Loneliness

Our home used to be in a hut in the dear old Camp, with lots of bands and trumpets and bugles and Dead Marches, and three times a day there was a gun,
But now we live in View Villa at the top of the village, and it isn't nearly such fun.
We never see any soldiers, except one day we saw a Volunteer, and we ran after him as hard as ever we could go, for we thought he looked rather brave;
But there's only been one funeral since we came, an ugly black thing with no Dead March or Union Jack, and not even a firing party at the grave.
There is a man in uniform to bring the letters, but he's nothing like our old Orderly, Brown;
I told him, through the hedge, "Your facings are dirty, and you'd have to wear your belt if my father was at home," and oh, how he did frown!
But things can't be expected to go right when Old ...

"Giving up three for one!" - mother,
    You said in the long ago,
When father, yourself, and John, mother,
    I left, o'er the deep to go.
"Giving up three for one!" - mother,
    You said, and it sank in my heart;
For tho' strong was my love for the one, mother,
    It was hard from the three to part.

But to-day, as I sit alone, mother,
    Rocking my little one's bed -
(Not Winnie's bed, dear, but her brother's - )
    I am thinking of what you said;
And a sweet thought glads my heart, mother -
    Can you guess what the thought can be?
'Tis, that tho' I'd but one in the start, mother,
    Yet now I have three for three.

Yes, three for three, my mother,
    God is good to your wandering child,
So far from her father and brother...

Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower
    In chambers purple with the Alpine glow,
    Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow
    And rocked by tempests!--at the appointed hour
Forth, like a steel-clad horseman from a tower,
    With clang and clink of harness dost thou go
    To meet thy vassal torrents, that below
    Rush to receive thee and obey thy power.
And now thou movest in triumphal march,
    A king among the rivers!    On thy way
    A hundred towns await and welcome thee;
Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch,
    Vineyards encircle thee with garlands gay,
    And fleets attend thy progress to the sea!

'Twas not love's dart,
Or any blow
Of want, or foe,
Did wound my heart
With an eternal smart;

But only you,
My sometimes known
Companion,
My dearest Crew,
That me unkindly slew.

May your fault die,
And have no name
In books of fame;
Or let it lie
Forgotten now, as I.

We parted are
And now no more,
As heretofore,
By jocund Lar
Shall be familiar.

But though we sever,
My Crew shall see
That I will be
Here faithless never,
But love my Clipseby ever.

Beyond the Cheviots and the Tweed,
    Beyond the Firth of Forth,
My memory returns at speed
    To Scotland and the North.

For still I keep, and ever shall,
    A warm place in my heart for Scotland,
Scotland, Scotland,
    A warm place in my heart for Scotland.

Oh, cruel off St. Andrew's Bay
    The winds are wont to blow!
They either rest or gently play,
    When there in dreams I go.

And there I wander, young again,
    With limbs that do not tire,
Along the coast to Kittock's Den,
    With whinbloom all afire.

I climb the Spindle Rock, and lie
    And take my doubtful ease,
Between the ocean and the sky,
    Derided by the breeze.

Where coloured mushrooms thickly grow,
    Like flowers of brittle stal...

Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread,
For Love is dead:
All Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain:
Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Weep, neighbours, weep, do you not hear it said
That Love is dead:
His death-bed, peacock's folly:
His winding-sheet is shame;
His will, false-seeming holy,
His sole executor, blame.
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read,
For Love is dead:
Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
My mistress' marble heart;
Which epitaph ...

From his cradle in the glamourie
They have stolen my wee brother,
Roused a changeling in his swaddlings
For to fret mine own poor mother.
Pules it in the candle light
Wi' a cheek so lean and white,
Chinkling up its eyne so wee,
Wailing shrill at her an' me.
It we'll neither rock nor tend
Till the Silent Silent send,
Lapping in their waesome arms
Him they stole with spells and charms,
Till they take this changeling creature
Back to its own fairy nature -
Cry! Cry! as long as may be,
Ye shall ne'er be woman's baby!

No gift I bring but worship, and the love
    Which all must bear to lovely souls and pure,
    Those lights, that, when all else is dark, endure;
Stars in the night, to lift our eyes above;

To lift our eyes and hearts, and make us move
    Less doubtful, though our journey be obscure,
    Less fearful of its ending, being sure
That they watch over us, where'er we rove.

And though my gift itself have little worth,
    Yet worth it gains from her to whom 'tis given,
            As a weak flower gets colour from the sun.
Or rather, as when angels walk the earth,
    All things they look on take the look of heaven--
            For of those blessed angels thou art one.

AFTER ANACREON.

[The strong resemblance of this fine poem to Cowley's Ode bearing the same name, and beginning "Happy insect! what can be," will be at once seen.]

Happy art thou, darling insect,
Who, upon the trees' tall branches,
By a modest draught inspired,
Singing, like a monarch livest!
Thou possessest as thy portion
All that on the plains thou seest,
All that by the hours is brought thee
'Mongst the husbandmen thou livest,
As a friend, uninjured by them,
Thou whom mortals love to honour,
Herald sweet of sweet Spring's advent!
Yes, thou'rt loved by all the Muses,

Phoebus' self, too, needs must love thee;
They their silver voices gave thee,
Age can never steal upon thee.
Wise and gentle friend of poets,
Born a creature fleshless...

Thought may well be ever ranging,
And opinion ever changing,
Task-work be, though ill begun,
Dealt with by experience better;
By the law and by the letter
Duty done is duty done
Do it, Time is on the wing!

Hearts, ’tis quite another thing,
Must or once for all be given,
Or must not at all be given;
Hearts, ’tis quite another thing!

To bestow the soul away
Is an idle duty-play!
Why, to trust a life-long bliss
To caprices of a day,
Scarce were more depraved than this!

Men and maidens, see you mind it;
Show of love, where’er you find it,
Look if duty lurk behind it!
Duty-fancies, urging on
Whither love had never gone!

Loving if the answering breast
Seem not to be thus possessed,
Still in hoping have a car...

I

"Rest, rest, perturbed Earth!
O rest, thou doleful Mother of Mankind!"
A Spirit sang in tones more plaintive than the wind:
"From regions where no evil thing has birth
I come thy stains to wash away,
Thy cherished fetters to unbind,
And open thy sad eyes upon a milder day.
The Heavens are thronged with martyrs that have risen
From out thy noisome prison;
The penal caverns groan
With tens of thousands rent from off the tree
Of hopeful life, by battle's whirlwind blown
Into the deserts of Eternity.
Unpitied havoc! Victims unlamented!
But not on high, where madness is resented,
And murder causes some sad tears to flow,
Though, from the widely-sweeping blow,
The choirs of Angels spread, triumphantly augmented.

II

"False Pare...

The Text is from Motherwell's Minstrelsy. He received the ballad from Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp. In Maidment's North Countrie Garland there is a similar version with a number of small verbal differences.


The Story.--Frendraught in Aberdeenshire, and Rothiemay in Banffshire, lie on opposite sides of the Deveron, which separates the counties. A feud began (as the result of a dispute over fishing rights) between Crichton of Frendraught and Gordon of Rothiemay, and in a fight on the first day of the year 1630, Rothiemay and others were killed. Kinsmen of both parties were involved; and though the broil was temporarily settled, another soon sprang up. The Lord John of the ballad was Viscount Melgum, the second son of the Marquis of Huntly, who was appealed to as a peacemaker between the factions of Leslie and Cri...

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If through the eyes the heart speaks clear and true,
        I have no stronger sureties than these eyes
        For my pure love. Prithee let them suffice,
        Lord of my soul, pity to gain from you.
More tenderly perchance than is my due,
        Your spirit sees into my heart, where rise
        The flames of holy worship, nor denies
        The grace reserved for those who humbly sue.
Oh, blesséd day when you at last are mine!
        Let time stand still, and let noon's chariot stay;
        Fixed be that moment on the dial of heaven!
That I may clasp and keep, by grace divine,
        Clasp in these yearning arms and keep for aye
        My heart's loved lord to me desertless given!

A tree's leaves may be ever so good,
So may its bar, so may its wood;
But unless you put the right thing to its root
It never will show much flower or fruit.

But I may be one who does not care
Ever to have tree bloom or bear.
Leaves for smooth and bark for rough,
Leaves and bark may be tree enough.

Some giant trees have bloom so small
They might as well have none at all.
Late in life I have come on fern.
Now lichens are due to have their turn.

I bade men tell me which in brief,
Which is fairer, flower or leaf.
They did not have the wit to say,
Leaves by night and flowers by day.

Leaves and bar, leaves and bark,
To lean against and hear in the dark.
Petals I may have once pursued.
Leaves are all my darker mood.

Under the snow, in the dark and the cold,
    A pale little sprout was humming;
Sweetly it sang, 'neath the frozen mould,
    Of the beautiful days that were coming.

"How foolish your songs!" said a lump of clay;
    "What is there, I ask, to prove them?
Just look at the walls between you and the day,
    Now, have you the strength to move them?"

But under the ice and under the snow
    The pale little sprout kept singing,
"I cannot tell how, but I know, I know,
    I know what the days are bringing.

"Birds, and blossoms, and buzzing bees,
    Blue, blue skies above me,
Bloom on the meadows and buds on the trees
    And the great glad sun to love me."

A pebble spoke next:    "You are quite absurd,"
    It said, "with your song's in...

Our hands have met, but not our hearts;
Our hands will never meet again.
Friends, if we have ever been,
Friends we cannot now remain:
I only know I loved you once,
I only know I loved in vain;
Our hands have met, but not our hearts;
Our hands will never meet again!

Then farewell to heart and hand!
I would our hands had never met:
Even the outward form of love
Must be resign'd with some regret.
Friends, we still might seem to be,
If I my wrong could e'er forget;
Our hands have join'd but not our hearts:
I would our hands had never met!

WOULD you that Delville I describe?
Believe me, Sir, I will not gibe:
For who would be satirical
Upon a thing so very small?
    You scarce upon the borders enter,
Before you're at the very centre.
A single crow can make it night,
When o'er your farm she takes her flight:
Yet, in this narrow compass, we
Observe a vast variety;
Both walks, walls, meadows, and parterres,
Windows and doors, and rooms and stairs,
And hills and dales, and woods and fields,
And hay, and grass, and corn, it yields:
All to your haggard brought so cheap in,
Without the mowing or the reaping:
A razor, though to say't I'm loth,
Would shave you and your meadows both.
    Though small's the farm, yet here's a house
Full large to entertain a mouse;
But where a rat is dre...

        I saw a King, who spent his life to weave
        Into a nation all his great heart thought,
        Unsatisfied until he should achieve
        The grand ideal that his manhood sought;
        Yet as he saw the end within his reach,
        Death took the sceptre from his failing hand,
        And all men said, "He gave his life to teach
        The task of honour to a sordid land!"
        Within his gates I saw, through all those years,
        One at his humble toil with cheery face,
        Whom (being dead) the children, half in tears,
        Remembered oft, and missed him from his place.
        If he be greater that his people blessed
        Than he the children loved, God knoweth best.