Part 12

The days grow short; but though the falling sun To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done, Night's pleasing shades his various tasks prolong, And yield new subjects to my various song. For now, the corn-house filled, the harvest home, The invited neighbors to the husking come; A frolic scene, where work and mirth and play Unite their charms to chase the hours away. Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall, The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall, Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard-handed beaux, Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, Assume their seats, the solid mass attack; The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack; The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound, And the sweet cider trips in silence round. The laws of husking every wight can tell; And sure, no laws he ever keeps so well: For each red ear a general kiss he gains, With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains; But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast, Red as her lips, and taper as her waist, She walks the round, and culls one favored beau, Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow. Various the sport, as are the wits and brains Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains; Till the vast mound of corn is swept away, And he that gets the last ear wins the day. Meanwhile the housewife urges all her care, The well-earned feast to hasten and prepare. The sifted meal already waits her hand, The milk is strained, the bowls in order stand, The fire flames high; and as a pool (that takes The headlong stream that o'er the mill-dam breaks) Foams, roars, and rages with incessant toils, So the vexed caldron rages, roars and boils. First with clean salt she seasons well the food, Then strews the flour, and thickens well the flood. Long o'er the simmering fire she lets it stand; To stir it well demands a stronger hand: The husband takes his turn, and round and round The ladle flies; at last the toil is crowned; When to the board the thronging huskers pour, And take their seats as at the corn before. I leave them to their feast. There still belong More useful matters to my faithful song. For rules there are, though ne'er unfolded yet, Nice rules and wise, how pudding should be ate. Some with molasses grace the luscious treat, And mix, like bards, the useful and the sweet; A wholesome dish, and well deserving praise, A great resource in those bleak wintry days, When the chilled earth lies buried deep in snow, And raging Boreas dries the shivering cow. Blest cow! thy praise shall still my notes employ, Great source of health, the only source of joy; Mother of Egypt's god, but sure, for me, Were I to leave my God, I'd worship thee. How oft thy teats these pious hands have pressed! How oft thy bounties prove my only feast! How oft I've fed thee with my favorite grain! And roared, like thee, to see thy children slain. Ye swains who know her various worth to prize, Ah! house her well from winter's angry skies. Potatoes, pumpkins, should her sadness cheer, Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer; When spring returns, she'll well acquit the loan, And nurse at once your infants and her own. Milk, then, with pudding I should always choose; To this in future I confine my muse, Till she in haste some further hints unfold, Good for the young, nor useless to the old. First in your bowl the milk abundant take, Then drop with care along the silver lake Your flakes of pudding: these at first will hide Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide; But when their growing mass no more can sink, When the soft island looms above the brink, Then check your hand; you've got the portion due, So taught my sire, and what he taught is true. There is a choice in spoons. Though small appear The nice distinction, yet to me 'tis clear. The deep-bowled Gallic spoon, contrived to scoop In ample draughts the thin diluted soup, Performs not well in those substantial things, Whose mass adhesive to the metal clings; Where the strong labial muscles must embrace The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space. With ease to enter and discharge the freight, A bowl less concave, but still more dilate, Becomes the pudding best. The shape, the size, A secret rests, unknown to vulgar eyes. Experienced feeders can alone impart A rule so much above the lore of art. These tuneful lips that thousand spoons have tried, With just precision could the point decide, Though not in song--the muse but poorly shines In cones, and cubes, and geometric lines; Yet the true form, as near as she can tell, Is that small section of a goose-egg shell, Which in two equal portions shall divide The distance from the centre to the side. Fear not to slaver; 'tis no deadly sin;-- Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin Suspend the ready napkin; or like me, Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee; Just in the zenith your wise head project, Your full spoon rising in a line direct, Bold as a bucket, heed no drops that fall. The wide-mouthed bowl will surely catch them all!

WILLIAM BARNES

(1800-1886)

Had he chosen to write solely in familiar English, rather than in the dialect of his native Dorsetshire, every modern anthology would be graced by the verses of William Barnes, and to multitudes who now know him not, his name would have become associated with many a country sight and sound. Other poets have taken homely subjects for their themes,--the hayfield, the chimney-nook, milking-time, the blossoming of "high-boughed hedges"; but it is not every one who has sung out of the fullness of his heart and with a naïve delight in that of which he sung: and so by reason of their faithfulness to every-day life and to nature, and by their spontaneity and tenderness, his lyrics, fables, and eclogues appeal to cultivated readers as well as to the rustics whose quaint speech he made his own.

Short and simple are the annals of his life; for, a brief period excepted, it was passed in his native county--though Dorset, for all his purposes, was as wide as the world itself. His birthplace was Bagbere in the vale of Blackmore, far up the valley of the Stour, where his ancestors had been freeholders. The death of his parents while he was a boy threw him on his own resources; and while he was at school at Sturminster and Dorchester he supported himself by clerical work in attorneys' offices. After he left school his education was mainly self-gained; but it was so thorough that in 1827 he became master of a school at Mere, Wilts, and in 1835 opened a boarding-school in Dorchester, which he conducted for a number of years. A little later he spent a few terms at Cambridge, and in 1847 received ordination. From that time until his death in 1886, most of his days were spent in the little parishes of Whitcombe and Winterbourne Came, near Dorchester, where his duties as rector left him plenty of time to spend on his favorite studies. To the last, Barnes wore the picturesque dress of the eighteenth century, and to the tourist he became almost as much a curiosity as the relics of Roman occupation described in a guide-book he compiled.

When one is at the same time a linguist, a musician, an antiquary, a profound student of philology, and skilled withal in the graphic arts, it would seem inevitable that he should have more than a local reputation; but when, in 1844, a thin volume entitled 'Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect' appeared in London, few bookshop frequenters had ever heard of the author. But he was already well known throughout Dorset, and there he was content to be known; a welcome guest in castle and hall, but never happier than when, gathering about him the Jobs and Lettys with whom Thomas Hardy has made us familiar, he delighted their ears by reciting his verses. The dialect of Dorset, he boasted, was the least corrupted form of English; therefore to commend it as a vehicle of expression and to help preserve his mother tongue from corruption, and to purge it of words not of Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic origin,--this was one of the dreams of his life,--he put his impressions of rural scenery and his knowledge of human character into metrical form. He is remembered by scholars here and there for a number of works on philology, and one ('Outline of English Speech-Craft') in which, with zeal, but with the battle against him, he aimed to teach the English language by using words of Teutonic derivation only; but it is through his four volumes of poems that he is better remembered. These include 'Hwomely Rhymes' (1859), 'Poems of Rural Life' (1862), and 'Poems of Rural Life in Common English' (1863). The three collections of dialect poems were brought out in one volume, with a glossary, in 1879.

"A poet fresh as the dew," "The first of English purely pastoral poets," "The best writer of eclogues since Theocritus,"--these are some of the tardy tributes paid him. With a sympathy for his fellow-man and a humor akin to that of Burns, with a feeling for nature as keen as Wordsworth's, though less subjective, and with a power of depicting a scene with a few well-chosen epithets which recalls Tennyson, Barnes has fairly earned his title to remembrance.

'The Life of William Barnes, Poet and Philologist,' written by his daughter, Mrs. Baxter, was published in 1887. There are numerous articles relating to him in periodical literature, one of which, a sketch by Thomas Hardy, in Vol. 86 of the 'Athenaeum,' is of peculiar interest.

BLACKMWORE MAIDENS

The primrwose in the sheäde do blow, The cowslip in the zun, The thyme upon the down do grow, The clote where streams do run; An' where do pretty maidens grow An' blow, but where the tow'r Do rise among the bricken tuns, In Blackmwore by the Stour?

If you could zee their comely gait, An' pretty feäces' smiles, A-trippèn on so light o' waïght, An' steppèn off the stiles; A-gwaïn to church, as bells do swing An' ring 'ithin the tow'r, You'd own the pretty maïdens' pleäce Is Blackmwore by the Stour?

If you vrom Wimborne took your road, To Stower or Paladore, An' all the farmers' housen show'd Their daughters at the door; You'd cry to bachelors at hwome-- "Here, come: 'ithin an hour You'll vind ten maidens to your mind, In Blackmwore by the Stour."

An' if you look'd 'ithin their door, To zee em in their pleäce, A-doèn housework up avore Their smilèn mother's feäce; You'd cry,--"Why, if a man would wive An' thrive, 'ithout a dow'r, Then let en look en out a wife In Blackmwore by the Stour."

As I upon my road did pass A school-house back in May, There out upon the beäten grass Wer maïdens at their play; An' as the pretty souls did tweil An' smile, I cried, "The flow'r O' beauty, then, is still in bud In Blackmwore by the Stour."

MAY

Come out o' door, 'tis Spring! 'tis May! The trees be green, the yields be gay; The weather's warm, the winter blast, Wi' all his traïn o' clouds, is past; The zun do rise while vo'k do sleep, To teäke a higher daily zweep, Wi' cloudless feäce a-flingèn down His sparklèn light upon the groun'. The aïr's a-streamèn soft,--come drow The winder open; let it blow In drough the house, where vire, an' door A-shut, kept out the cwold avore. Come, let the vew dull embers die, An' come below the open sky; An' wear your best, vor fear the groun' In colors gäy mid sheäme your gown: An' goo an' rig wi' me a mile Or two up over geäte an' stile, Drough zunny parrocks that do lead, Wi' crooked hedges, to the meäd, Where elems high, in steätely ranks, Do rise vrom yollow cowslip-banks, An' birds do twitter vrom the spräy O' bushes deck'd wi' snow-white mäy; An' gil' cups, wi' the deäisy bed, Be under ev'ry step you tread. We'll wind up roun' the hill, an' look All down the thickly timber'd nook, Out where the squier's house do show His gray-walled peaks up drough the row O' sheädy elems, where the rock Do build her nest; an' where the brook Do creep along the meäds, an' lie To catch the brightness o' the sky; An' cows, in water to theïr knees, Do stan' a-whiskèn off the vlees. Mother o' blossoms, and ov all That's feäir a-vield vrom Spring till Fall, The gookoo over white-weäv'd seas Do come to zing in thy green trees, An' buttervlees, in giddy flight, Do gleäm the mwost by thy gäy light.

Oh! when, at last, my fleshly eyes Shall shut upon the vields an' skies, Mid zummer's zunny days be gone, An' winter's clouds be comèn on: Nor mid I draw upon the e'th, O' thy sweet aïr my leätest breath; Alassen I mid want to stäy Behine' for thee, O flow'ry May!

MILKEN TIME

'Poems of Rural Life'

'Twer when the busy birds did vlee, Wi' sheenèn wings, vrom tree to tree, To build upon the mossy lim' Their hollow nestes' rounded rim; The while the zun, a-zinkèn low, Did roll along his evenèn bow, I come along where wide-horn'd cows, 'Ithin a nook, a-screen'd by boughs, Did stan' an' flip the white-hooped pails Wi' heäiry tufts o' swingèn taïls; An' there were Jenny Coom a-gone Along the path a vew steps on, A-beärèn on her head, upstraïght, Her païl, wi' slowly-ridèn waight, An hoops a-sheenèn, lily-white, Ageän the evenèn's slantèn light; An' zo I took her païl, an' left Her neck a-freed vrom all his heft; An' she a-lookèn up an' down, Wi' sheäply head an' glossy crown, Then took my zide, an' kept my peäce, A-talkèn on wi' smilèn feäce, An' zettèn things in sich a light, I'd faïn ha' heär'd her talk all night; An' when I brought her milk avore The geäte, she took it in to door, An' if her païl had but allow'd Her head to vall, she would ha' bow'd; An' still, as 'twer, I had the zight Ov' her sweet smile, droughout the night.

JESSIE LEE

Above the timber's bendèn sh'ouds, The western wind did softly blow; An' up avore the knap, the clouds Did ride as white as driven snow. Vrom west to east the clouds did zwim Wi' wind that plied the elem's lim'; Vrom west to east the stream did glide, A sheenèn wide, wi' windèn brim.

How feäir, I thought, avore the sky The slowly-zwimmèn clouds do look; How soft the win's a-streamèn by; How bright do roll the weävy brook: When there, a-passèn on my right, A-walkèn slow, an' treadèn light, Young Jessie Lee come by, an' there Took all my ceäre, an' all my zight.

Vor lovely wer the looks her feäce Held up avore the western sky: An' comely wer the steps her peäce Did meäke a-walkèn slowly by: But I went east, wi' beatèn breast, Wi' wind, an' cloud, an' brook, vor rest, Wi' rest a-lost, vor Jessie gone So lovely on, toward the west.

Blow on, O winds, athirt the hill; Zwim on, O clouds; O waters vall, Down maeshy rocks, vrom mill to mill: I now can overlook ye all. But roll, O zun, an' bring to me My day, if such a day there be, When zome dear path to my abode Shall be the road o' Jessie Lee.

THE TURNSTILE

Ah! sad wer we as we did peäce The wold church road, wi' downcast feäce, The while the bells, that mwoan'd so deep Above our child a-left asleep, Wer now a-zingèn all alive Wi' tother bells to meäke the vive. But up at woone pleäce we come by, 'Twere hard to keep woone's two eyes dry; On Steän-cliff road, 'ithin the drong, Up where, as vo'k do pass along, The turnèn stile, a-painted white, Do sheen by day an' show by night. Vor always there, as we did goo To church, thik stile did let us drough, Wi' spreadèn eärms that wheel'd to guide Us each in turn to tother zide. An' vu'st ov all the traïn he took My wife, wi' winsome gaït an' look; An' then zent on my little maïd, A-skippèn onward, overjäy'd To reach ageän the pleäce o' pride, Her comely mother's left han' zide. An' then, a-wheelèn roun' he took On me, 'ithin his third white nook. An' in the fourth, a-sheäken wild, He zent us on our giddy child. But eesterday he guided slow My downcast Jenny, vull o' woe, An' then my little maïd in black, A-walken softly on her track; An' after he'd a-turn'd ageän, To let me goo along the leäne, He had noo little bwoy to vill His last white eärms, an' they stood still.

TO THE WATER-CROWFOOT

O small-feäc'd flow'r that now dost bloom, To stud wi' white the shallow Frome, An' leäve the [2]clote to spread his flow'r On darksome pools o' stwoneless Stour, When sof'ly-rizèn airs do cool The water in the sheenèn pool, Thy beds o' snow white buds do gleam So feäir upon the sky-blue stream, As whitest clouds, a-hangèn high Avore the blueness of the sky.

[Footnote 2: The yellow water-lily.]

ZUMMER AN' WINTER

When I led by zummer streams The pride o' Lea, as naïghbours thought her, While the zun, wi' evenèn beams, Did cast our sheädes athirt the water: Winds a-blowèn, Streams a-flowèn, Skies a-glowèn, Tokens ov my jay zoo fleetèn, Heightened it, that happy meetèn.

Then, when maïd and man took pleäces, Gay in winter's Chris'mas dances, Showèn in their merry feäces Kindly smiles an' glisnèn glances: Stars a-winkèn, Days a-shrinkèn, Sheädes a-zinkèn, Brought anew the happy meetèn, That did meäke the night too fleetèn.

JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE

(1860-)

James Matthew Barrie was born May 9th, 1860, at Kirriemuir, Scotland ('Thrums'); son of a physician whom he has lovingly embodied as 'Dr. McQueen,' and with a mother and sister who will live as 'Jess' and 'Leeby.' After an academy course at Dumfries he entered the University of Edinburgh at eighteen, where he graduated M.A., and took honors in the English Literature class. A few months later he took a place on a newspaper in Nottingham, England, and in the spring of 1885 went to London, where the papers had begun to accept his work.

Above all, the St. James's Gazette had published the first of the 'Auld Licht Idylls' November 17th, 1884; and the editor, Frederick Greenwood, instantly perceiving a new and rich genius, advised him to work the vein further, enforcing the advice by refusing to accept his contributions on other subjects.

He had the usual painful struggle to become a successful journalist, detailed in 'When a Man's Single'; but his real work was other and greater. In 1887 'When a Man's Single' came out serially in the British Weekly; it has little merit except in the Scottish prelude, which is of high quality in style and pathos. It is curious how utterly his powers desert him the moment he leaves his native heath: like Antæus, he is a giant on his mother earth and a pigmy off it. His first published book was 'Better Dead' (1887); it works out a cynical idea which would be amusing in five pages, but is diluted into tediousness by being spread over fifty. But in 1889 came a second masterpiece, 'A Window in Thrums,' a continuation of the Auld Licht series from an inside instead of an outside standpoint,--not superior to the first, but their full equals in a deliciousness of which one cannot say how much is matter and how much style. 'My Lady Nicotine' appeared in 1890; it was very popular, and has some amusing sketches, but no enduring quality. 'An Edinburgh Eleven' (1890) is a set of sketches of his classmates and professors.

In 1891 the third of his Scotch works appeared,--'The Little Minister,'--which raised him from the rank of an admirable sketch writer to that of an admirable novelist, despite its fantastic plot and detail. Since then he has written three plays,--'Walker, London,' 'Jane Annie,' and 'The Professor's Love Story,' the latter very successful and adding to his reputation; but no literature except his novel 'Sentimental Tommy,' just closed in Scribner's Magazine. This novel is not only a great advance on 'The Little Minister' in symmetry of construction, reality of matter, tragic power, and insight, but its tone is very different. Though as rich in humor, the humor is largely of a grim, bitter, and sardonic sort. The light, gay, buoyant fun of 'The Little Minister,' which makes it a perpetual enjoyment, has mostly vanished; in its stead we feel that the writer's sensitive nature is wrung by the swarming catastrophes he cannot avert, the endless wrecks on the ocean of life he cannot succor, and hardly less by those spiritual tragedies and ironies so much worse, on a true scale of valuation, than any material misfortune.

The full secret of Mr. Barrie's genius, as of all genius, eludes analysis; but some of its characteristics are not hard to define. His wonderful keenness of observation and tenacity of remembrance of the pettinesses of daily existence, which in its amazing minuteness reminds us of Dickens and Mark Twain, and his sensitiveness to the humorous aspects of their little misfits and hypocrisies and lack of proportion, might if untempered have made him a literary cynic like some others, remembered chiefly for the salience he gave to the ugly meannesses of life and the ironies of fate. But his good angel added to these a gift of quick, sure, and spontaneous sympathy and wide spiritual understanding. This fills all his higher work with a generous appreciativeness, a justness of judgment, a tenderness of feeling, which elevate as well as charm the reader. He makes us love the most grotesque characters, whom in life we should dislike and avoid, by the sympathetic fineness of his interpretation of their springs of life and their warping by circumstance. The impression left on one by the studies of the Thrums community is not primarily of intellectual and spiritual narrowness, or niggardly thrift, or dour natures: all are there, but with them are souls reaching after God and often flowering into beauty, and we reverence the quenchless aspiration of maligned human nature for an ideal far above its reach. He achieves the rare feat of portraying every pettiness and prejudice, even the meannesses and dishonors of a poor and hidebound country village, yet leaving us with both sincere respect and warm liking for it; a thing possible only to one himself of a fine nature as well as of a large mind. Nor is there any mawkishness or cheap surface sentimentality in it all. His pathos never makes you wince: you can always read his works aloud, the deadly and unfailing test of anything flat or pinchbeck in literature. His gift of humor saves him from this: true humor and true pathos are always found together because they are not two but one, twin aspects of the very same events. He who sees the ludicrous in misfits must see their sadness too; he who can laugh at a tumble must grieve over it: both are inevitable and both are coincident.