THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Iv! 
 
 \L 
 
 V
 
 9 
 
 / O r 
 
 ORELLANA 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 
 X
 
 ORELLANA 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 J. LOGIE ROBERTSON, M.A. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXI 
 
 All Rights resented
 
 PR 
 
 APOLOGY FOR POESY. 
 
 From what fa?- regions of the Infinite 
 
 Beyond the solar glow 
 I have been sent from uncreated light, 
 And why to this dim borderland of Night, 
 
 My Lord, I do not know. 
 
 But Thou art wise; and in my mortal sphere, 
 
 Pent in this prison tower, 
 Blown to me from my spirit-home I hear. 
 Sounding, now faint and far, nozv near and 
 clear. 
 
 Harmonies every hour. 
 
 The sun goes surging up the East in song : 
 
 The moon in nuiffled strain 
 Repeats the pecan, whispering it among 
 The choral stars, that listen and prolong, 
 
 And cease and sing again. 
 
 I 
 
 816654
 
 vi APOLOGY FOR POESY. 
 
 Ocean all thro7igh his many-chambered seas. 
 
 The seas through all their bays, 
 Rivers and rills, forests with all their trees, 
 Tempest, and thunder, and the wandering breeze, 
 
 My God, proclaim Thy praise. 
 
 — And oft when midnight buries vale and hill. 
 
 Loosening its music free. 
 My heart instinctive sings, as sea-shells ivill. 
 Though inland carried far, faitJif illy still 
 
 Echo their patent sea. 
 
 These are of Thee — these broken luirmonies, 
 
 That wander from Thy lyre 
 Like wind-blown blossoms of the Hesperides, 
 Or spray sun-kissed to golden irises 
 
 And twists of coloured fire. 
 
 I hear and thrill ; — not as the soulless cliff 
 
 Deaf to the vocal sea. 
 But answering to the joy like dancing skiff: 
 — God of all Harmony! forgive me if 
 
 L dare to answer Tliee!
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I., 
 BOOK II., 
 
 ORELLANA. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 50 
 
 BRIERS. 
 
 I. IN MEMORIAM, I09 
 
 II. THE MASK OF MISERY, . . • HO 
 
 III. FOUND DEAD, 112 
 
 IV. THESE AND THOSE, . . . . 1 13 
 V. PARTING AND MEETING, . . . 1 14 
 
 VI. THE PLEADER, 115 
 
 VII. DELILAH, 116 
 
 VIII. THE TWO SUNSETS, . . .   1 1? 
 
 IX, THE PROMENADE 119 
 
 X. JOAN THAMSON's MAN, . . . I20 
 
 XI. WITHOUT AND WITHIN, ... 121 
 
 XII. THE AULD HOOSE AND THE NEW, . 1 23
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FROM THE SICILIAN OF VICORTAI. 
 
 I. A DEDICATION, . 
 
 II. REFLECTED HEAVEN, . 
 
 III, SUMMER IN WINTER, . 
 
 IV. LOVE TEST, 
 
 V. THE violet's GRAVE, 
 
 VI. FELIX, FELIX TER QUATERQUE 
 
 VII. SUMMER EVE, 
 
 VIIL SERENADE, .... 
 
 IX. THE FUGITIVES, 
 
 X. THE DREAMER, . 
 
 . 
 
 127 
 
 / 
 
 128 
 
 
 129 
 
 
 130 
 
 
 131 
 
 
 132 
 
 
 133 
 
 
 134 
 
 
 135 
 
 
 141 
 
 SYLVyE. 
 
 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN, . . . I47 
 
 THE MEET AT MIDNIGHT, . . . . 1 58 
 
 SIMMER LOST: A SIGH FOR SANDIE IN NEW 
 
 ZEALAND, 161 
 
 A GIFT FOR A BRIDE, .... 163 
 
 THE CAMP ON THE OCHILS, . . . 168 
 
 ADVENTUS VERIS, 17 1 
 
 THE LAD OF BENARTY, . . . . 1 75 
 
 PINES AND BOULDER, . . . . 1 77 
 
 THE TWO FLOWERS, 1 78 
 
 IN THE KNOCK-WOOD, . . . . 1 79 
 
 THE LIGHT ON THE HILLSIDE, . . . 181 
 
 HEIGH-HO ! THE WIND AND THE RAIN ! . 1 83 
 
 YE FATE OF YE BOOK, . . . . 1 85
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 IX 
 
 THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST, 
 
 WORKING AND IDLING, 
 
 BLOOMTIME : A SONG, 
 
 A DITHYRAMB, . 
 
 COMPOSING A SONNET, 
 
 DAVID, 
 
 OUR MARY : HER FATE, 
 
 RETURN TO EDINBURGH AFTER 
 
 DAYS, 
 THE WEETS o' BAIGLIE, 
 
 THE 
 
 HOLI- 
 
 192 
 
 196 
 197 
 200 
 201 
 208 
 
 211 
 212 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 APRIL, 
 
 NIGHT, 
 
 A BACK-LYING FARM, 
 
 "THY WILL BE DONE," 
 
 TENANTLESS, 
 
 ON GRANTON PIER, 
 
 ON LOMOND. HILL, 
 
 TWO SONNETS IN DEFENCE OF SONG, 
 
 BERRY-HILL, 
 
 A HUMOUR OF THE LINKS, 
 
 LOCHLEVEN IN NOVEMBER, 
 
 THE LAWN-ADONIS, 
 
 A GREAT MAN DIES, . 
 
 OLD AGE — THE WRESTLER, 
 
 winter's pale MARTYR, 
 
 "A BARBARY HEN," . 
 
 219 
 220 
 221 
 223 
 226 
 227 
 228 
 229 
 231 
 232 
 
 233 
 234 
 235 
 236 
 
 237 
 238
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 NORWEGIAN SONNETS. 
 
 I. BALDER BACK ! . . . . Z\\ 
 
 ir. UP THE SKAGER RACK, . ; . 242 
 
 III. WELCOME ! 243 
 
 IV. THAT SPEAR, 244 
 
 V. MILTON IN NORWAY, . . . 245 
 
 VI. THE SCENERY— GO AND SEE IT ! . 246 
 
 VII. A TERROR OF THE TWILIGHT, . 247 
 
 VIII. A WATERFALL WITHIN A WOOD, . 248 
 
 IX. MINERVA IN THE S^TERSDAL, . 249 
 
 X. THE LITTLE MEAL-MILL, . . . 250 
 
 XI. THE CLIMB FROM VALLii, . . 25 1 
 
 XII. "paaheja:" life on the heights, 252 
 
 XIII. the mountain laureate, . . 253 
 
 XIV. A THOUGHT OF HOME, . . . 254 
 XV. MORNING — THE MOUNTAIN FAMILY 
 
 AT THEIR DEVOTIONS, . . . 255 
 
 XVI. A CANDIDATE FOR HONOURS, .. . 256 
 
 XVII. "THE LAST INFIRMITY," . . 257 
 
 XVIII. HARVEST IN THE DALE, . . . 258 
 
 XIX. ARTHUR'S SEAT AGAIN ! . . . 259 
 
 XX. A GREY MORNING AT GRANTON, . 260 
 
 XXI. ON THE PIER AT BURNTISLAND, . 261 
 
 XXII. A RARE DIP, 262 
 
 XXIII. FROM THE WICKS OF BAIGLIE, . 263 
 
 XXIV. THELEMARKEN : A PER- CONTRA, . 264
 
 ORELLAN A 
 
 A POEM
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Peru was fallen, and her king was dead ; 
 And from its tower, plucked down with ruth- 
 less hand, 
 The golden image of the worshipped Sun 
 No longer blazed o'er Cuzco. Far and wide 
 The land was harried of its garnered wealth, 
 Stripped of its ornaments of dowried gold, 
 Its silver from the rock's reluctant grip 
 Wrung with relentless hand ; and what re- 
 mained 
 Was the slow promise of the laboured fields. 
 But not to them, these fier}- youth of Spain, 
 The shepherd's even pulse, or the long hopes 
 That wait on tillage and the swelling seed
 
 4 ORELLANA. 
 
 And fostering heat and rain : tlieir veins were 
 
 filled 
 With lust of conquest, and the gleam of gold 
 Was ever in each eye. Yet still they thronged 
 The narrow belt between the aerial hills 
 And the wide mystery of the Western seas ; 
 And, finding nothing left of native growth 
 To fuel their ambitious wants, they turned 
 With envious glances on each other's gain. 
 Till the great Marquis, sitting at Quito, 
 And ruling with an ill-acknowledged sway 
 Subjects that hoped each one himself to rule, 
 Spoke to Gonzalo : 
 
 " Other realms there are 
 Beyond these giant hills or o'er those waves, 
 Haply in continent, at least in isle. 
 The bearer of whose destiny be thou 
 And these — take whom thou wilt — that cannot 
 
 rest 
 Until it be delivered. Oh, my brother ! 
 There comes not once again in after-time 
 To thee or any man such glorious hope
 
 BOOK I. 5 
 
 As beckons now : 'tis the last mystery 
 
 Of the round globe hid in yon ocean waste, 
 
 Or from yon snowy heights to be descried. 
 
 Rise equal to thy fortune. Be it thine 
 
 To finish what Columbus but began, 
 
 And make the name, our common name, 
 
 Pizarro, 
 Wide as the water, lasting as the land ! 
 See what a sacrifice of fame I make ! 
 But thou or I, what matter.? We are one ; 
 And while I strengthen yet my foothold here 
 The freer thine for conquest." 
 
 While he spake, 
 Down the steep flanks of the Sierra crept 
 The tell-tale breezes, bearing in their winsrs 
 Odours of cinnamon, and whispering low 
 Of wealth unguarded in the vales beyond. 
 The Spanish soldier, keeping nightly watch 
 Before the general's tent with idle pace, 
 Paused, and with upturned face inquiringly 
 Sniffed the cool odorous air : sweeter to him 
 Its soft caresses on his swarthy cheek
 
 6 ORELLANA. 
 
 Than memories of Xenil, or the gush 
 Of Ebro's waters clear : nor kindlier less 
 Its freshness folding round his sunburnt neck 
 Than virgin's arm of snow. While thus he 
 
 stood, 
 Gonzalo, issuing from the tent, remarked 
 His absent gaze upon the snowy ridge 
 Which cut into the sky, shearing the stars, 
 Past the low-floating moon. Familiarly 
 Upon his shoulder with broad hand he smote. 
 And to his look high thought attributing — 
 "What say'st thou, comrade? Will it yield to 
 
 Spain ? 
 Or is it sacred to the stars alone, 
 A higher Alp than Hannibal would dare? 
 Perchance there is a Hannibal at hand ! 
 Only be ready thou, my valiant soldier. 
 Whom I elect my standard-bearer here 
 — What is thy name?" 
 
 Abrupt he stayed ; and he. 
 That other, — " Hernan Sanchez am I called." 
 " I know thee well : attend my trumpet-call
 
 BOOK I. 7 
 
 To-morrow morning; I have need of thee" — 
 And passed to his own tent, leaving the youth 
 With the warm blush of pride upon his face. 
 And a vague sense of praise. 
 
 At earliest dawn 
 Gonzalo's trumpet shrilling through the tents 
 Awoke the warrior conquering in his dreams. 
 Three hundred youths sprang joyful to the 
 
 call. 
 These overnight, ere e'er he had retired, 
 And with his great idea burning clear 
 In its unclouded dawn, Gonzalo drew, 
 As flame draws flame, partakers of a faith 
 To light on hidden empire, win for Spain 
 Another Mexico, a new Peru ! 
 Each brought a heart strengthened by hardy 
 
 use, 
 And never yet contaminate with fear ; 
 A sword, and each could wield it ; and a band 
 Of dusky faces waiting on his nod, 
 And catching from his frov;n the fearlessness 
 Born of excessive or habitual fear.
 
 8 ORELLANA. 
 
 With arms caught up in haste, and warlike 
 
 stores, 
 And other needs resigned to Indian slaves 
 Enlackeyed with the baggage, forth at dawn. 
 With little words of parting, — forth they rode 
 While yet the ensanguined sun, like some vast 
 
 bird 
 With flaming wings in a wide equipoise, 
 Stooped on the mountains ere he soared aloft 
 For a strong tlight prepared : not otherwise 
 The soul of each, with vigorous thoughts elate, 
 Spurning the summits of attained hope, 
 Looked to a loftier goal. 
 
 Next day at noon' 
 Their ranks were startled with a voice behind 
 As of a messenger who gallops hard, 
 Ere yet too late, with some neglected trust. 
 All turned ; and lo ! impelled by destiny, 
 Breathless he comes, the inimitable thief 
 Who stole the glory of the Amazon, 
 And wrote across a continent his name 
 As if on parchment with a running pen, —
 
 . BOOK I. 9 
 
 Who, like a meteor flashing down the night, 
 That bursts full-blazed, and, blazing, is blown 
 
 out, 
 That upsprings unannounced of tremulous 
 
 dawn, 
 And sinks without a setting, — shot athwart 
 The width of the New World, and disappeared 
 Leaving the long lapse of the ocean stream 
 To syllable his name to all its shores 
 With repetitive murmur, Orellana ! 
 
 On the fifth day 
 The sudden swoop of night descending prone 
 Surprised them in a hollow where the land 
 Sinks ere it reascends with daring slope 
 To end with snowy purity in Heaven. 
 Here, weary with their march of days, the task, 
 Though self-imposed, in all its magnitude 
 First seemed to tower with sudden increment 
 Beyond the flight of Hope. For, as they lay 
 Supine beside their camp-fires, and the moon. 
 Looking sheer down upon them from the ridge 
 With unexpected light, revealed the steeps
 
 10 ORELLANA. 
 
 Which rose to where she seemed to sit en- 
 throned, 
 
 And the vast bulk as of a natural wall 
 
 Which God with His own hands had built, the 
 thought 
 
 Of their own littleness, as there they lay, 
 
 A handful hid in a forgotten valley, 
 
 While the great mountain towered and the 
 broad sky 
 
 Spread placid and serene, and the vague fear 
 
 Of a presumptuous sin in such high presence 
 
 O'ercame them, wearied, and they would have 
 fled. 
 
 But that they were ashamed even to speak 
 
 The coward thoughts which each man deemed 
 his own. 
 
 But with the morn courage returned ; and Hope 
 
 That, revelling in the Elysian fields beyond. 
 
 Forgetful of her office by the way. 
 
 Had winged by night her backward flight un- 
 seen, 
 
 Now settling on the summits overhead.
 
 BOOK I. II 
 
 Shone with severer ray, commandingly 
 To the stern joys of danger ill to dare 
 And labour yielding slow. Under its light 
 ■(For hope too distant but fatigues the mind) 
 They braced them for the first encountered 
 
 toil, 
 And were in wonder, past the point of shame, 
 Whence the distrust and awe of yesternight, — 
 Distrust of mind, the strongest power on earth, 
 And awe of senseless matter, dull and dead, 
 And would have laughed aloud in the clear air 
 Of early morning as they scaled the side 
 Of the huge innocent mountain, but the dread 
 Of a recurrence of the perilous spell 
 Moved them to sober thought and kept them 
 
 mute. 
 Three days the ascent continued — three long 
 
 days — 
 And on the fourth they came upon the snow ; 
 And still the mountain towered till lost to view 
 In a dense whirl of cloud. Ah ! then for thee. 
 Poor Indian slave, struggling beneath thy load,
 
 12 OR ELL ANA. 
 
 With back low bent and shivering limbs thin 
 
 clad, 
 On the bleak wintry heights, what woes in store 
 When wild and wide, with whirling wind and 
 
 snow, 
 And crash of loosened rocks the storm came 
 
 down. 
 And, clutching at thy heart with fingers cold, 
 Blew the sharp ice of death into thine eyes, 
 That never more should brighten at the glow 
 Of summer beauty in thy native plains ! 
 Unseen the mute imploring look, unrecked 
 If seen, with which the sinking Indian turned 
 His human eyes, dim with the glaze of death, 
 Upon his resolute lord, the Spaniard drew 
 His mantle closer round him, set his teeth, 
 And without word toiled steadily up the steep, 
 Nor turned to right or left, nor paused, nor 
 
 spoke 
 Even when his comrade, swaying to the blast. 
 Went headlong o'er the rocks, or disappeared 
 Where, walking fearless to his doom, he stepped
 
 BOOK I. 13 
 
 Upon a bridge of snow. For he would storm 
 The stronghold of the storm, and plant his foot 
 And flag victorious in the chiefest seat 
 And citadel of the tempest ! 
 
 Yet at last 
 When they had reached the summit the wind 
 
 dropped, 
 And the mist reeled and fled : the sun poured 
 
 in, 
 And shivering on the naked top, they saw 
 Through the immaculate air the curving globe 
 Bend to the far horizon's utmost verge 
 From west to east unknown, a roomy width I 
 But not beyond the grasp of human will 
 To limit and explore : the mystery. 
 The impenetrable mystery was gone 
 Of magnitude : the big earth seemed to shrink 
 To conquerable compass ; and the fear 
 That there was nothing further now to find, 
 Nor continent to conquer after this. 
 High-hovering o'er their minds, would have 
 
 descended
 
 14 ORELLANA. 
 
 To circumscribe tlieir hope, but that the view 
 That eastward stretched beneath them filled 
 
 their eyes, 
 And shut out from their hearts the after-pain, 
 Which yet, W'ith furious mind swift to ex- 
 haust 
 Immediate expectation, some even then 
 In lust of conquest were anticipating ! 
 
 It w^as a scene of Earth the grandest : far 
 As eye could pierce undimmed with utmost 
 
 strain 
 The landscape spread in virgin loveliness 
 As if new-made, without the trace of man, 
 And waiting in the hush of afternoon 
 Expectant of possessors, a new race 
 Of sinless being, to admire its beauty 
 And live the life of happy worshippers 
 Amid its groves, and gratefully content. 
 
 Far other they that with fierce eyes looked 
 down 
 From the high natural wall that guarded in 
 This later paradise : the wolvish joy
 
 BOOK I. 15 
 
 That snatches to destroy lay in their heart 
 Slumbering, while wonder gazed on tiptoe mute 
 Where wide savannahs rolled like a green sea 
 Of verdure decked with flowers, and forests 
 
 waved 
 Their wealth of branches on the lower hills, 
 And in the lonely valleys brightly clear 
 Wound with a noble freedom lordly streams, 
 With here a wide expanse of silvery lake 
 Green-islanded with palm of stately droop. 
 And there the sheeny bend repeated oft 
 Of some more distant river sliding slow 
 To far-off waters. They forgat their toils, 
 Forgat that ihey had ever lived till now. 
 The past broke from them wholly, like a mantle 
 It slipped from them with all its care and 
 
 grief, 
 Remembrance of inhospitable shores, 
 Hardship on hill and billow, sickness, want, 
 Thirst, the broad ocean, memories of home, 
 Country, and kin, and love's and friendship's 
 
 claims.
 
 i6 ORELLANA. 
 
 They seemed new-wakened ; and, the present 
 
 pain 
 Of pinching cold unfelt, their souls leapt down 
 To taste existence in the under valleys. 
 
 On the sharp I'ocks meanwhile the Indians 
 
 lay 
 Breathless with pallid lips moaning in pain 
 Their secret miseries to Mother Earth 
 That would not take them to the long embrace 
 Of her pain-lulling arms, but let them cling 
 Heedless of their complaints, the while she 
 
 flung 
 Her favours at the feet of aliens. 
 Or if, though few, in shivering groups upheld 
 By force of sympathy, not native might. 
 Incuriously like timid sheep they turned 
 Their dumb pathetic eyes from the new scenes 
 That met their adverse gaze, arrived the top, 
 Backwards to whence they came : it was their 
 
 home. 
 And this perchance the latest farewell look 
 Of happiness and hope !
 
 BOOK I. 17 
 
 Night caught them thus ; 
 These on the new-found land gazing with hope, 
 And those with mind or eye despondingly 
 Upon the old. And now along the ridge 
 Glimmered the little camp-fires, scantily fed 
 With sapless twigs in handfuls, wintry moss, 
 And baggage-boxes, what they best could spare. 
 To sleep was death : the Spaniard in his cloak 
 Stalked out the weary hours from fire to fire 
 Under the chilling shadow of the dark, 
 Shadow of death to many ! where they sat 
 Frozen to statues, stretching pulseless arms 
 To flames that but revealed the stony glare 
 Of eyes untenanted, and gave no heat ; 
 Or ghastlier still when the cold beam of morn 
 Played on the features of the seated dead 
 Circling a heap of ashes ! 
 
 Down the long slope 
 At break of day the straggling march began, 
 And ere the last, an Indian with his load. 
 Had left the night's encampment to the dead. 
 The hovering condor dropped upon its prey. 
 
 B
 
 1 8 ORELLANA. 
 
 Snow fell in mantling flakes, but soon they 
 
 dipped 
 Into a warmer air : the grass grew green, 
 And plants, just budding in the sheltered cleft, 
 And clumps of trees in social brotherhood, 
 And note of startled bird, and flash of plumes 
 Awoke unwonted pleasure in their minds 
 To see and hear at hand : in one day's march 
 They stepped from January into June. 
 And still 'twas January, the drear time 
 When universal death to other lands 
 Makes periodic visit to assert 
 Usurped dominion o'er the realms of life 
 Designed of old for governance of man, 
 An ill-kept birthright : but in this fair land, 
 A new-made world then first surveyed by eyes 
 Tired with the faded glories of the old. 
 Perpetual Spring and Summer hand in hand, 
 Inseparable sisters, make their home 
 Eternal in the valleys : wintry storms 
 Menace but come not, nor the bounteous year 
 Ends in a harvestry of withered leaves.
 
 BOOK L 19 
 
 But leaf to leaf without a pause succeeds 
 Shooting off death, and bud to blossom grows, 
 And on the bough, whence falls the fruit mature, 
 Straight peering through the tender bark you 
 
 see 
 The hastening buds gemming the immortal tree. 
 Arrived the lower slopes they pitched their 
 
 camp 
 Under a lofty shade of forest boughs, 
 And wasted a long afternoon in doubt 
 Which way to turn, so wide the region lay. 
 In its immensity fit to maintain 
 The growth of ancient monarchies that might 
 In solitude be sitting far apart 
 And coexist, perchance in mutual peace 
 As being each to other quite unknown. 
 Ere early nightfall— for the western hills, 
 A high horizon, met the sinking sun 
 Before its full decline — their scouts returned 
 And made report of natural gardens fair. 
 And bird and beast that followed wildly tame 
 But fled them when approached, as half in fear
 
 20 ORELLANA. 
 
 And half in wonder of the human form, 
 But nowhere trace of man or other race 
 Corporeal that betokened by their look 
 Or handiwork the godlike power of mind. 
 The gibbering of the ape rang through the 
 
 woods 
 And from the rocks and o'er the rushing 
 
 streams ; 
 And on the lonely level river-shores 
 Where cities should have sat, or temple towered 
 On flowery hill, primeval quiet reigned : 
 The land was tenantless. 
 
 So on they rode with listless bridles ringing 
 Idly, and silence fell upon their march. 
 Through the clear air from boughs o'erarching 
 
 high 
 In sunny radiance fragile blossoms fair, 
 The peaceful tribute of the unowned woods, 
 Descended lightly on their warlike arms. 
 As down the glade or by the forest's marge 
 In a strange pomp the short procession wound. 
 They moved as in a dream : the industrious bee
 
 BOOK I. 21 
 
 Hummed heedless by on its own task intent 
 
 As if they were not ; on the distant glade 
 
 The indifferent herd was feeding as they 
 
 passed ; 
 The bird pursued its mate from tree to tree, 
 Forgetful of their presence ; they were shunned 
 Or tolerated only in a land 
 Sacred to peaceful thoughts and beauteous 
 
 forms : 
 The genius of the place viewed them askance, 
 Withholding all communion : they were awed 
 By the lone wealth and beauty of the land. 
 And felt like men of too presumptuous mind 
 Trespassing on the gardens of a god. 
 They longed for difficulties, dangers, foes, 
 Which yet they dreaded being yet unseen, 
 Yet everywhere suspected : and as oft 
 As to some flowery eminence they came 
 That rose unforested, a specular mount. 
 Commanding all the varied region round, 
 It was the sudden movement in the brake 
 Of panther half-revealed, or to the shore
 
 22 ORELLANA. 
 
 The alligator shooting from the stream, 
 That sent the languor from their sated eyes, 
 O'ervvearied with the spectral loveliness 
 And dulled by the excess of beauty, — if per- 
 chance 
 The distant figure might betoken man. 
 Savage or civilised, urging the chase 
 Afoot, or in canoe threading the maze 
 Of intertangling waters that unite 
 Haply some hidden settlement or hut 
 With the big bustle of a central town. 
 
 Strange choice of men, if choice it may be 
 called, 
 Perverse that inappreciative turns 
 Or with suspicious eye from the green nooks 
 Of Eden that still gem the desolate earth 
 To fix on barren sands and snowy wastes 
 And rocks amid the sea : strange choice is 
 
 theirs 
 Self-exiled in the wild to force by art, 
 And hardly force after long strife and pain, 
 A pittance from inhospitable shores
 
 BOOK L 23 
 
 Among unlovely scenes, while nature wastes 
 Her richest and her fairest on the brute. 
 As lovely is the land, and still, alas ! 
 As lonely to this day, as when they passed, 
 These mailed strangers, like a threatening wing 
 That hurries through the sunshine of a dream. 
 Yet still the Briton to his barren rocks 
 Clings with convulsive hand ! It seems as if. 
 Since the great nameless terror of the Flame 
 That round the umbrageous gates of Eden 
 
 swung 
 Relentless to the expatriated pair. 
 The memory of the fear, an instinct grown 
 Transmitted with the blood, still drives the sons 
 Of Adam to the Desert, and despoils 
 With strange suspicions loveliness itself 
 Of more than half its natural yield of joy. 
 So through those beauteous realms, that seemed 
 
 to them 
 The hallowed gardens of an absent god, 
 With fearful hearts they hastened. And ere long 
 Strange fitful airs of most divine perfume.
 
 24 ORELLANA. 
 
 That come and go like wandered harmonies 
 Loosed from an angel's lyre, salute their sense 
 Inhaling Paradise ; — the heralds these 
 Of a new marvel from the hidden East. 
 And lo 1 at last she comes, the fair Wind- 
 
 queen, 
 Riding the billowy air most gracefully I 
 The tall tree-tops in meek obeisance bow. 
 The lower forest claps its hands of leaves, 
 And the dim air is lightened with the flush 
 And glow of scattered blossoms, pink and pale, 
 Before her coming ! She is come, is gone ! 
 And the sweet thought of cedarn palaces 
 And bowers of cinnamon in far retreats 
 Amid the woodland gloom fills all the mind. 
 Dropped from her trailing garments as she 
 
 passed, 
 Till growing faint and faint the charm dies out, 
 And to the hungering Spaniard leaves again 
 The common airs of earth, and memories 
 Eternal, though of momentary birth. 
 Now with the heavenly balm intoxicate
 
 BOOK I. 25 
 
 They turn their quest to whence the incense 
 
 came, 
 If haply they may find the odorous shades 
 Of El Dorado : sudden hope is theirs 
 Expectant of fruition every hour, 
 But every hour the hope is lengthened out, 
 And fond exertion slackens ; droopingly 
 They journey on as in a labyrinth 
 Whose every winding leads them towards an 
 
 end. 
 Or leaves them more astray : forward they 
 
 move, 
 Yet more like wearied soldiers to their camp 
 Listless returning after a defeat. 
 
 The vacant air transmits no messages, 
 Or, from perplexing quarters faintly blown, 
 The musky-pinioned couriers of the sky. 
 Viewless and vagrant, only mock their toil ; 
 For everywhere the land is as before, 
 Beauteous but barren of immediate gain ; 
 And the long calm eventless monotone 
 Of day succeeds to day with all the hues
 
 26 ORELLANA. 
 
 That at the first flashed in their joyous eyes 
 Now faded, blanched, and colourless as glass 
 On which the shivered lance of level light, 
 Full aimed, no longer falls. 
 
 "A soldier I," 
 At length impatiently the leader spoke : 
 'Twas midnight, and the restless Spaniards sat 
 Like statues, speaking none, beneath the shade 
 Of the mysterious wood, while overhead 
 Pulsed the large constellations in the heat 
 Of the high air most tranquilly : "A soldier I ; 
 And this strange peace and utter loneliness, 
 They madden me : nor man nor town is here, 
 Nor laurels worthy of a warrior's brow ; 
 And if the promised groves of cinnamon 
 Be here, we know not — the winds only know ! 
 Nay ! I will back — there's honour in Peru ! " 
 None moved nor answered, when a distant 
 voice 
 That seemed aerial from the listening wild 
 Rose syllabled above the forest hum 
 Articulated humanly, and thrice
 
 BOOK I. 27 
 
 In a strange tongue but sweetly kind to hear. 
 It startled all— save one, whom destiny 
 With most secure indifference lapped in sleep, 
 The unconscious owner of the Amazon, 
 Biding his time. And first the Father spoke. 
 Whose spirit, fired with Christian chivalry, 
 Yearned for adventure in the pagan mind 
 (And hither on that errand had he come) : 
 " It is the voice of God, spoken by bird 
 I know not, but believe the omen true. 
 Inviting was the sound — nay ! let us on ! 
 Speak not of going back : trifles like this, 
 If it were but the cry of startled bird, 
 Are trifles only to the heedless ear ; 
 To those that note them they are proved the 
 
 call 
 Of Heaven to noble deeds : nay! let us on ! 
 It needs must be that somewhere in these wilds 
 A remnant of the sundered race of man 
 In pagan isolation dwells apart 
 From the great brotherhood, with whom 'tis 
 
 ours
 
 28 ORELLANA. 
 
 To link them in fraternal bonds of love ; 
 For not alone to us did God's dear Son 
 Leave the rich legacy of promised Heaven ; 
 And they, the co-heirs with us of His grace, 
 Wait the announcement privileged to us, 
 Yea, and enjoined the ambassadors of God 
 Of His most blessed embassy to them. 
 Lofty our mission and our warfare high, 
 Above the mean ambitions of the flesh, 
 With demons and the darkened mind : and if, 
 Pray Heaven it be ! a bloodless victory 
 Won by the spiritual arm, let the spear rust, 
 Let Spain be silent of our soundless deeds : 
 We are the vassals of a higher lord 
 Of more imperial sway than Charles of Spain ! " 
 They gave assent, cloaking their secret 
 
 thoughts 
 Of earthly riches, temporal renown. 
 With a religious falsehood self-deceived ; 
 For soon the fair white robe they seemed to 
 
 wear 
 Of Christianity was splashed with blood.
 
 BOOK I. 29 
 
 When, with the fruitless toil renewed in vain, 
 Exasperate on an Indian tribe they fell 
 After long search, and, failing in their hopes 
 Of a sure guide, secured at length though late, 
 To point their march to El Dorado, used 
 Torture of steel and fire and hounded dog 
 On the poor timid wretches to extort 
 A knowledge from them which they did not 
 
 know. 
 What knew they of the dreams in other lands. 
 Of fancy and unreasoning rumour bred, 
 That pointed to their own disastrously, 
 And met a naysay with vindictive rage 
 And further search infatuate of belief? 
 Dreams, idle dreams ! that haunt the restless 
 
 mind 
 With recollection of the primal loss 
 Of happiness and everlasting youth. 
 Transferred of old to Heaven's securer clime. 
 Dreams, idle dreams ! worthy alone in this — 
 They fire the sluggish mind to energy. 
 Whence spring collateral deeds of lofty strain
 
 30 ORELLANA. 
 
 That, blindly wrought, in benefits endure 
 When the false heat that moulded them is cold, . 
 And the unconscious worker, faint and foiled. 
 Has perished in the flames himself had fanned. 
 
 To kindly nursing in the native tents. 
 Dumb with the sheer severity of woe, 
 Gonzalo left his sick, loath to be left, 
 Not from a fear of vengeance, for their hopes 
 Swallowed all fear : a godlike fearlessness. 
 Responsible to none, was in their look. 
 Which, weakened though they were and 
 
 numbering few, 
 Struck with paralysis the Indian mind : 
 But that their eyes should miss the first far 
 
 glimpse 
 Of unknown empire rising with its towers 
 Amid the woods and waters onward still, 
 Whither their comrades with impatient steps 
 Were certainly advancing. 
 
 They, meanwhile. 
 Pushed on through dreary flats of marshy 
 
 land ; —
 
 BOOK I. 31 
 
 For the scene changed, and all was desolate : 
 The forest thinned, and even shrubs were few ; 
 And, save the plashing of incessant rains 
 Among the stagnant pools, and the wild cry 
 Of passing bird lost in the misty air, 
 With distant winds that round the horizon 
 
 sobbed 
 Like spirits imprisoned in a drear confine 
 Searching for freedom, other sound was none ; 
 Nor did they seek to break the monotone 
 With show of cheerful talk where cheer was 
 
 none. 
 And here amid the rainy solitude 
 A gaunt companion joined them — Famine 
 
 stalked 
 With fleshless limbs and hollow-staring eyes 
 Silent beside them, full of brooding thought. 
 Or chewing bitter buds plucked from dank 
 
 boughs. 
 Or yellow roots that only bred disease, 
 From the black soaking soil snatched greedily, 
 Yet with blue feverish lips mouthed in disgust.
 
 32 ORELLANA. 
 
 Here sank amid these melancholy wastes, 
 Like worthless weed, full many an ardent life 
 Whose value had been left, a cherished hope, 
 Endeared by many and many a conscious fear 
 In some particular home, in some one heart. 
 Hopelessly far in Spain ! And here, perhaps, 
 They all had perished in a nameless grave. 
 As some have perished daring deeds as great, 
 Of whom no record tells, and the stern hum 
 Of the big drowsy world had sounded on 
 Unbroken in regardless apathy. 
 But that the forest with its foodful palms 
 And medicinal stores opened once more 
 Its wide asylum to the wasted band ; 
 And further on beside the Coca's banks 
 The friendly shelter of an Indian town. 
 Built underneath one patriarchal roof, 
 Offered the accepted welcome of a home. 
 
 Long time they tarried here ^ oh, rest was 
 sweet ! 
 And the most ardent of them could have sold 
 The dowried future, riches, power, renown,
 
 ^\ 
 
 BOOK I. 33 
 
 And a salvation from the common blank 
 
 On History's glorious page, in glad exchange 
 
 For the torn blanket and the garlic meal 
 
 Of herdsman on the brownest hills in Spain. 
 
 Sickness, fatigue, and fasting, and the sense 
 
 Of utter homelessness so tamed their pride, 
 
 And they so yearned for human sympathy, 
 
 That all mean occupations, once despised, 
 
 And all the trammels of society 
 
 That gall the fiery spirit to endure, 
 
 Seen in their artificiality, 
 
 Seen from Brazilian woods afar in Spain, 
 
 Were coveted, yea ! realised in dreams ; 
 
 Which so subdued their thoughts to humble 
 
 mood 
 That frankly, when awake, they fraternised 
 With the meek Indians marvelling much that 
 
 men 
 Visaged so sadly should have dared so far. 
 
 But with returning health vigour returned, 
 And the old restlessness stirred in their veins. 
 And drove them forth a reunited band, 
 
 c
 
 34 OR ELLA NA. 
 
 Recruited and with fresh access of hope 
 
 To penetrate the mystery of the wilds. 
 
 The Coca's turbid stream, swollen with the 
 
 rains, 
 Seemed in their eyes a clew by which to thread 
 The wilderness : it babbled in their ears 
 Of distant empire in its lower course 
 Whither its waters hastened : nay ! it seemed 
 By very force of sympathy like themselves, 
 A pioneer peering for hidden lands : 
 With what mad joy its current leapt along. 
 Reeling and swaying like a drunk Bacchante, 
 Startling the temple quiet of the woods 
 And revelling through their holiest adytum ! 
 Not one of all the Spanish band but threw 
 A portion of his soul into the stream 
 And raced with it along : not one but chode 
 The slow delay, the halts, the tedious turnings 
 On the swift-rushing river's cumbered banks. 
 How enviously they saw sweep on before 
 The speeding fleck of froth, the brittle bell. 
 Borne on the river's back triumphantly,
 
 BOOK I. 35 
 
 Leaving- them far behind ! Eagerly now 
 They would have hurried, having put their hand 
 Upon the running clew-line of the stream 
 That promised a safe passage through the dark 
 Illimitable wild : nearer they seemed 
 With each day's farther march to friends and 
 
 home, 
 For they had found a highway to the sea 
 On whose salt waves no Spaniard could be 
 
 lost. 
 Yet, as they gazed upon the rolling flood 
 And with its pace compared their daily march, 
 Time seemed to stagnate ; and their hopes were 
 
 chilled 
 With the cold fear, deep-seated in their hearts, 
 That Fate had caught them in her iron clutch, 
 Restraining them to a funereal march 
 Timed to have ending in the desert, where 
 A sacrificial altar was prepared 
 On which their hopes should perish, and their 
 
 lives. 
 Unspoken were their fears ; they even sought,
 
 36 OR ELLA NA. 
 
 As brave men will when Fate is at their neck, 
 To conquer by obedience, to annul 
 The despotism of dire necessity 
 By uncomplaining patience, and the show 
 Of liberty that wears as if in sport 
 And with a jaunty air a weight of chains. 
 So from the painful task they turned not back, 
 Nor paused, nor 'plained, but, though with joy- 
 less lips 
 Flinging upon the air semblance of mirth 
 In songs that told the glory of the Cid 
 And ballads of the Moors, right steadfastly 
 They kept their pensive faces all the while 
 Fronting the great Unknown. 
 
 The storms were up 
 One evening when they pitched their wind- 
 blown camp 
 Under the rocking trees beside the stream. 
 But as they slept o'erwearied with their toil 
 The tempest sank, and in the sudden calm 
 A muffled voice came booming up the stream. 
 Deepening and broadening, a continuous roll
 
 BOOK I. 37 
 
 As if of thunder breaking througli the folds 
 Of cloud and night that wrap it seven times 
 
 round, 
 Until the full-voiced terror drowned the ear 
 And wrought such horror in the realm of 
 
 dreams 
 That some from ineffectual struggling woke 
 Screaming ; and others started to their feet 
 Making the holy sign ; and each looked wild 
 And strangely on his neighbour, gathering in 
 Slowly his personality of pain. 
 Never before had European ears 
 Been so bewildered by such awful noise. 
 Was Hell broke loose? Or had the keystone 
 
 slipped 
 That binds the fabric of the bulging globe? 
 Not even Ordas could conjecture make ; 
 Ordas! who dared the dark volcano's throat 
 Courting the horrible, what time the flame 
 Of Cortez' genius shot towards Mexico 
 Like a clear-burning tongue of arrowy fire 
 Scorching the dazzling halls of Montezume ;
 
 38 ORELLANA. 
 
 Even Ordas felt a shrinking of the soul, 
 The veteran Ordas! who in one dark night — 
 The Night of Sorrows — faced a thousand 
 
 deaths, 
 Till the last trace of Fear's alloy was purged 
 From his whole heart for ever. Day by day 
 The awful sound with fascinating dread 
 That drew them towards it, loud and louder 
 
 swelled 
 Till the wide air was one vast sea of sound, 
 And from sequestered chambers of the soul 
 Strange threatening echoes from their primal 
 
 sleep 
 Rose like a new creation, horrible ! 
 And scarcely was the terror reasoned down 
 When from the high bank of a river cape 
 They saw this vast immensity of waters, 
 Drawn by the Coca from a thousand caves 
 In the far-distant Andes, leap in mass 
 Most fearfully into a gulf of air 
 Two hundred fathoms down : the volumed foam, 
 That without halt makes everlasting plunge,
 
 BOOK I. 39 
 
 Whirled from its sphere of consciousness the 
 
 soul 
 And left the body, emptied of all feeling, 
 Tranced in the dumb rigidity of awe. 
 Nor was their wonder less when farther on 
 The narrowing torrent with concentred strength 
 Poured all its length into the channelled rock, 
 And through the chasm that pent its thun- 
 ders in, 
 A dreadful depth, unsounded of the sun, 
 Toiled in tumultuous agony : the rocks, 
 Irrevocably sundered, scowling flung 
 Defiance on each other front to front, 
 And heedless of the Hell that howled below. 
 On the sheer brink, grasping with knotted 
 roots 
 The stable rock, a giant cedar leaned 
 Fonvard, who from the forest had advanced 
 More dauntless than the rest : him Horror 
 
 seized, 
 Preventing all return : and on the verge. 
 Bound in eternal spell, he gazed below.
 
 40 ORELLANA. 
 
 With ruthless axe assailed, his giant trunk 
 Fell crashing o'er the chasm from bank to 
 
 bank, 
 The first beam of a bridge : beside him thrown 
 Lay lighter palm-trees, in the forest felled : 
 Gay flowering clusias bound the rolling logs ; 
 And o'er the airy walk the Spaniards marched, 
 Horseman and foot, struggling and stumbling 
 
 on. 
 Till all had passed, safe — to a hostile shore. 
 For here a shower of darts, blown from the 
 
 woods 
 Through the long gravatana, sing i' the air. 
 And hiss and sting ! Anon the ambuscade 
 With hideous yell advance, a martial race 
 Accustomed to aggression. But unknown 
 To them the sudden flash, the rattling peal 
 And fatal ravage of the Spanish arm. 
 Unknown the graceful terror of the steed 
 That speeds and fights and almost thinks for 
 
 man. 
 The astonished Indians fled, or grovelling lay
 
 BOOK I. 41 
 
 As at the feet of centaurs suppliantly 
 Conceding all — possessions, children, life. 
 Under their conduct through a barren tract 
 The Spaniards journeyed, joyful with the hope 
 Of rumoured fortune in a distant realm. 
 And after weary days corn-fields appeared, 
 And cotton plantings, and the huts of men 
 Domesticated to a settled life 
 Arcadian, but with little store of gold. 
 Here fretting much at their enforced delay 
 By sickness, hunger, and the present rain — 
 For now unceasing torrents night and day 
 Poured from the inky sky, and from its bed 
 The rising river wandered in gapd, 
 Flooding the forest — deeming they had reached 
 The edge of empire where the arts of man 
 Wage desultory warfare with the wild, 
 They sent forth pioneers to make survey 
 For further action : these returning told 
 Of broken forests, marshes, pools, and ponds. 
 And squalid tribes inhabiting in trees. 
 Who yet confirmed, in terror, or in fraud.
 
 42 ORELLANA. 
 
 The rumoured hints of empire, but remote. 
 With mingled feelings of despair and hope, 
 Impatient of suspense, Gonzalo's mind 
 Resolved a final throw with Fate, which failing. 
 Farewell the hope that lured him from Quito ! 
 The river was their only highway — smooth 
 And swift its hurrying waters ran ; it only 
 Could solve the secret that consumed their soul. 
 Thus musing in the doorway of his hut 
 With folded arms, and eyes of brooding gloom 
 Bent on the muddy flood that tumbled by 
 Scourged by the slanting rains, the while his 
 
 men 
 Dozed out the wear}' moments — musing thus, 
 Suddenly to his mind a Vision rose, 
 A fair large vision of a River Ship 
 That idly lay moored to a bank, with sails 
 Full-spread and oars, the while the current 
 
 raced 
 That should have borne the naiad freely on. 
 Starting, he looked again, and it was gone ; 
 And th' inscrutable waters whence it rose.
 
 BOOK I. 43 
 
 Or seemed to rise, assumed their apathy ; 
 But not less real seemed the gurgling stream 
 Than that aerial ship that sat the wave, 
 A moment seen full imaged in the rain, 
 Then without warning took mysterious flight ! 
 " Saint Jago be my speed," Gonzalo cried, 
 With spirit roused from her inactive mood, 
 "And I will make this glorious fiction fact ! 
 Why was I blind to the fair dream till now? 
 Did not the whispering waters hint of this? 
 And I, dull schoolboy, understood them not ! 
 Heaven sent me this to fire my flagging 
 
 zeal 
 In mild reproach : Did not the lively mind 
 Of Vasco Nunez on the mountain ridge 
 Provide a fleet for the yet distant sea? 
 Dull dreamer that I am ! did not the mules 
 Of Cortez bear upon their sweltering backs, 
 O'er many a mile, to launch them in the lakes 
 Of Mexico, the keels of many a bark ? 
 And I, with a great river in my eyes 
 Daily, and timber for a sea of ships
 
 44 y ORELLANA. 
 
 In these vast forests where each branching 
 
 trunk 
 Sends seaward with the rushing winds and 
 
 streams 
 Its wishes to be free — I saw, I heard it not, 
 And murmured at my own slow-paced delay ! 
 No more of this ! No longer on the banks. 
 Waiting for fortune, housed in idleness ; 
 But on the river — that way lies my path — 
 To force her tardy coming ! " — In his eyes 
 The light of genius shone, and where they 
 
 darted 
 Among his listless followers, a new life 
 Shot through their veins, and cheerfully re- 
 membering 
 That they had set themselves the task of choice, 
 Like boys at play they went about the work, 
 Gonzalo guiding. In the sombrous woods 
 Screened from the incessant rain and gusty 
 
 winds 
 That shook and pattered on the slim-built shed 
 Their workshop in the wild, they built a forge ;
 
 BOOK I. 45 
 
 And soon the ruddy gleams, forth darting far 
 Into the cavernous forest, sent their glow 
 Upon the sinewy limbs and naked breasts 
 Of willing workers bending at their toil 
 Or passing to and fro : around the axe 
 Here thick the splinters flew whitening the 
 
 ground ; 
 There, as if wakening from its centuried trance 
 And wakening but to look around and choose 
 Ground for a resting-place, the stately tree, 
 Swaying with all its boughs in the high air, 
 Sank down majestic in its fall, as sinks 
 Some galleon in mid-ocean in a calm 
 With sails unfurled and all her bravery on. 
 Some lop the prostrate branches ; on the stocks 
 Some stretch the keel, and prop the curving 
 
 frame. 
 There, half concealed in smoke, a cheerful band 
 Of demons move, charring the flameless wood 
 For future fuel : others from the pine, 
 That stand like patient martyrs ringed with 
 
 fire
 
 46 OR ELL ANA. 
 
 Bleeding from many a wound, collect the drops 
 Of resin as they fall. One with a box 
 Makes circuit of the camp, collecting tax 
 Of ear-rings, finger-rings, crosses, and chains 
 Of ornamental gold, given willingly, 
 With armour-plates of silver framed in steel. 
 And helmets thought superfluous. In the fur- 
 nace 
 These with the iron shoes wrenched from the 
 
 feet 
 Of mules and horses, dead or yet alive, 
 Flung, in the blaze he stands with one arm 
 
 stretched 
 To stir the glowing coal ; the other plies 
 The groaning bellows. Like a Cyclops vast 
 His shadow on a background of green leaves. 
 Begrimed with smoke, yet glistening in the 
 
 rain. 
 Toils like a phantom in the noiseless shades 
 To idle imitation damned. Anon 
 The obsidian anvil rings : chief at the work 
 With sleeves rolled up Gonzalo sweats and toils,
 
 BOOK L 47 
 
 Now at the forge, now swinging the wide axe, 
 Or straining at a rope, knee touching knee 
 Familiar with his fellows, bating nought; 
 And men must follow when their captain bends 
 The crest of his nobility to toil. 
 
 So from their hands this Argo of the West 
 Took shape, and grew, and to their houseless 
 
 hopes 
 Became a very fortress where they sang. 
 To songs that breathe of ancient chivalry 
 Opposed to Frank and Moor, in snatches sung. 
 The unforced product of a hopeful heart 
 Recalling the achievements of its race, 
 And in that memory strong — the fair renown 
 Bernardo heired from brave Orlando slain 
 At Roncesvalles, or when Gonsalez set 
 The first stone of Castile ; of Vargas, too, 
 Surnamed the Bruiser, and Ramiro old ; 
 But most of him Spain's matchless paladin 
 The brave knight of Bivdr : — to songs, that 
 
 made 
 These heroes live in them, the vessel rose.
 
 48 ORELLANA. 
 
 The structure of their hearts no less than hands, 
 Endeared by mutual suffering cheerily borne, 
 For in its sides their hearts were built, and not 
 Alone their wealth in every driven nail, 
 Their very clothing steeped in bubbling pitch 
 Thrust in its seams, and hope of life and home. 
 Lo ! as they toiled the river-god arose 
 Curious above his banks, and his great eyes 
 Gleamed through the trees upon them at their 
 
 toil ; 
 Then, as if found the object of his quest, 
 The virgin vessel, with tumultuous rush 
 He flung out his long arms, folding her round, 
 And like a bridegroom took her to his breast. 
 
 And now, their more immediate wishes met, 
 The dull reaction came with idle hands 
 Of labour wasted : what were one small bark 
 Where scarcely forty would suffice to bear 
 Their numerous band along? The greater 
 
 part. 
 With futile efforts every hour renewed, 
 Hewed for themselves along the bosky banks
 
 BOOK T. 49 
 
 Their woodland way, while in the brigantine 
 A scanty complement of sickly men 
 Waited, with oars backed in the hurrying rush 
 Of the impetuous stream, the slow-paced march 
 Of their o'erwearied comrades on the shore. 
 So passed laborious weeks, till hunger-forced, 
 And tempted by fresh rumours of a land 
 Rich in all blessings — food, and towns, and 
 
 gold, 
 vSiX down the river where a mightier stream 
 Engulfed the Coca, they made general halt 
 Arguing the folly of the bridled ship, 
 On the free element a captive log, 
 Bound to the sluggish measures of the land.
 
 so 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 By this the happy season was returned 
 When to the texture of his cloud-built tent 
 Diaphanous the red-faced sun approached, 
 Peering into the shrouded world below 
 That languished in the rain : the curtains 
 
 caught 
 The glory of his burning countenance 
 And went ablaze : this way and that they fled, 
 And lo ! the lofty firmament serene 
 In a wide stretch of deep ethereal blue 
 Enroofed the laughing globe. There hung the 
 
 sun ; 
 And Nature stretched her praiseful arms aloft 
 In distant hills and towering trees and waves
 
 BOOK 11. 51 
 
 And little humble flowers adoringly 
 
 Towards the benignant Sun, that smiled again ! 
 
 Along the forest glades now might you see 
 
 The wavering flight of indolent butterflies 
 
 Whose blue metallic wings lit up the shades 
 
 Like fluttering patches of the fallen sky. 
 
 The yellow troupials w^hisked from bank to 
 
 bank, 
 And hung their pendent nests on the high 
 
 boughs 
 That swayed in graceful fringes down the sky. 
 While ever and anon the frigate-bird 
 With head thrown back came sailing down the 
 
 air 
 That streamed above the stream, and dis- 
 
 , appeared. 
 Ah me ! what wistful faces sad and wan 
 And wasted with disease met the red gaze 
 Of the returning sun ! How with the heavens 
 Their prisoned hopes enlarged, defying bounds. 
 Yet chafing at the strange mysterious leash 
 That pulled them to the wingless body back.
 
 52 ORELLANA. 
 
 Meanwhile as if from sudden ambush sprang 
 A lurking fever on the pallid frame 
 Of stout Gonzalo : from his restless couch 
 He turned his hungry eyes upon the priest : 
 — " O holy father, must I here abandon, 
 Here within promised access of renown, 
 The great hope of my days ? And must I die, 
 Thus circumstanced with new-awaking life 
 In all around me? Water, earth, and air, 
 The winds, the sunbeams, insect, bird, and river 
 Rejoice unfettered : I am captive bound. 
 Oh for the pinions of yon passing bird, 
 That I at least might overfly the land, 
 And, if but with a transient glimpse, drink in 
 The wealth of my possessions ! Hard it is 
 To be the heir of what I cannot hold ; 
 Harder, indeed, if I have brought you all 
 Into this sylvan solitude, apart 
 From human ken, only to waste and die 
 In unrecorded pain ! And therefore I 
 Would send at least, if that I may not go, 
 To claim my heritage : call Orellana !
 
 BOOK 11. 53 
 
 I have marked him fit for noble deeds, 
 Approved him bold, ay, somewhat over-bold. 
 And think him true. What if the after-race 
 Ignoring or in ignorance credit him 
 With all the honour of the enterprise ! 
 I shall not mind it, though it cut me now 
 Even to anticipate. Vain fear ! 'tis mine; 
 Nor have I less the greatness that I feel 
 Wanting the confirmation of the crowd." 
 
 "A noble deed," gravely the priest replied, 
 " Done in obscurity or deepest night, 
 Needs not the shouting of the multitude 
 To make it fact, — yea ! and if but conceived 
 When other hands receive it at the birth, 
 Stolen or adopted, none the less remains 
 In highest truth the author's. A brave mind, 
 Strong in the consciousness of native worth 
 As hero in his mail, will estimate 
 The praise of men as but a needless cloak 
 Thrown over armour : And yet true it is 
 The purple trappings and the nodding plume 
 Become the warrior well ; — but they are less
 
 54 ORELLANA. 
 
 His own delight than worn to pleasure friends. 
 Think you the great Columbus, when the light 
 First showed him where the long-lost hemi- 
 sphere 
 Lay sleeping in the void — think you he felt 
 At that abandoned hour of soundless night 
 Less sure of his own greatness, as he stood 
 On the lone poop surrounded by the dark 
 While Europe far behind in her grey walls 
 Chaffered and gossiped through her daily 
 
 rounds 
 Forgetful of him quite, or mindful only 
 As of a fond enthusiast pitiable — 
 Than when, after long months of secret great- 
 ness, 
 He told to courts his prophecy fulfilled, 
 And Europe, pausing in her mill-horse round, 
 Turned all her million eyes to the grey seas. 
 The riddle of whose mystery was read, 
 And hailed him Finder of a Second World ? 
 And yet, when all is said, be sure his mind 
 Chose her seat well, — not on the unstable base
 
 BOOK 11. 55 
 
 Of airy speech of men, which a side wind 
 Blowing sinister with capricious gust 
 Can sweep as swift away as castled clouds 
 Before an evening gale, — not on renown 
 As men translate the word, an empty sound, 
 Which themselves give and often give awry, 
 And then withhold, and with as little cause ; 
 But on the steadfast rock, the immortal stance 
 Of consciousness of a great duty done. 
 In that one word all honest greatness hides, 
 And each may grasp it in his several sphere, 
 For that is duty that a man can do 
 And that beseems a man — all else is vain." 
 He ended, but the germinating thought 
 Grew in Gonzalo's mind. Upon the priest 
 His large eyes gazed in silence till his mind, 
 Slow to appropriate the strength-giving truth. 
 Returned the dictum like a lingering echo — 
 " Yea ! that is duty that a man can do, 
 And mine is now to send, not mine the event, 
 Since that I may not go : call Orellana ! " — 
 A young man still, though in his auburn hair
 
 56 ORELLANA. 
 
 Time's silvery threads were spreading, and his 
 
 brow 
 Had gathered more than one long line of grey. 
 But in his eye the wandering light of youth 
 Still showed a mind unsettled in its aim, 
 Though powerful to achieve what others 
 
 planned. 
 A dreamer was he in his hours of ease. 
 And careless of preferment undeserved 
 By action of his own. A volunteer, 
 He came from drowsing by the torpid banks 
 Of Guadiana to the Western world, 
 Smit with the hope of some great deed of 
 
 fame, — 
 Which so absorbed his soul that lesser gain 
 For its own sake, or as a central germ 
 That tarries the slow-fostering of the years. 
 Was blown contemptuous to the passing winds ; 
 For he would be at once i' the eye o' the world, 
 Or live and die among the shadows seen 
 By none. Yet think not he was idle all, 
 Waitinsf to strike and strike but once for fame :
 
 BOOK 11. 57 
 
 His sword was ever at his chiefs command, 
 And what he undertook his very daring 
 And utter recklessness, or rather say 
 Firm confidence of the event, made sure and 
 
 fast 
 A fact in history. But mark his pride 
 Or self-neglect, or call it what you will 
 — After such enterprise he shunned to meet 
 His grateful leader ; and his comrades' praise 
 Around the barrack-fire or in the tent. 
 In town or field, fell cold upon his ear : 
 Upon his heel he turned, and, listlessly 
 Reclining on his couch with half-shut eyes, 
 Or roaming vacantly in lonely places, 
 They found him, and gave up the thankless task. 
 Or if importunate the public voice 
 Threatened ovation — he would seize his cloak ; 
 His sword was ever belted to his side ; 
 And disappear. Thus had he joined the band 
 A day's march late that journeyed from Quito 
 Under Gonzalo. Thus he dipt the winglets 
 Of his own growing fame ; for he would soar
 
 58 ORELLANA. 
 
 At once i' the eye o' the world, or sink unseen 
 Among the shadows, known to none or all. 
 — " If I have sent for thee," Gonzalo said, 
 " 'Tis not to speak thy praise ; for what thou 
 
 hast 
 Deserving praise thou hast from Heaven, and 
 
 there 
 The honour lies; and that thou knowest un- 
 moved 
 By voice of man ; and therefore praise is thine 
 In that I choose thee from among the rest, 
 Deeming thee loyal, who hast well approved 
 The motive of thy acts, to take my place 
 And duteously fulfil my vows to Spain 
 And to my brother : thou shalt take command 
 Of this our ark, the brigantine — that bears 
 The fortunes of our expedition : I 
 Commit them to thy charge. Do thou descend 
 Whither the Indians tell. Of some great 
 
 stream 
 That rolls its ink and flings its yellow foam 
 Around some central capital they tell.
 
 BOOK II. 59 
 
 There glory waits thee, ripened to thy hook ; 
 But bring me back a sheaf— a few stray ears 
 I surely well may claim \ We tarry here. 
 Our hopes, our very life goes with thee ! See 
 Thou prove no alien ! Choose thy men, and 
 
 go!"- 
 And Orellana knelt, and kissed the hand 
 Of great Gonzalo, rose, and nothing said 
 But turned in act to go. With searching eyes 
 Gonzalo gazed upon his soldier bearing 
 As wishful for some proof of loyalty ; 
 Then, as it came not, turning to the priest — 
 " Thou, too," he said, "wilt go." — " Nay, here I 
 
 stay," 
 The father answered ; "tempt me not, my son. 
 With the fruition of an earthly fame 
 Bought with a bartered conscience I Even now 
 The Devil is at mine elbow — I can feel 
 His lingers on my shoulder, in mine ear 
 His hot breath urging me to make a league 
 With him and thee and Heaven; take thine 
 
 offer,
 
 6o ORELLANA. 
 
 Abandon thee with all the show of friendship, 
 Compound with Heaven for a brief course of 
 
 sin 
 By future sanctity— the greater saint 
 And more acceptable to heaven the more 
 I give my passions rein ! ' And what is he ? 
 A sick man dying in the wilderness, 
 A withered stalk upon the tree of life 
 That will be green no more' — Satan, avaunt ! 
 And thou, Gonzalo ! — these are devil's words 
 That urge my going, put into thy mouth 
 By thy great enemy and mine and man's : 
 Speak them no more ! For, grant I leave thee 
 
 here 
 And go to what great glories who can doubt. 
 How shall I hear and see amid the glare 
 And blaze of triumph the dispassionate voice 
 And the white star of duty? till perchance 
 The tumult has sunk down and the time gone 
 For doing duty? Oh, the Devil ever 
 Wraps round a man the mantle of his praise 
 Spoke by the yelling multitudes, whene'er
 
 BOOK IT. 6 1 
 
 He means to hide the irrevocable chance 
 Of a great duty offered by the Lord 1 — 
 So tempt me not ! " 
 
 The words were veliement 
 And uttered as in anger — eyeballs starting, 
 And the full veins upon his beaded brow 
 Relieved like whipcord. From his pillow raised 
 Upon one elbow, breathless, pallid, fixed 
 As stares a statue with its marble eyes 
 Rounded with wonder, and with doubt con- 
 gealed, 
 Gonzalo gazed upon the speaker. In 
 The hush that followed a cicala ran 
 Across the open doorway, on the roof 
 Outside the tapping of a woodpecker 
 Was heard, and one low distant moan subdued 
 Its anguish in the woods. The father's eye 
 Fell, and a chill ran through his frame : " For- 
 give," 
 He said, in a strange wearied tone 
 Altered and low : " Forgive the unwonted heat ; 
 For thou know'st not, my son, the carnal heart
 
 62 ORELLANA. 
 
 That beats beneath this mantle, as do I ! " 
 Sudden, and at a bound, Gonzalo leapt 
 From his sick-bed, and with a strong man's 
 
 voice — 
 " What guarantee have I, if thus the storms 
 Of wild ambition shake the Holy Church 
 Personified in thee — what proof have I 
 That Orellana will not play me false. 
 Self-duped in sending him? Go! call him 
 
 back ! 
 I, I myself — Here by sheer strength of will 
 I fling this fever from me ! — It is mine ; 
 The glory I have traced to this far haunt 
 No hand shall seize but mine ! And bring my 
 
 mail — 
 I, I myself will head the enterprise. 
 No proxy suits with me. This very hour — 
 Nay, on the instant — stand aside ! " 
 
 For here 
 The father caught him staggering to the door, 
 And forced him back, panting and flushed and 
 
 faint
 
 BOOK II. 63 
 
 Upon the couch. " Dost thou withstand me ? " 
 
 "I 
 Withstand thee not— it is the hand of Heaven ! 
 Is this the resignation thou didst feel ? 
 Such resignation is but the result 
 Of weakness to rebel. If thou wouldst live 
 And heir the honour Heaven intends for thee 
 Obey me ! " — for he struggled yet to rise. 
 " I have hid nothing from thee. Therein lies 
 My error : but that I am true to thee 
 Believe, and let me show it by remaining. 
 Ask me no more to go : I will not go ! 
 My duty is with thee — and with these others, 
 Our numerous sick, that must remain behind ; 
 But chief with thee; for thou art marked by 
 
 Heaven 
 For some great work, and I have charge of 
 
 thee! 
 Only live thou to do it. It is thine 
 If one go at thy bidding though thy hand 
 Should never finger the dictated work ; 
 And that a servant here relieve thy hand
 
 64 OR ELLA NA. 
 
 The hand of God upon thee laid in sickness 
 Gives clear assurance 'tis the will of Heaven. 
 — As for this Orellana, let him go 
 Since one must go and thou hast chosen him ! 
 And for those fierce temptations that in thought 
 Assailed my soul a short while since — of this 
 Be sure, no fiercer storm, no tempest half so 
 
 fierce 
 Can Satan raise in Orellana : ' I,' 
 (Thou say'st; for I can read thy inmost thoughts. 
 Knowing my own so well) ' If I,' thou say'st, 
 ' A son of Holy Church can be so tempted, — 
 If I a green branch burn so fiercely, what 
 Swift -tongued destruction must lick up the 
 
 dry?' 
 — Am I a green branch ? I have read my life 
 And studied my whole nature : that I am 
 A son of Holy Church I know, and boast, 
 Unworthy though I be ; but Holy Church 
 Gives not a change of nature : I have here 
 Under these pious vestments the wild pulse 
 Of warrior, and — root out the infirmity.
 
 BOOK II. 65 
 
 O Heaven !^I feel a tigerish instinct stir 
 
 Even in the pastoral service of the Church 
 
 If bloodshed would but frighten to the fold 
 
 The heathen flocks that roam the wilderness ! 
 
 To thee I make confession of my weakness 
 
 That this confession may be as a chain 
 
 To bind me closer to thee ! I believe 
 
 That in our band no breast is visited 
 
 With half so fierce temptations, nor no heart 
 
 Half so susceptible of earthly fame ! 
 
 And thou mightst but commission me to ruin, 
 
 To send me girt with equal power with him 
 
 This tool, this Orellana, whose dull heart. 
 
 Though stout to dare what others planned, was 
 
 never 
 Stirred with the nobler passion to create 
 And carve self-confident for his own ends. 
 Fear not ; this tool will do the work for thee 
 More faithfully than I thy truer friend, 
 And I shall yet be saved for thee and Heaven ! " 
 
 More was there in his looks and in his tone 
 Than in the words, uttered impulsively 
 
 E
 
 66 ORELLANA. 
 
 And wildly ordered, to assure Gonzalo 
 
 The revelation was indeed sincere. 
 
 He stretched him out his hand ; quickly the 
 
 priest 
 As catching at salvation caught the grasp 
 Ere yet half way, and held it tight and long. 
 Gonzalo's generous heart returned the pressure, 
 And " I have known thee long," he said ; "but 
 
 never 
 Known truly till this hour. With reckless hand 
 Thou hast loosened for me a prop on which 
 I leaned as on a hill— nay ! hear me out ; 
 There need be now no secrets 'twixt us twain : 
 For I had thought thee steadfast as the Earth, 
 Infallible as Heaven : Thou art, instead. 
 Even in thy weaknesses, thy doubts of self. 
 Thy struggles with the flesh, and all thy fears, 
 A brother on whose breast I yet may lean. 
 If not with such security as once. 
 Surely with a new sympathy that both 
 Imparts and gathers strength. And so, I trust 
 
 thee ;
 
 BOOK IL 67 
 
 Go he, stay thou, thy will is wholly mine ! " 
 
 While yet he spake Day fell ; the sunset spilt 
 Its crimson on the waters ; down the stream 
 With a great rush it sped, purpling the wood, 
 The river-banks, the brigantine, the air, 
 With the reflection of its sanguine glow. 
 It was a world of red — red leaves, red waves, 
 Red faces ; e'en Gonzalo's pallid face 
 Took on the hue of health : all things were 
 
 dyed 
 In the rich rubious translucent streams 
 Of the great fountain welling in the West ! 
 
 The Father's eyes were on Gonzalo, his 
 Looked wistfully out through the open door 
 Of the rough wooden shed — his hospital — 
 Upon the evening glory of the world : 
 The brigantine lay moored within his gaze 
 Motionless, save where the eye might note 
 A certain rhythmic movement of her mast 
 Obedient to the lapping of the stream. 
 What thoughts were his, what longings or what 
 fears,
 
 68 ORELLANA. 
 
 He uttered not, save that unconsciously 
 
 By pressure of the hand fast locked in his 
 
 He intimated to the watchful priest 
 
 A spirit busy within him forcing up 
 
 The gateways of the future. Thus they sat, 
 
 The Father with his broad back towards the 
 
 door 
 Shrouded in shadow. On Gonzalo's face 
 The red light died away, the air grew dim ; 
 Wild dissonant cries answering to dissonant 
 
 cries 
 Of birds and chattering apes, unearthly screams ! 
 Ran like a desecration down the aisles 
 Of the wide-vaulted wood. Low in the shade. 
 Appearing here and reappearing there, 
 Tiny initial sparks of wavering fire 
 Twinkled about, till o'er the tufted trees 
 Diana raised her argent arc and shot 
 The first dart of her beauty through the gloom ! 
 The solemn Night was hers : high o'er the 
 
 woods 
 That underneath spread like a sea of leaves,
 
 BOOK IT. 69 
 
 O'er which the night-wind moaned and made 
 
 no stir 
 Among the billows and reposeful weaves, 
 She walked serene in chosen loneliness 
 As if her meditations would outlast 
 Eternity. The wanderers were asleep 
 Wrapt in oblivious visions all, save one, 
 The holy Father : He, from where he sat, 
 Beside Gonzalo's couch, gently unclasped 
 The sleeper's feverish hand, and gathering up 
 The rustlings of his robe, stole from the shed 
 With more than woman's care. At the low 
 
 door 
 Free from the shadow of the shed he stood 
 Full in the moonlight. First he glanced to 
 
 heaven. 
 Then on the width of waters weltering by 
 Fixed his keen gaze as if he would enforce 
 Confession of the secret of their goal : 
 More stealthily the waters seemed to glide 
 Under his searching eye ; and longer he, 
 Rapt in a reverie of human life.
 
 70 ORELLANA. 
 
 The mystery of its birth and course and end, 
 
 Had stood, entranced under the mystic spell 
 
 Of moonlight on a river yet unnamed 
 
 Lying familiarly, but that a fish 
 
 Leapt up the stream and sank with peaceful 
 
 plunge 
 Amid a spray of diamonds ; whereat 
 The Father started, brushed the dreams away 
 With open hand across his troubled brow, 
 Then with uplifted face looked straight to 
 
 heaven. 
 The silver moonlight on his moving lips 
 As if in prayer : from the pure deeps above 
 That from the feet of God flow down to earth 
 His spirit drank assurance, rest, and faith. 
 And was refreshed. 
 
 Along the river-bank 
 He passed to where the watch half leaned, half 
 
 lay 
 Snoring against a tree : his head thrown back 
 Revealed his naked throat that glimmered white 
 Beneath a beard black-pointed toward the moon.
 
 BOOK II. 71 
 
 With angry hand he twitched the sleeper's 
 
 beard — 
 "Rouse thee! but question not — where lies 
 
 to-night 
 Young Sanchez ? " And the sentinel abashed, 
 Awkward, and dazed, with spear-encumbered 
 
 hand 
 Rubbing his chin, glanced wildly round the 
 
 camp, 
 Then pointing with the other — " Near the bank 
 In the big tent beside the tall assai : 
 'Tis he relieves me." " Let him relieve thee 
 
 now ! 
 If I mistake not, thou art one of those 
 Impatient of preferment, and unfit 
 To fill the meanest post with the first want, 
 Fidelity: go, house thee in a sheet; 
 And when — for fate gives sloth a length of 
 
 years — 
 They ask thee to recount at home in Spain 
 The achievements of thy youth, boast of thy 
 
 deeds,
 
 72 OR ELL AN A. 
 
 15ut in thy boasting, blush to recollect 
 
 This night's disgrace ! Comrade ! take this, 
 
 and go — 
 A year of loyal service, borne with pain, 
 And left to speak its own reward, will scarce 
 Efface the blot upon thy name to-night ! " 
 
 Came from beneath a tall paxinba's roots, 
 That as on tiptoe stood stretching its neck 
 Above its forest confreres, Hernan Sanchez, 
 Equipped for outpost duty. Straight he 
 
 marched 
 And steady as a tower to where the priest 
 Waited his coming : "Art thou one," said he, 
 " Of Orellana's band ? " The soldier bowed — 
 " One of the fifty I." " A volunteer ? " 
 " Sought out," replied the youth with modest 
 
 pride, 
 " Ere yet I knew to intercede to go ! " 
 " Thou art Gonzalo's standard-bearer? " "Yea ; 
 By his own gift that honour do I bear ! " 
 "And he has honoured thee ! requite it, youth ! 
 — Tell me, for youth has still a live ideal
 
 BOOK II. 73 
 
 By which to dress its conduct, who is thine?" 
 " The IMarquis, ere we left Quito ; since then, 
 Oh, need'st thou ask? our noble chief Gonzalo." 
 " Thou art not one of those who worship still 
 The risinsc star?" "Thou wouldst insult me, 
 
 priest ? 
 — Prove me, and then upbraid me ! " " Nobly 
 
 said ; 
 'Tis for that end I come, to prove and— praise 
 
 thee ! 
 For when thy conscience, speaking in thy breast, 
 Shall praise thy conduct, hear in it the voice 
 Of honest men ; among which rank am I, 
 And own no other. Thou wilt go to-morrow 
 Under the leadership of Orellana 
 To great discoveries, freedom, life, and fame. 
 Let not the whirl of fortune turn thy head : 
 Remember thou thy fealty to Gonzalo ; 
 He goes with you — misunderstand me not — 
 For Orellana is but as thyself, 
 Nor more nor less, divested of the power 
 Lent him by great Gonzalo : honour it,
 
 74 ORELLANA. 
 
 Be jealous of it in thy leader's charge ; 
 
 But see thou make no transfer of thy faith 
 
 To him the man that wields it ! — I had said 
 
 The same to Orellana following thee 
 
 Hadst thou been chosen to the chief command. 
 
 There is no treason in my counsel, then, 
 
 But truest loyalty to those that go 
 
 And those that stay : we constitute a State 
 
 Commissioning you with powers which you 
 
 may use 
 Against the State that grants them. This he 
 
 knows, 
 This Orellana ; and I have no cause 
 To doubt his faithfulness : assist him, thou, 
 To keep his faith— but slay him if he fail ! " 
 
 This said, abrupt he turned and disappeared 
 Back to his post in the low wooden shed 
 Where in delirious sleep Gonzalo lay 
 Tossing. 
 
 The camp next morning was astir 
 As dawn crept up the water : with the first 
 Long level lance of pioneering light
 
 BOOK II. 75 
 
 That struck the tall paxinba's topmost plume 
 Ten thousand voices woke, and the dim wood 
 And the grey air burst from the trance of Night ; 
 And screams and shrieks and sharp dissevered 
 
 notes 
 That intimated freedom rent the sky. 
 Flocks of white, green, and scarlet parroquets 
 Leapt from their perch ; thousands of toucans 
 
 flew 
 With outstretched bill seeking their morning 
 
 meal : 
 Here on a heavy-podded inga's branch 
 Some twenty would alight with clumsy foot, 
 Shaking the ripe fruit ready for the drop 
 Into the stream a hundred feet below : 
 The nimble trogon with obedient wing 
 Skimming the mid-air, swerved with easy grace 
 And caught the falling fruit and disappeared. 
 Herons, and terns, and gulls innumerable 
 Followed the sinuous current, or made halt 
 Upon a floating tree, or on the marge 
 Searched for their food among the water-weeds.
 
 76 ORELLANA. 
 
 While ever and again a kingfisher, 
 
 With back of glossy green, shot down the river 
 
 Like volant ball ; and golden orioles, 
 
 And troupials, banded black and yellow, 
 
 whisked 
 From nest to mid-air and from mid-air back 
 To slender purse-like nest depending fair 
 From the high branches all adown the sky. 
 Amid the lower shrubs that fringed the strip 
 Between the wood and water, bush-shrikes ran, 
 Their long loose silky feathers fluttering fierce 
 With joy, as they impaled with corneous beak 
 Their insect-victims on the hard-barked bough. 
 Meanwhile the golden disc of the new sun 
 Shone through the trees like a great shield of 
 
 gold : 
 Whereat the moon grew faint, and stole away 
 Worn to transparent thinness in the West ; 
 And as the round of red rejoicing Day 
 Rose free at last of forest-screen, she slipped 
 Ghost-like behind the shelter of the hills. 
 How do familiar scenes, daily beheld,
 
 BOOK II. 77 
 
 And daily held to be the stereotype 
 Of long-traditioned nature meaning nothing-/ 
 Grow suddenly significant ! What power, 
 Ebbing and flowing in the speechless air, 
 And growing half-articulate in the cries 
 Of birds, and in the whispers of the woods, 
 And smiling in the sun, or in the cloud 
 Frowning, gives character and mood and mind 
 To dull or idle nature? — Nay, what power 
 In man informs the brutish earth with soul, 
 Shooting a meaning into clods and stones 
 To prop a hope or feed a cherished fear? 
 'Tis not in nature : but the God in man. 
 As man was God-created from the clay, 
 Breathes into nature mystery of meaning. 
 Then wrests her riddle to his owm desire. 
 Strengthened and propped by natural sympathy. 
 So to the nobler of that hopeful band 
 Whom Orellana gathered to his cause 
 Came with a speedier course that morning's sun, 
 And larger life was on the water's marge 
 Pulsing with warmer flow in every wing.
 
 78 ORELLANA. 
 
 Nature expectant of a famous deed 
 That day should see commence was earlier up. 
 In all they saw there was a harmony 
 Benevolent to their purpose, and the heavens 
 Smiled in consent of all their hopes and 
 
 schemes. 
 Under the smiling morn the patient bark 
 Slept idly on the shallows : hasty feet 
 Struck heavily on the gangway — a slim plank 
 That swung from shore to ship; but still she 
 
 dreamed 
 Rocked in the eddying waters : fruit sun-dried 
 And mandioc meal in bags and boxes borne 
 On willing backs were hurried up the plank 
 And tumbled in the vessel: with more heed 
 Guns, and gunpowder in a chest ill spared 
 From a diminished stock, were stored ; and 
 
 now 
 A hasty meal was snatched or from the stream 
 By flowering thorn-hook, or from sweet assai 
 In clusters of small purple berries struck 
 By climber with his pole : then came the priest
 
 BOOK II. 79 
 
 And in the ears of all confirmed the charge 
 Of Orellana, limiting his power, 
 And asking his acceptance of the trust 
 In words which Orellana gave, — and gave 
 Besides fealty in clear well-ordered phrase 
 Both for himself and men to great Gonzalo. 
 Thus satisfied the Father caused advance 
 The leader and his fifty from the rest ; 
 And while they knelt, dinting the forest spores 
 And choking many a weedy cassia's bells 
 And flowered convolvulus, around the priest, 
 He solemnised promise and enterprise 
 By special mass appointed by the Church 
 For mariners at sea, and shrived them all. 
 The ritual o'er, like schoolboys freed from 
 
 school 
 They raced on board the galley, swung her 
 
 round 
 Instinct with life into the middle channel 
 Churning the stream, ere scarce the tense - 
 
 drawn rope 
 That kept her to her moorings snapt across
 
 So ORELLANA. 
 
 And curling sprayed the water. Then like bird 
 Hovering in mid-air on vibrating pens 
 Ere yet it flies a straight course down the gale, 
 She, quivering with the sudden keen delight 
 Of freedom, all her dreams shook to the air, 
 A moment with backed oars stood on the 
 
 stream. 
 Then, thrusting out like one her twenty paddles, 
 Dipped with a thought in the thin element, 
 And bounded forth between her lines of foam, 
 That widened in her wake, and waned away 
 Amongst the tumbling river ere the cheer 
 Of God -speed ! from their comrades on the 
 
 bank 
 Ceased in the rowers' ears. Their answering 
 
 hail 
 Came back as from another world, faint-voiced 
 And far and past recall. And long they gazed 
 Ranged on the bank like statues of despair 
 Staring with strained and film - o'erspreading 
 
 eye 
 After a disappearing hope : they saw
 
 BOOK II. 8 1 
 
 Rise on the bark now dwindled to a bird 
 The white wing of her sail ; and as the curve 
 Of wooded shore denied them farther view 
 It made partial amends by sending back 
 An echo of the boat-song sifted drear 
 Through the dim arches of the pillared palms. 
 Sank from the light and life of cheerful day 
 The lingering echoes falling restfully 
 Into the caves of silence, — as distil 
 Through chinks and cracks to intramontane 
 
 wells 
 The drops which twinkled on the tempest's 
 
 wing 
 In rainbow lustre ere the tumult rose 
 That dashed them with a myriad diamonds 
 
 more 
 Into the surging heather ! Sank the strain 
 From healthful morn : yet through the curtain 
 
 door 
 Which severs dreamland and the drear abode 
 Of shadows from the light of open day 
 A thrice-enfeebled wail ran plaintively : 
 
 F
 
 82 ORELLANA. 
 
 It crossed Gonzalo's spirit in the dark, 
 Labouring belated like a lonely bird 
 Above a moaning sea through cloud and storm 
 And falling stars and ruin and eclipse; 
 And in his sleep wrought on mysteriously 
 The patient tossed his arms in weak despair. 
 
 The bark shot onward into unknown scenes. 
 So shot the ray of new-created light 
 Into chaotic gloom : so bursts the dawn 
 Of knowledge on the w^ondering infant mind. 
 Chaos, surprised with happiness, looked grim. 
 Laughed, and danced into cosmic loveliness : 
 Even so the mind breaks into rapturous singing 
 And leaps with joy of an immortal pulse. 
 And did not the new scenes laugh and look 
 
 glad, 
 And shape their gladness into dance and song, 
 To be thus visited and viewed of man. 
 Far wandering but arrived at last, though late, 
 To claim his due inheritance ? 
 
 The river 
 Proud of the burden bore the heirs along
 
 BOOK II. 83 
 
 Of all the Amazons, sang at the prow 
 The songs of hope, and at the helm repeated 
 The achievements of the past in choral praise. 
 The little waves that sparkled in the sun. 
 And smiled, and ran hand linked in tiny hand, 
 Gay messengers transmitted from the bows, 
 Lisped to the crowded banks, and venturous 
 
 reeds 
 Advanced to meet them in the shallow bays, 
 "The long-expected heirs are passing by." 
 Whereat the rushes waved their bannerets 
 And the bright banks broke into brighter bloom. 
 The forest formed its ranks along the shores 
 And crowded forward, where the river bent, 
 With homage and oblation long delayed 
 But now extended in each laden bough. 
 The very airs, the wandering spies of heaven, 
 That roam from Alp to Andes, seeing all 
 Man's glories and the grandeur of the world, 
 Caught the contagious glow of sympathy 
 With wave and wood, and whispered flattering 
 
 tales.
 
 84 ORELLANA. 
 
 The homage and the tribute and the triumph 
 Were seen and felt by all as with one heart. 
 For as the hours fled and the distance grew 
 Between them and their comrades left behind 
 They gathered in, mutely, by slow degrees 
 Community of feeling, hopes and fears, 
 That merged at last incorporate in the bark 
 Into identity. Thus animate 
 Forward they sped with ever-joyful leaps 
 Along the reaches of the mighty stream. 
 Suns rose and set paving their level path 
 With robes of scarlet and with cloth of gold. 
 Night flung submissive at their fearless feet 
 Her gemmed tiaras and her strings of stars, 
 The dowry of old Time : the silver moon 
 From a full horn rained tribute down the sky 
 And widened nightly in admiring wonder, 
 While still the attendant winds buzzed flatter- 
 ingly 
 Of marvels that should open on their view, 
 And willingly gave up their wonted freedom 
 To guide and retinue the sons of Spain
 
 BOOK II. 85 
 
 Through valley lands long centuries known to 
 
 them. 
 On swept the brig borne on the river's back, 
 While hopes like cherubim flew' on before, 
 Their w^hite wings rustling ever round the bows 
 Or ever disappearing in a flash 
 Of dazzling plumes at every vista's end 
 Or shady turning ! On — no need for pause : 
 The river gave them of its watery stores ; 
 The trees held out their fruitage, and they 
 
 plucked 
 With unstayed course, sparingly, as they passed 
 The offered bounty of the burdened bough. 
 
 It was the noon of Night: a far-off moon 
 Looked from the lofty firmament aslant 
 Down on the speeding brigantine through twists 
 Of stationary cloud. The winds blew^ soft, 
 Rocking the slumb'rous trees ; and all was 
 
 still,— 
 Save where the forest-hum for ever in 
 Incipient burst of speech deceived the listener;
 
 86 ORELLANA. 
 
 And there was, too, the babble and the throb 
 Of lapsing waters felt along her keel 
 Lifting the vessel, as a cross is lifted 
 Gently upon the bosom of a nun 
 Inhaling and exhaling in her dreams 
 Regular breath. The helmsman at his post 
 Dreamt of Castile. High on the forward deck 
 Stood one whose brow the moon with cooling 
 
 beams 
 Tiara'd, — while with sleepless glance he ques- 
 tioned 
 His future of the stars : 
 
 "Say ye who stand 
 A scriptured mystery on creation's wall, 
 Revealed by night, invisible in the sun, — 
 If in your radiance wrapt from human ken, 
 As ye are wrapt in all-unfolding Day, 
 The story of my destiny is traced ! 
 And I may know but that I may fulfil 
 With firmer, bolder heart Heaven's hopes in 
 me! . . . 
 " Faith in myself I have not : I am but
 
 BOOK II. 87 
 
 A waif upon the tide of human life, 
 Helmed and commanded by a higher power, 
 Whose fingers on my fate I seem to feel 
 Shaping my course, and leaving me, — as I 
 Shape for this passive brig its unknown way 
 At intervals upon the drifting stream. . . . 
 " Let me indulge the fancy : ships there are 
 That rule the waves awhile: there waits for 
 
 them 
 A smiling surface and a hidden rock. 
 Some, with contemptuous gesture tossed to 
 
 land 
 A broken wreck, waste publicly away. 
 Others the ocean slips from, leaving them 
 Upon a barren beach, their ventures o'er, 
 Henceforth to blister in the sun, and rot. 
 — Each has its various end. — But who would 
 
 see 
 In all the necessary whirls and shifts 
 Of fortune that befall or floating logs 
 Or floating ships the hand of God, save him 
 Who gives his god indeed impossible power
 
 88 ORELLANA. 
 
 But less of wisdom than himself to guide it? . . . 
 
 " Chance rules it all ; or else the fool is right 
 Who, rather than seek out with patient search 
 The mighty Maker, makes one for himself 
 And worships his own idol — not less surely 
 Than blacks in Africa their wooden blocks ; 
 — Worships a baby god who takes delight 
 In dropping nuts into a forest pool 
 To hear the lonely splash, in whirling logs 
 Along the barren seas, and puffing leaves 
 Rustling and red around an idle hill. . . . 
 
 "And may not man, superior though he be, 
 To whom with nuts and logs and leaves the 
 
 same 
 Final decay succeeds an idle life, 
 Be equally the abandoned toy of chance 
 And orphaned pf his Maker ? . . . 
 
 " 'Tis not so 
 With him: inferior nature, to itself 
 Left and the governance of man, repeats 
 Its patient function ordered from without 
 Incapable of will ; but man is free,
 
 BOOK II. 89 
 
 Though, still partaking of the lumpishness 
 Of mortal earth, he be the slave of law 
 So far ; and may be wholly ; to the which 
 His grosser nature drags him, drugs his will, 
 And wraps the aspiring spirit flesh-encased 
 In most ignoble slothfulness and sleep. 
 But souls of noble possibility, 
 Though lapped in indolence, shall rouse at last 
 And will their liberty and laugh at law. 
 Among which rank am I ; no more a boat 
 Beached among shells and shingle, or afloat 
 Upon a drifting current idly borne 
 Helmless, and having no far haven marked, 
 Its free-determined aim, beyond the roar 
 Of surges and cyclones, and past the maze 
 Of atoll, archipelago, and shoal. 
 
 " 'Tis flow-tide with me, and I feel the chance 
 That has withdrawn its strong sustaining waves 
 From underneath Pizarro's stranded bows 
 Lapping my fortunes and upbearing me. 
 But here I ask no more, would trust no more 
 To idle chance, but, master of my will,
 
 90 ORELLANA. 
 
 Wrest from the laws of gross inferior earth 
 My future, and contrive with strenuous care 
 Of my own choice a famous destiny. . . . 
 
 Would Heaven but give assurance of my wish 
 And of my hope, confirming them to faith 
 That I am free and master of myself. 
 How would the token I entreat in vain 
 Nerve me with triple strength to bend the laws 
 Of nature to my will ! I have been long 
 A veiy tool to other men, with which 
 They smote to their own purposes the chains 
 Which nature would impose; then flung me by, 
 A disregarded and inglorious — fool. 
 
 " Enough of this ! Hereafter for myself 
 I work— I plan, I live, I joy in freedom ! 
 Chance favours me ; Nature, already tamed, 
 Turns with obsequious smile her sympathy 
 Upon me ; and the stars — if ever stars 
 Registered in their rubric on Heaven's door 
 A lofty deed, may have some trace of mine. 
 Never, — if in obedience to the priest 
 I, backward toiling, bear my own deserts
 
 BOOK II. 91 
 
 And fling them at the feet of a Pizarro 
 
 Disburdening me of glory all my own. 
 
 But verily if onward on this highway, 
 
 Which ends indeed at Charles's throne in Spain ! 
 
 The question is — backward or forward, then : 
 
 Back to obscurity, to keep my faith 
 
 With one who robs me of the fame I win ; 
 
 Onward to fame and freedom, life and power, 
 
 — And ignominy of a broken word 
 
 And an abandoned friend ? " 
 
 He paused, and weighed 
 
 The question, wliile his hand balanced a sword 
 
 Mechanically mimicking his mind. 
 
 " Give sign, ye stars. 
 
 Ye voiceless keepers of Heaven's closed ar- 
 chives, 
 
 That hold his former and his latter will ! 
 
 Say, is it Heaven's great will that having had 
 
 The reins of this behemoth-river thrust 
 
 Into my hands, I fling them in the air 
 
 To the wild hands of hundreds stretched to 
 grasp them ;
 
 92 OR ELL ANA. 
 
 Or that I bridle him through all his bounds 
 And ride him to the sea?" 
 
 Just then a star 
 By unseen fingers lightly disengaged 
 Slid from the zenith in a line of light, 
 That was reflected in the river's course, 
 Eastward o'er hidden empire to the sea. 
 It fell into the scale-pan of the balance 
 That symboUed progress in the thoughtful mind 
 Of Orellana : doubt, distrust of self. 
 Loyalty, and danger, and delay and fear 
 Flew up and kicked the beam. 
 
 "Be this," he cried 
 With arm upraised, " the signal that I seek ! 
 It woos me down the water; in its flight 
 It sped like arrow from the bow of Heaven 
 Shot o'er the region that I yet shall rule 
 To guide me to my kingdom ! — 'Tis enough ! 
 There is no wrong in following Heaven's decree, 
 There is no faltering fear : Heaven's eyes be- 
 hold 
 Me, and my hopes are histories in Heaven ! "
 
 BOOK II. 93 
 
 The steersman Sanchez, dreaming o'er the 
 helm 
 Of tranquil ease and household joys obscure 
 Afar in fair Castile, roused by the words. 
 Looked up to see his leader on the poop 
 Transfigured in the moonlight, falling clear 
 Of cloud or bough around him, by resolve 
 To something more than seems in common 
 man. 
 
 On o'er the olive pathway of the stream 
 Through solitudes lit up with radiant suns 
 Or steeped in mystic moonlight, joyfully 
 With song upon their lips or lapped in dream 
 Calmly they glided, trusting in the calm 
 Reliant face of their still-thoughted leader. 
 
 One day at noon, rounding a river cape 
 Clothed with a lofty forest, ere they knew 
 They slid into a black tumultuous stream 
 Of broken waves that hurr>4ng from the West 
 Made sudden swerve to southward, drinking 
 swift
 
 94 ORELLANA. 
 
 In its fierce wrath the placid olive wave, 
 
 And swirling the frail bark caught in the rapids 
 
 Round in the yellow foam. By dexterous twist 
 
 Of rudder aided by auxiliar oar 
 
 They shot into still water, and lay to 
 
 Upon a sandy bottom on the lee 
 
 Of a large island where in former years 
 
 The rivers mingling met, — now far below. 
 
 And here they landing looked in vain for tower, 
 
 Temple, or teocalli o'er the waste 
 
 Of woodland stretching round — listened in vain 
 
 For cymbal or for drum where in far glades 
 
 Or on sequestered plains religious rites 
 
 Might then be celebrating, or great chiefs 
 
 Or borla'd monarch holding with his queen 
 
 Peaceful review or mustering troops for war. 
 
 And here they fell in passionate dispute 
 
 Of farther action, frequently renewed, 
 
 Yet ever ending in divisive taunt 
 
 And more divisive silence. To go back 
 
 Now that the goal was reached were to preserve 
 
 The faith of gentlemen. This was opposed, —
 
 BOOK II. 95 
 
 It were the work of months against the stream 
 Toiling, and even if the worl: were done 
 What could it bring Gonzalo or themselves 
 But disappointment of a fostered hope 
 Of fame to him ; lo them the mute reproach, 
 Loud-tongued perchance, of disappointed men ? 
 Then to go forward — that were breach of faith, 
 Shameful desertion of confiding friends 
 And blindfold rush through danger; — or it 
 
 were 
 Bravery, and reason, and a sure reward. 
 And so they strove, through the long hours of 
 
 noon, 
 With the strange Stygian river's dismal hue, 
 That would receive no glory from the sun, 
 Reflected in their faces. In the gaps 
 And pauses of their talk, one heard the note 
 Of drowsy bell-bird, snow-white o'er the shade 
 Of mountain-forest faint and far away. 
 At length up sprang the leader: he had 
 
 watched 
 With vigilant eye the varying tide of talk.
 
 96 ORELLANA. 
 
 And now broke silence. " In this camp," he 
 
 said, 
 " There are two parties where there should be 
 
 one. 
 —One in the brig, while I command her, one 
 And only one there must be ! " Here he paused, 
 Then with his scabbard on the iirm smooth 
 
 sand 
 He drew a parting line : " You that believe 
 I should command that party, cross this line 
 And range yourselves beside me : here stand 
 
 I!" 
 And stepped across with sword unsheathed. 
 
 Many 
 With acclamation leapt across the line ; 
 Some crossed in silence; and, with lingering 
 
 step, 
 Others ; till only one at last remained. 
 Young Sanchez. Him the sole inhabitant 
 And prisoner of a melancholy isle 
 They left, his brave face turned from them 
 
 away
 
 BOOK II. 97 
 
 Proudly resentful of their mocks and prayers, 
 And loyal to Gonzalo. Off they fled 
 Like unreturning arrow swiftly loosed 
 From a strong bow new bent. Free was their 
 
 course 
 Upon the hurrying rapids down the stream, 
 Yet aided still by twinkling oar, and sail 
 Hoised on the rattling j^ard. Their wish was 
 
 now • 
 Under their fresh-elected chief to unwind 
 The mystery of the river to the main. 
 Glance at the virgin glories of its coasts, 
 Unfold to Europe their discovery, 
 And claim its government, as Cortez claimed 
 The rule of Mexico. — What thrill was theirs 
 Of still-succeeding ecstasy to trace 
 The panorama of the Amazons 
 Throughout the mighty river's thousand links, 
 Past selva and savanna to the sea ! 
 What joy to feel their unimpeded bark 
 Leap in responsive rapture light along 
 As if, like some new creature come to life 
 
 G
 
 98 OR ELL AN A. 
 
 Upon congenial element, it shared 
 The sanguine hopes, the mad impatient pulse 
 And keen delight of motion swift and free 
 That made them demigods, body and mind ! 
 O, in those days and fairy-visioned nights, 
 Feeding on manna hopes that come no more 
 To this old worn-out earth, they lived indeed, 
 Breathing heroic air, and lifted high 
 Above the sordid cares that creep within 
 The guarded ease of villa nests, and make 
 The peasant's term a pitiable strife 
 With Hunger sniffing wolf-like at the door ! 
 
 Forest and forest passed them, whirling west 
 With all their unclaimed grandeur : hill on hill 
 In the far distance, capped with snow-white 
 
 quartz 
 Thin-veined with gold, rose up and sank adown. 
 Doing them stately homage : shady alleys 
 And sunlit glades in the dim columned woods 
 Opened and closed their beauties as they came : 
 Islets and infant archipelagos 
 Thronging their wavy pathway grew in size,
 
 BOOK IT. 99 
 
 And shrank again behind them : rivers poured 
 Their roaring tribute from imperial urns 
 Into the main of waters where they rode 
 Almost invisible in midmost channel ; 
 For wide and wider grew the guarded banks, 
 As if the opening avenue must soon 
 With all its retinue of silent trees 
 End the long triumph of its thousand miles. 
 And here at last were towns and heathen fanes 
 Glittering with all the glory and the glow 
 Of occidental wealth ; and tawny chiefs, 
 Hung round with rubies and with emeralds, 
 Welcomed them from the shores; and martial 
 
 maids 
 Of Amazonian stature, breasted round 
 With plates of beaten gold, stood on the banks 
 And seemed to offer tribute, and entreat 
 The strangers' stay. Still on and on they sped 
 With all the glory of the Occident 
 Unrolling like a map before their eyes ; 
 Until, at last, their river voyage o'er. 
 They came one sunset within earshot of
 
 loo ORELLANA. 
 
 The sullen roar of Ocean swinging ever 
 His billowy strength against the stolid land. 
 All night they listened to the measured beat 
 Booming along the dark : and at the dawn, 
 Lo, the far banks receding north and south 
 Never again to meet ! and the green sea 
 With all its millioned multitude of waves 
 Tumbling in chainless freedom ! and the sun 
 Slow-rising as of old with welcoming smile 
 Out of the depths of the familiar sea ! 
 
 The muffled boom of ocean far away 
 
 Is in mine ears again : but now no more 
 
 As in blue breakers whitening on the beach 
 
 Hear I the voice of cheerful energy, 
 
 Activity and change : it is the moan ' 
 
 Of baffled feebleness that flings in vain 
 
 A tangled waste of drenched and drowned 
 
 hopes 
 In final effort on the rocks of fate. 
 
 And sing ye may, ye mariners, who launch
 
 BOOK II. loi 
 
 Your gilded galleys in the freshening dawn 
 
 Upon a sunlit sea : to you the winds 
 
 Call joyous from the deep ; to you the plain 
 
 Of ocean is a silver-fretten floor 
 
 Of sapphire luminous with the living gleams 
 
 Of the great crystal sky-dome over all. 
 
 And ye with faces brown that, homeward 
 
 bound, 
 Press where the faded figurehead below 
 Looks towards the enlarging hills, and shout 
 
 for joy 
 When on the far edge of the safe-crossed main 
 The old kirk-spire shoots up, the old round 
 
 tower 
 At the pierhead, and on the concave shore 
 Houses and homes in social brotherhood 
 With open door waiting your late return 
 — Ye, too, may sing in heart, your labours o'er, 
 The quiet haven in your weary view, 
 And the calm lights of evening overhead 
 Steadily shining as the sun goes down.
 
 102 ORELLANA. 
 
 But wonder not if on despondent lips 
 The voice of song has died, and querulous care 
 Breaking a silent grief draws nigh to them 
 Who on the ocean lost and far from home 
 Feel neither morning's flush of airy hopes 
 Nor evening's rest resigned — see neither sun 
 Nor lunar light nor stellar, wrapt in mist 
 And pelting rains that intermingle night 
 With dawnless day and unseen sea with land. 
 
 O dreary seas, your sullen leaden grey 
 Will ever sun enlace with gold again ? 
 Will ever hope rise more in complete orb 
 Of brilliant song, Apollo with a crown 
 Of fresh-dug gold luting it o'er your sadness ? 
 
 O many times in heedless ears shall sound 
 The solar melody, in heedless eyes 
 The solar blazon be outrolled above 
 Your leaden waters ! But to one to whom 
 These were the joy which youthful monarchs 
 
 feel 
 When first they grasp a sceptre, nay, were life.
 
 BOOK II. 103 
 
 Were very life throbbing through all the veins 
 And arteries as with eternal pulse 
 — To Orellana, never, never more ! 
 
 On him the shadow of the Hand of Death 
 
 Descended darkening, as a falcon's wing 
 
 Falls on the snowy radiance of a dove. 
 
 Oh, how should he escape that closing Hand? 
 
 Would the imperial parchment in his gripe, 
 
 With the vain sanction of its dangling seals, 
 
 Its signatures, its pomp of Latin phrase 
 
 That gave the wealth and width of the Brazils 
 
 From seashore to sierra westward far. 
 
 To Don Francisco Orellana, bribe? 
 
 Would prayer, or tear, or impious sacrifice 
 
 For just a little summer's lease of life 
 
 Such as an insect has, persuade ? Would love 
 
 Of wife new-married by vicarious pain 
 
 Avert ? 
 
 But what were all the wish of life, 
 Now hope of life was gone, for that one stain 
 Of perjury- that blackened all the past?
 
 I04 ORELLANA. 
 
 The stain sent rays of gloom even to the 
 
 realm 
 Of sunny infancy : and forward far 
 It rushed into Eternity, a flood 
 Of widening blackness ! Orellana groaned 
 And hid his face with both his hands: "The 
 
 star ! " 
 He muttered in his agony — " The star ! 
 Oh, I mistook it for the will of Heaven ! " 
 
 Beside him where he tossed in fever-pain 
 In the dim narrow cabin sat his wife 
 With ne'er a word of comfort in her heart. 
 His men dotted the deck like images 
 Of famine and despair — hating both him 
 Who with a lying story lured them forth 
 To chase a madman's fancy, and themselves 
 Who credited a dreamer. Vainly they 
 Had thrust through mist and rain, through 
 
 creek and strait 
 And muddy shallow, searching for a channel 
 To inland El Dorado : — in despair
 
 BOOK II. 105 
 
 Now waited for the end. The rain-streams 
 
 hissed 
 Along the deck, and all around the ship, 
 And on the sea, and all along the sea 
 To where the neighbour ships loomed through 
 
 the mist 
 Like veiled monuments; and at the window 
 Of the dim cabin where the leader lay 
 Hissed loudly; and in scornful hissings drowned, 
 Sank Orellana from the world of men.
 
 BRIERS 
 
 There grows a bonnie brier buss in oor kailyard." 
 
 ^Oi.D Song.
 
 IN IM E M O R I A M. 
 
 "There is one event unto all." 
 
 Out there in the sunshine, that's gilding 
 The garden that seldom is green, 
 
 The workmen are lazily building 
 A pillar in praise of the Dean. 
 
 Last week they were at a church-steeple, 
 And next week it may be a jail : 
 
 — They're a common mechanical people. 
 You see, and their labour's for sale. 
 
 Two soldiers at them are gazing, 
 Schoolboys, and a loafer or two :
 
 iio THE MASK OF MISERY. 
 
 Asks one, "What is it they're raisin^' ?" 
 Another, "And what did he do?" 
 
 Pale Frank hurries past to the College, 
 Hollow-eyed, red-nosed, and lean ; 
 
 The way to get on is get knowledge, 
 And he's hoping one day to be Dean. 
 
 -0 
 
 II. 
 THE MASK OF MISERY. 
 
 " Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath 
 a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument : for they 
 hear thy words but they do them not." 
 
 The lattice is open, and into the street 
 
 Floats music sad and slow ; 
 To the midnight Bobby it's quite a treat 
 — Up there there's company, light, and heat, 
 
 And the luxury of woe.
 
 THE MASK OF MISERY. m 
 
 Now none will say she cannot play, 
 
 That lady at the keys ; 
 And the singer that beside her stands 
 With Gounod's music in his hands 
 
 Can melt a soul with ease. 
 
 There is a green hill far away- 
 
 And the passion sinks and swells. 
 —Do you think they believe it? that lady gay.? 
 That silken tenor? . . • Or would you say 
 
 It's a sound and nothing else? 
 
 Be this as it may, they dissipate 
 
 The night with wailing psalms ; 
 And the rest of the company clap and prate, 
 While a waif from the Pleasaunce at the gate 
 
 Sings merrily for alms.
 
 112 
 III. 
 
 FOUND DEAD. 
 
 A LITTLE wayward human elf 
 
 Lay dead at Caesar's feet 
 Where sceptred Caesar lifts himself 
 
 Out of the vulgar street. 
 
 A passing workman at the dawn 
 
 Of a December day, 
 He found this little doeless fawn, 
 
 This " Home "-reared runaway. 
 
 A wild bud by the rude winds blown 
 
 From its untended sod ; 
 A young life on the altar stone 
 
 Flung to a pagan god. 
 
 They bore the slender fragile thing 
 
 From Ccesar's feet of stone. 
 And who was she? — By their whispering 
 
 A child of Caesar's own.
 
 113 
 
 IV. 
 THESE AND THOSE. 
 
 Under an apple-tree, laden 
 With pink promissory-notes, 
 
 Loiter a man and a maiden 
 — Each on the other one dotes. 
 
 Blue through the apple-boughs o'er them 
 It gleams like a sapphire, the sky ; 
 
 Rosy and radiant before them 
 Vistas invitingly lie. 
 
 Out of their sight and their hearing, 
 
 But only over the wall, 
 Two are snarling and sneering 
 
 Who love not each other at all. 
 
 What had you said had you seen them 
 As I have put them in rhyme ? 
 
 For these are those, and between them 
 Is only a measure of time. 
 
 H
 
 114 
 
 PARTING AND MEETING. 
 
 They quarrelled, parted with a frown, 
 Took each his separate path, 
 
 And that and many a day went down 
 And rose upon their wrath. 
 
 And Jim went east and Duncan west, 
 
 And not a word said Jim ; 
 And Duncan— well, he would be blest 
 
 Before he'd speak to him. 
 
 The tranquil hamlet of their birth 
 
 The brothers left behind ; 
 Wider between them grew the Earth 
 
 And keener blew the wind. . . . 
 
 In 'Frisco where the cypress waves 
 
 Its melancholy green, 
 Are James and Duncan Gordon's graves. 
 
 And but a step between.
 
 I I : 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE PLEADER. 
 
 It's an edifying sight to see 
 
 His teeth like ivory shine 
 As he laughs with a lord familiarly 
 
 Over the w^alnuts and wine : 
 
 Or as from court to court he skips, 
 
 Too busy to look grand, 
 With a golden lie between his lips 
 
 And truth half-choked in his hand. 
 
 Busy indeed ! And, little with big, 
 
 And one time with another, 
 Must many a thought hive under his wig : 
 
 — There's never one of his mother. 
 
 Over a tub in the village she bends, 
 
 Red-armed amid the suds. 
 While he a titled rogue defends 
 
 In town before my Luds.
 
 n6 
 
 VII. 
 DELILAH. 
 
 " Quod dicit amanti 
 In vento, et rapidi scribere oportet aqua." 
 
 She put an arm around his neck, and, looking 
 
 in his eyes, — 
 "For other love I nothing reck; 'tis yours alone 
 
 I prize." 
 
 She kissed his brow, she kissed his mouth, she 
 
 made his heart rejoice, — 
 "In all the land from north to south you are 
 
 my only choice." 
 
 — And yet he knew within a week, at most 
 
 within a year, 
 A like confession she might speak in some one 
 
 else's ear.
 
 117 
 
 VIII. 
 THE TWO SUNSETS. 
 
 Finished, on the studio wall 
 Hangs the painter's masterpiece ; 
 
 Round it crowd the critics all 
 Gabbling like a flock of geese. 
 
 This is good, now ! That is splendid ! 
 
 — The foreshortening on that oak ! 
 See how well the greys are blended ! 
 Ah ! but here's the master-stroke ! 
 
 — So they gabble, heads awry. 
 Craning all their necks together, 
 
 Just like geese when in the sky 
 There's a change to dirty weather.
 
 iiS THE TWO SUNSETS. 
 
 Sad at heart the painter pale 
 Turns his back upon them all, 
 
 Watching down the long green vale 
 Summer's sun in glory fall. 
 
 Pass unseen, translucent splendour ! 
 
 Change and pass, ye coloured fires ! 
 Apes to art their homage render 
 
 — Heaven's great pictures Art admires. 
 
 They will gabble over paint 
 
 Till the night descending blind them, 
 Heedless of the gold that, faint. 
 
 Fades, and fainter yet behind them.
 
 119 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE PROMENADE. 
 
 He beats his wife, who in the street 
 
 Hangs smilingly upon his arm 
 With such a sad, pathetic, sweet, 
 And tremulous grace in the deceit 
 
 — None but a devil could do her harm. 
 
 The crowds sail on, the coaches roll ; 
 
 And once, as former friends drove by, 
 One tearful glance at him she stole : 
 Yet this man with the little soul 
 
 —He has a body six foot high.
 
 I20 
 
 X. 
 
 JOAN THAMSON'S MAN. 
 
 He fears his wife, who in the street 
 
 Leads him about from shop to shop ; 
 His training is a thing complete, 
 He's taught to carry, and look neat, 
 And stop wherever she may stop. 
 
 To-day I marked him when a shoal 
 
 Of boisterous bachelors cantered by; 
 At them a greyhound glance he stole : 
 And this man of the little soul 
 — His body's over six foot high.
 
 121 
 
 XI. 
 
 WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 
 
 Martial words to a mournful chant ! 
 
 But martial words her patrons want 
 
 Where the bounce is big if the sense be scant 
 
 — Though to her it's nothing at all ; 
 It happens to be some jingo rant 
 
 Caught from a music-hall. 
 
 A white face hooded in a shawl, 
 Upon whose faded tartan fall 
 Prelusive hail-drops round and small 
 
 In the blaze of the dram-shop seen : 
 — A tapster flings her a coin, and a call 
 
 For "Jock o' Hazeldean."
 
 122 WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 
 
 Within, across a table bend 
 
 A drunivard and his drunken friend, 
 
 Who with the empty gill-stoup end 
 
 Keeps time with noisy beat 
 To the song the girl he should defend, 
 
 His wife, sings in the street.
 
 XII. 
 THE AULD HOOSE AND THE NEW. 
 
 Click go the balls in the billiard-room, 
 
 The glasses clink at the bar, 
 Mine host at the door looks into the gloom 
 
 — Looks up at the evening star. 
 
 That star of old has looked too cold 
 
 On a Caesar's cinctured brow 
 To envy the gold whose links enfold 
 
 The breast of a Boniface now ! 
 And covet not, mine honest host, 
 
 The treasury of heaven : 
 'Tis to enrich some beggar's ghost 
 
 Yon gold will yet be given. 
 
 And here it comes adown the street, 
 
 Slips into the window blaze 
 And sings with tremulous voice and sweet 
 
 A song of eldern days.
 
 124 THE AULD HOOSE AND THE NEW. 
 
 The auld house, the auld house. 
 What thd the rooms were -wee ? 
 
 Kind hearts were dwellhi there 
 And bairniesfii d glee! 
 
 The mavis still doth sweetly sing. 
 The bluebell sweetly blaw. 
 
 The bonnie Eariis clear-windiii still — 
 But the auld house is awa! 
 
 The Auld Hoose to the simple strain 
 
 Rises in memory clear ; 
 He sees the round-stone walls again, 
 
 In youthful days so dear ; 
 A bent old man with silver hair, 
 
 His father! at the plough — 
 God ! what avails the anguished prayer 
 
 That he were living now? 
 
 He looks out into the vocal gloom, 
 But his thoughts are wandering far, 
 
 While the balls go click in the billiard-room 
 And the glasses clink at the bar.
 
 FROM THE SICILIAN OF 
 VICORTAI
 
 I. 
 
 A DEDICATION. 
 
 Like spray blown lightly from the crested wave 
 
 To glitter in the sun, 
 So from my heart love gave 
 
 These airy fancies to the eyes of a 
 
 beloved one. 
 But who shall guess 
 From the blown foam that in the sunbeam 
 shines 
 
 What secret stores there be 
 Of unsunn'd sea? 
 Ah ! how much less 
 The depths of what I feel from these poor 
 broken lines 
 
 I dedicate to thee !
 
 128 
 
 II. 
 
 REFLECTED HEAVEN. 
 
 The mountain-tops above the mist 
 
 Like summer islands lie — 
 Now we together both were blest 
 If thither we could fly. 
 And you, while at 
 Your feet I sat, 
 Would gaze into the skies ; 
 But I would be 
 Content to see 
 Their glory in your eyes.
 
 129 
 
 III. 
 
 SUMMER IN WINTER. 
 
 Winter is it? Summer splendour 
 
 Never was so fair to see ! — 
 All because a maiden tender 
 
 Gave to-day her heart to me. 
 Heaven a happy lifetime lend her, 
 
 Long, and from all evil free ; 
 For the graces that commend her 
 
 Make her life the life of me.
 
 I30 
 
 IV. 
 
 LOVE TEST. 
 
 Lassie wi' the face sae bonnie, 
 
 An' the bricht bewitchin' ee, 
 Is there, tell me, is there ony 
 
 Danger I can dare for thee? 
 That I lo'e thee thou mayst know it, 
 
 But it's hard for me to bear 
 A' my love till I can show it 
 
 By some danger I maun dare !
 
 131 
 
 V. 
 
 THE VIOLET'S GRAVE. 
 
 The woodland ! And a golden wedge 
 
 Of sunshine slipping through ! 
 And there, beside a bit of hedge, 
 
 A violet so blue ! 
 
 So tender was its beauty, and 
 
 So douce and sweet its air, 
 I stooped, and yet withheld my hand,— 
 
 Would pluck, and yet would spare. 
 
 Now which were best? — for spring will pass 
 
 And vernal beauty fly — 
 On maiden's breast or in the grass 
 
 Where would you choose to die ?
 
 132 
 
 VI. 
 FELIX, FELIX TER QUATEROUE ! 
 
 Shout and sing, ye merry voices 
 
 Of the mountain-forest free ! 
 What, but late, were jarring noises 
 
 Now as music are to me ! 
 Earth in bridal bloom rejoices, 
 
 Heaven benignly bends to see ! 
 He, beloved of her his choice is. 
 
 Blest of all the boys is he ! 
 Blest of all the world of boys is 
 
 He that's telling this to thee ! 
 Shout and sing, ye merry voices ! — 
 
 Fill the forest with your glee !
 
 133 
 
 VII. 
 
 SUMMER EVE. 
 
 It is the hour when all things rest : 
 The sun sits in the bannered West 
 And looks along the golden street 
 That leads o'er ocean to his feet. 
 
 Sea-birds with summer on their wing 
 Down the wide West are journeying, 
 And one white star serenely high 
 Peeps through the purple of the sky. 
 
 O sky, and sea, and shore, and air, 
 How tranquil are ye now, and fair ! 
 But twice the joy ye are were ye 
 If one that's dead companioned me.
 
 134 
 
 VIII. 
 SERENADE. 
 
 Awake, beloved ! it is the hour 
 
 When earth is fairyland ; 
 The moon looks from her cloudy bower, 
 
 The sea sobs on the sand. 
 Our steps shall be by the dreaming sea 
 
 And our thoughts shall wander far 
 To the happy clime of a future time 
 
 In a new-created star ! 
 
 Arise, my fair ! a strange new wind 
 
 Comes kindly down from heaven ; 
 Its fingers round my forehead bind 
 
 A chaplet angel-given. 
 I'll sing to thee of the dawns to be 
 
 And the buds that yet shall blow 
 In the happy clime of a future time 
 
 Which only the angels know !
 
 135 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE FUGITIVES. 
 
 Dear love, we have left them behind us ! 
 
 Behind us, and far below^ ! 
 They will search a month ere they find us 
 
 In the hill-wood where we go. 
 
 Listen ! . . , that is the voice of the forest, 
 It is whispering us words of cheer : 
 
 Ah, my heart, when my heart was sorest, 
 Has often been healed up here ! 
 
 Why do you cling to me, darling, 
 And bury your face in my breast.'' 
 
 You may well be at ease where the starling 
 Has grown a familiar guest.
 
 136 THE FUGITIVES. 
 
 The forest and the mountain 
 
 And I are old, old friends, 
 And the wild birds and the fountain 
 
 And the sky that over them bends ; 
 
 And the friends of my youth and my childhood' 
 
 Thou maiden of the sea 
 That hidest thy face in the wild wood, — 
 
 How could they be foes to thee ? 
 
 Look up, my own heart maiden ! 
 
 No foot of man comes here ; 
 'Tis tenantless as Eden 
 
 Throughout the tranquil year ! — 
 
 But I am nearly forgetting 
 
 Old Philip and his wife : 
 From sunrise to sunsetting 
 
 They lead a simple life. 
 
 'Tis sixty years since he brought her 
 To share his board and bed ;
 
 THE FUGITIVES. 137 
 
 And they had a son and a daughter — 
 But she is long since dead. 
 
 And the boy became a soldier 
 And marched to the wars away : 
 
 And the old couple grow still older 
 In the wood here where they stay. 
 
 How brightly your eyes are shining, 
 
 And t^ut the trace of a tear ! 
 With your cheek on my arm reclining, 
 
 Dear heart, you should have no fear. 
 
 They sit far up on the mountain 
 Beside their clean-swept hearth, 
 
 Where the river is only a fountain 
 And heaven is nearer than earth. 
 
 The goodwife knits her stocking, 
 And Philip should trap the game ; 
 
 But he's old, so the birds are flocking 
 And the blue hares are quite tame.
 
 138 THE FUGITIVES. 
 
 The mother thinks of her daughter 
 And her hair that outshone the sun ; 
 
 But Philip dreams of slaughter, 
 And of his wayward son. 
 
 There is none, you know, to advise her, 
 Excepting her prejudiced mate. 
 
 Ah, heaven ! the mother is wiser 
 As love is better than hate. 
 
 So the mother knits and fondles 
 
 In fancy the flaxen hair, 
 While Philip a sabre handles, 
 
 And starts in his sleep in his chair. 
 
 How far to their cottage is it 1 — 
 A good hour's climb, I should say : 
 
 Of course, we must pay them a visit, 
 And they're sure to ask us to stay. 
 
 So now, sweetheart, if you're rested, 
 We'll farther up the wood :
 
 THE FUGITIVES. 139 
 
 ^lany a night have I nested 
 Here in the solitude. 
 
 It's grand in the wood in the sunlight 
 
 As the sunlight's falling now, 
 But I like it too when the wan light 
 
 Of the moon is on each bough. 
 
 Look back ! she is floating yonder — 
 
 I saw her between the trees 
 When their fringes were drawn asunder 
 
 By the fingers of the breeze. 
 
 How naked and forsaken 
 
 She shrinks through the blue day-sky ! 
 At night, never fear, she'll awaken 
 
 And lift her horn on high. 
 
 Look up through the boles before us, 
 And the long clear slanting lines 
 
 Where the light that shimmers o'er us 
 Is sifted through the pines !
 
 I40 THE FUGITIVES. 
 
 It's a good hour yet till gloaming, 
 And then we've Selene's light ; 
 
 And it's pleasant this woodland roaming 
 In search of a home for the night. 
 
 Give me your hand, my darling ! 
 
 We're safe in the solitude ; 
 In the world beneath us there's snarling- 
 
 There's peace in the mountain wood.
 
 141 
 
 X. 
 
 THE DREAMER. 
 
 I ROAM a homeless spectre 
 
 Among the shows of Time, 
 
 For I have drunk the nectar 
 
 Of the eternal clime. 
 
 Oh, what is all the treasure 
 
 That Time or Earth bestows, 
 
 To one sip of the pleasure 
 
 My soul in dreamland knows? 
 
 With you in dreams I've wandered 
 
 The gates of Eden through, 
 
 And cheerfully have squandered 
 
 Life's morning hours for you. 
 
 Around me my relations 
 
 Came with their prayers and jeers ;
 
 142 THE DREAMER. 
 
 I bore their scorn with patience, 
 I heard their love with tears. 
 Oh, what is all the treasure 
 That Time or Earth bestows, 
 To one sip of the pleasure 
 My soul in dreamland knows ? 
 They tried to rouse with glory. 
 They sought to win with wine ; 
 I smiled to hear their story 
 As they had smiled at mine. 
 To duties next they pointed 
 That I had left undone ; 
 But I, love's pale anointed, 
 Would ovk'n to only one : 
 A duty that will lengthen 
 When theirs are past and o'er, 
 Eternity shall strengthen, 
 And I will value more. 
 There's one could tell how truly 
 My rital vows I've kept. 
 With what devotion duly 
 Both when I waked and slept.
 
 THE DREAMER. I43 
 
 In vain they promised glory, 
 In vain they proffered wine ; 
 I smiled to hear their story 
 As they had smiled at mine. 
 Their ease to me is aching, 
 They smile when I would weep, 
 Their sleep to me is waking. 
 Their waking only sleep. 
 
 Oh, what is all the treasure that Time or Earth 
 bestows, 
 
 To one sip of the pleasure my soul in dream- 
 land knows ?
 
 S Y L V ^ 
 
 K
 
 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 
 
 {A Ballad of the Sunless Suniiiicr.) 
 
 It was the glen so dear to us, 
 
 And on the eve of May, 
 Yet ne'er a leaf was on the buss 
 
 Or blossom on the spray. 
 
 The sky aboon was grey and still 
 — Oh, something was to blame ! 
 
 And immelodious flowed the rill 
 That gives the glen its name. 
 
 Grey were the dripping craigs \vi' fogg, 
 The ferns were red and sere, 
 
 Dowie the day, as days that dog 
 The wa-gaun o' the year.
 
 148 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 
 
 And but ae gowan in a nook 
 Had daured to ope its ee ; 
 
 And, wae was I ! it seemed to look 
 Reproachfully on me. 
 
 And mair than wae, amazed was I 
 
 A flower o' gentle fame 
 Should lay its woodlan' shyness by 
 
 And bid me bide a blame. 
 
 The linties on the scroggy brae. 
 They hadna heart to sing ; 
 
 In undertones they seemed to say 
 " Ye've robbed us o' the spring ! " 
 
 And wae and mair bewildered yet 
 I waited for their sang : 
 
 Puir things ! I only heard them fret 
 That winter days were lang. 
 
 The faded firs and larches tall 
 On me looked darkly down,
 
 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 149 
 
 They wagged their heads together all, 
 And met me with a frown. 
 
 I turned me from the steep glen-side 
 
 To glancing linn and pool : 
 The naiad down the water wide 
 
 Fled with a sound of dule ! 
 
 Oh, doubly dowie noo the glen, 
 
 And drearer yet the sky, 
 And sad the winds that noo and then 
 
 Complaining passed me by. 
 
 For I was mingled wi' the cause 
 That wrought the season wrong, 
 
 Had somehow meddled wi' the laws 
 That lead the months along ; 
 
 Had stolen the sunshine from the air, 
 
 The greenery from the glen. 
 Had killed the querulous wren wi' care, 
 
 And made the merle a wren.
 
 ISO THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 
 
 O' whatna man could that be true ? 
 
 — Surely he'd spare, I cried, 
 The glen in which he came to woo, 
 
 In which he won his bride. 
 
 I carved her name upon an oak 
 Last August, and since then 
 
 Although Glen Farg to ither folk. 
 To me 'tis Annet's glen. 
 
 And Scotland in its hundred nooks 
 Nae brawer glen can show. 
 
 Nor yet amang her hundred brooks 
 A burn sae dear I know. 
 
 And wae am I, and sad indeed, 
 Sae fair a glen should grieve 
 
 And wear the weary winter weed 
 Sae late as summer eve. 
 
 — \Vi' that the day grew dim as e'en, 
 A glamour owre me fell.
 
 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 151 
 
 And weird and foreign grew the scene, 
 And far away as well. 
 
 And first a tliin forwandered wind, 
 
 As of a voice that grieves 
 Gaed up the glen, and left behind 
 
 A rustling of red leaves. 
 
 And next a hush fell on the glen ; 
 
 Nor move nor breathe could I ; 
 The hush sank into deeps, and then 
 
 I heard a long-drawn sigh. 
 
 Then, from the shadow of a lirk 
 That cleaves the grey glen wall 
 
 A reverend figure from the birk 
 Rose like a tower, and tall. 
 
 His face was dusky red as leaves 
 
 That burn with autumn fire : 
 Such tint the cedar-bough receives 
 
 When summer suns retire.
 
 152 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 
 
 Brown beechen leaves that once were green 
 
 Composed his coat of mail, 
 And round his long white beard was seen 
 
 A fringe of lichens pale. 
 
 And if the centuries had enlaced 
 
 His cheek with many a line, 
 There was a vigorous freedom graced 
 
 And made his look divine. 
 
 Upon his brow there sat awry 
 
 A crown of faded fern, 
 And troubled was his coal-black eye, 
 
 And grave his look, and stern ! 
 
 And full on me he fixed his glance 
 — Oh, but his glance was keen I 
 
 Like shimmer of a flying lance 
 It dazzled baith my een ! 
 
 " I am the Genius of the Glen," 
 He thus the silence brake.
 
 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 153 
 
 "And thou ! Among the sons of men 
 
 A falser never spake ! 
 
 " Last August to this glen you brought 
 
 A blithesome maid, and true ; 
 And when my fairest bower you sought, 
 
 I welcomed both of you ! 
 
 •' I housed you in my fairest bower 
 
 — True love is all so rare ; 
 It was a joy I feel this hour 
 
 To see so kind a pair. 
 
 "And all my nymphs and naiads took 
 
 A peep at where you lay. 
 Then hastening back to brake and brook, 
 
 Talked of you all the day. 
 
 "So glad were they, so pleased was I ; 
 
 And when you vowed to bring 
 The maiden with the sunbright eye 
 
 This way again in spring,
 
 154 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 
 
 " I vowed that spring might come or stay, 
 
 But as for mine and me, 
 Our glen and we would not be gay 
 
 Till she should come to see ! 
 
 " And birds are mute, and flowers have slept. 
 
 And trees delayed to leave ; 
 And sadly we our vows have kept 
 
 Till summer's very eve. 
 
 " And here on summer's eve art thou, 
 
 The falsest among men, 
 Who darest with a broken vow 
 
 To enter Annet's glen ! " 
 
 His voice was stern, and anger blazed 
 
 In baith his coal-black een : 
 "And this," he cried, with arm upraised, 
 
 " Our welcome would have been ! " 
 
 A flash — a rush of opening leaves, 
 A mist of emerald light.
 
 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 155 
 
 And green with yellow interweaves 
 A vision of delight ! 
 
 A million myriad leaves and flowers, 
 Where flowers and leaves were none ; 
 
 And where but late were sunless bowers, 
 New gilded by the sun. 
 
 The sunshine on the soft green leaf 
 Flowed down from broad blue skies : 
 
 — Oh me ! it was a dear relief 
 To rest the weary eyes. 
 
 And merle and throstle sat or flew, 
 
 And whistled loud and sang ; 
 And more and more their gladness grew, 
 
 Till all the valley rang. 
 
 And down the glen the water ran, 
 
 With pleasure plashing cool ; 
 And roses blushed, and lilies wan 
 
 Grew pale by every pool.
 
 156 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 
 
 The flaunting woodbine o'er the rocks 
 
 Held out its honeyed horn ; 
 The belted bees flew past in flocks 
 
 And incensed with the morn. 
 
 The broom was fringed with golden flame, 
 And through the woodland wide 
 
 A wind that wandered without aim 
 Grew sad for joy, and sighed. 
 
 Dear Lord ! it was a pleasant sight 
 
 To see but in a dream — 
 The green leaves, and the holy light, 
 
 And the clear, flowing stream. 
 
 Sure Eden glimpses yet are got, 
 
 And Eden memories ours, 
 While summer's golden glance is shot 
 
 Through woodbine-birken bowers 1 
 
 But now the whole air seemed to dance. 
 The glen went whirling round.
 
 THE GENIUS OF THE GLEN. 157 
 
 And falling in a slumbrous trance 
 I lay along the ground. 
 
 How long in this deep sleep I lay 
 
 I have not to declare, 
 But when I woke the sky was grey, 
 
 The birks and larches bare ; 
 
 The maniac wind, that takes no care 
 Whether 'tis glad or grieves, 
 
 Was scattering in the beamless air 
 Handfuls of autumn leaves. 
 
 30//; April 1879.
 
 158 
 
 THE MEET AT MIDNIGHT. 
 31ST December 1878, 
 
 Thfa' are mustering to-night on tlie ocean 
 Their legions in mighty force, 
 
 Their banners in wild commotion, 
 Their trumpets braying hoarse. 
 
 The billows are scourged into madness 
 By the stroke of their giant wings, 
 
 And the hollow vault that holds the stars 
 Booms, and bellows, and rings ! 
 
 Would you know why all this gathering 
 Of winds at the midnight hour? 
 
 — I will tell you anon, but you must know 
 First of their mighty power.
 
 THE MEET AT MIDNIGHT. 159 
 
 They have come from the south, and the east- 
 ward, 
 
 And the fierce north blasts are there ; 
 And shoulder to shoulder with rumpled wings, 
 
 They press till they fill the air ! 
 
 For miles and for miles of the ocean, 
 
 Shoulder to shoulder they lie. 
 And the long strong sweep of their flanking 
 wings 
 
 Strikes from sea to sky. 
 
 You might trace the track they have come by 
 
 By lighthouses down thrown, 
 And towns with steeples and churches 
 
 And the sea with wrecks o'erstrewn. 
 
 And their squadroned strength is greater 
 
 Than ever yet shook the earth. 
 When she shakes with the mighty anguish 
 
 Of an earthquake at the birth.
 
 i6o THE MEET AT MIDNIGHT. 
 
 But now they are all in motion, 
 And with one continuous shout 
 
 They sweep in a hurricane up Strathbraan, 
 And blow the Old Year out ! 
 
 For the burden of sin on the Old Year's back 
 As he sways and staggers along, 
 
 Is as big as the huge earth-globe itself, 
 And needs a wind so strong. 
 
 Blow, winds from the German Ocean, 
 This burden from the earth ! — 
 
 Sweet rest be yours and the weary world's 
 In the hush of the Young Year's birth !
 
 i6i 
 
 SIMMER LOST: 
 
 A SIGH FOR SANDIE IN NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 Hoo sweet were simmer i' the Woods, 
 
 Or doon the burnie clear, 
 — In a' her haunts, in a' her moods, — 
 
 If, Sandie, you were here. 
 
 Then doobly graun the wastlin braes 
 
 Wad glow at gloamin-tide. 
 An' redder wad the mornin' rays 
 
 Rin up the plantin-side. 
 
 An' bonnier owre the loch wad creep 
 The dimplin' waves sae sma'. 
 
 An' wins less wantonlie wad sweep 
 The young green leaves awa'. 
 
 L
 
 i62 SIMMER LOST. 
 
 And I should look wi' clearer een 
 
 Aboot me an' before, 
 An' cease to think o' simmers, been 
 
 I 
 
 To be again no more. 
 
 It's simmer yet, an' yet a'most 
 I mourn the simmer gane, 
 
 An' feel as if its joys were lost 
 Lavisht on me mylane.
 
 i63 
 
 A GIFT FOR A BRIDE. 
 
 A GIFT for my bride on her birthday ! 
 
 — But what shall the souvenir be ? 
 What best of all gifts of the earth may 
 Remind her of me ? 
 
 A ring for her delicate finger, 
 To pinch it a little all day? 
 A song in her heart that will linger 
 When I am away ? 
 
 A chain for her neck, with a locket ? 
 A book that her mind will engage, 
 And will easily go in her pocket ? 
 A bird in a cage?
 
 1 64 ^ GIFT FOR A BRIDE. 
 
 A volume of manuscript verses ? 
 
 A flower in porcelain that blows? 
 A phial of scent that disperses 
 
 The attar of rose ? 
 
 The frond of a fern, or a feather, 
 
 Among her fair tresses to twine? 
 A sprig, for her breast, of white heather. 
 
 Or pale jessamine ? 
 
 A thimble? a bangle? a bonnet? 
 
 A pencil? a portrait of me ? 
 A bracelet with ^is/upon it? 
 
 A crooked bawbee ? 
 
 Now which of them all shall I send her? 
 
 Indeed I might send her them all, 
 " With care" " Carriage paid" "Special tender" 
 
 — And think it too small.
 
 A GIFT FOR A BRIDE. 165 
 
 Suppose I just send her a letter 
 
 And sign it in silver "Your Own"? 
 — Bah ! either I'll manage it better, 
 Or leave it alone ! 
 
 That notion is too mediocre : 
 
 — Come, Fancy ! there's something amiss 
 — I have it ! As I am a smoker, 
 
 I'll send her a kiss ! 
 
 But how to transmit it ! . . . What fairy, 
 
 Or seraph, or sylph of the air 
 Will come in my present quandary 
 
 My offering to bear? 
 
 I'll cleanse my mustache of tobacco. 
 
 And wait for a wind from the south 
 To take the dear trifle, per Bacco! 
 
 Direct from my mouth.
 
 1 66 A GIFT FOR A BRIDE. 
 
 Receive it, ye breezes ! And lest ye 
 Should lose it, or make a misdeal, 
 Take ten or twelve more to attest the 
 
 Devotion I feel ! 
 
 Your flight is up over yon mountain 
 
 That looks o'er Strathearn to Strathtay, 
 Then down by the clear caller fountain ; 
 
 — At Craigie you stay. 
 
 And there, to the mirthfullest lady 
 
 That ever was sad in the sun. 
 Deliver your trust ; but be ready 
 
 To go when it's done ! 
 
 — And how will ye know when ye've found 
 her? 
 — Her gait, and the grace of her glance, 
 The beauty that brightens around her. 
 
 Will tell you at once !
 
 A GIFT FOR A BRIDE. 167 
 
 She's true, and she's kind, and she's clever, 
 
 And pensive, and not very tall 
 — As high as my heart is, however — 
 
 And modest withal. 
 
 And so, unannounced, you'll enfold her ; 
 And, ere from your wings she can slip, 
 You'll softly pay down, while you hold her, 
 My tax on her lip.
 
 1 68 
 
 THE CAMP ON THE OCHILS. 
 
 " Et f>ropinqiia Ince fulsere signal . . . et Rotnanis redit 
 animus : . . . ei fnit atrox in ipsis portamm angustiis 
 proeliztm, donee pulsi hastes." — Taciti Agricola, xxvi. 
 
 The gold has paled to silver on the height, 
 The gull belated to the lake has flown ; 
 
 Why sits young Andro in the house to-night 
 While Ccesar hunts in the old camp alone? 
 
 The goodman's cutting clover in the field, 
 Young Phemie o'er the meadow^ calls the cow : 
 
 They've all a task but Caesar — idle chield ! 
 Ccesar stands whining on the whinny knowe. 
 
 How would his ears go up, his eyes grow clear, 
 The white star on his tail be whisked about,
 
 THE CAMP ON THE OCHILS. 169 
 
 If only Andro's bonnet should appear 
 Above the dike, followed by Andro's shout ! 
 
 What fun you'd see in the old camp ! What 
 bounds 
 O'er burrowy mound and boulder, furze and 
 heath ! 
 Andro would beat — Ceesar would watch the 
 grounds, 
 His pink tongue palpitating o'er his teeth I 
 
 Where lingers Andro ? — Harvesting the light 
 For one red page beside the kitchen flame : 
 
 A different Roman is the spell to-night, 
 And Tacitus, not Caesar, is the name ! 
 
 The page is open where Agricola's camp 
 One daybreak, eighteen centuries ago, 
 
 Sprang to a man from earth-bed cold and damp 
 At the wild slogan of the Celtic foe.
 
 170 THE CAMP ON THE OCHILS. 
 
 The battle's in the gateways, hand to hand ; 
 
 The sword of Caius rings on Colin's mace ; 
 The eagles flash — who can their glance with- 
 stand ? 
 On them ! They yield— the rout becomes a 
 race ! 
 
 How strange it seems, — the ruined camp with- 
 out, 
 
 With peaceful rabbits hopping to and fro ; 
 Within, the schoolboy glorying in the rout 
 
 Of his forefathers there so long ago !
 
 171 
 
 ADVENTUS VERIS. 
 
 Spring came to-day! and glad were we 
 
 As very children in our glee. 
 
 The sun shone forth with blinding flame, 
 
 And from the west a soft wind came : 
 
 The west ! Nay, sister, rather say 
 
 It blew from boyhood's happy day I 
 
 It brought with it the village old 
 
 Wherein was passed our age of gold, 
 
 And I, a happy-hearted scholar 
 
 With jacket short and broad white collar. 
 
 Frisked with my classmates in the street ; 
 
 — Ay me ! how fast the seasons fleet ! 
 
 Spring came to-day! Our minstrel, mute 
 No longer, tuned and tried his flute ;
 
 172 ADVENTUS VERIS. 
 
 Puss in the window-corner heard, 
 
 Looked cageward, closed her ej'es, and purred ; 
 
 And outside in the open air 
 
 Sparrows shot whirring here and there ; 
 
 And one old ragged meagre rook 
 
 Who, feeling beauish, rashly took 
 
 A sunward voyage, venturing high 
 
 Was buffeted about the sky. 
 
 Spring came to-day : she called us out 
 
 With a right cheery country shout. 
 
 We spied her through the blackthorn hedge, 
 
 We saw her in the lakeside sedge, 
 
 We traced her footsteps o'er the hill, 
 
 We chased her down the rippling rill, 
 
 We lost her in a miry lane, 
 
 But in Craiglockhart copse again 
 
 We sought the merry gipsy, chiding, 
 
 And caught her in a hollow hiding. 
 
 Spring came to-day : the hawthorn buds, 
 The crystal of the Pentland floods.
 
 ADVENTUS VERIS. 173 
 
 The sword-like sedges by the lake, 
 The red-tipt branches in the brake, 
 The thin clean braird of new-year's grass, 
 Gowans that open as you pass 
 —Their wide-awake fresh fearless eyes 
 Glowering surprised :x\ yoin- surprise — 
 And balmy airs, and skies of blue 
 Convince you that the news is true. 
 
 We tarried as the sun went down 
 
 On yon high hill besouth the town, 
 
 But fairest view, of all we spied, 
 
 The gardened homes of Morningside. 
 
 The ploughman half a field away 
 
 Rested his horses on the brae, 
 
 Leaned o'er his plough, and on the air 
 
 Came pattle-raspings of the share ; 
 
 Then overglanced the furrows drawn 
 
 By his stout greys and him since dawn, 
 
 Took snuff, clicked with his cheek and tongue, 
 
 Shook the plough-line and snooved -aXoxig !
 
 174 ADVENTUS VERIS. 
 
 How sweet it was to see a star 
 Born in the heavenly blue afar ! 
 To mark the slowly waning light, 
 The coy approach of veiled Night ; 
 To see domestic lights appear 
 In villa windows far and near ; 
 And hear upon our homeward way 
 The children singing at their play, 
 Their fresh young voices rising sweet 
 Out of the dim suburban street! 
 
 Spring came to-day : let's dedicate 
 
 The evening hours to celebrate 
 
 Her joyous advent, sister mine ! 
 
 — And first, a glass of generous wine ; 
 
 Then fruit ; and strew the room with flowers 
 
 To dull the footfall of the hours ; 
 
 And you will sing when I am mute, 
 
 And I will choose a tale to suit 
 
 The sweet occasion — What You Will 
 
 Or As Yo7t Like It: Shakespeare still
 
 THE LAD OF BEN ARTY. 175 
 
 For every season has a say 
 
 A mood for every man ; 
 And so we'll mark Spring came To-day 
 
 As well as ever we can ! 
 
 -0 
 
 THE LAD OF BENARTY. 
 
 Happy tJie man -wha belangs to nae party. 
 But sits in his ain hoose an' looks at Betiarty. 
 
 On the dome of the Lomond I lie 
 With my head on a bed of red heather ; 
 
 I see but the clouds and the sky. 
 But whether above me, or whether 
 
 Below me, I care not a fly 
 
 Or a feather I
 
 176 THE LAD OF BEN ARTY. 
 
 Far down in the town there's a din 
 Where the blues are abused by the yellows, 
 
 For the yellows are likely to win 
 And the blues are resentful and jealous ; 
 
 — I laugh in my sleeve and my skin 
 
 At the fellows ! 
 
 And happy the chappie, say I, 
 Who sails in the tail of no party : 
 
 He laughs as he looks to the sky 
 With a laugh that is low down and hearty ; 
 
 Or he sits in his house with his eye 
 
 On Benarty!
 
 177 
 
 PINES AND BOULDER. 
 
   The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain." 
 
 These gloomy pines upon the heath, 
 
 That in the sunlight sigh— 
 Their secret they will not bequeath, 
 
 Nor will it with them die. 
 
 The cold stone they moan around 
 
 Crusted with lichen grey- 
 It will not waken from its swound 
 
 Till peals the Judgment-day ' 
 
 A horror of the midnight dark 
 Sleeps in that slumbering stone ! 
 
 A shower of blood-drops on their bark 
 Has made these pine-trees moan ! 
 
 M
 
 178 
 
 THE TWO FLOWERS. 
 
 " Learti by a mortal longing to ascend 
 Towards a higher love." 
 
 There's a cleft high up on the bare hillside 
 
 That looks like a fairy bower ; 
 The prospect is fair and far and wide, 
 
 And the fairy is a flower. 
 — Why do you nod, little one, up there 
 
 At your watch-tower window so high ? — 
 I like to feel the caressing air. 
 
 And I love to be near the sky ! 
 
 There's a mossy cell in a sunken vale 
 
 In the depths of a forest dim 
 Where a tiny flower is hiding pale, 
 
 Her eyes with tears o'erswim. 
 — Why do you shrink, little one, down there 
 
 In your sunless nunnerie? — 
 I fear he will kiss me, the wandering air, 
 
 And the big sky frightens me !
 
 179 
 
 IN THE KNOCK-WOOD. 
 
 Come up and hear the pine-trees sigh ! 
 Come up within their shade, and lie 
 And let the peace which they impart 
 Sink soothingly within your heart. 
 
 The sigh they send from every leaf 
 Breathes resignation and relief; 
 If there's a sadness in the tone, 
 You put it there yourself alone ! 
 
 Each in its own allotted place 
 Lifts as it were to Heaven its face, 
 The while it stretches out the hand 
 Of friendship to the forest band.
 
 i8o IN THE KNOCK-WOOD. 
 
 Here are no jarrings and no jeers, 
 No fevered haste, no vexing fears, 
 No envious wish that will not wait, 
 No jealous blasphemy of Fate. 
 
 There's pathos in the patient air 
 
 With which their annual wrong they bear, 
 
 — Forgetful of the winter's blast 
 
 And glad the summer's come at last. 
 
 A placid pensiveness pervades 
 The mighty mountain-forest shades, 
 — A pensiveness that has no fear, 
 No shame, of past or future year. 
 
 Come, plunge you in their solitude ; 
 The bath will prove a double good 
 — A Styx for strength, for sinful pain 
 A Lethe to the sleepless brain.
 
 i8i 
 
 THE' LIGHT ON THE HILLSIDE. 
 
 " You see it gleaming far up the height, 
 Yon little square patch of warm red light? 
 —It's a far way up, but it's full in my sight, 
 And I lodge within its warmth to-night. 
 
 Around it the mists of the mountain are curled, 
 Above it the Night like a flag is unfurled. 
 But it shines like Milton's pendent World 
 With the bluster of Chaos against it hurled ! 
 
 It's only a simple shepherd's cot ; 
 But there isn't in all the earth a spot 
 Where half so hearty a welcome is got, 
 — And that's the charm of home, is it not .''
 
 i82 THE LIGHT ON THE HILLSIDE. 
 
 Within, my father is dozing through tire, 
 My mother is plying the twinkling wire. 
 Between them stands in front of the fire 
 A chair that encloses my heart's desire. 
 
 Its back ascends an enormous height. 
 Its arms stretch outward to left and right. 
 And it's clothed from top to bottom quite 
 In a clean chintz wrapper of blue and white. 
 
 But many wet bushes the winds will toss 
 Against my cheek ; and one long moss, 
 And braes and brooks, I must climb and cross, 
 Ere I cover the miles between it and Kinross. 
 
 — Good night, fellow - student ! Good nigiit, 
 
 good night ! 
 A couple of hours will see me all right : 
 Think of me then in my chair on the height. 
 Think of me then — and you'll envy me quite ! "
 
 THE WIND AND THE RAIN! 1S3 
 
 How strangely his voice at parting thrilled ! 
 — Well, the night wore by, and the storm was 
 
 stilled, 
 And morning dawned ; but the Fates had 
 
 willed 
 That chair on the mountain should never be 
 
 filled ! 
 
 HEIGH-HO ! THE WIND AND 
 THE RAIN ! 
 
 Day had come without dawning, 
 The street was deserted and still. 
 
 At the mill-door the miller stood yawning 
 With his back to the hum of the mill. 
 
 We drove past the mill with a clatter, 
 And out on the wind-swept plain. 
 
 And then down came, whole water. 
 In gleaming sheets the rain.
 
 1 84 THE WIND AND THE RAIN! 
 
 The road struck up the mountains 
 
 Suddenly ere we wist, 
 We heard the gushing of fountains 
 
 And the wail of mews in the mist. 
 
 At times through the grey fog stealing 
 Swept columns of ghostly pines, 
 
 Behind us they seemed to be wheeling 
 And forming in squares and lines. 
 
 And once far up at a turning 
 
 Where a loch feeds a hundred rills, 
 
 We were ushered without warning 
 Into a conclave of hills. 
 
 Like hooded monks before us 
 They loomed through mist and rain : 
 
 The swirling mists closed o'er us 
 And they were lost again. 
 
 Splish ! splash! on the flat of the mountain 
 Stumbles our jaded beast ;
 
 Y£ FATE OF YE BOOK. 1S5 
 
 The jolts are past all counting, 
 And the rain has never ceased ! 
 
 For dull monotonous mileage 
 
 The hills in a mist have the palm : 
 
 — I wish I were back in the village, 
 Or sound asleep where I am. 
 
 Y= FATE OF \^ BOOK. 
 
 I WROTE a book ; and, what was worse, 
 I wrote the whole of it in verse. 
 
 Then upspoke an evil elf 
 — " Be a credit to yourself ! " 
 So I printed it, and sent it forth 
 West, and east, and south, and north. 
 
 Just as it left my hand I woke, 
 
 And the elfin spell that bound me broke ;
 
 1 86 YE FATE OF YE BOOK. 
 
 And I wished as I saw it o'erfly the land 
 That I had it back again in my hand ; 
 But the elf laughed loud with malicious glee 
 — " It may not be, and it may not be ! 
 The cage is empty, the bird is free ! " — 
 And his mocking came back on the winds to 
 me. 
 
 Then came forth the critic men 
 With sharp nose and sharper pen ; 
 They flung their long fingers into the sky 
 And caught the book as it fluttered by ; 
 And it shook like the wings of a captured bird, 
 And then, like a dead thing, hung; nor stirred 
 As they bore it off with a strange dark smile. 
 But my heart was beating fast all the while. 
 
 From the free fresh air to a sunless gloom 
 They hurried it into a secret room : 
 The door swung back with a boding boom, 
 "And here," they said, "we will write your 
 doom."
 
 ¥£ FATE OF YE BOOK. i5>7 
 
 They pierced and probed it with their pens, 
 
 Examined it with a powerful lens, 
 
 And up and down they viewed and reviewed, 
 
 Till the good was bad and the bad was good, 
 
 Till white was black, and B was A ; 
 
 —But they used my book in a frightful way; 
 
 For its wings they broke and its back they 
 
 bent. 
 And rumpled its feathers to their hearts' con- 
 tent. 
 
 They then sat down at two long tables. 
 
 Dipt into ink, and wrote out labels ; 
 
 The while, most piteous to be seen, 
 
 My book lay ruined and wrecked between, 
 
 And meekly bore the dissecting glances 
 
 That stung my heart like a shower of lances. 
 
 At last one rose at the right-hand table 
 And read aloud from the written label — 
 " Though he may not have an eagle's pinion. 
 Yet the upper air is his dominion."
 
 1 88 YE FATE OF YE BOOK. 
 
 "And so say I, and I've written it so," 
 
 Said Number Two ; " lie has wings of snow ; 
 
 My judgment is that a swan is he." 
 
 "Aswan !" from the left hissed Number Three, 
 
 "A swan ! — I've a different tale to tell : 
 
 He's a gosling; I know the bird right well ! '" 
 
 Said a Fourth, with a head like a downy owl, 
 " It's a very ordinary barn-door fowl : 
 A useful creature, no doubt, in its place ; 
 But a cackler ! Dixi — that is, it's the case ! " 
 
 " I agree so far with Number Four," 
 Said Number Five, "as the barn-door: 
 But I made an inspection nice and narrow 
 And I pledge my ears the bird's a sparrow I 
 — And where's the critic will gainsay 
 That pledge of mine goes a good long way ? " 
 
 Out to the centre stalked Number Six : 
 " Your various verdicts I must mix ;
 
 YE FATE OF YE BOOK. 189 
 
 He's a bird has caught the various tone 
 Of other birds, but has none of his own. 
 It's a great pity, too, for he imitates well ; 
 But all that he has he got outside his shell 
 — You know what I mean — he belongs to the 
 
 breed 
 That pick up their song as they pick up their 
 
 seed. 
 — I may add in your ear, but don't let it be 
 
 known. 
 He has plagiarised from a bird of my own !" 
 
 " Yah ! yah ! " they all yelled, " it's a very good 
 
 lark 
 That bird of your own : you were best keep it 
 
 dark ! " 
 
 Uprose Number Seven. He, staggering, rose ; 
 And I will not do more than refer to his nose : 
 "My masters" — he spoke rather thick — "are 
 
 you blind ? 
 I've examined him — hid — and what do I find ?
 
 I90 F£ FATE OF YE BOOK. 
 
 — He has wings that will soar with the best 
 
 we have had ; 
 But I hate him for all : at his best he is bad ! " 
 
 Upspoke Number Eight, while he tore what he 
 
 wrote, — 
 " I think him a bird of original note, 
 But I cannot be sure ; so let's damn him as 
 
 dunce ; 
 He ought to come out more decided at once. 
 If he isn't a dunce I'm a Dutchman? So be 
 
 it! 
 If he is — you will own I'm sagacious to see it ! " 
 
 Scarce two agreed, till they fell on a plan 
 Which seemed to please them every man — 
 At least the hubbub ceased : they took 
 And hung their verdicts round my book 
 Like flags of all nations on a wreck, 
 Or labels on a phial's neck 
 Which each describes the draught to be 
 Sherry, laudanum, cold beef-tea.
 
 y£ FATE OF YE BOOK. 191 
 
 They dragged it then to the door of their den 
 And gave it to the air again. 
 
 And away like a guilty thing it flew, 
 
 That thinks it a crime to live, to you ; 
 
 And you took off the labels and stroked its 
 
 wing. 
 And my poor book looked like another thing. 
 And now it was plain they all had erred 
 In naming it that and the other bird, 
 For it grew in the keep of those I love 
 A homely plain domestic dove.
 
 ig2 
 
 THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST. 
 
 Now, while above heaven's windows dim and 
 darken, 
 
 And shadows shoot and grow, 
 And the wild peaks of rocky Thelemarken 
 
 Blacken the evening glow, — 
 
 My thoughts come back from roaming o'er far 
 places. 
 
 Like sea-birds to their isle ; 
 And here in Norway bonnie Scottish faces 
 
 Look through the gloom, and smile. 
 
 I know them all : it is a birthday meeting, 
 
 And she, the birthday Queen, 
 Looks round as she receives each kindly greet- 
 ing 
 
 For one, who is not seen.
 
 THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST. 193 
 
 There's mirth, and music, and the chinl< of 
 glasses, 
 
 Laughter, and lights, and flowers ; 
 — And so they pelt with roses, as he passes, 
 
 Time, and his train of hours. 
 
 The lights are out at last, the guests departed, 
 
 Yet, lingering near the gate, 
 There's one, I know, is listening gentle-hearted, 
 
 Although the night be late. 
 
 She feels almost a lover's kind caresses. 
 
 Hears his approaching feet: 
 — 'Tis but the night wind in her wavy tresses, 
 
 Or blowing down the street. 
 
 Retire, sweet lass! in vain you look and hearken 
 
 For steps that are not near; 
 His path is through the wilds of Thelemarken. 
 
 Whose voice you think you hear. 
 
 N
 
 194 THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST. 
 
 The vision fades — fade all the much-loved 
 faces, 
 
 Fade Perth, KinnouU, and Tay; 
 And unfamiliar outlines fill their places 
 
 And gloom athwart my way. 
 
 I hear but in the wood the torrent calling 
 
 In tones that come and go, 
 I feel but from the fells a silence falling 
 
 Into the vand below. 
 
 And now above heaven's windows fairly 
 
 darken. 
 
 And earth is black and drear: 
 
 — And what do I afar in Thelemarken 
 
 From all my heart holds dear? 
 
 1
 
 195 
 
 WORKING AND IDLING. 
 
 While some attempt the task on stirks, 
 And some on mules or asses, 
 
 The man, that best could do it, shirks 
 The gallop up Parnassus. 
 
 His Pegasus unsaddled feeds 
 
 Beside him in a hollow, 
 Close by the rocky path that leads 
 
 Up to thy heights, Apollo ! 
 
 And idling in the shade he lurks, 
 While they tug at their bridles ; 
 
 They well may call their efforts Works ; 
 And what are his but Idyls?
 
 196 
 
 BLOOMTIME : A SONG. 
 
 -My life is in its bloomtime, 
 
 And faded sisters say — 
 " We've all our summer sometime, 
 
 She need not look so gay." 
 
 I5ut oh ! the wild young fellows, 
 
 They compliment one so ! 
 And then, to have them jealous 
 
 — It's more than praise, you know !
 
 197 
 
 A DITHYRAMB. 
 
 Lift up your voices in fraternal chorus. 
 
 All j-e who share 
 
 The joyous spirit of the poet, 
 
 Wheresoe'er 
 
 In the four corners of the earth ye dwell I 
 
 — Lift up your voices ! Tell 
 
 Its owners earth is fair ! 
 
 Sing ! Shout aloud, and show it ! 
 
 Sing I for the earth is fair ! 
 
 The same blue heaven is bending o'er us, 
 
 The same green earth extends before us, 
 
 And heaven is kind and earth is fair 
 
 — But mankind do not know it ! 
 
 Lift up your voices
 
 198 .4 DITHYRAMB. 
 
 Till the world rejoices 
 
 And knows that earth is fair ! 
 
 II. 
 
 What though we stand in sundered lands 
 
 And sing in several voices? 
 The brotherhood has many bands, 
 
 But with one heart rejoices. 
 
 III. 
 
 From the same Father-God we came, 
 To the same Father-God we go ; 
 
 Our hopes above are all the same, 
 — The same our griefs below. 
 
 Our sadness ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sing ! till the night of sorrow 
 Is frightened from the land ! 
 Give into every hand 
 The torch of gladness !
 
 A DITHYRAMB. 199 
 
 — Gladness is a flame 
 
 Increasing if you lend or if you borrow — 
 
 And cry aloud ! proclaim 
 
 At midnight everywhere 
 
 Good Diorroiu I and good morrow ! 
 
 Till timorous souls leap from their hidings 
 
 And know that earth is fair ! — 
 
 Lift up your voices 
 
 Till the world rejoices ! 
 
 Sing ! till the surging air 
 
 Beats on the battlements of heaven the tidings 
 
 That man rejoices for the earth is fair !
 
 200 
 
 COMPOSING A SONNET. 
 
 I. 
 Composing a sonnet 
 
 'S like kindling a fire : 
 Heap largely upon it 
 
 — The spark will expire I 
 
 II. 
 
 Your very best "chance" is 
 To coax it with rhyme, 
 
 Then try it with fancies 
 — A touch at a time. 
 
 III. 
 Now lay the lines lightly, 
 
 Keep blowing between, 
 And soon it will brightly 
 
 Seize all the fourteen !
 
 30I 
 
 DAVID. 
 
 He sits above the mists of Time, 
 
 Above the poet throng ; 
 He sits on morning heights sublime 
 
 Thfe king of choral song. 
 
 All Ifcsser bards on lower heights 
 Fall at his feet their lyres, 
 
 Unknown to them his high delights 
 — Unfelt his far desires ! 
 
 They sing of mortal grief and mirth 
 In measures sweet to hear : 
 
 His song ambitious spurning earth 
 Makes for Jehovah's ear !
 
 202 DA VID. 
 
 He soars unmated and alone 
 
 Into eternal day, 
 The angel-host around the throne 
 
 Clear for his wing a way ! 
 
 The Sons of Morning left behind 
 
 Cease after him to sing, 
 Not theirs that fervour of the mind 
 
 That fury of the wing ! 
 
 The burning offering of his praise 
 To heaven himself bears he, 
 
 And with impetuous ardour lays 
 Even on Jehovah's knee ! 
 
 No seraph's fear his soul can tame, 
 
 Nor cherub overawed ; 
 To him with first and foremost claim 
 
 Jehovah is a God !
 
 DA VID. 203 
 
 The universe through all its bounds 
 
 Is but a means of praise, 
 An orchestra of many sounds 
 
 Concerting with his lays ! 
 
 Hark, how to his conducting rod 
 
 He calls creation's train 
 To hymn the praises oi his God, 
 
 And swell his choral strain ! 
 
 PSALM CXLVIII. 
 
 Praise we the Lord ! Begin, ye m.atchless 
 creatures, 
 
 The first-born of His might, 
 Circling His glory till your young-God features 
 
 Absorb the eternal Light ! 
 Take up the song, ye Seraphim ! Prolong, 
 
 Ye Cherubim, the paean ! 
 Drown with His praise, ye meaner angel- 
 throng, 
 
 The echoing Empyrean !
 
 204 DAVID. 
 
 Praise Him, thou vast of space, that, like an 
 ocean, 
 
 The eternal heavens between 
 And the mysterious maze of starry motion, 
 
 Stretchest afar serene ! 
 Praise Him, ye Powers, that occupy with 
 light 
 
 Creation's outer porches. 
 Fronting the chaos of primeval Night 
 
 With the eternal torches ! 
 
 Praise Him, thou Sun, that from the flames of 
 Morning 
 
 Upleapest crowned with light ! 
 Praise Him, thou Moon, retiring and returning 
 
 To shepherdess the night ! 
 Praise Him, ye wanderers of the Milky 
 Way! 
 
 Ye whispering Constellations ! 
 Ye Comets ! and ye Meteor Stars that stray 
 
 To unknown destinations !
 
 DA VID. 205 
 
 Awake, thou Earth ! and wake thy slumbering 
 legions, 
 And shout aloud, and show 
 The challenge of the Everlasting Regions 
 
 Is answered from below ! 
 Praise Him, ye Winds, that sweep the deep 
 sublime ! 
 Ye lower Seas and Surges ! 
 Praise Him, ye Thunders of the torrid clime! 
 " Praise Him, ye Polar Scourges ! 
 
 Praise Him, ye Clouds, ye stately sailing Foun- 
 tains ! 
 Ye Cataracts and ye Rills ! 
 Ye floating Icebergs and ye burning Moun- 
 tains ! 
 Ye Deserts and ye Hills ! 
 Praise Him, ye Earthquakes, from your secret 
 mines ! 
 Ye rushing Avalanches ! 
 Praise Him, ye congregated Palms, ye Pines' 
 — Forests with all your branches I
 
 2o6 DA VID. 
 
 Praise Him, ye Camels and ye Flocks domestic, 
 
 That whiten the green plain ! 
 Praise Him, thou Terror of the Woods, majestic 
 
 With turbulence of mane ! 
 Praise Him, ye Herds upon a thousand 
 hills! 
 
 Ye Colts, without a rider. 
 That drink the freedom of the desert rills. 
 
 Praise Him, the All-provider ! 
 
 Praise Him, thou Eagle, from thy pinions fling- 
 ing 
 
 A twilight o'er the sea ! 
 Praise Him, ye Doves ! Praise Him, ye Swal- 
 lows, winging 
 
 O'er isles and oceans free ! 
 Praise Him, ye Sons of Eve, of all estates, 
 
 Kindreds, and tongues, and nations ! 
 Praise Him, ye Kings, ye sceptred Potentates! 
 
 Ye Priests, with heart oblations !
 
 DA VID. 207 
 
 Praise Him on chord, and reed, and with your 
 voices, 
 
 All peoples, maids, and men I 
 Praise Him together, while the heaven rejoices 
 
 Answering- the earth again ! 
 Praise Him alone, for He alone is great 
 
 Beyond all mark and measure ; 
 And we are but His handiwork, who wait 
 
 Well pleased upon His pleasure !
 
 20S 
 
 OUR MARY: HER FATE. 
 
 This was Mary twenty years ago — 
 Mary then was four from twenty, 
 Mary then was gimp and genty, 
 Mary then had beaux a-plenty, 
 Rosy cheeks and brow of snow ; 
 Like a fairy 
 Was our Mary 
 Twenty years ago. 
 
 This was Mary nineteen years ago — 
 Mary then was meek and modest. 
 Neatly ankled, shapely bodiced, 
 By the village poets goddessed,
 
 OUR MARY: HER FATE. 209 
 
 Classed with Dame Demeter's Oe ; 
 
 Like an airy 
 
 Sylph was Mary 
 Nineteen years ago. 
 
 This was Mary eighteen years ago — 
 Mary properly deported, 
 Chastely with her sisters sported, 
 Would not kiss though she was courted. 
 Coaxed by many a downy beau ; 
 Wise and wary 
 Was our Mary 
 Eighteen years ago. 
 
 This was Mary seventeen years ago — 
 When the lads their longing uttered 
 Nothing in her bosom fluttered, 
 And she neither stayed nor stuttered 
 When she simply said them No ! 
 — Feeling nary 
 Had our Mary 
 Seventeen years ago ! 
 o
 
 2IO OUR MARY: HER FATE. 
 
 This was Mary sixteen years ago — 
 
 When the men their custom carried 
 Off to other marts, and married, 
 Though it tested those that tarried, 
 Mary her ain gate would go ; 
 Veer nor vary 
 Would our Mary 
 Sixteen years ago. 
 
 This was Mary fifteen years ago — 
 It was at a Christmas party 
 That the spinsters at ecartd 
 Leapt up, startled by a hearty 
 Smack beneath the misletoe ; 
 "Did he?— dare he?" 
 " Yes ! " said Mary 
 Fifteen years ago !
 
 211 
 
 RETURN TO EDINBURGH AFTER 
 THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 An' noo, fareweel to hills an' braes, 
 
 To wuds an' vvatters broon ! 
 We've pairtit wi' the holidays 
 
 — They're aff ! they're fairly flewn ! 
 An' we, wi' torn an' suddled claes, 
 
 An' tired fra cuit to croon, 
 Wi' scartit hauns an' blistered taes, 
 
 Are hirplin' back to toon'! 
 
 Like laddies, ill for an excuse 
 
 For havin' played the trtin. 
 We're comin' in a kind o' daze, 
 
 An' dummies every loon ! 
 The ne'er a lauch hae we to raise 
 
 To hud oor hearts aboon ; 
 — E'enoo we'd raither dee nor praise 
 
 Oor ain pedantic Toon !
 
 THE WEETS O' BAIGLIE. 
 
 Here in the dinsome city pent 
 I think upon the days I spent, 
 The peacefu' days o' deep content 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 It wasna that the sun shone through 
 Sky-deeps o' saft divinest blue, 
 It wasna for the famous view 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 It wasna that the hills were green, 
 The wuns an' waters clear an' clean 
 — Baith bath an' balm to lungs and een 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie.
 
 THE WEETS C BAIGLIE. 21.- 
 
 It wasna that the fare was guid, 
 A hamely healthfu' change o' fuid, 
 A benefit to brain an' bluid, 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 — An' there was ham, an' hare, an' veal, 
 Paitricks an' parritch, milk an' kail, 
 An' buttered scones o' barley-meal 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 An' links 0' puddins, black to see, 
 An' yowe-milk kebbuck, sweet to pree, 
 An' bickerfu's o' barley-bree 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 It wasna that the folk were kind, 
 Baith laird an' tenant, herd an' hind, 
 An' no' a cratur ill-designed 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie.
 
 214 THE WEETS 0' BAIGLIE. 
 
 — The lasses bonnie, blithe, an' clean, 
 Douce i' the mornin, daft at e'en, 
 An' saxty soupple as saxteen 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 The grannie's een as gleg as fowre, 
 The hauflin wi' his stirk-like glowre, 
 The fairmer lauchin' oot a' owre 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 It wasna for the social noise 
 
 O' stack-yaird jinks an' fireside joys 
 
 An' rantin' wanton plays an' ploys 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 It wasna for the hairvest wark, 
 The music o' the mornin' lark. 
 An' leadin' till the gloamin' dark 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie.
 
 THE WEETS CT BAIGLIE. 215 
 
 It wasna juist the want o' care, 
 The change o' jacket, change o' air, 
 An' wastlin' wuns amang j'our hair 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 It wasna ane — it was them a' 
 Upgaithered in a kind o' ba' 
 That gars me noo the days reca' 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 Toon's bairns an' bodies ! I could greet 
 To think you sin, an' never see't 
 — A Paradise itsel' complete 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 Oh, gie the student his degree, 
 The advocat' his hansel fee. 
 But keep the joys that are for me 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie !
 
 2i6 7'HE WEETS 0' BAIGLIE. 
 
 Come roon' again, ye simmer suns ! 
 An* burn wi' fragrant flame the whuns 
 That nod sae sweetly to the wuns 
 
 Up on the Weets o' Baiglie. 
 
 An' set me on the hilly road 
 That leads to Uncle Rab's abode, 
 And I will praise the Lord my God 
 
 Up on the Heights o' Baiglie.
 
 SONNETS.
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Yonder comes April, on her lip a sniile 
 And in her eye a tear ! She has the look 
 Of one whose face is as an open book 
 
 Yet thinks her harmless secret safe the while. 
 
 Her half-aversion is a childish wile 
 
 To win a welcome from you ; in the nook 
 Of the sweet eye a tear has just forsook 
 
 Lurks a blue ring that would a saint beguile ! 
 
 —How shall we welcome her? Why, as a 
 child 
 Returning from a ramble, half afraid 
 
 Her absence may have vexed her mother mild, 
 While through the pathless woods alone she 
 strayed ; 
 
 And waiting till her father once has smiled 
 And spread his arms and called his little 
 maid.
 
 :2o 
 
 NIGHT. 
 
 Night lifts her shadowy arms above the earth, 
 
 And breathes a benediction o'er the town ; 
 
 And eyes are closed, and aching heads go 
 down, 
 And silence sits by the forsaken hearth. 
 And now in dreams to pale neglected Worth 
 
 Come recognition and a cool green crown, 
 
 And these have friends for every waking 
 frown 
 And those for every misery now have mirth. 
 O blessed sleep! that like a curtain nightly 
 
 Drops on this tragi-comedy of man. 
 And blessed, too, ye heaven-sent dreams, that 
 rightly 
 
 Transform the piece to the original plan. 
 But best the buskined close — however lightly 
 
 Hope slipped the sock onwhen the play began !
 
 ''21 
 
 A BACK-LYING FARM.* 
 
 I. 
 
 [A back-lying farm but lately taken in ; 
 
 Forlorn hill-slopes and grey, without a tree ; 
 
 And at their base a waste of stony lea 
 Through which there creeps, too small to make 
 
 a din. 
 Even where it slides over a rocky linn, 
 
 A stream, unvisited of bird or bee, 
 
 Its flowerless banks a bare sad sight to see. 
 All round, with ceaseless plaint, though spent 
 and thin. 
 
 Like a lost child far-wandered from its home, 
 
 A querulous wind all day doth coldly roam. 
 Yet here, with sweet calm face, tending a cow, 
 
 Upon a rock a girl bareheaded sat 
 Singing unheard, while with unlifted brow 
 
 She twined the long wan grasses in her hat.] 
 
 * The first part of this sonnet, which has already appeared 
 in the author's earlier volume of poems, is here reproduced as 
 an introduction to its second part.
 
 222 A BACK-LYING FARM. 
 
 II. 
 
 So sat the maiden : to the outward eye 
 The flower-like genius of a flowerless waste, 
 Dropped from the hand of Providence in haste 
 
 And left neglected here to wane and die. 
 
 — And yet, who knows what youthful fancies, 
 
 ay. 
 
 What heavenly visitants descending graced 
 
 That lonely life, and with bright dreams dis- 
 placed 
 The cloudy terrors of the natural sky? 
 Heaven lies about Jis in our infancy, 
 
 And heaven is not a thing of sight or sense ; 
 Here on this desolate flower-forsaken lea 
 
 It opens to the eyes of innocence : 
 There is an Eden for us all, till we 
 
 Let in a devil who straightway drives us 
 thence.
 
 THY WILL BE DON E." 
 A Painting by Sir Noel Pa ton. 
 
 I. — THE PAINTING. 
 
 '■ No earthly beauty shines in him. 
 To draw the carnal eye." 
 
 'TwAS in the painter's choice : he might have 
 iVamecl 
 A figure more commanding, and a face 
 Earthlier fairer and of finer grace, 
 
 And none that loves the Saviour would have 
 blamed. 
 
 But wiser he : so should a form that aimed 
 At drawing all men to him take a place 
 No ways superior to the common race, 
 
 In proof he was not of their state ashamed. 
 
 And so — no hero, cased as if in mail 
 With adventitious halo of romance ;
 
 224 " THY WILL BE DONE." 
 
 No strong-built athlete, never known to ail, 
 Proud of his strength, defiant in his glance ; 
 
 Ikit looking as if liable to fail. 
 With nothing to commend him or enhance. 
 
 II. — TO THE PAINTER. 
 
 Creator of The Christ ! when first 1 stootl 
 Before thy handiwork, and overawed 
 Beheld the mystery of the Son of God 
 Sinless yet suffering in the midnight wood, 
 Suffering, and yet to suffering quite subdued, 
 - How could I think of thee ? how could I 
 laud 
 The power that pained me so ? or how 
 applaud 
 In presence of that brow with blood bedewed '■: 
 
 And yet I owe a dearer debt to thee 
 
 Than I have paid to any : there will rise 
 
 Within my memory Paul ; yet even he. 
 The great Apostle, failed to realise
 
 "THY WILL BE DONE." 225 
 
 As thou hast done, for thou hast made me see 
 The Christ in Scotland with my actual eyes I 
 
 Great Painter ! unto thee the awful dower 
 Of genius has been given to dare and do, — 
 To image Deity in pain, pursue 
 
 The image into act, hour after hour. 
 
 And bid it live ! I tremble for the power, 
 God-lent and (surely for great ends) to few, 
 That thus creates the agony anew 
 
 Which God hid in Gethsemane's dark bower! 
 
 — For they will come, the idle and the rude. 
 And these will praise thy skill, and those 
 will blame ; 
 And some, indulgent of a prying mood. 
 
 Will stand and stare, departing as they 
 came ; 
 And thou wilt seem, thy work misunderstood, 
 In these to put the Lord to open shame !
 
 226 
 
 TENANTLESS. 
 
 A LEVEL waste, where sheep are starving drear, 
 And lapwings breed, and sapless windle- 
 
 straws. 
 Weakly submissive to the gusty tiaws, 
 For ever round the waste forlornly veer, — 
 In midst whereof, most desolate, appear 
 
 Four grey walls round an empty house : you 
 
 pause 
 As you pass by, and ask what fool he was 
 That built, and brought his household darlings, 
 
 here ? 
 No pathway through the waste leads to the door 
 That fronts the snow-cold hills ; the lake 
 
 between. 
 When, as to-day, a north wind's i)lowing keen, 
 Sends to the very doorstep, cold and hoar. 
 
 Patches of flying foam : — a dreary scene ! 
 Thank heaven ! to be lived in by child no 
 more ! ,
 
 227 
 
 ON GRANTON PIER. 
 
 Well, this is what I saw on Granton pier : 
 In front, the Firth! — "Oh, that is nothing 
 
 new ! " 
 Ay, but you never saw a bonnier blue 
 Than its glad waters wore ; the day was clear, 
 And — you may laugh — to me they seemed to 
 rear 
 Their waves in actual joy ! Now, this is true- 
 One of the waves took wings, became a mew, 
 And sunward rose upon a new career ! 
 Across the Firth I saw the coast of Fife 
 
 With here a cliff and there a nestling town ; 
 And here and there the hillsides showed the 
 strife 
 Of April green contesting winter brown ; 
 And eastward far the horizon's edge was rife 
 With clean white sails that rose and sank 
 ad own.
 
 228 
 
 ON LOMOND HILL. 
 
 The top at last ! . . . All hail, celestial blue ! 
 Mother of Freedom, where the winds are nurst 
 And the clouds fly, and sunbeams through 
 them burst. 
 Gilding this old earth till it shines anew ! 
 From thy broad bosom also drops the dew 
 As duly on the grass as at the first 
 Ere storms were known, and the green earth 
 was curst, 
 And Man from Nature within walls withdrew. 
 — ^ Yonder, far o'er the Firth, what smoky blot 
 
 Stains the pure ether? Ah! I know it: there 
 The Town-Witch, crooning o'er her seething- 
 pot. 
 Compounds and brews for man infernal fare ! 
 Thee and thy stews, black Witch ! from this 
 high spot 
 I solemnly for one whole week forswear !
 
 229 
 
 TWO SONNETS IN DEFENCE OF SONG. 
 
 I. MORNING. 
 
 Loose beechen leaves above me ; over which, 
 
 The cupola of heaven — so still and bright, 
 With the sun dreaming in a far high niche, 
 
 You think it never can again be night. 
 Nature at rest. The only sounds that reach 
 
 The listening ear are Labour's, and are 
 light- 
 Rustlings among the oats, the reaper's speech, 
 
 And the mill-hum of a small town in sight. 
 Afield and in the factory they work, 
 
 Those at the loom, and these among the 
 corn ; 
 While I, the only idler, seem to shirk 
 
 The duty laid on every one that's born, 
 And, lapt in leaves, among the beeches lurk, 
 
 A spy upon my fellows all the morn.
 
 230 JM DEFENCE OF SONG. 
 
 II. EVENING. 
 
 But evening comes : the sounds of Labour 
 cease, 
 And weary workers from their toil return ; 
 Domestic lights in cottage windows burn, 
 And sundered families unite in peace. 
 Now what shall smooth with gentle hand the 
 crease 
 Of furrowed brow and ruffled heart outworn, 
 Strengthen for the recurring toils of morn, 
 And wrap the spirit in the robes of peace ? 
 — Song ! which the poet, idling, as ye said, 
 Gathered fresh-fallen from the morning skies. 
 Song ! which he wove, and dipped in rainbow 
 dyes 
 When ye cried Oiit ttpon him, Lazyhead! 
 Song ! that both feeds and clothes, and far 
 outvies 
 Your factory fabrics and your oaten bread !
 
 2-, I 
 
 BERRY-HILL. 
 
 We stand upon the Ochils in the air 
 
 Of a September eve ; great fleecy clouds, 
 Like sheep new - washen, circle earth in 
 crowds, 
 But all the cupola is blue and bare. 
 Here, on the right, our Lomond towers ; and 
 there, 
 Far to the west, from a pale smoke that 
 
 shrouds 
 Its base, Ben Lomond; and the heaven is 
 bowed 
 Serenely o'er us, resting on the pair. — 
 It is a dutiful delight to flee 
 
 At times the sorcery of the sordid town, 
 To shake the mind from all vexations free, 
 To know on hill-tops Heaven without 
 frown, 
 And feel like children looking up to see 
 Their parents at a window smiling down !
 
 23: 
 
 A HUMOUR OF THE LINKS. 
 
 He drops in dapper dress upon the ground, — 
 White cuffs, and sleeve-links glancing in the 
 
 sun, 
 — A demd fine morning! — this at half-past 
 one,— 
 And with three caddies enters on a round. 
 He hits the turf; the ball with oblique bound 
 Flees to the onlookers, who duck and run, 
 And running fall, and falling yell What fun.' 
 While he caWs Fore / — and wonders when 'tis 
 
 found. 
 Six balls he loses, breaks three clubs, a cleek, 
 
 And, putting, makes an unexpected drive 
 Which lames a boy and cuts a golfer's cheek, 
 
 And so ends round the first at half-past five — 
 Seven holes in ninety strokes I — I would not 
 seek 
 To wrong a living man : the man's alive !
 
 LOCHLEVEN IN NOVEMBER. 
 
 Morning succeeded morning o'er the Lake 
 All through the spring, and never once a 
 
 pair 
 Came quite the same, and yet the Lake was 
 fair 
 And kept the lengthening charm without a 
 
 break. 
 And surely now (thought I) no power will take 
 Her beauty from the Naiad; none will dare 
 To give the honour to the earth or air, 
 But all will praise it for her own dear sake. 
 — Well, one November morning, dazed and 
 deaved 
 With the dull round of the professional 
 wheel, 
 I left the city, and stole unperceived 
 
 Upon my Naiad ere the morning meal : 
 She looked up hastily, surprised and grieved, 
 Like a proud beauty caught in deshabille !
 
 234 
 
 THE LAWN-ADONIS. 
 
 Lawn-tennis and the Ladies— give him these : 
 Misses, with rosebud mouths, and creamy 
 
 cheeks 
 Spread thinly with a smile that lasts for 
 weeks : 
 And leave the silken Sybarite to his ease. 
 No other paradise so well could please, 
 No other paradise the spaniel seeks ; 
 That smirk of well-fed satisfaction speaks 
 A life content with what it sucks and sees. 
 — You sneer,* Major ! The sneer upon your 
 lip'll 
 Only bring pouts, my gallant god ot war ! 
 What ! to his ruby mouth deny the nipple, 
 
 And smirch his pearls with porter and cigar, 
 To whom the smell of small beer's a strong 
 tipple 
 And Poison's paste a food too solid far?
 
 535 
 
 "Nee vixit male, qui natus morietisqne fefellit." 
 
 — Horace, EJ>ist. xvii. 
 
 A GREAT man dies, or whom the world calls 
 great 
 —And, I've observed, the world will scarce 
 
 allow 
 One leaf of laurel to your living brow 
 Though it grows lavish when you lie in state : 
 This for your comfort, — well, he's dead ! and, 
 straight, 
 A kite sits on the shroud ; but whence or how 
 The carrion came you cannot guess; and now 
 It claims with yellow beak and claw its bait. 
 Faugh ! 'Tis enough to make the dead upstart, 
 
 To be so near a living grave, and smell it ! 
 Happy the man who takes the final dart 
 
 And drops among the grass with none to 
 tell it, 
 Who quietly through life has done his part, 
 And, to quote Horace, nioriens fefelHt .'
 
 236 
 
 OLD AGE— THE WRESTLER. 
 
 Seems but as yesterday that I was young, 
 
 Inhaled the fever of the war of life, 
 
 Made eager preparations for the strife, 
 And with the joy of a strong gymnast flung 
 My soul into the contest : swayed and swung 
 
 This way and that I reeled ; yet joys were 
 rife, — 
 
 Home, and the smile of friends, the love of 
 wife, 
 And Hopes that flew above my head and sung. 
 But, as I wrestled, woe, alas ! my pride 
 
 Of youthful strength received a fall from One 
 Who came upon me with a hasty stride 
 
 And threw me heavily: broken, undone, 
 I rose and to a corner limped aside, 
 
 And lo, far down the west had sunk my sun !
 
 237 
 
 WINTER'S PALE MARTYR. 
 
 Here, in the social city, by tlie heartii, 
 This winter midnight, in an easy-chair, 
 While the flames bicker on the bars, and 
 flare, 
 
 And a wild east wind blowing up the Firth 
 
 Shouts down the chimney in its boisterous 
 mirth. 
 Put on your hat and face me ifyoti dare — 
 I think me of a hillside lone and bare 
 
 Far up among the Ochil Hills of Perth. 
 
 How piteously it waited for the spring 
 
 With a cold snow-drop sickening in its hand ! 
 
 How patiently it waited for the wing. 
 That never came, of summer in the land ! 
 
 And now it stands in snow-shirt shivering. 
 Winter's pale martyr, meekly at command!
 
 23« 
 
 "A BARBARY HEN." 
 
 See Shakespeare's As Vou Like It. 
 
 Whither have fled his gamesomeness and glee, 
 His rosy gills, his laughter, and his jinks, 
 The sparkle of his eyes between the winks, 
 
 And all the merriment we used to see? 
 
 There is not now a duller man than he : 
 At festive times he sits alone and thinks, 
 Drains glass on glass, and still the more he 
 drinks 
 
 The less inclined to smile he seems to be. 
 
 And now, what power in what fell hour did 
 snatch 
 The mirth we may not hope to see again ? 
 
 — They say it went for money in a match 
 That gave him with the gold a Barbary Hen! 
 
 — Proves the old proverb, Tom ! the maddest 
 bach- 
 Elors make still the saddest married men !
 
 NORWEGIAN SONNETS 
 
 To Aforroway, to jYorroway, 
 To Norroway owre the faem ! 
 
 — Old Ballad. 
 
 i»
 
 BALDER BACK ! 
 
 Facing the North, in the grey sea he stands. 
 
 The solar orb comes northward, sliding slow. 
 
 And— empties on him its solstitial glow ! 
 Blinks up at last with tear-bewildered glands 
 The puzzled jotun :* from his rough red hands 
 
 Slip the huge balls of hard compacted snow 
 
 That in his wrath enraged he meant to throw, 
 And where they melt, behold ! a brace of vands. t 
 Meanwhile the blinding tears run down his 
 cheeks, 
 
 Like torrents swollen with sudden summer 
 rain ; 
 In vain deep-knuckling in his eyes he seeks 
 
 To clear his sight — the cataracts burst amain ; 
 Till, at the last, he gets a peep, and speaks 
 
 —It's you. Balder! So you ve got back again / 
 
 * Giant. f Lakes. 
 
 Q
 
 242 
 
 II. 
 
 UP THE SKAGER RACK. 
 
 It was the point of dawn ; and in the bow 
 I stood alone, facing the grey north-east. 
 Far on the left, like a huge brown sea-beast 
 
 That had been chased and was o'ertaken now, 
 
 Surprised asleep, lay Norway. From the prow 
 A hissing of salt spray that still increased 
 Rose plainly audible— for the gale had ceased 
 
 And the keel cut the sea-plain like a plough. 
 
 And so with only a ripple on the sea, 
 
 And ne'er a storm-cloud o'er us muttering 
 black, 
 
 We voyaged with an easy course and free 
 And— disappointing, now on looking back ; 
 
 For the old sagas make the surges flee 
 Like riderless horses up the Skager^Rack.
 
 243 
 
 III. 
 WELCOME ! 
 
 Was it the filial instinct of a child 
 Yearning to visit the ancestral home 
 That drove me o'er the furrows and the foam 
 To Norway northward of the ocean wild ? 
 Meseemed at least from fell on fell up-piled 
 Streamed voices — Now at last, though late, 
 
 yc cotne ; 
 Here is your parent land, no longer roam : 
 And the scenes grew familiar all, and smiled. 
 But who was he, this worshipper of Thor.? 
 Or, likelier, Odin would the genius suit 
 Of a bold-cruising Viking ancestor — 
 
 Some scale-mailed Eric, or chain -shirted 
 Knut! 
 — Vainly I questioned welcoming breeze and 
 torr,* 
 The winds were silent now, the mountains 
 mute ! 
 
 * Hill.
 
 244 
 
 IV. 
 THAT SPEAR. 
 
 We parted with the Times at Guldsmedmo'n, 
 Yet two days longer up the dale the huni 
 Of European politics would come — 
 
 }5ut sunk, and sinking, to an undertone. 
 
 At last we entered a deep dell o'ergrown 
 With ancient pines of lofty stature — some 
 An hundred feet — and Europe's voice was 
 dumb, 
 
 And we now fairly found ourselves alone. 
 
 Silence, and gloom, and isolation drear 
 Produced a feeling, hard to understand, 
 
 Which grew at last a dim-embodied fear 
 As of a Spirit, gloomy, silent, grand, 
 
 That rose from out the wood, and drew a-near, 
 Grasping a pine-spear in his rebel hand !
 
 245 
 
 V. 
 MILTON IN NORWAY. 
 
 The feeling passed, the Spirit passed away 
 — The silence and the isolation drear, 
 As broke in fitful bursts on Fancy's ear 
 
 A gravely measured yet melodious lay. 
 
 Wider the sweep, and more complete the swa3% 
 And longer, deeper, louder, and more clear. 
 Until I cried — Milton is mo7iarch here. 
 
 Whatever Oscar and his subjects say ! 
 
 — How had the Master slung into his song 
 The pride of Norway, with an arm as free 
 
 As fierce Alcides' when he hurled along 
 The ether from Mount Oita to the sea, 
 
 Nerved with the strength of that Thessalian 
 wrong, 
 The groaning trunk of many an uptorn tree !
 
 246 
 
 VI. 
 THE SCENERY— GO AND SEE IT ! 
 
 And speak ye may of grandeur and of gloom 
 And all the dread magnificence that lies 
 Where through the dale the foam - fleckt 
 torrent flies, 
 
 Or gorgeous sunsets o'er the mountains bloom. 
 
 But who shall in the sonnet's scanty room 
 Set the majestic magnitude, the size, 
 The mighty mountains and the widening 
 skies 
 
 Up on Norwegian table-lands assume? 
 
 This you must see to feel within your heart, 
 And cannot know from others : Nature still 
 
 In this defies all imitative art, 
 Baffles all schools and soars beyond their 
 skill : 
 
 It is a joy she only shall impart, 
 But, once received, it ne'er can cease to thrill.
 
 247 
 
 VII. 
 A TERROR OF THE TWILIGHT. 
 
 Far in Norwegian solitudes we strayed : 
 
 Behind us lay a long bright summer day, 
 
 But evening now was stooping o'er our way, 
 When, at a sudden turn, alarmed we stayed. 
 It was a terror by the twilight made 
 
 Of river, cliff, and cloud, and the weird play 
 
 Of sunset's one live liberated ray 
 Piercing the horror of the pinewood shade. 
 Stood, like a charred cross, or a huge sword- 
 hilt, 
 
 Against the sky, above the cliff's black line. 
 That seemed a bastion by Harfager built, 
 
 A solitary thunder-blasted pine ; 
 On the dark flood below, the sunset spilt 
 
 What now was blood and now was wassail - 
 wine.
 
 248 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A WATERFALL WITHIN A WOOD. 
 
 The sound, that seemed at sunrise — when the 
 glow 
 
 Of Morning, mingling with the early breeze. 
 
 Caught the still water through the lakeside 
 trees — 
 The Voice of Liberty, now seems to grow 
 The muffled moan of an imprisoned woe ; 
 
 And Fancy, peering through the forest, sees 
 
 An agonising Samson on his knees, 
 With the pines looking on and whispering low. 
 How does a noise, monotonous and rude. 
 
 Take tone, when blown into a poet mind, 
 Concording with the mystery of its mood. 
 
 And suiting with the symphony it designed! 
 — 'Tis but a waterfall within a wood 
 
 To Peter Bell and others of his kind.
 
 249 
 
 IX. 
 MINERVA IN THE S.ETERSDAL. 
 
 We said Far Vcl Vo Froesnces at the dawn — 
 Leaving it as one leaves a treasure, soon 
 To long for it, and call it prize and boon 
 
 In words, sincere no doubt, but overdrawn. 
 
 Then on we raced as gamesome as the fawn 
 Though not so graceful, till mid-afternoon 
 Brought us to Helle to the skydsstation* 
 
 Under a cliff behind a natural lawn. 
 
 Here in a squalid room we look for ease. 
 
 Loath to sit down, but yet too tired to stand, 
 
 And call for black-cock, bacon, bread and cheese 
 — In short, whate'er their larder might com- 
 mand : 
 
 Enters Minerva, kilted to the knees, 
 
 With a vast shield of fladbrod in her hand ! 
 
 ' Pronounced slu'is-stash5on—x!h^ posting-station.
 
 250 
 
 X. 
 
 THE LITTLE MEAL-MILL. 
 
 Perched on its four grey cairns across the 
 stream 
 
 That tumbles down the cliff, secure it stands; 
 An old possession, for on plank and beam 
 
 Are Knuts and Oles carved by various hands. 
 Its cubic measure, six by five by four; 
 
 Yet in this compass, everything complete; 
 And there he bent — his back was towards the 
 door — 
 
 While plashed the mill-wheel merrily at his 
 feet, 
 And ground his rye, and sang with honest glee. 
 
 — Be mine the knowledge that I now possess, 
 And mine a heart, like his, of envy free. 
 
 And I could don to-day the saster* dress, 
 And bring my wishes docile to my will 
 To moil content in this Norwegian mill. 
 
 * A saeter is a farm : the seeter dress, the dress of the peasants 
 of the Ssetersdal.
 
 2sl 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE CLIMB FROM VALLE. 
 
 Steep was the climb from Valle : far below 
 The saeter we had left lay lost in mist, 
 And still the height rose higher than we wist 
 
 Beyond the ravings of the Otteraa * 
 
 And now a thin bleak air began to blow, 
 And now the bispeveit to turn and twist. 
 Here round a tjernj no summer ever kissed, 
 
 And there behind a hide of hoarded snow. 
 
 The stars dissolved anon ; and airy trills 
 Of wavering music^ showed the day begun : 
 
 We toiled to meet the morn — o'er rocks, o'er 
 rills ; 
 And, breathless, but at last our wish we won— 
 
 The top ! and lo, a countless herd of hills 
 Tossing their shining muzzles in the sun ! 
 
 * Pronounced Otters. i Bridle-path, 
 
 t Mountain lake, tarn.
 
 2 52 
 
 XII. 
 "PAA HEJA:" LIFE ON THE HEIGHTS. 
 
 Is there a pleasure can with this compare]' — 
 To leap at sunrise from your mountain-bed, 
 Roused by a skylark revelling overhead, 
 
 And drink great draughts of golden morning 
 air ; 
 
 A plunge, and breakfast — simple rural fare ; 
 Then forth with vigorous brain, elastic tread, 
 Hope singing at your heart o'er sorrow dead, 
 
 And strength for fifty miles, and still to spare ! 
 
 That joy was ours! — O memory! oft restore us 
 Those autumn runs, here in the smoky town. 
 
 When through the woods our mad nomadic 
 chorus 
 Rang freedom up and civilisation down ! 
 
 lo ! my hearts ! the world was all before us. 
 And we nor owned nor envied king nor 
 crown !
 
 253 
 
 XIII. 
 THE MOUNTAIN LAUREATE. 
 
 Morning is flashing from a glorious sun 
 On the broad shoulders of the giant fells 
 That outreach arms across the narrow dells 
 
 And form a silent brotherhood of one 
 
 Listening their skylark laureate ! New begun 
 He up the heavens in ever-rising swells 
 Carries their thanksgiving in song that wells 
 
 From his small breast as if 'twould ne'er be 
 done. 
 
 What life his music gives them ! They are 
 free 
 In the wild freedom of his daring wing ; 
 
 And in the cataract of his song, the sea 
 Of poetry that fills all heaven, they sing ; 
 
 — He is their poet-prophet in his glee, 
 
 And in his work and worth their priest and 
 king !
 
 254 
 
 XIV. 
 A THOUGHT OF HOME. 
 
 She walks where Callerfountain to KinnouU 
 Looks lovingly across the twists of Tay, 
 And oft, along the zigzag of her way, 
 
 Up Craigie burn, or through the plantains 
 cool, 
 
 Stoops, from the bank beside the shaded pool 
 To pluck forget-me-nots, or from the brae 
 A gowan, with whose petals she will play, 
 
 Filling her breast of love's distractions full. 
 
 Fair are the Scottish hills around her here, 
 Nor fairer scenes a wandering eye beheld. 
 
 But now in all the glory of the year 
 To her their beauty is a dream of eld. 
 
 And Norway's distant hills have grown more 
 dear 
 — For sake of one far up the Dovrefeld.
 
 255 
 
 XV. 
 
 MORNING— THE MOUNTAIN FAMILY 
 AT THEIR DEVOTIONS. 
 
 I SEE across the lofty table-lands 
 A hundred regal mountains at the least 
 Inclining mutely towards the opening East,— 
 
 As many little tjerns and queenly vands 
 
 Kneeling at different levels : Phoebus stands 
 Beaming benevolence like a great High Priest 
 Blessing a nation for some holy feast 
 
 At his wide temple-door with lifted hands. — 
 
 Rejoice, ye hills ! ye happy mountains, fling 
 Your arms aloft in worship wildly free ! 
 
 Ye vands, and rivers in the valleys, sing ! 
 Shout ! till the heavens ring with your choral 
 flee   
 
 And God Himself with mild face wondering 
 Looks out at last, and smiles well-pleased to 
 see !
 
 XVI. 
 A CANDIDATE FOR HONOURS. 
 
 This were a spectacle to cleanse the heart 
 Of all the mean vexations of the town, 
 The envious slander and the jealous frown, 
 
 And all remembrances that make it smart. 
 
 Phoebus Apollo ! fit another dart 
 
 And shoot the last surviving meanness down 
 Ere on my head thou place the golden crown 
 
 And teach my lyre the mystery of thine art ! 
 
 Then, with a bosom purified of hate 
 
 And rankling cares and cankers reared of 
 wrong. 
 
 Envy forgotten and the low debate 
 That to unworthy rivalry belong. 
 
 On thine own heights, Apollo, will I wait 
 A shriven candidate of holy song !
 
 257 
 
 XVII. 
 "THE LAST INFIRMITY." 
 
 The god ! — or else a fierce consuming flame ! 
 
 Spare me, Apollo of the burning brow ! 
 
 Spare me ! It was a rash novitiate's vow 
 When to thy shrine with shameful haste I came 
 And vowed, alas ! with an unworthy aim, 
 
 To be a priest of thine : forgive me nov,- 
 
 And let me go, or take me where I bow 
 And purge me of that lust of earthly fame 1 
 — Thus, like a weed that woos the summer sun 
 
 To wither in the fierceness of his glance. 
 The ignoble wish that I had told to none 
 
 And scarcely to myself, by sweet mischance. 
 Seeking to honour it, was clean undone, 
 Pierced by Apollo's keen detecting lance. 
 
 R
 
 -58 
 
 XVIII. 
 HARVEST IN THE DALE. 
 
 A MILLION fields to-day are standing white 
 Over the north of Europe : here is one, 
 And three bright sickles circling in the sun 
 
 Will have the little crop cut down ere night. 
 
 The girl is singing, for her heart is light; 
 Rut the two brothers think it best to shun 
 The guise of gladness till the work be done 
 
 And they have earned a reason and a right ; 
 
 Yet they are glad : God of the bounteous Year, 
 What pleasure must be Thine to look from 
 heaven 
 
 Into a thousand happy dales, and hear 
 
 From out the barren rocks, where man has 
 striven, 
 
 The voices of Thy children far and near 
 
 Rejoicing in the gifts which Thou hast given !
 
 259 
 
 XIX. 
 ARTHUR'S SEAT AGAIN! 
 
 Fjord, wood, and waterfall, and cliff whose line 
 
 Rose level with the heavens, and the loni^- 
 swell 
 
 Of fell up-reaching arm to brother fell, 
 And the lone aspiration of the pine 
 That stood erect on sunset heights divine 
 
 Under the gaze of God in holy spell, 
 
 While on the slope, or from the sunken dell, 
 Aspens looked up and trembled — these were 
 
 mine ; 
 And I had grown familiar with them till 
 
 They seemed a patrimony all my own ; 
 And yet when Arthur's green and rounded hill 
 
 Met my returning gaze, and seaward blown 
 A Scottish voice came floating — closer still 
 
 Was Scotland at my heart than I had known.
 
 :6o 
 
 XX. 
 
 A GREY MORNING AT GRANTON. 
 
 " How bright it is to-day ! we see across 
 
 The Firth quite clearly to the shores of Fife ! " 
 
 — Good heavens ! And yet 'twere pity o/jjiy 
 life 
 (Thought I, while travelling northward to 
 
 Kinross) 
 If I should count as worse to me than loss 
 
 My fellow- creature's gain. Yet was the 
 strife 
 
 'Twixt scorn and pity for the grey-worn wife, 
 Thankful for nothing as it seemed, a toss. 
 For I had been where skies of brilliant hue 
 
 Soared o'er gigantic cliffs to heaven itself, 
 Where the delighted eye for miles looked thro' 
 
 Opaline widths of air, and aa* and elvt 
 Linked vand to fjord with chains of living blue. 
 
 Or shot in foam from granite shelf to shelf! 
 
 Water; pronounced i'. t Stream; pronounced ('/y'.
 
 26 1 
 
 XXI. 
 
 ON THE PIER AT BURNTISLAND. 
 
 So ran my thoughts at Granton as the train 
 Swept curving round in view of the grey sea, 
 But when the lazy steamer crossed, and we 
 
 Were free of its collective stinks again, 
 
 I caught a glimpse, through cloud, coal-smoke, 
 and rain 
 Upon the sloppy pier, that furnished me 
 The missing gloss there well was need to be 
 
 To clear the air for her, and light the main !— 
 
 The world looks bright to kings— a favoured 
 race 
 Who free of toil through earth's gay gardens 
 roam ; 
 
 Looks fair to lovers ; and a happy place 
 
 To children ; but its brightest mornings come 
 
 To humble mother waiting the embrace 
 Of her bronzed sailor son returning home.
 
 262 
 
 XXII. 
 
 A RARE DIP. 
 
 I've floated on Lochleven, dipped in Tay, 
 And many another stream both great and 
 
 small, 
 Dared the white thunder of a waterfall, 
 And been baptised in many a mill-wheel's 
 
 spray ; 
 I've drunk the brine in Kristiania bay 
 And swum almost all up the Saetersdal, 
 And every bath was ecstasy, but all 
 Must yield to one rare dip I had to-day. 
 Oh, pleasantly the Farg's clear waters flashed 
 
 Into the rocky pool their liquid song; 
 With more than Alpheus' haste I stripped, and 
 dashed 
 Among the music, plunging oft and long; 
 And not alone my limbs — the music washed 
 Hate from my heart, and from my memory 
 wrong !
 
 263 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 FROM THE WICKS OF BAIGLIE. 
 
 Here there are braes, and glens, and brawling 
 brooks, • 
 And cascades flinging loose their diamond 
 
 spray, 
 And waters winding down to firth and bay. 
 And woods, and craigs, and knowes, and fairy 
 
 nooks; 
 But on the hill-tops there are golden stocks. 
 And mill-wheels in thecascade's thunder play, 
 Boats breast the river, artists glenward stray. 
 And over barren craigs rise pastoral crooks. — 
 Not many years ago the scene was claimed 
 
 By the rude elements — to whom it gave 
 Thistle, and thorn, and stone, and stream un- 
 named, 
 Harvestless hill, and undivided wave ; 
 Now the wild elephant is trapped and tamed, 
 Caparisoned and tended — and a slave !
 
 264 
 
 XXIV. 
 THELEMARKEN : A PER-CONTRA. 
 
 However, there's the freedom of the Fells, 
 Such as the wilds of Thelemarken show, 
 Where cataracts roar unbridged, and torrents 
 flow 
 
 Burdened but with the beauty of their bells ; 
 
 Where the cliff soars, and the broad sky-roof 
 swells, 
 And morning comes with larger longer glow. 
 And, pinnacled beyond the axe's blow, 
 
 In peace the stately pine its centuries tells ! 
 
 Here you may live at large, with no one nigh : 
 —Only, when twilight darkens earth and air, 
 
 From the lone uplands you may chance to spy 
 On the cliff-edge a wolf, perhaps a pair; 
 
 Or silhouetted on the evening sky 
 
 The slouching horror of a hermit bear I 
 
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