Valete 
 
 .■^r;^t^.^:--^A-S:';X,>x^ 
 
 
 Tennyson 
 and other 
 Memorial 
 Poems
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSir Or CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 B^b^ Wil^att (^f^m^
 
 I,, /
 
 TENNYSON AND OTHER 
 MEMORIAL POEMS.
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW, 
 ^uilishers to the anibtrsitB. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON AND NEW YORK. 
 
 London, • ■ • Sinipkiji, Hatnilton and Co. 
 Cambridge, • - Macntillan and Bo^ves. 
 Edinburgh, • • Douglas and Foulis. 
 
 MDCCCXCIII.
 
 Valete 
 
 Tennyson 
 
 and other 
 
 Memorial 
 
 Poems 
 
 H! D. Kawnsley 
 
 Glasgow 
 
 James MacLehose and Sons 
 
 Publishers to the University 
 1893
 
 1^^^ 1/35-
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 WITH REVERENCE 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The sonnet "To Alfred Lord Tennyson on his Eight- 
 ieth Birthday" was originally published in Macntillaris 
 Magazine; that on "Tennyson's Funeral," in Black- 
 woOiVs Magazine; those on "Dr. John Brown" and 
 on " Dr. Bonar," in Good Words; that on " John 
 Bright," in Murray's Magazi?ie. A few of the others 
 have appeared in the Academy, Spectator^ and Pall 
 Mall Gazette. These are now reprinted with the kind 
 permission of the various editors.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 TENNYSON, 3 
 
 SOMERSBY, 15 
 
 CLEVEDON, 16 
 
 FARRINGFORD, 17 
 
 ON LEAVING FARRJNGFORD, 1 8 
 
 TO ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, JANUARY i8, 1884, - 19 
 
 TO LORD TENNYSON ON HIS Zoth BIRTHDAY, • • 20 
 
 A STORY FROM THE "ARABIAN NIGHTS," - • • 21 
 
 A FAREWELL TO THE "SUNBEAM," 22 
 
 ON HEARING LORD TENNYSON READ HIS ODE ON 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, • 23 
 AFTER THE EPILOGUE TO THE CHARGE OF THE 
 
 HEAVY BRIGADE, 24 
 
 DEATH AND FAME, 25 
 
 "I HAVE OPENED THE BOOK," 26 
 
 THE POET'S DEATH-CHAMBER, 27
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE LAUREATE DEAD, 28 
 
 TENNYSON'S HOME-GOING, 29 
 
 LEAVING ALDWORTH, 30 
 
 THE TWO POETS, 31 
 
 CHRISTMAS WITHOUT THE LAUREATE, ■ • ■ 32 
 
 CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER, 33 
 
 AT MABLETHORPE, 34 
 
 TO A PORTRAIT OF THE MOTHER OF THE POETS, • 35 
 
 IN THE CHURCH OF ST. GEORGE, 39 
 
 THE EMPEROR WILLIAM I. ON HIS yoth BIRTH DA Y, 40 
 
 THE DYING KAISER, 41 
 
 THE KAISER AT PEACE, 42 
 
 A BRA VE EMPRESS, 43 
 
 THE CROWN OF THORNS, 44 
 
 MOURNERS ABSENT FROM THE KAISER'S 
 
 FUNERAL, 45 
 
 THE LETTER OF FREDERICK III. TO PRINCE 
 
 BISMARCK, 46 
 
 THE EMPEROR FREDERICK, 47 
 
 FREDERICK III., 48 
 
 ALBERT VICTOR, DUKE OF CLARENCE, • - • - 49 
 
 THE CROWN OF TEARS, 50
 
 CONTENTS. xi 
 ^crocs nmong <^cn. 
 
 PACE 
 
 SIR JOHN FRANKLIN, 53 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF LADY JANE FRANKLIN, - • 54 
 
 COMMANDER lYYATT RAIVSON, 55 
 
 GENERAL GORDON, 56 
 
 FATHER DAMIEN, 57 
 
 AT LIVINGSTONE'S FUNERAL, 58 
 
 l^eaitrsi of ^zn. 
 
 AT HUGHENDEN, 61 
 
 W. E. FORSTER, 62 
 
 •JOHN BRIGHT, . . . gj 
 
 LORD CARNARl'OX, 64 
 
 FIELD MARSHAL VON MOLTKE, 65 
 
 (Shjphcrts of (fttcn. 
 
 A T KEBLE'S GRA VE, 69 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEV, - - 70 
 
 DEAN STANLEY, 71 
 
 DEAN STANLEY. BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 72 
 
 THE STANLEY MONUMENT IN RUGBY CHAPEL, - 73 
 
 MOFFAT THE MISSIONARY, 74 
 
 PRINCIPAL SHAIRP, 75 
 
 BISHOP ERASER, 76
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BISHOP HANNINGTON, 77 
 
 PRINCIPAL TULLOCH, yg 
 
 EDIVARD TURING, jg 
 
 EDIVARD TURING, go 
 
 BISHOP LIGHTFOOT, g, 
 
 DEAN OAKLEY, §2 
 
 ARCHBISHOP THOMSON, ' " 83 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN, g^ 
 
 CANON LIDDON, gc 
 
 ARCHBISHOP MAGEE, - - - g5 
 
 BISHOP GOODWIN, gy 
 
 AT BISHOP GOODWIN'S GRAVE, gg 
 
 CARDINAL MANNING, gg 
 
 AT THE LYING IN STATE OF CARDINAL MANNING, 90 
 
 SPVRGEON, 91 
 
 BISHOP PHILLIPS BROOKS, 92 
 
 iSingcrs among ^cn. 
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, 95 
 
 JENNY LIND, 96 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD, 97 
 
 HORA TIUS BONAR, - 98 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING, 99 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING, ■ lOO
 
 CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A CRY FROM FLORENCE, lOl 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOH^ELL, 102 
 
 LOWELL'S LAST DREAM, IO3 
 
 THE CENTENARY OF MOZART, IO4 
 
 WALT WHITMAN, 105 
 
 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER, I06 
 
 'SThinktrs among ^tn. 
 
 CARLYLE, 109 
 
 THOMAS HILL GREEN, 1 10 
 
 DR. JOHN BROWN, Ill 
 
 JOHN RICHARD GREEN, 112 
 
 DR. DOLLINGER, II3 
 
 LORD JUSTICE GENERAL INCLIS, II4 
 
 SIR GEORGE AIRY, K.C.B., II5 
 
 JOHN COUCH ADAMS, I16 
 
 R. L. NETTLESHIP, II7 
 
 RENAN, Il8 
 
 SIR RICHARD OWEN, IIQ 
 
 Jfricnis anJ ^cighbonrs. 
 
 E. p. SEELEY, 123 
 
 THE PAINTER'S HOME-GOING, 1 24 
 
 AUGUSTE GUYARD, I25
 
 xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A PEACEFUL END, 126 
 
 E. R. AND F. S. S. B., 127 
 
 yOHN RICHARDSON, 1 28 
 
 LIFE-BOAT HEROES, 1 29 
 
 LIFE THROUGH DEATH, 130 
 
 NED BROWN, 131 
 
 THE POET'S 'LILIAN,' 132 
 
 MARY STANGER, J33 
 
 LAST OF THE DOROTHYS THAT RYDAL KNEW, . 134 
 
 GOOD-BYE, OLD FRIEND, GOOD-BYE, 135 
 
 JAMES LAPPIN, 136 
 
 WILLIAM GREENIP, THE VILLAGE NATURALIST, - 137 
 ROBERT GRAVES, THE VILLAGE WEAVER, ■ - -138 
 
 JOSEPH HA WELL, J3g 
 
 A. L., DERWENT BANK, I40 
 
 J. D. SEDDING, 141 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF OLIVER HEYWOOD, - . -142 
 
 JOE CAPE, THE CLOGGER, j ., 
 
 THE GA TE OF REST, j . . 
 
 ELIZABETH ATLEE, j.q 
 
 DEATH THE ENLIGHTENER, -^t. 
 
 ALICE, J--
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PACE 
 
 THE HUSH OF DEATH 155 
 
 VAIN REGRETS, 156 
 
 ALICE BURIED, 157 
 
 IN BRATHAY CHURCHYARD, 1 58 
 
 PRESENT BUT ABSENT, 1 59 
 
 A SAD COMMUNION, 160 
 
 THE HA UNTED ROOM, 161 
 
 A DREAR NIGHT-WALK, 162 
 
 STAR-RISING, 163 
 
 HYMN, 164 
 
 £ioics, 169
 
 You, where the hills are uprolled 
 
 Grey from the yellowing fen, 
 Found dim glory of old, 
 
 Left it bright among men. 
 Child of the stream and the glen, 
 
 Singer of weald and of wold, 
 Take this gift from a pen 
 
 That in praise of the Poet is bold.
 
 TENNYSON. 
 Obiit October 6, 1892.
 
 '^TETtniison. 
 Obiit, Aldworth, October 6th, 1892. 
 
 'T'HE moonlight lay with glory on his face 
 About whose bed in grief the nation bowed, 
 And darkly flew the wild October cloud : 
 
 Sobbed the pale morn, and came with faltering pace 
 As if it feared to lift a dead man's shroud ; 
 And all the streams made lamentation loud. 
 
 But such majestic calm was in his look 
 
 As seemed to say, 'Why weeping o'er me bend, 
 Or bid me longer here on earth attend 
 
 Whose home is Heaven?' His hand held Shake- 
 speare's book — 
 Shakespeare, so soon to greet him as a friend ! 
 And so he went companioned, to the end.
 
 4 VALETE. 
 
 Then to the poet, crowned with power and years, 
 One bore the wreath of immortality, 
 And laid his chaplet of green laurel by. 
 
 Wept England ; over-seas a land in tears 
 For its own bard,^ caught up the bitter cry 
 That rings right round the world when singers die. 
 
 For he, the music-maker of the earth, 
 
 Who ruled of right by sound's melodious sway, 
 Who still within his heart had words to say, 
 
 Turned to the home whence all his song had birth ; 
 The first, last, Laureate of a golden day, 
 Untouched by time, passed painlessly away. 
 
 But as men sorrowed for the glory gone, 
 
 And the dark dumbness fallen upon the time, 
 There rang from Heaven triumphant angel-chime. 
 
 And voices cried, " Behold the twain are one. 
 The friend beloved, who left him ere his prime. 
 The friend who made Love's great Memorial Rhyme." 
 
 1 Whittier.
 
 TENNYSON. c 
 
 And lo ! at ending of that heavenly psalm 
 The silent sunshine flooded all the lea, 
 The golden leaf scarce fluttered from the tree, 
 
 The distant ocean lay in autumn -calm ; 
 
 There was " no moaning at the bar," when he— 
 Our princely poet-soul, put out to sea. 
 
 But we are left disconsolate ; no lyre 
 
 To sound a people's glory, soothe its pain, 
 No trumpet-call to chivalry again, 
 
 No words of subtlest feeling, finest fire 
 To keep us still a nation, and no strain 
 To bring new Knowledge to a wiser reign. 
 
 He was true patriot, and his soul was set 
 
 To give our England flowers of song for weeds. 
 He planted well, he scattered fruitful seeds; 
 
 He showed us love was more than coronet. 
 And in the jarring of a hundred creeds 
 Taught life and truth were hid in noble deeds.
 
 6 VALETE. 
 
 Yet most that purest passion for a maid 
 
 And manly love with maiden virtue crowned, 
 Availed to keep our social fabric sound ; 
 
 And loving Arthur well, he well pourtrayed 
 That kingliest Arthur of the Table Round, 
 Who entered Heaven to heal him of Earth's wound. 
 
 And he has entered Heaven by earth unharmed ; 
 Years could not blanch a single lock with grey, 
 Time could not steal a single bolt away, 
 
 Nor blunt the sword wherewith his soul was armed: 
 But from this shore, whereon he might not stay, 
 His music nevermore shall die away. 
 
 Now he is gone, who up the windy ways 
 Followed the shepherd to the bleating fold ; 
 Who, when the level plain was laid in gold, 
 
 Ran with the reapers, learnt their Doric phrase. 
 And to his great iambic's stately mould 
 Caught back rich words that never can grow old.
 
 TENNYSON. J 
 
 Now he is gone, who spoke with Greece and Rome, 
 And took the herdsman's sunny pipe, and played 
 Idyllic music fit for English shade; 
 
 Who in his ocean-sounding island home 
 Walked with the mighty Homer unafraid, 
 And Saxon metre to his thunder made. 
 
 I shall not find his welcome at the home, 
 
 Nor front those searching eyes that when we met 
 Would ask what father's -features lingered yet; 
 
 Nor mark the sun- browned ample forehead's dome, 
 Strong Norman mouth-swirls, cheeks whereon was set 
 The powerful seal of the Plantagenet. 
 
 I shall not press that soft and tender hand, 
 Nor hear far off his rich voice like a bell 
 Ring after crying " Friend ! farewell, farewell !" 
 
 Nor see the dreaming dark-cloaked poet stand 
 Like some Velasquez figure in the dell. 
 Where o'er his face full shadow rose and fell.
 
 8 VALETE. 
 
 Friends ! we no more shall climb the darkened down 
 And hear him measure music to the beat 
 Of summer seas reverberant at his feet ; 
 
 Never in orchard-garden overblown 
 
 With spice of rose and lily, and made sweet 
 With song of birds, can share his arbour seat, 
 
 And listen to the tale of boyhood days 
 Not quite forgotten, in the Lincoln land 
 Of corn that yellowed to the yellow sand, 
 
 Where first he strove to win a mother's praise 
 By warbling with his brother, hand in hand, 
 The wild-wood notes her heart could understand, 
 
 Or move from boyhood's day and personal theme 
 To hint of curious workmanship confessed 
 In some great thought his labour had expressed, 
 
 To talk of nations, and the poet's dream 
 
 Of England, free, pure, faithful, self-possessed. 
 His fears for Modred's battle in the West.
 
 TENNYSON. 9 
 
 With him we cannot claim the moorland walk 
 And watch the sunlight shoot athwart the rain, 
 Or halt to hear new bird-notes in the lane; 
 
 Or see him stoop from philosophic talk 
 
 To shred some simple wayside weed in twain, 
 And marvel at the miracle made plain. 
 
 Nor ever view soft veils of vapour drawn 
 
 From the 'grey sea' beyond the Sussex glade. 
 Nor watch from Aldworth's height, the morning made, 
 
 Nor ever leave the cedar-scented lawn 
 
 To thread the high-o'er-arching colonnade 
 Of cloistral trees that gave the poet shade. 
 
 And when the birds have sought their ilex home, 
 And the magnolia pours its fragrance rare. 
 We shall not mount again his turret stair 
 
 And hear the strong deep-chested music come, 
 While light in hand within his simple chair 
 He summoned sound to people all the air,
 
 lo VALETE. 
 
 And set the rafters ringing to the wail 
 Of a great nation for its warrior dead, 
 The boom of cannon and the mourner's tread ; 
 
 Or bade the bugle's elfin echoes fail, 
 
 The long low lights on castle walls be shed — 
 Then shut the book in dream, and bowed his head. 
 
 Nor ever after meat when lamps are lit. 
 About the shining table drawing nigher, 
 Feel the fine soul that flashed forth at desire ; 
 
 Sharp sallies, rapier-thrusts of genial wit 
 
 That called for friend, and bade the foe retire, 
 And filled the hall with laughter, and with fire. 
 
 The hall is filled with silence and with tears ! 
 The stately hound that licked his dying hand, 
 Fair-flewed, rough -chested, sorrowful must stand, 
 
 Must wonder why no well-loved step he hears. 
 Or, restless, roam among the funeral band 
 That comes to bear his master thro' the land.
 
 TENNYSON. 1 1 
 
 Yea ! bear him down, by weald, and wood, and town ; 
 He knew each rosy farm, he loved each lane, 
 For he was home-bred English. Lo ! the plain 
 
 Is gold from harvest; he, whom Death has mown 
 In ripeness, goes to where our goodliest grain 
 Is garnered, till the Christ return again. 
 
 Bear him in some triumphal leafy car, 
 
 Laced round with moss, with laurel interwove, 
 And let the simple pall be strewn above 
 
 With all white flowers that pure and fragrant are- 
 Wild roses, on the pall embroidered, prove 
 His zeal for knightliness, our England's love. 
 
 But bear him when the sunset, saffron-gold, 
 
 Floods the pale Heaven, above the moorland height, 
 And in the west one waning star hangs bright; 
 
 For now the race is run, the tale is told, 
 One last lone star sinks down into the night, 
 Our one last prophet vanishes from sight.
 
 12 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 For, though I find thy voice in hall or cot, 
 And see thy words in every flying sheet. 
 Or hear thee lisped by children in the street, 
 
 And murmured in the cloister, — Thou art not. 
 Thy soul, that shunned earth's restlessness and 
 
 heat, 
 Has sought Heaven's unapproachable retreat. 
 
 I trace the brooklet swirling to the plain 
 
 From near the copse beside thy father's door. 
 That ancient grove whence ' holy waters ' pour ; ^ 
 
 I pass by thorpe and tower toward the main, 
 
 1 roam the long sands thou didst love of yore,^ 
 But ah ! thy feet have left the lonely shore. 
 
 Far off, by Cam, I catch the careless chimes,^ 
 Through close-cropt meads and stately halls I 
 stray, 
 
 ' Holywell Wood, at Somersby, Lincolnshire. 
 
 2 Skegness, Lincolnshire. 
 
 =» The Lime Walk, Trinity College, Cambridge, 1828-1831,
 
 TENNYSON. 1 3 
 
 Where those disciples of thy glorious day ^ 
 Made mirth and music underneath the limes, 
 
 Thou with the twelve— nigh latest didst thou stay ; 
 But now the last leaf falls, the world is grey. 
 
 I wander to the chapel by the mere, 
 
 I win the Hall, beyond the grove of pine,- 
 Where-over, Skiddaw doth at day's decline 
 
 Shed back its fern-flushed glory. Thou wert there — 
 There didst out-roll 'Morte d'Arthur' line on line 
 To willing ears — thy ghost alone is mine. 
 
 Or leaving Thames I seek by chalky dell" 
 My father's terrace-garden o'er the flood, 
 Where once a bride and bridegroom -poet stood, 
 
 And heard in June -tide air the marriage bell 
 Ring thro' the walnuts that "the hour is good 
 When noble man weds noblest woman-hood." 
 
 J See Note i. 
 
 ' Mirehouse, Home of the Speddings, 1835. 
 
 * Shiplake-on-Thames, where Tennyson was married, 1850.
 
 14 VALETE. 
 
 There now perchance in thought slow moveth one 
 Pale and in pain : she hears another sound, 
 Her eyes for sorrow cannot leave the ground, 
 
 The gentlest wife that ever bore a son, 
 
 Who once for Love and Life, went gaily-gowned, 
 And now, for Death, with weeds is wrapt around. 
 
 Then to the church close-bosomed in the chine,^ 
 Where moves and moans the silver Severn sea, 
 I turn. I feel thy spirit, joyous, free; 
 
 There lies the heart, once lost, now wholly thine, 
 Of whose true wards thy music held the key ; 
 There men who mourn shall surely meet with 
 thee. 
 
 1 Clevedon, 31st Jan., 1834.
 
 TENNYSON. 15 
 
 ^omcrsbg. 
 
 TJ ERE was the haunt of those three nightingales, 
 Whose voices soothed an England of unrest 
 Thro' changeful seasons. From the circling crest 
 
 Of yonder hill they saw the far-off sails 
 
 Shine as great Hingvar's shone. The viking tales 
 Of that fierce worm that all the wold possest 
 Rang in their ears, and knights that dared their best 
 
 Knelt in near churches clad with chain and scales. 
 
 And here they mixed with peasants, learned the lore 
 Of peaceful men who tend the flock and wain, 
 Here, book in hand, they wandered thro' the grove. 
 But most they loved beside the beck to rove, 
 The brook that murmured prose toward the plain, 
 But, since they sang, sings on for evermore. 
 
 See Note 2.
 
 1 6 VALETE. 
 
 T T E missed the fresh, salt, eastern airs that blow, 
 The mills that whirl their white arms in the wind ; 
 
 His father's ashes he had left, to find 
 Love's heart inurned where Severn's waters flow. 
 Here in the marsh the hollow reeds might grow 
 
 For sound to suit the sorrow of his mind ; 
 
 But grief needs friendly ears to keep it kind, 
 And his beloved unheeding lies below. 
 
 Then to sad eyes thy cottage gave reproof — 
 Thy cottage, Coleridge, by the western sea, 
 Its simple chimneys and its gable-end; 
 For he remembered there his chamber-roof, 
 Hid in the poplar shade of Somersby ! 
 And the lone poet found in thee a friend. 
 
 See Note 3.
 
 TEATNYSOAr. 
 
 17 
 
 Jfarringforb. 
 1883. 
 
 'X'HIS is the Poets home, from east to west 
 A silver amulet, the Solent shines, 
 To guard him, where he sees in stately lines 
 
 The white-winged vessels pass, for toil or rest. 
 
 No ruder sound has his fine ear distrest 
 Than rippling ilex, and the sigh of pines 
 When south winds sweep with clamour up the chines, 
 
 And waves leap high on milk-white Watcomb's breast. 
 
 But if at all he leave his song's retreat, 
 The cypress bowers, the labyrinthine maze, 
 
 To climb the hushed, companionable Do\\'n, 
 And seaward at the Beacon's height to gaze, 
 
 He hears the ocean like his great heart beat, 
 And to its rhythmic cadence times his own. 
 
 B
 
 1 8 VALETE. 
 
 1883. 
 
 "VT'OU waved your hand, I could not say farewell, 
 For those last words, " My time can not be long," 
 Took speech away. Great Leader of our song, 
 
 Time cannot touch the thought-built citadel 
 
 Wherein thou sittest throned ! What sovereign spell, 
 If thy voice ceases, what prevailing tongue. 
 Can tune earth's discords, show us right from wrong 
 
 And light the darkening years wherein we dwell ? 
 
 But if the dread, inevitable hour 
 
 Comes near, and now the music of thy mind 
 Is fit for angels' high intelligence, 
 
 Yet take thy harp, leave one last strain behind, 
 To bid us guide the world's advancing power 
 
 Up steps of change, with slow- foot reverence.
 
 TENNYSON. 19 
 
 JANUARY i8tH, 1884. 
 
 ■jSJEW Lord of England, but old lord of song, 
 Voice to the realm, in council of our peers 
 Long present, peerless, for these many years 
 Thy muse in her nobility was strong 
 To sit high-throned above earth's common throng, 
 Thy helm such laurels as a poet wears, 
 Thy sword a pen that knew not any fears, 
 Weapon for lordly right against the wrong. 
 
 And if no children's children in thy hall, 
 
 Pointing to broken lance and battered shield. 
 
 Shall say, "These arms the first great Baron wore !" 
 Thy verse, that fired our deeds by flood and field. 
 That gave us back the chivalry of yore. 
 Will sound like clarions on our country's wall.
 
 20 VALETE. 
 
 ON HIS 80TII BIRTHDAY, AUGUST 6tH, 1889. 
 
 T^HE four-score years that blanch the heads of men 
 Touch not the immortals, and we bring to-day 
 No flowers to twine with laurel and with bay, 
 Seeing the spring is with thee now, as when 
 Above the wold and marsh and mellowing fen 
 Thy song bade England listen. Powers decay. 
 Hands fail, and eyes, tongues scarce their will 
 can say, 
 But still Heaven's fire burns in thy hollow pen. 
 
 Oh, singer of the knightly days of old ! 
 Oh, ringer of the knell to lust and hate ! 
 
 Oh, bringer of new hope from memory's shrine ! 
 When God doth set in Heaven thy harp of gold, 
 The souls that made this generation great 
 
 Shall own, The voice that nerved their hearts 
 was thine.
 
 TENNYSON. 21 
 
 ^ (Storu from the "Arabian |lii3ht0." 
 1889. 
 
 T^O one, a Chief Physician in the land, 
 
 Nasr-ed-Din the Persian, King of Kings, 
 Sends greeting; bids when dawn to-morrow brings. 
 
 The great Hhakeem shall kneel to kiss his hand. 
 
 To whom the Chief Physician: "Sire, command 
 Aught else, to-morrow's haste with plumy wings 
 Bears me to one, our Laureate Lord, who sings 
 
 For in his presence I am sworn to stand." 
 
 Whereat waxed wroth the Shah ; then spake his page : — 
 " Nay ! hath not music mightier realms than thine ? 
 
 The singer's rule about the world doth run. 
 The Bard is King of Kings by right divine." 
 "Well spoken, boy, give the Hhakeem his wage. 
 Salute him. Knight of Lion and of Sun." 
 
 See Note 4.
 
 2 2 VALETE. 
 
 ^ JfarctoeU ta the "<Sttnbcam." 
 1889. 
 
 AIW'E watched the ship from speck to phantom grow, 
 From phantom to its three fair towers of sail, 
 Then o'er the Solent's tide of silver pale 
 
 We saw the sunset flash upon thy bow. 
 
 The whole air sang, waves sang as we did row, 
 We heard from land the far-off nightingale, 
 But clear above all music an "All hail!" 
 
 Broke o'er us as we neared the golden prow. 
 
 Farewell ! no Syrens shall thy keel perplex, 
 No need of thongs thy pilot safe to bind 
 From death in Scylla's song-enchanted seas; 
 For one full-voiced as old Mseonides 
 And skilled as Orpheus, walks the shining decks, 
 Whose spell shall charm the deeps and woo the wind.
 
 TENNYSON. 23 
 
 (Dtt hcanng |£(jrb "xUcniinson rcab hi© (Di)c on 
 the Ileath of the J^^^'vC of (iSlelUugtoit. 
 
 /^REAT builder of this monument of sound 
 To him whose praise shall never cease to be, 
 As long as hearts beat fast for victory, 
 
 Or laurels grow on any English ground ! — 
 
 Oh ! how my heart and how mine ears were bound. 
 Hearing the boom of that articulate sea 
 Which, wave on wave of wondrous melody, 
 
 Flowed in from deeps of gratefulness profound ! 
 
 The sands may chafe old Chephren's pyramid, 
 The Colosseum crumble and decay, 
 
 Yea, even the Dome that shows the golden cross 
 Sink with its whisper of a nation's loss — 
 And the world-victor's victor's tomb be hid — 
 But this sonorous cenotaph shall stay.
 
 24 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 Jlftcr the Spilocjue to the OThargc of the 
 
 V\/'HEN thrushes called between the day and 
 night, 
 And you clomb up the dovm toward the stars, 
 My heart went with you, for the thoughtful bars 
 
 Of that last music had possessed me quite. 
 
 True seer, I cried, you have delivered right 
 The only message that, to heal our scars. 
 Unriddling these dread necessary wars, 
 
 Can crown with song the soldier's deed of might. 
 
 For till these bastions crumble with the frost, 
 Or earth shall meet the sun and melt in fire, 
 Some new-won land shall court the jealous eye. 
 Some voice shall startle lust and tyranny, 
 Some heart refuse to own the battle lost, 
 Some patriot find in death his soul's desire.
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 «5 
 
 Jlcatk anl) J[ame. 
 1890. 
 
 TirROM Lym to Yar I crossed the Solent flood, 
 And sought the village nestling 'ncath the Down 
 Where you, whom more than four-score summers 
 crown, 
 Sing from the solemn shelter of your wood. 
 Once more beside your cedar-tree I stood, 
 
 Climbed the grey ridge, and saw the distance frown 
 And flash to silver, heard the long wave thrown 
 In music on your island solitude. 
 
 We talked of those old foemen, Death and Fame, 
 And you, you told me how a letter came 
 
 Wherein a young girl summoned heart to say — 
 "Tell him I read his poems, and I rise 
 Ever with will to be more good, more wise." 
 
 You sighed, Death vanished, only Fame could stay.
 
 26 VALETE. 
 
 "i habe ©pnieb the fook." 
 
 AT ALDWORTH, OCTOBER 5TH, 1 892. 
 
 "VT'EA, thou hast opened book on book, who now, 
 While the mist gathers ere the Hght breaks in, 
 
 Dost open this. For from thy books we win 
 How hfe and love lead upward, blest but slow; 
 How knowledge humbleth, lifting up the low; 
 
 How Reverence is of Heaven; Pride, — earth and sin; 
 
 How self is weakness, to the brute akin, 
 And self-restraint such strength as angels know. 
 
 And thou hast opened now that other Book 
 Whereof through life, with longings manifold, 
 Thy soul did yearn : therein thou readest clear 
 The names of friend and son, so lost, so dear ; 
 Yea, and therein all living ones that look 
 Shall find thine own, immortal, writ in gold. 
 
 See Note 5,
 
 TENNYSON. 27 
 
 ^ke J3oct'0 5 ciith- Chamber. 
 
 October 6tii, 1892. 
 
 "There were no lights in the room, but the moon's rays 
 streamed in through the oriel window, and lighted up the face 
 and form of the dying Poet," 
 
 IM" OT in the bright, unsolitary noon, 
 
 When all the air with life and music rings, 
 Came the great hush of those archangel wings, 
 
 That gave the singer peace and endless boon ; 
 
 But rather at the midnight hour of swoon 
 
 When Sleep, Death's prophet, unto nature brings 
 Surcease of sense and outward communings 
 
 Beneath that world of loneliness the moon. 
 
 And so he grew to marble — he who made 
 
 In hearts of stone the generous life-blood run, 
 But o'er him dead, Death's planet wheeling slow 
 Flung down such splendour through the awful shade. 
 As bade us feel his soul was with the Sun 
 And needed Death to give us back the glow.
 
 28 VALETE. 
 
 October 6th, 1S92. 
 
 'T'HE laurels fall from off as high a brow 
 
 As since our Shakespeare wore the poet-bays; 
 Who breathed Sicilian music thro' his lays, 
 
 And felt great Homer's resonant ebb and flow, 
 
 Who knew all art of word that man may know, 
 And led us on by love's undying ways, 
 Who gave us back the old Arthurian days, 
 
 Latest of Laureates, Tennyson, lies low. 
 
 Our golden age is shorter, and the spheres 
 That sooner wane may swiftlier wax to prime, 
 But when shall sing another as he sung, 
 Who wrought with Saxon purity of tongue 
 The one great Epic of two hundred years, 
 The one Memorial utterance for all time ?
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 29 
 
 October iith, 1892. 
 
 "DEAR him by quiet wood and silent down, 
 And let the first gold leafage on him fall, 
 His leaf of Life fell golden. Let the pall 
 
 Be strewn with English roses, and the crown 
 
 Of gold and laurel on his bier be shown. 
 For now the laurel fades beyond recall 
 The rose of song lies shattered ; in the hall 
 
 Of Heaven, he wears that wreath he made his own. 
 
 Yea ! bear him from the fair fields of his love 
 To that old abbey of the Faithful King ; 
 
 The roaring streets, that felt thro' all their roar 
 His psalm of peace, shall never wake him more ; 
 And leave him there where Chaucer's heart shall move 
 For joy to greet the brother whom ye bring.
 
 3° 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 October iith, 1892. 
 
 AA/'HEN from his laurel grove, reluctant, slow, 
 To his far rest we bore the Poet dead, 
 One star alone in Heaven its radiance shed. 
 
 So lingered long our sad day's after-glow ', 
 
 But when we neared that twilit town below, 
 A thousand stars our mute procession led : 
 The "Lyre" shone bright, the "Swan" flew overhead 
 
 And high on Hindhead, level stood the "Plow." 
 
 A thousand suns that from the dawn had gleamed 
 Above his sleep, but waited eventide 
 
 To show their lamps and light the Poet home : 
 A thousand worlds from which full glory streamed, 
 To give us hope that though the dark had come, 
 His star of song should brighten and abide.
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 31 
 
 u A DMIRINGLY, affectionately yours," 
 
 So wrote his brother bard upon the day 
 When eighty years of life had rolled away 
 
 And blessed us from the stream that still outpours 
 
 Of harmony for England's harsher hours. 
 " That I have loved you dearly let this say, 
 Secure your glorious song on earth will stay 
 
 When your high soul shall seek the Heavenly bowers." 
 
 Now his high soul has won the heavenly place, 
 He who from out cool shadow saw the heat 
 Of earth's endeavour, sees from sunnier height 
 The covering cast on all the nation's face, 
 And, from his unassailable retreat, 
 
 He feels far off 'our wonder, our delight.' 
 
 See Note 6.
 
 32 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 Crhn0tmas totthout the ^aurtate. 
 1892. 
 
 'T'HE organ peals, the white-robed chorus tells, 
 That tale the shepherds heard their flocks among. 
 When open wide the gates of Heaven were flung, 
 
 Where Bethlehem's village from her plain upswells. 
 
 Yet ah ! one voice has failed ! Our old church bells 
 Give back an echo of the songs he sung, 
 But sadness sounds in every silver tongue 
 
 That sends this Christmas message up the Fells. 
 
 For he who knew indeed the Word was God, 
 Who felt the Faith that sought the Holy Grail, 
 Who set a lamp of Duty in the mist, 
 Who smote the beast in man with iron rod. 
 And sang two generations back to Christ, 
 Sings now more sweetly — but behind the veil.
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 li 
 
 (EkarU0 '^cnngeon 'iTurncr. 
 APRIL 25, 1879. 
 
 TV/TAKER of songs most simple and most sweet, 
 With artlessness that only art commands, 
 Thy notes are hushed, the lute has slipped thy hands, 
 
 And lies still echoing with thy heart's last beat, 
 
 Full tuned and fit for service, at thy feet. 
 But whoso dares to wake its tender strands 
 Must know the touch a humble soul demands, 
 
 And eyes of love that lowliest things will greet. 
 
 In thee the dumb creation found a voice ; 
 
 Though fenced and fine thy music's dainty sphere, 
 No wings that flashed but did thy song rejoice. 
 
 No hedge-row cry but found a listening ear; 
 
 Child-hearted thou, by nature as by choice. 
 
 True Christian Poet ! blameless Sonneteer ! 
 
 c
 
 34 VALETE. 
 
 |Vt Jtablctlmrjre; 
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE PUBLICATION OF THE " POEMS BY 
 TWO BROTHERS." 1827. 
 
 'X'HAT evening's sun set rosy o'er the wold, 
 A burnished shield the level marsh-land lay; 
 Tall reeds in wonder whispered all the way 
 As towards the sea their car of triumph rolled ; 
 The whirling mills with voices manifold 
 
 Tossed up their arms to cheer; the churches grey — 
 The lonely churches where the marsh-men pray — 
 Breathed forth a blessing on the venture bold. 
 
 Thou far retiring ocean, o'er what sands 
 Of rippled silver glistening to the stars 
 
 Didst thou entice those happy brothers' feet; 
 With what a rhythm didst thou clap thy hands, 
 And rear thyself above the shelving bars, 
 And pause, and fall, their music to repeat ! 
 
 See Note 7.
 
 TENNYSON. jg 
 
 ^0 a portrait of the Jttoth^r of the JJoets. 
 
 <;rasby vicarage, 1873. 
 
 C WEET mother of the many nightingales, 
 Who in a northern land that seldom heard 
 The passionate warbling of the Attic bird, 
 
 Poured out on Lincoln wolds and Lincoln dales 
 
 Such song as never with the season fails, 
 
 In Spring, or when the w^heat to shade is stirred, 
 Or when by wintry winds the mills are whirred, 
 
 Or breathless Autumn stays their shining sails. 
 
 Sweet mother of that swarthy brotherhood, 
 
 Tho' all the world should swear their southern race, 
 And one still sings of those far Grecian isles, 
 The wilding rose that in thy bosom smiles, 
 No surelier drew from English earth its blood 
 To till our English June with joy and grace.
 
 THE ROYAL DEAD.
 
 THE ROYAL DEAD. 39 
 
 En the CChnrch of §t. ©corge, 
 
 (BUILT IN MEMORY OF H.R.H. PRINCE LEOPOLD, DIED AT 
 CANNES, MARCH 28tH, 1S84.) 
 
 r^UARD well, St. George, our prince's memory, 
 High o'er the lustrous pines and sunny bovvers, 
 When dawn climbs up the wave, or when the towers 
 
 Of ancient Cannes stand dark against the sea ; 
 
 And let the weird self-healing olive tree, 
 
 Emblem of Life, beyond Death's harmful powers, 
 Grow round the house of Prayer, and orange flowers 
 
 With soft mimosa clouds for incense be. 
 
 And since his young life's rose, that knew no blame, 
 Fell here, tho' nursed upon our English shore. 
 
 Let the wild woodland rose that blooms for all 
 Gleam in the rich mosaic evermore, 
 
 And every evening's sun make roses fall 
 Upon the shrine that keeps his honoured name. 
 
 See Note 8.
 
 40 VALETE. 
 
 ON HIS 9OTH BIRTHDAY. 
 
 TZAISER, and crowned with ninety summers now, 
 If every stream that babbled to the Rhine 
 Spake human speech, to-day its praise were thine. 
 
 Ageless of heart and zeal — oak-natured thou. 
 
 Come forth and let the wondering nations know 
 How kings may still be kings by power divine, 
 How monarch's might can people's right enshrine, 
 
 And patriot love to royal wisdom bow. 
 
 Great worker with the tireless brain and hand, 
 Head winter-white — Soul Spring with fullest powers, 
 Unhurt by praise and never warped by blame, 
 Heaven waits thee. King, but Earth shall keep 
 thy name. 
 Ours now, when God shall call thee hence still ours, 
 By all that made and keeps us Fatherland.
 
 THE ROYAL DEAD. 41 
 
 ^\\.t filing ^uxiser. 
 MARCH 8rn, 1888. 
 
 T/'AISER, with thrice the tale of royal years 
 That made the new-found Alexander great, 
 At length thou nearest the mysterious gate 
 
 To mingle with the kings of old — thy peers — 
 
 And find few mightier. Lo ! thy forehead wears 
 A crown, whence, even in heaven, will scintillate 
 The rainbow lights of love ; thy cloak of state 
 
 Is jewelled with a nation's loyal tears. 
 
 But when the dread rememberable day 
 
 Shall call thee from the kingdom thou hast made 
 To that high court, where kings as subjects 
 stand, 
 At least the vows we vow, the prayers we pray, 
 Shall go before through silence and the shade. 
 And give thee welcome home to Fatherland !
 
 42 VALETE. 
 
 Wat ^ai0er at |3cace. 
 
 MARCH 9TH, 1888. 
 
 "M^OW let the Rhine flow sad by tower and lea, 
 And all the Teuton woods a requiem sing, 
 Lo ! he who made the nation, warrior king, 
 
 Bows at the last to death's august decree : 
 
 Great freedom -giver, he himself is free; 
 
 Freed from the care that crowns shall ever bring. 
 From weary watch upon the foemen-ring, 
 
 From love's last yearning towards the southern sea. 
 
 Oh ! by the grim Sadowa and Sedan 
 
 And those dark violets crushed before his car, 
 
 The day faint Paris yielded all but pride, 
 Weep for a Kaiser, glorious in war, 
 Warder of home, and Leader in the van 
 
 Of Peace : for peace he toiled, in peace he died.
 
 THE ROYAL DEAD. 43 
 
 ^ ^rabe (£mpnss. 
 
 /^UEEN of the weary days and watchful nights, 
 While all our Europe, bowed about the bed. 
 Implored the Great Upbringer from the dead 
 
 To bring thy Prince and crown him on the heights 
 
 Of health — the bravest in his country's fights — 
 Simplest of men the purple ever bred, 
 And most unflinching — though above his head 
 
 Death, with a cold dark crown, proclaimed its rights. 
 
 We knew your worth, for we had known your choice; 
 We had not felt what courage love could bring, 
 Until we saw the burghers at your feet 
 Stand silent for their grief, and heard your voice, 
 Clear, where their voices failed for tears, repeat 
 A people's sorrow for their sorrowing king. 
 
 See Note 9.
 
 44 VALETE. 
 
 sSke (EratDit of 'thorns. 
 
 T-JIGH on the altar lay the cirque of gold, 
 The heavy crown of kingliness and care, 
 And he reached out to take it, but the air 
 
 Was thick with doubt, and voices manifold 
 
 Forewarning, "Sire, thine arms are over bold!" 
 Then, as his hands sank crownless, he was ware 
 Of Christ's face, pale and pitiful, in His hair 
 
 He saw the thorns they crowned Him with of old. 
 
 And at that sign of Christ, so crowned with pain, 
 So lonely in the sorrow of a King, 
 So kingly in His sorrow's loneliness. 
 He felt the strength that could upbear the 
 stress 
 Of all the pain his crown of thorns would bring, 
 And dared to claim the kingship and to reign. 
 
 See Note lo.
 
 THE ROYAL DEAD. 45 
 
 Jttoiirners .^bscnt from the giaistr'e Juneral. 
 
 MARCH 16111, 1888. 
 
 pRlNCE of the head to think, the soul to feel, 
 The will to govern, and the hand to guide, 
 With that twin pillar-statesman at your side, 
 
 Who built the nation's wall of guardian steel — 
 
 For you we grieve the most. Dark death must heal 
 The wound Death gave, and lonely in the tide 
 You still must stand rock-natured, and must hide 
 
 A heart that aches for him who gave the Seal. 
 
 But when the torches flamed upon the way — 
 That sad triumphal way — and cannons' boom 
 Shook the drear streets walled up to bitter heaven 
 With signs of woe and faces in dismay, 
 
 We thanked our God such friends to kings 
 were given, 
 Our praises filled the absent mourners' room. 
 
 See Note 11.
 
 46 VALETE. 
 
 ^hc fetter of Jfrcitnciv lEi. t0 $3rinrc ^i0mar£k. 
 
 << "jVJOT caring for the splendour of great deeds 
 And strife for glory, but with this content 
 That some day graven on my monument 
 
 The humblest child of Fatherland may read, 
 
 ' He who the glorious Kaiser did succeed 
 Was sworn to Peace — his rule beneficent, 
 He served his people, on their welfare bent 
 
 And sowed for generations hence Faith's seed.' " 
 
 Oh, by the palms and laurels 'neath the dome 
 Where rests before the dark-draped altar shrine 
 The warrior king who made a nation one, 
 Did father e'er beget a nobler son ? 
 Had ever people, when their chief went home 
 A surer pledge of kingliness divine ?
 
 THE ROYAL DEAD. 47 
 
 JUNE I5TH, 1888. 
 
 VyHEN Europe wept and over east and west 
 Hung sorrow for the Kaiser gone before, 
 We prayed that Hfe would seal Death's awful door 
 
 And give us back our bravest and our best, 
 
 King in his father's room ; but that dark guest 
 Clung to his side, slow poisoned at the core 
 The heart that cared for all his country's poor, 
 
 Thought royal deeds, but never thought of rest. 
 
 Two moons had filled and when the third had waned, 
 O'ershadowed by the weary travelling earth, 
 
 He bowed a head that never yet had owned 
 Flesh mortal, so he passed; but praise had birth. 
 Honour for him whom noble sulTering crowned, 
 Love for a King who in Death's court had reigned.
 
 48 VALETE. 
 
 1888. 
 
 T/" ING for a hundred days, a hundred years 
 Shall not undo the greatness of thy reign, 
 Lord of a realm no sovran might of pain 
 
 Could crush, nor death with its ten thousand fears 
 
 Shock ; for thy brow that heaven's new glory wears 
 Was helmed with honour and the high disdain 
 For all things mean, and by thy life was plain 
 
 Love rules in right when love itself forswears. 
 
 Yet, gentle heart, though hands did never crown 
 With gold of earth thy weary suffering head, 
 At least one prince was in thy presence less, 
 One tyrant found his mastery overthrown — 
 
 Death's darkness was as purple round thee shed. 
 King, by true hope in utter hopelessness.
 
 THE ROYAL DEAD. 
 
 49 
 
 Jllbert Victor, Jluhc of CHarcncc. 
 
 JANUARY I4TH, 1892, 
 
 TDLYTHE marriage bells already moved the air, 
 The orange-blossom's scent was on the wind, 
 Men said no hearts more royal or more kind 
 
 Would sway our England's sceptre, and would share 
 
 A nation's joy and sorrow. Happy pair. 
 Blest with the blessing of an equal mind, 
 That Love had led a higher love to find, — 
 
 Love of the people and the people's care ! 
 
 Then came another bride, whose icy breatli 
 Is only sweet for those who long to die, 
 
 She came, she kissed our Prince and claimed 
 his hand, 
 And with one long exceeding bitter cry 
 
 We cast the hopes and happiness we planned, 
 Heart-broken, at his feet — Bridegroom of Death ! 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 ^he QTroton of ^tars. 
 
 ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOR, JANUARY 20TH, 1892. 
 
 T HEARD the solemn ministry to pain 
 
 Those muffled drums and wailing trumpets made, 
 I saw the banners half-mast high displayed, 
 
 The slow sad -marching, melancholy train. 
 
 The steed, unmounted, went with sable rein 
 As if he knew the sorrow; cannonade 
 Came from the Royal slopes, and, overlaid 
 
 With flowers, we bore our young Prince home again. 
 
 I could not weep, there was so much in mind, 
 Dark town and towers and gorgeous chapel dim. 
 
 The mourning music and the silent bier; 
 But at the closing of that funeral hymn 
 One placed the crown a broken heart had twined 
 There on the coffin — and I felt the tear. 
 
 See Note 12.
 
 HEROES AMONG MEN.
 
 HEROES AMONG MEN. 
 
 53 
 
 3ir John Jfranhlin. 
 1786-1847. 
 
 (AT SPILSBY.) 
 
 "\X7'HEN from this street young Franklin watched 
 the Bear 
 Turn in continual service to the Pole, 
 He must have marvelled with what strange control 
 
 That atom swayed the constellation near, 
 
 Some influence sure of that mysterious sphere 
 Touched then the mighty magnet of his soul, 
 To hold high purpose to its mighty goal, 
 
 And bid him for the cruel north- land steer. 
 
 Haply — for we who crawl upon this earth 
 
 Are moved by wings we wot not of at all — 
 From that far world a message at his birth 
 Grew as he grew, and framed his spirit's call, 
 And this poor town in humbleness has given 
 Proof that the patriot's heart is born in Heaven !
 
 54 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 %fs the Jttem0r2 erf Habg Jfanc Jfnttthlin. 
 
 JULY 23RD, 1875. 
 
 /^UIET and cold, and white as frozen snow! 
 Well has the Master's cunning hand exprest 
 The honours on thine honourable breast, 
 
 The speaking eye, the calm command of brow — 
 
 Ah ! if those eyes could weep, they would weep now ! 
 To-day we carry to a well-earned rest 
 One who hath need not any more of quest — 
 
 Whose love was champion of her marriage vow. 
 
 She needs no tomb, her monument shall be 
 The ancient bergs that build the Northern sea ; 
 And when to summer waters melting slip 
 Those giant crystals that enshrine thy ship, 
 The men that sail where thou and thine were found, 
 Shall tell the love no Arctic winter bound. 
 
 See Note 13.
 
 IIEROEH AMONG MEN. 
 
 55 
 
 (Homiiuiuiier oEuatt ^atosoit. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 13TH, 1882. 
 
 T) LAME LESS and lion-heart by land and sea, 
 Oh I wheresoever Christians seek their Lord 
 
 And know Him in a life not idly poured, 
 But, at the desperate call that holds in fee 
 The bravest answer, poured unsparingly — 
 
 The cost unrecked, the hazard hardly scored, — 
 
 Obedience only waiting duty's word 
 To dare death's worst — who seek will meet with thee. 
 
 Whether they find thee with Amoaful's scars 
 Fresh in the north's intolerable night, 
 
 Lending thy comrades thine own body's fire. 
 Or, in close commune with Egyptian stars. 
 The guide of moonless squadrons to the fight. 
 Thyself to fall — thy fame to mount up higher. 
 
 See Note 14.
 
 56 VALETE. 
 
 (general (lioriiou. 
 
 JANUARY 26th, 1 885. 
 
 X-T ERO of selfless heroes, resolute, 
 
 Simple in heart, of purpose crystal clear, 
 Ah ! what availed that soul-perplexing year 
 
 Of lonely patience, expectation mute. 
 
 Those winks of watch dog slumber to recruit 
 Waste of long nights, and bid thee persevere 
 To build up ramparts in dark hearts of fear, 
 
 And pace the city wall with guardian foot ! 
 
 Oh, what availed thy fruitless questioning 
 Of that beleaguered plain beyond the Nile, 
 Whose dust-whirls never broke to flash of sword. 
 Volley of English cannon, and the ring 
 
 Of cheers from hearts that sought thee — this, 
 thine Isle, 
 Has learned how live and die, the warriors 
 of the Lord.
 
 HEROES AMONG MEN. 
 
 57 
 
 Jfathcr 5'i'i^i*^>»- 
 APRIL, 1889. 
 
 lyr O golden dome shines over Damien's sleep ; 
 A le[)er's grave upon a leprous strand 
 Where hope is dead, and hand must shrink from hand 
 
 Where cataracts wail towards a moaning deep, 
 
 And frowning purple cliffs in mercy keep 
 
 All wholesome life at distance, hath God planned 
 For him who led his saintly hero band, 
 
 And died a shepherd of Christ's exiled sheep. 
 
 O'er Damien's dust the broad skies bend for dome. 
 Stars bum for golden letters, and the sea 
 Shall roll perpetual anthem round his rest; 
 For Damien made the charnel-house life's home, 
 Matched love with death : and Damien's name 
 shall be 
 A glorious benediction world-possest.
 
 58 VALETE. 
 
 J^t ^ibiugstaue's ^tjunerai. 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY, APRIL, 1874. 
 
 VyHEN down the muffled melancholy nave 
 
 They bore the heart that ever yearned for home, 
 But ever felt its duty was to roam 
 
 Far wildernesses, solitary, brave, 
 
 That so who knew not home, sweet home might have — 
 Fierce nations to his funeral seemed to come, 
 To weep with those who underneath the dome 
 
 Wept for the friend they carried to his grave. 
 
 But we beheld upon that coffin borne 
 No wreaths of laurel, cypress or of bay, 
 Only the plumey feathers of the palm, 
 And as our voices rose in prayer and psalm 
 We saw one standing victor in the Morn, 
 And felt o'er darkened Africa the Day. 
 
 See Note 15.
 
 LEADERS OF MEN.
 
 LEADERS OF MEN. 6 1 
 
 ^t 3f)U9heni)cn. 
 
 I9TH APRIL, 1881. 
 
 T^HE Primrose shines; unnoticed on the lawn 
 The Peacocks strut, they feel that it is spring, 
 
 They shake their fans, they drop their painted wing. 
 But Hughendcn's white curtains all are drawn : 
 Who played the game of nations, King and Pawn, 
 
 Has played and lost the game where Death is King. 
 
 He nevermore shall see the cedars fling 
 Their fragrant shadows from the English dawn. 
 
 Ambitionless for self to be or have. 
 Ambitious for the land to be and do, 
 
 The Patriot-soul has vanished from our strife ; 
 But, though his heart to dust and ashes go. 
 True Love shall bend above the threefold grave 
 That holds the friend, the statesman, and the wife.
 
 62 VALETE. 
 
 APRIL 5TH, 1886. 
 
 "PTAREWELL, a sorrowing nation knows her need; 
 Farewell, farewell, the stormless time has come ; 
 Farewell, we cannot grudge thee rest and home, 
 
 Nor with the strong pale angel will we plead, 
 
 Our leader back, a little while, to lead ; 
 
 For now the seas of state are white with foam, 
 Perplexing winds of faction rave and roam ; 
 
 Law-mongers creedless are; thou hadst a creed! 
 
 Firm patriot-will, fierce hater of misrule, 
 Fearlessly faithful when thy country called, 
 Thy soul was thy prime -minister, thy queen 
 Truth, with her simple law of "say and mean." 
 Stern breaker of the new tyrannic school, 
 Upholder of pure conscience, unenthralled.
 
 LEADERS OF MEN. 63 
 
 John fright. 
 
 MARCH 27TH, 1888. 
 
 T AST of the gladiators gone to rest ! 
 
 No more thy voice's trumpet-tone sliall thrill 
 The nations halting between good and ill; 
 
 Thy lion head has sunk upon thy breast, 
 
 But death has not annulled thy life's bequest — 
 Unswerving right, inviolable will, 
 To lead the sons of labour up the hill 
 
 Of Freedom, faithful, peaceful, soul-possessed. 
 
 Great Tribune of the people, storms may rise, 
 They will not shake the pillars of thy throne, 
 Seeing thy rule was selflessness sincere, 
 And praise did never blind those patient eyes 
 
 That looked, beyond State discord, to the year 
 When golden love shall bind all hearts in one.
 
 64 VALETE. 
 
 ^arb CTarnarbon. 
 
 JUNE 28th, 1890. 
 
 "M'OW let the Highclere cedars darklier wave 
 The rhododendrons fall and flush no more ; 
 A silent face beside the silent shore 
 
 Waits for the silent shrouding of the grave ! 
 
 The patriot soul that dared alone be brave, 
 And from the hate of kings a false robe tore, 
 That bade all loyal hearts refill the store 
 
 Of England's love which shall our England save, 
 
 Moves crowned with lilies ; Learning sorrows near, 
 And golden speech that from the " Golden Grove " 
 Drew such sweet life, perforce must mutely bend. 
 But, ah, clear-souled Carnarvon, by thy bier 
 
 Two kneel, hands clasped triumphant; holy Love 
 And Faith that made the future firmest friend. 
 
 See Note 16.
 
 LEADERS OF MEN. 
 
 65 
 
 APRIL 24TIf, 189I. 
 
 /'"^REAT battle -thinker, war and work is o'er, 
 
 No more shall hill and vale and blossoming plain 
 Shine as a chequer-board whereon your brain 
 
 May plan for peace thro' victory, and no more 
 
 In thought shall cannon crown the heights and roar, 
 Nor armies march and countermarch to gain 
 The dread arbitrament of woe and pain, 
 
 Whereby men hold the fields they plowed of yore. 
 
 Your warfare is accomplished, you have gone 
 To where men sheathe the sword and bear the palm, 
 And Love leads on to fuller light and life ; 
 Where souls, who through Earth's pettiness and 
 strife 
 Have held their strong simplicity and calm, 
 Hear, in the Land of Peace, Heaven's loud "Well done !" 
 
 E
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN.
 
 SHEPHERDS OE MEN. 69 
 
 1792-1866. 
 
 At the head of the graves of Keble and his wife in Hursley 
 Churchyard stands a cross ; inscribed upon the base are the 
 words : — "Quibus lux esto perpetua. Pax eterna." 
 
 /^NE shadow only on their sleep can fall ! 
 
 The long large-hearted glories of the west 
 That pierce the pines on Hursley's woody crest 
 
 And fire the steeple-vane, make rosy all 
 
 The cottage roofs, with splendour magical 
 Turn chalk to cliff of gold, and have possest 
 Yon glimmering weald with wonder, here may rest, 
 
 As long as bird to drowsy bird can call. 
 
 For here are lamps whose urns of faith and song 
 Nor grief nor death could shatter, now they shine 
 In worlds of peace that need not sun nor moon : 
 And rosy morn, red eve, or golden noon 
 Casts from one cross a shadow, that cross Thine, 
 Thou Lord of light for whom they waited long.
 
 70 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 i8i9-75- 
 
 (OFF BIDEFORD BAY.) 
 
 TD Y wave-bruised Baggy Point, smooth Croyda's head, 
 We crossed the bay of Danish Hubba's woe; 
 High o'er the sea -grey beach of Westward Ho 
 
 The dunes on which thy sun its magic shed, 
 
 Gleamed doubly radiant ; but our eyes were led 
 To that white beacon -tower the sailors know. 
 Star of the shoals where Taw and Torridge flow, 
 
 Friend for the lost, home-bringer from the dead. 
 
 For thou in perilous times of dark didst stand 
 A beacon true no wanderer could reprove. 
 Whether he tossed on doubt's unresting sea. 
 Or groped his way through reason's shifting sand. 
 And many a soul steered straight for home by thee, 
 Thou pure white tower of fire and faith and love.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 71 
 
 July i8th, 1881. 
 
 'TTHERE was a silence in the city's roar, 
 
 And ere Saint Margaret's bell had ceased to boom, 
 With sense of universal loss, the gloom 
 
 Saddened the land, and broke from shore to shore 
 
 In tides of lamentation : — Passed ! before 
 
 True christian love could fill the teacher's room 
 Or Time had fitted to her changing loom 
 
 The pattern of the charity he wore. 
 
 Fathered and tutored well, he never veiled 
 For praise or gain the vision of his eye, 
 
 Hard pressed, and dying with God's harness on. 
 But where keen sense and wit unblunted failed, 
 His all-endearing personal presence won : 
 Now is he free, who fought for Liberty.
 
 72 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 ^mn (Stitnlej). 
 
 BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, JULY 27TH, 1881. 
 
 "DURY the Dean where each famihar grave 
 Opens in rival welcome for the guest 
 Who quickened gloriously its dust, who best 
 
 In chapel dim, dark cloister's hoary nave. 
 
 Lit the gold lamps of history, and gave 
 His nation's shrine a record to attest, 
 That there in grateful honour lies at rest 
 
 The wise in truth, in deed the nobly brave. 
 
 Bury the Dean, and let no stinted praise 
 Fall from the lips of men he soared above. 
 
 Unfettered, striving still to reconcile 
 Creeds past and present in the life of love, 
 Else will the Dead he championed throng the aisle, 
 And the Great Ghosts loud acclamation raise.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 73 
 
 ^hc ^tanki) l^lonumeut in ^ugbu CHhajjel. 
 
 T IE here in quiet, let boy -gazers know 
 
 How, even in sleep, the spirit of the man 
 Moved, and the blood, though all was marble, 
 ran 
 To fruitful issue thro' a heart of snow ; 
 Lie here above the world and close below 
 Thy master. Let ambition plot and plan, 
 Still shall the humble -hearted lead the van, 
 Their lives bequeathed to larger love shall grow. 
 
 Sleep on, thy rest no strife of tongues can break, 
 But on thy face young eyes shall look and learn 
 How they who seek pure wisdom never die, 
 To this white form white souls shall ever fly ; 
 Here from cold lips of stone new truths will burn, 
 And where thou sleepest Charity shall wake.
 
 74 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 J-T0ffat the Jftissionarg. 
 
 AUGUST 8th, 1883. 
 
 T HEARD that old Arch -Missionary say: — 
 "Grant me no Heaven to lose, no Hell to gain, 
 But give me youth, I every nerve would strain 
 
 To succour poor down -trodden Africa!" 
 
 Hero and priest, albeit thy locks are grey, 
 
 Thy hand, that fear and constant need did train, 
 That swayed a nation, clutched the lion's mane, 
 
 And strangled serpents, is as swift to-day? 
 
 We see thee ward the arrow, frame the plow. 
 Plead for God's Peace where chafing warriors sit, 
 
 Thine own tongue lost in exile, hardly thou 
 To our dull prose their poet -words dost fit ! 
 
 While from the caves, beneath that tower of brow, 
 Flash the twin lamps Christ's quenchless love has lit ! 
 
 See Note 17.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 
 
 75 
 
 IJrincipal ^hairp. 
 
 SEPTEMBER, 1S85. 
 
 T ET Jura wail, the loud Atlantic sweep 
 To Argyle's inland solitudes forlorn, 
 By sound and firth let sobbing seas be borne 
 
 From that dark shore where song is laid asleep. 
 
 For never gentler heart did climb the steep 
 Unwavering, never holier oath was sworn 
 Than his, who in his youth's exalted morn 
 
 To nature gave his innocence to keep. 
 
 Oh ! lost from human presence, but unlost 
 To those who felt thy heart in thy right hand 
 
 And knew it beat in tune to all things good, 
 Sad are the vales of Wordsworth's Cumberland 
 And drear St. Andrews scholar- brotherhood, 
 But happier sure Heaven's love-enlightened host.
 
 76 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 Ipishop- Jjraser. 
 
 OCTOBER 22ND, 1885. 
 
 "TTHE whole church prest her hand upon her heart 
 With pain to hear thy heart had ceased to beat ; 
 
 There fell a shock of silence on the street, 
 And death a moment hushed the wrangling mart ; 
 For thou wert of thy multitudes a part, 
 
 Thy wisdom sat not only in the seat 
 
 Of lore ecclesiastic, and thy feet 
 Were swift to heal the nation's every smart. 
 
 Oh ! generous eyes, from purer heights to see 
 The littleness of party — clearer now ! 
 Oh ! voice not ever lifted but to serve 
 The Christ of all the churches, and to nerve 
 Weak souls. Thy Shepherd- chief had need of thee, 
 And lo His crown upon thy tireless brow
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 
 
 77 
 
 ^ishxjp ^anningtou. 
 
 MASSACRED WITH HIS FOLLOWERS IN MASAI LAND, CENTRAL 
 AFRICA, OCTOBER, 1885. 
 
 ■VyyilEN the assured and fore- determined day 
 
 Shall flood the darker continent's dark heart, 
 When warriors leave the spear for plow and mart, 
 
 And the white Christ assumes His gentle sway, 
 
 Then shall thy fifty followers where they lay 
 In blood and silence, from their ashes start 
 To bear thee witness, what august a part 
 
 Was thine — thou Shepherd-herald of the Way. 
 
 Those unresisting hands were fiercely bound, 
 Thy soul was free, thy voice was loud in prayer 
 
 Potent as Stephen's, e'er he fell asleep, 
 And if no Paul with hot assent was there, 
 Thy martyr summons went the wide world round, 
 The crimson seed is sown, the Church shall reap.
 
 78 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 1886. 
 
 /^ONE to the land of light and calm in fear 
 For this dark day and our tempestuous time, 
 Already hast thou heard the silver chime, 
 
 That ever doth our jarring earth ensphere. 
 
 Nor art thou friendless, thy devout compeer ^ 
 Who shared the toil of thy laborious prime 
 Comes from those rosy mountains angels climb : — 
 
 Friendship on earth, in Heaven is love more dear. 
 
 And if before thine ears were stopped by death 
 
 No message came of that last battle cry, 
 
 Where men fought fierce with argument for swords 
 
 Thou knowest now, from out our cloudy breath 
 
 And strife of indistinguishable words, 
 
 God rolls his car of Truth to Victory. 
 
 See Note 18. 
 ^ Principal Shairp.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 
 
 79 
 
 ©btuarb ^hring. 
 
 HEADMASTER OF UPPINGHAM. 
 1853-1887. 
 
 T ORD of the Lion -heart, with soul of thought, 
 In no vain mould of mere expedient cast. 
 
 He dared to stand against the public blast 
 Of opposition, for the truths he taught. 
 In fire from pagan page and Scripture caught 
 
 He forged the present to a helpful past ; 
 
 Whate'er of life he learned, he held it fast. 
 And wove it into beauty as he wrought 
 
 Preacher and poet, with the prophet eyes 
 
 To see in boys the men our time should need, 
 
 He found, for dullest clay, some grace God-given, 
 On quickened furrows flung his living seed, 
 Set Learning in her fair fit Paradise, 
 
 And showed how Love, not Knowledge led to 
 Heaven.
 
 8o VALETE. 
 
 OCTOBER 22ND, 1 887. 
 
 T OVED Father of the schoolboy multitude, 
 Friend of their short swift ages passed away 
 Guide of their labour, champion of their play, 
 
 Who dared for zeal of noble masterhood 
 
 To stand alone, a rock above the flood 
 Of easy acquiescence, and gainsay 
 The dazzling bright ambitions of to-day 
 
 That tempt to learning's heights the scholar brood, 
 
 Thy presence fails for solace or command. 
 
 Thy soul is ours, thou great schoolmaster- king ; 
 Still, father of thy children fatherless, 
 Unto thy voice of cheer the pupils press, 
 And hearts that honour truth in every land. 
 Can hear thy voice for truth and honour ring.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 8 1 
 
 f ishop Pghtfoot. 
 
 DECEMBER 2 1 ST, 1 889. 
 
 TN the Prince Bishop line, the princeliest thou 
 Being the humblest soul, since Leader's son 
 Saw angel hosts ascending, and was won 
 
 To leave his fold and take the preacher's vow. 
 
 From Fame to Camus' flood in grief we bow, 
 Northumbria's flock is smitten and alone, 
 For thou, the Shepherd, to far fields art gone. 
 
 Life claimed thee consecrate. Death sealed thy brow. 
 
 Chief lord, among thy scholars scholar still ! 
 
 Thou guider of earth's flock, thyself heaven -guided. 
 By what calm waters, and what pastures sweet 
 Dost thou in glory minister, whose will 
 
 Was to make strong and whole a church divided 
 And bring the bruised and out-cast to Christ's 
 feet?
 
 S2 VALETE. 
 
 June ioth, 1890. 
 
 LJ ERE am I wrapped about with sun and showers 
 Among the hills that often gave you call, 
 Blue hills that gleamed so near to Carlisle's wall, 
 
 That seemed so far from dark Mancunium's towers ; 
 
 And you are wrapped about with cloud of flowers, 
 Or lie beneath the purple sunless pall, 
 In some sad Cymric village, and tears fall, 
 
 And bells are muffled, for the Lord of mowers 
 
 Has, in His June-tide mowing, touched your field : 
 But God doth know that never heart did beat 
 For poor man's wants and woes with surer heat, 
 And they who follow on Christ's sheaves to bind 
 In fallows where you sowed, shall surely find 
 
 Life's joy hath increase, Love — a larger yield, 
 ' Dean first of Carlisle, and afterwards of Manchester.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 83 
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY, 1890. 
 
 "T^ EAD, did you say ? York's good Archbishop dead ! — 
 Brimful of human knowledge, and so wise 
 In that diviner world's simplicities — 
 
 Then breaks a pillar, falls a church's head. 
 
 Who dared, alone, the shepherd heights to tread. 
 And in a day of mist and various cries 
 Taught work for others was man's sacrifice, 
 
 And held that truth, unswerving. Heavenward led. 
 
 And as, when first round shepherds there was poured 
 The light of Christmas, while the angels sang, 
 
 They rose with joy and left their smouldering fires ; 
 So, when our bells the Christmas message rang, 
 When rocked the clamorous towers, and shook the 
 spires. 
 He left the crook, and went to greet his Lord,
 
 84 VALETE. 
 
 CTarbinal Jletoman. 
 
 1801-90. 
 
 I_JE lies in state, whose soul was far above 
 
 The earthly dress that we men Honour call; 
 
 He rests and speaks not underneath the pall, 
 Whose voice was loud for duty and for love. 
 He walks in state, whose spirit mates above 
 
 With spirits never held by flesh in thrall ; 
 
 He speaks with angels, No more Cardinal, 
 Servant of truths he sought on earth to prove. 
 
 And knowing all the followers of One Light, 
 And known by One, of all the Churches Lord, 
 He finds Heaven's way the way of children still, 
 The way of little ones, who seeing right, 
 Do it, and ask not of hard Reason's word, 
 And seek the Father by the Father's will.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 85 
 
 (Canon |£ibiion. 
 
 BURIED AT ST. PAUL'S, SEPTEMBER i6tII, 1890. 
 
 TN olden time, the prophet of the Lord 
 
 Went up on glorious chariot -wheels of flame, 
 But this pure heart, returning whence it came, 
 Had need of no fire-horses, for his word 
 Clothed him with light, and his keen spirit's sword 
 Flashed lightning as he spoke of Christ's dear name. 
 And in his splendid carelessness of fame 
 He shone transfigured, till, the silver cord 
 Loosed here, he soared to Heaven. Though nevermore 
 Above the whispers of that mighty dome 
 His golden voice shall echo in the soul. 
 There is, within Death's sudden thunder- roll, 
 The whisper of a glory gone before — 
 A prophet -cry to call us nearer home.
 
 86 VALETE. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM PETERBORO'. DIED MAY 4TH, 189I. 
 
 T-J E scarce had known the walls of great De Gray, 
 Had hardly seen, where silent Ouse doth flow, 
 How tutelary elms and poplars grow 
 About the palace garden — when the day 
 Predestined came to call his soul away, 
 
 And underneath that triple -caverned row 
 Of pillared portals, solemnly and slow 
 We bore his bones to mingle with the clay 
 Of Aelfric, and of Kinsius : but his voice, 
 His wholesome wit, his reasonable mind, 
 
 These were not coffined with him, these remain : 
 And Yorkshire's Viking, Peterboro's Dane, 
 Still feel the gift which came upon the wind 
 That sealed with tongues of flame the Spirit's choice. 
 
 See Note 19.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 87 
 
 NOVEMBER 25TII, 1892. 
 
 T_J ERE in the land of shepherds let him rest — 
 Chief shepherd he of Cumbria's ancient wild — 
 And lay his bones beside his well-loved child, 
 
 And strew the snow-white flowers upon his breast ; 
 
 For he with childhood's joyousness was blest, 
 
 With manhood's calm ; to any weakling mild, 
 Fierce only to the wolves ; and unbeguiled 
 
 By soft vale voices sought the mountain crest. 
 
 And on the peaks of duty, not of fame, 
 
 Wrought out his shepherd's calling. Now he lies 
 In sight of Skiddaw, and the hearts that burn — 
 Remembering all the deeds of Kentigern — 
 Know, since, till this man taught us, none more wise 
 
 To lift the cross, beside the Derwent came.
 
 88 VALET E. 
 
 THE DAY AFTER THE FUNERAL. NOVEMBER 29TH, 1892. 
 
 T-TERE rests from earthly labour, not from love, 
 A strenuous heart, strong hand and tireless brain. 
 One who thro' death's dark gate unhurt of pain 
 
 And quite unquenched of spirit, went to prove 
 
 The glory of full being : oh, remove 
 
 This weary weight of death that doth restrain 
 The ardour of his going ! grant again 
 
 Sight of the Shepherd passed to fields above ! 
 
 Nay, since, dear God and Father of us all. 
 
 Thou at Thy time dost give Thy loved ones sleep. 
 We would not ask our Shepherd from the 
 
 height, 
 Nor claim him back to darkness from the light; 
 Only we pray Thee, with a clearer call 
 Call close around the cross Thy sorrowing sheep.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 89 
 
 CTartiinal Jttanntng. 
 
 ON HEARING OF HIS LAST ILLNESS, JANUARY, 1892. 
 
 TV/r AY God's sweet sun of health shine out and move 
 The bitter cloud that darkens on our hopes, 
 For you thro' strength and weakness up the slopes 
 
 Of Faith have passed unfaltering : Heaven above 
 
 Smiles on you j not for ring or jewelled glove, 
 Wrappings of scarlet, gorgeous golden copes, 
 Not for the kissing of the hand of popes, 
 
 But for your kiss of peace, your cloak of love. 
 
 Frail were your hands and frail your voice's call — 
 Both strong for right; Faith helped your high 
 endeavour 
 When wealth and work stood angrily at strife. 
 Ah ! though your feet are near that other river, 
 Stay with us still, for England needs your life, 
 Friend of the poor! wise -counselling Cardinal!
 
 90 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 %i the ^ying in <Stat£ ai (Eariinai JHanning. 
 
 JANUARY I9TH, 1892. 
 
 LJE lies in purple, as becomes a man 
 
 Of royal nature, round him starry bright 
 Stand the dark walls in token of our night. 
 
 Those aged feet that still so swiftly ran 
 
 To succour, those grey eyes that seemed to scan 
 The worlds unseen, have lost their power and light, 
 And the frail hands, and strenuous for the right, 
 
 Are cold, Mourns England, grieves the Vatican ! 
 
 Yet death has set his forehead free from lines, 
 The golden crook is idle at his side. 
 He lies at rest and on his purple glove 
 Like flame unwaveringly the topaz shines, 
 
 While o'er him dead there bends the One who died, 
 With arms outstretched — the image of his love.
 
 SHEPHERDS OF MEN. 
 
 91 
 
 <Spurgcon. 
 
 FEBRUARY 4TH, 1 892. 
 
 "M" either for rugged wit nor Saxon phrase, 
 Oh mourners by the soft ItaHan sea — 
 Blue as the sapphire lake of Galilee 
 
 Whereby in thought he laboured all his days — 
 
 This prophet last of Puritans — we praise, 
 But rather that he never bowed the knee 
 To false expedient, ever flung out free 
 
 The banner of a gospel he upraised. 
 
 Not on the hills with peace his feet were shod. 
 No desert silence by his voice surprised 
 
 Heard the clear note "Repent ye of your sin"; 
 But in the midst ot mammon's busiest din 
 He dared, each day rededicate to God, 
 To cry aloud "Believe and be baptised."
 
 92 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 ^i0hop |3hiUip0 ^ro^ks. 
 
 DIED AT BOSTON, 23RD JANUARY, 1893. 
 
 ^OU came, and with you came a wind from Heaven 
 The health and vigour of Atlantic gales, 
 
 Our hearts revived, our souls reset their sails, 
 And with new courage o'er dark seas were driven. 
 Weak knees were strong which hopelessly had striven, 
 
 Tired hands that felt — what agony avails ! 
 
 Cast overboard all this world's cumbrous bales. 
 Took in fresh hope and life your lips had given. 
 
 There as we heard the passionate appeal, 
 
 And watched your body swayed beneath the stress 
 Of half you felt, of all you could express. 
 We learned again how sped the Holy Ghost 
 Thro' flame and wind of that first Pentecost, 
 And knew your message by the Saviour's seal.
 
 SINGERS AMONG MEN.
 
 SINGERS AMONG MEN. 
 
 95 
 
 ilante 6nbncl llxjssctti. 
 
 APRIL 9TH, 1882. 
 
 /^ONE down to take Proserpina the flowers, 
 Those daffodils let fall from Pluto's wain ! 
 The grey old bard, who bound with silver chain 
 
 Of simple song his western home to ours, 
 
 Waits, happy for thy guidance to the bowers 
 
 Where, guests long since in thy mysterious train. 
 The singers sit right glad to entertain 
 
 Thee with thy later tale of Tuscan towers. 
 
 Thou Painter -Poet, with the brow divine. 
 Whereon was set some memory of his face 
 Who gave our England song for evermore. 
 Thy ' House of Life ' is broken, but back to shore 
 Comes Charon, with that sonnet- toll of thine 
 Which Death dared never keep in his dark place. 
 
 See Note 20.
 
 g6 VALE TE. 
 
 NOVEMBER 2ND, 1887. 
 
 "M' EVER again to see an English Spring ! 
 Never to watch the purple copses burn, 
 The gold gay -hearted daffodil return ! 
 
 Never to hear the lark above me sing 
 
 And climbing up his stair ring after ring, 
 Send consolation earthwards ! how I yearn 
 But once, once more, to find the bracken fern 
 
 Lifting to fragrant light its fairy wing ! 
 
 The Malvern valleys, mist-enshrouded, wait, 
 The Malvern hills are shuddering into snow, 
 But thou clear- throated angel -heart of Dawn, 
 Thou standest now within the happier gate 
 
 Whence all the springs with life and love shall flow, 
 To thrill the nightingale and flush the lawn. 
 
 See Note 21.
 
 SINGERS AMONG MEN. 
 
 97 
 
 IHixtthctD JVrnoll). 
 
 IN LALEHAM CHURCHYARD, APRIL, 1888. 
 
 /^ONE, without word, or touch, or hint of pain 
 Where the great visions of his earthly chase — 
 
 Sweet light and truth, and soul -appealing grace — 
 Stand full embodied. Surely not in vain 
 Our generation felt his high disdain 
 
 For all that narrowed good to time and race ; 
 
 For all that wept in sordid common -place, 
 Or held life cramped in fashion's thoughtless chain. 
 
 Child of the Thames and Rotha,^ o'er his rest 
 The poplar grieves, the river sobs and cries. 
 And souls that still unsatisfied must Ions: 
 To know the highest and to think the best. 
 Sigh, in accord, the human undersong 
 Of loss, about the grave where Arnold lies. 
 
 1 These are the rivers that seem specially associated with 
 Matthew Arnold's life and song, 
 
 G
 
 98 VALETE. 
 
 ^oratiu0 IBonav. 
 
 3IST JULY, 1889. 
 
 CINGER, at length thy travelling days are done, 
 And thou who heard'st the voice of Jesus say, 
 " Come unto me and rest," hast ceased thy lay, 
 
 Into the land of silence thou hast gone ! 
 
 But still thy pure harp's high and holy tone — 
 Harp strung in stern old covenanter's day — 
 Sounds out, to cheer the pilgrim on his way 
 
 With echoes of the song about the Throne. 
 
 Still wheresoe'er the children's hymn may rise, 
 Or the great congregation's voice upswell 
 
 In plenitude of praise, thy clear heart's chord 
 Shall vibrate, till we hear in Paradise 
 
 How all on earth, in sea, and Heaven that dwell. 
 With one loud Alleluia bless the Lord.
 
 SINGERS AMONG MEN. 
 
 99 
 
 ^lObcrt IJrotDuing. 
 
 DECEMBER I2TH, 1S89. 
 
 "DROWNING is dead at Venice ! dark and slow 
 The gondoliers move silently along, 
 Wan Adria's sea sobs sorrowful among 
 
 Drear halls, and pale for grief sits Asolo. 
 
 Browning is dead ! the voice tolls to and fro 
 And hushes all his latest tender song, 
 As in an organ when the deep notes throng 
 
 To drown the quavering treble's passionate flow. 
 
 Browning is dead ! with Florence on his heart 
 Writ large ; but larger, England underneath — 
 
 The England of his helping ; for he knew 
 The mind where Freedom is, and, to the death, 
 For souls in pain who dare the Angel part, 
 Onset and victory his brave trumpet blew.
 
 loo VALETE. 
 
 Robert ^rotuuincj. 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY, DECEMBER 30TH, 1S89. 
 
 17 ROM Rivo Alto's silent palace hall, 
 
 From San Michele's wilderness of flowers, 
 Comes one for rest beneath our Abbey Towers 
 
 Whose song and soul shall never sleep at all. 
 
 The crown of Venice shines above the pall, 
 A brighter crown thy tireless spirit dowers, 
 For thy strong heart the weakest heart empowers 
 
 To " strive and thrive," fare forward, though we fall. 
 
 Singer of resolute right, and souls on fire 
 
 To meet the morrow's battle, and the ' must ' 
 Of Truth triumphant with our latest breath, 
 Lie here, for gentle Spenser can desire 
 
 No knightlier guest, nor Chaucer in his dust 
 A truer harp. Lie here — here comes no death.
 
 SINGERS A MONG MEN. i o i 
 
 ^ CCry from Jjlorcncc. 
 
 DECEMliER I2TH, 1889. 
 
 'T*AKE home the heart, her heart that cannot rest 
 Though in Etruria's southern-natured ground, 
 Take home the heart that fire and fulness found 
 
 In that sure heart whose secret she possest. 
 
 Take home the heart, the heart that at its best 
 Was bettered for his singing, whose strong sound 
 Was sweeter by her song, for she was crowned 
 
 Queen of a heart that was her King confest. 
 
 Hearts such as these have never ceased from beating, 
 Hearts such as these by sympathy divine 
 Will palpitate in death, harmonious measure. 
 And still I hear a spirit voice entreating, 
 
 Let Arno give the Thames her poet -treasure, 
 One grave the dust of two immortals' shrine. 
 
 See Note 22.
 
 I02 VALETE. 
 
 James llusscU ^olucU. 
 
 AUGUST 12TH, 189I. 
 
 T OWELL is dead ! a gold link snapt and gone 
 That bound the Mother to the Daughter- land. 
 Lowell is dead ! I hear upon the strand 
 
 The mourning of two nations joined as one 
 
 Mixed with the drear Atlantic's monotone. 
 
 For who will touch the harp with lighter hand, 
 And who in time of tyrannous hate shall stand 
 
 And sing back Truth and Freedom to their throne? 
 
 Oh ! Stars that after dimness bless the night, 
 
 Stripes rent, and with a people's heart-blood healed. 
 Blow still mast-high, your poet speaks no more. 
 But though this stroke of death has wounded sore 
 The common heart to which his heart appealed, 
 Above our heads his star of Love is bright.
 
 SINGERS A MONG MEN. i o 3 
 
 "DEFORE he entered to. Heaven's imperial Hall 
 Where Light and Love and Beauty only reign, 
 Unto his dying eyes a vision plain 
 
 Of kingly people met for festival 
 
 Came with triumphant pomp, and clarion call ; 
 And rising up with will to entertain 
 Those goodly visitants, the courtier's brain 
 
 Reeled, and to death's dark arms did Lowell fall. 
 
 Not without presage of a royal home. 
 
 Where, King of kings and Lord of lords, our God 
 
 Crowns the true soul that nobly strives and sings 
 
 Of Right and Freedom, did that pageant come; 
 
 With sovereign powers he long had made abode. 
 
 For men who have the poet's heart are kings. 
 
 See Note 23.
 
 104 VALETE. 
 
 %\u CTcntcnrtrji of ^^Sizzxi. 
 
 DECEMBER 4TH, 189I. 
 
 /^OD called whom for too short a time he gave, 
 Dust back to dust, snapped string and broke 
 the shell, 
 And as they bore him towards the tolling bell 
 Of old St. Marx, no hands were there to wave 
 Adieu, no mourners but the winds that rave. 
 The tears shed for him were the rains that fell, 
 But all the hearts that ever felt his spell 
 Stand bowed to-day beside that pauper grave. 
 
 Mozart, thy soul, familiar grown with Death 
 Long since, laid willing touch upon the door 
 
 That opened to the land where sorrows cease. 
 And leaving here on earth th' unfinished score 
 Went onward, singing, with an angel's breath, 
 The requiem music of eternal peace.
 
 SINGERS AMONG LIEN. 
 
 105 
 
 5Halt dHhitman. 
 
 MARCH 26TH, 1892. 
 
 rjEAD is the "tan-faced" poet of the west, 
 
 Blunt-mouthed, bluff- headed, he who dared to 
 say 
 That for new freedom's democratic day 
 Thought should be free. By no rhyme -fetters prest, 
 He bade his rude unmetred verse attest 
 That drum -tap music suited well the way 
 Of those who marched, head up, for labour's fray, 
 And rugged truth in nakedness was best. 
 
 Dead, but not dead the hope for which he toiled, 
 Hope for the time when heart will speak to heart 
 With its own rhythmic utterance, making men 
 Singers indeed ; and hands by labour soiled 
 
 May feel each day they hold the poet's pen — 
 And the shy seer shall no more dwell apart.
 
 106 VALETE. 
 
 John (SrccttUat Silhittier. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1892. 
 
 '\^E shall not see again the deep -set eyes, 
 
 Tight mouth, thought-furrows on the friendly face 
 That never disavowed the Quaker race. 
 
 His shock of years is garnered under skies 
 
 Well known, well sung of, for his soul was wise 
 With all the change of season, and the grace 
 Of Nature, stored afield in lonely place, 
 
 To melt the labourer's heart with melodies. 
 
 His voice was clear because he saw the truth, 
 The simple truth that God would have men free, 
 
 On furrows red with war his seed was sown; 
 And loving right and hating tyranny, 
 He fashioned for a nation in its youth 
 
 Such music as its age shall not disown. 
 
 See Note 24,
 
 THINKERS AMONG MEN.
 
 THINKERS AMONG MEN. 109 
 
 darlulc. 
 
 CHELSEA, FEBRUARY fTH, 1881. 
 
 'T'HRO' mist and gloom, indignant and alone, 
 He nursed his heart's great fire, he spake his lore ; 
 Death smoothed at last the lines that sorrow wore, 
 
 And nations mourned a master spirit gone. 
 
 Of all our prophet saviours, last but one, 
 Breaker of idols, stern-voiced counsellor. 
 Shall England hear thy Doric phrase no more, 
 
 Hear and obey the village craftsman's son. 
 
 Nay, long as Thames shall roll toward the Town 
 Its gathered freshness from a thousand vales 
 To pass in sorrow on towards the sea, 
 His words of truth shall sound tho' tyrants frown. 
 His courage keep us when our courage fails. 
 His sadness to our gladness strength shall be.
 
 no VALETE. 
 
 OXFORD, MARCH 26tH, 1 882. 
 
 "LJ USHED be the bells of all his city towers, 
 
 We need no sound to swell the deep "alas!" 
 Let Isis move unsobbing thro' the grass, 
 
 The sun shine still upon the Nuneham flowers. 
 
 He was of those rare hearts whom nature dowers 
 With unassuming quietude, his glass 
 Turned all reflection inwards, men might pass 
 
 Nor know the depth and splendour of his powers. 
 
 Hew him of granite, granite was his mind, 
 
 Give him the sword, for trenchant was his thrust. 
 
 And cast these purblind late philosophies 
 Prone at his feet who trod them into dust. 
 Then write him, " Patriot that no bribes could blind, 
 Prophet of Truth, sure Teacher of the Wise."
 
 THINKERS AMONG MEN. i j i 
 
 ^r. ^ohrt proton. 
 
 DIED AT EDINBURGH, MAY IITH, 1882. 
 
 T ANARK, the sun upon thy moors had power 
 To sow a human heart with golden seed. 
 And heard in distance, tenderly, the Tweed 
 
 Nursed with its dews an everlasting flower 
 
 Of such exceeding radiance, such a dower 
 Of genial blessing, such a heavenly breed, 
 That where it bloomed all other seemed but weed, 
 
 And barren waste became an angel's bower. 
 
 Nor vainly did the pastor's large-eyed child 
 
 Race with the collie, learn the shepherd's stride. 
 And bear the yeanling in his plaid : who, grown, 
 Gave audience to each creature's voice that cried, 
 Carried his brother's burdens with his own 
 And left the sick ones whole because he smiled.
 
 1 1 2 VALETE. 
 
 John Ivichitrb (&xtt\\. 
 
 1837-1883. 
 
 The inscription upon the marble slab in the cemetery of 
 Mentone concludes with the words: — "He died learning." 
 
 CO die we all, the sun o'er Agal's height 
 
 That sinks unto its setting could not know 
 How this high terraced rock of rest would glow 
 
 With glory unimagined, how its light 
 
 Would pierce the cypress shadow, and make bright 
 As molten gold these pillars white as snow 
 That guard the marble whose dark letters show, 
 
 Here lies the learner who could read aright 
 
 The story of our England. Souls like thine, 
 Truth seeker ! glad to learn as glad to teach, 
 So keen in quest for knowledge, so sincere, 
 These having learned earth's simple letters here, 
 See at life's sunset nobler light can shine, 
 
 Find Heaven's full wisdom, speak with angel speech.
 
 THINKERS AMONG MEN. 1 1 3 
 
 ^r. llblUnger. 
 
 JANUARY lOTH, 189O. 
 
 pURE- HEARTED servant of the Living God, 
 Sure scholar, trained by Truth's unswerving hand, 
 High leader of high Love's triumphant band, — 
 
 Christ you obeyed but not his " Vicar's " nod : 
 
 Silent you kissed the inevitable rod, 
 
 Owned no soul- quenching hierarch's demand, 
 And passed for Faith, Faith's exile thro' the land, 
 
 Nor chose the easier way unreason trod. 
 
 Clouds came between, and death, with cloudier bar. 
 Has come, but round your sovran Sun, in light, 
 Turns the true soul that set so many free : 
 Still as for dawn above a troublous sea 
 To you men yearn : yea, in her darkest night 
 The church that scorned shall hail your guiding star
 
 114 VALETE. 
 
 |Corb Jnetice (Kcncral xnglie. 
 
 AUGUST 20TH, 189I. 
 
 T^HE corn was yellow by the Lowland braes, 
 The Highland heather purple on the hill, 
 When he our nation honoured for his skill, 
 And store of mellow wisdom, whom we praise 
 For justice and for judgment — strong to raise 
 A standard to reflect the Almighty's will, 
 Bowed his grey head, and fearing nothing ill 
 Bore to God's Hall of Judgment all his days 
 Of fulness and endeavour. Lead him in, 
 Ye powers of gentle innocence ! Give place, 
 
 Ye angels sworn to righteousness ! His mind 
 Cared for the moulding of a righteous race; 
 He judged men's deeds, to Heaven he left the sin. 
 And blessed with wise benevolence his kind.
 
 THINKERS AMONG MEN i r 5 
 
 ,Sxr ©corgc Jliru, l-CIJ. 
 
 DIED JANUARY 2ND, 1892, IN HIS QIST YEAR. 
 
 "pOR full three generations had he known 
 
 Sunlight and starlight, then at last there came 
 An angel with a chariot of flame, 
 
 And he went forth thro' stellar spaces sown 
 
 Thick with the seed of suns, beyond the cone 
 Of planetary systems none might name, 
 Till new light dazed him, and he heard acclaim 
 
 Of praise around the great Creator's throne. 
 
 He stood and bowed his head before the light 
 Those only see whose hearts are pure and blest 
 With child-like love and reverence, then he cried — 
 "Though never more can come the purple night 
 With wondrous gleam of worlds, here let me rest. 
 Thee, Lord, I sought, my soul is satisfied."
 
 Il6 VALETE. 
 
 John crouch ^l)am0. 
 
 THE ENGLISH DISCOVERER OF THE PLANET NEPTUNE. 
 DIED AT CAMBRIDGE, JANUARY 2IST, 1892. 
 
 /^OD Stretched His jewelled splendour far and wide 
 Above the Cornish moorlands, there He met 
 A boy, and from dark fallows dewy- wet 
 Bade him look up. He, scholar grown, espied 
 The wandering of lone Uranus, and plied 
 Star- quest in heights abysmal, till his net 
 Of calculations intricate had set 
 Sure, but unseen, far Neptune at the side 
 Of that perturbed planet. Then was hurled 
 
 Space from its throne, and distance was enchained, 
 And mind flung back the gates of ultimate gloom — 
 But little said the seeker, he who gained 
 Glory for England in his narrow room, 
 Wherein he searched the Heavens and found a world.
 
 THINKERS AMONG MEN. \ 1 7 
 
 1. |C. ilettlcshiiJ. 
 
 DIED ON MOUNT BLANC, AUGUST 25Tir, 1892. 
 
 "Y^THEN God from off life's perilous slope doth call 
 His men of humble heart to go up higher, 
 He sends for this the chariot wheels of fire, 
 
 For that the torrent thundering to the fall, 
 
 Snow -avalanche, ice-plumed wings of storm; and all 
 Who hear the dreadful courier coming nigher 
 Sink into silence, leave their last desire 
 
 Dumb before One who holdeth speech in thrall. 
 
 But this brave soul of pure unselfishness 
 
 Sang till the dawn to cheer his comrade band. 
 Then marched right on to death upon the height, 
 And, since in alien tongue he needs must bless, 
 Reached dying hands with longing infinite 
 Which spake farewells that all might understand. 
 
 See Note 25.
 
 Ii8 VALETE. 
 
 OBIIT, PARIS, OCTOBER 2ND, 1892. 
 
 "D ENAN is gone, we shall not see him more, 
 That massive face, those eyes of twinkling grey, 
 The prince of cynics — he has passed away 
 
 Who rich in wisdom made his brothers poor : 
 
 He, entering the inevitable door. 
 
 Has heard the truth that never can betray 
 Crying : — " Behold your puppets at a play 
 
 Are living souls upon no phantom shore." 
 
 For now at length is variance reconciled 
 Between the reason and the faith of man. 
 The double soul that so perplexed his life 
 Has ceased from irremediable strife, 
 The Christ he dwarfed fills out to godlike span, 
 The God he doubted claims again his child.
 
 THINKERS AMONG MEN. 119 
 
 DECEMBER i8tH, 1892. 
 
 TLJE saw the light on Morecambe's golden sands, 
 The crooked Lune ran silver to the main, 
 And he went seawards, but his soul was fain 
 
 By helm of thought to seek for other lands 
 
 And sound the deep of knowledge. To his hands 
 Earth gave primeval secrets, o'er the plain 
 Flew bat- winged pterodactyls, once again 
 
 Through swamp and ooze the Saurian pushed in bands. 
 
 Revealer of the times of tooth and claw. 
 
 He filled the world with dragons ; bone by bone 
 
 Guessed at the bird Dinornis great and grim, 
 
 But as he listened to the blackbird's hymn 
 He heard a prophet voice, an angel tone 
 
 Sing of a higher life with Love for Law. 
 
 ^ Owen was bom at Lancaster, and as a lad went to sea.
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS.
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 123 
 
 €. % (Scclcrt. 
 
 DIED IN THE LEBANON, ENGAGED IN MISSION WORK, 
 OCTOBER 25TH, 1881, 
 
 T-TIGH on the hills we laid her in repose, 
 
 And left our treasure, but we little wist 
 How soon the ranges of deep amethyst 
 
 That roll up heavenward to the Syrian snows 
 
 Would yield to this one jewel where it glows 
 
 Midway 'twixt blue and blue. Beloved of Christ, 
 Not vainly was thy pure life sacrificed 
 
 For Him who led thee bravely to the close. 
 
 Where'er among the vales of Lebanon 
 Between the olives and the mulberries 
 
 We catch a glimpse of Him they crucified, 
 We see thee ever walking at His side, 
 And by the fuller sunlight of thine eyes 
 We know thy heart its happiness has won.
 
 124 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 •^he painter's ^ome- (going. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM G. Q. P. TALBOT, 
 OBIIT MAY 28th, 1885. 
 
 r^OY) calls us when our eyes can bear the sight 
 Of all his lovelinesses — lest our mind 
 Should by the sudden beauty be smit blind — 
 
 To that new land, where neither sun gives light 
 
 Nor moon, but glowing love hath banished night 
 And sorrow with the night. ' Look not behind, 
 But go : thine eyes are ready — thou shalt find 
 
 Power to behold, with joyance infinite.' 
 
 Thereon, without a sigh the painter rose, 
 Yea, with a smile he laid his palette by ; 
 Long had he looked beyond the sunset bars. 
 Had felt a pureness whiter than the snows, 
 
 Had heard the immortal music of the stars, 
 And knew that love for beauty could not die.
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 125 
 
 .^ugxisic (Suwarb. 
 
 BARMOUTH. 
 
 T_JERE lies a man who toiled with pen and spade, 
 
 Who went forth sowing, and with all his might 
 
 Wrought, from the dawn, until the sunset light — 
 
 And so from barren Rock an Eden made — 
 
 Who, sworn all truth and all things pure to aid, 
 Of all things beautiful the Gentle Knight, 
 Still faced the storm, still battled with the blight, 
 
 And plied unmurmuringly his Heavenly trade. 
 
 To this high crag, beloved of him, he gave 
 His out-worn body, trusting so the weed 
 Of some wild saxifrage would kindlier grow 
 Above his ashes laid in peace below. 
 He little thought that from his hermit grave 
 Would bloom, for aye, Love's universal seed.
 
 126 VALETE. 
 
 ^ |3caccCttl ®nb. 
 
 CROSS SYKE, 1886. 
 
 r^OD calls His well-beloved in various wise, 
 
 Now with a shock that rends the Temple wall 
 
 So swift, the soul before the tower can fall 
 Flies scared above the ruin : now, her eyes 
 Almost familiar grown with Paradise, 
 
 The faithful watcher hears the angel call ; 
 
 While some scarce seem to wait for death at all, 
 Just fall asleep and wake with Heaven's surprise. 
 
 And such wert thou — so gently didst thou pass 
 But that thine eyes irrevocably set 
 
 On that transfiguring glory, could not look 
 Our way, we had not guessed thy pure life's glass 
 Was run, but rather deemed thee with us yet. 
 Thy face to smile a moment from thy book.
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 127 
 
 (£. %. anb J. §. §. ^. 
 
 DROWNED WHILST SAILING ON DERVVENTWATER IN A SQUALL, 
 SEPTEMBER QTH, 1 886. 
 
 T7ROM the dark deeps of this our endless woe, 
 To those dark deeps that stopped such manly breath, 
 Like one in fear, who, halting, listeneth 
 
 If any call, our hearts flit to and fro. 
 
 Your voices sound not, but one voice I know — 
 It is the solemn sovereign voice of Death : 
 ** There is a world beyond this world," it saith, 
 
 " There is a deep to which thou canst but go." 
 
 Untimely lost ! and only back to come 
 
 With speechless mouth, calm faces, sightless eyes, 
 Well have ye ridden out Earth's wildest gale. 
 Companions still with Christ aboard ye sail, 
 A ship of life, whose port is Paradise, 
 And freighted full of love ye steer for Home.
 
 128 VALETE. 
 
 John ^icharbson. 
 
 CUMBERLAND POET AND SCHOOLMASTER, ST. JOHN's VALE. 
 APRIL 3OTH, 1886. 
 
 r\ NEVER clad in academic gown, 
 
 To wisdom led the simpler cottage way; 
 
 By nature tended till thy head was grey, — 
 The heart of nature grew into thine own ; 
 And whether 'neath Helvellyn's moorland brown. 
 
 Along by glittering Bure thy steps would stray, 
 
 A poet-angler's, or, on market-day, 
 Among the yeomen of our village town, 
 
 Above thy estate thy soul did ever soar, 
 
 Beyond thy mortal sight thine eyes could see 
 And the poor scholars at their upland school 
 Learned of thee this — the Poet's golden rule- 
 That eyes and hearts were given to man to be 
 On earth the gatherers of a heavenly lore.
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 129 
 
 THE UPSETTING OF THE ST. ANNE's LIFEBOAT. 
 DECEMBER, 1886. 
 
 T OST in the passionate surges of the sea, 
 
 Lost in the moonwhite waters and the wind, 
 Our hearts that follow after them, shall find 
 
 Their souls unhurt where'er their bodies be. 
 
 For they have out -faced Death, and they are free, 
 Free with the name of Heroes, and the mind 
 Of Him who died to succour human kind. 
 
 For life they gave their own a willing fee. 
 
 Their babes may wail, their wives and lovers weep, 
 
 Sad tides may drift their treacherous boat ashore 
 
 And moan along the melancholy sands; 
 
 But when the rocket leaps with faithful hands 
 
 I know strong hearts will pull as stout an oar 
 
 And breast a fiercer storm for those who sleep. 
 
 I
 
 13© 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 THE COLLIERY EXPLOSION AT ST. HELENS, WORKINGTON. 
 APRIL I9TH, 1888. 
 
 1"^ EEP in the earth's dark womb that teemed with 
 death, 
 From morn till eve the brave men laboured on, 
 No stay nor rest the desperate task had won, 
 
 But still they fought the fierce cave's fiery breath ; 
 
 Came forth a spell at sundown, saw the heath 
 And vale and sea burn glorious, then cried one : 
 "Better to bide above, our work half-done, 
 
 Than back return to fight and fail beneath." 
 
 " Nay," answered others, " hark, our bairns and wives 
 Call to us, ' Save the pit and save our bread ! ' 
 
 Half work is no work for our hands to do," 
 And down they went, the quick to join the dead, 
 The flame -blast broke, and God's clear voice 
 rang thro' — 
 " Who labour thus and lose shall save their lives."
 
 FA'/EJVDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 131 
 
 |leb |5roton. 
 
 KILLED AT HIS POST, THORNTHWAITE MINES, 1889. 
 
 "V^OU knew Ned Brown, no kinder truer hand 
 E'er plied the pick, and found beneath the earth 
 Laborious bread. Our Father knew his worth : 
 
 He keeps New Year in Heaven, our Fatherland ; 
 
 No more beneath the stars at work's command, 
 His steps shall ring, his cheery voice make mirth, 
 Nor shall he, home returned at morning's birth, 
 
 For some friend's sake forego the sleep he planned. 
 
 But still between the Derwent and the hills 
 That rise against our golden gleaming west 
 His honest tread shall sound upon the road. 
 And they who sink the shaft, and seek the lode, 
 Shall hear Ned's voice come sounding 'mid the drills, 
 " Fall at your work, boys : falling so is best."
 
 132 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 Wxt fact's 'Lilian.' 
 
 IN MEMORY OF S. E. SHAWELL. 
 OCTOBER I4TH, 1889. 
 
 /^OME to the grave, and tell her we have met, 
 Bid her come forth, and smile once more, once 
 more; 
 But ah ! the deep earth and the fast-closed door 
 And the green grass with tears, not dewdrops, wet ! 
 Dear soul, whose laughing eyes were ever set 
 To fill the dark with light, to make with store 
 Of simple kindness for the rich and poor 
 A crown of joy, thou hast thy coronet. 
 
 And we, who stand and sorrow without words 
 Because one more of those, who through life's span 
 Brightened the earth, has passed beyond recall. 
 We say, " She once was ours, she is the Lord's, 
 She whom the poet sang of, ' Lilian,' 
 
 Sings now in Heaven and smiles upon us all."
 
 FKIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 133 
 
 Jttarjj <Stang£r. 
 
 FIELDSIDE, KESWICK, FEBRUARY 5TH, 189O. 
 
 r^HILD of the brother to that generous man 
 
 Who, vowed to Death, bequeathed his friend 
 release 
 From trivial care, and gave the Muses ease, 
 And set laborious Wordsworth in the van — 
 You knew 'Nurse Wilsey,' coaxed old 'Clogger Dan,' 
 Climbed unreproved on Southey's genial knees, 
 Watched for the bard's homecoming through the trees, 
 And, wreath in hand, to crown the Laureate ran. 
 
 Bright shone the sun, the Crosthwaite bells rang clear. 
 When blue -eyed Sara and that Rydal maid. 
 The gentle Dora, tended you as bride. 
 But now another bridal morn is here, 
 
 Christ in the heavens has called you to His side, 
 And all the vale is rolled from sun to shade- 
 See Note 26.
 
 134 VALETE. 
 
 ^ast of the forothjjs that llulial kiuto. 
 
 GREEN-BANK, AMBLESIDE. 
 
 T AST of the Dorothys that Rydal knew 
 
 In those drear days of old, when gathered round 
 The morning table, Catherine was not found, 
 Nor Thomas, sleeping both beneath the dew, 
 Thy face was then so radiant, grief withdrew, 
 
 Joy came, the children played on Rydal Mound, 
 New hope sprang up like flowers from out the 
 ground. 
 Birds sang again and life and laughter grew. 
 
 Not thine to lend the poet heart and will. 
 Not thine to be a soft perpetual voice 
 To keep the father's soul for ever young 
 And e'en in death to speak a daughter's tongue. 
 Rather in poor men's memories thine the choice 
 To make the name of Wordsworth fragrant still. 
 
 See Note 27.
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 135 
 
 ©oob-bwe, ©lb Jricub, ©ooi-biie! 
 
 THE FUNERAL, FEBRUARY 25TU, 189O. 
 
 T IGHT on the land, but darkness with it dwells, 
 Though gladlier never blushed the birch hard by 
 Nor Bratha's alders to a bluer sky 
 In rosier fulness shone ; for muffled bells 
 Ring up the Vale their sorrowful farewells, 
 And with a human heart they seem to cry, 
 While those six words, "Good-bye, old friend, 
 good-bye," 
 Float forth and sob to silence on the fells, 
 
 Good-bye, old friend, good-bye ! the people move 
 Like a dark flood toward the churchyard ground, 
 The hymn is sung, the wreatli is left to fade ; 
 But ninety years of graciousness and love 
 
 Were never yet within earth's bosom laid, 
 Thou still art here, for all the sad bells sound. 
 
 See Note 27.
 
 136 VALETE. 
 
 Jame0 ^ap^jin, 
 
 LATE CHAIRMAN OF THE LIVERPOOL STOCK EXCHANGE. 
 OCTOBER 25TH, 1890. 
 
 TJ" ERE let white-handed Commerce weep and bend 
 With purest-hearted Honour o'er the bier; 
 A Prince of all integrity lies here ; 
 
 Who from the dawn to the swift daylight's end, 
 
 Himself for others willingly would spend ; 
 Who walked with Justice, sworn to persevere. 
 With Love and Reverence holding man so dear, 
 
 They could not over- reach him or offend. 
 
 Long as the sea breathes blessing to thy Town, 
 Thou mistress of the Mersey's fruitful tide, 
 
 Let this man's fame be blown toward the West 
 And borne back Eastward : let his name abide, 
 Truth's jewel, in thine uncorrupted crown, 
 
 Hope's star upon thy mighty merchant breast.
 
 FRIENDS A ND NEIGH BO URS. 1 3 7 
 
 cEiUtJim ©rccmjj, the DiUagc ilaturalist. 
 
 DIED AT KESWICK, NOVEMBER 2ND, 1S9O. 
 
 /^OD sometimes fills a poor man's patient heart 
 With His own reverent love and constant care 
 For all the things He hath created fair, — 
 
 Birds, flowers, the wings that fly, the fins that dart — 
 
 And therewithal by Nature's winsome art 
 Leads him to heights of philosophic air 
 Where clamour dies, Heaven's ether is so rare, 
 
 And bids him walk with gentleness apart. 
 
 Friend ! such wert thou : the Newlands valley dew, 
 
 The star o'er Grisedale's purple head that shone. 
 
 Were not more silent, but each stream and glade, 
 
 Each bird that flashed, all dusky moths that flew, 
 
 All flowers, held commune with thee. Thou art gone. 
 
 And Nature mourns the tender heart she made.
 
 138 VALETE. 
 
 llob^rt (gmbes, the "SiUagc SMwber. 
 1891. 
 
 TLJERE lies a humble weaver, one who wove 
 Well, till the mill-wheel clacked and clanged no more, 
 Then ate the simple bread God sends his poor, 
 
 And ever held it manna from above 
 
 Fit for an angel's gathering. Long he strove 
 
 To help towards Heaven the friends about his door, 
 Versed in his Bible and the holy lore, 
 
 They learn, who up the path of duty move. 
 
 A Sabbath teacher, teaching line on line; 
 
 Through him our youth to gentleness were brought 
 And gentleness learned wisdom : not a child 
 But as it passed looked up at him and smiled. 
 When Death shall cut our web, may life have wrought 
 As fair a garment, Robert, as was thine !
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 139 
 
 Joseph ^atDcU. 
 
 FEBRUARY 20TH, 189I. 
 
 /^OD has called many following the sheep 
 
 Some to be kings and princes among men, 
 And you He called ; and Skiddaw's hollow glen 
 
 Mourns for its bravest shepherd fallen asleep ; 
 
 But we who knew you, still your memory keep, 
 And at the shearing-time, beside the pen, 
 Though gone for ever from our mortal ken, 
 
 Your cheery voice will call us up the steep. 
 
 For you have climbed the road that leads to Heaven 
 The simple road of toil and self denied, 
 Of duty done to the far w-andering flocks 
 In dewy cold, hot noons, and stormy even; 
 
 And somewhere He, Whose feet among the rocks 
 For us were worn, shall lead us to your side.
 
 140 VALETE, 
 
 JULY I3TH, 189I. 
 
 /^ONE from the flowery bank beside the mere! 
 No more to feel the purple copses ring 
 With wild March melody, nor wide to fling 
 
 Her casement for the wakening dawn, and hear 
 
 The Greta to impetuous Derwent bear 
 
 Its music and its mourning. Never Spring 
 To simpler heart did consolation bring, 
 
 Nor Summer brush from tenderer cheek a tear. 
 
 For thou didst love the seasons, and thy mind 
 Was tuned to all the year's vicissitude : 
 
 The Spring time bade thee hope, Midsummer 
 
 wrought 
 Large sympathy with being, Autumn brouglit 
 Its joy of generous giving to thy mood, 
 And Winter kept thee hospitably kind.
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 141 
 
 J. i. <§£bbing. 
 
 IN HOLY TRINITY CHURCH, SLOANE STREET, 189I. 
 
 A ROSY pillar 'neath a roof of blue, 
 
 So seemed your soul's upbuilding, then there came 
 The wind of Death upon your heart's fierce flame 
 And passion for the good, the fair, the true ; 
 Your house of life was ashes ; but for you 
 These roseate pillars and their roof proclaim 
 To all who here shall call upon Christ's name, 
 Death breaks the house, but sets the soul in view. 
 
 From noble font and shining pulpit stair, 
 
 From bronze-wrought angels, and rich-carven stone, 
 And that dead Saviour gently laid to rest. 
 One voice to all the centuries shall attest 
 That he, who planned this shrine with loyal care, 
 Knew, work for God outlived the grave alone. 
 
 Mr. J. D. Sedding was engaged on the completion of the 
 Church of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, London when in the 
 spring of 1891 he was suddenly called to his rest.
 
 142 VALETE, 
 
 %a the Jtt^morg of ©liber ^egtoooii. 
 
 MANCHESTER, MARCH 17TH, 1892. 
 
 'T*HERE are some lives that never sure should end 
 
 While pain and anguish dwell beneath the sun, 
 
 And heart- ache needs compassion : thine was one, 
 
 High-souled and gentle, sympathetic friend ! 
 
 To thee the city did her sorrow send, 
 The poor and fatherless to thee did run. 
 All came unto thy mercy's gate, and none 
 
 Found thee too full of business to attend. 
 
 Now thou art laid beneath the quiet sod, 
 
 The sweetest flowers that ever gladdened sight 
 Shall make the silence fragrant o'er thy rest. 
 Few mark thy place of slumber, so is best — 
 For thy good deeds did ever shun the light; 
 Done for Christ's sake, known only unto God.
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 143 
 
 Joe Cape, the Clogger. 
 
 FEBRUARY 25TH, 1893. 
 
 "M"© more that veteran figure shall we know, 
 
 Nor hear th' industrious hammer rap and rap, 
 
 Nor see him fashion heel or mould the cap, 
 And set the beaded nails in shining row, 
 Nor watch the alder wood to fashion grow 
 
 By knife upon his leathern -aproned lap; 
 
 Death, that doth sometimes come with shoulder-tap. 
 Smote down the dogger with a cruel blow. 
 
 No more his hand will fill the village street 
 With music of the children's pattering feet. 
 
 But they who follow where his footsteps trod 
 Will find that on the mountains never cease 
 His song of sweet preparedness and peace, 
 Who walked in simple piety with God.
 
 144 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 %\^z (gate rre llest 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. SARAH THRING AND HER SON, 
 
 THEODORE. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 26tH, 28tH, 189I. 
 
 T_T ER heart was brimmed with full a hundred years 
 Of patience, wisdom, tenderness and grace, 
 A hundred years had lined her gentle face 
 
 With smile -worn curves and furrowing for tears, 
 
 And still forlorn of all her childhood's peers 
 Quite uncomplainingly she held her place, 
 And wondered when, to crown her lengthened race. 
 
 Would come the wreath that Death in mercy bears. 
 
 A hundred years ! a hundred years and one ! 
 She heard a second century's advent chime, 
 Nor rose to go, she well had learned to wait, 
 Then to her side God called her eldest son 
 And both together entered thro' that gate 
 Where rest is sure — and Life has done with time. 
 
 See Note 28.
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 145 
 
 ©Ixzabetk Jltlcc. 
 
 WIFE OF THE VICAR OF BU'ITERMERE, WHO, WHILE ENGAGED 
 IN MISSION WORK, DIED ON MOUNT OLIVET. 
 
 FEBRUARY 7TH, 1 892. 
 
 'T'hou did'st not close thine eyes where to the lake 
 
 Float forth the cavern-water's echoing tones, 
 Nor where, snow-white upon the mountain wall, 
 The great ghyll leaps toward the darkened mere. 
 No, rather, where scarce audible at all, 
 The withered Cedron through its yellow stones 
 Downward its way doth take, 
 Barren and drear 
 
 Among the dead and their ten thousand bones. 
 Too parched and dry to wake. 
 
 Death took thee by the hand, 
 Not in our mountain land 
 Where the long sunsets bum 
 Upon the russet fern, 
 
 K
 
 146 VALETE. 
 
 And o'er the vale 
 The drifts of mountain snow 
 Fall soft and go ; 
 And down the silent dale 
 Moves very slow, 
 With February pale, 
 The gentle spring, 
 Bidding the thrush to sing, 
 Bidding the ravens pair. 
 And clamour high in air, 
 Making the shy mole heave 
 His mountains miniature, 
 And from her sure retreat 
 And solitary seat 
 Commanding love to lure 
 Our glorious buzzard -king ; 
 The spring that comes to greet 
 The shepherd on the rock 
 With dreams of a new flock ; 
 The joyful spring,
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 With snowdrops at her feet, 
 And daisies soon to weave 
 Into a chain and ball ; 
 The spring that o'er the hills 
 Will hear the cuckoo call 
 And by the sounding rills 
 Keep festival; 
 
 The spring that so makes glad 
 Each cottage lass and lad 
 With hope of daffodils. 
 
 But thou, thy hand was set 
 To touch the Master's hem, 
 To serve thy Lord and Friend 
 Who some time did ascend 
 From songless Olivet, 
 That holy mountain strange 
 That knows not any change, 
 Where still the white roads run 
 From shadow into sun, 
 
 M7
 
 148 VALETE. 
 
 As in those far off years 
 
 When Jesus Christ shed tears 
 
 Over Jerusalem. 
 
 There where the winter gale 
 
 Doth only make more pale 
 
 The olive gardens ; there where scarce at all 
 
 Come varied seasons, save when now and then 
 
 Beyond the city wall, 
 
 Ripe figs or berries fall. 
 
 And thou wert ripe. 
 
 And thou hast heard the word that is the 
 
 best — 
 " Come unto me, ye weary, and have rest." 
 Therefore we wipe 
 Away our tears and say Amen, 
 For thou did'st go to greet 
 Thy Lord, and kiss His feet 
 There where He did ascend ; 
 And thou hast done His word,
 
 FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 And thou art with thy Lord, 
 Thy Saviour and thy Friend. 
 
 But by sad lake and shore 
 In this thy dwelling place, 
 We shall behold thy face 
 And know thy gentle grace 
 Not ever more. 
 
 149
 
 A. F. 
 
 DIED OF DIPHTHERIA IN THE FEVER HOSPITAL, LONDON, 
 
 FEBRUARY 24TH, BURIED AT BRATHAY, FEBRUARY 
 
 26TH, 1884. 
 
 Mv grief is such as all men know 
 
 Who love and lose an honoured friend ; 
 
 My verse shall pay a part I owe, 
 My debt can never end.
 
 A. F. 153 
 
 FKBRUARY 24711, 1884. 
 
 lUTER life was as a missal, year by year 
 Writ in red letters of self-sacrifice, 
 Illumined quaintly for the children's eyes, 
 
 Plain to be read, and musical to hear. 
 
 A tale of life so generous, so sincere. 
 
 That angels stooped to listen with surprise, 
 And, for such books are scarce in Paradise, 
 
 Bade Death go close it — so they brought it there. 
 
 Between the golden chapters week by week, 
 And 'twixt the lines in ink invisible, 
 
 She, skilled in all the arts, but most in this. 
 Had penned a language only angels speak, 
 And when their fuller sunlight on it fell. 
 
 These words leapt forth in answer — "I am His."
 
 154 VALE7E. 
 
 ^eath the (Snlightcner. 
 
 COMETIMES for spirits wholly chaste and pure. 
 Whose love for truth can know no compromise, 
 But still about whose path the mists arise, 
 
 Brain-bom and soul perplexing, to obscure 
 
 The face of Him they long for — Death's great door 
 Moves at the hand of One, who satisfies 
 Hearts, else for ever hungry, anxious eyes 
 
 Whose mortal weakness only Light can cure. 
 
 Seeker of Truth and Champion for the Right ! 
 Thy soul this earth's capacity out-grew, 
 
 Then smiled, and bade us follow ; but we mourn, 
 For tho' thy voice with cheer beyond the bourne 
 Sounds, and shall sound, when thy sweet spirit 
 flew, 
 The dim-lit eyes of many felt the Night.
 
 A. F. 155 
 
 ^Vz l)W0h of gleath. 
 
 ■\17HEN through the dark thy spirit all alone 
 Went to the gate that leads to Heaven or Hell, 
 But one way led for thee; deep silence fell, 
 
 For all the need of ministry was gone ; 
 
 About thee rose the rushing monotone, 
 
 The roar of thousands where ten thousand dwell, 
 But thou wert guarded by the solemn spell, 
 
 The sovereign hush, around Death's awful throne. 
 
 And we, with some old story in our ears 
 Of her who lay in beauty tranced by charm 
 Thro' days of sorrow and a changing doom — 
 We moved no hand to wake thee, but in tears 
 Gazed at thee, saying, "She is safe from harm," 
 Then turned — but left our hearts in that still 
 room.
 
 156 VALETE. 
 
 "DITTER when lo ! with ashes in his face. 
 A friend in passion waves our suit away, 
 Or when, the slaves to Time, we cannot stay 
 
 For soul -communion any longer space: 
 
 But ah ! how bitter cruel is the case 
 
 When one we loved, for all we do or pray, 
 With ashen face imperious seems to say, 
 
 ** Beloved ! here no longer love has place." 
 
 Then as with hush we close the door and leave 
 With what unutterable, dark despair 
 
 For things unsaid, availing deeds undone. 
 Back to the audience-chamber up the stair 
 
 We needs must turn — but whom we seek is gone- 
 And in unending loneliness we grieve.
 
 A. F. 
 
 157 
 
 FEBRUARY 26TH, 1884. 
 
 ^OLD gleamed the cones of Froswick and 111 Bel, 
 And underneath old Fairfields's crown of snow 
 Down to the Rotha and the meads below, 
 
 The dark -haired woods of stately Rydal fell. 
 
 Out shone the sun, the crocus' yellow shell 
 Spread starlike, and the daffodils aglow 
 Moved in their shrouds, when solemnly and slow 
 
 We heard the melancholy mourner's bell. 
 
 Sun failed, the cold air shuddered at the sound. 
 
 The Brathay ran unsparkling to the lake, 
 Sunless we laid her body in the ground, 
 
 But memory made such summer of the spot 
 That in our hearts new sunrise seemed to wake, 
 And all the valley bloomed forget-me-not.
 
 158 VALETE. 
 
 in ^rathao Clhttrckgart). 
 
 A^E bore her body slowly to the grave 
 On royal purple as befits a queen, 
 And o'er her pall, with crosses white between, 
 Were broidered flowers the Lenten season gave, 
 Gold as her heart was gold. Few words and 
 brave 
 We said ; then laid her where the mosses green 
 Made for the wounded earth a gentle screen, 
 And sang above her sleep by Bratha's wave. 
 
 And when the river, golden from the west 
 Ran down the purple vale, and Hesperus 
 
 Hung bright o'er Wetherlam, we came to weep, 
 But in such bridal robes the grave was drest, 
 Such gracious flowers looked peacefully at us, 
 We well-nigh felt our sorrow share her sleep.
 
 A. F. 
 
 159 
 
 $)rc0£iit but Jlbsent. 
 
 T HEAR thy voice by Cumbria's sobbing sea, 
 Thy steps are printed in the lonely sand, 
 O'er every vale and hill of Westmoreland 
 
 Thy gentle form bears company with me. 
 
 Most, by Winander's castled shore ! with thee 
 I seem to hold sweet converse hand in hand. 
 On bossy Loughrigg's height at gaze to stand 
 
 O'er Langdale's slopes and Bratha's level lea. 
 
 The cold March woods will soon with Spring-time 
 glow, 
 But nevermore thy laughter by the rills 
 
 Will sound, thy feet in prison are so fast ; 
 And tho' thy spirit wanders as it wills. 
 To thy bright face I cannot look to know 
 
 Which way the angel of the upland passed.
 
 l6o VALETE. 
 
 ^ (Sab CSommuttiott. 
 
 'T'HE prayers went by me in an idle cloud, 
 Beneath the altar with fair linen spread 
 Whereon was holy wine and holy bread, 
 
 I seemed to see my sister in her shroud. 
 
 Then as in tears I knelt, and kneeling vowed 
 The one great oath whereby our souls are fed, 
 I heard strange words of comfort from the dead, 
 
 And sweet unearthly accents clear and loud. 
 
 " Friends ! ye who kneeling do remember Him 
 Whose voice I followed in the lonely ways, 
 Whose eyes I yearned to gaze on — I have found 
 That there on earth from morn to twilight dim 
 They serve him most, who most will serve the 
 days 
 Whereby the world in brotherhood is bound."
 
 yt. F. i6i 
 
 "LJAUNTED it is by happy, happy days, 
 But haunted by the darkest day of all. 
 The earliest sunbeams from the east that fall 
 
 Write one name only with their golden rays. 
 
 Her love the silent saffron curtains j^raise, 
 Her name is prinked in pattern on the wall, 
 'Alice' the pictures from their places call, 
 
 'Alice' the hearth -tongues crackle as they blaze. 
 
 The books from off the shelves are strangely moved, 
 Or opened lie as if a spirit read, 
 
 Her laughter rings, her silent voice is heard. 
 We join again in argument she loved — 
 
 The lamp burns low — the fire must needs be 
 stirred — 
 How cold, how dark the room — for she is dead! 
 
 L
 
 1 62 VALETE, 
 
 'T'HE stars are hid, Helvellyn with its snows 
 Looms like Carrara's ridge against the moon. 
 
 The sheep call loud as if the time were noon ; 
 Dogs bark; owls hoot; the wakeful farmyard crows ; 
 Far down the dusky vale the Greta flows 
 
 With wrathful murmur sorely out of tune ; 
 
 We shall not hear its voice of solace soon, 
 For, hark, the flood to passionate murmur grows. 
 
 With sound disordered, hours in disarray 
 Alone I walk beneath a starless sky — 
 
 Nay, not alone, Grief holds me by the hand 
 And hoarsely whispers, "Thou canst understand 
 Now, what large share in earth's full harmony 
 The loved ones make, the lost ones take away."
 
 A. F. 163 
 
 (Stiir-llistng. 
 
 "DUT yester-eve, an eve we cannot know 
 
 Till four more years perplex the calendar, 
 I watched the young Moon's silver scimitar 
 
 Hang o'er a world of love, that in the glow, 
 
 Of yellow sunset hastened from the blow ; 
 And still fierce Dian in her scythed car 
 Pursued, but ever still the beauteous star 
 
 Flamed to the hills, to sink unharmed below — 
 
 And rise again with splendour: Thou our sun, 
 Thou too, tho' Death's pale sword pursuing fast 
 
 Chased momently thy being out of sight, 
 Thou hast from that fierce following fled at last, 
 And clearer for the coming of the night 
 Thy radiant round of light and love is run.
 
 164 
 
 VALETE. 
 
 SUNG AT THE GRAVE OF A. F., BRATHAY CHURCHYARD, 
 FEBRUARY 26TH, 1 884, 
 
 T-l ERE beside the Bratha's stream 
 
 In the Stream of Death we stand — 
 Bitter waters that would seem 
 To divide us from the land 
 Where we fain would gathered be, 
 Sweet, unselfish one, with thee ! 
 
 Happy soul, with earnest quest 
 For the truth and for the right, 
 
 Thou so soon hast entered rest — 
 Thou at length art in the light — 
 
 And from clearer heights canst call 
 
 Upward ! Onward ! to us all.
 
 A. F. i6s 
 
 Golden hopes are buried here, 
 
 Precious memories abound, 
 None more holy, none more dear 
 
 Lie in consecrated ground — 
 For her grave, when we depart, 
 Will be found in every heart. 
 
 Mourn we all for one whose life. 
 
 Glowing in a world of gloom, 
 Scattered radiance, softened strife, 
 
 Made for every need some room 
 In a love that knew no end 
 To its labour for a friend. 
 
 Let the funeral bell be tolled 
 
 Not too sadly : she is bride — 
 Bride of Death — but we, who hold 
 
 Our dark vigil here, outside, 
 Know the Master of the Feast 
 Has received her for His guest
 
 l66 VALETE. 
 
 Though beside the Bratha's stream 
 In the stream of death we stand, 
 
 These dark waters only seem 
 To divide us from the land 
 
 Where we all would gathered be, 
 
 Happy angel-soul, with thee. 
 
 \s'^UoN/.VS^3
 
 NOTES.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 103, line 2. Omit " to." 
 
 Page 132, line 2. For " S. 1£. Shawell " read " S. E. at Shawell."
 
 ilotc 
 
 i}. 
 
 Note i. — The society of twelve undergraduate friends, at 
 Cambridge known as "The Apostles"; it included, besides the 
 poet, A. Hallam, Monckton Milnes, Trench, Spedding, Brook- 
 field, Kinglake, Venables, and others. 
 
 Note 2. — Hingvar and Hubba's invasion peopled this part of 
 Lincolnshire with Danes, A.u. 866. 
 
 The Dragon of ' Walmsgate ' or 'Ormsby,' a village near 
 Somersby, was fabled to have laid waste the neighbouring wold. 
 
 It is still remembered in the village how the young boy Tenny- 
 sons were nearly always seen with a book in their hands as they 
 wandered down the Somersby lanes. 
 
 Note 3. — The roof of Coleridge's cottage reminded me of the 
 roof of Somersby Rectory described in /// Mcmoriam, ci. The 
 two brothers wrote much of their earliest poetry in the little garret 
 chamber at the northern gable-end of the Lincolnshire parsonage. 
 
 "The poplars four that stand beside my father's door" alas! 
 now only whisper in the Laureate's song. 
 
 Note 4. — The Shah when last in England summoned Sir Andrew 
 Clark to an audience ; but as he had promised his friend Lord 
 Tennyson, who was somewhat ailing, that he would go down to 
 Aldworth that day, he did not comply with the Shah's request. 
 The Shah was disappointed ; but when he learned that Sir Andrew
 
 I70 NOTES. 
 
 Clark's absence had been caused by his attendance on his old friend 
 the poet, he gave him, by way of signal honour, the decoration of 
 the "Lion and the Sun." The sonnet is based on the story as sent 
 nie by the Laureate. 
 
 Note 5. — The present Lord Tennyson, in a letter to Sir Arthur 
 Hodgson, of Stratford-on-Avon, says : — 
 
 "My father was reading King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, and 
 Cynibeline through the last days of his life. On Wednesday he 
 asked for Shakespeare. I gave him the book, but said — ' You must 
 not try to read." He answered, ' I have opened the book.' I 
 looked at the book at midnight, when I was sitting by him lying 
 dead, on Thursday, and found he had opened it on one of the 
 passages which he called the tenderest in Shakespeare." 
 
 Note 6, 
 
 "29 De Vere Gardens, W., August 5, 1889. 
 
 "My dear Tennyson,— To-morrow is your birthday — indeed, a 
 memorable one. Let me say I associate myself with the universal 
 pride of our country in your glory, and in its hope that for many 
 and many a year wc may have your very self among us— secure 
 that your poetry will be a wonder and delight to all those appointed 
 to come after. And for my own part, let me further say, I have 
 loved you dearly. May God bless you and yours. 
 
 ".^.t no moment from first to last of my acquaintance with your 
 works, or friendship with yourself, have I had any other feeling, 
 expressed or kept silent, than this which an opportunity allows me 
 to utter — that I am, and ever shall be, my dear Tennyson, admir- 
 ingly and affectionately yours, 
 
 " Robert Browning." 
 
 Note 7. — I am indebted to the late Charles Tennyson Turner 
 for this reminiscence. On the afternoon of the appearance of their 
 joint first volume of poems Lord Tennyson and his elder brother 
 took carriage, and, driving across the marsh to Mablethorpe, shared 
 their natural triumph with the waves and winds of the wild eastern 
 shore, and came back with shout and song late at night to the 
 moonlit streets of the little market town of Louth.
 
 NOTES. 171 
 
 The late Lord Tennyson, referring to this sonnet, said he had no 
 recollection of the fact which is the motive of it ; but it is fair to his 
 eldiT brother to reassert that he described the incident as clear in his 
 memory, and that the sonnet was written with his narrative fresh in 
 
 the writer's ears. 
 
 Note 8. — All who enter the Memorial Church at Cannes will 
 notice that the emblem of St. George, the English wild rose, has been 
 introduced with beautiful effect into the mosaic of the chancel floor. 
 
 Note 9.— Herr von Forkenbeck, the chief burgomaster, in read- 
 ing the address of condolence from the Town Council of Berlin to 
 the Emperor Frederick and the Empress Victoria at the Castle, on 
 Monday, 13th March, 1888, quite broke down ; his voice became 
 choked with tears, whereupon the Empress took the manuscript out 
 of his hand and herself continued the reading of it. 
 
 Note 10. — The cross was no empty ornament to him; it was the 
 experience of his heart ; it was the confession of his mouth. The 
 Emperor related once how in Konigsberg when he was to take the 
 crown from the altar and place it on his head his heart trembled, 
 his hand shnmk back, as it were, from the heavy responsibility 
 attached to the crown, till his eye fell on the crown of thorns of his 
 Heavenly King, and this sight strengthened and encouraged him. 
 (See Dr. Kugel's "Funeral Sermons," as reported in the Standard 
 of March 17th, 1888.) 
 
 Note ii. — Prince Bismarck and Count von Moltke, by special 
 command of the King, were forbidden to risk exposure to the 
 weather during the funeral procession. 
 
 Note 12. — Tlie benediction was pronounced and the mourners 
 rose to leave ; the funeral march of Chopin pealed forth from the 
 organ ; but before His Royal Highness left the chapel he paused 
 for a moment at the head of his eldest son's coffin, upon which he 
 tenderly placed a small and simple chaplet of flowers. It was from 
 the Princess May.
 
 172 iVOTES. 
 
 Note 13. — On the morning of Lady Franklin's funeral, I was 
 shown in Noble's studio the bust of Sir John Franklin, now in 
 Westminster Abbey, which he had just completed. 
 
 Note 14. — Commander Wyatt Rawson was wounded in the 
 Ashantee War at Amoaful. With Captain Nares' expedition to 
 the Arctic, he distinguished himself by giving up his own body's 
 warmth, night after night, in a perilous sledge journey, to keep 
 his frost-bitten comrades alive. He was shot down in the van of 
 the English troops, as he led them through the night, guiding them 
 by the stars, to the attack of Tel-el-Kcbir. 
 
 The despatch of Sir Garnet Wolseley, dated Cairo, September 
 24, 1882, runs as follows : — 
 
 "Of my Aides-de-Camp I have to regret the loss of Lieutenant 
 Rawson, of the Royal Navy, who was mortally wounded at Tel-el- 
 Kebir. During the many journeys I made by night, I found him 
 of great use in directing our line of march correctly, through his 
 knowledge of the stars. On the 13th instant, I consequently 
 selected him to conduct the Highland Brigade during the night, 
 to the portion of the enemy's works where I explained to him I 
 wished them to storm. This duty he performed with the utmost 
 coolness and success, but lost his life in its execution. No man 
 more gallant fell on that occasion." 
 
 Note 15. — The pathetic grief upon the faces of the two devoted 
 African servants of Livingstone, Chumah and Susi, who at great 
 personal risk had borne the body of their master from Ilala to the 
 coast, as they stood by the side of the grave in Westminster Abbey, 
 can never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. 
 
 Note 16. — St. Cuthbert, when a shepherd-boy on the banks of the 
 Leader, saw a vision of angels who appeared to be carrying a soul 
 of exceeding brightness to the heavenly country. He learned after- 
 wards, that at that same time Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne had passed 
 awav, and the boy left his fiock and entered the monastic order.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 17; 
 
 NoTK 17. — This sonnet was written after hearinji; Dr. Moffat 
 address a great missionary gathering in the Colston Hall at Bristol, 
 September 22nd, 1876. Those who are familiar with this heroic 
 missionary's life will remember the incidents of his adventures 
 with the wild beasts in Bechuanaland which are noticed in the 
 sonnet. 
 
 Note 18. — Sir R. Anstruther's return after a scrutiny for St. 
 Andrews Burghs. 
 
 NOTK 19. — The Archbishop had hardly bid good-bye to Peter- 
 borough and entered upon residence at Bishopsthorpe when he died. 
 His body was taken back to Peterborough for interment, within 
 whose cathedral lie the bones of two former Archbishops of York, 
 Aelfric and Kinsius. 
 
 Note 20. — Longfellow died in the spring of the same year. The 
 resemblance of Rossetti to the traditional portraits of Shakespeare 
 was striking. The last lines of the sonnet refer to the book of poems 
 which Rossetti buried at his wife's death, and was afterwards in- 
 duced by his friends to take from the tomb and give to the world. 
 
 Note 21. — I touched on the exquisite loveliness of her little home. 
 " Yes," she said, " but I am never to see a spring here. The three 
 first springs I was at work at the College — and now." — Scott 
 Holland, Murray's Magazine, December, 1887. 
 
 Note 22. — This sonnet was written on hearing that Robert 
 Browning's wish to be buried beside his wife in Florence could not 
 be fulfilled, and that in consequence his body was being brought 
 home for sepulture to England. 
 
 Note 23. — It is said that in the delirium before his death Lowell 
 seemed to think that he was entertaining Royal guests.
 
 174 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 XoTE 24. — Whittier was born at Haver-hill, Massachusetts, on 
 17th December, 1807. The early years of his life were spent in 
 working upon a farm. After some years of journalistic experience 
 he returned to the farm in 1832. Between 1836 and 1840 he retired 
 to Amesbury and thence forward gave his whole time to literary 
 and poetic work. 
 
 Note 25. — Through the terrible night of anxiety in the snow-pit 
 on the Dome de Gouter the guides related how Mr. Xetdeship kept 
 up their courage and prevented them from falling asleep by 
 constantly singing snatches of song to them. When in his brave 
 desperate attempt to escape on the following morning, the cold 
 and storm overwhelmed him — he stretched out his hands to his 
 guides and speaking to them in a language they could not under- 
 stand, shook them warmly by the hand, they thought that he thus 
 wished to convey to them that he did not blame them for his 
 death. 
 
 Note 26. — Mary Stanger, only daughter of William Calvert of 
 Windybrow, and niece of Raisley Calvert, Wordsworth's bene- 
 factor, remembered well her going down to Greta Hall to welcome 
 Robert Southey on his return from London after his appointment 
 as Laureate and told me how she helped to weave the crown of 
 laurel which his children then placed upon his head. At her 
 marriage Sara Coleridge and Dora Wordsworth were bridesmaids. 
 
 Note 27. — Mrs. Harrison of Green Bank or Scale How, Amble- 
 side, was born October 27th, 1801, at Branthwaite, Cumberland. 
 Her father, Richard Wordsworth, an attorney at Whitehaven, was 
 the cousin of the Poet. Dorothy Wordsworth at the death of her 
 father and mother came in 1813 or 1814 to Rydal Mount and 
 was welcomed almost as an elder daughter into the Rydal family, 
 then sadly diminished by the recent deaths of little Catharine and 
 Thomas Wordsworth. 
 
 For some six years she remained at the Mount, the third 
 Dorothy beneath her cousin's roof. Afterwards she went to 
 Ulverston, and there married Mr. Benson Harrison of the Lund 
 in 1823.
 
 NOTES. 175 
 
 In 1827 "beautiful Mrs. Harrison," as she was called, came 
 back into the Ambleside neighbourhood and for the next sixty- 
 three years was a gracious presence of active benevolence in the 
 midst of a people who have never forgotten that she was the 
 last of the Rydal Dorothys, and who felt that with her there 
 passed away the strongest tie that still remained to bind them 
 to the Rydal Poet's home. 
 
 Truly of her it may be said : — 
 
 "That an old age serene and bright 
 
 And lovely as a Lapland night 
 
 Has led her to the grave." 
 
 Her remains were laid to rest in the Ambleside Churchyard 
 on February 25lh. The day was a day of cloudless sunshine as 
 brilliant and as warm as a fine May day. The bells of the Church 
 tower had been muffled, and as their six single strokes tolled 
 slowly forth in melancholy cadence, it was almost impossible for 
 the listener not to hear the words they said of sorrowful farewell, 
 " Good-bye, old Friend, good-bye." 
 
 Note 28. — Mrs. Thring died in her 102nd year; her eldest son 
 died within two days of her, and both were buried on the same 
 day. 
 
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