Chapter VIII · METRICAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY.

"Hark! 'tis the twanging horn." So Cowper sang Of the slow post-boy by the flooded Ouse; In different fashion now the great world's news Goes to each nook of Britain. The harangue Of politician; great events that hang In Fortune's hand, with magic speed diffuse From London's centre to the furthest Lews, Their tingling rumour and resounding clang. Daily along yon track of curving steels Comes to this Highland clachan, Watt's machine, Rolling in triumph on its iron wheels, And bringing letter, journal, magazine, To kilted Celts with collies at their heels And frivolous tourists from the putting-green.

Father of journalists! illustrious liar! Untiring wielder of the nimblest quill That ever shed the stanchless inky rill Upon the virgin whiteness of the quire. What full and varied stores of gold and mire, Magnificence and squalor, good and ill, Prayers, curses, loyalty and treason fill Thy books! But that which children most admire Of all thy hundred volumes, is the one Fated for ever more to charm mankind From the far Orient to the Setting Sun. Prompt-witted Daniel! thou has left behind Upon the Sands of Time, distinctly traced, One footmark that can never be effaced.

John loved strong waters and ne'er stirred his feet Abroad in leafy spring or summer's heat, Autumnal breeze or winter's rimy chill, Unsolaced by the nectar of the still. Spirits came always kindly to his lips, And time he measured not by hours but "nips." Teetotalers to him were curse and gall, Grim Banquos at the world's wide festival, Men, whom a weird and fate-ordainéd bale, Had smitten with the hate of cakes and ale, A soda-water, syphon-squirting crew, Guilty of treason to the revenue: Their lurid language and their unctuous warnings, Their moral-pointings and their tale-adornings, And, worst of all, their shameful waste of ink In signing pledges to abstain from drink, Proved them a witless and a churlish band, Unfit to dwell in any Christian land.

In that old ivied manse exists A scholar, wrinkled, bent, and gray, His student lamp gleams through the mists And twinkles on till break of day. This sage is wedded to his books, And Sultan-like his harem's full, He dotes upon them in their nooks With love and joy that never cool. No wonder that his back is bent, Or that his eye has mystic glows, He pores on pages redolent Of love and love's undying rose. No earthly maiden, fresh and sweet, Could please his fancy half so well As a Greek nymph with twinkling feet Skipping in some Arcadian dell.

A form of beauty blent with hardihood, Majestic as Olympus wreathed in snows, What modern pages of romance disclose A radiant maiden of such dauntless mood! Yet, when the tyrant strives with outrage rude The unyielding maid in darkness to enclose, Then, only then, her burning heart outflows In anguished cries of love, but unsubdued By baser throbbings. Ah! that nuptial hymn Unsung! that bond in death! All men agree To crown thee in that chamber dark and dim With love's immortal wreath, Antigoné. Since love and duty in thy death combine, An immortality of praise is thine.

Lo! we have him of shaven face And curls of long and lustrous hair, Who breathes an atmosphere of grace And has a wondrous gift in prayer. You'd ne'er suspect to see him there, Shaking his head in solemn guise, The college life of deil-may-care Diversion that behind him lies.

And then the little starveling pope Who strives to make his sermons new By stringing florid scraps of hope And faith and love to dazzle you: From Stopford Brooke a phrase or two, A gleaming line from Arnold's page, Whole screeds of Browning and a few Stolen thunders from the Chelsea sage.

Perhaps the most diverting wight Is he who sees in Holy Writ Old Jewish fables gross and trite To semblance of a system knit— Fables for modern taste unfit, Until he cleans the dross away And shows the tiny little bit Of gold that gleams amid the clay.

But worst of all is he who jests, Or tries to jest, in pulpit gown, Lord, save us from such holy pests Who so unseemly act the clown And pull the tabernacle down To something worse than pantomime: On all such zanies let us frown And scourge them both in prose and rhyme.

Puzzling over musty tomes, What a life to lead, While each gay companion roams Where his fancies lead! One beside a shady pool Sweeps the wave for hours, Comes home with his basket full, When the evening lowers. Some more energetic wights Leave the level land, Mountaineer on dizzy heights, Alpenstock in hand. Others boat in sunny bays Where bright sands are seen Glimmering amid a maze Of tangled flowers marine. Luck to all is what I wish With a meed of fun, I'll row, mountaineer, and fish, When your sports are done.

Fresh gusts of wind ripple the ocean's face, And the green slopes, after the night's soft rain, Glitter beneath the blue. Most glorious are the sea-descending glens, Vivid with countless ferns, and with the blaze Of sun-enamoured broom. The dark, tip-tilted rocks of cruel mood, Show a stern beauty through the creamy foam That flecks their rugged flanks. See, from this hill-top, how the blazing Sound Is marked by moving shadows of the clouds That skim aloft in air. Through the clear radiance of the freshened morn, The eye can see the far farm-windows gleam Up on the Arran hills.

Returning Springtime fills the woods with song— The ring-dove, sick for love, is cooing sweet; The lark, scorning the daisies, soars to greet The sun, while the brown swarms of bees among The flowery meadows skim in haste along. Once more the young year glories in the feat Of driving winter off with vernal heat And tepid sap luxuriantly strong. Winter has drawn aloof his snowy powers To the high peaks that domineer the plain, And, like a vanquished leader, grimly lowers, From a safe distance, on the victor's reign. E'er many months have passed, his arrowy showers And gusty cohorts will descend again.

God will not suffer that a single one Of His own creatures, in His image made, Should die, and in irrevocable shade Lie evermore—neglected and undone. It is not thus a father treats his son, And those whose folly credits it, degrade God's love and fatherhood, that never fade, By lies as base as devils ever spun. Man's love is but a pale reflex of God's, And God is love, and never will condemn Beyond remission—though He school with rods— His children, but will one day comfort them. Dives will have his drink at last, and stand Among the faithful ones at God's right hand.

"Dryden and Scott, men of a giant seed!" So said I to myself, gazing upon The pictured countenance of Glorious John, In Abbotsford, hard by the storied Tweed. These twain were brothers, kin in mind and deed: Old England never had a brawnier son Than Dryden; and in fervid Scotland none Better than Scott exemplified the breed. After five centuries of blood and hate, Britain is one leal land from north to south, From gusty Thurso to St. Michael's Mount, I therefore, Scot and Briton, am elate To think that from Sir Walter's golden mouth Dryden's career received the fit account.

The ploughman in the loamy furrow sings, The sailor whistles as he reefs the sail, Blithe is the smith as the blows fall like hail From his huge hammer, and the stithy rings. Work is the sole and sovereign balm that brings Peace to the torpid soul when doubts assail, And sickening pleasures are of no avail To lull the torture of affliction's stings. Give me the work I love, the work I feel God in His Heaven has willed that I should do, And you may offer the whole commonweal, Lands, mansions, jewels, gold, and temples too, Vainly to me. By strenuous work alone Man mounts on Jacob's ladder to God's throne.

'Twas but a passing visit that he paid To the gross air of earth, this mystic seer, The tyrannies of sense were too severe For one of clay more fine than Adam's made. The inhumanity of man, the trade Of coining gold from the serf's groan and tear, The galling fetters of religious fear, And vain ecclesiastic masquerade Tortured his gentle soul, and made his life One bitter struggle with the powers that be: Yet not in vain he lived; his manful strife With all the deadening despotisms we see Will ring along the centuries, until Good has her final triumph over ill.

A wood of pines through which the setting sun Pours from the western sky a parting flame, Beside the shore, a church called by the name Of some old saint whose pious race was run Long ere schismatic Luther had begun To work the Pope and his disciples shame. In earnest-seeming talk, a knight and dame Sit in a painted galley, rowed by one Whose back is to the setting orb of day. The soldier and his mate, their faces lit With all love's animation and the ray Of the down-lapsing globe of crimson, sit Together in the gilded vessel's prow, And there will sit for evermore, as now.

The topmost mountain-snows are melting fast, See, how the swollen waters hurry down In perpendicular runnels from the crown Of every wreathéd hill. The train has past Beside a dark stream into which are cast A hundred huddling rills whose foam is brown With pilfered soil. No dweller in a town Ever beheld such manifold and vast Torrents of roaring water. Each small isle Spaced on the loch, glooms through the hanging haze Like a dream-picture, and for many a mile Beneath those clouds that lean upon the braes Encompassing Loch Awe, the watery plain Is pricked with million lances of the rain.

The mist, retreating, gems the leaves with dew, Soft blows the breeze along the fragrant meads, A little brawling burn runs through the reeds And ripples away under the cloudless blue. I never saw the world so fair to view, For Spring has riven old Winter's funeral weeds And given new sap and vigour to the seeds That lay inanimate the cold months through. Old man! with jaded limbs and wrinkled brow, That walkest feebly in this lenient sun Like a day-dream, thy life is winter now. But life and death in ceaseless cycles run, And tireless Time and Heaven have in store For thee a myriad resurrections more.

Houses are fewer here than milestones are: We stand a thousand feet aloft in air Upon a bouldered hillside stern and bare, Down which the roadway serpentines afar. There are no clouds in the wide blue to mar The passage of the sun's imperial glare Over a dreary-stretching landscape, where Rough winds hold riot all the calendar. Who that has footed o'er these firm-knit paths But lauds the men whose strenuous axe and spade Drove roads through the wild glens and hilly straths Under the generalship of tireless Wade! On the safe tracks behind them, commerce came The unruly spirit of the Celt to tame.

A snowy gust is whirling down the strait, Raasay is gleaming ghostly to the sight, And, robed in lawn, from sea to topmost height Skye and her lordly mountains stand in state. Ever from heaven falls the silent weight Of wavering flakes that dim the stars of night. Our gallant little boat with all the might Of the wild-hissing surges holds debate, Plunging and struggling, till at last we see A spacious haven, sudden and serene And, high aloft, the twinkle of Portree. At once the winds are hushed, the moon is seen To free her face from cloudy drift, and fill With silver light the clefts of Essie Hill.

Where is Macfee, that valiant preacher, Gifted with voice, so harsh and loud, Aye, louder and harsher than any screecher Of birds that sail on the black storm-cloud? And his beadle John, with back so bowed, Where is he that had never a peer? Is he too rolled in his mortal shroud? But where are the snows of yester-year?

Donald the Gay, that steered his steamer Many a year through the Sound of Mull, He that was never a Celtic dreamer, But a captain of captains masterful: O Death, thou madest the world more dull When you nailed him down in his narrow bier, And sent his ghost into Charon's hull; But where are the snows of yester-year?

Duncan, the bard of rocky Staffin, Away in the north of rainy Skye: Has he given over his rimes and daffin', In the mould of the bleak kirkyard to lie? His cot was built where the sea-gulls fly, And his misty isle to his soul was dear; Ere his song is finished, the bard must die; But where are the snows of yester-year?

And Dougal, who carried King Edward's mails Every day o'er the moor and heather, Scorning the chill of the winter gales, And the ten-mile walk in the sultry weather: Has he too come to the end of his tether And gone to the ghosts with all his gear, His whistle, his satchel and strap of leather? But where are the snows of yester-year?

Prince, they have gone from the regions that knew them, Gone at the summons that none can resist, Praise and every honour be to them, They did their best and they will be missed. We, too, shall soon be erased from the list Of workers below in this mortal sphere, And be no more to those that exist Than the vanished snows of yester-year.

A fairyland of trees and leafy bowers Where one may sit and dream the hours away, Or 'mid the devious walks and alleys stray, While perfume rises from a world of flowers, The girdling river, swollen with upland showers, Sends rippling round to every creek and bay The vagrant branches of his water-way; Then gathering up his current's parted powers, Swiftly-majestic in a broadening bed, He glistens on by many a chiming spire, And past the castle's pennoned turrets red, Till he attain the goal of his desire, And into the salt sea exulting throws His subsidy of rains and melted snows.

If I had wealth like Vanderbilt Or some such millionaire, I'd live in Scotland, don a kilt, And pay to prove my forbears spilt Their blood in forays there. I'd buy a picturesque estate Beside the ocean's flow, With knolls of heather at my gate, And pine-clad hills to dominate, The ferny dells below. I'd be a father to the folk That laboured on the soil, With old and young I'd crack my joke, Drink with them in their thirst, and smoke The pipe that lightens toil. For hens I'd have a special run, For ducks a special pool, My calves should frolic in the sun, My sheep should be surpassed by none Whose backs are clothed with wool. Although I'm not a Walton quite, Betweenwhiles I should try To lure the finny tribe to bite (At the right time, in the right light,) My simulated fly. When winter heaped his rattling hail High on the window sill, With pipe and wassail, rime and tale, I'd never miss the nightingale Or cuckoo on the hill. Nay, musing by the ingle-lowe With summer in my brain, I'd cloth with leaves the frozen bough And all the ice-bound brooks endow With tinkling life again.[37]

The afternoon is cool and calm, Near by flashes the mighty sea, Inland rise green, dewy hills, Crowned with eye-bewitching trees. Suddenly the eye is amazed and terrified, A hideous procession sordid and grimy Of men and boys, slaves of the coal-pit, Is seen on the road, shaming the daylight. All the day long they work in the darkness, Far from the songs of the birds and the sunshine, Now they return to their sordid villages, Ill-smelling rows of comfortless cottages. The rich and dainty ladies of fashion Stand aloof from these swart coal-hewers, Are ready to swoon as the air is poisoned With odours of subterranean foulness. Coarse of look, and of speech far coarser! Laughter loud with no merriment in it! No more soul than the beasts that perish! These are the men despised for their toiling.

Man dreads the tomb, but dreads oblivion more; He fears, when death has loosed the load of years, His name shall cease to sound in mortal ears, And, in the dusty darkness, all be o'er. Some o'er the scrolls of ample science pore, Tome after tome the nimble authors write, And gain a meed of glory: soon the night Comes: the author with his laurel disappears, The painting fades, the marble busts decay, The kingly structures fall in ruin down, Devouring Time consumes the artist's prize, The centuries like lightning pass away, Or hurrying billows: emperor and clown Sink with the myriads in impartial clay.

Where'er these wandering footsteps lead me to, Peak-dominated glen, hill where the sheep Graze in the sun, mountains that ever keep A solemn guard o'er lakes profound and blue, Or undulating tracts of treeless view; No matter if the rain and whirlwind sweep The landscape, or the gladdening sunshine peep Through muffled vapours that the winds undo; Let it be night speckled with myriad fires, Clear dawn, hot noon, or cool of dying day; Be it in cities with their chiming spires, Or country fields with fragrant ricks of hay; Ever the voices of my hearth I hear, And muse on those to me for ever dear.