I forget as many as I remember; and I ask both to pardon me, these for silence, those for inadequate speech. But one name I have kept on purpose to the last, because it is a household word with me, and because if I had not received favours from so many hands and in so many quarters of the world, it should have stood upon this page alone: that of my friend Thomas Bodley Scott of Bournemouth. Will he accept this, although shared among so many, for a dedication to himself? and when next my ill-fortune (which has thus its pleasant side) brings him hurrying to me when he would fain sit down to meat or lie down to rest, will he care to remember that he takes this trouble for one who is not fool enough to be ungrateful?
R. L. S.
Skerryvore,
Bournemouth.
NOTE
The human conscience has fled of late the troublesome domain of conduct for what I should have supposed to be the less congenial field of art: there she may now be said to rage, and with special severity in all that touches dialect; so that in every novel the letters of the alphabet are tortured, and the reader wearied, to commemorate shades of mis-pronunciation. Now spelling is an art of great difficulty in my eyes, and I am inclined to lean upon the printer, even in common practice, rather than to venture abroad upon new quests. And the Scots tongue has an orthography of its own, lacking neither “authority nor author.” Yet the temptation is great to lend a little guidance to the bewildered Englishman. Some simple phonetic artifice might defend your verses from barbarous mishandling, and yet not injure any vested interest. So it seems at first; but there are rocks ahead. Thus, if I wish the diphthong ou to have its proper value, I may write oor instead of our; many have done so and lived, and the pillars of the universe remained unshaken. But if I did so, and came presently to doun, which is the classical Scots spelling of the English down, I should begin to feel uneasy; and if I went on a little farther, and came to a classical Scots word, like stour or dour or clour, I should know precisely where I was—that is to say, that I was out of sight of land on those high seas of spelling reform in which so many strong swimmers have toiled vainly. To some the situation is exhilarating; as for me, I give one bubbling cry and sink. The compromise at which I have arrived is indefensible, and I have no thought of trying to defend it. As I have stuck for the most part to the proper spelling, I append a table of some common vowel sounds which no one need consult; and just to prove that I belong to my age and have in me the stuff of a reformer, I have used modification marks throughout. Thus I can tell myself, not without pride, that I have added a fresh stumbling-block for English readers, and to a page of print in my native tongue, have lent a new uncouthness. Sed non nobis.
I note again, that among our new dialecticians, the local habitat of every dialect is given to the square mile. I could not emulate this nicety if I desired; for I simply wrote my Scots as well as I was able, not caring if it hailed from Lauderdale or Angus, from the Mearns or Galloway; if I had ever heard a good word, I used it without shame; and when Scots was lacking, or the rhyme jibbed, I was glad (like my betters) to fall back on English. For all that, I own to a friendly feeling for the tongue of Fergusson and of Sir Walter, both Edinburgh men; and I confess that Burns has always sounded in my ear like something partly foreign. And indeed I am from the Lothians myself; it is there I heard the language spoken about my childhood; and it is in the drawling Lothian voice that I repeat it to myself. Let the precisians call my speech that of the Lothians. And if it be not pure, alas! what matters it? The day draws near when this illustrious and malleable tongue shall be quite forgotten; and Burn’s Ayrshire, and Dr. Macdonald’s Aberdeen-awa’, and Scott’s brave, metropolitan utterance will be all equally the ghosts of speech. Till then I would love to have my hour as a native Maker, and be read by my own countryfolk in our own dying language: an ambition surely rather of the heart than of the head, so restricted as it is in prospect of endurance, so parochial in bounds of space.
CONTENTS
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| PAGE | |
I. | Envoy—Go, little book | |
II. | A Song of the Road—Thegauger walked | |
III. | The Canoe Speaks—On thegreat streams | |
IV. | It is the season | |
V. | The House Beautiful—Anaked house, a naked moor | |
VI. | A Visit from the Sea—Farfrom the loud sea beaches | |
VII. | To a Gardener—Friend, inmy mountain-side demesne | |
VIII. | To Minnie—A picture framefor you to fill | |
IX. | To K. de M.—A lover ofthe moorland bare | |
X. | To N. V. de G. S.—Theunfathomable sea | |
XI. | To Will. H. Low—Youth nowflees | |
XII. | To Mrs. Will. H. Low—Evenin the bluest noonday of July | |
XIII. | To H. F. Brown—I sit andwait | |
XIV. | To Andrew Lang—DearAndrew | |
XV. | Et tu in Arcadiavixisti—In ancient tales, O friend | |
To W. E. Henley—The yearruns through her phases | ||
XVII. | Henry James—Who comesto-night | |
XVIII. | The Mirror Speaks—Wherethe bells | |
XIX. | Katharine—We see you aswe see a face | |
XX. | To F. J. S.—I read, dearfriend | |
XXI. | Requiem—Under the wideand starry sky | |
XXII. | The Celestial Surgeon—IfI have faltered | |
XXIII. | Our Lady of the Snows—Outof the sun | |
XXIV. | Not yet, my soul | |
XXV. | It is not yours, O mother, to complain | |
XXVI. | The Sick Child—O mother,lay your hand on my brow | |
XXVII. | In Memoriam F. A. S.—Yet,O stricken heart | |
XXVIII. | To my Father—Peace andher huge invasion | |
XXIX. | In the States—With half aheart | |
XXX. | A Portrait—I am a kind offarthing dip | |
XXXI. | Sing clearlier, Muse | |
XXXII. | A Camp—The bed wasmade | |
XXXIII. | The Country of theCamisards—We travelled in the print of oldenwars | |
XXXIV. | Skerryvore—For love oflovely words | |
XXXV. | Skerryvore: TheParallel—Here all is sunny | |
XXXVI. | My house, I say | |
XXXVII. | My body which my dungeon is | |
XXXVIII. | Say not of me that weakly I declined | |
BOOKII.—In Scots | ||
I. | The Maker toPosterity—Far ’yont amang the years to be | |
II. | Ille Terrarum—Frae nirly,nippin’, Eas’lan’ breeze | |
III. | When aince Aprile has fairly come | |
IV. | A Mile an’ a Bittock | |
V. | A Lowden Sabbath Morn—Theclinkum-clank o’ Sabbath bells | |
VI. | The Spaewife—O, I wadlike to ken | |
VII. | TheBlast—1875—It’s rainin’. Weet’s the gairden sod | |
VIII. | TheCounterblast—1886—My bonny man, the warld,it’s true | |
IX. | The CounterblastIronical—It’s strange that God should fash toframe | |
X. | Their Laureate to an Academy ClassDinner Club—Dear Thamson class, whaure’er Igang | |
XI. | Embro Hie Kirk—The LordHimsel’ in former days | |
XII. | The Scotsman’s Return fromAbroad—In mony a foreign pairt I’ve been | |
XIII. | Late in the nicht | |
XIV. | My Conscience!—Ofa’ the ills that flesh can fear | |
XV. | To Doctor John Brown—ByLyne and Tyne, by Thames and Tees | |
XVI. | It’s an owercome sooth for age an’ youth | |
BOOK I.—In English