sY.cJ r^^"?'-'. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap CopyrigiitNo. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Pictures of Travel And Other Poems From a photograph by J. 'Thomson, 'JO a.. Gros-venor Street, London, W. Pictures of Travel And Other Poems By Mackenzie Bell eAuthor of " Spring's Immortality and other Poems '* *' Charles Whitehead : A Biographical and Critical Monograph " ** Christina Rossetti : A Biographical and Critical Study *' With Six Illustrations Boston Little, Brown, & Co. 1898 lt^^62 Copyright, 1898, By Little, Brown, & Company Al/ rights reserved DcopitJi !rtt.i»£.i\jty< University Press John Wilson & Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. TO WILLIAM MACDONALD SINCLAIR ARCHDEACON OF LONDON IN MEMORY OF MANY HAPPY HOURS SPENT AT THE CHAPTER HOUSE ST. Paul's cathedral Prefatory Note / AM obliged to the editors of^^The Pall Mall Magazine,'' " The Churchman,'' London, ^^Black andTVhite," London, " The Lady's Realm," London, " The Literary World," London, and other periodicals, for permission to include in this volume poems which originally appeared in their pages, and to Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. for their courtesy in allowing me to include the two sonnets, '■^To a Lady Playing the Harp in her Chamber," which were first pub- lished in the third series of " The Savage Club Papers." In stanza V. of " The Battle's Pause" one of the poems in this volume, an attempt is made to paint a picture of what in other times was very familiar in the estuary of the Mersey — the sailing out of many merchantmen which had long been wind-bound. This must indeed have been a singularly beautiful sight as viewed from such a coign of vantage, for example, as Seacombe beach opposite PREFATORY NOTE to Liverpool. What marine spectacle in these days of steam can equal in picturesqueness the sailing-ships of the early part of the century^ imposing in their proportions^ and moving majestically through the water under favour- ing conditions ? With reference to other lines in the same stanza it may be mentioned that St. Nicholas^ the ancient parish church of Liverpool^ is near the river^ and is a noticeable object from it^ and that in the early part of l8l^ there was an extraordinarily severe frost in the neighbourhood of Liverpool with ice-floes on the Mersey. "^ Plea for Faith '* was written.^ and its title chosen^ before I read., both in manuscript and in proof my friend Dr. George S. Keith's treatise., "^ Plea for a Simpler Faith.'' " A Plea for a Simpler Faith " was not sug- gested by my poem. MACKENZIE BELL, London, September i8g8. Contents PICTURES OF TRAVEL — SECOND SERIES i PAGE After Sunset off Pauillac ...... 3 Evening in the Forest of Meudon .... 5 Wild Roses and Snow ...... 7 At Sea — Off the Mouth of the Garonne — Sunset 9 Near St. Sauveur . . . . . . .11 On the Lake of Geneva . . . . . • ^3 The Battle's Pause . . . . . • 17 To A Worker among the Poor . . ... 47 A Plea for Faith ...... 55 1 For the first series of " Pictures of Travel," see the author's previous volume, "Spring's Immortality and Other Poems" (third edition, 1896). CONTENTS MISCELLANEOUS POEMS To A Summer Evening in the Woods The Boy Chatterton to Himself The Boy Coleridge to Himself The Philosophy of our Feelings The Philosophy of Frequent Failure Wind Fancies .... To Frederick Tennyson . To a Lady playing the Harp in her Chamber PAGE 68 70 72 73 75 76 78 RELIGIOUS POEMS To Christina Rossetti . . . . A Sunrise in Early Summer Her Boy Just Dead . . . . Miracles ....... 83 84 87 90 List of Illustrations "... where a valley closes 'Mid mountain heights up-piled" . . To face page 7 "Nature is great, and Man is impotent" " 11 <« . . . waters of the waveless lake" " 13 ^' "... that steep village street which lay, Crag-perched, 'mid tree-boles gnarled and grey With age " " ^9 "... the reach The farm-folk call the Little Broad" . . " 3^ "... each object . . . made so clear In this rare light " . 66 PICTURES OF TRAVEL SECOND SERIES After Sunset off Pauillac {Gironde^ The day is gone, but yonder fading streaks Of light still fleck the bosom of the sky. Swart Night comes swiftly. Hark, that sound bespeaks My nearness to the ocean, 't is the cry Of some belated sea-bird, and I hear The ripples at my feet. A low sweet song Monotonous, yet musical and clear, Is breeze-borne from a vessel's deck along. The crew raise anchor quickly, and away She glides into the gloom, while growing low 4 After Sunset off Pauillac And ever lower sounds the roundelay. What now may be her fortune none can know. Like her, o'er Life's strange, trackless sea we sail, Nor know if calm or tempest will prevail. Evening in the Forest of Meudon (^Seine et 01 se) Returning sometimes from the fields of sleep, I seem to see that twilight once again, That twilight as mysterious, rich, and deep. As yonder blackbird's strain. I see the sombre loveliness around; I feel the sense of awe, the enthralling peace. Of Nature's woodland silence, for no sound Makes here that silence cease. 6 Evening in the Forest of Meudon Anon I see the waters of the lake Gleam in the last hues of the sunset glow, While here and there the lazy cattle slake Their thirst, and homeward go. But hear, O hear that sudden burst of song, At last it is the full-voiced nightingales! While mellow cuckoos sing, and so prolong Music as daylight fails. ********* Long hours have passed, and man and beast and bird Rest; yet my heart is filled with pure delight, And lo, a single nightingale is heard Amid the moonless night. •*^ o Ti >. CD JJ o, rt Ph p rrt