Of singers, silent long;
Grave histories told, in scrolls of old,
The strife of right and wrong;
For him Philosophy unveil’d
Athenian Plato’s lore,
Might these not serve to fill a life?
Not this! he sigh’d for more!
He loved!—the truest, newest lip
That ever lover pressed,
The queenliest mouth of all the south
Long love for him confess’d:
Round him his children’s joyousness
Rang silverly and shrill;
Thrice blessed! save _that_ blessedness
Lack’d something—something still!
To battle all his spears he led,
In streams of winding steel;
On breast and head of foeman dead
His war-horse set its heel;
The jewell’d housings of its flank
Swung wet with blood of kings;
Yet the rich victory seem’d rank
With the blood taint it brings!
The splendid passion seized his soul
To heal, by statutes sage,
The ills that bind our hapless kind.
And chafe to crime and rage;
And dear the people’s blessing was,
The praising of the poor;
But evil stronger is than thrones,
And hate no laws can cure!
He laid aside the sword and pen,
And lit the lamp, to wrest
From nature’s range the secrets strange,
The treasures of her breast;
And wisdom deep his guerdon was,
And wondrous things he knew;
Yet from each vanquish’d mystery
Some harder marvel grew!
No pause! no respite! no sure ground,
To stay the spirit’s quest!
In all around not one thing found
So good as to be “best;”
Not even love proved quite divine;
Therefore his search did cease,
Lord of all gifts that life can give
Save the one sweet gift—Peace!
Then came it!—crown, sword, wreath—each lay,
An unregarded thing!
The funeral sheet from head to feet,
Was royal robe to that king!
And strange!—Love, learning, statecraft, sway,
Look’d always on before,
But those pale, happy, lips of clay,
Lack’d nothing!—nothing more!
GOSSIP.
I FEEL impelled to say a word, and it shall be but a word—and so more
patiently endured—in defence of that much abused, much maligned
thing—gossipry. Johnson, among many other designations, gives for
“gossipred,” “spiritual affinity;” a very good definition, and the one I
shall adopt; that is, sympathy, the need to give and to receive it; and I
must say I know few things more charming than this sympathy in small
things, this gossipry between kindly hearts and well filled heads. That
light pouring out the thoughts and feelings and observations of the
passing hour, which, while it commences with the external, is sure to
touch, ever and anon, those deeper springs of thought, and feeling, and
action, from which well up pleasant memories, apt thoughts, and pertinent
reflections.
Poring over old letters and papers which chanced recently to come into my
hands, I came upon an old leaf of yellow paper and faded ink, which
caught my attention; it appeared to be either a scrap of an old diary, or
of a letter; it seemed to me somewhat germane to our present subject, and
being venerable from its antiquity, I venture to quote it. Its date is
too indistinct to be sure of, but it seems to be 1700 and something.
Thus it runs:—“My husband was bidden to dinner yesterday to our Rector’s,
I with him; my husband was pleased thereat, because there was, he said,
to be there a man of parts, from London; so I laid out my husband’s best
coat and long flowered waistcoat, and his kerseys and silk stockings,
which he did not often wear, for I desired him to be seemly in his
attire, that he might do fitting honour to our Rector; I was a little
flustered at first with the notion of this great man; but I noted that my
husband bore himself towards him exactly as if he had been an ordinary
man. At table I found myself set next to him. The gardens at the great
house are very fine, and kept excellently well, as indeed is not
wonderful, as there are two whole gardeners and a boy to do the work.
Looking out of the large bay-window which looked upon the flower garden,
and stood open, for it was mighty warm, I could not keep my eyes off the
flowers, they were so exceeding gay; the sun shone out surprisingly; one
spot in particular took my attention: a large clump of daffodils had been
allowed on the lawn, the grass was high round them, and on the top of
every blade there was a drop that sparkled like a diamond—for there had
been a slight shower—and as I looked upon them, I thought of the
description in holy writ of the gates of the temple of Jerusalem, all
studded with sapphires and emeralds and diamonds; and I was so taken up
that I forgot it was the great man that was sitting by me, and I asked
him if it was not beautiful? ‘It is vastly fine indeed, ma’am,’ he said;
but he looked at me with wonderment, I thought, and from the look in his
eyes, I am sure he did not know a daffodil from a daisy, poor man. So I
felt very much abashed, and sat still and said no more; and there was not
much discourse, but everybody looked wise and silent; and I remembered
that somewhere it is said, it is a grand thing to know how to be silent;
but I thought a little talking would have been more agreeable, only
perhaps not so wise-like, only of course I knew I was quite a common
person, and had no parts at all; so when it was about three of the
clock—the hour fixed for the dinner was rather late, as it was a bye
common occasion—and we ladies left the gentlemen to settle down to their
wine, I thought I would go home to my children, for I thought our lady
Rector looked somewhat puffed up and stately with the great honour she
had had, and done to us; and to say the very truth, I felt longing to
speak and to hear in the ordinary way. So I took my leave in a beseeming
and courteous manner, and stepped across to my own place; and my eldest
daughter came running to me and said she had got so many things to tell
me; and then out of her little heart she poured out all her little
troubles and pleasures; and oh! she said, little brother had been so
naughty, and had cried dreadfully for the pretty cup from China, and
stamped and fought her when she would not let him have it, because dear
mamma liked it so much, and would be sorry to have it broken. ‘But then,
mamma,’ she said, ‘when he got a little quieter, I talked to him, and
hushed him and kissed him, and so he was soon good, and we had a great
game at horses.’ Then I kissed the little maid, and called her a ‘dear
little mother,’ but she was greatly puzzled, and said, ‘Oh, mamma, I am
only a little girl.’ Then she said I must tell her all about the
gentleman that she had heard papa say had a great many parts—‘more, I
suppose, mamma, than any of us.’ I only kissed her at this, and told her
of the golden daffodils and many other flowers I had noticed; and of two
great blackbirds I had seen hopping very lovingly together upon the lawn.
She said she liked to hear of these extremely; and I told of the roast
sucking-pig with an orange in its mouth, which was at the top of the
table; but she did not like this; she said it would remind her of the
little piggy running about, which that little pig would never do any
more. Then she said she would tell me of one of her little misfortunes,
which she thought was almost a big one: ‘the poor brown hen with ten
little chicks had been shut up by themselves, because the little chicks
would run about too far; and the boy had forgotten them, and they had
been shut up without anything to eat for ever so many hours; and when we
put some barley in, dear old browney clucked and clucked, and showed the
grains to the chicks, but never touched one herself, mamma, and when the
little chicks had eaten till they were quite full, she called them all
under her wings, and they went fast asleep; but then, mamma, there was
not one single barley left near the poor mother; and so I do believe
mamma, she would have been quite starved to death, only we put some
barley and some nice crumbs quite close to her; so she got them without
moving a bit, or waking the chicks, and oh, mamma, she did gobble it up
so fast; I know she was so hungry, for she did not eat one single
barley-corn before, for I watched her all the time; wasn’t it sweet and
good of her, mamma? I shall love that dear old browney for always.’ And
so my little daughter and I chatted away and enjoyed ourselves hugely,
till my dear good man, who I had thought was sitting over his wine, and
perhaps his pipe—but I don’t know about that because of the company—came
suddenly behind us. He kissed us both, saying, ‘My two sweet gossips, it
does my heart good to hear you. It seems to me, my Margery,’ he said,
‘that our little one here hath both a sound heart and a wise head.’”
There the paper is torn, and I could see no other word. It appears to me
that this, and many other gossipries, are, in their small way, good, and
that when they are not good, it is because the heart is cankered, and the
head empty; and so we come round to the conclusion on all subjects and on
all difficulties, especially social difficulties—educate, educate,
educate; teach the mind to find subjects for thought in all things, and
purify the heart by enabling it to find “sermons in stones, and good in
everything;” then will Gossip be the graceful unbending of the loving
heart and well-filled head.
CHIPS.
CHIPS! chips!
We had climb’d to the top of the cliff that day,
Just where the brow look’d over the bay;
And you stood, and you watch’d the shifting ships
Till I found you a seat in the heather.
As we reach’d the top you had touch’d me thrice;
I had felt your hand on my shoulder twice,
And once I had brush’d your feather.
And I turn’d at last, and saw you stand,
Looking down seaward hat in hand,
At the shelving sweep of the scoop’d-out sand,
And the great blue gem within it.
The bright, sweet sky was over your head,
Your cheek was aflame with the climber’s red,
And a something leapt in my heart that said,—
Happy or sorry, living or dead,—
My fate had begun that minute.
And we sat, and we watch’d the clouds go by
(There were none but the clouds and you and I
As we sat on the hill together);
As you sketch’d the rack as it drifted by,
Fleece upon fleece through the pathless sky,
Did you wonder, Florence, whether,
When you held me up your point to cut,
I had kept the chips, when the knife was shut,—
For none of them fell in the heather.
Chips! chips!—
Yet what was I but the cousin, you know?—
Only the boy that you favour’d so—
And the word that stirr’d my lips
I must hide away in my heart, and keep,
For the road to you was dizzy and steep
As the cliff we had climb’d together.
There was many an older lover nigh,
With the will and the right to seek your eye;
And for me, I know not whether,
If I chose to live, or I chose to die,
It would matter to you a feather.
But this I know, as the feather’s weight
Will keep the poise of the balance straight,
In the doubtful climb—in the day’s eclipse,
In the stumbling steps, in the faults and trips,
I have gain’d a strength from the tiniest scraps
That ever were help to a man, perhaps,—
Chips! chips!
Look, these are “the tiniest scraps,” you see,
And this is their casket of filigree,
That I bought that year “far over the sea,”
With a volley of chaff, and a half-rupee,
From a huckstering, fox-faced Bengalee,
That set himself up for a dealer.
They have slept with me by the jungle fires,
They have watch’d with me under Indian spires,
I have kept them safe in their gilded wires
From the clutch of the coolie stealer;
And when at last they relieved “the Nest,”—
Alick, and Ellis, and all the rest,—
March’d into Lucknow four abreast,
That I had the chips still under my vest,
That they pray’d with me, must be confess’d,
Who never was much of a kneeler.
And now that I come, and I find you free,
You, that have waken’d this thing in me,
Will you tell me, Florence, whether,
When I kept your pencil’s chips that day,
Was it better perhaps to have let them stay
To be lost in the mountain heather!
CHIPS.
CHIPS! It may be well disputed
If a word exists, less suited,
Or more odd and uninviting
As a theme for rhyme or writing;
Coinage of that dull Max Müller,
Title of a book still duller.
Fill’d with words so cabalistic,
That methought the German mystic
Must have found the dialect
Spoken ere man walk’d erect.
Never mind! what must be, must;
Men must eat both crumb and crust.
And the dodge of many a poet
(Half the verses publish’d show it),
When his Pegasus rides restive,
Is to make his _rhymes_ suggestive.
If in what you chance to seize on
Rhyme and reason will not chime,
Better rhyme without the reason
Than the reason and no rhyme;
Better anything than prose,
So, as Milton says, “here goes.”
“When the Grecian chiefs in ships
Sail’d on Argonautic trips!”
“When the Furies with their whips
Flogg’d Orestes all to strips!
“When the sun in dim eclipse
In the darken’d ocean dips!”
Still I see no clue to chips!
“Meadows where the lambkin skips,
Where the dew from roses drips
And the bee the honey sips . . . .”
Odd, that nothing leads to chips!
Then I thought of “cranks and quips,”
Wanton wiles and laughing lips,
Luring us to fatal slips,
And leaving us in Satan’s grips.
Then I made a desperate trial,
With the sixth and seventh vial—
Thinking I could steal some Chips
From St. John’s Apocalypse.
Then there came a long hiatus,
While I kept repeating Chips,
Feeling the divine afflatus
Oozing through my finger-tips.
Gone and going hopelessly,
So, in my accustom’d manner,
Underneath my favourite tree,
I began a mild havannah—
’Twas indeed my favourite station,
For recruiting mind and body;
Drinking draughts of inspiration,
Alternate with whisky toddy.
’Twas an oak tree old and hoary.
And my garden’s pride and glory;
Hallow’d trunk and boughs in splinters,
Mossy with a thousand winters.
Here I found the Muses’ fountain,
And perceived my spirits mounting,
And exclaim’d in accents burning,
To the tree my eyes upturning,
“Venerable tree and vast,
Speak to me of ages past!
Sylvan monarch of the wold,
Tell me of the days of old!
Did thy giant boughs o’er-arching
View the Roman legions marching?
Has the painted Briton stray’d
Underneath thy hoary shade?
Did some heathen oracle
In thy knotty bosom dwell,
As in groves of old Dodona,
Or the Druid oaks of Mona?
Dwelt the outlaw’d foresters
Here in ‘otium cum dig.’
While the feather’d choristers
In thy branches ‘hopp’d the twig?’
Help me, Nymph! Fawn! Hamadryad!
One at once, or all the Triad.”
Lo! a voice to my invoking!
’Twas my stupid gardener croaking,
“Please, Sir, mayn’t I fall this tree,
’Cos it spoils the crops, you see:
And the grass it shades and lumbers,
And we shan’t have no _cow_cumbers.
Some time it will fall for good,
And the Missis wants the wood.”
Shock’d at such a scheme audacious,
Faint, I gasp’d out, “Goodness gracious!”
“Yes,” I said, “the tree must fall,
’Tis, alas! the lot of all;
But no mortal shall presume
To accelerate its doom.
Rescued from thy low desires,
It shall warm my poet fires.
Let the strokes of fate subdue it,
Let the axe of Time cut through it;
When it must fall, let it fall,
But, oh! never let me view it.”
Seeing that my phrase exalted
Fell upon his senses vainly,
In my full career I halted,
And I spoke my orders plainly.
“Never seek to trim or lop it,
Once for all I charge thee, drop it.”
And I added, to my sorrow,
“You shall ‘cut your stick’ to-morrow
Know what _that_ means, I suppose?”
“Yes,” he said, “I thinks I does.”
So I left him at this crisis,
Left him to his own devices,
Left him like the royal Vandal,
Leaning on his old spade handle.
Oh! those vulgar slang expressions,—
How I smart for my transgressions!
Judge my wrath, surprise, and horror,
When I rose upon the morrow,
To behold my tree in ruin,
And be told ’twas all _my_ doing,
While the villain grinn’d in glee!
“Wretch!” I thunder’d, “Where’s my tree?”
And these words came from his lips,
“There’s the tree, and them’s the Chips.”
TRANSFORMATION.
THE LAST SPEECH AND CONFESSION OF A MAHOGANY-TREE NYMPH.
YOU’VE heard in Greek mythology
Of nymph and hamadryad
Who had their being in a tree;
Perchance, the tale admired.
Yet live we, in oblivion sunk;
Though strange, my tale’s as sure as
That I was once a stately trunk
In the forests of Honduras.
My home was in a jungle low,
And tall tree ferns grew round me;
The humming-birds flew to and fro,
And wild lianas bound me;
The panther, jaguar, and ounce,
Lurk’d ever in my branches
On weary travellers to pounce
While journeying to their ranches.
Me, merchants from Honduras found
Who had not got a log any;
They cut me prostrate on the ground
To make first-rate mahogany.
They pack’d me in a darksome hold;
We cross’d the ocean quivering;
They took me to a region cold
That set my timbers shivering;
Above, an atmosphere of fog;
Around me, masts upstanding—
When they had piled me log by log,
Upon the dockyard landing.
And then they came with rule and chalk
Numb’ring my feet and inches,
And pack’d us high beside that walk
With pullies, cranks, and winches;
And one by one my logs were sold,
And one by one were taken,
Till I, the spirit of the whole,
Was left of form forsaken.
And when the auction sale was past,
Mourning each separate splinter
I flitted formless round the masts,
Through all that ice-bound winter,
Still with benumb’d and torpid sense
All plan or hope deferring,
Till, when the spring sun shone intense,
My spirit’s sap was stirring,
I heard a wordless, whisper’d sound,
(Such as we tree-nymphs utter,)
Of swelling twigs, and buds unbound,
And tremulous leaflets’ flutter,—
And saw a dim, green, glossy face
With eyes like pearly flowers,—
And knew the spirit of our race,
Fresh from Honduras’ bowers.
“Poor disembodied nymph,” I thought
It said; “Go, seek thy children,
A true statistical report
To bring us, though bewild’ring,
Of what with every inch they’ve done,
Each splintering and chipling;
Then, backwards to Honduras flown,
Thou’lt have another sapling.”
I wing’d my way elate with hopes,
To seek each cabinet maker—
To Druse and Heal’s well furnish’d shops,
And the Bazaar of Baker—
Each piano manufactory,
To Broadwood and to Collard—
Where’er a portion of my tree,
Was carried, there I follow’d:
And where’er a sofa or chair I saw,
Or bedstead or wardrobe furnish’d,
Or centre-table with spreading claw,
With my wood all brightly burnish’d,
Each knot, and knob, and scar, and split,
And delicate grain appearing.
Long was my search, made longer yet
By the general use of veneering.
I’ve flitted through a mansion proud
To watch a grand piano,
The centre of a list’ning crowd
High-bred in tone and manner:
I’ve stood by many a shining board,
Were dinners were demolish’d,
And view’d the silver and glass _encored_—
Seen double in the polish.
And beside a stately bed I’ve stood,
Where curtains of silken splendour
O’er damask hangings and polish’d wood,
Threw a lustre subdued and tender.
A dainty cradle stood near its head,
But no form was in it sleeping,
For the couch of state held the baby dead,
And the mother knelt near it weeping:
I came beneath a gorgeous dome,
With fretted arch and column,
And stained glass windows through the gloom
That made it very solemn.
And by the pulpit stairs I stood
The preacher’s words to follow—
The sounding-board was my own wood—
(That, and the words were hollow):
And I’ve wandered to the library—
The bookshelves there were mine—
Belonging to one of the Ministry;
The whole was wondrous fine.
(I thought the pay seem’d very high,
The work of an easy nature,
And wondered if that was the reason why
They would not suffer women to try
To sit in the Legislature):
And I’ve been up a dismal attic flight,
Not knowing why there I hasten’d,
And I found ’twas the sewing-table bright
To which a machine was fasten’d;
And a girl was working, so pale and drear,
And in such a forlorn condition,
That, ghost as I was, I had shed a tear,
But I knew that that garret was woman’s sphere,
And dressmaking her mission.
Last month I came to a table round
Which cover’d, to my surprise, is,
(Whilst a critical crowd collects around,)
With chips of all lengths and sizes:
And I knew I’d found the last piece of wood;
And back, to my former station,
My spirit crossed the Atlantic flood
To begin a new transformation.
So I laid the glimpses that I had had
Of the motley life of this nation
Upon this table—or good or bad—
For the general delectation.
TRANSFORMATION.
LITTLE SEAL-SKIN.
THE fisherman walked up the hill,
His boat lay on the sand,
His net was on his shoulder still,
His home a mile inland.
And as he walk’d among the whin
He saw a little white seal-skin,
Which he took up in his hand.
Then “How,” said he, “can this thing be?
A seal-skin, and no seal within?”
Thus pondered he,
Partly in fear,
Till he remember’d what he’d heard
Of creatures in the sea,—
Sea-men and women, who are stirred
One day in every year
To drop their seal-skins on the sand,
To leave the sea, and seek the land
For twelve long hours,
Playing about in sweet sunshine,
Among the corn-fields, with corn-flowers,
Wild roses, and woodbine:
Till night comes on, and then they flit
Adown the fields, and sit
Upon the shore and put their seal-skins on,
And slip into the sea, and they are gone.
The fisherman strok’d the fur
Of the little white seal-skin,
Soft as silk, and white as snow;
And he said to himself, “I know
That some little sea-woman lived in
This seal-skin, perhaps not long ago.
I wonder what has become of her!
And why she left this on the whin,
Instead of slipping it on again
When all the little sea-women and men
Went hurrying down to the sea!
Ah! well, she never meant
It for me,
That I should take it, but I will,
Home to my house on the hill,”
Said the fisherman; and home he went.
The Fisher dozed before his fire,
The night was cold outside,
The bright full moon was rising higher
Above the swelling tide,
And the wind brought the sound of breakers nigher,
Even to the hill side;
When suddenly
Something broke at the cottage door,
Like the plash
Of a little wave on a pebbly shore;
And as water frets in the backward drain
Of the wave, seeming to fall in pain,
There came a wailing after the plash.—
The fisherman woke, and said, “Is it rain?”
Then he rose from his seat
And open’d his door a little way,
But soon shut it again
With a kind of awe;
For the prettiest little sea-woman lay
On the grass at his feet
That you ever saw;
She began to sob and to say,
“Who has stolen my skin from me?
And who is there will take me in?
For I have lost my little seal-skin,
And I can’t get back to the sea.”
The Fisherman stroked the fur
Of the downy white seal-skin,
And he said, “Shall I give it her?—
But then she would get in,
And hurry away to the sea,
And not come back to me,
And I should be sorry all my life,
I want her so for my little wife.”
The Fisherman thought for a minute,
Then he carried the seal-skin to
A secret hole in the thatch,
Where he hid it cleverly, so
That a sharp-sighted person might go,
In front of the hole and not catch
A glimpse of the seal-skin within it.
After this he lifted the latch
Of his door once more,
But the night was darker, for
The moon was swimming under a cloud,
So the Fisherman couldn’t see
The little sea-woman plainly,
Seeing a fleck of white foam only,
That was sobbing aloud
As before.
“Little sea-woman,” said the Fisherman,
“Will you come home to me,
Will you help me to work, and help me to save,
Care for my house and me,
And the little children that we shall have?”
“Yes, Fisherman,” said she.
So the Fisherman had his way,
And seven years of life
Pass’d by him like one happy day;
But, as for his sea-wife,
She sorrowed for the sea alway
And loved not her land life.
Morning and evening, and all day
She would say
To herself—“The sea! the sea!”
And at night, when dreaming,
She stretch’d her arms about her, seeming
To seek little Willie,
It was the sea
She would have clasp’d, not he—
The great sea’s purple water,
Dearer to her than little son or daughter.
Yet she was kind
To her children three,
Harry, fair Alice, and baby Willie;
And set her mind
To keep things orderly.
“Only,” thought she,
“If I _could_ but find
That little seal-skin I lost one day.”
She didn’t know
That her husband had it hidden away;
Nor he
That she long’d for it so.
Until
One evening as he climb’d the hill,
The Fisherman found her amongst the whin,
Sobbing, saying, “My little seal-skin—
Who has stolen my skin from me?
How shall I find it, and get in,
And hurry away to the sea?”
“Then she shall have her will,”
Said he.