LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES RESCUED FROM OBLIVION BY F. W. BAIN III Linkhig twin Worlds, the Temple to the Sprite, •" The cloistered Echo to the Wanderi^ig Voice (/• 47) WITH TWO ILLUSTRATIONS METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.G. LONDON First Published in igig V n To W. P. KER My dear Ker When I had framed my picture, I looked round for somebody to whom I might offer it. Like the Cardinal de Rets looking for the Ditke of Beaufort, I needed a man, who should be ?ny old frietid, who should know good poetry from bad, and whose mother should long ago have known mine : and strange to say, you turned out to be the very tnan required ! To you, therefore, my picture natwally belongs, by a threefold right: you will prize it, on its own account, on mine, and for auld lang syne. Yours, per sanguinem Regis Edvardi I F. W. B, O DIN untoward ! ah ! Voices of the Wood ! Break off! be mule! so might my Nightingale Mourn to her heart's content, and tell a tale Worthy the ear of Orpheus' brotherhood, All, for your chorus, wasted, bad or good : Lost in one roar of hooting, croaks, and howls. Stonedeaf were Heaven, if thanks to frogs or owls We cann'ot listen, even if we would. O Melody, my heart will break in two ! To think, what song these noises let, and smother ! Then slily said an Owl : Tuwhit ! tuwhoo I 'Tis all a pique ! his songstress is his Mother ! And must that echo of the spheres lie hid Because it is my mother's? God forbid! NOTE The Vignette is reproduced from an old and faded photograph of the Author, as she was in 1855, in the quaint old Victorian fashions : she was then about 21. Her son and heir (see p. 61) is in her arms. It is a pure accident, though a very happy one, that the picture recalls a Madonna and Child : for, as the reader will discover, that idea runs through all her poems, as it did through her life. The portrait does not do full justice to her face : as indeed no photograph could ; because, as with all very beautiful faces habitually serious and meditative, it is the smile which gives the charm. But what human being could smile at a camera ? Her hair was very dark, and her eyes were grey. CONTENTS ABOUT MY MOTHER PAGE xix In Town 3 Loneliness 5 The Wayside Rest 7 A Farewell . 9 The Fledgeling lO The Cry 12 In Extremis . 13 Summer Night 14 Voices ■ IS Edenside 17 At Last : 19 Lost Lambs . 21 xu AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES BITTERSWEET- conhnued FACE Spring Greeting • 22 Slipped Away ! 23 March Violets 26 A Street Song 28 A Whisper of Satan 29 Putney Bridge 32 A Counsel of Perfection 34 The Shadow of Death 37 Outside ! . 39 Robin and I 41 A Windy Night 44 Easter Day . 46 Myrrh, Aloes, and Cassia 48 The Links of Nairn 50 My Master . . 53 The Ghost Song 54 In the Night 56 Spoken and Unspoken • 58 Son and Heir . 61 At the Manger . 63 Orange Blossom . 65 CONTENTS Xlll BITTERSWEET— <:<7«//««^flr PAGE The Windflower ..... 66 The Thistle's Tenure » 68 The King 71 Crowsfoot 7Z Carol 76 Wood Sorrel 78 The Dog Rose 80 To a Jargonelle 82 Christmas Analysis . . 8s Going Home 87 January 88 February . 89 March 91 April .... . 92 May . . 94 Snowdrops . 95 The Venture of January 96 November 97 Spring 98 May Song , 100 Spring Fairies , 102 xiv AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES -BITTERSWEET— continued PAGE The Fair Maid of February 104 When March Winds Blow ! 106 Cradle Song . . . . 107 In Memoriam Aug. 17 • 109 Her Favorite Colour no Enfants de Marie . 112 A Christmas Song . 114 Climb ! . . . . 116 St vous Saviez 117 The Isthmus of Suez 118 To my Granddaughter's Hand 120 Rook Sunday . 122 Theotokos . 124 B.C. : A.D. . . 126 Pax! . • . 127 At her Grave . 128 Doubt . 129 The Monk . • 130 A Birthday Sonnet • • 131 Kundry • 132 Old Age . • 134 CONTENTS XV THISTLEDOWN PAGE Bubbles ..... • 137 They Twain ..... • 139 The Popinjay .... . 141 " One Touch of Nature " . . 147 My Grammar of Assent . 150 A Morning Call .... • 153 Blae's Pilgrimage .... . 156 Oily 159 The Squire's Dream . 166 Dogweary ..... 169 Solomon Redivivus . . . . . 171 The Ghastly Confession of Rory O'Moore 172 The Lucky Bairn . . . . . 175 Faith's Miscarriage . . . . . 177 The Cornish Miner . . . . . 181 Out of the Fray . . . . . 184 The Father ...... 186 Moth ....... 188 A Soliloquy ...... 189 In the Purple . . . . . 191 Pique ....... b 193 XVI AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES THISTLEDOWN -confmued PAGE Goodbye ! . • 194 A Blessed Damozel • 195 Primrose Day • 197 A Medal . 198 When Fashions Change . 200 Cupid's Madrigal . 202 A Drawing Room Song . 203 To Ganymede . 205 To • . . 207 Kitten ex machina . . 209 Out of the Depths . . 211 Feast of the Purification . 213 Buried Alive. . 215 The Turnin' o' the Tide . 217 Castle Builders . 218 One of the Old Guard . 220 Apple Blossom 222 The Gardener's Wife . 224 L'Addio . 227 An Ode . 229 The Cricket and the Hear th . 231 CONTENTS • xvii THISTLEDOWN— conhnued PAGE Vashti .... • 235 To .... • 236 The Book of Divine Song . • 237 For Ever — Never . 238 September .... • 239 Sweet Hay .... . 240 Garfield .... . 241 From Verlaine . 242 The MilL-VVheel • 243 The Sinner's Flower • 244 The Leaf in the Book • 245 From Heine .... . 246 The Message . 247 From Heine . . 248 A Ballad of the North Coimtrie . . 249 {^Seeming Faihire . 254] Appendix (Letters, etc.) . 255 ILLUSTRATIONS Vignette ...... Frontispiece PAGE Facsimile of " April " (first page) . . . i ABOUT MY MOTHER ^^ peer en to the Apostles '^^ for hire parfit lyvynge" Piers Plowman This book, on the surface of it, is a collection of short poems, which could stand on the ground of their peculiar and individual excellence alone : but it is more than that : it is an autobiography, a journal in- time, the log-book of a long tempestuous voyage across the waves of time ; the most curious and beautiful log that ever was kept by man ; or rather, woman ; for the author was my own mother. That is why I have called it An Echo of the Spheres : the title is my contribution, indicative of my opinion of its significance and value. My opinion, observe, not her own : for she was one of those I eople — by far the best of all — who stand in need of others to do for them what they would never dream of doing for themselves : proclaim their virtues and sing their praises. If modesty made merit, as manners makyth man, then her merit would be great indeed. That is one reason why the world has never heard of her : but there is another, better still, though related to it : with a few exceptions,^ none of these ' If any owner of a magazine or periodical, raking in forgotten files, should chance to discover one, I hope he will consider this XX AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES little poems has ever seen the light before : they were, till very recently, unknown even to myself. And to be properly appreciated, they must be taken all together, as pieces of a whole. For their author shrank from publicity : all self-advertisement was alien to her nature — she prefeiTed the shade. A })eony or a dahlia you can see anywhere and everywhere, even without looking for it : it solicits the eye which it offends : but you have to search for a violet, and hunt long, often without success, for a four-leaved clover. It is difficult to define a genius or a poet: but very certain it is that the writer of these poems was both. She had a mind like a cathedral organ, with innumer- able stops ; the vox htmiaiia predominating. But she was not a poet professionally, or by trade : for her poetry was all only occasional : she had far too many other things to do, (see, for example, the note on p. 103) and her total output was relatively small. Yet small as it is, its quality is extraoi'dinary : so good, that as a writer of short poems, I do not know where to look for one of her own sex to put beside her : for of Sappho we know alas ! almost nothing : a line or two only of superlative excellence has come down to us ; "jewels on the stretched forefinger of all time." But I go further : just as the chess player Blackburne was said to have " little bits of Morphy," so has the author of these poems little bits of the power of the greatest men, com- bined with a feminine grace peculiar to herself, and far beyond them all. And I would explain my meaning note as a request for permission to reprint it, as I do not know where directly to apply. ABOUT MY MOTHER xxi thus. She was not a Wordsworth : but there are many poems in these pages equal in his own style to anything Wordsworth ever produced : as, for example, IVood Son-el or The Links of Nairn. She was not a Browning, but there is " Browning " all over her ; and even Browning never wrote a more wonderful little " dramatic idyll " than Spoken and Unspoken, or Oily : they are a man's work. She was not a Milton, she knew neither Greek nor Latin, but the lover of Milton (I am one) will con- stantly feel, as he reads, the quality of Milton, and recognise something common to them both : nobody but Milton could have written the rival of The Fair Maid ofFebmary : it is Milton unschooled : a marvellous thing for a" woman who was no scholar, like many another thing in this singular book.^ She was no Blake, yet outside Blake you could not match some of the divine simplicities to be found here : as, for example, Iti the Night, or The Shadow of Death. She was no Calverley, but if Calverley had written many a piece in these pages, as, for example, Crowsfoot or The Dog Rose, they would have been feathers in his cap. Her sonnets are very few, but among them are some of curious beauty, and one in particular, B.C. : A.D., for the strange profundity of its idea, and the incom- parable simplicity of its expression, has a strong claim 1 For instance, take line 9 of the Fair Maid of February, line 23 of the Feast of the Purification, or line 9 of Out of the Depths : anyone would swear that these are a scholar's reminiscences of his Plato and Virgil : but my mother knew nothing about Plato or Virgil ; these things came to her from her own native insight, like all the rest. xxii AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES to the first place among the great sonnets of the world. I would stake her poetical claim on those fourteen lines alone : they are perfection. And let nobody think that these things are imitations : she never imitated anybody, though she has shown what, had she chosen, she could have done in the way of parody by two little gems of that kind, A Blessed Damozel and A Dranmig Room Song. For the most striking thing about these poems is their diversity, their variety of tone and mood : so much so, that it is hardly credible that they should all be products of the same pen, and that pen, a woman's : for one thing, I dare to say, will impress itself upon the reader of this book, whatever his poetical taste may be : and that is, the brains in it. Feminine among the feminine, my mother had in many ways a man's brain : it is a strong combination, and very rare. Let anybody try. Let him read these poems through, and then ask himself: out of what one poet he could compile a small volume containing so many different kinds of excellence tragic or comic, as he will find here .'' I think he will find it a hard question. And then he will say to himself: This is surely a remarkable thing. The woman who could *'make" these things, and yet make no fuss about it, keep it, so to say, all to herself, must have been a woman of a most uncommon kind. Well, so she was. And that is why I make them public : it is not so much the poems, as the character that lies behind them, out of which they came, that is the main point and motive of this book. These poems are my mother. They ABOUT MY MOTHER xxiii are an autobiography, a running commentary on her faUentis semita vitce : her life dictated them, as one by one she wrote them down : her own character gives to them all meaning and connection, just as the string running through the several pearls makes each more valuable and the whole a necklace. This book is a kind of portrait. And if Whistler or Rembrandt painted the portraits of their mothers, why, I said to myself, should I not allow my mother to paint her own, who had more in her than Mrs. Whistler or anybody else ? There is no merit of mine in the matter at all : the work is all her own. Sure I am, that that " recuiTent minority " of readers, whose verdict is the only one that counts, and in the long run assigns to each of us his proper place, will give me their heartfelt benediction for placing in their hands this singular record of a life that would have allowed itself to perish unrecorded, and slip out of the world unknown,^ deserving far better to be known than almost any other of her time : the life of one whose quiet eyes looked on from a comer, with humour and without a grain of envy, at the peonies and dahlias flaunting in the front row, while she sat obscure behind. But genius is its own exceeding great reward, and sufficient to itself. " The last infirmity of noble minds " is missing in the best of all, leaving in its place the ^ " Hide me away among the fallen leaves, And bid thy robin sing a parting stave Of benediction, o'er thy lover's grave." (P- 97) See also p. 254 and note. xxiv AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES very faintest possible aroma of delicate disdain : ^ just a slight compression of the lips, as every successive Bottom basks with a simper of fatuity in the favour of bewitched Titania. Honour reaches those who really deserve it as a rule only after they are dead : and in the meanwhile they say with Seneca's Queen of Heaven : Telliis colenda est : pellices caelum teneiit. My mother could not read Seneca, but her practice exemjilified hii Qut^en of Heaven's self-command. And so, but for an accident, the world would never have listened to this Echo of the Spheres : never even have heard of it. And I will set this "accident" down with verbal accuracy, because it proves to demonstration how infinitely far from its author's thoughts was any idea of bringing herself upon the stage. My mother lived with her pen in her hand ; (when it was not grasping a trowel, of which more anon :) she was always writing letters, streams of which flowed continually to and from hei', keeping together all sorts of people otherwise lost to each other in the wide wide world. And of her correspondents I was generally one, because circumstances have prevented me, ever since I was a boy, from living with her continuously for any length of time. Consequently, I never discovered till recently, that she kept a hook, in which she had garnered up — exactly what, I didn't know. There was nothing I coveted so much as that book. So, when I ^ Read that strange little meditation, Putney Bridge, and think of her quiet grey eyes, gazing at its motley crowds. See also p. 150, the curious philosophy of her Grammar of Assent, ABOUT MY MOTHER xxv was in England, a few years ago, I asked her suddenly, one day, point blank, to give it to me. She laughed, and said : My log-book ? what do you want it for ? I said : Well, nobody else wants it, and I do. At least, I shall make a better use of it ihRU t/ou ever will. If, as I suspect, you have got yourself in it, why, then, some day when I have time, I shall let other people have a look at it, and you, too. I know you never will. She said : You mean, I suppose, print it. But you'll only be wasting your time and your money. It's nothing but a bundle of old memories, and odds and ends,i worth nothing at all to anyone but me. And me, I said. She laughed, and went away into the garden. But a few days afterwards, she came to me just as I was going, with the book in her hand. And she said: See! if you really want it, you can have it. I shall never add to it now, I am growing too old : very likely, next time you come home, you will find me gone, and all my waste paper thrown like me into the basket. So you may as well have it. It is yours — on one condition. I said : What is that ? She said, with a smile : No, no ! that won't do. You must promise, first : or goodbye, book ! Very well, I said : I promise, blind. What's your condition ? She said : There are one or two things in it, not my own. If you do ever print it, as you say, you may do what you like with my ^ Exactly what, in fact, it is. Bitteysweet is her name for Memory, which does indeed make what was once sweet, bitter, but compensates (a little) by making what was bitter, sweet. Thistledown is the "odds and ends"; its meaning is apparent : it is the self-estimate of modesty, " trifles light as air." xxvi AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES things, put them in or leave them out : I give you carte blanche as to anything that is mine. But these must go in. I love them, for auld lang syne. Promise me, you will put them in, along with me. Why, I said: of course. Why not .'' Is that all .f* Yes, she said, demurely ; that's all. And then she opened the book, and showed me — three foolish little pieces of my own ! I looked at her with stupefaction, and I said : Now, this is craft, and fraud, and guile. What ! you ! to set such a trap for me ! It's incredible. She only laughed, and said : Remember ! you've pivtniscd. Keep faith ! Your *'auld Mither" has you in a vice. If you ever make w«e stand in the pilloi'y, you shall stand beside me. The pillory ! That Avas how she looked at it. Well, it can't be helped : as for me, I am quite content, so to stand. Nobody will look at we. As if anybody ever noticed the stick, when smelling at the sweet peas, or had any eyes for Silvius, with Rosalind on the stage ! I've kept faith, indeed, as I was in duty bound : but I have relegated the intruding " outsiders " to the guard's van : I wasn't going to let them travel first class, in the same compartment with my mother. They belong to the literary lower orders : made, not hor7i. Hers have what cannot be acquired : birth. Few people really care for poetry : but fewer still know what poetry really means : having no touchstone, no standard in themselves, they accept conventional estimates on trust, and mistake bad for good. That is why such miserable trash makes poetical reputations in our own day : stuff that reminds us of the wooden ABOUT MY MOTHER xxvii dummies in a tailor's shop window : worthy of an age which seems to have utterly forgotten what literature means ; when men lecture upon " style " who cannot produce a line themselves, and the kings of illiteracy usurp the throne. The "authors" of to-day often remind me of Jack Cade or Nikkei Blok trying to appear at ease in the robes of an archbishop : do what they will, vulgarity and ignorance peep out at eveiy gesture : there is a kind of smell of the Strand Magazine about them all. In such an atmosphere, poetry is impossible. And true poetry, the genuine original thing, is always rare, even in " the Poets " ; the pure gold is like a nugget : you have to dig for it, in vast mounds of baser stuff. Long poems are much like puddings : not all plums. It is perhaps arguable that a long poem is a contradiction in terms. Even Homer nods : Ennius might boast that he would fly alive along the lips of men : but Martial knew better : even the great poets live principally in their "bits" : unless it is a play. It is only the pundit who wades religiously all through " epic," and unless he is meditating another text commentary and unreadable "translation," even he rarely or never does it twice. Nine-tenths of dead poets exist only for the pedant, and poetry becomes pedantry, read not for a poetic motive but merely as a subject for critical learning. Yet what two things in the world could resemble each other less than, for example, Catullus and Robinson Ellis ? A very small volume would contain nearly every poet's "gold." And then again, nearly all short poems oscillate, are a golden mean, between two disasters : J'uilnrc and ahaiii. xxviii AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Failure : when real feeling is there, but rendered nugatory or ridiculous by impotence of expression : the rock on which feminine ventures generally split. Sham : when beneath artificially elaborated " poetical " expression there isn't any genuine feeling to express : what is there being a mere " fake," a thing pumped up intentionally " for poetry " : the male variety of the wrong thing : a waxwork in large manufacture to-day, when nearly everybody can write what looks like poetry. But almost invariably we find, either that the J'eeling is not true, i.e. that the " poet " has no real need for expression : or that the expression is not adequate : i.e. he wants to play on the lyre, but can't. In both cases, he is not really a poet at all : though he may belong to no matter how many " Poets' Clubs," of which no true poet was ever yet a member, because he is a shy, wild, and independent bird, who does not "flock together " with anybody else. Every true poet shuns intellectual companionship, to seek which is the most certain sign of mediocrity. To feel, and to express what he feels, is what every real poet wants, and gets. And so, when you can find real, genuine, sincere and original feeling, spontaneous and unforced, expressed with exact and simple beauty, void of the least trace of artifice or effort, rejoice ! for you have found your nugget. That is the quality of all these poems, because their author really was a poet. Try, for example, Robin and 1, or Aptil : or almost anything in the book. For she was not of those poets who sit them down to "make poetry": who, like the Rossettis for example ABOUT MY MOTHER xxix (almost every line they wrote is shani) shut themselves up of afternoons, and cudgel their lean brains for "sonnets," That is your waxwork method: it wasn't hers. Her little poems — they are all little poems, she was a nightingale, not an eagle — her little poems, with hardly an exception, all arose out of her personal ex- periences : that is why they " touch." They are like the songs of a bird : they have in them something of the lied : they are so simple, so sincere, so naive, so natural, so absolutely free from pose, affectation, artificiality, composition : therefore, so pathetic or delightful : so true. These are the things so hard to produce, (or to find !) you cannot make them : if you have not got them in you, they are impossible. It is this extraordinary and unattainable simplicity which is the hall mark of genius : the grand style : the power of appealing to the deepest emotions by means of the very simplest possible words : so simple, so simple, that you think you can doit too — till yon try! And then you discover, that this sti'ange simplicity is a symptom — of something you haven't got : that it isn't the words that are the difficulty, but the mysterious something beneath them, the fountain out of which they well, that is wanting. With my mother, the thing was instinctive : she didn't hunt for poems, they just came into her head, apropos of their cause. She would hear a bird sing, or get a letter : she would get up in the morning and look out of the window : she Avould give a crumb to a robin, or read something in the paper: or something would happen, or some oddity would appeal to her sense of humour : or perhaps it XXX AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES was Christmas, or Easter, or February, or April or anything else : she would feel it, and wish to express what she felt, and the words would come, running : the right ones. That's all. But that little all is just what we common people (I beg pardon : I was speaking for myself) we clever fellows of the Poets' Club cannot compass. We tiy (we are always trying) and clumsy " intention " instantly crawls about all over the paper, and gets into the ink, ruining everything beyond redemption by any laborious polishing whatever. Do it with what skill you please, the result is much what a dog might achieve which should endeavour with studied industry to imitate the grace of the cat's paw : you produce " album " poetry, in the Tennysonian or Poet Laureate style, a thing objectionable to gods and men : false, weak, pretentious, horrible, most horrible, unreal, damnable and insincere. Wordsworth, who was her poet, (see p. 53) Wordsworth would have worshipped her, (if, that is, he could have worshipped anybody but himself, for I am not sure). He might have signed his name to many a little poem in these pages, and lost no reputation by so doing. She was in some ways, if the expression may be pardoned, a Wordsworth in miniature, for she has exactly the same sort of large philosophical calm, the same blend of religious atmosphere with emotion, as he had himself — with one very important distinction, very much in her favour. For Wordsworth was utterly destitute of humour. That is why he took himself so seriously, why some people cannot stand him, and why he sinks. ABOUT MY MOTHER xxxi at his worst, to such unfathomable abysses of bathos, such unredeemable idiotcy. It is a terrible defect, this lack of humour. Somehow or other, we are always haunted, as though by a ghost of suspicion, about the true estimate of the man who is without it : yes, even if his name be Burke or Milton. For humour is the necessary consequent of understanding : of which its absence argues a lack : there is then always some- thing blind, wooden, one-sided, and a little ridiculous, like Mr. Gladstone. There must be a smile on the face, whose eyes see clean through human nature : a Shake- speare without a smile is not conceivable (that is why Bacon didn't write him). And conversely, think what you will of either, neither Paradise Lost nor the Excursion could possibly have been written by anybody with a sense of humour. Well, my mother was all humour : it was her essence : and humour of the very highest order ; droll, delicate, witty,^ or pathetic at will. That is what she was: and there in her poems you will find it, in every line. Moreover, in addition to humour, you can feel behind the words of every little poem the invisible presence of the two things that constitute the background of the sketches of every master, knowledge and taste. Their author knew her Bible by heart, from end to end. She loved especially George Herbert, and Percy's Reliques, and the Border Minstrelsy, and all ballads, and eveiything simple and sincere and true. She had no ^ Take, as instances, the two epigrams on Disraeli and Gladstone : the first is wit in supreme perfection ; the second, the sarcasm that blights. Never has the character of those two rivals been more exactly caught, in but a few lines (see Primrose Day, and A Afedal), C xxxii AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES use for poets like Byron or Pope ; but Jane Austen and Shakespeare, Goldsmith and Scott were her intimate friends. So in another way was Coleridge, a congenial spirit to her, and George Borrow, and Jeremy Taylor, and Izaak Walton, and White of Selborne. There is in her work, taken as a whole, what the Hindoos would call a flavour of high caste, an old-fashioned aroma which in this age of vulgarity resembles the smell of a wall- flower, suddenly caught in the rank odour of a decaying cabbage garden. She always had a natural flow of pure English at the end of her pen in prose or verse : not because, like the Henleys or Stevensons, she was laboriously striving to achieve '' style," (a thing which is born, not made) but because her mind was always browsing in the great pastures, alongside of the old great English cattle, under the old English trees. And apropos, it is worth remarking, that her handwriting resembled the things it wrote : she wrote the old copperplate hand, with an extra touch of peculiar character, pointed and graceful, that makes it the most beautifully clever "fist," with one exception, that I ever saw.^ She knew no Greek or Latin, but French and German were familiar to her, and she would some- times amuse herself by turning into Scots or English anything that took her fancy in Heine, Victor Hugo, Uhland, Coppee or others : some of these experiments -will be found here. She translated, long ago, a large ^ See the specimen in facsimile, page i. The exception was that of her sister, Mary Carmichael, whose handwriting was a thing to dream over. It is a lost art. The only man I ever met who could really write (when he chose) was York Powell. ABOUT MY MOTHER xxxiii part, or the whole, of the NihfungUed into verse : what has become of the MS., I do not know. She also wrote several short stories, and one very clever novel on a trivial theme (mangled and spoiled in the publication, with its title changed, against her will). But these last were only forced labour, due to the necessity of boiling the pot. To employ her own language about another, '* only when she sang, she soared." Novel writing was, for her, as though you should use an astronomical telescope for a pastry roller. Finally, there was one poetical qualification which she possessed, in a superlative degree : very few poets have ever put pen to paper who knew a tithe of what she did, about flowers. I remember Mr. Gladstone saying of Lord Acton, that wherever he went, books sprang up under his feet. That was like my mother, only, in her case, it was not books that came up, but flowers. She could coax flowers out of a stone : they seemed to follow her about. Wherever she came, she made gardens ; and gardens she left behind her, when she went away. And she did it mainly with her own hands, even in the old comfortable days : there was always a rake, or a pruning knife, or a watering pot in them, when there wasn't a pen. She knew flowers not as others do, but as mothers know their own children : she followed them step by step, from sod and seed to blossom and fruit. ^ And hence a peculiar ^ The old Dean of St. Davids told me that he had never met anybody to match my father in ecclesiastical antiquities, or my mother in flowers. They bowl me over, he said, with a qviizzicaj xxxiv AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES charm and characteristic of her poetry, in which religion and gardening go hand in hand : a great truth, for at the roots of both He the seasons of the year, in a sense deeper than she knew. My mother loved and watched the year and its vicissitudes like the Virgin Mary bending over the Baby Christ : her life hung upon it, her soul clung to it. Two things sustained her, through- out all her tribulations : one was the radical idea of the old Catholic religion ; the other, the Springs and Summers, Autumns and Winters of the year. These are the theme of half her poems, and what poems they are ; songs from her heart, so simple, so, I would almost say, affectionate : there is nothing like them anywhere. And this is why the real martyrdom of her life lay in the terrible period when, cooped in a dingy London street, she was for a time that seemed to her eternity, cut off from them : a punishment almost more than she could bear, for no fault of her own, that has left its traces on her poetry : read, for example, that exquisite little lament, hi Town : or March Violets, or A Wayside Rest : or many others. For her life was a tragedy, long drawn out : an uphill course, magnificently run, / have fought a good fight, said the aged Paul. She too could have made that brag, with every whit as good a right. Only she expression, on my own ground. And what do you know? he added. A man, when I see him, Mr. Dean, I said. (N.B. he was a great character.) This tickled him immensely — but we never met again, luckily for me : as I should not have come up to his standard, on close examination. ABOUT MY MOTHER xxxv never did : being of those who do heroic actions without the smallest suspicion that they are doing anything out of the common. It isn't the bi*avest men who get the V.C., or the Royal Hum.ane Society's medal. Nobody ever hears of the bravest men, who ai*e never decorated, except by accident, and do not care. Think of the cowardice of the man who is proud of being decorated because he is brave ! or the chastity of the woman, proud of being decorated because she is chaste ! Her family came from the Border : her father was a friend of the great Sir Walter, who mentions him more than once in the Novels : a thing which he humorously valued as his title to fame, and a particular honour, (as indeed it was) being himself in looks and mind one of Nature's gentlemen. He was in Edin- burgh when Scott acknowledged the authorship of Waverley, and the next day — it was February 24, 1827 — after parting with the Great Unknown,^ with whom he had been walking up and down the High Street, he was thus suddenly accosted by a friend : " Master Piper, Master Piper, eh ! but it's a kenspeckle and upsettin' chiel' you are in Auld Reekie's eye this day ! " ^ — a ludicrous expression of the general en- thusiasm. (That story is one of my own childish recollections : how I, also, used to envy " Master ^ " The Small Known now," said Scott of himself: but he was wrong : he was greater than ever. How the authorship ever could have been a mystery, is the real mystery. The Novels all pre-exist in the Minstrelsy, conspicuous and unmistakeable : who runs may read. * "Upsettin'," anglici, conceited, proud. " Kenspeckle " = con- spicuous. xxxvi AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Piper," as I sat buried in the ivy near the beehives, hiding from interruption, with garden spiders crawUng all over me, as I pored over volume after volume, hour after hour, of the immortal romances, the greatest imaginative creations that have ever been produced by mortal man.) It was for his horses (he was a mail contractor) that he bought land at Corstorphine, on which stood the haunted house whose eerie ghost stories, and the oil paintings of his favourite horses that used to hang on our nursery walls, helped us to remember him. He loved horses so, that he wouldn't drop them when the railways came in, and was ruined accordingly. I know little about him, save that my mother worshipped his memory: and one thing more, also veiy much in his favour : that in '46, could he but have got to London, he would have shot Sir Robert Peel, for offering up the old rural England that he loved to the Moloch of Manchester, Mammon, Middle- class and Machinery, and by means as dishonest as the end was foul. But Death had laid a hand on him : and the Arch Humbug was left unmolested to initiate that system of organised hypocrisy which has brought about the collapse of to-day : under which, in Church or State, no man could emerge, unless he were either a dishonest man or a fool. And then, when my mother came to change her father for a husband, she found, as many a maiden does, that it was a huge mistake : for it was her marriage that brought on her all her evil fortune. She married the wrong man. My father, God bless him ! ought never to have married anybody : he was ABOUT MY MOTHER xxxvii a fish out of his element : a queer self-absorbed book- womi, a kind of genius in his own queer way, an antiquarian and archaeologist, with a memory like Person's, a most uncertain temper, and an almost uncanny familiarity with historical persons long dead and gone.^ But he was atrophied on the side of the affections. He lived in isolation, buried, so to say, in the old crypts and tombs he was always sketching (he was very clever with either brush or pencil) whose occupants were far more familiar to him than his own family. As children, we all used to get out of his way : he had no use for us at all. And if Love lay dying of starvation close beside him, he never noticed it. In such a situation, many a beautiful woman forgets that she is a wife, unable to endure an indifference that amounts to insensibility ; but that is just one of the points in which my mother differed from the rest. She looked at these things with the eyes of a Hindoo woman of the highest caste : she accepted it as a cross for her to bear : had anyone suggested to her that a neglected affection has a right to retaliation, she would have stai'ed at him, unable to understand. She never bartered, she gave : and even if her gift was slighted, it never would have entered her head to take it back. But this alone would never have produced a catastrophe: ^ He never made any practical use of all his learned lumber, but others did, (e.g. Andrew Lang for his Histoiy of Scotland) and he was always answering antiquarian " clients " by letter. His critical approval was worth having, and very few got it : one of the few was Mr. J. H. Round. He utterly despised Freeman, and the whole Teutonic school. xxxviii AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES there was something else. For my father was probably the very worst man of business the world ever saw. If he had had only half-a-crown left, he would have given anybody eighteenpence, or the whole, without even thinking twice. He just let money matters slide, and took everything for granted — except a genealogy : (he knew everybody's genealogy better than they did themselves, and used often to gibe at the romances in Burke's Peerage and elsewhere.) And meanwhile, his property, originally considerable, together with my mother's settlements, all faded away, nobody knows how. The land was sold, and the money vanished. The subject was not medieval, and had no interest for him. One morning, when I was ten, and away at school, my mother awoke in the morning to find herself not like Byron, famous, but like Job, destitute. In- credible, but true. She had changed in the night, from opulence to indigence. And without warning : the blow fell on her like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. All was gone : it was even grotesque : we have often laughed over it since, but the joke was a terrible joke. My father simply and suddenly told her, point blank, that there was no more money : it had come to an end ! accepted the situation, Stoic fashion, as a thing indifferent, and quoted Horace : Qui Jit Mcecenas ? his favourite quotation. That was all he did. And she — hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry. To her, aghast at the catastrophe, it fell, to assume the appalling burden, himself along with it. And she did.i The ^ In her novel, she writes thus: "Man's extremity is woman's " opportunity. Mrs. Muir found hers at last, grasped her nettle, and ABOUT MY MOTHER xxxix dear old home collapsed : I never returned to it. And then came long, long years of humiliation indescribable, during which she was dragged like Marie Antoinette through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, not by any fault of her own, but because of her necessary relation to one whom she neither could nor would desert. For little as he understood it, my father had drawn the biggest prize in Life's lottery when he married her. She never played the martyr, never sulked, never scolded, never whined, (though she often wept) never turned peevish, never lost heai*t, never, as Bret Harte would say, "went back on the old man" : no one ever heard her say a cross word to him or anybody else. She carried on, taking him along with her, with endurance, and patience, and gentleness infinite, and a sweetness of temper that nothing could ever sour, right to the very end, forty years ahead. Only the Deity knows, what it must have meant to her : for she was not bom for rough work and sordid surroundings. She, who was accustomed to all, did without all : she " reconstructed hearth and home for the ruined man she loved. All " the modest homely virtues swarmed in around her : thrift, content- "ment, patience, and a sunny even temper, which had been her " only dowry, became at once supremely precious and enriched a " barren place. Muir resigned himself, his spleen, and his invisible " income into his wife's capable hands. She took him, then and " there, into her keeping, hoisted his responsibilities on her own " shoulders, and stood between him and his fate." All this is an exact description, under a feigned name, of her own experience, except the two points underlined : which apply only in the story, and make her own action far greater than " Mrs. Muir's." xl AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES for whom nothing was too good : she did the best she could for everyone, neglecting one thing only — herself: she had for long years to live in mean and poky little dwellings, continually changing, much like the princess in the fairy story degraded into a scullery-maid : worse things came upon her : the daughter that she idolised died, after temble suffering, of rheumatoid arthritis, taking half her soul away : and she rose above it all. She never complained, and her wonderful spirit never sank : on the contrarj^, all her life long nobody ever came across her without gaining by that atmosphere of " marvellous serenity, which never deserted her in good or evil days." Happen what might, she was always just herself; a little sad sometimes, but still herself: simple and cheerful and sweet, without a trace of that horrible " resignation " : nothing of the stage martyr : she had too much humour, and too much spirit, for such mockery as that. I think of her always, whenever I read about Mary Queen of Scots : nay, I could almost find it in me, at times, to believe in metempsychosis, and hold, that she actually was Mary, the very Mary, in another birth : so strangely does one woman echo the other, in talent, beauty, spirit, religion, and length of undeserved misfortune. For what does it matter, if one played her part upon a great stage, and the other upon no stage at all ? That is only the upholstery, the mise-en-scene, the accident which is nothing to the soul : nay, who knows, that without the support of dignity, the part may not be all the harder to maintain r There is no extraneous prop, no psychological crutch, in the lot of the lowly. Certain it is that my mother's life ABOUT MY MOTHER xli proved, though in obscurity, no less absolutely than that of the great Catholic Queen, how impotent are all life's sordid accidents over the excellence of virtue, and how even the cruellest of Fate's malignities break, like waves, in vain, against that rock of adamant, an indelible nobility of soul. And now, read her poetry. That was the condition, the soil, out of which these poems grew : they are so many milestones marking her track along the tragic path of life. Yet is it credible ?■ To understand her force, you must know the furnace in which she was tried.i Where in them all can you find a line betraying a bitter, a peevish, an ill-tempered note ? She sees the beauty and the humour of all ai'ound her, with clear eyes, just as if her own path had been strewn all along with roses. Her own mis- fortunes have not warped her, nor coloured her vision. That is the genius of character: the twist of injured egoism is not there. Aye I she was a holy spirit, a thing apart : far too good for the rough and brutal circumstances into which she was thrown : out of place, like a piece of old green velvet or brocade jostled by the crass stupidity of blind Fortune in a coarse sack with vulgar rags. Her sheet anchor was her own character, which like radium seemed a living contradiction of the old mechanical axiom, that nothing can come of nothing. For the curious thing about natures such as these is, that even ^ I asked her once, what, had she chosen her own crest, it would have been. She thought a moment, and said : My emblem ought to be a rose, and the motto " wi' a thorn." — That is as witty as it is true. xlii AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES in extremity^ they always find means, in some inex- plicable way, to supply strength to other wayfarers. No matter to what depths of necessity my mother was reduced, she always had, by some strange necromancy, something to give away. Poor people just adored her, as for that matter, did everybody else. Ah ! yes, says the reader : a son, and his mother : we quite understand : does him credit, of course, but after all, it amounts to little or nothing : rose-coloured spectacles ! Seen by impartial eyes, she would have lost the halo, and come off the pedestal on to ordinary levels. Before we concede to this amiable lunatic that his mother was any better than other people's mothers, we should like to have a disinterested opinion : the opinion of a stranger. That is the only one that counts. Ah ! now, reader dear, I expected that : there, as honest Panurge says, did I wait for thee. Yes, as I wrote, all the time I seemed to hear whispers in the air, objecting, like the noise of running water heard in a dream. You are quite right : you shouldn't trust to me : my evidence is suspect. And yet, you are altogether wrong, for all that : my spectacles are only common window panes. But you shall have your stranger's verdict. Here are two : two things that happened to myself, as abrupt and unexpected and startling as a pistol-shot in church. Let any reader honestly say, whether anything of the same kind ever happened to himself. Being at Mahableshwar, in the Western Ghauts of India, some years ago, there came up to me, as I stood ABOUT MY MOTHER xliii alone on Lodwick Point, one of two men that I saw a little way off: a grey-haired erect old man, about sixty, totally unknown to me : (I afterwards discovered that he was a big man in another Presidency, who had served all his life in India.) And he said to me exactly this : You don't know who I am, but has just told me who you are. It's odd that we should meet here. I want to tell you, that thirty-five years ago, I met your mother in London for half an hour, and I never shall forget her. Don't misunderstand me : she was old enough to be my mother. But she left an impression upon me that no time can ever efface. And not long afterwards, being at home on leave, I was passing in a mailcart through a village where they knew my mother well, though nobody but the driver knew me. He got down at the Post Office, and I saw him talking to a man at the door, who looked like a well-to-do famier. Presently this man came forward, and got up on the wheel. He took my hand, and gripped it like a vice, saying as he did so, with a very red face : Sir, your mother is the most wonderful woman I ever set eyes on : there never was anybody like her in the world before. Then he got down, and went away : and I never saw him again. Here are testimonials unsought. Surely things like this are evidences of something other than the common? What was there in the woman who left on strangers impressions such as these ? Well, these poems of her Book will partly tell. A veiy noble character, says Schopenhauer, we xliv AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES always imagine with a certain trace of quiet sadness. That is a portrait of my mother in her old age. And so, in another aspect, is the celebrated dictum of Thucydides, that simplicity is the principal ingredient in a noble mind : for a child could have cheated her. Only no child ever would have done it, for she under- stood children as she understood flowers, from inside out : as indeed even some of her poems show : read, for example. The Shadow of Death, or In the Night, or Enfants de Marie. And I have seen a hoary old rascal, who came to cheat her in a bargain, change his mind, and act, probably for the first and only time in his life, as an honest man. As she said to me once, in her simple way : I can generally get people to do what I want for me. She could indeed. That is the iiTesistible power of gentleness : it caiTies everything away before it : everything mean, everything dishonest, everything base just shrinks and shrivels away and fades out of existence in its presence, like shadows "from the sun. Si jeunesse savait ! The frightful sadness of this world lies above all in this, that we appreciate and recognise all, only when it was, not when it is : only when it is gone by : like boats floating oarless down a river, that never can return. The circumstances of my life, as I have already said, have operated so, that ever since I was a boy, I have been less continuously with my mother than any other member of the family, except my brother in the Navy. And hence it was long before I really understood her, partly from ABOUT MY MOTHER xlv absence, partly alas ! from my own dull stupidity, and the careless indifference which all children naturally suffer from : they take their parents, as they take their carpets and furniture, for gi'anted. Love, as the French say, does not go upwards. And like others, I was blind. Well do I remember, how, when long ago at Christ Church I was feeling my way into philo- sophy, my mother would sometimes sit and listen, while I prated to her of subjects I was deep in, of Aristotle, or Ockam, or other things that do not matter ; how, I say, she would sometimes sit, listening to me, listening quietly, and never speaking of herself, never betraying any hint of what all the time she must have known she had within her, a power in comparison with which everything that could be found in me and all my tribe sank into insignificance. But at least I knew a little better, and she knew that I knew it, while yet there was a little time. And now I would give all that I possess, to lay my crown upon her white hair. But it is too late, too late. Too late. '- - ..-!! J-' ?- i»-": JTV i^!•... A Jut Ttu /w<^ f< ^^ t<^c ) * u^i-^^x/ Ct^AiA^ Cc^'*'--'*^^ fiiyi — 4^ t^>em suddenly sufifuse and irradiate it, like a sunbeam falling on a stained glass window, with all its mystic and hitherto hidden meaning ! SPOKEN AND UNSPOKEN " She draws the blind, that I may see " What the new day vouchsafes to me, " Sick, soiTowful, and spent. " Forth through the glimmering square, mine eyes " Traverse the dull December skies. " The Creature is content. " At one with Nature, in her mood " Of neutral-tinted quietude, " The soul assumes her place : " Pale pilgrim, neither grave nor gay, " Wending her lone, predestined way " Through shadow-haunted Space. " Faint, yet pursuing, flesh and heart " Cry from their prison : / am : Thou art : " Though verb and pronoun fail " To cipher it, the Living Word " That yearns for utterance here, is heard " In songs behind the veil. '' I, whatsoe'er I be, unite " Mine atom to the Infinite " [Hitshedjbotsteps round his bed. SPOKEN AND UNSPOKEN 59 Prick home : down fluttering to the nest His Jeanie gathers to her breast A dreamer''s aching head] " Who taps upon the pane ? ah me ! " Only her sparrows : let them be ! " God feeds them — so they say. " Jeanie, 'tis either God, or t/ou : " For what He zvills, you know, you do : " Aye ! fifty times a day. " Love, bonnie Love, why come you here " To pull me back to Earth, my dear, " The Land of little things ? " 'Tis good to look at you — your gown " Exactly like the sparrows', brown "^With grey about the wings. " With Noah's raven, to and fro, " Darkly I circle — down below " The waters heave and swell . . . " Jeanie, come nearer . . , hold my hand ! " I falter on some border land . . . " Speak, is it Heaven — or Hell ? " Clasp me ! I fall into the Dark ! " A sparrow's fall ! ah ! dost Thou mark " A sinner's broken sigh ? " Jeanie / I ... go ! forget ! forgive ! " My God, how sweet it is to live ! " How bitter . . . sweet, to die ! " ***** 6o AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES [She draivs the blhid, that none may shaie The mystery of her vigil, zvhere Cold and apart he lies : Clay cold! an empty shell! zvhile she Drinks of the "salt estranging sea^'' Her hand upon his eyes.] SON AND HEIR Whex Jack was born, his mother cried, for joy Unutterable ! in her heart slie hid it. (The others should not say she overdid it !) O she was proud, this Mother of a Boy ! And marvelHng much, as though the thing were new And nevej: another woman had achieved it. She hovered o'er her joy, and scarce believed it. And as she wondered, still the wonder grew. As for Jack's Pater (not that she disowned him) Some instinct warned him that li'ts day was over. 'Twas Jack's turn now to buzz amid the clover : This atom in an instant had dethroned him ! Reigned in his stead, and waked a deathless passion That yielded all the little despot wanted, Who took his privileges all for granted. And wanted more, in autocratic fashion. Her life was his : for him there was no other ; No world for him beyond his own warm nest. Where, with his callow head upon her breast, She nursed her God — O happy human Mother ! ^ * Id ^ ^ * 6i 62 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Life is a dream ! all ! well Jack's mother knows it, For Jack's a man — her feathered bird has flown. She bade him (is she dreaming ?) walk alone : She dreams she's sad — and never will disclose it. That is her secret, and she holds it fast. While he, the ingrate, soars away beyond her, And wonders why it is, old women ponder So pertinaciously upon the past.^ ^ Amply Jack repaid her, in after years : he was the best of her bunch of sons. AT THE MANGER " Didst thou mount, my Son, and ride " By the river's swelling tide " With the old Chaldaean sages ? " Trace the fountain to its birth, " Where it bubbles from the earth " In the shimmering mist of ages ? " Hast thjou knelt a moment there, " Doffed thy bonnet for a prayer, " And before thy King, discrowned thee ? " Caught the accent of the hymn " Warbled in the twilight dim " By the Angels all around thee ? " Didst thou glance within the shrine " Where on straw among the kine " Lies the Babe, the Lord of Glory ? — " Then, thy favoured ears have heard " The Divine Eternal Word : " Keynote of thy own strange story. " Thou thyself the rhythmic rune " Murmur low, while Sun and Moon " Light thee to thine hour appointed. 63 64 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES " Mystic utterance, crooned in time, " Where they sing the cradhng rhyme " While He sleeps, the Lord's Anointed." * * * * * lit " Sweeter swells the story, stranger ! " Mary, leaning o'er the manger, " In her bosom hides the key. " And the Angels veil their faces " Lest those awful first embraces " Other eyes than hers should see." ****** " Son, fulfil thyself aright ! " Round thee lies the Lifinite. " Roam at will, the land before thee. " Live, and should thy life star pale, " Here, within the Mother's veil, " May the Infant Christ restore thee." (These be Christmas meditations As its joyous celehratioiis Fade into the common day. Up^ my gallant cavalier. To salute the Maiden Year Entering in her hood of grey !) ^ I My mother has left no key to this strange imagination. I hazard the conjecture that it is a dialogue between the King of Saba (Balthazar, the youngest of the three Magi, according to the fourteenth century legend of the three Kings of Cologne) and his mother, who conceives him to have acquired from his journey some potent spell. (The last verse is her own address to one of her sons.) ORANGE BLOSSOM Heigh ho ! 'tis a parlous thing When the wife is wed with the wrono- gold rins ! Once well over her finger slipped, All goes wrong, Bloom and song Fail on the bough where the buds are nipped, And the bird sits mute, with her wild wings clipped. Wearily O her weird she drees, One key lost from her bunch of keys. One sweet talisman locked away : Sought for years Through a mist of tears. Sought in vain ! for never she may Find what's lost on the wedding day. Sweet, ere the blossoms are culled for thee, Ponder, under the orange tree. Does thy heart long for its golden wine .'' Touch and choose ! Win or lose ! Who for thy finger the ring shall twine. Let him speak first to that heart of thine, 5 THE WINDFLOWER Christ, if one humble flower Bloom as a thought from Thee, It springs in April's bovver, Her Wood Anemone. Laid on the lap of Earth, As Thou on Mary's knee, The herald Star of birth Again we see. Birth of the lusty Spring, Of life, that pulses free, Glad tidings Angels bring On every tree. Here shines the Shepherds' star, Alight, in quiet shade. Where all the simple are. That God hath made. Threefold the cradling leaves. The snow-white petals seven, Earth, too, the secret weaves. Breathed low in Heaven. 66 THE WINDFLOWER 67 How sprang a thing so fair From this dull planet mould ; Dreamlike, escaping ere The Dream is told ? Canst thou not tarry, Dear ? The passing Wind sighs Nay. And, as he brought thee here, Wafts thee away.^ 1884 * Note especially the fourth verse of this lovely little poem : it is a key to her character. THE THISTLE'S TENURE I HAD a Garden, once upon a time, Wherein I loved to be, Sharing hushed fragrance, at the hour of prime. With early bird and bee. I loved to watch the dim mysterious Night Flit stealthily away. And listen to the chirpings of delight That hailed the dawning Day. Goodmorrow ! to my stately Lilies all, My Roses, bright with dew, Goodmorrow ! little Hyssop on the wall And laughing Pansies blue. Goodmorrow ! Thistle, in the corner there. With prickles hedged about : Your friend the Finch will soon be here, to tear Your woolly greybeard out. The salutation hath a ring of war : I loved him not at all. I longed to root him up, and fling him far Over the Garden wall. 68 THE THISTLE'S TENURE 69 But when I bade the Gardener hew him down, He shook his palsied head : " He hath his Use,"" he answered with a frown, " And Virtue too," he said. Virtue, and Use, maybe, but in the Crowd, Not in my holy space. " 'Tis Asses' provender," I said aloud : And this is not his place. The Gardener, bending with a hollow moan. Unto his wonted toil, Made answer : " Thistles ever hold their own " Where Asses hold the soil." An odour floated towards me, like a prayer From sweet-lipped suppliants sent. Then ormy cream-white Roses I was ware : Breathed deep, and was content. For in my Borders, gracious things were set : Old " Honesty " was there. And " Thrift," and hoary Thyme, and Mignonette, And " Heartsease " everywhere. Outside my Garden wall there grew a Tree Whose gloomy boughs outspread. And cast a Pall of Darkness silently Persistent overhead. And day by day more doleful grew the Shade ; More hui-tfuUy it fell, Scaring the dancing Sunbeams as they played. I said : " It is not well." 70 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES And terror-struck, I to the Gardener cried : " Cut down yon hateful Tree.'' He said : " It grows upon the Neighbour's side : " So shall ye let it be." His words upon my trembling troubled heart Boomed like a funeral knell. Then, tlien I knew that Joy and I must part. And say a long farewell. One after one, died all my lovely Flowers, My heart died slowly too. Farewell ! my pleasant, lily-haunted bowers ! Farewell ! my Pansies blue. I closed my Garden door, and turned the key, Not without quiet tears. The Thistle held his ground, in spite of me. With all his pointed spears.^ ^ Coleridge might have written this weird and mournful allegory, whose interpretation I will leave to the reader's sagacity. THE KING Music in Heaven ! here upon Earth a cry ! The Child is born for whom the ages wait. On mighty pens the herald Angels fly With greeting to the men of low estate. Shepherds, arise ! nor fear to leave the sheep : For Christ the Lord in Bethlehem lies asleep. O tidings of great joy ! they rise, they run To David''s city in the twilight grey, And gaze upon the Rising of the Sun Before whose face all shadows flee away. () Lamb of God, how simple, sweet, and small, Thy tender Body in the Ox's stall ! Art Thou a King, then ? All amazed they stand. Can this be He, of whom the prophets tell That He shall be a Light to light the land ? The Prince of Peace ? the Hope of Israel ? Behold, He weeps ! ah ! Mary Mother mild. Succour the sorrows of thy little Child. Hail, holy Maid ! the dawning hour is thine. Thine the keen joy, the wonder unexpressed, The secret of the Lord, the Word divine, Unfolded in the Babe that milks thy breast. 7' J 2 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Mother of Jesus, we adore afar The rising of the bright and Morning Star. Hail ! holy Lord ! our Master and our Mate, Who out of pity for our lost estate Came down on Earth, man"'s penalty to pay. While a heart beats, to Thee that heart belongs, Thy broken Heart that beats within our songs That hail the Lord of Life on Christmas Day.' ^ In all these Christmas poems, so variously handled, what is really remarkable is the note of absolute sincerity. They are not artificial compositions : they are songs, written down as she felt them, true. As I used to tell her, she was a Catholic saint, strayed from the Middle Ages, the golden age of Faith anterior to scepticism, like that of a child. Christmas, to her, meant the birth of Christ : to most people, it is just Christmas. She was possessed by the idea : it was the background of all her thoughts. That is why she was able to produce such curiously beautiful things as In the Night, p. 56, or Carol, p. 76, or The Cradle Song, p. 107, or the wonderful Sonnet on p. 126. They are all like flowers growing from a root : without the root, no power of any degree could produce them. CRO WSF( )0T Ah ! cruel Care, why seek to slay A weary wight upon a sunimer^s clay ? Hast thou no pity, none ? Wilt thou for ever steal between Rose and the nose, the eye and coverts green, The sinner and the sun ? Life were^so sweet without thee : Joy Lurks in the bushes, innocent and coy ; Ready, sweet witch ! to play. But as she spies us, sour and glum, Such playmates frighten her : she will not con)e Just peeps, and runs away. Away ! to frolic and to sing With beast, and bird, and every happy thing That never heard of thee. To chase the swallows round the pool, Or frisk with fishes in the water cool. But nevermore with me. When on my pillow thou dost light, Down may be soft, and linen lily-white. Yet the winged angel flies. 7i 74 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Time's footsteps do not spoil us so As thine, thou swart perambulating crow, About our hollow eyes. Thou tramplest down our sprouting years, The spelling book is wet with grimy tears That make young eyelids smart. Close as a bud-worm dost thou rest In many a little maiden's budding breast, Eatino; the Rose's heart. '& The housewife, sinking on her chair, Finds thee already waiting for her there, Agog to stab and tease. Among her bobbins and her bills, Like recipes of thine for creeping chills. Which flutter round her knees. No man may dodge thee, though afar He travels from the spot where troubles are, Seeking a brief repose. The guard who locks the carriage door Shuts in his passengers, arid yet one more. Who never pays, but goes. Thou canst climb high : up palace stairs Into the Presence, wrapped in state affairs. Pushing thy passage through. The woolsack is a downy seat, And yet the comfort there were more con)plete Were there not room for tzvo. CROWSFOOT 7 5 Thou ciouchest in the empty purse : Our money bags are weighted with a curse : Nearer to earth we bend. When the old Reaper draweth nigh, And whets his scythe, with purpose in his eye, We hail him for a friend. In the dark furrow lowly laid, Thou canst not follow : all the game is played. As earth to earth is cast. The mute who apes thee — sorry knave ! Returns a merry devil from the grave Where thou art foiled, at last."^ ' This was written by one who did not know Latin : but a scholar could turn it into a perfect Horatian ode. CAROL The lambs are all asleep Within the drowsy fold, The faithful shepherds keep Their watches on the wold. When lo ! a voice they hear, A shining light they see : And sore amazed with fear They ask what this may be. Then charmful as the flute Afloat o'er vales and hills, When all their winds are mute. The heavenly message thrills. Fear not, ye gentle men. Glad tidings do I bring, The Christ is born in Bethlehem, Your Saviour, Lord, and King. A Manger is his Shrine : Now haste your vows to pay Where Mary wraps in swaddling bands Her new-born Son to-day. 76 CAROL TJ The Heavens are stirred with wings, And countless Angels throng, While all the welkin rings With sudden storm of song. " Glory to God above ! " Peace to this Earth ! goodwill " And Love to men of Love ! " Tis o'er : the plains are still. The lambs are all asleep : The dawn is breaking grey : O'er shadowy men and sheep : The Angels flown away To Bethlehem let us run With men of low degree. Maid Mary and her Son Perchance we yet may see. Still in her robe she hides The Babe whom once she bore. And God's true Word remains True Man for evermore.^ ' To anyone who has music in him, these plain pure simple lines sing : as though he were listening to a band of rustics round an old manor house, when England was Old England. It is just these notes of naive sincerity which nobody now can strike. WOOD SORREL My dearest dear, thy flower's a-bloom Once more : I've gathered it to-day ; As through the tender forest gloom I took my lonely way. Half hid, 'neath sprays of bramble vine, The fragile blossoms light the place, As once those sad sweet eyes of thine Lit up a flower-like face. The self-same charm to thee, to them. Hath by a word of God been given : The opal-shimmering diadem Thou wearest now in Heaven. Ah ! loved and lost ! unequalled maid. Green are the leaves of fond regret By thy lone lover sadly laid In Spring's gay carcanet. Thy Spirit surely haunts the path Where I, in retrospective mood, Seek the sole solace Memory hath, The bliss of quietude. 78 WOOD SORREL 79 Tliy footfall light precedes me still, As sun or shadow fall on grass. Some potent grace intangible O'er me, from thee, doth pass. And bending o'er the faint veined flower, Thine eidolon on slender stalk. Again I keep love's trysting hour, And hear thy low voice talk. Mine yet, in some sweet subtle sense, In stillness, where no rude note jars. Where Amaranth blooms, and Innocence, And Sorrel's silver stars.^ % ' Addressed to the dead daughter, the subject of so many of these poems. THE DOG ROSE Stay thy rude hand, O Dametas, old gnome of the ditches ! Rend not the sheath where a soul inarticulate dwells ! Spare the witch wand of a fairykin, fairest of witches That ever threw sjpells. She whom the phantom bird woos, the old love tale renewing, Throbbing with passion and pain, as he changes his tune. Sweet waning echoes of May in the notes that are wooing The roses of June. Dull are the ears of Dametas, base hind of the ditches ! Silently shrivels the soul when the belly craves meat : Bacon and beer are bound up in the bundle of switches Flung at his feet. THE DOG ROSE 8i Yet in the spring of the year hath he tasted of beauty, Lilted his love-ditty, gathered the rose in his day ; Fought for his life among thorns, a grim soldier on duty, Carving his way, Through the deep trench, till it yawn, somewhat darker and deeper. Weary and weather-worn, there shall he rest at the end, And a dog rose fling a spray o'er the couch of the sleeper, Foeman and friend.^ April 1889 ^ This is one of the things that puzzles me most in the book. It is like a little bit of lost Greek literature, a scrap of Theocritus or Bion : written by one who knew no Greek. TO A JARGONELLE With merle and mavis let me sip The joys that from thy heart overflow, And with the juice upon my lip Drink to the joys of long ago, And summon back a vanished scene, My Grandsire's garden, where of yore, When ymt were ripe and / was green. We met and mingled, core to core ! Fou, with your fruit all gathered in, Stood basking in the noonday sun. Your work achieved — a heroine To whom the Master cried : Well done ! /, a young slip of flesh and blood, No higher than an old man's heart : A spritely blossom in the bud Unfolding for my minor part. Conning your boughs, with vain regret For favours fugitive, though fair, I spied — O joy remembered yet ! Your last surprise, another ■pear I TO A JARGONEIXE 83 O Dad ! I cried : but " Dad " was dumb : He felt, my soul upon the rack, With slow, experimental thumb. And gave this awful verdict back : Hard as a stone ! and at the word Sweet Hope on drooping pinion fled. Not I — some knavish wasp or bird Would wet his whistle there, instead. But no^not so : 'twixt me and grief Stood guardian Love in thin disguise. No Joes malign should play the thief : I read that promise in his eyes. Don't you remember how, that year, Two " early birds," at break of day. Still met and hovered, always near, And drove the other birds away. And when at last, a happy child Plucked the ripe joy, () did you see How tenderly the old man smiled, And gave the sunniest half to me 1 O I have wandered, far afield. And shaken manv a fruitful boujih, Jiut never a tree on earth could yield A fruit that tastes so sweetly, now. 84 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Still as the tinie of year comes round, You bring the wine, and one grey ghost Steals in, as hushed in thought profound I drink a memory, loved and lost.^ ' (A true story, in the garden at Alstonby, in 1836 or '37. — C. B.) CHRISTMAS ANALYSIS 1. The child saith in a voice of glee : O let us light the Christmas Tree ! 2. Every branchlet bears a Toy : Mothers bask in the children's joy. 3. Up in Heaven, the Angels sing : ChrisJ is born, the Saviour King. 4. With many a Carol, Earth replies : Lo ! the Babe in the Mang-er lies ! 5. From the tower where Jack Daw dwells Merrily chime the old church bells. 6. The Priest bringeth in Wiyie and Bread Fainting souls are cheered and fed.- 7. Robin singeth on frozen spray : There will be crumbs for me to-day. 8. Mistletoe bough hangs low, ho ! ho ! Pretty maids know where kisses grow, 8s 86 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES 9. Labour's bondagers, old and frail, Chuckle over the cakes and ale. 10. Out in the snoxv the outcast hears The old sweet greeting of childhood's years. 11. Tossed like a waif on the salt sea foam The heart in his bosom wanders home, 12. And dreams of the peace of the old warm nest Till a ray of prayer relights his breast. 13. Elements all confused unite With many colours in one white Light. 14. The Light of the Worhl for ever plays : And Rainhoivfi brighten the cloudy days. GOING HOME I GO not alone, my beautiful Love, With me must thou travel. Away to the dear old horrible cell, In the cold dark sorrowful house to dwell ; Where on the threshold, bowed low, waits One For the homecoming, She who doth call me Son, Touch me not ! hence, thou man of gloom ! Who called for thee ? The breath of thee scorches, thy touch is blight ! Thine eyes shoot sparks, and thy cheek is white! But out in the sunshine I must go For frolic and fun where the roses blow. Leave the rose odours, and leave the sun, My little sweet Love ! Wrap the white winding sheet close till it clings ; Sweep o''er the strings of the lyre till it rings. And sing the while a spousal song ! The wind will pipe for thee all night long. (From Heine) 87 JANUARY The anchor's weighed : hug not the shore Steer on through wind and weather ! Cheer, friends and lovers ! one cheer more To bind our hearts together ! Before us lies the treacherous Deep : The friendly shore behind, Whose very dust is dear to us With memory's roots entwined. Take thou the helm, thou Pilot grim. Into thy horny hand : And the good ship in every limb The touch will understand. Set thy face like the flint, man, To plough the barren sea : He can unlock the Treasure house Whose Hand doth hold the key. His fire behind the flint, lad ! (A heart as true as steel ! ) His hand within thy hand. Dad ! The hand that grasps the wheel. 88 FEBRUARY Who rides across the hills, His mantle flecked with snow? Whither away, moss trooper grey ? Speak ! art thou friend or foe ? Then from the thicket thrills A rapturous challenge : Ho ! Halt, ^ir Knight ! are ye black or white ? I know ye, O I know. By all my quivering quills ! By the rift in a storm-tossed sky. And a voice that sings by the water springs That the grief of the world's gone by. Lord of the golden bills, For thee thy blackbird sings A maiden strain, unheard again Though ye dwell in the tents of Kings, And the Aconite dons her frills : The shy snow maidens pine As they stand and wait at the temple gate For their own St. Valentine. 89 90 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Saint, as a maiden wills The wind blows East or West : The first to woo, if the songs be true, Is the lover thafs loved the best. MARCH Love not the world, the preacher cries : And the poor rueful sinner tries Hard counsel to digest. While, from a higher point of view, The rooks are labouring to construe The problem of the nest. No scruples mar the joys of these Old swarthy aborigines Who never heard of Lent : But waxing fat, as saints grow lean. Follow the plough, and morsels glean In dignified content. Go, gather violets : dye your stoles Ye shepherds of awakened souls Who hope to bear the palm. And down among the daffodils Chaunt, if it be your blessed wills, The penitential psalm. Ah ! fais ce que vonldras ! wear the rue Or woo the maid — 'tis sweet to woo Under the tufted larch When woods are green, and maids are fair Yet — Love's a Syren — ah ! beware ! Beware the Ides of March ! 9> APRIL She conies in with a jest ! But repents with a sigh ; Though mischief still lurks In the tail of her eye ! And just as one's longing To pinch her small ears, The goddess dissolves In a passion of tears. She cries like a child, But her smile is divine : Though constancy, mark you ! Is not in her line. One never can tell If the faithless young sprite Will hold to the promise She made overnight. A creature of moods And capricious as — weather ! She's never the same For two minutes together. With the form of a sylph And the voice of a bird, She can lure and betray With a glance or a word. 9a APRIL 93 Yet such is the charm Of the arrant coquette That never a lover Deserted her yet. When Easter bells ring She comes running with flowers, And decks the church gay With the spoil of her bowers. And they think of old times Do the Saints in their niches Bedecked with old friends From the hedges and ditches. While choir boys are wondering If cousins in Heaven Have chaffinches' ^ggs And a cricket eleven. O Nymph of the Woods Never flit from the scene Till thy lovers are weary Of wearing the green. Ah me ! as the cuckoo First calls on the dell. She's gone ! and with never A word of farewell ! MAY Maid of the merry eye, How art thou grown so frowardly, so shy That every meadow mourns ? Thy shepherds tremble and thy maids look pale ; Under the maybushes the tiny snail Draws in his timorous horns. Dead poets, one and all, Have writ thy legend, Maiden, on the wall In words that burn and glow. We wait with longing eyes, and only see A pallid ghost, whei-e Hesh and blood should be. Heigh ho ! poor ghost, heigh ho ! The cuckoo cries all day For his old playfellow, his bonny May, Who by the fountain's brim Where the young saplings sorrowfully drip In marble stands, her finger on her lip. And will not speak to him. Ah ! who will break the spell ? Ho ! merry gnomes ! ho ! fairies of the dell ! Ho ! blossom to the thorn ! Bloom, dance, and sing ! till from the iiaunted brain The shadows flee away, and once again A Poet shall be born. 94 SNOWDROPS FoiiTH from your tombs, ye slender snow-capped sprites, And call our buried hearts with you to rise Up through the clods, to angel-haunted heights Where Hope's gay rainbow spans tempestuous skies ! Whisper the secrets that we yearn to know, Ye that have slept in the " dark Mother's " breast, In the deep shadows of the world below, Where broken hearts and withered beauties rest. Hush ! 'tis the thrush, on a bare bough apart ! The Angel of the Resurrection sings : Lift up your heads. Nuns of the Sacred Heart ! Awake ! arise ! unfold your shining wings ! And in a moment, twinkling through the sod. Immaculate, behold the Brides of God ! 95 THE VENTURE OF JANUARY Jest not, ye simple pilgrims of the wold, Till ye have crossed the threshold of the house Where fate awaits you, lest perchance ye rouse The lambs of Janus, slumbering in fold ! He that is wise will taiTy in the hall To buckle armour on : more nimbly goes The well-accoutred knight to tilt with foes : Keen eye, stout heart, whatever chance befall ! Ye that be fools (ha ! what a crowd there be !) God make you merry, as you fare along ! The heart that finds its exit in a song Will never pine for lack of company. Cheer, brothers all ! ere yet the passing bell Speed every mother's son to Heaven or Hell. 96 NOVEMBER Who shall despise her ? who and what is he That sees no beauty in the leafless tree ; Hears not the music of the wind-swept plain, Nor the wild poem of the ruthless rain ? When roses die, and Pleasure droops her wing. And Heaven is hid, and birds forget to sing, Would ye the waning witcheries recall When wearied Nature hastens to the fall ? Nay, my dark Lady, come and weave the shroud For Beauty vanishing behind a cloud. And when Earth's pilgrim on the pathway faints, Call to remembrance her departed saints ; Nor grudge the comforting of lesser souls Who crowd around, and cry to thee for doles. Stand thou between the living and the dead. Clothed with the sun, when evening skies are red. With reverent finger gently, one by one, Silence the shuttles, when the work is done, And gather up the fragments of the year With funeral honours, on the sacred liiei-. O be it mine with thee to pass away When the mists creep around my house of clay ! Call through the silence of deserted eaves. Hide me away among the fallen leaves, And bid thy robin sing a parting stave Of benediction, o'er thy lover's grave ! 7 SPRING When Spring is climbing up the mountain side, And in the sunshine melts the winter snow : When the first buds upon the trees are spied, And in the grass the first small flowerets blow : When in the vale at last The time of rain is past, And all the horror of the winter blast : Then o'er hill and dale Sweetest echoes ring : Fair, ah ! so fan-, so fair the face of Spring ! When glaciers to the Sun's warm kisses yield, When the brook gushes, babbling to the hills : When tender greenery decks the budding field, And through the woods the voice of music thrills : Through the green meads waft Spicy breezes soft. And the pure blue high Heaven laughs aloft: Over hill and dale Sweetest echoes ring Fair, ah ! so fair, so fair the face of Spring ! 98 SPRING 99 Was it not also in the fair young Spring When to my heart first sweetly opened thine ? When first our lips in Love's delight did cling In one long kiss, O sweetest maiden mine ? Then from every grove Came the song of love, Fountains murmured in the hills above : While from hill and dale Did the echoes ring, Fair, ah ! so fair, so fair the face of Spring ! (From the Lieder des Mirza Schaffy) MAY SONG May we ? May we not ? May we not ? May we? O but there's joy in it ! Pipe it again, pipit ! All the world's listening ! Little eyes glistening ! Tiny wings fluttering ! Busy things muttering ! Giddy feet dancing ! Men'Y maids glancing ! May we? May we not ? May we not ? May we ? Hatch a joy ! chip it ! Catch a joy ! sip it ! While the May blooms, nip it ! Toss it away ! Where a waist is, clip it ! With the May Queen, trip it ! Blithe as a Fay. MAY SONG loi May we not ? May we ? May we not ? May we ? So sang the Tree Pipit On a green spray ! SPRING FAIRIES Hush ! ye wild winds : your hour is past. Let no uncouth, discourteous blast Invade a Lady''s bower ! Trip it, ye fairies, grave or gay : When Catherine calls the holiday 'Tis yours to bring the flower. The Snowdrop bows her pensive head : She curtsies, as her word is said : " Goodmorrow ! and Goodbye ! " The Crocus laughs : " My heart of gold " Is, Madam, yours, to have and hold. " For you I live and die."" The Violet sighs : " Ah ! let me breathe " Upon your heart : I here bequeath " My secrets in a kiss. " Live, gentle Lady, and I die " Contented with my destiny " And little hour of bhss." Sir Daffodil, a glittering Knight, Bends to his saddlebow, alight With gallantry and glee. SPRING FAIRIES 103 " Madam," he cries, " I greet you well : " And may you always be the Belle " When I am Beau^'' quoth he, {Unfinislicd)'^ * My mother adds : " I well remember the sigh with which I "greeted the interruption, that cut off this little poem in full " career. The fancies that were flocking to me took umbrage, and "vanished, never to return. But poets should not be housekeepers ; "or perhaps we should rather say, housekeepers should never be " poets: " Imperial Ca;sar was by daggers ended : " These humble rhymes, by something to be mended ! " THE FAIR MAID OF FEBRUARY Hail ! thou fearless, peerless Thing, Herald Maiden of the Spring, Every vein of thee astir With a dazzling hint of Her. Speak and tell, O lovely Sprite, Where was wrought thy tabard white ? Art thou but a snowflake, blown Downwards from the Great White Throne Where lie stored the Patterns fine Of the things we deem divine ? Didst thou bloom in Eden's bowers In the dim primeval hours, Caught away to Heaven, when Sin With the serpent glided in. Lest a smirch on virgin snow Seal the day of overthrow ? Nay, she whispers, faint and low, I was born the child of woe, In that hour of grief and shame When the Angel of the Flame On sad mortals closed the door Of young Joy for evermore. In that anguished hour forlorn Eva Avept — and I was born, 104 THE FAIR MAID OF FEBRUARY 105 Earth to earth ! a woman's tear ! 'Twas the first : I guard it here. As she ceased, a long drawn sigh Through the woods crept shuddering by. Shaken by a mighty blast, Heaven and Earth were overcast. And in battle, fighting, fell Winter, with a wild farewell. Undismayed, the fairy stood, Peeping from her silver hood. Pale she shone, but not for fear, Statelier, as the storm drew near, And her challenge lightly hurled. One fair maid against the world ! WHEN MARCH WINDS BLOW! Give me veiled Eyes, divinely blue, Whose modest glances tell A secret shy, which none but they and I May dare to spell. Give me a Heart, whose treasures lie Far out of vulgar ken : All, all my own, my treasure trove, unknown To Gods or men. Give me a Voice, a lyre-swept tone, Familiar as a song. Whose burden is an oft-repeated bliss The whole day long. Give me, O Love, thy lips to kiss When Faith and Hope burn low. What lack I yet ? Joy ! joy ! a violet ! The March winds blow ! ^ ^ Note, in this poem, the strange skill with which the rhyme s managed : so also in The Shadow of Deaths p. 37, and elsewhere. 106 CRADLE SONG Baby sleeps ! Softly come and softly go ! To and fro, over the snow Robin footeth it : so ! so ! Lightly tread, and whisper low. Baby sleeps ! ^ Hush ! hush ! Here in the bush is the bird's nest. Peep in warily, touch not, lest Ye ruffle the down of the swan's breast. And rouse my King out of His rest. . Hush! hush! Lullaby, love ! Who is He that is born a King ? Chief among thousands, flower of Spring, Honey and milk for Thee I bring, Son of my bosom, while I sing Lullaby, love ! Heaven lies low ! Heart of my heart, its glories shine Round this poor little crib of Thine. 107 io8 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Hovering Angels guard the shrine. He that wanteth the wings is mine ! Heaven lies low ! ^ * This incomparable little poem is one of those which no other human being but my mother could ever have produced. The Virgin Mary is the speaker. IN MEMORIAM AUG. 17 Darling, when you crossed the River, At the ebbing of the tide, Leaving me bereft for ever, Weeping by the waterside, Did you turn and wonder why We were parted, you and I ? Is my face forgotten yonder ? ^Art thou blest where I am not ? While I darkly dream and ponder By the little empty cot Where my buried treasures lie Unforgotten till I die. One by one, I count them over. Petals from my rose of youth, Precious only to the lover Who can read the name of Ruth. O my baby, by and bye, Shall we spell it, you and I ? 109 HER FAVORITE COLOUR In willow weeds I'll clothe me, Lest my sweet Lady loathe me, For well she loves the green. For zeell she loves the gi'een. ril seek me out a cypress tree, A thicket green with rosemary ; My Lady loves the green. My Lady loves the green. Up, up, o'er down and dell ! Up, up, o'er heath and fell ! My Lady rides in green. My Lady rides in green. I prick, with Love, across the heath To hunt the deer whose name is Death. Sweetheart, thy dart is keen. Sweetheart, thy dart is keen. In green field dig my grave, Green gi'ass above me wave. For well she loves the gi-een. For well she loves the green. HER FAVORITE COLOUR iii No gloomy cross ! no floweret gay. Green, green, let all be green, I say. Because she loves the green. Because she loves the green} {From Schubert) ^ Schubert's songs were my mother's everlasting delight : she was a very good piano player. '*' ENFANTS DE MARIE (whispered) Where the little child Angels play Up in Heaven^ 'tis holiday. When the lily maids ring their hells. Little child Angels hunt for shells On the sands of a golden shore Where they can hear the breakers roar. Mary sits in her rock-hewn chair. Where she can taste the salt sea air. Round her feet the children play : Sunshine bathing them all the day. There theyfutter and flirt their wings. While she teaches them Names of' Things. " Father " ami " Mother " are shells of' price . Even broken ones always nice. Keen the search for " Coral and Bells,'''' They are the delicate chimi?}g' sheik. ENFANTS DE MARIE 113 " Spades'''' and " Pails " are common ami strong: In their holloios one hears a song. What the song sayeth they long to knoio : But ifsjar axvay and ifs long" ago. Mary knows, but she may not tell The word the Sea has told the Shell. " Money " shells are all chipped and small : They just count Jor nothing at all. But the most precious of shells is this : Angels call it a '^^ Mother s Kiss.'''' He xoho lays it on Mary^s knee Into tlm heart of' her heart goes he Deep, deep, till he learns the spell Ofinoan'ing Sea and murmuring shell. 8 A CHRISTMAS SONG Come, let us sing ! Sing the great Warrior's birth Who fought and fell To ransom sons of Earth From Powers of Hell. Sing for the King ! Come, Robin, join the choir ! Pipe from the naked bough, with heart of fire. Thy note of jubilee ! For man and bird and beast Must keep the feast Of Him whose loaf hath many a crumb for thee. Sing, happy Mothers, ye who know Somewhat of Mary's joy, without her woe ! And as ye lull your little ones to rest Bethink ye of the cradle in the stall. And sing a welcome to the Heir of all Who wept a Babe upon a woman's breast. Sing, Shepherds, as ye keep Cold vigil in the fold : And as ye tend the bleating sheep "4 A CHRISTMAS SONG 115 Sing, till the startled plain Re-echo to the strain That Angels sang to comfort men of old. And O ye Sages wise, Ye men of merchandise. Leave ye the Market Place for one glad day. Fling down the Burden, be it cross or crown, As the song soars, down with Earth's burden, down ! Come, let us pray ! CLIMB ! Climb, squirrel, climb through the tall oak tree Till nothing hang betwixt Heaven and thee, And the quivering bough like a reed doth bend ! Stork, true lover of ancient towers, O mount, O fly, with a wing that scours From spire to keep, where the donjon lours From church to castle thy swift way wend ! Eagle old, from thine eyrie soar To hills with rime of the ages hoar Where winter reigns mid eternal snow ! And thou that canst never for singing rest When the Dawn peeps in on thy dewy nest, Spring higher, yet higher, thou heart of fire, A spark, sweet lark ! in the morning glow ! And now, and now, from the crown of the bower, From the snow-capp'd spires of the marble tower, From the mountain high, from the rose red sky — Can you see through the mist, on the world's grey rim, A nodding plume on a helmet's brim, And a flying steed all flecked with foam. And my own true love as he rideth home ? ( From Victor Hugo) ti6 SI VOUS SAVIEZ Lass, did ye ken how a man can greet When a man's his lane, wi' nae fireside, Ye'd whiles pass by this side the street Where I maun bide. Did ye ken how Hope can be bom again In the wae worn heart, frae a kindly glance, Ye'd keek in here at the window pane As 'twere by chance. Did ye ken the baum ae heart can pour Intill another that beats close bv, Ye'd sit doon, sisterlike, by my door, For company. Lassie, I lo'e ye, my heart's awa And how man luves, if ye did but ken, Maybe wi' nae great fash at a' Ye'd just come ben. 1888 117 THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ Yesterday, as you and I Sat beneath a willow tree Dreaming of a Day gone by Far away across the sea ; And of Liehe, lowly laid, England's Flag across her bier. While the parting words were said That her lovers could not hear. Through my heart a Fancy flew : Ruth my courier dove shall be And her silver wing for you Bears a token, Dear, from me. Liehe lives ! the severing years Are but " healing leaves " that fall. Nature's tributary tears : Liebe counts and hoards them all. As of yore, she smiles and sings. Now a Maid and now a Wife, Of a hundred thousand things Whispering through the tree of life. ii8 THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ 119 All our names are in her trust Evergreen and unforgot Till we steal behind her, just As we stole behind her cot Years ago, and made her guess Who was who, by touch of hand : She will turn, O happiness, Clasp, and kiss, and understand.^ ^ Liebe, a play on " Libby," a sister who died at Suez on her way from India, and (if the other sisters who adored her may be believed) came straight home to England the same night — the dead travel fast — to tell them so. It was a pretty fancy to send as messenger to the dead sister another sister's child, Ruth, who died, very young, long afterwards : a fancy which forms a staple superstition in Africa. So do barbarism and affection touch. TO THE MODEL OF MY GRAND- DAUGHTER'S HAND (Sent from Malta in 1888) They carried in a tiny chest And laid it on my knee. I raised the lid, where something hid My heart had longed to see : A Hand, whose tiny fingers hold All chapters of a tale — untold ! How wilt thou write it, fairy quill ? In brief and sturdy prose ? Or in light rhyme, to suit a time That dances as it goes ? Yet gather daisies while you may, Ye dimpled Fingers of To-day. Strange sample of Great Nature's Power Is this small baby Hand ! Fingers more feeble than a flower, Grip like an iron band ! Breal' it asunder, if yoit can. That Grip of Child on Mother of Man ! MODEL OF GRANDDAUGHTER'S HAND 1 2 1 Dear Baby Hand, the rest of you Is far beyond the sea. Alas ! in actual flesh and blood I cannot play with thee, Wee type of many another bliss That faded from me in a kiss ! Both hands I crave, about my neck With kisses, wet as rain, To bring a flood back to my blood And make me young again. Thou art a Shrine to hold the Toy, O Grasper of all childhood's joy ! Some day, maybe, thy whole will come, And arvts shall brush away The doubts and fears of waiting years. To bid an old heart play. Then Cat with Kitten shall compete And Spring weave flowers at Winter''s feet. ROOK SUNDAY To-morrow come, you said, and spend My Red Cross Day with me, old friend. * What is To-morrow ? Sad surprise Gazed at me from yoiu- shadowy eyes. The rooks begin to build, said I. You gave no answer but a sigh. Then Memory woke, and I at last Followed her clue into the Past, To the strange long low round green bed Where you lay calling to your Dead, (Caesar is dead, and turned to clay, But Caesar's death lives on to-day) Dearest, forgive, when I forget The grief that fills your bosom yet. 'Tis with a difference I and you Wear the small fatal spiig of rue. ROOK SUNDAY 123 Yours, broken, crushed away, unseen : Mine, a fresh branch, and evergreen. O yes, to-morrow let us blend Two sorrows that can never end. And as the rooks, on sable wing, Caw their eternal chaunt to Spring, Let Hope's low whisper reach our ears, And weave a rainbow of our tears. THEOTOKOS In Mary's maiden bower, Long, long ago, Shone the Lord's lily flower, Whiter than snow. Hail, Mary ! how it rang In the spring weather When birds and Angels sang Round her together. What thrilled that heart of love, Lady most blest, When, cleaving Heaven, the Dove Sank to thy breast? And in that placid Deep Trouble first stirred, As one in broken sleep Wakes at a word. Hail, Mary ! full of grace, Be of good cheer. Now to thy fond embrace Jesus draws near. 124 THEOTOKOS 125 O greatly favoured one, Christ, and none other, God's own Anointed Son Calleth thee Mother ! Hope of man's fallen race, Woman, thou art. God seeks His resting place Here, in thy heart. Ceaseth the Angel voice. All his hest spoken. Till for our Lady's choice Silence is broken With her soft answer given : " So let it be ! " Through the gold gates of Heaven Gabriel flies free. Over Earth's wearied things Night's shadow creeps. Fold, Angels, fold your wings, God's Mother sleeps ! B.C.: A.D. (The First Christmas : the Last Pagan Year) All round him drift pale Winter's waifs and strays ; Worn weary wayfarers, that crave release From age and burdens, 'seeking rest and peace ; Pastureless flocks, that bleat about the ways, Lost, hopeless, in those drear diminished days, While Love lies dormant in his house of clay, And snow lies deep, and travellers do pray : — And as he stands, he listens, in amaze ! — He, the Old Year, like planet in eclipse, Keady to go — a cry his ear offends ! See, through that crevice, there a red ray slips ; And in he peeps, to see what it portends : Lo ! o'er a Babe, a Maiden Mother bends With starlit eyes, her finger on her lips ! ^ ' A copy of Blanco While's sonnet (Mysterious Nr'ghi), which Coleridge thought the finest of all English sonnets, lay in my Mother's Book in her sister's handwriting. Did she know — can she possibly not have known — the greatness'of this ? 126 PAX! Come in by the garden : no umbrage can be When icicles hang on a withered fig tree. Let's bury the hatchet ! we'll quarrel no more, While mistletoe hangs its green bough by the door. Forgive an^ forget ! the old adage holds true, When Nothing's the matter, then Muckle Ado ! Yet while a bird sings, and the snow flings its pall, There is music, and peace, and a grave for it all. "7 AT HER GRAVE " But, she's dead ! you showed me, where- Yes, O yes : she slumbers there. But when dew is on the brake, Silence sleeps on earth and sea, Mourners weep, and ghosts awake : Then, ah then ! she comes to me. " But the change ! the face ! the form !- Man, man, ye babble : form and face ! Think you I ask the greedy worm To give me back the buried grace Of shining eyes or shady tresses ? I only know that she is here. And that we meet, and that we part, And that I drink within my ear. And that I clasp around my heart Her sweet still voice and soft caresses. xaS DOUBT As one by one our childhood's playmates pass Behind the Veil, and never come again To tell of worlds behind the Looking Glass We used to dream about, but seek in vain. Our lonely hearts misgive us : seared by pain Or baffled hopes, we wither, as the grass Lies withered on the mead, for lack of rain. Alas ! for meadowsweet, alas ! alas ! So wails the bird forsaken, from the tree. For the lost mate who never makes reply ; Flown far away across the " glassy sea." Poor mourner on the shore, ah ! by and bye Thy turn shall come, to cross that ocean wide : But will she meet thee on the other side ? THE MONK Now let us pace the dim cathedral aisle, And count the fretted arches overhead, As round us moans a requiem for the dead Who were aweary and must rest awhile. Whither away, good monk, so grim, so wild ? What be those keys that at thy girdle swing ? Keys of the Treasure Chest, where Death the King Stores precious seed of Life Eternal, child. Within that Coffer lies a nook for thee, When thou art sick of time, and fain to flee.^ 1 My mother told me that she woke from a dream with these strange lines readymade in her head. " I wish," she said, " I could have painted the horrible Monk, but only Blake could have clone it." 130 A BIRTHDAY SONNET I BLESS the daughter of St. Andrew, she Who in my garden blossoms bravely on When all the summer flowers are dead and gone ; Born for the moment of adversity. Her lighted torch, a gold chrysanthemum : Her bard, a robin, singing all alone His solo, with a music like her own, In the dim aisles whose choristers are dumb. It is not'dark there where that torch doth shine, Nor lonely, with her footstep on the floor. Dear Angel of my basket and my store, God's little almoner of bread and wine. Thou art a Roman Vestal, thine the grace That keeps life's fire undying in my place. ^ St. Andrew's Day 1898 ^ This, and the next, are addressed to the daughter without whom she probably could not have lived : one who was content to play Martha all her life, in order that Mary might be Mary. >3i KUNDRY Ere drowsing maids their dreams forsake, My little Kundry, long awake, Has stolen down the stairs. The Household Gods sit watchful by. While she, with sage forethoughtful eye. For my new day prepares. Sweetness and Light, two potent sprites. She first invokes, with mystic rites. And lo ! at her desire. Obsequious as the hearth she tends, The Morning Air assistance lends To fan the sacred fire. Reducing now Sibylline rules To practice, with old humble tools, The Duster and the Broom, My priestess makes her temple clean, And offers sacrifice (unseen) To purify the room. Rich odours now that temple fill, Incense, by grinding of the mill. And roasting of the bean : 133 KUNDRY 133 What draught ambrosial Love supplies ! Where sugar with devotion vies, 'Tis Nectar for a queen. Who stole my purse, stole trash : my gold Is gone, with all that gold controlled By mercenary meed. But rob me of my pearl, the Kate Who stoops for me to conquer fate, You leave me poor indeed.^ * My mother used to say that Kundry's answer to Klingsohr ( Was willst du ? Dienen !) struck the keynote of every great career : (it is only noblesse oblige in another form). Those who do not know this will miss the compliment — in her eyes the greatest possible — that she paid my sister in calling her Kundry. That single word said all. OLD AGE Spring past, and Summer ended, Autumn sped With all her fallen leaves, now Winter's frost Seals up within his silver urn, embossed With fairy fretwork, relics of the dead. Faltering I pause, upon a wave-worn verge : Ended the journey that behind me lies : Whose features fade before my yearning eyes : While Voices haunt the thunder of the surge That breaks around me : and I cannot tell What they are crying : Welcome, or Farewell. February 1893 134 THISTLEDOWN •35 Life, said a witty Frenchman, is a tragedy to those who feel, a comedy to those who think : an aphorism exactly describing the degree in which my mother's Bittersweet differs generally from her Thistledown : her own tragedy did not monopolise her, nor prevent her from observing Life's lighter side with a shrewd humour, often as masculine and satirical as her other poetry is feminine and pathetic. Detachment, or, as the Hindoos would say, the power of looking on indifferently, like one " standing on the bank," is the secret of this anomaly : it argues a dramatic capacity of getting outside one's own personality essentially identical with true humour : the many-sided point of view seen at its highest power in a Scott or a Shakespeare, wholly unattain- able to a Byron or a Shelley ; a sign of very great strength of character. »36 BUBBLES (Drawn from Natukp: by C B.) 'TwAS a still afternoon In the sunlight of June, And the swallows soared high, Taking notes in the sky From their own point of view, When they spied something new -- From a balcony rising, Things truly surprising Now here and now there, Sailing lightly in air, They floated like dreams In the warm golden beams : Opalesque ! iridescent ! And all evanescent ! The swallows were troubled. Their shrill cries redoubled : The thing was mysterious And might become serious. Being birds of some wit. They palavered a bit. They twittered, they chided, At last they decided 137 138 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES That all innovation Demands explanation. Moreover, that mystery Must have a history : Nothing like science, But meanwhile defiance. What followed was funny, And worth any money. With beaks and with wings They assailed the strange things. Some tried to pursue them, And some to dive through them. While he the &mall author Of all the sweet bother Stood Lord of the whole With a pipe and a bowl. From his hand the spheres fly, The boy laughs ! the birds cry ! Till lo ! the fun ceases : The pipe is in pieces ! * * * So two worlds unite For the poet's delight. THEY TWAIN Turn thy back upon the sun, Adam, as the maids go by : Eve is there, the appointed one ; Choose her with untroubled eye. Lose her : and two lives are marred. Earth's a desert : Heaven is barred. Souls are colours : when they blend. Life's a weft of broidery rare : N^ever shall the story end Outlined so divinely there. Hues mismatched are sprites that brew Evil dreams, that may come true. Know thy colour : doth it glow t Seek a hue will tone it down. Crocus makes a goodlier show When the plot lies bare and brown. Faded Blue is slain, if seen Arm-in-arm with verdant Green. Mark a woman, when she goes Seeking just the subtle touch That in ribbon or in rose Makes her little beauty, much : 139 140 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Ribbons are not worn for life : Once for ever, man and wife. Ahsitomen! hush! they know All about it, up in Heaven ; Where the rainbows come and go Fireblent, not of twain, but seven ! And of mortals'" shattered hopes Angels make kaleidoscopes. THE POPINJAY They say — and let no captious doubt Upon this tale be thrown : Either accept it, out and out, Or let the thing alone. Long, long ago, in Noman's land, Perennially green. Where Nobody had travelled yet And Nothing had been seen, A happy band of home-bred Apes, With tails agreeably curled. Decided that the hour was come To interview the world. No vile impedimenta stayed The little episode : In native worth and valour clad, They simply took the road To Nowhere in particular. And with unerring^air They diagnosed the shortest route (Cute bounders !) Everywhere. «4» 142 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Till gorged with mental pabulum, Leg-weary and footsore, They wanted to get back again To where they were before They'd been, they'd seen, they'd conquered, more Than they could well digest : And needed to go home again Their gleanings to invest. So steering for sweet home one night. Beneath a wintry sky. They crossed a valley, where alas ! The Bloom was off the Rye. Where Pineapples were gone to seed. And nothing left but rind, Whereat they munched, and munched, and munched, In agony of mind And grief of body, up a tree. While every starving soul Agreed a little Part would be Far greater than the Whole. But their uncouth outlandish air Made well-bred natives shy, So no one asked them who they were, Or whence they came, or why. THE POPINJAY 143 For in this vale, the Popinjays Dwell, scions of old kings. With tufts upon their courtly heads Quite high, superior Things. And never since old Time began Had one dissentient Nay Been uttered, muttered, barked, or breathed To any Popinjay. What boots prestige with bootless tramps Who, for one vital spark, Would gladly burn each blessed twig In Popinjay's old park. Self Preservation rules the hour For wretches, half alive : Even the Fittest Ape had doubts If he could lonif survive. Yet holding on in hope, despite His circulation low, He suddenly beheld a light Which made his liver glow. What art thou, little heavenly beam. Shining so clear, so still ? Salvation ! Every shivering ape Has caught the electric thrill. 144 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Fire! in the twinkling of an eye A Bonfire it shall be. Hey ! for a faggot ! down they fly, Dry chips, from every tree. But lo ! from forth his leafy bower Whence he had watched the scene, The Popinjay stepped out, to ask What these strange antics mean. wise and reverend Seigneurs, (for In spite of all I see, 1 doubt not motives underlie Your deeds, too deep for me) Thafs but a miserable worm. For fire of no avail. Who fools you by the light she shows Deceitful in her tail. Have ye no Glowworms in your land ? He ceased, from sheer surprise, Suddenly stricken by a flash From furious female eyes. Upon him, like a demon, sprang A weird and grisly shape ! The Popinjay withdrew a step Before the old She Ape. THE POPINJAY 145 (A perfect gentleman was he From topknot down to toe ; Who shrank from a disco ui'tesy As from a dastard blow). Peace ! idiot Bird ! the Beldame cried. Be off' ! and in a trice ! We manage all our own concerns : We do not want advice. Go ! meddle not with Us, who know : And what are you, to preach ? A pretty Poppet, on my word, Your Grandmother to teach ! The Popinjay politely bowed, And turned, to go away. (Ah ! had he only g'one, he miglit Be still alive, to-day !) Alas ! his pinky courtesy Drove him upon his fate. Madam, he said, your gentle hint I quite appreciate. Yet, if I might presume, be wise. And let the worm alone. You might as well attempt to squeeze Oil, out of yonder stone 10 146 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES As try — but lo ! she took the stone And smashed it on his head. And here the story stops, because Poor Popinjay was dead. Epilogue Here ends the Fable, just a chip Of very ancient bark From a fair tree they felled one day When building Noah's Ark. Its Moral is conspicuous As constable to thief. Mind your own business : those who dont Are sure to come to grief. ^ ' I gave my mother a copy of North's Bidpai, and she wrote oft these clever lines currente calamo. But when I told her the true old Hindoo conclusion, which is far more trenchant than Bidpai's, she remodelled the last few verses, as they now stand. But I am A heretic about La Fontaine and the versifiers. The real old fable is the short bald prose, curt and abrupt, all point and nothing else ; which goes straight home, like a blow. "ONE TOUCH OF NATURE" " / had him. Sir ! " « You had, Sir ? Who ? " " That old Bluebottle, Sir, I slew, " As round my nose he buzzed and flew, " Till I, in desperation, •' Out of a day-dream's witching spell " Sprang, with a wild demoniac yell, " And brought my foot down on his fell " Flirtation ! " " Sir, the expression of your eye " Reminds me — of another fly : " But we were partners — he and I, " March brown, I think they called him " I threw him, from my ' prentice hand,' " And had him — you will understand, — " A trout ! my first ! three pounds ! to land " I hauled him." "Why, so did I — I must explain. " No fish. Sir, mine : 'twas in my brain, " A word I hunted, all in vain ! " Some coat of darkness clad him. " He dodged me like an eel — observe, " No other word my turn would serve — " And, pounce ! upon a tingling nerve " / had him ! " ^ «47 148 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Here laughed an urchin : " Sir," lisped he, " I think you must have felt like me " Last Tuesday, when I sprained my knee, " Our football shield, you know, Sir ! " 'Twas in the scrimmage : with a yell " Atop of me the fellows fell ; " The Ball, ha ! ha ! I had him, Well " Below, Sir ! " Now chattering up the kitchen stair Come Jane and Mary, giggling pair. " How did you make the man declare ? " My ! Mary : but you're clever ! "" " 'Twas touch and go : 'twixt you and me, " He shied, I cried, he kissed ! he ! he ! " / had him, nicely up a tree ! " " I never ! " Beside his board our Champion sits : Shows, with a brag, to duller wits How he had foiled old Donnerblitz : " A man much overrated ! " His King stood there : my Bishop, so " I sacrifice the Queen ! and lo ! " / had him in a vice — ho ! ho ! " Checkmated ! " Droll natural touch, that stamps the clan Of immature, evolving man. Who struggling up as best he can, His feats of brain or muscle "ONE TOUCH OF NATURE" 149 To admiration must display : Some cat-and-mouse work, play, or prey, A scalp or two, or anyway, A tussle. 1 ^ Observe this last verse : it is one of those in which my mother unconsciously exhibits her own character : a touch of Jane Austen, MY GRAMMAR OF ASSENT 1 " Why such a fuss, Jeanie ? what could a body do ? " What made you smile, as we came through the rye ? " Who could resist the glance ? " Old Harry Quatre of France " Wouldn't have missed the chance."" (Neither would I !) 2 " There lies my little glove ! see ! by the lion's mouth ! " Fetch it, who wants me : his lady-love I." Out spoke her cavalier, {After his dread career) " I wouldn't have you, Dear ! " {Neitlier would I !) 3 " Well, dear, he jilted you : but she has jilted him : " Now, he is yours again, if you say Aye ! '' What ! shake your pretty head ! " Won't you revive the dead P " " No ! I will «o<," she said. {Neither would I !) 150 MY GRAMMAR OF ASSENT 151 4 " Gardener, gardener ! weeds ! in my tulip bed ! "" " 'Tis the rich soil, ma''am," said he : " never cry ! " For a poor soil and thin " Which not a weed grew in " I wouldn't give a pin." (Neither zvould I !) " Never say die," said the spider-philosopher : " King, try again ! when your web's broken : try ! " Spin, and for ever spin : " Scotland's the prize to win." Bruce never would give in. (Neither zvouki I!) 6 " Marry me, dear ! " said an Octogenarian : " You shall have everything money can buy." " Buy ! " said Eighteen : "bother ! " Thank you, Sir ; Fd rather " Noty with my grandfather." (Neither zvould I !) " What ! Whig or Tory, and even a Peer to be " A'o^ wriggle, crawl, curry favour, and lie ? " What ! you disdain Honour " With such a stain on her '^ "Don't wish to gain Honour?" (Neither would I !) 152 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES 8 " Out of my sunlight, O King," said Diogenes. " Fool ! did you rate independence so high ? "Not for an Empery " Part with your Liberty ? " What an absurdity ! " {Neither would I !) 9 Wise the old King, who was offered Eternity. No, said he, hurt/ me, deep, when I die. I with the Dead remain. Not for the world, again Would I consent to reign. (Neither ivoiikl I !)^ ^ As the reader has already perceived, the title is an allusion to Cardinal Newman, whom my mother venerated, and whose writings she knew by heart. Among my earliest recollections is the shelf on which stood the long^row of his books : I can see all their faded colours still. A MORNING CALL 'TwAS just that moment of the year When o'er Spring's shoulder, Summer peeps And bids the Cuckoo cry : Tm here ! And rakes the hay to fragrant heaps. When freckled eggs are in the nest, And blossom gems each hoary bough, And Hope springs green in every breast. And- Love laughs low, and whispers : Noxv ! And all my tulips, blowing fast, Each opening bloom a bright surprise, A colour study, caught at last In radiant hints from Paradise. I watched my beauties, hour by hour : As misers count their hoarded gold. I counted every dainty flower That blushed above the fragrant mould. » One morn, I rose in mood serene ; I drew aside my window blind. Lo ! where my tulip beds had been A shapeless, grisly Form reclined. '53 154 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES The hideous Shape lay grim and still, As though he were a thing of stone : And as I gazed, a blighting chill Benumbed my vitals to the bone. Then, waking to a sense of loss, I reached the spot, with rapid stride : A hoary Ass lay stretched across My choice preserve of Bloom and Pride. With snorts of rage and eyes of flame The gardener ran, with all his boys. Keen as young bloodhounds for the game Which legalised a glorious noise. We tried anathemas, with blows : We tried persuasion : all in vain ! Unruffled in his stern repose, That Ass elected to remain. My painted beauties, by the score Beneath his shapeless carrion lay, Their silken ed petals plastered o'er By touch of gross, defiling clay. Whence came the Fiend ? we asked with dread But no man could the riddle read. No ass within the parish bred Had ever done so foul a deed. To frenzy wrought, I shouted then : 'Tis truly, friends,^ a pretty pass When we, with all the wits of men, Are worsted by a vagrant ass. A MORNING CALL 155 Then on his hide blows fell as hail : We never saw the monster flinch ! One seized his ears, and one his tail : The demon never budged an inch ! We stopped to breathe : we talked of rope — When, with a wild discordant bray, As agile as an antelope, He kicked his heels, and flung away. Away ! pursued by shouts of wrath : The melon frames in shivers fly : His horrid hoofs disdain the path And plough the budding rosery.^ * I ask the reader to note the good temper in this little record of a real event. No greater injury could this deleterious ass have done her, but she could still see the joke. BLAE^S PILGRIMAGE " O MY friend and O my lover, " Leave me not — " alas ! alas ! None may pluck the four-leaved clover Twice, amid the meadow grass. Peter bears the palm for folly : Once he had a friend — a collie. Why the collie cherished Peter, And believed that goose a swan. Lies recorded on some meter Never to be gauged by man. Certes, as the dog grew up, he Proved a quite ideal puppy. Sage and smart, without illusions, Practical, alert, and keen, Drawing sound astute conclusions From the facts he'd sniffed or seen. With a nose of weird acumen And dark eyes divinely human. Peter prized him, in a fashion, Educated, housed, and fed him : Sometimes kicked him when in passion Man's prerogative misled him, 156 BLAE^S PILGRIMAGE 157 But allowed his friend to lick him : Suffered no one else to kick him. Blae was happy : crumbs sufficed him Falling from his master's table : Bony bribe had ne'er enticed him From the dear familiar stable Where, a proud and zealous sentry, He could challenge right of entry. Till, without a word of warning. Native heather faked away, Two fine ladies, one fine morning. Spied, and fell in love with Blae. Bribed his master, begged, besought him, B'or his faithful friend, and bought him. Bought cnul sold! the words go thrunmiing Like a mill in Peter's brain. As he sits forlornly summing Life's exchanges — loss and gain — Three pound notes — a heart of gold, Friend and lover — bought and sold ! No sworn chum before his portal E'er again shall watch for him. Not another living mortal Cares if Peter sink or swim. Whoso holds a friend, to scorn him, He may live, perchance, to mourn him. Hist ! it is the mournful plover Crying in the meadow grass : " Lost a lover ! lost a lover ! Peter, have you seen him pass .'* " 158 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Pricked at heart, but past redeeming, Peter swears, but thinks he's dreaming. Summer wanes : through autumn weather Peter stalking, dour and grim. Sees a ghost upon the heather Halting, faltering, after him. Hears a fond and feeble whining : Meets two eyes — a dog's eyes — shining. Faint and footsore, worn with travel, O'er a desert, lost and lone, How shall reasoning man unravel What to dogged prayer was shown ? Till upon the hearthstone lying That he loves, the dog is dying. Stoop, man, stoop ! and give the blessing That he craves : thy fingers lend To the tongue, whose mute caressing Hails his Master to the end. And when all his trouble's over. Dig a grave among the clover. Pilgrim, rest ! Scotch hills surround thee. Stand on guard, and keep their trust : Muirland blossoms spring around thee. Quickened from thy faithful dust. Dog and man must die, but never Dies true love : it lives for ever. OLLY {A Solihquy in Three Acts) 1. Morning What a perfect old place ! what a dream, at this time of the year : rd have run down before, if Td known. Why, the thing is a Paradise : Eden ! And Olga is here : What a beauty she's grown ! It's the lamp of Aladdin ! to think that it isn't much over An hour, from the stuffy old City ! And "Oily," just sweet seventeen ! what a name for a lover ! She's azofnlly pretty ! She looks like a thing in a fairy tale — horn for the place ! The sap of that glorious blossom Must run in the blood — she has stolen the hue, for her face. And the curve, for her bosom. »S9 i6o AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Why, I'm growing poetical ! ah ! and that marvellous hair ! — What luck, that I wasn't expected By yesterday's train ! — why, it tumbled all over her chair Like a cascade, collected And spun out of marigolds — what was that story I read About some old alchemist's daughter Who lived in a garden of poisonous flowers, where she fed Till their (juality caught her And made her a poison — ha ! there Oily goes, like a fawn ! I'll just steal round those laurels, and meet her : That crooked old gardener, whetting his scythe on the lawn. Finds watching her sweeter Than working, apparently — only just harl: to that thrush ! How I hope my steps won't give her warning ! She thinks I am still fast asleep : now then — how she will blush ! " Why, Oily ! Good morning ! " OLLY i6i 2. Noon There ! the murder's out^ Dear ! Yes, it's ti-ue. Doubt me, if you doubt, Dear, You are you. Hard the cat has tried, Dear, All this while, In the bag to hide, Dear. Why the smile ? Knew ? you say you A-«^zc", Dear, Long ago ? Could you really, you^ Dear, Tease me so ? Keep me on the rack, Dear, Watch me drown ? Never pull me back. Dear, Going down ? Torture me for p/rt/y, Dear ? Little cat ! Velvet-Paws must pay. Dear, Dmr, for that. Penalty you owe. Dear ; Pay me, 'please^ Oily dear — no, no ! Dear, No one sees. II 1 62 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Everybody's gone, Dear : We're alone. Not an ear to hear, Dear, But our own. Oily ! wait a bit, Dear : Listen here ! Shall I whisper it. Dear, In your ear ? All shall be forgot. Dear, All forgiven. If . . . you mean it ? What, Dear ? God in Heaven ! You, my Oily, mine, Dear ? Is it true ? idea divine. Dear ! Marry you ! You ! my own ! my wife. Dear ! All of you? 1 would give my life. Dear, For your shoe. You ! It cannot be. Dear ! Are you real ? Has God given me. Dear, My Ideal ? Are you what you seem, Dear ? No mistake? Is it all a dream, Dear ? Shall I wake ? OLLY 163 3, Ntc.ht Goodnight ! old fellow : better go : One has to face these things, you know. Goodbye ! God bless you ! shut the door ! (He doesn't know : we meet no more !) * * * 5S * Well, Oily, here we are : we two. Alone together, I and you. Just one more night — the very last ! So strange it seems ! time went so fast. It's come so soon ! we'd just begun. And all at once, our play is done ! Say, Oily, are you there ? yon lie So deadly still ! . . . and no reply ! Must I do a]l the talking ? Still Silent ? Dead silence ! Then, I will . . . Say rather, must . . . till I grow grey. Till I grow grey ... till ... I .. . grow grey ? * * * * *- Stop ! let me think that out : day, day, Night, night, and night : year after year. Eternity ! and you . . . not here ! I seem to understand, I've got The notion — endless blank — and not My Oily, ever^ anywhere. . . . ***** And what about this golden hair You've left behind ? what's to be done With all this mass of woven sun ? Don't you remember, Dear, the day I saw it[first — so far away, 1 64 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES So near — the day I came from town And caught you, when you had it down ? As if you meant to spread a net To catch my soul — I see it yet, That waterfall of golden rain ! ***** And, Oily, here it is again A superfluity, for Death To play with, now his icy breath Has made its owner cry, enough ! The greedy idiot ! — what stuff To line a coffin with ! what waste ! But anyhow, it shows his taste. ^ V^ V ^ 7P Coffin ! O God ! I had forgot. Dear Oily, though you know it not To-night, all's well ! I have you here Beside me — but the thing I fear Is, when they carry you away ! To-morroxv ! thafs my Judgment Day ! ***** How will it be, to-morrow night. When you are buried ? out of sight ! Gone ! gone^or ever — lying tJiere ! And I must leave you, ah ! despair ! To turn my back upon the tomb, To creep back to this empty room, And sit, and think, night after night Alone ! ... it gives me such a fright I shudder, shiver . . . O, I fear That awful silence. . . . OLLY 165 Oily dear, What ! did you think, when you were gone That Vd remain . . . and " hard upon " The baked meats," as Horatio said. Marry again, when you were dead ? Then, you were xvrong^ dear Oily. No ! Not I ! I follow, where you go. But I must kiss you first, before . . . How cold your lips are ! , . . just once more ! And now, my turn has come, to die ! . . . I didn't think, old friend, that I Should ever be your mark : but there ! One never knows ... in love, all's fair. . . . At such close range, you cannot miss (I mustn't miss) . , . just one more kiss ! . . . And now, out lights ! one needs the dark Somehow, to quench the vital spark. . . . Where are you. Oily ? . . . Now ! . . . What's that ? Good God ! my heart went pit-a-pat ! Only the clock ! . . . two, three, iowr^ five ! Already ! and I'm still alive ! Tick, tick away, old boy ; the ticks Add up — you^W. strike again at six. But my clock stops ... I shall not hear When you strike next. . . . I'm coming, Dear ! THE !5^)UIKES DREAM ( There ! by the stile ! My ! ivhat a while He^s stood, with the dog beside ''un ! Maybe, the money Is looking funny Or snmmafs amiss hiside Wi /) The Squire stands, Head propped on hands, Whip thong on the stile aswing : And thinks of the breeze In the aspen trees That talks like a living thing Talks of a day When life was gay And a penniless lad was young : Of a long long climb Up the steeps of time, Of a lovesong, vainly sung. Of a grave hard by Where lost things lie, Of one little fair bequest : i66 THE SQUIRE'S DREAM 167 Guiltless flower Of a guilty hour Locked in an old man's breast. Of the golden head In its hood of red Like a poppy in rustling corn : And a face with the grace Of another face That died when it was born. Of a holiday On a summer's day That three friends took together : He and she And the puppy, Glee, And the scent of the fern and the heather. Through the Squire's dream Ran a prattling stream From the lips of a sprite of seven : And an anxious query, (Puzzling, very !) " Do good dogs go to Heaven ? " A poser ! Hark ! Saved by a bark, As a rabbit scuds through the clover ! Puppy and child In the chase run wild. And the question now stands over. For ever ! See ! She's nursing Glee, And high on the stile she's mounted : 1 68 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES 'Tis a golden stair Up, up, in the air ! Each step is duly counted. Slips, falls, DIES ! Not a sound : no cries : But the fair head rolls on the shoulder. Vanished ! gone! Eyes looking on That will never again behold her. Blown out of sight In broad daylight Where no one will ever find her ! (Over there 13y the Squire's chair Is the hood that she left behind her) Old, Glee lies With wistful eyes, He knows why the Squire is listening. But she makes no sign. And a dog's low whine Sets an old sad man's eyes glistening. No, old friend 'Tis all at an end. She's left us here in the hollow, Up this stair, And away, lad, where Nor thou, nor I, can follow. DOG WEARY Prone on the lap of his mother earth A son of her bosom Hes. And it^s O for an hour of bramble bower And a green green bough for a curtain now 'Twixt sun and sunburned eyes. With a bird i^ the bough — ah ! rest is sweet, How sweet may no man know Till stress and soil of human toil Through fire and flood have tasted blood And laid the labourer low. Sweet and low is the bird song, With homely sad refrain, That sings and sings of the old things That tug and tug at the heart strings. Till love cries out in pain And wafts a man to the far land Deep in the heart of June Where a lad chose him a wild rose A maid wore in her garland That faded all too soon. 169 170 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Spurn him not, gay ""demoiselle, Pass ! for the world is wide ! Not upon you is the dreamer's view Earth for a bed, and Heaven ahead. On the edge of the Great Divide. 189^ SOLOMON IIEDIVIVUS Love, pecking at his dish of herbs, Grows leaner as he sings, Till, faint and grim, nought's left of hini, Except — a pair of wings ! Yet on the palate, savoury bite Of stall-fed ox will pall If Hatred holds the carving knife ^ And dips the point in gall. More poignant still, there yet remains A misery more complete. When liOve has flown, and Hate's alone. Without a crust to eat. These be the thorns that hedge us round. Poor hapless sons of clay ! We love, we starve, we hate, we carve. And dine as best we may. »7i THE GHASTLY CONFESSION OF RORV O'MOORE The night was black, and a howling blast Tore through the naked, leafless trees : And a tremor over my spirit passed, For I heard a voice, and its words were these : — I am a Ghost ! a wretched, homeless Ghost ! Blown from my moorings, severed from my bones: All jovs of flesh and blood for ever lost ! Ye that knew Rory, listen to these groans ! I was not beautiful : I was not brave : Upon my birth I fear there was a slui'. Write the sad fact in doggrel o'er my grave, No insults harm me now : Here lies a Cur ! Who was my sire ? ray mother only knew ; And she kept dogged silence : but they say. And it is not unlikely to be true, Some Doge he was, who loved, and rode away. Brief were my dog days : scarcely had I known The joy of gambols by the kennel door When I was sent away to school alone, And never saw my mater any more. 17a THE CONFESSION OF RORY O'MOORE 1 7 3 Now was my chance. I learned my A.R.C But ah ! I could not mind my P's and Q's. Dog Latin palled : a pup must have a spree : So, at odd hours, I gnawed the boots and shoes. The good Dame beat me, as in duty bound. My dogskin suffered, and my soul rebelled : Cook's slippers vanished, nowhere to be found ! She swore Td eaten them : I was expelled ! In London next they put me out at nurse. Where, under discipline, 'twas hoped Td mend. Alas ! 1 only went from bad to worse And treacherously bit my master's friend. The matter was hushed up, yet left a stain I from my character could ne'er efface. Never sd briskly cocked my tail again. It wobbled, meanly conscious of disgrace. They paid my taxes with a grudging air : What fiend possessed me ? I that moment chose To play the epicure : all common fare I rudely sniffed with supercilious nose. Porridge ! potatoes ! Faugh ! too vidgar far ! I liked my mutton rare, the gravy in : Five o'clock tea with ladies, regular. And Osborne's biscuits crisply from the tin. Upon my crooked legs I went the pace : Then came collapse : demand, and no supply ! The family flitted to a horrid place Where meat was scarce, and not a butcher nigh. 174 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES My spirit sank, as day succeeded day, And no rich odours from the kitchen came : If mutton walked alive across the way And a dog famished — was the dog to blame ? The Squire's fat sheep in wild confusion ran. Plague on all cowards ! there were just a score : A scuffle ! capture ! then a gun ! a man ! A puff ! a bang ! and Rory was no more ! Absorb me, Sirius ! let my wandering spark, Ineligible now at Battersea, Soar up, and learn how spirit doggies bark WhoVe lost the old machinery, like me. And O sweet ladies, do not quite forget Your old unworthy but devoted slave ; And plant in pity a dog violet O'er the poor ban-dog's solitary grave.^ ^ A true story : to immortalise the horrific exploits of Walter's fearsome cur : a yellow nightmare a yard long, with donkey's ears. Nobody ever passed him in the road without convulsive laughter, tempered with caution. Poor beast ! he got his violet. ^C. B. THE LUCKY BAIRN O mirk's the nicht, but the fire's bricht, Bricht but an' ben : An' the bairn's hame till her ain folk, Amang the sons o' men. She lies on the lap o' the auld wife, A new-fa'en flake o' snaw, Drifted in, wi' the wintry win', That's scaurin' on the haugh. Merrily wag the women's tongues : 'Tis the lucky Bairn, they say : For the cowl lay owre the head o't. As it cam' to the licht o' day. Then the Mither o't, frae the bed she cried Bring ye the Bairn to me ! I'm wearied sair, I can nae mair : An' noo, we'll sleep a wee. She's ta'en the wean upon her airm, Never a word she spak'. But she's tell't it a' that's in her heart And aye it answered back. 175 176 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES She's teirt o' a lang an' a weary road Thafs trampt by weary feet ; She's tell't o' blame, an' sin, an' shame, O' hearts that bleed an' greet. But she said nae word o' the singin' bird, O' the bonnie flower o' the May, O' the aepel tree, or the hummin' bee. Or the smell o' the new-mown hay. She didna tell o' the brier rose. But she tell't it o' the thorn : And o' mitherless bairns, that cry to God That ever they were born. The child crap' in to the Mither's breast. O but the nicht is chill ! " They'll no' wake till the day break : They're sleepin' soft and still." * * * * * Carry them oot to the kirkyard An' lay them doon thegither ; Happed awa' 'neath a drift o' snaw Frae storm an' wintrv weather. FAITH'S MISCARRIAGE 'Tis the Festival Day of our Patron Saint ! She hovers in effigy rude and quaint Lit up by a roseate glory (paint !) In her window within the shrine. Old fragrant name that the Church reveres With homage of nigh two thousand years, The woman who washed with her living tears The feet of her God, and thine. Through the long dim centuries Mary stands, Precious balm in her folded hands, Whose incense floats through Christian lands Up to the heavens above. While to her shrine poor sinners steal To mingle their tears with hers, and kneel In the endearing last appeal Of hearts that can greatly love. Poets have dreamed of her, white and fair, Veiling her sorrows, and shoulders bare. With undimmed treasure of golden hair In bitterest anguish bowed. 12 178 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Aching hearts upon horny knees Her votaries are — but who are these, These nineteenth-century devotees Who thick to her temple crowd ? Women of fashion steal softly in, (Worth's last " notion " of grief for sin) Whose bangles chime with a silvery din As they shade soft eyes — to pray ! And poor little bundles of crape and woes (Who'd score a good deed if they'd scare the crows) Squeeze doggedly in to the best front rows (Or " stalls," as across the way.) Artistic ! yes ! the effect is good ; Colour glows warm in the priest's silk hood : The organ swells, as an organ should When a master smites the keys. Each choir boy borrows an angel's mien : His voice rings sweet, and his smock is clean As the lilies that peep through the chancel screen : The blessed young Pharisees ! And now the hour and the man are come ! The oracle speaks, and the crowd is dumb. As the rapid pass of a practised thumb Betrays his creed and clan. The fair ones rustle, with craning throats. Their papers — would they were £5 notes ! To catch each syllable blest that floats From the lips of the holy man. FAITH'S MISCARRIAGE 179 Highly spiced is the priest's oration : Those who are sure of their own salvation Hear " unwrung " of the swift damnation For others laid up in store. Pitch and plums are so deftly blended, That nobody feels in the least offended, Though glad on the whole when the "'sermon's" ended And music awakes once more. But now the flock must yield their fleece. My Lady there in the fur pelisse Drops in the bag a threepenny piece. (So sorry she brought no gold !) You see, she must pay for her diamond rings, That furred pelisse, and a few more things. That Fashion enjoins on her hirelings Young, middle-aged, or old. And thus we pass two sensuous hours Tickled with incense, lights, and flowers. And dream that we, and these rites of ours, Are offerings right and meet ! O for a breath of the desert air Where a prophet thundered : Repent ! Prepare ! And woman wiped with her own soft hair The dust from lier Master's feet ! Where are our " loyal hearts and true " Say, do they beat with the chosen few Who C.B.S. or E.C.U. Inscribe after well-bred names : rl i8o AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Out on our feeble aesthetic shams ! Banners, bioidered with " hearts " or " lambs," Ritual, printed in red programmes. For " Anglican " squires and dames. How do we strike you, Magdalen ? Do the spirits that entered that herd unclean That running down Gadara''s slopes were seen Possess us again to-day ? Away by the sea of Galilee Did you dream that your Risen Lord would be The very cult of the Pharisee He came to sweep away ? Poor lepers all ! is it thus we greet Him who yet deigns at our board to eat ? Must some fond woman the tale repeat That shines in the GospeFs page ? Thine, Mary, still is the chosen part. Thou hast the balm for the thorn's sore smart In the precious cruse of a broken heart For ever, from age to age.^ 1885 ^ As Michelet said of Rabelais that he had discovered the right name for his age, {anttphysis) so has my mother for hers, in Miscarriage. Christianity, as she felt, had been bom in vain. Gazing at Anglican mummeries, her feelings w^ere those of real generosity seeing its own mockery — the mean gift of a sordid soul : it was to her outrage and disgust. But like all genuine independents, like Milton, for example, she did not understand that hypocrisy and formalism are, and must be, the essence of every established religion : because saints are rare, and all commonplace people walk by con- ventionalities. Christ, if we can trust the record, simply did not know what he was doing : were the Jews, forsooth I to cast all their national institutions into the fire, at the summons of a carpenter's son ? Ask the English, who profess to believe in him, to do the same ! THE CORNISH MINER Who would look twice at him Grimy and grey, O'er the crushed cinder-path Grinding his way ? Down to the underworld, Darkness and toil, Dumbly and doggedly, Son of the soil. Rough mates, a gang of them, Men of rude speech : All gracious cultured things Far out of reach. Save when the " Sabbath " falls, One day in seven : And a cracked church-bell calls Wanderers to Heaven. Then, with the poorer sort, One Saul unseen, Hid 'neath a miner's shirt Washed and made clean, i8i 1 82 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Drinks in the Word of Life : Yearns to embrace Feet, with the nails in them : Dies, in His place. Thrills, when the man of God Cries : Let us pray ! And, up a shaft of light. Hastens away. Wi * * * That was the way of it Till the day came — Monday 'twas — when the world Rang with his name. Rang, with a drama played Deep underground : Death, defied ! Self, denied ! Life, lost and found ! Man and Boy, face to face, AVith man's last foe. One can flee. Jack ! cries he Up, lad, you go ! Up ! to a mother's arms Swings the life spared. While round the pit's mouth, men Held their breath, scared. God help old Bill below ! Somebody groans : Nothing to do, beyond Search for his bones ! THE CORNISH MINER 183 Now for the miracle ! Scatheless they found him. Lord ! how they cheered the man As they swarmed round him. Where was the choice ? said he : Jack, thee knows well, rd been in Heaven by now : Thou, lad, in Hell ! OUT OF THE FRAY In the old church of Wythering Combe Much ancient dust is lying. Peaceful home for a worn grey tomb That stands apart in a sacred gloom Where hardly a soul, and never a broom Has any excuse for prying. What was he, once laid lowly there. With suitable lamentation, Yielding his ghost to the realms of air, Leaving his name to his legal heir, Wrapped in the robe that dead men wear For the rites of transformation ? A right good knight, who lived and died As the men of his house before him ? Did he win his spurs in his hour of pride, Hold his own on the country side. Woo his love and wed his bride. Who many a fair son bore him ? 184 OUT OF THE FRAY 185 Did he better help with sword than brains To keep his times in order ? When blood was hot, did he shake the reins For a gallop (there xvere no railway trains) To scare the Scot on the Northern plains Away and across the Border ? Did he fight his fight, and fear no foe Till Death on the pale horse hailed him ? Did he sink in a faint from saddle to bier, At the icy touch of an iron spear, When out of the fray they bore him here, And shades eternal veiled him ? What have we left of those racy times But a legend of feudal glory, A score of ballads and ancient rhymes Which babble of Life and its loves and crimes, Haunting our ears as they ring their chimes. Like bits of a fairy story. And this old relic who takes his doze That shows no sign of ending. Chill and still, with his upturned toes. Whose name not even the verger knows, With a missing arm, and a broken nose Which nobody dreams of mending ? THE FATHER He came in drunk, and hit the girl a blow ! ""Twas habit : two grim blacksmiths, Vice and Woe, Had chained with rivets an unhappy pair. This woman with this man must make her lair Or couch (ah ! Heaven !) affrighted in the street. So still he found his cankered shrew to beat When home the drunkard reeled : then, cries and swearing Proclaimed the hour to neighbours within hearing. Till frightful silence on the chamber fell. One day, when famine, frost, and powers of Hell Assailed these abjects, hopeless and forlorn, Ungreeted, undesired, their Son was born. His brow, poor mite ! baptized by kiss morose. Was none less pure, alas ! and none less rose. Drunk the next day the man returned, but lo ! He spared the Mother her accustomed blow, Glued to the threshold. She, with glance of hate And bitter words, turned on her horrid mate. Who watched, as savagely she clutched his son And flung her taunt : Hit out ! old man : come on ! Who's there to hinder ? lash away ! Fm here, Just waiting for you all day long, my dear ! 186 THE FATHER 187 Speak ! is the loaf cheap ? is it warm in the snow ? Not drunk to-day as yesterday ? oh no ! Deaf to her words, the Father, in a maze, Eyeing his son with silly faltering gaze, As man to accusation answers mild, Muttered : I am afeared to wake the child. {From Coppie) MOTH " Bairnie,"" hums the Mither Bee, " Frae the lichted candle flee ! " Sae the Mither drones her screed : Fient a haet does Bairnie heed. Roun' an' roim' the dazzlin' doom Quiverin', bizzin', zum zum zum ! Mither shriekin' — deaf is he ! " Eh ! my ain wee Bairnie Bee ! " " Hech ! the bluid, the daft young bluid, " Yeamin' toward the fiery flood ; " Straught intil't he's flawn — wae's me ! " Eh ! my Bee, my Bairnie Bee ! " " Noo the rosy bleeze see-saw " Plays wi' a' he's flang awa' ! " Sonnie, sonnie, turn an' flee " Ere she gie the glaiks to thee ! " t88 A SOLILOQUY I HARRIET David — there he sits ! I canna laugh — I daurna cry. For women folk maun keep their wits As men folk keep their powther — dry ! But whaur were mine, that luckless day When Davie louped the boundary wa"", An' just for something fresh to dae, •I closed wi' him, for good an' a' ? An' met my match — he'll no' deny it ! Gi' him his pipe, he's deaf an' dumb ! Never a word to break the quiet But reek eneugh to fill the lum. O lasses, if ye did but ken The meanin' o' the vairb : to marry ^ Ye'd mak' it harder for the men To larn ye how to fetch an' carry. O then it's you maun sweep the flue, An' boil the pot, an' wash the claes. An' niak' an' men', an' bake an' brew, An' rock the cradle wi' your taes. 189 190 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES There's nae reprieve, frae mom to nicht ; Nae suner dae the sparrows cheep. Up waukens bairnie, broad au' bricht : IVe maist forgot the way to sleep. Here, Davie, haud him ! puir bit wean ! A meenit, till I mak' the tea. His bonnie mou', it's just yer aiii, But thae blue een belong to me. Eh ! bairn, it's you maun hold the clue That binds twa silly hearts thegither This nice bit ban', my sonsie man, Pu's noo the ane, an' noo the ither. Gie Dad a kiss an' mak' him speak ; All' ye can pass it on to me. The cord, they say, is sweer to break That's woven in a plait o' three. 1889 IN THE PURPLE Peace ! he hath passed ! the robes of pride From weary shoulders fall : And O they are a world too wide For thine, sweet royal thrall ! Whose feet, light pattering up and down. Must climb thy father's throne : Whose dimpled fingers touch the crown And claim it for thy own. Child of the old Imperial race, 'Twere happier far for thee Didst thou demand no loftier place Than thy sad Mother's knee. There is thy kingdom, pretty maid. With undisputed sway : Where none shall make thy heart afraid , Nor scare thee from thy play. Bring flowers, to weave a crown more meet Than yon bright " golden care," Of daisy buds and meadowsweet A garland fresh and fair. 191 192 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES Leave the young maid within the bower Of moons that wax and wane Unto the full and ripened hour : And grant a son to Spain ! So by the grave, a People prays, Outside the Palace Gates Where standing like a fawn at gaze The young Mercedes waits. 18851 ^ How many poets were there in England, who could have written so fine an expression of the anxiety of the Spaniards about the heir to their throne, in November 1885 ? PIQUE Molly's a miser, hard and cold ! In her barn He stores untold Under thatch of threads of gold ; I idolise her ! Yet, poor sparrow, keen for crumbs, At her door I — twirl my thumbs ! No sweet morsel my way comes : Molly's a miser ! Two green cat's-eyes weareth she Where a maid's kind eyes should be ; She knows how they play with w^, Base tantaliser ! Bah ! I will no longer woo ; Man has other work to do. 'Tis not / will wear the rue, Fm growing wiser ! Shut, you Oyster ! keep your pearl ! You are not the only Girl, Out upon the little churl ! How I deaptse her ! »3 GOODBYE ! Only a day left, only one ! What shall we do with it, you and I ? Love's sand hath but an hour to run : What shall we give to him, ere he die ? Hoist the sail ! and put out, to sea ! One last lisp of the surge, with thee ! Out and away on the dancing Deep ! Boat afloat, on the lazy Blue ! Dear, let us rock tired Love to sleep : Sing his lullaby, I and you. Lullaby, Love dear ! (nay ! not so ! He mnstn't awake any more, you know ! ) Only an hour left, only one ! Furl the white wings that can beat no more. The breeze has died with the setting sun. Row, dear, shic ! for the chill grey shore. Love lies dead ! it is here we part. {Not my hand ! you have had my heart.) 194 A BLESSED DAMOZEL The snows have melted from the hills : The lambs are out upon the lea. Come down and pick, the daffodils, I'll weave a crown of gold for thee, Rose Mark ! I kissed her, O wildflower, alight With Spring's brief blush — O ecstasy ! I watched her change from red to white, Half laughing, half inclined to flee. Rose Marie! Ah ! day of Joy, too bright to last ! O my crowned Love, Fate envied nie. Over my sky a Shadow passed, And blotted out my woild, and thee, Rose Marie ! Dead to the dead ! the withered wreath, The Maid asleep, and I, are three. Here will I keep my Watch, beneath The Emblem of my lost Ladye, Rose Marie ! 195 196 AN ECHO OF THE SPHERES New Springs will bloom, new flowers, new bowers : No flower blows twice, on any tree. No tears can bring life back to ours : Not all the water in the sea, Rose Marie ! ^ *A gibe, and a very good one, at the false poetry much pre- valent in her day of what may be called the Burne-Jones-Rossetti- semi-Swinburnian type, with its odour of Death, its stained-glass window damozels, and its artificial refrains. PRIMROSE DAY Sweet daughters of the silent woods, From homes ancestral torn To deck these vulgar multitudes, You show, methinks ! forlorn. Great Flora, 'twas an evil day, When from your twilight bowers The Tory burglars wiled away •^ Your little fondling flowers. {An old man cometh up, covered with a inantU') Dear Madam, you are right : the Green Is needed by the Chrome. No lady ever could be seen Unless she was " at Home." •97 A MEDAL: OBVERSE AND REVERSE O. By Foes beleaguered, and by Feres betrayed, At England's feet his life her soldier laid. Grand, gallant Heart, whom England could not save, She buries Honour Gordon, in thy Gi;^ve ! R. Kneedeep in Books, Blue, Yellow, Green or White, Gladstone dictates, while six quilldrivers write. " Sir, Gordon telegraphs ..." " Who's Gordon ? ivhere ? '' " Egypt : 1/ou sent him." " Did I? Is he there ? " Well, he must wait : weVe over head and eyes " In figures." Gordon waits, and Gordon dies. ['^Hung Chang, the map! where do those Islands lie. You know — wliere Gladstones live, and Gordons diery ^ As Chinese Gordon was a man after my mother's own heart, so no words could express her opinion of the " right honourable gentleman " who let him die. Bvit she didn't understand politics, which she abhorred, and Hke all women, saw only the man, not the ig8 A MEDAL: OBVERSE AND REVERSE 199 principle. She didn't know that " moral " statesmanship means the betrayal of nationality, which in the hands of the Gladstonian Diadochi has done more than betray a man or bury honour : it has come within an ace of burying England. But in our days, an incompetent traitor isn't hanged : he is only degraded : branded as a "Viscount." Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hie diadema. There are people, as Dostoyeffsky says, whom clean linen does not suit. The "Age of Viscounts," like the "Age of Reptiles," has a peculiar character all its own : when ninnies incapable of patriotism pretend to be above it, and immolate their country on the altar of that whited sepulchre, a League of Nations : as if it were not clear as day, that to have a League of Nations you must first have nations to league ! And how can a nation flourish on anti-national principles? It is only national suicide camouflaged in nauseous sentimental treacle : in whose vast Serbonian bog human- ity will sink into degeneration unimaginable. "The shroud has " risen above its feet, and is wound about its knees." WHEN FASHIONS CHANGE When Fashions change, a woman's mind, A sex-inveigling Rosalind, Skims with a gay and careless ease From torrid zones to polar seas. No prior obligations bind : Hues may be anything you please. A woman's mind is colour-blind : Her body she's prepared to squeeze, Or roast or freeze, at Worth's decrees, | In crinoline, or toe Chinese : Or strip her down to her chemise, Let Dogma, by Paquin defined, By Liberty be countersigned, Then down she falls upon her knees When Fashions change. When Fashions change, the Womankind, Like weatherpocks in veering wind, -^i Forswear at once, dear Devotees, l Their dowdy old Divinities, J To march ahead (all right behind) J New Woman yearns : her master mind \i « J WHEN FASHIONS CHANGE 201 (Whose course no more can be divined Than butterfly's among the trees) Will not be cabined, cribb'd, confined : Hence all her eccentricities When Fashions change. Her skirts, divided or combined, Cling or peel off like apple rind : Trip up her feet, or show her knees, Or float balloonlike on the breeze. While husbands yellow as split peas. Or Mandarins, or Japanese, Growl over bills and bread and cheese. Unless their pockets are well lined, When Fashions change. For Her the Wine, for Him the lees : Man learns his lesson by degrees. His Banker^s balance undermined. For Beauty luver pays the fees When Fashions change. CUPID'S MADRIGAL Soprano. Tenor. Chorus. What have I lost ? I hardly know . . IJhel . . . yet cannot say. Why did I ever let him go ? How could I guess, things would be so, So drab, with him away. the move Is it her eyes ? her voice ? . I think, the less I see. But all goes wrong : the world's a bore ! I wonder why ? 'twas not, before . . . She simply . . . bajffles me. True Love's a Masque, where Rigviarole And Blind Mans Buff take hands. Love cannot see, yet finds his Goal (So underground, Mole makes for Mole) But what, or how, Soul calls to Soul J