Clasping their mouldered quays in lordly sweep;
And lingered where the Maine's low waters shine
Through Tyrian Frankfort; and been fain to weep
'Mid the green cliffs where pale Mosella laves 5
That Roman sepulchre, imperial Treves.
Ghent boasts her street, and Bruges her moonlight square;
And holy Mechlin, Rome of Flanders, stands,
Like a queen-mother, on her spacious lands;
And Antwerp shoots her glowing spire in air. 10
Yet have I seen no place, by inland brook,
Hill-top, or plain, or trim arcaded bowers,
That carries age so nobly in its look,
As Oxford with the sun upon her towers.
F. W. FABER.
BRUGES
The Spirit of Antiquity--enshrined
In sumptuous buildings, vocal in sweet song,
In picture, speaking with heroic tongue,
And with devout solemnities entwined--
Mounts to the seat of grace within the mind: 5
Hence Forms that glide with swan-like ease along,
Hence motions, even amid the vulgar throng,
To an harmonious decency confined:
As if the streets were consecrated ground,
The city one vast temple, dedicate 10
To mutual respect in thought and deed;
To leisure, to forbearances sedate;
To social cares from jarring passions freed;
A deeper peace than that in deserts found!
W. WORDSWORTH.
THE BELFRY OF BRUGES
In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.
As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood. 4
Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapours gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.
At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.
Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower. 10
From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;
And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.
Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,
With their strange unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,
Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar. 16
Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;
All the Foresters of Flanders,--mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre. 20
I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece
of Gold.
Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.
I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground; 25
I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;
And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,
And the armed guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.
I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,
Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold; 30
Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.
And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;
Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand, 35
'I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!'
Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.
Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square. 40
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
THE CARILLON
ANTWERP AND BRUGES
At Antwerp, there is a low wall
Binding the city, and a moat
Beneath, that the wind keeps afloat.
You pass the gates in a slow drawl
Of wheels. If it is warm at all 5
The Carillon will give you thought.
I climbed the stair in Antwerp church,
What time the urgent weight of sound
At sunset seems to heave it round.
Far up, the Carillon did search 10
The wind; and the birds came to perch
Far under, where the gables wound.
In Antwerp harbour on the Scheldt
I stood along, a certain space
Of night. The mist was near my face: 15
Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.
The Carillon kept pause, and dwelt
In music through the silent place.
At Bruges, when you leave the train,
--A singing numbness in your ears,-- 20
The Carillon's first sound appears
Only the inner moil. Again
A little minute though--your brain
Takes quiet, and the whole sense hears.
John Memmeling and John Van Eyck 25
Hold state at Bruges. In sore shame
I scanned the works that keep their name.
The Carillon, which then did strike
Mine ears, was heard of theirs alike;
It set me closer unto them. 30
I climbed at Bruges all the flight
The Belfry has of ancient stone.
For leagues I saw the east wind blown:
The earth was grey, the sky was white.
I stood so near upon the height 35
That my flesh left the Carillon.
D. G. ROSSETTI.
HOLLAND
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but the off-scouring of the British sand;
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots when they heaved the lead;
Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell, 5
Of shipwrecked cockle and the mussel-shell;
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Glad then, as miners who have found the ore,
They, with mad labour, fished the land to shore:
And dived as desperately for each piece 11
Of earth, as if 't had been of ambergris;
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,
Less than what building swallows bear away;
Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll 15
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul!
How did they rivet, with gigantic piles,
Thorough the centre their new-catched miles;
And to the stake a struggling country bound,
Where barking waves still bait the forced ground;
Building their watery Babel far more high 21
To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky.
Yet still his claim the injured ocean laid,
And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played;
As if on purpose it on land had come 25
To shew them what's their _mare liberum_,
A daily deluge over them does boil;
The earth and water play at level-coil.
The fish oft-times the burgher dispossessed,
And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest; 30
And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, saw
Whole shoals of Dutch served up for Cabillau;
Or, as they over the new level ranged,
For pickled herring, pickled heeren changed.
ANDREW MARVELL.
THE HAGUE
While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix,
And in one day atone for the business of six,
In a little Dutch chaise, on a Saturday night,
On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right;
No memoirs to compose, and no post-boy to move,
That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love. 6
For her neither visits nor parties at tea,
Nor the long-winded cant of a dull refugee.
This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine,
To good or ill fortune the third we resign. 10
Thus scorning the world, and superior to fate,
I drive in my car in professional state.
So with Phia through Athens Pisistratus rode;
Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god.
But why should I stories of Athens rehearse 15
Where people knew love, and were partial to verse,
Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose
In Holland half-drowned in interest and prose?
By Greece and past ages what need I be tried
When The Hague and the present are both on my side; 20
And is it enough for the joys of the day
To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say?
When good Vandergoes and his provident vrow,
As they gaze on my triumph do freely allow,
That, search all the province, you'll find no man dar is 25
So blest as the Englishen Heer Secretar' is.
M. PRIOR.
_The Hague, 1696._
ROTTERDAM
I gaze upon a city,
A city new and strange;
Down many a watery vista
My fancy takes a range;
From side to side I saunter, 5
And wonder where I am;--
And can _you_ be in England,
And I at Rotterdam!
Before me lie dark waters,
In broad canals and deep, 10
Whereon the silver moonbeams
Sleep, restless in their sleep;
A sort of vulgar Venice
Reminds me where I am,--
Yes, yes, you are in England, 15
And I'm at Rotterdam.
Tall houses with quaint gables,
Where frequent windows shine,
And quays that lead to bridges,
And trees in formal line, 20
And masts of spicy vessels,
From distant Surinam,
All tell me you're in England,
And I'm in Rotterdam.
Those sailors,--how outlandish 25
The face and garb of each!
They deal in foreign gestures,
And use a foreign speech;
A tongue not learned near Isis,
Or studied by the Cam, 30
Declares that you're in England,
But I'm at Rotterdam.
And now across a market
My doubtful way I trace,
Where stands a solemn statue, 35
The Genius of the place;
And to the great Erasmus
I offer my salaam,--
Who tells me you're in England,
And I'm at Rotterdam. 40
The coffee-room is open,
I mingle in its crowd;
The dominoes are rattling,
The hookahs raise a cloud;
A flavour, none of Fearon's, 45
That mingles with my dram,
Reminds me you're in England,
But I'm in Rotterdam,
Then here it goes, a bumper,--
The toast it shall be mine. 50
In Schiedam, or in Sherry,
Tokay, or Hock of Rhine,--
It well deserves the brightest
Where sunbeam ever swam,--
'The girl I love in England,' 55
I drink at Rotterdam!
T. HOOD.
THE PROGRESS OF ERROR
No plainer truth appears,
Our most important are our earliest years;
The mind, impressible and soft, with ease
Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees,
And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue 5
That education gives her, false or true.
Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong;
Man's coltish disposition asks the thong;
And, without discipline, the favourite child,
Like a neglected forester, runs wild. 10
But we, as if good qualities would grow
Spontaneous, take but little pains to sow;
We give some Latin, and a smatch of Greek;
Teach him to fence and figure twice a week;
And, having done, we think, the best we can, 15
Praise his proficiency, and dub him man.
From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home;
And thence, with all convenient speed, to Rome,
With reverend tutor, clad in habit lay,
To tease for cash, and quarrel with, all day; 20
With memorandum-book for every town,
And every post, and where the chaise broke down;
His stock, a few French phrases got by heart;
With much to learn, but nothing to impart,
The youth, obedient to his sire's commands, 25
Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands.
Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair,
With awkward gait, stretched neck, and silly stare,
Discover huge cathedrals, built with stone,
And steeples towering high, much like our own; 30
But show peculiar light by many a grin
At popish practices observed within.
Ere long, some bowing, smirking, smart abbe,
Remarks two loiterers that have lost their way;
And, being always primed with _politesse_ 35
For men of their appearance and address,
With much compassion undertakes the task
To tell them--more than they have wit to ask:
Points to inscriptions wheresoe'er they tread,
Such as, when legible, were never read, 40
But, being cankered now, and half worn out,
Craze antiquarian brains with endless doubt;
Some headless hero, or some Caesar shows--
Defective only in his Roman nose;
Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans, 45
Models of Herculanean pots and pans;
And sells them medals, which, if neither rare
Nor ancient, will be so, preserved with care.
Strange the recital! from whatever cause
His great improvement and new lights he draws, 50
The squire, once bashful, is shame-faced no more,
But teems with powers he never felt before;
Whether increased momentum, and the force
With which from clime to clime he sped his course,
(As axles sometimes kindle as they go) 55
Chafed him, and brought dull nature to a glow;
Or whether clearer skies and softer air,
That make Italian flowers so sweet and fair,
Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran,
Unfolded genially, and spread the man; 60
Returning, he proclaims, by many a grace,
By shrugs, and strange contortions of his face,
How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.
W. COWPER.
ADVICE AGAINST TRAVEL
Traverse not the globe for lore! The sternest
But the surest teacher is the heart;
Studying that and that alone, thou learnest
Best and soonest whence and what thou _art_.
_Time_, not travel, 'tis which gives us ready 5
Speech, experience, prudence, tact, and wit.
Far more light the lamp that bideth steady
Than the wandering lantern doth _emit_.
_Moor_, Chinese, Egyptian, Russian, Roman,
Tread one common down-hill path of doom; 10
Everywhere the names are Man and Woman,
Everywhere the old sad sins find _room_.
_Evil_ angels tempt us in all places.
What but sands or snows hath earth to give?
Dream not, friend, of deserts and oases, 15
But look inwards, and begin to _live_!
J. C. MANGAN.
HAD CAIN BEEN SCOT
Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom,--
Not forced him wander, but confined him home.
J. CLEVELAND.
A SONG OF THE ROAD
The gauger walked with willing foot,
And aye the gauger played the flute;
And what should Master Gauger play
But _Over the hills and far away_?
Whene'er I buckle on my pack 5
And foot it gaily in the track,
O pleasant gauger, long since dead,
I hear you fluting on ahead.
You go with me the self-same way--
The self-same air for me you play; 10
For I do think and so do you,
It is the tune to travel to.
For who would gravely set his face
To go to this or t'other place?
There's nothing under Heav'n so blue 15
That's fairly worth the travelling to.
On every hand the roads begin,
And people walk with zeal therein;
But whereso'er the highways tend,
Be sure there's nothing at the end. 20
Then follow you, wherever hie
The travelling mountains of the sky.
Or let the streams in civil mode
Direct your choice upon a road;
For one and all, or high or low, 25
Will lead you where you wish to go;
And one and all go night and day
_Over the hills and far away_!
R. L. STEVENSON.
NOTES
The difficulty has been to select from a wealth of poems with which
volumes could have been filled. Indeed three collections dealing
exclusively with Greece, with Italy, and with Switzerland have already
been published by the Oxford University Press. In this volume the
traveller is not confined to one country, and he is not asked to drag
a lengthening chain beyond the limits of Europe. Here are some poems
about travel generally, and then country by country a grand tour is
traced. My obligation to the authors or owners of copyright poems is
duly acknowledged with grateful thanks.
P. 7. _Clough._--The opening lines of _Amours de Voyage_.
P. 7. _Tennyson._--A few lines only from _Ulysses_.
P. 8. _Goldsmith._--From _The Traveller_.
P. 11. _Bridges._--By kind permission of the Poet Laureate and
Messrs. Smith, Elder.
Pp. 12 and 13. _Arnold._--From _Stanzas composed at Carnac_ and
_Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse_.
Pp. 20 and 21. _Tennyson._--The passage from _Oenone_ and the idyll
from _The Princess_ are given here because their imagery was
inspired by the Pyrenees, which the poet repeatedly visited, first
of all in 1830 with Hallam, intending to aid in the Spanish revolt
against Ferdinand VII. Tennyson also spent some time in the Pyrenees
with Clough in 1861. It is Hallam who is referred to in _In the
Valley of Cauteretz_, a poem which Tennyson selected to write in
Queen Victoria's album. Swinburne has praised 'the solemn sweetness'
of these 'majestic verses'.
P. 25. _Byron._--From _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto i, 18 and
19.
P. 26. _Godley._--By permission of the author and Messrs. Methuen.
P. 29. _Butler._--By permission of Mrs. A. G. Butler. The poem
originally appeared in _The Times_ shortly after the Matterhorn
accident in 1865.
P. 31. _Hardy._--By permission of the author and Messrs. Macmillan.
Pp. 32 and 33. _Watts-Dunton._--By kind permission of the author,
given shortly before his death.
P. 35. _Arnold._--The first portion is from _Stanzas in Memory of
the Author of 'Obermann'_ (Etienne Pivert de Senancour); the second
from _Obermann once More_, composed many years afterwards.
P. 38. _Symonds._--By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder.
P. 47. _Byron._--From _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iv, 73,
74, and 75.
P. 48. _Clough._--The concluding lines of the introduction to canto
iii of _Amours de Voyage_.
P. 51. _Rogers._--From _Italy_.
P. 52._ Shelley._--From _Lines written among the Euganean Hills_.
P. 53. _Byron._--From _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iv, 1, 2,
3, 4, 11, and 13.
P. 56. _Byron._--From _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iv,
stanzas 48, 49.
P. 60. _Byron._--From _Manfred_, act III, sc. iv.
P. 62. _Hardy._--From _Wessex Poems, etc._ By permission of the
author and Messrs. Macmillan.
P. 64. _Clough._--From _Amours de Voyage_, canto iii. There is a
note to line 8:
... domus Albuneae resonantis,
Et praeceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda
Mobilibus pomaria rivis.
P. 65. _Wordsworth._--The first two stanzas 'Composed in the Simplon
Pass', 1820. The concluding eight lines are from _At Vallombrosa_,
written when the poet's 'fond wish' to visit this spot had been
realized in 1837. Wordsworth is at pains to defend Milton from the
charge of having blundered in _Paradise Lost_, by suggesting that
the trees are 'deciduous whereas they are, in fact, pines'. 'The
fault-finders', Wordsworth says, 'are themselves mistaken; the
_natural_ woods of the region of Vallombrosa _are_ deciduous.'
P. 66. _Rogers._--From _Italy_.
P. 73. _Phillimore._--By permission of the author.
P. 78. _Blunt._--By permission of the author.
P. 81. _Tennyson._--Lear was not only the inventor or popularizer of
'Limericks', but also a highly-esteemed artist.
Pp. 83 and 85. _Rodd._--By permission of the author, who wrote the
introduction to the Oxford anthology, _The Englishman in Greece_.
P. 86. _Shelley._--Stanzas 4 and 5 of the _Ode to Liberty_.
P. 87. _Byron._--From _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto i, 60 and
61.
P. 91. _Browning._--This poem is not complete.
P. 96. _Byron._--From _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iii, 55.
P. 99. _Calverley._--This is a portion only of the poem.
P. 118. _Cowper._--An extract from the long poem of the same title.
P. 121. _Stevenson._--By permission of Messrs. Chatto & Windus (and
Messrs. Scribner's Sons in regard to the American rights).
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
Page
A wreath of light blue vapour, pure and rare, 68
Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!, 80
All along the valley, stream that flashest white, 22
Arno wins us to the fair white walls, 56
At Antwerp, there is a low wall, 112
Brook and road, 34
Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height, 21
England, we love thee better than we know, 77
Far on its rocky knoll descried, 12
Farewell, farewell! Before our prow, 99
Glion?---- Ah, twenty years, it cuts, 36
Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom, 121
Happy is England! I could be content, 39
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star, 14
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, 113
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink, 7
I do remember me, that in my youth, 60
I gaze upon a city, 116
I have known cities with the strong-armed Rhine, 107
I leave thee, beauteous Italy! no more, 74
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs, 53
I travelled among unknown men, 9
Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls, 81
In front the awful Alpine track, 35
In Koehln, a town of monks and bones, 98
In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown, 108
In the steamy, stuffy Midlands, 'neath an English summer sky, 26
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands, 103
Is this, ye Gods, the Capitolian Hill?, 62
It is not only that the sun, 83
Lo! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes, 25
Many a vanished year and age, 88
Never, oh never more shall I behold, 38
No plainer truth appears, 118
No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks, 44
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away, 77
Nowhere I sojourn but I thence depart, 73
O beautiful beneath the magic moon, 55
O love, what hours were thine and mine, 40
Oh, come to Rome, it is a pleasant place, 56
Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey, 87
On her still lake the city sits, 55
Once more upon the woody Apennine, 47
Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits, 7
Quick, painter, quick, the moment seize, 23
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, 8
Say, hast thou tracked a traveller's round, 76
Seven weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm, 78
Sweet the memory is to me, 69
Tanagra! think not I forget, 89
Ten years!--and to my waking eye, 38
The castled crag of Drachenfels, 96
The ceaseless rain is falling fast, 5
The gauger walked with willing foot, 121
The Germans for Learning enjoy great repute, 99
The Lady of the Hills with crimes untold, 32
The nodding promontories and blue isles, 86
The skies have sunk, and hid the upper snow, 18
The Spirit of Antiquity--enshrined, 108
Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!, 79
There is a glorious City in the sea, 51
There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier, 20
They stand between the mountains and the sea, 66
They warred with Nature, as of old with gods, 29
Thirty-two years since, up against the sun, 31
Through Alpine meadows, soft-suffused, 13
Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio, 64
Traverse not the globe for lore! The sternest, 120
Underneath Day's azure eyes, 52
Vain is the effort to forget, 95
Vallombrosa! I longed in thy shadiest wood, 65
Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page, 65
Verona! thy tall gardens stand erect, 46
What power is this? what witchery wins my feet, 33
What's become of Waring, 91
Where lies the land to which yon ship must go?, 10
Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the
oak-trees immingle, 48
'Wherefore the "city of the violet crown"?', 85
While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, 114
Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, 11
Who, then, was Cestius, 62
Why, Tourist, why, 97
Why, wedded to the Lord, still yearns my heart, 75
Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, 49