A moment on the elm above our head
Rests the Green-linnet. Wordsworth says, He “from
The cottage-eaves pours forth his song in gushes.”
Not so in Scotland: Here he sometimes builds
His nest within the garden’s beechen hedge;
But never haunts our eaves. As for his song,
A few short notes, meagre and harsh, are all
This somewhat spiritless and lumpish bird
Has ever given us. Can the Master err?
With all the short thick rowing of her wings
The Magpie makes slow way. But her glib tongue
Goes chattering fast enough. In yonder fir,
The summer solstice cannnot keep her mute.
Surely, the bird should speak: Take the young pie,
And with a silver sixpence split its tongue,
’Twill speak incontinent; thus the notion runs
From simple father down to simple son,
In many parts. Oft in our boyhood’s days
We’ve seen it tried; but somehow, by bad luck,
It always happened that the poor bird died,
When, doubtless, just upon the eve of speech.
Sore was the splitting then, but far worse now:
The sixpence then, worn till it lost the head
Of George the Third, was thin as a knife’s edge,
And fitly sharp; the coin’s now thick and dull,
And makes the clumsier cleaving full of pain.
As boys we feared the magpie, for ’twas held
A bird of omen: oft ’twas seen to tear
With mad extravagant bill the cottage thatch,
Herald of death within: To neighbouring towns
The schoolboy, sent on morning messages,
Counted with awe how many pies at once
Hopped on his road; by this he learned to know
The various fortunes of the coming time.
Sweet lore was yours, O Bewick! with that eye
So keen, yet quiet, for the Beautiful,
And for the Droll—that eye so loving large!
Yet sweeter, Wilson, yours, as yours a range
More ample far, watching the goings-on
Of Nature in the boundless solitudes.
We know no happier man than him, at once,
With native powers, fixed from a restless youth,
To a great work congenial, which his might
Of conscious will has mastered ere begun;
Life’s work, and the foundation of his fame:
But oh! its sweetness, if in Nature’s eye
His is the privilege to work it out!
Such was the work of Wilson. Happy, too,
Is Audubon. When Day, like a bright bird,
Throughout the heavens has flown, chased by the black
Falcon of Night, he sleeps beneath a tree;
Upspringing with the morn, the enthusiast holds
On his green way rejoicing: His to catch,
And fix the creatures of the wilderness
In pictured forms, not in the attitudes
Of stiff convenience, but in all their play
Of happy natural life, fearless, untamed
By man’s intrusion, wanton, easy, free,
Yet full of tart peculiarities,
Freakish, and quaint, and ever picturesque,
Their secret gestures, and the wild escapes
From out their eyes; watching how Nature works
Her fine frugalities of means, even there
Where all is lavish freedom, finer still,
The compensations of her processes,
Throughout their whole economy of life.
Sweet study! Oh! for one long summer day
With Audubon in the far Western woods!
We leave the shade, and take the open fields,
Winding our way by immemorial paths,
So soft and green, the poor man’s privilege:
May jealous freedom ever keep them free!
Such is the sultry languor of the day,
The eye sees nothing clear. But now it rests
On yonder sable patch—ah! yes, a band
Of mourners gathered round a closing grave,
In the old churchyard. How unnatural
The black solemnity in such a day
Of light and life! But who was he or she
Who thus goes dust to dust? A matron ripe
In years and grace at once for death and Heaven.
Her aged father’s stay until he died,
She then was wed and widowed in one year,
And made a mother. With her infant son
She dwelt in peace, and nourished him with love.
Mild and sedate, upgrew the old-fashioned boy;
And went to church with her, a little man
In garb and gravity: you would have smiled
To see him coming in. She lifted him
Up to his seat beside her, drew him near,
And took his hand in hers. There as he sate,
Oft looked she down to see if he was sleeping;
And drowsy half, half in the languor soft
Of innocent trust and aimless piety,
The child looked up into his mother’s face.
And she looked down into his eyes, and saw
The neighbouring window in their pupils’ balls,
With all its panes, reflected small but clear;
And gave his hand soft pressure with her hand,
Still shifting, trying still to be more soft.
God took him from her. In a holy stillness
She dwelt concentred. Decent were her means,
And so she changed not outwardly. No trouble
Gave she to neighbours; but she helped them oft.
And when she died, her grave-clothes, there they were,
Made by her own preparing heart and hand,
And neatly folded in an antique chest:
Not even a pin was wanting, where, to dress
Her body with due care, a pin should be;
And every pin was stuck in its own place.
Nor was all this from any hard mistrust
Of human love, for she the charities
Took with glad heart; but from a strength of mind
Which stood equipped in every point for death,
And, loving order, loved it to the end.
The mourners all are gone. How lonely still
The churchyard now! Here in their simple graves
The generations of the hamlet sleep:
All grassy simple, save that, here and there,
Love-planted flowerets deck the lowly sod.
Blame not that sorrowing love: ’Tis far too true
To make of Burial one of the Fine Arts;
Yet the sweet thought that scented violets spring
From the loved ashes, is a natural war
Against the foul dishonours of the grave.
Bloom then, ye little flowers, and sweetly smell;
Draw up the heart’s dust in your flushing hues,
And odorous breath, and give it to the bee,
And give it to the air, circling to go
From life to life, through all that living flux
Of interchange which makes this wondrous world.
Go where it will, the dear dust is not lost;
Found it will be in its own place and form,
On that great day, the Resurrection Day.
Evening.
Those shouts proclaim the village school is out.
This way and that, the children break in groups;
Some by the sunny stile, and meadow path,
Slow sauntering homeward; others to the burn
Bounding, beneath the stones, and roots, and banks,
With stealthy hand to catch the spotted trout,
Or stab the eel, or slip their noose of hair
Over the bearded loach, and jerk him out.
Here on his donkey, slow as any snail
At morn from the far farm, but, homeward now,
Willing and fast, an urchin blithe and bold
Comes scampering on: His face is to the tail
In fun grotesque; stooping, with both his hands
He holds the hairy rump; his kicking feet
Go walloping; his empty flask of tin,
That bore his noon of milk, quiver of life,
And not of death, high-bounding on his back,
Rattles the while. With many a whoop behind,
Scouring the dusty road with their bare feet,
In wicked glee, a squad of fellow-imps
Come on with thistles and with nettle-wands,
Pursuingly, intent to goad and vex
The long-eared cuddy: He, the cuddy, lays
His long ears back upon his neck, his head
Lowered the while, and out behind him flings
High his indignant heels, at once to keep
That hurly-burly of tormentors off,
And rid his back of that insulting rider.
Unconscious boyhood! Oh! the perils near
Of luring Pleasures! In the evening shade,
Drowsy reclining, in my dream I saw
A comely youth, with wanton flowing curls,
Chase down the sunlit vale a glittering flight
Of winged creatures, some like birds, and some
Like butterflies, and moths of marvellous size
And beauty, purple-ruffed, and spotted rich
With velvet tippets, and their wings like flame—
Onward they drew him to a coming cloud,
With skirts of vapoury gold, but steaming dense
And dark behind, close gathering from the ground:
And on and in he went, in heedless chase.
And straight those skirts curled inward, and became
Part of the gloom: Compacted, solid, black,
It has him in, and it will keep him there.
The cloud stood still a space, as if to give
Time for the acting of some doom within,
Ominous, silent, grim. It moved again,
Tumultuous stirred, and broke in seams and flaws,
And gave me glimpses of its inner womb:
Outdarting forkèd tongues, and brazen fins,
Blue web-winged vampire-bats, and harpy faces,
And dragon crests, and vulture heads obscene,
I there beheld: Fierce were their levelled looks,
As if inflicted on some victim. Who
That victim was, I saw not. But are these
The painted Pleasures which that youth pursued
Adown the vale? How cruel changed! But where,
And what is he? Is he their victim there?
Heavy the cloud went passing by. From out
Its further end I saw that young man come,
Worn and dejected; specks and spots of dirt
Were on his face, and round his sunken eyes;
Hollow his cheeks, lean were his bony brows;
And lank and clammy were the locks that once
Played curling round his neck: The Passions there
Have done their work on him. With trembling limbs,
And stumbling as he went, he sate him down,
With folded arms, upon a sombre hill,
Apart from men, and from his father’s house,
That wept from him; and, sitting there, he looked
With heavy-laden eyes down on the ground.
But the night fell, and hid him from my view.
In yonder sheltered nook of nibbled sward,
Beside the wood, a gipsy band are camped;
And there they’ll sleep the summer night away.
By stealthy holes, their ragged tawny brood
Creep through the hedges, in their pilfering quest
Of sticks and pales, to make their evening fire.
Untutored things, scarce brought beneath the laws
And meek provisions of this ancient State!
Yet, is it wise, with wealth and power like hers,
And such resources of good government,
To let so many of her sons grow up
In untaught darkness and consecutive vice?
True, we are jealous free, and hate constraint,
And every cognisance o’er private life;
Yet, not to name a higher principle,
’Twere but an institution of police,
Due to society, preventative
Of crime, the cheapest and the best support
Of order, right, and law, that not one child,
In all this realm of ours, should be allowed
To grow up uninstructed for this life,
And for the next. Were every child State-claimed,
Laid hold of thus, and thus prepared to be
A proper member of society,
What founts of vice, with all their issuing streams,
Might thus be closed for ever, and at once!
Good propagating good, so far as man
Can work with God. Oh! this is the great work
To change our moral world, and people Heaven.
Would we had Christian statesmen to devise,
And shape, and work it out! Our liberties
Have limits and abatements manifold;
And soon the national will, which makes restraint
Part of its freedom, oft the soundest part,
Would recognise the wisdom of the plan,
Arming the state with full authority
For such an institute of renovation.
This work achieved at home, with what a large
Consistent exercise of power, and right
To hope the blessing, should we then go forth,
Pushing into the dark of Heathen worlds
The crystal frontiers of the invading Light,
The Gospel Light! The glad submitting Earth
Would cry, Behold, their own land is a land
Of perfect living light—how beautiful
Upon the mountains are their blessed feet!