fruit was juicy ripe, and the hoods cracked as they fell; they peeled as
easy as taking off a glove; the sweetest and nuttiest of fruit. It was
delicious to sit there with a great volume of Sir Walter Scott, half in
sunshine, half in shade, dreaming of 'Kenilworth' and Wayland Smith's
cave; only the difficulty was to balance the luxuries, when to peel the
walnuts and when to read the book, and how to adjust oneself to
perfection so as to get the exact amount of sunshine and shadow. Too much
luxury. There was a story, too, told by one Abu-Kaka ibn Ja'is, of the
caravan that set forth in 1483 to cross the desert, and being overwhelmed
by a sandstorm, lost their way. They wandered for some time till hunger
and thirst began to consume them, and then suddenly lit on an oasis
unknown to the oldest merchant of Bagdad. There they found refreshing
waters and palms and a caravanserai; and, what was most pleasant, the
people at the bazaar and the prince hastened to fill them with
hospitality; sheep were killed, and kids were roasted, and all was joy.
They were not permitted to depart till they had feasted, when they set
out again on their journey, and each at leaving was presented with
strings of pearls and bags of rubies, so that at last they came home with
all the magnificence of kings. They found, however, that instead of
having been absent only a month or two they had been gone twenty years,
so swiftly had time sped. As they grew old, and their beards grey, and
their frames withered, and the pearls were gone, and the rubies spent,
they said, 'We will go back to the city of the oasis.' They set out, each
on his camel, one lame, the other paralytic, and the third blind, but
still the way was plain, for had they not trodden it before? and they had
with them the astrolabe of the astronomer that fixes the track by the
stars. Time wore on, and presently the camels' feet brought them nearer
and nearer the wished-for spot. One saw the water, and another the palms,
but when they came near, it was the mirage, and deep sand covered the
place. Then they separated, and each hastened home; but the blind had no
leader, and the lame fell from his camel, and the paralytic had no more
dates, and their whited bones have disappeared. [Footnote: The Arabian
commentator thinks this story a myth: the oasis in the desert is the time
of youth, which passes so quickly, and is not recognised till it is gone;
the pearls and rubies, the joys of love, which make the fortunate lover
as a king. In old age every man is afflicted with disease or infirmity,
every one is paralytic, lame, or blind. They set out to find a second
youth--the dream of immortality--with the astrolabe, which is the creed
or Koran all take as their guide. And death separated the company. This
is only his pragmatic way; the circumstance is doubtless historic.] Many
another tale, too, I read under the trees that are gone like human
beings. Sometimes I went forth to the nooks in the deep meadows by the
hazel mounds, and sometimes I parted the ash-tree wands. In my waist-coat
pocket I had a little red book, made square; I never read it out of
doors, but I always carried it in my pocket till it was frayed and the
binding broken; the smallest of red books, but very much therein--the
poems and sonnets of Mr. William Shakespeare. Some books are alive. The
book I have still, it cannot die: the ash copses are cut, and the hazel
mounds destroyed.
Was every one, then, so pleasant to me in those days? were the people all
so beneficent and kindly that I must needs look back; all welcoming with
open hand and open door? No, the reverse; there was not a single one
friendly to me. Still that has nothing to do with it; I never thought
about them, and I am quite certain they never thought about me. They are
all gone, and there is an end. Incompatibility would describe our
connection best. Nothing to do with them at all; it was me. I planted
myself every where--in all the fields and under all the trees. The
curious part of it is that though they are all dead, and 'worms have
eaten them, but not for love,' we continually meet them in other shapes.
We say, 'Holloa, here is old So-and-so coming; that is exactly his jaw,
that's his Flemish face;' or, 'By Jove, yonder is So-and-so; that's his
very walk:' one almost expects them to speak as one meets them in the
street. There seem to be certain set types which continually crop up
again whithersoever you go, and even certain tricks of speech and curves
of the head---a set of family portraits walking about the world. It was
not the people, neither for good, for evil, nor indifference.
I planted myself every here under the trees in the fields and footpaths,
by day and by night, and that is why I have never put myself into the
charge of the many wheeled creatures that move on the rails and gone back
thither, lest I might find the trees look small, and the elms mere
switches, and the fields shrunken, and the brooks dry, and no voice
anywhere. Nothing but my own ghost to meet me by every hedge. I fear lest
I should find myself more dead than all the rest And verily I wish, could
it be without injury to others, that the sand of the desert would rise
and roll over and obliterate the place for ever and ever.
I need not wish, for I have been conversing again with learned folk about
this place, and they begin to draw my view to certain considerations.
These very learned men point out to me a number of objections, for the
question they sceptically put is this: are you quite certain that such a
village ever existed? In the first place, they say, you have only got one
other witness beside yourself, and she is aged, and has defective sight;
and really we don't know what to say to accepting such evidence
unsupported. Secondly, John Brown cannot be found to bear testimony.
Thirdly, there are no ghosts there; that can be demonstrated. It renders
a case unsubstantial to introduce these flimsy spirits. Fourthly, the map
is lost, and it might be asked was there ever such a map? Fifthly, the
people are all gone. Sixthly, no one ever saw any particular sparkle on
the brook there, and the clouds appear to be of the same commonplace
order that go about everywhere. Seventhly, no one can find these
footpaths, which probably led nowhere; and as for the little old man with
silver buckles on his shoes, it is a story only fit for some one in his
dotage. You can't expect grave and considerate men to take your story as
it stands; they must consult the Ordnance Survey and Domesday Book; and
the fact is, you have not got the shadow of a foundation on which to
carry your case into court. I may resent this, but I cannot deny that the
argument is very black against me, and I begin to think that my senses
have deceived me. It is as they say. No one else seems to have seen the
sparkle on the brook, or heard the music at the hatch, or to have felt
back through the centuries; and when I try to describe these things to
them they look at me with stolid incredulity. No one seems to understand
how I got food from the clouds, nor what there was in the night, nor why
it is not so good to look at it out of window. They turn their faces away
from me, so that perhaps after all I was mistaken, and there never was
any such place or any such meadows, and I was never there. And perhaps in
course of time I shall find out also, when I pass away physically, that
as a matter of fact there never was any earth.
MY CHAFFINCH
His hours he spends upon a fragrant fir;
His merry 'chink,' his happy 'Kiss me, dear,'
Each moment sounded, keeps the copse astir.
Loudly he challenges his rivals near,
Anon aslant down to the ground he springs,
Like to a sunbeam made of coloured wings.
The firm and solid azure of the ceil
That struck by hand would give a hollow sound,
A dome turned perfect by the sun's great wheel,
Whose edges rest upon the hills around,
Rings many a mile with blue enamelled wall;
His fir-tree is the centre of it all.
A lichened cup he set against the side
High up this mast, earth-stepped, that could not fail,
But swung a little as a ship might ride,
Keeping an easy balance in the gale;
Slow-heaving like a gladiator's breast,
Whose strength in combat feels an idle rest.
Whether the cuckoo or the chaffinch most
Do triumph in the issuing of their song?
I say not this, but many a swelling boast
They throw each at the other all day long.
Soon as the nest had cradled eggs a-twin
The jolly squirrel climbed to look therein.
Adown the lane athwart this pleasant wood
The broad-winged butterflies their solace sought;
A green-necked pheasant in the sunlight stood,
Nor could the rushes hide him as he thought.
A humble-bee through fern and thistle made
A search for lowly flowers in the shade.
A thing of many wanderings, and loss,
Like to Ulysses on his poplar raft,
His treasure hid beneath the tunnelled moss
Lest that a thief his labour steal with craft,
Up the round hill, sheep-dotted, was his way,
Zigzagging where some new adventure lay.
'My life and soul,' as if he were a Greek,
His heart was Grecian in his greenwood fane;
'My life and soul,' through all the sunny week
The chaffinch sang with beating heart amain,
'The humble-bee the wide wood-world may roam;
One feather's breadth I shall not stir from home.'
No note he took of what the swallows said
About the firing of some evil gun,
Nor if the butterflies were blue or red,
For all his feelings were intent in one.
The loving soul, a-thrill in all his nerves,
A life immortal as a man's deserves.