muckle better himself: so here goes; but I cannot tell you to what tune:
SONG
I
They say that other eyes are bright,
I see no eyes like thine;
So full of Heaven’s serenest light,
Like midnight stars they shine.II
They say that other cheeks are fair—
But fairer cannot glow
The rosebud in the morning air,
Or blood on mountain snow.III
Thy voice—Oh sweet it streams to me,
And charms my raptured breast;
Like music on the moonlight sea,
When waves are lull’d to rest.IV
The wealth of worlds were vain to give
Thy sinless heart to buy;
Oh I will bless thee while I live,
And love thee till I die!
From this song it appears a matter beyond doubt—for I know human nature—that the flunkie’s master had, in his earlier years, been deeply in love with some beautiful young lady, that loved him again, and that maybe, with a bounding and bursting heart, durst not let her affection be shown, from dread of her cruel relations, who insisted on her marrying some lord or baronet that she did not care one button about. If so, unhappy pair, I pity them! Were
we to guess our way in the dark a wee farther, I think it not altogether unlikely, that he must have fallen in with his sweetheart abroad, when wandering about on his travels; for what follows seems to come as it were from her, lamenting his being called to leave her forlorn and return home. This is all merely supposition on my part, and in the antiquarian style, whereby much is made out of little; but both me and James Batter are determined to be unanimously of this opinion, until otherwise convinced to the contrary. Love is a fiery and fierce passion every where; but I am told that we, who live in a more favoured land, know very little of the terrible effects it sometimes causes, and the bloody tragedies, which it has a thousand times produced, where the heart of man is uncontrolled by reason or religion, and his blood heated into a raging fever, by the burning sun that glows in the heaven above his head.
Here follows the poem of Taffy’s master’s foreign sweetheart; which, considering it to be a woman’s handiwork, is, I daresay, not that far amiss.
SONG OF THE SOUTH
I
Of all the garden flowers
The fairest is the rose;
Of winds that stir the bowers,
Oh! there is none that blows
Like the south—the gentle south—
For that balmy breeze is ours.Cold is the frozen north;
In its stern and savage mood,
’Mid gales, come drifting forth
Bleak snows and drenching flood;
But the south—the gentle south—
Thaws to love the unwilling blood.III
Bethink thee of the vales,
With their birds and blossoms fair—
Of the darkling nightingales,
That charm the starry air
In the south—the gentle south—
Ah! our own dear home is there.IV
Where doth Beauty brightest glow,
With each rich and radiant charm,
Eye of light, and brow of snow,
Cherry lip, and bosom warm;
In the south—the gentle south—
There she waits, and works her harm.V
Say, shines the Star of Love,
From the clear and cloudless sky,
The shadowy groves above,
Where the nestling ringdoves lie;
From the south—the gentle south—
Gleams its lone and lucid eye.VI
Then turn ye to the home
Of your brethren and your bride;
Far astray your steps may roam,
But more joys for thee abide,
In the south—our gentle south—
Than in all the world beside.
After reading a lot of the unknown gentleman’s compositions in prose and verse, something like his private history, James Batter informs me, can be made out, provided we are allowed to eke a little here and there. That he was an Englisher we both think amounts to a probability; and, from having an old “Taffy was a Welshman” for a flunkie, it would not be out of the order of nature to jealouse, that he may have resided somewhere among the hills, where he had picked him up and taken him into his kitchen, promoting him thereafter, for sobriety and good conduct, to be his body servant, and gentleman’s gentleman. Where he was born, however, is a matter of doubt, and also who were his folks; but of a surety, he was either born with a silver spoon in his mouth, or rose from the ranks like many another great man. That, however, is a matter of moonshine; we are all descended in a direct line from Adam. Where he was educated does not appear; but there can scarcely be a shadow of doubt, that he was for a considerable while at some school or other, where he had a number of cronies. In proof of this, and to show that we have good reasons for our suppositions, James recommends me to print the following rigmarole meditations, on the top of which is written in half-text,
SCHOOL RECOLLECTIONS.
“—They who in the vale of years advance,
And the dark eve is closing on their way,
When on the mind the recollections glance
Of early joy, and Hope’s delightful day,
Behold, in brighter hues than those of truth,
The light of morning on the fields of youth.”Southey.
The morning being clear and fine, full of Milton’s “vernal delight and joy,” I determined on a saunter; the inclemency of the weather having, for more than a week, kept me a prisoner at home. Although now advanced into the heart of February, a great fall of snow had taken place; the roads were blocked up; the mails obstructed; and, while the merchant grumbled audibly for his letters, the politician, no less chagrined, conned over and over again his dingy rumpled old newspaper, compelled “to eat the leek of his disappointment.” The wind, which had blown inveterately steady from the surly north-east, had veered, however, during the preceding night, to the west; and, as it were by the spell of an enchanter, an instant thaw commenced. In the low grounds the snow gleamed forth in patches of a pearly whiteness; but, on the banks of southern exposure, the green grass and the black trodden pathway again showed themselves. The vicissitudes of twenty-four hours were indeed wonderful. Instead of the sharp frost, the pattering hail, and the congealed streams, we had the blue sky, the vernal zephyr, and the genial sunshine; the stream murmuring with a broader wave, as if making up for the season spent in the fetters of congelation; and that luxurious
flow of the spirits, which irresistibly comes over the heart, at the re-assertion of Nature’s suspended vigour.