The air is damp, and hushed, and close,
As a rich man’s room, where he taketh repose
An hour before death;
My very heart faints, and my whole soul grieves
At the moist, rich smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath, and the year’s last rose.
Heavily hangs the broad sun-flower
Over its grave, the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
XIX.
=The Schoolmistress.=
One does not often meet with Shenstone’s “Schoolmistress” now-a-days,
and as every year makes her more of a rarity, we have given her a place
in our rustic group. There appears to be no doubt that Shenstone, who
learned to read from the old dame who taught the village school at
Hales-Owen, his native hamlet, sketched from life, when he drew the old
“Schoolmistress,” her blue apron, her single hen, and the noisy little
troop about her. To us, however, in these very different days, the
simple rustic sketch assumes something of the dignity of an historical
picture.
The little thatched cottage of the dame is still to be seen near
Hales-Owen, as well as the gabled roof of the Leasowes, under which the
poet was born. The old homes of England, whether cot or castle, are
seldom leveled by the hand of man, and they long remain as links between
successive generations.
A few of the stanzas have been omitted, in order to bring the poem
within the limits of this volume.