"OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY!"
[Mr. Gladstone has gone on a visit to Mr. George Armitstead, at Black Craig Castle, Perthshire. Mr. Henry Gladstone stated that the Prime Minister would receive no deputations, and that the holiday would be purely recuperative.]
Pensive Premier museth:—
Purely recuperative! Ah! precisely.
Leave me alone, and I shall manage nicely.
How the bees boom amidst the purple heather!
Better than Bowles and Bartley! (Yawn.) Wonder whether
They're "booming" still about Sir William's head;
Buz-wuz! Buz-wuz! And raspy Russell, red
With Orange rage, shakes he a towzled crest?
Creaks he continual challenge, spear in rest?
Wags he a menacing fore-finger still
At me through stout Sir William? Poor Sir Will!
How he'd like this! How little he likes that!
Purely recuperative! Here I've sat
Since luncheon—ruminating, reading, napping,
Thank heaven I cannot hear Lord Kelvin clapping
Castletown's callow clap-trap. All is still.
There's nothing near I wish to stalk or kill.
Like Melancholy Jaques, I can note
The branchy antlers and the dappled coat
Of "poor sequestered stag," and yet not yearn
To—make him venison. Yon brabbling burn
Makes mellower music in my Scottish ears.
Then the Macallum's slogan. How the cheers
Of Salisbury must have fired him as he smote;
Hacked at my character, hewed at my throat
Like "sullen spearsman" upon Flodden field.
The claymore, like his sires, he loved to wield.
They lost their heads he says, for England's weal,
And he—well, has he not lost his?
I feel
The mellow moorland air, gorse-scented, bland
With heather odour, soothes me, like the hand
Of gentle woman on an angry brow.
Were the great-little Scotsman with me now,
Like proud McGregor on his native heath,
Breathing pure-scented, honey-laden breath,
How his cock-nose would drop, his flaming crest
Droop and unruffle! He's a scold confest,
A pedagogue incarnate; horn-book, tawse.
Cramming and chastisement, not making laws,
His talent and his temperament best befit.
Yet—once he lent his eloquence and wit
To aid the man he now maligns. Ah, me!
"Tricky!"—"corrupt!" What arrant fiddle-de-dee
It sounds—upon these moors, beneath the blue
Of unpolluted skies!
Homer, to you
I turn. Achilles in his wrath could rage,
But scarce would stoop the wordy war to wage
With poisoned epithet and shrewish flout
Like scorpion-tongued Thersites.
Here, no doubt,
By Black Craig Castle party wasps would turn
To honey-hiving bees. Oh, tinkling burn,
You set my soul to music. Honest John,
Valiant Sir William, you must still fight on
A little longer. Would ye both were here.
Armitstead's guests, like me, like me with cheer
"Purely recuperative" holiday
To take—"Over the Hills and Far Away!"
[Left lolling like a Lotus-eater.