Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

Audley And cross'd the garden to the gardener's lodge, Court With all its casements bedded, and its walls And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine.

There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid
A damask napkin wrought with horse and
hound,

Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,
And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly-made,
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret, lay,
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yokes
Imbedded and injellied; last, with these,
A flask of cider from his father's vats,
Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat
And talk'd old matters over; who was dead,
Who married, who was like to be, and how
The races went, and who would rent the hall :
Then touch'd upon the game, how scarce it

wasan

This season; glancing thence, discuss'd the
farm,

The four-field system, and the price of grain;
And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split,
And came again together on the king

With heated faces; till he laugh'd aloud ;lef
And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung
To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and

sang

'Oh! who would fight and march and
countermarch, and patun

Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, mol
And shovell'd up into some bloody trench
Where no one knows? but let me live my life.
Oh! who would cast and balance at a desk,
Perch'd like a crow upon a three-legg'd stool,

Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints
Are full of chalk ? but let me live my life.
Who'd serve the state? for if I carved

name

my

Upon the cliffs that guard my native land,
I might as well have traced it in the sands;RI
The sea wastes all but let me live my life.

Oh! who would love? I woo'd a woman
once,

But she was sharper than an eastern wind,
And all my heart turn'd from her, as a thorn
Turns from the sea; but let
me live my life.'
He sang his song, and I replied with mine:
I found it in a volume, all of songs,

Knock'd down to me, when old Sir Robert's
pride,

His books-the more the pity, so I said—
Came to the hammer here in March-and

this

I set the words, and added names I knew.

[ocr errors]

Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep, and dream of

me,

Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm,

[ocr errors]

And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine.
Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm,
Emilia, fairer than all else but thou,

For thou art fairer than all else that is.

[ocr errors]

Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her
breast,

Sleep, breathing love and trust against her

lip,

:

I go to-night I come to-morrow morn.
I
go, but I return: I would I were
The pilot of the darkness and the dream.

Audley
Court

Court

Audley Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.'
So sang we each to either, Francis Hale,
The farmer's son, who lived across the bay,
My friend; and I, that having wherewithal,
And in the fallow leisure of my life,

Did what I would; but ere the night we rose
And saunter'd home beneath a moon, that, just
In crescent, dimly rain'd about the leaf
Twilights of airy silver, till we reach'd
The limit of the hills; and as we sank
From rock to rock upon the glooming quay,
The town was hush'd beneath us: lower down
The bay was oily calm; the harbour-buoy,
With one green sparkle ever and anon
Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.

WALKING TO THE MAIL

John. I'm glad I walk'd.

meadows look

How fresh the

Above the river, and, but a month ago,
The whole hill-side was redder than a fox.
Is yon plantation where this byway joins
The turnpike?

James.

John.

James. The mail? At one o'clock.

John.

Yes.

And when does this come by?

What is it now?

Whose house is that I see?

James. A quarter to.

John.

No, not the County Member's with the vane:
Up higher with the yew-tree by it, and half
A score of gables.

James.

That? Sir Edward Head's:
But he's abroad: the place is to be sold.

John. Oh, his. He was not broken.
James.

No, sir, he,
Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood
That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his

face

From all men, and commercing with himself,
He lost the sense that handles daily life-
That keeps us all in order more or less-
And sick of home went overseas for change.
John. And whither?

James. Nay, who knows? he's here and
there.

But let him go; his devil goes with him,
As well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes.
John. What's that?

James. You saw the man-on Monday,
was it?

There by the humpback'd willow; half stands

up

And bristles; half has fall'n and made a bridge;
And there he caught the younker tickling trout-
Caught in flagrante--what's the Latin word?-
Delicto: but his house, for so they say,
Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook
The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors,
And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay'd:
The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs,
And all his household stuff; and with his boy
Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt,

Walking to the Mail

Walking Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him,

to the

Mail

What!

[ocr errors]

You're flitting!' Yes, we're flitting,' says

the ghost

H

(For they had pack'd the thing among the
beds,)
'Oh well,' says he, 'you flitting with us too—
Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again.'
John. He left his wife behind; for so I

heard.

James. He left her, yes. I met my lady

once :

A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs.

John. Oh yet but I remember, ten years

back

A

'Tis now at least ten years-and then she was-
You could not light upon a sweeter thing:
A body slight and round, and like a pear
In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot
Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin
As clean and white as privet when it flowers.
James. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and they
abot that loved

At first like dove and dove were cat and dog.
She was the daughter of a cottager,

Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and
pride, s

New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd
To what she is: a nature never kind! se V
Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they

ད་ ས

say.
Kind nature is the best: those manners next
That fit us like a nature second-hand; ba A
Which are indeed the manners of the great.

« PoprzedniaDalej »