THE GIRT WOLD HOUSE O' MOSSY
Don't talk ov housen all o' brick,
Wi' rockèn walls nine inches thick,
A-trigg'd together zide by zide
In streets, wi' fronts a straddle wide,
Wi' yards a-sprinkled wi' a mop,
Too little vor a vrog to hop;
But let me live an' die where I
Can zee the ground, an' trees, an' sky.
The girt wold house o' mossy stwone
Had wings vor either sheäde or zun:
An' there the timber'd copse rose high,
Where birds did build an' heäres did lie,
An' beds o' greygles in the lew,
Did deck in May the ground wi' blue.
An' there by leänes a-windèn deep,
Wer mossy banks a-risèn steep;
An' stwonen steps, so smooth an' wide,
To stiles an' vootpaths at the zide.
An' there, so big's a little ground,
The geärden wer a-wall'd all round:
An' up upon the wall wer bars
A-sheäped all out in wheels an' stars,
Vor vo'k to walk, an' look out drough
Vrom trees o' green to hills o' blue.
An' there wer walks o' peävement, broad
Enough to meäke a carriage-road,
Where steätely leädies woonce did use
To walk wi' hoops an' high-heel shoes,
When yonder hollow woak wer sound,
Avore the walls wer ivy-bound,
Avore the elems met above
The road between em, where they drove
Their coach all up or down the road
A-comèn hwome or gwaïn abroad.
The zummer aïr o' theäse green hill
'V a-heav'd in bosoms now all still,
An' all their hopes an' all their tears
Be unknown things ov other years.
A VANISHED VILLAGE
Is this the ground where generations lie
Mourn'd by the drooping birch and dewy fern,
And by the faithful, alder-shaded burn,
Which seems to breathe an everlasting sigh?
No sign of habitation meets the eye;
Only some ancient furrows I discern,
And verdant mounds, and from them sadly learn That hereabout men used to live and die.
Once the blue vapour of the smouldering peat
From half a hundred homes would curl on high,
While round the doors rang children's voices sweet;
Where now the timid deer goes wandering by,
Or a lost lamb sends forth a plaintive bleat,
And the lone glen looks up to the lone sky.
R. Wilton
RETURN TO NATURE
On the braes around Glenfinnan
Fast the human homes are thinning,
And the wilderness is winning
To itself these graves again.
Names or dates here no man knoweth,
O'er gray headstones heather groweth,
Up Loch-Shiel the sea-wind bloweth
Over sleep of nameless men.
Who were those forgotten sleepers ?
Herdsmen strong, fleet forest-keepers,
Aged men, or widow'd weepers
For their foray-fallen ones?
Babes cut off 'mid childhood's prattle,
Men who lived with herds and cattle,
Clansmen from Culloden battle,
Camerons, or Clandonald's sons?
Blow ye winds, and rains effacing!
Blur the words of love's fond tracing!
Nature to herself embracing
All that human hearts would keep :
What they knew of good or evil
Faded, like the dim primaeval
Day that saw the vast upheaval
Of these hills that hold their sleep.
Not greatly moved with awe am I
To learn that we may spy
Five thousand firmaments beyond our own.
The best that's known
Of the heavenly bodies does them credit small.
View'd close, the Moon's fair ball
A corpse in Night's highway, naked, fire-scarr'd,
That the Sun is plainly seen to boil and burst
Too horribly for hell.
So, judging from these two,
As we must do,
The Universe, outside our living Earth,
Was all conceived in the Creator's mirth,
Forecasting at the time Man's spirit deep,
To make dirt cheap.
Put by the Telescope !
Better without it man may see,
Stretch'd awful in the hush'd midnight,
The ghost of his eternity.
Give me the nobler glass that swells to the eye
The things which near us lie,
Till Science rapturously hails,
In the minutest water-drop,
A torment of innumerable tails.
These at the least do live.
But rather give
A mind not much to pry
Beyond our royal-fair estate
Betwixt these deserts blank of small and great.
Wonder and beauty our own courtiers are,
Pressing to catch our gaze,
And out of obvious ways
Ne'er wandering far.
Hark! ah, the nightingale
The tawny-throated!
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst !
What triumph! hark !—what pain!
O wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain
That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain—
Say, will it never heal?
And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no balm?
Dost thou to-night behold,
Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes
The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?
Dost thou once more assay
Thy flight, and feel come over thee,
Poor fugitive, the feathery change
Once more, and once more seem to make resound
With love and hate, triumph and agony,
Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?
How thick the bursts come crowding through the
Again--thou hearest ?
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!
EVENING MELODY
O that the pines which crown yon steep
Their fires might ne'er surrender!
O that yon fervid knoll might keep,
While lasts the world, its splendour!
Pale poplars on the breeze that lean,
And in the sunset shiver,
O that your golden stems might screen
For aye yon glassy river!
That yon white bird on homeward wing
Soft-sliding without motion,
And now in blue air vanishing
Like snow-flake lost in ocean,
Beyond our sight might never flee,
Yet forward still be flying;
And all the dying day might be
Immortal in its dying!
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