There's nought wi' me I wadna gie To look thereon again. On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide; Round banks where Tyne is born. The Wansbeck sings with all her springs, The bents and braes give ear; But the wood that rings wi' the sang she sings I may not see nor hear; For far and far thae blithe burns are, The light there lightens, the day there brightens, The loud wind there lives free: Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by me That I wad hear or see. But O gin I were there again, Afar ayont the faem, Cauld and dead in the sweet saft bed We'll see nae mair the sea-banks fair, And the goodly towers thereby: And none shall know but the winds that blow The graves wherein we lie. AUSTIN DOBSON (1840-1921) A Gentleman of the Old School He lived in that past Georgian day, When men were less inclined to say That "Time is Gold," and overlay With toil their pleasure; He held some land, and dwelt thereon,Where, I forget,—the house is gone; His Christian name, I think, was John,His surname, Leisure. Reynolds has painted him,-a face The eyes are blue, the hair is drest With buds brocaded. He wears a brown old Brunswick coat, With silver buttons,-round his throat, A soft cravat;-in all you note An elder fashion,— He lived so long ago, you see! With careless parting; He found it quite enough for him We read-alas, how much we read! Our groaning tables; His books—and they sufficed him—were Cotton's "Montaigne," "The Grave" of Blair, A "Walton"-much the worse for wear- One more,-"The Bible." Not that he It may be that he could not count Once he had loved, but failed to wed, And still when time had turned him gray "In Cœlo Quies" heads the stone The "Benefactions" still declare A Christmas Posset." Lie softly, Leisure! Doubtless you But we, to whom our age allows The Curé's Progress MONSIEUR the Curé down the street Comes with his kind old face,With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair, And his green umbrella-case. You may see him pass by the little "Grande Place," And the tiny "Hôtel-de-Ville"; He smiles, as he goes, to the fleuriste Rose, And the pompier Théophile. He turns, as a rule, through the "Marché" cool, Where the noisy fish-wives call; And his compliment pays to the "Belle Thérèse," As she knits in her dusky stall. There's a letter to drop at the locksmith's shop, And Toto, the locksmith's niece, There's a little dispute with a merchant of fruit, Who is said to be heterodox, That will ended be with a “Ma foi, oui!” And a pinch from the Curé's box. There is also a word that no one heard To the furrier's daughter Lou; And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red, And a "Bon Dieu garde M'sieu!" But a grander way for the Sous-Préfet, For ever through life the Curé goes With a smile on his kind old faceWith his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair, And his green umbrella-case. A Ballad of Heroes BECAUSE you passed, and now are not,- Was blown of ancient airs away,-` Because you perished,-must men say Your deeds were naught, and so profane Your lives with that cold burden? Nay The deeds you wrought are not in vain! Though, it may be, above the plot That hid your once imperial clay, No greener than o'er men forgot The unregarding grasses sway;Though there no sweeter is the lay From careless bird, though you remain Without distinction of decay,— The deeds you wrought are not in vain! No. For while yet in tower or cot Your story stirs the pulses' play; And men forget the sordid lot— The sordid care, of cities gray;While yet, beset in homelier fray, They learn from you the lesson plain That Life may go, so Honour stay,The deeds you wrought are not in vain! ENVOY Heroes of old! I humbly lay The laurel on your graves again; ONE evening of late summer, before the present century had reached its thirtieth year, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot. They were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick hoar of dust. which had accumulated on their shoes and garments from an obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to their appearance just now. The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect; and he showed in profile a facial angle so slightly inclined as to be almost perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit, which was a fustian waistcoat with white horn buttons, breeches of the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with black glazed canvas. At his back he carried by a looped strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the crutch of a hayknife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also visible in the aperture. His measured, springless walk was the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct from the desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and cynical indifference, personal to himself, showing its presence even in the regularly interchanging fustian folds, now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced along. What was really peculiar, however, in this couple's progress, and would have attracted the attention of any casual observer otherwise disposed to overlook them, was the perfect silence they preserved. They walked side by side in such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy, confidential chat of people full of reciprocity; but on closer view it could be discerned that the man was reading, or pretending to read, a ballad sheet which he kept before his eyes with some difficulty by the hand that was passed through the basket strap. Whether this apparent cause were the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody but himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and the woman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence. Virtually she walked the highway alone, save for the child she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his side as was possible without actual contact; but she seemed to have no idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it; and far from exhibiting surprise at his ignoring silence, she appeared to receive it as a natural thing. If any word at all were uttered by the little group, it was an occasional whisper of the woman to the child-a tiny girl in short clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn-and the murmured babble of the child in reply. The chief-almost the only-attraction of the young woman's face was its mobility. When she looked down sideways to the girl she became pretty, and even handsome, particularly that in the action her features caught slantwise the rays of the strongly coloured sun, which made transparencies of her eyelids and nostrils, and set fire on her lips. When she plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silently thinking, she had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance, except, perhaps, fair play. The first phase was the work of Nature, the second probably of civilization. That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the parents of the girl in arms, there could be little doubt. No other than such relationship would have accounted for the atmosphere of stale familiarity which the trio carried along with them like a nimbus as they moved down the road. The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, though with little interest -the scene for that matter being one that might have been matched at almost any spot in any county in England at this time of the year; a road neither straight nor crooked, neither level nor hilly, bordered by hedges, trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the blackenedgreen stage of colour that the doomed leaves pass through on their way to dingy and yellow, and red. The grassy margin of the bank, and the nearest hedgerow boughs, were powdered by the dust that had been stirred over them by hasty vehicles, the same dust as it lay on the road deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with the aforesaid total absence of conversation, allowed every extraneous sound to be heard. |