again we inquired for the Blind School, and were told to go on. The path led under a succession of iron girders which apparently stand for arches in those regions, and we tramped on discontentedly, feeling we had been deceived, and that we too might have been dry and safe like the children, if only our misinformants had called a spade a spade, and a row of iron girders something else than arches. But the path took a turn, and we saw cottages and green fields, and we reached a house which had two doors, on one of which we read, “Mr. Wallis,” and on the other nothing: so we chanced the second door, knocked, and were soon among a group of children, all neat, healthy, and cheerful – but blind. In this blind school there were but two people who could see, and these were not the only teachers, for here the blind helped the blind, as the rich helped the poor.
For this school began with a blind man. Five years ago, near the banks of the Severn, a cart containing vitriol was overturned; and of four people who were there, only two were left alive, and one of these was blind. Childless and blind, this man had to begin life again – to learn to live in darkness, and in darkness to work for others. For as soon as he had learned to grope his way, he learned to read in the books provided for the blind, and went from village to village to find other blind persons, and teach them how to read also. Then a noble-hearted woman came forward to help him, and founded the school; where blind children are trained to work as well as read, and blind men and women come every day to be taught trades. These latter come daily to the school, groping their way along the path that had been so tedious to our impatience; and learn to work, and also to read, helped sometimes by the teachers, sometimes by the blind man: who also still goes as before, from village to village, teaching and comforting those in the same straits as himself.
We were guided through a back way, intricate and uneven, where our blind guide warned us carefully of every step – though he said the children ran about everywhere and never fell – till we went through the school and entered his little house alongside, and found ourselves in a bright little parlour upstairs, full of books, and tastefully furnished, with a woman’s taste; for the woman who survived the accident which left her childless and crippled, had still the sight of one eye. There was an harmonium in the room, and one of the children came to play it. He was called Abraham; but this old name belonged to an intelligent, bright-faced English lad of twelve, well dressed and handsome but for his sad dim eyes. He is the son of a well-to-do farmer, and in education and intelligence far removed from some of his companions. He handled the harmonium with his small, delicate fingers as only a real musician can, and while the music lasted I nearly forgot all the sadness of the scene, and the hopeless life of the musician and the other children, who, one by one, guided by the sound, crept up the narrow stairs and came noiselessly into the room, and stood listening spell-bound till he finished. “And now, Lizzie, play,” said some one, and a girl came to the harmonium. She knew far less of music than Abraham, and had as yet little execution, but the sweet, true feeling which she gave to the old hymn tunes stirred the heart and brought tears to my eyes. “And would you like to hear us sing the hymn we sang when she was buried?” they asked. For their benefactress and friend, the woman whose untiring energy had begun and carried on this work among them, rousing sympathy for them among her townspeople, and begging for them when her own means were insufficient, died a few weeks ago, and the children of the school had seen her laid in the churchyard. The harmonium was hushed, Lizzie only struck the keynote, and they all sang, as they had all sung at the grave in the cold February morning when they saw her lowered into the cold earth,
“I know there is a land where all is bright,”
and they turned their poor sightless eyes to the light, as if that were to them the symbol of the heaven they longed to reach. It was too sad. The singing ceased, and we all tried to speak of something else. “How did you get that Indian picture?” I asked, looking round, and as the words left my lips, I reproached myself for speaking to one who could not see it, of a thing that could have no present interest to him. But I had made no mistake, as it chanced. “Ay, my brother brought it me,” he answered. “I know what you mean.” “It is painted on ivory, is it not?” “Oh no! this is a picture; my sister wears the one on ivory for a brooch, though it is rather large for that, maybe; but my brother brought them. He was at Agra during the mutiny, and he brought a ball in his shoulder, too, back – that’s what he brought; but I’d forgotten the picture till you mentioned it. But will you hear the children read now? Read the history of England, Abraham.” And Abraham read, opening the book at hazard, and reading clearly and distinctly the death of Cœur de Lion, his forgiveness of his enemy, and his burial in Fontevrault in token of his deep repentance. The children all listened with pleasure till one little one, the pet of the flock, whimpered because “Bessie” did not read; so Bessie, whose fingers were busy with her knitting, was compelled to read, although coming after Abraham it was rather a trying ordeal. Still the pet had to be satisfied, and then every one went on with their straw work, for the funds of the home are dependent on charity or the sale of work, as friends visiting Worcester will do wisely to remember. Straw mats, baskets, and balls were the work of the little ones, and they took the keenest interest in the question whether I preferred blue and white mats, or purple and white. I bought both, and shook hands all round, and in a few minutes was retreading my way towards the broad rolling Severn. Never did I feel how intense the joy of sight was as I did when I stood by its silver stream, and thought of those I had just left in the little house near the railway bridge.
THE FOOTPATH
Out at the doorway with shrill delight
Ringing, clear of alloy,
After a butterfly flashing so white
As it wheels and floats in the soft sunlight,
He darts, O adventurous joy!
Away! the fields are waving, the wheat
Stands proudly over the path,
The path winds onward, winning his feet
Through avenues arched and shady and sweet, —
Sweet vista that childhood hath.
But stay: the butterfly has upflown
High in the stainless blue;
Under the shadowing wheat alone,
He stands and wonders, still as a stone,
For all the world is new.
He sees each beautiful stem, blue-green,
Standing alone in its grace,
Great pendulous poppies aflame between,
And little convolvulus climbing to screen
That dim forest world from his face.
He sees overhead as they dance to its tune
The ears flash white in the wind,
But that musical laugh before mid-noon
Ripples far and faint in the heat, and soon
Leaves silence only behind.
And the silence falls on his fresh young soul,
Like the far sound of the sea,
Infinite, solemn; its strange control
Possesses him quite; quick fancies roll
Through his brain; half fearfully
He looks; and the long path seems to strain
His tremulous lips apart;
Some sudden trouble his eyes sustain;
For so the folded blossom of pain
Has broke in his childish heart.
What is it? – some swift intuitive glance,
Half-shapen only in thought,
Of stranger worlds, of wide mischance?
Some intimate sense of severance
Or loss? – I know not what.
He turns and leaps; for his mother’s arms
Out of the doorway lean;
She folds him safely from all alarms,
And rallies his courage with rhythmical charms, —
Yet knows not what he has seen.
FOOTPATH
Onward, where through dewy grass
Slowly wading footsteps pass;
Where the daisy’s peaceful eye
Gazes trustful to the sky;
Where the river rippling by
Makes scarce heeded harmony
With the deep bell’s distant chime,
And the wandering waifs of rhyme,
Flung at random from the mind,
While the thought still lags behind,
Held in check by idle musing
Born of chance, not wilful choosing.
Now, more clear on either side,
See the meadows green divide;
Clearer lies the path before us;
Varied sounds are floating o’er us;
All the stirring noise of life,
All the ceaseless daily strife;
The larger world breaks strongly in
Where footpaths end and roads begin.
THE FOOTPATH
I
Remember how, the winter through,
While all the ways were choked with mire,
Half-maddened at the rain, we two
Have nestled closer to the fire,
And talk’d of all that should be done
When April brought us back the sun,
What gardens white with butterflies,
What soft green nooks of budded heather,
What moorlands open to the skies,
We two would scour together!
II
And now the month comes round again!
Cool interchange of genial hours,
Soft gleams of sunlight, streams of rain,
Have starred the meadow-lands with flowers,
And in the orchards on the hills
The grass is gold with daffodils,
And we have wander’d, hand in hand,
Where sea below and sky above
Seem narrowing to a strip of land
The pathway that we love!
III
Our path looks out on the wide sea,
And knows not of the land; we sit
For hours in silent reverie,
To watch the sea, and pulse with it;
Its deep monotonous refrain
Brings melancholy, almost pain:
We scarcely wish to speak or move,
But just to feel each other there,
And sense of presence is like love,
And silence more than prayer.
IV
Sharp round the steep hill’s utmost line
It winds, and, just below, the grass
Sinks with tumultuous incline
To where the rock-pools shine like glass;
The tufts of thrift can drink their fill
Of sea-wind on this rugged hill,
And all the herbage, toss’d and blown,
Is stain’d with salt and crush’d with wind,
Save where behind some boulder-stone
A harbour flowers may find.
V
The bright sea sparkles, sunbeam-kiss’d,
And o’er its face such breezes float
As lightly turn to amethyst
The pearl-grey of a ring-dove’s throat;
Thus stirr’d and ruffled, shines anew
The radiant plain of changing hue,
So gentle, that the eye divines
No reason why the foam should fall
So loudly, in such serried lines,
Against the dark rock-wall.
VI
The wind is low now; even here,
Where all the breezes congregate,
The softest warbler need not fear
To linger with its downy mate;
And here where you have long’d to be
So many weeks and months with me,
Sit silently, or softly speak
Or sing some air of pensive mood,
Not loud enough to mar or break
This delicate solitude.
VII
Are we not happy? Sun-lit air,
Soft colour, floods of dewy light,
A flowery perfume everywhere
Pour out their wealth for our delight;
Through dreary hours of snow and sleet
The hope of these wing’d winter’s feet;
We have them now! The very breath
Of Nature seems an altar-fire
That wakes the bright world’s heart from death
To satiate our desire!
VIII
Sing to me, therefore, sing or speak!
Wake my dull heart to happiness;
Perchance my pulses are too weak
To stir with all this sweet excess!
Perhaps the sudden spring has come
Too soon, and found my spirit dumb!
Howe’er it be, my heart is cold,
No echo stirs within my brain,
To me, too suddenly grown old,
This beauty speaks in vain!
IX
Why are you silent? Lo! to-day
It is not as it once hath been;
I cannot sit the old sweet way,
Absorbed, contented, and serene;
I cannot feel my heart rejoice,
I crave the comfort of your voice!
Speak, speak! remind me of the past!
Let my spent embers at your fire
Revive and kindle, till at last
Delight surpass desire!
X
Yea! are you silent, only press
My hand, and turn your face away;
You wince, too, from the fierce caress
That April flings on us to-day?
O human heart, too weak to bear
The whole fulfilment of a prayer!
This sudden summer strikes us dumb;
The wild hope, realized, but scares!
The substances of dreams become
A burden unawares.
XI
How can we sit here and not thrill
With but the pleasure of past time?
This footpath winding round the hill
Should stir us like remember’d rhyme
Nay! for the dull and sluggish brain
Is spurred to action all in vain,
And when the spirit cannot rise
Through natural feeling into light,
No perfumed air, no splendid skies,
Can lend it wings for flight.
XII
Come, then, and leave the sovereign sea
To sparkle in the laughing air;
Another day its face will be
No less refulgent, no less fair,
And we by custom be made strong
To bear what we desired so long;
To-day the slackening nerves demand
A milder light, a sadder air,
Some corner of forgotten land,
Still winter-like and bare.
XIII
Come! leave our pathway for to-day,
And turning inland, seek the woods,
Where last year’s sombre leaves decay
In brown sonorous solitudes;
The murmurous voice of those dark trees
Will teach us more than sun or seas,
And in that twilight we may find
Some golden flower of strange perfume,
A blossom hidden from the wind,
A flame within the tomb.