Locker’s first wife died in 1872. In 1874 he married Miss Lampson, adding her family name to his own. The rest of his life was spent for the most part at Rowfant: he died there, 30th May 1895. His autobiography, “My Confidences,” was published posthumously in 1896.
THE CASTLE IN THE AIR
“I would build a cloudy house,
For my thoughts to live in,
When for earth too fancy loose,
And too low for heaven!Hush! I talk my dream alone:
I build it bright to see;
I build it on the moon-lit cloud,
To which I look with thee!”Mrs E. B. Browning.
You shake your curls, and ask me why
I don’t build castles in the sky;
You smile, and you are thinking too,
He’s nothing else on earth to do.
It needs, my dear, romantic ware
To raise such fabrics in the air—
Ethereal bricks, and rainbow beams,
The gossamer of Fancy’s dreams:
And much the architect may lack
Who labours in the zodiac
To rear what I, from chime to chime,
Attempted once upon a time.
My Castle was a glad retreat,
Adorn’d with bloom and scented briars,—
A Cupid’s model country-seat,
With all that such a seat requires.
A rustic thatch, a purple mountain,
A sweet, mysterious, haunted fountain,
A terraced lawn, a summer lake,
By sun or moonbeam ever burnish’d;
And then my cot, by some mistake,
Unlike most cots was neatly furnish’d.
A trelliss’d porch, a mirror’d hall,
A Hebe, laughing from the wall,
Frail vases from remote Cathay,—
While, under arms and armour wreath’d
In trophied guise, the marble breath’d—
A peering fawn, a startled fay.
And cabinets with gems inlaid,
The legacy of parted years,
Full curtains of festoon’d brocade,
And Venice lent her chandeliers.
Quaint carvings dark, and, pillow’d light,
Meet couches for the Sybarite;
Embroider’d carpets, soft as down,
The last new novel fresh from town.
On silken cushion, rich with braid,
A shaggy pet from Skye was laid,
And, drowsy eyed, would dosing swing
A parrot in his golden ring.
All these I saw one happy day,
And more than now I care to name;
Here, lately shut, that workbox lay,
There stood your own embroidery frame.