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 SONGS OF THE SEASONS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS.
 
 SONGS OF THE SEASONS 'O 
 
 Jlnb other Jpocm< 
 
 f.Y 
 
 THOMAS TOD STODDAKT. 
 
 Author of "The Angler's Comi'amion," "Angler's Ramblks," (Sic. 
 
 " Ego, apis Matiiia; 
 
 More modoqne. 
 Grata carpentis thyma per laborem 
 Pkmmum, circa nemus uvidiqut; 
 Tiviotse ripas operosa parvus 
 Cai'mina fingo." 
 
 — Horace, Car. Lib. iv. 2. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 EDMONSTON & DOUGLAS. 
 
 MDCCCL XXIII.
 
 Kklso : 
 Printed by Eutheefurd <fc Chak;.
 
 
 TO MY OLD AJiTD VALUED FRIEND, 
 
 ienrg ^lassforb ^idl, €sq., 
 
 SHERIFF OF LANARKSHIRE, 
 
 I HAVE PLEASURE IN DEDICATING 
 
 THESE EFFUSIONS. 
 
 c. c.
 
 Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 Songs of the Seasons — 
 
 Spring, 
 
 Summer, ... 
 
 Autumn in the Highlands, 
 
 Winter, ... 
 Poems and Songs — 
 
 Bird Music. 
 
 The Jilt ; or. Forty Years Ago, 
 
 Lines to Mt Wipe, 
 
 The Heir of Ardgour, ... 
 
 Movements — The Leader and His Followers 
 
 Climbing Sonnets, 
 
 Musings on the Banks of Teviot, 
 
 The Incentive, . . . 
 
 Flower-Life, 
 
 To the Swallow, 
 
 Supplication, 
 
 The Cup of Mercies, 
 
 Death's Herdsman ; or. The Lay of the Rinderpest, 
 
 2'J 
 
 !)3 
 96 
 
 102 
 109 
 112 
 123 
 125 
 129 
 133 
 139 
 144 
 145 
 147
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 Poems and Songs (continued) — 
 
 A Leaf of Mt Creed, 1 53 
 
 A Dream of the Past, ... 156 
 
 Love AND Worship, l*il 
 
 Tweed AND ITS Prospects, ... .. .. ... 102 
 
 Thoughts suggested by Passing Events, ... ... 1 04 
 
 Pilgrimages to the Tombs of the Poets, ... ... 1 6S 
 
 The Oakling, 1 74 
 
 The Legend OF the Fountain, 187 
 
 The Wail of The Saxon Mother, VM 
 
 Lines to A Favourite Dog, lilO
 
 oitjg^s of ilu §Jia|on|. 
 
 ^'.'?m<m'B'^^'-~ 
 
 SPBIXG. 
 
 I AM coming, I am coming ! 
 
 Look ye oat with, more than eye?, 
 
 Listen ! but with more than ears ! 
 
 I am coming, I am coming; 
 
 Seldom come I by surprise, 
 
 Oftener than with smiles, with tears — 
 
 Look ye out for my pioneers ! 
 
 Look ye out for the snowdrop simple. 
 
 Look ye out for the crocus and daisy. 
 
 For the song of the thrush, from the budding bush ; 
 
 For the flutter of life, and its smile* and dimple. 
 
 And the breaking of light through tlie shadows hazy. 
 
 Listen and look for the caw of the rook, 
 
 And the busy repair of clustered nests 
 
 That swing to the breeze, on the tops of the trees, 
 
 Older in date than their owners' crests ! 
 
 A
 
 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Look ye out for the bell of the trout, 
 
 On a river freshened with showers — 
 
 Whiten'd with creams, and soothed with the beams 
 
 That herald the sun's redeeming powers. 
 
 Icy Winter is hard of life, 
 
 And jealous of my going forth ; 
 
 "With every wind he is at strife, 
 
 Save what bloweth east and north. 
 
 With him to contend I am oft at fault, 
 
 Yet his snows protect what his frosts destroy, 
 
 And when my journey is called to a halt, 
 
 The ^vreath that buries begets a new joy. 
 
 -00- 
 
 .S" UMMER. 
 
 I AM coming, I am coming, 
 Wlien my sister Spring retii-es. 
 Under escort of wing'd lyres, 
 And with bees around her hummin 
 jMusical wings salute me too. 
 Blending welcome with adieu, — 
 "Flowers, both of field and garden- 
 Flowers, too, of lake and foiuitain. 
 Of the forest and the mountain, 
 Hail me as their chosen warden.
 
 SUMMER. 
 
 Sister Spring around her focus, 
 Gather'd snowdrop, true ! and crocus. 
 Primroses, and daffodillies, 
 Violets, hyacinths, and lilies, 
 In a timid, tearful cluster ; 
 These, and the forget-me-nots, 
 In the Virgin coiu't made muster, 
 Sharing her divided thoughts. 
 With her passing they have died, 
 Some of them, but not them all. 
 'Twas her wish to leave the bride 
 Of the round year, at Whitsuntide, 
 Some dehcate memorial ; 
 And so, I, Summer, am the heiress 
 Of the Spring, and half her beauty. 
 And her handmaids, nymj)hs, and fairies, 
 Tender me their loving duty. 
 
 All this dower I accept. 
 
 With the true, becoming grace 
 
 Of a monarch in her place. 
 
 The donor leaving not unwept ! 
 
 On the May-day of my birth. 
 
 At sunrise, you will find the sward 
 
 That belts the hills with emerald girth, 
 
 Bathed in dew-drops of regard : 
 
 Lut I have treasures of my own, 
 
 To which my sister's fond bequest
 
 SONGS OF THE SEASON'S. 
 
 (The love excepted, treasivre "best !) 
 
 Enduretli no comparison. 
 
 A riclier glow is on my cheek, 
 
 A higher lustre in my eyne ; 
 
 The generous largess of a queen 
 
 Flows from me of its own accord : 
 
 They need not but to take, who seek 
 
 My bounties, and to praise the Lord ! 
 
 Poets and artists hold me fast. 
 
 With loving clasp at every turn ; 
 
 In leafy bower, by limpid burn, 
 
 in all the nooks of their sojourn, • 
 
 They study me as I glide past. 
 
 Upon the purpling moor, they sing 
 
 And sketch their rapture at my knees. 
 
 And on the hill-tops stay my wing 
 
 With homage ; and their mysteries 
 
 To keeping of my ear confide, 
 
 In barter for the Summer tide. 
 
 And wooers also, of a sort. 
 
 Less ardent, greet my coming forth, 
 
 And travel to the glowing north 
 
 From the dull town to pay me court. 
 
 To murmuring inlets of the sea — 
 
 To breezy outposts upon which 
 
 I take my airings and bewitch 
 
 The eye with landscape broad and rich, 
 
 The ear with floAving melody.
 
 SUMMER. 
 
 Out with, nie, in the morning's mist, 
 Saunters the mineralogist, 
 Wallet on back, and h.ammer in hand, 
 Eiving the rock and raking the sand. 
 Out witli me roams, nor cares a Avliistle 
 For granite, mica, shale, or schist. 
 The labour-loving botanist, 
 Wlio, in the veriest tare and thistle. 
 And in the humbler weeds accurst 
 By toiler mtli the plough and harroAv, 
 An interest finds, and slakes the tliirst 
 Inherent in his inner marrow. 
 
 For such men I create my wonders. 
 For such I reign and levees hold. 
 And for their pleasure forge the gold 
 Whose currency is told in thunders. 
 For me all hunger, yet ingrates 
 That in the winters, chill and dreary, 
 Longed for the spreading of my gates, 
 Now, these are spread, pronounce me weary. 
 " Weary, oh ! weary is the summer ! 
 Weary, oh ! weary is summer time ! 
 Welcome Autumn — the after-comer ! " 
 Is the burden of their rhyme. 
 The hey-day of my youth is gone, 
 /, Summer, of the seasons Queen, 
 Am warned of old age creeping on.
 
 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 The opal in my mystic crown 
 
 Shows waning life ; the florid green 
 
 Is passing into russet hrown. 
 
 A cliiU comes o'er me in the eves, 
 
 And creeps along, with snaky stealth : 
 
 The hinges of the rustling leaves 
 
 Are loosened, and my flowery wealth 
 
 Filch'd from its pedestals and stems. 
 
 The amber cnps and roseate stars — 
 
 The carcanets of hurning gems — 
 
 The hoods, the helmets, and the plumes, 
 
 From which the armourer of Mars 
 
 Shaped harness, and the maids of Venus 
 
 Sore pilfer'd, nor the offence deem'd heinous ; 
 
 All this, my store of floral wealth 
 
 (Who choose may take, and Avelcome most 
 
 The freest taker !) — shows unhealth. 
 
 Well ! Summer, like her sister, Spring, 
 Must wane and die, if that be death 
 Which is the folding of the wing. 
 And the withdrawing of the breath 
 A measur'd space ! I come again 
 In my own season, all renewed. 
 To inspire new hymns of gratitude. 
 And cause the palms of pious men 
 To meet in praiseful attitude. 
 Farewell ! I hear the reaper's song,
 
 A UTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 The vintage gatherer draws nigh, 
 The hornets round the nectarine throng, 
 The corn-ears rustle and around 
 My closing curtains flits a sigh ! 
 I die ! I die ! 
 
 AUTUAIN IX THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 Sister Summer, she is dead ! 
 And a wail goes up the valley ; 
 Misty forms and shadows rally 
 
 Eound ahout the mountain head ; 
 
 And the wail becomes the muttering 
 As of thunders in restraint. 
 Holding requiem for a saint ! 
 
 Shall I set my breezes fluttering 
 To dispel tliis heavy grief, 
 I, who am the mourner chief; 
 I, her heiress, the new comer, 
 Heiress to the Throne of Summer ? 
 
 Dead is Summer ! but she died 
 In the ardent clasp of Love, 
 In an ecstasy she died !
 
 SOXGS OF THE SEASOXS. 
 
 Songsters caroll'd in the grove, 
 
 And with rapt'rous notes the dove 
 
 To her monody rephed. 
 
 Flowers their sweetest breath exhaled, 
 
 Fairest hues her eye regaled ; 
 
 At her will and to her -wishes, 
 
 Tided in the pride of fishes ! 
 
 Through the gates of ISTeptune's palace, 
 
 Tided in the scaly forces ; 
 
 Up by shining water-courses, 
 
 Eadiant salmon climbed the valleys. 
 
 In her Empire, all was beauty, 
 Glo^ving, ravishing, possessing ! 
 Love lay fondled and caressing 
 In the lusty arms of Duty. 
 All was beauty, which her sceptre 
 Touched, or shadowing overwaved — 
 Beauty that enkindled rapture. 
 Conquered, fettered, and enslaved. 
 Eosy curtains in the dawning, 
 In the eve a rosier awning ! 
 In the noon-tide, a contention 
 Of bright azures overhead ; 
 Fleecy clouds in rapt suspension- — 
 To the visionary mind 
 Kindred to the angel kind, — 
 Such as in the great Ascension
 
 A UTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 Waited with their wings outspread 
 
 To escort the Eisen Dead. 
 
 All was beauty and perfection 
 
 In my queenly Sister's time. 
 
 Poets from her drew direction — 
 
 Drew the thoughts that make sublime — 
 
 The sweet fancies that give lustre 
 
 To the harmony of rhyme ! 
 
 ^ow, around the bed of state, 
 
 By her coffined presence pressed, 
 
 Bards of every nation cluster. 
 
 And all great Designers wait. 
 
 Marvel not that I look pensive 
 Musing on her joyous reign, 
 Gazing out on hill and plain. 
 On the treasures comprehensive 
 Which flowed in at her demise. 
 All ! the freshness and the splendour 
 That regaled and dazzled so, 
 By the spell of Evil eyes, 
 By some ominous witch of Endor, 
 Have been rifled of their glow. 
 
 Idle these regrets ! The morrow 
 May bring heahng on its wings. 
 From corruption, Beauty springs ; 
 Happiness is born of sorrow.
 
 10 SO^-'GS OF THE SEASOXS. 
 
 Chastened sorrow is the finest 
 Of delights, because divinest. 
 Of the Seasons, as a Season 
 To be gladdest, I have reason. 
 Have I not to suit my pleasure. 
 Store of riches without measure — 
 Every quality of treasure 1 
 
 Caravans, with wealth imtold 
 Laden, cross my daily path. 
 Hill and valley, steep and strath, 
 Are aglow vnth. sheaves of gold. 
 To the far horizon's line, 
 You, the ardent mountain-sitter. 
 May pursue the waving glitter 
 Casting life into the brine. 
 
 o 
 
 There, too, in the moaning seas, 
 I have treasures and keep state. 
 Sitting on a rock elate, 
 Throned among my argosies ! 
 I have harvests in the port. 
 In the tideway, crops prolific ; 
 The Atlantic and Pacific 
 "Waft their offerings to my court. 
 
 Dazzling shapes come, southward pressing, 
 On the bearing of the wave ;
 
 A UTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS. 1 1 
 
 Welcomest, as boon and blessing, 
 The unfailing " herring drave ! " 
 
 Come and view my garden riches, 
 Terraced walks and sunny slopes — 
 Grottoes, arbours, statued niches, 
 In whose odorous recesses 
 With her fair, refulgent tresses, 
 Summer toyed, or, couched on hopes. 
 Sleeping, shunned the sun's caresses. 
 
 Of these hopes, the sweet fruition. 
 Part was hers — the lesser part — 
 Grateful to her generous heart. 
 Even a tithe ; ' twas recognition, 
 Of the service she had rendered, 
 And the wealth of blessings tendered. 
 
 In the glory-time of cherries. 
 When they hang, like orbs of coral, 
 Gazing out o'er treasures floral ; 
 At the feast of ruddy berries. 
 When the circulating bowl 
 Plenished is with creams of clover. 
 Ere the banquet was nigh over. 
 From the lips of the Great Soul 
 Of universe, a voice descended, 
 " Summer, thy brief reign is ended."
 
 12 SON'GS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 So, I've come into possession 
 Of the flower-wealth, in part, 
 Only to feel sad at heart 
 And lament my own accession. 
 
 All the incense, nearly all, 
 Which endowed my sister's hreath 
 Is burnt out. The Holy Death 
 Sought a balmy funeral. 
 I have fragrance, ne'er the less, 
 Left me, and great flush of colour, 
 Both, I fear, foretelHng dolour — 
 Neither, winsome of caress. 
 
 Meet me in my orchard yard, 
 Eoam among my vineries. 
 Shake the loaded apple trees ! 
 Welcome Artist ! Welcome Bard ! 
 Shake the filbert and the hazel. 
 Shake the walnut, and the chesnut, 
 Go on shaking, Pen and Easel ! 
 None of mine the motto — " Waste not." 
 I would rather, than the breeze. 
 Or the versed in pious frauds. 
 That the gifted of the gods 
 Bevell'd in mine arbories ! 
 
 Plant my standard, rich with blazon, 
 Tissued by no niggard churl.
 
 A UTUMN m THE HIGHLANDS. 13 
 
 Where the tempest may unfurl 
 Signals for the eye to gaze on ! 
 Plant it on a Norland Peak, 
 Over which the symbol resteth 
 In whose clefts the eagle nesteth, 
 Cruel eye o'er cruder beak ! 
 On a hundred such, let float 
 My web of glory. Serfs impassive 
 Wait me on the mountains massive, 
 Eager to take turn about 
 In the pageant and the shout. 
 Trumpets blown by able lungs 
 Animate my sober paces ; 
 Echo, heedless of the graces. 
 Heeding more the stately muses. 
 The enchantment of her tongues 
 In the extasy unlooses. 
 
 I am casting off my spells. 
 Setting loose my eerie wells. 
 Rifling the witch-land of Fancy — 
 Peopling, too, with shapes unchancy 
 The recesses of the dells. 
 Eound the caulcbon, at the linn, 
 I set haggard forms a-spin. 
 On the cairn that crowns the height 
 Blue fires shew at dead of night.
 
 14 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Breaking the cold grave-yard's calm, 
 In the yew-shade, at the gloaming, 
 I with charm of holy psalm. 
 Exorcise the spirits roaming. 
 Leering demons at my will 
 Peep out in the traveller's path : 
 Loiterers who provoke my wrath. 
 Shiver in the deadly chill, 
 Faces comic and grotesque 
 I delight to carve and fashion ; 
 With the ugsome, the burlesque 
 To commingle, is my passion. 
 Goblin hunch-backs, full of frolic. 
 Hairy satyrs, grinning apes, 
 Urchins twisted with the cholic, 
 And a world of grisly shapes. 
 Out at night, I set adrift 
 These, the marvels of my craft, 
 When at speed with levelled shaft 
 Eiding on the stormy lift. 
 Tilts the Moon Queen — vizor doAvn 
 As the rebel clouds come siu-ging 
 Sullenly with surly frown 
 Their unknightly chargers urging. 
 
 Lo ! the fowler waits for me — 
 Wearies, like an ardent lover. 
 For the hour of my appearing 
 
 ^b •
 
 A UTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS. 15 
 
 Happy witli liis dogs and gearing 
 And the dream of glossy wealth 
 Hidden in the purple cover. 
 At the dawning of the Twelfth, 
 While, as yet, the dews are falHng, 
 I regard him on the hill 
 To his wayward setters calling ; 
 On the hill, among the heather 
 Droppmg with an aim of skill 
 Tuft on tuft of lustrous feather. 
 
 Ho ! the stalker of the Stag, 
 I espy him stridmg forth, 
 The great I'I'imrod of the North ! 
 Through the oscillating hag, 
 Trusting to the leal rushes, 
 With a ready foot he pushes — 
 Through the pinewood, up the crag, 
 Gliding, clamhering, striding on, 
 In his eye the silent corry, 
 With its vert and venison. 
 
 INTER-PART. 
 
 In the days of ancient foray, 
 Round about the hunter's path, 
 A great, gloomy forest spread, 
 Sable shade o'er Ben and Strath — 
 Shook its plumes on wintry nights
 
 ]f> SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 O'er the raving torrent bed — 
 Cover gave to surly sprites — 
 Secrets held from vidgar ken, 
 Of dark deeds and foul intents, — 
 The death-tliroes of murdered men, — 
 Treacheries and ravishments ! 
 
 Here, too, lurked the savage hoar, 
 Brandishing his whetted tusks, 
 Chafing o'er his meal of husks, 
 Champing, snorting, sniffing gore. 
 With liis bristles all astir, 
 A\nien, on breath of dewy morn, 
 Music from the hunting horn 
 Animated oak and fir. 
 
 And the ruffian wolf found hiding 
 In this Sanctuary's heart, 
 Through the mazy covert gliding, 
 Xoiseless, ^dthout star or chart ; 
 Like a shadow in the shade, 
 With two flaming eyes endowed, 
 God defend the boldest-browed 
 By this murderer way-laid ! 
 
 Here, too, streaming from the swamp, 
 Harbour found the shaggy Bull ; 
 AVith his slow and measured tramp 
 Filling up the weary lull.
 
 A UTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS. 1 7 
 
 In the old days of the chase, 
 Ere the cunning arts expanded, 
 "When the dagger, spear, and bow, 
 Of the rifle held the place, 
 "VVlio would care a craftier foe 
 To encounter single-handed 1 
 
 •'0-' 
 
 With the strength of Elm and Oak, 
 With the felling of the Pine, 
 In the Sanctuary's shrine ; 
 With the Woodman's wanton stroke, 
 Levelled at some old-world column, 
 Gaardian of the dread and solemn ! 
 With the death-shriek of the Druid 
 Driven from his kin and kith — 
 Eettered to a monolith 
 In the grim heart of Glen Fruid, 
 From the violated covers, 
 Vanished the old forest rovers. 
 
 Tlirough the gloomy mountain gorges, 
 Lightnings held their snaky play — 
 Gleamed and hissed the fiery fluid, 
 When the Pagan and Ms orgies, 
 Howling, shrieking, passed away ! 
 Passed with Pagan superstition. 
 Crafty Bison, foaming Boar, 
 And the great Elk of tradition
 
 18 SOIs^'OS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 That held harbour in Strathmore. 
 Yet, the Stag in all his glory, 
 Stately, royally apparell'd, 
 Stalketh where the were-Tvolf snarl'd- 
 Coucheth 'mong the remnants gnarl'd 
 Of a Forest famed in story ! 
 
 In my musings held a part. 
 The great Tainchels of the kings, 
 "When, by herald and by horn, 
 Messuages and summonings 
 Crossed and stirred the nation's heart. 
 "With the breaking of the morn. 
 From the weliings to the mouth 
 Of a foaming river, roU'd 
 Tidings of the royal behest ! 
 Out of castles in the South, 
 !Nobles and retainers bold 
 To the place of trysting press'd. 
 Out of strongholds in the North 
 Haughty cliieftains strutted forth ; 
 Sturdy hench-men, pipers stilted. 
 Marshalling the vassals kilted. 
 From the East and from the West, 
 At the Monarch's high behest, 
 Experts with the bow and shaft. 
 Men of subtlety and mark, 
 Eangers in the Eoyal Park
 
 A UTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS. 19 
 
 Versed in olden Forest-craft 
 And the arts of Venerie, 
 Hurried, to sliow fealty. 
 
 With the Slogan of the Chase, 
 A great panic swept across 
 Thicket, underwood, and moss, 
 Wildering tlie antler'd race, 
 Eoe and '* rascal" laying spell on. 
 Scaring from his haunts the felon. 
 To the fissures of the rocks, 
 To the curtains of the fens. 
 To the holds of wolf and fox, 
 Fled the Forest denizens. 
 
 I am musing, I am dreaming. 
 Of the old, autumnal days ! 
 Mused on through the dreamy haze. 
 They have gained a holier seeming ; 
 Like the works of some great master, 
 In whose ekeing out took part 
 With the hand, the head and heart — 
 A brave labour of renown 
 Which, protected from disaster 
 By the worshippers of art, 
 Time hath chasten'd and ton'd down. 
 
 From my brows the film hath slid
 
 20 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Moist with eye-charms, that had power 
 Of inner pageant, wliile they hid 
 The gross transits of the hour. 
 Pass'd the visionary mood 
 Which resuscitated forms 
 Kindred to the steeps and storms — 
 Kindred to the mighty Wood 
 That, from Loyal's tow'ring crest, 
 Crowded into Strath and Glen, 
 Belted many a giant Ben. 
 With its umhrage onward press'd, 
 Drawing hfe from Loch and Eiver, 
 From the stores of the Life-Giver, 
 Till it reach'd the Border marches, 
 Bridging with its shadowy arches 
 Silver Tweed and songful Teviot — 
 Reached the fosses of green Cheviot ! 
 
 With freed eyes, once more I search 
 For symbols on the Grampian tops, 
 Wandering from copse to copse — 
 Through the hazels and the birch, 
 Up, beyond the purpled fringes. 
 Up into the place of boulders, 
 Eound the mountains' lusty shoulders, 
 Where the storm-gates on their hinges, 
 In the elemental battle, 
 Wheel and clatter, clash and rattle !
 
 A UTUMX IX THE HIGHLANDS. 21 
 
 Casting onward, I descry, 
 In a drowsy hollow feeding, 
 The great Hart, and to his leading 
 Follow hundreds of the kind, 
 Calf and Broacher, Stag and Hind ; 
 But above them, royally, 
 ^Monarch in the Herd's esteem, 
 Crowned with antlers vast of beam, 
 Palmed and pointed, towers He, 
 Like an Oak of olden date 
 Among Saj)lings holding state ! 
 
 Why this pricking of the ear ? 
 Why this rousing of the head 1 
 Why this sniffing of the wind 
 . And regarding of the Hind 1 
 What of trouble dreams the Deer ? 
 
 In the drowsy hollow lies 
 A Tarn which the water-shed 
 Feeds with generous supplies ; 
 Cherished thus and lustre-fed. 
 Brightest of the mountain eyes, 
 Up it gazes to the skies ! 
 Here, Nymph lilies swing their cables 
 And with festal chalices 
 Carved in time of ancient fables 
 Out of glistening ivories,
 
 22 SONGS OF THE SEASONS 
 
 Cumloer the enamell'd tables 
 Wrought in buoyant malachite 
 By the cunning Water-Sprite. 
 
 Under screen of reedy spears, 
 Here the wary mallard steers 
 Followed hy his dusky mate, 
 Painted, like a barge of state, 
 With its pageant prow elate ! 
 From the quiet tarn, in stealth 
 And ambuscade, a riv'let issues 
 At each turn uncoiling tissues 
 Laden to its brim with wealth, — 
 Crystal life, and trusts of health. 
 From the covert of the sedges. 
 From the hidings of the banks, 
 To and fro, flit jewell'd wedges, 
 Pearly fins and rubied flanks. 
 
 Out at bowshot from the source, 
 I lose token of its course, 
 As it passeth from the levels. 
 Through a fissure in the glen, 
 To pursue its merry revels 
 Downward to the homes of men. 
 In the cleft, below the hollow. 
 As I watch it disappear, 
 Straining out mine eyes to follow,
 
 A UTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 A faint clicking meets the ear. 
 Up ! the mighty Antlered Head ! 
 Up ! the fronts of many a Deer ! 
 Panic through the Herd hath spread 
 Forecast of the Stalker dread ! — 
 Comes a blaze, and comes a smoke, — 
 Comes the rifle's fell discharge ; 
 Echoes bound are set at large, 
 Loosed are lips that only spoke 
 In conf'rence with the Thunder-stroke. 
 
 Oaks ! your arms of tempest swing ! 
 Wave your sable plumes, ye pines ! 
 Fallen is the Forest King, 
 With his crown of many tines ! 
 
 Through the corrie, up the shoulders 
 Of the mountain, stream the masses, 
 Tearing past the place of Boidders — 
 Plunging down through savage passes- 
 Crossing torrent — climbing crag. 
 On the flurried wings of fear — 
 Onward press the startled deer. 
 Calf and Brochard, Hind and Stag ! 
 
 From their heathy ambush start 
 The grim slayer of the Hart 
 And his stalwart, kilted gillie,
 
 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 In the leash a deer-hound leadinfr. 
 
 But a thought's-time since, were feediii;'- 
 
 In that hollow, now so stilly, 
 
 Hundreds of the cervine race. 
 
 I^ot a hoof is left, nor horn, 
 
 Not a mottled Hind to mourn 
 
 The dead monarch of the Chase ! 
 
 It is sunset — and the setting 
 Is Creation's self of glory — 
 A Creation, like a story 
 Fabulous, yet past forgetting. 
 In a language richly fraught 
 (3f the gems that image Thought, 
 Of the liquid syllables 
 Found, like pearls, in Saxon wells — 
 Of the coinage, rare and quaint. 
 Dug up in the Doric feUs ; 
 Fraught of cyphers and of scroUs, 
 Mystical and half attaint, 
 Spelt out on Cathedral walls — 
 Of curt words that live in mottoes 
 (-)r in charters of entail. 
 Of the warblings heard in grottoes — 
 Voices from the nightimjale ! — 
 Fraught of sounds, which once did duty 
 In the Academic grove, 
 Full of power and life and beauty.
 
 A UTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 Apt for Hymns of War and Love ; 
 Sounds whicli Homer tiirn'd to meaning — 
 Sounds wMch Sapplio trained to measure ; 
 Many a century intervening, 
 Flowing still to Britain's Treasure, 
 To her endless lingual Treasure ! — 
 Steel'd with sinews of a tongue 
 Spoken by the dauntless Latin, 
 ]!^ow at vespers and at matin 
 Mumbled, parodied, unstrung ; 
 Euling once in camps and senates, 
 Medium, now, of monkish tenets ! 
 Medimn, by Avhose twisted handle 
 Law and leech-craft sweat and swindle, 
 And at bidding of the Vandal 
 Science moves on rusty spindle. 
 
 In a language to whose keeping 
 Poets gave the inner man — 
 Felt its presence in their sleeping, 
 Turned and woke to lead the Van 
 With new Pseans, — nobler measures ! 
 In its variegated treasures, 
 In the lavish flow and glow, 
 In its jiithy emphasis. 
 In its sweet alliterations, 
 In its swayings to and fro, 
 And its graceful undulations,
 
 26 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 In its chaste simplicities, 
 
 In its rare plasticities 
 
 And its fine felicities. 
 
 In its bundle of conceits, 
 
 And its store of counterfeits, 
 
 In its conjuncts and declensions, 
 
 In its classic apprehensions, — 
 
 In these marvels, all comhiued, 
 
 Ingot over ingot turning, 
 
 I am at a loss to find 
 
 Utt'rance to the hidden yearning — 
 
 Fluency of song and power 
 
 To depict that glowing hour ! 
 
 High upon a peak defiant. 
 On the Cromlech of a Giant, 
 I sit watching, for the night 
 Comes, and with it One I dread. 
 The grand splendours overhead 
 And the dazzlings round about 
 Now are vanished from my sight. 
 Towards Ocean looking out, 
 I descry upon the wing. 
 In the far West glimmering, 
 Galleons freighted with the spoils 
 Of my palace grounds and arhours- 
 With the fruitage of my toils 
 Pressing on to distant harbours.
 
 AUTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 As I watch them disappear, 
 Shining mast and crimson'd sail, 
 A great rustling fills the ear, 
 As of leaves before a gale. 
 Night's wan shadows, fast and faster, 
 Travel past me, bringing fear 
 And the boding of disaster. 
 East-ward, on a wall of vapour, 
 Like some grimy, battered shield 
 Found on ancient battle-field. 
 Hangs the moon, full orbed and dim, 
 While above her palhd rim 
 Holds a star its ghostly taper. 
 
 Again the film is on mine eyes ! 
 Presences before me press 
 Sister Summer to caress. 
 Summer radiant with reflections. 
 Sister Spring to sympathise ! 
 Spring intent on resurrections. 
 Other shapes and evil-brow' d 
 Mingle in the phantom crowd — 
 Some to warn and some to scare. 
 Some to mock and some to stare 
 Into stone with snaky eyes, 
 Overlapp'd with snaky hair ! 
 
 From the depth of every hollow.
 
 28 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Comes a moaning, and the sounds, 
 Piteous more, of wailing follow, 
 With the howl of famish' d hounds ! 
 Through the air, a fire-holt hurtled, 
 Casts its glare o'er cairn and peak, 
 From their distant eyries, startled 
 By its hissing, eagles shriek ! 
 Welded in the Arctic forges 
 Ice-bolts follow thick and fast, 
 Eattling through the flinty gorges, 
 Out on foray with the blast. 
 From the far and frosty regions 
 With his desolating legions 
 The Usurper comes at last. 
 
 Nine gray, weather-beaten stones 
 Crown the peak on which I rest, 
 Laid out like a Runic chest. 
 Old Tradition and her crones 
 Gibber of gigantic bones, 
 Without cross or cerement. 
 In this dreary dwelling pent. 
 Surely, or mine ear deceives, 
 I hear stirrings under-ground — 
 A great wrestling and the sound 
 Of yokings to fetch home the sheaves 
 On my knees I fall and pray. 
 Sister Smnmer ! Stay ! oh stay,
 
 WINTER. -29 
 
 Sister Spring ! thy rosaries bring ! 
 Alas ! both have fled away ! 
 Under me the Cromlech heaves, 
 And the huge gray stones dispart, 
 The last anguish rends the heart, 
 Eear me to the stream I love, 
 Bear me to the weeping grove ! 
 Bury me among the leaves ! 
 
 -00- 
 
 WINT ER. 
 
 High time / should wield the sceptre, 
 High time I should play a part 
 In the Drama of the Year ! 
 Timid Spring (although I kept her 
 Prison'd long) by power of heart 
 Burst her fetters, and with rapture 
 Freedom shouted, far and near ! 
 Of the Queenly sisterhood, 
 Her alone I held in tlirall, 
 And in my rude fasliion woo'd — 
 Woo'd, as the old Sea Kings woo'd — 
 Of my riches prodigal — 
 Prodigal of oath and bluster,
 
 30 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 And of jewels that in lustre 
 
 Eivall'd those of real cost, 
 
 Worked up hy the hand of Frost. 
 
 For her shapely limbs infantile 
 
 I devised an ermine mantle ; 
 
 In its glossy foldings wrapp'd her, 
 
 To the throat with fleeces happ'd her ; 
 
 And my choicest artisans 
 
 Brought the triumphs of their skill — 
 
 Streaming wimples, waving fans, 
 
 "Wrought behind a Lapland hill, 
 
 In some dragon- watch 'd recess 
 
 By the busy sorceress, 
 
 Ejiown through Scandinavian valleys 
 
 As Aurora Borealis. 
 
 I, her guardian, for a wliile 
 
 Fondled her in such rude fashion, 
 
 Sought my fair ward to beguile, 
 
 Proffer'd her my senile passion, 
 
 Only to interpret scorn 
 
 Out of her responsive smile. 
 
 And to shake my head forlorn ! 
 
 Ay ! when March had nigh run down, 
 
 I read rebel in her eyes ; 
 
 But the terror of my frown 
 
 Had evanished with my spells ; 
 
 Eattliug down came icicles, 
 
 Slid the snow-drifts ofi" the heights,
 
 WINTER. 31 
 
 Captive Spring assum'd her rights, 
 And I, powerless, dropp'd my crown ! 
 
 Face to face we never met, 
 I and rival Summer, yet 
 My cold cheek is made to hum, 
 Oftimes, with her jealous hreath, 
 And I smite her in return. 
 Winter's Life is Summer's Death ! 
 Tndy, there is no love lost 
 Eetwixt us : still we work as one ; 
 Mutual purposes are cross'd 
 Oidy to insure the doing 
 Of the work that must be done. 
 All away from servile wooing 
 Is my action with the Simimer, 
 'Tis a battle without ending — 
 A great, measureless contending — 
 Each in tiu'n the Overcomer ! 
 
 Autumn, too, makes cause of quarrel, 
 That with lier I hold no parle, 
 Deeming me a crusty carle ! 
 When the stain is on the laurel 
 And the mildew on the bay, 
 Rests it, even with lips of corul, 
 The ill signs to kiss away % 
 Less, with lang-uid breath, like liers,
 
 32 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Or the warmth of lumnivers 
 Heaped upon a dying Queen, 
 To restore their wonted green. 
 
 Of all tilings effeminate, 
 True ! I make earth desolate ! 
 The companions of the Eose 
 Tremble when I come. In vain 
 The battle with my chills and snows- 
 The striving with the hurricane ! 
 Yet in mercy, more than "sin^ath, 
 I tramjile them below my feet. 
 The deadliest poisons are the SAveet, 
 And the adder's choice retreat 
 Lurketh in the flowery path. 
 
 With the wrecks of garden-beauty, 
 In the earnestness of duty 
 I deal ruthlessly. They ask 
 !No^uarter, and have lost desire : 
 Yet less ruthless than the Fire 
 Are the hands I set to task ; 
 And she slanders me, who says, 
 Drawing from a fancy fertile, 
 That I persecute the myrtle, — 
 Slay the laiu-el, — scourge the bays. 
 It is I who nurse them, rather, 
 Freshen up their sickly hues —
 
 WINTER. 33 
 
 Dissipate the rusts that gather, 
 
 Counteract the evil dews. 
 
 Without ]\re, how the Year would fare 
 
 How wearily would life creep on, 
 
 In one unvaried monotone, 
 
 How slumberous the very air ! 
 
 How stagnate river, lake, and sea ; 
 
 No wind, no wave, no energy 
 
 Of sound or action ; no true psalm 
 
 Of JS^'ature breaking tlirough the calm, 
 
 But the pent gasping which pertains 
 
 To dungeons and their festering chains, 
 
 To the lazar-house and tomb, 
 
 To recondite catacomb. 
 
 To the pestilential fen 
 
 And the thi'oat of di'agon's den ! 
 
 In the Black land, watchers grimy 
 Greet my coming to defy me ; 
 In the kingdom under ground, 
 Where, with jetty diamonds crown'd. 
 And attired in glossy sables, 
 Sits the Fire King, Ancient Coal ! 
 On a dais of control, 
 Heading the convivial tables 
 Where his thousands of tried miners, 
 Frugal in their fare, as diners, 
 Wax uproarious round the bowl. 
 
 c
 
 34 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Hand of friendship I woiild stretch, 
 Ay ! and do, oft and again, 
 To this comrade of my reign : 
 But my fingers all relax 
 In his grasp, like melting wax. 
 And I feel it were unwise 
 Dignity to compromise ; 
 So, I leave your shivering wretch 
 To his mercies, and proclaim 
 Dissolved the League of Frost and Flame. 
 
 'Tis His duty to unfreeze. 
 
 Mine to vex the hed of ease ; 
 
 His to foster and to cherish, 
 
 Mine to wither and enchain ! 
 
 From the graves of those who perish 
 
 In my desolating reign. 
 
 Three-fold life will spring again. 
 
 Ptuler stern of the unruly ! 
 Swarthy comrade ! answer truly, 
 Out of thy seductive heart 
 Canst thou multiply the strong 1 
 Will thy kindlings at the feet 
 Of the oak insure from wvongi 
 Art thou slower to devour. 
 On thy day of breaking forth, 
 Judg'd of when the wind is north, 
 In an eligible hour,
 
 WINTER. 
 
 When thou play'st the nuraing mother 
 ludoors to both babe and flower, 
 And the check is on thy power 
 To inflame, consume, and smother 1 
 I am terrible, 'tis true, 
 Thou, who Hv'st the whole year through 
 In hypocrisy of heart, 
 More terrible and cruel art ! 
 
 Yet, in one week of the Year, 
 In the merry Christmas time. 
 When from belfries far and near, 
 From Cathedral towers sublime. 
 From the spires of village churches, 
 FloAvs the sold of Inter-chime — 
 In the week memorialized 
 Of His Advent, who by purchase. 
 And the Body sacrificed, 
 Eeinstated in God's grace 
 The fallen of the human race ; — 
 When the Mistletoe suspended 
 Deftly from the festive ceiling — 
 Mystic leaf with berry blended — 
 Gives invite to chaste saluting ; 
 And the treasured stores of feeling 
 Make up in their breaking out 
 For long terms of double dealing —
 
 36 SONOS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Charities their hands forth-putting, 
 With a self-applauding shout ! 
 
 In the reign of Pantomime, 
 When the strutter on the stage, 
 Charged throat-high with florid rhyme. 
 Personates a mythic age- 
 Brings to play the Jack and Giant, 
 Ogre, faery, gnome, and dragon — 
 Matchless drainers of the flagon — 
 Ea\T.shers, and knights defiant — 
 Ladye loves of all degrees, 
 Prom the Princess to the Peasant, 
 Making of the Past a Present ; 
 By the help of magic keys 
 Throwing wide the wondrous gates 
 Of invisible estates 
 In the world of Fantasies : — 
 In that festival of truce 
 I^ find blustering of no use. 
 Should I summon my war hosts 
 Into play to rave and threat. 
 With his wondrous amulet 
 Among rosy sapphires set, 
 Me, the unscar'd, scares my ghosts. 
 All the dismaler their howl, 
 All the merrier the laugh 
 Indoors, and the streaming bowl
 
 WINTER. 37 
 
 Eimm'd with Motto " Fill and Quaff," 
 Faster circles with the pace 
 Of my whirling Spectre-race. 
 
 'Tis in vain the siege I press — 
 Cast in vain for port of sally 
 And my scatter'd forces rally, 
 The old Fire King, ne'ertheless, 
 Holds his own, by rug and hearth — 
 Meets my menaces with laughter — 
 Drowns my agonies in mirth, 
 And I pelt both roof and rafter — 
 Storm the casement and. the gable — 
 Yell the chimney throats adown — 
 Simulate the roar of Babel 
 Round the curtains of the Town ; — • 
 All in vain ! Yet times there are 
 When Grace betwixt us twain is cast 
 Aside,' and Mercy veils her Star, 
 And all God's Angels stand aghast ; 
 For the fierce Soul of devilry 
 Is out at large, and Storm and Fire 
 Are knit for ruthless revelry, 
 Hung'ring to do the Fiend's desire. 
 Pity the ship and all its crew. 
 Be it a British Admiral, 
 And they who man it the true blue, 
 WHiich, on that niglit of Festival,
 
 38 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Crosses our pathway ! Eather meet 
 The Vancmard of a rival Fleet 
 With triple force of turret power 
 Equipped and eager to destroy, 
 Than the fierce Eovers of the hour 
 Sworn to exhaust their cruel joy 
 In one great onset which shall yield 
 ]S"o traces of the Battle-field ! 
 
 My bugler with his ghttering horn 
 Is on the hills at hreak of morn — 
 At hreak of morn, while yet the West 
 Shews paling stars. The Lake is paved 
 With floor of glass — the rills enslaved — 
 Their silvery fountains in arrest. 
 Enamell'd are the meads deflower'd 
 With sapphires, and the slopes ahove 
 With clustering diamonds are dowered. 
 My jeweller Frost such gifts of love 
 Bestows ; and who with loom or shuttle, 
 Or facet-saw and cunning tool, 
 Can imitate an art so suhtle — 
 So subtle and so wonderful 1 
 
 Upon the Lake, the roaring game 
 All yesterday, to dip of sun. 
 Was played, and boisterous the fun — 
 The bandied jest, the loud acclaim —
 
 WINTER. 39 
 
 The cheering and the helping on, 
 With spur of voice and twirl of broom, 
 Towards its goal the laggard stone. 
 
 curler ! in your honest heart, 
 For much of nobler strife lies room — 
 For much that shews the better part — 
 For much of patriotic zeal — 
 For much of that true charity 
 "Which casteth for the general weal ! 
 I joy in your hilarity, 
 And gild the rigors of my reign 
 With free concessions — sympathies 
 Aloof from those to grief and pain 
 The due. In freezing, I unfreeze ; 
 In chaining, silently unchain. 
 
 Enough ! I am to Duty pressed ; 
 My bugler slowly climbs the hill ; 
 A dark cloud hovers in the West, 
 But darker passions stir my breast, 
 And goading then an Iron Will. 
 With flourish from his glittering horn 
 He ravisheth the ear of morn, 
 The prelude to a louder strain ! 
 Not always I assert my reign 
 By hurricane or noisy rage — 
 Not always the wild winds uncage
 
 40 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 At once, in sudden petulance ; 
 But dally often, as the scene 
 From calm to storm I shift, and pause, 
 That man may learn how Nature's laws 
 Work for his good, and things terrene 
 Teach wisdom on the true incline, 
 Which, step hy step, and line on line, 
 Leads upward to the Primal Cause. 
 
 Another blast my bugler blows, 
 Eut not with stinted breath, 
 Fearful to break the graves' repose. 
 Or stir the feud with Death. 
 Out ring the measures of his horn — 
 Clear as the eagle's cry at morn — 
 Loud as the summons to the charge 
 Which sets the long-enslaved at large. 
 Its mngs, the dark cloud in the West 
 Extends, obedient to the call, 
 And manifests on every crest 
 The spreading of the sable pall. 
 
 Another, and a fiercer blast ! 
 And from the uplands overcast, 
 And from the valleys and the glens. 
 And from the bowels of the fens, 
 Aiid from the hidings of the cave, 
 And from the toilers on the wave,
 
 WINTEB. 41 
 
 And from the forest-heart retired, 
 A chorus, as of throats inspired, 
 EoUs forth in emulous reply. 
 And on its tide of sound retreat. 
 As if with tramp of equine feet. 
 The legions of the under-sky. 
 Squadron on squadron disappears, 
 And in its stead the luminous spears 
 Of a new legion meet the eye. 
 On every eminence and front 
 Of vantage, the suj^planting host 
 Shews of a sudden ; on the flanks 
 Of the great hills, and by the streams 
 That lave them, lo ! stand serried ranks ! 
 
 One Salvo more ! its echoes fall 
 Smothered upon the listening ear. 
 Or only rise at interval 
 In token how the far and near 
 Are welded by the spell of sound, 
 And how a secret agency 
 Is aye at work, above, around. 
 And in God's forges under ground. 
 
 Out of the N'orth, a Battle cry ! 
 A yearning from the flow'ry South ! 
 Which the true voice of Liberty 1 — 
 The shout from the defier's mouth,
 
 42 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Or the strong sobbing to be free 
 That by its restless energy 
 Looseneth the bonds of Tyranny 1 
 
 I wave the Sceptre, and my hosts 
 Surge and resnrge, deploy and wheel — - 
 Show front of animated steel 
 A moment in the sun's brief glance, 
 And in the next a cloud of ghosts, 
 Bereft alike of helm and lance, 
 With bowlings leads the grand advance. 
 
 When, and on what devoted head, 
 Shall I wreak vengeance 1 for my blood. 
 Long frozen and allied with the dead. 
 Boils and is eager as the flood 
 Which clouds and melting Avinds have moved 
 To overtake the bounds approved. 
 
 The Shepherd and his fleecy charge. 
 The simple watcher of the kine 
 Pasturing by the river's marge. 
 The Forest Banger and the Deer 
 Under Ms ward and discij)line. 
 Have well considered me, and steer 
 Their courses by my voice and sign. 
 The Eagle throned upon the crag.
 
 WINTER. 43 
 
 The raven wheeling in the sky, 
 
 Acknowledge my uplifted flag, 
 
 And to my challenger reply. 
 
 Sounds come from places in whose heart 
 
 Silence had stored its mouldering urns ; 
 
 And voices out of hollows start 
 
 To torture and affright the ear. 
 
 Or calm and ravish it, by turns. 
 
 Oh Spring ! my long-imprisoned ward ! 
 
 To whom redemption draweth near, 
 
 Consider how thy wooer woos — 
 
 How of his treasures (thou to choose) 
 
 The rarest are set forth, and how, 
 
 To win thine over-chaste regard. 
 
 He hath put all his energy 
 
 To task — the hand, the heart, the brow — 
 
 To keep dominion over thee ! 
 
 Last efl"ort this ! I have made pact 
 With my Snow Queen, who, when she shews, 
 Attracts as Presences attract 
 Through whom the sacred ichor flows — 
 By virtue of her chastity. 
 By virtue of the calm repose 
 Befitting conscious sovereignty 
 That sits at ease upon her brows. 
 
 O consort mine ! whom marriage vows
 
 44 80N0S OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Bound to obedience, love, and honour, 
 Eeseecliing be in my behalf, 
 Or else commanding ; for the staff 
 Fails me that propp'd — the sceptre, too, 
 Is heavy in my grasp ; some few- 
 Short hours are left us, and upon her, 
 When these are gone, the crown descends. 
 Give her thy token of amends ; 
 Prepare the coronation Feast 
 And summon the anointing priest, 
 Bring all of thy regard to bear 
 On her, the adopted of my choosing. 
 As chaste, as royal, and as fair 
 As any shape in poet's musing ; 
 Invest her with a robe of grace 
 Thou only can'st design and fashion. 
 Befitting faultless form, and face 
 "Whose only fault is want of passion. 
 
 She lists, and listening obeys. 
 If 'tis obedience to command. 
 For, at the waving of her hand, 
 Are cast upon the waiting land 
 The tokens of her means and ways : 
 As moltings of angelic wings, 
 The down of cherubs, dropt in coiu'se 
 (Jf their celestial wanderings, 
 So, emblematic of their source
 
 WINTER. 45 
 
 In the abodes of hallowed pleasure, 
 Descend the snow-flakes, all at leisure. 
 
 Alas ! my throne is tottering ! 
 Awry the crown ! My Snow Queen's power 
 Dissolves with the dissolving hour ; 
 And, yielding to the breath of Spring, 
 The Vestals in her train have doffed 
 Allegiance with the outer garb. 
 Hard natures are becoming soft, 
 Ajid out of chastity superb 
 And cold, there emanates 
 The flow that bursts our crystal gates. 
 
 In vain, in vain, wind, sleet, and had ! 
 In vain the elemental war ! 
 Xor drift nor cloud is of avail 
 To trouble her ascendant star ! 
 The armies of my Snow Queen — where 1 
 The mighty forces on the hill, 
 Assembled — sworn to do and dare — 
 That up to Heaven's own window sill 
 Clomb, and in shining phalanxes 
 Guarded the passes and the slopes — 
 Where are they ? Scattered with my hopes- 
 Defeated — driven to the seas ! 
 
 Spring ! Enchantress ! speUs thou hast
 
 46 SONGS OF THE SEASONS 
 
 Siu'i^assing tlie Magician's art — 
 Spells woven in a j)risoned heart 
 That work out Liberty at last. 
 The law divine which sanction gave 
 To bind, prevails to ransom Thee ; 
 So all great aimings to enslave 
 Provoke, alike from cell and grave, 
 The trumpet-shout of Liberty. 
 
 I take my turn : go free, fair Ward ! 
 Go free, and scatter Earth with flowers. 
 Moisten and mellow it with showers ! 
 Summer will come and parch the sward, 
 And wither up thy promised joys ; 
 Summer -will come, and stay the trill 
 Of the asphing lark, unvoice 
 The merle, and disenchant both liiU 
 And grove of all their winsome charms. 
 Summer will come, and by her arms 
 Encircled, — on her breast of fire. 
 Inhaling meretricious breath. 
 Consenting to an early death. 
 Thou, my true sweet-heart, wilt expire ! 
 
 But /, when from the temperate zone 
 Driv'n by thy petulance and scorn, 
 Go back to an unchalleng'd throne 
 With my Snow Queen ; nor eve nor morn
 
 WINTER. 47 
 
 Prevail within the Arctic Eing : 
 Only the Phantom of a Spring 
 Flutters about our Palaces — 
 Mayhap, thine unappeased ghost 
 Let loose to wander with the lost ! 
 1^0 imprint marks the Frozen seas 
 Crossed by tliis paUid visitor, 
 The pressure of her foot shows not 
 In flowers or verdure any more ; 
 Xor with its presence are there brought 
 Regalements to the ear and eye, 
 jN^or perfumes of dehcious kind 
 That savour of Virginity. 
 Yet in my inmost heart enshrined 
 A truer image I bear forth 
 To my bleak Emphe in the I^orth 
 Of thee, my long-imprisoned Ward ; 
 And sitting on its desolate Throne, 
 My melting moods — and such there be, 
 When I float icebergs out to sea, 
 AYlien I let brave explorers free. 
 And at God's bidding sacrifice 
 My will, and bow to the All- Wise — 
 Lead me, fair Spring ! to muse on Thee. 
 
 In this wide Empire of mine own 
 My rule is absolute, and none. 
 Even the Fire King, dare intrade,
 
 48 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Much less my sovereignty dispute. 
 Summer in vain hatli urged her suit, 
 And Autumn, tendering ruddy fruit, 
 Towards that realm of solitude 
 . Presses in vain ! On wall of brass, 
 In characters of adamant, 
 (Such cypher only angels plant), 
 Th' inscription runs — -"Thou shalt not pass." 
 
 On my liigh feast days, to caress 
 The footstool of our IMonarchy, 
 Thousands of living creatures press — 
 A medley of strange courtiers. 
 Blending with suave docility 
 And tenderness the rude reverse ; 
 In visage and demeanor strange, 
 Unlike the hfe of temperate range ! 
 
 My wondrous realm, to be devoid 
 Of monsters would be incomplete, 
 And without homage at my feet 
 Tendered, a kingdom unenjoyed. 
 
 In these high court days, I let drift 
 The dancing waves, and winds untie 
 Made captive in my warrings south : 
 Not like old Boreas, rude and swift, 
 Tliese breathings of a balmy moutli,
 
 WINTEB. 49 
 
 Xor like the billows of his wrath 
 Made animate with show of power 
 That fain would intercept my path, 
 Unwitting of their destiny 
 And the inevitable hour. 
 
 Go free, ye winds ! ye waves, go free ! 
 Mine is no court effeminate, 
 I care not to uphold my state 
 By craft of show or luxury, 
 I care not that sooth things, like you. 
 Should in my stately prisons pine, 
 And with soft flatteries incline 
 My servitors to play th' untrue ; 
 Eather than that, take Liberty ! 
 More welcome your release to me 
 Than the great peril and the cost 
 Which wait upon old customs cross'd, 
 And manners of simplicity 
 Perverted, fallen through, and lost. 
 
 With ransom I my festival 
 Combine, for ransom is deliglit. 
 The highest joy of conquering might — 
 The noblest pride of chivalry 
 Is the unloosing of the thrall ! 
 ***** 
 
 D
 
 50 SONGS OF THE SEASON'S. 
 
 Then gambol the great Whales, and lave 
 The footstool of my dazzhng throne, 
 And Behemoth, with eyes of stone, 
 "Watches them, crouching in his cave. 
 A thousand fountains are at play 
 On this hyhernal hohday ; 
 Ten thousand creatures urge their way 
 Towards the curtain of my shrine. 
 I welcome them, hut make no sign ! 
 The Walrus, Avith his wizard stare 
 And pendant tusks, the timorous Seal, 
 The suhtle Fox, the Arctic Bear, 
 Surly and grutf, with teeth of steel — 
 All to my footstool come and kneel. 
 
 Waist-deep the Syren of the Sea 
   Eeveals herself in woman's form. 
 Impersonating modesty : 
 Ubiquitous in calm or storm. 
 In sunny and in frigid clime. 
 Her pearly comb she ever plyeth 
 'Mong tresses of the softest silk, 
 AVliich o'er a bosom that defieth 
 In candour, ivory or milk — 
 Playing, choice morsels of dehght 
 Reveal, and to warm thoughts incite. 
 And with this ravisher consort 
 As shaj^ely forms, but chaste and cold, •
 
 WINTER. 51 
 
 Befitting more our Arctic couri 
 The Nereid, with her loves untokl, 
 And vestal groups, whose faces scanned 
 Are impotent of all desire, 
 Eepressive of the unlawful fire, 
 Yet win adorers at command. 
 
 Show there, the Triton and his conch, 
 With sturdy Mermen, ready aye. 
 When of my icebergs I make launch 
 To tender active fealty. 
 The Mermen these from whose blue eyne 
 The Sea Kings borrowed azurine — 
 Borrowed the cruel glare and sheen 
 Wliich in their fronts lay manifest ; 
 As on the lowering thunder-cloud 
 Lie couch'd the tokens of unrest, 
 Eeady with utterances loud, 
 And fiery tongues, at signal given, 
 To storm the eml^rasures of heaven. 
 
 O'er century hath roll'd century. 
 And generations of mankind 
 Have pass'd, I cannot call to mind 
 Their number, yet no change in me. 
 Or in my Polar Sovereignty ! 
 
 Theie came among things animate.
 
 52 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 In quest of plunder to my realm, 
 Once on a day, with brows elate 
 And eyes that gleam'd below scarr'd helm, 
 These Sea Kings. Forests had been fell'd 
 To build their ships, and demons yell'd 
 liound cauldrons and vast furnaces 
 In which the red ore fum'd and sung, 
 '\\Tiich was to aid their ravages, 
 In shape of halbert and of mace, 
 And falchion and the barbed tongue 
 That points the shaft in war or chase. 
 For then the Scandinavian ore 
 Asj^ired not to take liigher place 
 In the fierce strife of brotherhood, 
 Nor was to service put of yore. 
 As now, in engines terrible. 
 
 It was as yesterday review'd. 
 When their huge galleys hugg'd my shore, 
 Throng'd, poop and stern, with reivers feU. 
 A towering vessel led the van. 
 And at its helm a towering man, 
 Broad in the chest and limb'd therefrom 
 With arms, like spreadings of the oak, 
 Wliich centuries, under heaven's black dome. 
 Have ^new'd, and the thunder stroke 
 Only inured and fitter made 
 To wrestle with the fire and storm ;
 
 WINTER. 53 
 
 So jointed on his lofty form 
 These movers of the hands of might — 
 The red, right hand that grasped the brand- 
 The wary left that swayed the helm, 
 And toward the white ports of my realm 
 Steer'd, without asking or invite. 
 
 That Sea King's tale again was told 
 In modern time, and yet again ! 
 ^New histories but repeat the old 
 Linked to the epochs of my reign. 
 One instance let suffice ; — no need 
 To name the hero rashly bold. 
 Resolute both ia creed and deed. 
 Who, in the cause of Science, braved 
 My power, and thought to break the spell 
 By wliich I held Earth's ends enslaved. 
 The secret of his fate to tell 
 "Were to imperil my Arctic throne. 
 In darkness I shall keep my own — 
 Eeign among silences profomid. 
 Who over-vaults the appointed bound 
 Must rue th' offence. 7, while I reign, 
 Shall reign supreme, and they who dare 
 Affront me, at their cost, I swear, 
 May do so once, but not agaiu. 
 
 Prepare for me, ye temperate zones !
 
 54 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Autumn and Spring ! I warning give — 
 One dying and tlie one to live ! — 
 I shall sit 'twixt you on your thrones. 
 My Snow Queen and her brother Frost 
 Will with me, when I head the host 
 And Southward charge — shall go before 
 My Ulilans armed to the teeth — 
 Sworn on the sword, -without a sheath, 
 To halt not till their task is o'er. 
 
 Foremost, fierce Tempest, -with command 
 To strip the gorgeous forests bare — 
 To bend their lofty masts, and tear 
 Their plumes to shivers ; so the land 
 Shall mourn, that vaunted of their power ; 
 His errand, too, as I draw near, 
 To shake the temple and the tower, 
 And in high places cause to cower 
 The Mammon worshippers in fear ! 
 
 Then Famine, a precursor oft 
 -Of my approach, as often left 
 To work his will on the bereft. 
 Driven at my hands from cot and croft. 
 jSTot crueler than the bloated priest, 
 This willing messenger of mine ; 
 He breaks no vow, he robs no shrine, 
 1^0 glutton he, nor swills the wine 
 Blest on the altar at God's Feast.
 
 WINTER. 
 
 Companion of this Ulilan gaunt, 
 More gliastly, but a speaking match, 
 Pacing together on the watch. 
 Together chanting the same chant, 
 Is Pestilence, by Summer nursed, 
 And fostered, on her royal demise, 
 In Autumn's arms, where burning skies, 
 Stretched o'er a land by War accurst. 
 Drink in the steams from fetid swamps 
 To sate Day's thirst and dim Wight's lamps. 
 
 Thou renegade among my hosts ! 
 I neither trust thee nor suspect ; 
 I act the Wrecker, but the Wreck'd 
 Lie at thy mercy on Earth's coasts. 
 The Fire King has a pact with me, 
 When both of us have duty done, 
 To rear an altar to the Sun, 
 And on its red horns immolate thee ! 
 
 To mount my Uhlans, I have cast 
 The compass round. Blest Araby, 
 The dreary steppes of Tartary, 
 The N"ew World and its Prairies vast. 
 All fail me. Kot the Emerald Jewel, 
 Nor England, for these riders cruel 
 Can to the saddle bring and rein 
 A fitting barb. I cast in vain
 
 56 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Over palatial parks ; I make 
 
 Study in vain of pedigrees — 
 
 Take note of sweepstakes won with ease — 
 
 Consult in vain the wide-awake — 
 
 Descend to stable talk, and chaff 
 
 "With trainers and the jockey crew. 
 
 Before such were, or were but few, 
 
 I lived, and on my side the laugh 
 
 Remained, Avhen our select discourse 
 
 Turned on the merits of the Horse : — 
 
 For I had stridden Bucephalus 
 
 And Job's war charger in their day. 
 
 Had taken a turn on Pegasus — 
 
 Raced with the Centaurs — held my way 
 
 With Timour in his Tempest raide — 
 
 To Troy's disasters lent my aid, 
 
 And Hercules to his labour urged, 
 
 When he the Augean stables purged. 
 
 Many a time have I pursued 
 
 Across the Ukraine, for my sport, 
 
 Clouds of strong hoi'ses, when the feud 
 
 At highest was Avith Autumn lewd, 
 
 And the fierce spirit of retort. 
 
 Within the circle of my sway. 
 In places unapproachable 
 By man, where Night is ring'd with Day, 
 And all things lie below the spell
 
 WINTER. 57 
 
 Of Frost, in crevasses and caves 
 Are stored the products of the chase. 
 There, life-hke, in dissembled gi-aves. 
 Draped by my Snow Queen, finds repose 
 The equine with the antlered race ; 
 Not to recount my victories 
 O'er huger spoils, and lift the snows 
 "That hide my glistening ivories. 
 
 Let these alone ! I am in quest 
 Of chargers for my Uldans three. 
 And I have cast from East to West, 
 From i^orth to South, o'er Land and Sea 
 (One valley only left unsought). 
 Yet failed to find a fitting mount 
 For these wild servitors of mine. 
 The cost I care not for nor count ; 
 Let rattle dice and gurgle wine — 
 Good ! I begrudge them not. 
 
 In a valley never gladdened 
 By the passing of the sun. 
 In a valley overrun 
 
 With shadow, and by shadow saddened ; 
 Chilly, silent, lonesome, eerie. 
 Travelled by a river weary, 
 That at every turns shews halt. 
 As if in its course at fault,
 
 58 SON-GS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Pausing among passes dreary : 
 
 In that valley, all remote, 
 
 Shunn'd even by the fearless goat. 
 
 Where browse nor kine, nor deer, nor sheep, 
 
 Nor elephant nor antelope ; 
 
 For with the sun-rays those of Hope 
 
 Penetrate not witliin its scope ; 
 
 And all around is utter Sleep. 
 
 In that valley stands a tower, 
 
 One only — a grim structure, such 
 
 As in the days of feudal power 
 
 Braved Law, and in its robber clutch 
 
 Held, with immunity from toil. 
 
 Life, freedom, and ill-gotten spoil — 
 
 A grim old structure, loop-holed o'er, 
 
 Save in the basement, which betrays 
 
 Through narrow slits a dungeon floor, 
 
 Deep sunk, and under it a lower. 
 
 In that tower is a banqueting hall. 
 And the tables are spread, but every one 
 Of the guests around them, twelve in all, 
 Is a grinning, ghastly skeleton. 
 The tables were spread, I wot not when. 
 Where is the host to make thu^teen 1 
 And who the intruder that now and then 
 Peeps in, and with his fingers lean 
 Grasps the great goblet at the head,
 
 WINTER. 59 
 
 And nods and quaffs, and forth is sped, 
 
 Like one in haste that cannot stay 
 
 The Feast out, but must mount and away 1 
 
 !Near to that tower is a courtyard : there 
 Are the stables I seek, and the training-ground 
 Of the steeds that will suit to a very hair 
 My Uhlans. The loid of the Manor round, 
 The lord of the Valley, the lord of the Feast, 
 ' Tis true, is travelling in the East 
 With a strong retinue. "What matter ! 
 The leaner he grows his train shews fatter. 
 So generous is he, so foreseeing 
 Of my requirements, at his Tower, 
 Was left the message — " Brother Power ! — 
 Part, but a sure Part in my Being — 
 Enter my stables — take your will 
 Of what you find ! I warrant all — 
 Colts, three and four year olds. The rest 
 And refuse will have bidders still ; 
 And were there none, the trumpet's call 
 And the war-saddle would make test 
 Of pedigree ; but choose and take 
 The fittest — I no bargain make, 
 Sa"^e that you give them work to do, 
 And spur and whip and high halloo. 
 It boofe not of their dams to inquire, 
 Enough to know who is their Sire,
 
 m SOJ^GS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 And who / am, and wlience I sally ! 
 Their Sire is the Pale Horse, — I, Death, 
 His Eider, IMonarch of the Valley ! 
 SjDeak of Us in an under-hreath : 
 Wt have the gift — My Horse and I — 
 No Pope can claim — Ubiquity, 
 And with his breed in part remains 
 This virtue latent in their veins. 
 Choose for thine Uhlans what thou wilt, 
 And welcome ! Thou of the icy breath ! 
 The Valley of the Shadow of Death 
 Is open as the day to thee. 
 Only the hardened sons of guilt 
 Tremble before Sin's Eldest-born. 
 My valley is of Terrors sh4)ru 
 To those who trust in Calvary. 
 Come, Brother Winter ! sound thy horn, 
 ' Twill fright the Beldame at the gate 
 That guards the avenue of Fate, 
 So thou may'st enter in thy state, 
 And with my ready stud make free." 
 
 A blear-eyed crone, a fangless hound 
 Keep ward behind the rusty gate. 
 Through which the dolorous Estate 
 Of Death is entered. Pound and round 
 "Whirl spectres. An approach to sounds 
 And, as it were, sound's shadow, fills
 
 WINTER. 61 
 
 The ear — a whispering indistinct, 
 
 To which the muttering of the crone 
 
 And creaking of the hinge are linked, 
 
 And wail and sliriek, and moan and groan, 
 
 And the old bandog's snarl. Even rills 
 
 Seem to be tinkling, and the ring 
 
 Of distant bells is on the wing. 
 
 With every sound below the sun, 
 
 As 'twere, resolving into one 
 
 Dread Silence, overpow'ring, strange. 
 
 Such as is meetest to express 
 
 Th' expiry of all sounds — their change — 
 
 And hurrjdng towards forgetfulness. 
 
 Up the avenue I sweep 
 Without challenge at the gate ; 
 The old Beldame is asleep, 
 Snoring, mumbling, muttering, 
 Under spell of opiate ; 
 And the bandog feigns a spring 
 From his antiquated barrel — 
 Tristful shakes his mangy jowls — 
 Vents a wind-up to his snarl 
 In three melancholy howls ! 
 
 As I huri'ied up the Vale 
 Many the strange sights I saw — 
 Passed by many a shadow pale
 
 62 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Under sentence of the Law — 
 Many a shivering ghost — King, Peer, 
 And Peasant, Millionaire and Pauper — 
 Poet and Sage and Cavalier ; 
 The Harlot and the Madame 25roper — 
 The Reverend — Very Eeverend 
 Who prophesied the round world's end, 
 But of his own knew nothing — read, 
 Even as a dead man to the dead, 
 God's Gospel, and discoursed of Grace 
 And Glory with a brazen face. 
 As if he held, direct from Heaven, 
 Authority to bless or cm^se, 
 And privilege to fill his purse 
 By dispensations — ay ! and worse, 
 To make belief of sins forgiven 
 By power of priestly intercession — 
 The cost, a plenary confession. 
 With recognition of the Host, 
 And altar-gifts beyond all cost. 
 
 Among the trooping ghosts, I pass'd 
 T^one so disconsolate as those 
 Who gold and lordships had amass'd. 
 At sacrifice of life's repose 
 Had toiled and sweated to the end — 
 Cast kindred overboard and friend — 
 Love's torch extinguished— not an aim
 
 WINTER. 63 
 
 Had, beyond adding to and keeping — - 
 Sneer'd at the Scholar, sneer'd at Fame — 
 Eeproach'd themselves as over-sleeping 
 Their opportunity for gain 
 When Nature needed sleep. In vain 
 The knowledge — " N'aked to the Earth 
 "Whence naked came ye at your birth, 
 Mortals ! ye shall return." Alas ! 
 The strange delusion ! that shall pass 
 With them into the World to come 
 Theu" many hoardings — crust and crumb ! 
 'So marvel, on my way I read 
 The panic in their faces — spelt, 
 Letter by letter, the expression dread 
 Of a great, sudden anguish felt 
 To the heart's core — a stroke that told 
 On Eeason, making dross of gold. 
 The thunder-bolt upon their god 
 Had fallen, and with the idol crushed 
 Its worshippers — the peean hxished — 
 And all the voices of applaud 
 That made divine the yellow clod. 
 
 Of these there was no end of ghosts ! 
 The flakes my Snow Queen letteth drive 
 In her impatient moods, were nought. 
 When number'd up, to the great hosts 
 That issued from the Money Hive,
 
 64 SOJSfGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 And in death's dolorous Valley sought 
 ^heir smitten credit to revive. 
 
 I pass'd, moreover, in that ride 
 Of Mystery, the shades sedate 
 Of Mortals who had hugg'd with pride 
 The notion they could master Fate. 
 Among these there were Kings discrown'd 
 And sceptreless — their counsellors — 
 Their pimps and executioners — 
 The captains of their host renowned, 
 Stript of their stars and medals, all, 
 Under an impulse past control, 
 Mixed with the common herd — on way 
 To where the sifting shall take place. 
 And the allotting of dismay — 
 The second Death which Judgment I)ay 
 Apportions with its gifts of Grace. 
 
 I, Winter — an appalling Power, 
 Who in my rage am merciless, 
 And care not whether Man or Flov\'er, 
 Army or Orchard, meet distress — 
 Apimlled was in this trying hour ! 
 
 Onward to the Stables I press'd, 
 But halted oft in wonderment, 
 Oft in compulsion ; for the bent
 
 WINTER. 65 
 
 Of the dark Vale was a puzzle at best ! 
 Like a huge Python's trail it lay, 
 Its river running neither way, 
 Making no sound, but a smother'd moan- 
 Shewing no life or colour-tone : 
 Only at intervals there shot 
 Across it an uncertain glare, 
 Bitimiinous and deadly hot. 
 That stirred the curtains of the air. 
 But scarcely stirred. Its lurid glare 
 Eeveal'd the surface of the stream 
 Studded with bubbles heavily ; 
 IS'ot the bright foam-bells, such as I 
 Transmute,- when in my humours fond, 
 To emerald and diamond, 
 But baleful ebullitions, bred 
 In slimy depths where rot the dead. 
 
 On as I press' d, the fetid fumes, 
 As of discharg'd torpedoes, vex'd 
 My nostrils ; gloomier grew the glooms. 
 Wilder the road, and more perjilex'd ! 
 I awful caverns passed and chasms, 
 From which peep'd dragons belching fire, 
 And faces writhing under spasms, 
 And eyes of terror where desire 
 Had dwelt, and still its spirit dwells, 
 Like the waves' voice in empty shells. 
 Goblins and visages of dread
 
 66 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 EncoTinter'd me at every turn ; 
 These wanting, obelisk or urn 
 Or gloomy cypress shewed instead. 
 Crept from their ambush to my feet 
 Gaunt crocodiles and lizards vast, 
 The slimy creatures of the Past, 
 Fabulous pronounced or obsolete : 
 The Kraken, Kelpie, "Water Witch, 
 Sea Serpent, and the Worm of Dole, 
 That gnaw'd the vitals of the Soul, 
 And left the bo^y in the ditch. 
 
 All hideous things and loathsome cross'd 
 My path — the deadly rattlesnake. 
 Cobra, puff-adder, and in wake 
 Of these, their victim's writhing ghost ! 
 
 On as I press'd the horrors grew. 
 Huge vampires flitted by me, ghouls — 
 Terrible birds, with eyes like owls'. 
 But crueler ; and as I drew 
 Mgh to Death's Castle, there rushed out 
 To greet me its grim sentinel. 
 The Were- Wolf, with a savage yell. 
 A troop of tigers hung about, 
 And fain would spring, their famished eyes 
 Fix'd on me, but I wav'd them back, 
 And they slunk, shivering, jungle-wise. 
 And left me to pursue my track.
 
 WINTER. 
 
 Strange lights are gliding to and fro 
 In the Castle of Death as I draw near. 
 From the loop-holes and the dungeon slits 
 Banners are hung inscribed with Woe, 
 Judgment, Eternity, and Fear ; 
 The fiery flashing comes in fits 
 And reads them — the Escutcheon reads, 
 And its devices — shews aloof 
 The great black Flag that o'er the roof 
 Of highest battlement outspreads 
 Its drapery, A hundred creeds, 
 Each torn into a hundred shreds, 
 The sable folds o'erhang. The tents 
 And violated tenements 
 Of Trillions of Immortal Souls, 
 Loves, Hatreds, and Desires, are all. 
 Under the Shadow of that Pall, 
 Committed to the moles. 
 
 As I drew nearer, under daze 
 Of the strange sights that met my eye, 
 While yet in silence and amaze 
 I ponder'd on the mystery, 
 A sound stole on the ear of neigliing — 
 The neighing of high-mettled steed 
 In distant stable, and the baying 
 Of hounds in kennel at their feed ; 
 My errand, nigh forgotten, came
 
 ()8 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 All suddenly to niind. I threw 
 The daze off, and the terror too, 
 Link'd Avith the Valley's ominous name, 
 And on I strode the Castle past 
 Towards the courtyard where were housed 
 The fav'rites of the stud. At last 
 I reach'd the entrance, and aroused 
 Tlie ancient Master of the Horse. 
 
 A surly-visaged bully he, 
 No limner could have etched a worse 
 Ideal of Iniquity. 
 Brows scowling over eyes oblique 
 And sinister — a Kvid cheek 
 Gashed to the bone — nose hammer'd in- 
 Contorted lips, on which the sneer 
 Held turn with a malicious grin ; 
 INIore loathing cans' d the shape than fear ; 
 Wen and wry-neck'd, hunch-back'd, splay-footed. 
 And bandy-legged. No doubt, he suited 
 His office well, and did the work 
 Of his employer without shirk. 
 
 A mock obeisance, cap in hand. 
 He made, and whistled on his staff. 
 Responding with an eldritch laugh 
 There started up the goblin band, 
 One, two, three, four, five, six, aye ! seven, 
 Eare specimens of imp and ape !
 
 . WINTER. m 
 
 Contained the like nor earth nor heaven, 
 In cast of feature and in shape. 
 Moon-faced, globe-headed, goggle-eyed, 
 Lean, spindle-shank' d, and what beside 1 — 
 The special grooms that in the Stable 
 Of Death had groom'd the Pallid Horse 
 On the dire morn that Cain slew Abel, 
 And, like a shadow, crept Remorse 
 Behind the slayer Earth's whole length — 
 Growing in terror and in strength 
 The further from the stricken corse. 
 
 I heard a snorting and a tramping — 
 A neighing, vigorous and shrill — 
 The noise as of a squadron camping 
 At eve of battle when the chill 
 Sets in ; for the War furor stretches 
 Beyond the Camj^ where council grave 
 Is held, and its infection catches 
 Oft times the Horse, and in the watches 
 Of Night, with other instincts, blends 
 The sense that he fulfils his ends 
 In dying, like his rider — hrave ! 
 
 • With his lean finger he beck'd me on, 
 The surly IMaster oi the Horse, 
 Nor spake, but took direct his course 
 Towards an archway, dark as throat 
 Of dragon, Avhere a skeleton
 
 70 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Paced to and fro ; and from a moat 
 
 In front, "by narrow drawbridge cross'd, 
 
 Tlie shimmering came of snakes afloat, 
 
 Twisted into a cable. At its post, 
 
 On either side the drawhridge, stood a ghost ! 
 
 A beck from the master ! — a leer and grin 
 
 From the Goblin grooms ; and away they skip 
 
 Helter skelter, with brandished whip, 
 
 Across the drawbridge — scamper and spin — 
 
 Sidle and hop, and twirl and twist. 
 
 And shake their moon-faced noddles gravely. 
 
 Marry ! I wist 
 
 They are doing the honours bravely 
 
 To the strange guest of the Terror King ! 
 
 ;My surly guide, I following, 
 Confronts at his appointed post 
 The warder on this side the Moat — 
 An affable and simple ghost. 
 As was his fellow opposite. 
 I tendered him a shining groat. 
 But he declined, with bow polite. 
 To accept it, and to pass made way 
 Along the drawbridge for my guide 
 And me. The moat below us lay 
 A vast way down, but I descried, 
 Eevolving in the deep profound, 
 "What seemed a fiery cable. Eound
 
 WINTER. 71 
 
 And rouud it spun, with wddering speed, 
 
 And threw out light enough to read 
 
 Its nature by. From basilisks' eyne 
 
 Flashed fitfully the electric sheen. 
 
 The seeming cable shewed instead 
 
 A mass of serpents interlaced 
 
 One Avith the other — tail and head — 
 
 Warp, strand, and tissue, every thread 
 
 Alive and "WTithing — chasing, chased— 
 
 Devouring, and in turn devour'd ! 
 
 Before me Avas the mystery 
 
 Of Life in Death, most strange to see ! 
 
 I halted on the Bridge, and fell 
 
 A pondering on the Terrible 
 
 In time and in Eternity, 
 
 When suddenly the whisper " Coward ! " 
 
 Eous'd me. '\^^lo utter'd it I sought 
 
 In my guide's face to know ; but there, 
 
 So far as I could see, lay nought 
 
 Which gave a pretext to infer 
 
 Whence sprang the insult ; yet the word 
 
 Moved me — moved ready hand to SAVord I — 
 
 An icebolt gathered to my eye, 
 
 Wliich, in the levelling, shewed force 
 
 Against the Master of Death's Horse. 
 
 To hurl it were expenditure 
 
 Of Power upon a curry-comb — 
 
 A churl Avho huu^'d his sinecure
 
 72 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 And vision of oljliqnity ; 
 
 Otherwise, to have sent it home 
 
 Not Death himself could have hinder'd me ! 
 
 Again the snorting and the neighing 
 Of horses, and of hounds the haying, 
 Told of the Stables and Kennels at hand. 
 The Ghosts that kept ward o'er the fiery Moat 
 Escorted us on and did the bland, 
 Until we drew near to the gloomy throat 
 Of tlie archway — where, their errand done, 
 They vanished, and the skeleton 
 Stalked forward to salute us. 
 
 The goblin grooms preceding us set up 
 The view halloo among a rush of bats, 
 Whose leathern wings made tempest of its kind. 
 As through the dismal archway we advanced, 
 Until the courtyard, circled by Death's stables. 
 Brought to a sudden halt. Meanwhile, the neighing. 
 Snorting, and plunging, and all eqiune sounds 
 Imaginable, kept the ear distraught. 
 Fiercer and more insvifferable grew 
 The wild distraction, when there came to play 
 Part in the discord many strident voices — 
 A Bell that had done duty in its day, 
 Chiming out joys at merry festival, 
 Tolling out griefs at woful funeral^ 
 Crack'd now, yet armed with a conceited tongue
 
 WTNTER. 73 
 
 That would its bygone virtues still extol ! 
 
 A Trumpet that had rallied to the fight, 
 
 And startled slumbering K'ations mth its voice, 
 
 "VVliich Fame had lifted to her burning lips 
 
 And pour'd her soul through — batter'd, out of shape ! 
 
 A Hunting Horn, which, erst by Nimrod winded, 
 
 Had urged to the hot chase and stirred to life 
 
 The echoes of the uplands — gnarled with rust ! 
 
 A liUte with broken strings — an Organ sacked 
 
 Of its grand thunder-store — a muffled Drum, 
 
 A Bag-pipe repossessed by seven devils 
 
 Worse than the first that wail'd ands hriek'd and 
 
 skirled, 
 And puff'd and snorted, drawl'danddron'din turn — 
 An old used-up Cremona, with its ribs 
 Staved in, and the rich soul of music, 
 Emprison'd in it as by sorcery, 
 Run out. By rejDort it was the same 
 That Paganini won his laurels by ; 
 And now a very mouse might parody it. 
 And the vile screech-owl, as a rival, start, 
 More versed in ]\Ielody. Such were the sounds 
 And such the Instruments that welcomed me 
 To Death's dread Stables ! Such the Orchestra — 
 Instructed to do honour to Death's Guest ! 
 
 Emerging from the Archway to the Courtyard, 
 All suddenly, as by a flash of magic.
 
 SONGS OF THE- SEASONS. 
 
 I lost sight of the Master of the Horse 
 
 And Goblin escort ; and instead was faced 
 
 By Tempest, Famine, and foul Pestilence, 
 
 My clamorous Uhlans ! How they had passed up 
 
 The Valley, in advance of me, half puzzled ; 
 
 But three huge chargers rolling on their backs 
 
 In agony, their nostrils spurting blood. 
 
 With foam commingled, and their hoofs flung up, 
 
 A story told of speed and sacrifice. 
 
 In light of a good Aiigury my Ulilans 
 Regarded the disaster — plumed themselves 
 On its acceptance as an offering 
 Made to the Shadowy King, and with each other 
 Laid odds on the requital. I devoured 
 The marrow of their talk as one that reads 
 Eesistlessly the pages of Eomance, 
 And with its spirit becomes identified. 
 Auxiliary to my intents were theirs, 
 And I, by nod and gesture, gave approval. 
 
 At a right angle from its first direction. 
 All suddenly, the dialogue diverged 
 And settled on the merits of Death's Horse. 
 It was a rare discussion, out of which 
 Eliminated strange conclusions 
 Regarding origin and pedigree 
 And the descendants of the pallid Charger.
 
 WINTER. 75 
 
 All knew the Sii-e, for he had crossed them oft 
 In hunting and in hattle field ahke, 
 In earthquake, conflagration, hurricane, 
 In city, desert, and the rolling sea ; 
 But his descendants none had seen or known. 
 Heretofore — so I learnt from their discourse — 
 They had been reckoned fabulous, and classed 
 With Centaurs and Chimeras. Was it so 1 
 
 The dialogue went on. To the turn it came 
 Of Pestilence to speak — the hated Uhlan 
 Condemn'd, by pact, to grace the Altar's horns ! 
 Astride the carcase of his horse he sate, 
 And with sepulclaral voice and loatlily breath 
 Declaimed, in terms of fulsome eulogy, 
 Touclaing the grisly Monarch of the Valley. 
 Discarded parasites speak highly oft 
 Of their discarders, on a shift of tenure, 
 So spake this skullv in eulogy of Death. 
 And this the wind-up of his narrative — 
 Its purjDose I divined — to disaflfect 
 His brother Ulilans, and make mutiny. 
 But Tempest backed me up, and Famine took 
 A neutral part. The incident described 
 Is one of many such that have taken place, 
 And will take place until the end of Time. 
 
 " He smote and smote, in front, to right and left, 
 And when, in very centre of the Smiter,
 
 76 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 A shell exploded, meant to annihilate, 
 
 Unscorched, intact, and imperturhable, 
 
 In front, to right and left, the Eider smote ! 
 
 A hedge of corpses lay on either side, 
 
 Forming a lane, on furthest end of which 
 
 Upheaved, upheaving, showed a xaound of dead 
 
 So high and so impracticably broad. 
 
 In every sense deterrent to the nerve, 
 
 ]!f one could have pushed beyond it, but the One ; 
 
 And He — the DouUe-He — the Horse and Rider, 
 
 At easy vault th' obstruction over-topped, 
 
 And away passed, to enact the massacre 
 
 Upon another stage. I, Pestilence, 
 
 As was my duty, with my Ghouls and Vultures, 
 
 Pitched Tent and hoisted up the Yellow Flag." 
 
 Scarce had the loathly Uhlan finished speech, 
 When re-appeared the Master of the Horse 
 Beckoning to the stables. I in front 
 Dispersed, by virtue of my icy breath, 
 The thousand maladies in spectral form 
 Way-laying our approach. A sudden turn 
 Brought into view a Churchyard vast — so vast 
 That all the prairies of the Western World, 
 The Afric deserts, and the howling wastes 
 That hug my frontiers, blended into one. 
 Were nothing to this camp of burial. 
 So vast ! my ken distinguished no horizon,
 
 WINTER. 11 
 
 No boimdaiy, yet here and there a speck 
 
 In the far distance — a N'ecropolis, 
 
 Obelisk, mausoleixm, monument — 
 
 So I divined ; and here and there, a patch 
 
 Of sable timber — Upas, Yew, and Cypress — 
 
 Under whose ghastly cover toad-stools shew'd, 
 
 And noxious creatures sputtered out their ven(jm 
 
 To feed the hemlocks and rank parasites. 
 
 All this by apprehension I divined. 
 
 What most attracted in this Churchyard vast 
 "Were the great clouds of horses ; some at feed. 
 Grazing in quiet ; some in full career. 
 Scouring the flats or bounding up the heights ; 
 Legion their number ! all the cavalries 
 Of the contending kingdoms of the Earth 
 Could challenge no comparison. The waves 
 Beating upon a thousand capes and headlands 
 Came nearer to the mark. Astonishment 
 Stood out upon the faces of my Uhlans, 
 And questioning looks were levelled at the guide. 
 No answer but a curt, derisive laugh 
 He deigned, and beckon'd onwards to the Stables. 
 (Interpart omitted.) 
 
 The cribs in Death's dread Stables are but seven, 
 And of these seven but six were occupied.
 
 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 The empty one, more roomy than the others, 
 
 No token in its furnishings revealed 
 
 By which to guess when it was last in use. 
 
 Seven eyeless masks on seven rusty pegs — 
 
 The staves and parted girdings of a pail — 
 
 A mop, a j)itchfork, and a curry-comb, 
 
 And in the rack a mouldy wisp of hay 
 
 My glance took in, with other equine gear 
 
 And musty provender ; no date of when 
 
 The going forth ! no preparation made 
 
 To welcome hack the Eider and his Steed. 
 
 A leaden chill pervaded the compartment 
 
 That more benumhed than does my coldest breath; 
 
 Such as inhales the Walrus in his cave, 
 
 And Kraken, when he tugs my Icebergs out. 
 
 It grasped the heart, as with a hand of steel. 
 
 And all its ducts and arteries choked up ; 
 
 The brain it petrified, and, as it were, 
 
 Let fall a curtain o'er the throne of Thought. 
 
 Upon my Uhlans' faces I descried 
 The working of a great spasmodic shock — 
 Strange corrugations — twistings of the features — 
 A death approached of all Intelligence ! 
 
 Out of this stall we hurried with all speed. 
 The groom in charge not bidding us to stay, 
 Eather, by gesture, hasting our retreat.
 
 WINTER. 79 
 
 No guessing needed it, no setting forth 
 By an interpreter, into whose crib, 
 Armed with authority, we had set foot ! 
 
 I watched the Master, 
 He watching me with an assiduous eye, 
 Knave in the grain — a murderous, scheming knave ! 
 He knew his vantage-time, but I beforehand 
 Took him at vantage, and waved back my Uhlans, 
 Else it had cost them dear, and, as it was. 
 Staggering, they reached the threshold of the den. 
 
 With freer breath towards the neighbouring stall 
 We stepped. The daggers, strange to say ! 
 Which on our Guide's face hitherto had glea^n'd. 
 All of a sudden became snugly sheathed. 
 And the impassive clods of his reticence 
 Gave way unto a garrulous exordium. 
 Touching the charger under our review. 
 
 The moon-faced goblin at his elbow chuclded, 
 And drank in every word the Master spake, 
 As if it were a vinous compHment 
 Paid to himself and his discharge of trust. 
 
 '* This is a Horse ! look to it, Ancient ! 
 And you nigh smother'd in the crib hard by ! 
 The telling picture of a thorough-bred !
 
 80 SONGS OF THE SEASONS 
 
 Examine liiin. His teetli are all entire ; 
 You can't pronounce him aged on this score ; 
 Xor is it an objection that they shew 
 A cannibal propensity. His grand-dam 
 The favourite mare was in the dainty stalls 
 Of Diomede, the quondam King of Thrace, 
 Whom doughty Hercules was charged to brain — 
 Him and liis stud I Horses were epicures 
 In those brave days, and fed on fattened babes. 
 Such fare gave wind and muscle, speed and mettle. 
 Look to it. Ancient ! how this Horse is fashioned ! 
 His pasterns upright and his fetlocks curt, 
 Lash-legg'd and round, but bony in the knees, 
 ISTeck long, and like a galley's prow ujDreared ; 
 Ample the eye and black, the ear high-prick'd 
 But small, proportion taken into account, 
 The forehead large and lean, the A\4thej's sharp 
 And pointed, deep the flanks and bulging out ; 
 Of amj)le belly, warded well Avith rib — - 
 Short in the back and even — double-chined — 
 Tliighs long and large, but muscular withal — 
 The truncheon aptly couched, and well set on — 
 INIane narrow-ridg'd, not scant, nor yet redundant — 
 This is the Horse before you, my most Ancient ! 
 The colour you object to ? liver-coloured ; 
 'Tis an objection of some force, I admit. 
 The feeding of his grand-dam may account for't ; 
 But blood makes blood, and the liigh colour showing
 
 WINTER. 81 
 
 On the outside betokens pedigree — 
 The dam and not the sire predominates. 
 Our wholesome custom is to sink the Sire. 
 More than enough of H'uii is prevalent 
 Hereabouts, and we send to grass out yonder 
 (Pointing in the direction of the churchyard) 
 The colts that take to him too partially. 
 This is no school for horses of that sort, 
 Which cast no shadow, and no hoof-tracks shed ; 
 But come, my hearties — by your looks, I guess. 
 This limb of the renoAvned Androphagi 
 Is not in favour — on the round we'll go. 
 And what we have in ward and keejiing show."' 
 
 In the next crib tliere stood a Horse superb. 
 And black as coal from tip of ear to hoof. 
 That knew instinctively of our approach, 
 JSTor neighed nor pranced, nor demonstration made 
 Of joy or terror, but with stately front 
 Regarded us in equine dignity. 
 He needed no laudation from the Guide, 
 So patent were his merits at all points. 
 A grander Stallion, save his Palhd Brother, 
 And He not grander, only more empower' d — 
 More favour'd, more in keeping witli the Eider — 
 jS'e'er shewed since headstrong Phcetontookinhaud 
 To guide the flaming chariot of the sun, 
 Deeming himself an expert with the reins.
 
 82 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Upon that day of retribution dire, 
 "When from his rack of fire-bolts, Jove, incensed, 
 The deadliest snatched, by Mulciber devised 
 For special paroxysms, and with aim 
 Vindictive hurled it at the hapless youth. 
 Of the unwonted violence of the stroke 
 Partook the frantic coursers, Phlegon most, 
 Once purple-hued, but by the charring fumes 
 Made black as Erebus. Prom Phlegon sprang, 
 As the great-grandsire of his sable dam 
 (For sable ruled immaculate, from tip 
 Of ear to hoof, throughout the whole descent) 
 The Horse before us. During the Eclipse 
 "Which shrouded Heav'n and Earth — that sin'ster hour, 
 When with a clang the gates of Paradise 
 Closed on the outcast pair — first of the race 
 Of Mortals — on that hour. Tradition saith. 
 Were foaled, outside the forfeited domain, 
 Twin Steeds — the one the pallid Steed of Death ! 
 The other stands before us in his dread, 
 The grander of the Twain, but not the chosen, 
 'NoY deemed the fittest for the Smiter's work ! 
 
 Tradition saith, 'twas in a cavern 
 Close by the gate through which the outcasts fled, 
 This double birth took place. Were gather'd there 
 A concourse of foreshadowed demigods, 
 In the expectancy of something dread,
 
 WINTEB. S?, 
 
 Which would imperil their verity of being — 
 
 Concuss and jumble epochs, dates delete, 
 
 Aiid to perdition hurl Mythology. 
 
 The Lapitha3, Theseus, and Hercules, 
 
 Bellerophon and winged Pegasus — 
 
 The Centaur Cliiron, and grim Steropes, 
 
 The Cyclop who at Lemnos ruled the forge, 
 
 And shod the saffron horses of the Morn — 
 
 The Gemini and other monstrous shapes 
 
 That came from tampering of the Heaven ■with Earth, 
 
 Divinities with gross humanities, 
 
 And intercourse of more unnatural sort ; 
 
 Such forms were there made heroes by the brain 
 
 Of those who deej)ly drank of Hippocrene, 
 
 Or the strong waters freighted from the North, 
 
 To which the seasoned juices of the grape, 
 
 Be it Falernian or of Cretan groAvth, 
 
 Put in comparison, are whey of milk — 
 
 A dullard's drink provocative of drivel. 
 
 Seemed presence-struck himself, the while he gave, 
 Touching this horse's i^edigree and birth, 
 A rambling narrative, our siuly Guide ! 
 Xor did its subject deign to notice him, 
 Until he ventiu'ed on disparagement 
 Of his twin brother, and a contrast drew 
 In fulsome terms in favour of the listener ; 
 Then with his hoof right angrily the charger
 
 84 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 Pawed, and the flinty pavement underneath 
 
 A spray of scintillating fire threw up ; 
 
 And when renewed was the comparison, 
 
 Again he pawed, and with distended nostril. 
 
 Out from the crib to courtyard and to camp 
 
 Of burial, far, sent forth a neigh of fury, 
 
 Which made the grazers start, the scourers halt. 
 
 And reached, so told me a responsive neigh, 
 
 The ear of the Pale Horse. Death's ear impassive. 
 
 Ay ! and impervious to all flattery, 
 
 "Was taken for the moment by assault, 
 
 Else had been no return of compliment. 
 
 So I divined. The Battle news which ranged 
 
 Along the wires that night was terrible, 
 
 And spoke to the extinction of a ^N^ation. 
 
 Such admiration did the sable Horse 
 Excite, the Uhlan Tempest stood astonied, 
 Famine expressed his wonder open-mouthed, 
 And Pestilence made muttering to himself 
 Of Vivisection and the Einderpest. 
 
 I noted how the Master of Death's Stud 
 Watched them, and read the expression of their 
 
 thoughts. 
 And how in turn he scanned my immobile face, 
 As if some scrap of scripture might o'erpass it 
 That he could take advantage of. At length.
 
 WINTER. S5 
 
 Baulk'd of the sought-for opportunity, 
 
 But trusting to the die, he signall'd for 
 
 The moon-faced groom to lead the sable steed 
 
 Out to the Courtyard, so Death's favoured guest 
 
 jNIight scrutinise his points and give a judgment. 
 
 The Urchin knew his charge, his charge knew him, 
 And needed neither coaxing nor the halter. 
 But readily, his ire being pacified, 
 Stepp'd out with head erect, proud as a Czar ! 
 Approached him first, the Uhlan Pestilence, 
 In hound-like posture, snifiing like a hound 
 Intent on carrion ; his cadaverous brow 
 Lit up with a malign expectancy. 
 At venture out he jerked his hideous arms, 
 Swivell'd on which were hands of cruel cast, 
 Set off" with digits, wiry, crooked, lean, 
 Adapted to the practice of the Thug, 
 Or skilled garotter from the murder-dens 
 Of some great city on the rove let loose. 
 
 Of his officiousness I made rebuke, 
 But he excused it, as a proof of zeal. 
 And gave me to imagine he was versed 
 In all the parts and bearings of the horse ; 
 His judgment did me service, he implied, 
 Nor further cared I to dispute his humour ; 
 For in the Charger's ample eye, I read
 
 86 SONGS OF THE SEASONS. 
 
 A dangerous something that sufficed to show 
 The hick of grace in which my Uhlan stood, 
 And in what peril, should he presumptuously 
 Lay hand upon the bridle (for the Horse, 
 As if by magic, in the courtyard showed 
 In harness deft, caparisoned and shod, 
 Eeady for action at some rider's beck, 
 But Avho the rider was, a riddle still !) 
 Xor did the varlet fail himself to note 
 The dangerous glitter of the equine eye. 
 And, deeming it were best to be discreet, 
 Avoided it, but not escaped the scorn 
 That flashed upon him, and the loathing shewn. 
 Which smote his inner consciousness the more, 
 That not by endowed speech it was exprest, 
 Uut l>\' the instincts of a quadniped. 
 
 The Ulilan Famine made his venture next, 
 And press'd, but with subdued effrontery, 
 His gaunt and ghastly presence into view. 
 "With quiet scorn the Horse regarded him 
 As one he could annihilate with scorn, 
   Ikit cared not to lose virtue on account of. 
 "Without more effort, his disdain availed 
 To cow my ill-appointed servitor, 
 And back he slunk. No mount this Horse for him .' 
 
 Tempest the while stood grandly in the background
 
 WINTER. 87 
 
 Communing with tlie Master ; in a wliispt-r 
 The one the other sounding, as those Jo 
 With Stable-craft familiar — not a doubt ! 
 Nevertheless, some shew of merriment, 
 At the repulse of Pestilence and Famine, 
 Took place betwixt them ; and the sable steed, 
 On the dismissal of his noisome suitors, 
 Encouraged it, neighing disdainfully — 
 Tossing his tail about and glossy mane — 
 Pawing, yet not with fury as before, 
 But in a coaxing manner, his fuU eye 
 Fixed on the Uhlan Tempest, as the eye 
 Would of can ardent soldier on the Chief, 
 In whose advance was victory assured 
 That led to highest meed of proud renown. 
 
 a 
 
 On revelation of this equine fancy, 
 The Uhlan Tempest, with an oath abrupt, 
 And at a stride or two, betokening scorn 
 Of his adviser, to the steed drew near, 
 AVhich, in its own way, gave encouragement 
 And opportunity to grip the bridle ; 
 jS'or did he hesitate a pulse's beat 
 To take advantage of the proffer' d honour ; 
 But, ere the pulse's beat had well expired, 
 Was firm in saddle, as an oak on the earth, 
 Or Pharos stablished by the hand of miglit 
 And compassing around of thought with thought
 
 88 SONGS OF THE SEASON'S. 
 
 Tu centre frantic of conflicting seas. 
 
 A great delight it was, and overjoyed me, 
 
 Casting aside the terrors and the horrors 
 
 Of my strange journeying through the silent valley, 
 
 To note the overjoy of Steed and Rider, 
 
 And how at once they took to being one — 
 
 One in the purpose, one in the desire. 
 
 Both as one shape, to execute my will. 
 
 Neighed forth the Horse a neigh of exultation, 
 Expressive of redemption from Death's Crib 
 And jubilant welcome to its swarthy Rider. 
 A neigh responsive quickly caught the ear, 
 And ere it died away the Sable Horse, 
 liearing my faithful Uhlan, disappeared ; 
 And a fierce wind arose that fluttering set 
 The awful Flag upon Death's fortalice. 
 And from the hall of banquetting evoked 
 The rattling of dry bones. Let Pestilence 
 Shift for himself, and Famine for himself ! 
 There yet remain four cribs unvisited 
 From which to choose their mounts. I'm in no hurry 
 To have their service. Meantime, they may go, 
 Play pitch and toss with the dare-devil Master, 
 Or take a turn at skittles with his grooms. 
 Only let Famine be on the alert. 
 For I shall summon him l)y Trumpet blast 
 At hands of Tempest when the Siege is pressed,
 
 WINTER. SO 
 
 And there are breaches in the city walls. 
 I'estilence, the skunk, may go, make terms with Siunmt'V 
 All through the dog-days. . . . Meanwhilw, 
 Upon my lav'rite Uhlan's track I press. 
 
 farewell ! Death, my Brother ! 
 Farewell ! Sin, thy Mother I 
 Farewell, Vallej' dread — 
 And thy abhorrent river ! 
 Farewell ! ye Shades that tread 
 Toward that Valley's head ! 
 Farewell, farewell, for ever ! 
 
 <^^l^^^=^ 
 -^^ <^~''
 
 ;Flo0m^^ and 
 
 |) "J « fl §'
 
 BTRD MUSIC. 
 
 I. 
 
 Oh ! the delight of listening, 
 
 When song-life is astir ! 
 The Ijlackhird on the hawthorn, 
 
 And cushat on the fir : 
 The lintie on the lime-tree, 
 
 And laverock in the lift. 
 The finch among the hazels 
 
 Making its merry love-shrift. 
 
 II. 
 
 The peeswit o'er the meadows 
 
 That skirt the sedgy rill. 
 And the grey whaup with its eerie cry 
 
 Disporting on the hill : 
 The owl that from the ivies 
 
 Gives challenge to the moon, 
 And the corn-crake at his vigils 
 
 In the balmy eves of June. 
 
 III. 
 
 The sparrow on the house-top. 
 
 Chattering late and early, 
 The swallow cruizing with voiced wincj 
 
 Athwart the "riggs o' barley."
 
 94 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 The sultan of the grey-fowl 
 
 Convoking his haraam, 
 And the moorcock on the heath-beds 
 
 Joining chorus with the lamb. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The weary and the cheery, 
 
 The solemn and the sweet, 
 The grating and the musical 
 
 In our mountain voices meet. 
 The screaming of the osprey, 
 
 The clanging of the crane, 
 The plaining of the sea-mew 
 
 O'er the altars of the main : 
 
 v. 
 
 The rocky island altars. 
 
 Where sacrifice is due. 
 Of many a costly cargo, 
 
 And many a gallant crew ; 
 Of many a shapely vessel 
 
 Trimmed for the eyes' delight, 
 Of many a venturous seaman 
 
 That has fought for Britain's right. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Peej) I playmate of the fairy ! 
 
 From below your curtains coy ; 
 The pulses of the greenwood 
 
 Are quivering with joy.
 
 BIRD MUSIC. • 95 
 
 ) 
 
 From his frolics on the larch-toj 
 Ceases the pranksome squirrel, 
 
 AVith perk'd ear giving audience 
 To the warbling of the merle ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 The dormouse at its banquet, 
 
 Upon the beechen mast, 
 Tvirns dainty as it catclies 
 
 The carols chiming past : 
 The carols of the song-birds — 
 
 The music of the grove — 
 The concord and the discord 
 
 In the hymns of feather'd love. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 All that is best within us 
 Confesses to the charm, 
 
 For the joy of song is kindled 
 In the forest and the farm. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Warble ! warble ! warble ! 
 
 Warble at your will ! 
 Hearts and veins of marble 
 
 Throb with every thrill. 
 Carol ! carol ! carol ! 
 
 Happy lark and linnet ! 
 When your lay is ended 
 
 Then again begin it.
 
 0() POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 X. 
 
 AVarble ! warble ! warble ! 
 
 Ousel and willow wreii ! 
 Who Avitli joy have listened 
 
 Will list with joy again — 
 With joy and sweet regarding 
 
 To the concert of the grove, 
 To the blending streams of melodv 
 
 That flow from feather'd love. 
 
 THE JILT; OB, FORTY YEABS AGO. 
 
 I. 
 
 I LOOKED into a loving face, 
 
 A winning face with loving eyes ; 
 
 Before me tripj^ed a form of grace. 
 So moulded that in very wise 
 
 I thought of life in Paradise. - 
 
 But this Avas forty years ago ! 
 
 II. 
 And I remember, too, how she 
 Excelled in every excellence, 
 Was truth and gentle courtesy ; 
 
 Abounding, yet without pretence, 
 In gifts of high intelligence. 
 
 But this was forty years ago !
 
 THE JILT ; OR, FORTY YEARS AGO. 97 
 
 III. 
 And I remember liow I hung 
 
 Upon her soft persuasive voice, 
 And the rich notes that when she sang 
 The ballads of her own sweet choice 
 With sadness filled or bade rejoice. 
 But this was forty years ago ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ay ! more beside ! I recollect 
 
 Of longings that of love were born, 
 
 Of hopes that in the retrospect 
 
 Kept high the heart at eve and morn, 
 
 Free from all fear of woman's scorn. 
 But this was forty years ago ! 
 
 v. 
 A dreamer then, a dreamer now, 
 
 I whdom dreamt of plighted truth. 
 And from serenity of brow — 
 
 From auspices of seeming ruth — 
 Drew presage of my favoured youth. 
 But this was forty years ago ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 A dreamer tlien, a rlreamer still, 
 I dreamt that woman must be fond, 
 
 G
 
 08 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 When, in Iter exercise of will, 
 
 She gives no reason to despond, 
 And, dreaming thus, I looked beyond — 
 Eut this was forty years ago 1 — 
 
 VII. 
 
 Beyond unto that sea of bliss 
 Into which kindred rivers glide 
 
 And blend their fortunes — so I wis, 
 In the fair ebbing of its tide, 
 
 ]My ardent fancy clasp'd a bride. 
 
 But this was forty years ago ! 
 
 VIII, 
 
 A dreamer now, a dreamer then, 
 I dream of how I was befool'd. 
 
 And again wonder, and again. 
 
 Under what Circe she was school'd, 
 
 AA^ho so my reason over-ruled. 
 
 But this was forty years ago ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Oh ! woman's arts are woman's own ; 
 
 To study them and comprehend 
 Is not our province — let alone. 
 
 And patience may attain its end !" 
 Who said so was a doubtful friend — 
 A friend of forty years ago !
 
 THE JILT; OR, FORTY YEARS AGO. 99 
 
 X. 
 
 And yet who said so, in a way- 
 Spake truth, but erred so far in this. 
 
 That he forgot that herein lay 
 
 The golden secret of man's bliss — 
 
 The key to every rapt'rous kiss — 
 
 Half friend of forty years ago ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 'Tis true, to study her, and gain 
 
 The knowledge that we would acquire, 
 
 Is oft a labour spent in vain ; 
 But it is love's, and who can tire 
 
 In the fair garden of desire 
 
 Frequented forty years ago ? 
 
 XII. 
 
 The wayward fancies of the sex, 
 
 Heart and frivolity combined ; 
 The contradictions which perplex, 
 
 Yet staple form of womankind, 
 Are surely studies for the mind ! 
 
 Ay ! were so forty years ago ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Yet who among our earnest men — 
 The deepest thinkers of the age —
 
 100 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 The aUest wielders of tiie pen, 
 Will venture singly to engage 
 With woman on her o"\yn free stage? 
 Who durst so forty years ago 1 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Or to explain with satisfaction, 
 And in philosophy's behalf, 
 
 The secrets of the sex's action, 
 The meaning of Delilah's laugh — 
 
 The worship of the golden calf? 
 
 None durst so forty years ago ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 Of those great men, both grave and great, 
 In their pretences and position — 
 
 The floats and anchors of the State — 
 Who of them all, without contrition, 
 
 Can hnk to visions of ambition 
 
 The loves of forty years ago ? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Although to study her is truly. 
 If not a duty, still a pleasure. 
 
 They favour woman all unduly 
 Who sacrifice their choicest leisure 
 
 In wooing of a fancied treasure ! 
 
 Ah me ! the forty years ago !
 
 THE JTL T ; OB, FORTY YEA i?.'? A HO . 101 
 
 XVII. 
 
 To this conclusion I am carried 
 
 By old experiences. Moreover, 
 Seeing that years have held me manitHl, 
 
 'Tis only from a happy cover 
 I watch the wooings of the lover, 
 
 And think of forty years ago ! 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 I watch the making up of matches — 
 The setting of the man-traps cruel — 
 
 The under-plot and tricky fetches 
 
 By which is stirr'd the slumbering fuel, 
 
 And raised the value of the jewel ! 
 
 And muse on forty years ago ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Yes ! woman is a puzzle still ; 
 
 Whatever be her aim and boast. 
 It ends in this, and always will, 
 
 Herself it is slie puzzles most — 
 Come, join me in a passing toast 
 
 To the jilt of forty years ago 1 
 
 XX. 
 
 For still she lives, but where the grace, 
 And airy elegance of form —
 
 102 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 The loving eyes and witching face — 
 
 The voice that ravished, as hy storm— 
 The whole illusion, and the charm, 
 
 That bound me forty years ago ? 
 
 -00- 
 
 LINES TO MY WIFE. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ix tlie heart of the year, ere June expires, 
 
 Wlien the sun holds coiu't in the Highlands high, 
 
 And is lavish most of its marvel fires, 
 We'll olf to Oban, you and I. 
 
 II. 
 In the noon of the year, when the rage hath died 
 
 Out of the great Atlantic roll. 
 And the spell is binding on wave and tide, 
 
 That draws to Oban heart and soul ; 
 
 III. 
 A\"lu?n ^lorven reveals its purpling heights. 
 
 And the banners of mist are all up-rolled ; 
 \N^ien the legion hath fled of sullen sprites, 
 
 And the angel unravels his tissues of gold ;
 
 LINES TO MY WIFE. 103 
 
 IV. 
 
 When over tlie rugged tlirones of Mull, 
 
 "VVTiere antler and. eagle tower supreme, 
 The glory rests with the sea-born lull. 
 
 Transcending Art or Poet's dream ! 
 
 V. 
 
 "WTien over the maze of motley isles. 
 
 That ward our harbours frorn. foe and storm, 
 
 The cloudland dissolves into wreaths of smiles, 
 And the rainbow stretches its tremulous form ; 
 
 VI. 
 
 In the season of flowers, when the Meadow Queen 
 Livites to her court the wandering bee, 
 
 And the fragrance exhaled on the heights terrene 
 Circles on zephyr wings down to the sea ; 
 
 VII. 
 
 When the blended breaths of the heath and thyme, 
 
 And balmy orchis are aU astir ; 
 Wlien in fau-y ears the blue-bells chime, 
 
 And the cone is greening on the fir ; 
 
 VIII. 
 
 When the leaf of the water-lily paves 
 
 The shallows of the dreaming mere. 
 And its white cup tossed on the mimic Avaves 
 
 Bringeth the lazy distance near ;
 
 104 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 xVfter tlie early life of the brae, 
 
 The primrose joy and glory are past ; 
 
 After the honey-moon of the May, 
 
 When its bridal attire the sloe hath cast ; 
 
 X. 
 
 After the merle hath ceased to sing. 
 
 Or sings by starts in the gates of the eve ; 
 
 After " the wandering voices of Spring," 
 Cuckoo and curlew, have taken leave; 
 
 XI. 
 
 When the scowl is hfted from off the brows 
 Of old Duntroon and grim Dunolly ; 
 
 And there is the whisper of lovers' vows 
 Below the hazels and the holly ; 
 
 XII. 
 
 When the spectres that howl round Gylen stern 
 In the winter nights are laid and at rest. 
 
 And the otter, gliding through cave and cairn, 
 In Kerrera fair, is its grimmest guest ; 
 
 XIII. 
 
 In the heart of the year, when the salmon seek 
 Their way to the rivers, and merry sea-trout 
 
 Give life by theh frohcs to bay and creek — 
 When the lusty porpoise is rolling about ;
 
 LINES TO MY WIFE. 105 
 
 XIV. 
 
 WTien the lytlie is at play round the Eilan Dhu, 
 And the dolorous gurnard shews on the calms, 
 
 And the hoe and stenlock dare and do 
 The havoc of wolves among the lambs ; 
 
 XV. 
 
 When the crops of the sea are ripe and rife — 
 
 Dainty and luring to palate and eye — 
 And its garners teem "nT-th the marvels of life, 
 
 We'll off to Oban, you and I. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 In the noon of the year, when out of Clyde 
 
 The fleet of the West, in full array, 
 Braving alike the gale and tide, 
 
 Bounds with proclaim of holiday ; 
 
 XVII. 
 
 When the summer range of its going forth 
 
 Is meted out Avith a generous hand, 
 And, rolling up to the capes of the IS'orth, 
 
 Echoes of welcome fill the land ! 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 In the heart of the year, when the Chevalier 
 Lifts, like a falchion, his prow of scorn. 
 
 And, cleaving his way from bay to bay. 
 Sets free the storm-bound havens of Lorn ;
 
 106 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 When the gusty bluffs, where, till summer came, 
 With hoof of fury the sea-horse pranced, 
 
 And reefs that bear an ominous name 
 Shew in the distance all entranced ! 
 
 XX. 
 
 In the noon of the year, when the great mirage 
 
 Knits sea and sky in a bond divine, 
 And whispers of coming pilgrimage 
 
 Have reached lona's distant shrine; 
 
 XXI. 
 
 When over the province of billows enslaved 
 Treads like a monarch the Mountaineer, 
 
 And the heads that all spring-time frothed and raved, 
 Are the surest beacons by which to steer ; 
 
 XXII. 
 
 In that rapt season, when, as by a charm. 
 Are dropt the weapons of clerical strife, 
 
 And Churchman and Sectary, arm-in-arm, 
 Draw to the cradle of Christian life ; 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Where, in the centre of storms and dearth. 
 Were planted the Cross and fostered the creed, 
 
 A\Tiich, to the uttermost isles of the earth, 
 Salvation brought in an hour of need ;
 
 LINES TO MY WIFE. 107 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 When raised is the siege of warring waves 
 
 Round Staffa, and the Siren's lute, 
 In the remote of its pillared caves, 
 
 With conch. of Triton holds sweet dispute; 
 
 XXV. 
 
 When the chiaellings of that wondrous pile, 
 
 Tested by storm all winter through, 
 Shew freshest, and the wizard isle 
 
 Out of the waters hath risen anew; 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 When the mason's eye, that is swift to detect 
 
 Blemish or blur in the mystical craft. 
 Confesses a faultless arcliitect 
 
 In this blending of altar, cornice, and shaft ; 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 In the summer's heart, when the steamer's pant, 
 Like the pant of a whale when the chase is warm, 
 
 Climbing the Kyles, falls jubilant 
 On the ear of castle, cot, and farm ! 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Before the boisterous rush of the mass, 
 
 When only the skirmishers m advance 
 Face the hazards of mountain pass. 
 
 And under its curtains couch the lance ;
 
 108 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Before the hurrying to and fro 
 
 To pier and station, from square and street, 
 Before the city's life ebbing low 
 
 Seaward tides with the Western Fleet ; 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Before our senators are at large, 
 
 And silence rules in the great Divan ; 
 
 Before the rifle's cruel discharge 
 
 Kings through the corries of Cruachan ; 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 In the witching season when my ladye. 
 
 Who is winning and joyous beyond compare, 
 
 With loving speech entreateth me 
 Again to summer in Oban fair ; 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 And so to Oban, you and I, 
 
 Bird of my heart ! shall wing our way, 
 Wlien the sun, holding court in the Highlands high. 
 
 Of its glory is lavish in Oban Bay. 
 
 -00-
 
 THE HEIR OF ARDGOUR. 109 
 
 THE HEIR OF ARDGO UR. 
 
 I. 
 
 " WTien fair the wind blows, 
 
 And the tide is true to its promise, 
 
 I will steer to the island dear — 
 
 To the lov'd harbour where thy home is. 
 
 II. 
 
 " When calm the sea shows, 
 
 And its waves carry freights of pleasure, 
 I will steer to the harbour dear — 
 
 To the lov'd island that holds my treasure. 
 
 Ill, 
 " When fair the wind blows, 
 
 And the moan is hushed on the skerry, 
 As day drops o'er the mountain tops, 
 
 T will betake me across the ferry." 
 
 IV. 
 
 — " Let fair the wind blow. 
 
 And the tide run leal to its promise, 
 Craven lover they but carry over 
 
 To shame the island where my home is."
 
 110 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 V. 
 
 — " Let "wild the tides run, 
 
 And the billows toss at their pleasure — 
 Dark and swift let the cloud hosts drift — 
 
 I will brave all to clasp my treasure ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Let fierce the storm blow, 
 
 On its every gust a new fiend riding, 
 
 On each wave, the crest of the grave, 
 No moon shining, and no star guiding ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Wild though the night be. 
 
 Weird its phantoms and sable its cover, 
 I will steer to the island dear 
 
 Where thou, the loved, art — I, the lover ! " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Dreary the night is ; 
 
 Surge meets surge on the ominous skerry ; 
 Eoar on roar travels the shore ; 
 
 And battle is fought on the Avaist of the ferr_y ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Fitful the wind blows, 
 
 Howling by turns and muttering low ; 
 Woven its moods with the tale of the feuds 
 
 Wag'd on the isles in the long ago !
 
 THE HEIR OF ARDGO UE. Ill 
 
 X. 
 
 Frightful the tempest ! 
 
 Spectre ships hefore it are driven ; 
 The waves -writhe — for the lightning scythe 
 
 Of death is mowing for hell or heaven ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 "Wail on the mainland ! — 
 
 Wail in the shiehng ! and wail in the tower ! 
 Great the grief of vassal and chief : 
 
 A desolate' father is old Ardgour ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Wrapt in the sea- weed — 
 
 Motherly shroud of the ocean's weaving ! — 
 Lay a youth in the morning ruth, 
 
 High on the tide-mark's fresh up-heaving ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Wail on the mainland ! — 
 
 Wail in the chapel ! and wail at the shrine ! 
 Broken the sward in the still churchyard 
 
 For the hope and heir of an ancient line ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Wail on the mainland ! — 
 
 Wail and weeping on every isle I 
 Brave Ardgour is cut off in his flower ! 
 
 Eaise the coronach throiigh Argyle !
 
 112 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Empty tlie home is ! 
 
 Empty its chambers — empty and silent — 
 Drear the harhour, stilly the arbour — 
 
 Lone the ferry, and loner the island ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Eash were the words said — 
 
 Foolish the challenge by maiden spoken ! 
 Cruel the test of a faithful breast — 
 
 Sore the remorse, and bitter its token ! 
 
 The sward break anew for a heart newly broken I 
 
 -00- 
 
 MOVEMENTS— THE LEADER AND HIS 
 FOLLO WEBS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Every day and every night, 
 Under us, and overhead. 
 Round about, the book is spread 
 That cannot be too often read. 
 
 In tliis scripture of delight — 
 In this great, untiring page — 
 Lie revealed to scholar and sage 
 The secrets of each passing age.
 
 MOVEMENTS. 113 
 
 II. 
 
 Every student of the scroll, 
 Earnest in his high pursuit, 
 Labouring with a mind acute. 
 And with spirit resolute, 
 
 Holds, by virtue of his call. 
 
 By service of both head and heart, 
 Ey skill in the decyphering art, 
 A privileged and honoured part 
 
 III. 
 
 In the great progressive work, 
 In the conquest of the light 
 Over ignorance and night — 
 In the triumph of God's right. 
 
 "Where it will, let evil lui'k 
 
 'Mongst the dark dens of the earth ; 
 From its hidings men of worth 
 Yow to drag the demon forth. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In our own exalting time 
 Liberty of soul increases, 
 Bigotry's dominion ceases. 
 Thrones despotic fall to pieces. 
 
 So they tell us who would climb 
 To the summits they asperse — 
 Fni themselves the thrones they curse- 
 Evil rule convert to Avorse ; 
 
 H
 
 114 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 V. 
 
 From the altar snatch the offering, 
 Quench the fire "by angels fed, 
 Desecrate the Wine and Bread, 
 Trample upon Christ the Head ; 
 
 Fill a happy land with suffering — 
 In its furrows scored by toil 
 Sow the seeds of rank turmoil — 
 Mar the virtue of the soil. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Blind old Britain ! is the letter 
 Of history — the history 
 Of Liberty and Tyranny — 
 Become a sealed book to thee ? 
 
 Dost thou glory in the fetter, 
 As an ornament in vogue, 
 Forged by regicide and rogue, 
 By radical and demagogue ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 From thy memory have slipped 
 Every glorious recollection, 
 And the faith in God's protection, 
 Once thy rudder of direction 1 
 
 Hast thou all remembrance dipped 
 In Lethe of thy sore besettings — 
 Of thy shifts and toils and sweatings- 
 Of thy losings and thy gettings ?
 
 MOVEMENTS. 115 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Of thy place among the nations — 
 Not the perquisite of ease, 
 But on crinison'd fields and seas 
 "Won and held hy slow degrees — 
 
 Fought to, both Avith toil and patience, 
 In the uphill, weary fight, 
 Where to win needs hand of might, 
 Head and heart, and cause of right 1 
 
 IX. 
 
 Base-born serf and rabid spouter ! 
 
 What do they for Britain's honour ? 
 
 Of what boon is he the donor, 
 
 That, to slight her, looks upon her ? 
 Of his honesty a doubter, 
 
 I regard him, and with cause, 
 
 As disturber of tried laws. 
 
 Living but for self-applause ; 
 
 X. 
 
 Even to his pet, Eeform 
 
 (WTiich he prates of, nothing knowing, 
 And exalts in phrases glowing), 
 Treacherous on his own showing. 
 
 " SoAV the elements of storm 
 Broadcast over hill and dale, 
 Hoist the drum, and raise the gale, 
 So the Ship of State may sail ! "
 
 116 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 True ! this is tlie Wrecker's scoffing, 
 Yet a -willing pUot stands 
 Eeady to the Wrecker's hands, 
 Trustless as the treacherous sands. 
 
 Loyalty would seek the ofl6.ng, 
 Speak its gratitude in psalm, 
 Lion o'er the Oriflanime, 
 Court the harbour and the calm. 
 
 XII. 
 
 But the toiler at the helm — 
 
 Is he loyal 1 Pause ! while asking — 
 Statesmen, in the sunshine basking, 
 Study well the art of masking. 
 
 Him to trust to, save the realm ! 
 He of all men careth least 
 Whence the wind blows, West or East, 
 So he shares the Wrecker's feast. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Stronger than the patriot's zeal, 
 Stronger than a knightly tower, 
 Strong to hold and to devour 
 Is the rabid lust of power. 
 
 Who regards the common weal, 
 
 Eight maintains, or from aggression 
 Shields by strength or intercession 
 When this demon takes possession ?
 
 MOVEMENTS. 117 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Tell me not we have a leader 
 
 Leavened with the single spirit — 
 One beyond the common merit, 
 Born great honour to inherit. 
 
 I see notliing but the feeder 
 Of convulsions in the man — 
 Eker out of his own plan — 
 Trimmer to the Vatican. 
 
 XV. 
 
 I^ot the true, desired example 
 Of a statesman large of soul, 
 With whose power of self-control 
 Grows the power that rules the whole — 
 
 One whose energies are ample, 
 But his heart is ampler still, 
 Who, by an instinctive skill, 
 Can work out a nation's will. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Is 7ie such, to whom committed 
 Are the sacred trusts, whereon 
 E.ests the Triple Union — 
 Rest the Church, the State, and Throne ] 
 
 For a loftier purpose fitted 
 Than to make ignoble paction 
 With the movers of reaction 
 And the demon soul of faction 1
 
 118 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Oh ! I fear the brave, old spirit 
 That engender'd men of part, 
 Adepts in the ruling art, 
 Has died out of Britain's heart ! 
 
 Who are they that claim the merit 
 In this great reforming strife 1 
 Judge them in the actual life; — 
 Spare nor branch nor pruning knife ! 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Go to Birmingham or Sheffield, 
 Bradford, Manchester, or Leeds — 
 Hot-beds for malignant seeds — 
 I^urseries of envenomed weeds ! 
 
 I*^ot to be out-done or baffled 
 In their purposes of wrong 
 Are the minds that sway the throng. 
 Hell- ward urging it along. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 'Tis the baleful power of money. 
 Working to an evil end, 
 In the name, may God forefend ! 
 Of the self-styled People's Friend. 
 
 " Ours are both the wax and honey ; 
 We are owners of the hives ; 
 What to us the workers' lives. 
 Hungered households, jaded wives ]
 
 MOVEMENTS. 119 
 
 XX. 
 
 " Mills are ours that grind to order — 
 
 Mar the human face divine — 
 
 Tamper with the inner shrine — 
 
 Keep us on the right incline, 
 Help to overstep the herder 
 
 'Twixt :N'ohility and Trade. 
 
 Titled lordhngs are outweighed, 
 
 Acred squires thrown into shade. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 " Ay ! look out ! We have abettors 
 Everywhere. The franchise lower'd, 
 JN'ow, and for all times untoward, 
 Is our sceptre and our sword ! 
 
 Lawyers, and those men of letters 
 Who let out their wits for hire. 
 Facile are at our desire. 
 Borough to command or Shire. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 " A constituency binding 
 
 To our service and estate. 
 
 For our ends to legislate. 
 
 We have purposed to create. 
 Let our mills be set a-grinding ! 
 
 We of the Progressive school, 
 
 When great Senates play the fool. 
 
 Bear the fittest heads to rule.
 
 120 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 " Have we not ourselves made wealthy 
 By employing every shift — 
 Laws of discipline and thrift — 
 By the shuttle, sure and swift ? 
 
 Who, in face of things unhealthy, 
 When the puppets of the great 
 Take bold guidance of the State, 
 Better trained to legislate ? 
 
 ^O"' 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 " Better versed in economics — 
 Better up to men and things, 
 And not held by courts and kings 
 In perpetual leading-strings % 
 Who can act as fitter tonics 
 For a constitution worn ; 
 DazzKng into nought the scorn 
 Of the beggar, nobly born ? 
 
 XXV. 
 
 " Are we not the merchant princes. 
 Under tread of whom the mould 
 Of usages, as was foretold, 
 And vile dust shall turn to gold 1 
 
 Heraldry before us winces. 
 So do every sham and boast ; 
 Give us only Power and Post, 
 Won't we of them make the most 1"
 
 MOVEMENTS. 121 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Such are those the Premier chooses, 
 Wisely chooses for his friends, 
 And the hand that he extends 
 Helps to many private ends. 
 
 Little deems he what he loses, 
 
 Trusting to the purse-proud crew ; 
 Of the many thinking true, 
 Douhting jealously the few. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Yet the few he rashly scorneth 
 
 Wait their day, and know its token, 
 When the judgment shall be spoken, 
 And the spell of evil broken ; 
 
 When to Mm that nigh-hand doubteth 
 Of the Eeason of the Nation, 
 Weeping o'er its degradation, 
 Shall be given consolation. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 jSTames enrolled on banners flaunting. 
 By the fickle mob paraded, 
 To some sin'ster scheme persuaded. 
 Under promises evaded. 
 
 Now at summit of their vaunting, 
 Shouted at the People's meetings, 
 And at Loyalty's defeatings 
 Trumpeted in clamorous greetings —
 
 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Comes the time, and is not distant, 
 \Vlien as bye-words these shall be 
 Cast as a reproach to thee, 
 Britain ! in thine idiocy. 
 
 Seek and pray for an assistant 
 In the interim of strife, 
 To roll back the smoke and stife, 
 And restore thy wonted life. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Seek and pray for some great spirit — 
 Part the Eagle, part the Dove — 
 Euling in the cause of Love ! 
 Fearing only God above — 
 
 A distinguisher of merit — 
 A despiser of all sect, 
 Leaning among thrones erect 
 On the staif of Intellect ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Such the man the occasion needeth, 
 Not the truckler to the mob, 
 Not the winker at a job. 
 Deeming it Reform to rob. 
 
 Better stuff in him that leadeth. 
 May we hope for — ay ! shall get; 
 Britain's sun shall never set, 
 The " Good Time is coming yet."
 
 CLIMBING SONNETS. 123 
 
 CLIMBING SONNETS. 
 
 I. 
 This demon of the Alps — this climbing rage, 
 That yearly on our vent'rous islemen throws 
 Its cruel spells, and blanches many a rose, 
 And blights the hope of many a heritage, 
 Who can appease it 1 Who the purpose move 
 Of those that to its fatal beck respond, 
 And leave adoring hearths and circles fond, 
 In the strange faith that weakness flows of love 1 
 Foolish ambition ! all to be a span 
 iSTigher the intermiiiable heavens than are 
 Their fellows. Take example from that star, 
 Which, measuring not its strength by thine, man ! 
 Shews purest in celestial life and beauty 
 Upon the Ioav horizon of its duty. 
 
 II. 
 
 If thou loilt climb and hold as enterprise 
 This tampering with inglorious danger — go ! 
 There are some men to whom God's Paradise 
 Were Hell, if reached without excess of woe ; 
 But such have the Eternal Heav'ns in \dew, 
 And crowns of Amaranth, and the rest to be 
 That holds with Christ and all eternity ; — 
 Thou but the greeting lost in the adieu —
 
 1-34 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 The momentary triumph which, attained, 
 Is like the climax of the rocket's fli£cht — 
 A turning point in exultation gained, 
 Whereat dissolve the extasies of light. 
 Such, too, the fortune of thy daring feat ! 
 To reach is hut to hoist the signal of retreat. 
 
 III. 
 If thou loilt climh, are there not still undared, 
 Witliin the compass of thy native land, 
 Thrones of strong venture — muniments which scared 
 The Roman eye, so terrible and grand —   
 Eamparts of rock, hy hard and echo manned. 
 Enough to sate thee 1 Not, in all this wealth 
 Of mountain range made richer hy home ties, 
 By pride of nation and on score of health, 
 Enough to satisfy thine enterprise 1 
 Thou emmet, without soul ! A cliimney sweep 
 Will stand in rough comparison with thee, 
 Should cHmhing be thy sole felicity. 
 Emmet ! yea, emmet ! Climbing is to creej), 
 When all its purpose is below the skies ; 
 Thine ovm green hiUs, with their familiar scalps, 
 As soul-exalters, soar beyond the Alps. 
 
 -00-
 
 lIUSmGS ON THE BANKS OF TEVIOT. 125 
 
 MUSINGS ON THE BANKS OF TEVIOT. 
 
 I. 
 
 With thy windings, gentle Teviot ! 
 
 Through hfe's summer I have travelled- 
 Shared in all thy merry gambols, 
 
 All thy mazy course unravell'd. 
 
 II. 
 
 Every pool I know and shallow, 
 Every circumstance of channel, 
 
 Every incident historic 
 
 Elent mth old or modern annal, 
 
 III. 
 "VVliich, within thy famous valley, 
 
 Dealt a mercy or a sorrow — 
 Every song and every legend 
 
 Wliich has passed into its morrow. 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Who has loved thee, artless river, 
 Best of all thy single wooers'? 
 
 Of thy wayward, witching waters, 
 ^^^lo most ardent of pursuers'?
 
 126 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 V. 
 
 On thy banks, a constant dreamer, 
 Sitting king among liis fancies, 
 
 Casting all his wealth of musing 
 Into thy tried course of chances. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Name another in thy prattle 
 
 Who has done his service better —   
 
 Tendering or accepting tribute. 
 Creditor as well as debtor ] 
 
 VII. 
 
 Out of thy redundant plenty, 
 On the lap of living mercies, 
 
 I have woven a votive offering — 
 Shaped a wreath of simple verses. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Every generous TA^sh attend thee ! 
 
 And, among thy generous wishers, 
 Takes its place Avith bard and scholar 
 
 The more lowly band of fishers. 
 
 IX. 
 
 To that lowly band belonging, 
 In its pleasures the partaker. 
 
 More I feel of true contentment 
 Than the lord of many an acre.
 
 MUSINGS ON THE BANKS OF TEVIOT. I'll 
 
 X. 
 
 Still, with glowing virtues, Teviot ! 
 
 Graces, joys, and forms of beauty, 
 Fill the valley of thy holding — 
 
 Eoll in dignity of duty ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 Forward roll and link thy fortunes 
 "With fair Tweed — thine elder sister I 
 
 Lyne and Leithen, Ettrick, Leader, 
 In their earlier turns have kissed her. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Welcome, more than all the others, 
 Thou ! whose fulness of perfection 
 
 Finds a grateful recognition 
 In this s}Tnbol of affection ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 So entwined, Tweed glides exultant. 
 
 As a joyful burden bearing 
 All thy passionate confidings — 
 
 The rich lore of love and daring 
 
 XIV. 
 
 AVhich to ballad and romances, 
 
 Oft uncouthly, bard committed, 
 Guided by thy chime or plaining, 
 
 To the rhythm Avhich best befitted.
 
 128 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XV. 
 
 In the arms of Tweed enfolded, 
 Followed still by my devotion, 
 
 Thou art separate to the vision, 
 "Wending on thy way to ocean. 
 
 xAa, 
 Even there, I see the spirit 
 
 Of whose life partook the willow, 
 And whose love laved slope and meadow, 
 
 Moving o'er the restless hillow. 
 
 XVI r; 
 In the salmon which ascends thee — 
 
 All arrayed in gorgeous scaling — 
 A proud legate I distinguish 
 
 From the court of ]S^eptune hailing ; 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 From the kingdom of the Trident, 
 Bearing to his native river 
 "Xohle gifts of self-devotion, 
 Tribute to the Tribute Giver ! 
 
 -00-
 
 THE INCENTIVE. 12!) 
 
 THE INCENTIVE. 
 
 Who so fondly, who so truly, 
 
 liOves the country of his birth 1 — 
 
 Who will guard it so securely, 
 Knowing best its inner worth 1 — 
 
 As the searcher of its story — 
 
 As the student of its song — 
 He who cons its I3age of glory 
 
 Wlien the right o'ercame the wrong — 
 
 He who in its tuneful treasures 
 Finds an impulse and a charm, 
 
 With the nerve of Bardic measures 
 Sinewing both soul and arm 1 
 
 When the fiery war-storm gathers, 
 Who, like /im, will do and dare, 
 
 Whom the faith which moved our fathers 
 Fires to grapple with desj^air — 
 
 Fires, by virtue of example — 
 Fires, by reason of the need. 
 
 To protect the house and temple, 
 Both by daring and by deed 1
 
 130 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 Best of patriots ! noblest martyr ! 
 
 Fittest conqueror in the strife ! 
 Who interprets Freedom's charter 
 
 By the lahour of his Hfe — 
 
 By the scripture of all nations — 
 By the anthems of all time — 
 
 By the ceaseless revelations 
 Of a destiny suthme —   
 
 By the faith so fondly cherished, 
 Which regards as in God's trust 
 
 Claims that otherwise had perished, 
 Judged of by the Judge unjust ! 
 
 Not because to fight makes glorious, 
 And the battle brings renown ; 
 
 Not because to be victorious 
 
 Draws down honours from the Crown ; 
 
 Not for this their country's lovers 
 Eeady in the harness stand, 
 
 Watchful of the cloud that hovers. 
 And the wave-break on the sand. 
 
 Higher motives arm the freemen. 
 
 Nobler impulses provoke, 
 When the war-blast of the demon 
 
 Tlireatens England's honour'd oak ; .
 
 THE INCENTIVE. 131 
 
 Through the leafy cover driving, 
 
 Shaking down the untimely mast, 
 With the grand old timbers striving, 
 
 Scathing not, but howling past ; 
 
 In the rage of disappointment, 
 
 In the fury of despair. 
 With, the smoke of baffled vengeance 
 
 Filling the affrighted air ; 
 
 Then, when darkness clouds the dial, 
 And the prophet stands perplexed, 
 
 Balancing the fiery trial 
 
 'Gainst the brnxlen of his text — 
 
 Praying, lest his faith should falter 
 
 Tore the seeming of the hour, 
 Lest the vision of the altar 
 
 Yield to some disturbing power ; 
 
 Tlien breaks out the light of freedom. 
 
 Then begins the life of light, 
 And the mind asserts its birthright 
 
 O'er the spectres of the night ; 
 
 Tlien the deep-read sons of Albion 
 Bring to bear their cherished lore, 
 
 And the God's strength slumbering in them 
 Manifests itself once more.
 
 132 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 Grandest epoch in our story ! 
 
 Festival of truth sublime ! 
 Of the hero and the martyr, 
 
 The long looked for crowning-time ! 
 
 Herald ! stride into the circle — 
 Herald of the Lion's choice, 
 
 Eich in blazonry of office, 
 
 Giant-limbed and strong in voice ! 
 
 Lift the trumpet tongued with silver, 
 Charge it with thy loudest note, 
 
 So the sound may lave the welkin. 
 Dying in the far remote — 
 
 Dying on the shore of silence, 
 In the calm of things unborn, 
 
 Under the eternal torches 
 
 At the gateway of the morn ! 
 
 Lift the trumpet hung with echoes. 
 
 Give it voice where voice may reach ; 
 Mountain-ward— a voice returning 
 Shore-ward — dying on the beach ! 
 
 Thus proclaim the mind's dominion, 
 Thus assert the scholar's right. 
 
 And inaugurate the union 
 
 Of Love, Liberty, and Light.
 
 FLO WER-LTFE. 133 
 
 FLO WER-LIFE. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 I. 
 
 Angels are sowers everywhere ! 
 
 They scatter as they fly 
 The gifts of Heaven. In Flower-life 
 
 Is traced their passing by. 
 
 II. 
 Upon the beaten thoroughfare, 
 
 Under the hedge-rows sere, 
 On the heavings of the churchyard, 
 
 In places dread and drear ; 
 
 III. 
 
 Upon the far-famed battle-field, 
 Where Freedom at a blow 
 
 Abased the Giant Tyranny, 
 Their mission is to sow. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Also 'mid pleasant homesteads. 
 
 And meadows of delight. 
 And up among the harbourings 
 
 Of God's tempestuous might ;
 
 \?A POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 V. 
 
 Upon tlie mountain forehead, 
 
 Which the ploughshare never scarr'd, 
 
 They cast, while soaring heaven-ward, 
 Their farewells of regard — 
 
 VI. 
 
 The nigh-exhausted affluence 
 
 Committed to their charge, 
 On the more favour'd valley land, 
 
 Sown hroad-cast and at large ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 In yon desert, parch'd and howling, 
 On yon rock, so hare and stern. 
 
 If you have eyes and soul of grace 
 You may their tracks discern. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 K'o spot Avithout its token — 
 
 Its letter of commend 
 Left hy celestial Visitor — 
 
 Sent by the Unseen Friend ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 In riower-Ufe is Scripture, 
 
 ^Miich to study is to gain 
 Glimpses of the eternal world, 
 
 ^^^lere saints with their Saviour reign.
 
 FLO WEE-LIFE. 135 
 
 X. 
 
 By power of its teachings 
 We higher climh and nigher 
 
 To the heaven of the heavens seven, 
 Where sit the tongues of fire ; 
 
 XI. 
 
 And of God's Heart and purposes — 
 His Glory and His Power — 
 
 Xew revelations ope on us 
 By virtue of the Flower ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Better than pulpit rhapsodies, 
 
 Safer than priestly strife, 
 In its guidings to the throne of Love 
 
 Is the study of Flower-life. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 I. 
 
 Angels are Sowers everywhere, 
 
 They scatter as they fly 
 The gifts of Heaven, and everywhere 
 
 Eeveals their passing by.
 
 136 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 II. 
 Behold it in that shining tuft 
 
 Ko jeweller could devise 
 Out of the seed of orient pearl, 
 
 Or diamond's flashing eyes ! 
 
 iir. 
 From imprint of the messenger 
 
 On mercy's errand sent, 
 Sprung up, ohedient to the charm. 
 
 The sparkling ornament. 
 
 IV. 
 
 An Angel dropt the acorn 
 
 Four centuries gone by. 
 From which yon gnarled oak cast root, 
 
 And sprung its antlers high. 
 
 V. 
 
 And oft among the curtains of 
 
 The storm-defying tree 
 Are heard the rustling as of Avings, 
 
 And a sound like a nearing sea. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The lovers trysting under it 
 
 Affirm that earnest eyes 
 -tire ofttimes gazing down on them 
 
 Like stars from autumnal skies.
 
 FLOWER-LIFE. 137 
 
 VII. 
 
 And the pauses in their whisperings 
 
 Are filled up to the ear 
 AVith conference among the boughs 
 
 Of voices low and clear — 
 
 VIII. 
 
 With renderings of legends 
 
 That stir the spirit fond, 
 And snatches of quaint melody, 
 
 Cull'd from the world beyond. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The gathering of angels 
 
 'Mid the hidings of the oak 
 
 Is a page in the pleasant fiction 
 Of the merrie fairy folk. 
 
 X. 
 
 For Angel-life and fairy dife, 
 In the Poet's soul and song, 
 
 Their part hold in the mystery 
 That mateth Right with "Wrong. 
 
 t XI. 
 
 And everywhere and everywhere. 
 The Angels and the Elves, 
 
 To win God's creatures, zealously 
 Contend among themselves.
 
 138 POEM I? AXD SONGS. 
 
 xil. 
 Yet of this grand contention 
 
 'Twixt the Evil and the Good — 
 'Twixt Elf and Angel, "Wrong and Right- 
 
 The End is understood ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Ye Messengers of God ! go on 
 
 Sowing the seed of Grace, 
 And grant that in the Eeaping-time, 
 
 When Face is turned to Face, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And Man beholds the Maker 
 
 In whose Image he was fraught — 
 
 When the light of apprehending 
 Things that were vainly sought 
 
 XV. 
 
 Comes flashing on an Intellect 
 Obscured by the Under-powers, 
 
 Be ye among the Presences, 
 Ye Sowers of the Flowers ! 
 
 xvr. 
 
 That vindicate God's Glory 
 By the shewing of His Love, 
 
 And lend a leal helping hand 
 To the Paradise above !
 
 TO THE SWALLOW. 139 
 
 TO THE SWALLOW. 
 
 I. 
 
 Travel, travel, restless swallow ! 
 
 Travel over land and sea. 
 Tell thy story, wayward pilgrim ! 
 
 Tell thy secret quest to me ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Why so restless and untiring — 
 Ever on the glancing wing — 
 
 Darting, circling, shaping courses 
 Summer- ward beyond the Spring 1 
 
 III. 
 Hast thou some imprisoned yearning 
 
 Urging to a distant goal — 
 Some strong instinct leading onward- 
 
 A desire beyond control ; 
 
 IV. 
 
 Only by the grosser medium, 
 
 In a region of suspense. 
 Held back from its destined future 
 
 Eomad the throned Intelh'gence 1
 
 ]40 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 V. 
 
 Hast thou such, and art a spirit 
 Taking cognizance of things, 
 
 Doing errands under angels — 
 Pilot to their voyagings 1 
 
 VI. 
 
 From the Cabinet of Monarchs 
 Egress hast thou, free, unfettered, 
 
 In the compass of a nutshell 
 
 Bearing with thee trusts unlettered— 
 
 VII. 
 
 Cyphers telling on dominions 
 And the balancings of Power — 
 
 On the tasking of the Peoples, 
 On the shiftings of the hour ? 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Surely, not in idle questing. 
 
 Swallow ! are thy goings forth — 
 
 Surely, for some higher purpose 
 
 Are thy rangings South and I^orth 1 
 
 IX. 
 
 Of thy travel o'er the ocean 
 Tell ! It Avilders me that thou, 
 
 No heed taking of provision, 
 
 Xor equipped, like merchant prow.
 
 TO THE SWALLOW. 141 
 
 X. 
 
 Can'st a thousand leagues accomplish, 
 Helm thy way 'cross lahouring seas, 
 
 Perforate the cloudy breast-works, 
 Measure distance with the breeze ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 Bold as are the Eagle's soarings, 
 Swift as is the Eagle's pinion, 
 
 Keen as are lais regal glances, 
 Taking in a broad dominion ; 
 
 XII. 
 
 Bolder, braver are thy ventures, 
 S'vvifter, surer are thy wings, 
 
 And thy subtle vision reacheth 
 Past the thrones of many kings. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Once — it seems like yesterday — 
 In a summer thunder-storm, 
 
 'Mid the ratthng of the fire-bolts 
 I descried a cowerinjr form 
 
 XIV. 
 
 On the heights beyond Dalwhinnie, 
 Pastured by the roving deer, 
 
 Where the haughty Monoleads 
 Snows imprison all the year,
 
 U2 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XV. 
 
 I descried oiir boasted Eagle, 
 Tyrant of the feathered race, 
 
 At confession, scared and trembling, 
 Seeking mercy in my face, 
 
 XVI. 
 
 As if / were its dispenser, 
 
 Could tlie frowning clouds dispart, 
 Ee-assort his ruffled plumage 
 
 By an effort of the heart 1 
 
 XVII. 
 
 On a boulder drenched and shivering 
 
 In an agony of fear, 
 Within range of stalker's rifle, 
 
 Casting round his eye severe, 
 
 ■&> 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Stood the Thunderer's attendant 
 Seeking mercy in my face ; 
 
 Thought I, Jove, the inflexible. 
 Holds his favourite in disgrace ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Then I thought of thee, dear swallow ! 
 
 When thou travellest abroad ; 
 Of the perils which thou facest, 
 
 And the hazards in thy road !
 
 TO THE SWALLOW. 143 
 
 XS. 
 
 Of tliy fragile form — so tiny, 
 
 So unlike a daring thing — 
 Which had room for heart of purpose — 
 
 Willing and untiring wing. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 In the scales of courage measured, 
 
 Heedless of his high pretence, 
 To the fierce anointed Eagle 
 
 I give thee the j^reference ! 
 
 XXII. 
 
 To our windows, lo ! thou comest — 
 
 Buildest without ask or chiding, 
 Knowing thou art ever welcome 
 
 To a corner and a hiding. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Thus, mayhap, at Heaven's own windows 
 Thou dost spend thine other summer, 
 
 Having two homes where to hie to, 
 And to both the Avished-for comer ! 
 
 -00-
 
 144 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 8 U P P L IC A T 10 N. 
 
 I. 
 
 Out from the Ocean hidings 
 The hilloAvs hring their tidings, 
 And my ear is on the stretch 
 As I pace the yellow strand, 
 For the message they may fetch 
 From a far and sunny land. 
 Oh ! voices of the Sea, 
 Draw near and comfort me ! 
 
 II. 
 The days around me darken, 
 But I listen, vainly hearken 
 For the whispering from afar — 
 A whispering from the South — 
 A love-charge from my Star, 
 In the errant Sea-wave's mouth ! 
 Oh ! billow hearing thee. 
 Draw near and comfort me ! 
 
 III. 
 Kiss the cold strand I tread on 
 And the hopes that I have fed on 
 The weary summer through, 
 Make real, and bring nearer —
 
 THE CUP OF MERCIES. 145 
 
 Bring the lost one into view, 
 That I may hold him dearer, 
 Assured that he is true ! 
 
 Oh ! billow, shore-ward bearing, 
 
 Cast up in a distant sea ! 
 
 I am weary, weeping, wearing 
 
 My heart out — all despairing, 
 
 Draw near and comfort me ! 
 
 -00- 
 
 THE GUP OF MERCIES. 
 
 I. 
 
 Old and feeble ! feeble and old ! 
 
 But I remember the days of oiu- youth. 
 When the life in prospect wore hues of gold, 
 
 And the pledge we took was Love and Truth. 
 
 II. 
 
 Love and Truth was the pledge we took — 
 To love and be true hearts — each to each ; 
 
 The vow was couch'd in kiss and in look, 
 Not in the falser form of speech. 
 
 K
 
 14G POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 III. 
 We have lov'd and been true for many a year, 
 
 And our children's children are at our knees, 
 Laughing and playing, with prattle so dear, 
 
 That the frosted veins of our life unfreeze. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We are children again at a grandchild's will. 
 More docile than in our teens we were ; 
 
 The pride beaten out, though the old seK stdl 
 And all its under-currents are there. 
 
 V. 
 
 All that was mist and cloud and rain, 
 All that was chilly on Life's ascent, 
 
 The ghastly shadows of Terror and Pain 
 Tliat flitted around our early tent, 
 
 VI. 
 
 By the working of God, through Jesu's grace, 
 Are into sunbeams broken up ; 
 
 The glory, whose source no finger can trace, 
 Illumes and gladdens all Nature's face. 
 While of His mercies we drink the cup ! 
 
 -00-
 
 DEA TH'S HERDSMA N. 1 47 
 
 DEATH'S HERDSMAN; OR, THE LAY OF THE 
 RINDERPEST. 
 
 An Episode from a Lost Book of Herodotus. 
 
 " Whose herdsman, gaunt and evil-eyed, 
 Art thou, that strid'st without consent 
 Across our homesteads — every stride 
 Loud'ning the uproar of lament *? 
 Rude stranger ! what hath brought thee here 
 Into our parks and dales and downs. 
 Close to the purlieus of our towns, 
 Unasked % Recount thy dread career ! 
 "Whence hast thou come, and whither hent ] 
 By whom and on what errand sent f 
 
 " Who questions me 1 a child of clay 1 
 ]VIy story has its counter-part : 
 Listen, and, taking both to heart. 
 In fear and trembling, go thy way ! 
 Yet know me first — from whence I roam. 
 And at whose nod I travel west : 
 I am Death's Herdsman, and I come 
 From the valley of the Rinderpest.
 
 148 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 " Time was, when in a ghastly cave, 
 Surrounded hy Chimeras dire, 
 I came to shape and terms of hire 
 With the fell filler of the grave. 
 On many an errand at his heck 
 Have I gone forth, and many an one 
 Haply remaineth to he done 
 Before the universal Wreck. 
 
 " The icy hollow where I dwell 
 Is heaped with trophies terrible 
 Of my dread power. The Mammoth there 
 Stands prisoned with the sullen Sloth, 
 And the Ark's ballast, Behemoth. 
 Huge creatures, leaning to the Bear, 
 The Urus, and the Elephant, 
 Hold place in this museum vast. 
 The bestial glories of the past 
 Are treasured up by covenant, 
 Not coffined in the common form, 
 But kept in life's last attitude, 
 Blanch'd by the frosts of winters rude, 
 Yet still defiant of the worm. 
 A grim assemblage ! Tusks and bones, 
 Legions of glittering skeletons, 
 The which the Arctic moon delights 
 To marshal in her hurried flights.
 
 DEATH'S HEBDSM AN. 149 
 
 My first commission has its date 
 Before the sacrificial times, 
 And hears the signature of Fate, 
 Penn'd in an atmosphere of crimes. 
 Cain was a witness to the deed, 
 And set his mark upon the scroll. 
 The Tempter in the primal fall 
 In tones of mockery agreed 
 To the conditions of my hire. 
 ' Let j)estilence precede the fire — 
 What matter % I resign the lead.' 
 Aye ! Ask the question — who I am — 
 Whence came this uninvited guest ? 
 I am Death's Herdsman, and I came 
 From the valley of the Rinderpest." 
 
 A day there was of solemn feast 
 Held on the margins of the jSTile ; 
 The Ibis, Snake, and Crocodile 
 Partook, with their attendant priest. 
 Of the rude homage of the throng ; 
 But the chief spectacle afoot 
 Was a huge Bull — a bloated brute — 
 Osiris term'd — the Sire of gods — 
 Which, ribbon-decked, in onward route. 
 Waddled along amid the applauds 
 Of thousands. Through the city gate 
 The monster passed in regal state ;
 
 150 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 Gilded its hoofs, and jewel-tipped 
 Its horns. Before it, vestals nine, 
 Scattering the lotus blossoms, tripped, 
 And sung the praises of the kine ; 
 And nine, with cymbals in their hands, 
 Followed, and nine times nine, in bands, 
 Guarded its flanks, and in the rear. 
 Hindmost of all, glanced helm and spear. 
 Memphis and Thebes in long array 
 Had mustered fast that holiday ! 
 
 Onward the grand procession pass'd 
 Through street, and square, and under arch 
 Trimuj^hal, with the trumpet's blast. 
 And clash of cymbal, keeping march ; 
 Pressed onward, too, the gazing throng. 
 And in the music's happening pause 
 Rent the hot air with loud hurrahs. 
 Shout, cymbal-clash, and vestal song, 
 And trumpets' blare, and tramp of feet. 
 And now and then in concert fidl 
 The angry questioning of the bull. 
 Held their blent sway in square and street. 
 
 " Osiris ! bless the sire of Beeves, 
 The sturdy husband of the Cow, 
 The god whose ofispring drag the plough. 
 And tread to grain the yellow sheaves :
 
 DEATH'S HERDSMAX. 151 
 
 Hail to Osiris ! hail to thee, 
 Munificent divinity !" 
 
 Such were the greetings at the gate 
 Of the great temple, Avhere in state 
 Stood the stoled priests, and round and round 
 Their idol, in a circle vast. 
 The pomp and pride of Egypt wound ; 
 When suddenly among the host 
 A shape appeared, nor man, nor ghost, 
 I^or mummied form, nor skeleton. 
 Yet blending with the flesh and bone 
 Of Life the character of Death. 
 
 A cubit's height above the crowd 
 He towered, and on his shoulders proud 
 Lay what was neither scarf nor shroud — 
 A mantle woven by Winter's breath. 
 Which shed its icy influence round 
 The wearer. As he stalked along, 
 All shook and ceased from shout and song 
 Wlio came within the enchanted bound — 
 Ay, through the undulating throng 
 To each extreme the nervous chill 
 Pierced and arrested power and -wiU. 
 But who was this intruder strange 1 
 All sought to know, and made exchange 
 Of wondermg glances, each with each,
 
 152 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 Yet dared not ask in common speech. 
 Onward the stranger stalked to where 
 Stood the sleek bull, for now it stood 
 Panting below the noon-day glare. 
 Swayed on each side the multitude, 
 iSTone challenging, yet all amazed ; 
 And while with eager eyes they gazed, 
 A skinny finger came to j^lay. 
 Stretched forth from under mantle grey, 
 And touched the frontal star which lay 
 Betwixt the gilded horns divine ; 
 At once, and \ni\\ a sullen roar, 
 That crossed old Nile from shore to shore. 
 The father of a thousand kine 
 Staggered and fell. Below the stroke 
 Of the dire axe, with heavier crash, 
 Fell not the patriarchal oak. 
 The pine, and elm, and veteran ash, 
 Hewn to build Albion's wooden walls. 
 
 But who the intruder, gaunt and grim, 
 That stayed the Osirian festivals, 
 And fiercely hushed tlie vestal hymn ] 
 Wlio but the herdsmen that is now 
 Setting the grisly master's brand 
 Upon the cattle of your land 1 
 Sooner an armed host, I trow, 
 And roar of cannon on its strand,
 
 A LEAF OF MY CREED. 153 
 
 And the invaders' noisy tramp, 
 And all the carnage of the camj), 
 Than the strange pestilence that stalks 
 By noon-day in your sunniest walks ! 
 
 -00- 
 
 A LEAF OF MY CREED. 
 
 JSToTHiNG endued with vitality, 
 And destined for Immortality, 
 
 Becomes old in reality. 
 
 In the days of our altering 
 
 The step may have semblance of faltering, 
 
 The locks grow thin and hoary. 
 
 The voice turn into the treble. 
 
 The eyes into orbs of pebble, 
 
 But is there no Inner Glory ? 
 
 Wliat though the brow be ^vrinkled, 
 And the fingers peri winkled. 
 The jaws bereft and toothless, 
 Time in itseK is ruthless. 
 But never in verity youthless !
 
 154 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 We excavate great cities, 
 And over them waste our pities, 
 And form laments and ditties — 
 Tliebes, Luxor, for example, 
 Even I^ineveh more ample, 
 Babylon and Jerusalem, 
 The cave in which Methusalem 
 Lies chested — ruins various, 
 And places multifarious. 
 
 We dig into futurity. 
 
 And link with dim obscurity 
 
 The Past and its peoples olden —   
 
 The ages held as golden, 
 
 Arcadian and Augustan, 
 
 To which in bardic fustian 
 
 We are so much beholden — 
 
 The ages of bronze and iron, 
 
 Cyclopean and Titanic, 
 
 When with a base mechanic 
 
 Toyed Venus and the Syren. 
 
 What find we but the key 
 
 To the future 1 — to fashion and faction- 
 
 To the present abiding reahty, 
 
 And the restless wave of reaction ? 
 
 Marry ! the Past and its glories. 
 
 Marry ! the Past "vvith its stories 
 
 Of Valour, and Love, and Ambition,
 
 A LEAF OF MY CREED. 155 
 
 Of Tyranny, Crime, and Sedition, 
 
 Of Hope and Despair, of Joy and of Sorrow, 
 
 Foreshadows in its history 
 
 The happenings of the morrow. 
 
 Can we make more of the mystery ? 
 
 One generation goeth, 
 
 And lo ! another succeedeth, 
 
 As o'er the billow that leadeth 
 
 Another billow floweth. 
 
 The Past in the Future mergeth. 
 
 And out of the Future resurgeth ! 
 
 The Present is but a tittle, 
 
 Brave in its own esteem, 
 
 But less than the veriest little — 
 
 Of existence, haply the dream ! 
 
 True ! in our chrysalis state, 
 
 "We regard it as all in all ; 
 
 But in the scripture of Fate, 
 
 Conning the stars as Ave read, 
 
 The Present is thrown to the wall — 
 
 Such is a leaf of our creed !
 
 156 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 A DREAM OF THE PAST. 
 
 I. 
 Dearest ! my dream was of thee ! 
 
 My dream at the morning's breaking, 
 When thy sweet eyes inquired of me, 
 
 Why, why this sudden waking ? 
 
 II. 
 
 Fondest ! my dream was of thee ! 
 
 Ask not why this sudden waking, 
 Or why this start, and clasp to my heart 
 
 At the morning's ruddy breaking ? 
 
 III. 
 I dream't of a circle scatter'd, 
 
 Of thy home 'mid the hills of heather- 
 Of faces fair that shone out there 
 
 When we cast our lot together. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I dream't of a comely matron. 
 
 Into whose lingering beauty 
 The cliisel of Time had graven sublime 
 
 The struggle of Love with Duty—
 
 A DREAM OF THE PAST. 157 
 
 V. 
 
 Of the mother of the household, 
 
 A woman true and tender, 
 Whose step was grace, Love's throne her face, 
 
 And round her beam'd the splendour 
 
 VI. 
 
 With which Artists and their pencils 
 
 Strive vainly to invest 
 The Virgin mild and the wondrous Child 
 
 On her nectar-flowing breast. 
 
 VII. 
 
 I dream't of a white-haired patriarch. 
 
 Versed in the Celtic tongue. 
 Who took his laugh at the Sassenach 
 
 That courted his daughter young — 
 
 VIII. 
 
 An ancient 'mong the patriarchs, 
 
 Who can speak to his hundred years, 
 
 And though reft of sight is still in the fight — 
 Still in this valley of tears ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 I dream't of a band of brothers, 
 
 Four strong and heartsome boys, 
 "Who work'd out the charm of the Highland farm, 
 
 And its barren hills -made r&joice.
 
 158 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 X. 
 
 Where now these sons of promise ? 
 
 Ask of the I^ew World, ask of the Old ; 
 Enquire of the seas and the wand'ring breeze, 
 
 Enquire of the fields of gold ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 Question our Western colonies, 
 
 Question the blustering States ; 
 Some potent key they can give, it may be, 
 
 To their fortunes or then- fates. 
 
 XII. 
 
 I dream't of a group of sisters, 
 
 JN^umbering the mystic seven ; 
 Among the bereft five still are left, 
 
 Two have their home in heaven ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A bevy rare of damosels 
 
 Might angel's heart beguile, 
 For seven such graces, and seven such faces, 
 
 Shone not on our sea-girt isle. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The two the angels have taken 
 
 Are but pledges for those that remain ; 
 
 In the household of heaven, as one be the seven, 
 Linked in Love's golden cliaiu !
 
 A DREAM OF MY YOUTH. 150 
 
 XV. 
 
 Beloved ! in tliis rendering 
 
 Back to the eyes of the mind 
 Of our days of mirth and the happy Hearth 
 
 Lit up with faces kind, 
 
 XVI. 
 
 I had framed to me a picture 
 
 Of joys to he restored— 
 Of youth as it was, and a glorious Cause 
 
 That needed nor Cross nor Sword ; 
 
 XVII. 
 
 For, on its dazzhng Banner, 
 
 Two Hearts were the Device, 
 And the motto ahove was " Love, ay, Love ! 
 
 For to Love is to Sacrifice." 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 When lo ! a silent shadow crept 
 
 Over the Dial's face, 
 And I knew its power to disturh the hour, 
 
 And darken the gateways of grace — 
 
 XIX. 
 
 To hinder the passage upward, 
 
 And perplex the faith of the core ; 
 The thoughts that he under, of douht and of wonder, 
 
 To ravel them more and more.
 
 IfiO POEMS AND SOKGS. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Dearest ! the Light has its Shadows, 
 
 Evening steals over the Day ; 
 With the promise of Dawn rise spectres wan, 
 
 But Love will chase them away. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 And though the Curtain he falling 
 
 On the Drama acted here, 
 Let us look beyond to a life as fond 
 
 In a purer and happier sphere, 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Where a sense of the true prevaileth. 
 And neither by Book nor Priest 
 
 Are we taken to task for the mercies we ask, 
 i^or fenced from the Holy Feast. 
 
 •XXIII. 
 
 Be our Hope and ovu' Faith and theu- Longings 
 
 Toward the Home of Love, 
 And the wings that transport to the upper Court 
 
 Will be given us from above ! 
 
 -00-
 
 LOVE AND WORSHIP. IGl 
 
 LOVE AND WORSHIP. 
 
 I. 
 
 Give me to clasp thy dainty waist, 
 And lay thy ruddy lips to mine ! 
 I look on thee as one divine, 
 
 And all divinity is chaste. 
 
 II. 
 
 Even Venus, not the Cyprian, gave 
 Proof of her virtue in the form 
 That rose in the Egean storm 
 
 Out of the white crest of the wave. 
 
 III. 
 
 But purer thou than Dian even 
 Eeturning from the eager chase, 
 Her panthers gazing in her face, 
 
 And sleuth hounds haying towards heaven ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Had'st thou divinity like hers, 
 
 And scorn of lip and brow and eye, 
 I might not love, but I would die, 
 
 Kneeling among thy worshippers !
 
 162 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 TWEED AND ITS PROSPECTS. 
 
 I. 
 EiVER of all rivers, clearest 
 
 To tlie Scottish heart — to ours ! 
 Eiver without shade of rival, 
 
 Eolling crystals, nursing flowers, 
 
 u. 
 
 Stirring up the soul of music, 
 
 Chaunting, warhling, luting, chiming, 
 To the jDoet's ardent fancy, 
 
 Adept in the art of rhyming ; 
 
 III. 
 
 Marching onward through thy valley 
 With the bearing of a king, 
 
 From the hundred hills surrounding 
 All thy vassals summoning ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Of our Elvers still the Glory ! 
 
 God defend it ! there is need, 
 For the Demon of Pollution 
 
 Campeth on the banks of Tweed.
 
 TWEED AND ITS PROSPECTS. 163 
 
 V, 
 
 See tlie tents of the Invader ! 
 
 How tliey spread on every hand, 
 Pitched by devihsh intuition 
 
 O'ej' the marrow of the land ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 In the fairest of its meadows, 
 
 In its gardens of desire — 
 On its Eo-peeps and Blink-honnies — 
 
 On its terraces of Fire, 
 
 VII. 
 
 Where were fought the Fights of Freedom, 
 And the stirring Songs were sung, 
 
 Which the heart and arm of Scotland 
 jMoved as with a trumpet tongue. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Count the forces of the Upstart, 
 Smoke-begrimmed and dimly seen 
 
 On and under the horizon. 
 
 Blackening the blue and green. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Idle task ! they multiply 
 
 Faster than the pen can score, 
 Legion crowding upon legion, 
 
 Like the waves that scourge the shore.
 
 J 64 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 X. 
 
 Eead the motto on their Banner : 
 Self and Pelf ! so apt the scroll ; 
 
 Not an apter on the Headstone, 
 ISTor on knightly bannerol. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Pelf and Self ! the double Demon ! 
 
 From its clutch, good God, deliver 
 Save from taint of the defiler, 
 
 Saviour ! save our dearest Eiver ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 For the Life-blood of our Valleys 
 We entreat on bended knee ! 
 
 For the Queen of N"ursing Mothers, 
 God ! defend her chastity ! 
 
 THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY PASSING EVENTS. 
 Written during the Siege of Paris in 1870. 
 
 I. 
 
 It is the old and seK-repeating story ; 
 The generations that are yet to be 
 Will have their taste of it. Humanity 
 Is most itself in the desire of glory.
 
 THOUGHTS OX PASSING EVENTS. IGo 
 
 II. 
 Peace is an idle word, and only meanetli 
 A brief cessation from the activities 
 Oi life — a pause that interveneth 
 During the combat— a pretence of ease. 
 
 III. 
 
 Oh, "War ! thou hast thy thousand lame excuses ! 
 The jealousies that rouse thee are untold : 
 Treaties with thee are forecasts of abuses— 
 Below their shelter Liberty is sold ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Upon thy lying standard Peace is written — 
 
 " The message of the cannon ball is Peace ;" 
 
 Thou would'st persuade the world ! Forsake, Briton ! 
 
 The weary hope that wars shall ever cease ! 
 
 V. 
 
 They never will, so long as Man is Man, 
 And passions are unchanged, and Kings are Kings, 
 And Kings have Ministers that plot and plan, 
 And such have Creatures and vile underlings. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Great wars are ever preludes to still greater ; 
 And this great war that desolates the earth, 
 And the eidolon mars of our Creator, 
 Will mother be of many a monstrous birth.
 
 166 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 VII. 
 For what breed wars, and what the strife of nations, 
 But stern revenges t]iat look centuries hack 
 (^n hxirning "wrongs and cruel desolations, 
 And long to acquit them on a bloodier track % 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Let all alone the fantasy of glory — 
 Ambition and the lust of sov'reign sway ! 
 A darker passion tells on future story, 
 Bred from their loins, and watchful of its day. 
 
 IX. 
 
 What with the humbling of an Empire's pride 
 Compared are those incentives to the fight 
 Which spring of fame-love? With an under-tide 
 Of stern revenge conquest is borrowed might. 
 
 X. 
 
 Dictate what terms he may, if they but touch 
 The nation's honour, He, the conqueror, 
 Hath sought to humble, and hath humbled much. 
 Priding himself that he can humble more, 
 
 XL 
 
 Graves will give forth their dead. The chivalries 
 Of ancient France will start to life again — 
 A murmur, like the chafing of the seas. 
 And lo ! they rise to combat — the long-slain !
 
 THOUGHTS ON PASSING EVENTS. iG7 
 
 XII. 
 
 '1 
 
 O Patriot Spirit ! art tliou dead or sleeping ' 
 
 sons of Gaul ! degenerate in seeming ! 
 
 See ye no dawning in this niglit of weeping— 
 
 Throui>-h its dark curtain no deliverance streaming % 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Be but yourselves ! Eesolve to be resolved ! 
 With union, and the purpose to excel, 
 Your strength will come. The year hath not revolved- 
 Paris may starve — but starve invincible. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Out with exultant chimes from ISTotre-Dame ! 
 The heart of Prance is stirring as of yore, 
 Their brows illumined with heroic calm — 
 Pier sons are sons of Paladins once more ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 Die resolute ! — not unavenged ye die : 
 With Dragons' teeth is sown the battle-field 
 On which they fall, who fall for Liberty — 
 Woe to the Slayer and his tainted shield ! 
 
 -00-
 
 IGS POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 PILGRIMAGES TO THE TOMBS OF THE POETS. 
 Prelude. 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY. POET's CORNER. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 The Poet's Corner ! 
 It was a spot familiar to my mind 
 In boyhood, made so by the simple name 
 And apprehension of the wealth it held : 
 Save as the resting place of rival bards, 
 Allotted by the nation they gave fame to, 
 I knew it not ; yet, in my ignorance, 
 Let rein to fancy. I lived then remote 
 In Scotland ; but a burning wish was mine 
 To visit London, and of all its sights 
 And marvels, foremost in the catalogue 
 Loomed the grand Abbey and its Poet's Corner. 
 
 The Poet's Corner was to me a theme 
 Of frequent meditation and delight ; 
 For out of it the resurrections came 
 Daily and nightly of immortal thoughts, 
 And I held converse in its fancied courts
 
 .THE TOMBS OF THE POETS. 169 
 
 With souls illustrious. Many were the forms 
 
 Imagination to the spot assigned ; 
 
 Extending it into a garden oft, 
 
 Eefulgent with bright flowers —exhaling odours 
 
 That wrapt the senses in sweet reverie : 
 
 It took shape also as a charmed rood 
 
 In God's own acre — an enchanted bower, 
 
 In which tlie cypress over-topped the bay. 
 
 And weeping willows intervening spake 
 
 Eoth Grief and Love, shedding their leaves betimes. 
 
 The Poet's Corner ! How expressive seem'd 
 The simple words to my untutored mind, 
 Creative of devout and soaring thoughts ! 
 Knelt in its niches, so my fancy pictured, 
 The worshippers of Genius ! Bards flocked thither 
 Of a new race, by jealousies unswayed. 
 To cast their ofl'erings. The Angel Death 
 Carv'd Immortality upon the tombs. 
 " I smote the body to let free the soid. 
 And give it presence and the magnitude 
 That is its portion in the Universe." 
 But when I came, a-glow with ardent thoughts 
 And preconceptions of the venerable, 
 To Poet's Corner — ah ! how rude the shock 
 That laid my idols prostrate — pillaged me 
 Of cherished Faith — the altar overset 
 On which I thought to lay presumptuous gifts —
 
 170 POEMS AND SOXGS. 
 
 The curtain rent, lieliind whose waving cegis 
 
 I long had pictured gorgeous effigies, 
 
 And the accordings of a generous nation 
 
 To those great souls who, with the voice of Song, 
 
 Did more than all the tricksters of the State 
 
 To knit together human sympathies, 
 
 And elevate into a Passion-form 
 
 The love of country and the love of Throne ! 
 
 Woe to the K'ation that neglects its Bards ! 
 "VVoe to the City which its Prophets spurns ! 
 Woe to the Hamlet that is deaf to Song ! 
 Woe to the Palace and the Cottage both 
 From which the Poet's presence is debarred, 
 And in whose vestibules and round whose hearths 
 Pools' tongues talk lightly of the gift divine ! 
 
 Who of the charming lyrists of our day 
 Would care to lie interred in Poet's Corner — 
 His bones cooped up in parsimonious space 
 As lumber — an incumbrance thrown aside 
 Into the rubbish hole of the Cathedral, 
 So men may jeer at Poets and their doom — 
 Ay ! laud, as the economy of sense, 
 The dealing out to them so scant a "race — 
 So out of all accordance with their soncr — 
 
 O 
 
 A cage so narrow, dingy, sinister !
 
 THE TOMBS OF THE POETS. 171 
 
 "VA^o of the Poets, nurtured under wing 
 Of the four angels of the elements, 
 Instructed in the cardinal mysteries, 
 Zealous for Truth and prodigal of Love — 
 Generous dispensers of the earnings won 
 By their endowments — lion-hearted men, • 
 And eagle-eyed — to whom redeeming work 
 Was given to do, and emphasis of speech, 
 Akin to inspiration, showered upon. 
 So they might use it to the nation's welfare 
 In praying, warning, threatening, and denouncing, 
 Hoping and trusting and encouraging. 
 Commending, lauding, as the Master lauds 
 The faithful in his service ; keeping Him 
 The while in vieAV, to Avhom, as its true source. 
 All glory with its manifold accessions 
 Tides back— a reflux of exceeding glory ! 
 In whose swift tiding, luminous and swift. 
 Prophets and Poets take the leading part, 
 Freighting with songs of Immortality 
 The onward current — who of these the Elect 
 And privileged, in trustful consciousness 
 That with the casket is imprison'd the jewel, 
 And hoth shall resurge when the trumpet blows, 
 Would care to be interred in Poet's Corner ! 
 
 Yet in this nook, so chary as to space. 
 So inappropriate and unclassical,
 
 172 POEMS AND SOXGS. 
 
 So gloomy and forbidding to the eye — 
 Under these slabs and tablets fanciful — 
 The illustrious fathers of our Saxon song 
 Lie chested. Here repose the stalwart bones 
 Of Chaucer. Here our Spenser sleeps the sleep 
 Held to be dreamless. Here the mortal coil 
 Of Shakspeare's cognate in the tragic art, 
 Beaumont, long shuffled off, hath found a shelf 
 Here in this dismal corner, huddled up 
 With poets of small worth, lies glorious John. 
 
 Here, too, that dictatorial Elephant, 
 Whose parasite exalted from the pot-house, 
 And made a shew of and a make-belief — 
 Sam Johnson, lies — the lexicographer, 
 So called, who built in folio his renown 
 As an interpreter of languages, 
 Not knowing any save a smattering 
 Of dog-latinity besides his own — 
 And that, not as a scholar in its roots, 
 But as a pedagogue upon the surface. 
 
 Oft have I marvell'd how the ponderous brute 
 Acquir'd ascendency in literature ; 
 His Easselas being the prosiest of prose. 
 His Eambler a collection of dull essays. 
 Wordy, didactic, and idealess. 
 Unseasoned with a pejDper-corn of humour ;
 
 THE TOMBS OF THE POETS. 173 
 
 His satire pointless, and his rasli attempt 
 To master Pegasus a crowning failure ! 
 
 True ! from materials given by one who knew 
 How to make gold out of a labouring brain, 
 He faithfully performed a noble trust, 
 And by his Poet's Lives had nigh redeemed 
 The claim on Poet's Corner he enjoys. 
 
 But all the merit I would fain have ceded 
 To this Sir Oracle is disallowed, 
 When I regard his rank malignity 
 Towards the Scotch, and the offensive way 
 In which the big beer-swiller dealt with Anglers. 
 A verier humbug never swayed an Age ! 
 Hack, snob, pretender, bully, all in one, 
 An egotist, a glutton, but 710 fool ! 
 
 Keep silent in thy grim sarcophagus, 
 Samuel ! thou art not among the prophets ! 
 And, rising with them in the appointed day, 
 Thou of their glory never shalt partake ! 
 
 -00-
 
 174 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 THE OAKLING. 
 
 1. 
 
 There is life in this Acorn. Lay it 
 
 A finger's depth under the soil — 
 In a soil where nothing can fray it, 
 
 !N"othing its forthcoming foil — 
 In a place, a hill-side or holloAv, 
 
 Not remote from the dwellings of toil, 
 Where the corncrake copes with the swallow 
 
 In casting abroad for its spoil, 
 
 II. 
 It will spring. The sun's early blessing 
 
 Will cherish it. Be not afraid ! 
 The zephyrs will give it caressing — 
 
 The dew-fall quicken its blade. 
 In thy watch of the delicate treeling, 
 
 My affection for iftee, merry maid ! 
 I feel, and Iioav rapturous the feeHng ! — 
 
 My devotion to thee is repaid ! 
 
 III. 
 
 It will groAV, dearest lamb ! with your OTOwin" 
 And bud with your budding. Sweetheart ! 
 
 And in your coming and going 
 AVill play its own typical part.
 
 THE OAKLING. 175 
 
 In your visitings during the summer, 
 It will out mth its leafy array ; 
 
 But when rude carle Winter is comer, 
 It will cast its green mantle away. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Say you 1 — but nine ! and nine only 1 
 
 You were five when we planted our tree 
 In a spot, I thouglit it too lonely — 
 
 Too like where a churchyard should be. 
 But tjou chose it, my darling ! and chonen 
 
 By you, I do more than agree, 
 'Tis no garden to rear up a rose in. 
 
 But the Eden for you and for me. 
 
 V. 
 
 And, my Pet ! I have pride in our treeling ; 
 
 The fourth of its May-days is nigh ; 
 And if tliine is the nuith — no concealing ! — 
 
 Happy nine ! happy four ! happy I ! 
 A sapling, a sylph, and a rhymer ; 
 
 The marvel that dotard Hke me 
 Should entice my sweet pet from her primer, 
 
 To watch o'er the growth of a tree ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 No matter ! the Acorn's springing 
 Is a tie 'twixt the old and the young,
 
 176 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 'Twixt an endinjr and kind of beginning. 
 
 &5 
 
 'Twixt the Sung and tlie promised Unsiing ! 
 Come forth, and look at our Sapling, 
 
 Ye grey-heards that cumber the glen ! 
 Come forth at the morning's grey dappling, 
 
 "When the mists are ascending the glen ; 
 When with song-birds the skies are a-peopling. 
 
 And the fogs are forsaking the fen. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Ye are nigh to the Valley of Vision 
 
 On whose verge is the trembling of knees ; 
 But a sage, with the lip of decision, 
 
 Four-score old, may pronounce upon trees. 
 Speak out, Forest Eanger, that wert ! 
 
 And tell of the Oaks of thy ken — 
 Of a giant that stood in the heart 
 
 Of the grenewood under the Ben. 
 
 Vlll. 
 
 " I am here, though my shoulders are weighted 
 
 With the burden of many long years — 
 Here, ready with all my griefs freighted. 
 
 To sail from a harbour of tears. 
 But yoU ask for the Oak, the old giant, 
 
 O'er-topping the rest of its kind, 
 With its joints and its spreadings defiant, 
 
 Whose joy is to battle the windl
 
 THE OAKLING. 177 
 
 IX. 
 
 Behold it ! IS^o older it seemeth 
 To me tlian it seemed in my youth ; 
 
 I speak as a dreamer that dreameth, 
 And its seeming so may be untruth : 
 
 But then, in the days of my daffing, 
 . It was reckoned the veteran tree, 
 
 And its health was a toast in the quaffing 
 Of healths at the sign of the Bee. 
 
 X. 
 
 Its age is a leaf of Tradition ; 
 
 They say 'twas the Tree of old Tryst, 
 Where the Priests of a gone Superstition 
 
 Conferred with the Herald of Christ — 
 Where a haughty Arch-Druid and cruel 
 
 Was baptised at the hands of a Saint, 
 And is now an immaculate jewel 
 
 In the Crown, without rust or attaint. 
 
 XI. 
 
 A monarch, 'tis added, in reason, 
 
 Under its boughs was at rest. 
 When a shaft from the red hand of treason 
 
 Found its murderous way to his breast ; 
 And the turf, by his life-wellings wetted, 
 
 Assumeth a crimson colour, 
 When the date comes round in its circle 
 
 That is wed to this deed of dolour. 
 
 M
 
 178 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 To idols had I been given — 
 Not knowing tlie God Supreme, 
 
 Mine own Fancy, the Maker of Heaven — 
 The Future shaped out of a dream — 
 
 The homage I owe to the Only 
 
 Fd have paid at the shrine of this Tree, 
 
 At the slirine, in the grene-wood so lonely, 
 
 Where I hent, as a lover, my knee." 
 ***** ^ 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Years have passed. The old Forest Eanger 
 
 Sleeps his sleep in the Acre of God ; 
 His office is held by the stranger — 
 
 A churl — an irreverent clod, 
 Who has neither humour nor fanc}", 
 
 !N"or com-tesy in his grain, 
 Who values an oak by the footrule 
 
 And the gviage of his timber brain. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 He came to look at our TreeHng 
 
 By invite from my pet and from me ; 
 At a glance, 'twas a matter of dealing 
 
 I saw, put the pith in his knee. 
 A curse on his Hps, but half smothered. 
 
 Told plainly the rage in his heart, 
 When he found, o'er its vaunted coevals. 
 
 Our fav'rite was holding the start.
 
 THE OAKLING. lyy 
 
 XV. 
 
 For he prided himself in his wood-craft, 
 Aiid at the old Eanger's demise 
 
 Took, as his oicn due, the credit 
 Of instructing the Forest supplies ; 
 
 And the coppice he vaimted of chiefly 
 "Was an oak-wood, companion in years 
 
 To the tree which you and I, darling ! 
 
 Have nurtured with smiles and with tears. 
 ****** 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Twenty ! say you 1 are you twenty "? 
 
 Out of your teens ? Is it so 1 
 And I — I look back on my plenty 
 
 Of years, and the long, long ago ; 
 I look back, but only a shadow 
 
 Is left of the things that have been ; 
 Yet my staff and my pet are beside nie, 
 
 Before us an oak of fifteen ! 
 xvri. 
 And where is its proud predecessor — • 
 
 The Tree of the Eanger's regard — 
 The King from whose loins started Forests, 
 
 And gave birth to the Hjnnns of the Bard ?- 
 The veteran nursed by the Pagan — 
 
 Eedeemed by a knight of the Cross — 
 The Oak, whose each leaf was a legend— 
 
 A waif tale for the Tempest to toss 1
 
 180 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 -^ 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 From whose acorns sprung, with their Tree-life, 
 The Navies, whose Flag is unfurled, 
 
 In the tmn names of Commerce and Freedom, 
 Everywhere over the World 1 
 
 The enterprise, courage, and sinew, 
 The might of our sea-faring folic— 
 
 Their lion-like faces, and rugged, 
 
 Which are carved from the limbs of the oak. 
 Cast and carved from the bole of the oak. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 A thousand summers and winters, 
 
 Each in its turn had passed 
 Over the brow of the idol, 
 
 The kiss of the zephyr and blast — 
 The sun's red heat in the dog-days, 
 
 The torrents from skies overcast, 
 Dew-falls, Ice-bolts, and Fire-bolts, 
 
 And the Angel that scatters the Mast. 
 
 XX. 
 
 But it stood in high dudgeon and haughty, 
 
 With its forehead erect in disdain. 
 And the look of a growing Immortal 
 
 Beginning his infinite reign. 
 Where is it 1 — the Lord of the Forest % 
 
 The tree of the Ranger's regard, 
 Whose each birth-morn heaped promise on promise. 
 
 And opened the lips of the Bard 1
 
 THE OAKLING. ISl 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A churl — a rude hewer of timber — 
 
 A worker with axe and with saw — 
 A trader in divots and lumber, 
 
 Counsel took with a limb of the law ; 
 And the sentence pronounced by the hireling, 
 
 Without upper court of review, 
 Save the Angels that shall be Avengers, 
 
 Was, " To-morrow, Old Timber ! for you /" 
 
 XXII. 
 
 On the morrow the hewers assembled — 
 
 Seven woodmen, noisy with brag. 
 Who looked on a tree, as the Stalker 
 
 Looks on a sure-at-hand Stag. 
 The Tree had its vengeance in falling, 
 
 The lawyer (small subject for grace 
 Taken any way) cheated the hangman ; 
 
 But the brass of his tongue and his face 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Was no metal to vie with the Monarch 
 
 He thought to make gold of and gain ; 
 And the fellow, next door to the felon. 
 
 Was felled with worse schemes in his brain. 
 Ah ! well ! the kings of the Forest 
 
 Do justly, while dropping the crown. 
 In the farewell wave of their sceptres. 
 
 By casting the insolent down —
 
 1S2 POEMS AKD SOKGS. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 By shewing the strength of their sinews, 
 And the valorous life in their core, 
 
 And their ken of the Vexer and Doomster, 
 "Wlio lays the cold axe at their door. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Five years have gone by, and my darling 
 
 Has entered the days of her prime, 
 And her figure, so gracefully moulded, 
 
 Defies all description in rhyme ; 
 "When the woman has cast off her girlhood, 
 
 Its pertness and shyness combined, 
 And towers, like a castle of beauty. 
 
 Over the rest of her kind. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Faultless in face and in figure — 
 
 Artless, but having the art 
 Of fending ofi" empty admirers, 
 
 Who bid high for her hand and her heart. 
 "What ails you, my pet — my own darling? 
 
 This is your birth-day. In tears 1 
 Surely, no shadow of sorrow 
 
 Will darken your happiest years !
 
 THE OAKLING. 183 
 
 xxvii. 
 
 " We shall go and visit our oakling ; 
 
 The time has come round, and the day, 
 Wlien the Tree-Spirit, glad and expectant, 
 
 On tip-toe waiteth the May ; 
 And its arms will wave like a bridegroom's 
 
 Arrayed in the true Lincoln green, 
 Bearing a promise of acorns 
 
 In the coming autumnal sheen." 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 '' Uncle, I have my misgivings ; 
 
 Dear uncle ! I cannot tell why ; 
 But the shadoAv you dread creepeth o'er me. 
 
 And its Caster must come by and by. 
 Take my arm ; we shall off to our treeling ; 
 
 The birds used to whistle the way ; 
 And you, my fond uncle, looked gayer 
 
 A thought or two. Was it so 1 say." 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 " No wonder, my darling, and brisker ; 
 
 JSTot happier — no, I am wrong ; 
 My happiness takes its reflection 
 
 From the child of my heart and my song. 
 Ah ! well. There is cause for surmising — 
 
 Eooni for a grief to step in — 
 Place for a shadow to rest on ; 
 
 But to keep up the heart is to win !
 
 1 84 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 " My jewel ! be true to yoiir nature, 
 
 Take heart, keep it up to the end, 
 And bring in the help-hand of duty 
 
 To do its good part as a friend. 
 But where is our oakling, my darling 1 
 
 Have I mistaken the spot 1 
 Here, surely 1 It never was elsewhere ; 
 
 But tell me, I may have forgot 1 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 " I'm so blind, and my memory fails me ; 
 
 Yet my heart ! it has eyes of its own. 
 And the memories given to its keeping 
 
 Are memories none can dethrone. 
 Ah ! you are troubled and silent ; 
 
 Speak, is it so "? my own pet ! 
 Some evil has chanced to our favourite — 
 
 A sorrow to us — a regret — 
 
 xxxii. 
 " A wound that will heal before sunset — 
 A cross that at dawning vnH. vanish ; 
 One tear should avail to erase it — 
 
 One sigh and a hand's waft to banish." 
 " Dear uncle ! my fondest of uncles, 
 
 Our hearts were wrapt up in that tree ; 
 Mine was and yours was, I know it, 
 And its fate is the forecast to me
 
 THE OAKLING. 185 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 " Of a something — I cannot define it — 
 
 Creeping on, stealing on, like a chill, 
 That \\dthers the leaf and the blossom, 
 
 And curdles the sap at its will. 
 A shape that belongs to the grave-yard 
 
 Holds in my day-dreams its part. 
 And at night, by my couch leaning o'er me, 
 
 Trammels the flow from my heart. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 " A hand is dividing the curtain, 
 
 And beckons and beckons alway ; 
 I cannot resist it, dear uncle ! 
 
 But am bound by my fate to obey." 
 "Prop of my life ! of its lingerings 
 Cheerer ! the Help on the way ! 
 I have lived on yom- love, and had trusted 
 To live on it many a day ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 " A blight had it been — the consumer 
 
 Travelling up by degrees 
 From the root to the crown of our oakhng, 
 
 I might have divined your unease. 
 But man has been here, not the Angel 
 
 Appointed — the. silent pursuer — 
 A man, and a demon within him, 
 
 Armed with the axe of the hewer."
 
 186 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 " Not less, dearest uncle, an omen ! 
 
 Our oakling has gone from its place ; 
 We made it too much of an idol — 
 
 Trusted too much to the grace 
 Of the hireling. Ah ! now it is over ! 
 
 Seek him out, and spare not the cost ! 
 Six days hence — say a full fortnight — 
 
 A fortnight, or three weeks at most. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 " N"o matter ! the time is approaching, 
 
 Seek him out, without grudge or delay ; 
 He will drive a preposterous bargain. 
 
 But let him for once have Ms way. 
 Of our oakling we must have the timber 
 
 Two coffins to make of — no more ; 
 Mine will be needed too early, 
 
 Before the green summer is o'er. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 " Yours — ah ! I know not the whether 
 
 To wish you to follow or stay ; 
 I meant it a gift of remembrance — 
 
 No ! one is enough for its day. 
 Better not vex nor distress you — 
 
 Better not darken the hour 
 That is passing with gloomy forecastings — 
 
 Preceding the Terrible Power.
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE FOUNTAIN. 187 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 " Fare thee well ! A dream of our oakling, 
 
 The dream of its Fate and of Thee 
 Across my soul's vision is fleeting, 
 
 Dear Uncle ! come quickly to me !" 
 And this was the last of my darhng : 
 
 I live, but my life is a dream, 
 And the dream is the life-time remaining ; 
 
 I wait to go on with the stream. 
 
 -00- 
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE FO UNTAIN. 
 
 I. 
 
 Stay with me upon the mountain, 
 Stay with me, and list my warning 
 
 I am but a simple fountain, 
 
 Prattling on from eve to morning ; 
 
 II. 
 
 But the gleaming eye is in me, 
 Which hath virtue to foresee. 
 
 And the tongue with which I babble 
 Can reveal strange things to thee.
 
 188 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 III. 
 Mark ! a-leaning o'er my margin 
 
 Skeletons of tliree great trees, 
 Cleft by thunder-bolts — mis-shapen, 
 
 Gnarled, and fretted at the knees. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oaks they are, but none would know it 
 K the acorn were the test. 
 
 Even leaf they rarely show it — 
 Forest monarchs sore distrest ! 
 
 V. 
 
 On the tale of their misfortunes 
 Hangs a tale of human woe, 
 
 !N"one, I trow, the less disastrous 
 That its date was years ago. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Years ! a century is over, 
 And the portion of another, 
 
 Since that day of dark remembrance, 
 When a brother slew a brother — 
 
 VII. 
 
 Slew, but not as Cain slew Abel, 
 
 In contending sacrifice. 
 When the offering on the Altar 
 
 Drew no token from the skies —
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE FOUNTAIN. 189 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Smoked not, nor a sign of favour 
 Shewed, despite of fruit and corn 
 
 Heaped up in profusion lavish, 
 Decorating every horn — 
 
 IX. 
 
 All the three horns of the Tripod 
 Gloried in their setting out 
 
 In the choice sheaves of the harvest, 
 Juicy bulb and tender sprout. 
 
 Let alone that ancient story, 
 Told by maiden at my side. 
 
 As she filled her homely pitcher 
 In the rosy eventide. 
 
 XI. 
 
 She had cidled it from her mother, 
 Sitting on that mother's knee, 
 
 At the door-step of a cottage. 
 In the heart of the Holy Lee, 
 
 XII. 
 
 With the Bible spread before them 
 On a sunny Sabbath day — 
 
 The half-orphan and the widow- 
 In her home-spun, hodden grey.
 
 190 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 But my story : — I remember 
 
 Wlien a youth came to my spring, 
 
 Quaffed it, named it Helicon — 
 Shouted, and essayed to sing — 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Shouted, and with frantic gestures, 
 Called upon the circling scaurs, 
 
 Till the echoes in confusion 
 
 Marred the ear, as discord mars. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Then he ceased, as by an effort — 
 Sobbed, as if his heart would burst, 
 
 And with lip to my cold fountain 
 Sought to slake his fiery thirst — 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Prostrate sought, and bathed his forehead. 
 Steeped his tresses, laved his cheek — 
 
 Eose again in upright posture — 
 Gestured as about to speak. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 But the voice failed, or the courage. 
 
 Or some sudden fit o'ertook ; 
 For at once an icy trembling 
 
 Seized him, and the scared look
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE FO UNTAIN. 191 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Of a man •upon whose shadow 
 
 Trod the avenger's feet — whose ear 
 
 Caught up menaces of evil —   
 Syllables of deadly fear — 
 
 Words of judgment drawing near. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 But the moody fit passed over ; 
 
 And again an eager draught 
 From my brimming stores he ravished, 
 
 Thanking Jesus as he quaffed — 
 
 XX. 
 
 Thanking all the Saints of Heaven, 
 
 And the Angel of the Spring, 
 Till his heart had lost its burden, 
 
 And his tongue essayed to sing. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Low and plaintive was the measure, 
 "Wild, but simple, were the words, 
 
 And the warblings to them mated 
 Teachings were of woodland birds. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Of the letter of the descant 
 
 I can give but sorry snatch ; 
 And its spirit, too, is hidden 
 
 In the spirit of the catch.
 
 11)2 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Ah ! how short-lived the delirium ! 
 
 As he sang, my watchful ear 
 Caught up sounds that boded evil — 
 
 Fateful footsteps drawing near. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 'Cross the hills there toiled a figure, 
 Bearing burden o'er his heart. 
 
 And the burden, God of Mercy ! 
 Was the comer's counterpart — 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Counterpart in form and feature ; 
 
 Ordy by a prescient sense, 
 And an instinct to me given, 
 
 I descried the difference. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 In the arms of her strong lover 
 Clasped, a bleeding maiden lay, 
 
 Life's tide with its mystic floatings 
 Ebbing, ebbing fast away. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 "Weary, weary was the bearer 
 
 When he reached my fountain's edge. 
 
 And lay down his woful burden 
 Breathless on the flowery sedge —
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE FOUNTAIN. 193 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Breathless for the moment only, 
 Breath came hack on hopeful wing ; 
 
 And affection, ever active, 
 
 Found its ally in my spring — 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Dipped into the cooling waters 
 
 Hurriedly the fever'd palm — 
 Laved the forehead of the maiden 
 
 Over which the death-mist swam. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 With red rubies flashed my fountain — 
 Oozings from the deadly wound — 
 
 The life-jewels of a virgin 
 
 In my well of diamond drowned — 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 By the hand of strong affection 
 
 From the heart's-mine sloAvly freed, 
 
 Cast upon my fount of mercies 
 In an hour of crying need. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 With my diamonds they consorted. 
 And the emerald growths that clave, 
 
 Laced with sapphires at my margin — 
 Lustres shooting through my wave.
 
 104 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 While the horror of the moment 
 Held me fast and all things near, 
 
 Hark ! a cry of hitter anguish, 
 Like sharp dagger, smote the ear ! 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 With its hreaking forth great tremhling 
 Seized the maiden, and a sigh 
 
 From the pallid lips escaping 
 With it took her soul on high. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Strode into the fatal circle, 
 Passionful, a youtliful form, 
 
 By the help of my hlurred mirrors 
 I divined the coming storm. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Out it hrake in sudden fury. 
 Brother upon brother rushed, 
 
 While the pale corse lay betwixt them, 
 And I gazed with ripple hushed. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Sister, did I term the maiden 1 
 She was cousin to them both ; 
 
 But she stood in light of sister. 
 Shackled by a double oath.
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE FOUNTAIN. 1!).-) 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 In Thy mercy, God of mercy ! 
 
 Shut my eyes ! The thousand years 
 O'erpassing me, until this moment, 
 
 Shewed nor hlood nor human tears. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 God was gracious- — heard my moanings — 
 
 O'er the mountains cast a haze, 
 SeaHng up my power of vision 
 
 Seven long nights — seven longer days. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Ended these ; the dim perception 
 
 Of a tragedy in course, 
 Of my senses took possession. 
 
 Held it hy magnetic force. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 And I travelled, in my fancy, 
 
 Over places strange to me, 
 Tlirough a valley, and heyond it, 
 
 To a city by the sea. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 I had ceased to be a fountain — 
 
 Passed into a river wide, 
 On whose bosom barges floated. 
 
 Castles flourished at its side.
 
 lOi; POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 But the trust to me committed, 
 In this hour of wondrous trance, 
 
 "Was a shallop richly gilded. 
 Masted with a pennon'd lance. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Caught its silken sails the zephjT, 
 And their shining tassels rung 
 
 Pleasantly, like bells of silver. 
 Armed with animated tongue. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 At the helm there stood a watcher, 
 Golden-haired and azure-eyed. 
 
 With his hand upon the tiller, 
 And his gaze upon the tide. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 At the prow there sat a maiden 
 Motionless — the form of grace — 
 
 But a wonder and a rapture 
 Passed by turns into her face. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Flashed across my recollection 
 The fair martyr at my spring. 
 
 Purified from sin and sorrow — 
 Saintly made through sufferin
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE FOUNT A fX. I'.iT 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Glided on the wondrous shallop 
 By the cherub pilot steered, 
 
 And the tassel'd sails made music 
 As the shining port it neared ; 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 To a palace in the city, 
 On it floated, like a swan, 
 
 Under pier, with angels crowded, 
 And an arch of mighty span — 
 
 L. 
 
 To a palace built of marble. 
 Fronted by a terrace broad ; 
 
 On its portal the inscription, 
 "All the Glory be to God." 
 
 LI. 
 
 I heard shouting of the angels. 
 And a song of welcome given ; 
 
 But my hour of trance had ended. 
 And the mission towards heav'n. 
 
 LII. 
 
 Waking, I am but a fountain. 
 Simple, garrulous, as of yore, 
 
 In the legends of the mountain 
 Versed, and in its fairy lore.
 
 ]<tS POEMfi AND SONGS. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Bare and gaunt, like shattered idols, 
 Charred by the avenger's brand, 
 
 "With their arms wrenched off by tempest, 
 Three grim oaks above me stand. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Under them a mossy hillock 
 
 Rivets the inquiring eye, 
 With its headstone rudely cj'phered, 
 
 Marvel to the passer by ! 
 
 -00- 
 
 THE WAIL OF THE SAXON MOTHER. 
 In Three Phases. 
 
 PHASE FIRST. 
 1. 
 
 My children ! oh, my children ! 
 
 That we should ever part. 
 The treasures of my household — 
 
 The jewels of my heart ! 
 My sons, so bright and comely. 
 
 Of courtesy the flower ; 
 Alas ! to bear it humbly 
 
 Is beyond a mother's power.
 
 THE WAIL OF THE SAXON MOTHEB. 190 
 
 II. 
 My children ! oli, my children ! 
 
 The future of my joys — 
 The solace of my widowhood — 
 
 My own beloved boys ! 
 How many ardent fancies 
 
 Have shaped your fortunes trim, 
 And from the whirl of chances 
 
 Drawn prizes to the brim ! 
 
 in. 
 The widow and the chihlrenless, 
 
 The more than twice bereft ! 
 Out of Thy store of mercies, 
 
 God ! is one mercy left ] 
 Come back ! I care not whether 
 
 Ye bring honour or disgrace ; 
 All that I care for is to keep 
 
 My heart in its right place ; 
 
 IV. 
 
 Xot to expend the yearnings 
 
 Of the mother on the dead — 
 Not to destroy the illusion 
 
 To which my soul is wed. 
 Why should I care for country % 
 
 Why should I care for king ^ 
 In concert both have robb'd me 
 
 Of every precious thing.
 
 200 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 V. 
 
 To murmur is rebellion, 
 
 IVIy staid, confessor saitli, 
 The droppings of his snaky tongue 
 
 Are poison to my faith. 
 What knoweth lie of trials — 
 
 Of a mother's, least of all, 
 Eeft in the prime of widowhood 
 
 Of hope beyond recal 1 
 
 VI. 
 
 The altar and its hungerings 
 
 Bring famine to desire — 
 Darken the light of promises, 
 
 And quench the inner fire — - 
 Would, if they could, extinguish 
 
 The noblest part of man — 
 The God-part — chos'n interpreter 
 
 Of the Eternal plan. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Eeason ! hast thou left thy throne. 
 
 And ]\Iercy hers, that priests 
 Should chide us in our agony, 
 
 Yet wallow at our Feasts ? 
 Among them, ^\]\o \a backward 
 
 To keep the laughing Tryst 1 
 Eut who of them is ready aye 
 
 To Avork the work of Christ ?
 
 THE WAIL OF THE SAXON MOTHER. -201 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And ye ! who Avield the sceptre, 
 
 And go grandly in your time, 
 "With a kingly gait and bearing 
 
 Enacting the sublime, 
 Why is it that your soarings 
 
 And plottings should redound 
 Only to wail and suffering, 
 
 And the lying under ground 1 
 
 IX. 
 
 Will God not sound the trumpet, 
 
 And send His Angels forth 
 To hurtle red revenges 
 
 On the armies of the N"orth — 
 The widow's cause to vindicate. 
 
 And justify His own ; 
 Wliat was humbled on the Altar 
 
 To lift up to the Throne ? 
 
 X. 
 
 The guise of the War Demon, 
 
 Alas ! that it should be 
 Torn from the mantle of the Bard, 
 
 From robes of Liberty — 
 That singing of the Hearth and Home 
 
 Should stalk across the land, 
 A Phantom and a Phantasy, 
 
 With sabre in its hand !
 
 202 POEMS AND SOXGS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 What are the songs of Peoples, 
 
 And Patriotic Airs, 
 But incantations of the Fiend 
 
 To stiHe Christian prayers? 
 Wiiat is the love of Country 
 
 But a lie in God's own face, 
 Who made the same sun shine on all, 
 
 And tenders all His grace 1 
 
 Xll. 
 
 My sons are dead ! My sons are dead ! 
 
 Buried, I know not where. 
 In alien earth — the home to me 
 
 Is a region of Despair ! 
 No other home, no other hearth, 
 
 JSTo other Country now. 
 And I the Patriot mother once 1 
 
 Be broken, evil vow ! 
 
 PHASE SECOND. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Iron Cross was sent to me 
 Go, bauble, to the fire ! 
 
 Device of groaning Tyranny, 
 Instructed by the liar !
 
 THE WAIL OF THE SAXON MOTHER. 20S 
 
 Wert tliou a bullet, I would fain 
 
 Give life to the inert, 
 So the grim Despot's gift of grace 
 
 Should find way to his heart. 
 
 II. 
 
 My sons ! my sons ! where is the home 
 
 Ye fought for "? where the hearth % 
 And all the glory vaunted of? — 
 
 Six narrow feet of earth ! 
 Where is the Patriot spirit 
 
 That led you out to fight % 
 Has it a Eesurrection, too, 
 
 In the promised Day of Light ? 
 
 III. 
 When the graves ope will ye strut forth 
 
 With weapon in your hand. 
 And in your mouth the eulogies 
 
 Of a great Fatherland 1 
 The songs by which a Syren — 
 
 The Syren of the Rhine — 
 Lured to the cruel battle-field 
 
 To die without a signl 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh ! come, thou Day of Eeckoning ! 
 
 Come, Judgment of the King ! 
 Come, thou discrowning Messenger ! 
 
 Bring healing on thy wing.
 
 204 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 The strong yoke of the tyrant break, 
 Their glory turn to shame 
 
 "Who sit on thrones of corpses, 
 And murder make their game ! 
 
 V. 
 
 Unclasp the gyves of Serfdom — 
 
 The Avitching dream dispel 
 That War makes other Empire 
 
 Than befits the schemes of Hell — 
 That the cry evoked of Fatherland 
 
 Finds echo from the Throne, 
 Where Mercy is administered, 
 
 And Judgment finds its own ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 Bereft I sit, and desolate, 
 
 I moan, but cannot pray 
 In the spirit of the Christian, 
 
 For my Faith has passed away : 
 And if the Love abideth, 
 
 Alas ! the springs are dry 
 That blended with its flowings 
 
 The life of Loyalty. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Ye Saxon Mothers ! who have staked 
 
 Your all in this emprize. 
 Hear me nor blame — your Fealty 
 
 Is more than Sacrifice —
 
 THE WAIL OF THE SAXON MOTHER. 205 
 
 More than stern Duty's offering, 
 Or your Country's cause demands, 
 
 The very Birthright of your sons 
 Is in the Enslaver's hands. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Dotard you call Father-King, 
 
 And hail with loud acclaim, 
 Is but the base Designer's Tool, 
 
 "Working his country's shame. 
 Enough to have repelled the foe. 
 
 And humbled the Invader ! 
 Laurels enough ! — but not to sate 
 
 The arrogant Persuader. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Spider lurking in the web 
 
 That hides the mouth of Hell, 
 The fierce Man-devil and his horde 
 
 Obey their master well. 
 Ehineland ! the shout, and Germany ! 
 
 The King ! the Emperor ! 
 The Farce behind the Tragedy ! 
 
 Are the rehearsals o'er ? 
 
 X. 
 
 Saxon dames ! my Sisters ! 
 
 Who from this bitter strife 
 A nobler Future picture forth. 
 
 And a more Christian life —
 
 20(3 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 Ye whom the Angel guarded 
 
 In passing through the Fire, 
 Wliose sons came scathless from the Fight, 
 
 Hugging their heart's desire — 
 
 XI. 
 
 At what a cost of conscience 
 
 Do they their honours wear ! 
 Murder and rapine on their hands, 
 
 And crimes beyond repair ! 
 I wail mine o^vn dark fortunes, 
 
 But more for you I wail — 
 For the red thread of Agony 
 
 Inwoven through Saxon tale. 
 
 PHASE THIRD. 
 
 I. 
 
 Who v/ent out all untainted, 
 
 A radiant, hoj)eful band, 
 Clad in the honest virtues 
 
 Of a smiling Fatherland, 
 Come back, a troop of ruffians, 
 
 Given to lust and wine, 
 To vex the peace of households. 
 
 And shame their native Ehine.
 
 THE WAIL OF THE SAXON MOTHER. 207 
 
 II. 
 
 Black-throated, like the mitrailleuse, 
 
 And cruel as the shell, 
 Battered and gashed and grimy. 
 
 Hot from the heart of Hell ! 
 Are these the noble Teutons 
 
 In whose hands the balance lies, 
 Through conquest and the Grace of God, 
 
 Of Europe's destinies ? 
 
 III. 
 Ye Saxon Mothers ! hearken hie ! 
 
 Than mine, your cross is -worse : 
 Mine is a sore and suflerinsj. 
 
 But you7's a very curse. 
 Mine has this consolation, 
 
 My sons have passed the fire ; 
 They fell in doing duty 
 
 As did their noble sire : 
 
 IV. 
 
 Yours, ah ! a cross how bitter ! 
 
 A fate how sad and stern ! 
 Go where you will, the Spectre 
 
 Meets you at every turn ; 
 Dark'ning the Hearth and Doorway, 
 
 At the Baptismal Font, 
 Eound the fencings of the Altar 
 
 Glideth a Demon gaunt. 
 
 o'
 
 208 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 V-. 
 
 Liberty ! Liberty ! 
 
 To tbis pitcb has it come, 
 That Serfdom has assumed tby name 
 
 By right of Trump and Drum '\ 
 That a great Nation sells its soul 
 
 To everlasting shame, 
 Because a sceptred Lunatic 
 
 Must have his day of Fame 1 
 
 VI. 
 
 Because to work the purposes 
 
 Of his chaotic mind, 
 Two of the Devil's delegates 
 
 Press forward and behind — 
 Two cunning men of Belial, 
 
 Who know the nation well. 
 And where to cast the glamour, 
 
 And how to bind the spell — 
 
 VII. 
 
 To arouse the warlike ardour 
 
 By Fable and by Song, 
 By dragging from its resting place 
 
 Some unexpiated "Wrong ; 
 Two subtle, hoary sorcerers, 
 
 Vers'd in the craft of spells. 
 Each in his groove of industry 
 
 "Working the parallels.
 
 THE WAIL OF THE SAXON MOTHER. 200 
 
 VIII. 
 
 King ! assuming Empire, 
 
 Thou speakest to thy God 
 As if thou shar'st the Throne Supreme, 
 
 And Heav'n Low'd at thy nod ; 
 Thou art well back'd. Believe me ! 
 
 The tools that are thy trust 
 Are hollowing thy Kingdom's grave, 
 
 And will trample on its dust ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Once more, my Saxon Sisters ! 
 
 Hear me ! The hour is late — 
 Idle are words of sympathy 
 
 To stem the course of Fate ; 
 Eut surely in their utterance 
 
 Is this measure of relief, 
 That, having felt its poignancy, 
 
 I can divide the grief ! 
 
 X. 
 
 "When to your destined Future 
 
 I strain the aching eye. 
 The wail of my green sorrow 
 
 Becomes a grateful cry. 
 Mine own dark trouble vanisheth 
 
 Before the woes in store 
 
 For yo^i, beloved Matrons ! 
 
 And I murmur now no more, 
 
 o
 
 210 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 15ut cease tlie wringing of the hands, 
 
 And raise them clasp'd on high, 
 In thanks that God hath spared me this 
 
 Eed cup of Misery ! 
 Oh, blot the page from History ! 
 
 Tear out the crimsoned leaf ! 
 Leave all but this in Mystery, 
 
 "Grief draweth unto Grief?" 
 
 -00- 
 
 LINES TO A FA VO URITE DOG. 
 Obie : Obit January 1873. 
 
 I. 
 
 My shadow ! my loA^'d shadow ! — not my only, 
 Tliank God for this ! I've parted with to-day, 
 Obie ! poor Obie ! Oh ! my heart is wae, 
 
 And all the landscape of my future lonely. 
 
 II. 
 
 How I shall miss thee in the summer-tide, 
 
 While sauntering with my wand up Teviotdale — 
 The merry wagging of thy glossy tail — 
 
 Thy happy gambols at the river-side —
 
 LTNES TO A FAVOURITE DOG. 211 
 
 III. 
 
 The joyous ringing of thy wanton tongue, 
 That woke to life the echo of its joy, 
 And in me stirred the feelings of the boy, 
 
 A thousand thoughts, unlettered and unsung ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Love and "VVorsliip heaming from an eye 
 That drowned in jet a living diamond. 
 And strove with gaze affectionate and fond 
 
 To read n\j inmost wishes and reply ! 
 
 V. 
 
 Obie ! poor Obie ! of thy tragic fate 
 To Avhisper even, knowing as I know, 
 The dealing is of an o'erpowering blow 
 
 That leaves me tearfid and disconsolate. 
 
 VI. 
 
 "Was I thy deity, tried follower 1 
 
 Often I asked thee, and the mute reply 
 Was given by thy tail and earnest eye. 
 
 Oh ! had I been as true a worshipper 
 
 VII. 
 
 Of the great God as thou wert unto me, 
 
 I could have held my head up as a prophet, 
 And, by example, rescued souls from Tophet, 
 
 But such high privilege was not to be !
 
 212 
 
 POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Obie ! thine ashes in my garden laid 
 
 Are not less dear than dust of kith and kin, 
 If so to hold them, some regard a sin, 
 
 They're welcome ! Sinning so, is God obeyed ! 
 
 A/r/1^^' 
 
 
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