The Poetical Works of David Gray / A New and Enlarged Edition

by David Gray

But now what revelation of fair change, O Giver of the seasons and the days! Creator of all elements, pale mists, Invisible great winds and exact frost! How shall I speak the wonder of thy snow? What though we know its essence and its birth, Can quick expound in philosophic wise, The how, and whence, and manner of its fall; Yet, oh, the inner beauty and the life— The life that is in snow! The virgin-soft And utter purity of the down-flake Falling upon its fellow with no sound! Unblown by vulgar winds, innumerous flakes Fall gently, with the gentleness of love! Between its spotless-clothëd banks, in clear Pellucid luculence, the Luggie seems Charmed in its course, and with deceptive calm Flows mazily in unapparent lapse, A liquid silence. Every field is robed, And in the furrow lies the plough unused. The earth is cherished, for beneath the soft Pure uniformity, is gently born Warmth and rich mildness fitting the dead roots For the resuscitation of the spring.

Now while I write, the wonder clothes the vale, Calmed every wind and loaded every grove; And looking thro’ the implicated boughs I see a gleaming radiance. Sparkling snow Refined by morning-footed frost so still Mantles each bough; and such a windless hush Breathes thro’ the air, it seems the fairy glen About some phantom palace, pale abode Of fabled Sleeping Beauty. Songless birds Flit restlessly about the breathless wood, Waiting the sudden breaking of the charm; And as they quickly spring on nimble wing From the white twig, a sparkling shower falls Starlike. It is not whiteness, but a clear Outshining of all purity, which takes The winking eyes with such a silvery gleam. No sunshine, and the sky is all one cloud. The vale seems lonely, ghostlike; while aloud The housewife’s voice is heard with doubled sound. I have not words to speak the perfect show; The ravishment of beauty; the delight Of silent purity; the sanctity Of inspiration which o’erflows the world, Making it breathless with divinity. God makes His angels spirits—that is, winds— His ministers a flaming fire. So, heart! (Weak heart that fainted in thy loneliness) In the sweet breezes spirits are alive; God’s angels guide the thunder-clouds; and God Speaks in the thunder truly. All around Is loving and continuous deity; His mercy over all His works remains. And surely in the glossy snow there shines Angelic influence—a ministry Devout and heavenly, that with benign Action, amid a wondrous hush lets fall The dazzling garment on the fostered fields.

So thus with fair delapsion softly falls The sacred shower; and when the shortened day Dejected dies in the low streaky west, The rimy moon displays a cold blue night, And keen as steel the east wind sprinkles ice. Thicker than bees, about the waxing moon Gather the punctual stars. Huge whitened hills Rise glimmering to the blue verge of the night, Ghostlike, and striped with narrow glens of firs Black-waving, solemn. O’er the Luggie stream Gathers a veiny film of ice, and creeps With elfin feet around each stone and reed, Working fine masonry; while o’er the dam Dashing, a noise of waters fills the clear And nitrous air. All the dark wintry hours Sharply the winds from the white level moors Keen whistle. Timorous in homely bed The schoolboy listens, fearful lest gaunt wolves Or beasts, whose uncouth forms in ancient books He has beheld, at creaking shutters pull Howling. And when at last the languid dawn In windy redness re-illumes the east With ineffectual fire, an intense blue Severely vivid o’er the snowy hills Gleams chill, while hazy half-transparent clouds Slow-range the freezing ether of the west. Along the woods the keenly vehement blasts Wail, and disrobe the mantled boughs, and fling A snow-dust everywhere. Thus wears the day: While grandfather over the well-watched fire Hangs cowering, with a cold drop at his nose.

Now underneath the ice the Luggie growls, And to the polished smoothness curlers come Rudely ambitious. Then for happy hours The clinking stones are slid from wary hands, And Barleycorn, best wine for surly airs, Bites i’ th’ mouth, and ancient jokes are crack’d. And oh, the journey homeward, when the sun, Low-rounding to the west, in ruddy glow Sinks large, and all the amber-skirted clouds, His flaming retinue, with dark’ning glow Diverge! The broom is brandished as the sign Of conquest, and impetuously they boast Of how this shot was played—with what a bend Peculiar—the perfection of all art— That stone came rolling grandly to the Tee With victory crown’d, and flinging wide the rest In lordly crash! Within the village inn, What time the stars are sown in ether keen, Clear and acute with brightness; and the moon Sharpens her semicircle; and the air With bleakly shivering sough cuts like a scythe, They by the roaring chimney sit, and quaff The beaded ‘Usqueba’ with sugar dash’d. Oh, when the precious liquid fires the brain To joy, and every heart beats fast with mirth And ancient fellowship, what nervy grasps Of horny hands o’er tables of rough oak! What singing of Lang Syne till teardrops shine And friendships brighten as the evening wanes!

Now the dead earth, wrapt solemnly, expects The punctual resurrection of the Spring. Shackled and bound, the coldly vigilant frost Stiffens all rivers, and with eager power Hardens each glebe. The wasted country owns The keen despotic vehemence of the North; And, with the resignation that obtains Where he is weak and powerless, man awaits, Under God’s mercy, the dissolvent thaw.

O All-beholding, All-informing God Invisible, and only through effects Known and belov’d, unshackle the waste earth! Soul of the incomplete vitality In atom and in man! Soul of all Worlds! Leave not Thy glory vacant, nor afflict With fear and hunger man whom Thou hast made. Thou from Thy chambers waterest the earth; Thou givest snow like wool; and scatterest wide Hoarfrost like ashes. Casting forth Thy ice Like morsels, who can stand before Thy cold? Thou sendest forth Thy word, and lo! they melt; Causing Thy wind to blow, the waters flow.[A]

Soon the frozen air receives the subtle thaw: And suddenly a crawling mist, with rain Impregn’d, the damp day dims, and drizzling drops Proclaim a change. At night across the heavens Swift-journeying, and by a furious wind Squadron’d, the hurrying clouds range the roused sky, Magnificently sombrous. The wan moon, Amazed, gleams often through a cloudy rack, Then, shuddering, hides. One earnest wakeful star Of living sapphire drooping by her side, A faithful spirit in her lone despair, Outshines the cloudy tempest. Then the shower Falls ceaseless, and night murmurs with the rain. And in the sounding morning what a change! The meadows shine new-washed; while here and there A dusky patch of snow in shelter’d paths Melts lonely. The awakened forest waves With boughs unplumed. The white investiture Of the fair earth hath vanished, and the hills That in the evening sunset glowed with rose And ineffectual baptism of gold, Shine tawdry, crawled upon by the blind rain. Now Luggie thunders down the ringing vale, Tawnily brown, wide-leaving yellow sand Upon the meadow. The South-West, aroused, Blustering in moody kindness, clears the sky To its blue depths by a full-wingëd wind, Blowing the diapason of red March.

Blow high and cleanse the sky, O South-West wind! Roll the full clouds obedient; overthrow White crags of vapour in confusion piled Precipitate, high-toppling, undissolved; And while with silent workings they are spread And scattered, broken into ruinous pomp By Thy invisible influence, what calm And sweet disclosure of the upper deep Cerulean, the atmospheric sea! Blow high and sift the earth, thou South-West wind! Now the dull air grows rarer, and no more The stark day thickens towards evenfall; Nor from the solid cloud-gloom drips the rain: But in a sunset mild and beautiful The day sinks, till in clear dilucid air, As in a chamber newly decorate, The golden Phœbe reddens with the wind. No more through hoary mists and low-hung clouds The eternal hills—bones of the earth—upheave Their deity for worship: but severe Against the clear sky outlined, each sharp crag Uplifts its scarred magnificence to Heaven. From breezy ledge the eagle springs aloft, And, beating boldly up against the wind With inconceivable velocity, Stretches to upper ether, and renews Haughty communion with the regal sun! Blow high, O deep-mouth’d wind from the South-West! And in the caves and hollows of the rocks Moan mournfully, for desolation reigns. Through the unknown abysses and foul chasms, Sacred to horror and eternal damps And darkness ever-cumbent, blindly howl Till the hoarse dragons, wailing in their woe Infernal, answer from accursed dens.

Pleasant to him who long in sick-room pent, Surveying still the same unchanging hills Belted with vapour, muffled up in cloud; The same raw landscape soaked in ceaseless rain; Pleasant to him the invigorating wind. Roused from reclusive thought by the deep sound And motion of the forest (as a steed When shrills the silver trumpet of the onset), He rushes to communion with old forms. Like a fair picture suddenly uncovered To an impatient artist, the fair earth, Touched with the primal glory of the Spring, Flings an indefinite glamour on his soul. With indistinct commotion he perceives All things, and his delight is indistinct. Earth’s forms and ever-living beauty strike Amazement through his spirit, till he feels As one new-born to being undeflowered. The sudden music from the budding woods, The lark in air, startles and overjoys. O Laverock! (for thy Scottish name to me Sounds sweetest) with unutterable love I love thee, for each morning as I lie Relaxed and weary with my long disease, One from low grass arises visibly And sings as if it sang for me alone. Among a thousand I could tell the tones Of this, my little sweet hierophant! To fainting heart and the despairing soul What is more soothing than the natural voice Of birds? One Candlemas, many years ago, When weak with pain and sickness, it infused Into my soul a bliss delectable. For suddenly into the misty air A mellow, smooth and liquid music, clear As silver, softer than an organ stop Ere the bass grumbles, rose. The blunted winds, No longer edged severely with keen frost, Forgot to whisper, and a summer-calm Pervaded soul and sense. No violet As yet breathed perfume; from the darkling sward No snowdrop boldly peeped; and even the ash, Whence flowed the sound, unfolded not her buds To blacken while the embryo gathered green. And yet this hardy herald of the Spring Chaunted rich harmony, daintily carved out Her voice, and through her sleek throat sobb’d her soul In a delicious tremble. As she tuned Her pliant song, slow from the closing sky The sacred snow fell calm. Yet through the shower, Hushing all nature into silence, clear The Feltie-flier[B] trilled her slippery close In panting rapture, from the whitening ash. I stood all wonder; and to this late hour Remember the dear song with ravishment; Nor ever comes a merry Candlemas day But I am out to hear. And if perchance Some warbler sprinkle on the vacant air Its homeless notes, the bird seems to my heart The individual bird of comely grey That sang her pliant strain through falling snow.

Now, when the crumbling glebe is by the wind Unbound, and snows adown the mountains hoar Glide liquid, from the furrow loose the plough. Enyoke the willing horses, and upturn With deep-pressed share the saponaceous loam. From morn to even with progression slow The ploughboy cuts his awkward parallels, And soberly imbrowns the decent fields. It was a hazy February day Ten years ago, when I, a boy of ten, Beheld a country ploughing-match. The morn Lighted the east with a dim smoky flare Of leaden purple, as the rumbling wains Each with a plough light-laden (while behind Trotted a horse sleek-comb’d and tail bedight With many coloured ribbons) by our home Went downwards to the rich fat meadow-grounds Bounding the Luggie. Many a herd of beeves Dew-lapp’d had fattened there, and headlong oft O’er the hoof-clattering turf they wildly ran, Lashing with swinging tail the thirsty flies. But now the smooth expanse of level green Was quickly to be changed to sober brown; And twenty ploughs by twenty ploughmen held To cut with shining share the living turf. Oh many a wintry hour, thro’ wind and rain, In valleys gloom’d, or by the bleak hill-side Lonely, these twenty had themselves inured And stubborn’d to perfection. Many a touch And word of honest kindness had been used To the dear faithful horses snooving on In quiet patience, jutting noble chests. Now the big day, expected long, was come: And, with proud shoulders yoked, conscious they stood Patient and unrefusing; while behind, All ready stripped, brown brawny arms displayed— Arms sinewed by long labour—eager swains O’er-leaning slight, with cautious wary hold The plough detain. At the commencing sign A simultaneous noise discordant tears The air thick-closing to a hazy damp. Sudden the horses move, and the clear yokes, Well polished, clatter. With an artful bend The gleaming coulter takes the grass and cuts The greenly tedded blades with nibbling noise Almost unheard. The smooth share follows fast; And from its shining slope the clayey glebe In neat and neighbouring furrows sidelong falls. Thus till the dank, raw-cold, and unpurged day Gathering its rheumy humours threatens rain; And the bleak night steals up the forlorn east. And when the careful verdict is preferr’d By the wise judge (a gray-hair’d husbandman, Himself in his fresh youth a ploughboy keen), Some bosoms fire exultant. Others, slow Their reeking horses harnessed, lag along Heart-sad and weary; and the rumbling noise Of homeward-going carts for miles away Is heard, till night brings silence and repose.