THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 7 
 
 /JO* ■
 
 A
 
 This Edition is limited to two hundred copies. 
 This is No. IS-
 
 ER OF PAMPHYLIA 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS
 
 ER OF PAMPHYLIA 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD HENRY PEMBER 
 
 LONDON 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CHISWICK PRESS 
 
 FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION 
 
 1908
 
 
 T O t £ 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I'AGE 
 I 
 
 HOMMAGES: 
 
 A Charles D' Orleans 33 
 
 A Marceline Desbordes- 
 
 Valmore 
 
 
 34 
 
 A Alfred de Musset 
 
 
 
 i^ 
 
 A MONTENACKEN 
 
 
 
 
 
 38 
 
 A Braga . 
 
 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 A Mozart 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 A Pierre de Konsard 
 
 
 
 
 
 43 
 
 Riposte A Ronsard . 
 
 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 Lyrical Pieces: 
 
 Late Spring 47 
 
 Two Voices 
 
 
 
 
 
 49 
 
 North and South . 
 
 
 
 
 
 5' 
 
 Aloft 
 
 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 Behind Silence 
 
 
 
 
 
 55 
 
 Comet and Star 
 
 
 
 
 
 58 
 
 Love's Testament . 
 
 
 
 
 
 61 
 
 Retirement 
 
 
 
 
 
 62 
 
 In a Shrubbery Walk 
 
 
 
 
 
 65 
 
 Tragedy . 
 
 
 
 
 
 67 
 
 Mak Sicker! . 
 
 
 
 
 
 69 
 
 Vll 
 
 825716
 
 Vlll 
 
 Table of Contents 
 
 I'Ac.I 
 
 Debita Flacco : 
 
 
 The Bore .... 
 
 • 75 
 
 An Invitation 
 
 . So 
 
 Self-Invited .... 
 
 . . . 84 
 
 TheJilt 
 
 . . 87 
 
 Two Bullies .... 
 
 . 89 
 
 Small Beer Chronicles: 
 
 
 i. About me and mine . 
 
 • 99 
 
 2. Jack Wilmot 
 
 • 130 
 
 3. The Markhams . 
 
 • 155 
 
 
 . 188
 
 ER OF PAMPHYLIA 
 
 IN 
 FOUR CANTOS 
 
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 ER OF PAMPHYLIA 
 
 CANTO I 
 
 HAD been musing on that antique Myth 
 -*• Wherein great Plato, fain to justify 
 Man's hope of immortality to man, 
 From the frail raft of proof and argument 
 Took refuge at the last; as who might say, 
 I who have spurned outworn Authority, 
 And leaned upon Philosophy alone, 
 Am baffled here; yet, for my parting gift, 
 Take ye this tale; I tell it with a smile 
 Akin to tears, and telling, do but bid 
 The good man hope on, and the bad beware. 
 
 Then flew my thoughts to that stern Florentine 
 Who wrought the Comedy well called Divine, 
 That Epic of the Afterworld, triune 
 As was the Godhead whom his Church revealed, 
 Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, one Universe,
 
 4 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 Vengeance, and Pardon, and Beatitude, 
 
 Three Mysteries, like three Persons, blent in one. 
 
 And in self-commune said my heart to me, 
 " Under which captain of these mighty Twain 
 Take we our station? Shall we range ourselves 
 With those blind heirs of ignorance who make 
 Pronouncement of th' unknown for known, content 
 To shiver in a serfdom of the soul? 
 Or his majestic sadness choose, who sighs 
 1 1 know not, nor can ye, yet hope ye still'?" 
 I answered, " Let us lean to him whose faith 
 Is of his own soul's fashioning, stands forth 
 Confessed for hope alone, and shines with light 
 Engendered from within, no borrowed rays 
 Cast from the spent discs of expiring suns." 
 So, once our homage joint to Plato sealed, 
 On his last fable laying reverent hands, 
 As some strayed weaver, lost on Helicon, 
 In cave or mountain glade might light upon 
 A golden bowl of her choice handiwork 
 Lying beside Urania's spinning-wheel, 
 And blameless use it for his need, I made 
 My votary's prize of Academic store, 
 And wove its threads of legend into this:
 
 Er of Pamphylia 5 
 
 Er of Lyrnessus in Pamphylia, 
 Young, beautiful, the sole and worthy son 
 Born to Armenius, who traced his line 
 Far back through treasured centuries to him 
 Who sailed to Colchis for the famous fleece 
 With Jason and his brother Argonauts, 
 In some chance battle between neighbour states 
 Was left for dead among a field of slain ; 
 Nor was it till ten summer days had gone, 
 And all the foreign host had left the land, 
 That they for whom he died dared venture forth 
 To gather home their wounded and their dead. 
 Him did they find outstretched, alone, supine, 
 Fronting the Heavens just as he fell, not marred 
 By sword thrust or the rip of heavy spear, 
 Nor changed like all the carrion forms around, 
 But fresh and dewy still with damps of death, 
 As 'twere a flower new-plucked. Foremost of all 
 They bore him, smitten with a nameless awe, 
 Across the scarred and trodden harvest fields, 
 And through their city gates, and laid him down, 
 Still wondering, within his father's hall. 
 
 There, cleansed from stains of battle, perfumed, 
 robed,
 
 6 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 By tender hands of women did he lie, 
 
 Bloodless and cold, beyond all seeming dead, 
 
 But with that virgin freshness still on him; 
 
 Till someone said, 'We must not keep his shade 
 
 Expectant longer by the pallid stream, 
 
 Pining for burial;' and so they reared 
 
 His stately pyre beyond the city gate, 
 
 Hard by the shore, and laid him thereupon, 
 
 Setting due guard ; and leaving moon and stars 
 
 To bathe his brows, closed eyelids, and set cheeks, 
 
 With loving ministrations of the Night. 
 
 At sunrise came again a mournful crowd 
 With wine, and spice, and wealth of torches lit 
 From sacred temple-fires ; but ere their Priest 
 Could make a mute sign that his acolytes 
 Should lay their torch flames to the fragrant cones 
 Beneath the pyre, the dead man slowly rose; 
 And, leaning on one arm, the while his eyes 
 Began to give new answer to the Sun, 
 And over lip and cheek the rose of life 
 Spread blushing like the dawn on mountain snows, 
 First, with a gentle semblance of rebuke 
 He stayed the score of ready hands outstretched 
 To lift him from the bier; clearer than speech
 
 Er of Pamphylia 7 
 
 His gesture said, 'All human things to me 
 Are shades of a dead past; though here awhile, 
 I am not now your fellow, touch me not;' 
 Then, rid of the one hazard that he feared, 
 That contact which no longer was of kind, 
 Calm mid the general tremor, thus he spake: 
 
 " Good folk of fair Lyrnessus by the sea, 
 My brethren, and my kinsmen, glad am I 
 That, by the grace of those who sent me here, 
 I am allowed to look on you once more. 
 And you, ye borders of the fruitful Earth, 
 And thou, with these white fringes of thy sands, 
 And whiter ringlets of thy restless foam, 
 Thou, ever dancing, ever laughing sea, 
 Right happy are mine eyes for this brief space 
 Accorded them and me; let me bless all, 
 As summer blesses, ere, my mission done, 
 I go once more, no more to make return. 
 
 "Friends, I was slain indeed, I know not how; 
 I neither saw the hand, nor felt the stroke 
 That slew me; or perchance, the shortlived pain 
 Had passed, e'en with the moment of its birth. 
 For even while Death came and went, I seemed
 
 8 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 To find myself upon a journey, one 
 
 Of a great company, with whom I soon 
 
 Had reached a goal immeasurably far; 
 
 Though vain it seemeth thus to speak of time, 
 
 Distance, and space, where all these, as I think, 
 
 Are nought but recollections bred in us 
 
 Of this brief life, rounded by birth and death, 
 
 And little changes of our nights and days, 
 
 Our toils, our rests, our vigils, and our sleep; 
 
 And revolutions of the rapid Moon, 
 
 And slower movement of yon statelier Sun j 
 
 With seasons in their never varying course, 
 
 Spring, Summer, Winter, and soon Spring once 
 
 more, 
 And through them all our growth and our decay. 
 
 "We lay, methought, expectant in a Mead 
 That stretched 'twixt Earth and Heaven, expanding 
 
 vast 
 But featureless, thick-thronged with groups who 
 
 moved 
 This way and that; through these I looked, and saw 
 Where Judges sat enthroned, with ministers 
 Who haled all comers to their judgment-seats. 
 Then unto me, as I drew near, was brought
 
 Er of Pamphylia 9 
 
 This mandate; 'Look, and barken thou; to thee 
 It is ordained that thou return to Earth, 
 When thou hast seen and heard unto the full 
 All that it is thy mission to record; 
 Nought else hast thou to do with us; for this 
 Thou art the chosen vessel of the Gods.' 
 
 " I heard, and, hearing, went apart, and watched: 
 As some late fisher on a lonely mere, 
 Lonely himself, beneath the winter moon, 
 Rocks in his boat among his nets, and marks 
 Skein after skein of wild-fowl taking wing, 
 Unscared, but yielding to a heart-felt force 
 That bids them hail the moment come, to seek, 
 Safe under gentle wardship of the Night, 
 Their breeding grounds a hundred leagues away; 
 Or, as some pale sequestered priest, whose kin, 
 For freedom's sake perchance, go forth to find 
 New homes and brothers' welcome over sea; 
 He, by his God withheld, and priestly vow, 
 Stands silent on the Temple steps, and sees 
 The crowd, and hears their tumult from afar, 
 The songs, the shouts, and from his heart and eyes 
 Pays his lone tribute to the women's tears 
 And human passion that he may not share;
 
 i o Er of Pamftkylia 
 
 So I, a watcher and a marveller, 
 
 A gazer on unshared futurity, 
 
 New-made the mouthpiece of the mighty Gods, 
 
 And by their mission sundered, stood alone.
 
 Er of Pamphylia i i 
 
 CANTO II 
 
 " 'HP^ HE crowds with impotent reluctance pressed 
 ■*■ Those dreaded chairs, like leaves, without 
 a will, 
 By autumn winds, resistless but unseen, 
 Blown to a fence ; I noted each in turn 
 Take sentence, some with wailings of despair, 
 •More with dismay, but many more with joy ; 
 And as each turned away I saw on each 
 His judgment sealed. 
 
 " Two fissures vast were there 
 That opened into Earth ; one access gave 
 Deep down to Tartarus, and thitherward, 
 Lamenting loud, a long procession streamed 
 Of souls condemned; hard by, the other gap 
 Disgorged at whiles fresh groups of happier ones 
 Who by compensatory pains had earned 
 A late release; a thousand years had passed 
 Since last they looked upon the light, and drank 
 A welcome draught of the sweet upper air;
 
 1 2 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 Gladly they sped into the middle mead; 
 But while I watched, from out the cavern came, 
 Whence they had issued, a malignant sound 
 As 'twere the roar of countless lions pent, 
 Raving for prey; or such as men may hear 
 Who 'neath the gloom of terrifying crags, 
 Make the bewildered sport of bellowing seas. 
 Then marked I how through that dread darkness 
 
 peered 
 Pale faces of the doubly damned, whose crimes 
 Forbade redemption; tyrants, traitors, they, 
 Shedders of innocent blood, the murderers 
 Of parents, monstrous spirits who had lived 
 For rapine, lust, and slaughter, or the quest 
 Of wild dark infamies without a name. 
 But them, or e'er they fed their famished eyes 
 Upon the coveted light, an uncouth band 
 Of torturers drave remorseless back to hell, 
 With cruel hook and many-knotted scourge 
 Tearing them, as the thorn-brake tears the fleece 
 From frighted sheep, who flying from the wolf 
 Take covert heedless whereunto they fly. 
 
 " Right gladly did I turn myself therefrom 
 To face the distant heaven, whose altitudes
 
 Er of Pampkylia 1 3 
 
 Their empyrean brightness faintly showed 
 
 In fathomless azure poised; then marked I where 
 
 Through the vast void into that infinite, 
 
 From Earth two causeways rose, like sunbeams, 
 
 broad, 
 Spanning the aether; long my baffled eyes 
 Pursued their paths in vain, though, ne'er the less, 
 They clomb until they reached their goal, twin 
 
 Gates 
 Carved in the foot of the Celestial Wall. 
 Upward, by one of these, the happy bands 
 Of souls adjudged to bliss found easy way; 
 While down the other moved, less joyously, 
 But well-content with fate, an equal troop 
 Of those whose sojourn in beatitude 
 Was spent; no wayward sign, in sigh, or tear, 
 Or murmur, smirched the merit of their calm; 
 Sedate, serene, obedient to known law — 
 Their thousand years of virtue's wage fulfilled — 
 They came to reassume mortality, 
 And bear once more their burden in the world. 
 " The Meadow reached, these mingled with the 
 throng 
 New-risen out of Hell, and greetings passed
 
 1 4 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 From mouth to mouth, and tales were told of 
 
 Heaven, 
 In gladsome recollection, while the pains 
 And sorrows of the nether gloom called up 
 The tears of sadder memories into eyes 
 That fain had kept themselves all bright to quaff 
 The pleasure-cup of beauty newly filled; 
 And checked the happy beat of hearts that yearned 
 To clasp their liberty once more; and closed 
 Lips that but sought to ope that they might draw 
 The-long lost perfumes of the wholesome air. 
 But soon there fell on all a common calm, 
 And cheerful bands went sauntering here and there, 
 And sat, or lay, as fancy prompted them, 
 Unchallenged, to consume the restful hours. 
 
 " Seven days they lingered thus, but on the eighth 
 A summons came — nor voice nor trumpet blast 
 I heard — unheralded and unproclaimed, 
 It swept through all their scattered companies, 
 As on still summer days the scent of flowers, 
 Without one whisper of impulsive wind, 
 Usurps the air above the conscious lawns. 
 All rose obedient, with an instinct tuned 
 To the same chord within; along that Mead
 
 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 i 
 
 o 
 
 That neither was of Earth nor Heaven, they made 
 A three days' march, till on the fourth they came 
 Where in their front shone out a shaft of light 
 Excelling far, in brilliance as in hues, 
 The splendour of a rainbow; wide it spread 
 O'er the terrestrial and celestial poles 
 And intervening spaces; one more day 
 Brought them beneath its arc; then were they 'ware 
 That both its flaming terminals were bound 
 By golden chains to th' empyrean sky. 
 For this it is that loops the outer vault 
 Of that which doth contain both Earth and Heaven ; 
 As hawsers, that are stretched to undergird 
 A battle-ship, hold firm its straining sides, 
 So doth this gleaming girdle, whose embrace 
 More potent is than bands of bronze, or brass, 
 Or all enduring adamant, clasp and stay 
 The frame of our revolving Universe. 
 " Welded to its extremities is fixed 
 The Distaff of Necessity, whereto 
 Are all the Starry motions timed and tuned. 
 Its beam stupendous is of tempered steel; 
 Eight whorls, divinely fitted, each in each 
 And rising, one o'er other, like a cone,
 
 1 6 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 Gird it about; their rims, with variant lights 
 
 Distinguished, gleam; and as it spins around, 
 
 Unchangeably do these their orbits hold 
 
 In circles independent, as the stars, 
 
 The Sun, the Moon and the Five Planets, theirs 
 
 Keep freely through the boundless fields of Heaven. 
 
 " Upon the knees of great Necessity, 
 Whom Gods and Men and all things else obey, 
 True poised, the Distaff turns; on every whorl 
 A Siren sits and sings her single note 
 Through all its orbit, and their quire gives forth 
 That elemental and consorted sound, 
 That mighty Diapason, named of men, 
 Whom dreams have taught, the Harmony of the 
 
 Spheres. 
 " Around their Mother's throne, o'er all things 
 
 else 
 Save her supreme, on lower couches sit 
 Those three dread daughters of Necessity 
 Whom men have called The Fates, and given them 
 
 names, 
 Clotho, and Lachesis, and Atropos; 
 Clad in white robes are they, and all their heads 
 Are garlanded, and, as they sit, they sing
 
 Er of Pamphylia 1 7 
 
 In answer to the Sirens; Lachcsis 
 Of all that has been, Clotho of what is, 
 And Atropos of what has not been yet, 
 But yet shall be; each one a hand betimes 
 Lays on the whorls that may not flag, the while 
 The Sirens' song and theirs, unceasing, keep 
 The rhythm that must be kept for ever more.
 
 1 8 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 CANTO III 
 
 "| T IGH in their midst, among the group of 
 
 ■*■ •*■ thrones, 
 
 Hard by the chair of Lachesis, there rose 
 A solitary Mound, in semblance like 
 The pulpit of a Herald; thitherward, 
 And marshalled in unconscious order, drew 
 The congregation of expectant Souls. 
 Then on the summit of the Mound appeared 
 A form majestic, of true human shape, 
 But one to whom the tallest of tall kings, 
 Of whom their Sons — our grandsires — and their 
 
 Bards 
 Have told and sung, had but as Pigmies shown; 
 He, glancing round, in tones austere and large, 
 Well heard of all, thus, without prelude, spake: 
 
 ' By me to you, ye shortlived spirits, saith 
 Lachesis, Daughter of Necessity; 
 Hence, at this point of what ye know as Time, 
 Ye must return to Earth, and there renew
 
 Er of Pamphylia 1 9 
 
 The course of your mortality; to live, 
 
 And, having lived, to die, and dying, reap, 
 
 As ye have reaped, in suffering or in joy, 
 
 All that shall then be due; his destiny 
 
 Each one is free to choose, and in his choice 
 
 His hazard lies of future good or ill; 
 
 The Gods are guiltless; come ye, and choose well. 
 
 Before each lies a lot which shall declare 
 
 His order of approach; this Chance doth sway; 
 
 Yet let not him who finds himself the first 
 
 Exult, nor him who cometh last despond.' 
 
 " So spake that towering Shape, and as he ceased, 
 Like snowflakes lighted by the level sun, 
 On some still winter afternoon, there fell 
 Showers of white Tablets; at the shadowy feet 
 Of that vast unsubstantial crowd they lay; 
 And straightway, by one impulse mutely stirred, 
 Its slender cohorts bent, as bend the lines 
 Of cornstalks in a wind ; each took the lot 
 That fell to him; and, one by one, all passed, 
 Reformed in a long line, to where they saw 
 Outspread in multitudinous array 
 The Destinies their duty was to choose.
 
 20 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 No forms of life were lacking, bird or beast, 
 
 Of wild or tame, of male or feminine, 
 
 Fish, reptile, monsters of the land or sea, 
 
 Tree, shrub, or humbler floweret of the vale 
 
 Or mountain, with unnumbered human fates 
 
 Alone sufficing for bewilderment; 
 
 Brief sovereignties were there, that found their end 
 
 In beggary or exile, others built 
 
 On thrones secure, but with some term attached 
 
 To make a wise man pause; love, beauty, fame, 
 
 Health, poverty, disease, wealth, all were there; 
 
 The warrior's glory, with the gymnast's; last, 
 
 Rarest among them all, and hard to find, 
 
 The gift divine of fateful poesy; 
 
 But all alike compounded and alloyed 
 
 With such distempering perplexities 
 
 As made doubt wisdom. 
 
 " Well was it with me 
 That I might stand alone, withdrawn, and freed 
 From all temptation to untoward desire. 
 For One I saw stand forth, and, with scant glance, 
 And hand unhesitating, rashly seize 
 The promise of a Tyranny; alas, 
 He wot not that a doom therewith was writ
 
 Er of Pamphylia 2 1 
 
 That, as old Kronos, whom Zeus overset, 
 Devoured his offspring, so its chooser should 
 Slay, smit with jealous fears, his only son. 
 Too late he wailed, and clutched with savage 
 
 hands 
 His blameless beard, flinging forth curses wide 
 On fortune, fate, and all things, save himself 
 And his blind will; one of those souls was he 
 Whom I had watched descending out of Heaven ; 
 One who of slender merit had achieved 
 His thousand years of bliss; his parentage, 
 The training of his youth, his manhood fenced 
 In the safe ward of a well-ordered State, 
 Had clad him in a pallid blamelessness, 
 That was as virtue's robe when he was judged. 
 In this sole moment his frail nature first 
 Unaided stood, and in that moment fell. 
 Nor fell he singly ; many another came 
 Who had reached Heaven without the chastening 
 
 aid 
 Of stern Philosophy, and, e'en as he, 
 Had made their sojourn in celestial joy 
 As idle as their fruitless years on Earth; 
 But they who rose from out the dolorous realms,
 
 2 2 Er of Pantphyha 
 
 Whom fire had tried, and misery had made wise 
 Chose wisely, and exchanged ill fates for good, 
 As those good fates for ill. 
 
 " And some there were 
 Whose choice, so strange in its conceit, had moved 
 My laughter, had not sadness on my lips 
 Laid her rebuking hand ; for there I saw 
 Orpheus, still loving music, while he loathed 
 That race of women who had slaughtered him, 
 So that he would be born anew of none, 
 Take up a Swan's fate, minding at his ease 
 To end a tuneless life in tuneful death ; 
 And Thamyris whom the outraged Muses struck 
 With blindness and forgetfulness of song, 
 Chose as a Nightingale a haven safe 
 From rash ambition and revenge divine; 
 Thersites, apelike still, became an Ape; 
 Swift Atalanta, harbouring in her heart 
 Vexation for her girlish fancy caught 
 By Aphrodite's apples, that lost race, 
 Melanion's triumph, her wrecked maidenhood, 
 And th' easy smiles of her uncaring Sire, 
 Once more would be a Gymnast, but a Man; 
 And Ajax, his distemper unassuaged
 
 Er of Pamphylia 2 3 
 
 From his old covet of Pelides' arms, 
 Still raving, at a madman's odds with man, 
 Pounced with a roar upon a Lion's form ; 
 While Agamemnon, haughtier than at Troy, 
 And mindful of his murderous welcome home, 
 Thought to look down from solitary heights 
 On human treacheries, and so preferred 
 An Eagle's eyrie to a second throne. 
 And many a Soul I saw of bird and beast, 
 Spurred by ambition, eagerly seek out 
 Some form of our man's life, and stalk aside 
 Ruffling with pride, like children o'er a gift 
 Of some new puppet. 
 
 " At the end there came 
 Godlike Odysseus, wisest when on Earth, 
 And wiser now; so chanced it, he had drawn 
 The latest number; long he went about, 
 Sad, cautious, pondering slow the myriad fates 
 That lay unclaimed, till, well content, he found 
 One which a thousand hands had cast aside, 
 Promising home, and undisturbed repose, 
 With cheerful wife and laughing children dowered, 
 And a mind lighted by the guiding lamps 
 Of virtue and serene philosophy.
 
 
 24 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 He chose it, and with meditative eyes 
 That neither told of sorrow nor of joy, 
 But rather of a soul well schooled by fortune, 
 He turned to follow the retiring bands. 

 
 Er of Pamphylia 2 5 
 
 CANTO IV 
 
 " ^^ UCH changes in the general rush of change 
 ^-^ My growing wonder and compassion stirred ; 
 Might, meanness, just and unjust, human, brute, 
 Kingship, rusticity, the minstrel's harp, 
 The warrior's spear, obscurity, and fame, 
 Surrendered, seized, but all confused and strange; 
 Peril, exultant, clapped her noiseless wings, 
 And smiled her baleful smile unseen, to see 
 Mad-cap Desire at war with sober Doubt, 
 Haste vanquishing Good Counsel with a sneer, 
 And Folly shouldering Wisdom everywhere. 
 
 " Once more in order trooped they to the chair 
 Of Lachesis, who sang her Siren chaunt 
 Unmoved, while she assigned to each a guide 
 And guardian, who should bear him on his way 
 To the new life, and make his choice secure. 
 These led their charges under Clotho's arm, 
 And 'neath the whirling motion of the whorls, 
 And thence to where the spinster Atropos
 
 26 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 Sat, who bade all to pass before the throne 
 
 Of her whom e'en these sisters three obey, 
 
 And Gods and men, supreme Necessity: 
 
 So was their choice made irreversible, 
 
 Ard doom self-chosen beyond redemption sealed. 
 
 " Soon all had passed — and I had followed 
 them — 
 To take their way over an arid plain, 
 Called of Forgetfulness, where no tree grew, 
 Nor shade was there, nor mitigating wind, 
 But all the soil was bleached and burned with heat 
 Unbearable; all day we journeyed on, 
 While deeper still and deeper, with the hours, 
 Their silence grew ; till at the last no sound 
 Of wailing, exultation, or content, 
 Rose from their listless ranks; they moved as men 
 In whom the mind is dead, and hope, and fear, 
 And memory, with all thought of outward things, 
 Who neither wake, nor sleep, nor dream, but move 
 Like cattle over sands where no food is. 
 
 "So o'er these plains, well styled, they mutely 
 went, 
 Until at fall of evening, we drew near 
 The brink of a slow river, named for me
 
 Er of ' Pamphylia 27 
 
 Th' Unmindful Stream; no vessel dipped therein 
 
 Comes up the fuller, such a property 
 
 Have its elusive waters that they brook 
 
 Nor capture nor restraint, but straight flow back 
 
 Rebellious; only herded souls like those, 
 
 Whose fate it is, may drink thereof, and they 
 
 Must take their measure from the mother flood. 
 
 " These then, by overmastering instinct swayed, 
 Bent down, perforce, and drank; some overmuch, 
 From thirst engendered of their drouthy march ; 
 On them a swift oblivion of things past 
 Fell absolute, while such as wisely held 
 Their craving, like unbroken hounds, in leash, 
 And only drank submissive to the law, 
 Took back with them to Earth that blessed gift — 
 Albeit but dim and in rare moments felt — 
 Of Recollection, from the glistening realms 
 Where all the Substances of Truth and Life 
 And Nature, in perfection unassailed, 
 Whereof this world of ours hath but the show 
 And shadow, are laid up for evermore. 
 
 "So drew we to the hours that had been night, 
 Had this unlovely plain and voiceless stream 
 Been earthly; but they passed unchanging by,
 
 2 8 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 While I sat pining for the moon and stars, 
 And all around and far that fated crowd 
 Lay in a common torpor steeped and dumb. 
 Upon my wakeful soul a sense of change 
 Had long lain heavy, growing to a dread 
 Of more than vastness born and solitude, 
 When, in a moment, while I mused, and thought 
 1 Now it is midnight upon Earth, now rides 
 The full Moon in the radiant South, and mounts 
 With Saturn in her wake,' Lo, sudden peals 
 Louder than thunder, and long quaking throes, 
 Such as they feel, rending the tortured Earth, 
 Who stand upon those fierce Phlegraean plains 
 That breathe perpetual fumes of smoke and flame. 
 Staggering I gazed around; I was alone; 
 Nor crowd, nor warders ; but the air was full 
 Of glinting sparks that flashed and fell in pairs, 
 As flash and fall those stars that throng at whiles 
 Our winter skies ; but, even while I gazed, 
 All vanished, and I seemed myself to fade, 
 And know no more than this, that I am here." 
 
 He ceased, and slowly sinking on the couch 
 Lay with his face upturned; none spake to him;
 
 Er of Pamphylia 29 
 
 The marvel of his mission and his tale, 
 
 And reverence for one whose chosen soul 
 
 Had looked on th' adamantine gates of Heaven, 
 
 Hedged him with splendour; 'twas as they had 
 
 seen 
 A living God stand at his temple doors; 
 An awe, surpassing worship, fell on them, 
 Holding them motionless and mute; but he, 
 Fainter, and paler unto whiteness grew; 
 One whispered word parted his lips, ' Farewell,' 
 And ere they closed again his soul had flown; 
 His eyes were fixed, his palms extended lay; 
 And all men knew that this was death indeed. 
 
 Oh ye, of all the mighty Dead wellnigh 
 The mightiest, the latchet of whose shoes 
 I am not worthy to unloose, forgive me, 
 
 That I have dared to light my puny lamp 
 
 1 
 
 At the far rays of that particular Star, 
 
 Which, for the gazer who uplifts his eyes 
 
 To feast them in the heavens of poesy, 
 
 With your associate splendour seems to shine. 
 
 Great Shades, I would not have you frown on me; 
 
 What I have done was done in reverence,
 
 30 Er of Pamphylia 
 
 Not vanity, nor of presumptuous pride, 
 
 Like theirs of old, those braggart revellers, 
 
 Who, feasting in the Odyssean halls, 
 
 Essayed with impious and reckless hands 
 
 To bend the flouted Hero's fatal bow; 
 
 Nor his, that Chaldee monarch, who dared pour 
 
 Libations foul to Bel and Ashtaroth 
 
 From vessels hallowed at Jehovah's shrine. 
 
 On them swift vengeance and confusion fell, 
 
 And courted doom ; not like to them, Great Shades, 
 
 Am I, who fain would have your pardon here ; 
 
 No mocker I, but your true worshipper; 
 
 I do not lift the head, but bend the knee 
 
 On this the outer verge of your domain, 
 
 In loyalty, and lowliness, and love.
 
 HOMMAGES
 
 33 
 
 A CHARLES D'ORLEANS 
 
 H^HE Spring has wisely cast away 
 •*■ Her weeds of cold and wind and rain, 
 And now betakes herself again 
 Unto the Sun for her array; 
 
 No beast on mead or bird on spray 
 But in their fashion swell the strain, 
 
 The Spring has wisely cast away 
 
 Her weeds of cold and wind and rain. 
 
 And fount and stream on bosoms gay 
 Flaunt, as they flow by hill and plain, 
 Their answer to the glad refrain 
 
 In myriad gems of silver gray, 
 
 The Spring has wisely cast away 
 
 Her weeds of cold and wind and rain 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 A MARCELINE DESBORDES- 
 VALMORE 
 
 "\ T AY, write no more, for I am sad, and fain 
 ■*- ' To fade, like Eros with his torch outblown ; 
 Without thy light my summers are all gloom; 
 Mine arms, that strove to clasp thy form in vain, 
 Are closed; my heart is void as well as lone; 
 To strike it now were but to strike a tomb: 
 Nay, write no more! 
 
 Our lesson is to learn to die apart; 
 
 But meanwhile ask of God and thine own soul, 
 If in the past I have not worshipped thee; 
 For me, I dare proclaim that through my heart 
 Such echoes underneath thy silence roll 
 As tell of Heavens where I shall never be : 
 Nay, write no more! 
 
 Ah no ! I fear thy letters as I fear 
 
 My memory, which keeps thy voice's tone 
 And lets it call me back despite my will ;
 
 H omtnages 35 
 
 Those characters, so well known and so dear, 
 Were springs to one athirst in mockery shown, 
 Or portraits drawn with life enough to kill: 
 Nay, write no more ! 
 
 No more, no more! Not e'en that single word, 
 So sweet, which now I should not dare to see, 
 Which ne'er brake through the sparkle of thy 
 smiles ; 
 But would take shape and sound, as if I heard 
 The deluge of thy voice engulphing me, 
 And even felt thy branding kiss at whiles: 
 Then, write no more!
 
 36 
 
 A ALFRED DE MUSSET 
 
 FAREWELL! Fate calls thee only; here 
 below 
 'Twere best that we should never meet again; 
 For now that I am losing thee I know 
 
 How thorough hath my love been and how vain. 
 
 No tears, no sighs ! I pay the reverence 
 Becoming to thy future and to mine; 
 
 I hail the Bark that is to bear thee hence, 
 And smile to see her sails affront the brine. 
 
 A cargo of rich hope she bears with thee, 
 
 And freighted deep with pride will she return; 
 
 But little meed for my lone misery, 
 Forgotten, as I shall be, shall I earn. 
 
 Thou goest forth in thrall unto a dream, 
 In quest of perilous joys; I see arise 
 
 Above thy course a star whose baleful gleam 
 Too long shall misdirect thy spell-bound eyes.
 
 Hommagcs 37 
 
 A day may dawn to teach thee truer things; 
 
 How much is meant when spirits meet their kind, 
 I low sphered a fulness their conjunction brings, 
 
 How deep a void their cleavage leaves behind.
 
 3* 
 
 A MONTENACKEN 
 
 BRIEF is Life's spell; 
 We love awhile, 
 We hate awhile; 
 And say — 'Farewell!' 
 
 Vain 'tis and slight; 
 We hope awhile, 
 We dream awhile; 
 
 And then—' Good Night ! 
 
 Tis of such stuff 
 
 As Fate doth make it, 
 As such we take it, 
 
 And — 'tis enough.
 
 A BRAGA 
 
 SERENADE 
 
 LOVE, leave me not, I pray thee do not 
 leave me! 
 Not for the pain of my lost love alone, 
 But that thy treason, shouldst thou thus deceive 
 me, 
 Would smirch the halo faith hath round thee 
 thrown. 
 Tis in thine honour's suit that I implore thee, 
 
 Not in mine own, I swear it, not in mine; 
 I could love on, though ceasing to adore thee — 
 
 But what thy lapse to cease to be divine ! 
 Ah, fall not thou; the stars would fall with thee, 
 
 And gemless Night mourn, unredeemed, in jet; 
 And Winter, to his iron will left free, 
 
 The Spring at all her porches would beset; 
 Night's lamps, Day's sun, Spring's resurrection, wait 
 From thine imperial lips their common fate.
 
 4 o 
 
 A MOZART 
 
 CONCERTO IN G 
 
 SWEET floods of sound, far mightier than 
 speech, 
 
 Why have ye ceased to pour into my soul? 
 Ye plumbed a void no words could ever reach, 
 
 Why could ye not, sweet floods, for ever roll? 
 Your message was a volume measureless, 
 
 And I lay lapped as in mellifluous fire, 
 Surrendered to its conquering tenderness, 
 
 More vague than dream, and vaster than desire. 
 Ye called a truce 'twixt froward destiny 
 
 And me, who so long time had been at war; 
 I hailed the respite for eternity, 
 
 Yet soon, alas, all was as heretofore ; 
 A hope ye draped, too sweet for mockery, 
 Though warrantless, of what might never be. 
 
 Ye faded and ye left me to my fast; 
 
 My long lone fast, too speedily renewed,
 
 Hommages 41 
 
 Boding a future leaner than the past, 
 
 And your chance feast was but an interlude. 
 I rate it none the less for being brief; 
 
 The rose doth not contemn her perished flower, 
 Nor the gaunt oak the memory of his leaf, 
 
 Nor I the fulness of that priceless hour. 
 Sweet sounds, I know that ye were born to die, 
 
 And leave the void ye plenished once more 
 bare; 
 I am all gratitude, I do but sigh 
 
 That what I garnered was as perfumed air 
 Which passeth, leaving naught save to have known 
 How moments may for barren days atone. 
 
 Music, thy bland deceptive ironies 
 
 Can oust pale grief from her inheritance, 
 As leathern discs from some lost Bedouin's eyes 
 
 Can blot the desert's pitiless expanse, 
 E'en though it be but for a little space ; 
 
 The discs may tremble from his nerveless hands, 
 And give his tanned and sorely rifted face 
 
 Back to the torture of the burning sands; 
 But not the less, the while he held them there, 
 
 Saw he behind the shield of their frail shade,
 
 42 Hommages 
 
 In dreams each boon of an Oasis fair, 
 
 Date-palm and water-pool and grassy glade; 
 So I through sound, as 'neath that shadow he, 
 Won salvage from time's grounded argosy.
 
 A PIERRE DE RONSARD 
 
 WHEN thou art old, and sittest in the 
 gloaming 
 
 Hands folded, in the half-light of thy fire, 
 And when, perchance, thy fancies may fly roaming 
 
 Back to the lost notes of a broken lyre, 
 While he who touched it may have long lain sleeping 
 
 Far in his forest graveyard cased and bound, 
 Where oak and elm their common watch are keeping 
 
 O'er him and poorer village-folk around; 
 It may be thou shalt sigh, 'If he ne'er told me, 
 
 Was it that I myself would ne'er be told? 
 If so, what did I suffer to withhold me? 
 
 Or was it his to speak or to withhold ? 
 Or his or mine, alone I live to say 
 Why did we fling life's latest rose away? '
 
 44 
 
 RIPOSTE A RONSARD 
 
 ~\ 7[ THEN I am gone, and thou hast long been 
 * * living, 
 
 Alone, upon thy forest-girdled hill, 
 And memories, unforgetting, unforgiving, 
 
 Cling to thee, like a poisoned mantle, still; 
 And when that ' rose' too timorously cherished, 
 
 From life's dead garden hath long disappeared, 
 And search would show thee but how both have 
 perished, 
 
 The scents that drew us, and the thorns we 
 feared ; 
 It may be thou shalt muse, and sigh in musing, 
 
 ' Too late ! What would I now not give to know 
 That which, unknown, is loss of mine own losing, 
 
 And makes these years so barren and so slow; 
 The fault was neither in her heart nor mine; 
 Why did I let her pass, and make no sign? '
 
 LYRICAL PIECES
 
 47 
 
 LATE SPRING 
 
 A RT thou not long in coming, 
 ■* *■ Oh Spring, my Spring? 
 Is it not time I heard 
 
 The beat of thy wing? 
 
 And found a tell-tale footprint, 
 
 Some Arum's frill, 
 Snowdrop, or Daphne bells, 
 
 Or shaft of Jonquil? 
 
 Was I not wont to win thee 
 
 Just for one day, 
 E'en if the angry winds 
 
 Forbade thee to stay? 
 
 Call on the West, thy comrade, 
 
 Bid him come forth, 
 Drive back thy chiding foe, 
 
 To howl to his North.
 
 48 Late Spring 
 
 What if I know thy visits 
 
 Stolen and vain, 
 Until the last link snap 
 
 Of Winter's long chain, 
 
 Yet welcome be whenever 
 Thou canst break through; 
 
 Sweet are blown kisses, though 
 Far sent and too few. 

 
 49 
 
 TWO VOICES 
 
 "A Dicu, pagniers, vendanges sont faictes. " 
 
 Montluc, "Comedie de l'roverbes. " 
 
 First Voice 
 
 SING no more, for the chestnuts are garnered, 
 Ripe maize-bunches are red in the sun, 
 Filled are the barns, and the vats overflowing; 
 Lay by your baskets, the vintage is done. 
 
 Gone for awhile are the merry mornings, 
 Hum of the noontide heard from the shade, 
 
 Songs of the mid-day meal, and the laughter 
 Loitering home along lane and glade. 
 
 Sigh no sighs, though the skirts of November 
 Scantily border the lines of her noon, 
 
 Welcome her, leading her wintry Sisters, 
 Bearers of many a sober boon. 
 
 Turn to the pleasures of hearth and homestead, 
 Brief days' toil in the field and the byre, 
 
 E
 
 50 Two Voices 
 
 Thrice-told tales over loom and distaff; 
 Needles plied in the light of the fire. 
 
 Second Voice 
 Well may ye for whom life is keeping 
 
 Wealth in her summers and autumns yet, 
 Hopes of the seed time, joys of the harvest, 
 
 Turn to your winter with light regret ! 
 
 What know ye of the mighty Reaper's 
 Sickle that scorneth a single year, 
 
 Faith's long failing, and love's long waning, 
 Chills that no hearth-fire's glow may cheer. 
 
 What unto you is the sum of the Winter? 
 
 Earlier eves and a lagging of dawns, 
 Heavier veils over sunrise and sundown, 
 
 Carpet of rime upon close-fed lawns; 
 
 Hearts there are unto whom her coming 
 Telleth anew of the joys that are gone, 
 
 Hearts that hear, with a pang for echo, 
 'Lay all by, for the vintage is done?'
 
 5* 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH 
 
 LOCH HOURN, 1905 
 
 THOUGH o'er your wastes insatiate shadows 
 roll, 
 Ye dark lands beaten by the Northern Sea, 
 Ye make the joy of many a yearning soul, 
 And for their sakes should be a joy to me, 
 
 And though perchance to wrest a Southern lyre 
 To such wild measures as become the wild, 
 
 Were vainer than to seek for Comet fires 
 In Planets dowered with a radiance mild, 
 
 I might have sung you, ye gaunt solitudes, 
 As one who loved your menaces of doom, 
 
 And have made pastime of the death that broods 
 With shifting pinions in your mist and gloom; 
 
 But breaking on my thought, in mocking guise, 
 As though ye ne'er were aught but bland and gay, 
 
 Ye spread broad charms to the September skies, 
 Brighter than gardens pranked for holiday.
 
 52 North and South 
 
 An eagle soars above yon high white cloud, 
 His path is mirrored in these waters clear, 
 
 Bold seagulls round our bows expectant crowd, 
 And couched among the bracken dream the deer. 
 
 There's scarce a colour lacking to the scene; 
 
 Young pines are blue above the golden fern, 
 The purple heather lingers, birks are green, 
 
 And scarlet rowan-bunches bask and burn; 
 
 Swart sycamores are flaring in the sun, 
 
 The chiselled quartz is gleaming like a gem, 
 
 White streamlets foam between their alders dun 
 Down to the thirsty lake that craves for them. 
 
 " Ah well, ah well, howe'er thou dost protest," 
 Cries the pert Landscape, " I shall win thee yet ; 
 
 These brows of mine, so delicately drest, 
 Are they not worthy thy love's coronet? 
 
 "Accept me as I am; Content thee; See, 
 My moods but fret the surface of my sky; 
 
 There is a bond of kin 'twixt thee and me, 
 
 Thou hast more nights and days of gloom than I.
 
 North and SoutJi 5 3 
 
 " Dcsirest thou a human love? Be sure 
 
 It waits thee somewhere in these Highland glades, 
 
 No Southern heart beats truer or more pure 
 Than the brave pulses of our Northern maids." 
 
 Nay, nay, thou wayward child of change and chance, 
 I will not gaze again on thy false eyes, 
 
 Nor barter one sweet name's significance 
 For thee and thine untoward inconstancies. 
 
 Yet, wert thou not a wanton of the air, 
 No Northern pulses should set mine astir; 
 
 My heart is in the South, my Lady there; 
 So fare thee well, I go to it and Her.
 
 54 
 
 ALOFT 
 
 ALOFT to his mate in the Aether 
 An eagle called on the wing; 
 A proud pine leaned to his consort, 
 And sang as their proudest sing; 
 
 Aloft in the halls of the sunset, 
 
 High over the shades of the wold, 
 Gold cloudlets beamed on the purple, 
 And they smiled back on the gold ; 
 
 Aloft upon answering pinions 
 We rose, and we floated awhile, 
 
 Disdainful of earth and of all things 
 We frowned on as earthlike and vile ; 
 
 One eagle has stooped to her eyrie, 
 There stands but one desolate pine, 
 
 The clouds are all gray in their gloaming, 
 And I am alone in mine.
 
 55 
 
 BEHIND SILENCE 
 
 FROM multitudinous notes of Nature's Psalm, 
 There swells a ceaseless sound that underlies 
 The seeming silence of the deepest calm 
 
 That ever lulled the earth or steeped the skies ; 
 
 No common outburst, like some human cry, 
 
 The solitary worker's song, or hail 
 From plough or waggon to a passer-by 
 
 Along the upland road that skirts his dale; 
 
 Nor like the emulous quire of nesting birds, 
 Or hum of the hive's plodding choristers, 
 
 Or bleat of lambs, or low of answering herds, 
 Or the wind's love-song in the silver firs; 
 
 These are the chords of a symphonic tone 
 Beyond the recognition of our sense, 
 
 Inaudible together, as alone, 
 
 But no less vast for our incompetence;
 
 56 Behind Silence 
 
 The careful forge of grass-blades stroke by stroke, 
 The tightening of her tendrils by the vine, 
 
 The scaling of the bark on secular oak, 
 
 And burst of resinous seams all up the pine; 
 
 The late snows as they melt from mountain crowns, 
 The glacier grinding at its granite bands, 
 
 E'en the slow crumbling of the placid downs, 
 And soft subsidence of the fresh-turned lands; 
 
 The timid spread of the furled lily's leaf, 
 The chip of the young linnet in its shell, 
 
 The corals working at their chambered reef, 
 The squirrel shaking off his winter spell; 
 
 Each yearn, each throb, of life, and growth, and 
 change, 
 
 Lends its own voice to swell one mystic whole, 
 A diapason of transcendent range, 
 
 Mute to man's ear, but music in his soul. 
 
 So looking on a hill-side in the haze, 
 
 'Tis through the vision of the mind alone
 
 Behind Silence 57 
 
 We reach the splendours of its compound blaze 
 From moss and herb, leaf, bloom, and sparkling 
 stone; 
 
 So too, the watcher of humanity 
 
 May of her plainer sounds the sharer be, 
 
 Her song, or sob, for joy or misery, 
 
 Her echo of great deeds o'er land and sea; 
 
 But who can catch the infant tones of truth, 
 Right's lisping, the low snarl of baffled wrong, 
 
 And whispered working-songs of love and ruth, 
 That make the marvel of her undersong?
 
 58 
 
 COMET AND STAR 
 
 IN the seat of his desolate splendour 
 A lone star planetless rolled, 
 Around him the voids of the Aether 
 Spread measureless, dark, and cold. 
 
 And he sighed in the sough of his tempests, 
 As a king might sigh on his throne, 
 
 At the fate that was his for ever 
 To be poised in the heavens alone. 
 
 For the fires of his heart were idle, 
 And barren his fountains of light, 
 
 In the dearth of a planet's welcome 
 From the deeps of the Aether night. 
 
 But he saw, as he sighed, in the darkness, 
 
 Set faint 'mid a hazy zone, 
 A speck, as of pallid silver, 
 
 Whence rays flashed back to his own ;
 
 Comet and Star 59 
 
 And the speck grew a portent of beauty, 
 
 With a train of a million miles, 
 With robes, as the robes of a seraph, 
 
 And beams, as a woman's smiles. 
 
 And, swifter and ever swifter 
 
 She swept to the happy star, 
 And nearer and ever nearer, 
 
 But ever a world too far; 
 
 And stronger and ever stronger 
 
 The spell by which each was drawn, 
 
 She straining as Dawn to the Noontide, 
 He Noontide on fire for the Dawn. 
 
 He brightened the heart of the Comet 
 With all that he had that was bright, 
 
 She lightened the lot of the lone Star 
 With all that she had that was light. 
 
 Too brief was their sojourn together, 
 She circled, and passed him again; 
 
 The Star would have bartered his glories 
 To touch but the hem of her train.
 
 60 Co?nct and Star 
 
 And he sighed out his heart as she left him, 
 'Sweet Wayfarer, wherefore away? 
 
 Are not these Heavens enough for thee? 
 O stay, fair Wanderer, stay ! ' 
 
 But she, without pause or token, 
 Swept back into Aether the while, 
 
 And faint grew her robes of a seraph, 
 And fainter her woman's smile. 
 
 He watched till she passed into darkness, 
 
 A speck 'mid a hazy zone, 
 And left him to desolate splendour 
 
 In his heaven, again graceless and lone. 
 
 Will she come in her silvery beauty, 
 With her smile and her gleaming hair, 
 
 Once more through those voids of the Aether 
 To the lone star waiting her there?
 
 6i 
 
 LOVE'S TESTAMENT 
 
 THINK not, my love, that I would have thee 
 fade 
 
 Because my bones are rotting underground, 
 Or have thy beauty's sunshine turn to shade 
 
 Reflected from the tomb where I lie bound; 
 Wear thou no weeds to match my winding-sheet, 
 
 Forego no graces for my graceless state, 
 Live on, forget me, let thy life be sweet, 
 
 'Tis not for it death's bitterness to mate; 
 Life is thy lord and thou within his power, 
 
 The treason of regret he counts a crime, 
 His office bearer to thy latest hour, 
 
 Thy duties are to live in tune with time; 
 Grow garden roses scentless or less gay 
 Though some who may have loved them pass 
 away?
 
 62 
 
 RETIREMENT 
 
 A LITTLE Goldfinch sang to me 
 ■*- *■ ' Hedge grow bare and herbage sallow! 
 What singing bird could happier be? 
 
 No more pecking on the fallow! 
 
 ' My heart is light, my cage is new, 
 Hedge grow bare and herbage sallow ! 
 
 I've lots of seed and sugar too; 
 No more pecking on the fallow ! 
 
 ' From perch to perch I hop and sing, 
 Hedge grow bare and herbage sallow! 
 
 And clean my beak and preen my wing; 
 No more pecking on the fallow ! 
 
 1 1 chirp through half the summer day, 
 Hedge grew bare and herbage sallow ! 
 
 While on my bars the sunbeams play; 
 No more pecking on the fallow !
 
 Retirement 63 
 
 • And when the winter firelight glows, 
 Hedge grow bare and herbage sallow ! 
 
 I puff my breast and blink and doze; 
 No more pecking on the fallow! 
 
 ' Time was I had to flit and push, 
 
 Hedge grow bare and herbage sallow ! 
 
 Through grassy tuft or thorny bush ; 
 No more pecking on the fallow! 
 
 ■ Half famished, and right glad to feed, 
 Hedge grow bare and herbage sallow ! 
 
 On raw green bud or half ripe seed; 
 No more pecking on the fallow! 
 
 1 And when the chill nights fell, to find, 
 Hedge grow bare and herbage sallow! 
 
 Some corner sheltered from the wind; 
 No more pecking on the fallow ! 
 
 1 Now droughty Summer, barren Spring, 
 Hedge grow bare and herbage sallow ! 
 
 Or Winter drear no terrors bring; 
 No more pecking on the fallow !
 
 64 Retirement 
 
 1 The circling months unmoved I see, 
 Hedge grow bare and herbage sallow ! 
 
 All seasons are alike to me; 
 
 No more pecking on the fallow ! '
 
 65 
 
 IN A SHRUBBERY WALK 
 
 'I ~X 7INDS arc blowing and rain is falling, 
 ' ■ What unto me are the winds and the rain ! 
 
 Perched on a pine-bough a Robin is calling, 
 As he is wont, but he calleth in vain. 
 
 Call he will till a curve in the laurels 
 
 Hides me out of his angry view; 
 Robin and I have had many quarrels, 
 
 Founded, I fear, on my folly for you. 
 
 Loftily chirrups he, "Why, why bring her? 
 
 She is a veil between thee and us all; 
 Here with thee, ever she bids thee sing her; 
 
 Gone, she leaveth thee under a pall, 
 
 Dead unto all of us; oh, forget her, 
 One slight woman for our sweet world; 
 
 Is not the young year's coronal better? 
 
 What are her plumes and her throat bepearled? " 
 
 F
 
 66 In a Shrubbery Walk 
 
 Robin, oh Robin, I should not hear thee, 
 But for the fact that thy lady is there, 
 
 Quilted and warm in the ivy near thee 
 Making thee saucy and debonair. 
 
 Sing me a song with a touch of sadness, 
 So will I turn to thy calling again; 
 
 Bitter as pain is the gall of gladness 
 
 Poured upon hearts that are bitter with pain.
 
 67 
 
 TRAGEDY 
 
 AFOOR soul sat sighing, sighing, sadly sighed 
 she, 
 1 Ah would, ah would that slumber might come 
 unto me.' 
 
 A child was in the cradle she rocked with her 
 
 hand, 
 A little child lay sleeping there rosy and bland ; 
 
 But the poor soul kept sighing, sighing, sorely 
 
 sighed she, 
 ' Ah would to God that slumber might come unto 
 
 me.' 
 
 'They have said that thy mother, child, was fair 
 
 as art thou, 
 But false thy father was to her, child, who watcheth 
 
 thee now.'
 
 68 Tragedy 
 
 And again she fell sighing, sighing, sorely sighed 
 
 she, 
 'Sleep on, and would such slumber could come 
 
 unto me.' 
 
 From the bed where they laid her she ne'er rose 
 
 again, 
 To tend her rival's orphan and sigh out her pain ; 
 
 For the poor soul lay dying, dying, gladly died she, 
 Saying, 'Death, thou art the slumber God sends 
 unto me.'
 
 6 9 
 
 MAK SICKER! 
 
 ANG stayed he 'neath her bower eaves, 
 -■— 4 And lang he tirlit at the pin, 
 Wi' Art thou there, O love of mine, 
 Wilt thou no' rise and let me in? 
 
 Go, get thee back to whence ye cam', 
 
 Thy Lady wife waits in thy ha', 
 To her thy lifelong faith is sworn, 
 
 To her and to her bairnies twa. 
 
 Though I be wed to an Earl's daughter, 
 And nae kirk bond may bind us twain, 
 
 I'll carry thee off, for weel I lo'e thee, 
 And trow thou lo'est me weel again. 
 
 Na, na, young Lord, ye're nought to me, 
 
 I tak' it ill that thou art come; 
 I wad na' grant thee love for love 
 
 For a' the gowd in Christendom :
 
 70 Mak Sicker! 
 
 My heart is \vi' mine honour bound, 
 But gin it brast its bars for thee, 
 
 I would na' be fause to anither woman, 
 Nor gi'e ye a chance to lichtlie me. 
 
 I swear I wadna' lichtlie thee, 
 
 But love and cherish thee for aye; 
 
 So, Alice, come thou doun to me, 
 We'll be far off by break of day. 
 
 I'll speak nae word the mair, my Lord ; 
 
 Sae swear nae oaths, but get thee hame; 
 I'm but a simple country maid 
 
 That hauds a' cheaper than her gude name. 
 
 For shame he bowed his comely head, 
 And turned and gat him doun the brae, 
 
 He loosed his steed frae the wood wicket, 
 And slowly rade on his homeward way. 
 
 To see him gane she greeted sair, 
 
 And clenched her hands, and cried, Alack ! 
 Oh Mary, Mither o' God, befriend me, 
 
 Lest I rin doun and ca' him back !
 
 Mak Sicker! 71 
 
 Then counsel teuk her twa brithcrs, 
 Maun he no' dee, yon fu' fause chield? 
 
 He'll bye be tempting our ae' sister, 
 
 And shame were ours an' she suld yield. 
 
 VVi' haste they gat in the front o' him, 
 As he rade slowly through the wood ; 
 
 They hewed the houghs of the gray palfrey, 
 And washed their knives in his rider's bluid. 
 
 Now what is this that dyes your hands, 
 And wha 's the red bluid on your knives, 
 
 And why wear ye the awsome looks 
 Of men in dread o' their ain lives? 
 
 Oh it is bluid of a gude gray steed 
 But and the bluid of his rider too; 
 
 We dursed na' spare to slay yon man 
 Lest he should gi'e thee cause to rue. 
 
 Sae gang and fetch the meat and wine, 
 And gi'e us joy o' our bluidy hands, 
 
 And say a prayer for thy twa brithers 
 Who flee this night into ither lands.
 
 72 Mak Sicker! 
 
 Tis I will bring ye meat and wine, 
 And water to wash your bluidy hands, 
 
 And pray for ye, spite of a' ye've done, 
 Whiles ye are biding in ither lands. 
 
 Though ye hae slain a youth more gudely 
 Than your twa sels, ah, wae is me, 
 
 'Twas I that tauld him I did na lo'e him, 
 He gat his death frae my cruel lee. 
 
 Though life be bitter, and shame be heavy, 
 I wot his loss is waur than a' 
 
 That I had tholed, gin I had listened, 
 And let him carry me far awa. 
 
 But Mary, Mither, ye'll pardon me, 
 I ken na' what I wad say or feel; 
 
 For I am stricken to death, sweet Mither, 
 Nae less than he by my brithers' steel.
 
 DEBITA FLACCO
 
 DEBITA FLACCO 
 THE BORE 
 
 " Ibam forte Vid Sacrd " 
 IIor. Sat. I. 9. 
 
 AT 5.10 on the 23rd of June, 
 As is my custom of an afternoon, 
 A little weary, meditative, slow, 
 I strolled up Piccadilly towards the ' Row.' 
 When suddenly, ere I had time to see 
 If Hell or any Club were near to me, 
 I found my arm pumphandled up and down 
 By One I think the greatest bore in town. 
 " My dear old chap," the coarse-tongued idiot 
 
 cried — 
 I gulped this down, Heaven knows what I replied — 
 "How are you? Worked to death? We all are. Ay? 
 I never get a moment in the day! 
 I seldom meet you now; like me, no doubt, 
 You've been obliged to give up dining out?" 
 Here I felt most outrageously inclined, 
 As vulgar people do, to speak my mind;
 
 7 6 The Bore 
 
 And say, ' What, oh unmitigated bore, 
 
 Think you, God gave me my digestion for! 
 
 And shall I not employ the precious boon 
 
 According to the Donor's wishes, loon? 
 
 For you, if ever like the rift in lute 
 
 Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, 
 
 As sings our Tennyson, you've marred good fare, 
 
 Or vexed good company by being there, 
 
 'Twas ill, but it is over ; fare you well ; 
 
 But quit the Town from Hyde Park to Pall Mall; 
 
 At one place only you're no longer able 
 
 To stir mild bloods, and that 's the Dinner Table.' 
 
 But tyrant manners kept me meek and mute 
 
 While he ran on, the galling little brute; 
 
 "Do you write now? You know I always thought, 
 
 In spite of all the critics, you had caught 
 
 A coal from off the altar, on the whole; 
 
 It might be small perhaps, but still a coal. 
 
 The day may come when some one I could name 
 
 May call attention " — Here I felt on flame, 
 
 And should have blazed, but 'fire will drive out 
 
 fire,' 
 As fools say Bacon sang to Shakespeare's lyre;
 
 The Bore yy 
 
 He linked his arm in mine! The action quenched 
 
 My rage at once; I own I fairly blenched 
 
 Before the thought that he would proudly show 
 
 Me as his captive to the gasping ' Row.' 
 
 "Where were you going when we met?" said he; 
 
 " Let's to the Gardens for a cup of tea." 
 
 At this I swore a silent oath or two, 
 
 For that was just what I was going to do; 
 
 And above all things wanted to be free 
 
 To join a table which Augusta V. — 
 
 As I had every reason to feel sure — 
 
 Had sent her servant forward to secure. 
 
 So I, " I fear I can't; I've sworn to go 
 
 And sit with poor old Blank an hour or so; 
 
 He broke his leg, you know, the other day." 
 
 " Of course he did ! Well, Pont Street's in my way ; 
 
 I'll go and see him too. Poor, dear old man, 
 
 He 's chairman of the ' Phil-Athenian,' 
 
 And more than once has asked me to belong. 
 
 You're not a Member? Oh . . . then I was wrong 
 
 To mention this; don't peach on me I pray." 
 
 The small insufferable popinjay ! 
 
 He funks, thought I, because he saw me grin ; 
 
 Th' idea that Blank should want to bring him in!
 
 78 The Bore 
 
 We've heard that once the Roman Senate sat 
 
 Unmoved to see a Horse Chief Magistrate; 
 
 But though they brooked to hear their Consul neigh, 
 
 We well might shudder at this Donkey's bray ; 
 
 And after all, it may be safely said 
 
 Caligula's best Palfrey was well bred; 
 
 Besides, those Romans were a feeble lot, 
 
 Their Emperor too was mad, which Blank is not. 
 
 So mused I, he went lying on alone 
 
 About great people he could scarce have known; 
 
 And who were proud to scribble, so he said, 
 
 For some damned magazine he edited; 
 
 Until — I very much at odds with fate — 
 
 We got into the crowd at Apsley Gate. 
 
 There, all as sudden as had been my doom, 
 
 Salvation, like a sunbeam, pierced my gloom. 
 
 A Lady, no less powerful for good 
 
 Than she who sent the Mantuan to that wood 
 
 Where Dante wandered hopelessly astray, 
 
 Stept calm and resolute athwart our way. 
 
 Not over young was she, nor over slim, 
 
 But straight, clear-eyed, respectable, and trim, 
 
 And at the worst, quite good enough for him ; 
 
 Spite of red cheeks, and fringe, with hat atop
 
 The Bore 79 
 
 That spread its glories like a florist's shop. 
 
 Her " Hullo, Charley ! " set his face aflame — 
 
 I blest my stars that Charles was not my name — 
 
 I didn't stay to think who she might be, 
 
 Sister or wife 'twas all the same to me; 
 
 If wife, I hadn't got to bear the yoke; 
 
 And Bores, I take it, wive like other folk; 
 
 Or were she e'en what Politicians know 
 
 As " Minister without portfolio," 
 
 She was my Guardian Angel ; quick as thought 
 
 I seized upon my proffered freedom; caught 
 
 An honest Hansom Cabman's answering eye; 
 
 And drove off in a sort of ecstasy 
 
 To hear my little Torment vainly holloa 
 
 " Hi ! stop !" Sic me servaverat Apollo.
 
 8o 
 
 AN INVITATION 
 
 " Jam Veris comites." 
 
 IIOR. Od. IV. 12. 
 
 T T strikes me Spring has come at last, 
 ■*• The long East winds are overpast, 
 
 O'er Boldre's now unflooded marshes 
 The tall bog herbage is rising fast. 
 
 The birds are brisk, the squirrels brave, 
 The grass is long enough to wave, 
 
 This South West air is light and tender 
 As May can make it, when she turns suave. 
 
 Last night was still as nights can be, 
 And even warm enough for me 
 
 To lie with both my windows open, 
 And hear the song in a hawthorn tree 
 
 Of him whom Bards from earliest days 
 Have miscalled 'her' in all their lays; 
 
 But, he or she, last night's performance 
 Eludes my feeble attempts at praise.
 
 An Invitation Sr 
 
 In yon high mead across the stream 
 I see a " boucol" with his team, 
 
 And catch at whiles his cheery whistle, 
 Which sets me off on an idle dream 
 
 Of those old times when country boys, 
 In giving vent to vernal joys, 
 
 Instinct with song and native music, 
 Did something better than make a noise; 
 
 And, propt cross-legged against a tree, 
 Could wake an artless minstrelsy, 
 
 That pleased the God who loved the fleeces 
 And dark hillsides of their Arcady. 
 
 But 'twas not as the Bard of Spring 
 I just now set myself to sing; 
 
 I must confess my heart was harping 
 On this more common and homely string. 
 
 I find that May distinctly grows 
 A thirsty month just ere its close, 
 And saying this, I feel I say it, 
 By no means vainly, to one who knows 
 
 G
 
 82 An Invitation 
 
 How good a name good Clarets bear, 
 Above all wines that ever were, 
 
 For nursing hope and worry slaying, 
 And liquefaction of every care. 
 
 You know the 'ems'; the same Lafitte 
 Survives your faithful lips to greet, 
 
 Brannaire-Duluc, and Pichon-Longueville, 
 So — hang the Peers and old Lombard Street! 
 
 The cellar waits, nor asks your bard 
 For 'fine' or 'foregift' or 'reward,' 
 
 As, let us hope, not all in earnest, 
 Our Horace asked for his box of Nard. 
 
 Those days are gone — since Railways came 
 And turned the custom into shame — 
 
 When Hosts would look that Guests should bring 
 them 
 A stilton, basket of fish, or game. 
 
 Our ducks and chickens we aver 
 Are fit to tempt a Londoner; 
 
 We deem ourselves, considering all things, 
 Not badly off for a fishmonger.
 
 An Invitation 83 
 
 So l ve/ox venV\ Leave behind 
 All traces of an urban mind, 
 
 Your House of Lords, your Joint Stock Meetings, 
 And Balance Sheets of whatever kind. 
 
 I hold that you and I have won 
 The right to say 'our task is done,' 
 
 And you should follow my ensample 
 Henceforward only to work for fun. 
 
 The end we dread not draweth near ; 
 Whatever else be dim or clear, 
 
 The tonic for Old Age is fooling, 
 And I've a stock of the mixture here.
 
 8 4 
 
 SELF-INVITED 
 
 " Quantum distet ab fnac/io." 
 
 Hor. Od. in. 19. 
 
 HOW many millions off insolvency 
 Things like the 'Standard Bank,' though 
 doubtless sound, 
 Or 'London Water Board,' may really be, 
 You'd tell me in a moment, I'll be bound. 
 
 For figures in that hivelike brain of yours 
 
 Work far more kindly than my Hampshire bees, 
 
 Who don't seem keen to fill their waxy stores, 
 But, like our 'working-man,' are all for ease. 
 
 Poor souls, if they be idle, so am I; 
 
 Of work I feel as if I'd had my fill, 
 And watch the early summer days glide by 
 
 All placidly from this Vicarious Hill; 
 
 Where, lulled by breeze and beam, I cease to care 
 What Wellington would call 'a tupp'ny dam' 
 
 For Paris ferment, or for Berlin scare, 
 
 Or Russian Duma's most portentous sham.
 
 Self-invited 85 
 
 And I must own, too slack am I at whiles, 
 
 To watch the broth our own two Houses brew, 
 
 Or Joseph's traps, or Balfour's maiden wiles, 
 Or how the parson tribe may put the screw 
 
 On Mr. Birrell, or the sons of toil 
 
 Contrive to slap old Halsbury's hardy face, 
 
 And free the Unions from the legal coil 
 
 He bound about them in the Taff Vale case; 
 
 Nor am I, though I chance to hold some share 
 In one of London's biggest breweries, 
 
 Too anxious whether fate should smite or spare 
 The Public Houses and their licensees. 
 
 No; here 's a point I'm far more keen about; 
 
 What are your plans for the sixteenth of June? 
 Do you propose to be in town or out? 
 
 Or am I asking this a bit too soon? 
 
 And deem me not presumptuous if I 
 
 Propound, as you've encouraged me to do, 
 
 An Brooks's Club me capiat, aat si 
 Praebcres domum, if I asked you to.
 
 86 Self-invited 
 
 'Twould be a dull pretence, as well you know, 
 Were I to say the Club or Stratford Street 
 
 Were havens of like joy to me, although 
 In either case I fall upon my feet. 
 
 The old days of intrepid draughts are done, 
 With toasts to usher in the rising moon, 
 
 Survive the midnight, and salute the sun 
 In welcomes that outsang the larks of June. 
 
 Tis not the Muses who are i impares? 
 
 But we who are unequal to them now, 
 There's not a ' vates ' living but would freeze 
 
 With horror at nine Masnums in a row. 
 
 i o j 
 
 I doubt if e'en the Graces would concede 
 
 Their own sweet number, or, still more, would 
 deign 
 
 To smile on modern votaries who would plead 
 In the old l jnvat insanire* vein. 
 
 Yet do they leave us roses still to strew, 
 
 Soup, fish, a bird, one glass of '74, 
 Bright talk, free laughter, with a chosen few 
 
 Of those we wot of, and what need we more?
 
 *7 
 
 THE JILT 
 
 ..." Tu, magnorum numen lacsura deorum, 
 In verba jurabas mea; 
 
 Jolit ura med miiltuni virtute, Ncaera ; 
 Nam si quid in Flacco viri est 
 
 Nonferet assiduas potiori te dare nodes; 
 • ••••• 
 
 Nee semel offensae cede/ constantia formae. 
 
 At tu, quicunque es felicior, atque meo nunc 
 Superbus incedis ?nalo, 
 
 Eheu translatos alio vioerebis amores 
 Ast ego vicissim risero." 
 
 HOR. Epod. XV. 
 
 FAREWELL, thy halting soul already cowers; 
 Time with his armies hath affrighted thee; 
 I see thee shrink before the bristling hours 
 
 That head the cohort of the years to be. 
 Blush not, thou art but one of those who fail; 
 
 The story of thy lapse hath nothing new; 
 The many falter and the few prevail, 
 
 And thou art of the many, not the few. 
 I came without a right that I could plead, 
 
 I go, and have no plaint to leave behind,
 
 88 The Jilt 
 
 I held, but till it waned, for title-deed, 
 
 One planet phase of thy revolving mind; 
 And would not now thou shouldst remember me, 
 Lest I repent me that I set thee free. 
 
 There is that in thee which doth draw men's hearts; 
 
 A magic, as of sunlight upon flowers, 
 Which calls their perfume forth, and then departs 
 
 Sated, and leaves them, drained, to the night 
 hours. 
 I know that my supplanter shall arise, 
 
 That thou wilt circle round him for a while, 
 Then fade from him, and search in alien skies 
 
 For orbits new; it may be, with a smile, 
 That I shall see thee voyaging towards mine, 
 
 With purpose to refoot thy dance round me; 
 But not again, O vagrant, will I shine 
 
 In tame response to thine inconstancy: 
 Thou shalt but watch my soul its lone way taking, 
 Safe-guarded in a night of thine own making.
 
 8 9 
 
 TWO BULLIES 
 
 Persius et Rupilius redivivi. 
 
 HOR. Sat. i. 7. 
 
 (Just as was doubtless its Iloratian parallel, so the story 
 told here is absolutely authentic. It was given to me in 
 outline some forty-seven years ago by an old Australian 
 gentleman, whom I know to have been incapable in such 
 a matter either of invention or embroidery. Both of the 
 actors in it have been dead for many years, but I neverthe- 
 less withhold their names from a feeling of reserve which I 
 hope is justifiable, even though it be probable that only very 
 few of my readers will be old enough to recognize from 
 my sketch either or both of two very prominent, strongly 
 marked, and memorable personalities.] 
 
 HAD been reading Horace's quaint sketch 
 ■*■ Of that adroit and poisonous little wretch, 
 Whom he calls Persius the Greek, and how 
 An elementally tempestuous row 
 In one of Rome's Provincial Courts began 
 Between him and a well-known ruffian, 
 Rupilius of Praeneste, whose loud tongue 
 And large vocabulary, gained among 
 The Latian vineyards, roared down Grecian wit ; 
 And there came back to me, re-reading it,
 
 90 Two Bullies 
 
 An analogue from old Colonial life 
 
 Of those Augustan bravoes and their strife. 
 
 Two men mine were — how named I must not 
 say — 
 Each eminent in his especial way; 
 A scholar one, of genuine Oxford fame, 
 A Classic of the Classics, when that name, 
 With Mathematics for a consort meet, 
 Unfretted, filled our Academic Seat; 
 Ere yet of universities a score, 
 With mushroom schools as many, if not more, 
 Wherethrough a thousand hobnails yearly pass, 
 Had vulgarized that good old grade — 'First Class.' 
 Alas, he was a man of acid wit, 
 Unmeasured spleen, and heart of millstone grit; 
 One who must hate because he could not love, 
 Sparring all round, and never with a glove, 
 His one diversion to inflict a blow — 
 He rarely sought a friend, or lost a foe. 
 While ranged his bladed tongue, kept bitter still 
 From acrid founts of cynical ill-will, 
 What wonder if the plain Australian folk 
 Raged 'neath his wit's intolerable yoke,
 
 7 "wo Bullies 9 1 
 
 And Bar and Club and Parliament were crammed 
 With souls who had dared Hell to see him damned. 
 
 The other was pur sang a pioneer; 
 No trace of inborn graces, no veneer 
 Of culture; burly, rough in frame and mind, 
 But rich in wisdom of the coarse-grained kind; 
 The lord of many streams where countless flocks 
 Roamed, not o'er acres, but good 'ten mile blocks'; 
 A quiet man withal, on whom huge oaths 
 Sat negligently, like his ill-made clothes; 
 Relentless too, in quarrel as in trade, 
 No truce or scruple in the hands he played; 
 Nay, while his placid pulse beat on unstirred, 
 His pistol flashed hard on the umpire's word; 
 And if it did, and you were in the way, 
 Your heirs would benefit without delay; 
 And yet, 'twixt fear and liking, much in vogue, 
 Though three-parts savage, fire-eater, and rogue. 
 
 Small need to say when these encountered first 
 How lavishly the Pastoral Magnate curst, 
 Nor yet how soon 'twas widely understood 
 That he had sworn to have the Scholar's blood;
 
 92 Two Bullies 
 
 But here he failed; of all his foes alone 
 
 This Wit contemptuous lived, and held his own; 
 
 And Sydney laughed, well knowing how and why 
 
 Th' aggressor had achieved impunity. 
 
 'Twas thus; although to fighting disinclined 
 
 On 'general principles,' he was nearly blind; 
 
 And when invited, 'twas his simple plan 
 
 To say 'he could not see to shoot a man'; 
 
 A vain reply; the fashionable whim 
 
 Was but to get a chance of shooting him; 
 
 Yet it sufficed; he managed to retain 
 
 His skin intact from horsewhip and from cane; 
 
 The hardiest of his victims seemed to quail 
 
 Before a winter season spent in jail ; 
 
 Besides, all minor measures in their eyes 
 
 Smacked of the very meanest compromise ; 
 
 So, baffled, like the rest, the Magnate swore, 
 
 And thus relieved, yawned, and essayed no more. 
 
 One day, ' The Morning Herald ' on his knees, 
 He smoked in unimaginative ease, 
 Full of that peace which some strong men can glean 
 From all their deeds, no matter how unclean. 
 So have I watched, as though in blissful dream,
 
 Two Bill lies 93 
 
 Vesuvius heavenward innocently steam, 
 As if no havoc in its heart were stored, 
 And lava floods were things it never poured; 
 Thus he; when unto him, as playwrights say, 
 And welcome, so it proved, as flowers in May, 
 A friend, fresh from some upland Station, came, 
 Red hair erect, beard bristling, eyes aflame; 
 "That beggar's been at me!" was his first cry; 
 " Has he? Sit down." " They say he 's pistol-shy, 
 As we of prisons." " So he is, no doubt; 
 Still, challenge him." "We know he won't come out ; 
 Then, what 's the use?" " Never you mind," said he; 
 " Send it, and when he answers, come to me." 
 
 The invitation went, and was refused 
 For the stock reason, and the sender mused 
 As o'er defeat; to whose despondency 
 His friend retorted with a shout of glee. 
 "Sit down!" he cried, with triumph on his brow, 
 " I rather think we've got the Scholar now ! 
 You post him a real pattern of abuse, 
 As loud as you can make it." " What the deuce" — 
 "Do as I say!" He wrote; his Mentor read 
 The missive, shook a most superior head,
 
 94 Two Bullies 
 
 And half sighed, " Let me strengthen it a bit"; 
 And strong it was when he'd rewritten it. 
 So went it forth, a draft, we well may guess, 
 As drastic as e'er issued from the press ; 
 Effective too; the Squatter in a week 
 Received a summons to attend the Beak, 
 For sending words intended to provoke 
 A breach o' the peace. " Now here 's a pretty joke, 
 See where I am!" " All right, my son and heir, 
 Call me, as your first witness; I'll be there"; 
 Shouted the rampant Magnate, with a smack 
 Like a young earthquake on his Pupil's back. 
 
 The case came on, no facts were in dispute, 
 The Court was packed, the crowd intense and mute ; 
 And once the Scholar smiled, as Shylock might, 
 Over his hour of vengeance now in sight. 
 Too soon ; in answer to the Magistrate, 
 Defendant called the Magnate where he sat 
 Retired on the back benches; forth he came, 
 Assumed an artless air, and took the blame. 
 Said he, " So please your Worship, I admit, 
 As bound to do in frankness, that I writ 
 That letter for my friend; but understand,
 
 Two Did lies 95 
 
 I pray you, that I'd not have lent a hand 
 
 To write it, if I'd had the slightest thought 
 
 That its reception could or would be fraught 
 
 With any warlike consequence, and so 
 
 My friend here, the Defendant, thought, I know. 
 
 Please you, recall the Plaintiff; should he swear — 
 
 After reflection, speaking with due care — 
 
 He felt one twinge of an untoward desire 
 
 To place his sacred person under fire, 
 
 I shall express my undisguised surprise, 
 
 But still, in all good faith, apologize." 
 
 Risn solvuntur tabulae; the Judge 
 Felt it a folly to go further: "Fudge"! 
 They heard the Scholar mutter — 'tis the way 
 With wits like him, when beaten — from that day 
 He held his tongue; but on his caustic vein 
 Retention wrought as a perpetual pain; 
 He pined for a free flout; the Squatters prayed 
 To lose him, as for rain; awhile he stayed; 
 But soon their loose-tongued raillery prevailed, 
 They wore him down with laughter, and he sailed: 
 Peace in Antipodean purlieus reigned, 
 While London club-rooms lost what Sydney gained.
 
 SMALL BEER CHRONICLES 
 
 Lord Shirley loquitur 
 
 ' ' Sermoni firopiora." 
 
 Hor. Sat. I, 4. 
 
 1. ABOUT ME AND MINE 
 
 2. JACK WILMOT 
 
 3. THE MARKHAMS 
 
 4. MY LADY. 
 
 H
 
 99 
 
 ABOUT ME AND MINE 
 
 T RICHARD BRANSCOMBE, Earl of Shirley, 
 
 ■*■ born 
 
 Tenth of my line, after my father's death, 
 Last male descendant of our Wilmot name — 
 Save such as figure in these chronicles — 
 And, as a Leech, whom sisterly intrigue 
 Let loose on me last autumn, volunteered, 
 Sound as a roach, in spite of seventy years, 
 Am living here at Branscombe all alone. 
 Nil habeo quod accusem senectuiem ; 
 I hunt a little still, shoot a good deal, 
 And am for fishing what the fish themselves 
 Are for the may-fly or the water-shrimp; 
 This, though an ancient bout of rheumatism 
 Has left me just a trifle lame, and makes me 
 Limp like some old cock pheasant who has had 
 A pellet in his drumstick and recovered.
 
 ioo About Me and Mine 
 
 I read a bit, I write a bit ; at whiles 
 
 For conscience sake I do some county work, 
 
 Though bored to tears with all the pettiness 
 
 Inseparable from doing the thing well. 
 
 My tenants swear they love me, pay their rents — 
 
 Small blame to them, for these are very low, 
 
 And the land sound though lightish — twice a year 
 
 They dine with me, and Binns, my butler, knows 
 
 He must not stint them; yet they all drive home, 
 
 And year by year without an accident. 
 
 That man who came to grief by his own fault 
 
 Would die of having shamed them all; yet once, 
 
 After a Winter Audit years ago, 
 
 Poor old Dick Brand, one of my very best, 
 
 The soberest man for twenty miles about, 
 
 Rounding a sharpish turn near his own house 
 
 Came on a drunken navvy in the road; 
 
 His horse went down and out went he, to rise 
 
 Rampaging with a broken collar-bone; 
 
 The boy who sat beside him was unhurt, 
 
 And got him home. Next morning came a note 
 
 Writ by his wife, a decent penwoman, 
 
 To tell the story, and to add that Brand 
 
 Had made his carter flog the lout awake;
 
 About Me and Mine 101 
 
 Not for revenge at his uncollared bone, 
 
 But from vexation at the thought that I 
 
 Might ' suspect something was amiss with Brand, 
 
 Which wasn't true.' I knew that well enough; 
 
 Drove over; and in quite a friendly way 
 
 Admonished him for the expression given 
 
 To his solicitude on my account; 
 
 But told him, should the navvy view the thing 
 
 Regrettably, to send him on to me. 
 
 He never came ; but to his death old Dick 
 
 Bore the stock chaff of being asked to tell 
 
 The tale of how he broke his ' dinner-bone.' 
 
 Not very often, at Election times 
 A few among the newer men think well 
 To ask my Agent how they ought to vote. 
 He has his answer ready; 'As you like; 
 But I believe that Mr. Blank will stay, 
 While canvassing your side of the Division, 
 At Branscombe Place.' No colloquy proceeds 
 Beyond that point; those with more gumption hold 
 Their peace, and, as I think, they all vote straight. 
 
 Yet they are neither fools nor slaves, but men 
 Of hard good sense ; they know and share my views, 
 Liking them none the less for being mine;
 
 102 About Me and Mine 
 
 Free trade, a bold but friendly front abroad, 
 
 Firmness, no bounce; economy, reforms; 
 
 Efficiency in all the Services — 
 
 With brains and purity in one that seems 
 
 A little short of both, when that may be — 
 
 And nearer home, low rates, if possible; 
 
 Free education, with equality 
 
 To Church and Chapel, honest banishment 
 
 From social dictionaries of that term 
 
 Of patronizing cant, and obsolete 
 
 Sectarian pride that has outlived its power, 
 
 ' Religious Toleration ' — all of these 
 
 Are held by them in rough sufficiency, 
 
 And spread for them a platform of consent 
 
 Too broad to jostle on, with ample room 
 
 To sit and air all minor differences. 
 
 They like their County Council, one or two 
 
 Are members of it; these, I think, are glad 
 
 To find their landlord sitting with the rest 
 
 As Alderman, doing the common work. 
 
 They are no drunkards, yet in all the lot 
 
 You'd hardly find a stray tea-totaller; 
 
 And such as can afford their glass of wine 
 
 Buy no commercial traveller's compound stuff,
 
 About Me and Mine 103 
 
 But go to a good man in Branscombe town, 
 Who treats them well, to whom I also give 
 A yearly order; this last fact of course 
 The vintner vaunts, and they and he are pleased. 
 
 Their labourers I leave to them; but Hodge 
 Knows none the less that, should the need be shown, 
 My intervention would come quick and sure. 
 So there we are, three classes, well content, 
 Like those in Plato's State; but, unlike them, 
 We have no myths behind of being wrought 
 From different clay, nor are we clamped and galled 
 By sterilizing laws, but rub along, 
 Far freer than outsiders deem of us, 
 With much goodwill and trust, and little spleen. 
 
 I had a friend of hotter blood than mine, 
 Whose temper was a chain of summer storms; 
 Conscious philosophizing was to him 
 Like spark to tinder, tinder to a match; 
 And of all folk who fretted him the worst 
 Were a large class, honest enough, at whom 
 He loved to puff his harmless smoke and fire, 
 Denouncing them w r ith candour all his own, 
 As ' those obstructive querists who refuse 
 To seize life's actualities and act,
 
 104 About Me and Mine 
 
 O'erprone to scent some underlying law 
 
 That hampers conduct.' I recall a day 
 
 When such an one throughout a morning tramp 
 
 Had served us twain a lancem saturatn 
 
 Of moral messes, and among these, how 
 
 All rights were weak at most, if aught, and so 
 
 Not worth a plea, but duties paramount; 
 
 Scarce even were the two correlative, 
 
 For rights were naught in abstract, duties all. 
 
 Out burst my friend, made mad and militant; 
 
 He stamped his staff into the heath, flung back 
 
 His left arm well behind his loin, and cried : 
 
 " Oh, correlate me no correlatives, 
 
 Ethic or metaphysic, they involve 
 
 Conundrums that infuriate me ; time was 
 
 When rival groups of schoolmen beat the air 
 
 Debating which was elder, thought or speech, 
 
 Their correlation being beyond dispute; 
 
 As Mansel said, who coached me for my schools, 
 
 The essence of true concepts lies in this, 
 
 They need to be presented in some sign; 
 
 And as with concept so with sign, no sign 
 
 Without its concept, be it verb or noun; 
 
 But which came first, let others fight over;
 
 About Me and Mine \o\ 
 
 I think and speak, and that 's enough for me. 
 
 "So in the moral field are set the lists 
 For your great tournament where champions 
 Ride in, as they have ridden for centuries, 
 To shiver lances for supremacy 
 Of duty over right, or vice versa. 
 Well, tilt away, my good philosophers! 
 I've learned enough to hold it little boots 
 To peer past practice into origin. 
 Truths show themselves in action ; your displays 
 Are surface counterfeits that teach no truth. 
 But take this tribute, if you'll have it, yours 
 I treat as mere benevolent escapades, 
 And, pardon me, I laugh; false though they be, 
 I have no hate for them; they leave behind 
 No acrid taste i' the mouth; I loathe them not 
 As I loathe shams of more insidious aim, 
 Those slyly postulated dogmata, 
 Whate'er their province, church or parliament, 
 Platform or treatise, where my soul detects 
 A savour of the lust of power, that passion 
 Which has been ever and shall ever be 
 The one relentless menace to mankind. 
 Nimrod or Alexander, Buonaparte,
 
 106 About Me and Mine 
 
 Cyril or Torquemada, Gardiner, 
 
 Strafford, with all the smaller modern fry 
 
 Of meaner scope and method, lay or cleric, 
 
 Demagogue, priest, or prancing ritualist, 
 
 Your politician, or your pamphleteer, 
 
 Or who else woo the gaping crowd, and dance 
 
 Sophistic gillie-callums mid the points 
 
 And blades of truth; living or dead, whoe'er 
 
 Such are or were, all are detestable. 
 
 To change the metaphor — maggots are they, 
 
 Bred of corruption, whose unwholesome bite 
 
 Leaves fester in the souls of better men." 
 
 He had to bear our laughter without stint 
 At hearing such a storm of hate from one 
 Himself no whit averse from power. For me, 
 Although I loved him as I've loved but few, 
 I sketch him but to show what I am not; 
 My furies give a far more lambent flame; 
 I hope I neither flatter nor oppress, 
 Because I live at odds with theory; 
 I own my duties, but hold fast my rights; 
 I found both to my hand, and take them both 
 For weekday facts; they seem assertible, 
 What eager men of science wisely call
 
 About Me and Mine 107 
 
 Working hypotheses; not to be changed 
 Too lightly, till new certainties have orbed 
 Their elements into supplanting forms; 
 Binary stars they are, revolving round 
 Me as their common centre; how evolved 
 I know not, care not. 
 
 For all human order 
 Change looms, like processes which level down 
 Mountains that seem eternal, and are not; 
 But cosmic change, the true advance of fate, 
 Comes slow and unperceived, needs spacious 
 
 times 
 For its perfection, and could but take shape 
 To eyes that were undying, not to ours. 
 So, pace politicians, prophets, thinkers, 
 And all the puzzled puzzlers of the pen, 
 I give both hands to practice, take my rights 
 For others' duties, and my duties own 
 As others' rights; 'tis not for me to strike 
 A hurried and perchance discordant note 
 Athwart life's harmony; rather 'tis for me 
 To see that no one else does, this I do. 
 
 Being such and so surrounded, much alone, 
 With not too much to do, I now propose
 
 1 08 A bout Me and Mine 
 
 Throwing my thoughts back through my threescore 
 
 years, 
 To choose out thence a few loose incidents 
 That most have moved me, and perchance may be 
 Of interest to those I leave behind. 
 My life were hardly worth a chronicle; 
 But these stand out like camei on the face 
 Of a blank matrix, or a sundered string 
 Of islets on a featureless lagoon. 
 
 A most disastrous metaphor, that last, 
 And unpremeditated as untoward; 
 I would recall, erase it, if I thought 
 Its disappearance from the page would keep — 
 But that I know too well it would not do — 
 My roving wits from going off at score. 
 A breath, as Byron puts it, may draw down 
 An avalanche in mountainous o'erwhelming; 
 An anvil ringing to the hammer's rhythm 
 Has preluded sonatas ; some poor line 
 Or callow thought in an inferior poem 
 Has set fine subjects seething in great brains; 
 Impulse once given her from without, away 
 Rushes the soul; her method, motive, speed, 
 Direction, are thenceforth her own; all things,
 
 About Me and Mine 109 
 
 In short, come from within, except that one 
 Little external nudge which wakes them all. 
 Well, as I said, that most unlucky phrase 
 Of rocky islets bridging a lagoon, 
 Has played the part of breath to avalanche 
 And buried this first chronicle of mine 
 Under a hundred lines of episode; 
 It has recalled and sets me on to tell — 
 Nor could I now resist it if I would — 
 A Hindoo legend I one-; read, and love 
 Far more than its Mosaic parallel, 
 Of Adima and Heva and their fall. 
 It tells how the primeval pair were placed 
 Within an unfenced garden in Ceylon. 
 If flowers and fruits and landscape could have held 
 The mind of man for ever, they had stayed, 
 As partridges, those most homekeeping birds ; 
 Are faithful to the farm where they are reared. 
 But man must move and woman follow him. 
 In spite of peril threatened and mischance, 
 If once they left their native bowers, they strayed, 
 Sated of Eden's uneventful bliss, 
 From point to point about their Island Cage. 
 To that th' Almighty's fiat held them fast,
 
 no A bout Mc and Mine 
 
 Deterred this time by no mere warning hint 
 Of evil accident, but threat of doom 
 Unnamed, mysterious as the sea itself 
 Their watchful jailor. 
 
 Heva soon began, 
 Her love of travel ended and of change, 
 To urge return; on curiosity 
 Inexplicable fears and shuddering presage 
 Had frowned, and bidden her remorseful soul 
 Reseek the shelter of the will divine. 
 
 But Adima strode northward, unassuaged 
 His thirst and yearning for things new and strange. 
 Facile his answer to his timorous wife; 
 "No prohibition had been laid on them; 
 They were left free to wander at their will 
 Within their Island, whose extent defined 
 Their kingdom, though the Garden was their home. 
 Twas true their Maker had forbidden them 
 The mainland, but, in making that his charge, 
 Had added that the residue of Earth 
 Was yet raw, rude and uninhabitable, 
 And sundered from them by a waste of sea. 
 How easy was the keeping of a law 
 Whose framer, in his love and wisdom, left
 
 About Mc and Mine i i i 
 
 No motive and no means to disobey. 
 
 Full exploration made within the pale 
 
 Of God's permission, they would straight return 
 
 To their own pleasaunce, that awaited them, 
 
 Content to rest and never more to roam." 
 
 So argued Adima; sweet Heva sighed 
 Her self-abandonment, and followed him — 
 Her love at war with a new sense of sin — 
 By hill and valley to the Northern shore. 
 
 There marked they how a narrow causeway 
 stretched 
 Across a measurable strait, and gave 
 Difficult access to a continent 
 That spread beyond it, vast, and marvellous 
 No more in range than beauty; lawns they saw 
 Studded with stately trees, whose symmetry 
 Uncrowded, unimpaired, rose towering far 
 Into the limpid heaven; these dowered the earth 
 They sprang from with a loving gift of shade 
 That only made the sunlight mild; nor checked 
 The gaiety of multitudinous flowers, 
 All new to their two first beholders. Birds, 
 Of forms and plumage strange, with novel song 
 Made music in the branches, or below
 
 1 1 2 About Me mid Mine 
 
 Flitted from flowery to fruit-laden boughs 
 
 Of lowlier shrubs; a gentle wind blew south 
 
 Adown the causeway, courier of sweet sound 
 
 And sweeter perfume. Adima gazed long, 
 
 Impatient, silent, but in act to place 
 
 A foot upon the rocky path; while She 
 
 His Monitress, irresolute, alas, 
 
 And too much his to combat his desire, 
 
 E'en had she shared it not, stood quivering 
 
 With dread and rapture ; till she found her hands 
 
 Clasping his neck, and his strong arms beneath 
 
 Uplifting her; nearer and nearer grew 
 
 The splendours that allured them both, and once 
 
 Tis said her husband heard the words, 'Quick, 
 
 quick,' 
 Break from her fevered lips. One foot advanced 
 Touched the new shore; but as its fellow left 
 The last rock of the ledge, a crash and roar 
 Resounded from behind them; when they turned, 
 Sea- waves were seething where the causeway ran, 
 And nothing save a few wide-sundered heaps 
 Remained to mark its loss; in vain they looked 
 For comfort to the mainland ; all had changed; 
 The mirage that had lured them was no more;
 
 About Mc and Aline i i 3 
 
 Lawns, trees, fruits, flowers, birds, perfumes, all 
 
 were gone, 
 And in their place low sand-blown marshes stretched, 
 Whose weeds, half- withered by the bitter spray, 
 Rocked in a gray inhospitable air. 
 
 The laugh of Demons was their welcome home, 
 For home this was to be; dumb, motionless, 
 They stood awhile, locked in each other's arms, 
 Where love alone remained to them, and love 
 Was powerless yet: the meek-souled Heva said, 
 " Lose we no time, for pardon let us kneel; 
 He left us to ourselves to stray thus far ; 
 Haply he may provide for our return." 
 
 But on her words, a voice from out of heaven 
 Brake sternly; "Ye have sinned, and for your sin 
 Death is the penalty; but, Heva, thou 
 Hast done what thou hast done for love of him 
 Whom thou wast formed to love; I pardon thee, 
 And him for thee; but ye may not regain 
 Abandoned innocence; ye have let loose 
 The powers of evil upon Earth, and so 
 For ever must ye combat them; no more 
 Her flowers and fruits shall an ungrudging soil 
 Bring forth, but profitless and harmful weeds, 
 
 1
 
 1 14 About Me and Mine 
 
 Save on compulsion of unceasing toil; 
 Ye and your progeny with sweat and pains 
 Must win what once it gave of its free will. 
 Yet, that I may not leave you comfortless, 
 Though ye have wronged, forgotten, flouted me, 
 Heva, with thee I make my covenant; 
 And for reward of what, but for thy love, 
 Had yet been constancy, thy name shall mean 
 1 She who completes his destiny for man;' 
 Mother of many daughters shalt thou be 
 Who shall be born successors of the hope 
 I set before thee now; far in their line, 
 From out the loins of one of them, and so 
 From thine, in fulness of the fated time, 
 A late Redeemer shall arise, whose birth 
 Shall sanctify thine honour, and thenceforth 
 Create for womanhood a cult divine : 
 His work shall win the pardon of your race, 
 As ye its condemnation; he once more 
 Shall make it one with me as once ye were." 
 
 Now, in default of audience, I must needs 
 For this impertinent parenthesis 
 Ask pardon of myself, and grant it, too !
 
 About Me and Mine i i 5 
 
 Setting thereby a lasting precedent 
 
 For future ramblings which my arm-chair soul 
 
 Intends too frankly for apology, 
 
 And loves as much too dearly to forego. 
 
 I've said it was the Islets and Lagoon 
 
 That started me, and now I see myself 
 
 Pausing, like Adam, on the further shore 
 
 Of that fair island which my life has been, 
 
 To mark the living peaks of memory, 
 
 And muse on all the wreck of meaner things 
 
 That water-like oblivion hath submerged; 
 
 And meditate how in a little while 
 
 The few upstanding shapes shall haunt me still, 
 
 Sailing, with Death for Master Mariner 
 
 To hold the tiller, through that narrow strait 
 
 Which parts me from a mystic Malabar. 
 
 In front of these, my Small Beer Chronicles, 
 When once I'm fairly started, if indeed 
 I ever am, I shall place one that tells 
 By what a happy chance it was that he, 
 Who will, I hope, succeed me in this place, 
 Can step into my seat with head erect, 
 Well loved and well esteemed of all, instead
 
 1 1 6 About Me and Mine 
 
 Of sidling in enveloped in a cloud 
 
 Of grave but baseless mystery and doubt, 
 
 Which, had we others not played Aeolus 
 
 And scattered it, he, whose fatuity 
 
 Had drawn it, as a hillside draws the mist, 
 
 Would have left far too long and firmly settled 
 
 For his unaided breath to dissipate. 
 
 My father's only sister, Lady Anne, 
 Married Sir Robert Wilmot; they were both 
 Great grandchildren of Richard our sixth Earl, 
 And so were second cousins; a love match, 
 Yet fitting, as so few love matches are. 
 He, well-born, handsome, well to do, and she, 
 Even as I recall her, lovelier 
 Than all the other women I recall, 
 Save perhaps one; my Uncle I scarce knew; 
 What with my school and college absences, 
 And the displacements of his barrack life, 
 We seldom met ; ' Nel mezzo del cammin ' 
 The dread Crimean winter cut him off; 
 His wife died forty years ago at most. 
 She lived a widow with an only Boy, 
 4 An Angel with a Cupid by her side; ' 
 So said my Mother, who was widowed too,
 
 About Me and Mine 1 1 7 
 
 With one sweet girl who well might play the Nymph 
 
 To her divinity, and a romping lad, 
 
 Some three years older than his cousin Jack, 
 
 And younger by the self-same interval 
 
 Than his own pretty sister, but, by Jove, 
 
 Not quite the model to drape Cupids on! 
 
 My dear old winsome Mother, crammed with sense, 
 
 And, spite of undisputed comeliness, 
 
 A real good bit of home-spun Hereford, 
 
 Let me have no illusions on that score. 
 
 I can't resist her portrait; she was tall, 
 
 And neither slim nor coarse; quick, hazel eyes, 
 
 Shone 'neath a broad low forehead and deep brows. 
 
 Her cheeks were neither ruddy nor yet pale, 
 
 Her nose, perhaps too short, was fitted well 
 
 To the neat upper lip, small shapely mouth 
 
 And well-set chin: she wore her chestnut hair 
 
 According to the fashion of her day, 
 
 Framing her cheeks, close laid, and matronly. 
 
 Folk thought her strength austerity, perhaps 
 
 Great force must ever seem austere, but she 
 
 Was loving, gentle, sweet, as well as strong. 
 
 My hard rough features pained her, though she rose 
 
 In fury, should a careless tongue betray
 
 1 1 8 A bout Me and Mine 
 
 The like regret; one day some female fool — 
 
 Without a touch of malice, let me say — 
 
 Expressed it in a letter; she jumped up, 
 
 And read the passage through to me; I laughed; 
 
 But she raged round like Hecate, and then, 
 
 Accepting our joint knowledge of the fact, 
 
 Crushed the offending missive, while she cried, 
 
 " If anyone should dare, woman or man, 
 
 To say you didn't look a gentleman, 
 
 From your shock head down to your boot-tips — 
 
 well, 
 I'd shoot them like a dog! " " Grammar! " cried I ; 
 " Oh my sweet Mother, you are looking now 
 As old Bellona Garnons must have looked 
 Loading her match-locks in the famous siege." 
 " I should not wonder," quoth she, and tore up 
 The silly script into a hundred shreds. 
 
 ' Bellona ' Garnons was her ancestress, 
 A matron of the ' Martyred ' Stuart's days, 
 
 Wife to Sir Francis Garnons of The Moat, 
 By Aymestrey, between Leominster and Presteign, 
 And, as the crow flies, some ten miles or so 
 South-west of Ludlow; the brave Dame had earned 
 Her nickname on this wise; her Knight was one
 
 About Me and Mine i 1 9 
 
 Of many scores of neutral gentlefolk, 
 Doubting but honest men, who loathed at heart 
 Ship-money, Star Chamber, and Strafford's rule; 
 But, law-abiding, would not draw their swords 
 Either against or for their erring king, 
 And suffered from both sides in consequence, 
 Sometimes in purse, but always in esteem. 
 One Autumn afternoon in that dark year 
 While Charles, o'ermatched, was wandering, sore 
 
 perplexed, 
 This way and that, after the Naseby rout, 
 Twixt Hereford and Raglan, and so down 
 To Cardiff, and then back; his hankering eyes 
 Strained upon Bristol, but, as Shakespeare says, 
 1 Letting I dare not wait upon I would,' 
 Till at the last he made for Ludlow town — 
 The Knight, his Dame, and their three proper sons, 
 Stood at their hall door watching the approach 
 Of two tired horsemen up the avenue. 
 These wore the Cavalier dress, and soon, 
 Spite of the crescent shade from towering elms, 
 Much to the perturbation of the group, 
 They knew them for their beaten monarch Charles 
 And young Lord Scudamore his Equerry.
 
 1 20 About Me and Mine 
 
 The pair had missed their escort in the woods; 
 
 Some false alarm of ambuscade had caused 
 
 A scamper, and the King with his young friend, 
 
 After a toilsome ride throughout the day, 
 
 Had found themselves towards sundown in a 
 
 clearing 
 Whence they emerged hard by the Aymestrey gates. 
 
 Loyalty brushed embarrassment aside, 
 And in brief space the weary fugitives 
 Were seated at a very welcome meal; 
 But, ere its close, in rushed a serving-wench 
 With news that a full score of Cromwell's horse 
 Were calling for a guide at a farm-house 
 A bare two miles away by road; the lad, 
 Who came with this intelligence, had drawn 
 A bee-line thence by path and stile, but so, 
 Could not be long ahead of them. " Thank God, 
 The drawbridge is in order," cried the Knight; 
 Open the sluice into the moat; and bar 
 The ground floor shutters; call in all the grooms; 
 Bring all our matchlocks here, and load and prime; 
 Fill every bucket you can find with water, 
 And have them ready on the upper floors." 
 
 In scarce an hour the rebels, though decoyed
 
 About Me and Mine 1 2 1 
 
 Round half a dozen most convenient lanes, 
 
 Stood by the moat; their gruff Lieutenant, schooled 
 
 In all the symptoms of recusance, bawled, 
 
 " Admittance, in the name of Parliament ! " 
 
 To his first call a steady female voice 
 
 Came from a well-barred window, "Go your ways! 
 
 We're quiet country people in this house, 
 
 And hold for neither King nor Parliament." 
 
 After some brusque debate, war was declared. 
 
 Ladders were found and brought; "Take those 
 
 things back," 
 Roared out stout Garnons, "or by all the saints, 
 I open fire." The only answer was 
 To drag a ladder towards the moat edge, where, 
 If once across, it would command the chains 
 That held the draw-bridge, and then all was lost. 
 Four match-lock muzzles blazed at once, and two 
 Out of the troopers were accounted for, 
 While a third hopped away blaspheming hard. 
 The fight was short but lively; old ' Bellona,' 
 Bare-armed, rammed home the bullets with a will, 
 As did her wenches. Not for nought, it seemed, 
 Her three big sons during the winter months 
 Had braved the censure of their mother's thrift
 
 1 2 2 About Me and Mine 
 
 For waste of lead and powder, day by day, 
 
 Potting the rabbits in the avenue. 
 
 Their bag of rebels in this little bout 
 
 Had been eleven; nine were killed outright, 
 
 And two disabled; many a narrow shave 
 
 Had taught the boys to be particular 
 
 In opening shutter-chinks to get an aim. 
 
 The eldest had a flesh-wound near the shoulder, 
 
 And one poor wench fell over with the shock 
 
 Of a rib cracked, in spite of her tough bodice. 
 
 But still the moat remained unbridged, and so, 
 Unused the faggots brought to burn the doors. 
 The Leader, pondering o'er his nine dead men, 
 And the two ' tailored ' ones in foot and wing, 
 Thought it no shame — perhaps unconsciously 
 Musas amabat i7npares — to save 
 The other nine; he drew them off, and formed 
 Well out of fire; the lame one was hauled up, 
 And went off groaning, both hands on his pommel, 
 To keep the weight from off his damaged heel, 
 As best he might; his comrade broken-armed 
 Rode with him; the gruff Leader, harsh as gall, 
 Turned round, and shook his fist, swearing aloud 
 He'd come back shortly with a hundred men,
 
 About Me and Mine 1 23 
 
 And two good field-pieces, and blow the twigs 
 
 Of their malignant nest to all the winds. 
 
 And so they rode back down the avenue, 
 
 Old Garnons watched them through the gates, sent 
 
 out 
 A trusty lad to keep them company 
 For some few miles, unseen; had two good nags 
 Made ready for the King and Scudamore; 
 And just ere morning broke conveyed them safe 
 By devious ways into the Ludlow road. 
 
 The King despatched, the wench's broken rib 
 Well splinted, and young Richard's shoulder 
 
 dressed, 
 They buried their nine troopers in a row, 
 The churchyard wall skirted the bowling green, 
 And 'twas perchance this handy neighbourhood 
 That made the Gruff One leave their burial 
 To those whom after all he mainly held 
 Responsible for its necessity. 
 The trust was handsomely administered; 
 A wooden cross was set to mark each grave, 
 And, heading each, they hung the occupant's 
 Sword, match-lock, boots, buff jerkin, morion; 
 And, behind all, the Manor carpenter
 
 1 24 About Me and Mine 
 
 Set up a decent head-board thus inscribed ; 
 ' Here lie Nine Soldiers of the Parliament 
 Killed in fair fight ' — on such and such a day. 
 
 Then, sure enough, before a week had passed, 
 Once more they saw a rebel cavalcade 
 Stream, just ere sundown, up the avenue. 
 These were the threatened Hundred, and worse 
 
 still, 
 Behind them lumbered two long field-pieces, 
 With gunners, tumbrils, fuses, rammers, mops, 
 And mouths most businesslike and ominous. 
 The Knight, my Lady, their three Boys, grooms, 
 
 maids, 
 Stood clustered on the steps; amongst the last 
 Poor little Partlet of the broken wing 
 Showed prominent; but as the Column rode 
 On to the lawn, deploying into line, 
 Our good Knight gave a most unquiet groan, 
 Whispering to his Spouse " Old Noll, by God ! " 
 And, with his words, the great man of that Age, 
 Drew rein, and beckoning to an Orderly, 
 Leaned towards his charger's neck, and rolled 
 
 himself 
 Unaided from his saddle; on he strode,
 
 About Me and Mine 1 2 5 
 
 Or rather, straddled to the moat ; the Knight 
 Came down to meet him, hat in hand; his wife 
 Pressed close behind; all presentations seemed 
 Beside the question; Cromwell blurted out, 
 "What's this, Sir Francis Garnons?" How the 
 
 Knight 
 Might have replied, we know not; for the Dame, 
 Not for the first time in all likelihood, 
 Coupait la parole, as the Frenchmen have it; 
 " God save your excellence," she calmly said, 
 " My husband is no speaker: Monday last, 
 About this hour, King Charles, accompanied 
 By young Lord Scudamore came in on us; 
 Their horses foundered, and themselves outworn 
 By fast and travel; 'twas not in our hearts, 
 Nor in our duty, as I understand, 
 To shirk the risk of hospitality, 
 And drive him, who, howe'er his faults have run, 
 Be it to treason 'gainst our liberties, 
 Is still our lawful Monarch, from our doors. 
 We gave him food and house-room for the night; 
 Made him an honoured guest; we take no part 
 In all these wars; until that afternoon 
 Neither my husband, nor his sons, had drawn
 
 126 A bout Me and Aline 
 
 Blade or burnt powder on the King's behalf, 
 
 Or yours; brief entertainment given, 
 
 At streak of dawn, had nothing intervened, 
 
 We should have sent them on their way, but scarce 
 
 Was supper ended, when your men appeared. 
 
 So put to it, wouldst thou, to save thy skin 
 
 Have played the traitor to such fugitives, 
 
 Or done as we did? Yonder Officer, 
 
 Whose visage I recall, will bear me out; 
 
 He made us brief debate ; we had to fight, 
 
 Or own our prize, and yield it; so we fought. 
 
 The rest thou knowest. In the churchyard there 
 
 Lie honourably buried thy nine men. 
 
 Come thou and see. For us, we did no more 
 
 Than what all gentle people, thou thyself, 
 
 If tried, hadst done. Can malice or revenge 
 
 Prompt thee to shoot us down and burn our house? 
 
 Shoot all, burn all, or touch us not at all." 
 
 She ceased; the grim old Regicide stood there 
 Biting his gauntlet; "Madam, I pardon it," 
 He muttered; then aloud, in softer tone, 
 "Show me the graves you spoke of." The good 
 
 Dame 
 Stept down, and led the way, while Oliver
 
 About Me and Mine 127 
 
 Followed in line with Garnons and the boys, 
 
 And the Lieutenant, sour and crestfallen. 
 
 The regimental numbers of the dead, 
 
 And so their names, were known ; their General 
 
 Read the inscription ; took the Lady's hand 
 
 And held it; begged the Crosses might be changed 
 
 For tablets bearing each man's name; then turned 
 
 And said; "As you have harboured Charles, my foe, 
 
 So, prithee give me lodging for this night." 
 
 Thus went they back, accorded, to the Hall; 
 The good Knight made all welcome to his best; 
 Cromwell sat down, and supped, unconsciously, 
 In the same high-backed chair where Charles had 
 
 sat, 
 Anticipating there those graver days, 
 When throned at Westminster he should usurp 
 The seat and office of the headless King. 
 His men-at-arms, well cheered with meat and drink, 
 Lit their innocuous fires of bivouac 
 About the park; and ere the sun was high 
 The General, with a jest about the Knight 
 Whose long-delayed baptismal escapade 
 Had reddened in the fount of one good fight 
 The pallor of neutrality, went off.
 
 1 28 About Me and Mine 
 
 Of course thenceforward until now, a hat, 
 A pair of jack-boots, and a single spur, 
 Adorn, as his, the room he used; 'twould seem 
 That, if he dropped habiliments about, 
 County by County, through these favoured isles, 
 As freely as such relics indicate, 
 He was a dresser more expensive far 
 Than the most sumptuous of younger sons 
 That ever filtered through St. James's Street. 
 
 But here am I; the low light through the blinds 
 Of my west window warns me; I have sat 
 This livelong day doing the very thing 
 I half hoped to avoid when I set forth ; 
 I've gossiped on in my besetting mood 
 Of chattering egoist about me and mine, 
 Things past and present, folks alive and dead, 
 Of what, in short, none living save myself 
 Will value; 'tis too late to touch to-day 
 Jack Wilmot's episode — but that will keep. 
 Nor would I for a ream of recollections, 
 After three days of wellnigh ceaseless rain, 
 Miss seeing a bland autumn sunset smile, 
 And touch yon forest-girdled marsh and stream 
 All tenderly, while they their looks of love
 
 About Me and Mine 1 29 
 
 Cast up from quietude of deepening shade. 
 So might I stretch a patronizing hand, 
 And pat an old retriever on the back, 
 While he accepted it, with eyes and tail 
 That beamed and wagged in honest gratitude. 
 So farewell, pen, and welcome, hat and staff; 
 I'll call that same retriever, and set out 
 To fetch an appetite from off the moor.
 
 130 
 
 JACK WILMOT 
 
 AT INE days of scarcely intermitted wind, 
 •*> ^ With rain wellnigh as ceaseless; I esteem it 
 A good man's privilege to hate at will 
 Strange weathers when they're bad, but not his own; 
 To back my native climate up I hold 
 Part of my duty towards my neighbour; yet 
 Of all home seasons that I love the least 
 Commend me to the Equinoctial twins, 
 Both Vernal and Autumnal; each of them 
 Has its own vice, and one in common, wind. 
 Kingsley one day, of pure perversity, 
 In welcome of the ' wild-North-Easter ', wrote 
 Some lines a deal too good for his mad theme, 
 Though, as may be expected when a man 
 Upholds a faulty thesis, full of faults. 
 In fact he stumbled into every trap 
 His subject set for him; he welcomes it 
 As coming ' o'er the German foam ', as though 
 'Twere likely that imported winds should scape 
 The general inferiority
 
 Jack Wilmot 131 
 
 Of all things ' made in Germany ' ; he dubs it 
 ' The jovial wind of winter', save the mark ! 
 'That turns us out to play'; the only games 
 It could be held to foster were club whist, 
 Low bridge, or billiards, or brain-burning chess. 
 But how on earth a decent sort of man, 
 Who ever rode to hounds, could point ten lines 
 Descriptive of an ironbound winter day 
 By volunteering 'breast high lies the scent,' 
 Passes my comprehension ; further on 
 He hazards one more paradox; cries 'Chime, 
 Ye dappled darlings, through the sleet and snow, 
 And dow7i the roaring blast.' Of course 'tis true 
 That scent is more capricious than most girls, 
 And sometimes good when frost is threatening, 
 As sweetest smiles prelude a serious frown; 
 That foxes, when they can, run down a wind 
 Which doesn't blow their fur back overmuch ; 
 But to misuse a raging north-east gale 
 Environed with the worst concomitants 
 Of winter, as providing terms t' express 
 The virtues of a pattern hunting day, 
 Makes each particular hair to stand on end 
 About the scalp of my experience
 
 132 Jack Wilmot 
 
 When he winds up with ' Blow, thou wind of God! ' 
 
 I can no more with him; he risks his claim, 
 
 In that most reckless of affiliations, 
 
 Coming on so much else, to every name 
 
 Wherewith, but for this ode, we were content 
 
 To swell all other tributes on his tomb, 
 
 ' Good Poet, sporting parson, and wise man.' 
 
 But this much for the Vernal Equinox; 
 Its mere position in the calendar 
 Redeems it; it presages better things; 
 And though its blasts are infinitely bad, 
 They blow the trumpet of the coming Spring; 
 We live in hope throughout its turbulence. 
 Not so with its Autumnal congener; 
 Each sough of its tempestuous voices rings 
 The cruel knell of our loved summer months, 
 And drives us in before it like a crowd 
 Of homeward mourners after funeral. 
 
 I sat me down here after a long trudge 
 By thick-lipped lanes and slippery meadow paths, 
 To tell Jack Wilmot's story, but it seems 
 I am incorrigible; each fresh attempt 
 To think of others lands me in myself,
 
 Jack Wilmot 133 
 
 As all roads lead to Rome. Once, years ago, 
 I went down Severn in an open boat, 
 Well-manned and tight, to meet the rising tide. 
 The stream ran racing down, like Kingsley's hounds; 
 And as it played with us, and each roll seemed 
 To hurl us onward to the next below, 
 The boatmen pointed out a well-known rock 
 That looked a mile ahead, when, swish, almost 
 While they were pointing, we were at it; swish, 
 Once more, and we were hopelessly sent back 
 Just where we started from; this idle game 
 Went on until some slant of current came 
 And gave us a clear course. So 'tis with me ; 
 I would not at this moment for my life 
 Forbear to tell how, as I think, I came, 
 In spite of gifts and chances, to decline 
 On this arm-chair existence, books, and sport, 
 The round of county business, management 
 Of farms, and, as it were for seaside change, 
 Some sundry meddlings in my friends' affairs; 
 But with myself at bottom of them all — 
 A soup, with Shirley for its sediment. 
 
 I came down from the University 
 With some repute for brains, and took my seat
 
 134 Jack Wilmot 
 
 Mid many shows of welcome; the old Duke 
 Who'd led the country Party in our House, 
 My father's friend, had me well introduced, 
 Gave me good counsel, and encouraged me 
 With hopes of this and that. He died too soon 
 To guide me .far enough. I had to make 
 Myself my leader, and I proved a bad one. 
 Rightly or wrongly, wrongly, I suppose, 
 ' I could not tame my nature down ' — e'en now 
 The words that shaped my destiny, as his 
 Who penned them, come again to me — ' for he 
 Must serve who fain would sway, and soothe, and sue, 
 And watch all time, and pry into all place, 
 And be a living lie, who would become 
 A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such 
 The mass are.' 
 
 Yes, I did despise the game; 
 The players saw, and would have none of me. 
 They said I was impracticable; well, 
 As the world goes, I was. Yet, I maintain 
 'Twas to their method that I would not stoop; 
 I could have welcomed every settlement, 
 Played opportunism with the best of them, 
 Taken occasion's half-loaf, and admitted
 
 Jack Wilmot 135 
 
 The claims, e'en of the fools, to compromise; 
 In short, I was quite ready to conform, 
 But not to stoop to cunning and false cries. 
 And what I was in youth I am in age ; 
 What I recoiled from then, I spurn to-day. 
 
 To point the past by modern instances, 
 Not mine to traffic for a band of votes 
 By dangling in a deftly guarded phrase 
 That which I never meant to give; proclaim 
 Retention in some esoteric sense 
 Of creeds I had abandoned ; call myself 
 What others were but I was not; or brand 
 As 'shibboleths' — whatever the slang means — 
 Truths that take rank with Euclid's axioms, 
 Because a waste of millions by the hundred 
 Cried out for revenue and colossal lies 
 To falsify the causes of its need 
 To those whose poverty would sink to be 
 Starvation 'neath its burden ; least of all 
 By infamous instalments stoop to buy 
 Each purblind group of many-headed Greeds, 
 With doles intended to have played their part 
 Before a decade of enlightenment 
 Came round and drew aside gaunt Ruin's veil.
 
 136 Jack Wiltnot 
 
 Nor could I help to swell the canting cry 
 
 Of ' Godless Britain ' among those who know, 
 
 E'en while they raise it, that the change they hate 
 
 Means only that the hour of liberty 
 
 Has sounded, when the mastery of the poor 
 
 Must pass from them, and when their favoured 
 
 sect, 
 No longer dominant, though none the less 
 Hungering for domination, must give place, 
 To make a new and fairer start for life 
 On its own merits 'mid its sister creeds. 
 
 All this, and more like this, I now declare 
 Has made an exile of me through my life. 
 I know the verdict on me well enough, 
 ' Prig in his youth, pigheaded in his age; ' 
 I grin and bear it ; it is half the truth, 
 Yes, half the truth, perhaps e'en more than half, 
 But, like most condemnations, not the whole. 
 
 Thus did my life, like Hudson's boat of old, 
 Its hawser flung off by his comrades' hands, 
 Drift from the ship of State; and here am I, 
 Not, like that old sea-tyrant, left to starve 
 And rot a lonely corpse 'neath torrid suns,
 
 Jack Wilmot 137 
 
 Until the crazy seams should gape and part 
 
 And let his wandering coffin sink with him; 
 
 Or until he and it touched ground, the first 
 
 Intruders into some sequestered creek; 
 
 There, after many seasons, blanched and dried, 
 
 Ribs framing ribs, a skeleton encased 
 
 Within a skeleton, to disappear 
 
 Slowly beneath a pall of blown sea-sand. 
 
 No; safe and sound to this fair anchorage, 
 
 Land-locked and circumscribed, but better far 
 
 Than a broad offing of tempestuous seas, 
 
 I steered, to find content and happiness, 
 
 A sense of value round me and of love; 
 
 With some capacity for work, and more 
 
 For friendship; ready to accept the names 
 
 Of idler, failure, egoist; with just 
 
 That one redeeming dash of altruism 
 
 Some lenient friends concede me, as the monks 
 
 Of Leicester, when the ruined Cardinal 
 
 Came to their house to die, disgraced, despoiled, 
 
 Gave him a little earth for charity. 
 
 Now for Jack Wilmot; well, one afternoon 
 I sauntered into ' Bright's ' at luncheon time,
 
 i3& Jack Wilmot 
 
 And asked if Jack were there; " He's not, my Lord," 
 
 Answered the Porter, knowing we were kin; 
 
 " But here' s a Lady with two little boys 
 
 Enquiring for him." I looked down and saw 
 
 With much astonishment and more dismay 
 
 A tell-tale portraiture in both the lads; 
 
 Jack's handiwork was stamped on each of them. 
 
 I took them in both hands and led them off, 
 
 Beckoning the Lady to the waiting-room. 
 
 There, half in fright, the younger one gave tongue 
 
 Without circumlocution; " If you please, 
 
 We've come to see Papa." Down swooped the girl 
 
 On the poor little culprit, but in vain. 
 
 I knew too much, though not enough ; I saw 
 
 Tears swelling in the troubled chaperon's eyes; 
 
 So rang the bell, and to the man who came, 
 
 " Bring here the last month's file of ' Punch,'" said I, 
 
 " And let me have the small back room upstairs 
 
 For half an hour or so. Boys, you stay here, 
 
 And look at ' Punch ' till we come back." At once 
 
 They perched upon two chairs and pegged away. 
 
 "Just come with me," said I to the poor girl, 
 
 Whom, like a fool, I took for mother first, 
 
 And afterwards for nurse. We got upstairs;
 
 fack Wilmot i 39 
 
 I told her what my name was, asked for hers; 
 
 Heard she was mother's sister to the boys; 
 
 There was no need to ask their father's name, 
 
 But was he married? Yes. How long? A year 
 
 Before the eldest son was born, and he 
 
 Was eight years old. No grandparents alive? 
 
 No other kin, your Lordship; she and I — 
 
 To cut her timorous stammering story short, 
 
 Herself and sister, Lady Wilmot, more, 
 
 If I should keep my purpose, as I have, 
 
 Countess of Shirley to become some day* 
 
 Whence my excuse for curiosity, 
 
 Were two sole daughters of a clergyman ; 
 
 Their mother r left in poverty, had toiled 
 
 To keep a decent house above their heads, 
 
 And been, the common tale, Jack's landlady; 
 
 Her sister had done nothing to entice 
 
 Sir John; indeed, refused him more than once, 
 
 She could assure me, though she loved him well: 
 
 They were both honest girls. Then out there came 
 
 A burst of sobbing, and I must confess 
 
 She looked uncommon pretty through her tears. 
 
 A woman's tears ! The very word recalls 
 
 Some that I once watched — There it is again !
 
 14° Jack Wihnot 
 
 If I don't stop, I shall be off at score 
 Upon an egoistic interlude 
 Of why I never married, and as says 
 Some writing fellow of the better sort, 
 That is another story. To return: 
 This was the first time she had brought the boys; 
 And only now because their careless sire 
 Had promised them a morning pantomime, 
 And had gone out of town forgetting it. 
 I rang the bell at this; " Send off and see 
 If you can get a Box at Drury Lane." 
 The Porter countered with an envelope 
 Directed to th' unconscionable Jack, 
 With ' Drury Lane Box Office ' stamped thereon. 
 " Dry up your tears, my dear," said I; "the Boys 
 Shall have their pantomime." In half an hour 
 There was I seated in a first tier box 
 Behind my heir-presumptive's heir. I scanned 
 The whole house closely, and by great good luck 
 Knew nobody; my sister, Lady Anne, 
 Might have been there with all her little brood. 
 I could not then have told her whose these were, 
 And, if I'd called them 'two young friends of 
 mine,'
 
 Jack Wilmot 141 
 
 Her eyes had stretched to snapping. 
 
 There they sat, 
 On either side their Aunt, in ecstasies 
 Evoked of clown and chocolate combined — 
 We'd called at a good tuck shop on our way — 
 ' Two budding gentlemen beyond dispute, 
 Their manners, diction, accent, are all right,' 
 Thought I, 'and judging from their little Aunt, 
 Unless that most conspicuous idiot, 
 Their father, chose amiss between the girls, 
 Their mother is a lady.' Once or twice, 
 Most keenly in the transformation scene, 
 And final show outblazing fairy-land, 
 They asked 'if I could see'; and pressed me hard 
 To taste the bon-bons. I enjoyed myself. 
 When all was over, and we stood outside, 
 ' Good-bye, thanks awfully,' said both of them; 
 The wise Aunt took the chocolate in charge; 
 And noting their address in Pimlico, 
 I clapped the cab door to, and they were gone. 
 
 I lighted a consultative cigar, 
 Smoked it, and took its counsel, ' Don't you leave 
 That poor young woman down in Pimlico 
 Twenty-four hours to brood and fidget in.'
 
 142 Jack Wilmot 
 
 So off I went much meditating; sore, 
 
 Beyond all question ; in some natural doubt 
 
 About the story; even at the best, 
 
 That handsome ass, who called himself my cousin, 
 
 Had wrought a tangle for his family 
 
 Not easy to undo. Well, there I stood; 
 
 The house showed neat, was in a decent row ; 
 
 The trim and quiet handmaid at the door 
 
 Looked like a lady's servant; at my name 
 
 She stared a bit, not overmuch, and so 
 
 I mounted to the little drawing-room. 
 
 This was discreetly furnished, in good taste, 
 
 With pretty chintzes, and mahogany, 
 
 That most respectable of woods ; no sign 
 
 OS. demi-monde or bourgeoisie; indeed, 
 
 In one small corner cupboard, not too much 
 
 In evidence, some bits of china spoke 
 
 Of the old country Rectory; as I stood 
 
 Faisant la signe, in stepped the Chatelaine; 
 
 Her sister, only better; ' Oh,' thought I, 
 
 ' Dam'me, he 's picked the right one ! ' 
 
 Down we sat; 
 I soon had her at ease; her story came 
 Simply, but not too glib; birth, parentage,
 
 Jack Wilmot 143 
 
 And education, all were good enough 
 
 To make the disappointment bearable ; 
 
 The secret was the crux; in that I own 
 
 I was relieved to find no silly fear 
 
 Of me or of the world had part ; Jack's dread 
 
 Had been but for his Mother, delicate, 
 
 And proud, as she was frail; he thought to pluck 
 
 His rose of love, and save her, while she lived, 
 
 What to her soul had been the thorny pain 
 
 Of knowing her Boy married ' out of bounds.' 
 
 Now she was gone — she died the year before, 
 
 And as my hostess mentioned this, my glance 
 
 Caught her half-mourning dress — both Jack and 
 
 she 
 Were scheming daily how to let me know; 
 She owned they shied that. " Well," said I at last, 
 " I'm more than glad, my dear, I found you out; 
 You write to Jack at once, and so will I. 
 And now, good-bye; I'll make all right for you." 
 By George, she burst out crying, seized my hand, 
 And kissed it hard; I bolted on the spot. 
 
 I was still furious; Jack's idiotcy 
 Had brought a problem into all our lives, 
 His and his wife's, my own, and Lady Anne's.
 
 144 Jack Wilmot 
 
 Nor was the issue plain; it's very well 
 
 To talk of grasping nettles, but they sting, 
 
 However handled; for the ass himself, 
 
 I hoped he'd like my note. This ran, " Dear Jack, 
 
 'Twas by the merest chance that yesterday 
 
 I went to lunch at 'Bright's,' and asked for you; 
 
 You were not there, but a young Lady was, 
 
 With two nice Lads; the Porter, none to blame, 
 
 Let drop their purpose there, and, may I add, 
 
 Their looks told their paternity aloud. 
 
 I marched the group into the waiting-room ; 
 
 One blurted out the needless information 
 
 That you were their ' papa.' The boys I left 
 
 Studying 'Punch' ; their Aunt I carried off 
 
 To the small room upstairs, and learned enough 
 
 To make me think you an egregious ass; 
 
 Not for your marriage — I have seen your wife — 
 
 But for the method of it. Come to town. 
 
 Your two boys didn't miss their pantomime, 
 
 Small thanks to you. I called in Pimlico 
 
 On my way home, and stayed too long to save 
 
 The post last night. When I have written this, 
 
 I'm going off to tell your cousin Anne. 
 
 You've set a pretty kettle on to boil,
 
 Jack Wilmot 145 
 
 But, if you've sense left, we may get it off 
 With somewhat cleaner hands than you deserve. 
 Yours, S." This nasty missive in the post, 
 I drove off to my Sister's; told her all, 
 And carried her forthwith to Pimlico, 
 She seething all the way. It did so chance 
 We found our cousin in her drawing-room, 
 Prettier than I had pictured her; she stood 
 Duster in hand, and daintily set off 
 By a two-storied apron of some sort, 
 At work upon her china cabinet. 
 Anne, who 's an artist born, was caught at once 
 By her unconscious grace of attitude. 
 The introduction made, we all sat down ; 
 But after a short time it dawned on me 
 That I had better leave them. 
 
 The next day 
 I called again in Hertford Street, found Anne 
 Raging at Jack's ineptitude, but keen 
 To champion his wife against the world. 
 The fortress of her pride had fallen as low 
 And speedier than the walls of Jericho — 
 I didn't mean that rhyme, but let it stay — 
 So we two sat, like Consuls in debate, 
 
 L
 
 146 Jack Wilmot 
 
 And were hard at it, when a head peered in, 
 And Master Jack transpired; I never saw 
 So fine a fellow look so big a fool. 
 After a while he brightened; " Dick," said he, 
 " I want to say your note was not too rough, 
 I could have borne a rougher." Whereon I 
 Felt like a brute, but thought 'twas on the whole 
 Too soon to own it; he had acted like 
 A fool of the first water, and 'twas well 
 To let self-condemnation simmer on. 
 
 The plan of our campaign was soon arranged ; 
 One gleam of commonsense had pierced the clouds 
 Of Jack's fatuity, when he picked out 
 His friend and neighbour Francis Heringham 
 For confidant; got him to play "best man," 
 And so had witness unimpeachable 
 To date his marriage down at home. We soon 
 Set Frank to work; then Anne herself went down, 
 And told Jack's housekeeper; old Mrs. Neath 
 Had been his nurse, and, as a thing of course, 
 Adored him in her age; she set things right 
 With all the other servants. 
 
 Much in short 
 Was done to make th' announcement in the ' Post'
 
 Jack Wilmot 147 
 
 Stale news; I wrote some comprehensive notes — 
 
 Not wholly complimentary to Jack, 
 
 But that was politic severity — 
 
 To some folks by whose judgment I set store, 
 
 And others, not so trustworthy or wise, 
 
 Whose comments might be damaging, if made 
 
 Without such guidance. In a month or two 
 
 Jack's house was taken out of curlpapers, 
 
 Curtains rehung, new chintzes here and there, 
 
 China and bronze unearthed and put about, 
 
 And other small sporadic changes made, 
 
 Till nought remained to mark through all the rooms 
 
 Save that becoming taste of dowdiness, 
 
 Akin to their condition and reserve, 
 
 Which suits old ladies and old country homes. 
 
 How like they are those two delightful things ! 
 
 The best among the former call to mind 
 
 That pot-pourri enshrined in vase or bowl, 
 
 Which, thanks to their own delicate housewifery, 
 
 Becomes the genius of their analogues. 
 
 Their roses may be faded, crushed, and dry, 
 
 But round them in mysterious fragrance clings 
 
 Sweetness of habit and of character, 
 
 That more than compensates the loss of bloom.
 
 148 Jack Wilmot 
 
 Anne stayed there, working with as stern a will 
 As old ' Bellona ' ramming cartridges, 
 And when our Jack, my Lady, and their boys 
 Arrived one day in April, there she was, 
 With all the household beaming in the rear, 
 Posted on their hall steps to welcome them. 
 Jack kissed his Nurse, so did his gentle wife; 
 The good old woman hugged the boys, and wept; 
 A housemaid whimpered, and that plunge was made. 
 
 With delicate reserve the kind folk round 
 Left them to their belated homecoming; 
 But by September cards of ceremony 
 Lay thick as cream upon my Lady's table. 
 Then did I what may seem superfluous, 
 Or worse, dramatic. But remember, please, 
 Jack was my nearest and my certain heir, 
 Short of his death, and then there were the boys. 
 I could not leave suspicion of a smirch 
 Upon the Shirley shield, 5 TrXtlara cpiXw. 
 I have already hinted my resolve 
 Never to marry — damn ' King Charles's head ' ! 
 It rises up, as Shakespeare might have put it, 
 To push us from our themes. — Well, any way, 
 As soon as partridge shooting gave th' excuse,
 
 Jack Wilmot 149 
 
 I sent a score of invitations out 
 
 For a big house-party; I'd ground enough 
 
 This way and that, say, for a dozen guns. 
 
 Every one came — my motive was well known — 
 
 All seemed determined to be cordial; 
 
 The shooting promised well; the Sun played up; 
 
 Anne was superb; Jack quietly at ease; 
 
 His little wife just what she should have been, 
 
 Modest, well-mannered, with the air of one 
 
 Who had come lately, and with gentle joy 
 
 To take a place that thenceforth was her own. 
 
 I grinned with pleasure when I looked at her, 
 
 Timid, but happy, well, though simply, gowned, 
 
 With one or two good jewels; to wear none 
 
 Would have been affectation, while too many 
 
 Dinner was loud and brisk enough, the Cook 
 Had risen to th' occasion, and our Binns 
 Did the right thing about the wines. Then came 
 What I had doubted over, but I did. 
 The servants gone, I pulled myself together, 
 Got up, and said, " Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 Forgive me for a most unusual thing; 
 I see here all those whom I chiefly love
 
 150 Jack Wilmot 
 
 Among my family and friends; we're met 
 
 First to enjoy our own good company, 
 
 And that we always do; (hear, hear) and next 
 
 'To bring the wild-fowl home,' as saith the ballad; 
 
 And that I trust we shall do; but besides, 
 
 There sits another purpose at my heart, 
 
 It is to ask your welcome to the Lady 
 
 Who honours my left hand. I don't propose 
 
 To sing her praises in her hearing now; 
 
 Suffice it, if I dare to prophesy 
 
 That she will prove a blessing to her own, 
 
 And add one to the many ornaments 
 
 That grace this county and my house to-night. 
 
 Sir John and Lady Wilmot, their good health! " 
 
 There followed general shouting of their names; 
 
 The men took down their claret handsomely; 
 
 The women sipped, and beamed with genuine 
 
 smiles; 
 Old Lady Greveley whispered in my ear, 
 " You said just what was wanted, Dick; she'll do." 
 I pressed my old friend's hand. Then out spake 
 
 Jack, 
 With cheeks far redder than some apples were, 
 That happened to be just in front of him;
 
 Jack Wilmot 1 5 1 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen, I don't deserve 
 This welcome, nor Lord Shirley's kindly words, 
 Nor all else done for my unworthy self; 
 Yet I don't much regard my poor desert, 
 Because I dare to say, though she is here, 
 My wife makes good her husband's shortcoming, 
 And is well worth it all. Both she and I 
 
 Thank you most heartily; we hope to live " 
 
 But here the dear old Donkey broke off short, 
 And dropped into his chair; 'twas just as well. 
 The ladies rose; our good old Greveley wound 
 Her arm about my little Lady's waist, 
 And marched all down the room with her; pre- 
 cedence 
 Involved their separation near the door, 
 But some one else advanced, and took her on, 
 And so the line filed easily away. 
 They gone, the talk turned, as was natural, 
 On beats, and parties for the morrow's shoot, 
 Then came the ladies' hour, cigars, and bed. 
 
 So all went merrier than most marriage bells; 
 And as for little Janet, in her heart 
 She must have heard hers chiming all day long;
 
 152 Jack Wilmot 
 
 Anne left her, as a wise commander leaves 
 
 Freshly-joined levies, under moderate fire, 
 
 To their bapteme de feu ; or gardeners 
 
 Teach their geraniums and heliotropes 
 
 To bear exposure in their pots awhile, 
 
 Before committal to the open ground. 
 
 She went from Branscombe, as a young bird leaves 
 
 The nest, full fledged; but hang these metaphors! 
 
 As for the men, I softened all their hearts 
 With unexpected slaughter; through the week 
 I kept each manor driven ruthlessly, 
 And turnips, gorses, roughs, alive with birds; 
 This done, we walked them up of course; the bags 
 Were just six hundred brace for the five days, 
 As well as those picked up outside the counts. 
 I found it hard to reconcile my soul 
 To so much massacre; I never had 
 Too keen a taste for hecatombic sport; 
 Still, the birds died in a good cause; each man, 
 With sense of shared achievement, made for home; 
 And, such the reckless logic of content, 
 Was more than ready at a pinch to swear 
 That Lady Wilmot was a little brick, 
 And quite a credit to the country side.
 
 Jack Wilmot 
 
 53 
 
 Poor patient Jack, I had to put him through 
 Just one more dinner, as the Mothers put 
 The faces of their wretched children through 
 A second scrubbing for some village treat 
 Or school inspection — metaphor again ! 
 A man's own class is not his world; outside, 
 A hum of judgment, very often just, 
 Nay, seldom wrong, save where insouciance 
 Leaves it without material, goes on. 
 There were the tenantry ; some few of these 
 Had to be taken into confidence, 
 Informed, and started as Evangelists 
 Among the rest. My audit dinner came, 
 And Jack was there; Brand of the ' Dinner- bone ' 
 As usual was spokesman ; many a year 
 Old Richard's oratory had come round 
 Unchanged as the rotation of his crops, 
 Or — and I owe him this last simile — 
 The handwriting upon his cheque for rent; 
 But this one speech enclosed a variant; 
 " And now I come to drink Squire Wilmot's health; 
 We've known him, man and boy, and until now 
 There wasn't much was special, so to speak; 
 This year he 's brought his gracious Lady down
 
 154 Jack Wilmot 
 
 To live amongst us all; we've seen enough 
 To know how we shall like her; and I'll say 
 The only quarrel that we've ever had 
 Against Sir John is just this little one, 
 He hasn't let us know her long before." 
 
 This was our Hero's last epreuve; perhaps 
 Some readers of this Chronicle may think 
 That Anne and I were prigs, that we contrived 
 By far too much, and that to cut, and cleave, 
 And undermine what never had a base, 
 Made us two priests set out to exorcise 
 A ghost of someone who had never lived; 
 Let such conceive what it had been to us 
 To leave behind us, when we came to die, 
 A Lady Shirley ' clouded with a doubt,' 
 As the old Laureate puts it; any way, 
 To every man his method, yours to you, 
 To others theirs; what I have told was ours 
 For starting Cousin Jack on the up-grade.
 
 i55 
 
 THE MARKIIAMS 
 
 AM no disbeliever in good blood, 
 -■- Or pride of race, provided that it sit, 
 As sat King Arthur's Maiden of the Lake, 
 Forging Excalibur, unheard, unseen, 
 ' Beneath the hidden bases of the hills.' 
 For hills read soul, for Arthur's Lake that still 
 1 Lago del cor ' of our good Florentine — 
 Whom when we quote there is no need to name- 
 And for the famous blade, reclaimed by Heaven 
 When the great uses of its loan were lost, 
 A motive that shall hold our way for us 
 Through all opposing cohorts in life's war, 
 Whatever fears, enticements, casuistries 
 Would bar, beset or lure us from the right. 
 But be it far from me to stand on terms 
 With that effete small-headed arrogance, 
 Last bastard of the decadence of caste, 
 That walks with nostrils lifted, sneering lips, 
 And eyelids lowered in scorn against the crowd ; 
 That parody of pride which stirs up hate
 
 156 The Markhams 
 
 In all who come within its range, and brings, 
 1 A mildewed ear blasting a wholesome brother,' 
 Dishonour on the worthier consciousness. 
 There's not a truth it dares not to defame, 
 A generous impulse that it would not thwart, 
 A natural yearning that it would not quench, 
 Hope, passion, heart, mind, soul, it would not crush, 
 Rend, stifle, martyrize, or trample down, 
 Rather than bate one jot of prejudice, 
 Or ruffle its self-love. Oh, I have seen it, 
 Loathed, scorned, defied, and, thank God ! baffled it ; 
 Notably once. 
 
 The Font de Lanes of Glayre, 
 Though country neighbours of my sister Anne, 
 Were never any friends of mine; I knew them, 
 But kept them at a good arm's length; their line 
 Had dwindled like their fortunes; He and She 
 Were those in fact from whom I just now drew 
 My sketch of what such people should not be, 
 And every word I've writ of them is true, 
 Save for the forgery of place and name. 
 They had two daughters only; the first-born 
 Was as themselves, or where she differed, worse. 
 The other was like Tarquin's youngest son,
 
 The MarkJiams 1 5 7 
 
 If we may trust Macaulay, and why not? — 
 
 Too good for such a breed; bright, candid, keen, 
 
 And plucky as they make them; wits enough; 
 
 Fairly well read too; had a pretty gift 
 
 In water-colours; danced as few girls dance; 
 
 Was a tip-top musician; had a heart 
 
 To feel that Love is the red rose of life, 
 
 Albeit too often blighted or unblown ; 
 
 With sense to know a good man when he came, 
 
 And will no less to take and stand by him. 
 
 Recalling her I had almost forgot 
 To say her looks were worthy of herself, 
 Not showy, but to my mind beautiful. 
 If she but turned her head, and spoke, and smiled, 
 You felt a soul was looking out on you; 
 And when she played or sang, you knew that soul 
 Was doing business on its own account, 
 And could not then be bothered with you, till 
 It ceased, spoke, smiled, and so was yours again. 
 
 Tom Markham was at Eton in my time, 
 My junior, and below me in the School; 
 I heard but little of him there, beyond 
 His promise as ' slow bowler ' and a ' bat ';
 
 158 The Markhams 
 
 Moreover he left early to become 
 
 A cornet of dragoons ; when next we met 
 
 He'd got his troop, and I had just begun 
 
 My very brief political career. 
 
 The two years' space between us, which had yawned 
 
 A gulf impassable at school, was now 
 
 The narrowest ditch, if ditch at all ; we leaped 
 
 Straight into one of those quick intimacies 
 
 Which sometimes, being bred of accident, 
 
 Flash and burn out like variable stars; 
 
 But sometimes, as did ours, when brought about 
 
 By recognition of affinity, 
 
 A fact learned in a moment, which no speed 
 
 Of impact can make any less a fact, 
 
 Last on. 
 
 A month or two at most had passed 
 Before, one night, over a late cigar, 
 He told me of the passion that had grown 
 Between sweet Sybil Arden and himself; 
 How he had bearded that old Font de Lane, 
 Had borne his flouts, and those of his gaunt wife, ' 
 Faring no better with the elder girl, 
 To whom — a devilish forlorn hope — he turned. 
 The last was made more acid, it may be,
 
 The Markhams 1 59 
 
 By envy that her sister, whom she loathed 
 
 For her acknowledged beauty, and her gifts 
 
 Of manners, mind, and nature, should have found 
 
 So fit and fine a man to mate withal: 
 
 For, as he leaned against my mantelpiece, 
 
 In glorious unconsciousness of grace, 
 
 I thought, ' If lost Apollo were reborn 
 
 To make a late descent on Berkeley Square, 
 
 Dressed in a suit of evening clothes by Poole, 
 
 He'd look uncommonly like you.' Tis strange 
 
 Seeing how many hate the personal gifts 
 
 They have not, most of all good looks, that I, 
 
 With my shock head and nutmeg-grating face, 
 
 Should dote on physical beauty, as I do, 
 
 In men no less than women ; ever since 
 
 I read Herodotus I've sympathized 
 
 With those good Egestaean folk who built 
 
 A temple to Philippus of Crotona, 
 
 Simply because he was so beautiful. 
 
 I heard Tom's tale through every fact and phrase; 
 Save for the Font de Lanian insolence, 
 It had no special note; the weakest point 
 In my friend's case was fortune; for his birth, 
 Though decent, was no asset, no set off
 
 1 60 The Markhams 
 
 To poverty; he had bought all his Steps, 
 But, beyond what his captaincy might fetch, 
 If he sold out, he had but little left. 
 Perhaps, all told, there was six thousand pounds. 
 She would have nothing from old Font de Lane; 
 That he swore roundly, and his lady backed him; 
 The sister sat and chuckled ; she would get, 
 And knew it, should her parents' malice hold, 
 The lands uncharged with the substantial sum 
 Her sister's portion would have laid on them; 
 For, as it seemed, the old folk had the right, 
 Under some power, to stay their churlish hands, 
 Forbear to make appointment, and so leave 
 The child with whom they quarrelled destitute. 
 By great good luck, our Sybil had an Aunt 
 Who, to her credit, picked her out to get 
 A poor three thousand pounds she had to leave. 
 This would be Sybil's on majority, 
 In spite of her sweet relatives. 
 
 Tom's plan 
 Was emigration to Australia; 
 That, in the times I write of, for a girl 
 Of Sybil's nurture, gifts, and gentle grace, 
 Was to my thinking an experiment,
 
 The Mar /chains i6r 
 
 As parsons say of marriage, and with reason, 
 
 By no means lightly to be taken in hand. 
 
 The Captain caught my whistle of debate, 
 
 And said at once, "Should you much mind, old 
 
 chap, 
 Having a talk with Sybil? she's prepared; 
 She knows I meant to tell you." 
 
 I've confessed 
 My taste for meddling in my friends' affairs; 
 In those days it was stronger; I suppose 
 Like other passions it decays with age. 
 Not that they all decay by any means; 
 Love in a dozen shapes remains and grows. 
 First, there is that heart-hunger, keen and pure, 
 Clarified love, etherialized desire, 
 As different from youth's feverish plague, as airs 
 We breathe upon a moorland from the faint 
 Half-fetid atmosphere that overbears 
 In some hot theatre or county Ball 
 The perfumes that are worn for its disguise. 
 Then there's the love for knowledge of all kinds, 
 That broadens when our physical decay 
 Leaves leisure for our larger aptitudes. 
 How does our love of landscape deepen, how 
 
 M
 
 1 62 The Markhams 
 
 Our joy in stream and meadow; e'en in clouds, 
 
 Scarce born ere they begin to lose their forms, 
 
 Absorbed into the unpolluted skies, 
 
 As children, fading from their cradle, pass 
 
 And reascend into their native Heaven. 
 
 How does it swell, that comfortable sense 
 
 Of common life and boundless fellowship 
 
 With Mother Earth and her vast progeny, 
 
 From the great Oak, of whose perennial span 
 
 I'm somewhat envious, through every form 
 
 Of bush or flower, as Solomon would say, 
 
 Down to the hyssop springing from the wall. 
 
 As to birds, beasts, and fishes, wild or tame, 
 
 They are our poor relations, taken up 
 
 As we grow old, after too long neglect. 
 
 I'm not so sure of insects, or of snakes — 
 
 We must have still our small hostilities — 
 
 But draw the line at hairy caterpillars, 
 
 And, pace Robert Bruce, at spiders too. 
 
 Of toads I have my doubts; I knew one once 
 
 For some three seasons; he had scooped a cave 
 
 Just underneath an Araucaria 
 
 Set round with mignonette and heliotrope, 
 
 And, when I came his way, would show his mask
 
 The Markhams i 63 
 
 To get a sprinkle from my watering hose. 
 
 I liked his round appealing eyes; perhaps 
 
 A fellow feeling for his ugliness 
 
 1 )rew me to make of him a summer friend. 
 
 One year I looked for him but found him not, 
 
 He probably had died, or, it may be, 
 
 Had married, and had set up house elsewhere. 
 
 Robins I've known in plenty, and of these, 
 
 One beyond others; he would challenge me 
 
 From the same pine bough on my daily way 
 
 Down to the lower garden; he could stand 
 
 Anne's children, or a man, but women, no. 
 
 One in particular he loathed — but, stop; 
 
 No more of her, to-day at all events. 
 
 To sum up this digression, Love remains 
 
 Last and most blessed of all our faculties, 
 
 Active, diverse in object as in form, 
 
 Its youthfulness made mellow by our age, 
 
 To hallow and console us until Death 
 
 Breaks up the battered home that harboured it. 
 
 The gift of dining is a grace divine, 
 And charily bestowed; Plato suggests 
 That hosts, and guests, and tables, such as those 
 At and by which and whom the good talk grew
 
 
 164 The Markhams 
 
 To the ' Republic ' and ' Symposium,' 
 
 Were rarities in Athens; Pliny too 
 
 Conveys no less of his more dainty days; 
 
 And Mr. Shakespeare, speaking through the mouth 
 
 Of one, no less the most unfortunate 
 
 Than widely known of all Financiers, 
 
 Hints that the standard of the Dining Art 
 
 Among the best of Venice at her best, 
 
 (As haply of the London of his time,) 
 
 Was lamentably low; the blunt curt phrase, 
 
 ' I will not eat with you nor drink with you^ 
 
 Though I will buy, sell, talk, and walk with you,' 
 
 Expresses far too well, e'en in our days, 
 
 The inmost thought that surges in our hearts, 
 
 However gently we may smother it, 
 
 At least on nine occasions out of ten. 
 
 But thanks to Heaven the blessed tenth remains; 
 
 And this reserve of reverence makes me bold 
 
 To say, though still perchance with something like 
 
 The roughness of our old Shakespearian friend, 
 
 I hate all London entertainments, save 
 
 Dinners of twelve or under, eight for choice. 
 
 For these, no more than those of solitude, 
 
 Three courses are essential, a clear soup,
 
 The Mar khan is \d 
 
 Followed by any cleanly-treated fish, 
 
 Except that travesty of salmon, trout ; 
 
 One entree, if needs must, and then a bird ; 
 
 I reckon hares as birds, dining alone, 
 
 But not in company; a well-kept hare 
 
 Has two redeeming qualities, no more, 
 
 The slices lying next his vertebrae; 
 
 And these should be removed by an old spoon; 
 
 Steel is as fatal to their quality, 
 
 As is temptation to man's innocence; 
 
 Old must the spoon be, tempo George the Third, 
 
 At least, because much rubbing and long use 
 
 Will just have made its edges sharp enough 
 
 To scoop a trench neatly along the bone. 
 
 No after-blast of sweet or savoury 
 
 Should vex the calm of such a meal; for drink, 
 
 Except on rare occasions, I prescribe 
 
 An honest pint of Bordeaux, which should be 
 
 The very best your purse can buy; I hold 
 
 That no man, save the most ill-mannered fool, 
 
 Affronts good meats by sending low-class wines 
 
 To keep them company; I had as lief 
 
 Bid a man dine to meet his bootmaker. 
 
 I said Bordeaux, for Burgundy I find
 
 1 66 The Mark hams 
 
 Somewhat aggressive; as the Frenchmen own, 
 
 C'est un vin capiteux; the best of Hock 
 
 Makes me sour, if it be not sour itself; 
 
 Champagne's a saucebox, full of bubbling life, 
 
 Companionable, lavish, unreserved, 
 
 As are its laughing human analogues, 
 
 But falling flat, as they do, very soon; 
 
 Nor it nor they are for man's daily food; 
 
 Bordeaux is like the woman one would choose 
 
 To make a wife of. Such light wholesome fare, 
 
 Interpolated with good easy talk 
 
 Of folk who could be deeper than they show, 
 
 (Digestion suffers from profundity,) 
 
 Is the one social gift that London holds 
 
 For quiet folk; and I may add that he 
 
 Who dined like that habitually, and walked, 
 
 Say, seven miles day by day throughout the year, 
 
 Need never die. 
 
 All this is a long prelude 
 To a most simple statement that one night, 
 Most unaccustomedly, I found myself, 
 But not without set purpose, be you sure, 
 Seated with Sybil in a balcony 
 Among the palms at some high-pressure Ball;
 
 The Markkams 167 
 
 A dowager or two and some smart folk 
 
 Had passed and seen us, and next day, no doubt, 
 
 Their tongues were busy with a combination 
 
 In which the Captain was not even named. 
 
 I heard her story; felt she meant it all; 
 
 Promised co-operation; and went off 
 
 Pledged to accept a seat upon the Board, 
 
 Or, say, the post of Managing Director, 
 
 As in these modern days it would be called, 
 
 Of a great Markham-Arden marriage scheme. 
 
 I wrote to our Dragoon, and Berkeley Square 
 Forthwith became the focus of a plot; 
 Markham's commission was as good as sold, 
 And fetched far more than Regulation price — 
 Thank Goodness, those were pre-Cardwelliandays — 
 The Captain next behind him was well off, 
 And jumped at the promotion, so our man 
 Was ready now to send his Papers in. 
 But more remained; the Lady had gone home, 
 And thence had written furtively to say 
 That she was watched; but in a week we found, 
 Much to our comfort as conspirators, 
 The drift of the espionage; the news 
 Of ' Sybil's happy evening ' at that Ball
 
 i6S The Markhams 
 
 Had fluttered all the doves, save one, at Glayre 
 With hopes too good to let them run the risk 
 Of Markham's intervention; 'The dear Girl 
 Must be kept safe for Shirley ' ; quick as thought 
 I bustled off to Anne in Hertford Street, 
 And, for the first and only time, deceived her. 
 Dear thing, her one dream outside her home life 
 Was to see me a married man; I knew, 
 And, like a mean brute, worked upon her wish; 
 'Twas many a day before she let me off, 
 Not for the trick so much as its success. 
 I simply said, " Invite that Arden girl 
 To come to town and spend a week with you." 
 She asked no question, but sat down at once, 
 Radiant with joy and triumph premature, 
 Waving her pen; scribbled a note, whose terms, 
 I dare say, made its fair recipient stare; 
 Rang for a servant, and turned fronting me, 
 A statue of content. She too had heard 
 Of that damned balcony, and thought she saw 
 Me standing at the Altar rails; I'd caught 
 Her and the Font de Lanes all at one cast. 
 
 But ' Why deceive her? ' you may say; ' Why not 
 Make her, so large of heart, so full of brains,
 
 The Markhams 1 69 
 
 A co-conspirator in the great cause? ' 
 
 The answer's simple; Anne's good husband was 
 
 A trifle over cautious, and a mule, 
 
 A dear old mule, to boot; a woman's help 
 
 Was indispensable, and Anne alone 
 
 Was to my hand ; she would not have come in 
 
 Without her husband, and that animal — 
 
 The Lord forgive me for so styling him — 
 
 Would have lashed out with both his honest heels, 
 
 If asked to flout his neighbour Font de Lane; 
 
 So poor dear Anne had to be done, and was. 
 
 Sybil was bound to have a house of call 
 
 Between her father's place in Derbyshire 
 
 And Brighton, where her lover's regiment 
 
 Was quartered; such a journey at that time 
 
 Was overlong to compass in one day; 
 
 Besides, she had to go from train to church; 
 
 Marriages then must be before mid-day. 
 
 So up she came, another innocent; 
 
 No rumour of the rumours about me 
 
 Had reached her; those thrice blessed relatives 
 
 Were far too knowing to impart to her 
 
 What they had heard; she told her gentle self 
 
 That Anne was what boys now call 'in the swim,'
 
 170 The Markhams 
 
 And wrote an answer by return of post 
 Flashing all through with sparks of gratitude, 
 Such as young lovers show and doubtless feel 
 Toward those from whom they hope for countenance, 
 And all of these Anne in her turn misread. 
 
 I duly went and dined in Hertford Street, 
 The night of her arrival ; was told off 
 To take her into dinner; saw with glee 
 My unsuspecting sister's clever play 
 To keep four outside guests round her own chair, 
 And leave the smaller drawing-room for us. 
 These good folk also thought they saw the game; 
 So famous was that cursed balcony, 
 It beat the old historic article 
 In Romeo and Juliet into fits! 
 The Mule was taken in. It seemed but fair 
 That I, the sole purveyor of the fun, 
 Should have it to myself, though patentees 
 Don't always reap the profits of their patents. 
 
 Sybil was puzzled, as, indeed, she had been 
 Since her arrival; Anne had welcomed her 
 With gush mysterious as immoderate; 
 For not a word of Markham passed her lips, 
 While a full hour, before the dressing-bell
 
 The Markhams i 7 1 
 
 Sent them upstairs, had been bestowed on me, 
 
 My merits, and achievements, since the days 
 
 Of nursery and schoolroom until then. 
 
 I was constrained to let her know the truth, 
 
 But altogether unprepared to meet 
 
 Her genuine distress. Anne must be told 
 
 That very night; she could not stay and take 
 
 A hand in the deceit; I must see that. 
 
 I did; the truth that flashed from those clear eyes 
 
 Was damnably converting; she declared 
 
 She'd rather go straight back to Glayre next day, 
 
 Than help to make a fool of Lady Anne. 
 
 I was struck dumb, and, as the Yankees say, 
 
 I own I never felt, before or since, 
 
 ' So mean a man ' ; not all her gratitude 
 
 Could make her yield upon the vital point, 
 
 Anne must be told at once. 
 
 At last she rose, 
 Just as the rest were leaving, and, they gone, 
 Pleading fatigue, she left me to my task. 
 My sister was impressive; until then 
 I had not plumbed her depths of dignity. 
 I only scored two strokes in a long game; 
 She did believe in the poor girl's good faith,
 
 1 7 2 The Markhams 
 
 And further promised not to tell the Mule — 
 Who had gone off to smoke a lone cigar — 
 For one clear day, but after that, the deluge. 
 How the two women managed to keep off 
 The subject till they parted, I can't tell; 
 Suffice it that they did part friends; Anne's kiss 
 Of farewell, so the sobbing Sybil said 
 When on our way to Brighton, was as warm 
 As her first welcome; nay, my traveller 
 Did so far play the traitor as to own 
 She started with a tear upon her cheek 
 That was not hers. Incomparable Anne ! 
 
 The pretext for abruptly cutting short 
 Her visit was that she was summoned home 
 Through sudden illness of old Font de Lane; 
 This satisfied the Mule; it mattered not 
 What outside busybodies thought or said, 
 Or the Mule either, for that matter, when 
 The truth forthcoming in the 'Morning Post' 
 Would dissipate all mystery. As 'twas, 
 This fiction gave time for an incident 
 Which brought me no small comfort, worked delight 
 For Sybil, and made Markham's honest eyes 
 Brim up in most unmanly plenitude.
 
 The Mark hams 1 7 3 
 
 The Northern train which we had not to catch 
 
 Started before its Southern congener; 
 
 This left poor Sybil and my guilty self 
 
 An hour to kick our heels at London Bridge; 
 
 And gave moreover all the needful time 
 
 For someone else to clinch a bright idea 
 
 That Sybil, being innocent of fraud, 
 
 Ought not to stand alone in Brighton Church 
 
 Among a group of men — for Markham's friends 
 
 Were sure to rally there — with me alone 
 
 For escort, and without some female friend 
 
 Of mark and standing unimpeachable, 
 
 To sanction her defiance of the world. 
 
 Anne seldom wastes her time in doubt; her Maid, 
 Summoned, brought out her premier travelling dress; 
 She caught our train with ease, went down alone — 
 Sea was her wrath yet seething after storm, 
 As someone else has said — and while we turned 
 To take our seats in Markham's chartered trap, 
 He'd sent a pair of horses, poor old boy, 
 She sailed up smiling and superb, as trim 
 As a new yacht at Cowes. She bent and kissed 
 The flabbergasted Sybil, but to me 
 Vouchsafed her shortest nod; as she sat down
 
 1 74 The Markka jus 
 
 She dropped some banal scrap of bridal luck 
 And a fine day; I bore my little snub 
 The easier that I saw the women sat 
 With clasped hands through the drive. 
 
 We reached the Church, 
 And as we made our way along the Nave, 
 I blest our Anne with all my heart, for there 
 Stood Markham in the Chancel, almost lost 
 Amid a group of eight or ten dragoons 
 All taller than himself. There was just time 
 For a hushed round of whispered presentations, 
 Before the Parson entered; as I gave 
 The Bride away, I thought of Font de Lane, 
 And very nearly marred, with what had been 
 An unforgiveable and fatuous smile, 
 The general reverence. 
 
 At the York Hotel 
 Tom's Colonel and his well-bred comely wife 
 Were waiting us, with luncheon ready laid. 
 It was all well and plainly done; no fuss, 
 No noise, no sentiment; the Soldier Lads 
 Were simply perfect, and the Colonel's wife 
 Hung smiling in the little galaxy, 
 A moonlike pendant to my planet Anne;
 
 The Markhams 
 
 /D 
 
 Her husband, with some gentlemanlike words, 
 
 Drank to the Bride and Bridegroom in Champagne; 
 
 Markham was pleasant, manly, serious, 
 
 In his response. There was that element 
 
 Of venture and defiance in their act, 
 
 That made a quiet earnest sympathy 
 
 Displace the vulgarized hilariousness 
 
 Of wedding breakfasts. Then the rest went off, 
 
 After a round of hearty handshaking, 
 
 Concluded by a motherly embrace 
 
 Of Sybil by the Colonel's wife; we two, 
 
 Anne and myself, alone stayed on awhile; 
 
 But after a brief talk and long farewells, 
 
 We left them to themselves ; on the way up 
 
 I had my lecture; strove to make my peace; 
 
 More than half failed, and failing, fell asleep. 
 
 The Markhams were to start in ten days' time, 
 And I was to rejoin them in the Docks, 
 Sail with them down the Thames, and round the 
 
 Coast, 
 And through the Solent, leaving them at last 
 When the ship dropped her Pilot, as ships did, 
 Outside Hurst Castle by the Needles point. 
 All this I did; how I recall it still;
 
 176 The Markhams 
 
 Our vessel's laboured passage through the Gates, 
 
 Like some large woman's through a carriage door; 
 
 And, as her head swung round into the stream, 
 
 The prospect of the busy Pool above, 
 
 The barges, lighters, wherries, dancing round 
 
 The wharves and jetties, basins, entrances, 
 
 Like hovering bees along a line of hives; 
 
 Below, the brimming waters of that flood 
 
 Whose fairway gives a welcome to the world. 
 
 Seawards, her sails close-furled on her gaunt yards, 
 
 A giantess with arms a-kimbo, stalked 
 
 Our mighty hull, sedate and effortless, 
 
 Obedient to her fussy little Tug, 
 
 As blinded Samson to the pagan boy 
 
 Who led him by the hand. She reached the Nore 
 
 Just before sundown; shook her canvas out, 
 
 And stood to sea. We three sat up on deck, 
 
 Watched the soft rose o'erspread the western sky, 
 
 Above the canopy of serious haze 
 
 That o'er Earth's mightiest haven ever hangs ; 
 
 Then went below and fed; came up again, 
 
 And talked out half the right beneath the stars. 
 
 With no retort of bitterness or blame 
 They told me far more fully than I knew
 
 The Markhams 1 7 7 
 
 What both had suffered from the Font de Lanes. 
 Parents and sister, it appeared, had vied 
 In spiteful and injurious insolence 
 To him, and cruelty to her; one gem 
 Alone I save, her father's; the last pearl 
 Of a long chaplet in a missive penned 
 By way of answer to her letter home 
 Written the morrow of her marriage; hers— 
 They made me read a copy they had kept — ■ 
 Was neither curt nor overlong, no cant, 
 No self-abasement, no appeal, but couched 
 In terms respectful, measured, dutiful, 
 So far as naked disobedience 
 Can clothe itself with duty by mere words. 
 But, if hers were revolt in masquerade, 
 His was all native savagery, bared, 
 Without a stitch to keep it from the cold. 
 He started with a pompous eloquence 
 Worthy of one who played the double role 
 Of outraged father and of noble Earl ; 
 But after a brief paragraph or two 
 The grand style failed him; he grew common- 
 place; 
 And sinking to his native form, became 
 
 N
 
 178 The Ma rkhanis 
 
 At once outspoken and more natural. 
 
 There was a certain skill in his abuse 
 
 Of Markham, if indeed the fancy sketch 
 
 Of what he called his victim's character, 
 
 When critically sifted, showed aught else 
 
 Than spite that ' sings but as the linnet sings,' 
 
 To satisfy its own sweet self; yet still, 
 
 I could not dower with spontaneity 
 
 One highly wrought suggestion that 'perhaps, 
 
 Nay, in all probability, she'd find 
 
 In the unprincipled adventurer 
 
 Who had determined to ally himself 
 
 With one so highly placed, for the mere love 
 
 Of vulgar self-aggrandizement, a man 
 
 Who, having once achieved his low-bred aims, 
 
 Would kick aside the ladder he had climbed, 
 
 And all unfitted for the height attained, 
 
 Would weary both of it and her, hark back 
 
 Regretful towards the milieu he had left, 
 
 And hankering for a natural mate, look out 
 
 For something meaner and more suitable.' 
 
 I own I saw a purpose in all this; 
 
 It seemed a variant of Brabantio's thrust, 
 
 So devilish and prophetic in one sense,
 
 The Mark hams 1 79 
 
 " Look to him, Girl, if thou hast eyes to see, 
 He hath deceived thy parents, and may thee." 
 The more, perhaps, because he followed up 
 His precious innuendo with the words 
 That closed this very fatherly farewell; 
 "And so we part, never to meet again; 
 If half of what I augur come to you, 
 Look not to those on whom you turn your back ; 
 Your olden life is done, your olden home 
 Has barred for ever its abandoned doors, 
 Doors that perhaps you meant to leave ajar. 
 To use a common phrase, you have yourself 
 Made your own bed, and you must lie on it; 
 I cannot pray that it may not be hard. 
 Your father, Font de Lane." 
 
 " We know," said I, 
 Handing them back the letter, " that soft words 
 Butter no parsnips, and it 's not less true 
 That hard ones break no bones. If I'm a judge, 
 Your lot will lie in very pleasant lines; 
 You start with a fair cargo on life's voyage; 
 Love, youth, and health, adventure, novelty, 
 With money to ensure a livelihood 
 Which prudence need not knit her brows over,
 
 i So The Markkams 
 
 Nor your well-bred simplicity disdain; 
 I own I envy you " ! 
 
 The moment came 
 When at the close of three days' summer sail 
 Our vessel hove to just beyond the Hurst; 
 The glory of the noon, the flapping sails 
 That showed against the breast of the blue heaven 
 As white as its own clouds, the gulls that dipped 
 And wheeled and soared, the lisp of the light waves 
 Below us on our counter, ranged themselves, 
 Like friends, to lend a grace to our good-byes; 
 I kissed the white hand of my little friend, 
 And, as I bent to it, I framed a prayer 
 That no hard work might ever coarsen it; 
 Her blue eyes overflowed, good Markham's too 
 Were fuller than they should have been ; my own — 
 I always was a sentimental fool — 
 Were in that state when backs are better turned. 
 The kindly skipper saw me to the steps, 
 Whence I swung over to the Pilot boat 
 Rocking below them ; in a trice the helm 
 Went round, the sails refilled; when I looked up 
 There were some yards between us; many a wave 
 Of cap and handkerchief were interchanged,
 
 The Markhams 1 8 1 
 
 Until we dropped behind the veiling Hurst, 
 
 And three full hearts were echoing, "Never more " ! 
 
 Markham's first letter came next Whitsuntide 
 To Branscombe, more than five months after date, 
 Where Anne and I, their children, and the Mule, 
 Were keeping house; that worthy Hybrid is 
 The shot predominant among my friends; 
 He is essentially an Autumn man; 
 I never feel so much at home with him, 
 As when I see him quietly at work 
 Among the tallest pheasants he can pick 
 Down in some dell where every thing comes high ; 
 But in the summer months he 's rather dull, 
 He does not care one hang for fly-fishing, 
 And good as is his eye, it cannot see 
 Far into a stone wall; it puzzled him 
 For days to ' make out how the deuce it was 
 That Markham should have found five thousand 
 
 pounds, 
 Waiting him in the Melbourne Bank, beyond 
 The price of his commission and his wife's 
 Three thousand;' I began to fear at last 
 He might communicate his wonderment
 
 1 8 2 The Markhams 
 
 To alien ears; so Anne enlightened him. 
 She said, poor Mule, he brayed aloud for joy, 
 And wanted to let on at me ; but that 
 His wife nipt, as a frost nips dahlias 
 In mid October. 
 
 The recipients 
 Of this mysterious item, in their turn, 
 Gave me some sport for it; at first the pair 
 Were half inclined to think old Font de Lane 
 Had so far melted, though too stubborn still 
 To let his late repentance face the light. 
 I trust I am a Christian, but, by Jove, 
 I could not meekly hold my tongue, and see 
 That miserly old tyrant credited 
 With any vagrant virtuousness of mine; 
 So when I answered Markham, I just said, 
 " Mollification and five thousand pounds 
 Are two ingredients that find no place 
 In the concoction of a certain Peer 
 Whom I forbear to name." 
 
 The next attack 
 Came from our little Sybil's fair white fist; 
 She struck straight out; " I know there is but one, 
 And he the dearest man in all the world,
 
 The Markhams 1 8 
 
 o 
 
 Save one, who would have thought," et cetera. 
 
 I parried that by spinning a long yarn 
 
 Of London gossip, with our Branscombe news; 
 
 Anne's growing girls; and Roderick Murchison's, 
 
 As we thought then, audacious prophecy 
 
 Of gold discoveries in Australia, 
 
 And how I hoped some of the wealth foretold 
 
 Might underly their holding. One more bout 
 
 She tried, by telling me how they had built 
 
 Their house and homestead, made a mile of road, 
 
 And done it all with very special care 
 
 To keep it just within five thousand pounds, 
 
 Naming their new possession 'Shirleyholm'; 
 
 "That's what we love to call it; you know why"! 
 
 I once more turned her blade aside, expressed 
 
 Acceptance of the role of Eponym, 
 
 But trusted 'holm' was not confused with 'home,' 
 
 In her imagination; bade her know 
 
 That 'holm' meant 'holly,' and that Ilex trees — 
 
 Whose presence as arboreal colonists 
 
 Of Melbourne town I was surprised to learn — 
 
 Were known as ' holm-oaks ' from their foliage. 
 
 Thus baffled twice, she let the matter drop; 
 
 But, in despite of etymology,
 
 184 The Markhams 
 
 She stuck to 'Shirleyholm,' though, as it chanced 
 And much to their advantage, not for long. 
 
 Old Murchison's prediction stopped the run 
 Of bad luck that all prophets have sustained 
 From Delphi and Dodona until now; 
 And its fulfilment prosperously cut short 
 The early need that Sybil had to cry, 
 As cry she did, the plucky little soul, 
 Her milk and butter through the streets of Mel- 
 bourne. 
 From all their letters of those harder times 
 I call to mind one single incident, 
 And that, as I believe, the very last; 
 It hints how many another may at whiles 
 Have brought the good blood flushing to her brow. 
 
 It seems that in the first barbaric days 
 Of the gold harvest, outside some Hotel 
 Or House of Call, a group of miners spied 
 The pretty huckstress with her little cart, 
 And one of them, out of sheer rollick, paid 
 A nugget for a draught of milk; this drunk, 
 He offered her another for a kiss; 
 Quicker than thought she boxed his ears; the fool, 
 Stung by the blow, or with the shame of it,
 
 The Markhams 1S5 
 
 Rushed forward, looking like revenge; whereon 
 A friend, with instincts finer than his own, 
 Handily intervening, laid him low. 
 When he rose swearing, half a dozen arms 
 Were round him ; in the melee she escaped, 
 Leaving a pound of butter for his bruise. 
 But Mark ham after this kept her at home, 
 And Melbourne knew the little cart no more; 
 Soon far and wide the greedy city flung 
 Its craving arms; the land that they had bought 
 For shillings by the acre, sold for pounds 
 By the square yard, and in a year or two 
 They were made rich, but ' Shirleyholm' was gone. 
 When this was known, for they wrote home to me, 
 And sent me forth on many a pleasant quest, 
 Books, music, furniture, and ornaments, 
 That all betokened wealth and taste — while I 
 Took care to spread theirfame and fortunes round — 
 Old Font de Lane, whose better half was dead, 
 And elder daughter ailing, had the sense 
 To want them back; they answered the demand 
 In terms as kindly as was consonant 
 With firm refusal. In a while he died; 
 So did the daughter, and our Sybil was
 
 1 86 The Mark hams 
 
 Owner of Glayre; I sent her out the news, 
 
 Adding some hints of what I thought might be 
 
 Her duty as an English Landowner. 
 
 But nothing would induce her to come home, 
 
 Or to assume the name; Markham she was, 
 
 And Markham she intended to remain. 
 
 Her life, as she esteemed it, but began 
 
 After her marriage; to return and take 
 
 Her place in the great world, was to commit 
 
 A ' gran rifiuto ' of the destiny 
 
 Whereto with solemn purpose she felt pledged, 
 
 As surely as a priestess to her vows. 
 
 So wrote she in effect, if not in words, 
 
 And Markham backed her in a postscript, thus; 
 
 " We owe our fortunes to our colony, 
 
 She is our mother by adoption, we're 
 
 Her children, and with her will live and die." 
 
 On one point only would she yield; her Boy, 
 My godson, and the Squire of Glayre to be, 
 Should when the time arrived, be sent to me, 
 And filter through those strainers of young life, 
 The Public School and University, 
 That make the Pronaos to the great Nave
 
 The Markhams 187 
 
 For youngsters born as he was — on my soul, 
 That was a jump of metaphor! I'm worse 
 Than one of those most troublesome of hacks 
 Who mar their canter by a change of feet — 
 He came, and justified my guardianship; 
 Passed well through Eton; then went home awhile; 
 Returned, and took his Bachelor's degree; 
 Lived modestly at Glayre, and was to me 
 Much as a son; until the fated day, 
 Came, and he too was married, and right well. 
 Since then he shares with Wilmot, and the Mule, 
 And one or two whom I perchance shall name, 
 The run of such among my heart-preserves 
 As have not been fenced off by memories, 
 Or are not let on lease to Sister Anne.
 
 1 88 
 
 MY LADY 
 
 Z^ALD age, as it advances, brings to us 
 
 ^^ An Indian summer of the heart and mind, 
 
 And sadder is than curiosity 
 
 The mood impelling us to speculate 
 
 How long the gentle season may endure. 
 
 I never loved anticipation much, 
 
 It slays the present and despoils the past; 
 
 1 Look forward ' suits that section of the wise 
 
 Whose passion is success ; for us, whose creed 
 
 Is either formed on failure, or embraced 
 
 After achievement, who in either case, 
 
 Yearn to enjoy, and hanker for repose, 
 
 Our mottoes are 'The present and the past,' 
 
 ' Circumspice et respice '; to us 
 
 The future is a lamp whose wick is dry ; 
 
 An ignis-fatuus that has ceased to lure; 
 
 Prognostic would be waste of precious hours ; 
 
 Our business is with what we have and had ; 
 
 Out-door enticements while the weather holds,
 
 My Lady 1 89 
 
 With books and retrospect for rainy days 
 
 And after dark ; and of these retrospect 
 
 For choice, life's sacred hoard of pain and joy; 
 
 With or without a pen in hand; nor least 
 
 To be recorded in our catalogue 
 
 Of delicacies, sleep, that pearl-like studs, 
 
 Recurrent pricelessly, life's chain of hours. 
 
 Not that we make the most of Memory; 
 
 For ever and anon we tread its halls, 
 
 Turn inside out some worn discarded mask, 
 
 Or kick aside, with due contempt and shame, 
 
 The rotting caps and rusty bells of Folly ; 
 
 But who of us e'er lifts a pious hand 
 
 To cleanse the Marbles, fair but few, alas ! 
 
 Busts of the Virtues, statuettes of Graces, 
 
 And wreaths long faded, that stand round inch deep 
 
 Under the dust of long abandonment? 
 
 I doubt if any man who's worth the name 
 Lives out a long life never having loved ; 
 I take no count of fancies, slender, brief; 
 Offsets of soul that garnish and decay; 
 Branchlets short-lived, such as the hasty pine 
 Sends out as it strides upward, but disowns 
 Season by season, and which neither leave
 
 1 90 My Lady 
 
 A knot within its unaffected heart, 
 
 Nor scar th' unblemished bark of after years. 
 
 I draw another image from the pines 
 
 To symbolize the love I would recall: 
 
 Two stems rise singly side by side, they make 
 
 Together, to philosophizing eyes, 
 
 After long years of sunny neighbourhood, 
 
 A married form, on all sides full and fair, 
 
 In flawless outline; one falls sick and dies, 
 
 Or, by some fatuous freak of forestry, 
 
 Is felled; its partner is left standing there, 
 
 And over half its circuit flourishes; 
 
 But on that desolated side, where once 
 
 The consort it has lost and cherished stood, 
 
 It shows no branch, will never hazard one, 
 
 Bare is it, and will be for ever bare. 
 
 I never knew the Lady that I loved 
 Before her marriage, and rejoice to add 
 The knowledge that I loved her came to me 
 After her husband's death; the startling news 
 Broke in upon my heart as suddenly 
 As the first unmistakable attack 
 Of tempest breaks the unsuspecting calm 
 Of summer, with an ominous sough that scarce
 
 My Lady i 9 1 
 
 Gives warning, ere the storm itself rolls up 
 To drown the notes of its first harbinger; 
 Or as some vanguard, hurrying its advance, 
 Engulphs its masking cloud of skirmishers 
 Ere they have time to make their office felt. 
 
 It chanced on this wise: in my early days, 
 Before the marriage of my sister Anne, 
 I went down into Warwickshire; the house 
 I purposely don't mention; I intend 
 To give no clue in this one chronicle 
 To any of the actors; I shall tell 
 My secret, but keep theirs inviolate. 
 It was the usual December week, 
 Three days of pheasant-shooting and a Ball ; 
 But, as it chanced, and as my pleasure went, 
 One of those dull occasions that will come 
 E'en to the most adaptable of men — 
 Which I was not — when he may find himself 
 Out of the main flow of the cheerful stream 
 Beside him. 
 
 I was stranded; so was He, 
 One of the nameless actors in my tale, 
 Not, like myself, by his own fault. For Him 
 His fate had been perverse enough to weave
 
 192 My Lady 
 
 Forced isolation. Born a younger son, 
 
 With no especial prospects, he was sent 
 
 As Gentleman Cadet to Addiscombe— 
 
 Those were the days of old ' John Company ' — 
 
 Passed into the Artillery, he went out 
 
 To India in due course; served with success 
 
 In several campaigns; held more than one 
 
 Administrative and outlying post, 
 
 Where exile from his fellows wrought with him, 
 
 As with so many Anglo-Indians, 
 
 To aggravate by solitude a strain 
 
 Of brooding habit native to the man. 
 
 When tidings of his only brother's death 
 
 Surprised him tracking tigers all alone 
 
 In some unwholesome jungle of Bengal, 
 
 He left few friends behind him, and came home 
 
 To find himself with none or next to none. 
 
 Climate, hard service, and the reckless love 
 
 Of perilous sport, all working on a frame 
 
 None too robust at best, had rendered him 
 
 More than half invalid, and sown the seeds 
 
 Of that disease which slew him at the last. 
 
 But I anticipate; he had come back 
 
 Ten months before I met him; his first Spring
 
 My Lady 193 
 
 In England had been strangely long and bleak, 
 And scarce atoned for by some summer months 
 Long famous for their heat and brilliancy. 
 'Twas part of that strange rashness which besets 
 The victims of his malady, to hazard 
 The weather of our Midlands at the time 
 I thus encountered him; too ill to shoot 
 For two days of the three, his substitute 
 Had to be found, while a funereal cough, 
 Like Hamlet's Ghost, made his nights hideous, 
 As I, who had my lodgement next to his, 
 Knew to my cost. I soon made friends with him. 
 In my quick way; took him to task forthwith, 
 And lectured him like an old maiden aunt, 
 Persuading him by the week's end to go 
 Straight to Mentone; whence he came next May, 
 And looked me up at once in Berkeley Square, 
 Mended a bit, but not less surely doomed. 
 
 As afterwards with Markham, so with him; 
 Before mid June we were close-knit, and, since 
 In my experience intimacy means 
 That I am used as an emporium 
 For love-sick revelation, I had heard, 
 And more than once too, for my many sins, 
 
 o
 
 194 My Lady 
 
 His tale of the one tie that bound him here. 
 
 He and my nameless Lady were brought up 
 As boy and girl together; had been much 
 As Mary Chaworth and Lord Byron, save 
 That She had been the younger by some years; 
 And He, to do him justice, was still hers, 
 Stainless, and staunch, after his Indian sojourn. 
 There was no bond sealed or unsealed between them, 
 Nor plighted troth, nor vow of constancy, 
 Nor consciousness of mutual romance; 
 'Twas simply that he loved her and no more. 
 
 Her folk had known that she was safe enough, 
 And were content to let him run his course 
 Unwarned, unchecked, unaided, unreproved. 
 They saw their girl was heart-whole, though some 
 
 floods 
 Of natural tears were shed to think that He, 
 The playmate of her childhood, had gone forth 
 To his long, distant, exile 'neath a load, 
 Of sorrow tripled by his hopeless love, 
 Although unspoken none the less made clear. 
 
 When the heart sheds no blood, all comes to 
 rights, 
 And sometimes when it does; for subtle are
 
 My Lady 195 
 
 The gradients from those deeps where wounds heal 
 
 not, 
 Through stages where they do, up to the plane 
 Where pangs are very slight or none at all. 
 Her girlish eyes soon dried; she was brought out, 
 Presented; her too fragile loveliness 
 Laid open all the London drawing-rooms, 
 Wherethrough she wandered at her gracious will, 
 A rivulet among meadows; not for long; 
 She was too fair a prize to stay unclaimed; 
 Some of the rash sort suffered for their sin, 
 Being dismissed with costs and contumely, 
 But ere her second season closed, she married. 
 
 Her husband was her Mother's choice, not hers ; 
 Yet, not a bad one; he had many gifts 
 Which made him highly recommendable, 
 But more perhaps to chaperons than their girls. 
 First, he was tall, though of a clumsy build ; 
 Next, he was comely; with large honest eyes, 
 Somewhat too womanish; a well-cut face, 
 Faultless but feeble ; and a constant smile, 
 Whose graciousness was marred by little airs 
 Of patience, toleration, and fatigue, 
 Born of a maddening self-complacency.
 
 196 My Lady 
 
 The man had brains, but not enough to see 
 That others could be clever, though he were. 
 I ought to add that he was scholarly, 
 And cultivated in more ways than one; 
 But he took rank with those unfortunates 
 Whose merits irritate, and who enhance 
 By contrast the outrageous luck of those 
 Innumerable over-favoured scamps 
 Who make a passport of their faults; I think 
 That in his case, as in a hundred others, 
 A lack of humour slurred his thoroughness. 
 In short, as I look back on him, he looms 
 Large, handsome, clever, and a gentleman, 
 
 rm-hearted, e'en chivalrous, but a bore. 
 
 Twas well for him that, being such an one, 
 us honour was in holy keeping; Her 
 No sense of disillusion, weariness, 
 Or craving for unsatisfied ideals, 
 Not e'en contempt, could ever have drawn down 
 From that pure empyrean where she moved 
 Self-guarded, strong, serene in charity, 
 Angelic peace, and true unconscious pride. 
 I cannot even now enforce myself 
 To give her portrait: that would be to me
 
 My Lady i 97 
 
 A dereliction of a sacred trust, 
 
 The flinging open of a virgin shrine 
 
 That has been closed for half a century, 
 
 A treason to my heart that holds her fast 
 
 As a mysterious relic it may guard, 
 
 Love, worship, but must keep for ever sealed. 
 
 I find I've overshot my narrative, 
 Or written it as though I knew at starting \ 
 What later accident disclosed; my Friend 
 Had all the scruples of a well-bred man, 
 And did not sin by playing with her name, 
 But left me to divine it. Now, I trust 
 That none of those who read this chronicle 
 Will label me as purist if I own 
 That his confession shocked me; all the more 
 Because I trusted him, as one to whom 
 The vulgar forms of treachery and vice 
 Were unattributable; many a time 
 Before that evening which revealed to me 
 The object of his passion, I held forth 
 Unsparingly on the whole tribe of men 
 Who, whether of deliberate villainy, 
 Or from a fibreless lack of self-restraint, 
 Set, or permit, themselves, I care not which,
 
 1 98 My Lady 
 
 To sap the peace and honour of a woman : 
 
 His vows of high resolve and innocent aim, 
 
 Respect, reserve, and distant worship, were 
 
 As nothing with me; I had studied such ., 
 
 And all their many-headed variants, 
 
 In that astonishing congeries, 
 
 That Mons Testaceus of moral shards, 
 
 All broken fragments of the seventh and best 
 
 Of the Mosaic Table, which debase 
 
 The name "French Novel"; bags of bran they 
 
 seemed 
 Flung in a balance 'gainst Schiehallion's mass, 
 So huge the wrong that piled the counter scale. 
 And yet I sank, of sheer fatuity , 
 That wellnigh makes me gnash my teeth to-day, 
 Even to plead for him, and that to Her; 
 Because I loved, believed, and pitied him, 
 And let my love, my pity and my trust 
 Silence my sounder hate of my own plea. 
 
 Chance soon disclosed her; one night He and I 
 Stood listless units in a languid crowd 
 About to climb the stairs of some great house; 
 I saw him turn, and heard him catch his breath, 
 As she came near; one look at each sufficed
 
 My Lady 199 
 
 To tell me who she was and what to him, 
 And how he too was nothing in her eyes. 
 His was the steadiness of self-command 
 As of a^well-trained soldier ; but, for Her, 
 There was no touch of effort in her ease, 
 No finish, no achievement ; her grave look, 
 While she advanced to us and greeted him, 
 Warmed into unembarrassed friendliness, 
 And passed with a suave transference to me 
 A moment later; She went on, and we 
 Soon parted, for our hostess bore me off 
 Reluctant to where some neglected girl 
 Sat pleading entertainment. 
 
 , Duty done, 
 
 I gained the hall once more, strolled off alone, 
 And heedless of the beauty of the night, 
 Affronted her pure skies with flippant rings 
 Of vapour from an unabashed cigar; 
 Musing on miasmatic hopes that match, 
 In desecration of the purity 
 Whose skirts they cannot reach but outrage still, 
 Tobacco's insult to the virgin moon. 
 I own that, as I walked, my musing took 
 A shape in which sheer silliness made up
 
 200 My Lady 
 
 For any lack of baser self-deceit ; 
 
 4 She is,' thought I, ' a woman as to whom 
 
 A good man might win pardon from his kind 
 
 For counting her a gift of fortune worth 
 
 Riding to ruin for, if only he 
 
 Might ride alone, and leave her safe behind. 
 
 Before mid-August came to set us free 
 From Parliament, I had grown intimate 
 With Her and with her husband, and took note 
 How never once I met Him as their guest — 
 Please, note too, any eyes to whom these come, 
 How, vice names, I summon capitals 
 To designate the actors in this drama — 
 The cause of that abstention on his part, 
 For such it was, was not then clear to me ; 
 To my confusion and my shame ; and yet 
 I surely knew enough to make it clear. 
 A mere boy when he sailed for India, 
 He made his first and natural mistake; 
 He judged her feelings by his own; What then? 
 Thousands of older men before his day, 
 And since, and women too, both old and young, 
 Have done the like, and doing it, have framed 
 A confraternity of ridicule
 
 My Lady 201 
 
 That shall endure till Folly be no more. 
 
 He made of his delusion his heart's friend, 
 The brooding comrade of his exiled years, 
 His spiritual bride; no dream, but truth 
 Subjective, if objectively a lie; 
 A haunting semblance of reality 
 More sacred than the memory of loss; 
 A phantom ceaselessly at work to weave 
 A fillet round the brain from which it sprang, 
 Binding and blinding past all change or cure. 
 
 The letters that announced her marriage wrought 
 No change in his belief; there is no creed 
 That holds like the love-mania; it enslaves 
 Not heart or mind, but both ; perverts, absorbs 
 Assimilates; finds nutriment in facts 
 That should be fatal, as the Pontian culled 
 A diet out of poisons; change the image, 
 And say that, like a treacherous armourer, 
 It welds the proofs, that should have hammered out 
 Emancipation, to fresh gyves and chains. 
 
 So, like the strong man in the parable, 
 His house usurped, as by a trespasser 
 Too obstinate for Reason to eject, 
 He lived in thraldom to his fixed belief
 
 202 My Lady 
 
 That He and She were one in martyrdom; 
 
 And very soon he claimed her fellowship; 
 
 Which she with no less promptitude refused. 
 
 Mad though she thought him, she forbore to laugh ; 
 
 He was too sad and grave for ridicule, 
 
 And, spite of his persistence, treated her 
 
 With so much of a delicate reserve, 
 
 That, knowing what she knew of his despair, 
 
 And of his fathomless belief in hers, 
 
 To say naught of her knowledge of herself, 
 
 She could but spare, forbear, and pity him. 
 
 As for myself, all I have here set down 
 As to their true relations, came to me 
 In our late confidences — Hers and mine — 
 After His death; in making it clear now 
 I overstride the traces of my story, 
 As I am prone to do; the latest form 
 His madness took, wherein I had a share, 
 Seized him before he started, towards the close 
 Of his last autumn, for the South of France. 
 It so chanced a November session brought 
 Most of us back to town; I came to know 
 That for some weeks a change had worked in him ; 
 So far from shunning her, he sought her now
 
 My Lady 203 
 
 With assiduity as strongly marked 
 
 As was his old avoidance; day by day 
 
 He sat with me, and I could always tell 
 
 By the disorder of his shattered nerves, 
 
 When he had passed to me from her ; at last 
 
 One afternoon the outburst came; he crouched, 
 
 Shrunk, bowed, and shivering, in my smoking-room, 
 
 Before a fire by far too big for me. 
 
 The hand of Death was plainly beckoning him, 
 
 And I was racked with pity; he refused 
 
 To smoke, whereat I saw that he had reached 
 
 What Byron calls the last infirmity 
 
 Of evil ; in default, I ordered up 
 
 Hot negus for him, which he gladly drank ; 
 
 Then he broke forth, " Oh, Shirley, if she would 
 
 But tell me she once loved me, now at last 
 
 Before I go! She knows that I must die; 
 
 I've sworn, and I will keep my oath, to take 
 
 My farewell, once the comfortable words 
 
 Have passed her lips; I would depart in peace 
 
 Like Simeon of old, and pray for death 
 
 Before their echoes faded in my soul. 
 
 Will you not plead for me?" 
 
 I shall not pen
 
 204 My Lady 
 
 One word of unfelt self-apology; 
 
 In less than half an hour I found myself, 
 
 Oh ten times worse than fool, confronting Her; 
 
 My madman's mission done, and badly done 
 
 She rose, first flushed, then deadly pale; her look 
 
 Passed out of anger to a strained rebuke 
 
 Of passionate sadness, which was worse to me 
 
 Than any burst of rage had been, and that 
 
 Was what I feared; "You, of all men," said she, 
 
 In tremulous tones; "You know not what you ask; 
 
 Leave me at once ; " and, when I would have spoken, 
 
 " No more, lest I say more; lest I say more!" 
 
 The phrase she thus repeated drove all speech 
 
 In from my lips^like cowed troops who fall back 
 
 Within their lines; through all my homeward way, 
 
 In battle with the noises of the street, 
 
 It rang in me, though, as I thought, with more 
 
 Of mystery than menace, till I slunk 
 
 Tamed, shamed, and fretting into Berkeley Square. 
 
 I found Him there, with a cigar half-smoked, 
 
 To my relief; he raised his eyes to mine 
 
 Without a word, and, looking back in turn, 
 
 I could but be as mute as he, so hard 
 
 To answer was the hunger in his gaze.
 
 My Lady 205 
 
 He rose and left me; two days thence he sailed, 
 And that brief silence was our last farewell. 
 
 In spite of all that I have here confessed 
 With Her my intimacy grew apace; 
 And with it grew, as meadow perfumes grow, 
 Unrecognized though palpable, the sense 
 That was to steep my being once for all. 
 Ours seemed but a sweet comradeship which filled 
 The void that theretofore had given me 
 My appetite for making friends of men ; 
 I lived in isolation from the day 
 When He went out to die alone, until 
 That morning when Love came unheralded, 
 Flung off his mantle, and disclosed his plumes, 
 But, even while he blessed us, winged his way, 
 For sorrow shading his immortal eyes. 
 
 She seemed soon to have pardoned me my 
 prayer 
 For Him who, having rallied for a while, 
 Lay sinking at Mentone ; but for all 
 Her gracious camaraderie, her smiles 
 Of welcome, her hand-pressure in farewell, 
 And, once or twice, a wistfulness that passed 
 Over her eyes, like haze across the moon,
 
 206 My Lady 
 
 At partings of unwonted length, and spoke 
 Of something special in the preference 
 Wherewith she honoured me, I could not shake 
 Out of my memory those words that crushed 
 My last winter's appeal in His behalf; 
 " You, of all men ! You know not what you ask ; 
 No more, lest I say more; lest I say more." 
 
 " I would to heaven," thought I, as late one night, 
 I turned the corner into Berkeley Square, 
 " Some Delphic Priestess, some articulate Oak, 
 Or Sibyl, as explicit as that Maid 
 Who seated in her grove at Cumae, gave 
 His Carte de Voyage to the Trojan Chief, 
 Had got a Tripod somewhere in the wilds 
 Of Battersea or Kensington, and would, 
 For moderate consideration, give 
 The meaning of that cryptic utterance." 
 By this time I had reached my smoking-room, 
 And, turning over sundry letters, found 
 One from Mentone, and, of course, from Him. 
 Imagine my confusion and dismay 
 In lighting on this precious paragraph: 
 " See her once more, I do beseech you, Dick; 
 Say I am dying — this is true; a week
 
 My Lady 207 
 
 Or fortnight at the most is all they give, 
 I mean the Doctors— face her once again ; 
 I guess too clearly what you had to bear 
 Before; but we are selfish, we who die. 
 And now she knows that I shall only wear 
 Her secret on my heart a few poor hours, 
 She may bestow it on me; any way, 
 I shall die blessing you for asking it." 
 
 I read this and re-read it, and each time 
 Her phrase that I had pondered came and went, 
 Like some exasperating chime of bells 
 Heard by a criminal through his last night, 
 " No more, lest I say more, lest I say more." 
 Ten restless hours brought me but little help; 
 Could I refuse him? Leave at any cost 
 A man I loved to die in his despair? 
 Though truly, I began to think, perhaps 
 To hope, that his last prayer was doubly vain, 
 In that she had no secret to confess. 
 But with the thought of yielding, came the dread 
 That she might mount the Tripod, might combine 
 Delphi, Dodona, Cumae, in one role, 
 And give me, to my great discomfiture, 
 Interpretation from the fountain head
 
 2o8 My Lady 
 
 Of her own Oracle. Well; in the end, 
 
 ' Better,' thought I, ' to dare a woman's wrath 
 
 Than draw the pillow from a dying head.' 
 
 Oh, could I have divined that, while I vexed 
 
 My spirit with the words that tortured me, 
 
 It had become her wont to comfort hers 
 
 With some such thought as this, ' How sweeter far 
 
 To love a man who knows not that he loves, 
 
 Than to look out on a too conscious passion 
 
 That wakes no echo in you.' But till then 
 
 I never thought to win a woman's love. 
 
 Yet, as it was, I think I had not gone, 
 
 If it had not been for his handwriting; 
 
 The haunting plea of its dumb characters 
 
 That straggled with the feebleness of death, 
 
 And seemed to question me, as a dog's eyes 
 
 Might question his intending poisoner 
 
 Come with the deadly phial in his hand ; 
 
 And so I went. 
 
 I faced her as I might, 
 Holding his open letter in my hand. 
 I saw her guess its purport, and the sight 
 Of her quick glance precipitated me 
 Into the gulf; She left me time to read
 
 My Lady 209 
 
 The passage I have quoted, then she rose, 
 And, reaching me with two or three quick strides, 
 While I stood paralyzed, she pounced upon 
 The maddening letter, tore it into shreds, 
 Clenched these, and flung them backwards towards 
 
 the fire. 
 Her flashing eyes still held me, as she clutched 
 My wrist, and thrust me from her, passed, and laid 
 Her hand upon the door, then, facing me, 
 Said, with a blast of scorn that nothing, save 
 The love I came to know, but knew not then, 
 Could ever, I don't say efface, but heal; 
 "Twice, twice, no more, my Lord; we meet no more; 
 I could have honoured you, take my contempt; 
 To think the Earl of Shirley could thus stoop 
 To show himself, and that to me, to me, 
 Valet and pander! " and was gone. 
 
 Next day 
 I heard that He had died, nay, had lain dead 
 While this went on; and so, I had incensed 
 The Lady whose esteem outshone to me 
 All meaner lights of birthright, wealth, and name. 
 To brand me with dishonour, and for nought. 
 After a while I grew to feel my fault 
 
 p
 
 2io My Lady 
 
 Less heinous than her vengeance was condign, 
 And looked that she should give some evidence 
 Of pardon, or perchance regret for words 
 That seemed to put her rage beyond the pale; 
 But she remained relentless, while for me, 
 If ever words had lashes, hers had scored 
 Too deep to leave an active penitence 
 Pulsating in me. So the Season passed, 
 The London crowd dispersed, and She and I 
 Went our respective ways, and made no sign. 
 I ordered out my yacht, avoided Cowes, 
 Where she might be, and striking northward, sailed 
 By Orkney and the Shetlands, round Cape Wrath, 
 And past the Isles to Oban; shot and fished 
 With sundry friends, finding myself at length 
 Half through September back at Branscombe Place, 
 Dejected, fretful, unappeased, alone. 
 
 I summoned Anne, at whom that Gentleman 
 Whom I misname 'The Mule,' was even then 
 Arching his honest crest, and wearily 
 Planned a campaign against my partridges. 
 Then rose the curtain on the Second Act 
 Of my life-tragedy, Her husband's death. 
 He had been shot in clambering up a bank
 
 My Lady 2 1 1 
 
 With gun full-cocked; his foot, it seems, had slipped; 
 Both barrels lodged their contents in his side, 
 And he fell dead without a cry. 
 
 The news 
 Reached me, as news of that sort often does ; 
 One of my guests had seized upon ' The Times ' 
 On our return from shooting — at that date 
 We got our Papers in the afternoon — 
 And read out the account 'mid just so much 
 Of general interest, as an incident 
 So sudden and so sad must needs arouse, 
 When he whom it lays low is widely known. 
 But what to me, as I stood listening there, 
 Were their conventional regrets? For me 
 This death was as the drawing of a veil 
 That theretofore had shrouded my own soul. 
 I seemed to see myself for the first time; 
 My double fault, her rage, her insults, flew 
 Like husks before a winnowing fan ; the grain 
 Remained, her freedom, and her worth, 
 And, for I knew it now beyond disguise, 
 The surety of my overwhelming love. 
 
 But She — to say nought of my lack of grace 
 To find a way to any woman's heart —
 
 2 1 2 My Lady 
 
 How could she ever look upon the man 
 
 Who twice, how well I justified her now! 
 
 Had played the pander, as she said? But, more; 
 
 Apart from my misdoing, upon what, 
 
 Save on the quickest sands of false surmise, 
 
 Had I to build a hope? 'Twas very true 
 
 That since that fatal day I kept one phrase 
 
 Hoarded, and fondly severed from the rest, 
 
 ' I could have honoured you, my Lord ' ; but then, 
 
 She flung that in my face, as who should say, 
 
 ' The thoughts I wove of you are worthless rags, 
 
 I will no longer soil my soul with them ' ; 
 
 Just as she crushed, and flung behind her back 
 
 The fragments of His letter. On such texts 
 
 How many a sermon did I preach myself, 
 
 Mixing and multiplying doubts and pains, 
 
 Seeking in vain some anodyne, where hope 
 
 Should be the mastering ingredient; 
 
 Alas, what knew I of the seated doom 
 
 Hidden behind the Alps of happiness 
 
 I was so timorously picturing, 
 
 Ready to rise and blot their flowered slopes 
 
 For ever from life's landscape. 
 
 With much pains
 
 My Lady 2 1 
 
 o 
 
 I had contrived to put in shape, and send 
 
 Some formal words of sorrow for her loss, 
 
 Shirking all else; two months or more then passed 
 
 In self-abandonment to all the winds 
 
 That buffet, baffle, and perplex the soul, 
 
 Love, doubt, hope, fear, remorse, despair, until 
 
 Once more I had my house at Branscombe full, 
 
 This time of pheasant slayers. A grand day 
 
 Did justice to the climate that I love; 
 
 Along the terrace, just before our start, 
 
 Women and men stood, or patrolled in groups, 
 
 Chattering miscellaneously; I sat 
 
 Over some correspondence in my room, 
 
 Able to catch fragments of gossip dropt 
 
 By passers by, and amongst others, these; 
 
 " How sad it is, so pretty and so young! " 
 
 "Why not add good?" "Oh, good, beyond all 
 
 doubt;" 
 "Ah, well, poor thing, it will not be for long." 
 Then they walked out of hearing; in a while 
 They passed again ; I caught, " What is it then, 
 Cancer? " " Well, so they say; some hateful thing, 
 Internal and malignant, any way." 
 " But won't they operate? " " They tell me, not;
 
 214 My Lady 
 
 It's too deep seated." I had heard no name, 
 Yet something plunged within me, like a rope 
 Plucked in a church tower for a passing-bell. 
 I rushed round to the terrace, and at once 
 Accosted the last speaker; " Whom," said I, 
 
 " Were you just talking of? " " Poor " and, my 
 
 God, 
 The name was Hers. " Is there no hope, think you?" 
 " No, none; at least Sir Bradley Pope gave none, 
 " When they consulted him six weeks or so 
 Before her husband's death. Sad, isn't it, 
 That she should follow him within the year? 
 Not that she ever loved him, though, of course, 
 Her conduct, as they used to say of Knights, 
 Was wholly sans reproche." I braced myself 
 For some ten minutes more of commonplace, 
 Then joined the guns. How fortunate it was 
 That on such days I seldom fired a shot, 
 But walked outside, and so was much alone. 
 
 I dared not yet confess myself to Anne, 
 Though later she knew all; I own I feared 
 Her prudence ; I was bent on a rash move^ 
 From which I knew that her persuasion must
 
 My Lady 2 1 5 
 
 Amount to interdict; two months I kept 
 
 My mind on leash, in vacillation long 
 
 Between a letter that should tell Her all, 
 
 And a short note that simply should ask pardon, 
 
 And, as a sign thereof, an interview. 
 
 I knew my woman-Mentor far too well 
 
 To challenge her consent to either plan ; 
 
 Moreover, she was dreaming of her ' Mule,' 
 
 And, as I gathered, happily; I shunned 
 
 To cloud her outlook with my misery. 
 
 So, after many a tack 'gainst wind and stream, 
 
 I laid my helm down to the risky course, 
 
 And wrote Her thus; 
 
 " I do not write to ask 
 Your pardon ; in the memory of those words 
 That sear me still, I deem that I have served 
 My sentence for my sin; just so may feel 
 A felon, issuing from his prison door, 
 Quits with Society; yet I would say 
 That His delusion worked its will in me 
 With such contagious force, such subtle guise 
 And symptomatic semblance of a truth, 
 As made me share it to the full, and dream 
 That you had loved him once as he loved you.
 
 216 My Lady 
 
 Then too, I knew that he was doomed to die, 
 
 And felt that an avowal of your love, 
 
 Long past it might be, still, a blessed fact 
 
 That made his wasted youth a sacred time, 
 
 Would smooth his death-bed. All is altered now; 
 
 My spiritual vision has been purged : 
 
 I see and curse my blunder, and would fain, 
 
 Albeit my contrition comes too late, 
 
 Absolve your noble anger of the charge 
 
 I loathe my heart for harbouring so long. 
 
 Yet even now, so rash I am, I dare 
 
 To risk a ruin upon ruin, and draw 
 
 Fresh floods of indignation on my head, 
 
 Which should seek shelter from all further storms 
 
 In self-effacement and submission. Yet, 
 
 Rashness apart, so keen am I to show 
 
 Each facet of this apologia, 
 
 My task would seem to me but half performed 
 
 If I withheld from you the blessed source 
 
 That fills my well-spring of enlightenment. 
 
 I love you; and I know beyond all chance 
 
 Of error, all misgiving, and all fear 
 
 Of change or lapse or any other pest 
 
 That can attack Love's surface or its core,
 
 My Lady 2 1 7 
 
 That I shall love you onward till I die; 
 As I have loved you since that very night 
 When He presented us, and I walked home 
 Astonished through the moonlight; breaking forth 
 In murmurs that made answer to my wonder; 
 A woman who would make one live for Heaven; 
 One too for whom a man would dare to die, 
 Or ride to ruin, if it might but be 
 That she should live and he ride forth alone? 
 " Did you detect the secret which my Soul 
 Kept from me as though it were none of mine, 
 During those months wherethrough you honoured 
 
 me 
 With such a frequency, and made your house 
 More like a home to me than home itself, 
 Till my blind idiotcy closed its doors? 
 Ah no, that terrible rebuke remains 
 For answer; had you then divined my love, 
 Your pity would have quelled that on your lips, 
 And found some other way to mark my fault. 
 His death was as the dawning of the day 
 To my awakening, and your later loss 
 Brought the full light of morning; dare I add 
 That something I have heard glares down on me
 
 218 My Lady 
 
 With fierceness deadlier than a tropic noon? 
 But what to us are metaphors! sweet friend, 
 For so you are, let me be blunt and plain. 
 
 " A nameless dread hath overwhelmed me, worse 
 E'en than your anger and contempt; those meant 
 Only my loss of you, but this enshrouds 
 Your destiny, alas, no less than mine; 
 They tell me you are ill ; I dare not write 
 All that a careless and unwitting tongue 
 Revealed to me, but 'tis that you are ill, 
 Smitten, how can I frame the words ! to death. 
 If their most hideous story were the truth, 
 I should but ask to tend and comfort you 
 Till God should take you from me; if 'twere false, 
 As of his mercy may it prove to be, 
 I could but lay and leave in trembling hope 
 My life's petition at your gracious feet, 
 As I do now." 
 
 I kept this many days 
 Ere I dared send it, but at last it went 
 With date unchanged ; though hating shiftiness, 
 I own I thought that the delay thus shown 
 Would point my hesitation, and disarm 
 Resentment of its readier stings. A week
 
 My Lady 2 1 9 
 
 Of ruffled days and feverish nights passed by, 
 
 Ere I tore open, with hands clumsier 
 
 Than usual through fear, an envelope 
 
 Dated from London, to find one scant line, 
 
 " I cannot answer yet, pray, bear with me." 
 
 The words spelt respite, beyond doubt; I read, 
 
 Reread, kept lock and key in constant work, 
 
 And gave the missive every chance to make 
 
 Its own elucidation. At the last, 
 
 I turned to an infallible cigar, 
 
 Had a long confidential smoke, and then 
 
 Thought some fresh air might give me further light, 
 
 So fetched my dog, tramped for a good ten miles 
 
 Over our downs, and came back schooled and calm. 
 
 Yet stood I planted 'twixt two rival fears, 
 
 Scarce knowing which I dreaded most, her death, 
 
 Or her rejection of my love; 'twas strange, 
 
 But I seemed buoyed between the two; alone, 
 
 Either had overset me, counterpoised, 
 
 Their opposition stayed me, and I stood 
 
 Victim of neither, though the sport of both. 
 
 The comfort of their conflict was not long; 
 Her answer came; it lies before me now. 
 " You do not ask my pardon, and I feel
 
 220 My Lady 
 
 That you are in your right, and I no less 
 
 In mine to proffer none. I would not have 
 
 Flaw, smirch, or rivet of a fracture, mar 
 
 The crystal casket that should hold our love; 
 
 No pardon shall you crave nor I bestow. 
 
 I know you for the noblest among men ; 
 
 Knew this throughout that long tumultuous time 
 
 Whilst honour bade me tell myself no more; 
 
 And 'twas perchance, I know not, care not now, 
 
 The fancy that an untouched heart alone 
 
 Could leave you free, and calm, and cold enough 
 
 To plead another's suit, that angered me 
 
 Most in your pleading; yet, how much less sore 
 
 It was to love a man who loved not me, 
 
 Or knew not that he loved me, than to watch 
 
 The hopeless pain of one I did not love. 
 
 Miscall it not immodesty that cries 
 
 So loudly ' How I love you ! ' I am free 
 
 To speak, as you are ; shall I show myself 
 
 Less generous than you? No; speak I will; 
 
 It is your due; and mine, owed to myself, 
 
 Is to pay yours. My Richard, yes, my Richard; 
 
 To write your name is a new privilege; 
 
 Oh, what a girlish joy it brings to me
 
 My Lady 2 2 1 
 
 To frame the letters thus for the first time ! 
 
 " But I must stay my hand. The flush of joy 
 Dies down in me, and in its place returns 
 The stony pallor of that certain death 
 Which waits for me. For once, it was no lie 
 That Rumour told. I cannot let you come 
 Within the shadow of the brooding wings, 
 Nor cheat you with a phantom happiness 
 Which, while you thought to clasp it, would dissolve 
 And leave within your arms an empty shroud. 
 
 " I should indeed gain this; I should have lived 
 For some few months in constant sight of you, 
 And sunk to sleep with the dear eyes and arms 
 Upon me and around me; but athwart 
 The consolation of that calm would sweep 
 The thought that I had deepened the great wound 
 Lost love must leave in such a heart as yours ; 
 How should I vex my own, and, musing, weep 
 To see your passion and your tenderness 
 Grow with the lessening number of my days; 
 How should I pray death to come speedily, 
 And set you free from me, a mockery, 
 For such I should be; every day and hour 
 Would be a battle-field between the peace
 
 222 My Lady 
 
 Your presence should have wrought, and agony 
 
 Born of the knowledge of that bitter store 
 
 Your long watch would be garnering for your soul. 
 
 " Since die I must, leave me to die alone; 
 The famine of your loss will be a boon ; 
 Its void will help to kill me soon, abridge 
 My term of pains, and school me for my end. 
 Live on, dear heart, and living, love again, 
 As will befit your manhood; I shall pass 
 Happy in knowing you have chosen me 
 Out of all women for your earliest love; 
 Content, if in your later happiness 
 You sometimes spare a tender memory, 
 (Which she, your wife, will be too good to grudge,) 
 To your first passion, though it may be dead 
 As she, who died apart to spare your pain. 
 It is my knowledge of your nobleness 
 That tells me I am right. Farewell, farewell." 
 
 Invincible resolve to conquer hers 
 Beat back my misery; I seized a pen 
 And answered her forthwith; I would not risk 
 A second reading; something I had missed 
 Might make me hesitate; the lines I wrote 
 Are stamped still on my heart, and they were these :
 
 My Lady 223 
 
 "Never, farewell, so long as your sweet soul 
 Tarries to bless me with the sight of you ! 
 When you are gone it will be time enough 
 To champ the bitter husks of memory; 
 Condemn me not to this before my time. 
 Is not your argument a blasphemy 
 Against the Lord of Life? Or brief or long, 
 If I live out your sojourn by your side, 
 Will not the Angels who are waiting you 
 Weep for us both? But should they see me not, 
 How will they scorn me, while those Evil ones, 
 Who hate the best there is in human-kind, 
 Laugh in our ears? Sweet one, this is no prayer 
 To grant or to reject; it is a claim 
 Made in Love's name, that I may take my place 
 By your bed-side till I surrender you 
 To God alone, if this must be. I wait 
 My summons in a syllable; write 'Come.' " 
 
 It came, that little word, and from it shrank 
 Back to my heart's horizon the black cloud, 
 So soon to gather shape again, and mount 
 Implacable the zenith of my joy. 
 But for that moment, the one note in me 
 Rang triumph, while my horses at full speed
 
 224 My Lady 
 
 Devoured the spaces of the six long miles 
 
 From Branscombe Place to Branscombe town; 
 
 thought I, 
 Irreverently, ignobly, if you will, 
 Recalling that last scene 'twixt her and me, 
 " How argument breeds courage in a man, 
 And, as a weapon, how inferior 
 It is to fury in a woman's fence. 
 How full of beauty and truth were her last pleas, 
 And yet they spelt surrender." 
 
 In the train, 
 So quieted was I, so far at ease, 
 I fell asleep half way, waking to hear 
 The call for ' tickets ' as we entered London. 
 1 left my servant at the terminus, 
 And drove straight to her house; she was alone; 
 And have I yet to pass a thousand years 
 Before I wake to meet with her again, 
 I still shall say that hour of love was worth 
 The waiting and my misery to come. 
 
 My second visit was to Anne, just then 
 The guest of our Aunt Wilmot for awhile; 
 What need to say how she flew off at once, 
 My Angel Sister, on impatient wings 

 
 My Lady 225 
 
 Of sympathy and love, or how they two, 
 In silence unprofaned by needless words, 
 Scaled their sweet sisterhood with sacred tears. 
 For sundry weeks our patient sufferer stayed, 
 Obedient to our vain but natural prayer, 
 Seeking the aid that could not come, the hope 
 That none might utter ; but the early Spring 
 Found Anne, with Her, her Mother, and myself, 
 Resigned at Branscombe, not to move again. 
 Nature in pity did her best; she gave 
 A Summer among summers, and no less 
 An Autumn rich with fruit and flowered calm; 
 And when at last a long hard Winter fell, 
 Our gentle Lady slept beneath the snows.
 
 CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITT1NGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
 
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