The Luggie.
The Luggie.
And unto thee, my friend! thou prime of soul ’Mong men; I gladly bring my firstborn song! Would it were worthier for thy noble sake, True poet and true English gentleman! Thy favours flattered me, thy praise inspired: Thy utter kindness took my heart, and now Thy love alleviates my slow decline.
Beneath an ash in beauty tender leaved, And thro’ whose boughs the glimmering sunshine flow’d In rare ethereal jasper, making cool A chequered shadow in the dark-green grass, I lay enchanted. At my head there bloomed A hedge of sweet-brier, fragrant as the breath Of maid belovëd when her cheek is laid To yours in downy pressure, soft as sleep. A bank of harebells, flowers unspeakable For half-transparent azure, nodding, gleamed As a faint zephyr, laden with perfume, Kissed them to motion, gently, with no will. Before me streams most dear unto my heart, Sweet Luggie, sylvan Bothlin—fairer twain Than ever sung themselves into the sea, Lucid Ægean, gemmed with sacred isles— Were rolled together in an emerald vale; And into the severe bright noon, the smoke In airy circles o’er the sycamores Upcurled—a lonely little cloud of blue Above the happy hamlet. Far away, A gently-rising hill with umbrage clad, Hazel and glossy birch and silver fir, Met the keen sky. Oh, in that wood, I know, The woodruff and the hyacinth are fair In their own season; with the bilberry Of dim and misty blue, to childhood dear. Here, on a sunny August afternoon, A vision stirred my spirit half-awake To fling a purer lustre on those fields That knew my boyish footsteps; and to sing Thy pastoral beauty, Luggie, into fame. Now, while the nights are long, by the dear hearth Of home I write; and ere the mavis trills His smooth notes from the budding boughs of March, While the red windy morning o’er the east Widens, or while the lowly sky of eve Burns like a topaz;—all the dear design May reach completion, married to my song As far as words can syllable desire.
May yet the inspiration and delight That proved my soul on that Autumnal day, Be with me now, while o’er the naked earth Hushfully falls the soft, white, windless snow!
Once more, O God, once more before I die, Before blind darkness and the wormy grave Contain me, and my memory fades away Like a sweet-coloured evening, slowly sad— Once more, O God, thy wonders take my soul. A winter day! the feather-silent snow Thickens the air with strange delight, and lays A fairy carpet on the barren lea. No sun, yet all around that inward light Which is in purity,—a soft moonshine, The silvery dimness of a happy dream. How beautiful! afar on moorland ways, Bosomed by mountains, darkened by huge glens, (Where the lone altar raised by Druid hands Stands like a mournful phantom), hidden clouds Let fall soft beauty, till each green fir branch Is plumed and tassel’d, till each heather stalk Is delicately fringed. The sycamores, Thro’ all their mystical entanglement Of boughs, are draped with silver. All the green Of sweet leaves playing with the subtle air In dainty murmuring; the obstinate drone Of limber bees that in the monkshood bells House diligent; the imperishable glow Of summer sunshine never more confessed The harmony of nature, the divine Diffusive spirit of the Beautiful. Out in the snowy dimness, half revealed Like ghosts in glimpsing moonshine, wildly run The children in bewildering delight. There is a living glory in the air— A glory in the hush’d air, in the soul A palpitating wonder hush’d in awe.
Softly—with delicate softness—as the light Quickens in the undawned east; and silently— With definite silence—as the stealing dawn Dapples the floating clouds, slow fall, slow fall, With indecisive motion eddying down, The white-winged flakes—calm as the sleep of sound, Dim as a dream. The silver-misted air Shines with mild radiance, as when thro’ a cloud Of semi-lucent vapour shines the moon. I saw last evening (when the ruddy sun, Enlarged and strange, sank low and visibly, Spreading fierce orange o’er the west), a scene Of winter in his milder mood. Green fields, Which no kine cropped, lay damp; and naked trees Threw skeleton shadows. Hedges thickly grown, Twined into compact firmness with no leaves, Trembled in jewelled fretwork as the sun To lustre touched the tremulous waterdrops. Alone, nor whistling as his fellows do In fabling poem and provincial song, The ploughboy shouted to his reeking team; And at the clamour, from a neighbouring field Arose, with whirr of wings, a flock of rooks More clamorous; and thro’ the frosted air, Blown wildly here and there without a law, They flew, low-grumbling out loquacious croaks. Red sunset brightened all things; streams ran red Yet coldly; and before the unwholesome east, Searching the bones and breathing ice, blew down The hill with a dry whistle, by the fire In chamber twilight rested I at home.