PALINODIA
Ye mountains, on whose torrent-furrowed slopes,
And bare and
silent brows uplift to heaven,
I envied oft the soul which fills
your wastes
Of pure and stern sublime, and still expanse
Unbroken
by the petty incidents
Of noisy life: Oh hear me once again!
Winds, upon whose racked eddies, far aloft,
Above the murmur
of the uneasy world,
My thoughts in exultation held their way:
Whose
tremulous whispers through the rustling glade
Were once to me unearthly
tones of love,
Joy without object, wordless music, stealing
Through
all my soul, until my pulse beat fast
With aimless hope, and unexpressed
desire—
Thou sea, who wast to me a prophet deep
Through
all thy restless waves, and wasting shores,
Of silent labour, and
eternal change;
First teacher of the dense immensity
Of ever-stirring
life, in thy strange forms
Of fish, and shell, and worm, and oozy
weed:
To me alike thy frenzy and thy sleep
Have been a deep
and breathless joy: Oh hear!
Mountains, and winds, and waves, take back your child!
Upon
thy balmy bosom, Mother Nature,
Where my young spirit dreamt its
years away,
Give me once more to nestle: I have strayed
Far
through another world, which is not thine.
Through sunless cities,
and the weary haunts
Of smoke-grimed labour, and foul revelry
My
flagging wing has swept. A mateless bird’s
My pilgrimage
has been; through sin, and doubt,
And darkness, seeking love.
Oh hear me, Nature!
Receive me once again: but not alone;
No
more alone, Great Mother! I have brought
One who has wandered,
yet not sinned, like me.
Upon thy lap, twin children, let us lie;
And
in the light of thine immortal eyes
Let our souls mingle, till
The Father calls
To some eternal home the charge He gives thee.
Cambridge, 1841.
A HOPE
Twin stars, aloft in ether clear,
Around each
other roll alway,
Within one common atmosphere
Of
their own mutual light and day.
And myriad happy eyes are bent
Upon their
changeless love alway;
As, strengthened by their one intent,
They
pour the flood of life and day.
So we through this world’s waning night
May,
hand in hand, pursue our way;
Shed round us order, love, and light,
And
shine unto the perfect day.
1842.
THE POETRY OF A ROOT CROP
Underneath their eider-robe
Russet swede and golden globe,
Feathered
carrot, burrowing deep,
Steadfast wait in charmèd sleep;
Treasure-houses
wherein lie,
Locked by angels’ alchemy,
Milk and hair,
and blood, and bone,
Children of the barren stone;
Children
of the flaming Air,
With his blue eye keen and bare,
Spirit-peopled
smiling down
On frozen field and toiling town—
Toiling
town that will not heed
God His voice for rage and greed;
Frozen
fields that surpliced lie,
Gazing patient at the sky;
Like
some marble carven nun,
With folded hands when work is done,
Who
mute upon her tomb doth pray,
Till the resurrection day.
Eversley, 1845.
CHILD BALLAD
Jesus, He loves one and all,
Jesus, He loves children small,
Their
souls are waiting round His feet
On high, before His mercy-seat.
While He wandered here below
Children small to Him did go,
At
His feet they knelt and prayed,
On their heads His hands He laid.
Came a Spirit on them then,
Better than of mighty men,
A
Spirit faithful, pure and mild,
A Spirit fit for king and child.
Oh! that Spirit give to me,
Jesu Lord, where’er I be!
1847.
AIRLY BEACON
Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon;
Oh the pleasant
sight to see
Shires and towns from Airly Beacon,
While
my love climbed up to me!
Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon;
Oh the happy hours
we lay
Deep in fern on Airly Beacon,
Courting
through the summer’s day!
Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon;
Oh the weary haunt
for me,
All alone on Airly Beacon,
With
his baby on my knee!
1847.
SAPPHO
She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
Above her glared the
noon; beneath, the sea.
Upon the white horizon Atho’s peak
Weltered
in burning haze; all airs were dead;
The cicale slept among the
tamarisk’s hair;
The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far
below
The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun;
The lazy sea-fowl
dried their steaming wings;
The lazy swell crept whispering up
the ledge,
And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest;
And
Mother Earth watched by him as he slept,
And hushed her myriad
children for a while.
She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
And
sighed for sleep, for sleep that would not hear,
But left her tossing
still; for night and day
A mighty hunger yearned within her heart,
Till
all her veins ran fever; and her cheek,
Her long thin hands, and
ivory-channelled feet,
Were wasted with the wasting of her soul.
Then
peevishly she flung her on her face,
And hid her eyeballs from
the blinding glare,
And fingered at the grass, and tried to cool
Her
crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward:
And then she raised
her head, and upward cast
Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose
liquid light
Gleamed out between deep folds of blue-black hair,
As
gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks
Of deep Parnassus, at
the mournful moon.
Beside her lay her lyre. She snatched
the shell,
And waked wild music from its silver strings;
Then
tossed it sadly by.—‘Ah, hush!’ she cries;
‘Dead
offspring of the tortoise and the mine!
Why mock my discords with
thine harmonies?
Although a thrice-Olympian lot be thine,
Only
to echo back in every tone
The moods of nobler natures than thine
own.’
Eversley, 1847
From Yeast.
THE BAD SQUIRE
The merry brown hares came leaping
Over the
crest of the hill,
Where the clover and corn lay sleeping
Under
the moonlight still.
Leaping late and early,
Till under their bite
and their tread
The swedes and the wheat and the barley
Lay
cankered and trampled and dead.
A poacher’s widow sat sighing
On the
side of the white chalk bank,
Where under the gloomy fir-woods
One
spot in the ley throve rank.
She watched a long tuft of clover,
Where rabbit
or hare never ran;
For its black sour haulm covered over
The
blood of a murdered man.
She thought of the dark plantation,
And the
hares, and her husband’s blood,
And the voice of her indignation
Rose
up to the throne of God.
‘I am long past wailing and whining—
I
have wept too much in my life:
I’ve had twenty years of pining
As
an English labourer’s wife.
‘A labourer in Christian England,
Where
they cant of a Saviour’s name,
And yet waste men’s
lives like the vermin’s
For a few more
brace of game.
‘There’s blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire,
There’s
blood on your pointer’s feet;
There’s blood on the
game you sell, squire,
And there’s blood
on the game you eat.
‘You have sold the labouring-man, squire,
Body
and soul to shame,
To pay for your seat in the House, squire,
And
to pay for the feed of your game.
‘You made him a poacher yourself, squire,
When
you’d give neither work nor meat,
And your barley-fed hares
robbed the garden
At our starving children’s
feet;
‘When, packed in one reeking chamber,
Man,
maid, mother, and little ones lay;
While the rain pattered in on
the rotting bride-bed,
And the walls let in the
day.
‘When we lay in the burning fever
On
the mud of the cold clay floor,
Till you parted us all for three
months, squire,
At the dreary workhouse door.
‘We quarrelled like brutes, and who wonders?
What
self-respect could we keep,
Worse housed than your hacks and your
pointers,
Worse fed than your hogs and your sheep?
‘Our daughters with base-born babies
Have
wandered away in their shame,
If your misses had slept, squire,
where they did,
Your misses might do the same.
‘Can your lady patch hearts that are breaking
With
handfuls of coals and rice,
Or by dealing out flannel and sheeting
A
little below cost price?
‘You may tire of the jail and the workhouse,
And
take to allotments and schools,
But you’ve run up a debt
that will never
Be paid us by penny-club rules.
‘In the season of shame and sadness,
In
the dark and dreary day,
When scrofula, gout, and madness
Are
eating your race away;
‘When to kennels and liveried varlets
You
have cast your daughter’s bread,
And, worn out with liquor
and harlots,
Your heir at your feet lies dead;
‘When your youngest, the mealy-mouthed rector,
Lets
your soul rot asleep to the grave,
You will find in your God the
protector
Of the freeman you fancied your slave.’
She looked at the tuft of clover,
And wept
till her heart grew light;
And at last, when her passion was over,
Went
wandering into the night.
But the merry brown hares came leaping
Over
the uplands still,
Where the clover and corn lay sleeping
On
the side of the white chalk hill.
Eversley, 1847.
From Yeast.
SCOTCH SONG
Oh, forth she went like a braw, braw bride
To
meet her winsome groom,
When she was aware of twa bonny birds
Sat
biggin’ in the broom.
The tane it built with the green, green moss,
But
and the bents sae fine,
And the tither wi’ a lock o’
lady’s hair
Linked up wi’ siller
twine.
‘O whaur gat ye the green, green moss,
O
whaur the bents sae fine?
And whaur gat ye the bonny broun hair
That
ance was tress o’ mine?’
‘We gat the moss fra’ the elditch aile,
The
bents fra’ the whinny muir,
And a fause knight threw us the
bonny broun hair,
To please his braw new fere.’
‘Gae pull, gae pull the simmer leaves,
And
strew them saft o’er me;
My token’s tint, my love is
fause,
I’ll lay me doon and dee.’
1847.
THE YOUNG KNIGHT: A PARABLE
A gay young knight in Burley stood,
Beside him pawed his steed
so good,
His hands he wrung as he were wood
With
waiting for his love O!
‘Oh, will she come, or will she stay,
Or will she waste
the weary day
With fools who wish her far away,
And
hate her for her love O?’
But by there came a mighty boar,
His jowl and tushes red with
gore,
And on his curled snout he bore
A
bracelet rich and rare O!
The knight he shrieked, he ran, he flew,
He searched the wild
wood through and through,
But found nought save a mantle blue,
Low
rolled within the brake O!
He twined the wild briar, red and white,
Upon his head the garland
dight,
The green leaves withered black as night,
And
burnt into his brain O!
A fire blazed up within his breast,
He mounted on an aimless
quest,
He laid his virgin lance in rest,
And
through the forest drove O!
By Rhinefield and by Osmondsleigh,
Through leat and furze brake
fast drove he,
Until he saw the homeless sea,
That
called with all its waves O!
He laughed aloud to hear the roar,
And rushed his horse adown
the shore,
The deep surge rolled him o’er and o’er,
And
swept him down the tide O!
New Forest, July 12, 1847.
A NEW FOREST BALLAD
Oh she tripped over Ocknell plain,
And down
by Bradley Water;
And the fairest maid on the forest side
Was
Jane, the keeper’s daughter.
She went and went through the broad gray lawns
As
down the red sun sank,
And chill as the scent of a new-made grave
The
mist smelt cold and dank.
‘A token, a token!’ that fair maid cried,
‘A
token that bodes me sorrow;
For they that smell the grave by night
Will
see the corpse to-morrow.
‘My own true love in Burley Walk
Does
hunt to-night, I fear;
And if he meet my father stern,
His
game may cost him dear.
‘Ah, here’s a curse on hare and grouse,
A
curse on hart and hind;
And a health to the squire in all England,
Leaves
never a head behind.’
Her true love shot a mighty hart
Among the
standing rye,
When on him leapt that keeper old
From
the fern where he did lie.
The forest laws were sharp and stern,
The
forest blood was keen;
They lashed together for life and death
Beneath
the hollies green.
The metal good and the walnut wood
Did soon
in flinders flee;
They tost the orts to south and north,
And
grappled knee to knee.
They wrestled up, they wrestled down,
They
wrestled still and sore;
Beneath their feet the myrtle sweet
Was
stamped to mud and gore.
Ah, cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon,
That
starest with never a frown
On all the grim and the ghastly things
That
are wrought in thorpe and town:
And yet, cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon,
That
night hadst never the grace
To lighten two dying Christian men
To
see one another’s face.
They wrestled up, they wrestled down,
They
wrestled sore and still,
The fiend who blinds the eyes of men
That
night he had his will.
Like stags full spent, among the bent
They
dropped a while to rest;
When the young man drove his saying knife
Deep
in the old man’s breast.
The old man drove his gunstock down
Upon the
young man’s head;
And side by side, by the water brown,
Those
yeomen twain lay dead.
They dug three graves in Lyndhurst yard;
They
dug them side by side;
Two yeomen lie there, and a maiden fair
A
widow and never a bride.
In the New Forest, 1847.
THE RED KING
The King was drinking in Malwood Hall,
There came in a monk
before them all:
He thrust by squire, he thrust by knight,
Stood
over against the dais aright;
And, ‘The word of the Lord,
thou cruel Red King,
The word of the Lord to thee I bring.
A
grimly sweven I dreamt yestreen;
I saw thee lie under the hollins
green,
And through thine heart an arrow keen;
And out of thy
body a smoke did rise,
Which smirched the sunshine out of the skies:
So
if thou God’s anointed be
I rede thee unto thy soul thou
see.
For mitre and pall thou hast y-sold,
False knight to
Christ, for gain and gold;
And for this thy forest were digged
down all,
Steading and hamlet and churches tall;
And Christés
poor were ousten forth,
To beg their bread from south to north.
So
tarry at home, and fast and pray,
Lest fiends hunt thee in the
judgment-day.’
The monk he vanished where he stood;
King
William sterte up wroth and wood;
Quod he, ‘Fools’
wits will jump together;
The Hampshire ale and the thunder weather
Have
turned the brains for us both, I think;
And monks are curst when
they fall to drink.
A lothly sweven I dreamt last night,
How
there hoved anigh me a griesly knight,
Did smite me down to the
pit of hell;
I shrieked and woke, so fast I fell.
There’s
Tyrrel as sour as I, perdie,
So he of you all shall hunt with me;
A
grimly brace for a hart to see.’
The Red King down from Malwood came;
His heart
with wine was all aflame,
His eyne were shotten, red as blood,
He
rated and swore, wherever he rode.
They roused a hart, that grimly
brace,
A hart of ten, a hart of grease,
Fled over against
the kingés place.
The sun it blinded the kingés ee,
A
fathom behind his hocks shot he:
‘Shoot
thou,’ quod he, ‘in the fiendés name,
To lose
such a quarry were seven years’ shame.’
And he hove
up his hand to mark the game.
Tyrrel he shot full light, God wot;
For
whether the saints they swerved the shot,
‘Or whether by
treason, men knowen not,
But under the arm, in a secret part,
The
iron fled through the kingés heart.
The turf it squelched
where the Red King fell;
And the fiends they carried his soul to
hell,
Quod ‘His master’s name it hath sped him well.’
Tyrrel he smiled full grim that day,
Quod ‘Shooting of
kings is no bairns’ play;’
And he smote in the spurs,
and fled fast away.
As he pricked along by Fritham plain,
The
green tufts flew behind like rain;
The waters were out, and over
the sward:
He swam his horse like a stalwart lord:
Men clepen
that water Tyrrel’s ford.
By Rhinefield and by Osmondsleigh,
Through
glade and furze brake fast drove he,
Until he heard the roaring
sea;
Quod he, ‘Those gay waves they call me.’
By
Mary’s grace a seely boat
On Christchurch bar did lie afloat;
He
gave the shipmen mark and groat,
To ferry him over to Normandie,
And
there he fell to sanctuarie;
God send his soul all bliss to see.
And fend our princes every one,
From foul mishap and trahison;
But
kings that harrow Christian men
Shall England never bide again.
In the New Forest, 1847,
THE OUTLAW
Oh, I wadna be a yeoman, mither, to follow my father’s trade,
To
bow my back in miry banks, at pleugh and hoe and spade.
Stinting
wife, and bairns, and kye, to fat some courtier lord,—
Let
them die o’ rent wha like, mither, and I’ll die by sword.
Nor I wadna be a clerk, mither, to bide aye ben,
Scrabbling
ower the sheets o’ parchment with a weary weary pen;
Looking
through the lang stane windows at a narrow strip o’ sky,
Like
a laverock in a withy cage, until I pine away and die.
Nor I wadna be a merchant, mither, in his lang furred gown,
Trailing
strings o’ footsore horses through the noisy dusty town;
Louting
low to knights and ladies, fumbling o’er his wares,
Telling
lies, and scraping siller, heaping cares on cares.
Nor I wadna be a soldier, mither, to dice wi’ ruffian bands,
Pining
weary months in castles, looking over wasted lands.
Smoking byres,
and shrieking women, and the grewsome sights o’ war—
There’s
blood on my hand eneugh, mither; it’s ill to make it mair.
If I had married a wife, mither, I might ha’ been douce and
still,
And sat at hame by the ingle side to crack and laugh my
fill;
Sat at hame wi’ the woman I looed, and wi’ bairnies
at my knee:
But death is bauld, and age is cauld, and luve’s
no for me.
For when first I stirred in your side, mither, ye ken full well
How
you lay all night up among the deer out on the open fell;
And so
it was that I won the heart to wander far and near,
Caring neither
for land nor lassie, but the bonnie dun deer.
Yet I am not a losel and idle, mither, nor a thief that steals;
I
do but hunt God’s cattle, upon God’s ain hills;
For
no man buys and sells the deer, and the bonnie fells are free
To
a belted knight with hawk on hand, and a gangrel loon like me.
So I’m aff and away to the muirs, mither, to hunt the deer,
Ranging
far frae frowning faces, and the douce folk here;
Crawling up through
burn and bracken, louping down the screes,
Looking out frae craig
and headland, drinking up the simmer breeze.
Oh, the wafts o’ heather honey, and the music o’ the
brae,
As I watch the great harts feeding, nearer, nearer a’
the day.
Oh, to hark the eagle screaming, sweeping, ringing round
the sky—
That’s a bonnier life than stumbling ower
the muck to colt and kye.
And when I’m taen and hangit, mither, a brittling o’
my deer,
Ye’ll no leave your bairn to the corbie craws, to
dangle in the air;
But ye’ll send up my twa douce brethren,
and ye’ll steal me frae the tree,
And bury me up on the brown
brown muirs, where I aye looed to be.
Ye’ll bury me ’twixt the brae and the burn, in a glen
far away,
Where I may hear the heathcock craw, and the great harts
bray;
And gin my ghaist can walk, mither, I’ll go glowering
at the sky,
The livelong night on the black hill sides where the
dun deer lie.
In the New Forest, 1847.
SING HEIGH-HO!
There sits a bird on every tree;
Sing
heigh-ho!
There sits a bird on every tree,
And courts his
love as I do thee;
Sing heigh-ho,
and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
There grows a flower on every bough;
Sing
heigh-ho!
There grows a flower on every bough,
Its petals
kiss—I’ll show you how:
Sing
heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
From sea to stream the salmon roam;
Sing
heigh-ho!
From sea to stream the salmon roam;
Each finds a
mate, and leads her home;
Sing
heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
The sun’s a bridegroom, earth a bride;
Sing
heigh-ho!
They court from morn till eventide:
The earth shall
pass, but love abide.
Sing
heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
Eversley, 1847.
A MARCH
Dreary East winds howling o’er us;
Clay-lands
knee-deep spread before us;
Mire and ice and
snow and sleet;
Aching backs and frozen feet;
Knees
which reel as marches quicken,
Ranks which thin
as corpses thicken;
While with carrion birds
we eat,
Calling puddle-water sweet,
As we
pledge the health of our general, who fares as rough as we:
What
can daunt us, what can turn us, led to death by such as he?
Eversley, 1848.
A LAMENT
The merry merry lark was up and singing,
And
the hare was out and feeding on the lea;
And the merry merry bells
below were ringing,
When my child’s laugh
rang through me.
Now the hare is snared and dead beside the snow-yard,
And
the lark beside the dreary winter sea;
And the baby in his cradle
in the churchyard
Sleeps sound till the bell
brings me.
Eversley, 1848.
THE NIGHT BIRD: A MYTH
A floating, a floating
Across the sleeping sea,
All night
I heard a singing bird
Upon the topmost tree.
‘Oh came you off the isles of Greece,
Or off the banks
of Seine;
Or off some tree in forests free,
Which fringe the
western main?’
‘I came not off the old world
Nor yet from off the new—
But
I am one of the birds of God
Which sing the whole night through.’
‘Oh sing, and wake the dawning—
Oh whistle for the
wind;
The night is long, the current strong,
My boat it lags
behind.’
‘The current sweeps the old world,
The current sweeps
the new;
The wind will blow, the dawn will glow
Ere thou hast
sailed them through.’
Eversley, 1848.
THE DEAD CHURCH
Wild wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?
Dark
dark night, wilt thou never wear away?
Cold cold church, in thy
death sleep lying,
The Lent is past, thy Passion
here, but not thine Easter-day.
Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing;
Rest,
fair corpse, where thy Lord himself hath lain.
Weep, dear Lord,
above thy bride low lying;
Thy tears shall wake
her frozen limbs to life and health again.
Eversley, 1848.
A PARABLE FROM LIEBIG
The church bells were ringing, the devil sat singing
On
the stump of a rotting old tree;
‘Oh faith it grows cold,
and the creeds they grow old,
And the world is
nigh ready for me.’
The bells went on ringing, a spirit came singing,
And
smiled as he crumbled the tree;
‘Yon wood does but perish
new seedlings to cherish,
And the world is too
live yet for thee.’
Eversley, 1848.
THE STARLINGS
Early in spring time, on raw and windy mornings,
Beneath the
freezing house-eaves I heard the starlings sing—
‘Ah
dreary March month, is this then a time for building wearily?
Sad,
sad, to think that the year is but begun.’
Late in the autumn, on still and cloudless evenings,
Among the
golden reed-beds I heard the starlings sing—
‘Ah that
sweet March month, when we and our mates were courting merrily;
Sad,
sad, to think that the year is all but done.’
Eversley, 1848.
OLD AND NEW: A PARABLE
See how the autumn leaves float by decaying,
Down the wild swirls
of the rain-swollen stream.
So fleet the works of men, back to
their earth again;
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream.
Nay! see the spring-blossoms steal forth a-maying,
Clothing
with tender hues orchard and glen;
So, though old forms pass by,
ne’er shall their spirit die,
Look! England’s
bare boughs show green leaf again.
Eversley, 1848.
THE WATCHMAN
‘Watchman, what of the night?’
‘The
stars are out in the sky;
And the merry round moon will be rising
soon,
For us to go sailing by.’
‘Watchman, what of the night?’
‘The
tide flows in from the sea;
There’s water to float a little
cockboat
Will carry such fishers as we.’
‘Watchman, what of the night?’
‘The
night is a fruitful time;
When to many a pair are born children
fair,
To be christened at morning chime.’
1849.
THE WORLD’S AGE
Who will say the world is dying?
Who will
say our prime is past?
Sparks from Heaven, within us lying,
Flash,
and will flash till the last.
Fools! who fancy Christ mistaken;
Man
a tool to buy and sell;
Earth a failure, God-forsaken,
Anteroom
of Hell.
Still the race of Hero-spirits
Pass the lamp
from hand to hand;
Age from age the Words inherits—
‘Wife,
and Child, and Fatherland.’
Still the youthful hunter gathers
Fiery
joy from wold and wood;
He will dare as dared his fathers
Give
him cause as good.
While a slave bewails his fetters;
While an
orphan pleads in vain;
While an infant lisps his letters,
Heir
of all the age’s gain;
While a lip grows ripe for kissing;
While
a moan from man is wrung;
Know, by every want and blessing,
That
the world is young.
1849.
THE SANDS OF DEE
‘O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And
call the cattle home,
And call
the cattle home
Across the sands of Dee;’
The
western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And
all alone went she.
The western tide crept up along the sand,
And
o’er and o’er the sand,
And
round and round the sand,
As far as eye could
see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
And
never home came she.
‘Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair—
A
tress of golden hair,
A drownèd
maiden’s hair
Above the nets at sea?
Was
never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the
stakes on Dee.’
They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The
cruel crawling foam,
The cruel
hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea:
But
still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
Across
the sands of Dee.
Eversley, 1849.
THE TIDE ROCK
How sleeps yon rock, whose half-day’s bath is done.
With
broad blight side beneath the broad bright sun,
Like sea-nymph
tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping.
Yet, nearer drawn, beneath
her purple tresses
From drooping brows we find her slowly weeping.
So
many a wife for cruel man’s caresses
Must
inly pine and pine, yet outward bear
A gallant
front to this world’s gaudy glare.
Ilfracombe, 1849.
ELEGIACS
Wearily stretches the sand to the surge, and the surge to the cloudland;
Wearily
onward I ride, watching the water alone.
Not as of old, like Homeric
Achilles, κυδει yαιων,
Joyous
knight-errant of God, thirsting for labour and strife;
No more
on magical steed borne free through the regions of ether,
But,
like the hack which I ride, selling my sinew for gold.
Fruit-bearing
autumn is gone; let the sad quiet winter hang o’er me—
What
were the spring to a soul laden with sorrow and shame?
Blossoms
would fret me with beauty; my heart has no time to bepraise them;
Gray
rock, bough, surge, cloud, waken no yearning within.
Sing not,
thou sky-lark above! even angels pass hushed by the weeper.
Scream
on, ye sea-fowl! my heart echoes your desolate cry.
Sweep the dry
sand on, thou wild wind, to drift o’er the shell and the sea-weed;
Sea-weed
and shell, like my dreams, swept down the pitiless tide.
Just is
the wave which uptore us; ’tis Nature’s own law which condemns
us;
Woe to the weak who, in pride, build on the faith of the sand!
Joy
to the oak of the mountain: he trusts to the might of the rock-clefts;
Deeply
he mines, and in peace feeds on the wealth of the stone.
Morte Sands, Devonshire,
February 1849.
DARTSIDE
I cannot tell what you say, green leaves,
I
cannot tell what you say:
But I know that there is a spirit in
you,
And a word in you this day.
I cannot tell what you say, rosy rocks,
I
cannot tell what you say:
But I know that there is a spirit in
you,
And a word in you this day.
I cannot tell what you say, brown streams,
I
cannot tell what you say:
But I know that in you too a spirit doth
live,
And a word doth speak this day.
‘Oh green is the colour of faith and truth,
And rose the
colour of love and youth,
And brown of the fruitful
clay.
Sweet Earth is faithful, and fruitful,
and young,
And her bridal day shall come ere
long,
And you shall know what the rocks and the streams
And
the whispering woodlands say.’
Drew’s Teignton, Dartmoor,
July 31, 1849.
MY HUNTING SONG
Forward! Hark forward’s
the cry!
One more fence and we’re out on the open,
So
to us at once, if you want to live near us!
Hark to them, ride
to them, beauties! as on they go,
Leaping and sweeping away in
the vale below!
Cowards and bunglers, whose heart or whose eye
is slow,
Find themselves staring alone.
So the great cause flashes by;
Nearer
and clearer its purposes open,
While louder and prouder the world-echoes
cheer us:
Gentlemen sportsmen, you ought to live up to us,
Lead
us, and lift us, and hallo our game to us—
We cannot call
the hounds off, and no shame to us—
Don’t
be left staring alone!
Eversley, 1849.
ALTON LOCKE’S SONG
Weep, weep, weep and weep,
For pauper, dolt,
and slave!
Hark! from wasted moor and fen,
Feverous alley,
stifling den,
Swells the wail of Saxon men—
Work!
or the grave!
Down, down, down and down,
With idler, knave,
and tyrant!
Why for sluggards cark and moil?
He that will
not live by toil
Has no right on English soil!
God’s
word’s our warrant!
Up, up, up and up!
Face your game and play
it!
The night is past, behold the sun!
The idols fall, the
lie is done!
The Judge is set, the doom begun!
Who
shall stay it?
On Torridge, May 1849.
THE DAY OF THE LORD
The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand:
Its
storms roll up the sky:
The nations sleep starving on heaps of
gold;
All dreamers toss and sigh;
The night
is darkest before the morn;
When the pain is sorest the child is
born,
And the Day of the Lord
at hand.
Gather you, gather you, angels of God—
Freedom,
and Mercy, and Truth;
Come! for the Earth is grown coward and old,
Come
down, and renew us her youth.
Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring, and
Love,
Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above,
To
the Day of the Lord at hand.
Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell—
Famine,
and Plague, and War;
Idleness, Bigotry, Cant, and Misrule,
Gather,
and fall in the snare!
Hireling and Mammonite, Bigot and Knave,
Crawl
to the battle-field, sneak to your grave,
In
the Day of the Lord at hand.
Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold,
While
the Lord of all ages is here?
True hearts will leap up at the trumpet
of God,
And those who can suffer, can dare.
Each
old age of gold was an iron age too,
And the meekest of saints
may find stern work to do,
In
the Day of the Lord at hand.
On the Torridge, Devonshire,
September 10, 1849.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
It chanced upon the merry merry Christmas eve,
I
went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary—
‘Oh!
never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,
And
the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing so cheery.
How
long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?
Still
in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary
The orphans moan,
and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain,
Till
earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.’
Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere,
Beneath
the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing,
And a voice
within cried—‘Listen!—Christmas carols even here!
Though
thou be dumb, yet o’er their work the stars and snows are singing.
Blind!
I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through
With
the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing.
Do thou fulfil
thy work but as yon wild-fowl do,
Thou wilt heed
no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing.’
Eversley, 1849.
THE OUBIT {260}
It was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang,
A feckless
hairy oubit, and merrily he sang—
‘My Minnie bad me
bide at hame until I won my wings;
I show her soon my soul’s
aboon the warks o’ creeping things.’
This feckless hairy oubit cam’ hirpling by the linn,
A
swirl o’ wind cam’ doun the glen, and blew that oubit in:
Oh
when he took the water, the saumon fry they rose,
And tigg’d
him a’ to pieces sma’, by head and tail and toes.
Tak’ warning then, young poets a’, by this poor oubit’s
shame;
Though Pegasus may nicher loud, keep Pegasus at hame.
Oh
haud your hands frae inkhorns, though a’ the Muses woo;
For
critics lie, like saumon fry, to mak’ their meals o’ you.
Eversley, 1851.
THE THREE FISHERS
Three fishers went sailing away to the West,
Away
to the West as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who
loved him the best,
And the children stood watching
them out of the town;
For men must work, and
women must weep,
And there’s little to
earn, and many to keep,
Though
the harbour bar be moaning.
Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,
And
they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
They looked at the
squall, and they looked at the shower,
And the
night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown.
But
men must work, and women must weep,
Though storms
be sudden, and waters deep,
And
the harbour bar be moaning.
Three corpses lay out on the shining sands
In
the morning gleam as the tide went down,
And the women are weeping
and wringing their hands
For those who will never
come home to the town;
For men must work, and
women must weep,
And the sooner it’s over,
the sooner to sleep;
And good-bye
to the bar and its moaning.
Eversley, June 25, 1851.