Yet long, long after the last stone of all these honoured buildings has been overthrown to form part of a cottage or a mansion for someone of a future generation—long, long after the poets' bones laid in Grasmere burial-ground have mouldered into dust and become part of the life of the overshadowing trees—long, long after the commemorative marbles in Crossthwaite Church have become marred beyond recognition—the hills and streams whose glories were chanted by our Minnesingers of prose and verse will remain virtually unchanged though with an added glory not theirs in olden days—the glory of the human soul awakened by them to truth and beauty—the glory of art and song shining on every valley and peak.
There are still some few living amongst us in this 'playground of England' who are carrying on the literary traditions peculiar to it, of whom another hand than mine will write hereafter, for they will be men of mark ere their life-work closes. They have begun well and will finish better. Nor are the possibilities of further expansions of poetry, or legend, or history, or prose idylls yet exhausted. There are fields unbroken awaiting the arrival of him who shall help to brighten a new age. There are romances, and novels, and epic poems still stored away in the narrative of the Roman Conquest and occupation; of the creeping northward of the Saxons from land and sea; of the coming of the fair-haired Norsemen in their long ships from the north seashores; of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, with its varying fortunes; of the medieval barons and their castles; of the dark-age church and its abbeys. There are odes and lyrics still lingering among the heath-clad fells, and the sounding forces, and the purling becks, that will be captured and given to the world some day through the help of him by whom the in-breathing of the spirit is felt. Our snowfields on wintry uplands, in sunshine or glimmering moonlight, are awaiting the pen that can adequately picture them.
There are tales of border-raids, and Arthurian legends, and wealth of fairy lore to be gathered, and 'country memories rich inlaid' by one who shall be born here, or choose our shires for his home, and shall put on singing-robes of sufficient quality and colour. 'I would I were a poet happy-mad,' exclaims one of those whose lives I have epitomized:
'I would I were a poet happy-mad,
Up like a lark i' the morning of the times,
To sing above the human harvesters;
Drop fancies, dainty-sweet, to cheer their toil,
And hurry out a ripe luxuriance
Of life in song, as though my heart would break
And sing them sweet and precious memories,
And golden promises, and throbbing hopes;
Hymn the great future with its mystery,
That startles us from out the dark of time,
With secrets numerous as a night of stars.'
THE END
Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
Transcriber's Notes:
(1) Obvious punctuation, spelling and typographical errors have been corrected.
(2) Amendments required in the lists of "Contents" and "Illustrations" have been correlated to the revised pagination.