f ^s C'/. // />'/*-/*/.,. k. POEMS A. H. CLOUGH POEMS ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH SOMETIME FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD WITH A MEMOIR MACMILLAN AND CO. AND 23 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN 1862 \The right of translation is reserved] LONDON PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NEW-STREET SQUARE MEMOIR Arthur Hugh Clough, born at Liverpool, Jan. i^ 1 8 19, was educated at Rugby. His career there has been sketched by a distinguished schoolfellow, from whose interesting notice the following lines are ex- tracted. Arthur Stanley thus writes : — c Of all the scholars at Rugby School, in the time when Arnold's influence was at its height, there was none who so completely represented the place in all its phases as Clough. He had come there as a very young boy, and gradually worked his way from form to form till he reached the top of the school. He did not, like some of the more distinguished of his contemporaries, hold aloof from the common world of schoolboy life, but mingled freely in the games and sports of his schoolfellows. He received also into an unusually susceptible and eager mind the whole force of that electric shock which Arnold com- municated to all his better pupils. Over the career of none of his pupils did Arnold watch with a livelier interest or a more sanguine hope. By none, during those last years of school life, or first years of college life, was that interest more actively reciprocated in the tribute of enthusiastic affection than by Clough. vi Memoir c He came up to Oxford, and carried away the Balliol scholarship with a renown beyond that of any of his pre- decessors. I remember, even to this day, the reverbera- tion of the profound sensation occasioned in the Common- room of that College, already famous, when his youthful English essay was read aloud to the assembled Fellows. From Balliol he was elected (1842) to a Fellowship at Oriel — a distinction still at that time retaining something of its original splendour, and rectifying the sometimes ill- adjusted balance (as had happened in Clough's case) of the honours of the University.' Clough's residence at Oxford was cast at a time when one of the theological tempests, which during the last hundred years have so often arisen there, was raging at its fiercest. It was a controversy from which few could hold aloof — least of all, a mind lively, susceptible and speculative. And for awhile the movement of that day attracted him, by holding out the ideal of a more de- voted and unselfish life, and a higher sense of duty, than the common. But he learned early to distrust a theory not resting on honest acceptance of our human nature, and was soon named as one of the foremost who battled for just freedom of opinion and speech, for liberation from what he esteemed archaeological formulas, for more con- scientious fulfilment of obligation towards the students — for a wider course of studies, lastly, than those who had grown up under the older system were willing to con- template. Hence all who longed for that more com- prehensive university of which they have since seen the Memoir vii beginning, looked on Clough as amongst their leaders ; and his influence was always towards whatever should incline others to a liberal view of the questions of the day, of the claims of the feeble, and the feelings of the poor ; — verging gradually to what, in a phrase which now seems itself an echo from the past, were considered c democratic tendencies.' Plainer living and higher thinking were the texts on which he gave us ' many a humorous and admirable lesson. In all his dealings, the most casual observer would have felt, here was a man who loved truth and justice, not coldly and afar off, as most, but with passion and intensely ; and against what he judged wrong and meanness in high places, he fought with an unselfish courage and a spirit which did good to all honest hearts. One instance is too characteristic of the man to be passed over. He always held in horror the selfish deduc- tions which (he thought) were often made from some doc- trines of Political Economy : — and when the Irish famine took place, he advocated the relief fund which was set up in Oxford in a very plain-spoken and vigorous pamphlet, urging the immediate suppression of certain academical luxurious habits, and, above all, requiring from us sympathy with the distressed as an imperious duty. It would, however, be no true picture of Clough in his youth, that presented him mainly as a c practical man -, ' in- deed a certain unaptness orwantof shrewd rapidity (as shown in his honours' examination), a sensitive fairness and chi- valrous openness of dealing, marked him rather as the poet viii Memoir who walked the world's way as matter of duty, living a life, meanwhile, hidden with higher and holier things, with the friends and books he loved so fondly, with deep solitary thought, with Nature in her wildness and her ma- jesty. Cast on days of change and developement, his strong moral impulses threw him into the sphere of war- fare ; yet he was no c born reformer ; ' was diffident of his own conclusions ; had no clean-cut decisive system, nay, thought experience proved the narrowness of such ; and was beyond those fetters of c logical consistency ' which played so great a part in the controversies of the time. Many fragments of his verse show that whilst roused to a spirit of resolute self-reliance by what went on around him, he felt how much the war of conscience and convic- tion must be carried on within, until some clearer light should break upon the enquirer. O let me love my love unto myself alone, And know my knowledge to the world unknown ; No witness to the vision call, Beholding unbeheld of all ; And worship thee, with thee withdrawn apart, Whoe'er, whate'er thou art, Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart. Or, again, we find the voice of sound worldly wisdom expressing itself in the Siren strains which are not con- fined to the invitations of pleasure : Better it were, thou sayest, to consent ; Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent ; Memoir ix Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure, The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure. Here, too, c there is much to be said on both sides ; ' but one can foretell the poet's answer. To these years belongs, also, the series of poems pub- lished in 1849, ( anc ^ now reprinted with omissions marked by the author), under the title Ambarvalia. This con- tains several pieces of which it has been justly said, c that they will hold their place beside those of Tennyson and Browning': — to friends looking at the little volume, however, as an exhibition of Clough's own mind, we trace him characteristically in a certain caprice or over- fantasy of taste, in a subtle and far-fetched mode of reasoning which returns to plain conclusions through almost paradoxical premises, in a singular toleration and largeness towards views opposed to his own ; it may be added, in an honesty of mind which confesses itself not only perplexed with the c riddle of the universe,' but indignant at the complacent explanations which those who proclaim it insoluble are too apt, he thought, to enforce upon the diffident. But whilst this conflict went on within, towards friends what might be called the imaginative side of his nature was dominant. The sunshine and animating smiles which, many will remember, he brought with him into college society, came, not from ordinary and slighter causes, but from a heart to which affection was at once a delight and a necessity, and a mind c haunted like a pas- sion ' by the loveliness of poetry or of scenery. During Met several summer vacations he had searched out the glens and heights, lakes and moors, of Wales, and Westmoreland, and Scotland, with that minute and reverent care, in absence of which travelling is idle, and with that love for the very soil and configuration of his country which almost always implies high-heartedness. And it was noticed that when speaking of spots of any special beauty or impressiveness — Grasmere, or Pont-y-Wern by Snowdon, or the lochs and valleys of the Western Highlands — his eyes brightened as at the thought of something personally dear, and his voice softened at names and remembrances which carried with them so much of poetry. And to this youthful enthusiasm for nature he united that other enthusiasm for energetic walks and venturesome wander- ings, bathing, swimming, and out-of-doors existence in general, which may, perhaps, be claimed as an impulse peculiarly English* All this, with much else, Clough summed up in his first published poem, brought out in the autumn of 1848, as if his farewell to his university. The Bothie of Tober- Na-Vuolich (as, for euphony's sake, he finally wished the Gaelic name to stand), is a true Long Vacation pastoral, in style and thought intensely Oxonian; — yet with this, which so much amused us at the time, are other and deeper features not less characteristic of the writer. Such are the profound and vital interest in the ancient master- works of prose and poetry, which an Oxford man at least cannot recognize elsewhere in such reality ; the profound sympathy with those who live by the labours we too Memoir xi slightingly call mechanical, and with minds which owe more to nature than to society or study ; the delight in friendship and in solitude ; the love of wild wandering, and the intense — not appreciation of, say rather 'accept- ance in/ the natural landscape, in which Arthur Clough, more than any man known to the writer, seemed to have inherited a double portion of the spirit of William Words- worth. A sense of fresh, healthy manliness ; a scorn of base and selfish motives ; a frank admiration for com- mon life \ a love of earth, not c only for its earthly sake,' but for the divine and the eternal interfused in it — such, and other such, are the impressions left. These noble qualities are rare in any literature ; they have a charm so great that," like Beauty before the Areopagus, they almost disarm the judgement. Viewed critically, Clough's work is wanting in art ; the language and the thought are often unequal and incomplete -, the poetical fusion into a har- monious whole, imperfect. Here, and in his other writings, one feels a doubt whether in verse he chose the right vehicle, the truly natural mode of utterance. It is poetry, however, which truly belongs to a very uncommon class. Even where the last touches have been given, the matter almost everywhere much outruns the workmanship : it should be judged by the thoughts awakened, rather than by the mode of expressing them. Such writing, it might be imagined, from its merits equally with its faults, addresses itself to no numerous audience ; yet the Bothie was quickly known and valued ; and as a true man, from whom much might be hoped, the xii Memoir author was henceforth spoken of, not only in the sphere of friendship and of Oxford, but in many places where the life around them, from different circumstances, ren- dered men sensitive to his tone of thought : — in Northern England especially, in America, and in those wide regions over seas to which Englishmen have carried endurance of toil, and energy of intellect. This poem has been already alluded to as the author's farewell to Oxford. Having held a tutorship in his col- lege now for several years, and joined in all efforts onward, a sense that he had done his work in Oxford, that he was a little too alien in speculative and in practical thought from the tone of the University, to be of further use, or to find a fit abode there ; that he might honourably seek a more unshackled career without, led Clough to with- draw, in 1848, from Oriel. There was much in the spirit of that day with which he could not reconcile himself: To finger idly some old Gordian knot, Unskill'd to sunder, and too weak to cleave, And with much toil attain to half- believe, as he once expressed it, could not be his portion. Chival- rously generous in allowing liberty of opinion in others, he might now seek at least a fuller freedom for himself. Other half-external causes, it has been stated, cooperated in this ; but more influential with so conscientious and brave a man, was the conviction of antagonism to the form of thought which Oxford exacted, or appeared to exact from her children. That world was not his friend, Memoir xiii he fancied, nor that world's law. Yet this divergence was not such as ever estranged him in heart from that noble corporation which, more than any other of modern times, is apt to retain a life-long hold on the affections and the honour of its members ; nor was it, again, such as, after his with- drawal, could be laid at rest within the bonds of some dif- ferent system. This was no logical tangle, no scepticism in the common sense, no sudden imagined discovery, caprice of vanity, fanciful reverie, far less pride of heart or of intellect. Rather, if frank submission to the inexpli- cable mysteries of creation, if a reverence which feared expression, a faith in the eternal truth and justice, be the attributes of a religious mind, Clough possessed it with a reality uncommon in the followers of any religion. But the consciousness of the strange things of life, verbally recognized by most of us, and then explained by some phrase, or put by as unpractical, was to him the c heavy and weary weight ' which men like Wordsworth or Pascal felt it. The c voyant trop pour nier, et trop peu pour s'assurer ' of the greatest of French thinkers, as truly expressed Clough's conviction ; and, convinced thus, it was with mingled perplexity and wrath that he listened to the popular solutions which he heard so confidently, often so threateningly vaunted — to the profane pretence of knowledge (as he thought it) disguised under the name of Providential schemes, or displayed in dogmatic formulas. Far other was the pure and lowly confession of man's in- capacity to search out God, with which at this time he spoke in a few of his most characteristic and deeply-felt xiv Memoir poems, which will be found in this collection. What pathetic tenderness, what manly courage, is concentrated in the lines referred to — how deep, practical, and modest a faith — how devout a submission ! Those who knew Clough know how truly he has here rendered, not only the conviction, but the practice of a life of high and unwearied industry — a life in which the thought of self, except as regarded the fulfilment of duty, had no share ; nor will they feel the phrase too serious, if it be added, that he who c lived in the spirit of this creed ' was surely already not far from the kingdom of Heaven. The pages he then wrote contain the record of Clough's essential life during this second, or transitional, portion of that brief career, and have hence been dwelt on with greater minuteness. He meanwhile was spending the spring and summer of 1849 m ^ ta ty : drawn thither in part by the charm of that country to so sympathetic a student of the ancient literature ; in part by the attraction which any effort to gain rational liberty exercises over all noble natures. Such efforts, or what seemed such, notably at this period engaged much of Clough's best thoughts and warmest sympathies. Thus in 1848 he wrote thus, in his half-humourous, half-pathetic strain, from Paris : — c I do little else in the way of lionizing than wander about theTuileries' chestnuts, and about bridges and streets, " pour savourer la republique." I contemplate with in- finite thankfulness the blue blouse garnished with red of the Garde Mobile, and emit a perpetual incense of devout rejoicing for the purified state of the Tuileries.' But a Memoir xv few days later comes the reverse of the picture — c Icha- bod, Ichabod, the glory has departed. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, driven back by shopkeeping bayonet, hides her red cap in dingiest St. Antoine. Well-to-do-ism shakes her Egyptian scourge, to the tune of " ye are idle, ye are idle ;" — the tale of bricks will be doubled, and the Moses and Aaron of Socialism can at the best only pray for plagues : which perhaps will come, paving-stones for vivats^ and emeutes in all their quarters. c Meantime the glory and the freshness of the dream is departed. The very Garde Mobile has changed its blouse for a bourgeoisie-praetorian uniform with distinctive green hired-soldier epaulets. c The voice of Clubs is silent. Inquisitors only and stone walls of Vincennes list the words of Barbes. Anti- rappel Courtais no longer hushes the drum, which, as he said, u fache le peuple." Wherefore, bring forth, ye millionaires, the three-months-hidden carriages ; rub clean, ye new nobles, the dusty emblazonries : ride forth again, ye cavalier-escorted amazons, to your Bois de Boulogne. The world begins once more to move on its axis, and draw on its kid gloves. The golden age of the Republic displays itself now, you see, as a very vulgar parcel-gilt era.' It is needless to add that a similar discouragement awaited Clough in Rome. Unable or unwilling to believe what at least bore the name Republic could really lead the crusade on behalf of despotism, he lingered on till the investment of Rome by a French army rendered departure impossible. xvi Memoir Many details of that memorable siege he recorded in letters sufficiently refuting the calumnies which England at that time was not ashamed to borrow from the natural enemies of freedom. He witnessed the patience and courage of the be- sieged, the self-restraint under privation and provocation, the firm, proud submission to overwhelming force, and a con- quest where all of honour was with the defeated, — the high national qualities, in a word, with which Italy has made Europe familiar. 'Whether the Roman Republic will stand, I don't know,' he wrote during the struggle, c but it has, under Mazzini's inspiration, shown a wonderful energy and a glorious generosity.' Readers will find many of Clough's impressions and feelings of that period recorded in the Amours de Voyage and other shorter pieces. Then, from the temporary triumph of shame and superstition, he turned to the Power which l never did betray the heart that loved her/ and through the Italian Lakes and Switzerland wandered homewards to resume more active duties. From a poem now written at Venice, may be taken a traveller's wish that he might In one unbroken passage borne To closing night from opening morn, Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark Some palace front, some passing bark ; Thro' windows catch the varying shore, And hear the soft turns of the oar. How light we move, how softly ! ah, Were life but as the Gondola ! Memoir xvii Though not altogether accomplished, something of this easy tenour of the happy life was in store for the writer during the twelve years of useful and energetic labour, which the c blind Fury ' Fate of the poet had measured out for him. At first indeed he found in the Wardenship of University Hall, London, an employment not altogether congenial to his disposition : yet even here, in the com- parative solitude of the new abode, the discovery that with- drawal from Oxford had no ways shaken the affection of those he trusted, cheered the hours which, to a disposition so tenderly sensitive as Clough's, were apt to catch a gloom from the sight of unfamiliar walls and faces. This was, perhaps, the most lonely part of his life : and in the streets of London many strange passages of what he called the philosophia metropolitana presented themselves, and have found their way into verses of a peculiar pathos and sarcasm. But such depressing humours came and went, whilst in the increased respect of those he most valued, whether alien from his tone of thought or not, he received now part of the reward with which truth recompenses self- sacrifice. Soon, too, when resident for a few months in America, whither in 1852 he went to try his fortunes, he found amongst the most distinguished men of Boston and its neighbourhood a renewal of the deep interest which he had aroused in his earlier companions. c He had nothing of insular narrowness,' one of them writes, c none of the prejudices which too often interfere with the capacity of English travellers or residents among us, to sympathize with and justly understand habits of life and xviii Memoir thought so different from those to which they have been accustomed.' The friendships then formed were the main result — a sufficient result, Clough held it — of the trial : England drew him towards her before he could find a footing in the West, with the one irresistible word — homewards. Yet the resolution to return was not taken without some reluctance to quit the new world. c I like America all the better/ (he wrote in 1853) c for the comparison with England on my return. Certainly I think you were more right than I was willing to admit, about the position of the poorer classes here. Such is my first reimpression. However it will wear off soon enough, I daresay. 'There are deeper waters of ancient knowledge and experience about one here, and one is saved from the temptation of flying off into space ; but I think you have, beyond all question, the happiest country going.' An appointment, however, in the education department of the Privy Council-office decided him to return to England. The universal instinct of repose, The longing for coniirm'd tranquillity, Inward and outward ; humble, yet sublime ; The life where hope and memory are as one : — what life was ever wholly true to this great ideal ? Yet in its most essential features, at peace with himself and with circumstances, happy in his home and the blessing • of his children, Clough may be held to have fulfilled it. A career such as this had been naturally watched by Memoir xix his friends with a certain anxiety, heightened by the sight of a character at once so sensitive and so self-sacrificing, and by the warmth of affection which it excited. Hence- forward, however, until failing health raised them, there was no cause for anxious thoughts. It was evident, indeed, that rest or leisure were not in his prospect j that not less than in his earlier days, Clough would be still, in its most emphatic and highest sense, a working man. His official employment was varied, but hardly diminished, by the Secretaryship to the Commission of Report on Military Education, which, in 1856, carried him again to France, and finally to Vienna. Meantime he gradually com- pleted the long revision of Dryden's c Translation of Plutarch,' begun in America ; comparing that inaccurate though spirited text throughout with the original, and retouching it with a skill and taste in which his careful study of Chaucer and our early literature gave him a special mastery. These tasks were more than enough, as it proved, for a constitution never robust ; and when, with his usual energetic sympathy for all that touched the welfare of the poor or the wretched, he further under- took much anxious work to assist his wife's cousin, Florence Nightingale, in her own arduous labours, Clough's health gave way, and travelling was prescribed. His first journey, to Greece and Constantinople, was of great interest to so good a scholar ; and he summed up the chief features on his return in a few lines placed in one of the Tales, of which the most complete are printed within this volume. a 2 xx Memoir Aware it might be first and last, I did it eagerly and fast; Counted the towns that lie like slain Upon the wide Boeotian plain ; With wonder in the spacious gloom Stood of the Mycenaean tomb : From the Aero-Corinth watched the day Light the Eastern and the Western bay. Constantinople then had seen, Where 'mid her cypresses the queen Of the east sees flow thro' portal wide The steady streaming Scythian tide. To see the things which sick with doubt And comment one had learnt about, Was like clear morning after night, Or raising of the blind to sight. Finding his health not thoroughly restored, after a short visit to England he returned southwards for the winter. By one of the Italian lakes he was struck by malaria fever, and with difficulty completed the journey to Florence, where it carried him off on November 13, 1861. He lies in the little cypress-crowded cemetery beyond the walls of the Fair City, on the side towards Fiesole. This truly was a life of much performance, yet of more promise. Clough did the work of a man within his two and forty years 5 yet we must feel now the bitterness and irony of that fate which seemed to secure him outward prosperity, but never left him a brief interval in which, as one who best knew him said, c to be himself,' Memoir xxi and to realize for his own advantage, if not for ours, powers rarely given in such curiously subtle combination. Perhaps his speculative activity was beyond his powers of co-ordina- tion, the discursive element of thought too dominant, the fear of partial conclusions over-scrupulous. But from what he might have been it is best to turn to what he was. It appears to the writer an idle demand, though now a de- mand often made, that a man should publish to the world the results of his thought or study : — to live a lofty life, within the limits of this existence, — to carry out for him- self a perfect scheme, so far as human weakness may allow, is a far higher thing, as unhappily a far rarer : and in this aspect, those who knew him will confess it is no phrase of partial affection to say that Clough ranked with the best of his contemporaries. The reader will find many charm- ing stanzas, some excellent, amongst those belonging to the later period of his life. Yet in the larger sense, it might be truly said, that he rather lived than wrote his poem. It must not be imagined that, with the more prosperous circumstances above noticed, he became false to his convictions, or, as some do, put away from himself as unpractical the thought of those deeper problems which had perplexed his earlier years, not less by the sense of their darkness than of their close and unavoidable pressure on our daily life \ that he now recoiled from them in fear, or forgot them in felicity. No one could be more con- science-pure from that self-deceiving concession to ease and cowardice by which honest doubt and insoluble difficulty- are so often stifled. But with a modest reserve, the fre- xxii Memoir quent companion of frank simplicity, — with a sense, it may be, of the increased perplexities which darken wider horizons, — he kept mainly to himself the results of his riper speculative experience ; satisfied to express them henceforth only by a larger charity towards opponents, and an even more fervent earnestness on his own part to make truth and justice and generosity his sole guides for action. As said above, Clough lived his poem. Few, it has been observed, have looked on nature more entirely in the spirit which his favourite Wordsworth expressed in the immortal lines on Tintern : fewer, perhaps, in this age have more completely worked out his ideal, c plain living and high think- ing.' Let it not be said that Clough's gifts were inade- quately realized, when he has left us this example. It is a second, nay, to Fancy a more final farewell, thus to review the memories of lost affection. We would willingly, in his friend's pathetic phrase, Treasuring the look we cannot find, The words that are not heard again — willingly linger yet a little more over the now visionary remembrance of outward form and manner ; — the youth- ful blitheness and boyishness of heart with which he wel- comed the sight of those he cared for, contrasted with the signs of age before its time in his scant and silvery hair : the gait, almost halting at times, which seemed hardly consistent with so much physical resolve and energy ; the perplexed yet encouraging smile that met the speaker, if chance talk touched on matters of speculative or moral in- Memoir xxiii terest ; the frown and furrows of the massive forehead at any tale of baseness or injustice ; the sunny glance or healthy homely laughter at any word of natural kindness, or brilliancy, or innocent humour. There were days, indeed, — months, perhaps — of darkness from more quarters than most men are accessible to : yet this was on the whole a happy life, though in a sense remote from the world's happiness. Here was little pros- perity in common parlance ; years of struggle and toil, fightings within and without, the otia dia of the poet within view only to be snatched away ; no fame or recognition of abilities much beyond what he saw crown others with celebrity. But his mind was free from the c last infirmity : ' he lived in the inner light of a pure conscience, the health- fulness of duty fulfilled, the glorious liberty of absolute utter unworldliness. And even in the midnight of medi- tative troubles, the ever-youthful hope of the c royal heart of innocence ' was never wanting. Nor were other ele- ments of human happiness absent within his home and without it, — society and solitude by turns, nature and poetry glorious throughout life as on the first day, friend- ships equal, open, and enduring, — reverence, even from many who knew him but slightly, for one so signalized and authenticated as a true Man by the broad seal of Nobleness. This must be reckoned the first, as it is the rarest, feature in human character. But in him it was equally balanced by another, which in such degree is hardly less rare, Tenderness. Clough might be said not so much to trust his friends, as to trust himself to xxiv Memoir them. Friendship in his eyes, as in the ancient days he felt with so deeply, was a high and sacred thing, a duty and a virtue in itself, and he guarded it with scrupulous sensitiveness. — It was natural that one so gifted should be looked up to with unusual warmth and honour. Many will remember how much Clough's opinion on acts or thoughts, on literature or on nature — remote from ordi- nary judgements or humorously paradoxical as it might be — was tacitly referred to ; how often the difficulties and doubts of the tangled passages of life were laid before him for counsel. A resolution was not always ready, but they never failed to find that which is better than most men's decisive clearness — a judgement noble, tender, courageous, con- scientious : — if not always practical advice, no little mea- sure, at least, of that wisdom which is from above. F. T. Palgrave CONTENTS Come back again, my olden heart ! When soft September brings again Sweet streamlet bason ! at thy side In a Lecture Room .... Though to the vilest things beneath the moon Well, well,— Heaven bless you all from day to day ! How often sit I, poring o'er Like a child Roused by importunate knocks . kind protecting Darkness ! as a child Once more the wonted road I tread My wind is turned to bitter north 1 have seen higher holier things than these If, when in cheerless wanderings, dull and cold Duty — that 's to say complying Are there not, then, two musics unto men Thought may well be ever ranging When panting sighs the basom fill 6 Oebs fiera ut y! Yea, by duty's prime condition Pure nonentity of duty ! Are there not, then, two musics unto men ?- One loud and bold and coarse, And overpowering still perforce All tone and tune beside ; Yet in despite its pride Only of fumes of foolish fancy bred, And sounding solely in the sounding head : The other, soft and low, Stealing whence we not know, Painfully heard, and easily forgot, i7 With pauses oft and many a silence strange, (And silent oft it seems, when silent it is not) Revivals too of unexpected change : Haply thou think'st 'twill never be begun, Or that 't has come, and been, and passed away ; Yet turn to other none, — Turn not, oh, turn not thou ! But listen, listen, listen, — if haply be heard it may ; Listen, listen, listen, — is it not sounding now? Yea, and as thought of some beloved friend By death or distance parted will descend, Severing, in crowded rooms ablaze with light, As by a magic screen, the seer from the sight, (Palsying the nerves that intervene The eye and central sense between ;) So may the ear, Hearing, not hear, Though drums do roll, and pipes and cymbals ring ; So the bare conscience of the better thing Unfelt, unseen, unimaged, all unknown, May fix the entranced soul mid multitudes alone, Thought may well be ever ranging, And opinion ever changing, Task- work be, though ill begun, Dealt with by experience better ; c By the law and by the letter Duty done is duty done : Do it, Time is on the wing ! Hearts, 'tis quite another thing, Must or once for all be given, Or must not at all be given ; Hearts, 'tis quite another thing ! To bestow the soul away In an idle duty-play ! — Why, to trust a life-long bliss To caprices of a day, Scarce were more depraved than this ! Men and maidens, see you mind it ; Show of love, where'er you- find it, Look if duty lurk behind it ! Duty-fancies, urging on Whither love had never gone ! Loving — if the answering breast Seem not to be thus possessed, Still in hoping have a care ; If it do, beware, beware ! But if in yourself you find it, Above all things — mind it, mind it! 1841 When panting sighs the bosom fill, And hands by chance united thrill At once with one delicious pain The pulses and the nerves of twain ; When eyes that erst could meet with ease, Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun Extatic conscious unison, — The sure beginnings, say, be these, Prelusive to the strain of love Which angels sing in heaven above ? Or is it but the vulgar tune, Which all that breathe beneath the moon So accurately learn — so soon? With variations duly blent ; Yet that same song to all intent, Set for the finer instrument ; It is ; and it would sound the same In beasts, were not the bestial frame, Less subtly organised, to blame; \ And but that soul and spirit add To pleasures, even base and bad, A zest the soulless never had. It may be — well indeed I deem j But what if sympathy, it seem, And admiration and esteem, Commingling therewithal, do make The passion prized for Reason's sake ? Yet, when my heart would fain rejoice, A small expostulating voice 20 Falls in : Of this thou wilt not take Thy one irrevocable choice ? In accent tremulous and thin I hear high Prudence deep within, Pleading the bitter, bitter sting, Should slow-maturing seasons bring, Too late, the veritable thing. For if (the Poet's tale of bliss) A love, wherewith commeasured this Is weak, and beggarly, and none, Exist a treasure to be won, And if the vision, though it stay, Be yet for an appointed day, — This choice, if made, this deed, if done, The memory of this present past, With vague foreboding might o'ercast The heart, or madden it at last. Let Reason first her office ply ; Esteem, and admiration high, And mental, moral sympathy, Exist tney first, nor be they brought By self-deceiving afterthought, — What if an halo interfuse With these again its opal hues, That all o'erspreading and o'erlying, Transmuting, mingling, glorifying, About the beauteous various whole, With beaming smile do dance and quiver; Yet, is that halo of the soul ? — Or is it, as may sure be said, Phosphoric exhalation bred 21 Of vapour, steaming from the bed Of Fancy's brook, or Passion's river ? So when, as will be by-and-bye, The stream is waterless and dry, This halo and its hues will die ; And though the soul contented rest With those substantial blessings blest, Will not a longing, half confest, Betray that this is not the love, The gift for which all gifts above Him praise we, Who is Love, the Giver ? I cannot say — the things are good : Bread is it, if not angels' food; But Love ? Alas ! I cannot say ; A glory on the vision lay ; A light of more than mortal day About it played, upon it rested; It did not, faltering and weak, Beg Reason on its side to speak : Itself was Reason, or, if not, Such substitute as is, I wot, Of seraph-kind the loftier lot ; — Itself was of itself attested ; — To processes that, hard and dry, Elaborate truth from fallacy, With modes intuitive succeeding, Including those and superseding ; Reason sublimed and Love most high It was, a life that cannot die, A dream of glory most exceeding. 22 6 6eo9 fisra gov * Farewell, my Highland lassie! when the year returns around, Be it Greece, or be it Norway, where my vagrant feet are found, I shall call to mind the place, I shall call to mind the day, The day that 's gone for ever, and the glen that 's far away ; I shall mind me, be it Rhine or Rhone, Italian land or France, Of the laughings, and the whispers, of the pipings and the dance ; I shall see thy soft brown eyes dilate to wakening woman thought, And whiter still the white cheek grow to which the blush was brought ; And oh, with mine commixing I thy breath of life shall feel, And clasp the shyly passive hands in joyous Highland reel ; I shall hear, and see, and feel, and in sequence sadly true, Shall repeat the bitter-sweet of the lingering last adieu ; I shall seem as now to leave thee, with the kiss upon the brow, And the fervent benediction of — 6 deog perk aov\ Ah me, my Highland lassie ! though in winter drear and long Deep arose the heavy snows, and the stormy winds were strong, Though the rain, in summer's brightest, it were raining every day, With worldly comforts few and far, how glad were I to stay ! * Ho Theos meta sou — God be with you. I fall to sleep* with dreams of life in some black bothie spent, Coarse poortith's ware thou changing there to gold of pure content, With barefoot lads and lassies round, and thee the cheery wife, In the braes of old Lochaber a laborious homely life ; But I wake — to leave thee, smiling, with the kiss upon the brow, And the peaceful benediction of — 6 dene fiera aov\ Light words they were, and lightly, falsely said ; She heard them, and she started, — and she rose, As in the act to speak ; the sudden thought And unconsidered impulse led her on. In act to speak she rose, but with the sense Of all the eyes of that mixed company Now suddenly turned upon her, some with age Hardened and dulled, some cold and critical ; Some in whom vapours of their own conceit, As moist malarious mists the heavenly stars, Still blotted out their good, the best at best By frivolous laugh and prate conventional All too untuned for all she thought to say — With such a thought the mantling blood to her cheek Flushed-up, and o'er-flushed itself, blank night her soul Made dark, and in her all her purpose swooned. She stood as if for sinking. Yet anon With recollections clear, august, sublime, Of God's great truth, and right immutable, Which, as obedient vassals, to her mind 24 Came summoned of her will, in self-negation Quelling her troublous earthy consciousness, She queened it o'er her weakness. At the spell Back rolled the ruddy tide, and leaves her cheek Paler than erst, and yet not ebbs so far But that one pulse of one indignant thought Might hurry it hither in flood. So as she stood She spoke. God in her spoke, and made her heard. 1845 Sic itur As, at a railway junction, men Who came together, taking then One the train up, one down, again Meet never ! Ah, much more as they Who take one street's two sides, and say Hard parting words, but walk one way : Though moving other mates between, While carts and coaches intervene, Each to the other goes unseen, Yet seldom, surely, shall there lack Knowledge they walk not back to back, But with an unity of track, Where common dangers each attend, And common hopes their guidance lend To light them to the self-same end. 25 Whether he then shall cross to thee, Or thou go thither, or it be Some midway point, ye yet shall see Each other, yet again shall meet. Ah, joy ! when with the closing street, Forgivingly at last ye greet ! 1845 ®>ua cur sum ventus As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail at dawn of day Are scarce long leagues apart descried ; When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied, Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas By each was cleaving, side by side : E'en so — but why the tale reveal Of those, whom year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew to feel, Astounded, soul from soul estranged. At dead of night their sails were filled, And onward each rejoicing steered — Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, Or wist, what first with dawn appeared ! 26 To veer, how vain ! On, onward strain, Brave barks ! In light, in darkness too, Through winds and tides one compass guides - To that, and your own selves, be true. But O blithe breeze ! and O great seas, Though ne'er, that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again, Together lead them home at last. One port, methought, alike they sought, One purpose hold where'er they fare, — O bounding breeze, O rushing seas ! At last, at last, unite them there ! Qjii laborat, orat O only Source of all our light and life, Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel, But whom the hours of mortal moral strife Alone aright reveal ! Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought, Thy presence owns ineffable, divine ; Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought, My will adoreth Thine. With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind Speechless remain, or speechless e'en depart ; Nor seek to see — for what of earthly kind Can see Thee as Thou art ? — 27 If well-assured 'tis but profanely bold In thought's abstractest forms to seem to see, It dare not dare the dread communion hold In ways unworthy Thee. O not unowned, Thou shalt unnamed forgive, In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare ; And if in work its life it seem to live, Shalt make that work be prayer. Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies, Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part, And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes In recognition start. But, as thou wiliest, give or e'en forbear The beatific supersensual sight, So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer Approach Thee morn and night. THE NEW SINAI Lo, here is God, and there is God ! Believe it not, O man ; In such vain sort to this and that The ancient heathen ran : Though old Religion shake her head, And say in bitter grief, The day behold, at first foretold, Of atheist unbelief: 28 Take better part, with manly heart, Thine adult spirit can ; Receive it not, believe it not, Believe it not, O Man ! As men at dead of night awaked With cries, " The king is here," Rush forth and greet whome'er they meet, Whoe'er shall first appear ; And still repeat, to all the street, " 'Tis he, — the king is here;" The long procession moveth on, Each nobler form they see, With changeful suit they still salute, And cry, " 'Tis he, 'tis he ! " So, even so, when men were young, And earth and heaven was new, And His immediate presence He From human hearts withdrew, The soul perplexed and daily vexed With sensuous False and True, Amazed, bereaved, no less believed, And fain would see Him too : " He is ! " the prophet-tongues proclaimed ; In joy and hasty fear, M He is ! " aloud replied the crowd, " Is, here, anli here, and here." " He is ! They are ! " in distance seen On yon Olympus high, In those Avernian woods abide, And walk this azure sky : 2 9 " They are, They are ! " to every show Its eyes the baby turned, And blazes sacrificial, tall, On thousand altars burned : " They are, They are! " — On Sinai's top Far seen the lightnings shone, The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke, And God said, " I am One." God spake it out, " I, God, am One ; " The unheeding ages ran, And baby-thoughts again, again, Have dogged the growing man : And as of old from Sinai's top God said that God is One, By Science strict so speaks He now To tell us, There is None ! Earth goes by chemic forces ; Heaven 's A Mecanique Celeste ! And heart and mind of human kind A watch- work as the rest ! Is this a Voice, as was the Voice, Whose speaking told abroad, When thunder pealed, and mountain reeled, The ancient Truth of God ? Ah, not the Voice ; 'tis but the cloud, The outer darkness dense, Where image none, nor e'er was seen Similitude of sense. 'Tis but the cloudy darkness dense That wrapt the Mount around ; 30 While in amaze the people stays, To hear the Coming Sound. Is there no prophet-soul the while To dare, sublimely meek, Within the shroud of blackest cloud The Deity to seek : 'Midst atheistic systems dark, And darker hearts' despair, That soul has heard perchance His word, And on the dusky air His skirts, as passed He by, to see Hath strained on their behalf, Who on the plain, with dance amain, Adore the Golden Calf. 'Tis but the cloudy darkness dense ; Though blank the tale it tells, No God, no Truth ! yet He, in sooth, Is there — within it dwells ; Within the sceptic darkness deep He dwells that none may see, Till idol forms and idol thoughts Have passed and ceased to be : No God, no Truth ! ah though, in sooth, So stand the doctrine's half; On Egypt's track return not back, Nor own the Golden Calf. Take better part, with manlier heart, Thine adult spirit can ; No God, no Truth, receive it ne'er — Believe it ne'er — O Man! 3i But turn not then to seek again What first the ill began ; No God, it saith ; ah, wait in faith God's self-completing plan ; Receive it not, but leave it not, And wait it out, O Man ! " The Man that went the cloud within Is gone and vanished quite ; He cometh not," the people cries, " Nor bringeth God to sight : Lo these thy gods, that safety give, Adore and keep the feast ! " Deluding and deluded cries The Prophet's brother-Priest : And Israel all bows down to fall Before the gilded beast. Devout, indeed ! that priestly creed, O Man, reject as sin ; The clouded hill attend thou still, And him that went within. He yet shall bring some worthy thing For waiting souls to see ; Some sacred word that he hath heard Their light and life shall be ; Some lofty part, than which the heart Adopt no nobler can, Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe, And thou shalt do, O Man ! 1845 3* THE QUESTIONING SPIRIT The human spirits saw I on a day, Sitting and looking each a different way ; And hardly tasking, subtly questioning, Another spirit went around the ring To each and each : and as he ceased his say, Each after each, I heard them singly sing, Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low, We know not, — what avails to know ? 'We know not, — wherefore need we know? This answer gave they still unto his suing, We know not, let us do as we are doing. Dost thou not know that these things only seem ?— I know not, let me dream my dream. Are dust and ashes fit to make a treasure ? — I know not, let me take my pleasure. What shall avail the knowledge thou hast sought ?- I know not, let me think my thought. What is the end of strife r — I know not, let me live my life. How many days or e'er thou mean'st to move ? — I know not, let me love my love. Were not things old once new ? — I know not, let me do as others do. And when the rest were over past, I know not, I will do my duty, said the last. 33 Thy duty do ? rejoined the voice, Ah do it, do it, and rejoice ; But shalt thou then, when all is done, Enjoy a love, embrace a beauty Like these, that may be seen and won In life, whose course will then be run ; Or wilt thou be where there is none ? I know not, I will do my duty. And taking up the word around, above, below, Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low, We know not, sang they all, nor ever need we know ! We know not, sang they, what avails to know? Whereat the questioning spirit, some short space, Though unabashed, stood quiet in his place. But as the echoing chorus died away And to their dreams the rest returned apace, By the one spirit I saw him kneeling low, And in a silvery whisper heard him say : Truly, thou knowst not, and thou needst not know ; Hope only, hope thou, and believe alway ; I also know not, and I need not know, Only with questionings pass I to and fro, Perplexing these that sleep, and in their folly Imbreeding doubt and sceptic melancholy ; Till that their dreams deserting, they with me, Come all to this true ignorance and thee. 1847 34 BETHESDA A SEQUEL I saw again the spirits on a day, •Where on the earth in mournful case they lay ; Five porches were there, and a pool, and round, Huddling in blankets, strewn upon the ground, Tied-up and bandaged, weary, sore and spent, The maimed and halt, diseased and impotent. For a great angel came, 't was said, and stirred The pool at certain seasons, and the word Was, with this people of the sick, that they Who in the waters here their limbs should lay Before the motion on the surface ceased Should of their torment straightway be released. So with shrunk bodies and with heads down-dropt, Stretched on the steps, and at the pillars propt, Watching by day and listening through the night, They filled the place, a miserable sight. And I beheld that on the stony floor He too, that spoke of duty once before, No otherwise than others here to-day, Foredone and sick and sadly muttering lay. ' I know not, I will do — what is it I would say ? 35 What was that word which once sufficed alone for all, Which now I seek in vain, and never can recall ? And then, as weary of in vain renewing His question, thus his mournful thought pursuing, • I know not, I must do as other men are doing.' But what the waters of that pool might be, Of Lethe were they, or Philosophy ; And whether he, long waiting, did attain Deliverance from the burden of his pain There with the rest ; or whether, yet before, Some more diviner stranger passed the door With his small company into that sad place, And, breathing hope into the sick man's face, Bade him take up his bed, and rise and go, What the end were, and whether it were so, Further than this I saw not, neither know. 1849 Across the sea, along the shore, In numbers more and ever more, From lonely hut and busy town, The valley through, the mountain down, What was it ye went out to see, Ye silly folk of Galilee? The reed that in the wind doth shake ? The weed that washes in the lake ? 36 The reeds that waver, the weeds that float ?- A young man preaching in a boat. What was it ye went out to hear, By sea and land, from far and near ? A teacher ? Rather seek the feet Of those who sit in Moses* seat. Go humbly seek, and bow to them, Far off in great Jerusalem. sFrom them that in her courts ye saw, Her perfect doctors of the law, What is it came ye here to note ? — A young man preaching in a boat. A prophet ! Boys and women weak ! Declare, or cease to rave ; Whence is it he hath learned to speak ? Say, who his doctrine gave ? A prophet ? Prophet wherefore he Of all in Israel tribes ? — He teacheth with authority, And not as do the Scribes. THE SONG OF LAMECH Hearken to me, ye mothers of my tent : Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech : Adah, let Jubal hither lead his goats : And Tubal Cain, O ZilJah, hush the forge ; Naamah her wheel shall ply beside, and thou 37 My Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string. Yea, Jubal, touch, before 1 speak, the string. Hear ye my voice, beloved of my tent, Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech. For Eve made answer, Cain, my son, my own, O, if I cursed thee, O my child, I sinned, And He that heard me, heard, and said me nay : My first, my only one, thou shalt not go ; — And Adam answered also, Cain, my son, He that is gone forgiveth, we forgive : Rob not thy mother of two sons at once ; My child, abide with us and comfort us. Hear ye my voice ; Adah and Zillah, hear ; Ye wives of Lamech listen to my speech. For Cain replied not. But, an hour more, sat Where the night through he sat ; his knit brows seen, Scarce seen, amid the foldings of his limbs. But when the sun was bright upon the field, To Adam still, and Eve still waiting by, And weeping, lift he up his voice and spake. Cain said, The sun is risen upon the earth ; The day demands my going, and I go. — As you from Paradise, so I from you : As you to exile, into exile I : My father and my mother, I depart. As betwixt you and Paradise of old So betwixt me, my parents, now, and you, Cherubim 1 discern, and in their hand A flaming sword that turneth every way, To keep the way of my one tree of life, 3« The way my spirit yearns to, of my love. Yet not, O Adam and O Eve, fear not. For He that asked me, Where is Abel ? He Who called me cursed from the earth, and said, A fugitive and vagabond thou art, He also said, when fear had slain my soul, There shall not touch thee man nor beast. Fear not. Lo I have spoke with God and he hath said, Fear not ; — and let me go as he hath said. Cain also said, (O Jubal, touch thy string,) — Moreover, in the darkness of my mind, When the night's night of misery was most black, A little star came twinkling up within, And in myself I had a guide that led, And in myself had knowledge of a soul. Fear not, O Adam and O Eve : I go. Children of Lamech, listen to my speech. For when the years were multiplied, and Cain Eastward of Eden, in this land of Nod, ' Had sons, and sons of sons, and sons of them, Enoch and Irad and Mehujael, (My father, and my children's grandsire he,) It came to pass, that Cain, who dwelt alone, Met Adam, at the nightfall, in the field : Who fell upon his neck, and wept, and said, My son, has God not spoken to thee, Cain ? And Cain replied, when weeping loosed his voice, My dreams are double, O my father, good And evil. Terror to my soul by night, And agony by day, when Abel stands 39 A dead, black shade, and speaks not, neither looks, Nor makes me any answer when I cry — Curse me, but let me know thou art alive. But comfort also, like a whisper, comes, In visions of a deeper sleep, when he, Abel, as him we knew, yours once and mine, Comes with a free forgiveness in his face, Seeming to speak, solicitous for words, And wearing ere he go the old, first look Of unsuspecting, unforeboding love. Three nights are gone I saw him thus, my Sire. Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech. For Adam said, Three nights ago to me Came Abel, in my sleep, as thou hast said, And spake, and bade, — Arise, my father, go Where in the land of exile dwells thy son ; Say to my brother, Abel bids thee come, Abel would have thee ; and lay thou thy hand, My father, on his head, that he may come ; Am I not weary, father, for this hour ? Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear, Children of Lamech, listen to my speech : And, son of Zillah, sound thy solemn string. For Adam laid upon the head of Cain His hand, and Cain bowed down, and slept, and died. And a deep sleep on Adam also fell, And, in his slumber's deepest, he beheld, Standing before the gate of Paradise, With Abel, hand in hand, our father Cain. 40 Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear ; Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. Though to his wounding he did slay a man, Yea, and a young man to his hurt he slew, Fear not, ye wives, nor sons of Lamech fear : If unto Cain was safety given and rest, Shall Lamech surely and his people die ? JACOB My sons, and ye the children of my sons, Jacob your father goes upon his way, His pilgrimage is being accomplished. Come near and hear him ere his words are o'er. Not as my father's or his father's days, As Isaac's days or Abraham's, have been mine ; Not as the days of those that in the field, Walked at the eventide to meditate, And haply, to the tent returning, found Angels at nightfall waiting at their door. They communed, Israel wrestled with the Lord. No, not as Abraham's or as Isaac's days, My sons, have been Jacob your father's days, Evil and few, attaining not to theirs In number, and in worth inferior much. As a man with his friend, walked they with God, In his abiding presence they abode, And all their acts were open to his face. But I have had to force mine eyes away, To lose, almost to shun, the thoughts I loved, 4i To bend down to the work, to bare the breast, And struggle, feet and hands, with enemies ; To buffet and to battle with hard men, With men of selfishness and violence ; To watch by day, and calculate by night, To plot and think of plots, and through a land Ambushed with guile, and with strong foes beset, To win with art, safe wisdom's peaceful way. Alas ! I know, and from the onset knew, The first-born faith, the singleness of soul, The antique pure simplicity with which God and good angels communed undispleased, Is not ; it shall not any more be said, That of a blameless and a holy kind, The chosen race, the seed of promise, comes. The royal, high prerogatives, the dower Of innocence and perfectness of life, Pass not unto my children from their sire, As unto me they came of mine ; they fit Neither to Jacob nor to Jacob's race. Think ye, my sons, in this extreme old age And in this failing breath, that I forget How on the day when from my father's door, In bitterness and ruefulness of heart, I from my parents set my face, and felt I never more again should look on theirs, How on that day I seemed unto myself Another Adam from his home cast out, And driven abroad unto a barren land Cursed for his sake, and mocking still with thorns And briers that labour and that sweat of brow He still must spend to live ? Sick of my days, 42 I wished not life, but cried out, Let me die ; But at Luz God came to me ; in my heart He put a better mind, and showed me how, While we discern it not, and least believe, On stairs invisible betwixt his heaven And our unholy, sinful, toilsome earth Celestial messengers of loftiest good Upward and downward pass continually. Many, since I upon the field of Luz Set up the stone I slept on, unto God, Many have been the troubles of my life ; Sins in the field and sorrows in the tent, In mine own household anguish and despair, And gall and wormwood mingled with my love. The time would fail me should I seek to tell Of a child wronged and cruelly revenged ; (Accursed was that anger, it was fierce, That wrath, for it was cruel;) or of strife And jealousy and cowardice, with lies Mocking a father's misery ; deeds of blood, Pollutions, sicknesses, and sudden deaths. These many things against me many times, The ploughers have ploughed deep upon my back, And made deep furrows ; blessed be His name Who hath delivered Jacob out of all, And left within his spirit hope of good. Come near to me, my sons : your father goes, The hour of his departure draweth nigh. Ah me ! this eager rivalry of life, This cruel conflict for pre-eminence, This keen supplanting of the dearest kin, 43 Quick seizure and fast unrelaxing hold Of vantage-place ; the stony hard resolve, The chase, the competition, and the craft Which seems to be the poison of our life, And yet is the condition of our life ! To have done things on which the eye with shame Looks back, the closed hand clutching still the prize ! - Alas ! what of all these things shall I say ? Take me away unto thy sleep, O God ! I thank thee it is over, yet I think It was a work appointed me of thee. How is it ? I have striven all my days To do my duty to my house and hearth, And to the purpose of my father's race, Yet is my heart therewith not satisfied. AT VENICE ON THE LIDO On her still lake the city sits While bark and boat beside her flits, Nor hears, her soft siesta taking, The Adriatic billows breaking. IN THE PIAZZA AT NIGHT O beautiful beneath the magic moon To walk the watery way of palaces ; O beautiful, o'er-vaulted with gemmed blue This spacious court ; with colour and with gold, With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points, 44 And crosses multiplex, and tips, and balls, (Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix, Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused ; ) Fantastically perfect this lone pile Of oriental glory ; these long ranges Of classic chiselling ; this gay flickering crowd, And the calm Campanile. — Beautiful! O beautiful ! My mind is in her rest ; my heart at home In all around ; my soul secure in place, And the vext needle perfect to her poles. Aimless and hopeless in my life, I seemed To thread the winding bye ways of the town, Bewildered, baffled, hurried hence and thence, All at cross purpose ever with myself, Unknowing whence, or whither. Then, at once, At a step, I crown the Campanile's top, And view all mapped below. Islands, lagoon, An hundred steeples, and a million roofs, The fruitful champaign, and the cloud-capt Alps, And the broad Adriatic. Come, leave your Gothic worn-out story, San Giorgio and the Redentore, I from no building gay or solemn Can spare the shapely Grecian column. 45 'Tis not, these centuries four, for nought, Our European world of thought Hath made familiar to its home The classic mind of Greece and Rome ; In all new work that would look forth To more than antiquarian worth, Palladio's pediments and bases, Or something such, will find their places ; Maturer optics don't delight In childish dim religious light ; In evanescent vague effects That shirk, not face one's intellects ; They love not fancies just betrayed, And artful tricks of light and shade, But pure form nakedly displayed And all things absolutely made. 1849 SPECTATOR AB EXTRA As I sat at the Cafe I said to myself, They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking, But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. 46 I sit at my table en grand seigneur t And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor ; Not only the pleasure itself of good living, But also the pleasure of now and then giving : So pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, And how one ought never to think of one's self, How pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking, — My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. LE DINER Come along, 'tis the time, ten or more minutes past, And he who came first had to wait for the last ; The oysters ere this had been in and been out ; Whilst I have been sitting and thinking about How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. A clear soup with eggs ; voila tout ; of the fish The Jilets de sole are a moderate dish A la Orly, but you're .for red mullet, you say : By the gods of good fare, who can question to-day How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. 47 After oysters, sauterne ; then sherry ; champagne, Ere one bottle goes, comes another again; Fly up, thou bold cork, to the ceiling above, And tell to our ears in the sound that they love How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. I've the simplest of palates ; absurd it may be, But I almost could dine on a poukt-au-riz, Fish and soup and omelette and that — but the deuce — There were to be woodcocks, and not Charlotte Russe So pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. Your chablis is acid, away with the hock, Give me the pure juice of the purple medoc : St. Peray is exquisite ; but, if you please, Some burgundy just before tasting the cheese. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. As for that, pass the bottle, and d — n the expense, Fve ^seen it observed by a writer of sense, That the labouring classes could scarce live a day, If people like us didn't eat, drink, and pay. So useful it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So useful it is to have money. One ought to be grateful, I quite apprehend, , Having dinner and supper and plenty to spend, 48 And so suppose now, while the things go away, By way of a grace we all stand up and say How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. PARVENANT. I cannot but ask, in the park and the streets When I look at the number of persons one meets, What e'er in the world the poor devils can do Whose fathers and mothers can't give them a sous. So needful it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So needful it is to have money. I ride, and I drive, and I care not a d — n, The people look up and they ask who I am ; And if I should chance to run over a cad, I can pay for the damage, if ever so bad. So useful it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So useful it is to have money. It was but this winter I came up to town, And already I'm gaining a sort of renown ; Find my way to good houses without much ado, Am beginning to see the nobility too. So useful it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So useful it is to have money. 49 O dear what a pity they ever should lose it, Since they are the people that know how to use it ; So easy, so stately, such manners, such dinners, And yet, after all, it is we are the winners. So needful it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So needful it is to have money. It 's all very well to be handsome and tall, Which certainly makes you look well at a ball ; It's all very well to be clever and witty, But if you are poor, why it 's only a pity. So needful it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So needful it is to have money. There '$ something undoubtedly in a fine air, To know how to smile and be able to stare, High breeding is something, but well-bred or not, In the end the one question is, what have you got. So needful it is to have money, heigh-ho ! So needful it is to have money. And the angels in pink and the angels in blue. In muslins and moires so lovely and new, What is it they want, and so wish you to guess, But if you have money, the answer is Yes. So needful, they tell you, is money, heigh-ho! So needful it is to have money. 50 THE LATEST DECALOGUE Thou shalt have one God only ; who Would be at the expense of two ? No graven images may be Worshipped, except the currency ; Swear not at all; for, for thy curse Thine enemy is none the worse : At church on Sunday to attend Will serve to keep the world thy friend : Honour thy parents ; that is, all From whom advancement may befall ; Thou shalt not kill ; but need'st not strive Officiously to keep alive : Do not adultery commit ; Advantage rarely comes of it : Thou shalt not steal ; an empty feat, When it 's so lucrative to cheat : Bear not false witness ; let the lie Have time on its own wings to fly. Thou shalt not covet, but tradition Approves all forms of competition. f There is no God,' the wicked saith, f And truly it 's a blessing, For what he might have done with us It 's better only guessing.' 5i ' There is no God,' a youngster thinks, c Or really if there may be, He surely did'nt mean a man Always to be a baby.' ' Whether there be,' the rich man thinks, ( It matters very little, For I and mine, thank somebody, Are not in want of victual.' Some others also to themselves Who scarce so much as doubt it, Think there is none, when they are well, And do not think about it. But country folks who live beneath The shadow of the steeple ; The parson and the parson's wife, And mostly married people : Youths green and happy in first love, So thankful for illusion ; And men caught out in what the world Calls guilt, and first confusion ; And almost every one when age, Disease, or sorrows strike him ; Inclines to think there is a God, Or something very like him. 1849 52 Submit, submit! 'T is common sense, and human wit Can claim no higher name than it. Devotion, and ideas, and love, And beauty claim their place above ; But saint and sage and poet's dreams Divide the light in coloured streams, Which this alone gives all combined, The ( siccum lumen ' of the mind, Called common sense; and no high wit Gives better counsel than does it. Submit, submit! To see things simply as they are Here at our elbows, transcends far Trying to spy out at mid-day Some bright particular star, which may, Or not, be visible at night, But clearly is not in daylight. No inspiration vague outweighs The plain good common sense that says Submit, submit ! 'T is common sense, and human wit Can claim no higher name than it. Submit, submit ! For, tell me then, in earth's great laws, Have you found any saving clause ? 5i Exemption special granted you From doing what the rest must do ? Of common sense who made you quit, And told you you *d no need of it ? Nor to submit ? This stern necessity of things On every side our being rings ; Our eager aims, still questing round, Find exit none from that great bound. Where once her law dictates the way, The wise thinks only to obey, Take life as she has ordered it, And come what may of it, submit. Submit, submit ! Who take implicitly her will ; For these, her vassal chances still Bring store of joys, successes, pleasures; But whoso ponders, weighs, and measures, She calls her torturers up to goad With spur and scourges on the road. O, lest you yield not timely, ere Her lips that mandate pass, beware! Beware ! beware ! 'T is common sense ! and human wit Can claim no higher name than it. Submit, submit. Necessity ! And who shall dare Bring to her feet excuse or prayer ? Beware, beware ! 54 We must, we must : Howe'er we turn, and pause, and tremble, Howe'er we shrink, deceive, dissemble, Whate'er our doubting, grief, disgust, The hand is on us, and we must ; We must, we must, 'T is common sense, and human wit Can find no better name than it. Submit, submit ! 1849 When the enemy is near thee, Call on us ! In our hands we will upbear thee, He shall neither scathe nor scare thee, He shall fly thee and shall fear thee. Call on us! Call when all good friends have left thee, Of all good sights and sounds bereft thee, Call when hope and heart are sinking, When the brain is sick with thinking, Help, O, help! Call, and following close behind thee, There shall haste and there shall find thee, Help, sure help. When the panic comes upon thee, When necessity seems on thee, Hope and choice have all foregone thee, 55 Fate and force are closing o'er thee, And but one way stands before thee. Call on us ! O, and if thou dost not call, - Be but faithful, that is all ; Go right on, and close behind thee, There shall follow still and find thee, Help, sure help. 1849 Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e'en as thy thought So are the things that thou see'st; e'en as thy hope and belief. Cowardly art thou and timid ? they rise to provoke thee against them, Hast thou courage ? enough, see them exulting to yield. Yea, the rough rock, the dull earth, the wild sea's furying waters, (Violent say'st thou and hard, mighty thou thinkest to destroy), All with ineffable longing are waiting their Invader, All, with one varying voice, call to him, Come and subdue ; Still for their Conqueror call, and but for the joy of being con- quered. (Rapture they will not forego) dare to resist and rebel ; Still, when resisting and raging, in soft undervoice say unto him, Fear not, retire not, O man ; hope evermore and believe. Go from the east to the west, as the sun and the stars direct thee, Go with the girdle of man, go and encompass the earth. Not for the gain of the gold ; for the getting, the hoarding, the having, 56 But for the joy of the deed ; but for the Duty to do. Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action, With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth. Go ; say not in thy heart, And what then were it accomplished, Were the wild, impulse allayed, what were the use or the good ! Go, when the instinct is stilled, and when the deed is accom- plished, What thou hast done and shalt do, shall be declared to thee then. Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit Say to thyself: It is good : yet is there better than it. This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little ; Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it. What we, when face to face we see The Father of our souls, shall be, John tells us, doth not yet appear ; Ah, did he tell what we are here ! A mind for thoughts to pass into, A heart for loves to travel through, Five senses to detect things near, Is this the whole that we are here ? Rules baffle instincts — instincts rules, Wise men are bad — and good are fools, Facts evil — wishes vain appear, We cannot go, why are we here ? 57 O may we for assurance sake, Some arbitrary judgement take, And wilfully pronounce it clear, For this or that 't is we are here ? Or is it right, and will it do, To pace the sad confusion through, And say : — It doth not yet appear, What we shall be, what we are here. Ah yet, when all is thought and said, The heart still overrules the head ; Still what we hope we must believe, And what is given us receive ; Must still believe, for still we hope That in a world of larger scope, What here is faithfully begun Will be completed, not undone. My child, we still must think, when we That ampler life together see, Some true result will yet appear Of what we are, together, here. PESCHIERJ What voice did on my spirit fall, * Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? ( 'Tis better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.' 58 The tricolor — a trampled rag Lies, dirt and dust ; the lines I track By sentry boxes yellow-black, Lead up to no Italian flag. I see the Croat soldier stand Upon the grass of your redoubts ; The eagle with his black wing flouts The breadth and beauty of your land. Yet not in vain, although in vain, O men of Brescia, on the day Of loss past hope, I heard you say Your welcome to the noble pain. You said, 'Since so it is, — good bye Sweet life, high hope ; but whatsoe'er May be, or must, no tongue shall dare To tell, " The Lombard feared to die!' " You said, (there shall be answer fit,) ( A nd if our children must obey, They must ; but thinking on this day 'T will less debase them to submit.' You said, (Oh not in vain you said,) ' Haste, brothers, haste, while yet we may ; The hours ebb fast of this one day When blood may yet be nobly shed.' Ah ! not for idle hatred, not For honour, fame, nor self-applause, But for the glory of the cause, You did, what will not be forgot. 59 And though the stranger stand, 'tis true, By force and fortune's right he stands ; By fortune, which is in God's hands, And strength, which yet shall spring in you. This voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost, ' 'Tis better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.' Alteram Partem Or shall I say, Vain word, false thought, Since Prudence hath her martyrs too, And Wisdom dictates not to do, Till doing shall be not for nought. Not ours to give or lose is life ; Will Nature, when her brave ones fall, Remake her work ? or songs recall Death's victim slain in useless strife ? That rivers flow into the sea Is loss and waste, the foolish say, Nor know that back they find their way, Unseen, to where they wont to be. Showers fall upon the hills, springs flow, The river runneth still at hand, Brave men are born into the land, And whence the foolish do not know. 6o No ! no vain voice did on me fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost, ' 'Tis better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.' Say not, the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars ; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field. For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main. And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright. 6i Ite do mum satura, venit Hesperus The skies have sunk, and hid the upper snow, (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie) The rainy clouds are filing fast below, And wet will be the path, and wet shall we. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. Ah dear, and where is he, a year agone, Who stepped beside and cheered us on and on r My sweetheart wanders far away from me, In foreign land or on a foreign sea. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. The lightning zigzags shoot across the sky, (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie,) And through the vale the rains go sweeping by ; Ah me, and when in shelter shall we be ? Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. Cold, dreary cold, the stormy winds feel they O'er foreign lands and foreign seas that stray. (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.) And doth he e'er, I wonder, bring to mind The pleasant huts and herds he left behind ? And doth he sometimes in his slumbering see The feeding kine, and doth he think of me, My sweetheart wandering wheresoe'er it be ? Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. 62 The thunder bellows far from snow to snow, (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie,) And loud and louder roars the flood below. Heigh-ho ! but soon in shelter shall we be : Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. Or shall he find before his term be sped Some comelier maid that he shall wish to wed ? (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.) For weary is work, and weary day by day To have your comfort miles on miles away. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. Or may it be that I shall find my mate, And he returning see himself too late ? For work we must, and what we see, we see, And God he knows, and what must be, must be, When sweethearts wander far away from me. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. The sky behind is brightening up anew, (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie,) The rain is ending, and our journey too ; Heigh-ho ! aha ! for here at home are we : — In, Rose, and in, Provence and La Palie. 63 ' Old things need not be therefore true/ O brother men, nor yet the new ; Ah ! still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again ! The souls of now two thousand years, Have laid up here their toils and fears, And all the earnings of their pain, — Ah, yet consider it again ! We ! what do we see ? each a space Of some few yards before his face ; Does that the whole wide plan explain ? Ah, yet consider it again ! Alas ! the great world goes its way, And takes its truth from each new day ; They do not quit, nor can retain, Far less consider it again. O Thou whose image in the shrine Of human spirits dwells divine. Which from that precint once conveyed, To be to outer day displayed, Doth vanish, part, and leave behind Mere blank and void of empty mind, Which wilful fancy seeks in vain With casual shapes to fill again ! 6 4 Thou, that in our bosom's shrine Dost dwell, unknown because divine ! 1 thought to speak, I thought to say, ' The light is here/ • behold the way,' ' The voice was thus ' and * thus the word/ And ' thus I saw/ and ' that I heard/ — But from the lips that half essayed The imperfect utterance fell unmade. Thou, in that mysterious shrine Enthroned, as I must say, divine ! 1 will not frame one thought of what Thou mayest either be or not. I will not prate of ' thus ' and ' so/ And be profane with * yes' and ' no/ Enough that in our soul and heart Thou, whatsoe'er Thou may'st be, art. Unseen, secure in that high shrine Acknowledged present and divine, I will not ask some upper air, Some future day, to place Thee there ; Nor say, nor yet deny, such men And women saw Thee thus and then : Thy name was such, and there or here To him or her Thou didst appear. Do only Thou in that dim shrine, Unknown or known, remain, divine ; There, or if not, at least in eyes That scan the fact that round them lies, 65 The hand to sway, the judgement guide, In sight and sense Thyself divide : Be Thou but there, — in soul and heart, I will not ask to feel Thou art. It fortifies my soul to know That, though I perish, Truth is so : That, howsoe'er I stray and range, Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. Where are the great, whom thou wouldst wish to praise thee ? Where are the pure, whom thou wouldst choose to love thee ? Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee, Whose high commands would cheer, whose chiding raise thee ? Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find In the stones, bread, and life in the blank mind. 66 Come home, come home, and where is home for me, Whose ship is driving o'er the trackless sea ? To the frail bark here plunging on its way, To the wild waters, shall I turn and say To the plunging bark, or to the salt sea foam, You are my home. Fields once I walked in, faces once I knew, Familiar things so old my heart believed them true, These far, far back, behind me lie, before The dark clouds mutter, and the deep seas roar, And speak to them that 'neath and o'er them roam No words of home. Beyond the clouds, beyond the waves that roar, There may indeed, or may not be, a shore, Where fields as green, and hands and hearts as true, The old forgotten semblance may renew, And offer exiles driven far o'er the salt sea foam Another home. But toil and pain must wear out many a day, And days bear weeks, and weeks bear months away, Ere, if at all, the weary traveller hear, With accents whispered in his wayworn ear, A voice he dares to listen to, say, Come To thy true home. Come home, come home ! And where a home hath he Whose ship is driving o'er the driving sea? 6 7 Through clouds that mutter, and o'er waves that roar, Say, shall we find, or shall we not, a shore That is, as is not ship or ocean foam, Indeed our home ? 1852 Green fields of England ! wheresoe'er Across this watery waste we fare, Your image at our hearts we bear, Green fields of England, everywhere. Sweet eyes in England, I must flee Past where the wave's last confines be, Ere your loved smile I cease to see, Sweet eyes in England, dear to me. Dear home in England, safe and fast If but in thee my lot lie cast, The past shall seem a nothing past To thee dear home, if won at last ; Dear home in England, won at last, 1852 Come back, come back, behold with straining mast And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast ; With one new sun to see her voyage o'er, With morning light to touch her native shore. Come back, come back. F 2 68 Come back, come back, while westward labouring by, With sail-less yards, a bare black hulk we fly. See how the gale we fight with, sweeps her back, To our lost home, on our forsaken track. Come back, come back. Come back, come back, across the flying foam, We hear faint far-off voices call us home, Come back, ye seem to say ; ye seek in vain ; We went, we sought, and homeward turned again. Come back, come back. Come back, come back ; and whither back or why ? To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try ; Walk the old fields; pace the familiar street; Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete. Come back, come back. Come back ; come back, and whither and for what ? To finger idly some old Gordian knot, Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, And with much toil attain to half-believe. Come back, come back. Come back, come back ; yea back, indeed, do go Sighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow ; Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings, And wishes idly struggle in the strings ; Come back, come back. Come back, come back, more eager than the breeze, The flying fancies sweep across the seas, 6 9 And lighter far than ocean's flying foam, The heart's fond message hurries to its home. Come back, come back ! Come back, come back ! Back flies the foam ; the hoisted flag streams back ; The long smoke wavers on the homeward track, Back fly with winds things which the winds obey, The strong ship follows its appointed way. 1852 Some future day when what is now is not, When all old faults and follies are forgot, And thoughts of difference passed like dreams away, We '11 meet again, upon some future day. When all that hindered, all that vexed our love As tall rank weeds will climb the blade above, When all but it has yielded to decay, We '11 meet again upon some future day. When we have proved, each on his course alone, The wider world, and learnt what's now unknown, Have made life clear, and worked out each a way, We '11 meet again, — we shall have much to say. With happier mood, and feelings born anew, Our boyhood's bygone fancies we '11 review, Talk o'er old talks, play as we used to play, And meet again, on many a future day. 70 Some day, which oft our hearts shall yearn to see, In some far year, though distant yet to be, Shall we indeed, — ye winds and waters, say ! — Meet yet again, upon some future day ? Where lies the land to which the ship would go ? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from ? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face, Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace ; Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below The foaming wake far widening as we go. On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave ! The dripping sailor on the reeling mast Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past. Where lies the land to which the ship would go ? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from ? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. 7* The mighty ocean rolls and raves, To part us with its angry waves ; But arch on arch from shore to shore, In a vast fabric reaching o'er, With careful labours daily wrought, By steady hope and tender thought, The wide and weltering waste above — Our hearts have bridged it with their love. There fond anticipations fly To rear the growing structure high, Dear memories upon either side, Combine to make it large and wide. There, happy fancies day by day, New courses sedulously lay ; There soft solicitudes, sweet fears, And doubts accumulate, and tears. While the pure purpose of the soul, To form of many parts a whole, To make them strong and hold them true, From end to end, is carried through. Then when the waters war between, Upon the masonry unseen, Secure and swift, from shore to shore, With silent footfall travelling o'er, 72 Our sundered spirits come and go, Hither and thither, to and fro, Pass and repass, now linger near. Now part, anew to reappear. With motions of a glad surprise, We meet each other's wondering eyes, At work, at play, when people talk, And when we sleep, and when we walk. Each dawning day my eyelids see You come, methinks, across to me, And I, at every hour anew Could dream I travelled o'er to you. 1853 That out of sight is out of mind Is true of most we leave behind ; It is not sure, nor can be true, My own and only love, of you. They were my friends, 't was sad to part ; Almost a tear began to start; But yet as things run on they find That out of sight is out of mind. For men, that will not idlers be, Must lend their hearts to things they see; And friends who leave them far behind, When out of sight are out of mind. 73 I blame it not ; I think that when The cold and silent meet again, Kind hearts will yet as erst be kind, 'T was ' out of sight,' was ? out of mind.' I knew it when we parted, well, I knew it, but was loth to tell ; I felt before, what now I find, That ( out of sight ' is f out of mind.' That friends, however friends they were, Still deal with things as things occur, And that, excepting for the blind, What 's out of sight is out of mind. But love, the poets say, is blind ; So out of sight and out of mind Need not, nor will, I think, be true, My own and only love, of you. 1853 Were you with me, or I with you, There 's nought, methinks, I might not do ; Could venture here, and venture there, And never fear, nor ever care. To things before, and things behind, Could turn my thoughts, and turn my mind, On this and that, day after day, Could dare to throw myself away. 74 Secure, when all was o'er, to find My proper thought, my perfect mind, And unimpaired receive anew My own and better self in you. 1853 How in heaven's name did Columbus get over, Is a pure wonder to me, I protest, Cabot and Raleigh too, that well-read rover, Frobisher, Dampier, Drake and the rest ; Bad enough all the same, For them that after came; But in great heaven's name, How he should ever think That on the other brink Of this wild waste, terra firma should be, Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me, How a man should ever hope to get thither, E'en if he knew there was another side, But to suppose he should come any whither, Sailing straight on into chaos untried. In spite of the motion, Across the whole ocean, To stick to the notion That in some nook or bend Of a sea without end, He should find North and South America, Was a pure madness, indeed, I must say. 75 What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy, Judged that the earth like an orange was round, None of them ever said, Come along, follow me, Sail to the West, and the East will be found, Many a day before Ever they 'd come ashore Sadder and wiser men, They 'd have turned back again ; And that he did not, but did cross the sea, Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me. TO A SLEEPING CHILD Lips, lips, open ! Up comes a little bird that lives inside, Up comes a little bird, and peeps and out he flies. All the day he sits inside, and sometimes he sings, Up he comes and out he goes at night to spread his wings. Little bird, little bird, whither will you go ? Round about the world while nobody can know. Little bird, little bird, whither do you flee ? Far away round the world while nobody can see. Little bird, little bird, how long will you roam ? All round the world and around again home. Round the round world, and back through the air, When the morning comes, the little bird is there. 7 6 Back comes the little bird, and looks, and in he flies. Up wakes the little boy, and opens both his eyes. Sleep, sleep, little boy, little bird 's away, Little bird will come again, by the peep of day ; Sleep, sleep little boy, little bird must go Round about the world, while nobody can know. Sleep, sleep sound, little bird goes round Round and round he goes — sleep, sleep sound. O stream descending to the sea, Thy mossy banks between, The flow'rets blow, the grasses grow, The leafy trees are green. In garden plots the children play, The fields the labourers till, And houses stand on either hand, And thou descendest still. O life descending into death, Our waking eyes behold, Parent and friend thy lapse attend, Companions young and old. Strong purposes our mind possess, Our hearts affections fill, We toil and earn, we seek and learn, And thou descendest still. 11 O end to which our currents tend, Inevitable sea, To which we flow, what do we know, What shall we guess of thee ? A roar we hear upon thy shore, As we our course fulfil ; Scarce we divine a sun will shine And be above us still. Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane, East wind and frost are safely gone ; With zephyr mild and balmy rain The summer comes serenely on ; Earth, air, and sun and skies combine To promise all that's kind and fair : — But thou, O human heart of mine, Be still, contain thyself, and bear. December days were brief and chill, The winds of March were wild and drear, And, nearing and receding still, Spring never would, we thought, be here. The leaves that burst, the suns that shine, Had, not the less, their certain date : — And thou, O human heart of mine, Be still, refrain thyself, and wait. 78 Trunks the forest yielded, with gums ambrosial oozing, Boughs with apples laden, beautiful, Hesperian — Golden, odoriferous, perfume exhaling about them, Orbs in a dark umbrage luminous and radiant ; To the palate grateful, more luscious were not in Eden, Or in that fabled garden of Alcinoiis ; Out of a dark umbrage, sounds also musical issued, Birds their sweet transports uttering in melody. Thrushes clear-piping, wood-pigeons cooing, arousing Loudly, the nightingale, loudly, the silvan echoes ; Waters transpicuous flowed under, flowed to the listening Ear with a soft murmur, softly soporiferous : Nor, with ebon locks too, there wanted, circling, attentive Unto the sweet fluting, girls, of a swarthy shepherd, Over a sunny level their flocks are lazily feeding They, of Amor musing, rest in a leafy cavern, 1861 Come, Poet, come ! A thousand labourers ply their task, And what it tends to scarcely ask, And trembling thinkers on the brink Shiver, and know not how to think. 79 To tell the purport of their pain, And what our silly joys contain ; In lasting lineaments pourtray The substance of the shadowy day ; Our real and inner deeds rehearse, And make our meaning clear in verse : Come, Poet, come ! for but in vain We do the work or feel the pain, And gather up the seeming gain, Unless before the end thou come To take, ere they are lost, their sum. Come, Poet, come ! To give an utterance to the dumb, And make vain babblers silent, come ; A thousand dupes point here and there, Bewildered by the show and glare ; And wise men half have learnt to doubt Whether we are not best without. Come, Poet ; both but wait to see Their error proved to them in thee. Come, Poet, come! In vain I seem to call. And yet Think not the living times forget. Ages of heroes fought and fell That Homer in the end might tell ; O'er grovelling generations past Upstood the Doric fane at last ; And countless hearts on countless years Had wasted thoughts, and hopes, and fears, Rude laughter and unmeaning tears ; 8o Ere England Shakespeare saw, or Rome The pure perfection of her dome. Others, I doubt not, if not we, The issue of our toils shall see ; And (they forgotten and unknown) Young children gather as their own The harvest that the dead had sown. THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH A LONG -VACATION PASTORAL Nunc formosissimus annus Ite mete felix quondam pec us, ite c amende THE BOTHIE OF TOBER-NA-VUOLICH I Socii cratera coronant It was the afternoon ; and the sports were now at the ending. Long had the stone been put, tree cast, and thrown the hammer ; Up the perpendicular hill, Sir Hector so called it, Eight stout gillies had run, with speed and agility wondrous ; Run too the course on the level had been ; the leaping was over : Last in the show of dress, a novelty recently added, Noble ladies their prizes adjudged for costume that was perfect, Turning the clansmen about, as they stood with upraised elbows ; B.owing their eye-glassed brows, and fingering kilt and sporran. It was four of the clock, and the sports were come to the ending, Therefore the Oxford party went off to adorn for the dinner. Be it recorded in song who was first, who last, in dressing. Hope was first, black-tied, white-waistcoated, simple, His Honour ; For the postman made out he was heir to the Earldom of Hay, (Being the younger son of the younger brother, the Colonel,) Treated him therefore with special respect ; doffed bonnet, and 84 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Called him his Honour : his Honour he therefore was at the cottage. Always his Honour at least, sometimes the Viscount of Ilay. Hope was first, his Honour, and next to his Honour the Tutor. Still more plain the Tutor, the grave man, nicknamed Adam, White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square-cut waistcoat Formal, unchanged, of black cloth, but with sense and feeling beneath it; Skilful in Ethics and Logic, in Pindar and Poets unrivalled ; Shady in Latin, said Lindsay, but topping in Plays and Aldrich. Somewhat more splendid in dress, in a waistcoat work of a lady, Lindsay succeeded ; the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay, Lindsay the ready of speech, the Piper, the Dialectician, This was his title from Adam because of the words he invented, Who in three weeks had created a dialect new for the party ; This was his title from Adam, but mostly they called him the Piper. Lindsay succeeded, the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay. Hewson and Hobbes were down at the matutine bathing; of course too Arthur, the bather of bathers, par excellence, Audley by surname, Arthur they called him for love and for euphony; they had been bathing, Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended, Only a step from the cottage, the road and larches between them. Hewson and Hobbes followed quick upon Adam ; on them fol- lowed Arthur. Airlie descended the last, effulgent as god of Olympus ; Blue, perceptibly blue, was the coat that had white silk facings, Waistcoat blue, coral-buttoned, the white-tie finely adjusted, The Bothie of Tober-Na-Fuolich 85 Coral moreover the studs on a shirt as of crochet of women : When the fourwheel for ten minutes already had stood at the gateway, He, like a god, came leaving his ample Olympian chamber. And in the fourwheel they drove to the place of the clansmen's meeting. So in the fourwheel they came ; and Donald the innkeeper showed them Up to the barn where the dinner should be. Four tables were in it ; Two at the top and the bottom, a little upraised from the level, These for Chairman and Croupier, and gentry fit to be with them, Two lengthways in the midst for keeper and gillie and peasant. Here were clansmen many in kilt and bonnet assembled, Keepers a dozen at least ; the Marquis's targeted gillies ; Pipers five or six, among them the young one, the drunkard ; Many with silver brooches, and some with those brilliant cry- stals Found amid granite-dust on the frosty scalp of the Cairn-Gorm ; But with snuff-boxes all, and all of them using the boxes. Here too were Catholic Priest, and Established Minister stand- ing; Catholic Priest ; for many still clung to the Ancient Worship, And Sir Hector's father himself had built them a chapel ; So stood Priest and Minister, near to each other, but silent, One to say grace before, the other after the dinner. Hither anon too came the shrewd, ever-ciphering Factor, Hither anon the Attache, the Guardsman mute and stately, Hither from lodge and bothie in all the adjoining shootings Members of Parliament many, forgetful of votes and blue-books, Here, amid heathery hills, upon beast and bird of the forest Venting the murderous spleen of the endless Railway Committee. 86 The Bothie. of Tober-Na-Vuolich Hither the Marquis of Ayr, and Dalgarnish Earl and Croupier, And at their side, amid murmurs of welcome, long-looked for, himself too Eager, the grey, but boy-hearted Sir Hector, the Chief and the Chairman. Then was the dinner served, and the Minister prayed for a blessing, And to the viands before them with knife and with fork they beset them ; Venison, the red and the roe, with mutton ; and grouse succeed- ing; Such was the feast, with whisky of course, and at top and bot- tom Small decanters of Sherry, not over choice, for the gentry. So to the viands before them with laughter and chat they beset them. And, when on flesh and on fowl had appetite duly been sated, Up rose the Catholic Priest and returned God thanks for the dinner. Then on all tables were set black bottles of well-mixed toddy, And, with the bottles and glasses before them, they sat, digesting, Talking, enjoying, but chiefly awaiting the toasts and speeches. Spare me, O great Recollection ! for words to the task were unequal, Spare me, O mistress of Song ! nor bid me remember minutely All that was said and done o'er the well-mixed tempting toddy ; How were healths proposed and drunk " with all the honours," Glasses and bonnets waving, and three-times-three thrice over, Queen, and Prince, and Army, and Landlords all, and Keepers ; Bid me not, grammar defying, repeat from grammar-deflers Long constructions strange and plusquam-Thucydidean, The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 8 7 Tell how, as sudden torrent in time of speat # in the mountain Hurries six ways at once, and takes at last to the roughest, Or as the practised rider at Astley's or Franconi's Skilfully, boldly bestrides many steeds at once in the gallop, Crossing from this to that, with one leg here, one yonder, So, less skilful, but equally bold, and wild as the torrent, All through sentences six at a time, unsuspecting of syntax, Hurried the lively good-will and garrulous tale of Sir Hector. Left to oblivion be it, the memory, faithful as ever, How the Marquis of Ayr, with wonderful gesticulation, Floundering on through game and mess-room recollections, Gossip of neighbouring forest, praise of targeted gillies, Anticipation of royal visit, skits at pedestrians, Swore he would never abandon his country, nor give up deer- stalking; How, too, more brief, and plainer in spite of their Gaelic accent, Highland peasants gave courteous answer to flattering nobles. Two orations alone the memorial song will render ; For at the banquet's close spake thus the lively Sir Hector, Somewhat husky with praises exuberant, often repeated, Pleasant to him and to them, of the gallant Highland soldiers Whom he erst led in the fight ^ — something husky, but ready, though weary, Up to them rose and spoke the grey but gladsome chieftain : — Fill up your glasses, my friends once more, — With all the honours ! There was a toast I forgot, which our gallant Highland homes have Always welcomed the stranger, delighted, I may say, to see such Fine young men at my table — My friends ! are you ready? the Strangers. * Flood. 88 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Fuolich Gentlemen, here are your healths, — and I wish you — With all the honours ! So he said, and the cheers ensued, and all the honours, All our Collegians were bowed to, the Attache detecting his Honour, Guardsman moving to Arthur, and Marquis sidling to Airlie, And the small Piper below getting up and nodding to Lindsay. But, while the healths were being drunk, was much tribulation and trouble, Nodding and beckoning across, observed of Attache and Guards- man: Adam would n't speak, — indeed it was certain he could n't ; Hewson could, and would if they wished ; Philip Hewson a poet, Hewson a radical hot, hating lords and scorning ladies, Silent mostly, but often reviling in fire and fury Feudal tenures, mercantile lords, competition and bishops, Liveries, armorial bearings, amongst other matters the Game- laws : He could speak, and was asked-to by Adam, but Lindsay aloud cried, (Whisky was hot in his brain), Confound it, no, not Hewson, A'nt he cock-sure to bring in his eternal political humbug ? However, so it must be, and after due pause of silence, Waving his hand to Lindsay, and smiling oddly to Adam, Up to them rose and spoke the poet and radical Hewson. I am, I think, perhaps the most perfect stranger present. I have not, as have some of my friends, in my veins some tinc- ture, Some few ounces of Scottish blood ; no, nothing like it. I am therefore perhaps the fittest to answer and thank you. So I thank you, sir, for myself and for my companions, The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 89 Heartily thank you all for this unexpected greeting, All the more welcome, as showing you do not account us in- truders, Are not unwilling to see the north and the south forgather. And, surely, seldom have Scotch and English more thoroughly mingled ; Scarcely with warmer hearts, and clearer feeling of manhood, Even in tourney, and foray, and fray, and regular battle, Where the life and the strength came out in the tug and tussle, Scarcely, where man met man, and soul encountered with soul, as Close as do the bodies and twining limbs of the wrestlers, When for a final bout are a day's two champions mated, — In the grand old times of bows, and bills, and claymores, At the old Flodden-field — or Bannockburn — or Culloden. — (And he paused a moment, for breath, and because of some cheering,) We are the better friends, I fancy, for that old fighting, Better friends, inasmuch as we know each other the better, We can now shake hands without pretending or shuffling. On this passage followed a great tornado of cheering, Tables were rapped, feet stamped, a glass or two got broken : He, ere the cheers died wholly away, and while still there was stamping, Added, in altered voice, with a smile, his doubtful conclusion. I have, however, less claim than others perhaps to this honour, For, let me say, I am neither game-keeper, nor game-preserver. So he said, and sat down, but his satire had not been taken. Only the men, who were all on their legs as concerned in the thanking, Were a trifle confused, but mostly sat down without laughing ; Lindsay alone, close-facing the chair, shook his fist at the speaker. Only a Liberal member, away at the end of the table, 90 The Bothie of Toher-Na-Vuolich Started, remembering sadly the cry of a coming election, Only the Attache glanced at the Guardsman, who twirled his moustachio, Only the Marquis faced round, but, not quite clear of the mean- ing, Joined with the joyous Sir Hector, who lustily beat on the table. And soon after the chairman arose, and the feast was over : Now should the barn be cleared and forthwith adorned for the dancing, And, to make way for this purpose, the tutor and pupils retiring Were by the chieftain addressed and invited to come to the castle. But ere the door-way they quitted, a thin man clad as the Saxon, Trouser and cap and jacket of homespun blue, hand- woven, Singled out, and said with determined accent, to Hewson, Touching his arm : Young man, if ye pass through the Braes o' Lochaber, See by the loch-side ye come to the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich. The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 9 1 II Et certamen erat, Corydon cum Tbyrside, magnum Morn, in yellow and white, came broadening out from the mountains, Long ere music and reel were hushed in the barn of the dancers. Duly in matutine bathed before eight some two of the party, Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended. There two plunges each took Philip and Arthur together, Duly in matutine bathed, and read, and waited for breakfast ; Breakfast commencing at nine, lingered lazily on to noon-day. Tea and coffee were there ; a jug of water for Hewson ; Tea and coffee ; and four cold grouse upon the sideboard ; Gayly they talked, as they sat, some late and lazy at breakfast, Some professing a book, some smoking outside at the window. By an aurora soft- pouring a still sheeny tide to the zenith, Hewson and Arthur, with Adam, had walked and got home by eleven ; Hope and the others had staid till the round sun lighted them bed- ward. They of the lovely aurora, but these of the lovelier women Spoke — of noble ladies and rustic girls, their partners. Turned to them Hewson, the chartist, the poet, the eloquent speaker. Sick of the very names of your Lady Augustas and Floras Am I, as ever I was of the dreary botanical titles 92 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Of the exotic plants, their antitypes, in the hot-house : Roses, violets, lilies for me ! the out-of-door beauties ; Meadow and woodland sweets, forget-me-nots, and heartsease ! Pausing awhile, he proceeded anon, for none made answer. Oh, if our high-born girls knew only the grace, the attraction, Labour, and labour alone, can add to the beauty of women, Truly the milliner's trade would quickly, I think, be at discount, All the waste and loss in silk and satin be saved us, Saved for purposes truly and widely productive That 's right, Take off your coat to it, Philip, cried Lindsay, outside in the garden, Take off your coat to it, Philip. Well, then, said Hewson, resuming ; Laugh if you please at my novel economy ; listen to this, though ; As for myself, and apart from economy wholly, believe me, Never I properly felt the relation between men and women, Though to the dancing-master I went, perforce, for a quarter, Where, in dismal quadrille, were good-looking girls in abundance, Though, too, school-girl cousins were mine, — a bevy of beau- ties, — Never, (of course you will laugh, but of course all the same I shall say it,) Never, believe me, I knew of the feelings between men and wo- men, Till in some village fields in holidays now getting stupid, One day sauntering m long and listless," as Tennyson has it, Long and listless strolling, ungainly in hobbadiboyhood, Chanced it my eye fell aside on a capless, bonnetless maiden, Bending with three-pronged fork in a garden uprooting potatoes. Was it the air? who can say? or herself, or the charm of the labour ? The Bothie of Tober-Na-Fuolich 93 But a new thing was in me ; and longing delicious possessed me, Longing to take her and lift her, and put her away from her slav- ing. Was it embracing or aiding was most in my mind? hard ques- tion ! But a new thing was in me, I, too, was a youth among maidens : Was it the air? who can say? but in part 't was the charm of the labour. Still, though a new thing was in me, the poets revealed themselves to me, And in my dreams by Miranda, her Ferdinand, often I wandered, Though all the fuss about girls, the giggling, and toying, and coy- Were not so strange as before, so incomprehensible purely; Still, as before (and as now), balls, dances, and evening parties, Shooting with bows, going shopping together, and hearing them singing, Dangling beside them, and turning the leaves on the dreary piano, Offering unneeded arms, performing dull farces of escort, Seemed like a sort of unnatural up-in-the-air balloon-work, (Or what to me is as hateful, a riding about in a carriage,) Utter removal from work, mother earth, and the objects of living. Hungry and fainting for food, you ask me to join you in snap- ping— What but a pink-paper comfit, with motto romantic inside it ? Wishing to stock me a garden, I'm sent to a table of nosegays ; Better a crust of black bread than a mountain of paper confec- tions, Better a daisy in earth than a dahlia cut and gathered, Better a cowslip with root than a prize carnation without it. 94 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich That I allow, said Adam. But he, with the bit in his teeth, scarce Breathed a brief moment, and hurried exultingly on with his rider, Far over hillock, and runnel, and bramble, away in the cham- paign, Snorting defiance and force, the white foam flecking his flanks, the Rein hanging loose to his neck, and head projected before him. Oh, if they knew and considered, unhappy ones ! oh, could they see, could But for a moment discern, how the blood of true gallantry kindles, How the old knightly religion, the chivalry semi-quixotic Stirs in the veins of a man at seeing some delicate woman Serving him, toiling — for him, and the world; some tenderest girl, now Over- weighted, expectant, of him, is it? who shall, if only Duly her burden be lightened, not wholly removed from her, mind you, Lightened if but by the love, the devotion man only can offer, Grand on her pedestal rise as urn-bearing statue of Hellas; — Oh, could they feel at such moments how man's heart, as into Eden Carried anew, seems to see, like the gardener of earth uncor- rupted, Eve from the hand of her Maker advancing, an helpmeet for him, Eve from his own flesh taken, a spirit restored to his spirit, Spirit but not spirit only, himself whatever himself is, Unto the mystery's end sole helpmate meet to be with him ; — The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 95 Oh if they saw it and knew it ; we soon should see them aban- don Boudoir, toilette, carriage, drawing-room, and ball-room, Satin for worsted exchange, gros-de-naples for plain linsey- woolsey, Sandals of silk for clogs, for health lackadaisical fancies ! So, feel women, not dolls ; so feel the sap of existence Circulate up through their roots from the far-away centre of all things, Circulate up from the depths to the bud on the twig that is top- most ! Yes, we should see them delighted, delighted ourselves in the seeing, Bending with blue cotton gown skirted-up over striped linsey- woolsey, Milking the kine in the field, like Rachel, watering cattle, Rachel, when at the well the predestined beheld and kissed her, Or, with pail upon head, like Dora beloved of Alexis, Comely, with well-poised pail over neck arching soft to the shoulders, Comely in gracefullest act, one arm uplifted to stay it, Home from the river or pump moving stately and calm to the laundry ; Ay, doing household work, as many sweet girls I have looked at, Needful household work, which some one, after all, must do, Needful, graceful therefore, as washing, cooking, and scouring, Or, if you please, with the fork in the garden uprooting pota- toes. — Or — hjgh-kilted perhaps, cried Lindsay, at last successful, Lindsay this long time swelling with scorn and pent-up fury, Or high-kilted perhaps, as once at Dundee I saw them, Petticoats up to the knees, or even, it might be, above them, g6 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Matching their lily-white legs with the clothes that they trod in the wash-tub ! Laughter ensued at this; and seeing the Tutor embarrassed, It was from them, I suppose, said Arthur, smiling sedately, Lindsay learnt the tune we all have learnt from Lindsay, For oh, he was a roguey, the Piper o* Dundee. Laughter ensued again ; and the Tutor, recovering slowly, Said, Are not these perhaps as doubtful as other attractions? There is a truth in your view, but I think extremely dis- torted ; Still there is truth, I own, I understand you entirely. While the Tutor was gathering his purposes, Arthur con- tinued, Is not all this the same that one hears at common-room break- fasts, Or perhaps Trinity wines, about Gothic buildings and Beauty ? And with a start from the sofa came Hobbes ; with a cry from the sofa, Where he was laid, the great Hobbes, contemplative, corpulent* witty, Author forgotten and silent of currentest phrases and fancies, Mute and exuberant by turns, a fountain at intervals playing, Mute and abstracted, or strong and abundant as rain in the tropics ; Studious; careless of dress ; inobservant; by smooth persuasions Lately decoyed into kilt on example of Hope and the Piper, Hope an Antinoiis mere, Hyperion of calves the Piper. Beautiful ! cried he upleaping, analogy perfect to madness ! O inexhaustible source of thought, shall I call it, or fancy ! Wonderful spring, at whose touch doors fly, what a vista disclos- ing ! Exquisite germ ! Ah no, crude fingers shall not soil thee ; The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 97 Rest, lovely pearl, in my brain, and slowly mature in the oyster. While at the exquisite pearl they were laughing, and corpulent oyster, Ah, could they only be taught, he resumed, by a Pugin of wo- men, How even churning and washing, the dairy, the scullery duties, Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to charms and attractions, Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and artistical handling, And the removal of slops to be ornamentally treated. Philip who speaks like a book (retiring and pausing he addea), Philip, here, who speaks — like a folio say'st thou, Piper? Philip shall write us a book, a Treatise upon The Laws of Architectural Beauty in Application to Women; Illustrations, of course, and a Parker's Glossary pendent, Where shall in specimen seen be the sculliony stumpy- columnar, (Which to a reverent taste is perhaps the most moving of any,) Rising to grace of true woman in English the Early and Later, Charming us still in fulfilling the Richer and Loftier stages, Lost, ere we end, in the Lady-Debased and the Lady-Flamboyant : Whence why in satire and spite too merciless onward pursue her Hither to hideous close, Modern-Florid, modern-fine-lady ? No, I will leave it to you, my Philip, my Pugin of women. Leave it to Arthur, said Adam, to think of, and not to play with. You are young, you know, he said, resuming, to Philip, You are young, he proceeded, with something of fervour to Hew- son, You are a boy; when you grow to a man you '11 find things alter. You will then seek only the good, will scorn the attractive, Scorn all mere cosmetics, as now of rank and fashion, Delicate hands, and wealth, so then of poverty also, H 98 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Poverty truly attractive, more truly, I bear you witness. Good, wherever it *s found, you will choose, be it humble or stately. Happy if only you find, and finding do not lose it. Yes, we must seek what is good, it always and it only; Not indeed absolute good, good for us, as is said in the Ethics, That which is good for ourselves, our proper selves, our best selves. Ah, you have much to learn, we can't know all things at twenty. Partly you rest on truth, old truth, the duty of Duty, Partly on error, you long for equality. Ay, cried the Piper, That 's what it is, that confounded egalite, French manufacture, He is the same as the Chartist who spoke at a meeting in Ire- land, What, and is not one man, fellow-men, as good as another? Faith, replied Pat, and a deal hetter too ! So rattled the Piper : But undisturbed in his tenor, the Tutor. Partly in error Seeking equality, is not one woman as good as another? I with the Irishman answer, Tes, better too ; the poorer Better full oft than richer, than loftier better the lower, Irrespective of wealth and of poverty, pain and enjoyment, Women all have their duties, the one as well as the other ; Are all duties alike ? Do all alike fulfil them ? However noble the dream of equality, mark you, Philip, Nowhere equality reigns in all the world of creation, Star is not equal to star, nor blossom the same as blossom ; Herb is not equal to herb, any more than planet to planet. There is a glory of daisies, a glory again of carnations ; Were the carnation wise, in gay parterre by greenhouse, The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 99 Should it decline to accept the nurture the gardener gives it, Should it refuse to expand to sun and genial summer, Simply because the field-daisy, that grows in the grass-plat beside it, Cannot, for some cause or other, develope and be a carnation? Would not the daisy itself petition its scrupulous neighbour ? Up, grow, bloom, and forget me ; be beautiful even to proud- ness, E'en for the sake of myself and other poor daisies like me. Education and manners, accomplishments and refinements, Waltz, peradventure, and polka, the knowledge of music and drawing, All these things are Nature's, to Nature dear and precious. We have all something to do, man, woman alike, I own it ; We have all something to do, and in my judgement should do it In our station ; not thinking about it, but not disregarding ; Holding it, not for enjoyment, but simply because we are in it. Ah! replied Philip, Alas! the noted phrase of the prayer- book, Doing our duty in that it ate of life to which God has called us, Seems to me always to mean, when the little rich boys say it, Standing in velvet frock by mamma's brocaded flounces, Eying her gold-fastened book and the chain and watch at her bosom, Seems to me always to mean, Eat, drink, and never mind others. Nay, replied Adam, smiling, so far your economy leads me, Velvet and gold and brocade are nowise to my fancy. Nay, he added, believe me, I like luxurious living Even as little as you, and grieve in my soul not seldom, More for the rich indeed than the poor, who are not so guilty. So the discussion closed ; and, said Arthur, Now it is my turn, 100 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich How will my argument please you ? To-morrow we start on our travel. And took up Hope the chorus. To-morrow we start on our travel. Lo, the weather is golden, the weather-glass, say they, rising ; Four weeks here have we read ; four weeks will we read here- after ; Three weeks hence will return and think of classes and classics. Fare ye well, meantime, forgotten, unnamed, undreamt of, History, Science, and Poets ! lo, deep in dustiest cupboard, Thookydid, Oloros* son, Halimoosian, here lieth buried ! Slumber in Liddell-and-Scott, O musical chaff of old Athens, Dishes, and fishes, bird, beast, and sesquipedalian blackguard ! Sleep, weary ghosts, be at peace, and abide in your lexicon- limbo ! Sleep, as in lava for ages your Herculanean kindred, Sleep, and for aught that I care, " the sleep that knows no waking," ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, and Plato. Three weeks hence be it time to exhume our dreary classics. And in the chorus joined Lindsay, the Piper, the Dialectician. Three weeks hence we return to the shop and the wath-hand- stand-basin, (These are the Piper's names for the bathing-place and the cot- tage,) Three weeks hence unbury Tbicksides and bairy Aldrich. But the Tutor enquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam, Who are they that go, and when do they promise returning ? And a silence ensued, and the Tutor himself continued, Airlie remains, I presume, he continued, and Hobbes, and Hew- son. Answer was made him by Philip, the poet, the eloquent speaker : The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 101 Airlie remains, I presume, was the answer, and Hobbes, peradven- ture ; Tarry let Airlie May-fairly, and Hobbes, brief-kilted hero, Tarry let Hobbes in kilt, and Airlie "abide in his breeches;" Tarry let these, and read, four Pindars apiece an it like them ! Weary of reading am I, and weary of walks prescribed us ; Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary, Eager to range over heather unfettered of gillie and marquis, I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics. And to the Tutor rejoining, Be mindful; you go up at Easter, This was the answer returned by Philip, the Pugin of Women. Good are the Ethics, I wis ; good absolute, not for me, though ; Good, too, Logic, of course ; in itself, but not in fine weather. Three weeks hence, with the rain, to Prudence, Temperance, Justice, Virtues Moral and Mental, with Latin prose included, Three weeks hence we return, to cares of classes and classics. I will away with the rest, and bury my dismal classics. But the Tutor enquired, the grave man, nick-named Adam, Where do you mean to go, and whom do you mean to visit ? And he was answered by Hope, the Viscount, His Honour, of Hay. Kitcat, a Trinity coach, has a party at Drumnadrochet, Up on the side of Loch Ness, in the beautiful valley of Ur- quhart ; Main waring says they will lodge us, and feed us, and give us a lift too : Only they talk ere long to remove to Glenmorison. Then at Castleton, high in Braemar, strange home, with his earliest party, Harrison, fresh from the schools, has James and Jones and Lau- der. Thirdly, a Cambridge man I know, Smith, a senior wrangler, 102 The Bothie of Toher-Na-Vuolich With a mathematical score hangs-out at Inverary. Finally, too, from the kilt and the sofa said Hobbes in conclu- sion, Finally, Philip must hunt for that home of the probable poacher, Hid in the braes of Lochaber, the Bothie of What-did-he-c all-it* Hopeless of you and of us, of gillies and marquises hopeless, Weary of Ethic and Logic, of Rhetoric yet more weary, There shall he, smit by the charm of a lovely potato-uprooter, Study the question of sex in the Bothie of Wbat-did-be-call-it. The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 103 III Namque canebat uti So in the golden morning they parted and went to the westward. And in the cottage with Airlie and Hobbes remained the Tutor ; Reading nine hours a day with the Tutor, Hobbes and Airlie ; One between bathing and breakfast, and six before it was dinner, (Breakfast at eight, at four, after bathing again, the dinner,) Finally, two after walking and tea, from nine to eleven. Airlie and Adam at evening their quiet stroll together Took on the terrace- road, with the western hills before them ; Hobbes, only rarely a third, now and then in the cottage remain- ing, E'en after dinner, eupeptic, would rush yet again to his reading ; Other times, stung by the oestrum of some swift-working concep- tion, Ranged, tearing-on in his fury, an Io-cow, through the moun- tains, Heedless of scenery, heedless of bogs, and of perspiration, On the high peaks, unwitting, the hares and ptarmigan starting. And the three weeks past, the three weeks, three days over, Neither letter had come, nor casual tidings any, And the pupils grumbled, the Tutor became uneasy, And in the golden weather they wondered, and watched to the westward. There is a stream, I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist 104 3f%* Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books, Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains, Falling two miles through rowan and stunted alder, enveloped Then for four more in a forest of pine, where broad and ample Spreads, to convey it, the glen with heathery slopes on both sides : Broad and fair the stream, with occasional falls and narrows ; But, where the glen of its course approaches the vale of the river, Met and blocked by a huge interposing mass of granite, Scarce by a channel deep-cut, raging up, and raging onward, Forces its flood through a passage so narrow a lady would step it. There, across the great rocky wharves, a wooden bridge goes, Carrying a path to the forest ; below, three hundred yards, say, Lower in level some twenty-five feet, through flats of shingle, Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley. But in the interval here the boiling, pent-up water Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a bason, Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror ; Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks under ; Beautiful, most of all, where beads of foam uprising Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the still- ness. Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent birch boughs, Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and pathway, Still more enclosed from below by wood and rocky projection. You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of water, Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of bath- ing. Here, the pride of the plunger, you stride the fall and clear it; The Both'ie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 105 Here, the delight of the bather, you roll in beaded sparklings, Here into pure green depth drop down from lofty ledges. Hither, a month agone, they had come, and discovered it ; hither (Long a design, but long unaccountably left unaccomplished), Leaving the well-known bridge and pathway above to the forest, Turning below from the track of the carts over stone and shingle, Piercing a wood, and skirting a narrow and natural causeway Under the rocky wall that hedges the bed of the streamlet, Rounded a craggy point, and saw on a sudden before them Slabs of rock, and a tiny beach, and perfection of water, Picture-like beauty, seclusion sublime, and the goddess of bath- ing. ■There they bathed, of course, and Arthur, the Glory of headers, Leapt from the ledges with Hope, he twenty feet, he thirty ; There, overbold, great Hobbes from a ten-foot height descended, Prone, as a quadruped, prone with hands and feet protending ; There in the sparkling champagne, ecstatic, they shrieked and shouted. " Hobbes's gutter " the Piper entitles the spot, profanely, Hope "the Glory" would have, after Arthur, the glory of headers : But, for before they departed, in shy and fugitive reflex Here in the eddies and there did the splendour of Jupiter glim- mer, Adam adjudged it the name of Hesperus, star of the evening. Hither, to Hesperus, now, the star of evening above them, Come in their lonelier walk the pupils twain and Tutor ; Turned from the track of the carts, and passing the stone and shingle, Piercing the wood, and skirting the stream by the natural cause- way, 106 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Rounded the craggy point, and now at their ease looked up ; and Lo, on the rocky ledge, regardant, the Glory of headers, Lo, on the beach, expecting the plunge, not cigarless, the Piper. — And they looked, and wondered, incredulous, looking yet once more. Yes, it was he, on the ledge, bare-limbed, an Apollo, down- gazing, Eying one moment the beauty, the life, ere he flung himself in it, Eying through eddying green waters the green- tinting floor un- derneath them, Eying the bead on the surface, the bead, like a cloud, rising to it, Drinking-in, deep in his soul, the beautiful hue and the clearness, Arthur, the shapely, the brave, the unboasting, the Glory of headers ; Yes, and with fragrant weed, by his knapsack, spectator and critic, Seated on slab by the margin, the Piper, the Cloud-compeller. Yes, they were come; were restored to the party, its grace and its gladness, Yes, were here, as of old ; the light-giving orb of the household, Arthur, the shapely, the tranquil, the strength-and-contentment- diifusing, In the pure presence of whom none could quarrel long, nor be pettish, And, the gay fountain of mirth, their dearly beloved of Pipers, Yes, they were come, were here : but Hewson and Hope — where they then ? * Are they behind, travel-sore, or ahead, going straight, by the pathway ? And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-com- peller. Hope with the uncle abideth for shooting. Ah me, were I with him! The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 107 Ah, good boy that I am, to have stuck to my word and my reading ! Good, good boy to be here, far away, who might be at Balloch ! Only one day to have stayed who might have been welcome for seven, Seven whole days in castle and forest — gay in the mazy Moving, imbibing the rosy, and pointing a gun at the horny ! And the Tutor impatient, expectant, interrupted, Hope with the uncle, and Hewson — with him ? or where have you left him ? And from his seat and cigar spoke the Piper, the Cloud-com- peller. Hope with the uncle, and Hewson — Why, Hewson we left in Rannoch, By the lochside and the pines, in a farmer's house, — reflecting — Helping to shear,* and dry clothes, and bring in peat from the peat-stack. And the Tutor's countenance fell, perplexed, dumb-foundered Stood he — slow and with pain disengaging jest from earnest. He is not far from home, said Arthur from the water, He will be with us to-morrow, at latest, or the next day. And he was even more reassured by the Piper's rejoinder. Can he have come by the mail, and have got to the cottage before us? So to the cottage they went, and Philip was not at the cottage ; But by the mail was a letter from Hope, who himself was to follow. Two whole days and nights succeeding brought not Philip, Two whole days and nights exhausted not question and story. For it was told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur, Often by word corrected, more often by smile and motion, _* Reap.^ 108 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Fuolich How they had been to Iona, to StafFa, to Skye, to Culloden, Seen Loch Awe, Loch Tay, Loch Fyne, Loch Ness, Loch Arkaig, Been up Ben-nevis, Ben-more, Ben-cruachan, Ben-muick-dhui ; How they had walked, and eaten, and drunken, and slept in kitchens, Slept upon floors of kitchens, and tasted the real Glen-livat, Walked up perpendicular hills, and also down them, Hither and thither had been, and this and that had witnessed, Left not a thing to be done, and had not a copper remaining. For it was told withal, he telling, and he correcting, How in the race they had run, and beaten the gillies of Rannoch, How in forbidden glens, in Mar and midmost Athol, Philip insisting hotly, and Arthur and Hope compliant, They had defied the keepers ; the Piper alone protesting, Liking the fun, it was plain, in his heart, but tender of game- law; Yea, too, in Mealy glen, the heart of Lochiel's fair forest, Where Scotch firs are darkest and amplest, and intermingle Grandly with rowan and ash — in Mar you have no ashes, There the pine is alone, or relieved by the birch and the alder — How in Mealy glen, while stags were starting before, they Made the watcher believe they were guests from Achnacarry. And there was told moreover, he telling, the other correcting, Often by word, more often by mute significant motion, Much of the Cambridge coach and his pupils at Inverary, Huge barbarian pupils, Expanded in Infinite Series, Firing-ofF signal guns (great scandal) from window to window, (For they were lodging perforce in distant and numerous houses,) Signals, when, one retiring, another should go to the Tutor : — Much too of Kitcat, of course, and the party at Drumnadrochet, Mainwaring, Foley, and Fraser, their idleness horrid and dog- cart; The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 109 * Drumnadrochet was seedy, Glenmorison adequate, but at Castleton, high in Braemar, were the clippingest places for bath- ing, One by the bridge in the village, indecent, the Town-Hall christened, Where had Lauder howbeit been bathing, and Harrison also, Harrison even, the Tutor; another like Hesperus here, and Up to the water of Eye half-a-dozen at least, all stunners. And it was told, the Piper narrating and Arthur correcting, Colouring he, dilating, magniloquent, glorying in picture, He to a matter-of-fact still softening, paring, abating, He to the great might-have-been upsoaring, sublime and ideal, He to the merest it-was restricting, diminishing, dwarfing, River to streamlet reducing, and fall to slope subduing, So was it told, the Piper narrating, corrected of Arthur, How under Linn of Dee, where over rocks, between rocks, Freed from prison the river comes, pouring, rolling, rushing, Then at a sudden descent goes sliding, gliding, unbroken, Falling, sliding, gliding, in narrow space collected, Save for a ripple at last, a sheeted descent unbroken, — How to the element offering their bodies, downshooting the fall, they Mingled themselves with the flood and the force of imperious water. And it was told too, Arthur narrating, the Piper correcting, How, as one comes to the level, the weight of the downward impulse Carries the head under water, delightful, unspeakable 5 how the Piper, here ducked and blinded, got stray, and borne-ofF by the current Wounded his lily-white thighs, below, at the craggy corner. And it was told, the Piper resuming, corrected of Arthur, HO The Bothie of Tober-Na-VuoUch More by word than motion, change ominous, noted of Adam, How at the floating-bridge of Laggan, one morning at sunrise, Came in default of the ferryman out of her bed a brave lassie ; And, as Philip and she together were turning the handles, Winding the chain by which the boat works over the water, Hands intermingled with hands, and at last, as they stept from the boatie, Turning about, they saw lips also mingle with lips ; but That was flatly denied and loudly exclaimed at by Arthur : How at the General's hut, the Inn by the Foyers Fall, where Over the loch looks at you the summit of Mealfourvonie, How here too he was hunted at morning, and found in the kitchen Watching the porridge being made, pronouncing them smoked for certain, Watching the porridge being made, and asking the lassie that made them, What was the Gaelic for girl, and what was the Gaelic for pretty ; How in confusion he shouldered his knapsack, yet blushingly stammered, Waving a hand to the lassie, that blushingly bent o'er the por- ridge, Something outlandish — S/tf#-something, Slan leaf, he believed, Caleg Loo achy That was the Gaelic it seemed for " I bid you good-bye, bonnie lassie ; " Arthur admitted it true, not of Philip, but of the Piper. And it was told by the Piper, while Arthur looked out at the window, How in thunder and in rain — it is wetter far to the westward, Thunder and rain and wind, losing heart and road, they were welcomed, The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich ill Welcomed, and three days detained at a farm by the lochside of Rannoch ; How in the three days' detention was Philip observed to be smitten, Smitten by golden-haired Katie, the youngest and comeliest daughter ; Was he not seen, even Arthur observed it, from breakfast to bedtime, Following her motions with eyes ever brightening, softening ever ? Did he not fume, fret, and fidget to find her stand waiting at table ? Was he not one mere St. Vitus' dance, when he saw her at nightfall Go through the rain to fetch peat, through beating rain to the peat stack? How too a dance, as it happened, was given by Grant of Glenurchie, And with the farmer they went as the farmer's guests to attend it, Philip stayed dancing till daylight, — and evermore with Katie ; How the whole next afternoon he was with her away in the shearing,* And the next morning ensuing was found in the ingle beside her Kneeling, picking the peats from her apron, — blowing to- gether, Both, between laughing, with lips distended, to kindle the embers ; Lips were so near to lips, one living cheek to another, — Though, it Was true, he was shy, very shy, — yet it was n't in nature, * Reaping. 112 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Was n't in nature, the Piper averred, there should n't be kiss- ing ; So when at noon they had packed up the things, and proposed to be starting, Philip professed he was lame, would leave in the morning and follow ; Follow he did not ; do burns when you go up a glen, follow after ? Follow, he had not, nor left ; do needles leave the loadstone ? Nay, they had turned after starting, and looked through the trees at the corner, Lo, on the rocks by the lake there he was, the lassie beside him, Lo, there he was, stooping by her, and helping with stones from the water Safe in the wind to keep down the clothes she would spread for the drying. There had they left him, and there, if Katie was there, was Philip, There drying clothes, making fires, making love, getting on too by this time, Though he was shy, so exceedingly shy. You may say so, said Arthur, For the first time they had known with a peevish intonation, — Did not the Piper himself flirt more in a single evening, Namely, with Janet the elder, than Philip in all our sojourn ? Philip had stayed, it was true ; the Piper was loath to depart too, Harder his parting from Janet than e'en from the keeper at Bal- loch; And it was certain that Philip was lame. Yes,' in his excuses, Answered the Piper, indeed ! — The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 113 But tell me, said Hobbes interposing, Did you not say she was seen every day in her beauty and bed- gown Doing plain household work, as washing, cooking, scouring ? How could he help but love her ? nor lacked there perhaps the attraction That in a blue cotton print tucked up over striped linsey-wool- sey, Barefoot, barelegged, he beheld her, with arms bare up to the elbows, Bending with fork in her hand in a garden uprooting potatoes ? Is not Katie as Rachel, and is not Philip a Jacob ? Truly Jacob, supplanting an hairy Highland Esau ? Shall he not, love-entertained, feed sheep for the Laban of Ran- noch ? Patriarch happier he, the long servitude ended of wooing, If when he wake in the morning he find not a Leah beside him ! But the Tutor enquired, who had bit his lip to bleeding, How far ofF is the place ? who will guide me thither to-morrow ? But by the mail, ere the morrow, came Hope, and brought new tidings ; Round by Rannoch had come, and Philip was not at Rannoch ; He had left that noon, an hour ago. With the lassie? With her ? the Piper exclaimed, Undoubtedly ! By great Jingo ! And upon that he arose, slapping both his thighs, like a hero, Partly, for emphasis only, to mark his conviction, but also Part, in delight at the fun, and the joy of eventful living. Hope could n't tell him, of course, but thought it improbable wholly ; Janet, the Piper's friend, he had seen, and she did n't say so, 1 1 14 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Though she asked a good deal about Philip, and where he was gone to : One odd thing by the bye, he continued, befell me while with her; Standing beside her, I saw a girl pass ; I thought I had seen her, Somewhat remarkable-looking, elsewhere ; and asked what her name was ; Elspie Mackaye, was the answer, the daughter of David ! she 's stopping Just above here, with her uncle. And David Mackaye, where lives he? It *s away west, she said, they call it Tober-na-vuolich. The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 1 1 5 IV Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error So in the golden weather they waited. But Philip returned not. Sunday six days thence a letter arrived in his writing. — But, O Muse, that encompassest Earth like the ambient ether, Swifter than steamer or railway or magical missive electric, Belting like Ariel the sphere with the star-like trail of thy travel, Thou with thy Poet, to mortals mere post-office second-hand knowledge Leaving, wilt seek in the moorland of Rannoch the wandering hero. There is it, there, or in the lofty Lochaber, where, silent up- heaving, Heaving from ocean to sky, and under snow-winds of Septem- ber, Visibly whitening at morn to darken by noon in the shining, Rise on their mighty foundations the brethren huge of Ben-nevis? There, or westward away, where roads are unknown to Loch Nevish, And the great peaks look abroad over Skye to the westernmost is- lands ? There is it ? there ? or there ? we shall find our wandering hero ? Here, in Badenoch, here, in Lochaber anon, in Lochiel, in Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan, Here I see him and here : I see him ; anon I lose him ! Even as cloud passing subtly unseen from mountain to mountain, Il6 The Bothie ofTober-Na Vuolich Leaving the crest of Ben-more to be palpable next on Ben-vohr- lich, Or like to hawk of the hill which ranges and soars in its hunting, Seen and unseen by turns, now here, now in ether eludent. Wherefore as cloud of Ben-more or hawk over-ranging the mountains, Wherefore in Badenoch drear, in lofty Lochaber, Lochiel, and Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan, Wandereth he, who should either with Adam be studying logic, Or by the lochside of Rannoch on Katie his rhetoric using; He who, his three weeks past, past now long ago, to the cottage Punctual promised return to cares of classes and classics, He, who smit to the heart by that youngest comeliest daughter, Bent, unregardful of spies, at her feet, spreading clothes from her wash-tub ? Can it be with him through Badenoch, Morrer, and Ardna- murchan, Can it be with him he beareth the golden-haired lassie of Rannoch ? This fierce, furious walking — o'er mountain-top and moor- land, Sleeping in shieling and bothie, with drover on hill-side sleep- ing, Folded in plaid, where sheep are strewn thicker than rocks by Loch Awen, This fierce, furious travel unwearying — cannot in truth be Merely the wedding tour succeeding the week of wooing! No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not ; I see him, Lo, and he sitteth alone, and these are his words in the moun- tain. Spirits escaped from the body can enter and be with the living, The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 117 Entering unseen, and retiring unquestioned, they bring, — do they feel too ? — Joy, pure joy, as they mingle and mix inner essence with essence ; Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! Is it impossible, say you, these passionate, fervent impulsions, These projections of spirit to spirit, these inward embraces, Should in strange ways, in her dreams should visit her, strengthen her, shield her ? Is it possible, rather, that these great floods of feeling Setting-in daily from me towards her should, impotent wholly, Bring neither sound nor motion to that sweet shore they heave to? Efflux here, and there no stir nor pulse of influx ! Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her. No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not : behold, for Here he is sitting alone, and these are his words in the moun- tain. And, at the farm on the lochside of Rannoch in parlour and kitchen Hark ! there is music — the flowing of music, of milk, and of whiskey ; Lo, I see piping and dancing ! and whom in the midst of the battle Cantering loudly along there, or, look you, with arms uplifted Whistiing, and snapping his fingers, and seizing his gay-smiling Janet, Whom ? — whom else but the Piper ? the wary precognizant Piper, Who, for the love of gay Janet, and mindful of old invitation, 1 1 8 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Putting it quite as a duty and urging grave claims to attention, True to his night had crossed over : there goeth he, brimfull of music, Like to cork tossed by the eddies that foam under furious lasher, Like to skiff lifted, uplifted, in lock, by the swift-swelling sluices, So with the music possessing him, swaying him, goeth he, look you, Swinging and flinging, and stamping and tramping, and grasping and clasping Whom but gay Janet ? — Him, rivalling Hobbes, briefest-kilted of heroes, Enters, O stoutest, O rashest of creatures, mere fool of a Saxon, Skill-less of philabeg, skill-less of reel too, — the whirl and the twirl o't : Him see I frisking, and whisking, and ever at swifter gyration Under brief curtain revealing broad acres — not of broad cloth. Him see I there and the Piper — the Piper what vision beholds not ? Him and His Honour and Arthur, with Janet our Piper, and is it, Is it, O marvel of marvels ! he too in the maze of the mazy, Skipping, and tripping, though stately, though languid, with head on one shoulder, Airlie, with sight of the waistcoat the golden-haired Katie con- soling ? Katie, who simple and comely, and smiling and blushing as ever, What though she wear on that neck a blue kerchief remembered as Philip's, Seems in her maidenly freedom to need small consolement of waistcoats ! — Wherefore in Badenoch then, far-away, in Lochaber, Lochiel, in The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 119 Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, or Ardnamurchan, Wanders o'er mountain and moorland, in shieling or bothie is sleeping, He, who, — and why should he not then ? capricious ? or is it rejected ? Might to the piping of Rannoch be pressing the thrilling fair fingers, Might, as he clasped her, transmit to her bosom the throb of his own, — yea, — Might in the joy of the reel be wooing and winning his Katie ? What is it Adam reads far off by himself in the Cottage ? Reads yet again with emotion, again is preparing to answer ? What is it Adam is reading ? What was it, Philip had written ? There was it writ, how Philip possessed undoubtedly had been, Deeply, entirely possessed by the charm of the maiden of Ran- noch ; Deeply as never before ! how sweet and bewitching he felt her Seen still before him at work, in the garden, the byre, the kitchen ; How it was beautiful to him to stoop at her side in the shearing, Binding uncouthly the ears, that fell from her dexterous sickle, Building uncouthly the stooks*, which she laid-by her sickle to straighten ; How at the dance he had broken through shyness ; for four days after Lived on her eyes, unspeaking what lacked not articulate speaking ; Felt too that she too was feeling what he did. — Howbeit they parted ! How by a kiss from her lips he had seemed made nobler and stronger, * Shoeks. 120 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolkh Yea, for the first time in life a man complete and perfect, So forth ! much that before has been heard of. — Howbeit they parted. What had ended it all, he said, was singular, very. — I was walking along some two miles off from the cottage Full of my dreamings — a girl went by in a party with others ; She had a cloak on,was stepping on quickly, for rain was beginning ; But as she passed, from her hood I saw her eyes look at me. So quick a glance, so regardless I, that although I had felt it, You could n't properly say our eyes met. She cast it, and left it : It was three minutes perhaps ere I knew what it was. I had seen her Somewhere before I am sure, but that was n't it ; not its import : No, it had seemed to regard me with simple superior insight, Quietly saying to itself — Yes, there he is still in his fancy, Letting drop from him at random as things not worth his con- sidering All the benefits gathered and put in his hands by fortune, Loosing a hold which others, contented and unambitious, Trying down here to keep-up, know the value of better than he does. Was it this ? was it perhaps ? — Yes, there he is still in his fancy, Does n't yet see we have here just the things he is used-to else- where ; People here too are people, and not as fairy-land creatures ; He is in a trance, and possessed ; I wonder how long to con- tinue ; It is a shame and a pity— and no good likely to follow. — Something like this, but indeed I cannot attempt to define it. Only, three hours thence I was off" and away in the moorland, Hiding myself from myself if I could ; the arrow within me. The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 121 Katie was not in the house, thank God : T saw her in passing, Saw her, unseen myself, with the pang of a cruel desertion ; What she thinks about it, God knows ; poor child ; may she only Think me a fool and a madman, and no more worth her remem- bering. Meantime all through the mountains I hurry and know not whither, Tramp along here, and think, and know not what I should think. Tell me then, why, as I sleep amid hill- tops high in the moor- land, Still in my dreams I am pacing the streets of the dissolute city, Where dressy girls slithering-by upon pavements give sign for accosting, Paint on their beautiless cheeks, and hunger and shame in their bosoms ; Hunger by drink, and by that which they shudder yet burn for, appeasing, — Hiding their shame — ah God ! — in the glare of the public gas- lights ? Why, while I feel my ears catching through slumber the run of the streamlet, Still am I pacing the pavement, and seeing the sign for accosting, Still am I passing those figures, nor daring to look in their faces ? Why, when the chill, ere the light, of the daybreak uneasily wakes me, Find I a cry in my heart crying up to the heaven of heavens, No, Great Unjust Judge ! she is purity ; I am the lost one. You will not think that I soberly look for such things for sweet Katie ; No, but the vision is on me ; I now first see how it happens, Feel how tender and soft is the heart of a girl ; how passive 1 22 The Bothle of Tober-Na-Vuolich Fain would it be, how helpless; and helplessness leads to de- struction. Maiden reserve torn from off it, grows never again to reclothe it, Modesty broken -through once to immodesty flies for protection. Oh, who saws through the trunk, though he leave the tree up in the forest, When the next wind casts it down, — is bis not the hand that smote it? This is the answer, the second, which, pondering long with emotion, There by himself in the cottage the Tutor addressed to Philip. I have perhaps been severe, dear Philip, and hasty ; forgive me ; For I was fain to reply ere I wholly had read through your letter ; And it was written in scraps with crossings and counter-crossings Hard to connect with each other correctly, and hard to decipher ; Paper was scarce, I suppose: forgive me; I write to console you. Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market ; Knowledge needful for all, yet cannot be had for the asking. There are exceptional beings, one finds them distant and rarely, Who, endowed with the vision alike and the interpretation, See, by their neighbours' eyes and their own still motions en- lightened, In the beginning the end, in the acorn the oak of the forest, In the child of to-day its children to long generations, In a thought or a wish a life, a drama, an epos. There are inheritors, is it ? by mystical generation Heiring the wisdom and ripeness of spirits gone-by ; without labour Owning what others by doing and suffering earn ; what old TheBothieofTober-Na-Vuolich 123 After long years of mistake and erasure are proud to have come to, Sick with mistake and erasure possess when possession is idle. Rare is this ; wisdom mostly is bought for a price in the market ; — Rare is this ; and happy, who buy so much for so little, As I conceive have you, and as I will hope has Katie. Knowledge is needful for man, — needful no less for woman, Even in Highland glens, were they vacant of shooter and tourist. Women are weak, as you say, and love of all things to be passive, Passive, patient, receptive, yea, even of wrong and misdoing, Even to force and misdoing with joy and victorious feeling Passive, patient, receptive ; for that is the strength of their being, Like to the earth taking all things and all to good converting. Oh 't is a snare indeed ! — Moreover, remember it, Philip, To the prestige of the richer the lowly are prone to be yielding, Think that in dealing with them they are raised to a different region, Where old laws and morals are modified, lost, exist not ; Ignorant they as they are, they have but to conform and be yielding. But I have spoken of this already, and need not repeat it. You will not now run after what merely attracts and entices, Every-day things highly coloured, and common-place carved and gilded. You will henceforth seek only the good : and seek it, Philip, Where it is — not more abundant perhaps, but — more easily met with ; Where you are surer to find it, less likely to run into error, In your station, not thinking about it, but not disregarding. So was the letter completed : a postscript afterward added, 124 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Telling the tale that was told by the dancers returning from Rannoch. So was the letter completed : but query, whither to send it ? Not for the will of the wisp, the cloud, and the hawk of the moorland, Ranging afar thro' Lochaber, Lochiel, and Knoydart, and Moy- dart, Have even latest extensions adjusted a postal arrangement. Query resolved very shortly, when Hope, from his chamber de- scending, Came with a note in his hand from the Lady, his aunt, at the Castle ; Came and revealed the contents of a missive that brought strange tidings ; Came and announced to the friends in a voice that was husky with wonder, Philip was staying at Balloch, was there in the room with the Countess, Philip to Balloch had come and was dancing with Lady Maria. Philip at Balloch, he said, after all that stately refusal, He there at last — O strange ! O marvel, marvel of marvels ! Airlie, the Waistcoat, with Katie, we left him this morning at Rannoch ; Airlie with Katie, he said, and Philip with Lady Maria. And amid laughter Adam paced up and down, repeating Over and over, unconscious, the phrase which Hope had lent him, Dancing at Balloch, you say, in the Castle, with Lady Maria. The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuollch 125 V • Putavi Stultus ego huic nostrce similem So in the cottage with Adam the pupils five together Duly remained, and read, and looked no more for Philip, Philip at Balloch shooting and dancing with Lady Maria. Breakfast at eight, and now, for brief September daylight, Luncheon at two, and dinner at seven, or even later, Five full hours between for the loch and the glen and the moun- tain, — So in the joy of their life and glory of shooting-jackets, So they read and roamed, the pupils five with Adam. What if autumnal shower came frequent and chill from the westward, What if on browner sward with yellow leaves besprinkled Gemming the crispy blade, the delicate gossamer gemming, Frequent and thick lay at morning the chilly beads of hoar- frost, Duly in matutine still, and daily, whatever the weather, Bathed in the rain and the frost and the mist with the Glory of headers Hope. Thither also at times, of cold and of possible gutters Careless, unmindful, unconscious, would Hobbes, or e'er they departed, Come, in heavy pea-coat his trouserless trunk enfolding, Come, under coat over-brief those lusty legs displaying, All from the shirt to the slipper the natural man revealing. Duly there they bathed and daily, the twain or the trio, 126 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Where in the morning was custom, where over a ledge of granite Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended ; Beautiful, very, to gaze-in ere plunging; beautiful also, Perfect as picture, as vision entrancing that comes to the sightless, Through the great granite jambs the stream, the glen, and the mountain, Beautiful, seen by snatches in intervals of dressing, Morn after morn, unsought for, recurring; themselves too seeming Not as spectators, accepted into it, immingled, as truly Part of it as are the kine in the field lying there by the birches. So they bathed, they read, they roamed in glen and forest; Far amid blackest pines to the waterfalls they shadow, Far up the long, long glen to the loch, and the loch beyond it, Deep under huge red cliffs, a secret : and oft by the starlight, Or the aurora perchance, racing home for the eight o'clock mutton. So they bathed, and read, and roamed in heathery Highland ; There in the joy of their life and glory of shooting jackets Bathed and read and roamed, and looked no more for Philip. List to a letter that came from Philip at Balloch to Adam. I am here, O my friend ! — idle, but learning wisdom. Doing penance, you think ; content, if so, in my penance. Often I find myself saying, while watching in dance or on horseback One that is here, in her freedom, and grace, and imperial sweetness, Often I find myself saying, old faith and doctrine abjuring, Into the crucible casting philosophies, facts, convictions, — The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolkh 127 Were it not well that the stem should be naked of leaf and of tendril, Poverty-stricken, the barest, the dismallest stick of the garden ; Flowerless, leafless, unlovely, for ninety -and-nine long summers, So in the hundredth, at last, were bloom for one day at the summit, So but that fleeting flower were lovely as Lady Maria. Often I find myself saying, and know not myself as I say it, What of the poor and the weary? their labour and pain is needed. Perish the poor and the weary! what can they better than perish, Perish in labour for her, who is worth the destruction of empires What ! for a mite, or a mote, an impalpable odour of honour, Armies shall bleed ; cities burn ; and the soldier red from the storming Carry hot rancour and lust into chambers of mothers and daughters : What! would ourselves for the cause of an hour encounter the battle, Slay and be slain ; lie rotting in hospital, hulk, and prison ; Die as a dog dies ; die mistaken perhaps, and dishonoured. Yea, — and shall hodmen in beer-shops complain of a glory denied them, Which could not ever be theirs more than now it is theirs as spectators ? Which could not be, in all earth, if it were not for labour of hodmen ? And I find myself saying, and what I am saying, discern not, Dig in thy deep dark prison, O miner ! and finding be thankful ; 128 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Though unpolished by thee, unto thee unseen in perfection, While thou art eating black bread in the poisonous air of thy cavern, Far away glitters the gem on the peerless neck of a Princess, Dig, and starve, and be thankful; it is so, and thou hast been aiding. Often I find myself saying, in irony is it, or earnest ? Yea, what is more, be rich, O ye rich ! be sublime in great houses, Purple and delicate linen endure ; be of Burgundy patient ; Suffer that service be done you, permit of the page and the valet, Vex not your souls with annoyance of charity schools or of districts, Cast not to swine of the stye the pearls that should gleam in your foreheads. Live, be lovely, forget them, be beautiful even to proudness, Even for their poor sakes whose happiness is to behold you ; Live, be uncaring, be joyous, be sumptuous ; only be lovely, — Sumptuous not for display, and joyous, not for enjoyment ; Not for enjoyment truly ; for Beauty and God's great glory ! Yes, and I say, and it seems inspiration — of Good or of Evil ! Is it not He that hath done it and who shall dare gainsay it ? Is it not even of Him, who hath made us ? — Yea, for the lions, Roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from God! — Is it not even of Him, who one kind over another All the works of His hand hath disposed in a wonderful order ? Who hath made man, as the beasts, to live the one on the other, Who hath made man as Himself to know the law — and accept it! You will wonder at this, no doubt ! I also wonder ! But we must live and learn ; we can 't know all things at twenty. List to a letter of Hobbes to Philip his friend at Balloch. The Both'ie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 129 All Cathedrals are Christian, all Christians are Cathedrals, Such is the Catholic doctrine ; 't is ours with a slight variation ; Every woman is, or ought to be, a Cathedral, Built on the ancient plan, a Cathedral pure and perfect, Built by that only law, that Use be suggester of Beauty, Nothing concealed that is done, but all things done to adornment, Meanest utilities seized as occasions to grace and embellish. — So had I duly commenced in the spirit and style of my Philip, So had I formally opened the Treatise upon the Laws of Architectural Beauty in Application to Women, So had I writ. — But my fancies are palsied by tidings they tell me. Tidings — ah me, can it be then? that I, the blasphemer ac- counted, Here am with reverent heed at the wondrous Analogy working, Pondering thy words and thy gestures, whilst thou, a prophet apostate, (How are the mighty fallen !) whilst thou, a shepherd travestie, (How are the mighty fallen !) with gun, — with pipe no longer, Teachest the woods to re-echo thy game-killing recantations, Teachest thy verse to exalt Amaryllis, a Countess's daughter ? What, thou forgettest, bewildered my Master, that rightly con- sidered Beauty must ever be useful, what truly is useful is graceful ? She that is handy is handsome, good dairy-maids must be good- looking, If but the butter be nice, the tournure of the elbow is shapely, If the cream-cheeses be white, far whiter the hands that made them, If — but alas, is it true ? while the pupil alone in the cottage Slowly elaborates here thy System of Feminine Graces, Thou in the palace, its author, art dining, small-talking and dancing, 130 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Dancing and pressing the fingers kid-gloved of a Lady Maria. These are the final words, that came to the Tutor from Bal- loch. I am conquered, it seems ! you will meet me, I hope, in Oxford, Altered in manners and mind. I yield to the laws and arrange- ments, Yield to the ancient existent decrees : who am I to resist them ? Yes, you will find me altered in mind, I think, as in manners, Anxious too to atone for six weeks' loss of your Logic. So in the cottage with Adam, the Pupils five together, Read, and bathed, and roamed, and thought not now of Philip, All in the joy of their life, and glory of shooting-jackets. The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 131 VI Ducite ah urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin Bright October was come, the misty-bright October, Bright October was come to burn and glen and cottage ; But the cottage was empty, the matutine deserted. Who are these that walk by the shore of the salt sea water? Here in the dusky eve, on the road by the salt sea water ? Who are these ? and where ? it is no sweet seclusion ; Blank hill-sides slope down to a salt sea loch at their bases, Scored by runnels, that fringe ere they end with rowan and alder ; Cottages here and there outstanding bare on the mountain, Peat-roofed, windowless, white; the road underneath by the water. There on the blank hill-side, looking down through the loch to the ocean, There with a runnel beside, and pine-trees twain before it, There with the road underneath, and in sight of coaches and steamers, Dwelling of David Mackaye and his daughters Elspie and Bella, Sends up a column of smoke the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich. And of the older twain, the elder was telling the younger, How on his pittance of soil he lived, and raised potatoes, Barley, and oats, in the bothie where lived his father before him ; Yet was smith by trade, and had travelled making horse shoes Far ; in the army had seen some service with brave Sir Hector, Wounded soon, and discharged, disabled as smith and soldier ; 132 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich He had been many things since that, — drover, schoolmaster, Whitesmith, — but when his brother died childless came up hither ; And although he could get fine work that would pay, in the city, Still was fain to abide where his father abode before him. And the lassies are bonnie, — I'm father and mother to them, — Bonnie and young ; they're healthier here, I judge, and safer : I myself find time for their reading, writing, and learning. So on the road they walk by the shore of the salt sea water, Silent a youth and maid, and elders twain conversing. This was the letter that came when Adam was leaving the cottage. If you can manage to see me before going off to Dartmoor, Come by Tuesday's coach through Glencoe (you have not seen it), Stop at the ferry below, and ask your way (you will wonder, There however I am) to the Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich. And on another scrap, of next day's date, was written : It was by accident purely I lit on the place ; I was returning, Quietly, travelling homeward by one of these wretched coaches ; One of the horses cast a shoe ; and a farmer passing Said, Old David's your man ; a clever fellow at shoeing Once ; just here by the firs ; they call it Tober-na-vuolich. So I saw and spoke with David Mackaye, our acquaintance. When we came to the journey's end, some five miles farther, In my unoccupied evening I walked back again to the bothie. But on a final crossing, still later in date, was added : Come as soon as you can ; be sure and do not refuse me. Who would have guessed I should find my haven and end of my travel, Here, by accident too, in the bothie we laughed about so ? The Both ie of Tober- Na-Vuolich 133 Who would have guessed that here would be she whose glance at Rannoch Turned me in that mysterious way ; yes, angels conspiring, Slowly drew me, conducted me, home, to herself; the needle Which in the shaken compass flew hither and thither, at last, long Quivering, poises to north. I think so. But I am cautious ; More, at least, than I was in the old silly days when I left you. Not at the bothie now; at the changehouse in the clachan ;* Why I delay my letter is more than I can tell you. There was another scrap, without or date or comment, Dotted over with various observations, as follows : Only think, I had danced with her twice, and did not remember. I was as one that sleeps on the railway ; one, who dreaming Hears thro' his dream the name of his home shouted out ; hears and hears not, — Faint, and louder again, and less loud, dying in distance ; Dimly conscious, with something of inward debate and choice, — and Sense of claim and reality present, anon relapses Nevertheless, and continues the dream and fancy, while for- ward Swiftly, remorseless, the car presses on, he knows not whither. Handsome who handsome is, who handsome does is more so ; Pretty is all very pretty, it 's prettier far to be useful. No, fair Lady Maria, I say not that ; but I will say, Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered, Interchange of service the law and condition of Beauty : Any way beautiful only to be the thing one is meant for. I, I am sure, for the sphere of mere ornament am not intended : No, nor she, I think, thy sister at Tober-na-vuolich. * Public-house in the hamlet. 1 34 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich This was the letter of Philip, and this had brought the Tutor : This is why tutor and pupil are walking with David and Elspie. — When for the night they part, and these, once more together, Went by the lochside along to the changehouse near in the clachan, Thus to his pupil anon commenced the grave man Adam. Yes, she is beautiful, Philip, beautiful even as morning : Yes, it is that which I said, the Good and not the Attractive ! Happy is he that finds, and finding does not leave it ! Ten more days did Adam with Philip abide at the change- house, Ten more nights they met, they walked with father and daughter. Ten more nights, and night by night more distant away were Philip and she ; every night less heedful, by habit, the father. Happy ten days, most happy ; and, otherwise than intended, Fortunate visit of Adam, companion and friend to David. Happy ten days, be ye fruitful of happiness ! Pass o'er them slowly, Slowly ; like cruise of the prophet be multiplied, even to ages ! Pass slowly o'er them ye days of October ; ye soft misty morn- ings, Long dusky eves ; pass slowly ; and thou great Term-Time of Oxford, Awful with lectures and books, and Little-goes and Great-goes, Till but the sweet bud be perfect, recede and retire for the lovers, Yea, for the sweet love of lovers, postpone thyself even to dooms- day ! Pass o'er them slowly, ye hours ! Be with them ye Loves and Graces ! The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 135 Indirect and evasive no longer, a cowardly bather, Clinging to bough and to rock, and sidling along by the edges, In your faith, ye Muses and Graces, who love the plain present, Scorning historic abridgement and artifice anti-poetic, In your faith, ye Muses and Loves, ye Loves and Graces, I will confront the great peril, and speak with the mouth of the lovers, As they spoke by the alders, at evening, the runnel below them, Elspie a diligent knitter, and Philip her fingers watching. 136 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Fuolich VII Vesper ddest,juvenes, consurgite ; Vesper Olympo Expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not her blushes, Elspie confessed at the sports long ago with her father she saw him, When at the door the old man had told him the name of the bothie ; There after that at the dance ; yet again at a dance in Rannoch — And she was silent, confused. Confused much rather Philip Buried his face in his hands, his face that with blood was burst- ing. Silent, confused, yet by pity she conquered her fear, and con- tinued. Katie is good and not silly ; be comforted, Sir, about her ; Katie is good and not silly ; tender, but not like many Carrying off, and at once for fear of being seen, in the bosom Locking-up as in a cupboard the pleasure that any man gives them, Keeping it out of sight as a prize they need be ashamed of; That is the way I think, Sir, in England, more than in Scotland ; No, she lives and takes pleasure in all, as in beautiful weather, Sorry to lose it, but just as we would be to lose fine weather. And she is strong to return to herself and feel undeserted, Oh, she is strong, and not silly ; she thinks no further about you; She has had kerchiefs before from gentle, I know, as from simple. The Bothle of Tober-Na-Vuolich 1 3 7 Yes, she is good and not silly ; yet were you wrong, Mr. Philip, Wrong, for yourself perhaps more than for her. But Philip replied not, Raised not his eyes from the hands on his knees. And Elspie continued. That was what gave me much pain, when I met you that dance at Rannoch, Dancing myself too with you, while Katie danced with Donald ; That was what gave me such pain ; I thought it all a mistaking, All a mere chance, you know, and accident, — not proper choos- ing,— There were at least five or six — not there, no, that I don 't say, But in the country about, — you might just as well have been courting. That was what gave me much pain, and (you won't remember that, though,) Three days after, I met you, beside my uncle's, walking, And I was wondering much, and hoped you would n 't notice, So as I passed I could n *X help looking. You did n *k know me. But I was glad, when I heard next day you were gone to the teacher. And uplifting his face at last, with eyes dilated, Large as great stars in mist, and dim, with dabbled lashes, Philip with new tears starting, You think I do not remember, Said, — suppose that I did not observe ! Ah me, shall I tell you ? Elspie, it was your look that sent me away from Rannoch. It was your glance, that, descending, an instant revelation, Showed me where I was, and whitherward going ; recalled me, Sent me, not to my books, but to wrestlings of thought in the mountains. Yes, I have carried your glance within me undimmed, unaltered, 138 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich As a lost boat the compass some passing ship has lent her, Many a weary mile on road, and hill and moorland : And you suppose, that I do not remember, I had not observed it ! O, did the sailor bewildered observe when they told him his bearings ? O, did he cast overboard, when they parted, the compass they gave him? And, he continued more firmly, although with stronger emo- tion : Elspie, why should I speak it? you cannot believe it, and should not : Why should I say that I love, which I all but said to another! Yet should I dare, should I say, O Elspie, you only I love ; you, First and sole in my life that has been and surely that shall be ; Could — O, could you believe it, O Elspie, believe it and spurn not! Is it — possible, — possible, Elspie? Well, — she answered, And she was silent some time, and blushed all over, and answered Quietly, after her fashion, still knitting, Maybe, I think of it, Though I do n't know that I did : and she paused again ; but it may be, Yes, — I don't know, Mr. Philip, — but only it feels to me strangely Like to the high new bridge, they used to build at, below there, Over the burn and glen on the road. You won't understand me. But I keep saying in my mind — this long time slowly with trouble I have been building myself, up, up, and toilfully raising, Just like as if the bridge were to do it itself without masons, Painfully getting myself upraised one stone on another, All one side I mean ; and now I see on the other The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 139 Just such another fabric uprising, better and stronger, Close to me, coming to join me : and then I sometimes fancy, — Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and bridges, — Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down, and Dropping the great key-stone in the middle : there in my dream- ing, There I feel the great key-stone coming in, and through it Feel the other part — all the other stones of the archway, Joined into mine with a strange happy sense of completeness. But, dear me, This is confusion and nonsense. I mix all the things I can think of. And you won't understand, Mr. Philip. But while she was speaking, So it happened, a moment she paused from her work, and, pon- dering, Laid her hand on her lap : Philip took it : she did not resist : So he retained her fingers, the knitting being stopped. But emotion Came all over her more and yet more from his hand, from her heart, and Most from the sweet idea and image her brain was renewing. So he retained her hand, and, his tears down-dropping on it, Trembling a long time, kissed it at last. And she ended. And as she ended, uprose he ; saying, What have I heard ! Oh, What have I done, that such words should be said to me ! Oh, I see it, See the great key-stone coming down from the heaven of heavens, And he fell at her feet, and buried his face in her apron. But as under the moon and stars they went to the cottage, Elspie sighed and said, Be patient, dear Mr. Philip, 140 The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich Do not do anything hasty. It is all so soon, so sudden. Do not say anything yet to any one. Elspie, he answered, Does not my friend go on Friday ? I then shall see nothing of you J Do not I go myself on Monday ? But oh, he said, Elspie ; Do as I bid you, my child ; do not go on calling me Mr. ; Might I not just as well be calling you Miss Elspie ? Call me, this heavenly night, for once, for the first time, Philip. Philip, she said and laughed, and said she could not say it ; Philip, she said ; he turned, and kissed the sweet lips as they said it. But on the morrow Elspie kept out of the way of Philip : And at the evening seat, when he took her hand by the alders, Drew it back, saying, almost peevishly, No, Mr. Philip, I was quite right, last night ; it is too soon, too sudden. What I told you before was foolish perhaps, was hasty. When I think it over, I am shocked and terrified at it. Not that at all I unsay it ; that is, I know I said it, And when I said it, felt it. But oh, we must wait, Mr. Philip ! We must n't pull ourselves at the great key-stone of the centre : Some one else up above must hold it, fit it, and fix it ; If we try ourselves we shall only damage the archway, Damage all our own work that we wrought, our painful up- building. When, you remember, you took my hand last evening, talking, I was all over a tremble : and as you pressed the fingers After, and afterwards kissed it, I could not speak. And then, too, As we went home, you kissed me for saying your name. It was dreadful. The Bothie ofTober-Na-Vuolich 141 I have been kissed before, she added, blushing slightly, I have been kissed more than once by Donald my cousin, and others ; It is the way of the lads, and I make up my mind not to mind it ; But Mr. Philip, last night, and from you, it was different quite, Sir. When I think of all that, I am shocked and terrified at it. Yes, it is dreadful to me. She paused, but quickly continued, Smiling almost fiercely, continued, looking upward. You are too strong, you see, Mr. Philip ! just like the sea there, Which will come, through the straits and all between the moun- tains, Forcing its great strong tide into every nook and inlet, Getting far in, up the quiet stream of sweet inland water, Sucking it up, and stopping it, turning it, driving it backward, Quite preventing its own quiet running : And then, soon after, Back it goes off, leaving weeds on the shore, and wrack and un- cleanness : And the poor burn in the glen tries again its peaceful running, But it is brackish and tainted, and all its banks in disorder. That was what I dreamt all last night. I was the burnie, Trying to get along through the tyrannous brine, and could not ; I was confined and squeezed in the coils of the great salt tide, that Would mix-in itself with me, and change me; I felt myself changing ; And I struggled, and screamed, I believe, in my dream. It was dreadful. You are too strong, Mr. Philip ! I am but a poor slender burnie, Used to the glens and the rocks, the rowan and birch of the woodies, 142 The Bothte of Tober-Na-Vuolich Quite unused to the great salt sea ; quite afraid and unwilling. Ere she had spoken two words, had Philip released her fin- gers : As she went on, he recoiled, fell back, and shook, and shivered ; There he stood, looking pale and ghastly ; when she had ended, Answering in hollow voice, It is true ; oh quite true, Elspie ; Oh, you are always right ; oh, what, what have I been doing ! I will depart to-morrow. But oh, forget me not wholly, Wholly, Elspie, nor hate me, no, do not hate me, my Elspie. But a revulsion passed through the brain and bosom of Elspie ; And she got up from her seat on the rock, putting by her knit- ting; Went to him, where he stood, and answered : No, Mr. Philip, No, you are good, Mr. Philip, and gentle ; and I am the fool- ish: No, Mr. Philip, forgive me. She stepped right to him, and boldly Took up his hand, and placed it in hers ; he daring no move- ment; Took up the cold hanging hand, up-forcing the heavy elbow. I am afraid, she said, but I will ! and kissed the fingers. And he fell on his knees and kissed her own past counting. But a revulsion wrought in the brain and bosom of Elspie ; And the passion she just had compared to the vehement ocean, Urging in high spring-tide its masterful way through the moun- tains, Forcing and flooding the silvery stream, as it runs from the in- land; That great power withdrawn, receding here and passive, The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich 143 Felt she in myriad springs, her sources far in the mountains, Stirring, collecting, rising, upheaving, forth-outflowing, Taking and joining, right welcome, that delicate rill in the valley, Filling it, making it strong, and still descending, seeking, With a blind forefeeling descending ever, and seeking, With a delicious forefeeling, the great still sea before it ; There deep into it, far, to carry, and lose in its bosom, Waters that still from their sources exhaustless are fain to be added. As he was kissing her fingers, and knelt on the ground before her, Yielding backward she sank to her seat, and of what she was doing Ignorant, bewildered, in sweet multitudinous vague emotion, Stooping, knowing not what, put her lips to the hair on his fore- head : And Philip, raising himself, gently, for the first time, round her Passing his arms, close, close, enfolded her, close to his bosom. As they went home by the moon, Forgive me, Philip, she whispered ; I have so many things to think of, all of a sudden ; I who had never once thought a thing, — in my ignorant High- lands. 144 The Bothle of Tober-Na-Vuolich VIII Jam veniet virgo, jam dicetur hymen cloth, 10s. 6d " Since ' tlie Mill on the Floss was noticed, we have read no work of fiction which we can so heartily recommend to our readers as * A Lady in her own Right : ' the plot, incidents, and characters are all good : the style is simple and graceful ; it abounds in thoughts judiciously introduced and well expressed, and throughout a kind, liberal, and gentle spirit "—Church of England Monthly Review, 12 MACMILLAN AND CO.'S LIST OF MEMOIR OF THE REV. GEORGE WAGNEE LATE OF ST. STEPHEN'S, BRIGHTON. BY J. % SIMPKINSON, M.A. RECTOR OP BRINGTON, NORTHAMPTON. Third and Cheaper Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 5s. " A deeply interesting picture of the life of one of a class of men who are indeed the salt of tl land."— Morning Herald, "A biography of rare excellence, and adapted to foster in young minds that sense of duty ai spirit of self-sacrifice which are always the attendants of true conversion, but are seldom obey and cherished as by George Wagner." — Wesleyan Times. THE PRISON CHAPLAIN; A MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN CLAY, LATE CHAPLAIN OF PRESTON GAOL. WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE, AND A SKETCH OF PRISO DISCIPLINE IN ENGLAND. BY HIS SON. With Portrait. 8vo. cloth, 15s. " It presents a vigorous account of the Penal system in England in past times, and in oi own. ... It exhibits in detail the career of one of our latest prison reformers ; alleged, we belies with truth, to have been one of the most successful, and certainly in his judgments and opinioi one of the most cautious and reasonable, as well as one of the most ardent." — Saturday Review. v It cannot fail to charm by its lucid delineations of a character as happily as it was singular] constituted, and of a life devoted with rare constancy and inestimable results to arduous il requited toil, in the service of humanity." — Daily News. WORKS ADAPTED FOR PRESENTS. 13 WORKS BY THE REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY, CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO THE QUEEN, RECTOR OF EVERSLEV, AND PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. WESTWARD HO! New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, 6s. ** Mr. Kingsley has selected a good subject, and has written a good 'novel to an excellent purpose." — Times. TWO YEARS AGO. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, 6s. M In 'Two Years Ago,' Mr. Kingsley is, as always, genial, large-hearted, and humorous ; with a quick eye and a keen relish alike for what is beautiful in nature and for what is genuine, strong, and earnest in man."— Guardian. ALTON LOCKE, TAILOR AND POET. A NEW EDITION. Extract from New Preface. " I have re-written all that relates to Cambridge ; while I have altered hardly one word in the book beside." %* This Edition will be printed in Crown 8vo. uniform with "Westward Ho ! " &c. and will contain a New Preface. [Immediately. THE HEROES : GREEK FAIRY TALES FOR THE YOUNG. Second Edition, with Illustrations. Royal 16mo. cloth, 5s. ALEXANDRIA AND HER SCHOOLS. Crown 8vo. cloth, 5s. THE LIMITS OE EXACT SCIENCE AS APPLIED TO HISTORY. INAUGURAL LECTURE AT CAMBRIDGE. Crown 8vo» 2s. PHAETHON: LOOSE THOUGHTS FOR LOOSE THINKERS. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s, 14 M ACM ILL AN AND GO:S LIST OF THE KECOLLECTIONS OF GEOFFRY HAMLYN. BY HENRY KINGSLEY. Second Edition, crown 8vo. cloth, 6s. " Mr. Henry Kingsley has written a work that keeps up its interest from the first page to I last— it is full of vigorous stirring life. The descriptions of Australian life in the early color days are marked by an unmistakable touch of reality and personal experience. A book wh the public will be more inolined to read than to criticise, and we commend them to each othe —J thenceum. R AVE N SHOE, A NEW NOVEL BY HENKY KINGSLEY, IS APPEARING MONTHLY IN MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE. u One of the best tales now in progress in our periodicals."— Observer > " Ravenshoe will form, when completed, one of the most beautiful novels extant.' Cambridge Independent. WORKS ADAPTED FOR PRESENTS. 15 CAMBRIDGE SCRAP BOOK. CONTAINING, IN A PICTORIAL FORM, \ REPORT ON THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, HUMOURS, 8c, PASTIMES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. CONTAINING NEARLY THREE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS. Oblong royal 8vo. half-bound, 7s. 6d, UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE. THE VOLUNTEER'S SCRAP BOOK. CONTAINING, IN A PICTORIAL FORM, THE HUMOURS AND EXERCISES OF RIFLEMEN. Oblong royal 8vo. half -bound, 7s. 6d. STRAY NOTES ON FISHING AND NATURAL HISTORY. BY CORNWALL SIMEON. "With Illustrations. 7s. 6d. u If this remarkably agreeable Work does not rival in popularity the celebrated 'White's Selbbrne,' it will not be ecause it does not deserve it . . . the mind is almost satiated with a repletion of strange facts and good things."— -fUld. 44-3 16 WORKS ADAPTED FOR PRESENTS. GARIBALDI AT CAPRERA. BY COLONEL VECCHJ. TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIA! WITH PREFACE BY MRS. GASKELL, AND A VIEW OF THE HOUSE AT CAPRERA. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. [This d NEW VOLUME OF VACATION TOURISTS; OR, NOTES OF TRAVEL IN 186 The Publishers have much pleasure in announcing that in consequence the great success which attended the publication of " Vacation Touris for I860," they hare made arrangements for publishing a Volume of Toi in 1861. This volume will be edited, like the former one, by FRANC GALTON, M.A. F.R.S. The Volume will be ready in the Spring, and * contain, among others, the following : — I. ST. PETERSBURG AND MOSCOW. By the Rev. Archibald Weir. II. THE COUNTRY OF SCHAMYL. By William Marshall. III. THE MONKS OF MOUNT ATHOS. By the Rev. H. Tozer. IV. THE AMAZON AND RIO MADERA. By the Rev. Charles Young. V. SIX WEEKS IN CANADA. By Capt. R. CollinsOn, r.n. c.b. VI. A NATURALIST'S IMPRESSION OF SPAIN. By P. L. Sclater, Sec. to Zoologi Society. VII. GEOLOGICAL NOTES IN AUVERGNE. By Archibald Geikie. VIII. NABLUS AND THE SAMARITANS. By George Grove. IX. CHRISTMAS IN MONTENEGRO. By I. M. Cambnbge : MACMILLAN AND CO. AND 23, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, STonbmt. 1 i '3