Part 21

Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think— More than I merit, yes, by many times. But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird The fowler’s pipe and follows to the snare— Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind! Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged “God and the glory! never care for gain.” I might have done it for you.

R. BROWNING (_Andrea del Sarto_).

The painter says that his wife, instead of urging him to work for immediate gain, might have incited him to nobler efforts.

* * * * *

CHILDHOOD AND HIS VISITORS

Once on a time, when sunny May Was kissing up the April showers, I saw fair Childhood hard at play Upon a bank of blushing flowers; Happy—he knew not whence or how— And smiling,—who could choose but love him? For not more glad than Childhood’s brow, Was the blue heaven that beamed above him.

Old Time, in most appalling wrath, That valley’s green repose invaded; The brooks grew dry upon his path, The birds were mute, the lilies faded. But Time so swiftly winged his flight, In haste a Grecian tomb to batter, That Childhood watched his paper kite, And knew just nothing of the matter....

Then stepped a gloomy phantom up, Pale, cypress-crowned, Night’s awful daughter, And proffered him a fearful cup Full to the brim of bitter water: Poor Childhood bade her tell her name; And when the beldame muttered, “Sorrow,” He said, “Don’t interrupt my game; I’ll taste it, if I must, to-morrow.” ...

Then Wisdom stole his bat and ball, And taught him with most sage endeavour, Why bubbles rise and acorns fall, And why no toy may last for ever. She talked of all the wondrous laws Which Nature’s open book discloses, And Childhood, ere she made a pause Was fast asleep among the roses.

Sleep on, sleep on! Oh! Manhood’s dreams Are all of earthly pain or pleasure, Of Glory’s toils, Ambition’s schemes, Of cherished love, or hoarded treasure: But to the couch where Childhood lies A more delicious trance is given, Lit up by rays from seraph eyes, And glimpses of remembered Heaven!

W. M. PRAED.

* * * * *

Alas, how easily things go wrong! A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again.

G. MACDONALD (_Phantastes_).

* * * * *

L’ENVOI

There’s a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield And the ricks stand grey to the sun, Singing:—“Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover And your English summer’s done.” You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind And the thresh of the deep-sea rain; You have heard the song—how long! how long! Pull out on the trail again!

Ha’ done with the Tents of Shem, dear lass, We’ve seen the seasons through, And it’s time to turn on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, Pull out, pull out, on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.

It’s North you may run to the rime-ringed sun Or South to the blind Horn’s hate; Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay, Or West to the Golden Gate; Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass, And the wildest tales are true, And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, And life runs large on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.

The days are sick and cold, and the skies are grey and old, And the twice-breathed airs blow damp; And I’d sell my tired soul for the bucking beam-sea roll Of a black Bilboa tramp; With her load-line over her hatch, dear lass, And a drunken Dago crew, And her nose held down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail From Cadiz Bar on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.

There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid; But the sweetest way to me is a ship’s upon the sea In the heel of the North-East trade, Can you hear the crash on her bows, dear lass, And the drum of the racing screw, As she ships it green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, As she lifts and ’scends on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.

See the shaking funnels roar, with the Peter at the fore, And the fenders grind and heave, And the derricks clack and grate, as the tackle hooks the crate, And the fall-rope whines through the sheave; It’s “Gang-plank up and in,” dear lass, It’s “Hawsers warp her through!” And it’s “All clear aft” on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, We’re backing down on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new....

O the mutter overside, when the port-fog holds us tied, And the sirens hoot their dread! When foot by foot we creep o’er the hueless viewless deep To the sob of the questing lead! It’s down by the Lower Hope, dear lass, With the Gunfleet Sands in view, Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, And the Gull Light lifts on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.

O the blazing tropic night, when the wake’s a welt of light That holds the hot sky tame, And the steady fore-foot snores through the planet-powder’d floors Where the scared whale flukes in flame! Her plates are scarr’d by the sun, dear lass, And her ropes are taut with the dew, For we’re booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, We’re sagging south on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.

Then home, get her home, when the drunken rollers comb, And the shouting seas drive by, And the engines stamp and ring, and the wet bows reel and swing, And the Southern Cross rides high! Yes, the old lost stars wheel back, dear lass, That blaze in the velvet blue, They’re all old friends on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, They’re God’s own guides on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.

Fly forward, O my heart, from the Foreland to the Start— We’re steaming all too slow, And it’s twenty thousand mile to our little lazy isle Where the trumpet-orchids blow! You have heard the call of the off-shore wind And the voice of the deep-sea rain: You have heard the song—how long! how long! Pull out on the trail again!

The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass, And the deuce knows what we may do— But we’re back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, We’re down, hull down on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

A great sea-song; we are on board passing through scene after scene and feeling the very movement of the ship and its gear.

* * * * *

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou soul that art the eternity of thought That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things— With life and nature—purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both pain and fear, until we recognize A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

WORDSWORTH (_The Prelude_, Bk. I).

* * * * *

The Quakers have contracted themselves too much by leaving the works of God out of their system. Though I reverence their philanthropy, I can not help smiling at the conceit, that, if the taste of a Quaker could have been consulted at the creation, what a silent and drab-coloured creation it would have been! Not a flower would have blossomed its gaieties, nor a bird been permitted to sing.

THOMAS PAINE (_The Age of Reason_).

This quotation reminds me of an interesting passage in Professor Bateson’s Presidential Address to the British Association at Melbourne in 1914. Although it has not a very close connection with the quotation the reader will not object to my giving it a place here:—

“Everyone must have a preliminary sympathy with the aims of eugenists both abroad and at home. Their efforts at the least are doing something to discover and spread truth as to the physiological structure of society. The spread of such organizations, however, almost of necessity suffers from a bias towards the accepted and the ordinary, and if they had power it would go hard with many ingredients of society that could be ill-spared. I notice an ominous passage in which even Galton, the founder of eugenics, feeling perhaps some twinge of his Quaker ancestry, remarks that ‘as the Bohemianism in the nature of our race is destined to perish, the sooner it goes, the happier for mankind.’ It is not the eugenists who will give us what Plato has called ‘divine releases from the common ways.’ If some fancier with the catholicity of Shakespeare would take us in hand, well and good; but I would not trust Shakespeares, _meeting as a committee_. Let us remember that Beethoven’s father was an habitual drunkard and that his mother died of consumption. From the genealogy of the patriarchs also we learn—what may very well be the truth—that the fathers of such as dwell in tents, and of all such as handle the harp or organ, and the instructor of every artificer in brass or iron—the founders, that is to say, of the arts and the sciences—came in direct descent from Cain, and not in the posterity of the irreproachable Seth, who is to us, as he probably was also in the narrow circle of his own contemporaries, what naturalists call a _nomen nudum_.”

_Nomen nudum_ is a bare name without further particulars, but Donne, no doubt on the authority of Josephus (I. 2.3), attributes Astronomy to Seth (“The Progresse of the Soule”):—

Wonder with mee Why plowing, building, ruling and the rest, Or most of those Arts whence our lives are blest, By cursed Cain’s race invented be, And blest Seth vext us with Astronomie.

Donne (1573-1631) is “vext” with Astronomy, presumably because at that time Kepler (1571-1630) and Galileo (1564-1642) were affirming the Copernican system and making other discoveries supposed to be dangerous to religion.

* * * * *

Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday And thank his wings to-day that he is flown.

D. G. ROSSETTI (_Love’s Lovers_).

* * * * *

A SONNET

Two voices are there: one is of the deep; It learns the storm-cloud’s thunderous melody, Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep: And one is of an old half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp and mountains steep: And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes, The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst: At other times—good Lord! I’d rather be Quite unacquainted with the A.B.C. Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.

JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN (1859-1893).

“Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,” is Wordsworth’s fine sonnet on the subjugation of Switzerland.

It is certainly extraordinary how the great poet at times dropped into the most prosaic language and commonplace verse. This, however, was only in his earlier poems and only in a few of those poems. His theory at that time was that poetic language should be natural, such as used by ordinary men, and not essentially different from prose. Actually, however, at the root of the matter was his want of any sense of humour. Only so can we account for his beginning a poem “Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands,” or writing absurdly babyish verses. The one instance on record in which he did apparently exhibit a grotesque kind of humour was in a verse of _Peter Bell_:—

Is it a party in a parlour? Cramm’d just as they on earth were cramm’d— Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, But, as you by their faces see, All silent and all damn’d.

But this he no doubt wrote quite seriously and without any idea that the verse was humorous. Shelley placed this verse at the head of his parody of _Peter Bell_, and Wordsworth omitted it from the poem after 1819.

* * * * *

And, were I not, as a man may say, cautious How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous, I could favour you with sundry touches Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess Heightened the mellowness of her cheek’s yellowness (To get on faster) until at last her Cheek grew to be one master-plaster Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse; In short, she grew from scalp to udder Just the object to make you shudder.

R. BROWNING (_The Flight of the Duchess_).

* * * * *

Day is dying! Float, O Song, Down the westward river, Requiem chanting to the Day— Day, the mighty Giver.

Pierced by shafts of Time he bleeds, Melted rubies sending Through the river and the sky, Earth and heaven blending;

All the long-drawn earthy banks Up to cloud-land lifting: Slow between them drifts the swan, ’Twixt two heavens drifting.

Wings half open, like a flow’r Inly deeper flushing, Neck and breast as virgin’s pure— Virgin proudly blushing.

Day is dying! Float, O swan, Down the ruby river; Follow, song, in requiem To the mighty Giver.

GEORGE ELIOT (_The Spanish Gypsy_).

* * * * *

Nature, and nature’s laws, lay hid in night: God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light.

POPE

* * * * *

Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly longed for death.

’Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh, life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that we want.

TENNYSON (_The Two Voices_).

It is, perhaps, true that no one at any time longs for death; and that our desire is for “more life _and fuller_.” But men have for various reasons longed _to die_, though they may not have longed for _death_. There are those to whom the remainder of life will be one torment of pain to themselves and a continuous mental distress to their friends; and there have been men of firm religious belief who desired to pass into a nobler _life_ beyond the grave. Again, Richard Hodgson definitely assured me in 1897 that he _wished to die_. He was absolutely satisfied with the evidence of survival after death, which he had had in connection with the Society for Psychical Research; and his desire was to “pass over” and be with the friends with whom for years he had been in communication. Hodgson was incapable of saying anything insincere.

* * * * *

Remember what Simonides said—that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken.

PLUTARCH (_Morals_).

* * * * *

Not the truth of which a man is or believes himself to be possessed, but the earnest efforts which he has made to attain truth, make the worth of the man. For it is not through the possession of, but through the search for truth, that he develops those powers in which alone consists his ever-growing perfection. Possession makes the mind stagnant, indolent, proud.

If God held in His right hand all truth, and in His left the ever-living desire for truth—although with the condition that I should remain in error for ever—and if He said to me “Choose,” I should humbly bow before His left hand, and say “Father, give; pure truth is for Thee alone.”

LESSING (1729-1781) _Wolfenbüttel Fragments_

When Lessing wrote this famous passage he was contending that criticism should be absolutely free in regard to religious, as to all other, subjects. “The argument on which he chiefly relies is that the Bible cannot be considered necessary to a belief in Christianity, since Christianity was a living and conquering power before the New Testament in its present form was recognised by the church. The true evidence for what is essential in Christianity, he contends, is its adaptation to the wants of human nature; hence the religious spirit is undisturbed by the speculations of the boldest thinkers.” (_Encyclopaedia Britannica_).

* * * * *

The light of every soul burns upward. Let us allow for atmospheric disturbance.

G. MEREDITH (_Diana of the Crossways_).

* * * * *

Human life may be painted according to two methods. There is the stage method. According to that, each character is duly marshalled at first, and ticketed; we know with an immutable certainty that, at the right crises, each one will reappear and act his part, and, when the curtain falls, all will stand before it bowing. There is a sense of satisfaction in this—and of completeness. But there is another method—the method of the life we all lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange coming and going of feet. Men appear, act and re-act upon each other, and pass away. When the crisis comes, the man who would fit it does not return. When the curtain falls, no one is ready. When the footlights are brightest they are blown out; and what the name of the play is no one knows. If there sits a spectator who knows, he sits so high that the players in the gaslight cannot hear his breathing.

OLIVE SCHREINER (_The Story of an African Farm_).

This is from the preface to the second edition. This book must be unique, for surely no other girl in her teens has written a book so brilliant in itself and indicating such originality and genius. It is a great loss to literature that the writer became entirely absorbed in South African politics and controversy.

* * * * *

I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another’s misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.

ALEXANDER POPE.

* * * * *

NIGHT AND DEATH

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo! creation widened in man’s view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind! Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

J. BLANCO WHITE (1775-1841).

(See preface.) This sonnet, apart from its great excellence, is a remarkable literary curiosity. By this one poem alone Blanco White achieved a lasting reputation as a poet. The point is that this is _his only poem_. He certainly had previously written a sonnet of little merit on survival after death, but “_Night and Death_” was apparently an inspired transfiguration of his earlier effort. It is a startling instance of inspiration coming to a man once only in his life—and then coming in its very highest form. There are other poets, whose work is generally of poor quality, but who have each produced one surprisingly good poem which alone keeps their memory alive. An instance of this is Christopher Smart (1722-1771), who wrote several volumes of verse but only one fine poem, the “Song of David.” Charles Wolfe (1791-1823) is also known only by his “Burial of Sir John Moore,” but his other poems, though forgotten, are said to have had some merit.

The sonnet is also interesting for another reason. White’s family had settled in Spain for two generations, his grandfather having changed his name to Blanco. His mother was Spanish, he was educated in Spain, and became a Spanish priest, and he did not leave for England until 1810, when thirty-five years of age. Yet White’s beautiful thought could hardly be expressed in finer language. There is, however, one defect in the words “fly and leaf and insect.” (William Sharp courageously altered “fly” into “flower.”)

Coleridge thought this “the finest and most grandly conceived sonnet in our language.” Leigh Hunt said that in point of thought it “stands supreme, perhaps, above all in any language: nor can we ponder it too deeply, or with too hopeful a reverence.”

* * * * *

I sleep, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I walk in my neighbour’s pleasant fields and see the varieties of natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights—that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God Himself. And he, that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

* * * * *

In my Progress travelling Northward, Taking farewell of the Southward, To Banbury came I, O prophane-One! Where I saw a Puritane-One Hanging of his Cat on Monday, For killing of a Mouse on Sunday.

R. BRATHWAITE (1638) (_Drunken Barnaby_).

* * * * *

O the Spring will come, And once again the wind be in the West, Breathing the odour of the sea; and life, Life that was ugly, and work that grew a curse, Be God’s best gifts again, and in your heart You’ll find once more the dreams you thought were dead.

H. D. LOWRY (_In Covent Garden_).

* * * * *

Of such as he was, there be few on Earth; Of such as he is, there are many in Heaven; And Life is all the sweeter that he lived, And all he loved more sacred for his sake: And Death is all the brighter that he died, And Heaven is all the happier that he’s there.

GERALD MASSEY (_In Memoriam_).

* * * * *

ONLY SEVEN

(_A Pastoral Story, after Wordsworth._)

I marvelled why a simple child That lightly draws its breath Should utter groans so very wild, And look as pale as Death.

Adopting a parental tone, I asked her why she cried; The damsel answered, with a groan, “I’ve got a pain inside.

“I thought it would have sent me mad Last night about eleven.” Said I, “What is it makes you bad? How many apples have you had?” She answered, “Only seven!”

“And are you sure you took no more, My little maid?” quoth I. “Oh! please sir, mother gave me four, But _they_ were in a pie!”

“If that’s the case,” I stammered out, “Of course you’ve had eleven.” The maiden answered, with a pout, “I ain’t had more nor seven!”

I wondered hugely what she meant, And said, “I’m bad at riddles, But I know where little girls are sent For telling tarrididdles.

“Now, if you don’t reform,” said I, “You’ll never go to heaven.” But all in vain; each time I try, That little idiot makes reply, “I ain’t had more nor seven”!

POSTSCRIPT.

To borrow Wordsworth’s name was wrong, Or slightly misapplied; And so I’d better call my song, “Lines after _Ache-inside_.”

HENRY SAMBROOKE LEIGH.