ODE ON THE INSTALLATION OF THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, 1862 {303}
Hence a while, severer Muses;
Spare your slaves till drear October.
Hence;
for Alma Mater chooses
Not to be for ever sober:
But, like
stately matron gray,
Calling child and grandchild round her,
Will
for them at least be gay;
Share for once their holiday;
And,
knowing she will sleep the sounder,
Cheerier-hearted on the morrow
Rise
to grapple care and sorrow,
Grandly leads the dance adown, and
joins the children’s play.
So
go, for in your places
Already,
as you see,
(Her tears for some deep sorrow scarcely dried),
Venus
holds court among her sinless graces,
With many a nymph from many
a park and lea.
She, pensive, waits the merrier faces
Of those
your wittier sisters three,
O’er jest and dance and song
who still preside,
To cheer her in this merry-mournful tide;
And
bids us, as she smiles or sighs,
Tune our fancies
by her eyes.
Then let the young be glad,
Fair
girl and gallant lad,
And sun themselves to-day
By
lawn and garden gay;
’Tis play befits the
noon
Of rosy-girdled June:
Who
dare frown if heaven shall smile?
Blest, who
can forget a while;
The world before them, and
above
The light of universal love.
Go, then,
let the young be gay;
From their heart as from their dress
Let
darkness and let mourning pass away,
While we the staid and worn
look on and bless.
Health to courage firm and high!
Health
to Granta’s chivalry!
Wisely finding, day
by day,
Play in toil, and toil in play.
Granta
greets them, gliding down
On by park and spire
and town;
Humming mills and golden meadows,
Barred
with elm and poplar shadows;
Giant groves, and
learned halls;
Holy fanes and pictured walls.
Yet
she bides not here; around
Lies the Muses’
sacred ground.
Most she lingers, where below
Gliding
wherries come and go;
Stalwart footsteps shake
the shores;
Rolls the pulse of stalwart oars;
Rings
aloft the exultant cry
For the bloodless victory.
There
she greets the sports, which breed
Valiant lads
for England’s need;
Wisely finding, day
by day,
Play in toil, and toil in play.
Health
to courage, firm and high!
Health to Granta’s
chivalry!
Yet stay a while, severer Muses, stay,
For you, too, have your
rightful parts to-day.
Known long to you, and known through you
to fame,
Are Chatsworth’s halls, and Cavendish’s name.
You
too, then, Alma Mater calls to greet
A worthy patron for your ancient
seat;
And bid her sons from him example take,
Of learning
purely sought for learning’s sake,
Of worth unboastful, power
in duty spent;
And see, fulfilled in him, her high intent.
Come, Euterpe, wake thy choir;
Fit
thy notes to our desire.
Long
may he sit the chiefest here,
Meet
us and greet us, year by year;
Long
inherit, sire and son,
All
that their race has wrought and won,
Since
that great Cavendish came again,
Round
the world and over the main,
Breasting
the Thames with his mariners bold,
Past
good Queen Bess’s palace of old;
With
jewel and ingot packed in his hold,
And
sails of damask and cloth of gold;
While
never a sailor-boy on board
But
was decked as brave as a Spanish lord,
With
the spoils he had won
In
the Isles of the Sun,
And
the shores of Fairy-land,
And
yet held for the crown of the goodly show,
That
queenly smile from the Palace window,
And
that wave of a queenly hand.
Yes,
let the young be gay,
And sun
themselves to-day;—
And from their hearts,
as from their dress,
Let mourning
pass away.
But not from us, who watch our years fast fleeing,
And
snatching as they flee, fresh fragments of our being.
Can
we forget one friend,
Can we
forget one face,
Which cheered
us toward our end,
Which nerved
us for our race?
Oh sad to
toil, and yet forego
One presence
which has made us know
To Godlike
souls how deep our debt!
We
would not, if we could, forget.
Severer Muses, linger yet;
Speak
out for us one pure and rich regret.
Thou, Clio,
who, with awful pen,
Gravest great names upon
the hearts of men,
Speak of a fate beyond our
ken;
A gem late found and lost too soon; {306}
A
sun gone down at highest noon;
A tree from Odin’s
ancient root,
Which bore for men the ancient
fruit,
Counsel, and faith and scorn of wrong,
And
cunning lore, and soothing song,
Snapt in mid-growth,
and leaving unaware
The flock unsheltered and
the pasture bare
Nay, let us take what God shall
send,
Trusting bounty without end.
God
ever lives; and Nature,
Beneath His high dictature,
Hale
and teeming, can replace
Strength by strength,
and grace by grace,
Hope by hope, and friend
by friend:
Trust; and take what God shall send.
So
shall Alma Mater see
Daughters
fair and wise
Train new lands of liberty
Under
stranger skies;
Spreading round the teeming earth
English
science, manhood, worth.
1862.
SONGS FROM ‘THE WATER-BABIES’
THE TIDE RIVER
Clear and cool, clear and cool,
By laughing
shallow, and dreaming pool;
Cool and clear, cool
and clear,
By shining shingle, and foaming wear;
Under the
crag where the ouzel sings,
And the ivied wall where the church-bell
rings,
Undefiled, for the undefiled;
Play
by me, bathe in me, mother and child.
Dank and foul, dank and foul,
By
the smoky town in its murky cowl;
Foul
and dank, foul and dank,
By wharf and sewer and
slimy bank;
Darker and darker the farther I go,
Baser and
baser the richer I grow;
Who
dare sport with the sin-defiled?
Shrink from
me, turn from me, mother and child.
Strong and free, strong and free,
The
floodgates are open, away to the sea.
Free
and strong, free and strong,
Cleansing my streams
as I hurry along
To the golden sands, and the leaping bar,
And
the taintless tide that awaits me afar,
As I lose myself in the
infinite main,
Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again.
Undefiled,
for the undefiled;
Play by me, bathe in me, mother
and child.
From The Water-Babies.
Eversley, 1862.
YOUNG AND OLD
When all the world is young, lad,
And all
the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And
every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And
round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And
every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the
trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And
all the wheels run down;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The
spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there,
You
loved when all was young.
From The Water-Babies. 1862
THE SUMMER SEA
Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding,
Waft
thy silver cloud webs athwart the summer sea;
Thin
thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining
Weave a veil of dappled
gauze to shade my babe and me.
Deep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding,
Pour
Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea;
Worn
weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding,
Shield from sorrow,
sin, and shame my helpless babe and me.
From The Water-Babies. 1862
MY LITTLE DOLL
I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
The
prettiest doll in the world;
Her cheeks were so red and so white,
dears,
And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But
I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played
in the heath one day;
And I cried for more than a week, dears,
But
I never could find where she lay.
I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played
in the heath one day:
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
For
her paint is all washed away,
And her arms trodden off by the cows,
dears
And her hair not the least bit curled:
Yet
for old sakes’ sake she is still, dears,
The
prettiest doll in the world.
From The Water-Babies.
Eversley, 1862.
THE KNIGHT’S LEAP: A LEGEND OF ALTENAHR
‘So the foemen have fired the gate, men of mine;
And
the water is spent and gone?
Then bring me a cup of the red Ahr-wine:
I
never shall drink but this one.
‘And reach me my harness, and saddle my horse,
And
lead him me round to the door:
He must take such a leap to-night
perforce,
As horse never took before.
‘I have fought my fight, I have lived my life,
I
have drunk my share of wine;
From Trier to Coln there was never
a knight
Led a merrier life than mine.
‘I have lived by the saddle for years two score;
And
if I must die on tree,
Then the old saddle tree, which has borne
me of yore,
Is the properest timber for me.
‘So now to show bishop, and burgher, and priest,
How
the Altenahr hawk can die:
If they smoke the old falcon out of
his nest,
He must take to his wings and fly.’
He harnessed himself by the clear moonshine,
And
he mounted his horse at the door;
And he drained such a cup of
the red Ahr-wine,
As man never drained before.
He spurred the old horse, and he held him tight,
And
he leapt him out over the wall;
Out over the cliff, out into the
night,
Three hundred feet of fall.
They found him next morning below in the glen,
With
never a bone in him whole—
A mass or a prayer, now, good
gentlemen,
For such a bold rider’s soul.
Eversley, 1864.
THE SONG OF THE LITTLE BALTUNG. A.D. 395
A harper came over the Danube so wide,
And
he came into Alaric’s hall,
And he sang the song of the little
Baltung
To him and his heroes all.
How the old old Balt and the young young Balt
Rode
out of Caucaland,
With the royal elephant’s trunk on helm
And
the royal lance in hand.
Thuringer heroes, counts and knights,
Pricked
proud in their meinie;
For they were away to the great Kaiser,
In
Byzant beside the sea.
And when they came to the Danube so wide
They
shouted from off the shore,
‘Come over, come over, ye Roman
slaves,
And ferry your masters o’er.’
And when they came to Adrian’s burgh,
With
its towers so smooth and high,
‘Come out, come out, ye Roman
knaves,
And see your lords ride by.’
But when they came lo the long long walls
That
stretch from sea to sea,
That old old Balt let down his chin,
And
a thoughtful man grew he.
‘Oh oft have I scoffed at brave Fridigern,
But
never will I scoff more,
If these be the walls which kept him out
From
the Micklegard there on the shore.’
Then out there came the great Kaiser,
With
twice ten thousand men;
But never a Thuring was coward enough
To
wish himself home again.
‘Bow down, thou rebel, old Athanarich,
And
beg thy life this day;
The Kaiser is lord of all the world,
And
who dare say him nay?’
‘I never came out of Caucaland
To beg
for less nor more;
But to see the pride of the great Kaiser,
In
his Micklegard here by the shore.
‘I never came out of Caucaland
To bow
to mortal wight,
But to shake the hand of the great Kaiser,
And
God defend my right.’
He shook his hand, that cunning Kaiser,
And
he kissed him courteouslie,
And he has ridden with Athanarich
That
wonder-town to see.
He showed him his walls of marble white—
A
mile o’erhead they shone;
Quoth the Balt, ‘Who would
leap into that garden,
King Siegfried’s
boots must own.’
He showed him his engines of arsmetrick
And
his wells of quenchless flame,
And his flying rocks, that guarded
his walls
From all that against him came.
He showed him his temples and pillared halls,
And
his streets of houses high;
And his watch-towers tall, where his
star-gazers
Sit reading the signs of the sky.
He showed him his ships with their hundred oars,
And
their sides like a castle wall,
That fetch home the plunder of
all the world,
At the Kaiser’s beck and
call.
He showed him all nations of every tongue
That
are bred beneath the sun,
How they flowed together in Micklegard
street
As the brooks flow all into one.
He showed him the shops of the china ware,
And
of silk and sendal also,
And he showed him the baths and the waterpipes
On
arches aloft that go.
He showed him ostrich and unicorn,
Ape, lion,
and tiger keen;
And elephants wise roared ‘Hail Kaiser!’
As
though they had Christians been.
He showed him the hoards of the dragons and trolls,
Rare
jewels and heaps of gold—
‘Hast thou seen, in all thy
hundred years,
Such as these, thou king so old?’
Now that cunning Kaiser was a scholar wise,
And
could of gramarye,
And he cast a spell on that old old Balt,
Till
lowly and meek spake he.
‘Oh oft have I heard of the Micklegard,
What
I held for chapmen’s lies;
But now do I know of the Micklegard,
By
the sight of mine own eyes.
‘Woden in Valhalla,
But thou on earth
art God;
And he that dare withstand thee, Kaiser,
On
his own head lies his blood.’
Then out and spake that little Baltung,
Rode
at the king’s right knee,
Quoth ‘Fridigern slew false
Kaiser Valens,
And he died like you or me.’
‘And who art thou, thou pretty bold boy,
Rides
at the king’s right knee?’
‘Oh I am the Baltung,
boy Alaric,
And as good a man as thee.’
‘As good as me, thou pretty bold boy,
With
down upon thy chin?’
‘Oh a spae-wife laid a doom on
me,
The best of thy realm to win.’
‘If thou be so fierce, thou little wolf cub
Or
ever thy teeth be grown;
Then I must guard my two young sons
Lest
they should lose their own.’
‘Oh, it’s I will guard your two lither lads,
In
their burgh beside the sea,
And it’s I will prove true man
to them
If they will prove true to me.
‘But it’s you must warn your two lither lads,
And
warn them bitterly,
That if I shall find them two false Kaisers,
High
hanged they both shall be.’
Now they are gone into the Kaiser’s palace
To
eat the peacock fine,
And they are gone into the Kaiser’s
palace
To drink the good Greek wine.
The Kaiser alone, and the old old Balt,
They
sat at the cedar board;
And round them served on the bended knee
Full
many a Roman lord.
‘What ails thee, what ails thee, friend Athanarich?
What
makes thee look so pale?’
‘I fear I am poisoned, thou
cunning Kaiser,
For I feel my heart-strings fail.
‘Oh would I had kept that great great oath
I
swore by the horse’s head,
I would never set foot on Roman
ground
Till the day that I lay dead.
‘Oh would I were home in Caucaland,
To
hear my harpers play,
And to drink my last of the nut-brown ale,
While
I gave the gold rings away.
‘Oh would I were home in Caucaland,
To
hear the Gothmen’s horn,
And watch the waggons, and brown
brood mares
And the tents where I was born.
‘But now I must die between four stone walls
In
Byzant beside the sea:
And as thou shalt deal with my little Baltung,
So
God shall deal with thee.’
The Kaiser he purged himself with oaths,
And
he buried him royally,
And he set on his barrow an idol of gold,
Where
all Romans must bow the knee.
And now the Goths are the Kaiser’s men,
And
guard him with lance and sword,
And the little Baltung is his sworn
son-at-arms,
And eats at the Kaiser’s board,
And the Kaiser’s two sons are two false white lads
That
a clerk may beat with cane.
The clerk that should beat that little
Baltung
Would never sing mass again.
Oh the gates of Rome they are steel without,
And
beaten gold within:
But they shall fly wide to the little Baltung
With
the down upon his chin.
Oh the fairest flower in the Kaiser’s garden
Is
Rome and Italian land:
But it all shall fall to the little Baltung
When
he shall take lance in hand.
And when he is parting the plunder of Rome,
He
shall pay for this song of mine,
Neither maiden nor land, neither
jewel nor gold,
But one cup of Italian wine.
Eversley, 1864.
ON THE DEATH OF LEOPOLD, KING OF THE BELGIANS {319}
A King is dead! Another master mind
Is
summoned from the world-wide council hall.
Ah, for some seer, to
say what links behind—
To read the mystic
writing on the wall!
Be still, fond man: nor ask thy fate to know.
Face
bravely what each God-sent moment brings.
Above thee rules in love,
through weal and woe,
Guiding thy kings and thee,
the King of kings.
Windsor Castle,
November 10, 1865.
EASTER WEEK
(Written for music to be sung at a parish industrial exhibition)
See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as
her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst
at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices;
Fields
and gardens hail the spring;
Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,
While
the wild birds build and sing.
You, to whom your Maker granted
Powers to
those sweet birds unknown,
Use the craft by God implanted;
Use
the reason not your own.
Here, while heaven and earth rejoices,
Each
his Easter tribute bring—
Work of fingers, chant of voices,
Like
the birds who build and sing.
Eversley, 1867.
DRIFTING AWAY: A FRAGMENT
They drift away. Ah, God! they drift for ever.
I watch
the stream sweep onward to the sea,
Like some old battered buoy
upon a roaring river,
Round whom the tide-waifs hang—then
drift to sea.
I watch them drift—the old familiar faces,
Who fished
and rode with me, by stream and wold,
Till ghosts, not men, fill
old beloved places,
And, ah! the land is rank with churchyard mold.
I watch them drift—the youthful aspirations,
Shores, landmarks,
beacons, drift alike.
. . . . .
I watch them drift—the
poets and the statesmen;
The very streams run upward from the sea.
.
. . . . .
Yet overhead the boundless arch of
heaven
Still fades to night, still blazes into
day.
. . . . .
Ah, God!
My God! Thou wilt not drift away
November 1867.
CHRISTMAS DAY
How will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day?
A northern Christmas,
such as painters love,
And kinsfolk, shaking hands but once a year,
And
dames who tell old legends by the fire?
Red sun, blue sky, white
snow, and pearled ice,
Keen ringing air, which sets the blood on
fire,
And makes the old man merry with the young,
Through
the short sunshine, through the longer night?
Or
southern Christmas, dark and dank with mist,
And heavy with the
scent of steaming leaves,
And rosebuds mouldering on the dripping
porch;
One twilight, without rise or set of sun,
Till beetles
drone along the hollow lane,
And round the leafless hawthorns,
flitting bats
Hawk the pale moths of winter? Welcome then
At
best, the flying gleam, the flying shower,
The rain-pools glittering
on the long white roads,
And shadows sweeping on from down to down
Before
the salt Atlantic gale: yet come
In whatsoever garb, or gay, or
sad,
Come fair, come foul, ’twill still be Christmas Day.
How
will it dawn, the coming Christmas Day?
To sailors lounging on
the lonely deck
Beneath the rushing trade-wind? Or to him,
Who
by some noisome harbour of the East,
Watches swart arms roll down
the precious bales,
Spoils of the tropic forests; year by year
Amid
the din of heathen voices, groaning
Himself half heathen?
How to those—brave hearts!
Who toil with laden loins and
sinking stride
Beside the bitter wells of treeless sands
Toward
the peaks which flood the ancient Nile,
To free a tyrant’s
captives? How to those—
New patriarchs of the new-found
underworld—
Who stand, like Jacob, on the virgin lawns,
And
count their flocks’ increase? To them that day
Shall
dawn in glory, and solstitial blaze
Of full midsummer sun: to them
that morn,
Gay flowers beneath their feet, gay birds aloft,
Shall
tell of nought but summer: but to them,
Ere yet, unwarned by carol
or by chime,
They spring into the saddle, thrills may come
From
that great heart of Christendom which beats
Round all the worlds;
and gracious thoughts of youth;
Of steadfast folk, who worship
God at home;
Of wise words, learnt beside their mothers’
knee;
Of innocent faces upturned once again
In awe and joy
to listen to the tale
Of God made man, and in a manger laid—
May
soften, purify, and raise the soul
From selfish cares, and growing
lust of gain,
And phantoms of this dream which some call life,
Toward
the eternal facts; for here or there,
Summer or winter, ’twill
be Christmas Day.
Blest day, which aye reminds us, year by year,
What
’tis to be a man: to curb and spurn
The tyrant in us; that
ignobler self
Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute,
And
owns no good save ease, no ill save pain,
No purpose, save its
share in that wild war
In which, through countless ages, living
things
Compete in internecine greed.—Ah God!
Are we
as creeping things, which have no Lord?
That we are brutes, great
God, we know too well;
Apes daintier-featured; silly birds who
flaunt
Their plumes unheeding of the fowler’s step;
Spiders,
who catch with paper, not with webs;
Tigers, who slay with cannon
and sharp steel,
Instead of teeth and claws;—all these we
are.
Are we no more than these, save in degree?
No more than
these; and born but to compete—
To envy and devour, like
beast or herb;
Mere fools of nature; puppets of strong lusts,
Taking
the sword, to perish with the sword
Upon the universal battle-field,
Even
as the things upon the moor outside?
The heath
eats up green grass and delicate flowers,
The pine eats up the
heath, the grub the pine,
The finch the grub, the hawk the silly
finch;
And man, the mightiest of all beasts of prey,
Eats
what he lists; the strong eat up the weak,
The many eat the few;
great nations, small;
And he who cometh in the name of all—
He,
greediest, triumphs by the greed of all;
And, armed by his own
victims, eats up all:
While ever out of the eternal heavens
Looks
patient down the great magnanimous God,
Who, Maker of all worlds,
did sacrifice
All to Himself? Nay, but Himself to one;
Who
taught mankind on that first Christmas Day,
What ’twas to
be a man; to give, not take;
To serve, not rule; to nourish, not
devour;
To help, not crush; if need, to die, not live.
O
blessed day, which givest the eternal lie
To self, and sense, and
all the brute within;
Oh, come to us, amid this war of life;
To
hall and hovel, come; to all who toil
In senate, shop, or study;
and to those
Who, sundered by the wastes of half a world,
Ill-warned,
and sorely tempted, ever face
Nature’s brute powers, and
men unmanned to brutes—
Come to them, blest and blessing,
Christmas Day.
Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem;
The
kneeling shepherds, and the Babe Divine:
And keep them men indeed,
fair Christmas Day.
Eversley, 1868.
SEPTEMBER 21, 1870 {325}
Speak low, speak little; who may sing
While
yonder cannon-thunders boom?
Watch, shuddering, what each day may
bring:
Nor ‘pipe amid the crack of doom.’
And yet—the pines sing overhead,
The
robins by the alder-pool,
The bees about the garden-bed,
The
children dancing home from school.
And ever at the loom of Birth
The mighty Mother
weaves and sings:
She weaves—fresh robes for mangled earth;
She
sings—fresh hopes for desperate things.
And thou, too: if through Nature’s calm
Some
strain of music touch thine ears,
Accept and share that soothing
balm,
And sing, though choked with pitying tears.
Eversley, 1870.
THE MANGO-TREE
He wiled me through the furzy croft;
He wiled
me down the sandy lane.
He told his boy’s love, soft and
oft,
Until I told him mine again.
We married, and we sailed the main;
A soldier,
and a soldier’s wife.
We marched through many a burning plain;
We
sighed for many a gallant life.
But his—God kept it safe from harm.
He
toiled, and dared, and earned command;
And those three stripes
upon his arm
Were more to me than gold or land.
Sure he would win some great renown:
Our lives
were strong, our hearts were high.
One night the fever struck him
down.
I sat, and stared, and saw him die.
I had his children—one, two, three.
One
week I had them, blithe and sound.
The next—beneath this
mango-tree,
By him in barrack burying-ground.
I sit beneath the mango-shade;
I live my five
years’ life all o’er—
Round yonder stems his
children played;
He mounted guard at yonder door.
’Tis I, not they, am gone and dead.
They
live; they know; they feel; they see.
Their spirits light the golden
shade
Beneath the giant mango-tree.
All things, save I, are full of life:
The
minas, pluming velvet breasts;
The monkeys, in their foolish strife;
The
swooping hawks, the swinging nests;
The lizards basking on the soil,
The butterflies
who sun their wings;
The bees about their household toil,
They
live, they love, the blissful things.
Each tender purple mango-shoot,
That folds
and droops so bashful down;
It lives; it sucks some hidden root;
It
rears at last a broad green crown.
It blossoms; and the children cry—
‘Watch
when the mango-apples fall.’
It lives: but rootless, fruitless,
I—
I breathe and dream;—and that
is all.
Thus am I dead: yet cannot die:
But still
within my foolish brain
There hangs a pale blue evening sky;
A
furzy croft; a sandy lane.
1870.
THE PRIEST’S HEART
It was Sir John, the fair young Priest,
He
strode up off the strand;
But seven fisher maidens he left behind
All
dancing hand in hand.
He came unto the wise wife’s house:
‘Now,
Mother, to prove your art;
To charm May Carleton’s merry
blue eyes
Out of a young man’s heart.’
‘My son, you went for a holy man,
Whose
heart was set on high;
Go sing in your psalter, and read in your
books;
Man’s love fleets lightly by.’
‘I had liever to talk with May Carleton,
Than
with all the saints in Heaven;
I had liever to sit by May Carleton
Than
climb the spherès seven.
‘I have watched and fasted, early and late,
I
have prayed to all above;
But I find no cure save churchyard mould
For
the pain which men call love.’
‘Now Heaven forefend that ill grow worse:
Enough
that ill be ill.
I know of a spell to draw May Carleton,
And
bend her to your will.’
‘If thou didst that which thou canst not do,
Wise
woman though thou be,
I would run and run till I buried myself
In
the surge of yonder sea.
‘Scathless for me are maid and wife,
And
scathless shall they bide.
Yet charm me May Carleton’s eyes
from the heart
That aches in my left side.’
She charmed him with the white witchcraft,
She
charmed him with the black,
But he turned his fair young face to
the wall,
Till she heard his heart-strings crack.
1870
‘QU’EST QU’IL DIT’ {330}
Espion ailé de la jeune amante
De l’ombre des palmiers
pourquoi ce cri?
Laisse en paix le beau garçon plaider et
vaincre—
Pourquoi, pourquoi demander ‘Qu’est
qu’il dit?’
‘Qu’est qu’il dit?’ Ce que tu dis toi-même
Chaque
mois de ce printemps eternel;
Ce que disent les papillons qui s’entre-baisent,
Ce
que dit tout bel jeun être à toute belle.
Importun! Attende quelques lustres:
Quand les souvenirs
1’emmeneront ici—
Mère, grand’mère,
pâle, lasse, et fidèle,
Demande mais doucement—‘Et
le vieillard,
Qu’est qu’il dit?’
Trinidad, January 10, 1870
THE LEGEND OF LA BREA {331a}
Down beside the loathly Pitch Lake,
In the
stately Morichal, {331b}
Sat
an ancient Spanish Indian,
Peering through the
columns tall.
Watching vainly for the flashing
Of the jewelled
colibris; {331c}
Listening
vainly for their humming
Round the honey-blossomed
trees.
‘Few,’ he sighed, ‘they come, and fewer,
To
the cocorité {331d}
bowers;
Murdered, madly, through the forests
Which
of yore were theirs—and ours
By there came a negro hunter,
Lithe and lusty,
sleek and strong,
Rolling round his sparkling eyeballs,
As
he loped and lounged along.
Rusty firelock on his shoulder;
Rusty cutlass
on his thigh;
Never jollier British subject
Rollicked
underneath the sky.
British law to give him safety,
British fleets
to guard his shore,
And a square of British freehold—
He
had all we have, and more.
Fattening through the endless summer,
Like
his own provision ground,
He had reached the summum bonum
Which
our latest wits have found.
So he thought; and in his hammock
Gnawed his
junk of sugar-cane,
Toasted plantains at the fire-stick,
Gnawed,
and dozed, and gnawed again.
Had a wife in his ajoupa {332}—
Or,
at least, what did instead;
Children, too, who died so early,
He’d
no need to earn their bread.
Never stole, save what he needed,
From the
Crown woods round about;
Never lied, except when summoned—
Let
the warden find him out.
Never drank, except at market;
Never beat
his sturdy mate;
She could hit as hard as he could,
And
had just as hard a pate.
Had no care for priest nor parson,
Hope of
heaven nor fear of hell;
And in all his views of nature
Held
with Comte and Peter Bell.
Healthy, happy, silly, kindly,
Neither care
nor toil had he,
Save to work an hour at sunrise,
And
then hunt the colibri.
Not a bad man; not a good man:
Scarce a man
at all, one fears,
If the Man be that within us
Which
is born of fire and tears.
Round the palm-stems, round the creepers,
Flashed
a feathered jewel past,
Ruby-crested, topaz-throated,
Plucked
the cocorité bast,
Plucked the fallen ceiba-cotton, {333}
Whirred
away to build his nest,
Hung at last, with happy humming,
Round
some flower he fancied best.
Up then went the rusty muzzle,
’Dat
de tenth I shot to-day:’
But out sprang the Indian shouting,
Balked
the negro of his prey.
‘Eh, you Señor Trinidada!
What
dis new ondacent plan?
Spoil a genl’man’s chance ob
shooting?
I as good as any man.
‘Dese not your woods; dese de Queen’s woods:
You
seem not know whar you ar,
Gibbin’ yuself dese buckra airs
here,
You black Indian Papist! Dar!’
Stately, courteous, stood the Indian;
Pointed
through the palm-tree shade:
‘Does the gentleman of colour
Know
how yon Pitch Lake was made?’
Grinned the negro, grinned and trembled—
Through
his nerves a shudder ran—
Saw a snake-like eye that held
him;
Saw—he’d met an Obeah man.
Saw a fêtish—such a bottle—
Buried
at his cottage door;
Toad and spider, dirty water,
Rusty
nails, and nine charms more.
Saw in vision such a cock’s head
In
the path—and it was white!
Saw Brinvilliers {334}
in his pottage:
Faltered, cold and damp with
fright.
Fearful is the chance of poison:
Fearful,
too, the great unknown:
Magic brings some positivists
Humbly
on their marrow-bone.
Like the wedding-guest enchanted,
There he
stood, a trembling cur;
While the Indian told his story,
Like
the Ancient Mariner.
Told how—‘Once that loathly Pitch Lake
Was
a garden bright and fair;
How the Chaymas off the mainland
Built
their palm ajoupas there.
‘How they throve, and how they fattened,
Hale
and happy, safe and strong;
Passed the livelong days in feasting;
Passed
the nights in dance and song.
‘Till they cruel grew, and wanton:
Till
they killed the colibris.
Then outspake the great Good Spirit,
Who
can see through all the trees,
‘Said—“And what have I not sent you,
Wanton
Chaymas, many a year?
Lapp, {335a}
agouti, {335b}
cachicame, {335c}
Quenc
{335d} and guazu-pita
deer.
‘“Fish I sent you, sent you turtle,
Chip-chip,
{335e} conch,
flamingo red,
Woodland paui, {335f}
horned screamer, {335g}
And
blue ramier {335h}
overhead.
‘“Plums from balata {335i}
and mombin, {335j}
Tania,
{335k} manioc,
{335l} water-vine;
{335m}
Let
you fell my slim manacques, {335n}
Tap
my sweet morichè wine. {335o}
‘“Sent rich plantains, {336a}
food of angels;
Rich ananas, {336b}
food of kings;
Grudged you none of all my treasures:
Save
these lovely useless things.”
‘But the Chaymas’ ears were deafened;
Blind
their eyes, and could not see
How a blissful Indian’s spirit
Lived
in every colibri.
‘Lived, forgetting toil and sorrow,
Ever
fair and ever new;
Whirring round the dear old woodland,
Feeding
on the honey-dew.
‘Till one evening roared the earthquake:
Monkeys
howled, and parrots screamed:
And the Guaraons at morning
Gathered
here, as men who dreamed.
‘Sunk were gardens, sunk ajoupas;
Hut
and hammock, man and hound:
And above the Chayma village
Boiled
with pitch the cursed ground.
‘Full, and too full; safe, and too safe;
Negro
man, take care, take care.
He that wantons with God’s bounties
Of
God’s wrath had best beware.
‘For the saucy, reckless, heartless,
Evil
days are sure in store.
You may see the Negro sinking
As
the Chayma sank of yore.’
Loudly laughed that stalwart hunter—
‘Eh,
what superstitious talk!
Nyam {337}
am nyam, an’ maney maney;
Birds am birds,
like park am park;
An’ dere’s twenty thousand birdskins
Ardered
jes’ now fram New Yark.’
Eversley, 1870.