A Long-Vacation Pastoral


IX
Arva, beata Petamus arva!

So on the morrow’s morrow, with Term-time dread returning,
Philip returned to his books, and read, and remained at Oxford,
All the Christmas and Easter remained and read at Oxford.
Great was wonder in College when postman showed to butler
Letters addressed to David Mackaye, at Tober-na-vuolich,
Letter on letter, at least one a week, one every Sunday
Great at that Highland post was wonder too and conjecture,
When the postman showed letters to wife, and wife to the lassies,
And the lassies declared they couldn’t be really to David;
Yes, they could see inside a paper with E. upon it.
Great was surmise in College at breakfast, wine, and supper,
Keen the conjecture and joke; but Adam kept the secr...

At Noey's house - when they arrived with him -
How snug seemed everything, and neat and trim:
The little picket-fence, and little gate -
It's little pulley, and its little weight, -
All glib as clock-work, as it clicked behind
Them, on the little red brick pathway, lined
With little paint-keg-vases and teapots
Of wee moss-blossoms and forgetmenots:
And in the windows, either side the door,
Were ranged as many little boxes more
Of like old-fashioned larkspurs, pinks and moss
And fern and phlox; while up and down across
Them rioted the morning-glory-vines
On taut-set cotton-strings, whose snowy lines
Whipt in and out and under the bright green
Like basting-threads; and, here and there between,
A showy, shiny hollyhock would flare
Its pink among the white an...

The night would sadden us with wind and rain
Let's to sweet Comedy and scorn the night!
Let's read together: how, by silver light,
The fairies went, a most enchanting train.
Amid those clowns and lovers; how the twain,
Celia and Rosalind, as shepherds dight.
Frolicked through Arden; or of that rare sprite,
That Ariel, who could trick the mortal brain
To strange beliefs. What! wilt have nothing glad?
Wilt read, while winds are moaning out regret.
The fate of Desdemona, Juliet?
Lovest the rain to come and make thee sad?
Ah, well!, I know!, How sweet the tragic part!
I am grown old, but once, was what thou art I

I should not dare to leave my friend,
Because -- because if he should die
While I was gone, and I -- too late --
Should reach the heart that wanted me;

If I should disappoint the eyes
That hunted, hunted so, to see,
And could not bear to shut until
They "noticed" me -- they noticed me;

If I should stab the patient faith
So sure I 'd come -- so sure I 'd come,
It listening, listening, went to sleep
Telling my tardy name, --

My heart would wish it broke before,
Since breaking then, since breaking then,
Were useless as next morning's sun,
Where midnight frosts had lain!

Grave this deep in your hearts,
Forget not the tale of the past!
Never, never believe
That any will help you, or can,
Saving only yourselves!
What have the gentlemen done,
Peerless haters of wrong,
Byrons and Shelleys, what?
They stand great famous names,
Demi-gods to their own,
Shadows far off, alien
To us and ours for ever.
Those who love them and hate
The crime, the injustice they hated,
What can they do but shout,
Win a name from our woes,
And leave us just as we were?
No, but resolutely turned,
Our wants, our desires made clear,
And clear the means that shall win them,
Drill and drill and drill!
Then when the day is come,
When the royal battle-flag's up,
When blood has been spilled in vain
In timid half-hearted war,...

I heard a voice, that cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And through the misty air
Passed like the mournful cry
Of sunward sailing cranes.

I saw the pallid corpse
Of the dead sun
Borne through the Northern sky.
Blasts from Niffelheim
Lifted the sheeted mists
Around him as he passed.

And the voice forever cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And died away
Through the dreary night,
In accents of despair.

Balder the Beautiful,
God of the summer sun,
Fairest of all the Gods!
Light from his forehead beamed,
Runes were upon his tongue,
As on the warrior's sword.

All things in earth and air
Bound were by magic spell
Never to do him harm;
Even the plants and stones;<...

"What, you are stepping westward?" "Yea."

'T would be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:
I liked the greeting; 't was a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native lake:
The salutation had to me
The very sound of courtesy:
Its power was felt; and while my eye

CHAPTER I.


Mistress O'Hara lives down by the sea,
A skittish and beautiful widow is she;
She has black shiny tresses, and curly buff toes,
And a heavenly tilt to the tip of her nose!

She has three little children, the eldest is four
(Nurse says he is naughty enough to be more);
The Twins are dear dumplings, and they and their brother
Are always in scrapes--
        Of one kind, or another.



This morning poor Mistress O'Hara looks blue,
As indeed she has every reason to do;
For the third time this week Nurse has come in to say,
"If you please 'm, the children have all run away!"

"Oh! bother those children--well, first let us look
In the larder, to see what provisions they took;
If the pumpkin pie's gone, they are off for...

I niver thowt when I grew owd
    I'd tak to leetin' lamps;
I sud have said, I'd rayther pad
    My hoof on t' road wi' tramps.
But sin I gate that skelp(1) i' t' mine,
    I'm wankle(2) i' my heead;
So gaffer said, I'd give ower wark
    An' leet town lamps atsteead.

At first, when I were liggin' snug
    I' bed, warm as a bee,
'T were hard to rise and get agate
    As sooin as t' clock strake three.
An' I were flaid to hear my steps
    Echoin' on ivery wall;
An' flaider yet when down by t' church
    Ullets would skreek and call.

But now I'm flaid o' nowt; I love
    All unkerd(3) sounds o' t' neet,
Frae childer talkin' i' their dreams
    To t' tramp o' p'licemen' feet.
But most of all I love to hark
    To t' song o' t...

When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,
As the snowbound trade of the North comes down
To the market-square of Peshawur town.

In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,
A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.
Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,
And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose;
And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,
Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;
And the bubbling camels beside the load
Sprawled for a furlong adown the road;
And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,
Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;
And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;
And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;

Oh ye, who found in men's brief ways no sign
Of strength or help, so cast them forth, and threw
Your whole souls up to one ye deemed most true,
Nor failed nor doubted but held fast your line,
Seeing before you that divine face shine;
Shall we not mourn, when yours are now so few,
Those sterner days, when all men yearned to you,
White souls whose beauty made their world divine:

Yet still across life's tangled storms we see,

Following the cross, your pale procession led,
One hope, one end, all others sacrificed,
Self-abnegation, love, humility,
Your faces shining toward the bended head,
The wounded hands and patient feet of Christ.

Loss molds our lives in many ways,
And fills our souls with guesses;
Upon our hearts sad hands it lays
Like some grave priest that blesses.

Far better than the love we win,
That earthly passions leaven,
Is love we lose, that knows no sin,
That points the path to Heaven.

Love, whose soft shadow brightens Earth,
Through whom our dreams are nearest;
And loss, through whom we see the worth
Of all that we held dearest.

Not joy it is, but misery
That chastens us, and sorrow;
Perhaps to make us all that we
Expect beyond To-morrow.

Within that life where time and fate
Are not; that knows no seeming:
That world to which death keeps the gate
Where love and loss sit dreaming.