8
i
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
/o.
LAYS AND LYRICS
OF ENGLAND
And Verses Various
BY
M. C. TYNDALL
J. BAKER & SON, CLIFTON
AND
25 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON
1S9S
AUTHOR'S NOTE
IT should be mentioned that six of the poems
in this volume were published some years
ago in a book entitled Rhymes, Real and
Romantic, which is now out of print, and having
been frequently asked for, they are reproduced
here, and will be found in the following order :--
"The Wreck of the Birkenhead."
"In a Garden."
" Indian Summer."
"The Lost Churchyard."
"The Viking's Galley," and
"Elizabeth's Garden at Heidelberg."
tu
CONTENTS
OF ROYAL ENGLAND
God's Gift to England
"Ready"
"Brother to Brother Spake"
Before and After
At Hougoumont .
The Wreck of the "Birkenhead '
A Farewell to the Colours
"And the Toast was Drunk in Silence"
"The Wooden Walls of England"
The Ensign of England
The Church Schools of England .
7
10
13
17
19
22
24
26
29
IN RURAL ENGLAND
In a Garden
Indian Summer
v
35
37
CONTENTS
A Somersetshire Garden .
PACT
• 39
Bristol Bells
• 42
In the West Country .
• 45
. 47
The Hill of the Seven Barrows
5o
My House of Dreams .
. 53
Clovelly .
A Welcome in Spring .
• 57
In Summer Time .
• 59
A Summer Night .
. 60
" Tally Ho ! " .
. 61
The Great Frost of 1890-91
• 64
The World's Highway .
. 66
White Wings ...
• 69
The Swan Song
• 72
A Nosegay
1
• 74
VERSES VARIOUS
Nursery Rhymes 79
"Sweet Seventeen" 82
Our Country Cousins 85
l: A Valentine" 87
vi
CONTENTS
Then and Now
The Sea .
A Captive.
Cupid in the Garden
Love's Posy
On the Burgenstock
The Glen .
PAGE
8 9
93
96
98
100
101
103
OF THE DAYS OF OLD— BALLADS
The Norseman's Feast.
The Viking's Galley .
The Norse Ships at Narbonne
The Relief of Leyden, 1574
El Dorado ....
Elizabeth's Garden at Heideleerg
"The Terror by Night" .
A Memory of the "'Forty-Five ::
At the Galleys ....
The Ballad of the King of Spains Daughter
The Wilful Princess
The Little Dancing Ghost ....
vii
107
no
114
118
1^5
127
130
132
i34
136
M4
148
CONTENTS
. IN THE COURTS OF THE TEMPLE
I'AGE
"Defenders of the Faith : ' 155
"Before the Angel" 157
A Christian Martyr 159
The Ideal Life 161
Sonnet 163
A Haunted House 164
"If" 166
" Miserrimus " 168
The Way of the World 170
Vlil
OF ROYAL ENGLAND
B
GOD'S GIFT TO ENGLAND
Jubilee f>gmn
Tune — "St. Albans " (Haydn).
GLORY and thanksgiving
Be to God on high,
For the Queen He gave us
In the time gone by.
England's sons and daughters,
Here on English sod,
Praise for countless mercies
Render unto God;
For the stainless record
Sixty years have seen,
For the gift He gave us
In our gracious Queen !
England's sons and daughters
Come to keep the feast :
North and South and Westward,
And the restless East.
3
LAYS AND LYRICS
All her boundless Empire,
Land and isle and sea,
Come their Queen to honour
At her Jubilee !
Glory and thanksgiving
Be to God on high,
For the Queen He gave us
Sixty years gone by
Sixty years of Progress,
Honour, freedom, fame,
Evermore extending
England's ancient name.
Justice, truth, and mercy,
Mark her sway benign,
Reigning well and wisely
Longest of her line!
Well may England's people,
In exultant words,
For the Queen He gave them
Praise the Lord of Lords !
Praise Him for the blessings
Righteous acts have wrought,
Christian work increasing,
Powers of Evil fought ;
4
OF ENGLAND
Poor, and sick and sinful,
Succoured, taught, and fed ;
Deeds of mercy offered
Unto Christ the Head.
And our Queen stands foremost
In all righteous ways,
So for these His mercies
Be to God the praise.
Praise for gifts unnumbered
In this longest reign,
Wonders yet unfolding,
That the years attain.
Manifold inventions,
Sound, and steam, and light,
Enterprise exploring
Field, and flood, and height.
Unto God be glory
Now and evermore,
From all hearts in England
Loyal as of yore !
Rise up, then, ye people !
Every rank and creed,
All her loyal subjects
Give our Queen God speed !
LAYS AND LYRICS
Pray that God may bless her,
Guard her through all strife,
And at last ma}* crown her
With Eternal Life.
Glory to the Father,
Glory to the Son,
And the Holy Spirit
Ever Three in One!
OF ENGLAND
READY"
Suggested by the picture of a Lion on guard in Daily Graphic for January
ir, 1396, the time of the war scare.
T
l HE Nations watched Britannia with furtive
eyes of hate,
As calm she sat, and silent, above her narrow
strait ;
They deemed her sunk in slumber, absorbed in
greed of gold ;
They thought the Lion by her had grown effete
and old.
They marked the gathering war-clouds with ill-
disguised content :
" She stands alone, and friendless, and will not
dare resent ! "
And thus the Nations muttered, till one rose in
his place
To hurl with reckless challenge an insult in her
face.
* * * * *
LAYS AND LYRICS
Who said Britannia slumbered ? Who deemed her
pride gone by?
Lo ! every man in England has thrown them
back the lie !
A sound thrilled through the Island, a growl the
stillness brake,
The Nations wondered awestruck, the Lion is
awake !
From seaboard unto seaboard, from Portsmouth
to the Nore,
From Plymouth Sound to Spithead, all round the
Southern shore,
In squadron after squadron, full armed from keel
to peak,
The great war - vessels muster along the silver
streak.
And o'er the dim horizon, from lands beyond the
sea,
Her vast Colonial Empire, where British hearts
beat free;
From North, South, East, and Westward, by ties
of blood held dear,
Her children's loyal voices give their great
Mother cheer.
8
OF ENGLAND
Britannia rouses slowly, her patience suffers long,
But her wrath, once kindled, blazes before the
sense of wrong ;
The spirit of their fathers her sons inherit yet,
And the Lion once awakened, he doth not soon
forget !
And thus before the Nations Britannia stands
and waits,
Her royal beast beside her to guard the narrow
straits ;
"God and St. George for England!' the watch-
word of her might :
Heaven give us peace with honour, and God de-
fend the right !
LAYS AND LYRICS
"BROTHER TO BROTHER SPAKE."*'
A (
CROSS the great Atlantic with trumpet
tongue there came
Brave words as bravely spoken, that flash as
beacon flame;
Columbia's son for England, the threatened ten-
sion breaks,
Where Senators had blundered, brother to brother
speaks !
" I see," he said, " the Nations with sullen scowl
and sneer,
With hostile front to England, draw nearer, and
more near;
All Europe linked together by bonds of envious
hate,
In half ashamed Alliance, against the Island
state.
* Speech by Senator Walcott (at Washington), February, 1896.
10
OF ENGLAND
" I mark how England's people rise at their
Country's call,
Their hand upon the sword-hilt, united one and
all,
How shoulder unto shoulder her sons unflinching-
stand,
In steadfast silence waiting what Duty may de-
mand.
" I see her mighty war-ships, the proudest Fleet
at sea,
From Port to Port preparing for what the end
may be ;
Army and Navy joining to guard their Island
throne,
England against all Nations, undaunted and
alone !
" And as I watch and marvel, there thrills with-
in my breast
A sympathetic fervour that will not be supprest ;
The bond of blood is mighty, our race and theirs
is one ;
I thank my God, exulting, I too am England's
son !
ir
LAYS AND LYRICS
" Nay ! till just cause divides them, let our great
Nations stand,
America and England, with hand fast clasped in
hand ;
One blood, one tongue, one kindred, for glory
and for peace,
And God forbid that ever, their harmony should
cease ! "
12
OF ENGLAND
BEFORE AND AFTER
August-October, 1588
Before
WHEN good Queen Bess was on the throne,
And England well could hold her own,
And guard her Island shore ;
While her proud sons stood sword in hand,
The bulwark of their native land,
When Raleigh, Drake, and Grenville fought,
And each their Country's honour sought
In the brave days of yore :
One August day, ere sun was set,
All England's great sea-captains met
To stroll on Plymouth Hoe ;
To play at bowls in contest keen,
Or pace along the level green,
In converse weighing o'er again
The threatened armaments of Spain ;
Debate what England's force could yield
Of ships or men, to take the field
Against the Popish foe.
13
LAYS AND LYRICS
That August night a message sped,
Which tipped the hills with lurid red;
Each hill its fellow hailed.
It roused the land from shore to shore,
From Milford Haven to the Nore ;
From Dartmoor Tors to Cotswold hill,
And by the coast to Portland Bill,
While wives and maidens paled.
And men their harness buckled on,
And watched the midnight skies which shone
With beacon fires aflame.
Darkness and dawn found Plymouth street,
Astir with sound of hurrying feet,
Athrong with knights of fame ;
And ships were manned, and anchors weighed,
As the High Admiral's orders bade ;
For grave the tidings of the night, —
How off the Scilly Isles in sight,
Beyond the ending of the land,
Like some vast cloud that ocean spanned,
The Great Armada came !
After
Where is that great Armada now?
Sealed to the Saints by prayer and vow,
Blessed by the Pope's own hand ?
Where are the arms and treasure stored,
14
OF ENGLAND
Those lofty Galleons safe aboard?
Where are the puissant Dons of Spain,
Their tonsured friars, their armoured train,
And where the countless hosts who went
Proudly from Spanish shores intent
To conquer Britain's land ?
Go ask of Howard, Hawkins, Drake,
And heroes sailing in their wake,
Their country to defend.
Go ask each gallant ship and crew,
Who bravely England's ensign flew,
Who mocked defeat, and fought, or fell,
The Spaniard's arrogance to quell ;
A3 T e ! let these English warriors tell
The great Armada's end !
Where are those mighty Galleons, say,
With all the wealth that in them lay,
Proud Spain's rich argosies ?
Go, sound the Goodwin's deadly shoal,
And where the North Sea waters roll ;
Go, search the crags of Flamborough Head,
The swirl of Tarbat's billows dread, —
And where Atlantic currents spread
Round wind-blown Hebrides !
15
LAYS AND LYRICS
Ask of the lonely Orkneys, then,
For Galleons lost and drowned men,
For wreck and ruin, dark and deep,
Where fierce white-crested breakers sweep
Beneath relentless skies.
* * # * *
Nay ! ask the winds of God which brought
Aid to the patriot band who fought,
And crowned the victory they wrought ;
Ask of the ocean and the air,
The Heaven-sent storm and tempest, — where
The great Armada lies!
16
OF ENGLAND
AT HOUGOUMONT *
May 27th, 1396
ROUND Hougoumont the sunshine falls
From cloudless skies of May,
Upon its circling orchard walls,
And grassy slopes to-day.
The same old walls, all seamed and scarred,
Defaced by shot and shell,
Which eighty summers back had barred
The French advance so well.
And where their fire was spent in vain
Against an unseen foe,
The broken loopholes still remain
That stern defence to show.
* It is recorded that, after Waterloo, the Duke said the fate
of the battle had turned upon the closing of the North Gate
at Hougoumont.
17 c
LAYS AND LYRICS
The old North gate stands wide to-day,
A hard-fought barrier then, —
Upon whose fateful closing lay
Full many lives of men.
And though no tombstone marks the spot
Where sleep those nameless slain,
Their gallant stand is ne'er forgot,
The battered walls remain !
The sweet air stirs the dancing leaves
Of apple boughs o'erhead,
But never heart is left who grieves
For those unnumbered dead.
They lie in ranks around the wall,
Or friend or foe the same,
Beyond the sound of bugle call,
Beyond the reach of fame.
A broken wall, an ancient gate
(So slight life's agents are)
Become the instruments of Fate,
The obstacles of War !
18
OF ENGLAND
THE WRECK OF THE BIRKENHEAD
OUR British soldiers need no pen
To tell their gallant deeds to men,
Their valour in the fight.
From age to age their praises roll
From sea to sea, from pole to pole,
Till Time itself fills up the scroll
In everlasting light!
'Neath Spanish sun, in Russian snows,
'Mid India's hordes of dusky foes,
They fought, the bravest brave,
In storm and siege, through fire and flood,
On many a battlefield of blood,
Have Britain's sons as victors stood,
Or found a glorious grave!
But not alone they meet their doom
Where sabres flash, and batteries boom,
And gallant hearts beat high ;
19
LAYS AND LYRICS
For ne'er 'mid all the noble dead
Is a purer light of glory shed,
Than on those who in the Birkenhead
Have shown how heroes die.
Dark fell the night on storm and wreck,
The raging breakers swept the deck,
The ship was sinking fast.
The boats are launched — but what are the)',
Those waiting hundreds to convey?
The few must go — the many stay —
Ah! who will be the last?
It is the question — Die or live?
And no reply the soldiers give ;
They silently fall in.
They know the doom'd ship must go down,
They know that those who stay must drown,
They dream not of the high renown
Their sacrifice shall win !
Unmoved they stand 'mid flying foam,
As in the barrack-yard at home,
In martial line arrayed.
Calmly the Colonel gave the word,
And silently the soldiers heard,
While from the ranks not one man stirred,
They stood as on parade.
20
OF ENGLAND
And while the angry waves rose high,
Steadfast they waited there to die,
And, in their ranks, went down.
There side by side in fathoms deep,
Until the last Great Day they sleep, —
But English hearts shall ever keep
For them a hero's crown !
21
LAYS AND LYRICS
T
A FAREWELL TO THE COLOURS
RAMP of troops in step advancing,
Sharp the word rings out—" Right wheel ! "
Clank of arms, the sunlight glancing
On the steel.
With their band to lead them, march they,
All astir the cloistered street;
By the old Cathedral archway
Drums are beat.
With the colours borne exalted,
For the last time on before,
Till within the Precincts halted
At the door.
Then, the white-robed clergy leading,
Pass the escort — rank and file,
With the colours still preceding,
Up the aisle.
March they on, nor pause, nor falter,
With the colours of the Crown ;
Till the Priest upon God's Altai-
Lays them down.
22
OF ENGLAND
Lays them down each war-worn colour,
Crossways on the Altar there,
With their battle-roll of valour
Blazoned fair.
There the flags first consecrated,
Marred by war, and shot, and smirch,
Now once more are dedicated
By the Church.
And to Heaven on high appealing,
Voices rise, and prayers are said ;
All alike, in reverence kneeling,
Bend the head.
Then the colours, carried slowly
For the last time to their place,
In the transept's shadow holy
Find a space.
Sounds the band in cadence solemn,
Booming dirge-like, sad and slow,
Echoed back by arch and column
As they go.
But with measured tread retreating,
Many a gallant spirit fell,
When the brave old colours greeting
In farewell !
—0
LAYS AND LYRICS
"AND THE TOAST WAS DRUNK IN
SILENCE"
THEY called for the health of "The Queen,
God bless her ! "
And loyally cheered it with three times three;
Confusion they drank to each foreign aggressor
Who dares call in question her sway of the sea.
Came the word — "Now, gentlemen, fill your
glasses,
' To the Old Battalion ' the toast shall run " ;
And the cheers ring out, as the wine re-passes,
What the "fighting Forties" have dared and
done ! "
A pause, till the Colonel once more has spoken :
"There is one last toast I would give," he said,
" To be drunk in silence by word unbroken —
' The immortal names of our honoured Dead.' '
24
OF ENGLAND
The comrades who served with the war-worn
colours,
Who fought and who bled in the old Brigade,
And who now, set free from all earthly dolours,
Are waiting the call to their last parade.
Amid Afghan passes, or Russian trenches,
In the din of battle, and storm of shot,
With a British pluck that ne'er brags nor blenches,
Till the roll-call sounded, and they were not !
"To our Dead, whose fame is to us undying," —
Rose up every man in a hush profound,
And in silence where there is no replying,
In a solemn silence the Toast went round.
25
LAYS AND LYRICS
"THE WOODEN WALLS OF ENGLAND"
June, 1897
" r T^HE wooden walls of England!" the bul-
A wark of her shore,
Which made her Empire mighty in valiant da}-s
of yore,
Those memories undying that Time can ne'er
efface,
Retake a living semblance this Jubilee of grace
In heyday of the season, with golden June aglow,
And life at highest tension, all movement, life,
and show,
Along the great Queen's highway, through shin-
ing streets astir,
New wooden walls of England rise up to wel-
come her!
Before the royal palace, beside the shady park,
From street to street extending, as far as eye
can mark ;
26
OF ENGLAND
And all along St. James's, and on towards the
Strand,
The way is all stockaded with scaffolding and
stand !
From Westminster to Southwark, Whitehall to
Temple Bar,
From Fleet Street to the Borough, rise paling,
plank, and spar,
Till where in solemn grandeur the vast cathedral
shows
Its majesty half shrouded, where wooden walls
enclose.
The wooden walls of England! In song so well
renowned,
Held loyal hearts and valiant, to sail the seas
around,
To bear the sons of England to distant lands un-
seen,
And now their children's children come back to
greet the Queen !
For still through England's Empire beat loyal
hearts and free,
Who fain their Queen would honour, her year of
Jubilee ;
27
LAYS AND LYRICS
In countless throngs they muster, and thus it
well befalls
That England's mighty City stands fenced in
wooden walls !
28
OF ENGLAND
THE ENSIGN OF ENGLAND
national Song
For Children's Voices. Air — "Bonnie Dundee"
WE are children of England! the land of
the free,
With her Empire far reaching from sea unto sea,
From Canadian Dominion, Australia, Ceylon,
O'er all the vast countries the sun sets upon ;
From the African deserts, to plains of Bengal,
There the Ensign of England floats over them all !
"We are children of England! We all have a
claim
In the glorious heroes who built up her fame !
Though we cannot fight battles, or govern our
land,
Yet the youngest among us, himself may com-
mand,
Be true and GoD-fearing, obedient and brave,
While the Ensign of England doth over us wave.
29
LAYS AND LYRICS
We are children of England ! Then let it be
seen,
That we honour our Country, our Church, and
our Queen !
That the proud name of England, we glory to
speak,
The friend of the friendless, the shield of the
weak !
Dear land of our fathers ! Long, long may it be
That the Ensign of England floats fearless and
free !
30
OF ENGLAND
THE CHURCH SCHOOLS OF ENGLAND
IN the old time England's glory in her National
Schools was nurst,
Where her children learnt, undoubting, that the
fear of God comes first ;
Learnt to honour God's commandments — do the
right, nor count the loss,
By Baptismal grace anointed, as the soldiers of
the Cross!
So beneath the Church's guidance, year by year
they onward grew,
Men and women strong and steadfast, keeping
England's honour true.
Now, the stress and strain of living, pride of
learning, greed of gain,
Mars the simpler, truer teaching, deems it obsolete
and vain ;
And there are in Christian England, schools, not
one, but more to-day,
Where, alas! God's little children are not even
taught to pray !
3i
LAYS AND LYRICS
And the Church which fain would train them in
the godly ways of old,
Sees the Faith the fathers cherished, in their sons
grow faint and cold.
Shall it be that English children, in this so-called
age of light,
With the powers of Evil rampant, are unguarded
in the light ?
Careless of the God who made them, ignorant of
Creed, or prayer, —
Shall our ancient Church forsake them, these
young souls beneath her care?
Nay ! Let loyal hearts, uniting, hold the Faith
the saints adored,
Training England's sons and daughters in the
service of the Lord!
32
IN RURAL ENGLAND
33 d
IN A GARDEN
A FAIR old Garden, still and silent lying
In the calm sunlight of October days,
With just a breath of Autumn chillness sighing
Amid those mellow rays.
A dim blue haze broods o'er the distant meadows,
While sunshine on the ancient city falls,
Shining o'er spire and roof, or gabled shadows
Of ivy-covered walls.
On sloping lawns, the late dews, gleaming brightly,
Leave in the shade white webs of gossamer,
Where yellow leaves float down to earth so lightly
As scarce those threads to stir.
Tall hollyhocks bend languid in the border,
Where marigolds and stocks still linger on;
But bronze for green, and tangled stems for order,
Tell Summer days are gone.
35
LAYS AND LYRICS
Ilex, arbutus, hollies tall, are framing
In sombre green the fires October lights ;
In red and gold, the chestnut fans out-flaming
Against the mist-crowned heights.
And, ranged along the terrace-walk, great aloes
Year after year their destiny await ;
That crowned mystery of flower that hallows
The irony of Fate.
For since that Garden first in order blended,
More than a hundred years have come and
gone;
And still majestic, 'mid green lawns extended,
The old house stands alone.
And there our dearest, holiest memories meet us,
From cloudless childhood unto later years;
And all the happy past comes back to greet us,
Half sunlight and half tears.
Ah, dear old Garden ! Tender thoughts surround
thee,
And murmur low among the murmuring trees —
Life-shadows that the years have twined around
thee
Of other days than these.
—The Fort, October, 1882.
36
OF ENGLAND
INDIAN SUMMER
A Recollection of Clevedon, i83i
THE aftermath of Summer, ere she flies
Swift-footed to the South, where snows
are not,
A dream revived of glowing August skies
Which well-nigh are forgot.
What though September's torch in blazing light
Has kindled into flame the woodland ways?
The sunny scene, in Summer's colours dight,
Her counterfeit displays.
Still is the noontide air with sun aglow,
Nor felt as yet the twilight's subtle chill ;
The only sound, ripe leaves descending slow,
Or Robin's tuneful trill.
Thy dreams of days departed, that enlace
With this bright Indian Summer's tranquil
spell,
Fit well the aspect of this ancient place,
Where bygone memories dwell.
37
LAYS AND LYRICS
The old Court standing gabled, ivy-clad,
Irregular, in stately length appears,
So old that ere the Tudor came it had
A history of years.
Above, in tiers along the steep hillside,
That ilex, and arbutus branches shade,
With warm brick walls that bowery creepers hide,
Green terraces are laid.
And in their sunny shelter myrtles grow,
Late, lingering roses faintly fragrant yet;
While marigolds with tints of Autumn glow,
And tall green mignonette.
And o'er the wall, in wreaths of naming red,
Their scarlet sway Virginia creepers hold ;
And down the hill, the beech and chestnut spread
Their boughs of green and gold.
While far away lie tracts of mead and lea,
And dim blue hills, that stretch in broken line
To where the sunlight on the Severn sea
Spreads wide in silver shine.
Fair Indian Summer! days that fleet too fast,
The year's calm aftermath ere hushed in sleep,
How many holy memories of the past
Thy tranquil pictures keep !
38
OF ENGLAND
A SOMERSETSHIRE GARDEN
Abbots Leigh
THE Garden blooms to greet again
Fair Spring in robes of grace,
With lilac bowers, and golden chain,
Which childhood's days retrace ;
When first we knew dear hearts and true,
That guard this happy place.
The May is white on briar and bush,
The lawns are daisy spread,
The mowing grass grows long and lush,
Where sorrel spikes show red.
And far on high, the Cuckoo's cry,
Comes clearly overhead.
Before the Garden porch there glows
A Garden fair to see,
Where green and fresh the prospect shows
Of flower, and shrub, and tree —
A well-known spot, where, ne'er forgot,
Live memories dear to me.
39
LAYS AND LYRICS
The smooth-cut lawns slope down to where
The terrace walk is made,
The old Larch tree spreads wide and fair,
Its feathery green arcade,
Where many a gay, sweet Summer's day
We sat beneath its shade.
Beside the terrace walk in line,
Is set a border bright,
Sweet Nancies, Wallflowers, Columbine,
And Lupins blue and white ;
And down below, the Chestnuts show
Their branches flower bedight.
Grass fields beyond the Garden are,
With hedgerow Elms beside,
Rich miles of country reaching far
Towards the Severn tide,
Whose waters shine, where in dim line
The blue Welsh hills stretch wide.
The sun upon that Garden seems
As if it ever shone,
And loved ones walk there in our dreams,
Who now from earth have gone,
But as of old, in love's fast hold
Their memory lives on.
40
OF ENGLAND
And still, thank God, dear friends remain
Who keep that garden green,
And give sweet welcome full and fain,
As it hath ever been.
So Spring's bright reign paints o'er again
That well remembered scene.
4*
LAYS AND LYRICS
BRISTOL BELLS
Sunday Evening in Spring
SOFT breath of Spring, fair gleams of May
upon the garden green,
Where lilac boughs are mingled with laburnum's
golden sheen ;
And gay with flowers along the lawn, backed by
the tall elm trees,
A sweet old-fashioned border runs, the haunt of
murmuring bees.
And from the ancient town hard by, in rhythmic
cadence slow,
The chime of bells for Evensong, comes softly to
and fro.
And down the slopes the birches hang their
feathery catkin wreaths,
And yellow gorse upon the bank, a subtile frag-
rance breathes :
While in the border columbines, and polyanthus
show
42
OF ENGLAND
With tulips gay, and asphodel, and wallflowers
all ablow.
And still from many a smoke-stained tower, borne
on the light spring air,
The Bristol bells are chiming out their call to
praise and prayer.
A Sunday calm seems brooding o'er the garden's
shady place,
The town's dull stir of busy life is hushed a little
space ;
The shadows lengthen o'er the grass, the sunlight
falling low
Lights up the old house on the slope, where many
windows glow ;
While mingled with the evening bells, in drowsy
monotone,
The echo of returning rooks upon the breeze is
blown.
The city and the distant hills, are bathed in even-
ing light,
For Bristol lifts her misty veil of smoke on
Sunday night,
Her spires and towers, and clustered masts of
ships along the quay
43
LAYS AND LYRICS
Shine out beyond the fresh Spring trees, a picture
fair to see.
Ah ! many a tale of years gone by, that old town
garden tells,
But through them all a cadence runs, — the chime of
Bristol bells !
44
OF ENGLAND
IN THE WEST COUNTRY
FAIR are the blue May morning skies
When Earth is innocent and sweet,
Ere Summer's fervid suns arise
To stir Spring's pulses into heat.
Fair are the dim Welsh hills that bar
The view beyond the Severn's sheen,
And fair the broad marsh meadows are,
With hedgerow elms in tender green.
Those rich marsh meads where clover blows,
With bowery hedges stretching wide,
Where her snow wreath the white May throws
Along the green West Country side!
In yellow buttercups knee-deep
The soft-eyed cattle ruminate,
Where cuckoo flowers, and cowslips steep
The air with fragrance delicate.
45
LAYS AND LYRICS
Grey gabled homesteads landmarks make,
Adown the backward path of Time,
Where rosy apple orchards break
The vivid green of larch and pine.
Down in the West the live-long day,
The thrush's song sounds shrill and clear,
The joyous Sun, the scent of May,
Combine to greet the glad young year.
Oh, fair the season ! fair the scene !
When Spring hangs out her braveries,
For none can tell when woods are green,
How sweet the fair West Country is !
46
OF ENGLAND
THE LOST CHURCHYARD
BLUE the sky, and blue the sea-line — blue,
unfathomable, vast —
Dazzling in its pure effulgence, sea and sky to-
gether cast ;
Not a breath in air or ocean, wafts the cloudlets
feather-white,
Or the sunlit ripples glancing, glinting into sparks
of light.
Far away the white coast shimmers, mist-like off
St. Alban's head,
And near by the cliffs of Portland, with their
rocky boulders spread ;
While the tower of Bow and Arrow, frowns above
the little bay,
Where the lap of sleepy wavelets hardly stirs the
fair June day.
Soft and deep the castle's shadow, falls across the
mossy turf,
While the white-winged seagulls soaring, bring a
memory of the surf,
47
LAYS AND LYRICS
Memory of the surf and storm-drifts, in far other
days than these,
When the salt breeze blowing landwards bore the
spray of angry seas.
— Now where beech woods nestle sea-blown, in
that rocky gorge and bare,
Where no foot of man disturbing, breaks the
summer stillness fair, —
There, below the rocky headland, and beside the
quiet waves
Is a Churchyard all forsaken, with its long-for-
gotten graves!
And amid grey rocks and boulders, marred and
weather-stained as they,
There the old Church lies in ruins, ev'n its out-
lines swept away.
Silent now the bell for Vespers, chiming o'er the
summer seas,
And where solemn Mass was chanted, only sound
the murmuring trees ;
Where the sailors brought their offerings to the
Island Church of yore,
Nought remains but crumbling fragments, and
the green graves by the shore ;
Where the nameless dead are resting, laid there
in the long ago,
Who or what, those quiet sleepers, no man ever
now shall know.
48
OF ENGLAND
Ev'n their memory lost, forgotten, in the silent
Past gone by,
Yet — oh, wondrous thought and solemn !— every
name is known on high,
And it may be in the gloaming, or when falls
the still midnight,
That their spirits sometimes wander by those
graves below the height,
Where white clover clusters shyly, and the bents
grow tall and green,
'Mid the grey rocks in the sunshine, with the
bramble-wreaths between.
And beyond, — blue sky and sea-line, melting mist-
like far away,
By the shores of Portland Island radiant in the
fair June day !
4>) E
LAYS AND LYRICS
THE HILL OF THE SEVEN BARROWS
THE salt breeze sweeps across the downs, the
rolling downs of close-cropped turf,
That lie along the Ridgeway road, within the
echo of the surf,
Steep slopes of green against the sky, and far
away the sea's long reach,
The silver sheen of Deadman's Bay, beyond the
distant Chesil Beach.
All still and lone lies Bincombe Down, beneath
blue Summer skies aglow,
Backed by the sea-blown woods of Came, with
Bincombe Village far below.
So still, save for the sheep bells' sound, the larks
that carol out of sight,
And hum of wandering bees that seek the breath
of thyme and clover white.
50
OF ENGLAND
So still, and yet that peaceful height, above the
fields, above the sea,
Is haunted by a presence dread, that veils the
hills in mystery.
For there, set clear against the sky, by seven's
mystic number known,
In grass-grown mounds along the ridge are seven
ancient barrows shown.
The ancient graves where chiefs of fame were
laid to rest in mail and might,
To rest upon the green chalk downs, far from
the fury of the fight.
The spoils of Avar lie buried there, with shield
and spear on either hand,
And drinking horn, and treasure stored, to speed
them to the unknown Land.
We may not know the fight they fought, nor
count the number of the slain,
We may not know the hearts that broke for
those who ne'er came back again ;
We muse of who and what they were, but Time
is dumb, and answers not,
The salt breeze brings no spell to break the
silence of that lonely spot.
51
LAYS AND LYRICS
Perchance when midnight gales arouse to tempest
all the dark West Bay,
Or when the Summer moonlight bathes the hills
in lustre as of day,
Perchance those ancient warriors stand in ghostly
phalanx face to face,
And clash of arms, and battle cries, sound dimly
o'er the haunted place.
Perchance ! But with the dawn they pass, the
morning mist-wreaths fade and break,
The east grows rosy o'er the sea, the larks rise
up, the daisies wake:
The seven mounds on Bincombe Down catch the
first rays of morning light ;
Those relics of the ancient Past — the seven barrows
on the height.
52
OF ENGLAND
o
MY HOUSE OF DREAMS
k N the slope of the hills with the view be-
fore it,
Of the plain where the silver Severn gleams,
With the clustered roses and ivy o'er it,
It stands in the sunlight — " My house of
dreams ! "
There are Spanish chestnuts, great elms and
beeches,
Their branches far spreading in chequered
shade ;
O'er the smooth-cut lawns with their long green
reaches
Which slope to the edge of the woodland glade ;
Of the wood that covers the hill's steep shoulder,
Where woodpigeons croodle, and thrushes sing,
Where the streamlet sparkles by mossy boulder,
And primroses carpet the path of Spring !
53
LAYS AND LYRICS
"My house of dreams!' with its carven gables,
Each lattice alight in the sun's last rays;
With its old walled gardens, and range of stables,
And the dark yew hedge where the sunflowers
blaze !
Beyond the gate, is the road descending,
Through the village street to the lower ground,
By the ancient Church with its grey tower blend-
ing
In the soft green shade of the trees around.
And at evensong come the sweet bells chiming,
And the sound of the rooks as they linger late ;
As the village people come slowly climbing
The wide Church steps to the old lych gate.
So fresh and so fragrant the glamour o'er me,
In the spell of the green West Country seems
The picture so vivid that shines before me;
And yet, — it is only a "House of Dreams!'
54
OF ENGLAND
CLOVELLY
THERE is a haven far to find,
Beside a sapphire sea ;
And, borne upon the Summer wind,
The scene comes back to me !
So fresh the trees, so green the sward,
The sea and sky so fair;
As if no Winter ever marred,
And June was always there !
In wooded gorge that cleaves the cliff
The clustered houses rise ;
Their gables quaintly piled, as if
Thrown there in sportive guise.
They guard in odd, uneven line,
The stairway of the street,
Where rugged stones in steep incline
Echo the passing feet.
55
LAYS AND LYRICS
In sunny nooks, green garlands stray
With climbing roses bright;
Tall myrtles grow along the way,
By casements flower bedight.
Above the village in the shade,
Great oaks and beeches tower;
Green stretch of park and mossy glade
Befringed with fern and flower.
While down below, — anear, afar,
One plain of boundless blue, —
On to the distant harbour bar,
Beyond the cliffs in view.
The summer tide laps idly by,
Each ripple shining clear,
Where fishing-boats at anchor lie
Beside the little pier.
Such is the haven, calm and fair,
Mirrored in Ocean's breast,—
'Mid Summer sun, and balmy air
Down in the bowery West !
f>6
D
OF ENGLAND
A WELCOME IN SPRING
WELCOME as the flowers in May ! "
Goes the old-world greeting;
As the white thorn's scented spray,
As the wind-flowers of a day,
Freckled cowslips, "Keys of Spring,"
Purple orchis blossoming,
Sweets for her, my Sweeting!
Welcome ! as the May-buds are,
So my winsome maid is !
As the faint, sweet primrose star,
"Five o'clocks"* that float afar,
Hedgerow violets softly blue,
When "Rogation flowers"! are f ew i
Spear-like lords and ladies !
* Dandelions gone to seed.
t Milkwort.
57
LAYS AND LYRICS
Welcome ! welcome ! gorse aglow,
Bids us kiss unchidden;
Blooms the heartsease for her now,
" Love in idleness," * I trow.
Cuckoo flowers, and -woodruff sweet,
And the wild thyme 'neath her feet,
Welcome her unbidden!
Welcome ! Fairest flower is she,
Fresh as "water crazies! "f
Straight as sorrel on the lea,
Sweet as clover blossoms be.
So let May her welcome bring,
While "St. George's bells " J do ring
All my true love's praises !
* Pansies.
t Marsh Marigold.
t Wild Hyacinth.
58
OF ENGLAND
IN SUMMER TIME
IN Summer time— the long blue day is sweet,
With hum of bees in honey-laden lime ;
While gay birds echo from their green retreat
A joyous chant of roundelay and rhyme.
And fragrant breath of roses fills the air,
When June is June, and all the earth is fair
In Summer time.
In Summer time — the white moon-daisies star
Lush meadow grass which waits the glad year's
prime,
Where sorrel spikes, and crimson clover are.
In bowery hedges, honeysuckles climb,
And yellow flags and meadow-sweet grow high
Beside the pool where lilies watch the sky,
In Summer time.
In Summer time— through perfumed garden gloom,
On warm, still nights, the silver moon sublime
Shines o'er pale stars of jessamine abloom ;
And lovers linger till the midnight chime
In dream of bliss, all earthly care above,
For all the happy air breathes life and love,
In Summer time.
59
LAYS AND LYRICS
A SUMMER NIGHT
A SUMMER night!" Hushed is the day's
unrest,
The toil and travail, and the fret of fight:
Calm is the great Earth mother's throbbing breast,
For healing sleep with her dim veil has dressed
The Summer night.
That veil mysterious, which since the light
Died in a sea of glory in the West,
Has wrapped in blessed dark the Summer night.
" A Summer night ! ' Pale as some ghostly guest,
The clustering roses glimmer wan and white;
In odorous air syringa stands confessed,
And evening primrose lifts her transient crest.
Through all the night
Their gayer sisters sleep, for day bedight, —
And bird and breeze are hushed in slumb'rous
rest, —
So still, so sweet, the spell of Summer night !
60
OF ENGLAND
"TALLY HO!"
TIS the sport of all sports! with a clear,
wintry sky,
And the hoar frost enough just the furrows to dry ;
With the wind from the South and the scent
running high
As we jog to the- meet near or far.
Why, the whole country side is afoot and astir !
On wheels or on horseback, in fustian or fur,
On thoroughbred hunters, or screws from the
town ;
Young and old mixed together, some up and some
down,
At the meet they are all on a par !
There's the master, whose mount cost him hun-
dreds of pounds,
With the farmer who's breaking a young one to
hounds ;
6 j
LAYS AND LYRICS
And the old sporting' parson who halts on his
rounds,
And will wait — "just to see if they find!"
There's the boy fresh from school, and the girls
from the Hall,
In an eager assemblage, they wait one and all ;
While the huntsman and whips with the hounds
lead the way
To a spinney near by, where the knowing ones
say,
There were foxes for time out of mind !
Now the horn tootles faintly — a whimper — a cry,
Down the side of the covert a whip gallops by,
And the field wait in silence, suspense waxing
high,
Till we hear ringing out — <l Tally ho ! '
"It's a find!" "No, it's not "— " Yes, it is!—
they're away ! "
With the fox going straight as a die (well lie
may !)
As the pack breaking covert lay hold of the scent,
And horses and men give excitement a vent
As away across country we go !
Not a cloud or a care on the spirit can lurk,
On a rattling good horse settling down to his
work,
62
OF ENGLAND
Who the stiffest of fences was ne'er known to
shirk ;
Tis the sport of all sports, I contend,
When the ruck have tailed off, to be in the first
flight,
With the pick of the field, and the hounds well
in sight,
Sixty minutes with never a check going well,
And then just as the pace is beginning to tell,
With a kill in the open to end !
Aye ! even if when with the night coming down,
One is ten miles from home with a horse fairly
blown,
In the wet and the cold, yet no drawback we
own,
If the sport has been good in the day !
Let the Socialists talk ! — there's in England one
place,
Where by merit alone, men are judged in the race;
For plebeian and peer in the hunting field meet,
At the good English sport that no other can
beat —
So " long life to fox-hunting," I say !
63
LAYS AND LYRICS
A
THE GREAT FROST OF 1890-91
The Thames at Blackfriars
SPELL is on the river, a silence as of
death,
A solitude surpassing, the Frost King's frozen-
breath ;
No stir of life arising, no sound to break the
gloom,
Save ice-floe grating weirdly, while dull fog-sig-
nals boom.
No sight of sail or shipping, the sluggish tide-
waves stir,
Till where one lonely vessel lies moored at West-
minster ;
In ice her keel is frozen, her rigging edged in
snow,
The ghost ship in a vision of Arctic frost and floe.
64
OF ENGLAND
The Sun's red disk shows dimly through mist-
wreath and through murk,
Where ice-blocks piled together, 'neath dark bridge
arches lurk ;
The starving sea-gulls hover, o'er Temple's frozen
stair,
And midday chimes strike muffled in chill and
darkened air.
From Westminster to Wapping, from Lambeth to
the Pool,
Along 1 the banks at Southwark where icy currents
cool ;
From Bermondsey to Blackfriars, down under
London Bridge,
From Charing Cross to Chelsea, the ice lies ridge
by ridge.
The mighty heart of London, its ceaseless stir of
men,
Its tireless toil and turmoil, what hushed it thus,
— and when?
The waterway of nations, the world's historic
stream ;
The Great Frost holds it spell-bound, as phantom
of a dream !
January 10, 1891.
65 F
LAYS AND LYRICS
B
THE WORLD'S HIGHWAY
iY a river, by a river, in the dim dead days
of old,
Through the waste low-lying marshes, and the
reed beds green and gold,
Rowed the armoured Roman galleys, with the
sweep of mighty oars,
Bearing Rome's all-conquering legions to the un-
known Island shores.
By a river spreading havoc, with three hundred
sails aloft,
Came fierce Danish hordes advancing, scattering
terror once and oft;
There too, Saxon Edward building, holy fane at
Westminster,
Died in peace, and left his country to the foemen
threatening her.
66
OF ENGLAND
By a river, by a river, in the zenith of his power,
At the conqueror's word commanding, rose the
bastions of the Tower,
And hard by where turbid currents rushed be-
neath its lofty ridge,
Where the gabled houses cluster, swept the span
of London Bridge.
By a river, far and farther, as the swift years
silent glide,
Spreads the giant City onward, East or West on
either side,
Palaces of prince or noble, with their water
gates below,
Ships athrong, with treasure laden, wait upon its
ebb and flow.
By a river, gilded barges bore the gay Court to
Whitehall,
Bravely decked, while song and music o'er the
placid waters call.
So, too, by the river darkly, when the nights
were long and late,
Many a mournful boatload passing, landed at the
Traitor's Gate.
07
LAYS AND LYRICS
By a river, pomp and pageant — battered hulk or
vessel proud,
Toil and triumph — trade and treasure, mingle in
a ceaseless crowd.
By a river, by a river, is proud England's flag-
unfurled,
And this same all puissant river is the Highway
of the World !
68
OF ENGLAND
WHITE WINGS
There is a Cornish legend that the white sea-birds are the spirits of
drowned mariners.
OH ! white wings that flash in the still Sum-
mer eve,
When the sea sinks to sleep in the lap of the
day,
Or like phantoms appear where the white horses
heave,
And lash their white manes into torrents of
spray !
Are they ghosts of the drowned who lie thick in
the sea,
Off the wild Cornish coast, and the lost L} T onesse ?
Are they ghosts who their weird must eternally
dree,
Swept along in the whirlpool of storm-wrack and
stress ?
09
LAYS AND LYRICS
'Mid the wash of the waves, and the wail of the
wind,
Like a lost soul that strives for articulate speech ;
'Mid the skirl of the stones that the surf leaves
behind,
As it breaks in long roll on the pebble-strewn
beach.
White wings ! Are they ghosts of the years that
are gone,
Where they hover and swoop in the trough of
the sea?
Misty white as the foam the wave-summits
upon,
Flashing swift as the blast when the tempest
blows free ?
Are they ghosts of the sea-kings who empire did
keep
O'er the seas, in the gay gallant days that are
dead ?
Ghosts? Ah me! who shall measure the secrets
asleep
Where the dim silent depths of the ocean are
spread !
70
OF ENGLAND
Oh ! the sound of the sea, and the wash of the
waves,
Where the fierce breakers shudder, and cross-
currents surge,
And for ever and ever mourn over those graves
All unnamed, and unknown, — their monotonous
dirge !
7i
LAYS AND LYRICS
S
THE SWAN SONG
WANS ! Like to snow wraiths for ever on-
ward gliding,
Silently and softly as the phantoms of a dream ;
Ah ! could ye tell of the fairy secrets hiding
Down among the rushes where the silver
ripples gleam !
Would ye could sing to us the song of the river,
Flowing in the shadow of the alders green and
cool ;
Or where in sunlight the circled shallows quiver,
And speckled trout are lurking in every glassy
pool.
Swans! Did ye come where the yellow flags
and sedges
Grow with crimson willow herb, and creamy
meadowsweet ?
Where brilliant dragonflies haunt the river's
edges,
And the blue forget-me-nots, and water-lilies
meet?
72
OF ENGLAND
Say, did ye linger beneath the drooping beeches,
In the green reflection of their branches dip-
ping low?
Or swim in the sunshine beyond the silent reaches
Where the purple kingfishers are flitting to
and fro ?
Ah ! we may ask, but no voice comes back in
greeting,
Slowly, ever silently those fair swan spirits
glide ;
Comes ne'er a whisper along the rushes fleeting,
None may know the hidden song a-drifting
down the tide !
Yet o'er the river a murmur floateth sighing,
" Death it is alone that makes all earthly
secrets clear."
So legends tell that it only is in dying,
Echoes of the swan's wild song come sadly
o'er the mere !
1S79.
73
LAYS AND LYRICS
A NOSEGAY
FLOATS down the years a memory sunlit, dim,
Calm with the peace of young, unquestion-
ing days,
It shows the vision ol a nosegay trim
And fair to childish gaze.
It shows an old town Church with whitewashed
roof,
With singing gallery, and with high box- pews ;
Where scattered worshippers without reproof
Might through long sermons snooze.
It shows the reverend preacher set aloft,
Black-gowned with theme monotonous, austere;
The rustle of the Churchyard trees sighs soft,
And chirp of sparrows near.
It shows the ancient clerk who giving out
With quavering drone, the psalm — " Come let
us sing " —
Hears from the gallery in respondent shout
Stentorian voices ring.
74
OF ENGLAND
Through dusty panes, the clear spring sunbeams
lie
Along the walls which marble tablets grace;
Along the royal hatchment set on high
And o'er the old clock face.
The}' shine upon the crimson curtained seat,
Where Warden's wands of office stand beside ;
With lavish nosegays bunched in quaint conceit,
Decked out for Whitsuntide.
" A Nosegay ! " Ah ! were ever bunches seen
Like those old Whitsun posies of the past?
Where sprays of sweetbriar and of lads'-love
green,
A homely fragrance cast !
To old alms-women nodding in the aisle,
Those simple scents bring memories of past
days,
Of cottage gardens left a weary while,
And happy country ways.
There lilac, wallflowers, tulips find a place,
And even gaudy peonies arc fixed ;
With early pinks, and pansies quaint of face,
In bold confusion mixed.
75
LAYS AND LYRICS
Defiant of Ecclesiastic lore,
That sleepy, sunlit memory from afar,
Yet a dear vision of the days of yore
Those old Church nosegays are !
76
VERSES VARIOUS
A H
NURSERY RHYMES
Up to Date
! child of the century ! what shall we sing
to you?
The old songs and ditties no longer can thrill ;
The death of Cock Robin no sorrow will bring
to you,
Nor the sad misadventures of Jack and his Jill.
With you, Nursery rhymes stand in humble
minority,
You scorn the refrain of each time-honoured
saw,
And regard as a case for the Poor-law authority,
The sleeping arrangements of Margery Daw !
You slight the three mice and their loss anato-
mical,
You care not how twinkles each little bright
star :
No wonder ! you study the chart astronomical,
And say that "you know very well what they
are!"
79
LAYS AND LYRICS
The "rub-a-dub, dub" of the Candlestick-maker
clan,
Is really too vulgar, you think, to repeat ;
While the patacake rhyme that pertains to the
Baker man,
Is childish in action, and lacking in feet.
Say, then, shall we sing you the Song of a Six-
penny ?
Of twenty-four blackbirds all baked in a pie?
You answer, though conjurers often have tricks
many,
They cannot make blackbirds sing after they
die!
The "Cat and the Fiddle" you class as "chi-
merical,"
Like the dish that eloped with the spoon, as is
said,
You smile at the Ladybird's terror hysterical,
" Scarabae Maculata," you call her instead.
You blame Mrs. Spider for hastening to vivisect
The fly who her parlour had sought to explore ;
And as to the mansion where Jack was the
architect,
Too much iteration you think is a bore !
80
OF ENGLAND
If you hear the sad story of Rock-a-bye baby too,
That "Gravity's laws," you remark, are in-
fringed,
And as to Miss Muffett, }*ou call her a Gaby too,
And even opine that her mind was unhinged !
Ah ! child of the century ! Life goes too rapidly,
What with High Schools, and Board Schools,
and "Standards" unknown,
No wonder the old Nursery Rhymes echo vapidly
In brains half exhausted ere yet they are
grown !
81
LAYS AND LYRICS
"SWEET SEVENTEEN"
OH sweet Seventeen in the days that are
perished,
How rosy her blushes, how modest her mien !
Guileless and good the illusions she cherished,
Childish perhaps, but still "sweet" seventeen.
To her, every dance was excitement unending,
She loved a new frock, and a raspberry tart;.
To her, every partner seemed so condescending,
And each pretty speech as a truth from the
heart !
But sweet Seventeen in the days now upon us,
Soars far beyond partners, and flounces, and
jam,
She talks of her " views," she is reading for
honours,
To pass in the Oxford or Cambridge Exam.
Her elders are snubbed, their opinions derided,
As " poor dear old fossils," and long left behind,
AVhile with tresses cut short, and with garments
divided,
Her pince-nez adjusted, she speaks out her mind !
82
OF ENGLAND
Ah, sweet Seventeen, in those days unenlightened,
Could darn a silk stocking, or play a gavotte,
She read fairy tales, at hobgoblins was frightened,
And drew her romance from the pages of Scott.
Sentimental she might be, and ignorant rather,
She romped with the children, she rode like a
bird,
But at least she loved home, and she honoured
her father,
And ne'er even dreamed of disputing his word.
But sweet Seventeen in these days fast advancing,
She studies in science, and dabbles in doubt,
Has ideas upon Buddha, finds Balzac entrancing,
And argues Life's problems in season and out.
She cycles and smokes, and ignoring tradition,
She deems herself equal, or better than man ;
In place of home duties, she seeks out a " mission, - '
And scorns the old pathways wherever she
can !
Ah, sweet Seventeen, in those past days lamented,
"To be a good girl" was the chief end she
knew,
And I know not, if {pace these new lights in-
vented)
This old aim is not the conclusion most true.
83
LAYS AND LYRICS
"All knowledge is gain," says the proverb of
progress,
Those past days, psrhaps, were a thought in-
complete,
But in drawing the line 'twixt a fool and an
ogress,
Beware, Seventeen, lest you forfeit the " sweet " !
84
OF ENGLAND
.(
OUR COUNTRY COUSINS
OUR country cousins!" Yes, they dwell
Far down among the Western Counties,
In that green West whose misty spell
Makes Nature lavish of her bounties.
Unknown in town, — they simply hail
From just a line of landed gentry,
And Fashion's World would surely fail
To know our cousins in the country !
These country cousins never tried
A Cambridge High Examination ;
In fact, it cannot be denied
Theirs was a homely education!
But yet they seem to understand
All household things, from soup to sewing,
And deftly bring a willing hand
In hospitable care bestowing.
They know the poor about their gate,
Although they never heard of "slumming,"—
And round their father's small estate
All faces brighten at their coming !
85
LAYS AND LYRICS
The village choir their voices lead,
They teach the village school on Sunday,
And in their secret souls we read
A lurking awe of Mrs. Grundy!
For them no simple pleasures pall,
They love their garden, dogs and ponies ;
From parish feast to county ball,
"Ennui" to them a thing unknown is.
So fair of face, of foot so fleet,
Loving and loved, with hearts unclouded,
Our country cousins fresh and sweet
Their happy lives by care unshrouded.
They follow in the good old ways,
With small amount of worldly leaven,
And the " New Woman's " reckless craze
Is all unknown to them, thank Heaven!
Aye, and we know it still holds true,
That not in one such home, but dozens,
The length and breadth of England through
We find their like — "Our Country Cousins!"
86
OF ENGLAND
A
"A VALENTINE"
Past and Present
the ironies of Fate !
Here's a note from you, —
February fourteenth, the date,
" Come and dine, now do ! "
Once upon a time, old friend,
Once upon a time !
You a different missive penned,
Clothed in halting rhyme !
Lace-edged note of dainty hue,
True-love knots galore,
Wreathed with blooms that never grew
In Dame Nature's store !
"Fair as rose, or lily white,
Is my Valentine,
Sweet as pink or pansy bright,
Rare as columbine ! "
8?
LAYS AND LYRICS
Thus and thus, the verses went,
Then, a heart aflame,
Cupid with his bow well bent
Taking deadly aim.
Crude enough ! yet at the sight
What a thrill was mine,
As I read with shy delight
"To my Valentine ! "
Now, St. Valentine's high Feast,
Brings no answering joy,
No excitement in the least, —
Goes without annoy.
Business letters, household bills,
Notes and circulars,
Cause me no unwonted thrills,
Leave no mental scars !
Once upon a time, old friend,
Once upon a time,
This same writing you have penned
Set my heart achime !
Now I read with tranquil nerve,
"Will you come and dine?"
This, for middle age must serve
As "a Valentine" !
88
OF ENGLAND
THEN AND NOW
I. Retrospect
I
T was somewhere in the sixties ere I took my
first degree,
Love's young dream one golden summer glorified
my life to be,
Present, past, and future blended in one fair, em-
bodied She !
Yes ! her name was Henrietta, and she was but
seventeen,
And she wore a figured muslin, an enormous
crinoline,
While a chignon like a quartern loaf behind her
head was seen.
And man} 7 a happy visit to her Vicarage home
I paid,
And many a game of croquet on the level lawn
we played,
When she stamped her foot and scolded at the
blunders that I made !
89
LAYS AND LYRICS
I suppose she had a temper, but I liked her
cheeks aflame,
As her blue eyes flashed like needles when I
missed an easy aim, —
For she always came to help me at the finish of
the game !
Then our rambles in the moonlight, and our talks
beneath the trees,
Though I must confess she always was a most
determined tease ;
The way she pinched my fingers, when I tried
her hand to squeeze !
Ah, that summer in the sixties ! but it passed as
summers will,
And we drifted far asunder, — yet through years of
good or ill,
To revisit Henrietta has remained my purpose
still !
II. Reality
It was somewhere in the nineties, I had just been
made Q.C.,
And the light of love's young dream had paled
and left me fancy free,
For a robe and wig judicial was the dream most
dear to me !
90
OF ENGLAND
It was on one fatal evening at a crowded Lon-
don rout,
That a lady claimed acquaintance, she was rubi-
cund and stout,
But I knew her not from Adam, though you
seldom catch me out.
Then she shook a fat forefinger, asked me " how
I could forget?"
She " would know me in a thousand, though 'twas
years since last we met."
And her keen eyes flashed like needles; — O ye
gods ! 'twas Henriette !
" Distance lendeth," saith the proverb, " some en-
chantment to the view,"
Twenty years ago I never thought it could appl}'
to you, —
O ! my first love, Henrietta ! yet the pity 'tis,
'tis true !
So we talked in friendly fashion o'er the days of
long ago,
While I, musing, wondered vaguely what it was
had changed her so,
Till I winced in sudden anger, as she said, " How-
bald you grow ! "
9i
LAYS AND LYRICS
Came a little man whose aspect was a chronic
state of scare,
"Don't you think, my love," he faltered, "that
the carriage must be there?"
Sternly Henrietta eyed him, — " Here's my hus-
band, I declare ! "
Once that she should have a husband would have
caused me poignant grief,
(Yet the changes Time can bring us sometimes
seem beyond belief),
Now that little man's existence is a most distinct
relief!
Ah ! the rosy dreams of boyhood, how their
sunny memories thrill !
To revisit lost delusions proves sometimes a
bitter pill, —
So I wish that " Henrietta " had remained a
" memory " still!
92
OF ENGLAND
THE SEA
Romance
<( '"T^HE sea, the sea, the open sea !
X The blue, the fresh, the ever free!"
How famed in song and story !
When the red sunset in the West
Calms down the wild white horses' crest,
And lulls the great sea into rest,
And sleep-enchanted glory.
For sound, — the rush of waters wide,
The lap and ripple of the tide,
Or roar of foaming breakers, —
The sea-birds' cry upon the gale,
The wind that pipes in shroud and sail,
Or comes and goes in fitful wail
O'er wastes of watery acres.
93
LAYS AND LYRICS
Or, sight more fair — smooth seas of light,
Green deeps between, — sun-sparkles bright,
In silvery distance paling, —
That where the dim horizon lies
In misty blue would seem to rise,
And mingle with the far blue skies,
Where dappled clouds are sailing.
The sea, the sea, how fair it shows !
Majestic in its vast repose,
In song and story vaunted.
In calm and storm, in blue or grey,
In summer sun or winter spray,
For ever changing night or day,
For ever mystery-haunted !
Reality
" The sea, the sea, the open sea !
And I am where I would not b? ! "
Upon mid-ocean rocking.
Careless of life, in limp despair,
On cabin sofa hard and bare,
Where everything assumes an air
Of misery and mocking !
94
OF ENGLAND
For sound, — a trampling overhead,
Hoarse shouts, and heaving of the lead,
The winds and waters warring ;
Then dull vibrations throbbing through,
A pause, a quiver, — then anew,
The throbbing of that fiendish screw
Through every fibre jarring.
For sight, — the low roof swaying slow,
The dull lamp swinging to and fro,
In ceaseless, see-saw motion.
And worse, — beyond the narrow port,
Green, giddy waves, which sway and snort,
And heave, and sway again — in short,
The see-saw of the ocean !
Then comes the stewardess with a grin, —
" Another hour, and we are in ! "
"An hour," — of tribulation!
Ah, well, the sea's a subject wide,
Though glorious is the foaming tide,
It has for some a sadder side
Of deep humiliation !
95
LAYS AND LYRICS
A CAPTIVE
A CAPTIVE ! In whom hope is dead,
Upon the stones he lies,
And dumbly droops his royal head
With sad and sombre eyes.
A dingy roof shuts out the sky,
And iron bars the light ;
The weary day drags lagging by
To wear}', woeful night.
Ah! who may tell what visions gleam
Before his silent gaze,
And pass in half-forgotten dream
Of mirage-seeming haze !
He sees the tropic sunlight glare,
Along the burning sand,
Where thorny scrub, and desert bare
For countless miles expand.
96
OF ENGLAND
He sees the forest dense and dim,
The steaming swamp and pool, —
All trod by beasts its miry rim,
As fain their thirst to cool.
He hears the roar that wakes the night,
The doom of weaker prey :
The sullen stir of fret and fight
Before the hush of day.
He sees them all, or foe or friend,
In dreams the slow hours through ;
And wakes, a Captive safely penned —
A Lion at the Zoo!
97 11
LAYS AND LYRICS
CUPID IN THE GARDEN
AS through her green garden a fair maid
went,
With never a whisper of danger nigh,
Who but Dan Cupid his way there bent,
For " love in idleness " grew thereby.
Gillyflowers, roses, and bergamot,
Bloom they bravely, but blooms she best,
Red picotee for a gay breast-knot,
To crown the posy she makes her quest.
" Hither, sweet boy, with the silver bow !
What doest thou in my garden glade?"
" Small is the boon I would crave, I trow,
'Tis but a posy from thee, dear maid!"
Roses she plucked for him, Love's own hue,
Nor recked the thorns that her fingers gall ;
"Love lies bleeding," and lavender true,
And of her heartsease she gave him all !
98
OF ENGLAND
Dan Cupid laughed as her lips he kissed,
And slily fitting a shining dart,
That silver arrow that never has missed,
Sent it straight to the fair maid's heart.
"Farewell!" he said; "I must needs be gone."
"Hast thou never a posy for me?" she sighed.
" Go get thee a bough of the willow wan,
And I will find thee the rest!" he cried.
All in her green garden, ah, well-a-day !
Mourns the poor maid in her misery ;
For the sad-hued willow she wears to-day,
With rue, and the woeful rosemary !
99
LAYS AND LYRICS
LOVE'S POSY
THROUGH twenty years doth Love his empire
hold,
Deep in my heart from rosy spring to prime ;
Too deep, is he? or I so little bold
That love so great should dwell there thus con-
trolled
With dumb desire that lacks the wit to climb,
Through twenty years?
Nay, now for Love this posy sweet shall sue,
This love yet young, albeit the days are old, —
Blue lavender for truth, as I am true,
And passion-flushed carnation, Love's own hue,
And rosemary for memory's links of gold,
Through twenty years !
Through twenty years adown the slope of Time
My love has grown as once this posy grew,
Wear it, sweetheart! and learn from this poor
rhyme
To crown at last with utmost bliss sublime
The heart which lived and loved and longed
for you
Through twenty years!
ioo
OF ENGLAND
ON THE BURGENSTOCK
August, 1891
THE wide blue arch of August noonday glow-
ing
In blaze of sunshine as we climbed the hill,
With not a breath of faintest breeze soft blowing
So hushed it was, and still.
No sound to break the golden calm upheaving
Save the low hum of insects to and fro,
And far-off beat of steamer paddles cleaving
Lucerne's blue lake below.
White-starred Parnassus grass grows straight and
slender,
With quivering harebells that reflect the sky,
While pink rest-harrow, and small eyebright
tender
Along the pathway lie.
101
LAYS AND LYRICS
On the green summit where steep rocks hang-
over,
In giddy poise above the tranquil lake,
Rare butterflies on wings emblazoned hover
And airy pastime make.
Far off, through clear, transparent air thyme-
laden,
In silver line the distant mountains rise;
The gleaming fairness of the white Snow Maiden
Kissed by the radiant skies.
And nearer yet, the play of sunlit shadows
On rolling hills and pine woods darkly green,
Where chalets cluster in the smiling meadows,
In summer peace serene.
And still, 'neath cloudy skies the thought we
treasure
Of steep ascent, green pines, and towering rock,
That golden August day of charmed leisure
Upon the Burgenstock !
102
OF ENGLAND
THE GLEN
SO fair the place! So green and peaceful seem-
ing,
Green with the verdure of an older day,
Where Time's soft footstep stayed as if in dream-
ing
Upon his silent way.
There silvery boles of beeches rise majestic,
Like giants which some grove Primaeval bore,
Carved with old names and letterings fantastic,
Which tell of days no more.
Chestnut and ash, and limes, their fragrance
blending,
With breath of pines that steals upon the sense,
And great Scotch firs, their ruddy trunks ascend-
in O"
From laurel thickets dense.
So still it is, — save where with scant resistance,
The branches whisper in the Summer breeze,
And wood doves coo with fitful faint persistence,
Among the spreading trees.
103
LAYS AND LYRICS
So green the place ! Save where the boughs
retarding,
Give glimpse of hill, and lock, and distant fen,
As if the ancient trees were joined in guarding
The spell of that green Glen !
Drenagh, August, 1897
104
OF THE DAYS OF OLD
Ballafcs
THE NORSEMAN'S FEAST
OTHE storm wind howls
Where the grey wolf prowls,
By the ice on the frozen mere :
And the snow piled light
Hides the earth from sight,
Like a maid in white
On her bier.
But the cold bites not,
And frost is forgot
In hall, where the pine logs roar,
And the glow of the hearth,
Shines red through the garth,
O'er the snow-swept path
To the door.
In the murk and mist,
Do the wolves keep tryst,
Where the snow lies white on the wold.
But in torch-lit hall,
'Mid the shout of " Skall ! "
Recks nor jarl, nor thrall
Of the cold !
Toy
LAYS AND LYRICS
There the mead brims high,
And ere horns are dry
Does a toast echo brave and brief;
And the rafters ring,
As the old rhymes swing, —
11 Skall ! skilll we bring
To the Chief!"
Song
"Skall! to the Viking!
Folk-ruler, war leader,
Strong arm for swift striking,
Wise wit for folk-pleader.
Skall ! to the fighter ;
The Chief, fame achieving,
Skiill ! to brain-biter !
His good sword skull-cleaving.
Skiill ! to the Viking !
Strong hand on the war-bow,
Skiill ! to him striking
The bears on the ice-floe!
Skiill ! to him steering
To fight, his war-galley !
While against him anearing
No foeman dare rally.
1 08
OF ENGLAND
Skall! to the Viking!
The toast that we swallow,
For love and for liking,
To fare and to follow ! "
So the song is sped,
And the torches red
Flame aglow in a fiery sheaf;
And again and about,
Does the toast ring out,
"Skall! skall," is the shout,
"To the Chief!"
Subject given, "A TOAST."
1- »
LAYS AND LYRICS
THE VIKING'S GALLEY*
FROM the North Seas and the storm wind,
from the wild Norwegian shore,
Comes an echo of the old time lost and gone for
evermore ;
Where the wash of waters soundeth, where the
salt sea breezes blow
O'er the pinewoods stretching inland, o'er the ice
field and the floe :
Hard by Tonsberg northern township, where the
Viking's mound is made,
From those brave days long departed, comes a
whisper from the shade;
* In a green mound, called King's Hill, near the Christiania
Fjord, was discovered the perfect galley of a Viking, furnished
with oars, mast, etc. Bones and remains of arms and treasure
were in her hold, her free-board was hung with shields, and the
skeletons of horses and hounds were buried near her. Seventy-
three feet in length, the ship is evidently the tomb of a great
chieftain, the idea of the ancients being, that at the last day the
Vikings should be found ready equipped for battle, at the call
of Odin. The rudder is also in position on the steer-bord in
contradistinction to the leer- or empty-bord.
I 10
OF ENGLAND
Like the gleam of dying beacon on the ancient
hills restored,
Comes the story of the death-ship by the Christi-
ania Fjord.
There, beneath her mound sepulchral in the green
and level lea,
Lies the galley of the Viking, with her prow
towards the sea,
With the shields along her gunwhale, with her
mainsail ready rolled,
With her long oars laid amidships, and the trea-
sure in her hold ;
There the leader of the Norsemen in a fitting
tomb they laid,
Where the North Seas sound a requiem, and his
dirge the North wind made.
Ah ! it may be o'er the North Seas, in the old
time long ago,
Proudly swept that warlike galley, bearing down
upon the foe ;
While the long oars cleft the ocean and the fair-
haired Norsemen shout,
As the war ships close together and the battle-
cry rings out.
And the Viking led the onslaught, as among
the spears he stood,
i ii
LAYS AND LYRICS
While the fight waxed fierce and fiercer, and the
decks ran red with blood ;
Ah! it may be fighting bravely that he felt, or
soon or late,
How the dark-veiled Norns mysterious held the
threads of Death and Fate,
And that while he called on Odin, Victory-giver,
God of War,
That he deemed the Valkyrs hovered on their
white cloud steeds afar;
Till the dread Wish-maids drew nearer, on his
brow he felt their kiss,
Felt the solemn kiss that raised him out of battle
into bliss:
And they bore his soul to Asgard, to Valhalla of
the blest,
To the golden halls of Gladsheim, where the hero
spirits rest.
But the dust of buried ages veils those ancient
mysteries,
And the story of the Viking in the death ship
hidden is ;
But we know they left him waiting with his
horse and hound beside,
Waiting till the great All-Father, at the turning
of the tide,
112
OF ENGLAND
Calls him at the last awakening, when, in that
dread battle day,
He shall rise and steer his galley from her moor-
ings to the fray ;
All equipped in shining armour, from the spirit
land restored,
Steer her out into the North Seas from the
Christiania Fjord !
113
LAYS AND LYRICS
"THE NORSE SHIPS AT NARBONNE " *
Ballad
IT was the Emperor Charlemagne who feasted
all his host,
At Narbonne in the old time upon the southern
coast.
And at the royal palace and all the courts therein,
There was revel fair and stately, of peer and
paladin ;
When lo ! unto the harbour sailed in before the
breeze,
Up to the walls of Narbonne long ships from
over seas.
* Charlemagne was at the town of Narbonne on the Medi-
terranean, when some strange galleys appeared in the harbour.
Some pronounced them Jewish or African traders, but the Em-
peror saw at once they were Norse sea rovers, and commanded
they should be attacked and driven off. He watched their depar-
ture from the window with tears, and then turning to his wonder-
ing nobles, he said, " Savez-vous, mes fideles, pourquoi je pleure
amerement ? certes je ne crains pas que ces pirates me nuisent,
mais je m'afflige profonde'ment de ce que, moi vivant, ils ont ete
pros de toucher ce rivage, et je suis tourmente d'une douleur
violente, quand je preVois tout ce qu'ils feront de maux a mes
neveux et a. leurs peuples." — Histoire de France.
114
OF ENGLAND
Before the Emperor Charlemagne straightway
they brought the news,
Some thought them Moorish merchants, deemed
some that they were Jews ;
But Charlemagne eyed them fiercely, and swore a
solemn oath,
(l These are no honest traders, but thieves and
pirates both !
Go ! man our swift war galleys, and smite them
to their knees,
These Vikings from the North land, who dare
come over seas."
It was the Emperor Charlemagne, ' who, 'mid
his peers that night,
Looked round him heavy hearted, on Warriors
proved in fight,
On Roland proud and peerless, on Oliver the
brave,
On Baldwin, Reynold, Turpin, Gerhardt, and
Alcuin grave, —
In Narbonne's ancient city, a goodly company,
With Ogier the Dane's-man, who came from over
sea.
Rose up the Emperor Charlemagne, gazed from
the window far,
And saw the Norsemen's long ships sail out be-
yond the bar !
115
LAYS AND LYRICS
They spread their brown sails seaward, a grim
defiance throw,
Then fast toward mid ocean, they flee before the
foe:
And Charlemagne watched their galleys, with
anguish and ill-ease,
From Narbonne's ancient city, sail onward over
seas.
It is the Emperor Charlemagne who to his Nobles
speaks,
"My lieges, do ye marvel that tears are on my
cheeks ?
That I, whose realm extendeth till half the world
is mine,
From Ebro to the Danube, from Loire unto the
Rhine,
Burgundia, Spain, and Allemaine, with Rome and
Lombardy :
That I should weep when Norsemen sail here
from over sea?
"Nay!" spake the Emperor Charlemagne, "it is
not this I weep,
These Norse thieves dare no doing whilst I the
sceptre keep !
116
OF ENGLAND
But in the darkling far-time, when I am cold and
dead,
My soul misgives me sorely, with bodings dim and
dread ;
When I, entombed at Aachen, my sword across
my knees,
Sleep sound, nor heed the storm cloud that
gathers over seas.
When I, the Emperor Charlemagne, I robed and
crowned alone,*
In Aachen's vaulted cloister sit dead upon my
throne,
From over seas, I know it, shall fierce Norse
hordes aspire
To vex my land and kinsmen, with track of blood
and fire ;
And if to Narbonne's city, they steer in days like
these,
So woe to France hereafter, shall come from over
seas ! "
* Charlemagne, as is well known, was entombed sitting up-
right upon his throne — with his crown and robes and his sword
"joyeuse" — in the vaults at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle).
Subject given, " Over-Seas."
117
LAYS AND LYRICS
THE RELIEF OF LEYDEN, 1574
Part I
WITHIN the walls of Ley den, a desperate
people wait,
Despair, and pest, and famine wax sore within
the gate.
From hot July till August, 'neath suns that
mocked like flame,
All through that awful summer, till black Sep-
tember came.
The Spaniards from Ylaardingen pressed closer
day by day,
(At Delft the troops of Orange, too far for succour
lay ; )
They cut the dyke at Schiedam, and let the
sluices through,
" A drowned land, than a lost land, were better
of the two! "
11S
OF ENGLAND
But the winds of heaven were silent, at ebb the
still tide slept,
And though the dykes were open, slow, slow the
waters crept,
And still the siege grew straiter, and direr was
the need,
And Valdez bade, "Surrender! Your lives shall
be the meed ! "
"Nay, death before dishonour!" the starving-
people cried,
"We wait till ships of Orange sail up the rising
tide."
From Rotterdam to Schiedam, from Delft unto
the sea,
They knew the dykes were open, yet ne'er a ship
there be.
"Up! up the Tower of Hengist! look o'er the
flood afar,
Ho, burghers, watch the coast line, if near the
white sails are."
They climb the Tower of Hengist, above the city's
height, —
Wide lay the shining waters, but ne'er a sail in
sight !
119
LAYS AND LYRICS
Woe, woe was there in Leyden, the famine fang-
struck deep,
And strong men dropped plague-stricken, and
children died like sheep.
The Spanish swords pressed nearer, the Spanish
fire waxed hot,
Yet keener was the anguish for the children that
were not.
They climb the tower of Hengist, they look or
far or wide,
But the winds of heaven were silent, and shallow
lay the tide.
Then mad, the people clamoured to noble Vander
Werfif,—
"Give up the town, 'twere better to live as slave
and serf! "
Outspake the Burgomaster, " Nay, slay me an ye
will,
So help me, God, while living, I'll hold the city
still ;
Yea! ere the accursed Spaniard the outer gate
should win,
1 would fire the town of Leyden, and the gallant
hearts within ! "
120
OF ENGLAND
It fell in mid September, the fleet set sail at last
With eight hundred men of Zealand, who served
before the mast.
They anchored at Land Scheiding, five miles from
Ley den town,
But the tide would serve no further, and the sea
was going down.
And Valdez taunted fiercely, "As well your
Prince may try
To sail his ships to Leyden, as stars from out
the sky! "
While still in grim defiance, the men of Leyden
wait
The black death looming near them, the ships
that tarry late.
But with dawn of grey October the darkest hour
was o'er,
The patriot prayers were answered, in the Heaven-
sent tempest's roar.
For through the night till morning there blew
the winds of God,
Until the dykes were flooded, the sea swept o'er
the sod.
121
LAYS AND LYRICS
From Leyderdorp to Lammen, the troops of Spain
kept guard,
Till deep seas surged around them, and foemen's
steel pressed hard.
Then fiercely raged the battle, and thickly fell
the slain,
That night, when sea and swordcraft broke down
the power of Spain.
Once more the men of Leydcn, heartsick with
long delay,
Climbed up the Tower of Hengist when dawn
broke dim and grey ;
Then o'er the waste of waters uprose a mighty
cry,
As to the walls of Leyden, the ships came sweep-
ing by!
Part II
" A rescue! ho, a rescue ! " the famished Burghers
cried,
"For lo, the ships of Orange sail up the rising
tide;
Up, up, ye men of Leyden ! Thank God on bended
knee,
In direst need a rescue He sendeth from the
sea ! "
122
OF ENGLAND
Then from half-ruined houses, all scarred by shot
and ball,
And down the grass-grown streetways, and on
the battered wall,
Went all the city seaward — all there were left to
go,
Left by the siege and famine, left by the Spanish
foe.
Men came there gaunt and haggard, and women
wan and weak,
That grey October morning, with pinched and
pain-drawn cheek ;
And all along the quay-side a deathlike calm
they keep
Till up the great canal stream they see the long-
oars sweep.
Then rose a shout of welcome, from every heart
aglow,
'Mid sighs and broken murmurs the crowd surged
to and fro;
And fast, from poop and porthole, the sailors
bring their store,
As to the starving people they fling the food
ashore.
:=: * :•: *
1 2' !
LAYS AND LYRICS
There wound a long procession through Leyden
streets that day,
Led by the Burgomaster, and marshalled on its
way.
Knights, soldiers, sailors, townsmen, with wives
and children went,
In endless stream slow moving, as if with one
consent.
Up to the old Cathedral they pass with one
accord,
That there, they may in worship give thanks
unto the Lord ;
There in one vast Te Deum a thousand voices
rise,
Till from full hearts o'erllowing, in sobs the
music dies.
Thus is the old brave story of Leydens rescue
told,
And still the siege of Leyden is writ in words
of gold.
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OF ENGLAND
EL DORADO
IN the old brave days of our England's fame,
In the old brave days of sword and song,
When her ships were handled by knights of name,
And good Queen Bess held the sceptre strong.
Aye, in those brave days now so fair, so far,
In Bideford Town was stir and shout,
When down Torridge tide and across the bar,
Came ships for the West a-sailing out.
It was Westward Ho ! with the Devon men,
Their white sails set to the freshening breeze,
And many and many a summer then
They sailed in hope to the Indian seas.
And many a gallant, his heart aflame,
Sang "Westward Ho!" in those old brave days,
Afire for the vision that never came,
For "El Dorado," the golden maze!
[25
LAYS AND LYRICS
And under the lee of the blue Azores,
They sailed with the land breeze in their wake,
And along the palm-crowned Barbados' shores,
By the mangrove swamps and rank cane brake.
Along, and along 'neath the tropic skies,
And strange, rich life of the tropic seas ;
The wealth of the Indies before their eyes,
In gorgeous Isles of the Caribees.
The lust of plunder, the fever of fight,
It bore them West, to the Spanish Main,
And whenever a Spanish sail they sight,
No quarter then for "the dogs of Spain!"
But the Spanish swords were sharp and keen,
Ere the flags were struck their decks ran red;
And pestilence lurked in the dense, damp green,
Of fern-clad forests so fair bespread.
And so year by year as the ships came back,
Back from the West with their spoils weighed
down ;
There were few to come, and many that lack
Of men who sailed from Bideford Town.
But still that vision that never they found,
Gleamed like a mirage their hearts to hold,
For somewhere they knew, in enchanted ground,
Lay " El Dorado," the Land of Gold !
126
OF ENGLAND
ELIZABETH'S GARDEN AT HEIDELBERG
FROM the old past a shadow falls —
O'er Heidelberg it lingereth —
Of the old lives in those old walls,
From days long dead an echo calls,
So faint and far — " Elizabeth ! "
The glory is departed now,
From barbican and battlement;
And high o'er Neckar's tranquil flow,
Red ruin and Time's vengeance slow
On Heidelberg is evident.
The English palace silent stands,
'Mid desolation desolate,
Which Frederick raised with loving hands
For her, who came to sway the lands
Of all the fair Palatinate.
Those courts that stately rose to greet
The young Electress Palatine,
Are roofless now; yet at their feet
Her garden green is growing sweet,
With roses pale and eglantine.
127
LAYS AND LYRICS
Still stands the ancient gateway there,
Like some stone-car ven monolith,
Where scrolls of quaint device declare
How Frederick made that garden fair
For "his loved wife, Elizabeth."
And there, when through blue Summer days
Slow dropped each silver rivulet,
She loved across the flowers to gaze,
Where forest depths and woodland ways
Swept downwards from the parapet.
So long ago! and then there came
A day of fateful pageantrj*,
When Frederick and his knights of fame,
One dim November rode to claim
Bohemia's crown and sovereignty.
She left her garden's mossy sward,
She left her Castle Palatine,
And followed to the field her lord,
Nor flinched the foemen's fire and sword,
The risk of charge and countermine.
But to that home she loved so well
Came nevermore Elizabeth, —
Discrowned, in exile year by year
She dwelt ; while ever-boding fear
Sad Heidelberg encompasseth.
128
OF ENGLAND
For soon its glory low is laid,
And those high Courts are desolate ;
Fell war through thirty years has made
A haunted waste, a desert shade —
Of the once fair Palatinate!
Now over Heidelberg there stays
A silence that continueth,
That holds dead names of those old days,
Of her who loved those garden ways,
The Queen of Hearts, Elizabeth !
129 k
LAYS AND LYRICS
"THE TERROR BY NIGHT"
Gbe plague i?ear in Xon&on. 1665.
"The pestilence that walketh in darkness, ... the sickness that
destroyeth in the noonday." — Psalm xci. 6.
ODARK the shadow for ever looming
Through sweltering days unto airless night !
Where the Pestilence walketh in darkness gloom-
ing,
And the Terror standeth before our sight !
O pitiless sky ! Like brass beyond us,
The red sun scorching with poisoned breath ;
O awful silence that waxeth round us,
And the Terror that guardeth the gate of
Death !
Is it days or years, since the town was flying?
Since the Church was closed? for the priest
lay cold,
His last prayers said over dead and dying
Ere the Terror tightened its icy hold.
130
OF ENGLAND
Where strong, sick odours from braziers burning,
There is scarce a house lacks the seal of
mourning,
That brand on the door where the Cross is set,
Show the Terror hath entered which none may
let.
Never a sound save the Death cart moving,
The clang of the bell — "Bring out your dead!"
Save the wail despairing of lone and loving,
Where the Terror enters with stealthy tread.
Never a footfall in streets deserted,
Where the grass grows green in the paven
way,
Where the crumbling gables turn half averted,
From the Terror that walketh by night and
day !
O awful shadow ! no hope forthgiving,
That broods for ever on that black year
When was quenched all love and light of living,
And the Terror hovered so near, so near !
* * * *
But all things pass, and Life's pulses languish:
Was it yesterday ? or so long ago ?
God keep us all from such time of anguish
And the Terror that walketh the way of woe!
131
LAYS AND LYRICS
A MEMORY OF THE " 'FORTY-FIVE "
AFTER long years of exile and attainder,
After long years of heaviness and woe ;
Back in the twilight of Life's sad remainder,
In the old home I left so long ago.
Back, by the grace of Hanover's hard pardon,
Home to the dear blue hills of Aberdeen ;
Where smoke-stained towers and desolated garden
Hold but the shadow of what once has been!
Home ? Yet the ones who made it so are van-
ished,
Slain years ago, or exiled over seas ;
Lands lying waste, and clansmen dead or ban-
ished,
Scotland's cup of sorrow drained unto the lees!
Dark rise the hills beyond the ruined village,
Floats the white mist across the tarn below, —
As in that home half wrecked by war and pillage,
I dwell 'mid ghosts who loved it long ago.
132
OF ENGLAND
Oft in the gloaming, ere the day has parted,
They come before me, still as when alive, —
Husband and sons, who left me gallant-hearted,
Slain at Culloden in the 'Forty-five.
Widowed and childless, — oftentimes in danger,
Exiled my King, and all the land in chains,
His rightful throne usurped by foreign stranger ;
Woe's me ! what comfort here on earth re-
mains ?
Nay, there is this ! A Faith that wavered never,
True to the Cause, though beaten and betrayed ;
Through life and death, a loyalty which ever
Upheld the honour of the White Cockade!
t33
LAYS AND LYRICS
AT THE GALLEYS
FREEDOM ? Free ? What does it stand for ?
Stinging stripes and burning brand, or
Clanking chains on foot or hand for keeping off
the death I crave !
Free? the word is null and senseless, to my dull
ears, and defenceless
I, accurst in soul and body as a slave!
In the galley's hold infernal, strain we at a toil
diurnal,
Where the torture seems eternal, and no mortal
power can save ;
In that galley thrice accursed, burns an anguish
unrehearsed,
As a foretaste of hell's torment for the slave !
Through the long night dim and dreary, when
the very moon aweary
Shines with fitful gleam and eerie, as the corpse
light of the grave;
Till the sad, unwished- for morning, brings new
stripes, and sweat, and scorning,
Creak of oars, and clank of fetters for the slave.
134
OF ENGLAND
While the living, laden galley ploughs and heaves
along the valley,
Where the green seas sob and sally in the deep
trough of each wave;
And the salt breeze sears and scorches, and the
hot sun flames like torches
On the blistered brow and shoulders of the slave !
At the long oars with our fellows, till the day's
heat wanes and mellows,
And the sunset glory yellows all the West in
lustre brave ;
But that glory little matters to a thousand men
in fetters,
To the homeless, hopeless anguish of the slave.
135
LAYS AND LYRICS
THE BALLAD OF THE KING OF SPAIN'S
DAUGHTER
Part I
TN the time gone by for ever,
■*■ In the old time that we sing,
Came a vision sleep-enchanted
To the daughter of the king:
To the King of Spain's fair daughter,
In her deep sleep of the night,
And a hero stood before her,
Wondrous in his grace and might.
And his nobleness and glory,
Filled her heart with love profound,
Till she vowed to seek him ever
If she sailed the whole world round.
Tarried not the king's fair daughter,
Left her sunny land of Spain,
In a mighty galleon sailing
O'er the white waves of the main.
136
OF ENGLAND
And from harbour unto harbour,
And to England's white-cliffcd strand ,-
To " the green Isle of the Ocean *
At the end of all the land,"—
To the rocky shores of Erin,
To the harbour of Lochlinn, —
And at every place she anchored,
Every port she entered in,
There the nobles all were bidden,
And high festival they held,
Shone the wine in cup and beaker,
While the sweet harp music swelled.
Yet nor East nor West her dream-knight
Could the king's fair daughter see, —
And amid the mirth and feasting
Pale and sad alone was she.
Onward still the mighty galleon,
Slowly moving evermore, —
Sailing through the waste of waters,
Land-locked bay, or sandy shore, —
Past " the land beneath the Ocean," f
The flat Island of Tyree, —
Past the coast of Ardnamurchan,
In the Hebridean Sea ;
* Isle of Tyree. f Scandinavia.
137
LAYS AND LYRICS
Till the great ship steering northward
Came at last upon a day,
Unto "Mull of the great mountains,"
And to Tobermory Bay.
And again the guests were bidden,
And the red wine flowed on board;
While the foremost of the chieftains,
Came proud Duart's gallant lord.
Glad was then the royal maiden,
Joyful grew her heart and fain,
For she knew her dream's fulfilment,
And her love was not in vain.
Ah ! the fateful hour of meeting !
And the fatal spell that bound,
As the web of Fate is woven,
And the death-clouds gather round.
But on board the lordly galleon,
And to Tobermory Bay,
At the summons of the princess
Came the chiefs in brave array ;
And the heart of Spain's fair daughter
Day by day more lightly beat,
All unwitting she of evil,
Life and love to her were sweet.
138
OF ENGLAND
And false Duart loved and lingered,
And forgot all else beside,
And forgot the bride who waited
In his castle by the tide.
* * * *
But the hand of vengeance stays not,
And the weird must e'en be dreed,
When by treacherous doom o'ertaken
Fire and darkness did their deed.
For nor hurricane, nor tempest,
Made the mighty galleon reel, —
(As she lay at anchor riding,) —
From her topmast to her keel !
Then, by Mull of the great mountains,
Rose the dark waves into spray —
When the great ship, heeling over,
Sank, with all who in her lay !
Woe then to the Lord of Duart,
And a stricken man was he, —
As the pale dawn slowly breaking
Shone on wreck and troubled sea ;
O, and darkly frowned the chieftain,
And in secret grief he sighed
When the sea gave up her burden,
At the turning of the tide.
139
LAYS AND LYRICS
At his word the fair drowned maiden
At the mirk hour of the night,
Did they bear in gloom and silence,
To the kirkyard on the height ;
Ne'er a bell was tolled in passing, —
Ne'er a Benedictus said,
As they left her there unshriven,
With a green turf at her head.
Part II
Years went by, till one dark midnight,
In the old time far away,
Stood a watcher keeping vigil
In the kirkyard by the bay :
When at midnight's hour of magic,
In a dim procession slow,
Came the dead in shadowy presence,
Passing ghostly to and fro.
But the awestruck mortal, trembling,
Marked one white form all alone,
Ever in the darkness mourning
With a low heart-broken moan.
Prayers to all the saints he muttered,
And the holy sign he made,
Ere he spoke, in pity seeking
How her spirit he might aid.
140
OF ENGLAND
At his living voice of greeting,
Straight the seal of Death is freed,
And the shade of Spain's sad daughter
Spoke, and told him all her need.
Told him of her Spanish kindred,
Of her state and high degree, —
Till that vision sleep enchanted
Shone across the Western sea.
Told him how the dream-spell lured her
O'er the salt seas day by day, —
Like the shooting star of midnight,
Or the sky-fire's * fitful ray, —
How she sought her dream-knight ever,
How she sailed from shore to shore, —
Till her star in death-clouds darkling
Set in gloom for evermore.
"Even death,'' she moaned, "oh! stranger,
To my soul no peace can bring,
In a grave unblessed, unhallowed —
I, — the daughter of a king !
Ah ! in Heaven's dear mercy aid me,
Couldst thou wash my bones from stain,
In the sainted well of Lismore,
Saint Moluag's holy fane ;
* Lightning (Gac>: .
141
LAYS AND LYRICS
Then to rest in Spanish country,
Couldst thou bear them o'er the sea, —
Rich my sire shall make thy guerdon,
Store of good red gold and fee.
Holy Church might then absolve me,
Masses for my soul be said,
And by holy rites commended,
Laid among the quiet dead,
Peace at last from Heaven descending
O'er my weary soul be shed."
Then he promised, sore misdoubting,
But he followed all her will, —
Washed her bones in Lismore's fountain,
Saint Moluag's holy rill;
And to Spain he bore them seawards —
Journeying ever long and late,
Told before the king her father,
All his hapless daughter's fate.
And the king gave royal guerdon,
Of red gold and precious store ;
But a vengeance all-consuming
On her cruel foes he swore.
Then, the Princess' prayer fulfilling,
Are her bones in quiet laid, —
Holy Church a sanction granting,
In the cloister's hallowed shade —
142
OF ENGLAND
Swells the chant of solemn anthem —
Mass is said, and censers swing,
White-robed priests beside her kneeling
Daily Misereres sing.
Peace at last from Heaven descending,
Brings her restless shade release, —
Sleeps the King of Spain's fair daughter,
Rests her weary soul in peace.*
* From an old Highland legend, related by Dr. Norman
Macleod. The tomb of the "Spanish Princess" is still shown
in the churchyard of Morva, in Mull. The ship is said by
tradition to have been blown up by some of Duart's clansmen.
M3
LAYS AND LYRICS
THE WILFUL PRINCESS;
Ov, tbe JLegenb of Iking <3risl£bearo. (Grimm.)
TT^'
*'WAS " once on a time," as the chil-
dren say,
When the world moved slowly and life was gay,
and kings and knights came awooing,
There lived a young princess so wondrous
fair,
That gallants in plenty came courting there,
But her blue eyes scorned as they laughed — "Be-
ware! " to many a man's undoing.
They sued for her favour on bended knee,
But she threw back her pretty head in glee, un-
moved by passion or pleading ;
For "one is too stout, and the next too
small,
That is too ugly, and this is too tall ! '
She flouted and frowned at them one and all, no
matter their birth and breeding !
144
OF ENGLAND
At last came a suitor of royal race,
With a martial bearing', and stern, brave face,
though his hair was frosted lightly.
And her heart went out to him unaware,
Yet still must she mock at his stately air, —
" ' King Grislybeard ' is his name, I declare ! " then
blushed, with a pang, contritely.
He went like the rest, — but the king her
sire,
Cried shame on the princess, and swore in ire,
" Thou hast need of sharper schooling !
And since thou hast scorned a good man
and true,
Be it beggar or prince, who next comes to
woo,
Thou shalt wed him straight without more ado,
and make an end of this fooling!
Full soon to the castle a beggar came,
Close hooded and bent, and ragged and lame, to
ask an alms in the gateway.
" Lo ! here," said the king, " is thy bride-
groom, maid ! "
And in vain the princess implored, and
prayed,
The word had gone forth that must be obeyed,
and the wedding was ordered straightway.
M5 l
LAYS AND LYRICS
Oh! never was seen so woeful a bride,
As she and the beggar-man side by side, stood
hand in hand at the altar !
With an iron grip did he hold her neared,
As if even then, to lose her he feared ;
And "Alas!" she thought, "for King Grisly-
beard!" 'mid the tears that made her falter.
She was wed ; they bade her in scorn,
"good speed! "
As the beggar his royal bride would lead away
to his distant dwelling.
Scant were his words, but both tender and
strong
Was the arm that guided her steps along,
As if he were fain to soothe the wrong which
had set her sore heart swelling.
"Tell me, I pray," said the princess at last,
" Whose the broad lands and the woods we have
passed? and the castle so vast and splendid?"
"Fair wife, see as far as the eye can fall,
The man whom thou once in thy jest didst
call
' King Grisly beard,' he is the lord of all ; thou
shalt go there for alms ! " he ended.
146
OF ENGLAND
"Nay, now! of thy pity, not there, I trow! '
In vain — as a beggar she needs must go, — net-
will is swayed by a stronger.
"Who comes from the castle?" — "The
king!" they cried, —
" Here ! take thy dole, maiden, and stand
aside "
With her beggar lord was she fain to hide, but
lo ! he was there no longer !
His cowl and crutch on the ground were
thrown,
And instead stood King Grisly beard alone, and
smiled as he towered above her ;
" Oh, princess ! thy pride it was hard to
beat,
But thou art worth all the winning, sweet !
My heart and crown will I lay at thy feet, so
thou take me for lord and lover."
Thus the wilful princess had found her lord,
Found the will that ruled, while the heart adored,
and her tears were turned to laughter.
So runs the old tale of a bygone day,
Of the times and peoples long passed away,
And the story ends, as the children say, — "They
lived happy ever after! "
147
LAYS AND LYRICS
THE LITTLE DANCING GHOST
Ballad
IT was Christmas Eve, and the pale moon shone
On the floor of the old oak hall,
While the logs blazed high on the open hearth
And lit up the panelled wall.
And sitting idly beside the fire,
I opened the quaint spinet,
Touching the keys with a careless hand,
In a mood of vague regret.
The old walls echoed the tuneful notes
As my fingers lightly strayed ;
Till an old gavotte of long ago
I softly and slowly played.
What is it floats from the shadows dim,
Softly with never a word, —
Moving in time to the measured air,
As the quaint old tune is heard ?
148
OF ENGLAND
What is it floats o'er the polished floor,
Where the fire and moonlight meet ? —
A spirit ? — Ah ! no, it was only this,
Just a little pair of feet !
Only two little white dancing feet,
Moving in time to the air ;
Two little feet in their high-heeled shoes,
That are tripping so lightly there.
So slowly the music comes and goes,
With a sighing as of tears ;
But the little white ghost that owned them
once
Has been dead for ninety years !
*
It was long ago, the old story tells,
On a snowy Christmas Eve,
That the squire's fair daughter left her home,
Nor asked for her father's leave.
That Christmas Eve in the old oak hall
They held high festival there, —
And hers was the lightest foot of all,
And hers was the face most fair.
149
LAYS AND LYRICS
Oh! blithely she danced the last gavotte,
As the signal for their flight ;
And then, with her lover by her side,
Stole forth in the wintry night.
Out in the night, 'neath the frozen stars,
Where the snow was lying deep;
And they must ride o'er the trackless wolds,
For the road they may not keep.
There was mirth and song in the hall that
night,
And the old walls brightly glow;
But little they reck that the maiden fair
Is lost in the cruel snow.
Lost in the snow on the pathless wolds,
Where no human care can save ;
And the Christmas joy-bells ring her dirge,
And the snow-drifts make her grave.
*
But ever since upon Christmas Eve,
When the snow and moonlight meet ;
And we play the air of the old gavotte,
Come the little dancing feet.
150
OF ENGLAND
Poor little feet, in their high-heeled shoes,
Whose treading no mortal hears ;
From the shadowy snows and the spirit land,
From the dust of ninety years ! *
* Founded on a story in All the Year Round.
151
IN THE COURTS OF THE
TEMPLE
(I
DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH"*
LONG ago, when men were wont to travel
Those good ways wherein their fathers trod,
And no mysteries must needs unravel,
Glad in simple faith to worship God —
Then it was, when folk in church assembled,
As the bell for Matins sounded clear,
And on steel and brass the sunbeams trembled,
That an ancient rite they counted dear.
Through the choir sweet echoes fade and falter,
As the anthem's silver tones recede;
And the white-haired priest before God's altar
Sounds the solemn cadence of the Creed.
* " In Poland and Lithuania the nobles used formerly to draw
their swords when the Creed was recited, in token that, if need
were, they would defend the Truth, and seal it with their
blood."— Wheatley.
155
LAYS AND LYRICS
Instant, as the sacred words come slowly,
Shining sabres from their scabbards clash ;
Every man repeats the refrain holy,
Every sword is lifted as one flash !
''I believe," — in solemn voice sonorous,
And with swelling tone the answer came, —
" I believe," — in mighty growing chorus,
" I believe in God's thrice Holy Name."
"I believe!" in sound that volume gathers,
Thus in token vowed they to the Lord;
To uphold the Faith held by their fathers,
Even to defend it with the sword !
Then for Holy Church the prayer succeeding,
Every sword is sheathed with clank of steel
" Militant on earth," — their voices pleading,
As "Defenders of the Faith" they kneel.
156
OF ENGLAND
BEFORE THE ANGEL
" When thou goest into the house of God . . . suffer not thy mouth
to cause thy flesh to sin, neither say thou before the angel . . ." —
ECCLES. v. i, 6.
THROUGH the whole great church there are
lights ablaze,
When the bells are chiming for Evensong ;
And many are gathered for prayer and praise,
And many the moods in that motley throng.
But a Listener listens, — unseen, unsought,
Who can weigh the worth of the incense
brought.
The priest and his people together kneel,
In solemn confession their accents meet :
Is it souls that thrill? is it hearts that feel?
Or only the lips making counterfeit ?
But a Listener listens, — so still, so near,
Unto whom are the minds of men made clear,
157
LAYS AND LYRICS
Then the organ swells in triumphant tone,
And voices are blending in glad accord :
Ah ! say, do they sing with the words alone ?
Is it "out of the heart" that they praise the
Lord?
But that Listener listens, and few, how few
Of those musical notes unto him ring true!
Alas! for the wandering thoughts that hold,
Of this world's folly or trouble or gain ;
For the earthbound spirit, the fervour cold,
E'en in those who to pray are fain.
Yet the angel Listener rejoices then
O'er but one true prayer from the sons of men.
158
OF ENGLAND
A CHRISTIAN MARTYR
(After the picture by De la Roche)
SHINES the fair moon with dim, uncertain
gleam,
From cloudy midnight skies,
Where the broad river's length of tranquil stream
In dusky shadow lies.
Calm seems the hour, half darkness and halt
light,
Yet there upon the shore
Stand those whose hearts were heavy on that
night,
And wrung with anguish sore.
For, in mid-stream where the dark current flows,
Upborne upon its tide,
Floats one, whose brow the white moon's radi-
ance shows,
Unearthly — glorified.
159
LAYS AND LYRICS
A maiden soul, so steadfast in the Faith,
Death brought but healing balm ;
She, whose young life should know nor scar, nor
scaith,
Has gained the martyr's palm!
And as afar those watchers vigil keep,
Over their loved one's rest,
Calm as a child new-rocked she seems to sleep
Upon the river's breast.
To their sad hearts, untimely seemed her fate,
In Death's dark waters drowned;
But there was joy above at Heaven's gate,
A martyr spirit crowned !
160
OF ENGLAND
THE IDEAL LIFE
THE life of old !
In joyous years that were,
Far back it lies, and fair,
Half hid in mists of gold,
For all is sunlight there.
A story that is told,
The life of old.
The life to be !
When youth and hope are met,
Upon the threshold set
Of Love's sweet mystery.
Doubt knowing not, nor fret,
So glad beseems and free
The life to be.
The life that is —
A round of calm routine,
Shadow and sun between,
Dreams dreamt, hopes gone amiss.
Unwrung by anguish keen,
Uncrowned by highest bliss,
The life that is.
161 M
LAYS AND LYRICS
The Life beyond —
Lo! all that made life sweet,
Fulfilled, restored, complete,
In God's eternal bond.
There, there alone shall meet
All earth's ideals fond,
In Life beyond!
162
OF ENGLAND
SONNET
" Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."
OH, Love, the lord of life, the key to all
The mysteries which heaven and earth
contain.
Sweet Love, which honey brings to life, and gall,
Its keenest joy, and its most bitter pain.
True Love, whose high ordeal perfect made
Brings back a gleam of Eden's paradise;
Till taught to know by Death's all-conquering
blade,
The anguish, and the crown of sacrifice.
To love and lose, or never love to know,
The first were best, than love without delight.
True Love knows not of loss, in utmost woe,
'Tis but Death's wing has shadowed our dim
sight.
Love cannot die! Outliving earth and time,
High heaven shall solve its mysteries sublime.
163
LAYS AND LYRICS
A HAUNTED HOUSE
A HAUNTED house!" where death and de-
solation
Seem stamped on every gable grey and grim,
Where nameless terrors bring a chill sensation,
The shadow of a mystery dark and dim.
Where every footstep echoes weird and hollow
Through empty corridor and broken stair,
While every wandering wind there seems to
follow
A wail from out the darkness of despair.
Nay ! there are other houses not less haunted,
Though no dim terrors mar their aspect bright,
Where sunshine reigns, and every wish seems
granted,
And yet there lurks a shadow out of sight.
For there, one room is empty, swept and gar-
nished,
Sunny and still, and sorrowfully neat,
With little cots in whiteness all untarnished,
Where never comes the sound of little feet.
164
OF ENGLAND
Unchecked, the sunbeams through the lattice
slanting,
Make long bright rays along the nursery floor.
Without, the hum of bees, and thrushes chanting ;
Within, a silence broods for evermore.
And yet, sometimes when summer days are
gleaming,
And drowsy noon has hushed all outward
tread ;
Some loving hearts will hear, as in dim dreaming,
The trot of toddling footsteps overhead.
The sound of childish trebles and clear laughter,
From little hearts that have for long been
still ;
Will hear, but only to remember after
The little graves upon the churchyard hill.
But only to remember of their leaving,
Each after each, to play in Paradise ;
Those precious ones who were, 'ere Death's be-
reaving,
The heart's desire of some once happy eyes.
Such is the story of some haunted houses,
Which brings no sense of terror or dismay ;
In truth, a gentle haunting which but rouses
The tender memory of a bygone day.
165
LAYS AND LYRICS
"IF"
T F thou art mine, —
**■ Then life for me is fraught
With love transcending thought,
For all of me is thine.
No soul beside is aught
If thou art mine !
If thou be true,
I'll let the world go by,
And Time and change defy,
Though roses twine with rue ;
Content to live or die
If then be true.
If thou rejoice,
Then all the world's bedight
With sunshine and delight ;
The music of thy voice
Makes every shadow bright,
If thou rejoice!
166
OF ENGLAND
If thou art sad, —
For thee I suffer smart,
And bear my swelling heart
As in griefs vesture clad.
Dearest to me thou art,
If thou art sad!
If thou shouldst die, —
Ah, pray that God may take
This heart, that it may break,
And in Death's slumber lie
For thy beloved sake
If thou shouldst die !
April, 1890.
"7
LAYS AND LYRICS
" MISERRIMUS " *
DIM the cloister shade, and cold,
Fell the twilight vaporous
On a gravestone worn and old,
Where the crumbling legend told
Only this, — " Miserrimus."
Feet of long forgotten dead,
Through the years monotonous,
Wore the stone above thy head,
Never one who stayed their tread
By thy grave, — "Miserrimus."
Never tear upon thy stone,
Never garland odorous ;
None to kneel and pray alone
Where thou liest all unknown,
Thou, who wast, — "Miserrimus."
* In the North Cloister of Worcester Cathedral there is a
gravestone on which is this sole inscription, " Miserrimus " —
"Most miserable," — and it has never been identified with any
certainty.
1 68
OF ENGLAND
Mourners bring their dead to lie
In that cloister slumberous;
Carve their names and virtues high,
Heedless that the tomb near by
Only tells, — " Miserrimus."
Nay ! a mystery profound
Seals the silence tremulous;
Holds the piteous secret bound
Of that woe that fettered round
Thy sad soul, — "Miserrimus"!
Though no gleam in Time or space
Pierce that veil mysterious ;
Yet, God grant thou hast a place
Where thou chvellest by His Grace,
Never more, — " Miserrimus " !
Subject given, "A Mystery
LAYS AND LYRICS
THE WAY OF THE WORLD
PRITHEE, Pilgrim, tell me true,
Whither wends this worldly way?
Whose the feet that tread it through,
What the landmarks lest they stray ? "
" Stranger, lo ! the way is old,
Short or lengthened, rough or smooth,
Man must wend it ere he wold,
For it must be trod, in sooth.
" Rosemary grows there, I wis,
Purple heartsease all unfurled,
And sad rue in plenty is
On this way of all the world."
" Pilgrim, say what perils arc,
On this way where all must fare?"
" Thorns entangle, quagmires bar,
That unwary feet may snare.
170
OF ENGLAND
" Divers pitfalls lurk therein,
Satan spreads his lures apace,
Good and evil, grace and sin,
Meet together face to face.
" Ragged beggars, sport of Fate,
Queens in samite, crowned and curled,
Clown and noble, soon or late,
Go this way of all the world."
" Pilgrim ! sad meseems this way,
If folk faint and fall thereon?"
" Nay, but let them strive and pray,
Bravely fought is well nigh-won.
" Some there are who onward press,
Plucking heartsease where they can;
Wear their rue with cheerfulness,
With a strength not born of man.
"So they mount through toil and pain
To the City gold and pearled,
Steadfast souls do there attain,
By this way of all the world ! '
171
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