NEVER GIVE UP, AND SOME OTHER BALLADS.
Sundry of my short lyrics have gained a great popularity: in particular
"Never give up," whereof there are extant--or were--no fewer than eight
musical settings. Of this ballad, three stanzas, I have a strange story
to tell. When I went to Philadelphia, on my first American tour in 1851,
I was taken everywhere to see everything; amongst others to Dr.
Kirkland's vast institute for the insane: let me first state that he was
not previously told of my coming visit. When I went over the various
wards of the convalescents, I noticed that on each door was a printed
placard with my "Never give up" upon it in full. Naturally I thought it
was done so out of compliment. But on inquiry, Dr. Kirkland didn't know
who the author was, and little suspected it was myself. He had seen the
verses, anonymous, in a newspaper, and judging them a good moral dose of
hopefulness even for the half insane, placed them on every door to
excellent effect. When to his astonishment he found the unknown author
before him, greatly pleased, he asked if I would allow the patients to
thank me; of course I complied, and soon was surrounded by kneeling and
weeping and kissing folks, grateful for the good hope my verses had
helped them to. And twenty-five years after, in 1876, I, again without
notice, visited Dr. Kirkland at the same place, scarcely expecting to
find him still living, and certainly not thinking that I should see my
old ballad on the doors. But, when the happy doctor, looking not an hour
older, though it was a quarter of a century, took me round to see his
convalescents, behold the same words greeted me in large print,--and
probably are there still: the only change being that my name appears at
foot. I gave them a two hours' reading in their handsome theatre, and I
never had a more intensely attentive audience than those three hundred
lunatics. The ballad runs thus,--if any wish to see it, as for the first
time:--
"Never give up! it is wiser and better
Always to hope than once to despair;
Fling off the load of Doubt's heavy fetter
And break the dark spell of tyrannical care:
Never give up! or the burden may sink you,--
Providence kindly has mingled the cup,
And, in all trials or troubles, bethink you
The watchword of life must be Never give up!
"Never give up! there are chances and changes
Helping the hopeful a hundred to one,
And through the chaos High Wisdom arranges
Ever success, if you'll only hope on:
Never give up! for the wisest is boldest,
Knowing that Providence mingles the cup,
And of all maxims the best as the oldest
Is the true watchword of Never give up!
"Never give up! though the grapeshot may rattle
Or the full thunderbolt over you burst,
Stand like a rock,--and the storm or the battle
Little shall harm you, though doing their worst:
Never give up!--if Adversity presses,
Providence wisely has mingled the cup,
And the best counsel in all your distresses
Is the stout watchword of Never give up!"
I can quite feel what a moral tonic and spiritual stimulant these
sentiments would be to many among the thousand patients under Dr.
Kirkland's care.
I recollect also now, that once when I read at Weston-super-Mare, with
Lord Cavan in the chair, a military man among the audience, on hearing
me recite "Never give up," came forward and shook hands, showing me out
of his pocket-book a soiled newspaper cutting of the poem without my
name, saying that it had cheered him all through the Crimea, and that he
had always wished to find out the author. Of course we coalesced right
heartily. Some other such anecdotes might be added, but this is enough.
* * * * *
Year by year, for more than a dozen, I have given a harvest hymn to the
jubilant agriculturists: they have usually attained the honour of a
musical setting, and been sung all over the land in many churches.
Perhaps the best of them is one for which Bishop Samuel Wilberforce
wrote to "thank me cordially for a real Christian hymn with the true
ring in it." There are, or were, many musical settings thereof, the best
being one of a German composer.
"O Nation, Christian Nation
Lift high the hymn of praise!
The God of our salvation
Is love in all His ways;
He blesseth us, and feedeth
Every creature of His hand,
To succour him that needeth
And to gladden all the land.
"Rejoice, ye happy people,
And peal the changing chime
From every belfried steeple
In symphony sublime:
Let cottage and let palace
Be thankful and rejoice,
And woods and hills and valleys
Re-echo the glad voice!
"From glen, and plain, and city
Let gracious incense rise;
The Lord of life and pity
Hath heard His creatures' cries:
And where in fierce oppression
Stalk'd fever, fear, and dearth,
He pours a triple blessing
To fill and fatten earth!
"Gaze round in deep emotion;
The rich and ripened grain
Is like a golden ocean
Becalm'd upon the plain;
And we who late were weepers,
Lest judgment should destroy,
Now sing, because the reapers
Are come again with joy!
"O praise the Hand that giveth,
And giveth evermore,
To every soul that liveth
Abundance flowing o'er!
For every soul He filleth
With manna from above,
And over all distilleth
The unction of His love.
"Then gather, Christians, gather,
To praise with heart and voice
The good Almighty Father
Who biddeth you rejoice:
For He hath turned the sadness
Of His children into mirth,
And we will sing with gladness
The harvest-home of Earth."
My "Song of Seventy," published more than forty years ago, has been
exceedingly popular; and I here make this extract from an early
archive-book respecting it:--"Dr. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, was so
pleased with this said 'Song of Seventy' that he posted off to
Hatchards' forthwith (after seeing it quoted anonymously in the
_Athenæum_) to inquire the author's name." It was published in "One
Thousand Lines." I composed it during a solitary walk near
Hurstperpoint, Sussex, in 1845, near about when I wrote "Never give up."
* * * * *
Of my several ballads upon Gordon (I think there were nine of them) I
will here enshrine one, printed in the newspapers of May 1884, and
perhaps worthiest to be saved from evanescence:--
"If England had but spoken
With Wellesley's lion roar,
Or flung out Nelson's token
Of duty as of yore,
We should not now, too late, too late,
Be saddened day by day,
Dreading to hear of Gordon's fate,
The victim of delay.
"He felt in isolation
'_Civis Romanus sum_,'
And trusted his great nation
Right sure that help would come:
Could he have dreamt that British power
Which placed him at his post,
In peril's long-expected hour
Would leave him to be lost?
"He lives alone for others,--
Himself he scorns to save,
And ev'n with savage brothers
Will share their bloody grave!
Woe! woe to us! should England's glory,
To our rulers' blame,
Close gallant Gordon's wondrous story,
England! in thy shame."
This was half prophetic at the time, and we all have grieved for
England's Christian hero ever since.
* * * * *
When Lord Shaftesbury's lamented death lately touched the national
heart, I felt as others did and uttered this sentiment accordingly:--
_The Good Earl._
"Grieve not for him, as those who mourn the dead;
He lives! Ascended from that dying bed,
Clad in an incense-cloud of human love,
His happy spirit met the blest above;
And as his feet entered the golden door,
With him flew in loud blessings of the poor;
While in a thrilling chorus from below--
Millions of children, saved by him from woe,
With their sweet voices joined the seraphim
Who thronged in raptured haste to welcome him!
"For God had given him grace, and place, and power
To bless the destitute from hour to hour;
And from a child to fourscore years and four,
All knew and lov'd the Helper of the poor,
O coal-pit woman-slave! O factory child!
O famished beggar-boy with hunger wild!
O rescued outcast, torn from sin and shame!
Ye know your friend--by myriads bless his name!
We need not utter it--The Good, The Great,
These are his titles in that Blest Estate."
I was much touched and pleased with this little anecdote to the purpose.
Speaking casually to a bright-looking boy of the Shoeblack Brigade about
Lord Shaftesbury (the boy didn't know me from Adam), to find out how far
he felt for his lost friend, with tears in his eyes he quoted to my
astonishment part of the above, and told me that he and many of his
mates knew it by heart, having seen it in some paper. I never said who
wrote it (probably he wouldn't have believed me if I had) but left him
happy with some pears.
Perhaps I may here add (and all this has been part of "My Life as an
Author") a couple of stanzas I wrote, (but never have published till
now) on another worthy specimen of humanity, mourned in death by our
highest:--
_In Memoriam J.B._
"Simple, pious, honest man,
Child of heaven while son of earth,
We would praise, for praise we can,
Thy good service, thy great worth;
Through long years of prosperous place
In the sunshine of the Crown,
With man's favour and God's grace
Humbly, bravely, walked John Brown.
"Faithful to the Blameless Prince,
Faithful to the Widowed Queen,
Loved,--as oft before and since
Truth and zeal have ever been,--
His no pedigree of pride,
His no name of old renown,
Yet in honour lived and died
Nature's nobleman, John Brown."
Also, I will here give, as it appears nowhere else, a few lines to a
dying brother, for the sake of recording his hopeful last three words:--
_Dear Brother Dan's Latest Whisper._
"'Life unto life!' This was the whispered word
That from my dying brother's lips I heard
Faintly and feebly uttered, in the strife
Of Nature's agony,--'Life--unto--life!'
Yea, brother! for thou livest; death is dead,
And life rejoiceth unto life instead;
No sins, no cares, no sorrows, and no pains,--
But deep delights, unutterable gains,
Now are thy portion in that higher sphere,
The heritage of God's own children here
Who loved their Lord awhile on earth, and now
Live to Him evermore in love--as thou!"
And in this connection I will print here a psychological poem of mine,
not to be found in any other of my books:--
_Memory._
I.
"When the soul passes Eternity's portal,
In that Hereafter of Being Elsewhere,
When this poor earthworm becomes an Immortal,
Risen to Life Incorruptible There;
If in some semblance of spirit and feature,
Still to be recognised one and the same,
Not in its entity quite a new creature,
But as a growth of the world whence it came,--
II.
"Oh, what a river of gladness or sadness
Then must gush out from quick memory's well,
Infinite ecstasy, uttermost madness,
As the quick conscience greets Heaven--or Hell!
Whilst he reviews old scenes and past travels,
Grained in himself and engraved on his soul,
As the knit robe of his timework unravels
And his whole life is unmeshed to its goal.
III.
"Yea, for within him, far more than without him,
Works ever following, evil or good,
Happiness, misery, circling about him,
Plant a man's foot in the soil where he stood:
If he was sensual, sordid, and cruel,
Sensual, cruel, and base let him be,
If he have guarded his soul as a jewel,
Holy and happy and blessed be he!
IV.
"For that the seeds both of Hell and of Heaven
Darnel or wheat-corn, crowd memory's mart,
And though all sin be repented, forgiven,
Yet recollections must live in the heart:
Still resurrected each moment's each action
Comes up for conscience to judge it again,
Joy unto peace or remorse to distraction,
Growing to infinite pleasure or pain.
V.
"Thy many sins were the ruin of others,
Though the chief sinner's own guilt may be waived:
What! shall the doom of those sisters and brothers
Not be a sorrow to thee that art saved?
Can utter selfishness be God's Nirwana,
Blest--with our brethren of blessing bereft?
Must not His Heaven seem poorer and vainer,
Where one is taken and others are left?
VI.
"Oh, there is hope in His mercy for ever--
Yea, for the worst, after ages of woe,
Till on this side of the uttermost Never,
Even the devils His mercy may know!
Punished and purified, Justice and Reason
Well would rejoice if the Judge on His throne
Grant His salvation to all in full season,
Ruling, in bliss, all His works as His own.
VII.
"Every creature, redeemed and recovered
Through the One sacrifice offered for all,
Where sin and death so fatally hovered,
Mercy triumphant in full o'er the fall!
Thus shall old memories harmonise sweetly
With the grand heavenly anthem above,
As this sad life that was shattered so fleetly,
Then is made whole in the Infinite Love."
It may count as one of my heresies in an orthodox theological sense, but
I certainly cling to the great idea of Eternal Hope; and, after any
amount of retributive punishment for purifying the "lost" soul, I look
for ultimate salvation to all God's creatures. This short and partial
trial-scene of ours is not enough to make an end with: we begin here and
progress for ever elsewhere. Evil must die out, and good must survive
alone for ever.