PART FOURTH.

WALK ABROAD - VIEWS AROUND, FROM THE SEVERN TO BRISTOL - WRINGTON - "AULD ROBIN GRAY."

The shower is past - the heath-bell, at our feet,
Looks up, as with a smile, though the cold dew
Hangs yet within its cup, like Pity's tear
Upon the eyelids of a village child!
Mark! where a light upon those far-off waves
Gleams, while the passing shower above our head
Sheds its last silent drops, amid the hues
Of the fast-fading rainbow, - such is life!
Let us go forth, the redbreast is abroad,
And, dripping in the sunshine, sings again.    10
No object on the wider sea-line meets
The straining vision, but one distant ship,
Hanging, as motionless and still, far off,
In the pale haze, between the sea and sky.
She seems the ship - the very ship I saw<...

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;
Islands of opal float on silver seas;
Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;
Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.
Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;
Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;
Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,
Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.

Men of the High North, you who have known it;
You in whose hearts its splendors have abode;
Can you renounce it, can you disown it?
Can you forget it, its glory and its goad?
Where is the hardship, where is the pain of it?
Lost in the limbo of things you've forgot;
Only remain the guerdon and gain of it;
Zest of the foray, and God, how you fought!

You who have made good, you foreign faring;
You mon...

First of women, best of friends
Take what a village rhymer sends,
A tear wet trifle sent to tell
The giver must bid thee farewell!
And shall I then when o'er the sea
Forget thee? No, it cannot be
When thinking of much loved Grace Hill,
[1] Its drops of joy, its drafts of ill
I shed the fond regretting tear,
For those I did I do hold dear,
First shall mid those I parted with
Stand Friendship's Ray Elizabeth

[Footnote 1: Burns]

1844

A weedling wild, on lonely lea,
My evening rambles chanc'd to see;
And much the weedling tempted me
To crop its tender flower:
Expos'd to wind and heavy rain,
Its head bow'd lowly on the plain;
And silently it seem'd in pain
Of life's endanger'd hour.

"And wilt thou bid my bloom decay,
And crop my flower, and me betray?
And cast my injur'd sweets away,"--
Its silence seemly sigh'd--
"A moment's idol of thy mind?
And is a stranger so unkind,
To leave a shameful root behind,
Bereft of all its pride?"

And so it seemly did complain;
And beating fell the heavy rain;
And low it droop'd upon the plain,
To fate resign'd to fall:
My heart did melt at its decline,
And "Come," said I, "thou gem divine,
My fate shall stand the sto...

Be welcome, year! with corn and sickle come;
    Make poor the body, but make rich the heart:
What man that bears his sheaves, gold-nodding, home,
    Will heed the paint rubbed from his groaning cart!

Nor leave behind thy fears and holy shames,
    Thy sorrows on the horizon hanging low--
Gray gathered fuel for the sunset-flames
    When joyous in death's harvest-home we go.

Methinks 'twere no unprecedented feat
Should some benignant Minister of air
Lift, and encircle with a cloudy chair,
The One for whom my heart shall ever beat
With tenderest love; or, if a safer seat
Atween his downy wings be furnished, there
Would lodge her, and the cherished burden bear
O'er hill and valley to this dim retreat!
Rough ways my steps have trod; too rough and long
For her companionship; here dwells soft ease:
With sweets that she partakes not some distaste
Mingles, and lurking consciousness of wrong;
Languish the flowers; the waters seem to waste
Their vocal charm; their sparklings cease to please.

    My dear Sir, -
    "There lies a vale in Ida
    Lovelier
    Than all the valleys
    Of Ionian hills."
    I take it
    That this is a geographical fact.
    Anyway it is Tennyson,
    And I quote it
    In order that you may perceive
    That I have some acquaintance
    With the higher walks of Literature,
    And am therefore a man
    Of entirely different build from yourself.
    I was born a poet,
    And have stuck to my trade
    Unto this last.
    Possibly you were born a bookseller.
    I am willing to give your credit for it,
    But I doubt it all the same,
    For I often think the average bookseller
    Must have been born a draper.
    The other day I had occasion to do a little book-buying.
    It was ...

I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can't forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.

Day after day, the whole day through,
Wherever my road inclined,
Four-feet said, "I am coming with you!"
And trotted along behind.

Now I must go by some other round,,
Which I shall never find,
Somewhere that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind.

For the sake of guilty conscience, and the heart that ticks the time
Of the clockworks of my nature, I desire to say that I'm
A weak and sinful creature, as regards my daily walk
The last five years and better.    It ain't worth while to talk -

I've been too mean to tell it!    I've been so hard, you see,
And full of pride, and - onry - now there's the word for me -
Just onry - and to show you, I'll give my history
With vital points in question, and I think you'll all agree.

I was always stiff and stubborn since I could recollect,
And had an awful temper, and never would reflect;
And always into trouble - I remember once at school
The teacher tried to flog me, and I reversed that rule.

O I was bad I tell you!    And it's a funny move
That a fellow wild as I...

How much of my young heart, O Spain,
    Went out to thee in days of yore!
What dreams romantic filled my brain,
And summoned back to life again
The Paladins of Charlemagne
The Cid Campeador!

And shapes more shadowy than these,
    In the dim twilight half revealed;
Phoenician galleys on the seas,
The Roman camps like hives of bees,
The Goth uplifting from his knees
    Pelayo on his shield.

It was these memories perchance,
    From annals of remotest eld,
That lent the colors of romance
To every trivial circumstance,
And changed the form and countenance
    Of all that I beheld.

Old towns, whose history lies hid
    In monkish chronicle or rhyme,
Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid,
Zamora and Valladolid,
Toledo, ...

Heaven-invading hills are drowned
In wide moving waves of mist,
Phlox before my door are wound
In dripping wreaths of amethyst.

Ten feet away the solid earth
Changes into melting cloud,
There is a hush of pain and mirth,
No bird has heart to speak aloud.

Here in a world without a sky,
Without the ground, without the sea,
The one unchanging thing is I,
Myself remains to comfort me.

Thy dewy looks sink in my breast;
Thy gentle words stir poison there;
Thou hast disturbed the only rest
That was the portion of despair!
Subdued to Duty's hard control,
I could have borne my wayward lot:
The chains that bind this ruined soul
Had cankered then - but crushed it not.

As the bright flowers start from their wintry tomb,
I've sprung from the depths of futurity's gloom;
With the glory of Hope on my unshadowed brow,
But a fear at my heart, earth welcomes me now.
I come and bear with me a measureless flow,
Of infinite joy and of infinite woe:
The banquet's light jest and the penitent prayer,
The sweet laugh of gladness, the wail of despair,
The warm words of welcome, and broken farewell,
The strains of rich music, the funeral knell,
The fair bridal wreath, and the robe for the dead,
O how will they meet in the path I shall tread!
O how will they mingle where'er I pass by,
As sunshine and storm in the rainbow on high!

Yet start not, nor shrink from the race I must run;
I've peace and repose for the heart-stricken one,
And s...

[1]

A man was planting at fourscore.
Three striplings, who their satchels wore,
'In building,' cried, 'the sense were more;
But then to plant young trees at that age!
The man is surely in his dotage.
Pray, in the name of common sense,
What fruit can he expect to gather
Of all this labour and expense?
Why, he must live like Lamech's father!
What use for thee, grey-headed man,
To load the remnant of thy span
With care for days that never can be thine?
Thyself to thought of errors past resign.
Long-growing hope, and lofty plan,
Leave thou to us, to whom such things belong.'
'To you!' replied the old man, hale and strong;
'I dare pronounce you altogether wrong.
The settled part of man's estate
Is very brief, and comes full late.

Fancy and Reality.--Rain-drops and Lakes.--Plan of a Story.--Where to place the Scene of it.--In some unknown Region.--Psalmanazar's Imposture with respect to the Island of Formosa.


The more I've viewed this world the more I've found,
    That, filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare.
Fancy commands within her own bright round
    A world of scenes and creatures far more fair.
Nor is it that her power can call up there
    A single charm, that's not from Nature won,
No more than rainbows in their pride can wear
    A single hue unborrowed from the sun--
But 'tis the mental medium it shines thro'
That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;
As the same light that o'er the level lake
    One dull monotony of lustre flings,
Will, entering in the rounded ...

The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over
The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide
Slowly into another day; slowly the rover
Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide.

I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting
Me who am issued amazed from the darkness, stripped
And quailing here in the sunshine, delivered from haunting
The night unsounded whereon our days are shipped.

Feeling myself undawning, the day's light playing upon me,
I who am substance of shadow, I all compact
Of the stuff of the night, finding myself all wrongly
Among the crowds of things in the sunshine jostled and racked.

I with the night on my lips, I sigh with the silence of death;
And what do I care though the very stones should cry me unreal, th...

"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said;
"With bone well carved He went away,
Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,
And jasper tips the spear to-day.
Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance,
And He with these. Farewell, Romance!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed;
"We lift the weight of flatling years;
The caverns of the mountain-side
Hold him who scorns our hutted piers.
Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell,
Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke;
"By sleight of sword we may not win,
But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke
Of arquebus and culverin.
Honour is lost, and none may tell
Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried;
"Our keels have lain with every ...

        I saw the day lean o'er the world's sharp edge
    And peer into night's chasm, dark and damp;
    High in his hand he held a blazing lamp,
        Then dropped it and plunged headlong down the ledge.

        With lurid splendor that swift paled to gray,
    I saw the dim skies suddenly flush bright.
    'Twas but the expiring glory of the light
        Flung from the hand of the adventurous day.