If red his eye with study,
If pale with care his cheek,
To make them bright and ruddy,
The green hills let him seek.
The quiet that it needeth
His mind shall there obtain;
And relief from care, that feedeth
Alike on heart and brain.
Urged by this feeling, I rambled along the Old Kent Road, making my way through the Saturnalian groups, collected by that mob-emancipating-time Easter Monday; wearied with the dust, and the exclamations of the multitude, I turned down the lane leading to the fields, near the place wherein the fair of Peckham is held, and sought for quietness in their greenness—and found it not. Instead of verdure, there were rows of dwellings of “plain brown brick,” and a half-formed road, from whence the feet of man and horse impregnated the air with stifling atoms of vitrified dust. Proceeding over the Rye, up the lane at the side of Forest-hill, I found the solitude I needed. The sun was just setting; his parting glance came from between the branches of the trees, like the mild light of a lover’s eye, from her long dark lashes, when she receives the adieu of her beloved, and the promise of meeting on the morrow. The air was cool and fitful, playing with the leaves, as not caring to stir them; and as I strayed, the silence was broken by the voice of a bird—it was the tit-lark. I recognised his beautiful “weet” and “fe-er,” as he dropped from the poplar among the soft grass; and I lingered near the wood, in the hope of hearing the nightingale—but he had not arrived, or was disposed to quiet. Evening closed over me: the hour came
When darker shades around us thrown
Give to thought a deeper tone.
Retracing my steps, I reached that field which stretches from the back of the Rosemary-branch to the canal; darkness was veiling the earth, the hum of the multitude was faintly audible; above it, high in the cool and shadowy air, rose the voice of a sky-lark, who had soared to take a last look at the fading day, singing his vespers. It was a sweeter lay than his morning, or mid-day carol—more regular and less ardent—divested of the fervour and fire of his noontide song—its hurried loudness and shrill tones. The softness of the present melody suited the calm and gentle hour. I listened on, and imagined it was a bird I had heard in the autumn of last year: I recollected the lengthy and well-timed music—the “cheer che-er,” “weet, weet, che-er”—“we-et, weet, cheer”—“che-er”—“weet, weet”—“cheer, weet, weet.” I still think it to have been the very bird of the former season. Since then he had seen
The greenness of the spring, and all its flowers;
The ruddiness of summer and its fruits;
And cool and sleeping streams, and shading bowers
The sombre brown of autumn, that best suits
His leisure hours, whose melancholy mind
Is calm’d with list’ning to the moaning wind,
And watching sick leaves take their silent way,
On viewless wings, to death and to decay.
He had survived them, and had evaded the hawk in the cloud, and the snake in the grass. I felt an interest in this bird, for his lot had been like mine. The ills of life—as baleful to man, as the bird of prey and the invidious reptile to the weakest of the feathered race—had assailed me, and yet I had escaped. The notes in the air grew softer and fainter—I dimly perceived the flutter of descending wings—one short, shrill cry finished the song—darkness covered the earth—and I again sought human habitations, the abodes of carking cares, and heart-rending jealousies.
S. R. J.
April 16, 1827.