Footnotes:

TO A LADY SINGING.

1.

Canst thou, my Clora, declare, After thy sweet song dieth Into the wild summer air, Whither it falleth or flieth? Soon would my answer be noted, Wert thou but sage as sweet throated.

2.

Melody, dying away, Into the dark sky closes, Like the good soul from her clay Like the fair odor of roses: Therefore thou now art behind it, But thou shalt follow and find it.

His spirit was the home Of aspirations high; A temple, whose huge dome Was hidden in the sky.

Robert Macnish, LL.D., was the author of The Anatomy of Drunkenness and The Philosophy of Sleep.

Nature had but little clay Like that of which she moulded him.’

‘One day we had Alfred Tennyson here; an unforgettable day. He staid with us till late; forgot his stick: we dismissed him with Macpherson’s Farewell. Macpherson (see Burns) was a Highland robber; he played that Tune, of his own composition, on his way to the gallows; asked, “If in all that crowd the Macpherson had any clansman?” holding up the fiddle that he might bequeath it to some one. “Any kinsman, any soul that wished him well?” Nothing answered, nothing durst answer. He crushed the fiddle under his foot, and sprang off. The Tune is rough as hemp, but strong as a lion. I never hear it without something of emotion,—poor Macpherson; tho’ the Artist hates to play it. Alfred’s dark face grew darker, and I saw his lip slightly quivering!’

Tota natant crispis juga motibus et tremit absens Pampinus, et vitreis vindemia turget in undis.

FitzGerald used to admire the break in the line after absens.

A Saint there was who three score Years and ten In holy Meditation among Men Had spent, but, wishing, ere he came to close With God, to meet him in complete Repose, Withdrew into the Wilderness, where he Set up his Dwelling in an agèd Tree Whose hollow Trunk his Winter Shelter made, And whose green branching Arms his Summer Shade. And like himself a Nightingale one Spring Making her Nest above his Head would sing So sweetly that her pleasant Music stole Between the Saint and his severer Soul, And made him sometimes [heedless of his] Vows Listening his little Neighbour in the Boughs. Until one Day a sterner Music woke The sleeping Leaves, and through the Branches spoke— ‘What! is the Love between us two begun And waxing till we Two were nearly One For three score Years of Intercourse unstirr’d Of Men, now shaken by a little Bird; And such a precious Bargain, and so long A making, [put in peril] for a Song?’