In his clutched hand he held four gold "sovereigns" that his fond mother had given him at parting to help him in the daily trials of life, when no other friend could be so true and powerful. Gold gilds success.
"Here, Jack, keep two of these for yourself, and if I should ever be penniless, and you have gold, I know you will aid me in a pinch. The wine nature of your soul needs no bush."
"We still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together,
And wherever we went like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled, and inseparable."
"William," said I, "memory with her indelible signet shall long imprint this generous act of yours upon my soul, and when hundreds of years have passed, I shall tell of the undying friendship of two bohemians, who, day and night, set their own fashion, created a world of their own, and lived ecstatically, oscillating between the blunders of Bacchus and the vanity of Venus!"
William's heart was heavy when turning his back on father, mother, brother, sister, wife and children, at the age of twenty-two.
We passed along the Clopton stone bridge, and as we tramped over Primrose Hill looking back at the roofs and spires of Stratford, glinting in the morning light, the Bard uttered this impulsive dash of eloquence:
Farewell, farewell! a sad farewell
To glowing scenes of boyhood.
Ye rocks, and rills and forests primeval
List to my sighing soul, trembling on the tongue
To vent its echoes in ambient air.
No more shall wild eyed deer,
Fretful hares, hawks and hounds
Entrance mine ear and vision,
Or frantically depart when
Stealthy footsteps disturb the lark,
Ere Phœbus' golden light
Illuminates the dawn.
Memory, many hued maiden,
Oft in midnight hours
Shall picture these eternal hills,
And purling streams, rimmed by
Vernal meadows;
And pillowed even in the lap of misery
Fantastic visions of thee
Shall lull deepest woe to repose.
And banqueting at yon alehouse,
Nestling near blooming hedge and snowy
Hawthorn, I shall live again
In blissful dreams among the enchanting
Precincts of the silver, serpentine Avon.
To thee I lift my hands in prayer
Disappearing, and pinioned with Hope;
Daughter of Love and sunrise—
Go forth to multitudinous London,
And, "buckle fortune on my back"
"To bear her burden," to successful,
Lofty heights of mind illimitable.
With this apostrophe, we took a last look at the glinting gables and sparkling spires of Stratford, disappearing over the hill, our steps and faces turned to London town, that seething whirlpool of human woe and pleasure.
The air was cold and the country roads were rutty and muddy, but the autumn landscape was beautiful, in its gray and purple garb, while the notes of flitting wild birds chirped and sang from bush, hedge, field and forest, in a mournful monotone to the fading glory of the year.
The various birds chattered in clumps along the highway, and then would rise over our heads in flitting flocks, steering their course to the south and seemingly accompanying us on our wandering way to the great metropolis.