Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I.
by
Jean Ingelow
Part 1 out of 7
Produced by Juliet Sutherland and PG Distributed Proofreaders
POEMS
BY
JEAN INGELOW
_IN TWO VOLUMES_
VOL. I.
BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1896
AUTHOR'S COMPLETE EDITION
_DEDICATION_
TO
GEORGE KILGOUR INGELOW
YOUR LOVING SISTER
OFFERS YOU THESE POEMS, PARTLY AS
AN EXPRESSION OF HER AFFECTION, PARTLY FOR THE
PLEASURE OF CONNECTING HER EFFORTS
WITH YOUR NAME
KENSINGTON: _June_, 1863
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
DIVIDED
HONORS.--PART I.
HONORS.--PART II.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE
SUPPER AT THE MILL
SCHOLAR AND CARPENTER
THE STAR'S MONUMENT
A DEAD YEAR
REFLECTIONS
THE LETTER L
THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE (1571)
AFTERNOON AT A PARSONAGE
SONGS OF SEVEN
A COTTAGE IN A CHINE
PERSEPHONE
A SEA SONG
BROTHERS, AND A SERMON
A WEDDING SONG
THE FOUR BRIDGES
A MOTHER SHOWING THE PORTRAIT OF HER CHILD
STRIFE AND PEACE
THE DREAMS THAT CAME TRUE
SONGS ON THE VOICES OF BIRDS.
INTRODUCTION.--CHILD AND BOATMAN
THE NIGHTINGALE HEARD BY THE UNSATISFIED HEART
SAND MARTINS
A POET IN HIS YOUTH AND THE CUCKOO-BIRD
A RAVEN IN A WHITE CHINE
THE WARBLING OF BLACKBIRDS
SEA-MEWS IN WINTER-TIME
LAURANCE
SONGS OF THE NIGHT WATCHES.
INTRODUCTORY.--EVENING
THE FIRST WATCH.--TIRED
THE MIDDLE WATCH
THE MORNING WATCH
CONCLUDING.--EARLY DAWN
CONTRASTED SONGS.
SAILING BEYOND SEAS
REMONSTRANCE
SONG FOR THE NIGHT OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION
SONG OF MARGARET
SONG OF THE GOING AWAY
A LILY AND A LUTE
GLADYS AND HER ISLAND
SONGS WITH PRELUDES.
WEDLOCK
REGRET
LAMENTATION
DOMINION
FRIENDSHIP
WINSTANLEY
DIVIDED.
I.
An empty sky, a world of heather,
Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom;
We two among them wading together,
Shaking out honey, treading perfume.
Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,
Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet,
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over,
Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.
Flusheth the rise with her purple favor,
Gloweth the cleft with her golden ring,
'Twixt the two brown butterflies waver,
Lightly settle, and sleepily swing.
We two walk till the purple dieth
And short dry grass under foot is brown.
But one little streak at a distance lieth
Green like a ribbon to prank the down.
II.
Over the grass we stepped unto it,
And God He knoweth how blithe we were!
Never a voice to bid us eschew it:
Hey the green ribbon that showed so fair!
Hey the green ribbon! we kneeled beside it,
We parted the grasses dewy and sheen;
Drop over drop there filtered and slided
A tiny bright beck that trickled between.
Tinkle, tinkle, sweetly it sang to us,
Light was our talk as of faery bells--
Faery wedding-bells faintly rung to us
Down in their fortunate parallels.
Hand in hand, while the sun peered over,
We lapped the grass on that youngling spring;
Swept back its rushes, smoothed its clover,
And said, "Let us follow it westering."
III.
A dappled sky, a world of meadows,
Circling above us the black rooks fly
Forward, backward; lo, their dark shadows
Flit on the blossoming tapestry--
Flit on the beck, for her long grass parteth
As hair from a maid's bright eyes blown back;
And, lo, the sun like a lover darteth
His flattering smile on her wayward track.
Sing on! we sing in the glorious weather
Till one steps over the tiny strand,
So narrow, in sooth, that still together
On either brink we go hand in hand.
The beck grows wider, the hands must sever.
On either margin, our songs all done,
We move apart, while she singeth ever,
Taking the course of the stooping sun.
He prays, "Come over"--I may not follow;
I cry, "Return"--but he cannot come:
We speak, we laugh, but with voices hollow;
Our hands are hanging, our hearts are numb.
IV.
A breathing sigh, a sigh for answer,
A little talking of outward things
The careless beck is a merry dancer,
Keeping sweet time to the air she sings.
A little pain when the beck grows wider;
"Cross to me now--for her wavelets swell."
"I may not cross,"--and the voice beside her
Faintly reacheth, though heeded well.
No backward path; ah! no returning;
No second crossing that ripple's flow:
"Come to me now, for the west is burning;
Come ere it darkens;"--"Ah, no! ah, no!"
Then cries of pain, and arms outreaching--
The beck grows wider and swift and deep:
Passionate words as of one beseeching--
The loud beck drowns them; we walk, and weep.
V.
A yellow moon in splendor drooping,
A tired queen with her state oppressed,
Low by rushes and swordgrass stooping,
Lies she soft on the waves at rest.
The desert heavens have felt her sadness;
Her earth will weep her some dewy tears;
The wild beck ends her tune of gladness,
And goeth stilly as soul that fears.
We two walk on in our grassy places
On either marge of the moonlit flood,
With the moon's own sadness in our faces,
Where joy is withered, blossom and bud.
VI.
A shady freshness, chafers whirring,
A little piping of leaf-hid birds;
A flutter of wings, a fitful stirring,
A cloud to the eastward snowy as curds.
Bare grassy slopes, where kids are tethered
Round valleys like nests all ferny-lined;
Round hills, with fluttering tree-tops feathered,
Swell high in their freckled robes behind.
A rose-flush tender, a thrill, a quiver,
When golden gleams to the tree-tops glide;
A flashing edge for the milk-white river,
The beck, a river--with still sleek tide.
Broad and white, and polished as silver,
On she goes under fruit-laden trees;
Sunk in leafage cooeth the culver,
And 'plaineth of love's disloyalties.
Glitters the dew and shines the river,
Up comes the lily and dries her bell;
But two are walking apart forever,
And wave their hands for a mute farewell.
VII.
A braver swell, a swifter sliding;
The river hasteth, her banks recede:
Wing-like sails on her bosom gliding
Bear down the lily and drown the reed.
Stately prows are rising and bowing
(Shouts of mariners winnow the air),
And level sands for banks endowing
The tiny green ribbon that showed so fair.
While, O my heart! as white sails shiver,
And crowds are passing, and banks stretch wide
How hard to follow, with lips that quiver,
That moving speck on the far-off side!
Farther, farther--I see it--know it--
My eyes brim over, it melts away:
Only my heart to my heart shall show it
As I walk desolate day by day.
VII.
And yet I know past all doubting, truly--
A knowledge greater than grief can dim--
I know, as he loved, he will love me duly--
Yea better--e'en better than I love him.
And as I walk by the vast calm river,
The awful river so dread to see,
I say, "Thy breadth and thy depth forever
Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me."
HONORS.--PART I.
(_A Scholar is musing on his want of success._)
To strive--and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star--and could not hail
With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among the winged--I set these feet that halt
To run against the swift.
And yet this man, that loved me so, can write--
That loves me, I would say, can let me see;
Or fain would have me think he counts but light
These Honors lost to me.
(_The letter of his friend._)
"What are they? that old house of yours which gave
Such welcome oft to me, the sunbeams fall
Yet, down the squares of blue and white which pave
Its hospitable hall.
"A brave old house! a garden full of bees,
Large dropping poppies, and Queen hollyhocks,
With butterflies for crowns--tree peonies
And pinks and goldilocks.
"Go, when the shadow of your house is long
Upon the garden--when some new-waked bird.
Pecking and fluttering, chirps a sudden song,
And not a leaf is stirred;
"But every one drops dew from either edge
Upon its fellow, while an amber ray
Slants up among the tree-tops like a wedge
Of liquid gold--to play
"Over and under them, and so to fall
Upon that lane of water lying below--
That piece of sky let in, that you do call
A pond, but which I know
"To be a deep and wondrous world; for I
Have seen the trees within it--marvellous things
So thick no bird betwixt their leaves could fly
But she would smite her wings;--
"Go there, I say; stand at the water's brink,
And shoals of spotted barbel you shall see
Basking between the shadows--look, and think
'This beauty is for me;
"'For me this freshness in the morning hours,
For me the water's clear tranquillity;
For me the soft descent of chestnut flowers;
The cushat's cry for me.
"'The lovely laughter of the wind-swayed wheat
The easy slope of yonder pastoral hill;
The sedgy brook whereby the red kine meet
And wade and drink their fill.'
"Then saunter down that terrace whence the sea
All fair with wing-like sails you may discern;
Be glad, and say 'This beauty is for me--
A thing to love and learn.
"'For me the bounding in of tides; for me
The laying bare of sands when they retreat;
The purple flush of calms, the sparkling glee
When waves and sunshine meet.'
"So, after gazing, homeward turn, and mount
To that long chamber in the roof; there tell
Your heart the laid-up lore it holds to count
And prize and ponder well.
"The lookings onward of the race before
It had a past to make it look behind;
Its reverent wonder, and its doubting sore,
Its adoration blind.
"The thunder of its war-songs, and the glow
Of chants to freedom by the old world sung;
The sweet love cadences that long ago
Dropped from the old-world tongue.
"And then this new-world lore that takes account
Of tangled star-dust; maps the triple whirl
Of blue and red and argent worlds that mount
And greet the IRISH EARL;
"Or float across the tube that HERSCHEL sways,
Like pale-rose chaplets, or like sapphire mist;
Or hang or droop along the heavenly ways,
Like scarves of amethyst.
"O strange it is and wide the new-world lore,
For next it treateth of our native dust!
Must dig out buried monsters, and explore
The green earth's fruitful crust;
"Must write the story of her seething youth--
How lizards paddled in her lukewarm seas;
Must show the cones she ripened, and forsooth
Count seasons on her trees;
"Must know her weight, and pry into her age,
Count her old beach lines by their tidal swell;
Her sunken mountains name, her craters gauge,
Her cold volcanoes tell;
"And treat her as a ball, that one might pass
From this hand to the other--such a ball
As he could measure with a blade of grass,
And say it was but small!
"Honors! O friend, I pray you bear with me:
The grass hath time to grow in meadow lands,
And leisurely the opal murmuring sea
Breaks on her yellow sands;
"And leisurely the ring-dove on her nest
Broods till her tender chick will peck the shell
And leisurely down fall from ferny crest
The dew-drops on the well;
"And leisurely your life and spirit grew,
With yet the time to grow and ripen free:
No judgment past withdraws that boon from you,
Nor granteth it to me.
"Still must I plod, and still in cities moil;
From precious leisure, learned leisure far,
Dull my best self with handling common soil;
Yet mine those honors are.
"Mine they are called; they are a name which means,
'This man had steady pulses, tranquil nerves:
Here, as in other fields, the most he gleans
Who works and never swerves.
"We measure not his mind; we cannot tell
What lieth under, over, or beside
The test we put him to; he doth excel,
We know, where he is tried;
"But, if he boast some farther excellence--
Mind to create as well as to attain;
To sway his peers by golden eloquence,
As wind doth shift a fane;
"'To sing among the poets--we are nought:
We cannot drop a line into that sea
And read its fathoms off, nor gauge a thought,
Nor map a simile.
"'It may be of all voices sublunar
The only one he echoes we did try;
We may have come upon the only star
That twinkles in his sky,'
"And so it was with me."
O false my friend!
False, false, a random charge, a blame undue;
Wrest not fair reasoning to a crooked end:
False, false, as you are true!
But I read on: "And so it was with me;
Your golden constellations lying apart
They neither hailed nor greeted heartily,
Nor noted on their chart.
"And yet to you and not to me belong
Those finer instincts that, like second sight
And hearing, catch creation's undersong,
And see by inner light.
"You are a well, whereon I, gazing, see
Reflections of the upper heavens--a well
From whence come deep, deep echoes up to me--
Some underwave's low swell.
"I cannot soar into the heights you show,
Nor dive among the deeps that you reveal;
But it is much that high things ARE to know,
That deep things ARE to feel.
"'Tis yours, not mine, to pluck out of your breast
Some human truth, whose workings recondite
Were unattired in words, and manifest
And hold it forth to light
"And cry, 'Behold this thing that I have found,'
And though they knew not of it till that day,
Nor should have done with no man to expound
Its meaning, yet they say,
"'We do accept it: lower than the shoals
We skim, this diver went, nor did create,
But find it for us deeper in our souls
Than we can penetrate.'
"You were to me the world's interpreter,
The man that taught me Nature's unknown tongue,
And to the notes of her wild dulcimer
First set sweet words, and sung.
"And what am I to you? A steady hand
To hold, a steadfast heart to trust withal;
Merely a man that loves you, and will stand
By you, whatever befall.
"But need we praise his tendance tutelar
Who feeds a flame that warms him? Yet 'tis true
I love you for the sake of what you are,
And not of what you do:--
"As heaven's high twins, whereof in Tyrian blue
The one revolveth: through his course immense
Might love his fellow of the damask hue,
For like, and difference.
"For different pathways evermore decreed
To intersect, but not to interfere;
For common goal, two aspects, and one speed,
One centre and one year;
"For deep affinities, for drawings strong,
That by their nature each must needs exert;
For loved alliance, and for union long,
That stands before desert.
"And yet desert makes brighter not the less,
For nearest his own star he shall not fail
To think those rays unmatched for nobleness,
That distance counts but pale.
"Be pale afar, since still to me you shine,
And must while Nature's eldest law shall hold;"--
Ah, there's the thought which makes his random line
Dear as refined gold!
Then shall I drink this draft of oxymel,
Part sweet, part sharp? Myself o'erprized to know
Is sharp; the cause is sweet, and truth to tell
Few would that cause forego,
Which is, that this of all the men on earth
Doth love me well enough to count me great--
To think my soul and his of equal girth--
O liberal estimate!
And yet it is so; he is bound to me,
For human love makes aliens near of kin;
By it I rise, there is equality:
I rise to thee, my twin.
"Take courage"--courage! ay, my purple peer
I will take courage; for thy Tyrian rays
Refresh me to the heart, and strangely dear
And healing is thy praise.
"Take courage," quoth he, "and respect the mind
Your Maker gave, for good your fate fulfil;
The fate round many hearts your own to wind."
Twin soul, I will! I will!
[Illustration]
HONORS.--PART II.
(_The Answer._)
As one who, journeying, checks the rein in haste
Because a chasm doth yawn across his way
Too wide for leaping, and too steeply faced
For climber to essay--
As such an one, being brought to sudden stand,
Doubts all his foregone path if 'twere the true,
And turns to this and then to the other hand
As knowing not what to do,--
So I, being checked, am with my path at strife
Which led to such a chasm, and there doth end.
False path! it cost me priceless years of life,
My well-beloved friend.
There fell a flute when Ganymede went up--
The flute that he was wont to play upon:
It dropped beside the jonquil's milk-white cup,
And freckled cowslips wan--
Dropped from his heedless hand when, dazed and mute,
He sailed upon the eagle's quivering wing,
Aspiring, panting--aye, it dropped--the flute
Erewhile a cherished thing.
Among the delicate grasses and the bells
Of crocuses that spotted a rill side,
I picked up such a flute, and its clear swells
To my young lips replied.
I played thereon, and its response was sweet;
But lo, they took from me that solacing reed.
"O shame!" they said; "such music is not meet;
Go up like Ganymede.
"Go up, despise these humble grassy things,
Sit on the golden edge of yonder cloud."
Alas! though ne'er for me those eagle wings
Stooped from their eyry proud.
My flute! and flung away its echoes sleep;
But as for me, my life-pulse beateth low;
And like a last-year's leaf enshrouded deep
Under the drifting snow,
Or like some vessel wrecked upon the sand
Of torrid swamps, with all her merchandise,
And left to rot betwixt the sea and land,
My helpless spirit lies.
Rueing, I think for what then was I made;
What end appointed for--what use designed?
Now let me right this heart that was bewrayed--
Unveil these eyes gone blind.
My well-beloved friend, at noon to-day
Over our cliffs a white mist lay unfurled,
So thick, one standing on their brink might say,
Lo, here doth end the world.
A white abyss beneath, and nought beside;
Yet, hark! a cropping sound not ten feet down:
Soon I could trace some browsing lambs that hied
Through rock-paths cleft and brown.
And here and there green tufts of grass peered through,
Salt lavender, and sea thrift; then behold
The mist, subsiding ever, bared to view
A beast of giant mould.
She seemed a great sea-monster lying content
With all her cubs about her: but deep--deep--
The subtle mist went floating; its descent
Showed the world's end was steep.
It shook, it melted, shaking more, till, lo,
The sprawling monster was a rock; her brood
Were boulders, whereon sea-mews white as snow
Sat watching for their food.
Then once again it sank, its day was done:
Part rolled away, part vanished utterly,
And glimmering softly under the white sun,
Behold! a great white sea.
O that the mist which veileth my To-come
Would so dissolve and yield unto mine eyes
A worthy path! I'd count not wearisome
Long toil, nor enterprise,
But strain to reach it; ay, with wrestlings stout
And hopes that even in the dark will grow
(Like plants in dungeons, reaching feelers out),
And ploddings wary and slow.
Is there such path already made to fit
The measure of my foot? It shall atone
For much, if I at length may light on it
And know it for mine own.
But is there none? why, then, 'tis more than well:
And glad at heart myself will hew one out,
Let me he only sure; for, sooth to tell,
The sorest dole is doubt--
Doubt, a blank twilight of the heart, which mars
All sweetest colors in its dimness same;
A soul-mist, through whose rifts familiar stare
Beholding, we misname.
A ripple on the inner sea, which shakes
Those images that on its breast reposed;
A fold upon a wind-swayed flag, that breaks
The motto it disclosed.
O doubt! O doubt! I know my destiny;
I feel thee fluttering bird-like in my breast;
I cannot loose, but I will sing to thee,
And flatter thee to rest.
There is no certainty, "my bosom's guest,"
No proving for the things whereof ye wot;
For, like the dead to sight unmanifest,
They are, and they are not.
But surely as they are, for God is truth,
And as they are not, for we saw them die,
So surely from the heaven drops light for youth,
If youth will walk thereby.
And can I see this light? It may be so;
"But see it thus and thus," my fathers said.
The living do not rule this world; ah no!
It is the dead, the dead.
Shall I be slave to every noble soul,
Study the dead, and to their spirits bend;
Or learn to read my own heart's folded scroll,
And make self-rule my end?
Thought from _without_--O shall I take on trust,
And life from others modelled steal or win;
Or shall I heave to light, and clear of rust
My true life from _within_?
O, let me be myself! But where, O where,
Under this heap of precedent, this mound
Of customs, modes, and maxims, cumbrance rare,
Shall the Myself be found?
O thou _Myself_, thy fathers thee debarred
None of their wisdom, but their folly came
Therewith; they smoothed thy path, but made it hard
For thee to quit the same.
With glosses they obscured God's natural truth,
And with tradition tarnished His revealed;
With vain protections they endangered youth,
With layings bare they sealed.
What aileth thee, myself? Alas! thy hands
Are tied with old opinions--heir and son,
Thou hast inherited thy father's lands
And all his debts thereon.
O that some power would give me Adam's eyes!
O for the straight simplicity of Eve!
For I see nought, or grow, poor fool, too wise
With seeing to believe.
Exemplars may be heaped until they hide
The rules that they were made to render plain;
Love may be watched, her nature to decide,
Until love's self doth wane.
Ah me! and when forgotten and foregone
We leave the learning of departed days,
And cease the generations past to con,
Their wisdom and their ways,--
When fain to learn we lean into the dark,
And grope to feel the floor of the abyss,
Or find the secret boundary lines which mark
Where soul and matter kiss--
Fair world! these puzzled souls of ours grow weak
With beating their bruised wings against the rim
That bounds their utmost flying, when they seek
The distant and the dim.
We pant, we strain like birds against their wires;
Are sick to reach the vast and the beyond;--
And what avails, if still to our desires
Those far-off gulfs respond?
Contentment comes not therefore; still there lies
An outer distance when the first is hailed,
And still forever yawns before our eyes
An UTMOST--that is veiled.
Searching those edges of the universe,
We leave the central fields a fallow part;
To feed the eye more precious things amerce,
And starve the darkened heart.
Then all goes wrong: the old foundations rock;
One scorns at him of old who gazed unshod;
One striking with a pickaxe thinks the shock
Shall move the seat of God.
A little way, a very little way
(Life is so short), they dig into the rind,
And they are very sorry, so they say,--
Sorry for what they find.
But truth is sacred--ay, and must be told:
There is a story long beloved of man;
We must forego it, for it will not hold--
Nature had no such plan.
And then, if "God hath said it," some should cry,
We have the story from the fountain-head:
Why, then, what better than the old reply,
The first "Yea, HATH God said?"
The garden, O the garden, must it go,
Source of our hope and our most dear regret?
The ancient story, must it no more show
How man may win it yet?
And all upon the Titan child's decree,
The baby science, born but yesterday,
That in its rash unlearned infancy
With shells and stones at play,
And delving in the outworks of this world,
And little crevices that it could reach,
Discovered certain bones laid up, and furled
Under an ancient beach,
And other waifs that lay to its young mind
Some fathoms lower than they ought to lie,
By gain whereof it could not fail to find
Much proof of ancientry,
Hints at a Pedigree withdrawn and vast,
Terrible deeps, and old obscurities,
Or soulless origin, and twilight passed
In the primeval seas,
Whereof it tells, as thinking it hath been
Of truth not meant for man inheritor;
As if this knowledge Heaven had ne'er foreseen
And not provided for!
Knowledge ordained to live! although the fate
Of much that went before it was--to die,
And be called ignorance by such as wait
Till the next drift comes by.
O marvellous credulity of man!
If God indeed kept secret, couldst thou know
Or follow up the mighty Artisan
Unless He willed it so?
And canst thou of the Maker think in sooth
That of the Made He shall be found at fault,
And dream of wresting from Him hidden truth
By force or by assault?
But if He keeps not secret--if thine eyes
He openeth to His wondrous work of late--
Think how in soberness thy wisdom lies,
And have the grace to wait.
Wait, nor against the half-learned lesson fret,
Nor chide at old belief as if it erred,
Because thou canst not reconcile as yet
The Worker and the word.
Either the Worker did in ancient days
Give us the word, His tale of love and might;
(And if in truth He gave it us, who says
He did not give it right?)
Or else He gave it not, and then indeed
We know not if HE is--by whom our years
Are portioned, who the orphan moons doth lead,
And the unfathered spheres.
We sit unowned upon our burial sod
And know not whence we come or whose we be,
Comfortless mourners for the mount of God,
The rocks of Calvary:
Bereft of heaven, and of the long-loved page
Wrought us by some who thought with death to cope.
Despairing comforters, from age to age
Sowing the seeds of hope:
Gracious deceivers, who have lifted us
Out of the slough where passed our unknown youth.
Beneficent liars, who have gifted us
With sacred love of truth!
Farewell to them: yet pause ere thou unmoor
And set thine ark adrift on unknown seas;
How wert thou bettered so, or more secure
Thou, and thy destinies?
And if thou searchest, and art made to fear
Facing of unread riddles dark and hard,
And mastering not their majesty austere,
Their meaning locked and barred:
How would it make the weight and wonder less,
If, lifted from immortal shoulders down,
The worlds were cast on seas of emptiness
In realms without a crown.
And (if there were no God) were left to rue
Dominion of the air and of the fire?
Then if there be a God, "Let God be true,
And every man a liar."
But as for me, I do not speak as one
That is exempt: I am with life at feud:
My heart reproacheth me, as there were none
Of so small gratitude.
Wherewith shall I console thee, heart o' mine.
And still thy yearning and resolve thy doubt?
That which I know, and that which I divine,
Alas! have left thee out.
I have aspired to know the might of God,
As if the story of His love was furled,
Nor sacred foot the grasses e'er had trod
Of this redeemed world:--
Have sunk my thoughts as lead into the deep,
To grope for that abyss whence evil grew,
And spirits of ill, with eyes that cannot weep,
Hungry and desolate flew;
As if their legions did not one day crowd
The death-pangs of the Conquering Good to see!
As if a sacred head had never bowed
In death for man--for me;
Nor ransomed back the souls beloved, the sons
Of men, from thraldom with the nether kings
In that dark country where those evil ones
Trail their unhallowed wings.
And didst Thou love the race that loved not Thee,
And didst Thou take to heaven a human brow?
Dost plead with man's voice by the marvellous sea?
Art Thou his kinsman now?
O God, O kinsman loved, but not enough!
O man, with eyes majestic after death,
Whose feet have toiled along our pathways rough,
Whose lips drawn human breath!
By that one likeness which is ours and Thine,
By that one nature which doth hold us kin,
By that high heaven where, sinless, Thou dost shine
To draw us sinners in,
By Thy last silence in the judgment-hall,
By long foreknowledge of the deadly tree,
By darkness, by the wormwood and the gall,
I pray Thee visit me.
Come, lest this heart should, cold and cast away,
Die ere the guest adored she entertain--
Lest eyes which never saw Thine earthly day
Should miss Thy heavenly reign.
Come, weary-eyed from seeking in the night
Thy wanderers strayed upon the pathless wold,
Who wounded, dying, cry to Thee for light,
And cannot find their fold.
And deign, O Watcher, with the sleepless brow,
Pathetic in its yearning--deign reply:
Is there, O is there aught that such as Thou
Wouldst take from such as I?
Are there no briers across Thy pathway thrust?
Are there no thorns that compass it about?
Nor any stones that Thou wilt deign to trust
My hands to gather out?
O if Thou wilt, and if such bliss might be,
It were a cure for doubt, regret, delay--
Let my lost pathway go--what aileth me?--
There is a better way.
What though unmarked the happy workman toil,
And break unthanked of man the stubborn clod?
It is enough, for sacred is the soil,
Dear are the hills of God.
Far better in its place the lowliest bird
Should sing aright to Him the lowliest song,
Than that a seraph strayed should take the word
And sing His glory wrong.
Friend, it is time to work. I say to thee,
Thou dost all earthly good by much excel;
Thou and God's blessing are enough for me:
My work, my work--farewell!
REQUIESCAT IN PACE!
My heart is sick awishing and awaiting:
The lad took up his knapsack, he went, he went his way;
And I looked on for his coming, as a prisoner through the grating
Looks and longs and longs and wishes for its opening day.
On the wild purple mountains, all alone with no other,
The strong terrible mountains he longed, he longed to be;
And he stooped to kiss his father, and he stooped to kiss his mother,
And till I said, "Adieu, sweet Sir," he quite forgot me.
He wrote of their white raiment, the ghostly capes that screen them,
Of the storm winds that beat them, their thunder-rents and scars,
And the paradise of purple, and the golden slopes atween them,
And fields, where grow God's gentian bells, and His crocus stars.
He wrote of frail gauzy clouds, that drop on them like fleeces,
And make green their fir forests, and feed their mosses hoar;
Or come sailing up the valleys, and get wrecked and go to pieces,
Like sloops against their cruel strength: then he wrote no more.
O the silence that came next, the patience and long aching!
They never said so much as "He was a dear loved son;"
Not the father to the mother moaned, that dreary stillness breaking:
"Ah! wherefore did he leave us so--this, our only one."
They sat within, as waiting, until the neighbors prayed them,
At Cromer, by the sea-coast, 'twere peace and change to be;
And to Cromer, in their patience, or that urgency affrayed them,
Or because the tidings tarried, they came, and took me.
It was three months and over since the dear lad had started:
On the green downs at Cromer I sat to see the view;
On an open space of herbage, where the ling and fern had parted,
Betwixt the tall white lighthouse towers, the old and the new.
Below me lay the wide sea, the scarlet sun was stooping,
And he dyed the waste water, as with a scarlet dye;
And he dyed the lighthouse towers; every bird with white wing swooping
Took his colors, and the cliffs did, and the yawning sky.
Over grass came that strange flush, and over ling and heather,
Over flocks of sheep and lambs, and over Cromer town;
And each filmy cloudlet crossing drifted like a scarlet feather
Torn from the folded wings of clouds, while he settled down.
When I looked, I dared not sigh:--In the light of God's splendor,
With His daily blue and gold, who am I? what am I?
But that passion and outpouring seemed an awful sign and tender,
Like the blood of the Redeemer, shown on earth and sky.
O for comfort, O the waste of a long doubt and trouble!
On that sultry August eve trouble had made me meek;
I was tired of my sorrow--O so faint, for it was double
In the weight of its oppression, that I could not speak!
And a little comfort grew, while the dimmed eyes were feeding,
And the dull ears with murmur of water satisfied;
But a dream came slowly nigh me, all my thoughts and fancy leading
Across the bounds of waking life to the other side.
And I dreamt that I looked out, to the waste waters turning,
And saw the flakes of scarlet from wave to wave tossed on;
And the scarlet mix with azure, where a heap of gold lay burning
On the clear remote sea reaches; for the sun was gone.
Then I thought a far-off shout dropped across the still water--
A question as I took it, for soon an answer came
From the tall white ruined lighthouse: "If it be the old man's daughter
That we wot of," ran the answer, "what then--who's to blame?"
I looked up at the lighthouse all roofless and storm-broken:
A great white bird sat on it, with neck stretched out to sea;
Unto somewhat which was sailing in a skiff the bird had spoken,
And a trembling seized my spirit, for they talked of me.
I was the old man's daughter, the bird went on to name him;
"He loved to count the starlings as he sat in the sun;
Long ago he served with Nelson, and his story did not shame him:
Ay, the old man was a good man--and his work was done."
The skiff was like a crescent, ghost of some moon departed,
Frail, white, she rocked and curtseyed as the red wave she crossed,
And the thing within sat paddling, and the crescent dipped and darted,
Flying on, again was shouting, but the words were lost.
I said, "That thing is hooded; I could hear but that floweth
The great hood below its mouth:" then the bird made reply.
"If they know not, more's the pity, for the little shrew-mouse knoweth,
And the kite knows, and the eagle, and the glead and pye."
And he stooped to whet his beak on the stones of the coping;
And when once more the shout came, in querulous tones he spake,
"What I said was 'more's the pity;' if the heart be long past hoping,
Let it say of death, 'I know it,' or doubt on and break.
"Men must die--one dies by day, and near him moans his mother,
They dig his grave, tread it down, and go from it full loth:
And one dies about the midnight, and the wind moans, and no other,
And the snows give him a burial--and God loves them both.
"The first hath no advantage--it shall not soothe his slumber
That a lock of his brown hair his father aye shall keep;
For the last, he nothing grudgeth, it shall nought his quiet cumber,
That in a golden mesh of HIS callow eaglets sleep.
"Men must die when all is said, e'en the kite and glead know it,
And the lad's father knew it, and the lad, the lad too;
It was never kept a secret, waters bring it and winds blow it,
And he met it on the mountain--why then make ado?"
With that he spread his white wings, and swept across the water,
Lit upon the hooded head, and it and all went down;
And they laughed as they went under, and I woke, "the old man's daughter."
And looked across the slope of grass, and at Cromer town.
And I said, "Is that the sky, all gray and silver-suited?"
And I thought, "Is that the sea that lies so white and wan?
I have dreamed as I remember: give me time--I was reputed
Once to have a steady courage--O, I fear 'tis gone!"
And I said, "Is this my heart? if it be, low 'tis beating
So he lies on the mountain, hard by the eagles' brood;
I have had a dream this evening, while the white and gold were fleeting,
But I need not, need not tell it--where would be the good?
"Where would be the good to them, his father and his mother?
For the ghost of their dead hope appeareth to them still.
While a lonely watch-fire smoulders, who its dying red would smother,
That gives what little light there is to a darksome hill?"
I rose up, I made no moan, I did not cry nor falter,
But slowly in the twilight I came to Cromer town.
What can wringing of the hands do that which is ordained to alter?
He had climbed, had climbed the mountain, he would ne'er come down.
But, O my first, O my best, I could not choose but love thee:
O, to be a wild white bird, and seek thy rocky bed!
From my breast I'd give thee burial, pluck the down and spread above thee;
I would sit and sing thy requiem on the mountain head.
Fare thee well, my love of loves! would I had died before thee!
O, to be at least a cloud, that near thee I might flow,
Solemnly approach the mountain, weep away my being o'er thee,
And veil thy breast with icicles, and thy brow with snow!
SUPPER AT THE MILL.
_Mother._
Well, Frances.
_Frances._
Well, good mother, how are you?
_M._ I'm hearty, lass, but warm; the weather's warm:
I think 'tis mostly warm on market days.
I met with George behind the mill: said he,
"Mother, go in and rest awhile."
_F._ Ay, do,
And stay to supper; put your basket down.
_M._ Why, now, it is not heavy?
_F._ Willie, man,
Get up and kiss your Granny. Heavy, no!
Some call good churning luck; but, luck or skill,
Your butter mostly comes as firm and sweet
As if 'twas Christmas. So you sold it all?
_M._ All but this pat that I put by for George;
He always loved my butter.
_F._ That he did.
_M._ And has your speckled hen brought off her brood?
_F._ Not yet; but that old duck I told you of,
She hatched eleven out of twelve to-day.
_Child._ And, Granny, they're so yellow.
_M._ Ay, my lad,
Yellow as gold--yellow as Willie's hair.
_C._ They're all mine, Granny, father says they're mine.
_M._ To think of that!
_F._ Yes, Granny, only think!
Why, father means to sell them when they're fat.
And put the money in the savings-bank,
And all against our Willie goes to school:
But Willie would not touch them--no, not he;
He knows that father would be angry else.
_C._ But I want one to play with--O, I want
A little yellow duck to take to bed!
_M._ What! would ye rob the poor old mother, then?
_F._ Now, Granny, if you'll hold the babe awhile;
'Tis time I took up Willie to his crib.
_[Exit FRANCES._
[_Mother sings to the infant_.]
Playing on the virginals,
Who but I? Sae glad, sae free,
Smelling for all cordials,
The green mint and marjorie;
Set among the budding broom,
Kingcup and daffodilly;
By my side I made him room:
O love my Willie!
"Like me, love me, girl o' gowd,"
Sang he to my nimble strain;
Sweet his ruddy lips o'erflowed
Till my heartstrings rang again:
By the broom, the bonny broom,
Kingcup and daffodilly,
In my heart I made him room:
O love my Willie!
"Pipe and play, dear heart," sang he,
"I must go, yet pipe and play;
Soon I'll come and ask of thee
For an answer yea or nay;"
And I waited till the flocks
Panted in yon waters stilly,
And the corn stood in the shocks:
O love my Willie!
I thought first when thou didst come
I would wear the ring for thee,
But the year told out its sum,
Ere again thou sat'st by me;
Thou hadst nought to ask that day
By kingcup and daffodilly;
I said neither yea nor nay:
O love my Willie!
_Enter_ GEORGE.
_George_. Well, mother, 'tis a fortnight now, or more,
Since I set eyes on you.
_M._ Ay, George, my dear,
I reckon you've been busy: so have we.
_G._ And how does father?
_M._ He gets through his work.
But he grows stiff, a little stiff, my dear;
He's not so young, you know, by twenty years
As I am--not so young by twenty years,
And I'm past sixty.
_G._ Yet he's hale and stout,
And seems to take a pleasure in his pipe;
And seems to take a pleasure in his cows,
And a pride, too.
_M._ And well he may, my dear.
_G._ Give me the little one, he tires your arm,
He's such a kicking, crowing, wakeful rogue,
He almost wears our lives out with his noise
Just at day-dawning, when we wish to sleep.
What! you young villain, would you clench your fist
In father's curls? a dusty father, sure,
And you're as clean as wax.
Ay, you may laugh;
But if you live a seven years more or so,
These hands of yours will all be brown and scratched
With climbing after nest-eggs. They'll go down
As many rat-holes as are round the mere;
And you'll love mud, all manner of mud and dirt,
As your father did afore you, and you'll wade
After young water-birds; and you'll get bogged
Setting of eel-traps, and you'll spoil your clothes,
And come home torn and dripping: then, you know,
You'll feel the stick--you'll feel the stick, my lad!
_Enter FRANCES._
_F._ You should not talk so to the blessed babe--
How can you, George? why, he may be in heaven
Before the time you tell of.
_M._ Look at him:
So earnest, such an eager pair of eyes!
He thrives, my dear.
_F._ Yes, that he does, thank God
My children are all strong.
_M._ 'Tis much to say;
Sick children fret their mother's hearts to shreds,
And do no credit to their keep nor care.
Where is your little lass?
_F._ Your daughter came
And begged her of us for a week or so.
_M._ Well, well, she might be wiser, that she might,
For she can sit at ease and pay her way;
A sober husband, too--a cheerful man--
Honest as ever stepped, and fond of her;
Yet she is never easy, never glad,
Because she has not children. Well-a-day!
If she could know how hard her mother worked,
And what ado I had, and what a moil
With my half-dozen! Children, ay, forsooth,
They bring their own love with them when they come,
But if they come not there is peace and rest;
The pretty lambs! and yet she cries for more:
Why the world's full of them, and so is heaven--
They are not rare.
_G._ No, mother, not at all;
But Hannah must not keep our Fanny long--
She spoils her.
_M._ Ah! folks spoil their children now;
When I was a young woman 'twas not so;
We made our children fear us, made them work,
Kept them in order.
_G._ Were not proud of them--
Eh, mother?
_M._ I set store by mine, 'tis true,
But then I had good cause.
_G._ My lad, d'ye hear?
Your Granny was not proud, by no means proud!
She never spoilt your father--no, not she,
Nor ever made him sing at harvest-home,
Nor at the forge, nor at the baker's shop,
Nor to the doctor while she lay abed
Sick, and he crept upstairs to share her broth.
_M._ Well, well, you were my youngest, and, what's more
Your father loved to hear you sing--he did,
Although, good man, he could not tell one tune
From the other.
_F._ No, he got his voice from you:
Do use it, George, and send the child to sleep.
_G._ What must I sing?
_F._ The ballad of the man
That is so shy he cannot speak his mind.
_G._ Ay, of the purple grapes and crimson leaves;
But, mother, put your shawl and bonnet off.
And, Frances, lass, I brought some cresses in:
Just wash them, toast the bacon, break some eggs,
And let's to supper shortly.
[_Sings._]
My neighbor White--we met to-day--
He always had a cheerful way,
As if he breathed at ease;
My neighbor White lives down the glade,
And I live higher, in the shade
Of my old walnut-trees.
So many lads and lasses small,
To feed them all, to clothe them all,
Must surely tax his wit;
I see his thatch when I look out,
His branching roses creep about,
And vines half smother it.
There white-haired urchins climb his eaves,
And little watch-fires heap with leaves,
And milky filberts hoard;
And there his oldest daughter stands
With downcast eyes and skilful hands
Before her ironing-board.
She comforts all her mother's days,
And with her sweet obedient ways
She makes her labor light;
So sweet to hear, so fair to see!
O, she is much too good for me,
That lovely Lettice White!
'Tis hard to feel one's self a fool!
With that same lass I went to school--
I then was great and wise;
She read upon an easier book,
And I--I never cared to look
Into her shy blue eyes.
And now I know they must be there
Sweet eyes, behind those lashes fair
That will not raise their rim:
If maids be shy, he cures who can;
But if a man be shy--a man--
Why then the worse for him!
My mother cries, "For such a lad
A wife is easy to be had
And always to be found;
A finer scholar scarce can be,
And for a foot and leg," says she,
"He beats the country round!
"My handsome boy must stoop his head
To clear her door whom he would wed."
Weak praise, but fondly sung!
"O mother! scholars sometimes fail--
And what can foot and leg avail
To him that wants a tongue?"
When by her ironing-board I sit,
Her little sisters round me flit,
And bring me forth their store;
Dark cluster grapes of dusty blue,
And small sweet apples bright of hue
And crimson to the core.
But she abideth silent, fair,
All shaded by her flaxen hair
The blushes come and go;
I look, and I no more can speak
Than the red sun that on her cheek
Smiles as he lieth low.
Sometimes the roses by the latch
Or scarlet vine-leaves from her thatch
Come sailing down like birds;
When from their drifts her board I clear,
She thanks me, but I scarce can hear
The shyly uttered words.
Oft have I wooed sweet Lettice White
By daylight and by candlelight
When we two were apart.
Some better day come on apace,
And let me tell her face to face,
"Maiden, thou hast my heart."
How gently rock yon poplars high
Against the reach of primrose sky
With heaven's pale candles stored!
She sees them all, sweet Lettice White;
I'll e'en go sit again to-night
Beside her ironing-board!
Why, you young rascal! who would think it, now?
No sooner do I stop than you look up.
What would you have your poor old father do?
'Twas a brave song, long-winded, and not loud.
_M._ He heard the bacon sputter on the fork,
And heard his mother's step across the floor.
Where did you get that song?--'tis new to me.
_G._ I bought it of a peddler.
_M._ Did you so?
Well, you were always for the love-songs, George.
_F._ My dear, just lay his head upon your arm.
And if you'll pace and sing two minutes more
He needs must sleep--his eyes are full of sleep.
_G._ Do you sing, mother.
_F._ Ay, good mother, do;
'Tis long since we have heard you.
_M._ Like enough;
I'm an old woman, and the girls and lads
I used to sing to sleep o'ertop me now.
What should I sing for?
_G._ Why, to pleasure us.
Sing in the chimney corner, where you sit,
And I'll pace gently with the little one.
[_Mother sings._]
When sparrows build, and the leaves break forth,
My old sorrow wakes and cries,
For I know there is dawn in the far, far north,
And a scarlet sun doth rise;
Like a scarlet fleece the snow-field spreads,
And the icy founts run free,
And the bergs begin to bow their heads,
And plunge, and sail in the sea.
O my lost love, and my own, own love,
And my love that loved me so!
Is there never a chink in the world above
Where they listen for words from below?
Nay, I spoke once, and I grieved thee sore,
I remember all that I said,
And now thou wilt hear me no more--no more
Till the sea gives up her dead.
Thou didst set thy foot on the ship, and sail
To the ice-fields and the snow;
Thou wert sad, for thy love did not avail,
And the end I could not know;
How could I tell I should love thee to-day,
Whom that day I held not dear?
How could I know I should love thee away
When I did not love thee anear?
We shall walk no more through the sodden plain
With the faded bents o'erspread,
We shall stand no more by the seething main
While the dark wrack drives overhead;
We shall part no more in the wind and the rain,
Where thy last farewell was said;
But perhaps I shall meet thee and know thee again
When the sea gives up her dead.
_F._ Asleep at last, and time he was, indeed.
Turn back the cradle-quilt, and lay him in;
And, mother, will you please to draw your chair?--
The supper's ready.
SCHOLAR AND CARPENTER.
While ripening corn grew thick and deep,
And here and there men stood to reap,
One morn I put my heart to sleep,
And to the lanes I took my way.
The goldfinch on a thistle-head
Stood scattering seedlets while she fed;
The wrens their pretty gossip spread,
Or joined a random roundelay.
On hanging cobwebs shone the dew,
And thick the wayside clovers grew;
The feeding bee had much to do,
So fast did honey-drops exude:
She sucked and murmured, and was gone,
And lit on other blooms anon,
The while I learned a lesson on
The source and sense of quietude.
For sheep-bells chiming from a wold,
Or bleat of lamb within its fold,
Or cooing of love-legends old
To dove-wives make not quiet less;
Ecstatic chirp of winged thing,
Or bubbling of the water-spring,
Are sounds that more than silence bring
Itself and its delightsomeness.
While thus I went to gladness fain,
I had but walked a mile or twain
Before my heart woke up again,
As dreaming she had slept too late;
The morning freshness that she viewed
With her own meanings she endued,
And touched with her solicitude
The natures she did meditate.
"If quiet is, for it I wait;
To it, ah! let me wed my fate,
And, like a sad wife, supplicate
My roving lord no more to flee;
If leisure is--but, ah! 'tis not--
'Tis long past praying for, God wot;
The fashion of it men forgot,
About the age of chivalry.
"Sweet is the leisure of the bird;
She craves no time for work deferred;
Her wings are not to aching stirred
Providing for her helpless ones.
Fair is the leisure of the wheat;
All night the damps about it fleet;
All day it basketh in the heat,
And grows, and whispers orisons.
"Grand is the leisure of the earth;
She gives her happy myriads birth,
And after harvest fears not dearth,
But goes to sleep in snow-wreaths dim.
Dread is the leisure up above
The while He sits whose name is Love,
And waits, as Noah did, for the dove,
To wit if she would fly to him.
"He waits for us, while, houseless things,
We beat about with bruised wings
On the dark floods and water-springs,
The ruined world, the desolate sea;
With open windows from the prime
All night, all day, He waits sublime,
Until the fulness of the time
Decreed from His eternity.
"Where is OUR leisure?--give us rest.
Where is the quiet we possessed?
We must have had it once--were blest
With peace whose phantoms yet entice.
Sorely the mother of mankind
Longed for the garden left behind;
For we prove yet some yearnings blind
Inherited from Paradise."
"Hold, heart!" I cried; "for trouble sleeps;
I hear no sound of aught that weeps;
I will not look into thy deeps--
I am afraid, I am afraid!"
"Afraid!" she saith; "and yet 'tis true
That what man dreads he still should view--
Should do the thing he fears to do,
And storm the ghosts in ambuscade."
"What good?" I sigh. "Was reason meant
To straighten branches that are bent,
Or soothe an ancient discontent,
The instinct of a race dethroned?
Ah! doubly should that instinct go
Must the four rivers cease to flow,
Nor yield those rumors sweet and low
Wherewith man's life is undertoned."
"Yet had I but the past," she cries,
"And it was lost, I would arise
And comfort me some other wise.
But more than loss about me clings:
I am but restless with my race;
The whispers from a heavenly place,
Once dropped among us, seem to chase
Rest with their prophet-visitings.
"The race is like a child, as yet
Too young for all things to be set
Plainly before him with no let
Or hindrance meet for his degree;
But nevertheless by much too old
Not to perceive that men withhold
More of the story than is told,
And so infer a mystery.
"If the Celestials daily fly
With messages on missions high,
And float, our masts and turrets nigh,
Conversing on Heaven's great intents;
What wonder hints of coming things,
Whereto man's hope and yearning clings,
Should drop like feathers from their wings
And give us vague presentiments?
"And as the waxing moon can take
The tidal waters in her wake,
And lead them round and round to break
Obedient to her drawings dim;
So may the movements of His mind,
The first Great Father of mankind,
Affect with answering movements blind,
And draw the souls that breathe by Him.
"We had a message long ago
That like a river peace should flow,
And Eden bloom again below.
We heard, and we began to wait:
Full soon that message men forgot;
Yet waiting is their destined lot,
And waiting for they know not what
They strive with yearnings passionate.
"Regret and faith alike enchain;
There was a loss, there comes a gain;
We stand at fault betwixt the twain,
And that is veiled for which we pant.
Our lives are short, our ten times seven;
We think the councils held in heaven
Sit long, ere yet that blissful leaven
Work peace amongst the militant.
"Then we blame God that sin should be;
Adam began it at the tree,
'The woman whom THOU gavest me;
And we adopt his dark device.
O long Thou tarriest! come and reign,
And bring forgiveness in Thy train,
And give us in our hands again
The apples of Thy Paradise."
"Far-seeing heart! if that be all
The happy things that did not fall,"
I sighed, "from every coppice call
They never from that garden went.
Behold their joy, so comfort thee,
Behold the blossom and the bee,
For they are yet as good and free
As when poor Eve was innocent
"But reason thus: 'If we sank low,
If the lost garden we forego,
Each in his day, nor ever know
But in our poet souls its face;
Yet we may rise until we reach
A height untold of in its speech--
A lesson that it could not teach
Learn in this darker dwelling-place.
"And reason on: 'We take the spoil;
Loss made us poets, and the soil
Taught us great patience in our toil,
And life is kin to God through death.
Christ were not One with us but so,
And if bereft of Him we go;
Dearer the heavenly mansions grow,
HIS home, to man that wandereth.'
"Content thee so, and ease thy smart."
With that she slept again, my heart,
And I admired and took my part
With crowds of happy things the while:
With open velvet butterflies
That swung and spread their peacock eyes,
As if they cared no more to rise
From off their beds of camomile.
The blackcaps in an orchard met,
Praising the berries while they ate:
The finch that flew her beak to whet
Before she joined them on the tree;
The water mouse among the reeds--
His bright eyes glancing black as beads,
So happy with a bunch of seeds--
I felt their gladness heartily.
But I came on, I smelt the hay,
And up the hills I took my way,
And down them still made holiday,
And walked, and wearied not a whit;
But ever with the lane I went
Until it dropped with steep descent,
Cut deep into the rock, a tent
Of maple branches roofing it.
Adown the rock small runlets wept,
And reckless ivies leaned and crept,
And little spots of sunshine slept
On its brown steeps and made them fair;
And broader beams athwart it shot,
Where martins cheeped in many a knot,
For they had ta'en a sandy plot
And scooped another Petra there.
And deeper down, hemmed in and hid
From upper light and life amid
The swallows gossiping, I thrid
Its mazes, till the dipping land
Sank to the level of my lane.
That was the last hill of the chain,
And fair below I saw the plain
That seemed cold cheer to reprimand.
Half-drowned in sleepy peace it lay,
As satiate with the boundless play
Of sunshine in its green array.
And clear-cut hills of gloomy blue,
To keep it safe rose up behind,
As with a charmed ring to bind
The grassy sea, where clouds might find
A place to bring their shadows to.
I said, and blest that pastoral grace,
"How sweet thou art, thou sunny place!
Thy God approves thy smiling face:"
But straight my heart put in her word;
She said, "Albeit thy face I bless,
There have been times, sweet wilderness,
When I have wished to love thee less,
Such pangs thy smile administered."
But, lo! I reached a field of wheat,
And by its gate full clear and sweet
A workman sang, while at his feet
Played a young child, all life and stir--
A three years' child, with rosy lip,
Who in the song had partnership,
Made happy with each falling chip
Dropped by the busy carpenter.
This, reared a new gate for the old,
And loud the tuneful measure rolled,
But stopped as I came up to hold
Some kindly talk of passing things.
Brave were his eyes, and frank his mien;
Of all men's faces, calm or keen,
A better I have never seen
In all my lonely wanderings.
And how it was I scarce can tell,
We seemed to please each other well;
I lingered till a noonday bell
Had sounded, and his task was done.
An oak had screened us from the heat;
And 'neath it in the standing wheat,
A cradle and a fair retreat,
Full sweetly slept the little one.
The workman rested from his stroke,
And manly were the words he spoke,
Until the smiling babe awoke
And prayed to him for milk and food.
Then to a runlet forth he went,
And brought a wallet from the bent,
And bade me to the meal, intent
I should not quit his neighborhood.
"For here," said he, "are bread and beer,
And meat enough to make good cheer;
Sir, eat with me, and have no fear,
For none upon my work depend,
Saving this child; and I may say
That I am rich, for every day
I put by somewhat; therefore stay,
And to such eating condescend."
We ate. The child--child fair to see--
Began to cling about his knee,
And he down leaning fatherly
Received some softly-prattled prayer;
He smiled as if to list were balm,
And with his labor-hardened palm
Pushed from the baby-forehead calm
Those shining locks that clustered there.
The rosy mouth made fresh essay--
"O would he sing, or would he play?"
I looked, my thought would make its way--
"Fair is your child of face and limb,
The round blue eyes full sweetly shine."
He answered me with glance benign--
"Ay, Sir; but he is none of mine.
Although I set great store by him."
With that, as if his heart was fain
To open--nathless not complain--
He let my quiet questions gain
His story: "Not of kin to me,"
Repeating; "but asleep, awake,
For worse, for better, him I take,
To cherish for my dead wife's sake,
And count him as her legacy.
"I married with the sweetest lass
That ever stepped on meadow grass;
That ever at her looking-glass
Some pleasure took, some natural care;
That ever swept a cottage floor
And worked all day, nor e'er gave o'er
Till eve, then watched beside the door
Till her good man should meet her there.
"But I lost all in its fresh prime;
My wife fell ill before her time--
Just as the bells began to chime
One Sunday morn. By next day's light
Her little babe was born and dead,
And she, unconscious what she said,
With feeble hands about her spread,
Sought it with yearnings infinite.
"With mother-longing still beguiled,
And lost in fever-fancies wild,
She piteously bemoaned her child
That we had stolen, she said, away.
And ten sad days she sighed to me,
'I cannot rest until I see
My pretty one! I think that he
Smiled in my face but yesterday.'
"Then she would change, and faintly try
To sing some tender lullaby;
And 'Ah!' would moan, 'if I should die,
Who, sweetest babe, would cherish thee?'
Then weep, 'My pretty boy is grown;
With tender feet on the cold stone
He stands, for he can stand alone,
And no one leads him motherly.'
"Then she with dying movements slow
Would seem to knit, or seem to sew:
'His feet are bare, he must not go
Unshod:' and as her death drew on,
'O little baby,' she would sigh;
'My little child, I cannot die
Till I have you to slumber nigh--
You, you to set mine eyes upon.'
"When she spake thus, and moaning lay,
They said, 'She cannot pass away,
So sore she longs:' and as the day
Broke on the hills, I left her side.
Mourning along this lane I went;
Some travelling folk had pitched their tent
Up yonder: there a woman, bent
With age, sat meanly canopied.
"A twelvemonths' child was at her side:
'Whose infant may that be?' I cried.
'His that will own him,' she replied;
'His mother's dead, no worse could be.'
'Since you can give--or else I erred--
See, you are taken at your word,'
Quoth I; 'That child is mine; I heard,
And own him! Rise, and give him me.'
"She rose amazed, but cursed me too;
She could not hold such luck for true,
But gave him soon, with small ado.
I laid him by my Lucy's side:
Close to her face that baby crept,
And stroked it, and the sweet soul wept;
Then, while upon her arm he slept,
She passed, for she was satisfied.
"I loved her well, I wept her sore,
And when her funeral left my door
I thought that I should never more
Feel any pleasure near me glow;
But I have learned, though this I had,
'Tis sometimes natural to be glad,
And no man can be always sad
Unless he wills to have it so.
"Oh, I had heavy nights at first,
And daily wakening was the worst:
For then my grief arose, and burst
Like something fresh upon my head;
Yet when less keen it seemed to grow,
I was not pleased--I wished to go
Mourning adown this vale of woe,
For all my life uncomforted.
"I grudged myself the lightsome air,
That makes man cheerful unaware;
When comfort came, I did not care
To take it in, to feel it stir:
And yet God took with me his plan,
And now for my appointed span
I think I am a happier man
For having wed and wept for her.
"Because no natural tie remains,
On this small thing I spend my gains;
God makes me love him for my pains,
And binds me so to wholesome care
I would not lose from my past life
That happy year, that happy wife!
Yet now I wage no useless strife
With feelings blithe and debonair.
"I have the courage to be gay,
Although she lieth lapped away
Under the daisies, for I say,
'Thou wouldst be glad if thou couldst see':
My constant thought makes manifest
I have not what I love the best,
But I must thank God for the rest
While I hold heaven a verity."
He rose, upon his shoulder set
The child, and while with vague regret
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