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POEMS AND SONGS 
 
POEMS AND SONGS. 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES BLACK CAMERON, F.E.I.S. 
 
 GRANGEMOUTH. 
 
 WILLIAM P. NIMMO, 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH. 
 
 1877. 
 
ft 
 
 n 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 /S~7¥<T 
 
 EDINBURGH ! 
 
 PRINTED BY M'FARLANE AND ERSKINE, 
 
 ST JAMES SQUARE. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 AMES BLACK CAMERON, eldest son of 
 the late John Cameron, engineer, was born 
 in Greenock on the 6th October 1833. 
 While still a child, his family removed to London ; 
 but on the death of his father in Jamaica they 
 returned to Scotland, and settled in Glasgow. Up 
 to this time his education had been carried on at 
 home by his mother, a woman of considerable mental 
 power. Being now ten years of age, his friends 
 thought that the time had come when he should be 
 sent to school. He was accordingly enrolled as a 
 pupil in the Normal School, and for upwards of three 
 years studied under Mr Hislop, the head-master. At 
 the age of fourteen he was apprenticed as an engineer 
 in the Vulcan Foundry, Port Dundas ; but before six 
 months had passed, his right arm was accidentally 
 caught by some machinery, and so mangled that 
 amputation of the hand was necessary. Unable now 
 to prosecute a trade, he returned to the Normal School, 
 
 854 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 and under the tuition of the head-master, Mr Forbes, 
 now of Dumfries Academy, made such progress that 
 at the early age of seventeen he received an appoint- 
 ment as assistant to the late Mr Craig, of the Glas- 
 gow Industrial Schools ; and about a year thereafter 
 he was elected teacher of Springbank School. 
 Although prior to this he had shown a strong ten- 
 dency to literature, it was at this time that its pursuit 
 became an absorbing passion. 
 
 Conducting a large school, with little assistance, 
 during the day, and an evening school for five nights 
 in the week, would be considered sufficient work for 
 any man; but the love of literature was so strong 
 within him that his studies were often carried on till 
 early morning. This could not continue. His health 
 gave way. He resigned his situation, and for six 
 months he was confined to the house. During this 
 enforced retirement he applied himself to the study 
 of the Spanish language, intending to go out to an 
 uncle in South America, for the sake of his health j 
 but his uncle dying, this design had to be abandoned. 
 It now became a serious question what he should do ; 
 whether he should devote himself entirely to litera- 
 ture, or resume teaching. He accordingly wrote to 
 Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, enclosing a specimen of his 
 work, stating his position, and asking for advice. To 
 this a very complimentary and kind reply was re- 
 ceived, advising him to continue his studies, but not 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 to abandon his profession until he had made such a 
 name in literature as would secure him against the 
 necessity of becoming a literary hack. Shortly after- 
 wards he received an appointment to Hollandbush 
 School, near Denny, where for five years he taught so 
 successfully that very great regret was felt when he 
 accepted his last situation, the mastership of Grange- 
 mouth Subscription School. 
 
 During all this time he was storing his mind from 
 the treasures of Spanish ballad and Norse legend ; 
 yet he never ceased to cultivate his powers as a 
 writer, both of prose and of poetry ; and his contri- 
 butions were frequent, not only to the columns of the 
 local papers, but also to those of Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow. Had he devoted himself entirely to litera- 
 ture, he would doubtless have won for himself a high 
 position among the writers of this country. But 
 working all day in a worrying and mind-fagging pro- 
 fession, his productive powers were limited ; but yet 
 he has produced some pieces which we venture to 
 predict will live. 
 
 He died at Grangemouth on the 22d of May 1876, 
 leaving a widow and two children. 
 
 At the urgent request of many friends this volume 
 — a selection from his poetical compositions — has 
 been issued. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EVENING HYMN, I 
 
 FLOWER IDYLLS: 
 
 THE WATER LILIES, 2 
 
 THE FORGET-ME-NOTS, 5 
 
 THE TULIP, 12 
 
 AN APOCALYPSIS, 1 6 
 
 AN ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ., . 28 
 
 TO A COQUETTE, 3 1 
 
 TO STELLA, 33 
 
 BRIDAL-CAKE DREAM, 34 
 
 THE DEAD HOPE, 36 
 
 MAGGIE, DARLING, 37 
 
 BRIGHT EYES, 38 
 
 BRIDAL SONG, . 39 
 
 SAD THOUGHTS, 39 
 
x CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 BIRTHDAY FANCY — 
 
 TO ISABELLA CLARK, 41 
 
 TO MISS CLARK, 44 
 
 JANUARY I, 1872, 50 
 
 RETHE, 52 
 
 LONG AGO, 55 
 
 SKADl'S CHOICE, . 57 
 
 A CUMBERLAND LEGEND, 62 
 
 THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THINGS, 64 
 
 FANCY, 65 
 
 WHAT ODIN'S EYE BOUGHT, 67 
 
 MOZROR CORDIS, 72 
 
 IN MEMORIAM, 73 
 
 A FANCY, 75 
 
 NELLY, 78 
 
 LINES IN MEMORIAM, 79 
 
 THE STAR AND THE STREAM, 80 
 
 SONNET, 8l 
 
 DEDICATED TO MISS ANNIE RUSSELL, FALKIRK— 
 
 BIRTHS, 82 
 
 MARRIAGES 83 
 
 DEATHS 83 
 
 HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, 84 
 
 ABSENT FRIENDS, 85 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MILLHALL, . .88 
 
 THE OLD DEAR DAYS, 89 
 
 HASSAN'S AMULET, 92 
 
 TO. MARY, I08 
 
 KEEP FRESH THE HEART, IO9 
 
 there's A BIRD IN BANTON, I IO 
 
 THE FIRST STOWN KISS, Ill 
 
 MARY O' BANKIER, . II4 
 
 LINES TO THE MISSES SAMUEL, 115 
 
 TO THEE, 1 16 
 
 SONG, 117 
 
 SONNET, .117 
 
 SONNET, . . Il8 
 
 ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF PETER LUCKIE, A SCHOOL 
 
 COMPANION, . . . 119 
 
 BEAUTIFUL EYES, 121 
 
 COULD I FORGET, .122 
 
 MY PROPOSED NEW PHILOSOPHY, 1 24 
 
 FRAGMENT, 125 
 
 VALENTINE, 125 
 
 THERE IS A STAR, 126 
 
 SONG, 128 
 
 MAN, 129 
 
 HYMN TO EROS, 130 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH, 133 
 
 THE FAREWELL, 1 34 
 
 DREAMS, 136 
 
 THE ENIGMA OF TIME, 1 37 
 
 NELLY, 139 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE DEATH OF MR ROBERT BUCHANAN, 1 39 
 
 THE RIME OF THE WICKED EARL I4I 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES, 177 
 
POEMS 
 
 EVENING HYMN. 
 
 Evening's shades, as daylight fades, 
 
 Mantle sadly earth and sea ; 
 The holy hour, with solemn power, 
 
 Bids us lift our voice to Thee. 
 Giver Thou of light and gloom, 
 Lord of life and of the tomb, 
 Hear us, mighty Father, aid us ! 
 Let Thy wings of power o'ershade us ! 
 
 Keep us ! guide us ! 
 In Thy well-proven mercy hide us. 
 
 Children of the second birth, 
 We are feeble, frail, unstable ; 
 Thou alone to help art able. 
 Guide us, aid us, overshade us, 
 
 As the evening shades the earth. 
 
FLOWER IDYLLS. 
 
 NO. I. — THE WATER LILIES. 
 
 All noon I loitered in the sheltering wood, 
 
 And listened to the gnat's incessant hum, 
 Wooing me to a dreamful, drowsy mood ; 
 
 But when the arrows of the sun were come 
 West-slanted, I o'erstrode the heathy slopes, 
 
 Upward and upward, till I crossed the hill ; 
 Then down and down, on to the hazel copse 
 
 That borders the broad stream, and there stood still 
 Beside the Water Lilies. 
 
 Out in the midstream, strong and smooth and deep, 
 With an unceasing hiss in undertone, 
 
 The main mass of the water holds its sweep 
 As if one thought — one earnest thought alone — 
 
 Were its \ — a restless longing for the sea — 
 A fierce impatience for the unknown end ; 
 
FLOWER IDYLLS. 
 
 But at the edge, as gentle as can be, 
 
 The broken currents interfuse and blend 
 Among the Water Lilies. 
 
 The wooing wave crisps in around their petals, 
 
 And dallies with their broad fronds as it goes j 
 And every moment languidly unsettles 
 
 The silver water-stars' serene repose. 
 But on, and on, and on — for ever, ever — 
 
 The river runs — for ever on and on — 
 The fresh wave comes, and fresh the sedges shiver, - 
 
 New wooers follow, when the old are gone, 
 To the white Water Lilies. 
 
 " Ah me ! " I said, with misty eyes and grave, 
 
 "lama rootless weed that floats away, 
 And passes onward with the passing wave, 
 
 Powerless to seek a haven, or to say, 
 I am weary, but I've found a rest — 
 
 Here will I stay and let the waves run by — 
 Our labour turns to naught, 'tis surely best 
 
 To be in quiet under the quiet sky, 
 
 Like the white Water Lilies." 
 
 And when the moon came out, I lingered still ; 
 
 And when the stars were high I yet was there, 
 Dreaming sweet fancies with an unchecked will, 
 
 And memories sadder, but not less as fair, 
 
4 FLOWER IDYLLS. 
 
 And not the less as dear ; of vanished joys, 
 And sorrows softened by the touch of time ; 
 
 And in my dream the flowers took up a voice, 
 And the voice shaped itself into the rhyme 
 Of the white Water Lilies. 
 
 " Of perfect motion cometh perfect rest, 
 
 And rest is the appointed end and welcome close ; 
 We loll upon the wave, and, wave caressed — 
 
 Lulled by the unreposing to repose — 
 Reck not how days may go, and come and go; 
 
 We take the sunbeams, be they slant or steep ; 
 At noon we sun us in the noontide glow, 
 
 At eve we fold our petals up and sleep." 
 So sang the Water Lilies. 
 
 " The wave flows on — flows on, but we are here ; 
 
 The wave flows on — flows on, but we are still ; 
 We catch the 'wildered current in our sphere, 
 
 And shape its wildness to our languid will. 
 We yield — and, yielding, rule. When waves are high 
 
 With rain-streams from the hills, we rise with them ; 
 And when they fail beneath the summer sky, 
 
 With them sinks down each starry anadem 
 Of the white Water Lilies. 
 
 " And if the flood comes down, roaring and red, 
 Angrily tossing back its hoary mane, 
 
FL O WER ID YLLS. 5 
 
 We fold our leaves together, and are hid, 
 
 Till it return to gentleness again. 
 So takes the meek the mastery of the stern, 
 
 O'ercome of all — o'ercoming all at length — 
 Safe in its lowliness — so we discern 
 
 That in our perfect weakness lies our strength." 
 So teach the Water Lilies. 
 
 And lo ! the dreamy rhythm in my soul 
 
 Gave to my soul a dreamy sense of calm, 
 Cooling Hope's fever — lulling Memory's dole, 
 
 Soothing and quiet as the evening psalm 
 Which breathes of labour done, and rest beneath 
 
 Night's brooding wings, with drowsy softness lined 
 So musing, I went upwards o'er the heath, 
 
 With many a pause, and many a look behind 
 At the white Water Lilies. 
 
 NO. II. — THE FORGET-ME-NOTS. 
 
 " Sis Memor Mei." 
 Respectfully inscribed to Alexander Thomson, Esq., Ochilview. 
 
 The song itself is nothing : — but the name 
 To which it dares to be inscribed, must claim 
 Unsullied honour. Whether in the mart 
 Of commerce, or when taking daily part 
 In the amenities of life, his heart 
 
6 FLOWER IDYLLS. 
 
 Beats nobly, far removed from aught that is 
 Sordid, or mean, or selfish. Therefore this 
 Poor essay of my muse I put beneath 
 The aegis of his name, that it may breathe, 
 In some reflected sort, the atmosphere 
 Of his most genial nature, warm and clear. 
 
 Where the fernsprays bend their arches, 
 Underneath the tasselled larches — 
 Where the fretted ripples swerve, 
 In the streamlet's sudden curve — 
 Where the noonday glare of summer 
 
 Filters through the leafy screen, 
 Cooler — tenderer — welcomer — 
 
 Toned down to a golden green — 
 There, in that delicious spot, 
 Met I this old friend of mine, 
 Love's own token, Hope's own sign j — 
 
 Gold and blue Forget-me-not. 
 
 It holds up to the sun no flaunting chalice, 
 
 With purple or with crimson streaked and starred 
 
 And from its open golden heart there sallies 
 No scent of myrrh, of cassia, or of nard. 
 
 Not tulip-like, a Cleopatra, sailing 
 
 In pomp and glory, adown Cydnus' wave — 
 
 An Imogene it seems, forsaken, hiding 
 Its tender beauty in Bellarius' cave. 
 
FLOWER IDYLLS. 7 
 
 No musky odour — no entrancing splendour — 
 To thrill and thrall the overmastered sense ; 
 
 But with a quiet and infinitely tender, 
 
 Most graceful and most gracious influence, 
 
 Its blossoms from their humble haunts express 
 
 The gospel of a self-sufficing lowliness. 
 
 Five tiny oval petals — heavenly blue — 
 Bend in a circlet round a golden eye ; 
 
 And that sad legend — old, and ever new — 
 Has consecrated it, for aye, to lie 
 
 Close hid and cherished in the inner deeps, 
 
 Where memory's holiest shrine her dearest treasure 
 keeps. 
 
 Yes ! of all legends floating 
 
 Down the River of the Years, 
 No one know I worthier noting 
 
 Than that tale of truth and tears — 
 Which the teller of must say low, 
 
 In a tone that faltereth — 
 Hallowed by the double halo, 
 
 Each divine, of Love and Death. 
 
 "By the streamlet walked the lovers, in the olden 
 
 German land ; 
 By the streamlet, where its current undermined the 
 
 fretted strand; 
 
8 FLOWER IDYLLS. 
 
 In the tender hush of twilight, ere the bashful star of 
 Love 
 
 Left its soft concealment by the flush of daylight's sun- 
 beams wove. 
 
 " Downcast were the maiden's glances, timidly she 
 
 looked aside, 
 Golden-eyed and azure-petalled, there these blossoms 
 
 she espied 
 On a jutting bank bold-hanging: it would almost seem 
 
 they knew 
 Danger waited on the footstep that should venture 
 
 where they grew. 
 
 " Scarcely had she praised their beauty, ere the eager 
 
 hand of love 
 Sought to seize the fatal blossoms, as they tempting 
 
 hung above ; 
 Seized them — but the treacherous footing failed him, 
 
 and the river's swirl 
 Bore him in its eddy under, from the horror-stricken 
 
 girl. 
 
 "Battling with the current bravely, battling bravely 
 
 but in vain, 
 Love's last thought was for the loved one — Hope must 
 
 part and Faith remain. 
 
FL O WER ID YLLS. 9 
 
 One convulsive effort made he, ere the wave its prey 
 
 had got, 
 Flung the flowers in safety shoreward, crying, ' Love, 
 
 forget me not.' 
 
 "And since then this tiny blossom, Constancy and 
 
 Hope have claimed 
 As their own peculiar emblem, and Forget-me-not 
 
 have named." 
 
 From its blue petals, from its golden centre, 
 Stream subtle, viewless, but all-potent spells — 
 
 Magnetic influences, which pierce and enter 
 
 The grey coils of the brain where Memory dwells. 
 
 The wind came freshly through the leafy shadow; 
 
 The voice of birds came through the woodland maze ; 
 The scent of new-mown hay came o'er the meadow — 
 
 And o'er my heart a dream of bygone days. 
 
 Days of my boyhood by the wooded Kelvin; 
 
 Days in the Schiftwood, where the rocks are piled 
 In chaos-order, steep, abrupt, and shelving; 
 
 Days by the Gryffeside, in its dingles wild: 
 
 Days in the ancient Caledonian forest, 
 
 Where Cadzow's crumbling castle hangs o'er Avon, 
 Like a hawk's nest, upon the steepest, hoarest, 
 
 Storm-shattered cliff, above the torrents raving : 
 
10 FLOWER IDYLLS. 
 
 Days up in Garrel glen, with moss and heather 
 Seen through the vistas of the coppice-path : 
 
 Days at the Hermitage, in rainy weather, 
 
 When Carron Fall raised up its voice in wrath : — 
 
 All these unrolled in mental panorama, 
 
 There, by the Millhaugh Burn, in that quiet nook; 
 And all the voices of life's double drama 
 
 Were blended with the brawling of the brook. 
 
 Forget me not ! The past is ever present, 
 'Tis ever with us — nay, it is ourselves ! 
 
 Not fugitive, and no wise evanescent — 
 
 Not merely stored in books on History's shelves— 
 
 But throbbing, pulsing, through the veins and tissues 
 (Yesterday's food is muscle of to-day), 
 
 Working in darkness to appointed issues — 
 A noon evolved from out a dawning grey. 
 
 O'er the dead so gently sleeping, 
 
 Wherefore rear the storied stone? 
 But because we would be keeping 
 
 Back from blank Oblivion, 
 For however brief a space — 
 
 In however small a spot — 
 The memory of a name and race, 
 
 Which have been and now are not : 
 
FL O WER ID YLLS. 1 1 
 
 And whose blood, like Abel's, crying 
 From the dust, denies denying, 
 In our ears for ever sighing, 
 " Forget me not! Forget me not!" 
 
 Vain hope ! but not without its compensation j 
 If Love and Joy must share Oblivion's lot, 
 
 Yet not the less shall Grief and Desolation 
 Pass into nothingness and be forgot. 
 
 " Forget us not!" should rather be our exclamation, 
 
 We shall join them, but never they return. 
 Vainer, ah ! vainer, is their aspiration 
 
 Than ours who, many a time and often, yearn 
 To share their stillness and partake their rest, 
 
 Rather than wrestle with the hollow-hearted 
 Schemer and schemes, whose purpose stands confessed, 
 Till, sick of life, we murmur, " Blest, oh, blest, 
 
 The lot of those who lie among the Old Departed!" 
 
 "Forget me not!" ah, strong but foolish yearning ! 
 
 Outcome and end of this fond egotism of ours. 
 Does Earth remember at the Spring's returning 
 
 Last year's fallen leaves — last year's departed 
 flowers? 
 
12 FLOWER IDYLLS. 
 
 NO. III. — THE TULIP. 
 
 " Whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but 
 
 Trudging along, my stick and I, 
 On the summer pathway, hot and dry, 
 Between grey hedges, all bedight 
 With a powder of road-dust, like a blight ;— 
 A dirty green and a dirty white 
 Blended, until the aching sight, 
 Weary of hedgerow and weary of road, 
 Looked up to the pitiless, blue, and broad 
 Expanse of sky, with glare o'erflowed ! — 
 And felt relief, as sometimes flows 
 From flying from petty griefs to those 
 Whose very weight of mastering woes 
 Deadens and numbs all meaner throes 
 
 Under an overmastering load — 
 All at once a short, quick turning 
 Brought me, without hint or warning, 
 Sudden as a tropic morning, 
 Unforeseen by me unknowing, 
 Where a Tulip Bed was glowing. 
 
 With a glad surprise prevailing, 
 O'er the painted rustic paling 
 Leaned I, eager-eyed, and hailing 
 
FLOWER IDYLLS. 13 
 
 Beauty's very self and presence 
 In the shimmering iridescence. 
 Through the dainty lattice fretwork 
 (Delicate as fairy network), 
 Fringed round with an emerald border, 
 Level, with the scythe's late traces, 
 Burning in the sunlight's ardour — 
 Bowing to the wind's embraces — 
 Grew the Tulips, in emblazure, 
 Crimson, purple, golden, azure. 
 
 In the west breeze, swaying, tossing, 
 Bending, interlaced, and crossing, 
 Showing, at each shift and slope, 
 More tints than the kaleidoscope, 
 While the leaves and stems were seen 
 Toning in a tender green, 
 The ripple kept on pulsing, flushing, 
 
 Change and motion all incessant — 
 Amethystine-violet blending 
 With the ruby's blood-red blushing — 
 Sapphire's vivid gleam contending 
 
 With the opal iridescent. 
 Burning, gleaming, shifting, quivering — 
 On the emerald background shivering, 
 Danced the streaks — now bright — now duller — 
 As the wavering wealth of colour 
 
14 FLOWER IDYLLS. 
 
 Moved, as moves a maiden's tresses, 
 In the west wind's warm caresses, 
 When it woos them, in its ardour, 
 Into daintiest disorder. 
 
 With the eye to overflowing 
 
 Filled with beauty, flushed and glowing, 
 
 With the soul bedazed — entranced — 
 
 In the splendour there that glanced, 
 
 I stood gazing, with no heed on 
 
 Aught, save this small glimpse of Eden — 
 
 Till the sense's self-compulsion 
 
 Wrought a suddenest revulsion — 
 
 Till the feeling's very excess 
 
 Dulled itself and died full-sated, 
 Like an appetite whose press 
 
 Fails before a wish o'errated. 
 " Faugh," said I, " the illusion 's gone ! " 
 And turning set me to depart ; 
 " O Tulip, eye-server, eye-pleaser alone, 
 Scentless art thou, and black in the heart." 
 
 Flaunt up, gaudy Delilah of flowers, 
 Daintily symbol the soul of the age — 
 The glitter and glare of this time of ours, 
 With its Mammon-worship and golden rage. 
 The Pharisee's shibboleth has grown stale — 
 " Stand aside, I am holier than thou." 
 
FLOWER IDYLLS. 15 
 
 Vae Victis — with gold in the other scale, 
 
 'Tis " Stand aside, I am richer " — now. 
 
 The Bible is put on the upper shelf, 
 
 The bank-book takes its place in the heart ; 
 
 Men " make themselves," and worship that self, 
 
 And show rules alike in the church and the mart. 
 
 Trample the violet under foot — 
 
 It only emblems modest worth : 
 
 The pure white lilies uproot — uproot — 
 
 They merely crowd and cumber our earth : 
 
 The care of the age is not for these, 
 
 The scentless tulip-beds better please — 
 
 Tinsel and gaud, and gold and blood, 
 
 Fair-seeming lies and hypocrisies, 
 
 Sanctified sin and painted mud — 
 
 These be thy gods, O Israel, now \ 
 
 Bow to them, Mammonish worldlings, bow ! 
 
 But not for ever. How long, how long, 
 
 Shall we bear the rule of the gilded wrong ? 
 
 Bring forth, O Asked of God, thy sword, 
 
 And hew this Agag before the Lord ! 
 
AN APOCALYPSIS. 
 
 " Verum ego non tarn aliis legem ponam, quam legem vobis meae propriae 
 mentis exponam : quam qui probaverit, teneat : cui non placuerit, abjeciat." 
 —Petrarch, De Vita Solitaria, lib. i., tract iv., c. 4. 
 
 Closer and nearer still, Annie ! closer and nearer still ! 
 See, the twilight sky grows greyer, and the twilight air 
 
 grows chill, 
 And the fir-wood lies as black as death in the shadow 
 
 of the hill. 
 
 It is the holy time of earth, and softly everywhere 
 The baptism of the gentle dew hallows the scented air, 
 And the lilies stoop their stately heads as if they bent 
 
 in prayer : 
 Straight up above through a jagged cleft is a belt of 
 
 intensest blue, 
 An angel's path, besprinkled with a bashful star or two; 
 And we are alone in the garden — alone, love — I and 
 
 you. 
 
AN APO CAL YPSIS. 1 7 
 
 Closer and nearer yet, Annie ! closer and nearer 
 
 yet! 
 My hair is flecked with grey, darling ! yours is black 
 
 as jet; 
 My face is somewhat sadly stern — the lines are firm 
 
 and set ; 
 While yours is fresh as a rosebud, with the dews of 
 
 morning wet : 
 And your heart is full and joyous as the May-day 
 
 song of birds ; 
 Yet your trustful eyes have said, and your low- 
 whispered words, 
 That you love me, darling — love me ! though sad and 
 
 worn and grey ; 
 And the old church chimes to-morrow morn ring out 
 
 our marriage-day ! 
 
 Let us sit down here, Annie — here, under the bee- 
 loved lime, 
 
 While I tell an old, old story — told for the thousandth 
 time. 
 
 Many a day ago, Annie, by the grey, hungry sea, 
 There was an ivied cottage under a sycamore tree, 
 With a dainty-latticed porch and a quaint old pointed 
 
 roof; 
 And I saw it — and all in it — through a veil of fairy- 
 woof. 
 
1 8 AN APOCAL YPSIS. 
 
 To idle eyes 'twas but a cottage by the old brown 
 
 sea-strand ; 
 But to me it was haloed with the light of the Elfin land, 
 For a potent witch lived in it — a lady, young and fair, 
 With the starlight prisoned in her eyes, and the sun- 
 beams in her hair. 
 
 Why linger ? we were much together (nay, darling, do 
 not start) j 
 
 I loved her — yes, yes, Annie ! I loved her with all 
 my heart ! 
 
 I was faint with the thirst of love —like Moor, mirage- 
 beguiled ; 
 
 It was many a day long since, love ! and my heart 
 was foolish and wild — 
 
 Many a day long since, Annie; when you were but a child. 
 
 She was older by two summers, but her light and joy- 
 ous tone 
 
 Made the years that had flown o'er her seem less than 
 were my own ; 
 
 For I was always somewhat sad, and though the brow 
 be smooth, 
 
 The irk of thought will overveil in part the bloom of 
 youth. 
 
 And we were much together ; and she knew of my love, 
 
 For a thousand things can speak, though the shy lips 
 will not move. 
 
AN APOCALYPSIS. 19 
 
 And many a nameless token seemed confirmation 
 
 plain, 
 That if I dared to dream of her my dreaming was not 
 
 vain. 
 Yes, love ! I thought — woe's me ! I thought that I 
 
 was loved again ! 
 
 Closer, darling ! closer to me. What did the lady 
 
 care, 
 So that her pride might be fed fat, what sorrow I 
 
 should bear? 
 She played with my heart as the wind with the tangles 
 
 of your hair ; 
 But I lay lapped in my love-lulled sleep — in my Delilah 
 
 dream — 
 Holding yesterday as naught, to-morrow of small 
 
 esteem, 
 So that to-day the sky was bright, over love's summer 
 
 stream ! 
 
 But I awoke one day, darling ! and it was in this 
 wise — 
 
 The scene has many a time since then sprung up be- 
 fore my eyes — 
 
 At the summer eventide, as wont, I went to be with 
 her, 
 
 And the cottage was alive with a murmur and a 
 stir: 
 
20 AN APOCAL YPSIS. 
 
 At the door stood little Helen, the lady's blue-eyed 
 
 sister ; 
 We were great friends — the child and I — and, bending 
 
 down, I kissed her. 
 "That's two to-day" she lisped — "one from Frank 
 
 and one from you ; 
 I shall be rich in kisses soon ; come into the parlour 
 
 —do. 
 They're all in there — Frank and them all." I passed 
 
 into the room, 
 And through my heart there shot a chill, and o'er my 
 
 eyes a gloom ; 
 And the sunshine lost its glory, and the summer lost 
 
 its bloom. 
 
 This was her sailor-lover — abroad for many a day. 
 They had been troth-plighted, Annie ! before he went 
 
 away; 
 Yet, with this bond upon her, the coquette's black, 
 
 hollow heart 
 Could feign the blush and smile of love with a cool, 
 
 accursed art — 
 Could lure the trusting soul o'er a false and fatal track, 
 And wake a music in my breast she ne'er could echo 
 
 back. 
 And she was to be his bride, love ! ere many days 
 
 were o'er — 
 For it was not long at a time that he could stay ashore. 
 
AN APOCAL YPSIS. 21 
 
 The very eve before he came, under the starlight cool, 
 We walked in the whispering oak-shade, and my soul 
 
 of souls was full 
 With a passionate adoration and a fond and credulous 
 
 trust ; 
 Hope's upward-pointing wings dreamed naught of the 
 
 defiling dust. 
 Soft-voiced was the lady and gracious. We parted 
 
 with a kiss ; 
 But not a word of the morrow's comer — never a word 
 
 of this! 
 I sat there, marble-masked in face that not a line could 
 
 swerve, 
 With a lazy lip-smile, and a chain upon each quivering 
 
 nerve. 
 I bade the bridegroom welcome gay, with some faint 
 
 touch of ruth — 
 I praised the lady's beauty — I praised her faith and truth; 
 I chattered with a careless scorn, and home the words 
 
 were driven 
 In that bland tone which cannot be resented — nor 
 
 forgiven ; 
 And, to the devil in my heart, it was enjoyment rich 
 To catch her half- appealing look, and the quick, con- 
 vulsive twitch 
 That writhed in the corners of her mouth — in all her 
 
 will's despite. 
 I do regret it. Gentleness is ever truest might. 
 
22 AN APOCALYPSIS. 
 
 I was wont to leave them with " Good-night ; " " Good- 
 bye " I bade them now. 
 Smiling, and scoffing, and shaking hands, with an 
 
 ice-cold, ice-smooth brow, 
 Forthfrom the disenchantedland I passed into the night, 
 Where the cold, broad sea lay moaning in the wan 
 
 and ghostly light. 
 My heart was all benumbed, in a transient, pulseless 
 
 sleep, 
 Like the crouching lion's pause ere he takes his deadly 
 
 leap — 
 Voiceless and hushed, and numbed, and still, as it could 
 
 never wake — 
 Still ! ay, as earth is still, till the crashing thunders 
 
 break. 
 
 The loss of accustomed wealth, and the view of present 
 
 death, 
 Will cramp and load the stifled breast till it draw a 
 
 'bated breath ; 
 Yet still the true heart's dauntless will has power 
 
 within itself 
 To front the shadowy terror, and to scorn the vanished 
 
 pelf. 
 Friends part and perish, Annie ! and the heart is 
 
 stricken sore, 
 Yet the empty fountain fills, and the void is void no 
 
 more; 
 
AN APOCALYPSIS. 23 
 
 But when faith is smote to death, and the once all- 
 cloudless sky 
 
 Grows murky with the lethal gloom of the incarnate lie, 
 
 Then a vague and shapeless fear has birth, and a gnaw- 
 ing doubt springs up, 
 
 And each heart's spring is made deadly by deceit's 
 envenomed cup. 
 
 When earth hath lost this primal truth Heaven only can 
 
 redeem. 
 I have no memory of that night save as a hideous dream 
 Of tossings, and groanings, and tears, and sights and 
 
 sounds of dread, 
 And fierce repinings, and mad prayers that I were 
 
 with the dead ; 
 And a horror of the darkness and its visions of affright — 
 Till the day broke in sunshine, and then I cursed the 
 
 light. 
 Yet though nigh wounded unto death, with many an 
 
 aching scar, 
 My soul came forth victorious from the torturing 
 
 heart-war j 
 For the burning love that had been my very life of life, 
 Was thrown in the deadly wrestle of that terrible night's 
 
 strife, 
 And cast aside and spurned by the indomitable will. 
 But though the venomed shaft was drawn, the wound 
 
 kept rankling still. 
 
U AN APOCAL YPSIS. 
 
 The waves rave out their strength and lull, and the 
 mad waves rest again ; 
 
 But the tall ship's thick-ribbed timbers, and her costly 
 stuffs and men 
 
 No more shall find the haven, where the watchers 
 watch in vain. 
 
 A chaos of chafed and shapeless shreds, it strews the 
 watery way — 
 
 Like a veil of horror drawn 'twixt the sea and the con- 
 scious day. 
 
 Haggard, and wan, and leaden-eyed — even of hope 
 
 forlorn — 
 And hope is long and loth to leave the heart in which 
 
 'tis born — 
 I left the place so woful now — an Eden but of late — 
 Borne up by the sustaining strength of that disdainful hate 
 That dares to take the doubtful odds and match itself 
 
 with Fate. 
 
 The days went by, the weary days — a long and laggard 
 
 train ; 
 With little respite from my woe — small healing of my 
 
 pain; 
 For I sought the healing in myself — in myself I placed 
 
 the trust ; 
 But vain the hope ; and vain the help sought from the 
 
 son of dust. 
 
AN APOCAL YPSIS. 25 
 
 I tound his loudliest-vaunted goods but tawdry, 
 
 tinselled ills ; 
 Till, from the grim valley of death, Hooked up to the hills 
 Whence the aid cometh ; and it came, and the long 
 
 war was o'er ; 
 Then peace fell on the vexing thoughts, and balm on 
 
 the aching sore. 
 
 And not alone the inner life was soothed and harmonised ; 
 
 But earth resumed the pristine bloom that once 
 emparadised ; 
 
 And a new sense of beauty, and music, and delight 
 
 Stirred through my soul, like the first breathings of the 
 young spring's might ; 
 
 And the rapture of happy tears could visit the long- 
 stern eyes, 
 
 As they greeted the voice and view of waters, and 
 fields, and skies. 
 
 In my heart upsprung the flower of love, and blossomed 
 fair anew ; 
 
 And a fresh hope nursed it, and baptized it with its 
 holiest dew — 
 
 For, in the flush of the flower-time, darling ! I met with you. 
 
 The outward grace of form and face, and your pure 
 
 soul's dear worth, 
 Are blended like the promised bridal of the heavens 
 
 and earth, 
 
26 AN APOCAL YPSIS. 
 
 Where heaven stoops lovingly to earth and earth soars 
 up to heaven. 
 
 " Have I forgiven the lady ? " 
 
 Yes j as I hope to be forgiven. 
 
 The perfect love that casts out fear casts out all hatred 
 too. 
 
 If I bore hate to aught on earth I could not so love you. 
 
 To be most just and wisest, Heaven doth not seek alone, 
 
 But wills and works so that our souls shall be con- 
 strained to own 
 
 That it is most just and wisest. Our path is mercy- 
 strewn ! 
 
 The clouds that move our peevish gall to such repin- 
 ings vain 
 
 Are treasure-houses to upstore the soft and gracious 
 rain; 
 
 And the chill that falls at evening, when the sultry day 
 is through, 
 
 Solaces all the heat-faint earth with the softness- 
 breathing dew. 
 
 Look up to the heavens, Annie ! The clouds' em- 
 battled host, 
 
 Where is it now ? On the far verge of the horizon lost ; 
 
 And the broad unwrinkled brow of the calm old 
 solemn night, 
 
 With its ineffable depth, and serenity, and might, 
 
 Is softened into tenderness by the young moon's light ; 
 
AN APOCALYPSIS. 
 
 27 
 
 And the stars smile down their blessing on the happy, 
 
 dreaming flowers, 
 And brightest of all is the lover's star — be the fair 
 
 omen ours 
 
AN ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO 
 THOMAS BROWN, Esq. 
 
 And you're back to Bankier, 
 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown, 
 
 With your lines and your rod and such gear, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 For a trout you would fish ; 
 
 Faith, we know that's the wish 
 
 That gives us your presence out here, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 Your whiskers are grown, 
 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown ; 
 
 And you're not just so barefaced, I own, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 And your velvet skull-cap 
 
 Is still sporting its nap — 
 
 People take their nap off you alone, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
ADDRESS TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ. 29 
 
 And you'll fish, and you'll fish, 
 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown ; 
 
 And that luck may ensue we all wish, 
 Tom Brown; 
 
 For a struggle so hard 
 
 Sure deserves some reward. 
 
 May you never want meat in your dish, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 But some folk we see, 
 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown, 
 As perhaps you yourself may be, 
 
 Tom Brown, 
 And the trout which you look, 
 May be caught " with a hook " 
 With which real anglers do not agree, 
 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 But go in and win, 
 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown ; 
 You're not over thin in the skin, 
 
 Tom Brown; 
 You can stand a good rub — 
 I don't mean in the tub — 
 As long as folk keep off the tin, 
 
 Tom Brown. 
 
30 ADDRESS TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ. 
 
 Though a tile should be loose, 
 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown, 
 
 To let every one know that's no use, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 If you'd make it your plan 
 
 To look like a man, 
 
 All the world wouldn't know you're a goose, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 Since the Boards heard your prayers, 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown, 
 
 Give up your sulks and your airs, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 Think the folks that you view 
 
 Are as good just as you, 
 
 And don't laugh every time a cat stares, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 Watch your health, d'ye see, 
 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown ; 
 
 Just think what a loss you would be, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 How the world would get on 
 
 If you should be gone 
 
 Is a question that quite staggers me, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
ADDRESS TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ. 31 
 
 There's a spec, be it known, 
 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown, 
 
 When a profit immense could be shown, 
 Tom Brown, 
 
 To buy you in a trice 
 
 At other folk's price, 
 
 And sell you again at your own, 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 The men'll be glad, 
 
 Tom Brown, Tom Brown ; 
 A glass or two now can be had, 
 
 Tom Brown. 
 You're the broth of a boy, 
 You like to see joy; 
 They'll be drinking your health like mad, 
 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 TO A COQUETTE. 
 
 Why should I waste my heart on one 
 Who will not waste one thought on me ; 
 The lamp of Love is not the sun 
 To give out heat unceasingly; 
 'Twill fail at length and cease to burn, 
 If it can meet with no return. 
 
32 TO A COQUETTE. 
 
 But trimmed by Hope, its gentle light 
 How brightly warm — how warmly tender, 
 Illumining our sorrow's night 
 With an overwhelming flush of splendour j 
 Till, like heaven's sunshine, it makes bright 
 All nature with its blessed light. 
 
 Oh, what is heaven without a star, 
 And what is life if love be wanting ? 
 And what can love be if there are 
 No gentle hopes to ease its panting ? 
 And what hope is there left to me 
 If that my love be scorned by thee ? 
 
 But, oh, this chilling weight of fear 
 Which will not leave me, will not leave me ; 
 And those false hopes I cherished dear, 
 Which flattered only to deceive me ; 
 And then the bitter, bitter pain 
 Of wrenching back my heart again. 
 
 Back, back again, before too late, 
 With one deep struggle to be free ; 
 But I have strength to meet my fate, 
 How dark soe'er that fate may be. 
 The keenest grief, the deepest scorn, 
 Is conquered when it's bravely borne. 
 
TO STELLA. 33 
 
 Oh thou who shinest too fatally fair, 
 Brightest, and best, and only dearest, 
 Canst thou be moved by fondest prayer ? 
 Hear me and pity when thou hearest — 
 Either learn to love like me, 
 Or teach me to charm like thee. 
 
 TO STELLA. 
 
 I looked on a fountain 
 Which laughed up all brightly, 
 And flushed in the soft wind 
 That rippled it lightly ; 
 And it smiled in the sunshine 
 
 In dimples of gold, 
 But beneath — its dark waters 
 
 Lay sullen and cold. 
 
 I look on thy fair face 
 
 When smiles on it hover, 
 
 And a warm lustre lights up 
 
 Eyes, cheeks, lips, all over ; 
 
 But, ah ! like the fountain, 
 
 Amid this bright glow, 
 
 The hard heart, untouched, is 
 
 As cold as the snow. 
 c 
 
34 BRIDAL-CAKE DREAM. 
 
 BRIDAL-CAKE DREAM. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Miss Shaw was wed on Hogmanay, 
 And to Bankier were brought away 
 Some bits of cake to dream upon, 
 Of which I, J. B. C, got one. 
 Before I went to bed, with care 
 I placed it, as instructed, there, 
 Under the pillows buried deep, 
 Then tumbled in and fell asleep. 
 
 THE DREAM. 
 
 'Twas summer eve — the moon was up 
 
 In the cloudless vault of blue, 
 And every flower had filled its cup 
 
 With the soft and silvery dew ; 
 All clear and balmy was the air 
 And I was in a garden fair, 
 Decked out in summer's gayest glory ; 
 So fair a place I well can deem 
 Was never seen — even in a dream, 
 Nor read of in a fairy story. 
 I saw a light and gay alcove 
 With honeysuckle round it curled, 
 And there I sat, with her I love, 
 The dearest girl in all the world. 
 
BRIDAL-CAKE DREAM, 35 
 
 I spoke of the gentle star of eve 
 
 With its brethren of the skies, 
 But the only stars I thought of then 
 
 Were her beautiful violet eyes. 
 Little cared I for the lustrous sky 
 
 With its myriad fires so fair, 
 When I looked into her angel face, 
 
 For all my heaven lay there. 
 
 Of all the flowers in that garden close 
 
 But one had power to please, 
 Neither lady lily nor queenly rose, 
 
 But the quiet heartsease ; 
 And she alone, of all the world, 
 
 Could place it in my breast, 
 That my cares and doubts might flee away 
 
 And my bosom be at rest. 
 
 Flame for a time may hide and smoulder, 
 
 And love may show no sign ; 
 But it must out — so growing bolder 
 
 I took her little hands in mine ; 
 Oh ! how it thrilled, that gentle touch — 
 With accents low and trembling much, 
 
 My tale of love I told her. 
 
 " My thoughts towards thine image move 
 A strong and fervid tide of love, 
 
M THE DEAD HOPE. 
 
 Resistless as a mighty river, 
 Yesterday — to-day — for ever. 
 Cares and sorrows cannot harm me, 
 Love, if thy soft voice but charm me. 
 Ah ! to hear my prayer incline — 
 Restore not this stolen heart of mine ; 
 Keep it still, but give me thine." 
 
 Before her answer could be spoken, 
 The dream had fled — the spell was broken. 
 How long, alas ! must I now wait 
 Before her lips must seal my fate ? 
 
 THE DEAD HOPE. 
 
 Be still ! be still ! though thou shouldst break, 
 Thou fond and foolish heart of mine j 
 Ache if thou must — but see thou make 
 Never a sign. 
 
 Short space ago, strong-winged and rich 
 In fairies, came a smiling Hope, 
 Pinioned to reach the highest pitch 
 Of heaven's cope. 
 
MAGGIE, DARLING. 37 
 
 But in one hour its wings were torn, 
 One hour its rainbow tints had fled ; 
 At night full flushed with life, at morn 
 'Twas cold and dead. 
 
 MAGGIE, DARLING. 
 
 Could the heart, when hope has perished, 
 
 Bid remembrance also vanish; 
 Could love's golden dreams, long cherished, 
 
 Pass away with what they banish ; 
 Then might this vexed heart, forgetting 
 
 All the mastery of love's spell, 
 Sigh cut gently, scarce regretting, 
 
 Maggie, darling ! fare thee well ! 
 
 But when hope is doomed to languish, 
 
 Memory takes a tyrant's power, 
 And imparts a double anguish 
 
 To our sorrow's saddest hour. 
 Be these trembling lips the token 
 
 Of a pang no words can tell, 
 As I murmur now, heart broken, 
 
 Maggie, darling ! fare thee well ! 
 
38 BRIGHT EYES. 
 
 Fare thee well! our paths may sever, 
 
 But my heart must dwell with thee ; 
 'Twould be now a vain endeavour 
 
 Did I call it back to me ; 
 Tis not mine— nor would it hearken ; 
 
 Since this sorrow o'er me fell, 
 Day by day the shadows darken — 
 
 Maggie, darling ! fare thee well ! 
 
 BRIGHT EYES. 
 
 t 
 In the solemn depths of the still night skies, 
 
 The stars — those trembling angel-eyes — 
 
 In silence and splendour 
 
 Glimmer aloft, 
 Serenely and tender, 
 
 With glow so soft. 
 But brighter and dearer, 
 Serener and clearer, 
 Tho' only of mortal birth, 
 Are thy beautiful eyes — 
 Thy love-lit eyes — 
 Those dearer stars of earth. 
 
SAD THOUGHTS. 39 
 
 BRIDAL SONG. 
 
 Yes ! deck her out in her bridal robes, 
 
 Twine a wreath in her raven hair, 
 And let her waist with a zone be braced 
 
 Of emeralds rich and rare ; 
 Let the diamond gleam on her snowy brow, 
 
 Though her eyes the gems eclipse, 
 And rubies deck her swanlike neck — 
 
 They are pale beside her lips. 
 
 SAD THOUGHTS. 
 
 The harvest-time is past, and the ripe sheaves 
 Are in the barnyard, bound with thatch and rope, 
 And now the green is passing from the leaves 
 Like the illusion from a dying hope. 
 No more the swallows twitter in the eaves, 
 Or pierce with giddy flight the skies' blue cope ; 
 And the winds sigh about as broken-hearted, 
 Lamenting summer's beauty, all departed ! 
 
 Yet still the earth is glorious, and the heaven 
 Lovely beyond all other lovelinesses ; 
 And to the sad and silent stars is given 
 A sympathetic effluence, that impresses 
 
40 SAD THOUGHTS. 
 
 The weary heart — all sorrow-scorched and riven, 
 Like the remembrance of love's first caresses, 
 Which haunt the soul's most secret caves for years, 
 And fill the heavy eyes with unsought tears. 
 
 Friends fail and hopes are shattered, and the eyes 
 That once made joy and sunshine in our heart 
 Forget their wonted welcome-glance, and ties 
 Once deemed indissoluble burst and part ; 
 But these are matters for no great surprise, 
 'Tis but the oft-played trick of the world's art ; 
 So let these vain regrets seek the profound 
 Abyss of old Oblivion. Look around. 
 
 This world of ours, methinks, is like a cat : 
 
 So with it — that is — stroke her with the hair, 
 
 Then things go all serenely and quite pat, 
 
 Pussy pur-purs and holds her back quite fair — 
 
 The world proclaims you " charming," and all that ; 
 
 But stroke her up the other way, and dare 
 
 Think for yourself, then comes the rub, Miss Tab gets 
 
 brisker, 
 Out come the talons and up curls the whisker. 
 
BIRTHDAY FANCY. 
 
 TO ISABELLA CLARK. 
 
 Lonely sitting — lonely sitting — 
 
 Though 'tis long since midnight tolled, 
 In before me there came flitting 
 
 Dreams and fancies manifold. 
 Thoughts upon the present tending, 
 In their whirling mixed and blending 
 With fond memories — sunny memories 
 
 Of the dear, done days of old ; 
 And upon me comes a chiming 
 Fit of strange fantastic rhyming, 
 
 Whims of fancies grand and gay, 
 And I weave me 
 Ere they leave 
 
 One slight, fragile wreath of rhyme, 
 
 Welcoming the happy time 
 
 That brings round thy natal day. 
 
42 BIR THDA Y FANCY. 
 
 Round, and still round, in ceaseless course advancing, 
 The seasons circle, with unwearied wing, 
 
 Gay summer into golden autumn glancing, 
 And weary winter melting into spring. 
 
 Yes ! spring hath wakened earth anew, 
 Bringing birthdays twenty-two ; 
 And your sky is still of blue — 
 Not a cloud at twenty-two — 
 With less of grief or sorrow, few 
 Ever number twenty-two. 
 So give thanks where thanks are due, 
 That you're safe at twenty-two. 
 Years all bright in golden hue, 
 Onward stretch from twenty-two. 
 Now I place before your view, 
 Some remarks for twenty-two : 
 Be not haughty lest you rue, 
 When you're long past twenty-two. 
 Think of those at Garngrew — 
 They were once but twenty-two ; 
 So you see how people do, 
 Who lose time at twenty-two. 
 Folk must drink just as they brew — 
 Take the hint at twenty-two. 
 
 May the year that's a comer 
 Be one long glad summer 
 
BIRTHDA Y FANCY. 43 
 
 Laden with blessings for thee and for thine; 
 
 Good temper and health, 
 
 Believe me, is wealth 
 That surpasses the treasures of earth's richest mine. 
 
 All good luck attend thee, 
 
 Good wishes I send thee, 
 May they have the good fortune to please — 
 They are these : 
 May your gowns always fit, 
 May your gloves never split, 
 May your tea always draw, 
 May your will be a law, 
 May your foot never trip, 
 May your garters ne'er slip, 
 May you ne'er take the huff, 
 May you never talk " buff," 
 May your chimney ne'er smoke, 
 May you ne'er want your joke, 
 May corns spare your toes, 
 May no frost bite your nose, 
 May your tooth ache no more, 
 May sweethearts be galore, 
 May you never catch cold, 
 May your heart ne'er grow old, 
 May your bread ne'er be burned, 
 May your milk ne'er be turned, 
 And whatever comes about, 
 May we never fall out. 
 
44 BIRTHDA Y FANC K 
 
 I'll just add one more, 
 To make out the score, 
 And close this long spell 
 With just one remark — 
 May you long be a belle, 
 But not long Bell Clark ! 
 
 BIRTHDAY FANCY. 
 
 TO MISS CLARK. 
 
 Mingling soft memories of years fled for aye 
 And golden hopes of happy ones in store, 
 Returning summer sends its first-born, May, 
 Young and gay, flushed with sunshine, to out-pour 
 Choice blessings, and to hail thee twenty-four ; 
 Like milestones meeting the wayfarer's sight, 
 And these returning birthdays evermore 
 Reminding us of time's unpausing flight, 
 Keeping for ever on, alike in gloom or light. 
 
 And meet it is that Summer's darling should 
 Thus bring around thy birthday — thou art now 
 In the first flush of youthful womanhood ; 
 The May-time of thy life — upon thy brow 
 
BIR THDA Y FANC Y 45 
 
 Time's wasting finger hath not pressed yet — thou 
 Hast never known the deeper griefs which vary 
 The natural current of the soul, and bow 
 The loftiest hopes to dust. May each kind fairy 
 Shield thee from this sad knowledge all the life-long May. 
 
 It is not wholly fable 
 What these olden legends tell 
 Of words which, understood aright, 
 Were gifted with the hidden might 
 Of magic charm and spell. 
 Yes ; there are names, themselves most dear, 
 
 Yet dearer from associations, 
 Which, when they fall upon the ear 
 Evoke thoughts, airy forms as clear 
 
 As olden wizard's incantations. 
 There are dreams which will fly not, 
 There are hopes which will die not, 
 There are golden memories which will never pass away; 
 There are names which, when spoken, 
 Leave an impress and a token 
 On the heart which must be broken 
 Ere their music and their magic can decay. 
 
 Mary ! Mary ! 
 
 I but name the word, 
 As 'twere the waving of a fairy 
 
 Wand — the dwellers in the past are stirred, 
 
46 BIR THDA Y FANCY. 
 
 And, like shadows to the dreaming 
 Fancy, they come round me streaming, 
 With a rustling and a flutter, 
 And sad, silent eyes, which utter 
 More than tongue can say in its wildest vagaries. 
 Moving in an atmosphere 
 Of heart memories, calm and clear, 
 Come the phantoms of the Maries. 
 
 The Virgin-mother and the Magdalene, 
 
 With her who sought that her two sons should sit, 
 
 One on each hand, and the great Lord between; 
 
 And she who found that loveliness and wit 
 
 Bring but disaster — Scotland's beauteous queen, 
 
 Murdered to please a vixen's jealous fit ; 
 
 And Mary Chaworth — cause of Byron's sighs — 
 
 With many more, glide in before my eyes. 
 
 Away ! away ! I linger not with them ; 
 My soul is with the present and with thee ; 
 And thy beloved name, like a rich gem, 
 I would set round with gentlest poesy. 
 And if it were not that the days are gone 
 When fairies walked the earth or peopled air, 
 I'd call each airy tribe from its own zone 
 To tend and guard thee with incessant care. 
 
 If they dwelt but with us 
 
 I would summon them thus : 
 
BIR THDA Y FANC K 47 
 
 INCANTATION SONG. 
 
 Dwellers in the viewless blast, 
 Over you the spell is cast, 
 Ye who shun the light of day- 
 Loving more night's solemn ray, 
 Villa, duende, elf, and fay, 
 By the name which none may utter, 
 By the awful spell I mutter, 
 Hasten while you hasten may. 
 
 From the dim land of dreams — 
 From the palace of sleep — 
 From the woods and the streams — 
 From the coves of the deep — 
 From the sloping sunbeams 
 Where your revels ye keep, 
 In whose bath of hot gleams 
 Your fine essence ye steep — 
 From the clouds of the skies — 
 From the mists of the earth, 
 Whence the death-vapours rise, 
 And disease hath its birth — 
 From the marsh — from the fen — 
 From the dwellings of men — 
 I have called on you once, and I call you again. 
 
48 BIRTHDA Y FANC Y 
 
 Sprites of earth, sprites of air — 
 Sprites of water and fire — 
 Ye who love the night's gloom — ye who love the day's 
 glare — 
 
 Come with a fleetness outspeeding desire, 
 Each and all, while you may, 
 Come away. 
 
 To each separate gentle fairy 
 Thus I give strict charge and order 
 To attend this darling Mary, 
 Evermore to help and guard her. 
 
 Elves who in the cups of flowers 
 Waste the scented summer hours, 
 Leave forsaken bud and bloom, 
 And in her features find a home ; 
 Ye who love the lily's cup, 
 To her forehead clamber up, 
 Or with circled wreathings deck 
 The whiteness of her shapely neck ; 
 Ye who lurk in the deep bosom 
 Of the well-veiled red-rose blossom, 
 On her ruddy lips may seek 
 A dwelling-place, and in her cheek 
 When roses red and white are blending, 
 Each for victory contending 
 In a contest never ending. 
 
BIR THDA Y FANCY. 49 
 
 Gentler fairy elves who lie 
 
 In the odorous secrecy 
 
 Of the blue-veined violet's eye, 
 
 In her perfumed breath from hence 
 
 Ever be your residence. 
 
 Gnomes who follow Vulcan's trade 
 
 In the mountain's deep recesses, 
 
 People henceforth every braid 
 
 Of her waving nut-brown tresses ; 
 
 Forging every ringlet rare 
 
 Into fetters to ensnare, 
 
 And to keep that none deliver 
 
 Her lovers' hearts enchained for ever. 
 
 Subtler spirits of the fire, 
 Seek her eyes and then enkindle 
 The lustrous light of love's desire, 
 Nor let grow faint and dwindle 
 With the chilling touch of sorrow, 
 But let every new to-morrow 
 Light those orbs up with a finer 
 Lustre, rarer and diviner. 
 Adieu ! fond fancies of the olden days ; 
 Earth would be most melancholy 
 Without some touch of faith and folly. 
 These are the spirits that make childhood's time so 
 
 gay- 
 
50 JANUARY i, 1872. 
 
 If prayers have power — if fondest wishes bring 
 Accomplishment of their desire, thy gentle head 
 Shall be encircled with a happy ring 
 Of the most wished-for blessings earth has bred. 
 All gentlest thoughts shall ever light on thee, 
 All golden fancies of extremest scope, 
 And joys more dear than love — if such there be- 
 And softest memory and sunniest hope. 
 May smiles ripple o'er 
 Your face, as of yore — 
 Plenty and yet more plenty 
 Multiplied by four and twenty. 
 
 JANUARY 1, 1872. 
 
 RABELAIS — SMITH LOQUITUR. 
 
 On the threshold of the year, 
 
 Look before and after : 
 Weigh the woe that drew the tear — 
 
 The joy that woke the laughter. 
 From the altered standpoint view, 
 
 Intermingling thorough, 
 Tears and smiles transformed anew, 
 
 Transposing joy and sorrow; 
 
JANUARY i, 1872. 51 
 
 Borrowing each the other's hue — 
 
 Which was joy? which sorrow? • 
 
 On the threshold of the year, 
 
 Look before and after : 
 Weigh the woe will draw the tear — 
 
 The joy will wake the laughter. 
 Credit neither sunny hope, 
 
 Nor despondent warning, 
 In the life-kaleidoscope 
 
 Who'll predict — ere turning — 
 How the prisms will shift and slope, 
 
 Or their tints be burning. 
 
 On the threshold of the year, 
 
 Ponder well the present : 
 Griefs are no enduring gear, 
 
 Joys are evanescent ; 
 Flood is not more sure than ebb, 
 
 Till the skies be cloven — 
 Woof and warp to form the web 
 
 Must be interwoven, 
 Whether shroud into the web, 
 
 Or bridal-robe, be woven. 
 
 Day and night make up the year — 
 
 Joy and grief its hist'ry; 
 Its woof a smile, its warp a tear — 
 
 Their web life's open myst'ry. 
 
RE THE. 
 
 Take that world the world presents ; 
 
 Neither hell nor heaven — 
 Not all Carnivals nor Lents : 
 
 Smooth now — now uneven — 
 Trust the chapter of events : 
 
 Act as to thee given. 
 
 RETHE. 
 
 The summer snow lay thick upon the hedges, 
 Breathing the hawthorn's essence out in musk ; 
 The timid ash-bud, from its cloven edges, 
 Shot out an emerald fringe round each grey husk; 
 The chestnut trees were brave with creamy cones; 
 The light-green beechfrond foiled the last year's brown; 
 And from the braeface, ranged in golden zones, 
 The blossomed broom upon the firth looked down, 
 And Lily, with clasped hands and quick-drawn breath, 
 Paced up and down the garden-paths of Rethe. 
 
 The merle piped bravely from the birchen spray, 
 The blackbird carolled from the laurel bush, 
 The bee boomed past on its unswerving way, 
 And from the neighbouring glen, in ceaseless gush, 
 
RETHE. 53 
 
 The hidden burn sent up its happy din ; 
 The swallows twittered round the ivied eaves, 
 The wind of dawn across the firth came in, 
 And stirred the slumbers of the dreaming leaves — 
 And tossed the hair and blended with the breath 
 Of Lily, in the garden-paths of Rethe. 
 
 The freshness of the dawn and of the spring 
 
 Clothed with a dewy veil the earth and sky ; 
 
 And tender dreams of hope were whispering 
 
 In Lily's heart, in happy sympathy; 
 
 And every now and then her steps were drawn 
 
 To a green mound that stood near, round and bold, 
 
 Whence she could see, under the sky of dawn, 
 
 The broad bright firth, in belts of blue and gold, 
 
 And wishful thoughts in wishful words found breath, 
 
 And Lily murmured on the mound of Rethe : 
 
 " Blow out, O wind, from the welcome west ! 
 
 O'er loch, and fell, and heather — 
 Blow out, O wind, my heart loves best, 
 
 And bring its summer weather. 
 Fill out his sails who loves me best — 
 
 Who brings my summer weather; 
 Come, welcome wind, from the happy west — 
 
 You and my love, together ! 
 
54 RETHE. 
 
 " Blow out, O wind, from the golden east ! 
 
 The ship that bears my lover j 
 Its voyage must now have well-nigh ceased — 
 
 O bring him quickly over ! 
 My heart went with him, west or east, 
 
 The weary world all over ; 
 His faith has never failed nor ceased, 
 
 Though far and wide a rover. 
 
 " O welcome wind, blow fair and free — 
 
 From what point of the heaven 
 I know not — care not — so he be 
 
 In safety homeward driven — 
 I know not — care not — east or west, 
 
 Or north or south, if given 
 The favouring wind that fits him best, 
 
 From any point of heaven." 
 
 And not long after, in the even-tide, 
 
 Sweet Lily paced the garden-paths of Rethe, 
 
 And listened, breathless, while he, by her side, 
 
 Told of the shipwreck, and the imminent death, 
 
 In the stern struggle with the wind and wave — 
 
 And the more terrible clutch of famine's grip, 
 
 Which held a lurid welcome o'er the grave — 
 
 And last, the rescue by the homebound ship — 
 
 And Lily fancied that the chill of death 
 
 Shot, with the gloaming, through the woods of Rethe. 
 
LONG AGO. 55 
 
 LONG AGO. 
 
 In youth's happy El Dorado, 
 
 In the golden long ago, 
 Ere griefs gloom, or sorrow's shadow, 
 
 Darkling, dimmed life's sunny flow; 
 In hope's land of light and lustre, 
 Where each flower o'erhangs a cluster 
 
 Of the purple grapes of love ; 
 In the land where, self-enchanted, 
 Dreams take breath, and, beauty-haunted, 
 
 We can neither look nor move 
 Without seeing through the far light, 
 
 Flashed from fancy's fevered glow, 
 Fairer shapes than sun or starlight 
 
 Gives our older eyes to know: — 
 In this happy El Dorado, 
 In this land without a shadow, 
 
 Once we lived, ah ! long ago, 
 In the far-off, misty, olden, 
 
 Golden, misty long ago. 
 
 If at times the fair ideal 
 
 Of the golden long ago 
 Flits before the hymeneal 
 
 Face, whose smile, as seasons flow, 
 
56 LONG AGO. 
 
 Grows more womanly and tender, 
 Soon the nympholeptic splendour 
 
 Fades, as fades the morning dawn, 
 And the rays of truth enshrine her 
 In a lustre far diviner 
 
 Than the idol youth had drawn. 
 Youthful eyes grow dim and dimmer, 
 
 But, lit up with subtler glow, 
 Brighter hers gleam forth and shimmer, 
 
 With a light we trust and know. 
 So the present's loving real, 
 Dims and blurs the fair ideal 
 
 That we dreamt of long ago, 
 In the far-off, misty, olden, 
 
 Golden, misty long ago. 
 
 If at times a brief regretting 
 
 Of the golden long ago 
 Comes upon us, weak, forgetting 
 
 Life's more calmly ordered flow ; 
 Then, anon, the dulled ear catches 
 Noise of pattering feet, and snatches 
 
 Of our children's careless play. 
 Forthwith all old dreams we banish — 
 Forthwith all despondings vanish — 
 
 Life is blest to us to-day. 
 Childish lispings and caressings 
 
 Kindle fresh the heart's warm glow, 
 
SKA DPS CHOICE. 57 
 
 Showing to our eyes our blessings — 
 We are happier than we know j 
 
 So dissolves our weak forgetting, 
 
 So our souls thrill, none regretting 
 How we lived once, long ago, 
 
 In the far-off, misty, olden, 
 Golden, misty long ago. 
 
 SKADI'S CHOICE. 
 
 FROM THE EDDAS. 
 
 Though faint and vigour-wasted from the loss 
 Of Idun's golden apples, high and broad 
 The ^Esir piled the circling fence of flame 
 Round Asgard's bulwarks : and Thiassi's wings 
 Were weary with the long, now flagging flight 
 From furthest Jotunheim : and searing tongues 
 Up from the fire-belt leapt, and sour, grey smoke 
 Soaked through his plumage, and he fell — he fell. 
 The storm of flame out-tempested the rage 
 Of him, the stormiest of the Jotunkind. 
 So burnt Thiassi, on the roaring pile 
 That Thor and Tyr had heaped round high Asgard. 
 
58 SKADVS CHOICE. 
 
 Far off, amid the rocks of Jotunheim, 
 
 Sat Skadi, carding chilly fleece of rime, 
 
 When on some wandering Vanirs' voices came 
 
 The tidings of the Jotun's fiery end. 
 
 Thiassi's daughter rose and took her arms — 
 
 Arrows of sleet, and icy-pointed spear, 
 
 And rime-fringed shield, and sword of frozen fire — 
 
 And bent her way toward the ^Esirland; 
 
 Across the misty spume of many seas — 
 
 Through Svartheim's under-depths — through Noatun- 
 
 And through the scented hollows of Alf heim, 
 
 To holy Hlidskjalf, where the Asa sat — 
 
 Odin himself — the dweller in Gladsheim. 
 
 In full Valhalla — all the ^Esir round — 
 
 She made demand of vengeance ; made demand 
 
 That one of all the many heroes there 
 
 Should battle with her for her father's death. 
 
 Then Bragi smiled and sung, " Fair maid and tall, 
 
 That way will surely end in bale of one, 
 
 Mayhap of both. Were it not better far 
 
 That one of this our noble ^Esir band 
 
 Should wed thyself, and make a good return 
 
 Of living husband for a father dead ? 
 
 That were revenge enough, methinks. Say now." 
 
 She passed an eye-glance round the circling troop. 
 
 The flaming beard and mighty limbs of Thor ; 
 
 Tyr's stately strength and Hoenir's lithesome make, 
 
SKADPS CHOICE. 59 
 
 Blind Hodur, Hermod, Bragi, and Vidar — 
 None tempted her, until her swift regard 
 Fell upon Baldur, flashing like a gem. 
 
 The radiance of the sun was on his brow, 
 And on his cheeks and in his heavenly eyes, 
 And streaming from his tresses' amber lengths ; 
 And this she settled in her heart should be 
 Her husband, and no other. 
 
 It was judged, 
 By the Val father Odin's will, that all 
 Should straight betake themselves behind the screen 
 Of the broad-woven curtain that ran round 
 The wall of Baldur's hall in Breidablik j 
 And that beneath the tapestry's lower edge 
 The feet alone of each should be in view, 
 And by the feet should Skadi choose her man. 
 
 So done. The Jotuness passed on and on, 
 Once and again, along the curtain's length — 
 And yet again ; and every time her eye 
 Fell on two feet, most wondrous beautiful, 
 Most delicately shaped ; and every time 
 Her heart said to her, " Surely this is he ; 
 Surely the bright-browed Baldur stands above." 
 
 And these she chose : and down the curtain fell : 
 And the wide hall rang to its lofty roof 
 
60 SKADPS CHOICE. 
 
 With unextinguishable laugh and shout ; 
 For on these feet stood gusty, bluff Niord, 
 The hearty, old, and blustering, boisterous Van. 
 
 Small love for laughing lay in Skadi's heart : 
 But she was held firm in the bond of choice, 
 And might nowise gainsay the issue. So 
 They wed, and bickered evermore. What home 
 Should hold them bred a never-done debate. 
 'Twas settled in some sort, that they should live 
 Three days in Noatun, and in Thrymheim 
 Thrice three : so much to Skadi's wish 
 Niord bent, grumble-granting. 
 
 On a time, 
 Bound back to Noatun, Niord broke out : 
 " This abode of noise — Thrymheim — 
 
 Wearies me. I cannot tell 
 How I hate these nine days' time 
 
 Wasted 'mid the foxes' yell. 
 For the Bragarfull — a bowl 
 
 Of half-melted rime ; 
 For the mead-fired lay — a howl 
 
 Of wolves in the dreary gloaming-time." 
 And Skadi, bitter-hearted, made reply : 
 
 " Wa ! the wearisome wash of the waves 
 
 Tossing across the sand — 
 Wa ! the sea-gulls' scream from the caves 
 By Noatun's strand ! 
 
SKADFS CHOICE. 61 
 
 Wa ! the wing-mad Vanir race — 
 Noon and night it grieves me ! 
 
 Through the dreary three days' space 
 Slumber ever leaves me." 
 
 No more she spake, but suddenly betook 
 
 Her way still northward — northward — till she came 
 
 Far past the utter bounds of Jotunheim, 
 
 Beyond the scent of Lyngvi's broomy isle, 
 
 On to the frosty plain of endless snow 
 
 Where lowed Audhumla, when time was not yet ; 
 
 And there she lived alone, from that day forth, 
 
 A skater-huntress. And Niord — old Niord — 
 
 He of the delicate foot and gusty breath — 
 
 Kept aye to wind-swept, wave-washed Noatun. 
 
 And, as the Saga adds, Beware — beware ! 
 Not well-shaped foot alone, nor well-shaped form, 
 Nor charm of winsome face regard in man, 
 Or woman either — think on Skadi's Choice. 
 
62 A CUMBERLAND LEGEND. 
 
 A CUMBERLAND LEGEND. 
 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase 
 The maiden steals bashfully on in the twilight : 
 Her eyes, as she nears to the old trysting-place, 
 Are half- veiled in the dew of a tender yet shy light ; 
 And the red flush of evening is bright in her face, 
 And her dark hair is stirred by the faint breeze of 
 
 gloaming, 
 While the rapturous welcome of love waits her coming, 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase. 
 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase 
 Pace to and fro the fair maid and her lover : 
 And each glance is endowed with an undying grace, 
 And each vow is still new, though told over and over; 
 And the fond faith of youth and of love cannot trace 
 The shade of a dark cloud in earth or in heaven ! 
 While thetroth-piece is broken — the troth-word is given 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase. 
 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase 
 The maid and her lover have met and have parted ; 
 When out from the gloom where the boughs interlace, 
 The undreamed-of watcher has stealthily started, 
 
A CUMBERLAND LEGEND. 63 
 
 With despair and revenge in each line of his face — 
 Where the sweat-furrowed brow and the chest's stifled 
 
 breathing, 
 Betoken the strife in that heart that is seething 
 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase. 
 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase 
 
 The lover hies home ; in his happy love-dreaming 
 
 Enrapt and absorbed; and knows naught of the 
 
 pace 
 Of the rival pursuer, whose dagger is gleaming 
 With a murderous resolve in the chequered moon 
 
 rays. 
 One swift blow, one short shriek, and the slayer is 
 
 flying 
 From the blood-dabbled nook where his brother is 
 
 lying 
 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase. 
 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase 
 Wearily, wearily, morrow on morrow 
 Glides away and is gone, without hope to efface 
 The blight that bows down the pale maid of Carlora 
 Like a storm-broken lily her beauty and grace 
 Lie low in the dust of a hopeless repining 
 For him o'er whose grave weeds and wild flowers are 
 twining, 
 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase. 
 
64 THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THINGS. 
 
 Far from the beeches of Earls wood Chase 
 Blood-haunted, unresting, the mad brother-slayer, 
 With the curse-brand of Cain on his brow and his face, 
 Wanders far 'neath strange skies, followed aye by the 
 
 glare 
 Of those eyes that met his in the ghostly moon rays, 
 Many a day now long gone ! — and will follow for ever, 
 Till remorse calls on death by some palm-shaded river, 
 Far from the beeches of Earlswood Chase. 
 
 THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THINGS. 
 
 There are two sides to every picture, 
 
 There are two ways to tell every tale, 
 And 'tis weak to give in to misfortune, 
 
 Though often our efforts may fail. 
 Shall we not love the smiling of April, 
 
 Because of the tear-drops it brings ? 
 Oh, this earth would be Paradise nearly, 
 
 If we'd look at the bright side of things. 
 
 The web of our life is inwoven 
 
 With colours — some dark and some gay; 
 Let us sleep through the night of our sorrow, 
 
 And awaken when joy brings the day. 
 
FANCY. 65 
 
 Highest up on the hill 'tis the bleakest, 
 And care haunts the dwelling of kings, 
 
 But our lot — if it's lowly — is sheltered ; 
 Let us look at the bright side of things. 
 
 Good goes through the world masquerading, 
 
 We know it not in its disguise, 
 What we take for a blank in our folly, 
 
 May turn out, in time, the chief prize. 
 Then let Hope be our guide and consoler ; 
 
 'Tis in darkness the nightingale sings ; 
 Christmas comes in the dead of the winter — 
 
 Let us look at the bright side of things. 
 
 FANCY. 
 
 " We look before and after, 
 And pine for what is not. ' 
 
 —Shelley's Ode to the Skylark. 
 
 When the wheat was as high as my daughter's head, 
 
 Toddling by me — three years old — 
 I looked to the future before us, and said, 
 
 "When a few short months shall have onward rolled, 
 The wheat will be tall, and its green have sped, 
 
 Through shade and tint to the harvest gold." 
 
66 FANCY. 
 
 From the present we look to the future's hours. 
 In spring we sigh for the summer's flowers — 
 For the summer's flowers and the autumn's fruit; 
 Only the voice of To-day is mute. 
 
 When the wheat was as high as my own bowed head, 
 
 My daughter lay beneath the mould. 
 I looked on the past behind me, and said, 
 
 " The wind of the autumn evening is cold — 
 Oh for the days ere the poppies were red, 
 
 Before the fronds of the fern were unrolled." 
 
 From the present we turn to past's fled hours — 
 From the harvest's wealth, and the year's late 
 
 flowers — 
 From the year's late flowers and the harvest's fruit \ 
 Only the voice of To-day is mute. 
 
 
 
WHAT ODIN'S EYE BOUGHT. 
 
 FOURTH DAY ONSDAG. 
 
 Not unto any — not to Odin even — 
 
 Can come the Nornir's godliest gift— To Know — 
 
 Without its fated price, inevitable, 
 
 Inexorable, unvicarious — 
 
 The price of pain and sacrifice — the loss, 
 
 Self-suffered, self-inflicted, of some good, 
 
 Great — but not greatest — whence the Greatest comes ; 
 
 — So Ygg Alfader found at Mimir's Well." 
 
 From the Valhalla — from Gladsheim he passed — 
 And up the steeps of Asgard to Hlidskjalf — 
 The father Asa : and there throned himself. 
 O'er ^Esirheim, and o'er Manheim he looked, 
 And through the depths of Elfland and Svartheim, 
 Piercing the distance with discerning eyes ; 
 Till in grey Jotunheim he saw the growth 
 Of wrong or horrors, to be wrestled with, 
 And thrown, and beaten down, and that at once— 
 The waxing Jormungand — the Fenriswolf — 
 And Hela, with the tint and touch of death. 
 
C8 WHAT ODIN'S EYE BOUGHT. 
 
 Down Asgard's steps, through Asgard's golden gate, 
 Foot-hot he pressed him, on and ever on : 
 Weariless through the peopled land he passed, 
 Scattering about him, as he went, among 
 The human mortals, words and works that woke 
 The mystery of fire-craft, with the forge 
 And smitten stithy ; and the lore that lures 
 The seed from forth the furrow once again, 
 Tenfold, and twenty, and an hundred fold. 
 
 So he went on and on ; and now the blue 
 
 That bends above, made downward slope, and met 
 
 The blue of waters that swelled up to it. 
 
 Here one end of the tremulous bridge — Bifrbst — 
 
 Finished its coloured curve. Here Mimir sat. 
 
 Here crisped the wavelets of the wondrous well. 
 
 The grey, grim guardian sat, uncaring all 
 
 Who came or went — who wished or who disdained — 
 
 And recked of naught, no time, but this — His price. 
 
 To him the Asa stoutly strided up, 
 
 And stoutly sought his draught. 
 
 " No small request 
 Is this that thou requirest, Asa Ygg : 
 There is great virtue in this well of mine, 
 But few have wit of that : and since thou hast, 
 It marks, besides, that thou hast worth, to boot. 
 Pay me my price, and thereon drink thy fill." 
 
WHAT ODIN'S EYE BOUGHT. 69 
 
 " It cannot be a churl's bode that buys 
 The treasure, bitter-sweet, of Wisdom's well," 
 Quoth Odin to himself; then out aloud — 
 11 1, Asa Odin, willingly will give 
 In purchase my right hand." 
 
 " Nay, Asa, nay, . 
 Your bode fails of my price. But your right eye 
 Will buy the draught. 'Tis meet the dearest price 
 Go for the dearest treasure. Like for like." 
 
 With a great sorrow Odin heard the word ; 
 Yet, wotting that it must be so, he plucked 
 From its deep socket the blue ball of sight, 
 And flung it on the ground at Mimir's feet. 
 Of mighty breadth of brim, and deep, the horn 
 That, full of wondrous water, Mimir gave 
 To Asgard's lord, and, through the shaggy fall 
 That fringed his lip, it drained, until 
 The uttermost drop had passed the Asa's throat. 
 
 And nowise then he mourned the lacking orb ; 
 
 For all, and more, of gladsome radiancy 
 
 That ever, in the many backward years, 
 
 Had passed through that right eye, now in one blaze 
 
 Flamed like a sudden-kindled beacon fire, 
 
 And flooded heart and brain with light and warmth. 
 
 The half of knowledge is the wish to know, 
 
70 WHAT ODIN'S EYE BOUGHT. 
 
 And all the rest will follow. This was his. 
 He saw that wisdom of the Midgard world 
 (Of ^Esir, men, and elves, and Jotunkind), 
 Eye-won from forth the wavering slope, Hlidskjalf, 
 Or gathered from the Ravens twain at eve, 
 Was not enough to fit the Asa-lord 
 With full sufficiency to meet the needs 
 Of his allfatherhood. So on he fared — 
 North, in the face of frory winds, still on, 
 And ceased not, till earth, at its utmost verge, 
 Shot out a frozen peak, and then — was not. 
 
 On this did Asa Odin stretch him out, 
 And looked, and better looked, on Nothingness ; 
 For three days' space his one eye viewed in vain 
 The emptiness of Neflheim's nebulous void — 
 Not seeing till use brought the wont to see — 
 Three days and nights — and then the mighty trunk 
 Of Yggdrasil, the Earth-ash, at whose root 
 Gnawed evermore the envious snake, Nidhogg, 
 Grew to his growing sight, from dark to dim, 
 From dim to clear : and then his eye could pierce 
 To where the cold, wan, homeless spectres stalked 
 Along the shore of corpses in Nastrond. 
 His perfect gaze into the gulf of gulfs, 
 Where roared and boiled the caldron, Hvergelmir, 
 Whose breath gave up a mist of nameless ills, 
 Reached last of all — even to Muspellheim — 
 
WHA T ODIN'S E YE BOUGHT. 71 
 
 And further was no vision given to Ygg. 
 Through all the time — all the nine nights and days — 
 Odin applied himself to Runes, and grew 
 Each day more wise, and every day more sad ; 
 For sadness follows wisdom, shadow-like. 
 
 Uprose he and departed : strong and wise 
 
 If sad ; and went his way to Jotunheim, 
 
 To Loki's homestead. Angerbodi's brood 
 
 Met Odin's mastery then. The Jormungand 
 
 He clutched at mightily, and tossed afar 
 
 Into the outer sea — its sudden growth 
 
 Apace brought tail to mouth ; and thus was coiled 
 
 The endless circle of the Midgard Worm : 
 
 Then Hela — pallid, pulseless, queenly-faced — 
 
 With eyes full of unutterable chill — 
 
 Was portioned, and departed to her realm 
 
 And rulership of death — Helheim : 
 
 And the wolf Fenrir for the time was tamed, 
 
 And followed Father Odin to Valhall : 
 
 And so the Three Ills of the Giantland 
 
 Owned Ygg's supremacy till Ragnarok. 
 
 For wisdom Odin sacrificed his eye : 
 
 Done nobly ! natheless he must meet the Wolf, 
 
 When the gods' twilight comes at Vegrid-fight. 
 
72 MCEROR CORDIS. 
 
 MGEROR CORDIS. 
 
 Aching heart, what wouldst thou more now ? 
 Little car'st thou what's in store now; 
 She is dead, and all is o'er now, 
 
 Save the deathless memory. 
 As the current of the river 
 Back again returneth never, 
 So no more — no more for ever — 
 
 Will my peace return to me. 
 
 From what fountain shall I borrow 
 A forgetfulness of sorrow ? 
 Shall there ever dawn a morrow 
 
 As the morrows dawned of old ? 
 Loves as dear no one remembers, 
 Fires as fierce are now but embers, 
 Julys chill into Decembers, 
 
 Lava-floods grow hard and cold. 
 
 But this heart must cease its panting, 
 And these dreams must cease me haunting, 
 Ere the sense of what is wanting 
 
 In forgetfulness be lost. 
 There's a presence which will fly not, 
 There's a memory which will die not, 
 All Time's magic can supply not 
 
 An exorcism of this ghost 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 73 
 
 Listless now, and all unnoting 
 
 O'er the dead past, dreaming, doting, 
 
 Days on days run by me, floating 
 
 Helmless on Time's weary stream ; 
 Numbed as souls in lotus-trances, 
 Circled round with ghostly fancies, 
 Seeing but in side-long glances 
 
 The workday world beyond this dream. 
 
 She is dead ! — three words record it, 
 But within these words is hoarded 
 A world of sorrow — all unsordid — 
 
 And within that world I live. 
 Evermore, from dawn to even, 
 Rests a shadow o'er my heaven; 
 Since her sunlight is not given, 
 
 What light now hath earth to give ? 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 JANE, BATH I A, AND MARGARET STEEDMAN, 
 DROWNED IN LOCHLEVEN, 2 2D JANUARY 1870. 
 
 Dark memories of the captive and betrayed 
 Haunt thy sad waters, fair and cruel lake, 
 Girdling the prison-keep of old — whence eyes, 
 Wearied with hope deferred, have watched thy waves 
 
74 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Glinting their cold, clear, ripples in the sun, 
 To mock the captive with their cruel show 
 Of wind-stirred freedom ; or, bound up in frost, 
 Offering a way his footsteps might not tread. 
 
 But, in the sorrow of to-day, we think 
 
 Little of all the far-off, olden woes 
 
 The lake has looked on. Lured by Love's 
 
 Impulsive frenzy, sister after sister — 
 
 One, and another, and another still, 
 
 Drawn, by the bitter cry of present death, 
 
 Into the yawning jaws of death ! the ice 
 
 Tempting affection's step into its grasp, 
 
 Then tossing it, remorseless, to the chill 
 
 And pitiless embrace of the cold wave. 
 
 Woe's me ! lovely in life, and in their death 
 
 Still undivided. Who can dare to trace 
 
 The agony of that lost sacrifice, 
 
 When Love, stronger than Death, essayed to save, 
 
 Alas, how vainly ! when the merciless wave 
 
 Clutched triple tribute, reckless of the home 
 
 So sadly desolated ? Sympathy 
 
 May breathe consoling tones ; but there is " that 
 
 Within that passeth show " when sorrow falls 
 
 With such a lethal shadow on the hearth. 
 
 " What sorrow is there like to ours ?" well may 
 The parents murmur, in the bitterness 
 
A FANCY. 75 
 
 Of heart, and hope eclipsed. What shall we say ? 
 What can we say ? but wait, with folded hands, 
 The coming of the Comforter, whose wings, 
 Even now, although invisible to us, 
 Fan the far-spreading ether — hitherbound, 
 And freighted with the anodyne of Time. 
 
 A FANCY. 
 
 " Where art thou, beloved To-morrow? 
 
 When young and old, and strong and weak, 
 Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow, 
 
 Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, — 
 In thy place— ah ! well-a-day ! 
 We find the thing we fled— To-day." 
 
 — Shelley. 
 
 Weary, weary of the sunlight, 
 Weary of the stars ; 
 
 Weary of life's sickening circle, 
 Jealousies and jars ; 
 
 Weary of the hollow-hearted 
 Mockery of fools, 
 
 Strait-waistcoated in worldly shams- 
 Pedants of worldly schools ; 
 
76 A FANCY. 
 
 To my heart I whisper, lowly, 
 
 'Mid the dreary glooms, 
 Better things will come To-morrow — 
 
 But To-morrow never comes. 
 The world wheels on its ceaseless way, 
 And we know nothing but To-day. 
 
 Promised aid of purchased friendship, 
 
 Hitherto delayed j 
 Proffered sympathy in action, 
 
 And not simply said ; 
 Charity that's not puffed up, 
 
 Not Peter's, but St Paul's ; 
 Advice not merely meant to sting 
 
 And blister where it falls, 
 But with solace and a blessing 
 
 Wheresoe'er it blooms : 
 These, I trow, will come To-morrow — 
 
 But To-morrow never comes. 
 The world wheels on, through grave and gay, 
 And we know nothing but To-day. 
 
 Better health and happier spirits, 
 
 Heart to face the fate ; 
 Former aims and former errors 
 
 Lapsed, and out of date ; 
 Visions of the silver lining 
 
 Of the sable cloud ; 
 
A FANCY. 77 
 
 New comfort of a self-content, 
 
 Strong, if unavowed ; 
 Freshened hope, that faint, but fairly 
 
 In the distance looms : 
 These will surely come To-morrow — 
 
 But To-morrow never comes. 
 Vain to hasten or delay ; 
 We know nothing but To-day. 
 
 Slander's fang shall lose its venom, 
 
 At the charmer's charm j 
 Self-conceit confess its measure, 
 
 Toadyism its harm ; 
 Purblind bigots, past their noses 
 
 See a shadowy world ; 
 False pretence's flaunting banner 
 
 Shall be dipped and furled ; 
 The cant " I am the holier " banished 
 
 To the Capulets' tombs : 
 All shall come to pass To-morrow — 
 
 But To-morrow never comes. 
 The world can vary as it it may ; 
 We know nothing but To-day. 
 
78 NELLY. 
 
 NELLY. 
 
 Little Nelly — chattering Nelly — 
 
 With youth's freshest tones, 
 Musical as glancing streamlet 
 
 O'er the glancing stones ; 
 Make the spring-time promise dearer 
 
 With the cheery noise, 
 Bring the promised spring-time nearer 
 
 With your happy voice. 
 
 Little Nelly — winsome Nelly — 
 
 My pet girl of girls ; 
 Darling Nelly ! in the sunshine 
 
 Toss your sunny curls; 
 Make the summer sunshine brighter 
 
 With your laughing eyes, 
 Make the summer sunshine lighter 
 
 With their glad surprise. 
 
 Little Nelly— little Nelly- 
 Shall I apprehend 
 
 How the autumn's full fruition 
 Comes to perfect end ? 
 
LINES IN MEMORIAM. 79 
 
 Richer make the glowing gloaming 
 
 With the promised fruit, 
 Richer make the blessing coming 
 
 After weary suit. 
 
 Little Nelly — darling Nelly — 
 
 Surely now I know 
 Why the Master called the children 
 
 To Him, long ago. 
 Make the winter gloom less weary 
 
 With caressing wiles, 
 Make the winter gloom less dreary 
 
 With the light of smiles. 
 
 LINES IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 M. M'Q. R. H., OB. NOV. 1869, JET. 2 2. 
 
 Woe follows even when the reaper Death 
 Gathers the full-ripe, seasoned sheaf. But when 
 He puts his sickle in the green and tender corn, 
 Before the flush and bloom of summer comes, 
 A deeper desolation falls — a gloom 
 Unthought of — horror-filled : as when 
 The earth was darkened at the full height of noon 
 
80 THE STAR AND THE STREAM. 
 
 By the quick, chilling, and resistless sweep 
 Of an eclipse, undreamt of, unforetold — 
 When daylight died without a hope of dawn. 
 Woe for the husband, early stricken thus ! 
 Woe for the infant-bud whose opening life, 
 Scarce severed from the mother-life, can turn 
 Never, in all the forward-stretching years, 
 Back to the parent stem, with childhood's clasp, 
 And kiss, and soft embracement, and caress ! 
 Sorrow for so great sorrow finds no words ; 
 A silent sympathy alone remains, 
 Full of mute eloquence — a voiceless balm 
 Of tenderest feeling. And the healer Time, 
 Unlike ourselves, says nothing and does much. 
 
 THE STAR AND THE STREAM. 
 
 Mirror thyself in the wave, O Star, 
 Shine up from the shining stream : 
 Re-born in the reflex light, O Star, 
 Reappear 'mid the glancing ripples bright, 
 Like the deeds of the day in a dream. 
 
SONNET. 81 
 
 Pass on through the bosky shades, O Stream, 
 
 By the wind-stirred sedgy banks ; 
 Foam over mimic cascades, O Stream, 
 Gleam in the meadows, and gloom in the glades, 
 
 And flash where the mill-wheel clanks. 
 
 Firm fixed in the steadfast heaven, O Star, 
 
 Yet glassed in the moving wave, 
 Image that steadfast faith, O Star, 
 Which up from the tide of sorrow and death, 
 
 Breathes life from an open grave. 
 
 Pass on in thy restless course, O Time, 
 
 As the ripples onward glide ; 
 Yet mirror the heavenly light, O Time, 
 Let the star of faith in affliction's night 
 
 Shine up from thy troubled tide. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 REV. JOHN COCHRANE, OB. I9TH JAN. 1 869, JET. 64. 
 
 After a faithful priesthood — long confessed 
 In all men's sight — forth from the holy place 
 Which feebly emblems the Shechinah's blaze, 
 Into the inner shrine — the Holiest — 
 
 F 
 
82 TO MISS ANNIE RUSSELL. 
 
 Through the Christ-rended curtain he hath passed. 
 
 And now no more beside the dying bed 
 
 Will that kind voice be heard ; no more be shed 
 
 The drops baptismal; never more be cast 
 
 Over two lives the indissoluble chain, 
 
 By him. He rests from labour, and has souls 
 
 Given him for hire. So ever onward rolls 
 
 Time's never-pausing chariot, in its train 
 
 Bearing the old fantastic mask of breath : 
 
 Birth, sorrow, laughter, tears and joy, and — death. 
 
 DEDICATED TO MISS ANNIE 
 RUSSELL, FALKIRK. 
 
 I. BIRTHS. 
 
 We bind ourselves to life with wreaths of flowers ; 
 Buds of fair promise blossom in the spring, 
 And childish voices visit us, and bring 
 Back the remembrance of our childhood's hours, 
 Vivid and fresh as in a morning-dream; 
 And little arms around our necks are twined, 
 And soft cheeks pressed to ours, till we grow blind 
 To all, save the fair promises, which seem 
 
TO MISS ANNIE RUSSELL. 83 
 
 To gild the future, as in recompense 
 
 For sorrows past. And surely it is wise 
 
 To look ofttimes at earth through childhood's eyes, 
 
 And feel within us its unhackneyed sense 
 
 Of credulous enjoyment, and its quick relapse 
 
 Into contentment, after life's mishaps. 
 
 II. MARRIAGES. 
 
 We bind ourselves to life with wreaths of flowers, 
 Odorous with love and rainbow-dyed with hope ; 
 We consecrate a dome of amplest scope 
 Wherein to treasure up all that is ours — 
 Sweetest and dearest — and we call it home, 
 And in it place what fancy fondly deems 
 A true divinity — and yet of clay : 
 And well if this opinion lasts for aye, 
 And time serves not to disenchant our dreams. 
 It needs must be that cares and griefs will come, 
 And sorrow's cloud above our pathway lower : 
 Let love and trust but brighten — and behold 
 The darkness turned to light ! That sun has power 
 To flush the blackest vapour o'er with gold. 
 
 III. DEATHS. 
 
 We bind ourselves to life with wreaths of flowers, 
 But summer passes and the autumn comes — 
 The heart's-ease petals fall ; the purple blooms 
 Fade from love's roses, and the trusted powers 
 
84 HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 
 
 Of friendship fail with the forget-me-not. 
 But death binds us to him. Day after day 
 Some cherished part of us doth pass away, 
 No more to be, but ne'er to be forgot ! 
 So we die daily. So doth death become 
 Not grim and stern, but a most kindly host, 
 And his dim, silent land our wished-for home, 
 Where dwell our dearest ones — not lost — not lost- 
 But only waiting till this dream be o'er, 
 To meet and greet us on the tranquil shore ! 
 
 HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. 
 
 BORN 2D APRIL 1805; DIED 4TH AUGUST 1 87 5. 
 
 Threescore and ten, and then he passed from us — 
 
 Child all his life, and therefore worthiest 
 
 To move into the presence of the Lord, 
 
 Who called the children to Him. Through the range 
 
 Of all Teutonia's households — through the world 
 
 Of English-speaking childhood — falls a gloom 
 
 As the sad words are lightninged through the wire — 
 
 "The darling story-teller— he is dead." 
 
 What cares the youngster's heart for king or priest ? 
 " Our king," it says, "our priest has passed away. 
 
ABSENT FRIENDS. 85 
 
 The voice that woke in Odense to teach 
 The elders what a wisdom underlies 
 Our foolishness, and piece our lisping speech 
 Into coherency, is hushed, and we 
 Sorrow, childwise, for our interpreter, 
 Who told our stories in our very words, 
 With glimpses of a world we only dreamt. 
 And we are left to dream our dreams, and keep 
 Our meanings to ourselves, like chirp of birds." 
 
 O children ! well for you that have the power 
 To strain off sorrow through the sluice of tears ; 
 But for the elders — woe is them ! who dares 
 To take the passionate budding soul into 
 The vexed experience of the full-grown man, 
 And now educe the perfect harmony 
 That binds the infant to the grandsire's heart ? 
 
 ABSENT FRIENDS. 
 
 (song.) 
 
 Though the rolling of rivers 
 
 And seas may divide 
 The friends who once dwelt 
 
 With ourselves, side by side ; 
 
86 ABSENT FRIENDS, 
 
 Though we think not of seeing 
 Or meeting them more, 
 
 Let their memory be fresh 
 In our hearts, as of yore ! 
 
 Let us think of them kindly, 
 
 Since they have gone forth ; 
 Their failings went with them — 
 
 They've left but their worth : 
 To their faults distance lends 
 
 A more softening tone, 
 And memory shall cherish 
 
 Their virtues alone. 
 
 May they think of us kindly, 
 
 As we do of them, 
 And their love make us stronger 
 
 Life's torrent to stem ; 
 Thus, though seas roll between us, 
 
 And mountains may part, 
 In the strength of this love 
 
 We're together in heart. 
 
 Let us think of all kindly — 
 
 The burden of hate 
 Will bear down stronger shoulders 
 
 Than ours with its weight ; 
 
ABSENT FRIENDS. 87 
 
 But kind thoughts are as seeds 
 Which, when scattered abroad, 
 
 Will spring up and make brighter 
 Life's wearisome road. 
 
 Here's goodwill and a blessing 
 
 On every friend's head, 
 With a cheer for the living — 
 
 A sigh for the dead, 
 Whose memory yet lingers, 
 
 Though they've fallen asleep — 
 As roses, though withered, 
 
 Their fragrance still keep. 
 
 Let their names be to us 
 
 As a magical charm, 
 Making eyes kindle brighter, 
 
 And cheeks glow more warm. 
 Let us drink to them all, 
 
 Whatsoe'er be their lot — 
 Old friends, ay, and new friends, 
 
 May they ne'er be forgot ! 
 
88 MILLHALL. 
 
 M I L L H A L L. 
 
 UEspoir, et encore VEspoir, et Toujours VEspoir. 
 
 O breeze of the autumn woods ! 
 Stirring and strewing down the leaves, 
 Move through the glen's dank solitudes, 
 
 Where all the frondage grieves 
 For the hushed voice of birds, and insects' hum, 
 And whisper gently in its dying ear 
 The promised greenness of another year; 
 Nor be to me inaudible or dumb, 
 But bring the solace from thy far-off home 
 
 Of far-off hopes brought near ; 
 And breathe thy freshness on my brow, and come 
 Recalling tones forgot not — dead but dear. 
 
 O leaves of the autumn woods ! 
 Bright with the beauty of decay, 
 Flushed with the loveliness that broods 
 
 In clouds when closes day: 
 Now death bedecks you with a seemly pall, 
 Changing, with Midas-touch, the green to gold, 
 And brown, and crimson, and sub-hues untold ; 
 Fall round me softly, as the dead hopes fall 
 
THE OLD DEAR DA YS. 89 
 
 When life's year shivers in its autumn-chill; 
 
 To death defiance fling — 
 " We still shall overcome, shall conquer still, 
 And mock thee with the moving breath of spring." 
 
 O hope of the autumn woods ! 
 Woe, if we recognise thee not! 
 Woe, if in life's most harassed moods 
 
 Thy solace be forgot ! 
 They die not, they but make anew their life, 
 Of loftier woodage, spreading broader arms, 
 Strong with the strength to strive with greater harms, 
 Of sterner power to win in sterner strife. 
 The lesson of the falling leaves is tale 
 
 Of hope and blessing both : 
 We see death life when viewed behind the veil, 
 And every season but a step in growth. 
 
 THE OLD DEAR DAYS. 
 
 Here's the prattle of the burn 
 
 As it seeks the Clyde, 
 Here's the waving of the fern 
 
 Where the harebells hide; 
 
90 THE OLD DEAR DA YS. 
 
 And the chequered sunshine flickers 
 In the lownie den, 
 
 And the lynn's summer under-song 
 Fills the birchy glen, 
 
 And my footsteps wander now- 
 Through the old wood-ways, 
 
 But they want the golden glamour 
 Of the Old Dear Days. 
 
 Through the summer meadows, 
 
 As of yore, I bound ; 
 The laverock overhangs me 
 
 In its heaven of sound, 
 Pulsing through the tissues 
 
 Of ear, and heart, and brain, 
 Till its rapture languishes 
 
 With the overstrain; 
 Once I could interpret 
 
 The secret of its phrase, 
 But it's lost the mystic meaning 
 
 Of the Old Dear Days. 
 
 There's the stillness now within me 
 
 Of a stern content, 
 When, after passion's carnival, 
 
 The soul keeps Lent; 
 
THE OLD DEAR DA VS. 91 
 
 Rest comes welcome — welcome — 
 
 After irk and toil, 
 Blest above the blessing 
 
 Of corn, and wine, and oil : 
 Rest comes welcome — welcome — 
 
 After long delays, 
 But this is not what I dreamt of 
 
 In the Old Dear Days. 
 
 Cherished faces are around me, 
 
 Love-illumed and dear; 
 Childish laughter comes to greet me, 
 
 Idly musing here. 
 Better thus it is, I murmur 
 
 To my carping soul; 
 Wherefore stir the depths where past years' 
 
 Dateless billows roll ? 
 But, like Rachel o'er her children, 
 
 Still the heart delays, 
 O'er the dead, and therefore dearest, 
 
 Old Dear Days. 
 
HASSAN'S AMULET. 
 
 FYTTE THE FIRST. 
 
 In the reign of the Magnificent, 
 Twin Brother of the Sun and Moon on High, 
 The Most Serene and Thrice Beneficent 
 Caliph Haroun Alrashid Almyeye — 
 
 In the fair city of Bagdad 
 Lived Hassan Abon Zellah, 
 A sort of lazy, philosophic fellow, 
 
 Who never thought it worth his while to sigh, or be sad ; 
 
 Although to fortune he was more indebted 
 For kicks than coppers ; 
 
 He took whatever fell from luck's mill-hoppers, 
 And never fretted. 
 
 And though sans riches, never sought to scout them, 
 
 But simply cracked his joke — and did without them. 
 
 This was his easy creed — for all that we know, 
 
 Half stolen from Epicurus, half from Zeno. 
 
HASSAN'S AMULET. 93 
 
 The Caliph lately, being impecunious, 
 Had confiscated the possessions, which 
 Were the just patrimony of Ben Zunios, 
 An Emir grown suspected (id est rich), 
 
 And for that reason 
 
 Guilty (or ought to be) of treason. 
 And to make sure he never should want bread 
 After, or through, this bit of legislation, 
 The Caliph, with extreme consideration, 
 Took too — his head. 
 
 But somehow, it so happened after this, 
 From indigestion or remorse, we do not know, 
 His Highness found himself somewhat amiss, 
 His appetite impaired, his spirits low ; 
 Tried piety and pleasure, both no go ; 
 Consulted his physicians — and got worse, 
 At which he grew incensed ; as who would not? 
 And, with a vigorous imperial curse, 
 Bowstrung the lot. 
 
 In short, the case grew such, 
 That, through Bagdad, 
 The folk began to nod and shrug their shoulders 
 (First looking round to see who were beholders). 
 The Imaums said his conscience must be bad, 
 The courtiers thought it was his temper rather 
 — Your courtiers don't believe in conscience much — 
 And grew as white as any barber's lather, 
 
94 HASSAN'S AMULET. 
 
 And trembled as if in an ague fit; 
 
 And now and then among them there would be 
 
 A solemn shaking heads, as if to see 
 That these were on their shoulders safe — as yet. 
 
 During this time, Caliph Haroun was thinking, 
 As frequently sick people do, 
 That, in his former life, a screw 
 Might have been loose — perhaps even two, 
 Or three, or more; 
 And when upon this score 
 There was no blinking 
 The ugly fact, 
 His having grabbed the innocent Ben Zunios' pelf 
 Was not a thing of which historians would boast ; 
 Viewed leniently, that is, even by himself, 
 It must, at once, be owned a most 
 Ungentlemanly act. 
 
 So, in this mood, he did determine 
 
 To put down, 
 Strictly, all tarry-fingered vermin ; 
 To make this first of his opinions, 
 And to allow in his dominions 
 Nor robbery, nor swindling, nor prigging, 
 Embezzlement, nor fraud, nor market-rigging, 
 Nor larceny, nor defalcations — 
 In short, no sort of peculations, 
 
HASSAN'S AMULET. 95 
 
 Save and except the Rights and Customs of the Crown. 
 So through the town 
 In every quarter criers went repeating 
 
 This Proclamation : 
 " To all our subjects — dwellers in Bagdad — 
 To each and all and sundry — good or bad — 
 From the Commander of the Faithful — Greeting : 
 Whoso is found convicted of the fact 
 Of stealing, or of even having tried it, 
 Shall suffer the full penalty of this Act, 
 Therefor provided : 
 Intituled — Theft : An Act for its Repression. 
 The bowstring and the Tigris — doom and tomb — 
 
 Without the room 
 Of an appeal to any Court of Session — 
 And to the Caliph every sequin of possession. 
 And that the noble quality of justice 
 With mercy tempered properly may be, 
 
 Hereby we make decree 
 To be observed by every officer and bailiff 
 (As witness Mahomet, in whom our trust is); 
 All those who are not found out shall go free. 
 God save the Caliph." 
 
 fytte the second. 
 
 But Abon Zellah must not be forgot. 
 A porter was his trade, and he did ply it 
 
96 HASSAN'S AMULET. 
 
 Industriously enough; sometimes his lot 
 
 Was to be brisk, and sometimes not, 
 
 And by that circumstance was ruled his diet. 
 
 Well — like some places nearer hand, 
 
 In Bagdad 
 
 Trade grew bad, 
 And Hassan soon reached a condition 
 
 Of inanition, 
 Sharper than fortune fated him to stand 
 
 Ever before. 
 Of the finest sauce he'd oppressive store — 
 
 As all have heard say, 
 
 Hunger's the finest, far and away — 
 But then he had nothing whereupon to try it. 
 
 One day it so happened (unlucky day!) 
 That, wandering about, he took his way 
 Through a path which led by a garden wall. 
 The wall was low, and Hassan was tall; 
 Flowers and fruits, he saw them all. 
 His mouth was watering, his eyes were fixed 
 On the tempting fruit — what happened next ? 
 Hunger urged; he was bound to obey; 
 
 One leap, and he stood under 
 The bending trees, and began to convey 
 Their luscious burden, gullet-way, 
 Promising well and with scant delay, 
 
HASSAN'S AMULET. 97 
 
 His long-neglected stomach to stay. 
 He bolted and guzzled, and felt as gay 
 As a linnet perched on a hawthorn spray, 
 Or a lark, nevv-vvoke, when the sky grows grey 
 With the half-veiled light of the coming day, 
 Or an urchin, fresh from school, at play; 
 But ere " Jack Robinson " you could say, 
 
 A voice in tones of thunder, 
 No " By your leave " or " Beg your pardon," 
 But "You blackguard thief- 
 Hassan shook like a leaf — 
 " What do you want in my garden ? " 
 
 Hassan stated the facts of the case as you 
 Have read them — but it wouldn't do ; 
 
 In fact, it's a difficult job, 
 Persuading a man in a red-hot passion, 
 When caught in his garden in such a fashion, 
 
 That you didn't come there to rob. 
 In that position you don't feel cool 
 
 Enough to argue the question; 
 And arguments given with a mouth half full 
 
 Of his finest fruit, the while you plead, 
 
 Can only succeed 
 In stultifying the best one. 
 
 So off to the Cadi poor Hassan was hauled, 
 Who decided, as clearly as any Bell, 
 That the action fell 
 
 G 
 
98 HASSAN'S AMULET. 
 
 To be judged in terms of the new-made law; 
 And Hassan was quite appalled 
 
 When he saw 
 The Nubian executioner draw 
 Out of his vest, with his sooty paw, 
 A bowstring thin, and lithe, and tough. 
 Thought Hassan Abon Zellah, 
 " A little of that goes far enough 
 To satisfy a fellow ; 
 
 This surely is coming the sentiment strong 
 By rather a trifle, and can't last long. 
 
 I'm a gone gander 
 
 If this goes on." 
 Then aloud : " O Cadi, I make appeal 
 To the fountain of justice, never shallow, 
 To the Most Serene and Sublime Commander 
 Of all the Faithful, who sits on the throne 
 To judge aright, in the name of Allah !" 
 
 Thus adjured, the Cadi, perforce, 
 Allowed appeal, with a very bad grace ; 
 The gardener, who had growled himself hoarse, 
 Grew still more red about the face : 
 
 And so they took their course 
 To the royal hall of justice, where 
 Each second day, after morning prayer, 
 Till noon was past, the Caliph sat 
 Cross-legged on an Indian mat 
 
HASSAN'S AMULET. 99 
 
 Bordered with gold, and the sacred green 
 Daintily arabesqued between, 
 
 Dispensing justice and grace 
 
 After his view of it, 
 Somewhat according to the law of the case, 
 With a due regard to the Prophet. 
 
 FYTTE THE THIRD. 
 
 Humbly salaaming before his Highness, 
 The Cadi, with proper legal dryness, 
 Proceeded to lay before the Court 
 A duly muddled, verbose report 
 
 Of the where, and the whe?i, and the how. 
 Of Abon Hassan's heinous apple-stealing ; 
 His judgment thereanent with care revealing, 
 
 And the confounded row 
 Kicked up by Hassan thereupon, and his appeal- 
 ing; 
 
 Concluding with a flowery panegyric 
 Upon the Caliph's wisdom and benignity; 
 A panegyric which, for breadth and height, 
 For loyal depth and fervid might, 
 
 Deserved the dignity 
 Of being chanted in a glowing lyric : 
 At least (if such a trifle we may mention) 
 It richly merited a handsome pension. 
 
100 HASSAN'S AMULET. 
 
 '•'Slave," quoth the Caliph, and therewith did fasten 
 
 Upon poor Hassan 
 A most uncomfortable look — "You have appealed 
 To us, who sit here, holding both the shield 
 And sword of justice; what is there to plead 
 
 That your misdeed 
 Should not be punished with law's utmost vigour?" 
 
 (He meant rigour. 
 
 Mais entre nous, 
 In law there's small distinction 'twixt the two.) 
 "We're ready now to hear your exculpation. 
 It's not for nothing we are named Al Raschid ; 
 What have you in extenuation ? 
 As for this robbing, we're resolved to squash it. 
 Our edict thereanent no one shall shirk; 
 As you must shortly find to your expense ; 
 This law shall not be laid upon the shelf. 
 
 Why don't you work 
 And trust to Allah ? Providence 
 
 Helps him who helps himself." 
 
 With all humility responded Hassan, mute 
 Till now : " O Caliph ; even so — the fruit 
 Was there, and as the gardener testifies, I did 
 
 Considerably help myself. 
 And now, I plead, it's Providence's turn 
 
 Some help to lend." 
 At this equivocation justly stern, 
 
HASSAN'S AMULET. 101 
 
 The Caliph made a sign 
 
 The case to end, 
 By the well-merited, condign 
 Penalty of the law. Twas die and learn. 
 
 Two mutes stood out, 
 And in a twinkling slipped about 
 Poor Hassan's neck, with well-accustomed skill, 
 
 The fatal cord. 
 " I bow," said Hassan, " to the Caliph's will. 
 He is commander whose hand holds the sword. 
 
 "According to the Prophet's holy word, 
 As given in Alkoran divine, 
 Three times to Mecca's sacred shrine 
 My father made his pilgrimage ; 
 Thrice he the Hadji's garment wore, 
 Thrice mingled with the host of them 
 Who drunk the waters of Zemzem, 
 Thrice made the circlings, three and four, 
 
 Thrice kissed the Kaaba stone : 
 Returning from the third, when age 
 Its crushing weight had on him thrown, 
 He brought with him this flake of jet, 
 A prized and precious amulet; 
 For whoso wears it may defy 
 The dangers of the earth and sky; 
 
102 HASSAN'S AMULET. 
 
 The poisoned cup, the canjiar's blade, 
 
 To him is all innocuous made. 
 
 The moon of wealth, the sun of power, 
 
 The stars of all delight, shall shower 
 
 Their influence through life's every hour 
 
 On him who owns this charm of might. 
 
 But only if in Allah's sight 
 
 The temple of his heart be white ! 
 
 And every jinn and deey and ghoul 
 
 Shall hold the mastery of his soul, 
 
 If fraud, and wrong, and crime, and sin, 
 
 From him a welcome meet therein. 
 
 Useless to me the gem has been 
 
 From actions vile and thoughts unclean j 
 
 Nay, rather say, than useless worse — 
 
 It bore the predetermined curse 
 
 That waits on mortal who shall dare 
 
 To own the amulet as heir 
 
 While evil makes his heart its lair. 
 
 'Tis all, O Caliph, that can be 
 
 Called mine, and therefore falls to thee 
 
 According to thine own decree. 
 
 By the black Kaaba's kissings three, 
 
 By all the blessings of Zemzem, 
 
 By all the fringes that may be 
 
 Upon the Prophet's mantle's hem, 
 
 I call on Allah to attest 
 
 The valid truth of this bequest. 
 
HASSAN'S AMULET. 103 
 
 As thou art just, and justly named, 
 As thou art pure and unashamed, 
 As thou art lifted far aloof 
 From guile's deceit and fraud's reproof, 
 As thou can'st never in thy heart 
 Be wounded by remorse's dart ; 
 With all its gifts of grace and power, 
 With all the charms within its dower, 
 The precious amulet is thine — 
 The bowstring and the Tigris mine!" 
 
 With airy, Oriental, exquisite politeness, 
 
 To Caliph Haroun's magnanimity and splendour, 
 
 Hassan made reverential tender 
 
 Of what seemed but a bit of polished coal. 
 
 Of all the powers of bad and good — of darkness, 
 
 brightness, 
 Claimed for it, we've no doubt it held the whole, 
 Though in a fit of most uncommon tightness. 
 
 The Caliph's conscience whispered, " Have a care ; 
 The look-out will be deeply, darkly blue 
 
 For you, 
 If half of what this fellow says is true ; 
 You'd better shirk the thing, and with an air 
 
 Of royal, generous benignity 
 Walk quietly, tiptoe, clear out of the snare, 
 
 With grace and dignity." 
 
104 HASSAN'S AMULET. 
 
 Haroun turned calmly to the right, where, near 
 Stood Giafar (afterwards Lord Burleigh) — Grand 
 
 Vizier — 
 " Take thou the gem, for long and trusty service." 
 But Giafar, with a gesture brief and nervous, 
 With mingled haste and horror shoved aside 
 The precious charm, and reverently replied : 
 " Dread Caliph, I'd much rather not — much rather; 
 I promised on his death-bed to my father 
 (He died, so please your Mightiness, last spring) 
 Never to — to — take (hem) a — a — anything. 
 Here's Mesrour, under no such sort of promise, 
 Give it to him." 
 
 The fact, though true, yet rum is, 
 He didn't see the beauty of the view; 
 In fact the nigger turned in tint a dirty blue, 
 And stuttered, u Gorra, massa, dat won't do." 
 
 The General Commandant of the Forces 
 Rejected Hassan's amulet with curses. 
 Be doomed to own that talisman accurst ! 
 Never to plunder 1 never "go the burst! " 
 He'd put the case in this way, if he durst; 
 The Caliph's orders, for a single day, 
 Could not, by any chance, be carried out 
 If his (the General's) hands, in such a way 
 Were fettered up and circumscribed about. 
 
HASSAN'S AMULET. 105 
 
 Such an idea — always wishing to be civil — 
 Showed that the service, sir, was going to the devil ! 
 Rather than carry that coal he'd be — bowstrung first. 
 
 The Chief Imaum (a foreigner) was sent for, 
 The thing, its conditions and powers, made explicit 
 He listened to the terms, and promptly went for 
 Decided refusal, and " no sing to do vis it." 
 
 The loudest howler in the Dervish College 
 Was offered it. He said, " Perhaps it may 
 Prove valuable to those who've got the knowledge 
 To understand it properly, I daresay ; 
 But as for us — it doestit lie our way." 
 
 Some merchants from the Khan — a goodly row — 
 Were brought in and communicated with. 
 The gift and terms were argued con and pro; 
 And then the principal (his name was Smith) 
 Hemmed thrice, coughed twice, and made a false start 
 
 once. 
 And then, for self and partners, gave response : 
 " If this here talisman (ahem) were made 
 Over to us in business and in trade, 
 
 In two short summers 
 'T would totally destroy the tone of commerce." 
 
106 HASSAN'S AMULET. 
 
 'Twas passing strange that nobody — not any body- 
 Would make a bid, but shirked it in the lump j 
 They shrank from it, as shrinks a suit of shoddy 
 After the ordeal of a thunderplump 
 (Copyright that — all rights reserved). 
 
 'Twas passing strange, none could be nerved 
 
 To make the powerful charm his own, 
 
 Whene'er its penalties were known. 
 
 Was it conscience ? or was it humility 
 
 Wrought this self-denying ability? 
 
 No time to guess — but, note this, lastly, 
 
 It tickled the Caliph's fancy vastly. 
 
 He grinned serenely on all around, 
 
 And they bent them to the very ground; 
 
 Then he put on his royalest air and grace, 
 
 And thus dismissed the Court and case: 
 
 " It seems to me the fact, friend Hassan, 
 That no one here's inclined to fasten 
 Tighter about him honesty's band 
 Than due conventionalisms demand. 
 Since none, then, present, will or can 
 Accept your father's talisman, 
 With all its penalties annexed, 
 But backs out on some slim pretext, 
 You must retain the jetty wonder, 
 And be forgiven your apple plunder; 
 
HASSAN'S AMULET. 107 
 
 And, since your love for fruit is large, 
 We place our orchards in your charge, 
 With title of Head Gardener Regal, 
 And then your pilferings will be legal." 
 
 Moral : Quite plain, and without a doubt — 
 All men are honest — who're not found out. 
 
TO MARY. 
 
 What a pettish little fairy 
 
 Is our pretty little Mary ! 
 
 And how charmingly she'll pout 
 
 If she's put a bit about. 
 
 And her bright eyes brighter glitter, 
 
 And her rosy lips grow bitter; 
 
 And the maid, 
 If you dare to contradict her, 
 Becomes a silent picture 
 Of delightful indignation ; 
 On the chair she takes her station, 
 And she reads — reads — reads — 
 And pretends she never heeds 
 
 What is said. 
 
 Ah, Mary ! I regret 
 
 Having angered you — but yet 
 
KEEP FRESH THE HEART. 109 
 
 So pretty is the indignation, 
 And so charming the disdain, 
 
 That I'm under strong temptation 
 To anger you again. 
 
 KEEP FRESH THE HEART. 
 
 Although we seek in sunny eyes 
 
 Love's light, and find it not; 
 Although by friends 'neath far-off skies, 
 The thoughts of whom we fondly prize, 
 
 Our memory be forgot; 
 Though frowning fate should only bring us 
 Griefs to sadden, slights to sting us, 
 
 Love unrequited, friends unkind, 
 Let's quaff afresh of hope's wine-cup, 
 'Twill ne'er till death be all dried up; 
 
 Time will assuage the smart. 
 Hold evermore this rule in mind — 
 Keep fresh the heart ! 
 
 Gird it not round with the icy cloak 
 Of cold contempt, disdain, or pride; 
 
 For, as the ivy encircles the oak 
 Till all the giant's sap be dried, 
 
110 THERE'S A BIRD IN B ANTON. 
 
 So, if around our hearts we bind 
 
 These shrouds, all life and joys depart. 
 Be wise ; this maxim hold in mind — 
 Keep fresh the heart ! 
 
 THERE'S A BIRD IN BANTON. 
 
 (song.) 
 
 They deave me wi' clavers 
 
 O' that ane and this, 
 And think ilka lassie 
 
 My fancy maun strike j 
 But guesses o' that kind 
 
 Aft turn oot amiss; 
 My heart was my ain, 
 
 And I've gein't whare I like. 
 I dinna misdoot but they're frank, 
 
 And they're kind o't, 
 And some o' them braw; 
 
 But I carena a rush — 
 Just tak' this as true, 
 
 If ye will hae my mind o't, 
 There's a bird in Banton 
 
 That's worth twa in the bush. 
 
THE FIRST STO WN KISS. 1 1 1 
 
 I've walked on the sea-shore, 
 
 I've strayed on the hill, 
 I've strolled through the green wood 
 
 When summer was braw; 
 And the thochts o' thae auld scenes 
 
 Are cherished, but still 
 I ken o' ane dearer 
 
 To memory than a'. 
 It's up by Tamrawr, 
 
 And across by the meadows; 
 I could gang the hail length o't 
 
 Blindfold at a push; 
 But hope's just a Will-o'-the-wisp 
 
 To mislead us. 
 There's a bird in Banton 
 
 That's worth twa in the bush. 
 
 THE FIRST STOWN KISS. 
 (song.) 
 
 The memories o' the aulden days, 
 Hae a magic strangely saft, 
 
 And fancy to the silent past 
 Flies mony a time and aft. 
 
1 1 2 THE FIRST STO WN KISS. ' 
 
 But 'mang the happy thochts there's ane 
 
 Owertaps them a' in bliss, 
 Kept warm in memory's cosiest neuk — 
 The first stown kiss. 
 
 Let auld Time come or let him gang, 
 
 He canna tine us this, 
 Nor a' his winters chill the glow 
 O' the first stown kiss. 
 
 What rapture fa's on youthfu' hearts, 
 
 Like summer's gentlest rain, 
 When the wee bit rosebud o' a mouth 
 
 Is prest against oor ain. 
 She half draws back, wi' face on fire, 
 
 As if 'twere done amiss ; 
 But mony a thing'll be waur ta'en 
 Than that first stown kiss. 
 
 Let auld Time come or let him gang, 
 
 He canna tine us this, 
 Nor a' his winters chill the glow 
 O' the first stown kiss. 
 
 Oh, years row on, and cares come thick, 
 And wrinkles seam the broo, 
 
 And the lichtest joy o' early days, 
 Wad buy the brichtest noo. 
 
THE FIRST STO WN KISS. 113 
 
 But aye within our heart o' hearts, 
 
 Ilk memory o' bliss 
 Is faint and feeble by the side 
 O' the first stown kiss. 
 
 Let auld Time come or let him gang, 
 
 He canna tine us this, 
 Nor a! his winters chill the glow 
 O' the first stown kiss. 
 
 It gars an auld man's breath come thick, 
 
 And a moistness cloud his een, 
 When he dreams i' the muckle arm-chair 
 
 O' the days that he has seen. 
 But o' a' the thochts o' the far-off time 
 
 Nane dirl his heart like this, 
 When his wifey's maiden lips he reft 
 O' the first stown kiss. 
 
 Let auld Time come or let him gang, 
 
 He canna tine us this, 
 Nor a' his winters chill the glow 
 O' the first stown kiss. 
 
114 MARY a BANKIER. 
 
 MARY O' BANKIER. 
 (song.) 
 
 Air— " O a the Airts." 
 
 Doon by whare rashy Bonny rins — 
 
 I lo'e it for her sake — 
 There lives my love — my dream by night, 
 
 My idol when awake. 
 And lang as Bonny's waters row 
 
 In ripples bright and clear, 
 Sae lang my love will cling to her, 
 
 Sweet Mary o' Bankier ! 
 
 E'en as the dove afar set free 
 
 To seek her distant nest, 
 So every fancy flies to her, 
 
 Wi' her alane to rest. 
 There's mony rare, there's mony fair, 
 
 But she alane is dear. 
 Heaven's blessing on her winsome face, 
 
 Sweet Mary o' Bankier ! 
 
 And yet it's no her winsome face, 
 Though fairer few there be ; 
 
 Nor yet her form's light, airy grace 
 That wiled my heart frae me; 
 
TO THE MISSES SAMUEL. 115 
 
 But, warm and true, a noble heart 
 Shines through her een sae clear; 
 
 Gi'e me that heart, I'd laugh at fate, 
 Sweet Mary o' Bankier ! 
 
 LINES TO THE MISSES SAMUEL. 
 You came with the sunshine, 
 
 You go with the rain, 
 And the meeting brought joy, 
 
 And the parting brings pain. 
 This rule the world's wisdom 
 
 Must ever obey — 
 " Let the sunshine depart, 
 
 And our friends drop away." 
 
 'Tis thus with all bright things 
 
 And dear things on earth; 
 Night closes our daylight, 
 
 And sorrow our mirth. 
 And we sigh as each short-lived 
 
 Delight disappears; 
 "It came in all smiling, 
 
 And went out in tears." 
 
116 TO THEE. 
 
 TO THEE. 
 (song.) 
 
 Winter comes, and winds are wandering 
 Wildly o'er the dreary earth, 
 Singing with their gusty voices 
 Autumn's death and winter's birth. 
 What care I ? the blustering winds 
 And the noise of pattering rains 
 Cannot move me whilst the music 
 Of thy softest voice remains. 
 
 Winter comes, and snows are falling, 
 Now the frost king rules the plain, 
 And hath bound the streams and waters 
 In his silent silvery chain. 
 What care I ? the chilling cold 
 And the nipping winter wind 
 Cannot move me, if thy welcome, 
 When we meet, be warm and kind. 
 
 Winter comes, and skies are scowling, 
 Earth is sad and sorrowful ; 
 Birds are silent, trees are leafless, 
 And the air is dark and dull. 
 What care I? all nature's frowning, 
 Sunless skies, and cheerless plains, 
 Bring no gloom or sorrow, while 
 The sunshine of thy smile remains. 
 
SONNET. 117 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Seize, oh seize with nimble fingers 
 
 The passing hours, 
 And with light wreaths of flowers 
 Bind the brightest, whilst it lingers, 
 
 Whilst we call it ours ! 
 
 Bathe, oh bathe its glowing pinions 
 
 In bubbling wine; 
 Even while we speak 'tis fled 
 To the sombre past's dominions, 
 
 With its brethren dead ! 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 There only are two things on which the eye 
 May gaze for ever, and not know the blight 
 Of languid, listless, dull satiety, 
 Which cankers in the core of each delight, 
 And casts a ghastly film athwart our sight ; 
 Changing light laughter into heavy sigh, 
 Until our very souls are dead before we die. 
 
118 SONNET. 
 
 But this fell fiend, whose far o'erarching wing 
 Distils a venom-rain, which doth besmutch 
 With foul impurity the heart's wellsprings 
 Of happiness (or what might yet be such, 
 Had they free current and the sunshine's touch), 
 Over these twain to it is no power given — 
 The changing face of the beloved and the wide 
 vault of heaven. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Many a time, ay, many a time, and oft, 
 A golden dream has flushed before my eyes, 
 Glowing with all the hues of paradise, 
 Glowing with love's own lustre, pure and soft, 
 In the still night, a fair, fond, phantom-face ; 
 Even as the dawn dies into perfect day, 
 So that fair phantom-face hath passed away 
 Into the sweet reality, yet I can trace 
 Numberless dear remembrances, and see 
 Clearly, through all the mists of bygone years, 
 Love luring me through darkness on to thee; 
 And now that visionary face endears 
 Infinitely the more, since I have known 
 Rapture in finding that it was thine own. 
 
ELEGY. 119 
 
 ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF PETER 
 LUCKIE, A SCHOOL COMPANION. 
 
 Was he not wise, that ancient sage, 
 In Greece's happier days who sung : 
 "They who the Father's love engage, 
 
 Are blest in dying young ? " 
 The scorn, the anguish, and the strife, 
 The sickened heart, the careworn brow, 
 The hopes in disappointment rife, 
 That lure our footsteps on through life, 
 
 It is not theirs to know. 
 With thoughts like these I sought to quell 
 The sadness on my soul that fell, 
 
 When first I learned his death; 
 But vainly preached philosophy; 
 I could not stifle down the sigh, 
 Nor stanch the moistening of the eye, 
 
 Nor calm the troubled breath. 
 The young, the beautiful, the loved, hath perished, 
 Like some fair bud an early spring hath cherished, 
 Nipped by a lingering winter-blast ! 
 Ah ! well do I remember him. 
 My heart is full, my eyes are dim 
 
 With phantoms of the past, 
 
120 ELEGY. 
 
 For memory, like a potent witch, 
 
 By strongest incantations, 
 Calls up again my school-days, rich 
 
 In dear associations. 
 Ah ! many a loved, but now lost form 
 Glides in before my sight, 
 
 When the boyish heart throbbed quick and warm, 
 And the boyish eye was bright; 
 And he, the lost one, 'mid the rest, 
 By all beloved, by all caressed, 
 To share our pastime prest the game or lightsome 
 
 jest. 
 Alas ! the lapse 'twixt then and now ! 
 
 What thoughts in these words lie, 
 No more shall sorrow cloud his brow, 
 
 Nor mirth light up his eye. 
 Alas ! alas ! but what availeth grief 
 
 On our part ? 
 Much! for it brings a chastening relief 
 
 To the heart. 
 Mourn him; but not with such vain sorrow 
 As they who mourn of hope forsaken; 
 He hath but gone before, and we to-morrow 
 The same path may have taken. 
 Weep for him — loved of many! tears bring calming 
 To the heart writhing 'neath affliction's sway; 
 Each honey-drop that falleth is embalming 
 His memory in our hearts, never to pass away. 
 
BEAUTIFUL EYES. 121 
 
 BEAUTIFUL EYES. 
 (song.) 
 
 Beautiful eyes, that swim and dance 
 
 In your liquid radiance, 
 
 Ever be lit up with joy and mirth, 
 
 Laughing and glancing starry stars of earth. 
 
 Beautiful eyes, violet eyes, 
 
 Shine on one softly, beautiful eyes ! 
 
 Deep in the soul's most secret cells, 
 The spirit of love in silence dwells ; 
 But his presence we see in glimpses through 
 Your fairy portals of tenderest blue, 
 Love's light betraying — beautiful eyes ! 
 
 Tell-tale eyes, whose lustre soft, 
 Trembles like those orbs aloft, 
 Light up my soul with your softest flame, 
 Evermore changing, yet ever the same; 
 Light up my pathway, beautiful eyes ! 
 
122 COULD I FORGET! 
 
 COULD I FORGET! 
 
 (song.) 
 
 Air — " Good news from Home." 
 
 Could I forget ! could I forget 
 
 The gladsome dreams which once were mine, 
 
 My bosom might be happy yet, 
 
 And worship find a truer shrine, 
 
 And hope with golden lustre shine : 
 
 But memory will not, will not sleep, 
 
 The wounds have rankled all too deep ; 
 
 Still time might have some solace yet, 
 
 Could I forget ! could I forget ! 
 
 Could I forget ! could I forget 
 The anguish of this drear regret, 
 Hope's torch might be rekindled yet, 
 Could I forget ! could I forget ! 
 
 I deemed the hopes that once I nursed 
 The rosy flushing of the morn, 
 It was but the Aurora's light that burst, 
 And scattered o'er the sky was borne, 
 
COULD I FORGET! 123 
 
 A pallid gleam's uncertain track, 
 
 Which made the blackness yet more black j 
 
 Still joy might light my pathway yet, 
 
 Could I forget ! could I forget ! 
 
 Could I forget ! could I forget 
 The anguish of this drear regret, 
 Hope's torch might be rekindled yet, 
 Could I forget ! could I forget ! 
 
 Without a hope, without a fear, 
 For Fortune's smile or Fortune's frown, 
 My heart is like the autumn drear, 
 Its leaves of hope are sere and brown. 
 But once the sullen winter's through, 
 Old earth will laugh in verdure new ; 
 So spring might chase my winter yet, 
 Could I forget ! could I forget ! 
 
 Could I forget ! could I forget 
 The anguish of this drear regret, 
 Hope's torch might be rekindled yet, 
 Could I forget ! could I forget ! 
 
 >*Kc 
 
124 MY PROPOSED NE W PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 MY PROPOSED NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " If Thou wilt, let us make three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for 
 Moses, and one for Elias." 
 
 Let us build three tabernacles, and adore 
 New gods, and walk in a new way ; 
 For those whom I have worshipped heretofore 
 Have proven vile and faithless — gilded clay. 
 
 Uprear the first and lordliest to Scorn ! 
 Scorn of the abject worms, that smile and hurt, 
 Crawling 'twixt heaven and earth, till they be borne 
 Into congenial darkness — dirt to dirt. 
 
 And consecrate the next to Truth ! though all 
 Be hollow-hearted, smiling lying smiles, 
 Plain honest truth but guide us, and I shall 
 Be disentangled from these circling wiles. 
 
 And build the last to Self! for I have sought 
 Too long and vainly others' help to be. 
 Soul, seek thine own delights, though they be bought 
 With others' griefs, what ruth have they for thee ? 
 
VALENTINE. 125 
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 
 Thus Nature is the ladder whereupon 
 
 We mount; and each ascent doth bear us 
 
 Nearer and nearer to the Mighty One, 
 
 Who, step by step, doth thus prepare us, 
 
 Dimly to view His glories. Naught 
 
 By sard-like leap, or bound, or sudden thrust 
 
 Is by the mighty mother wrought, 
 
 But all in graduation just. 
 
 How high may we not rise, if deep and firm our trust ! 
 
 VALENTINE. 
 
 Och! darlint, 'tisn't civil 
 Thus to worry a poor devil : 
 Sure my heart's in a very bad way; 
 It's all with a faver 
 Of love for you, you misbelaver, 
 That I can't get nayther rest night nor day. 
 
 Faith ! I dote upon your beauty, 
 From your wreath down to your shoetie 
 
126 THERE IS A STAR. 
 
 Don't you beat the other girls all to fits j 
 But what's the use of spaking? 
 Darlint ! sure my heart is breaking — 
 But you're welcome, Meg Mavourneen, to the bits. 
 
 If things go any further, 
 Troth ! the upshot will be murther — 
 You'll be tried and condemned for your charms; 
 And 'twould give no repintance, 
 If this should be your sintence — 
 " Imprisonment for life " — in my arms ! 
 
 THERE IS A STAR. 
 (song.) 
 
 There is a star outshining 
 
 All other orbs of night, 
 And many a fond one pining 
 
 Has blessed its gentle light 
 With a serenest splendour 
 
 It greets us from above, 
 And hopes and memories tender 
 
 Come with the star of love. 
 
THERE IS A STAR. 127 
 
 Like to silver censer, 
 
 By angels hung on high, 
 Its lustre grows intenser 
 
 The darker grows the sky. 
 And should the worldling's malice 
 
 Desponding fancies move, 
 There's a blessing and a solace 
 
 In the gentle star of love. 
 
 Sometimes the heavens are shrouded 
 
 From utmost verge to cope, 
 Sometimes the heart is clouded 
 
 With griefs that see no hope; 
 But pleasant thoughts returning, 
 
 These darksome fears remove, 
 And soon again, clear-burning, 
 
 Out shines the star of love. 
 
 Our eyes with earnest poring 
 
 To earth are too much given; 
 Let us, with souls upsoaring, 
 
 Look oftener up to heaven. 
 And steadiest and clearest 
 
 Of all that shine above, 
 And brightest still, and dearest, 
 
 Is the silvery star of love. 
 
128 SONG. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Dark memories in our bosoms 
 
 Lurk deep and will not fly, 
 As in the fairest blossoms 
 
 The canker poisons lie. 
 A breath, a word, a trifle, 
 
 Wake thoughts with power to blast, 
 And vainly would we stifle 
 
 The memory of the past. 
 
 < 
 
MAN. 
 
 O man! whoe'er thou art, be thou not proud; 
 
 What art thou, and what hast thou, that thine heart 
 
 With aught should be uplifted? Doth the crowd 
 
 Of nature's workings, cast on every part, 
 
 Around, above, into thy being dart 
 
 A knowledge of superiority? 
 
 Are they so very low that thou shouldst be so high? 
 
 Answer when thou art questioned — art thou strong? 
 Canst thou control old ocean's ordered flow? 
 Canst thou restrain the wind's most solemn song, 
 Or quench in night the fire-mount's lurid glow? 
 Or, when the earthquake groans and writhes below, 
 Wilt thou ordain it in its course to stay? 
 And will it list thy words, and will it them obey ? 
 
 Strength springs from wisdom. Is thy heart then wise? 
 Canst thou narrate the origin of things, 
 Or lure the Iris from the weeping skies? 
 Is thy mind subtle? can it pierce the springs 
 Of thought and matter? With a seraph's wings 
 
130 HYMN TO EROS. 
 
 Canst thou uprise and probe the mystery 
 
 Of the dim future-time? O worm, wilt thou reply? 
 
 There is a voice for ever in thy heart, 
 Urging thee, " Be thou happy; " this the end 
 All aim at; but their instruments oft thwart 
 Accomplishment — not more from want of art 
 Than lack of fitness in themselves innate, 
 Joined to that earthly sense which makes possession 
 sate. 
 
 HYMN TO EROS. 
 
 Oh thou, who in the earlier days of earth 
 Wert worshipped as a god, divinest love ! 
 Hear me when I lift up my voice to thee, 
 And seek thine aid, and pray deliverance 
 From the fierce storm of thought that makes 
 My heart sick with an incessant aching. 
 
 And shall I bless or curse thee ? is the light 
 Which flushes o'er my soul the roseate dawn) 
 Of a new day of rapture, or but only 
 The lurid gleam of a volcano 
 Heralding on lava-stream of bitterness, 
 
HYMN TO EROS. 131 
 
 Which will flow darkly o'er my heart, and leave it 
 Scorched, scarred, and withered, and all desolate, 
 Herbless, flowerless, when the dew of heaven 
 Shall fall with its soft healing nevermore ? 
 
 I have no puling rhyme wherewith to hail 
 
 Thine influence; no soft, hurried prayer, 
 
 No well-chosen string of sounding sentences; 
 
 These I commit to fools who have but dreamed 
 
 Of thee and thy divinity; but I, 
 
 Who know thee, and am full of thee, whose soul 
 
 Is sick and faint, even to agony, 
 
 With thy pervading presence — I, with whom 
 
 Thou hast been so familiar, day and night, 
 
 In waking thoughts and dreams of sleep, all times, 
 
 And moods of mind, I call on thee aloud 
 
 With a stern voice of passion, for I call 
 
 Forth from the vexed abysses of a soul 
 
 Warring with doubt, and jealousies, and fears, 
 
 Whence a soft tone would be as faintly heard 
 
 As 'midst the roar of a strong cataract's torture. 
 
 Thou art the soul of earth. Its glens and hills, 
 Its many waters, and its loud-voiced winds, 
 Would sleep in death and silence without thee; 
 'Tis thou who dost endow them with delight. 
 The beauty of the earth is in the eye, 
 And not in what it contemplates; and thou 
 
132 HYMN TO EROS. 
 
 Art light to the dim eyeballs, and thou floatest 
 Invisibly round all we see, enrobing 
 The laughing waters, and green fields, and wood- 
 lands, 
 And the star-peopled sky, with loveliness. 
 
 All things speak of thee. The soft evening wind, 
 
 Laden with stolen fragrance, is thy sigh; 
 
 Thy smile makes warm the sunshine, and the song 
 
 Of birds is but thy tenderest tones of bliss 
 
 Murmured in sleep. But thou delightest most 
 
 To harbour in the loved one's face, and laugh 
 
 Merrily from her eyes' blue liquid depths, 
 
 And frolic in her sunny smile, and gird 
 
 Each graceful gesture of her stately form 
 
 With a divinest atmosphere of love. 
 
 But with the sun there cometh evermore 
 The shadow, and with thee, O sovran love ! 
 Come jealousy, and doubt, and a strong sense 
 Of worthlessness. Alas ! alas ! what hope 
 Is there to gladden me ? if I look up 
 To the dim sky, there shines not one faint star 
 To cheer or guide. O foolish heart of mine ! 
 Thou hast no claim in loving, worshipping, 
 Well nigh adoring her; for all must love her, 
 And if she smile on thee, doth she not smile 
 On all? O fool, to dream thou couldst be loved. 
 
LIFE AND DEATH. 133 
 
 Yes, I say this with a true soul. There may 
 Be one whom she doth love with an affection 
 That passes infinitely her thought of me, 
 But there can never be on all the earth, 
 'Mong all the multitude of men that live, 
 One who can love her as I love her, for 
 She is to me, as 'twere, another life, 
 A second soul; there is but one sweet face 
 In all the world to me, and that is hers; 
 She is the sea in which each stream of thought 
 Is swallowed up and ends. But like a cloud 
 Doubt hangs upon my heart, and darkens it 
 With a grim shadow. I wander in the night. 
 O tyrant love! will the dawn never come? 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 (a dirge.) 
 
 Oh river of life ! oh river 
 That flowest for ever, 
 
 On — ever on. 
 No stemming nor breasting 
 Thy waves' haughty cresting; 
 No pausing, no resting, 
 None — no none. 
 
1 34 THE FARE WELL. 
 
 The willows, the sad, sad willows 
 Droop over thy billows, 
 
 Until thy stream, 
 Scarce seen through their number, 
 Looks darksome and sombre, 
 And sullen as slumber 
 Without a dream. 
 
 Oh land of sweet death ! oh best land ! 
 
 Home of the dead, 
 Beyond life's dark billow, 
 Beyond grief's dark willow, 
 In thee would I pillow 
 
 My aching head. 
 
 THE FAREWELL. 
 
 Soul of my lute! mine olden friend! 
 One wailing song — but one — the last ! 
 One backward glance before I rend 
 The ties that bind me to the past 
 Now summer's skies their blue impart, 
 And summer's blossoms opening swell, 
 But to the summer of the heart 
 I bid for aye farewell, farewell. 
 
THE FAREWELL. 135 
 
 Soul of my lute, voiceless so long, 
 Before thy strings be all unstrung, 
 Breathe into verse one last sad song, 
 Though discords stray thy tones among. 
 The heavy eye is dim with tears, 
 The bursting heart will throb and swell, 
 But I can bid to all my fears 
 And hopes alike farewell, farewell. 
 
 Since 'tis so fated be it so; 
 Strength will not fail me in my need 
 To bear me up beneath this woe: 
 And though the heart may wily bleed, 
 I'll teach my lips a hollow smile, 
 And mock the thoughts I cannot quell, 
 And give the world back guile for guile, 
 And bid old Faith farewell, farewell. 
 
 It was my hope, fond, foolish dream, 
 
 That love might purchase love again; 
 
 I thought that smiles meant what they seem, 
 
 And there was one who would not feign. 
 
 But Eve a dowry of deceit 
 
 Bequeathed her daughters when she fell, 
 
 Their smile's a lie, their sighs a cheat ; 
 
 To smile and sighs farewell, farewell. 
 
136 DREAMS. 
 
 DREAMS. 
 
 " We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made of, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep." — Tempest. 
 
 Is it asleep or awake that we dream? 
 Who shall take up the tale and say? 
 
 Truly I know not whether 
 The visions of night, or the hopes of day, 
 The thoughts of the dusk, or the thoughts of the 
 gleam, 
 
 Are quickest to fade and wither. 
 
 Is it awake or asleep that we dream? 
 Friendship is tried and proven vain; 
 
 Doubt, and mistrust, and sorrow 
 Sunder the links of friendship's chain ; 
 Rent ties chase each other in endless stream, 
 
 From weary morrow to morrow. 
 
 Is it asleep or awake that we dream ? 
 Is it in love we place our trust? 
 
 What night-dream so deceiving? 
 Apples of Sodom — ashes and dust — 
 Youth's Fata Morgana, and age's theme 
 
 Of disenchanted grieving. 
 
THE ENIGMA OF TIME. 137 
 
 Is it awake or asleep that we dream ? 
 Following hope's alluring beck, 
 
 With footstep fast and eager, 
 We take our path through ruin and wreck 
 To a dreary waste, at whose bleak extreme 
 
 Dismay and death hold leaguer. 
 
 Is it asleep or awake that we dream? 
 Witness gaiety's votary crowd; 
 
 Witness the mad endeavour, 
 Ixion-like, to embrace the cloud, 
 To bask for a while in the accursed beam, 
 
 Then whirl on the wheel for ever. 
 
 Is it by day or by night that we dream? 
 
 In both — in both — through both there creep 
 
 Shade of sorrows and errors. 
 To His beloved He giveth sleep ; 
 O gift most worthy the Supreme ! 
 
 That sleep unscared by terrors. 
 
 THE ENIGMA OF TIME. 
 
 Jealously clutched to thy breast, O Time ! 
 Thou bearest a scroll, as yet unsealed; 
 When shall the sun-clock index the chime, , 
 That brings the fiat, " Be it revealed?" 
 
138 THE ENIGMA OF TIME. 
 
 Will it be ever unsealed, that scroll, 
 To human eyes, that they see the end ? 
 Will the dreary mystery of life unroll 
 Ever, that we may comprehend 
 The awful enigma and secret of time ? 
 
 Wealth grows greater, and savagedom grows 
 
 Greater and greater, day after day; 
 
 Almsgiving nursing it, till it knows 
 
 A hunger that alms shall never allay. 
 
 Daily the hypocrite flourisheth, 
 
 Daily the liar and cheat grow rich; 
 
 Thus stands the case — no matter what saith 
 
 The preacher, mumbling dead words, by which 
 
 He would reveal the enigma of time. 
 
 Cotton, and iron, and coal, are strong; 
 Cotton, and iron, and coal — are they wise ? 
 They can whirl the wheel of trade along; 
 Can they hush the storm of poverty's cries ? 
 Caveat Emptor — so says John Bright; 
 Caveat Vendor — rather say I. 
 Perish our trade on left and right, 
 If it can only build on a lie — 
 This is no secret of thine, O Time ! 
 
DEATH OF ROBERT BUCHANAN. 139 
 
 NELLY. 
 
 Laugh out, little Nell, with your grandmother's laugh, 
 
 And the trick of your grandmother's eyes, 
 Half-waken the dreams of the future, and half 
 
 Of the days that are long gone by; 
 Toss up in the sunshine your sunshiny curls; 
 
 Oh that the cares of the coming days, 
 The months of sorrows, the years of perils, 
 
 May be tossed as lightly away. 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE DEATH OF 
 MR ROBERT BUCHANAN, 
 
 WHO DIED DECEMBER 3 1, 1875. 
 
 Dead — as the year was dying, 
 In gusty wind and lashing rain ! 
 He has laid down the weariness of life — 
 The fret, and the grief, and the pain. 
 For many a day, wherein for him 
 Lay any charm to make life loved ? 
 The coldness of the shadow grim 
 Chilled him and would not be removed. 
 
1 40 DBA TH OF ROBER T B UCHANAN. 
 
 In truth, with death's companionship 
 He walked his way these later years, 
 Until he saw life's hope-stars dip 
 In darkness all their radiant spheres, 
 And only faith, afar could see 
 The star that hangs o'er Calvary. 
 Dead — as the year was dying. 
 
 A- 4lte^«JfL 
 
THE RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 An Ayrshire legend supplies the essential outline of this rime. 
 The supernatural element is taken very much as it is found in 
 the old story ; but it would not be difficult to accept the facts 
 in their full integrity, and explain them without the aid of any 
 spiritual agency, except so far as there is in every man a spiritual 
 agency, hitherto uncaught in the finest meshes of the metaphysical 
 web— an agency and power apprehended of all, comprehended 
 of none. 
 
 PROEM. 
 In lonely moorland glens grey toothless crones 
 Mumble out vague and incoherent tales, 
 In most monotonous, dull undertones, 
 Reiterated till attention fails. 
 
 Broken and caught up like a ravelled thread, 
 Some scandal of grim lord or lady gay, 
 Magnified through the mist of years long dead, 
 Distorted into doubtful disarray. 
 
142 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 Laughter and terror going hand in hand, 
 And retribution bringing up the rear, 
 Like the lame laggard of a flying band, 
 That only follows for the following fear. 
 
 For we may mark in all these tales antique, 
 How firm the faith which the narrators hold, 
 That though despised, and trampled on, and weak, 
 Under the might of force, or fraud, or gold, 
 
 The curse of unjust suffering rises up, 
 And will not be restrained, but drop by drop 
 Distils its venomed essence, till the cup 
 Of retribution brims up to the top. 
 
 And that this life which sees the ill deed done, 
 Sees also the ill end that follows sure; 
 Impatient thought and vain ! That there is One 
 Who will avenge the friendless and the poor 
 
 We know full well; but not the less we know, 
 That it is after death the judgments come, 
 And that they cannot fail to come ; and so 
 Our querulous impatience should be dumb. 
 
 Once on a time I lived among old books, 
 And heard old stories rhymed o'er day by day, 
 Reading the part in dim forgotten nooks, 
 Sequestered from the dusty, hot highway; 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 143 
 
 Until the quaint old language did become 
 As a familiar friend, whose aspect rough, 
 At first cross-grained, and with a touch of gloom; 
 Morose, forbidding — ay, and somewhat gruff, 
 
 Grows lovable on near acquaintanceship, 
 And soft and sweet beneath the gnarled rind; 
 And from whose grim, sarcastic, shrivelled lip 
 Falls consolation, well advised and kind. 
 
 So in the telling of this old-world rime, 
 It may be pardoned me that I did seek 
 To link some old-world phrases in its chime, 
 And cast its numbers in a mould antique. 
 
 FYTTE THE FIRST. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 As the bride delights in the bridegroom, so the old earth delights 
 and evermore will delight in the lusty sun ; yea, even till a new 
 choir of the morning stars shall rejoice over the new earth and 
 the new heavens. On a Sabbath in the old killing time, an aged 
 man sat in Rylston Haugh, and read anent the passion of our 
 dear Lord. Earl Sellis of Tralean, being advised of his con- 
 tumacy, seeks him. The old man wots not of their coming, 
 for his spirit, in waking trance, sees the woful spectacle at the 
 Holy Rood, and the snare is gathered round him. The glad- 
 ness of life has long since fallen from him, like the greenery 
 from the trees in autumn ; and whatsoever of hope remains, 
 points upwards, like a bare fir forest. He curses the earl by 
 that Power who gives to the wind-sower a full harvest ; and 
 thereupon falls asleep. 
 
144 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 The stars are blanched before the dawn, 
 
 And glimmer cold and white; 
 And the sky grows pallid with a film 
 
 Of grey and ghostly light, 
 Until the fiery flush lights up 
 
 Cantyre's bare, ridgy steeps, 
 And the laverock, from the dew-wet sward, 
 
 To meet the day-god leaps; 
 Large orbed and red, half vapour-hid, 
 
 He glints the mists with gold, 
 Yet ever upward surely bends 
 
 To his noonday hold. 
 
 It was the noon of the holy day, 
 
 The Sabbath of the Lord, 
 And an old man sat in a sheltered nook 
 
 And conned the Holy Word. 
 Only in secret durst he read, 
 
 Only in secret pray, 
 For the Prelatists sorely vexed the saints 
 
 In that evil day. 
 
 It was the noon of the holy day, 
 
 And forth Earl Sellis rode; 
 And following him in warlike trim, 
 With reckless bearing, stern and grim, 
 
 Went ritters five abroad. 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 145 
 
 By ridge and path, through copse and strath, 
 
 They rode for many a mile; 
 The grey depths of the earl's cold eye 
 
 Bright with a cruel smile. 
 He led them on, nor e'er turned round, 
 
 Nor spake through all the while: 
 Across the dreary upland moor 
 
 Their weary way they made, 
 On to the edge of a deep ravine, 
 
 Where further course was stayed. 
 
 Their leader sprang from his horse and spake ; 
 
 "We must on foot," quoth he. 
 They tethered their steeds with the bridle-reins 
 
 To the fairy's hawthorn tree, 
 And clambered down the steep glen side, 
 
 Through hazel-clumps and fern; 
 With hand and knee they clambered down, 
 
 Until they reached the burn 
 That slid o'er the moss, along and across, 
 
 With many a brawling turn. 
 Then up the glen, along the stream, 
 
 With wary steps and slow; 
 The ravine narrowed to a gorge, 
 
 And darker it did grow; 
 It seemed they did, in a few brief strides, 
 
 From noon to gloaming go. 
 
146 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 The old man reads in his lownie nook 
 
 To evite the evil law; 
 The Book on his knees, and his brow in his hands, 
 
 In the gloom of Rylston Haugh. 
 His body was there in the dim wood shade, 
 
 Abstracted all and still, 
 But his soul was with the multitude 
 That hooting, and jeering, and mocking stood 
 
 On the cursed Judean hill j 
 Whilst writhing in woful agony, 
 
 Three men on high are raised, 
 And a few sad women, wailing sore, 
 
 Lie on the ground abased. 
 To his spirit's ear the scoff and jeer 
 
 Came from old Jewry's crowd, 
 But in sooth the ear of the body too 
 
 Met a scoff and a jeer as loud : 
 "Doth the old dotard sleep?" quoth they, 
 
 "Or lies he in a dwam, 
 Clean doitered with the drowsy lilt 
 
 Of a canting, whiggamore psalm?" 
 
 With meaningless stare he eyed the band, 
 
 A moment and no more, 
 Then closed the Book, and rose to face 
 
 The fate that glared before. 
 They hauled him forth to an open space : 
 
 Never a word spake he : 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 147 
 
 Till three stood out with firelocks raised, 
 
 Then he sank down on his knee; 
 And his prayer rose up to the throne of God 
 
 Like a frost-mist from the sea. 
 The word was given — the volley fired — 
 
 The echoes of the wood 
 Awoke at the sound, and each with each 
 
 Did wage a noisy feud. 
 In the death-throe he writhed — his mouth 
 
 Welled full of the warm blood. 
 He clutched the grass — he gasped to speak; 
 
 But his mouth was filled with blood. 
 "And prays he yet?" jeered grim Tralean; 
 
 " His tongue can patter well; 
 I trow his ben'son will be changed 
 
 To curse with book and bell." 
 
 When changed with hate, or woe, or love, 
 
 A power in the heart doth lie, 
 To give the might of an angel's tongue 
 
 To a mute glance of the eye. 
 That glance now met Tralean's bold look, 
 
 Clear, calm, and stern, and high, 
 And graven for aye on Tralean's black heart, 
 
 That glance might never die ! 
 
 A power seemed to enter the dying man, 
 A spirit not of himself, 
 
148 RIME OF THE WICKED EARI. 
 
 As when a corse is tenanted 
 
 By some avenging elf. 
 His right hand up he tossed to heaven, 
 
 From his mouth he spat the blood, 
 And his solemn eye glared steadily 
 
 At Sellis, where he stood : 
 " Earth is nigh weary of thy works, 
 
 Of all thou art accursed : 
 Thy God, thyself, thy fellow-men 
 
 For judgment are athirst. 
 The blood of the saints whom thou hast slain, 
 
 Cries up from out the dust. 
 The vintage of wrath is pressed for thee, 
 
 The dregs, and the wine, and the must. 
 Thine eye hath mocked mine agony, 
 
 'Twill one day be thine own; 
 In keener pangs thou'lt writhe, and yet 
 
 Thy tongue shall patter none." 
 
 Down sank the hand, the eye grew dim, 
 
 And fixed and still the face. 
 His body to the earth and air — 
 
 His soul to Jesu's grace. 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 149 
 
 FYTTE THE SECOND. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Three years pass away, three circlings of the appointed seasons, 
 ordained from of old; and Earl Sellis becomes a name 
 muttered in bitterness of heart, and with sore loathing. On a 
 time he was returning to Tralean Castle, when the flushed 
 sun stoops to the west, behind the hills of Cantyre. He falls 
 into a mood of deep musing ; but that comes which awakens 
 memory, who hath an easily-broken slumber. A voice pierces 
 the earl's soul, at the which he is mightily moved, and stands 
 a space glamoured ; but anon flies, as if fiend-chased, to 
 Tralean Castle, and swoons by reason of his great perturba- 
 tion. 
 
 With garments loose, and hair unbound, 
 
 The Summer danced along ; 
 And tawny Autumn followed straight 
 
 With a glad harvest-song; 
 Till Winter drave her forth, and held 
 
 The earth in icy chain. 
 But the young Spring warred with the gruff old 
 carle, 
 
 And overthrew his reign; 
 And lured the flowers from the frost-freed ground 
 
 By many a kind device, 
 And nursed them tenderly: and thus 
 
 The seasons circled thrice. 
 Three years rolled on, and Sellis' name 
 
 Was cursed everywhere: 
 
150 RIME OF THE WICKED EAR I. 
 
 The husband, sire, and widow's moan 
 
 Oft woke in sore despair. 
 But bide the time ! such cries as these 
 
 Are wasted not in air. 
 
 At early dawn he hied him forth 
 
 On some ungodly quest, 
 And ere he homeward turned his rein, 
 
 The sun lay in the west. 
 With foam-flecked chest and reeking flank, 
 
 The gallant steed stretched on, 
 Now dim in the wood's fast-waning shade, 
 
 In the red gleam bathed anon. 
 In deepest thought Earl Sellis rode, 
 
 Nor ever looked around. 
 With sudden shock he woke — his steed 
 
 Had stumbled o'er a mound. 
 Quick he reined up, and wistly gazed 
 
 Eftsoons to left and right; 
 And a scene that memory did not love 
 
 Affronted there his sight. 
 No lettered stone on the little mound 
 
 Betold who slept below. 
 And wherefore should Earl Sellis start ? 
 
 Why shiver coldly so? 
 A hoarhaired man had perished there 
 
 Upon a summer day, 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 151 
 
 And the memory of his latest glance 
 Had never passed away. 
 
 And lo ! a voice brake forth, and spake — 
 
 It held the earl in chain — 
 " Must blood cry up to Abel's God 
 
 For ever, and in vain? 
 The truth of him who cursed thee here 
 
 Shall sternly proven be. 
 Naught now remains to thee but this, 
 
 Thy well- won weird to dree." 
 Whether it was a sprite of God 
 
 Who spoke these words of dole, 
 Or the evil power who tempted him, 
 
 Or the voice of his own soul, 
 It is not surely mine to wist; 
 
 But with bitter agony 
 It moved his mind, as a fierce north wind 
 
 Tosses a lonely tree. 
 
 As one upon a rock who hangs 
 
 Over a rushing lynn, 
 And, 'midst the dizziness of brain 
 
 Wrought by the whirl and din, 
 Doth feel an impulse keen to leap 
 
 The seething waters in; 
 And so he trembles as he lies 
 
 Upon the rocky shelf; 
 
152 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 But up he springs, with shuddering filled, 
 
 And flies, even from himself, 
 With frantic speed, nor ever round 
 
 Doth he his eyeballs cast; 
 With frantic speed, each footstep's pace 
 
 Still fleeter than the last : 
 So Sellis stood, so Sellis fled 
 
 From Rylston Wood aghast. 
 
 His keen spurs ploughed black Danger's side, 
 
 Nor did his speed abate 
 Till, with a groan, the steed fell down, 
 
 Ten strides from the castle gate. 
 The warder warned, the knaves rushed out, 
 
 But they to him did seem 
 To whirl, and leer, and mock, and grin, 
 Like goblins round the bed of Sin, 
 
 In a drunk nightmare dream. 
 
 Into the olden hall he reeled, 
 
 And haggardly looked round ; 
 The glare of lights, the throng of forms, 
 
 The dull, dead, surging sound 
 Sent the blood pulsing to his brain ; 
 
 And thereupon he swooned. 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 153 
 
 FYTTE THE THIRD. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 His gentle wife, albeit she doth know the aching of love grown 
 cold, tends the earl dutifully. But with returning sense comes 
 returning torment, and he seeks an anodyne in the wine-cup's 
 ecstasy. He sits alone — of mortal companionship is none 
 with him — and the wine-god's inspiration, and the whirl 
 of his own thoughts, give to the eye a strange double sight, 
 till the mind endows with life things inanimate. But the 
 solacing cup bears him up with a strong hardihood ; and the 
 old witch Lilis comes with her charmed goblet. (She was 
 the first wife of Adam, and by her were the evil angels be- 
 gotten, as witness the ancient Talmudists.) And the seven 
 deadly sins are with her, seemingly each one more beautiful 
 than the idol of the soul's first love-dream, to whom the wor- 
 shipping spirit has given all fair gifts and richest fancy treasures, 
 that the shrine may be worthy of the adorer; yet is Lilis 
 more beautiful than they. And the compelling power of the 
 accursed verse is upon him. He drinks, and the end comes on. 
 
 She had a sweet and winsome face, 
 
 Pale Lady of Tralean, 
 And soft and sad as Phoebe's beam 
 
 The light of her blue een ; 
 For she had known the agony 
 
 Of watching, day by day, 
 The first fierce tide of her husband's love 
 
 Ebb, wave by wave, away, 
 Till all was gone; and scaith, and scorn, 
 
 And many an insult deep, 
 Became her lot, and sighs and tears 
 
 Her lullaby to sleep. 
 
154 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL 
 
 Yet aye she sought in deed and thought 
 
 Her wifely part to keep. 
 And now he lay upon a couch, 
 
 The knaves were all withdrawn, 
 She tended till the trembling breath 
 
 Came softly like the dawn. 
 So he did wake; and memory came 
 
 Again to torture him, 
 To din the curse into his ears, 
 
 And daze his eyeballs dim, 
 Till round about, in reel and rout, 
 
 All things did seem to swim; 
 And he was maddened, and did leap 
 
 With grim oath hurriedly to his feet, 
 Striking aside her who had watched 
 
 With ministry so sweet, 
 And bade the pantler furnish forth 
 
 Good store of choicest wine, 
 That Bacchus might dispel the power 
 
 Of the evil sign. 
 
 In every sconce a cresset blazed, 
 
 And all alone sat he. 
 Alone ! alone with his gnawing thoughts 
 Wound round his heart, like grasping knots 
 
 Of hissing snakes — woe's me! 
 Seven devils from the lowest pit 
 
 Were blanden company. 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 155 
 
 The wine-god is a freakish god ; 
 
 And 'tis his frequent whim 
 To play strange pranks with the phantasy 
 
 Of those who worship him. 
 He giveth it a shaping power 
 
 On the brain strange sights to limn; 
 No limner e'er had shaping power 
 
 Might be compared with him. 
 
 'Tis writ of a knight, who dantonless, 
 
 A demon-steed bestrode, 
 And straight forgot the rhym&d spell 
 
 That ruled the fiend he rode ; 
 So his limbs were rent by the thing hell-sent 
 
 And scattered all abroad. 
 Thus with the earl : he lost the rein 
 
 O'er his own imagining; 
 The quaint-carved corbels on the walls 
 
 Seemed leers at him to fling. 
 With every tassie of the wine 
 
 The more they grinned and leered, 
 And he laughed and quaffed; for the wine-god 
 made 
 
 His votary non-afeared. 
 The old Traleans that hung inlimned 
 
 On the panels of Ayrshire oak, 
 He saw them start from their frames, as if 
 
 By necromancy woke, 
 
 -. 
 
156 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 And beckoning stand, with mail-gloved hand, 
 
 Then dimly fade away — 
 He laughed aloud at the ghostly crowd, 
 
 As they did fade away; 
 And the startled walls in echo back 
 
 Will nothing him dismay. 
 And straight a troop of forms sprang up, 
 And one did bear a gem-decked cup, 
 
 Seemed full of ruby-flame. 
 None ever was so fair as she, 
 None ever had such witchery, 
 
 And Lilis is her name. 
 
 'Tis she who sits by the lone sea-brink, 
 
 Unwary men to entice, 
 By the spell that lies in her woven hair, 
 And her luring smile, beyond compare, 
 And her snatches of song, antique and rare, 
 
 And her wonderful flashing eyes. 
 Wreathing around her a charmed dance, 
 
 Breathing a charmed song, 
 A choir of seven sister-elves 
 
 Usher her along. 
 With flashing arms, and floating hair, 
 
 And swimming eyes of love, 
 To the measure of the cadenced song 
 
 Their glancing footsteps move; 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 157 
 
 But they, like stars when the moon is up, 
 Paled before her of the flameful cup — 
 
 Nor might a contrast prove. 
 Up to the earl in mazy whirl 
 
 The spirit sisters glide; 
 With motions warm, and free, and bland, 
 Like dancing girls of Paynim land, 
 And he gazes on the twining band, 
 
 Flush-faced and eager-eyed. 
 She who doth bear the goblet rare 
 
 Smiles graciously on him, 
 And the wondrous sheen of her lustrous een 
 
 Maketh the lamps burn dim. 
 Nearer the earl with every whirl 
 
 The seven and the one glide on. 
 Their charmed chant now urgeth him 
 To drink from the glamoured goblet's brim 
 
 The wine that ruby shone : 
 And that pleasure was his, and perfect bliss, 
 When his lips the goblet's brink should kiss; 
 
 And sorrow be no more known. 
 
 The Witch-Song. 
 
 lust. 
 
 Keen the delight of love ! 
 When lips meet lips, 
 
158 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL, 
 
 And the glowing eyes above 
 Have a moment's eclipse; 
 
 When heart pants to heart 
 With a trembling desire, 
 
 And each glance is a dart 
 Winged with passionate fire." 
 
 ANGER. 
 
 " Keen the delight of war! 
 
 The stern joy of battle, 
 When near and afar 
 
 Sounds the sky-cleaving rattle; 
 When face glares into face, 
 
 With knit brows and hard breath, 
 And the drunken heart reels 
 
 With the red wine of death! 
 And the strong reaper, Mars, 
 
 Stalks his harvest-field thorough, 
 Gathering his ripe sheaves 
 
 From furrow to furrow." 
 
 HATE. 
 
 " Keen the delight of revenge ! 
 
 Which, like a sleuth-hound, 
 Will tire not, nor range, 
 
 Till it close with a bound. 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 159 
 
 From the start to the capture 
 
 The hot hate grows stronger, 
 Till it drink in with rapture 
 
 The throes of the wronger." 
 
 INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 " Keen the delight of wine ! 
 
 When it beads up and dances, 
 With a flame more divine 
 
 Than a thousand love-glances; 
 And like spring through the forest 
 
 It thrills through the veins; 
 And of anquish the sorest 
 
 What memory remains?" 
 
 AVARICE. 
 
 "Keen the delight of power! 
 
 And in wealth 'tis uphoarded. 
 Woo me, and this be the dower — 
 
 O'er the worldlings to lord it, 
 Gaze on the tawny gold, 
 
 Or the gem's shifting shimmer, 
 Till the wine-flush looks cold, 
 
 And beauty's sheen dimmer. 
 
160 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 The world, now as erst, 
 
 Sweats and racks the brain, thinking 
 To quench my fierce thirst, 
 
 Which grows fiercer with drinking." 
 
 JEALOUSY. 
 
 "Oh! the glare of the weary day, 
 The gloom of the weary night, 
 
 And the heart that eats itself away, 
 And of dolour makes delight. 
 
 And the sting of the sleepless snake, 
 Nestled in the breast; 
 
 Waking to shudder, sleeping to ache, 
 Never to rest ! " 
 
 PRIDE. 
 
 " My sisters move with aiding arms 
 
 That interlace and meet ! 
 I move along; my stronger charms 
 
 Are in themselves complete." 
 
 SLOTH. 
 
 " Keener than all the delight 
 
 Of deep, deep rest! 
 Which falls like the night 
 
 With its dews on the breast 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 161 
 
 Even as to the broad ocean 
 
 All water-streams tend, 
 So each work and emotion 
 
 Here hath its end ! " 
 
 LILIS. 
 
 " Dark of soul ! such as we love — 
 With a curse upon thee — as on us — 
 We have ever been with thee — unseen but near — 
 Till the charm was wrought, whereby we appear 
 Visibly to thee — now — and thus. 
 Drink and prove 
 That in the sphere of our chalice here 
 
 Is treasured up, by an alchemy rarest, 
 Each delight thou holdest most dear, 
 And a balm for every ill thou bearest ! 
 The dew of a thousand kisses, 
 
 The soul of a thousand sighs, 
 The thrill of a thousand blisses, 
 The lust of a thousand eyes, 
 Are as naught — yea, less than naught, 
 
 To the Elysium that lies 
 In this wine : and my cup is overfraught." 
 
 I cannot tell how sweet their song: 
 It had compelling power and strong, 
 
162 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 Like every song of sin. 
 And as one drinks the sunshine clear 
 Who long hath pined in duress drear, 
 
 Earl Sellis drank it in. 
 He drank it in, and it did sway 
 
 His soul with subtle craft: 
 He clutched the cup, he tossed it up, 
 
 And sought an eager draught. 
 
 He had not held the flaming wine 
 
 A moment to his lips, 
 Ere the bright form vanished from his view, 
 And the lamps did burn a ghastly blue, 
 And all things wore an eerie hue, 
 
 As in a sun eclipse : 
 And sounds there were came wandering by, 
 The sound as of one long, wailing sigh, 
 
 Anon a burst of laughter; 
 Which echoed along, each time more strong, 
 
 More bitter far, and dafter; 
 He well might ken no mortal men 
 
 E'er laughed that eldrich laughter. 
 His veins did each like pulses beat, 
 
 His heart was stricken cold, 
 He sought to stand, but straight fell down 
 To the floor, with never a sigh or groan, 
 
 Ere two could well be told. 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 163 
 
 FYTTE THE FOURTH. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Through the terror of the long night sits Lady Tralean, and for 
 very fear her tiring-woman is with her. The day comes, and 
 they are loosened from the chain of the night-terror. And the 
 same fear is upon the menials. Consciousness comes again to the 
 earl, and the full weight of the curse presses him sorely for seven 
 days, which is an eternity ; and on the seventh, when the sun 
 leaves the earth to the slumbers of the night-time, and to the 
 vigils of the sleepless stars, and the sad moon (who is wan 
 with sorrow at the rushing song of the fiery planets, which she 
 may in no wise answer — being less noble than they), with 
 fierce convulsions the agony of life forsaketh him, and the 
 curse in this mid-world hath its consummation. 
 
 Bitter of heart, in her sad bower 
 
 She sat through all the weird night hour, 
 
 Sad Lady of Tralean ! 
 And with her sat her tiring-lass, 
 And their hearts drink in, as the weary hours pass, 
 
 Strange awe, and dread, and teen. 
 Half-woke, half-tranced in nightmare's grip 
 
 They sat, till came the day, 
 Like healing dew it fell on them, 
 
 They twain began to pray; 
 Then the bonds of the thing that seemed so strong 
 
 Were weak as gossamer: 
 All foul things fly when God's dear light 
 
 Is given to appear. 
 
164 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 The varlets flocked all to the common hall, 
 
 Each looked in his neighbour's eyes, 
 If his own fear did there appear, 
 
 And his own surprise; 
 And spake in whispers, each to each 
 
 Of the strange sound yestreen. 
 Slow passed the hour, till from the bower 
 
 Came the pale Lady of Tralean; 
 And two went with her to the hall, 
 
 And there Earl Sellis lay, 
 As stiff and still, as cold and chill, 
 
 As life had fled for aye. 
 
 But he woke again to agony, 
 
 And the work of the curse returned, 
 His eyes, like balls of molten lead, 
 
 Within their sockets burned, 
 His tongue was withered, and powerless all 
 
 To speak his torments deep, 
 And the burning thirst, and the gnawing woe : 
 Never again might Earl Sellis know 
 
 The blessing of sweet sleep. 
 Thus, wrapped about with tortures keen 
 As with a robe, lived Earl Tralean 
 
 While seven long days did roll, 
 With never a voice wherewith to noise 
 
 The anguish of his soul. 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 165 
 
 The close of the seventh day drew on : 
 
 He stood on a turret high, 
 And looked around to the laughing ground, 
 
 To the sea, and the quiet sky. 
 The sun was smiling his parting smile, 
 
 The glad earth drank it in : 
 
 Faint in the east the filmy moon 
 
 Hung flecked, and horned, and thin; 
 
 And Hesperus alone was seen, 
 
 The silver page of the silver queen; 
 
 And the winds were moving through the trees 
 With a low, lulling din : 
 
 O God ! so beautiful without, 
 So terrible within ! 
 
 Like the great God who tendeth all, 
 
 And by Whom all have been, 
 The sun shone ruddily on each — 
 On the leaping wave that lit the beach | 
 
 With a fantastic sheen, 
 On tree, on rock, on mead, on cloud, 
 
 And eke on Earl Tralean. 
 Alike on all the red sun shone, 
 
 Never a spot was dim; 
 And all were glad, save the curs&d man — \ 
 
 The quiet was a hell to him. 
 
166 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 To his reinless fancy the parting sun 
 
 A glaring aspect had, 
 And winds, and waters, and rustling leaves 
 
 Strange tongues to hiss him mad. 
 As a man might seize an unweaned child 
 
 And press its breath away, 
 A strong convulsion seized the earl: 
 
 Then sank the orb of day: 
 It shook his limbs, it griped his heart, 
 With straining grip in every part, 
 
 Till life had passed away ! 
 
 Three days in pall the body lay, 
 
 His widowed dame kept weeping, 
 And on the fourth the mourners came 
 To lay him with those of the Sellis name, 
 In the kirk vault sleeping. 
 
 FYTTE THE FIFTH. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Each Wind hath its own Spirit, and the West Wind hath a gentle 
 Spirit — but overall rules the Great One, who has appointed 
 laws for their governance, and sure bounds which they may 
 not transgress, though they be freer and more restless than any 
 other of the creatures of the Eternal Lord. For three days 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 167 
 
 the Winds had been lulled in deep quietude, but on the fourth 
 the fell East Wind flew out and battled with the night -gathered 
 clouds, till the rain was lashed down, and the lightning in a 
 ceaseless shower. And five seafaring men who were caught 
 in the overtaking fury of the tempest, witness a selcouth ferlie 
 — even a ship of fire — which steers straight, against wind and 
 tide, to the Carrick coast, crossing, in its course, the forefoot 
 of the fishers' craft. One has the hardihood to challenge it. 
 The response. 
 
 Three days the winds were tranquil, 
 
 Still as the soul of that star 
 That follows the sun, and flies the sun, 
 
 Now near, and now afar. 
 Then the angry sprite of the strong East Wind 
 
 Rushed out in his stormy car, 
 With his blasts all marshalled in array, 
 
 As a chief goes forth to war; 
 And the Spirit who dwells in the wandering cloud 
 
 That changes as it drifts, 
 Who maketh his throne on the highest zone 
 
 Of his vapour-clifts, 
 Was all discomfited thereat, 
 
 And showered down tears of rain, 
 Big, bitter drops of angry grief, 
 
 And westward drave amain. 
 Each cloud was cloven, and from the cleft 
 
 The learning fire-balls leapt; 
 No pause between each fireshower keen, 
 
 The thunders never slept. 
 
168 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 As a hawk swoops down upon a dove, 
 
 Even so the tempest smote 
 With madd'ning wind and maddened wave, 
 
 A hapless fishing boat. 
 Each plank was shook, each rope was strained, 
 
 All hope had fled each breast, 
 They saw in the gloom a strange thing come 
 
 Sailing from the west. 
 
 Its shape was a ship's — but, gramercy ! 
 
 It seemfcd all aflame,* 
 'Gainst wind and sea, with headlong speed, 
 
 Due east, the strange thing came. 
 Aghast they stared as it drave on ; 
 
 A ship, and all of fire, 
 Nor did it seem to burn away, 
 
 But drew on nigh and nigher. 
 Five men were in the fishing craft, 
 
 And four were choked with fears, 
 Though they had sailed upon the sea 
 Almost since they had left the knee, 
 
 Well on to forty years. 
 
 * The phenomenon of a fiery meteor has been occasionally 
 seen on the Carrick coast. It is of interest in so far as it may 
 be a matter of speculation whether the (supposed) signal which 
 induced Robert the Bruce to quit Arran and cross over to 
 Turnberry Castle, may not have been of this nature. — See 
 "Lord of the Isles," canto v, st. 17, and Mr Joseph Train's 
 note thereon. 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 169 
 
 The timoneer was a hardy wight, 
 
 Nor wife nor bairns had he, 
 Nor cared he aught for godly things, 
 
 Or godly companie; 
 And stoutly he did parley this 
 
 Strange wanderer on the sea, 
 "Whence comes the ship, and whither bound?" — 
 
 His shipmates shut their een — 
 A shriek of laughter burst — "From Hell! 
 
 To the burial of Tralean!" 
 Straight on it sped, and coloured 
 
 The vext wave in its flying 
 With changing tint, like those that glint 
 
 The back o' the dolphin dying; 
 Straight on it steered, nor tacked, nor veered, 
 Till to the Cove Tralean it n eared, 
 
 Then vanished from their eying. 
 
 FYTTE THE SIXTH. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Earl Sellis is an old name in the countryside, so that there be 
 many to follow the corse, notwithstanding the overcoming 
 might of the storm and the strange wind that ever withstands 
 their progress onward. In all living creatures the lesser fear 
 is swallowed up of the greater, and birds of alien and diverse 
 natures companion together, even on the hearse, till the bird 
 of ill omen displaces them ; whereupon the bier is arrested on 
 
170 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 Strumnock Brig ; for no charm, though of the strongest, may 
 avail further than the midst of a running stream. Verily, 
 prayer is the true ladder of Jacob, whereupon angels go up 
 and down, and it is seen to be so by every one whose head is 
 brought low, and pillowed on the hard stone ; and through it 
 comes all deliverance. 
 
 In Tralean Hall the mourners all 
 
 (As in a bygone verse 
 I told) were met: all things prepared, 
 Forth from the castle gate they fared, 
 
 The dead earl in his hearse. 
 The noon might well be matched with night; 
 
 Meanwhile, with furious dunt, 
 A roaring wind did buffet them 
 
 And ever seemed in front ; 
 Wend as they might that roaring wind 
 
 Was ever in their front. 
 
 It felled down trees athwart their path, 
 
 No birds might perch on sprays, 
 But on the wings of that strong wind 
 
 Were hurtled divers ways. 
 And some dazed blind by those keen fires 
 
 The air was filled withal, 
 Lost fear of man in mightier fear, 
 
 And perched upon the pall, 
 In midst of that great train of men, 
 Though wont on moor, or beach, or glen, 
 
 To fly the urchin's " tshew ! " 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 171 
 
 Together cowered the cushet dove, 
 
 The kite, and shy seamew, 
 With blackbird, pyet, throssel, rook, 
 
 Erst never seen in crew. 
 
 Till with a dismal clang of wings 
 
 There swooped a raven down 
 Upon the bier — but ere he lit, 
 
 Each other bird had flown. 
 It hath, I wist, in ages all 
 
 Been bird of omen ill, 
 And now upon old Strumnock Brig 
 
 The earl's hearse stood still! 
 Six big-boned Flanders mares were yoked 
 
 But naught could they prevail, 
 Against the charm that held them there 
 
 Their strength might not avail, 
 Nor voice, nor scourge, nor spur could urge 
 
 Them forward for a thraw; 
 The hearse stood still, all hearts were chill 
 
 With an eerie sense of awe. 
 Mad with the force of many burns, 
 
 In current fierce and heady, 
 The Strumnock raved and roared amain; 
 As 'twere a snake in mortal pain, 
 It writhed and coiled, it seethed and boiled 
 
 In many a hoary eddy. 
 
172 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 In all that train of frozen men 
 
 But one had voice to pray, 
 'Twas he who read the Holy Word 
 
 Upon the Sabbath Day. 
 "O God! when Thy fierce jealousy 
 
 Is kindled into wrath, 
 We are as worms beneath Thy feet, 
 
 As stubble in Thy path; 
 Our hearts melt in us, with strong fear 
 
 Our very souls decay, 
 Where is our strength, or who our help, 
 
 If Thou be not our stay? 
 And oh! if in Thy justest wrath 
 
 To save Thou dost deny; 
 Give us but light, Thy blessed light ! 
 
 Give us but light to die ! 
 Turn not Thy face away from us, 
 
 Thou God who rul'st on high!" 
 
 Thereat a burst of levin-light 
 
 Girt heaven as with a zone; 
 As 'twere the welkin cloven in twain, 
 And there came streaming down amain 
 
 The light that hides the throne. 
 Blind for a space the mourners stood, 
 And when again the hearse they viewed, 
 
 The evil bird had flown. 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 173 
 
 Then, like a sapling pinned to earth, 
 
 When loosened from the strain, 
 With eager start leapt every heart 
 
 Back to its place again. 
 Nor scourge nor spur could urge or stir 
 
 The steeds, until His name 
 Was uttered by the holy man, 
 
 In thunder and in flame. 
 But now they started with their load, 
 
 And it was easy work, 
 Easily, easily haled they it 
 
 On to the village kirk. 
 They laid him in the Sellis vault, 
 
 The vault beside the porch, 
 With the thunder for a coronach, 
 
 The lightning for a torch ! 
 
 FYTTE THE SEVENTH. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Very solacing are the words of the wise man, " There is a time 
 to die." Yea! the weariness of life endures not for evermore, 
 for unto all is appointed a rest and a soft slumber after the 
 heat and burden of the day ; and as each worker has stoutly 
 and faithfully filled up his apportioned time, so it is the more 
 welcome, and comes upon him with a high music, in its very 
 stillness more to be desired than the concord of many harpers 
 harping cunningly on their harps. 
 
174 RIME OF THE WICKED EARI. 
 
 All still he lies in that dank vault, 
 
 And ever still hath lain, 
 Still, calm, and still ! though minstrel play 
 Death's song in many a divers way: 
 Still, calm, and still ! this ever will 
 
 Be burden of the strain. 
 
 The kirk around, in the churchyard ground 
 
 Lie buried many folk, 
 And their silence speechful is, as if 
 
 A trump-tongued angel spoke; 
 And is it not, in sooth, a voice 
 
 That Azrael hath spoke? 
 And oft I walk in the kirkyard 
 
 At the pleasant hour of noon, 
 When there's not a cloud to fleck the breadth 
 
 Of the azure sky of June: 
 And oftentimes I walk therein 
 
 Beneath the bending moon, 
 And when I walk therein, my soul 
 
 Saith with a yearning sigh, 
 "Both one and all, or great or small, 
 
 How peacefully they lie ! " 
 
 Under the golden sunshine, 
 
 In the happy summer-time, 
 And on the raw-cold winter morn, 
 
 Under the silver rime : 
 
RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 175 
 
 Or cold or warm, in calm or storm, 
 They ne'er are stirred or started ; 
 
 How silently and still they lie, 
 All these old departed ! 
 
 And oft I think, what time my brain 
 
 Is full of old-world fancies, 
 Surely this many-aiming world 
 
 Is but a hall of dances. 
 After the gillie-callum, 
 
 After the blythe strathspey, 
 After the circle-dance, or reel, 
 
 All hasten the same way; 
 After the quick-tript morrice, 
 
 After the stately pavan, 
 They take their fill of welcome rest 
 
 In this quiet haven. 
 
 Or slow or swift the pace or shift, 
 
 The changing and the doubling, 
 Their dancing done, all lie at one, 
 
 Untroubled, and untroubling. 
 He who oppressed, and they who bore, 
 
 All calmly lie together, 
 And, fardel-freed, nor note nor heed 
 
 The rain or sunny weather. 
 
176 RIME OF THE WICKED EARL. 
 
 As one who bravely lived and died, 
 
 Large-hearted Raleigh, has it, 
 Pride's pomp, scorn's scoff, hate's self-torment, 
 
 Joy's smile, Faith's carriage placid, 
 All hid and sepulchred beneath 
 
 These twain dead words, "Hicjacet"* 
 
 O Fancy ! who hast woven my strain, 
 Be thy glance homeward slanted; 
 
 O Soul ! thy yearning after quiet 
 Will not be ever thwarted : 
 
 Be calm in hope. How still they lie, 
 All these old departed! 
 
 * "O eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could 
 advise, thou hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast 
 done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast 
 cast out of the world and despised ; thou hast drawn together all 
 the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition 
 of man, and covered all over with these two narrow words, Hie 
 Jacet"—$\x Walter Raleigh, "History of the World." 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 Aching heart, what wouldst thou more now? 
 
 After a faithful priesthood — long confessed, 
 
 All noon I loitered in the sheltering wood, 
 
 Although we seek in sunny eyes, 
 
 And you're back to Bankier, . 
 
 Beautiful eyes, that swim and dance, 
 
 Be still! be still! though thou should st break, 
 
 Closer and nearer still, Annie ! closer and nearer still, 
 
 Could I forget ! could I forget, 
 
 Could the heart, when hope has perished, 
 
 Dark memories in our bosoms, 
 
 Dark memories of the captive and betrayed, 
 
 Dead — as the year was dying, 
 
 Doon by whare rashy Bonny rins, . 
 
 Evening's shades, as daylight fades, 
 
 From the Valhalla — from Gladsheim he passed 
 
 Here's the prattle of the burn, 
 
 I looked on a fountain, .... 
 
 In lonely moorland glens grey toothless crones 
 
 In the reign of the Magnificent, 
 
 In the solemn depths of the still night skies, 
 
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 INDEX OF FIRST IINES. 
 
 In youth's happy El Dorado, . 
 
 Is it asleep or awake we dream? 
 
 Jealously clutched to thy breast, Time, 
 
 Laugh out, little Nell, with your grandmother's laugh 
 
 Let us build three tabernacles, and adore, 
 
 Little Nelly — chattering Nelly, 
 
 Lonely sitting — lonely sitting, . 
 
 Many a time, ay, many a time, and oft, . 
 
 Mingling soft memories of years fled for aye, 
 
 Mirror thyself in the wave, O Star, . 
 
 Miss Shaw was wed on Hogmanay, 
 
 O breeze of the autumn woods, 
 
 O man ! whoe'er thou art, be thou not proud, 
 
 Och ! darlint, 'tisn't civil, 
 
 Oh river of life ! oh river, 
 
 Oh thou, who in the earlier days of earth, 
 
 On the threshold of the year, . 
 
 Seize, oh seize with nimble fingers, . 
 
 Soul of my lute ! mine olden friend, 
 
 The harvest-time is past, and the ripe sheaves 
 
 The memories o' the aulden days, . 
 
 The song itself is nothing : — but the name, 
 
 The summer snow lay thick upon the hedges, 
 
 There are two sides to every picture, 
 
 There is a star outshining, 
 
 There only are two things on which the eye, 
 
 They deave me wi' clavers, 
 
 Though faint and vigour-wasted from the loss, 
 
 Though the rolling of rivers, . 
 
 Threescore and ten, and then he passed from us 
 
 Thus Nature is the ladder whereupon, 
 
 Trudging along, my stick and I, 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 179 
 
 Under the beeches of Earlswood Chase, . 
 
 Was he not wise, that ancient sage, 
 
 Weary, weary of the sunlight, 
 
 We bind ourselves to life with wreaths of flowers, 
 
 What a pettish little fairy, .... 
 
 When the wheat was as high as my daughter's head 
 
 Why should I waste my heart on one, . . ' 
 
 Winter comes, and winds are wandering, 
 
 Woe follows even when the reaper Death, 
 
 Yes ! deck her out in her bridal robes, 
 
 You came with the sunshine, .... 
 
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