PR 
 
 A- /If ^*^/ 
 
 _, Jl'OlfSff 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 4069.B3D4 
 
 The Derwent Valley, and other poems. 
 
 3 1924 013 211 176 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 321 1 1 76 
 
THE DERWENT VALLEY 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER BARRASS. 
 
 NBWCASTLE-0PON-TTKB : 
 FEINTED BY J. M. CAEK, CITY PRINTING WOEKS, 21, LOW FKIAE STREET. 
 
 1887. 
 
A- \*i-l 
 
 b-Sl 
 
preface. 
 
 The reception of books, like that of individuals, depends a 
 great deal on the manner in which they are introduced to the 
 parties with whom they are desirous of becoming acquainted. 
 Hence the necessity of writing, if not a lengthy, an exceedingly 
 courteous and explanatory preface, in which the new comer 
 may unriddle himself somewhat, and divulge the import of 
 >iig mission. 
 
 The following pages have employed me, incidentally, for 
 about five years, and are the first-fruits of an earnest love 
 awakened by the Valley whose name the first Poem bears. 
 In their composition I have aimed at self-improvement, as 
 much as self-amusement, and at the useful as much as the 
 ornamental ; and, for this purpose, I have added notes to the 
 longer Poem, which will not only enable the reader to appreciate 
 its historical element, but to pick his way to places of interest 
 should he visit the Vale. 
 
 Those of my readers who are acquainted with "Ryan's 
 History of Shotley Spa,'' and that beautiful little volume of 
 " Historical and Descriptive Poems '' and Notes, by my friend, 
 Mr. Joshua Lax, of Shotley Bridge, may not find much new 
 matter in my historical and legendary contribution to this 
 subject ; but they will find a few things here which are not to 
 be found in either of the above-mentioned works. And, 
 whenever I have been compelled to traverse the same ground 
 
PEEPACB. 
 
 with them, I have handled the facts in my own way, and 
 impressed the material with what originality I possess. 
 
 To the critical portion of my readers, I have only to say 
 that my Book may have, many blemishes ; but, after stating 
 that I have never been at school since I was nine years of 
 age, and that I never saw a grammar until I was nineteen, is 
 it*too much to hope — inhuman as this fraternity sometimes 
 is— that they will have sufficient good nature to excuse what 
 their good sense may see amiss ? 
 
 To Mr. Joshua Lax, whose rare abilities and genial 
 heartedness have made his name a household word on the 
 Derwent, and who placed in my hands, " Byam's History of 
 Shotley Spa," and his own unpublished Paper on the "Antiquities 
 of the Derwent Valley ; " and to Mr. John Rowell Waller, 
 who encouraged me in my poetical effi3rts, my especial thanks 
 are due. 
 
 And now I submit my Book to the hands of the public, and 
 especially to their hands who bear " the heat and burden of 
 the day,'' in the hope that it may fill, if not with thought, 
 with harmless employment, the vacant moments that come 
 after toil. 
 
 ALEXANDER BARRASS. 
 
3n^cJ:. 
 
 DEEWBNT VALLEY. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Dedication 3 
 
 Canto First 7 
 
 Dedication 45 
 
 Canto Second 48 
 
 Dedication 87 
 
 Canto Third 90 
 
 MINOR POEMS. 
 
 Drifting Away - j23 
 
 'The Old Man's Prayer j26 
 
 Never Say Die - - I34 
 
 Minnie : or a Blasted Life jgg 
 
 The Smile that Beams at Home 141 
 
 Our Quiet Hours I44 
 
 The Children of the Street 145 
 
 Life as it is - - l^g 
 
 Work- - . 151 
 
 The Harvester - - . ig^ 
 
 The Old Friends and the New I57 
 
 Baby Mine - - jgg 
 
 Tour ain bit Fireside - Igl 
 
 The Old Churchyard - 163 
 
 One by One - . Igg 
 
 In Memoriam - jko 
 
 Till Summer Smiles Again I73 
 
Tl. INDEX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Victor Hugo - - - 175 
 
 Virtue's Triumph 177 
 
 Home, Sweet Home - 178 
 
 Mammon to Ms Votaries - - 181 
 Sonnet. (Suggested by a visit to Bums' Mausoleum, Dumfries) 183 
 
 Sonnet. (After a visit to Bums' Monument, Glasgow, 1886) 184 
 
 New Year, 1886- 18& 
 
 Whence? Whither? - 187 
 
 Look Aloft - ■ 190- 
 
 Who are the Noble 1 192 
 
 Who will Fight for Freedom ? 194 
 
 Freedom 196 
 
 A Home Rule Song - 198 
 
 The Castle that stands on the Brow of the Side 202 
 
 A Hymn to the Night - 204 
 
 The Dawn of Love 206 
 
 Whoever sees her blesses her 208 
 
 Sigh on ye Soft Zephyrs - 209 
 
 Chopwell Woods 210 
 
 Come, my Betsy 213 
 
 Bet^y Bee - - 214 
 
 Spring . 215 
 
 Who shall Weep when I am Dead ? - • - 217 
 
 a 
 
THE DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 CANTO FIRST. 
 
 DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER. 
 
DeMcatfon. 
 
 My Mother! ;from the morning of my days 
 Thy hand hath held the sceptre of my heart, 
 And guided all the boy's impulsive ways 
 With that deep love whose memory shall impart 
 A joy that shall eternally exert 
 O'er heart and soul the magic of its power: 
 A joy which in the breast 'tis thrown athwart 
 Shall shine unclouded till the latest hour, 
 And wreathe the brow of Death with Hope's immortal flower ! 
 
 ! had thine eye refused its guiding light. 
 Thy lips their counsel and important cheer, 
 How had I groaned beneath my being's blight. 
 And earth had held no charms to hold me here! 
 But I have had thee ever smiling near 
 To guard my pathway like an earthly god! 
 And when the winds were high and storms were drear. 
 And waters deep and life incessant plod, 
 To aid and hand me up the way the wise have trod ! 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 And hence howe'er the Siren's music flowed 
 To lull my spirit into guilty sleep, 
 Thy tender toil on my young heart bestowed, 
 Still pointed me the path I was to keep, 
 And toiling for the harvest I shall reap, 
 From best heart-purpose to the highest given, 
 Have pressed my progress thus far up the steep, 
 To pluck some fruit — ^to have my fingers riven ! 
 To suffer and forgive — inflict and be forgiven ! 
 
 Then let me weave thy name into my song 
 And bind the garland 'round thine honoured brow ! 
 For here nor ambushed worm the flowers among, 
 Nor fcetid adulation, nor the hue 
 Of that detested mimic of the true. 
 Life-permeating love, infests the line ! — 
 The praise is faithful and the meed is due; 
 For who hath loved me with a love like thine. 
 Or who enthroned so high in this poor heart of mine? 
 
DKDICATION. 
 
 Friend of my heart, and guardian of my days ! 
 However mean th' unpolished verse may be; 
 Howe'er it wake the voice of blame or praise, 
 My best, my surest Patron is in thee. 
 For in the days of dawning memory, 
 Ere life's young morn had broadened into day, 
 Or while I prattled on thy parent knee, 
 Or danced my jocund round of childish play, 
 From thy sweet lips I leatned my rudinientary lay. 
 
 Thy boy's rude lines are thine ! For they are warm 
 With that pure life thou gavest; and have been. 
 To some choice hearts, a salutary charm. 
 And shall not mar the stranger's mirth, I ween. 
 Though other bards and loftier swathe the sheen 
 Of vale and plain in lays that humble this, 
 Was it for me to wade a mazy green 
 That all the best and brightest beauties kiss, 
 And hide within my heart my ravishment of bliss? 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 No ! Thou who tuned my heart to gratitude, 
 Told me that to be grateful, was to be 
 A wise partaker of the highest good : 
 And Mother! I have not dishonoured thee, 
 But acted out thy counsel. There may be 
 A shadow in my valley, and a pall 
 Of earthly trappings here and there to see 
 Black blending with the sunshine of my thrall; 
 But all the fair is thine ! the best and brightest all ! 
 
 And, ! that I could love thee more and more, 
 And with a love whose fondness matcheth thine ! 
 For, lo ! thy day is speeding swiftly o'er. 
 And soon shall come the closing scene of mine. 
 Nay ! ere is dry this dedicatory line. 
 And ere my vale has passed to other hands, 
 Thy spirit may have pinioned the divine. 
 And mine have bordered unfamiliar lands, 
 But life or death, thy name my heart's best love commands! 
 
tTbe 2)erwcnt \DaUe12. 
 
 CANTO FIRST. 
 
 Fair Derwent Vale! extending on the sight, 
 Thy wild, green woods, thy fields of teeming grain, 
 Where laughing maidens mingle high delight 
 With lowly toil— the weeding of the plain! 
 ! could I sheen thy glory in my strain. 
 Or tell the charms thy deepening shades afford. 
 This' unknown lyre had not been woke in vain. 
 But ears entranced had dwelt on every chord. 
 To catch the faintest sound of every glowing word! 
 
 But let that pass. The highest boon of Heaven, 
 The love-swathed soul, the bosom-burning song. 
 May not be lost, nor meanly, vainly given 
 To whom enraptured roams thy glens among. 
 And while these mingling morning glories throng 
 The blue transcendence of thy lovely skies, 
 My heart demands, thralled with emotions strong. 
 Which bloom and verdure bid alternate rise, 
 The tuning of my lute to Nature's Harmonies. 
 
THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Flow on, bright stream ! And while I smooth a seat 
 On thy green verge to watch thy winsome play, 
 And catch the cadence of thy liquid beat, 
 Blend thy soft music with my ruder lay ! 
 For I could sit and breathe my soul away 
 In one full song of warm and deathless love 
 Of these wild hills and wood-capp'd I survey. 
 Gazing in grandeur o'er the leafy grove, 
 Or mounting in their might man's meaner works above. 
 
 0, wild green hills ! Your mute society 
 Has weaned high spirits from the vulgar brood, 
 And fired them with sublimer piety 
 Than that which sways the common brotherhood. 
 To Kve among you is not to exclude 
 Ourselves from holy converse : the fresh heart 
 Is taught a wisdom in your solitude 
 Far deeper than that Pedagogues impart 
 Who gulp their worldly lore and deal it out by art 
 
CANTO FIRST. 
 
 To live among you is to scorn the strife, 
 The petty pride, the heart^corroding care. 
 That blight the blossom of our mortal life. 
 And make existence more than we can bear. 
 To live among you is to feel the air 
 All fresh and balmy on the open brow : 
 To live among you in a vale so fair 
 As this that I am gazing over now, 
 Is to imbibe a bliss that tongue can ne'er avow ! 
 
 0, wild green hills ! rehearse to me the history 
 Of all that you beheld in days of yore; 
 Of all the deeds of love and mystery 
 That you have gazed in placid silence o'er; 
 Of all the woes our nomad fathers bore. 
 Ere they had homes to shelter from the gale; 
 What was the import of their mystic lore? 
 How did they frame the woman-wooing tale? 
 Alas! ye silent hills! Alas! thou silent vale! ' 
 
10 THE DEEWBNT VALLEY. 
 
 How hard to dream as we behold thee now, 
 Nursed in this unstirred calm from east to west, 
 That ever war disturbed thy peaceful brow. 
 Or marshalled clashing armies o'er thy breast ! 
 That ever thou wert mentally distress'd, 
 Galled, bosom-tortured by a craven fear 
 Of phantom gods that would not let thee rest ! 
 And yet, as we trace backward year by year. 
 What bloody hours and bale black-crowd around us here! 
 
 Behold ! the nomad Britons rise around ! 
 The Muse commands their Druids, too, arise, 
 Prepare their altar on this bushy mound. 
 And whet their knife and strike the sacrifice. 
 And hark ! O God ! those agonizing cries ! 
 The crackling of these sacrificial fires! 
 Alas! upon this blazing altar lies 
 The ill-starr'd son atoning for his sires,* 
 And there he bleeds and burns, and inch by inch expires ! 
 
 * The Druids, the first religious sect that we read of in this country, 
 sacrificed human beings to their gods. " From Cassar we learn that in 
 cases of individuals being exposed to imminent danger, whether from 
 war or disease, it was customary to immolate human victims." "It 
 would be difficult to prove that these sacrifices were at all times human 
 victims, and yet as difficult to prove that they were not." — History of 
 Northwribria. 
 
CANTO FIRST. 11 
 
 And shall the dear oblation bleed in vain? 
 Hark ! the Diviner, who -with dripping hands, 
 Wrings out the answer from the heart of Pain* — ' 
 Pain that consumes the soul o'er which he stands ! — 
 Who, while the vacant, glazing eye expands, 
 The wild pulse quivers in its latest play. 
 Proclaims aloud to congregated bands. 
 How this heart-harrowing maniac-display 
 Has pleased offended gods and banished man's dismay ! 
 
 Ah, me ! How man has tortured heart and brain 
 ' To quench the smouldering hell that burns within ! 
 What heifers, bullocks, mortals have been slain 
 To purge his soul from that foul taint of sin 
 Which turns his life to gall! Who jeer and grin 
 And deem the doctrine of a dying god 
 Invention's hoax, old Fable's cheat and din. 
 Is it not strange, if Sin demands not blood. 
 That men should dream it did and spill the vital flood? 
 
 * The wodut operandi of Druidical Sacrifice is too well known to 
 need much comment. But by those who may have forgotten, and those 
 who are not yet aoquiiinted with this particular phase of the unhappy 
 business, the following note may not be ruled out of place : " The 
 Diviner inferred the pleasure or displeasure of the gods they were 
 propitiating, from the contortions and death-throes, &o., &o., of their 
 yiotixa." —History of NoHhiimiria. 
 
12 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 But Derwent, turning once again to thee, 
 Whose sun-rayed ripples these broom blossoms lave, 
 Where, where is now thy guardian deity, 
 The god whose shrine was thine own glassy wave? 
 Have not the young, the old, the meek, the brave,. 
 All in devotion knelt on this green sod? 
 Deemed they the offerings fruitless which they gave? 
 Or such as might appease thy latent god. 
 Secure his guardian care, avert his chastening rod? 
 
 Whence hath he fled, my river and my theme? 
 Thy bosom is as sheeny as of yore. 
 And thy fresh banks with richer harvests teem 
 Than when he deigned thy waters to explore. 
 Whence hath he fled? Entranced I've scanned thy shore 
 Ere Sol's first beams have warmed the laverock's nest, 
 And after he has burned the welkin o'er, 
 And burnished blazing grandeur on the west, ' 
 But ne'er beheld that god thy votaries once address'd.* 
 
 * " These Druid teachers and their flocks had lords many and gods 
 many, for besides many deities somewhat similar to those of Pagan 
 Greece and Eome, each mountain, forest, spring, and lake had its 
 tutelary divinity ; and it is supposed, though perhaps it may be but 
 
 supposed, that all these were worshipped with sacrifice and prayer " 
 
 Sistory of Nortlmmbria. 
 
CANTO FIRST. 13 
 
 Whence hath he fled? Imbued with silent grief, 
 And when the heart has danced to songs of joy; 
 When Spring's young kiss spread beauty o'er the leaf, 
 And Summer woke the world to rapture high; 
 When wealthy Autumn cheered the farriier's eye, 
 And Winter mantled o'er the daisy's bed: 
 In every mood, beneath all hues of sky. 
 Thy lovely banks have echoed to my tread. 
 But shade ! or sprite ! or god ! Dear stream, whence hath he fled ? 
 
 Whence hath he fled? Dark in the minds of men 
 Rose this black phantom of that mental night, 
 Whose shadow shall not pall thy scenes again. 
 Since they have basked beneath a day more bright. 
 And felt the thrill of holier delight! 
 "Even gods must yield, religions take their turn;"* 
 But just such gods as flee before the light 
 Of Truth supernal! "Shrines no longer burn,"* 
 Which are not His who blasts all falsehoods with his scorn! 
 
 * Btroit. 
 
14 THE DBEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Man shall not grope in gloom for evermore : 
 The Wisdom-hand that framed the thinking mind, 
 Still leads him up, through all the vague before, 
 From peak to peak with broader truths-beams lined, 
 Till mounting which commands the whole behind — 
 The fable-faiths, the long-discarded lies, — 
 As we gaze back and deem our fathers blind, 
 So inay our children's more enlightened eyes. 
 Deem our most priestly creeds huge faith-deformities. 
 
 Where is the priest of Albion's infant days? 
 His sacred beard and beads no longer flow! 
 Her antique Bard of sacerdotal lays? 
 His broken harp is silent now and low ! 
 The hand that with fresh hearts made altars glow? 
 The Fear that worshipped Frenzy? In the dust! 
 Those lies have gone, and other lies shall go. 
 That spread their glozen hues o'er human trust : 
 Ah, yes ! Man's creed of love has yet to conquer lust. 
 
CANTO FIRST. 15 
 
 But creeds ! the puzzled world is vexed with creeds ! 
 The meanest quack may coin his dogma new, 
 And flaunt the fancy till the few he leads, 
 Toss their wise heads and crow the little "view" 
 That they — they are the god's anointed few, 
 That Heaven was built for them, and only them ; 
 And Hell— Hell— But, chaotic creeds, adieu ! 
 There may be virtue in your garment's hem. 
 Yet, give to me the stars in Beauty's diadem. 
 
 And thou whose heart grows sated of the town. 
 And sighs for scenes beyond the busy street, 
 The cross of life for one brief day lay down, 
 And follow whither I shall lead thy feet ! 
 While this loud quack, that smooth commercial cheat. 
 Yon sense-thralled dotard and his tipsy queen. 
 The low and loathsome lies of life repeat. 
 And, wanton, welter in their ways unclean. 
 Our eyes shall drink the bliss of Derwent's fairy scene. 
 
16 THE DEEWBNT VALLEY. 
 
 Come with me. Morning's balm is in the air, 
 And Beauty spans the azure cope of sky; 
 Shall youthful hearts assign themselves to care, 
 When hours, days, years, like lightning flashes fly. 
 And heedless all of mortal grief or joy? 
 What lavish rapture laughing Nature yields ! 
 And we shall revel in the rich supply. 
 And haunt the woods, the valleys, floods, and fields, 
 Till we have sheathed our swords and laid aside^ our shields ! 
 
 Come with me, and the lamb's engaging play 
 Shall teach us wisdom as we rove the mead; 
 ' The throstle's loud, the laverock's soothing lay — 
 Framed not to fit the dogma of a creed. 
 But rising purely from a sense of need, 
 And seiise of gratitude for need supplied^ 
 Shall purge our bosoms of the thoughts that breed 
 The moping doubt, the philosophic pride. 
 And turn our hearts to God whose hands for all provide ! 
 
CAJfTO FIRST. 17 
 
 Come with me, and if I may be thy guide 
 Our hearts shall hold communion with the flowers; 
 And with such bright companions by thy side, 
 What sense of earth shall cloy the happy hours? 
 And Derwent stealing by her hazel bowers. 
 Shall make us music as her bants we rove, 
 And dance as though she felt in strains of ours. 
 The warm and melting harmony of love : 
 Come, all is sheen below, and all is calm above ! 
 
 On, on we go by ruins old and hoary 
 That frowning, fling their shadows o'er our way. 
 And breathe in silent eloquence the story 
 Of what they were in ages past away. 
 And, as they moulder in sublime decay. 
 The moral of our visionary state: 
 That man, howe'er he vaunt subhmer clay, 
 Howe'er he hide behind the title — great. 
 Shall crumble 'neath the heel of steady-marching Fate. 
 
18 THE DEEWEST VALLEt. 
 
 Away ! away ! The valley stretches far, 
 But hearts all hope, stout limbs and nimble feet 
 Shall speed us o'er the distance like a car 
 Whirled by a charger fiery and fleet! 
 And O ! the wild bee-haunted fells, replete 
 With heather-bloom and Beauty's varied ray. 
 Hold rapture for the gaze! Sublime and sweet 
 Shall be the record of this pleasing day. 
 Beneath whose sunny smile we urge our lovely way. 
 
 But stop ! The scene commands — 0, peerless charm 
 Behold the biU-environ'd Blanchland smile! 
 The stretch of laden acres and the farm, 
 That teU the joys of self -rewarding toil! 
 Here, mother earth, thy grandeur may beguile 
 The swain enamoured of the loved embrace ! 
 And sorrow's son reclining here awhile. 
 And seeing oaly gladness on thy face, 
 May feel his pain assuaged and bless the holy place ! 
 
CANTO FIEST. 19 
 
 O, bowery Blanchland!* Pilgrim gaze around 
 On all these glowing glories! Gaze again, 
 And thou shalt deem this no unhallow'd ground! 
 Behold the field aglow with ripening grain, 
 The flowery fell, the woodland and the plain. 
 The shaggy crag, the hill's commanding height ! 
 Gaze and the scene shall warm thy throbbing brain. 
 And thrill thy bosom with a wild delight, — 
 Wild, and like poet's dream unutterably bright ! 
 
 And when thy heart — these wild arcades explored — 
 
 Glows with supernal and substantial joy; 
 
 And when thy mind with fervid feeling stirr'd, 
 
 Is frained for musings hallow'd and high, 
 
 Gaze on this crude, monastic masonry,t 
 
 Past crumbling now beneath the touch of Time, 
 
 Which to the surface-glance of idle eye. 
 
 Is scarcely worth the tribute of a rhyme. 
 
 But ■vshich, to deeper ken, is rich with lore sublime. 
 
 * Blanchland, one of the most picturesque places in the valley, is 
 situated on the left bank of the Derwent, about two miles from its 
 source, nine miles from Stanhope, and about ten from Shotley Bridge. 
 Hidden deep down in the valley, you have no indication of its where- 
 abouts until you are immediately above it, and, approEched as it is, by a 
 road over bleak moorlands, you light upon the unexpected oasis as a 
 sweet surprise. The river is crossed by a bridge. " Near it are the 
 village, built round a little square, which is entered by an old batfcle- 
 mented gateway, and the ancient church, with its heavy massive 
 tower." — Murray's Nortlmmberland and DurJiam. 
 
 ■j- " A Convent of Premonstratension Monks founded by Walter de 
 
20 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 These old, rude walls are relics of a fane, 
 That held high hearts in silent sanctitude; 
 And here they poured the prayer and matin strain, 
 And -won the meed that waits upon the good. 
 For it was theirs to blend in brotherhood 
 And make the sum of human evils less; 
 To stem the ignominious passion-flood. 
 And bathe the wounds of sorrow and distress. 
 And light the path of life with hope and happiness. 
 
 O ! labour blest, when thus engaging man ! 
 Why do we spurn thy rich and rare reward. 
 To fret and groan and writhe beneath the ban. 
 That makes our ways so thorny and so hardj 
 When selfish pride is all we need discard 
 To purify affection's holy spring. 
 And make existence sweet as song of bird. 
 As bright as butterfly upon the wing. 
 And pure as infant's dream and chaste imagining ! 
 
 BoLBBCK, in 1175, and afterwards enriched by the gifts of the Nevilles. 
 It was connected with the Abbey of Beverley, but little is known of it6 
 history. The existing Church of St. Mary the Virgin is only a remnant 
 of a much larger building, of which traces may still be seen on the E. 
 It is of a strange form, the principal portion running K. and S. ; an 
 immense transept, to which the choir is attached at one end and the 
 tower at the other. A baptistery was added on the S.E., in 1844. The 
 interior is lofty and striking, but when bought by Lord Crewe, in 
 1721, was roofless, and almost a ruia." — Murray. 
 
CANTO FIEST. 21. 
 
 Enough ! The muse evades the saddening theme. 
 Their lives in Alba Landa's* holy dome, 
 Flow'd sweetly, as in summer days, the stream 
 Meanders by the ruins of their home. 
 Till those inured in plundering raids to roam — 
 I tell the story that tradition tells — 
 
 ' Blent, on these heights, malignant joy and foam, 
 And savage laughter with the chime of bells, 
 
 That led them to their spoils athwart the realm of fells. 
 
 From wanderings wild and filled with foul and feud, 
 And dripping shrines aglow with human gore. 
 To startle this supernal solitude 
 With damning deed they came ! And o'er and o'er 
 The hiUs that, purple-bloSsom'd, base the shore. 
 They roamed and nursed their ignominious wiU, 
 Till cursing loud the luck that held the oar. 
 And lone and lost among the moorla,nds still. 
 The Convent bells rang out on wUd Dead Friar's Hill ! 
 
 * Name of the Abbey. 
 
22 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 They came ! the nameless, bloody men, they came ! 
 Whose long-nursed vengeance stilled the voice of prayer; 
 Whose eyes red-gleaming with a frenzied flame, 
 Glared, gloating round on treasures rich and rare; 
 Whose hands assigned to silence and despair, 
 The plundered temple and the sainted dead ! 
 They came, and lo ! the monks are lying there. 
 As heedless now of man's inhuman tread, 
 As of these flowers that fling their fragrance o'er their bed ! * 
 
 Time, rolling on the eternal tide of years. 
 Huge-laden with the legacy of pain. 
 That floods the earth with lava-streams of tears 
 And blots her beauty with their burning rain, — 
 Time, holds in his dull, fathomless domain, 
 All that they were, and all to them akin : 
 The fragments of their Abbey that remain. 
 Are yon dark arch, and hospitable inn. 
 Where farmers o'er brown jugs create such merry din!+ 
 
 * " Tradition informs us that a raid of Scots who came to plunder 
 the Convent were unable to find it on account of its secluded situation, 
 but that when they arrived at the spot which is still called " Bead 
 Friar's Hill," they heard the Blanohland bells, which the monks were 
 alreaijy ringing for joy at their deliverance, and, following the sound, 
 were guided to the Convent, and slaughtered the vaoviks."— Murray. 
 
 •fWhether there is any truth in this tradition or not, we have, at 
 any rate, historical evidence that it was burned down ; and that it was 
 in ruins in less than two hundred years after it was founded by 
 
CANTO FIRST. 23 
 
 But deem not thou because the broken dome, 
 Vibrates no more with music's merry chimes, 
 That worship perished with her ruined home. 
 Howe'er she wept the sacrilegious crimes, 
 Her cause triumphant sped; and other times 
 Brought Wesley here to tell her burning story— 
 As musical as are his brother's rhymes. 
 Fired at Golgotha, the sublime and gory ! — 
 And, like a second Paul, the cross was aU his glory ! 
 
 His glory, and exceeding noble meed : 
 For if to stir the passive multitude. 
 Awake in men the love of noble deed, 
 And aU the lovely attributes of good : 
 To give them thoughts that soothe their solitude. 
 And bend them heaven-ward as we bend a reed. 
 And make our name to men of every mood 
 A mem'ry blest, if this be noble meed. 
 Then Weslhy's fame be mine, for his is fame indeed! 
 
 Walteb db Bolbbck. The gateway, and the refrectory, now converted 
 into an inn — are all that remain of the original structure. For the 
 Bake of some of my readers, I mig'ht say here that Dr. Ellis speaks of 
 this inn as being very comfortable, and recommends Blanohland very 
 highly as a health resort, 
 
24- THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Thus round this pile what mingling memories crowd! 
 What good men raised, the bad laid crumbling low; 
 What heard the faith devoted monks avowed, 
 Heard the sublimer innovation flow 
 From Pope and prelate's most inveterate foe;* 
 And long decades ere monk or monkish creed, 
 Had even dreamt of his protestant blow, 
 Around these walls, or in the adjacent mead. 
 The proud young Edwaed watched his wild war chargers feed ! t 
 
 Ay! ere the brave Black Douglas, J fighting, fell. 
 Or cast among the unbelieving hordes. 
 The heart he prized so wisely and so well. 
 These miles were made to bristle with the swords, 
 Of England's proud, and Scotland's sturdy lords : 
 For lo ! the redshanks, § stern, revengeful, came. 
 And, breathing high disdain and braggart words. 
 Wrapt fair Northumbria's scattered farms in flame, 
 And bade the brave young King defend his menaced claim. 
 
 • Wesley is said to have preached standing on a stone beside the 
 ruined abbey. 
 
 f It was on his way to meet Douglas and Moray who, carrying out 
 the oommandment of Robert Beuce, were wasting Northumberland, 
 that the young King, Edward III., turned his horses to feed in the 
 fields near the monastery, which, the historian informs us, "was 
 burned," and " which was called, in King Arthur's time, Blanchland." 
 
 J " I cannot tell," said an English soldier, " what is to happen here, 
 but, somehow, I haVe great fear of the Black Douglas playing us some 
 
CANTO FIRST. 
 
 25 
 
 But though the tale of Edwaed's first campaign 
 May well employ the mind that muses here, 
 The Bay Bridge woods engage the gaze again, 
 And lavish round us more enchanting cheer. 
 Or if old story big with fate and fear, 
 Divert thy vision from the sheen of earth. 
 Behold the vault that, ghastly gaping near, 
 Tells dubious deeds of eld to Hunstanworth,ir 
 And yawnswhere mouldering hearts are hushed to joyand mirth ! 
 
 But see ! the sun is mounting high. 
 
 And we must haste away. 
 Else other charms that wait the eye. 
 
 Shall not be seen to-day. 
 'Tis ours to rove where beauty dwells. 
 
 And as we hie along, 
 Our voice shall ring among the fells. 
 
 And this shall be the song: 
 
 triok." A moment later, and the doughty Scotoliman was in the heart 
 of Bdwakd's camp callmg out: "a Douglas! a Douglas! English 
 thieves, ye are all dead men!" His journey to Jerusalem with the 
 heart of BE0CE ; the memorable Incident of his throwing that heart 
 into the ranks of the infidels to inspire his followers ; the fate that 
 befell him, etc., are facts well known to even moderate readers. 
 
 § The Soots, not content with eating Northumbria's cattle in this case, 
 made " shoon " of the hides, " fitting them to their feet and ankles while 
 raw, with the hair outwards ; so that, from this cause, the English 
 called them the rough-footed Scots and red-shanks." 
 
 ^"Hunstan worth is about one mile S.W. of Blanchland. In the 
 
26 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 0, Derwent chaste, enchanting view! 
 
 What sight is half so fair, 
 When flowers array'd in summer hue 
 
 Deluge thy balmy air? 
 In field and grove, in grot and cove, 
 
 A thousands spells abide, 
 That bind the soul with soft control 
 
 To lovely Derwentside. 
 
 From daisied mead the laverock springs 
 
 Swift-pinioned to the sky, 
 As flooding on the ear it flings 
 
 The fulness of its joy. 
 From bush and rill and tufted hill, 
 
 There flows a genial tide 
 Of life and light and rapture bright. 
 
 That thrills the Derwentside, 
 
 Churchyard here, is a. very extraordinary arched vault, forty-five feet 
 long and twenty-five feet wide, turfed over, which has probably beea 
 used for securing goods and cattle during the Scottish raids. 
 
CANTO PIEST. 27 
 
 Athwart her banks the children run 
 
 Loud-laughing in their glee, 
 As though their sunny lives were one 
 
 Unbroken jubilee! 
 And maid and swain parade the plain, 
 
 Or in the gloaming, glide 
 To some fair scene that lies between 
 
 The world and Derwentside ! 
 
 O, Spring eternal, bless her shades 
 
 With never-fading, bloom! 
 Forever be her wild arcades 
 
 Prolific of perfume! 
 Bright be her groves with human loves 
 
 By no privation tried ! 
 And all of worth that glads the earth. 
 
 Adorn the Derwentside. 
 
28 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 How mean the sordid soul, who, groping low, 
 Feels in his heart no warm emotions rise, 
 When gazing on the earth's supernal glow, 
 Or on the deep, blue depths of smiling skies ! 
 What sight may charm his self-inverted eyes. 
 Or what awake the fine ethereal thrill, — 
 The high delights, the sweetly pensive joys, 
 That with such fulness finer bosoms fill, 
 By gurgling wqodland burn, or babbling mountain rill? 
 
 High-towering hUls, chaste meads, gay-blooming fells 
 And grazing herds around the quiet farm ! 
 Green-mantled woods, grim crags, and ferny dells, 
 To feeling hearts how potent is your charm ! 
 When lost with you no ills of life alarm. 
 No clashing factions rufile or oppose; 
 Beneath your sway even love breathes doubly warm. 
 And genius with a finer fervour glows. 
 Or feels that blissful calm the heart's serene repose. 
 
CANTO FIRST. 29 
 
 Behold the circumambient miles of bloom! 
 The fells! the wild and purple-mantled fells! 
 The blushing world of heather and perfume, 
 Where man, in blest conditions, normal dwells; 
 And pure and simple as the tale he tells, 
 Oblivious to the chaos and the crush 
 Of life within the sound of city bells, 
 May dream and drink the balm of bloom and bush. 
 At day's delicious dawn or sunset's golden flush, 
 
 Eden I Eden I * Friend, can you believe 
 That this lone home is Eden, which you see 
 That here a late-born Adam and an Eve, 
 Bask in the light of all the joys that be 
 Wrapt up in rural life's simplicity? 
 Sheened in thy memory bear the scene away; 
 'Twill bear thee most supernal company, 
 And gem the seething eddies grave and gay 
 That circle city life with one transcendent ray. 
 
 * There is -d, small, solitary cottage standing on the Fells, between 
 Blanohland and Edmondbyers, named after the sublime inheritance 
 humanity has deplored so much. I have been informed, too, that the 
 Adam and Eve mentioned above, are real personages, and the keepers 
 of this Eden. Our readers may visit the place and ascertain for them- 
 selves. But let the visit be in the summer or early autumn, and they 
 will be amply repaid, for the surrounding Fells are positively charming 
 about this time. 
 
30 THE DEEWElfT VALLEY. 
 
 O, how transcendent may his rapture be, 
 When all the voices of the f eUs are mute, 
 Who drinks the music of her ministry. 
 Here, with no other spirit to impute, 
 A single chord, unpleasing, to her lute! 
 But flaming sword ! and subtle serpent foe ! 
 And sinful palate! and forbidden fruit! 
 That blasted pristine Eden's virgin blow, 
 O'er this as over that their shades are sure to throw ! 
 
 But on ! The heart refuses to forget 
 The time-asserting dial of the sky: 
 Scenes unsurveyed and joys ungathered yet, 
 Await the salutation of the eye. 
 But ere we pass this straggling hamlet by, 
 That greets the pilgrim with such dreamy mien. 
 The dawn of one delightful memory,* 
 Bright as a sun-ray'd lake verged round with green. 
 Invites a pause and glads the bosom with its sheen. 
 
 * The author preached here some time ago. 
 
CANTO flfeST. 31 
 
 Behold the hale and hearty Eflmondbyers,* 
 The homes of sunny hearts and open hands; 
 Homes undisturbed by passion's wilder fires, 
 And rich -with all that simple life commands. 
 The soul that breathes among these rustic bands 
 Is touched by no contaminating liv^es : 
 Transparent as the dew-drops on their lands, 
 And natural as the bees that crowd their hives. 
 Are these unpolished sires, sons, maidens, mothers, wives! 
 
 These are the lives that mother nature makes 
 To shame the bunghng workmanship of man; 
 And wisdom hails the happy heart that takes 
 For earnest use her model and her plan ! 
 For what is all th' unsocial break and ban 
 Of lives conventional, compared with these? 
 The gay "Sir Sophs" may laud the town that can, 
 .Ind pander to the palate as they please. 
 But men are happier here with buttermilk and cheese! 
 
 * Edmondbyers, a quaint, old-fashioned, country place, containing not 
 more, I should think, than abont fifty houses, stands about three miles- 
 and-half from Blanchland, and about six-and-a-half from Shotley 
 Bridge. British, Anglo-Saxon, and other remains have been found 
 here, proving it to be a Settlement of very ancient date. But what 
 will interest the visitor most, if his antiqua,rian proclivities be not very 
 much in the ascendency, will be the character of the people he comes 
 in contact with, and, if he visit it in the summer or early autumn, the 
 beauty of surrounding scenery. 
 
32 THE DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Lo! that firm step, bronze cheek, and open brow; 
 The unmarred beauty of that sturdy limb; 
 Who owns them bears the soil stains of the plough;. 
 And yet, what city gent precise and prim, 
 Feels half the fresh warm life that glows in him 1 
 Behold his lass undecked with bagatelles : 
 Not all the painted Madams' art can trim, 
 Bears half the bloom, feels half th' emotion-swells : 
 Here men are men, not Beaux, and maids are maids, not Belles J 
 
 0, woman ! man's Uf e-sweetener, sole earth-star ! 
 The queen that rules the empire of his heart. 
 How fraught with power thy peerless beauties are 
 How deep th' abiding joy-thrill they impart! 
 Then why add hue to hue and art to art, 
 To gain and sway whom thou hast always swayed? 
 More, more of thy soul-soothing self assert, 
 But in thine own sweet native bloom arrayed. 
 For art can give no charms like those that nature made. 
 
CANTO FIRST. 33 
 
 And man, creative man, whose shaping hand, 
 Has for thy world such high achievements wrought, 
 What rare adornments scattered o'er the land. 
 Are teeming with thy poetry of thought ! 
 But why the mundane to proportion brought. 
 Should thus employ thy best imaginings. 
 While Chaos-life with such confusion fraught, 
 Mars the sublimer harmony of things, 
 Has foiled my logic oft and clipp'd my muse's wings ! 
 
 But, once again, behold the smiling miles. 
 That spread their wealth of beauty on the view; 
 And we must wade their sunny maze of smiles. 
 If we would haunt the park of Prior Hugh;* 
 Or learn the tale of Waed's romantic shoe;+ 
 Or trace the art of Lough's apprentice hand; J 
 Or roll the vision o'er enchantment new, 
 Ere sullen Eve has raised her magic wand. 
 And dashed the vision out that shimmers o'er the land. 
 
 * Prior Hugh enclosed a park at Muggleswick, ia the thirteenth 
 century. 
 
 t Edwaed Wakd, a gigantic hunter, who is buried here. Tradition 
 says that his favourite hound littered in his wooden shoe. 
 
 t Lough's first attempt at Sculpture was an angel's head, with 
 drapery, on a plain stone, in memory of Jane, daughter of John and 
 ^NN Mayor, f his is still to he seen at Muggleswick, 
 
34 THE DKBWKNT VALLEY. 
 
 Hail! hail, the wilds Mosstroopers roamed of yore!— 
 We rove enraptured our engaging way, 
 To delve the mines of legendary lore. 
 Or sniflf the scent of primrose patches gay; 
 For in these woods, and in that wilder day, 
 When- lawless minds essayed no beaten track. 
 But loved adventure as they loved the prey 
 They hugged, transported, on their journey back. 
 Have planned their purpose fell full many a savage pack I 
 
 Ay ! here they ran, the tameless and the wild, 
 
 The doughty and indomitable raid. 
 
 Who looked on frowning danger till she smiled, 
 
 Or in their hearts a frenzied gladness made; 
 
 Or till their blind contempt of fear betrayed 
 
 And hurled them headlong into waiting gins : 
 
 Else Muggleswick, the hapless priest that said 
 
 The Litany o'er thy sorrows and thy sins,* 
 
 Had not been huddled through this maze of leaves and whins ! 
 
 * In January. 1528. a band of border thieves " headed by a William. 
 a Charlton or Willie, a Shotlyngton, ' entered the bishopric of 
 Durham, robbed a number of persons in the neighbourhood of 
 Wolsingham, and daringly carried off the priest of Muggleswick with 
 them as a prisoner. They fell into the hands of the law at Haydon 
 Bridge. Charlton and Henry Noble, his chief coadjutor, were 
 killed ; two others called Armstkong and Dodbb, were taken prisoners. 
 Armstrong was hung in chains, near Newcastle; Dodde at Alnwick. 
 The bodies of Charlton and Noble were also hung in chains ; the 
 former at Hexham, the latter at Haydon Bridge. Of what became of 
 the poor priest the historian gives us no Intelligence. 
 
CANTO FIRST. 35 
 
 But O ! the shimmering sheen of hazel dells ! 
 "Tis not for us to waste the beaming hours, 
 With mouldering page of hazy chronicles, 
 When such a volume of resplendent bowers. 
 Invites the eye, heart, soul, and all the powers 
 Of soul, the ear, and every 'wakened sense, 
 To read, and learn the rapture that endures. 
 And with such deluge of sweet eloquence. 
 As melts the wondering man with gratitude intense ! 
 
 How rich and rank the green woods stretch away! 
 How fair the lovely prospect and how fine 
 That sheened its charms in Caer's* enduring lay ! 
 And- — O ye Numbers and Seraphic Nine ! 
 Give me a Muse to mirror them in mine ! 
 For these are scenes from which a bard may reap. 
 Thoughts that are raptures, dreams that are divine ! 
 And O, heart-heaven ! could Memory only keep 
 Forever glassed within the elysium of the Sneepit 
 
 *JoHN Care, LL.D., of, Muggleswick, author of an ode to the 
 Derwent. 
 
 t The Derwent, in the neighbourhood of Muggleswick, makes a sharp 
 bend round a point of land called "the Sneep," which is, perhaps, the 
 finest piece of scenery in the valley. " The word is supposed to be from 
 the old Norse "snappa" or "snoppa," a beak. A similar point in 
 Redesdale, at the junction of Tarset-bum with Hunter's-bum, is called 
 the Snipe, which name is also given to the north eastern point of Holy 
 Island," —Palmer's Tyne and its Tributaries, 
 
36 ' THE DERWBNT VALLEY. 
 
 Hark ! how the lark flings gratitude around, 
 As like a speck he flutters in the blue ! 
 And all the mingled melody of sound 
 From copse and cove resounds the valley through ! 
 How rich the balms that valley-bi-eeze imbue! 
 How all-enthralling nature's modest mien ! 
 Had man, her child, and heir of moments few. 
 Been half in concert with her dazzling sheen, 
 His wailing note of woe had ne'er been heard, I ween ! 
 
 Ye joyous birds ! ye incense-breathing flowers 
 Whose spreading blooms indulge the thrifty bee ! 
 That fill with joy, or charm the children's hours, 
 With wholesome play, or healthy vacancy ! 
 O ! could our liveS' with yours in concert flee, 
 And ours and your bhaste pleasures be the same. 
 How fair the sky of our felicity ! 
 For, O, the heart that mortal has to tame, 
 Needs sorrow's sifting fan, and dross-refining flame ! 
 
CANTO FIRST. 37 
 
 Gaze on the earth, companion of my way: 
 Gaze on the azure canopy above: 
 The meanest thing and highest you survey, 
 Cries God's creation revels in His love. 
 Is there a blot that wisdom would removes 
 In all this wide expanse of universe? 
 Hark ! hear the answer winging from the grove. 
 Where hymning birds their little loves rehearse. 
 And that loud answer is — Sin's all consuming curse! 
 
 A curse that sears the heart and brands the brow, 
 With that the very sunbeams blush to kiss; 
 That bids us sigh for worlds we cannot view, 
 When we should find our Paradise in this ! 
 For say, would mortal dream of future bliss? 
 Build his elysium in the field of air? 
 Or fable the unfathomable abyss, 
 If men were worthy of a world so fair? 
 Oh, God! erase the blot Thy groaning cre3,tures bear! 
 
38 THE DERWEKT VALLEY. 
 
 Luxuriant wood, green shade and spangled plain, . 
 That laughed beneath the fire of Lough's* young eye, 
 And glassed such beauty in his busy brain, 
 As, when with something of a farmer's joy, 
 He watched his scattered seed upspringing high ! 
 Associated with so bright a birth, 
 And linked with such a star-like destiny, 
 Well may you bid the bounding heart go forth. 
 And hail the God that spread such glory o'er the earth ! 
 
 Was.it not great in one of birth so mean. 
 To take up life in these unlettered ways. 
 And make it shimmer with transcendent sheen, 
 Born out of darkness into noonday blaze? 
 'Twas! Such high lives are healing as the rays 
 Of vernal suns to invalid mankind : 
 For shivering the clay sceptre Mammon sways, 
 They cast its muddy fragments to the wind. 
 And speed triumphant on the marches of the mind. 
 
 * John Graham Lough, the Sculptor, who was born at Gtreenhead, 
 about three miles from Shotley Bridge, served his apprenticeship as a 
 Stonemason, did some farm work, and grew up to manhood in this 
 vicinity. " He sprang, like many others in whom the fire of creative 
 thought has burned so brightly, from very humble parents. At a com- 
 paratively early age, he was busily engaged in helping to contribute to 
 the family coffers. Like BuBNS, he followed the plough, and long 
 before the distinctive bent of his talents had manifested itself, had 
 done many a hard day's field work, winning therefrom, in after years, 
 that keen sympathy with nature which gave to his lighter imaginative 
 
CANTO FIRST. 39 
 
 For mark the path by which his lofty mind 
 Aspiring, sought the sunlit peaks of fame : 
 What stubborn bars by adverse powers assigned 
 Rose frowning 'tween the genius and his aim ! 
 Friend, if you envy an immortal name. 
 Or want a source from which the soul inay quaff 
 An inspiration suffering cannot tame, 
 Peruse the page that limns the Ufe of Lough, 
 And learn what galling gyves his climbing soul shook off ! 
 
 For only who delve deeply understand 
 By what stern force we make high objects ours ; 
 How we must scatter with unflagging hand, 
 If we would pluck life's luscious fruits and flowers. 
 And, 0, to tread the winepress of the hours. 
 To sqeeze sour sorrow till it yield sweet joy, 
 Is not for weak possessors of great powers. 
 Or wills that any wind may turn awry, 
 Else one Lough's life had been less tinctured with alloy. 
 
 erections, a delicacy to be caught only from the spirit of the wood and 
 the fell. He died April 8, 1876." 
 
 A catalogue of the Lough Models may be had in Elswick Hall, 
 Els wick Park, Newcastle, where the principal of his works are 
 deposited. 
 
40 'THE DEEWENT VAtLEY. 
 
 For he, too, was a proteus of high gifts:* 
 The sculptor, poet, painter, blent in him: 
 But his was that wild music-soul that lifts 
 Weak minds to dizzy heights, where shadows grim 
 Are creatures palpable that gibe and limn 
 Fantastic tangledoms, and people those 
 With terror-glories indistinct and dim. 
 But peace ! ay, peace, the grave has soothed his woes, 
 And impious hearts no more shall ruffle his repose. 
 
 The scenes which, all enchanting, threw their spell 
 O'er old King Arthur, who in dreamy state. 
 Abides for ever caverned in this dell; 
 Or till the subtle hand that fixed his fate 
 Dispels the dear delusion ! + Where, elate, 
 The doughty Rowley's blustering dame espied, J 
 Her lord' come home with Hodge's live estate. 
 And proudly, loudly "Well done, Rowley !" cried; 
 " When dost thou gang again?" Most avaricious bride! 
 
 * Tom Lough, brother to the great sculptor, a truly wonderful 
 individual, who had all his brother's abilities except one — the faculty 
 to guide them. He was poet, painter, and musician combined, and 
 might have succeeded as any one of these ; but — and that iut in poor 
 Tom's case meant something — he might have said with Prince Henby 
 of the "Golden Legend :" — 
 
 " holy Father ! pardon in me 
 The oscillation of a mind 
 TTnsteadf ast, and that cannot find 
 Its centre of rest and harmony.'' 
 
CANTO FIRST. 41 
 
 The scenes prolific of such lavish joy, 
 "Where facts of such (Jissimilar fates are stored, 
 We, often lingering, breathe a warm good-bye, 
 To haunt the heights that laugh on Allansford. 
 Hark! now the miU's dissonant sound is heard; 
 And gleams the white spray on the busy wheel : 
 Around, a thousand lovely things accord; 
 The cot, the shingled shore, the river's reel. 
 To natures such as ours heart-sheening truths reveal. 
 
 How rich the wood, how green the grassy mound, 
 
 Where sleeps the once indomitable Raw, § 
 
 And where, asylumed safe, he gazed around, 
 
 And, toiling through the scenes surrounding, saw 
 
 The coming plunder, or the searching law ! 
 
 What though unconsecrated memory 
 
 May hold a thousand feebler souls in awe? 
 
 He slumbers there beneath his chosen tree. 
 
 And who, wherever laid, may sleep more sound than he ? 
 
 f There is a deep cavern near the Sneep, in which King Aethuk, with 
 several of his horsemen and their horses are said to he in a trance, all 
 equipped and ready to march to regain his kingdom, when the time 
 appointed — which is now very near — shall arrive, and the enchantment 
 he broken. — Ryan, 
 
 X Rowley Hareison, a mosstrooper, driving home eight cows and a 
 bull, was met by his wife, who said : '■ Well done, Rowley ! When 
 dost thou gang again ! " He was buried outside Muggleswick church- 
 yard, September, 1712. — Myan. 
 
 § On the crest of the hill, immediately opposite Allansford, is the 
 
42 THE derwent valley. 
 
 Nay, take away the festering memory stain 
 And pillow'd here who could not wish to lie? 
 Where lark and blackbird pipe their grateful strain, 
 And Derwent hymns her soothing lullaby? 
 Here no fond heart may break in agony 
 Nor pour itself in teardrops on the sward : 
 For soon the hope-inspiring beauties by 
 Would cheer or chase the sombre thought and hard 
 That hue their hearts with gloom who tread the dull churchyard 
 
 But we must pause. The day begins to wane, 
 And lengthening shadows blacken on the blue : 
 Another day may find us here again, 
 Our Derwent Valley ramble to renew, 
 But for the present one most kind adieu ! 
 Ah ! thus we bear the oft-recurring smart ! 
 Old faces go — old scenes fade on the view : 
 But shall the loves and memories depart? 
 These, these abiding things we carry in the heart! 
 
 burial place of another mosstrooper, named Thomas Raw, who was 
 denied Christian sepulture, and who, knowing his doom, chose this 
 beautiful promontory as the place of his permanent rest, where, under 
 a tree, is a neat stone bearing the following inscription : " Here lieth 
 the body of Thomas Raw, of Wharnley Burn, who departed this life 
 January .SO, Anno Domini, 1714." Allansford is within easy distance 
 of Shotley Bridge, and the pleasures afforded by the walk will be 
 sufficient reward for anyone who may chose to take it. 
 
THE DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 CANTO SECOND. 
 
 DEDICATED TO MR. JOSHUA LAX, 
 ' Shotley Bridge. 
 
BeMcation. 
 
 My friend, my time-tried, my time-proven friend ! 
 'Tis not the Muse, but her transcendent theme. 
 That bids me hope that you will condescend 
 To be the patron of my Derwent-dream. 
 For you have caught the. glow and glory-gleam 
 Of other valleys, other glens and bowers, 
 In other lands than this, but never stream 
 Gave such celestial pirdons to your hours. 
 Or thralled you with such charm as this dear stream of ours. 
 
 Nay! you had limn'd in laudatory lays, 
 As soothing in the fervour of their flow, 
 As Derwent's babble to her bushy braes. 
 The greenwood grandeur and the bloom and blow, 
 That my warm verse, though feebler, strives to show. 
 Ere I had roam'd her banks, or dared her fords; 
 And all the love that brightens with its glow, 
 This later page of rudely-woven words, 
 Has, trembling in your heart, some corresponding chords. 
 
46 DEDICATION. 
 
 Though 'tis not mine to gloss in lofty line 
 The quiet beauty of the mead and grove, 
 Nor limn the life so hallow'd and benign 
 That marks the veering valley of our love; 
 Nor mine the page-enchanted heart to move, 
 With high creation born of gathered lore, 
 'Twas not in me to wholly speechless rove, 
 These breezy heights, this meadbw-margin'd shore. 
 And seal my lips to all the heart would fain outpour. 
 
 And if I dare, thus boldly, to diflFuse 
 My soul in lengthy lay, 'tis meet that you, 
 The first kind patron of my infant muse. 
 Find on this page the grateful tribute due. 
 For when the heart, awakening, thrilled me through. 
 And thought on thought were fashioned into rhyme. 
 How fit your helpful guidance ! and how true 
 The manly admonition ! Dear old time 
 Can point me back to nought more sacred or sublime ! 
 
DEDICATION, 47' 
 
 And I have toiled and rhymed away the years — 
 Years that have fled so vision-like and fast — 
 Have scattered much that's ripened into tears, 
 Much that may bring reflection at the last. 
 But yet, as I gaze o'er the hazy past, 
 And see how much of good and ill depends 
 On man's own deed, my gratitude is vast; 
 For though small favours partial Mammon sends, 
 Have I not health and you, the best and first of friends? 
 
 And heedless all what others may pursue, 
 My spirit spurns the mercenary aim : 
 The dear esteem of the enlightened few, 
 The rest in death with honour on the name. 
 Are all I wish. And if the heart aflame 
 With thought and feeling to my page impart 
 Or grace, or pith, or power to merit fame, 
 Then shall these lines, my brother in the art, 
 Proclaim how much you've won the homage of my heart. 
 
Zbc 2)erwent Dallci?, 
 
 CANTO SECOND. 
 
 The dewy morn, in fleecy robe arrayed, 
 Steals, blushing coyly, o'er the daised lawn. 
 And tips with beauty lea and leafy glade, 
 And chaseth darkness from the home of man. 
 And, lo! the lanes where fear so lately ran 
 Fleet-footed from the goblins of the brain 
 Are glory spots where Flora waves her fa,n, 
 Time-beating to the blackbird's joyous strain ; 
 My friend, my theme, awake ! the morn is up again. 
 
 The fresh, warm earth is bright with lovely things : 
 The winds beneath their balmy burthens sigh; 
 The sunrays sparkle in pellucid springs; 
 The woods are deluged with a vocal joy. 
 And mother nature's heart is bounding high : 
 The golden portals of the new-born day 
 Are crowded with a thousand throats that cry 
 "Awake! the dawn has blushed the gloom away!" 
 Awake! my friend, awak©! and thou, my Iqvely lay! 
 
CANTO SECOND. 49 
 
 Another morn, another gladdening morn, 
 Is broadening, blushing into sunny noon, 
 And, like a young hope in the bosom born, 
 Is big with blessing that shall fade too soon. 
 And, 0, if you would earn a dearer boon 
 Than sweetest dream that blesses man's repose. 
 Come forth and while another day of June, 
 Where woodbine hangs in tassels o'er the rose. 
 And blushing o'er the broom-clad banks the foxglove glows! 
 
 Up ! up with me and from this leafy ridge, 
 Behold the leagues of undulating shore. 
 And high o'er-gazing placid Shotley Bridge, 
 The haunts of whom in old time rivalled Thor, — 
 The hammer-wielding god in regions hoar, 
 "Whose awful arm achieved such marvels vast. 
 And cracked the ribs of polar gods galore ! — 
 Prone down yon height was Con's huge hammer cast;* 
 Behold, cries eld, behold the prowess of the past ! 
 
 * There were, in the heroic ages of the Derwent, three brothers, all 
 giants, named Cos, Ben, and Con, who are said to have founded 
 Corbridge, Benfieldside, and Consett, and to have had a huge hammer, 
 which each, at a whistle, could throw nine miles. On one occasion, 
 Con, who had become blind, threw the hammer, and it fell short, and 
 made Howden which — as its name intimates — is a hollow dene, near 
 Consett. Many adventures of those giants might be enumerated, but 
 the whole is plainly fabulous, and has mixture of the more interesting 
 and elegant classic mythology. — By an. 
 
50 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Or musing here upon the green-hill side, 
 Environed by the grandeur and the grace, 
 That nature's boundless bounty's multiplied, 
 And cast around this rural dwelling place, 
 'Twill yield us entertainment to retrace. 
 The stormy paths the pilgrim few were led, 
 Who flew the thraldom of their land and race,* 
 And gave high memories to the scene we tread. 
 Which as the years roll on inspiring radiance shed. 
 
 'Twere sad to tell and needless to disclose, 
 When to the world's bleak bosom they were cast. 
 How many wanderings brought them many woes. 
 That shook their hearts as tempests shake a mast. 
 Suffice it — they asylumed here at last, 
 Assiduous whirl'd industry's busy wheel. 
 And reckless of the perils they had pass'd, 
 For valour's hands they framed the finished steel, 
 That ran through sturdy foes who menaced Britain's weal. 
 
 * The German refugees who settled here, (Shotley Bridge), aboat two 
 hundred years ago, and whose names were Oley, Vooz, Mole, and 
 Beetkam. I have talked to intelligent old people who have told 
 me that there was also a family of Waeds in the number. Be 
 that as it may, Shotley Bridge became a place of considerable 
 importance under the hands of the sword-makers ; and, although 
 Granville, in his "English Spas," charges them with "drunkenness," 
 "ignorance," "want of religion," &e,, the possibilities are that, had 
 the Germans not found their way here, his book might have still 
 wanted the chapter on Shotley Spa, 
 
CANTO SECOND. 51 
 
 Behold their scene of triumph and bright hope : 
 There stood their now annihilated mill : 
 There toiled the men whose genius had to cope, 
 With those stern things that try the human will — 
 That hurl the weak and worthless down the hUl 
 They must ascend, or welter in despair; 
 But render worthy Kves more worthy still: 
 For what is greatness but a strength to dare 
 And triumph o'er the fate that weakness cannot bear? 
 
 They toiled, they triumphed, and are in the dust, 
 That soothing couch for which the weary pine; 
 And though is reared no monumental bust 
 From which the inquiring vision may divine 
 Their names, or number, or ancestral line. 
 Their length of life, or wealth of honours earn'd. 
 Glossed where the hopes and virtues entertwine 
 Themselves in lovely record, may be learn'd 
 The goal to which they clomb, the light that in them burn'd. 
 
52 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 And so their names repose on memories blest, 
 And win the honour-tribute they command. 
 But what full word may hue his vices best 
 Who bore the frenzied heart and impious hand?* 
 He who from where these trees high-towering stand, 
 To leagues beyond the Derwent's lovely bourne, 
 Flew like a fury through the startled land, 
 And lived as though he wished that he could turn 
 The earth into a hell and wither joy with scorn! 
 
 'Twould chill the heart the muse essays to cheer, 
 And add encumbrance to a gory verse. 
 To count the crimes that crimson'd his career 
 And stamp'd him an impersonated curse. 
 That blasted aU things with a breath perverse. 
 From mortals down to farmers' garner'd hay! 
 Who wrested fraUty with ignoble force, 
 Pitched to the waves his unsuspecting prey, 
 And with a weird ha! ha! loud- mocking stalked away! 
 
 * JIad Maddiso'. See page 53. 
 
CANTO SECOND. 53 
 
 Or who may picture with what demon glee 
 He viewed his son's distraction on his steed, 
 When mad, unbridled, plunging o'er the lea. 
 The charger matched Mazeppa's lightning speed ! 
 And when was stretched the rider on the mead, 
 No change came over his unaltered eye; 
 For his base heart, if heart he had, indeed, 
 Felt no fine thrill of sensibility: 
 The darker deed the deeper his abnormal joy ! 
 
 'Twould seem that Ttphon, Egypt's darkest god, 
 Whose baleful eye appalled the pagan NUe, 
 Had, housed in this wild heart, the Derwent trod. 
 To torture whom he could not render vile ! 
 But she whose frown ne'er softened to a smUe, 
 The avengeress whom no scheming guilt can shun. 
 Great Nemesis was on his track the while, 
 Who, when his ignominious course was run. 
 Brought to unholy dust the bad- Mad Maddison!* 
 
 * This individual's real christian name was Ealph, whicli was very 
 seldom given him, and is never heard in the popular traditions oon- 
 oeming him ; he is always called by the most unchristian name, "Mad," 
 because of its fitness to give some idea of his extremely insane and 
 immoral conduct. He lived immediately opposite the village, on the 
 left bank of the river, had considerable estates in the neighbourhood, 
 and was for some time a warden of the district ; but, in his excursions 
 against the mosstroopers, he must have acquired their predatory 
 dispositions, and learnt to practise their desperate villainies, and soon 
 became the constant terror of male and female, old and young. The old 
 
64 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 But, hark! There's music at the Hally "Welllt 
 The band ! the dance ! the lasses ! and the swings ! 
 The river wandering round the fairy dell ! 
 The hours that bring such rapture on their wings ! 
 The all-absorbing greenwood wanderings ! 
 The sweet contortion of the lovely faces 
 That grin above the water as it springs ! 
 The timid drink! the comical grimaces! 
 And the loud laughter blent with other words than graces! 
 
 The Hally Well ! the loves awakened there ! 
 The healing virtue of the mystic drink ! 
 The wealthy odour of the woodland air 
 That bathes the brow that wanders to its brink ! 
 The scene aglow with yellow, purple, pink, 
 And all imposing Flora's princely hues! 
 The wonders and the mysteries that link 
 These to a worship man will not refuse 
 This best and brightest charm the local vision views I 
 
 lady mentioned in the text, providentially gained the shore, and. with 
 difficulty, recovered ; but his son-in-law was picked up dead, near Black 
 Hedley. He attempted the life of his daughter's second husband by 
 shooting, and was ultimately hanged at Durham, for the murder of 
 Laied Atkinson, of Cannywood Side. — Ryan. 
 
 ■j- As a rendezvous for pleasure seekers, pio-nio parties, Sunday School 
 trips, &o., &o., the Spa, or Hally Well, as it used to be called, has few 
 equals in the North of England. Situated about half-a-mile from 
 Shotley, and in the depths of the Valley, its sylvan surroundings, to 
 
CANTO SECOND. 
 
 0, these are things that wean the fretted mind, 
 From earth and all that cloys the sated sense, 
 That wake emotions deep and undefined. 
 But sheened with radiance of intelligence! 
 Green-mantled woods ascending wild and dense ! 
 Emerald meadows stretching wide and fair ! 
 Hearts bounding high with happiness intense ! 
 Joy on the earth and music in the air! 
 The Hally Well ! What life and pleasure centre there ! 
 
 Mark where it springs, the almost sacred fount, 
 The sparkling centre of a patch of green; 
 And mark how high these lofty ridges mount, 
 This, and the world's too vulgar gaze between, 
 As if to hide the mysteries of the scene — 
 The chosen haunt of beauty, love, and lore: 
 This and a day unrivaled in its sheen, 
 WiU add, methinks, a quantum to. your store 
 Of pleasing recollections : would we all had more ! 
 
 say the least, are chaste, verdant, beautiful ; beautiful also, the merry 
 laughter bursting from the young and uninitiated who, fluttering 
 around that mystic well, are daring each other to drink. What loTely 
 faces are twisted awry as the chained cup falls to its native place ! As 
 a health resort, Dr. Ellis, of Newcastle, speaks very highly of the Spa. 
 " The situation of the place is good," he says, " and the air itself is 
 bracing and restorative." He seems to differ very widely, however, 
 from Dr. Gbanvillb touching the medicinal properties of the water, 
 "Its chief use," he avers, " would be in skin diseases," 
 
66 
 
 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Behold ! the merry groups are dancing there, 
 As deeming in their all-transporting mirth, 
 That human joy ne'er darkened into care 
 That there was no unhappy thing on earth ! 
 Though other thoughts in graver minds have birth, 
 What, what rude hand would ruffle their young dream? 
 Then let us bless them as we wander forth, 
 To trace the farther windings of the stream : 
 May they long, long remain as happy as they seem ! 
 
 Preserve their fresh young hearts, ye powers above, 
 From sorrow's sore and sin's consuming blight! 
 And may the world, a realm of light and love 
 To them, be ever, as a present, bright! 
 Be their warm bosoms' radiant with the light 
 That shonrs the glamour of seductive ill, 
 And lingers ever on the path of right! 
 And soft and silent as the dews distil 
 Their balm at eventide, may peace their spirits fill ! 
 
CANTO SECOND. 57 
 
 For there are things we meet ere life be o'er 
 That brand their record deep in mind and brain, 
 And centred there, become a chosen lore, 
 Which time and change essay to raze in vain. 
 The very gleam of joy may foster pain, ' 
 In spirits who too serious vigils keep ; 
 And love, ay, sunny love, may wake a train 
 Of thoughts that lie unfathomably deep. 
 Thoughts that take hold of life, death, and its sister, sleep. 
 
 Themes deep and dread that feed the fevered heart 
 With tears and agitation, till their hue 
 Steals inch by inch the throbbing brain athwart. 
 And buries hope and heaven from view : 
 When logic moulded into forms untrue, 
 And science wrested from her high domain, 
 And foetid lies that histories never knew, 
 Conspiring build a fabric most profane, 
 Wherein whoever treads is "bled at every vein ! 
 
58 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 B'or then the impious wish to break the seal 
 That hides the secrets time shall ne'er attest, 
 Diffuses cancer through the moral weal 
 Too deeply rankling e'er to be redressed. 
 The thousand phases of the human breast ; 
 The fountains whence life's subtle currents flow ; 
 The stormy turmoil of its wild unrest, 
 What even more than angel mind can show ? 
 And yet, what scores are cursed with slakeless wish to know ! 
 
 O ! 'tis not well to give the fancy scope, 
 Or look on life with ever questioning eye: 
 Hope ! thou ambrosial balm of being ! Hope ! 
 Light up the gloom of our philosophy ! 
 The secret of our being is on high; 
 And life is merely universal maze. 
 Through which we wander groping till we die, 
 When we shall 'find, so highest wisdom says. 
 Its vexing mysteries lost in light's effulgent blaze. 
 
CANTO SECOND. 59 
 
 But I forget. Away distracting gloom ! 
 My friend — thy pardon ! and, my theme, once more. 
 Before us like a long and curtained room, 
 Behold the breezy greenwood corridor, 
 Whose arches built of hazel, oak, ash, fir. 
 Brier, broom and woodbine beautifully blent, 
 Embalm the road that we must hurry o'er, 
 With heavenly multiplicity of scent. 
 And frame a sylvan scene whose charm is ravishment. 
 
 And this for us! How you will laugh to see. 
 The untrained acrobat's* delirious bound. 
 Which, sleeky coated, springs from tree to tree. 
 Hung with the nuts that summer days have browned. 
 While spinning sportive over bushy mound. 
 The conies urge their fascinating play ; 
 Or, startled by our steps' suspicious sound, 
 Prick their live ears and speed their rapid way 
 To some remoter bush or field of unmown hay 
 
 * The Squirrel 
 
60 THE DERWEJTT VALLEY. 
 
 Green country lane ! So wild and yet so sweet ! 
 Wood-fringed, grass-bordered, cool, and bloom arrayed ! 
 What hearts aflame with first affections meet 
 Within the dreamy silence of your shade, 
 To tell the triumphs life's young loves have made. 
 And speed enamoured eve's delicious hour ! 
 While bright as is the dew on grassy blade. 
 And soft as is the breathing of the flower, 
 Is that ethereal thrall which holds them in its power. 
 
 Oh ! who with heart ingrate could wander here 
 Oblivious of the God who made the eye 1 
 Or who with bosom-depths unstirred could hear 
 These loud joy-notes of woodland melody? 
 And thus to be where song and beauty vie 
 In lavish wealth ! Behold on either hand 
 How languor-lulled the dreamy uplands lie ! 
 Could Pan's bright bowers, or Tagus' golden strand 
 Divulge sublimer bliss than this resplendent land 2 
 
CAJfTO SECOND. 61 
 
 Then let us wake the sylvan miles 
 
 With rapture-lilt again 
 While joyous earth, approving, smiles 
 
 A welcome to the strain. 
 Who treads the world's dull round and vain. 
 
 His soul is sorely tried ; 
 But what supernal bliss to lay 
 The fretting cares of life away, 
 And haunt the bowers of birds and flowers 
 
 On veering Derwentside. 
 
 The odoured woods arcadian charms 
 
 The hawthorn's snowy bloom ; 
 The dreamy smile of distant farms. 
 
 Girt with grey wreaths of fume ; 
 The luscious fruit that tempts the groom 
 
 To take illicit stride ; 
 The rose that blushes on the hedge, 
 The broom that blossoms in the sedge, 
 Have balmed and blest my heart's unrest 
 
 Full oft on Derwentside. 
 
62 THE OEEWENT VALLBt 
 
 The wopdbine's all deluging balm, 
 
 The violet's modest hue ; 
 The plaintive bleat of wandering lamb, 
 
 The answering bleat of ewe ; 
 The hills that soar to kiss the blue, 
 
 The wealthy field and wide, 
 Whence farmers' laughter dies away. 
 Beyond their yet ungarnered hay. 
 Give glory-gleams to Eden-dreams 
 
 That dawn on Derwentside. 
 
 The quiet mien of cosy cot, 
 
 Where those who never stray. 
 Save 'tween the hearth and garden-plot, 
 
 Laugh happy lives away : 
 The unwooed maid, who, caught at play. 
 
 Speeds blushing home to hide ; 
 The river's flower-embroidered walks. 
 Where visions tint the lovers' talks. 
 Give feeling's fire to bard and lyre. 
 
 And heaven to Derwentside. 
 
CANTO SECOND. 63 
 
 O ! when with eve's pathetic hush, 
 
 The wheel of labour's ceased; 
 Or dewy dawn's delicious blush, 
 
 Has goldened o'er the east ; 
 His heart may share a rapture-feast 
 
 That God's own hands provide. 
 And soar seraphic heights of thought, 
 By wisdom's high enchantment fraught. 
 Who musing strays the leafy ways 
 
 That border Derwentside, 
 
 Behold the ill-starred Radcliffe's * long-lost lands — 
 The hills whose dear possession he laid down, 
 And with his life, at Royalty's commands. 
 To glut the bursting coffers of the crown. 
 Howe'er the deed that damn'd his fair renown 
 Be fear-distorted, hate-hued rancour-glost. 
 The noise of other names may fail to drown 
 The fame he purchased at so high a cost. 
 Till more Amelias t mourn the hapless loved and lost. 
 
 * Eadcliffb, Jambs, Third Earl of Derwentwater, who owned land 
 on the left bank of the Derwent, was executed, and his estate forfeited 
 to the Crown. 
 
 ■|- About sixteen years ago, a woman, styling herself " The Countess 
 of Derwentwater," and claiming to be a descendant of his, made no 
 small stir in the Derwent Valley : demanded the rent from some of the 
 farmers, and did " all she toiew " to gain the lost estate. A great many 
 
64 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Amelia! foiled Amelia! Pride and power 
 Armed with the potent plea of partial law, 
 Stood at the safe-barr'd entrance to thy dower, 
 And swung the two-edged' flaming sword of awe. 
 'Twas more than vain thy woman's sword to draw. 
 With woman's frail impotency of arm ; 
 And vain the scene the wondering rustic saw 
 That memoried day, when, hinds a thickening swarm. 
 Drawn by thy daring scanned astounded Newlands farm. 
 
 'Twas but the breaking of a tiny wave, 
 "Which, when it stirred the ocean of the mind, , 
 With court, incarceration, and a grave, 
 ■ Spent its frail force and left no trace behind; 
 Save that around the blazing hearth of hind 
 Some sunny circle may demand the tale 
 Of how the doughty " Countess " fought to find 
 The mundane mercy of the judge and jail. 
 Build bar on bar 'tween her and teeming Derwent Vale. 
 
 people believed in the legality of her claim ; a few, indeed, for her sake, 
 shared the company of the turnkey. I remember standing on the 
 hills below Medomsley, and gazing over the Valley to Newlands, a 
 small country village, situated about a mile north of Ebchester, on the 
 crowd who had congregated from all parts to watch her sell o£E a 
 farmer who refused her the rent. That was a great day in our local 
 annals, engaging our wiaeaorcs in sage speculations and legal con- 
 troversy for many a week. The sword-drawing incident took place at 
 Pilston Castle, I believe. Her name was Amblia. 
 
CANTO SECOND 65 
 
 And since that tempest of an hour is o'er, 
 And lips all law have hushed the babble war, 
 'Twere bootless now to weigh the legal lore 
 That so bedimmed her fate's unlucky star. 
 For, lo ! the briefs engage a higher bar, 
 Than that which heard her counsel urge her claim : 
 The breath of man may either make or mar 
 The blight or bloom of earthly fate or fame. 
 But there the judge is judged and all men fare the same. 
 
 But see ! we press the verge of classic land : * 
 Around us slumber the immortal dead ! 
 The very earth is pregnant where we stand 
 With ashes that were fire, and hearts that led 
 The way to conquest : wheresoe'er we tread 
 The foot may fall on clay that held a mind 
 Whose daring hopes and energies were fed 
 With the ambition to eclipse mankind 
 And mount the glory-heights the fragile fail to find. 
 
 ' Ebohester. 
 
66 THE DERWENT VALLET. 
 
 Ay! gazing through the mist of drifted time, 
 What themes for thought the mental eye may, trace, 
 In memories gay, grave, sable, and sublime, 
 Thick, crowding round this unimposing place ! 
 What stormy times have marred its quiet grace ! 
 What stern-browed men have trod this leafy dell! 
 What deeds that damn and deify our race. 
 Could these sweet scenes, were they voice-gifted, tell ! 
 For here were glory's home and virtue's convent cell. 
 
 And could we call one warrior from this sod, — 
 This flowery sod our careless steps assail,— 
 To point the path the sanguine soldiers trod 
 To wage th' invasive battle of the Vale, 
 Whose sounds no longer linger on the gale, 
 How would we quail beneath his shaggy brow ! 
 Or if he deigned to tell his olden tale, 
 Or trace the history of his triumphs through. 
 How would the doubting heart his stories disavow ! 
 
CANT6 SECOUD. 67 
 
 Here Vindomora rose august and high, 
 "Whence Tiber's sons went forth to border broils; 
 Or, sleeping, saw with dream-deluded eye. 
 The charging armies, the colossal spoils; 
 Or, reckless of the day's consuming toUs, 
 Filled the long night with song and revel glee ; 
 Or laughing, talked o'er the ingenious wiles 
 That scattered the unwary enemy. 
 Or sanguine, hope-enjoyed the triumphs yet to be. 
 
 Ay, here immured, the immortal sons of Rome, 
 Secure in their inconquerable might, 
 Have deemed, in their invulnerable home. 
 The world their own inalienable right. 
 For which, 'twas their most glorious fate to fight! 
 How oft the glens were hued with clotted gore, 
 Where now the eye reposes with delight! 
 For as they bade the eagled ensign soar 
 Their martial prowess shook the Vale from shore to shore. 
 
68 
 
 THE DERWENT VALLET. 
 
 Fleet from the leafy fortress of the wood, 
 Fleet from th' impervious rampart of the hill, 
 The Britons fled the sanguinary flood 
 That rolled triumphant at the Romans' will. 
 For when they met and tested skill by skill, 
 The Isle's first owners dropping dense around 
 Found less and less their gory gaps to till, 
 Till inch by inch the long-contested ground. 
 Girt with great C^sae's world-inthralling will was found. 
 
 And here they sate and watched the brooding war; 
 Or planned, maybe, the stretching Watling Way,* 
 The distant vallum and the castled bar,t 
 Upreared to hold the daring Scots at bay. 
 For even though the Britons owned their sway, 
 Yon heathy land was warm with savage foes, 
 To whom great Rome imparted no dismay, 
 Who, crowding where that bar defensive rose. 
 Oft dared Agricola's might, and Sevebus' sturdy blows. 
 
 * The Roman military road, or Watling Street, crossed the rirer 
 here. 
 
 t The barrier of the Lower Isthmus, or the Roman Wall, extending 
 from Wallsend-on-Tyne to Bowness, in Cumberland. On, or near the 
 wall, were placed at tolerably regular intervals, stationary camps or 
 " stations," about seventeen or eighteen in number ; and, at still shorter 
 intervals, that is, about a Roman mile from each other, were placed 
 smaller towers, called, from this circumstance, " Mile Castles. " These 
 were, in general, placed against the south side of the wall, and had 
 mostly only one entrance, which was from the south ; a few, however. 
 
CAIfTO SECOND. 69 
 
 And here they bade the god-loved incense burn, 
 And here they poured the god-appeasing prayer, 
 And here they left the altar and the urn 
 To tell our sages what their dogmas were. 
 For though their huge world broke, the very air 
 Is pregnant with its fragments : J mead and mound 
 Have each a sacred treasure to lay bare; 
 And even 'neath this memory-hallowed ground. 
 The storied atoms of that shattered world are found. 
 
 But, ah, methinks, had Britons been inured 
 
 To sword and shield as much as pastoral wand. 
 
 Here, Tiber's sons had never been immured ; 
 
 For sturdy frame, stout heart, and powerful hand 
 
 Ne'er lined the menaced shores of one fair land, ' 
 
 Like those they conquered but could not enslave ; 
 
 And soon as e'er th' invaders swarmed the strand 
 
 Albion had waved her violets o'er their grave 
 
 Had but the nomads known the arts that guide the brave. § 
 
 had two entrances, one on the south, and another through the main 
 wall on the north. 
 
 J The Roman altars, sculptured fragments, inscribed stones, coins, 
 implements of war, articles of personal adornment, utensils for 
 domestic use. fcc, which have been found along the line of the wall, 
 are extremely numerous. And Ebchester is not destitute of those 
 sacred treasures. Some of them, indeed, have found a sanctuary in the 
 present church ; and some years ago, when the churchyard was being 
 extended, I had the pleasure of gazing on some of them myself. 
 
 § I think I am ex,,ressing the consentient opinion of all historians 
 
70 
 
 THU DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Yet, shall we let no plaintive censure fall; 
 For, Romans, souls like noon-day suns were yours, 
 Whose glory seemed to sanctify the thrall 
 And gild with glor^ all your gory hours ! 
 Hence while ye lingered in these quiet bowers. 
 They learned to love ye whom ye did such wrong ; 
 And even while ye revell'd on their dowers. 
 No hate disturbed the spirit of their song 
 Which rose to give you cheer and glad your festal throng. 
 
 Nay ! Ye became their guardians. Like a rock 
 That spurns the fury of the bursting tide. 
 Stood your proud crests between them and the shock 
 Of bloody battle and aggressive pride. 
 Till ye became endearingly allied 
 Great Rome and old Britannia ! 'Twas in vain 
 That plundering Pict or Caledonian tried 
 To charge one bushel with Northumbria's grain, 
 While brave Ageicola ruled or Hadrian held his reign. 
 
 when I say that the ancient Britons were equal with the Romans in 
 valour, and that, had they been a martial, instead of a patriarchal 
 people, the second invasion might have been as inglorious as the first. 
 Even Tacitus, himself, speaks very highly of their bravery, and 
 intimates that it was rather a lucky job for C^SAE that the Britons 
 were not schooled, as the Eomans were, in the arts of war. Even as it 
 was, had they been united, instead of divided against themselves, they 
 might have repulsed the invaders. 
 
CANTO SECOND. 71 
 
 Nay, your great toils come down to bless our day : 
 For, masters of the missionary mind, 
 How have you urged Britannia's radiant way 
 From gloom to glory ! As your arts refined. 
 She razed and strewed her mud huts in the wind ; 
 Put on her laurel wreath, and took her stand 
 Amongst the greatest, wisest of mankind ! 
 'Twas not for nought ye laboured in our land, 
 For in that labour gleamed a God's evolving hand ! * 
 
 As angry ocean rising wild and dread, 
 
 May dash to earth a nation's wealth in ore. 
 
 Which stm had been unrecked of in its bed, 
 
 Had not the tempest shook the trembling shore ; 
 
 So Derwent trembled till your wrath was o'er. 
 
 Then felt the sweetness of supernal calm ; 
 
 For with you came the soul-illuming lore. 
 
 To shake the fabric of religious sham, 
 
 And point deluded souls to God's Eternal Lamb.t 
 
 * Britain owed to Rome, not only her first steps in the path of 
 civilisation ; but her municipal government, a code of written laws, 
 judges to interpret them, and civil, instead of priestly tribunals ; 
 whilst, at the same time, her arts and refinements gradually wrought a 
 change in the savage, but warlike character of the people, who, previous 
 to their invasion, lived in a state of barbarism, inhabiting wretched 
 huts, built in the rudest form. Rome gained nothing by the conquest 
 of Britain, but sowed the seeds of a civilisation more endurable than 
 her own dominion. 
 
 t The tradition that St. Paul and St, Pktbe preached the Gospel in 
 
72 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 They came and conquered, gazed, and turned away, 
 To quell' the brooding of domestic wars, 
 And, lo, there knelt Irminsal'sJ sons to pray, 
 Where knelt to pray, so late, the sons of Mars. 
 But not for long the mind-impeding bars 
 Of Rheda, Odin, Hertha blurred the hours;} 
 What darkest night is barren of its stars ? 
 And who but now, bequeathed such damning dowers, § 
 Bid one lone lovely heart imparadise these bowers, 
 
 This classic, now, was consecrated soil ; 
 
 Hope, heavenly hope illumed the home of fear ; 
 
 For Ebba reared her high and hallow'd pile. 
 
 In other days assigned to fate severe, 
 
 ' That she might nurse the cloistered virtues here. 
 
 And beaming star-like comes her lovely name, 
 
 Bright down the ages drifting dark and drear ; 
 
 Time, the great sifter of the good man's fame. 
 
 Gives hers the dazzling glow of gold-reflected flame. 
 
 the island found, at one period, general credence. There is, however, 
 not the slightest historical evidence to support it ; still, it is certain 
 that, at a very early age, Christianity was introduced amongst us. 
 Many of the Eomans, who had received the new religion and fled from 
 the persecutions of Claudius and Neeo, found refuge in Britain, 
 where the imperial edicts were less rigorously obeyed, till the persecu- 
 tion of Diocletian, when the churches throughout the empire were 
 ordered to be closed, and the refusal of the new sect to offer sacrifice to 
 the gods of Rome punished with death. 
 
 J The Saxons. Their religion, like that of the most of the people of 
 
CANTO SECOND. 73 
 
 And here she wept and told her higher trust, 
 And fann'd the Christian embers into flame, 
 Till spears went through Irmiasal's awful bust, IT 
 And Saxon hearts revered a holier name. 
 And mark, my friend, if Ebba's race became 
 More worthy of the appellative great, 
 'Twas her high creed — a creed they could not tame 
 By bitterest scoiirging- — that reversed their fate, 
 And taught their souls to soar above their native state. 
 
 Then take our praise, Paulinus,|| holy seer ! 
 
 For the initiatory deed was thine : 
 
 And, lo, the seed thy hand implanted here. 
 
 Is towering now in majesty divine ; 
 
 And breathing balsam healing and benign. 
 
 O'er all the thousand forms of human woe ! 
 
 Glad, glad is Derwent now with many a shrine. 
 
 Whose sacred light may cease no more to glow. 
 
 Till all her wild groves vie with Eden's virgin blow ! 
 
 Germany, was a gross idolatry, founded on the worship of the powers 
 of nature. Fire and water were personified in their goddess, Hertha. 
 Rheda and Odin were also among their divinities ; and to their great 
 idol, Irminsal, they sacrificed human victims. 
 
 § The Christiana suffered fearfully at their hands ; priests were 
 murdered on the altars ; bishop and flock perished by fire and sword ; 
 and yet these people gave Jarrow a Venerable Bede, and Ebohester a 
 St. BbbA. 
 
 ^ This happened in the reign of Edwin, King of Northumbria, after 
 that memorable council was called of the Northumbrian nobles, to 
 
74 THE DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 O, oft, methinks in sultry summer noon, 
 Through breezy depths of ferny-floored arcade. 
 The wealthy wardrobe of ambrosial June, 
 By God's own emerald drapery garmented. 
 As soothing winds' innocuous dalliance laid. 
 The sweet-lipp'd daisy prone to kiss the brook, 
 The saintly maiden wandered and surveyed 
 The laughing page of nature's blotless book. 
 And drank instruction high from every sylvan nook. 
 
 Or urged, maybe, to seek these sunny bowers, 
 That, shaded, she might lave her tripping feet. 
 Where now yon rude dam-cascade thundering pours 
 The potent waters swift their goal to greet ; 
 Or where with throbbing roar and mystic beat, ' 
 
 They tread the mill's grain-grinding paddled wheel. 
 Their sound might seem as voice of paraclete ; 
 And as she viewed the river's winsome reel, 
 What visions of vexed life athwart her brain might steal ! 
 
 discuss the respective merits of Christianity and Paganism, over which 
 the young monarch presided, and at a village still called Godmundan, 
 which signifies the home or hamlet of the enclosure of the God. 
 CoiPI, the Pagan high priest, was the sacrilegious spearman. 
 
 II The first man who preached the Gospel in Northumbria. King 
 Edwin was the first of Mb royal converts, and, having built a religious 
 edifice at York, the young King made Paitlinus Archbishop of the 
 See. " The Derwent, and the Swale, in Yorkshire, are rivers associated 
 with his mission," — Oreermell. 
 
CANTO SECOND. 75 
 
 Or haply where these gardens blush with bloom, 
 The blest prospective dawned upon her ken 
 When men should cease to harrow and consume 
 The hearts and hopes and homes of fellowmen. 
 But human dreams ! ah, me ! lo ! even then 
 Dread human wolves, blood-drunk, were on her track, 
 And sniffed afar the lamb's devoted pen ! 
 Prone lying all things Uke a whirlwind black. 
 They came, consuming came, the fell and savage pack ! 
 
 The Danes ! the Danes ! how stifled hearts grew chill, 
 And whispered low the dark and impious name ! 
 Or, warning louder, cried — They kill ! they kill ! 
 And fled the scenes of sacrilege and shame. 
 Who, plundering, wrapt St. Oswin's* shrine in flame? 
 Who stormed the cloister of the sainted Bede?* 
 Who dealt damnation dark where'er they came ? 
 The Danes ! Sweet maid, well might thy bosom bleed ! 
 Their very names might shake the bravest like a reed ! 
 
 * Those of Iny readers who are aware that the monastery at 
 Ebohester was destroyed soon after 660, and that the monasteries at 
 Tynemouth and Jarrow were not destroyed until 794, may charge me 
 with getting ahead of my story. Well, if I have? The fact still 
 remains that St. Ebba was hunted from her lovely retreat on the 
 Derwent, by, at any rate, the same class of men as those who plundered 
 the cloisters of the Tyne ; and I did not deem it necessary to pay absolute 
 deference to chronology in a case of this sort. I have taken the Danes 
 as I have found them in history, and if I have painted them any 
 darker than they mere, I beg tlieir pardon I 
 
76 
 
 THE DEEWENT VALLEY 
 
 Were they not schooled in craft as foul as hell's ? 
 Their blood-streaked flame-path stretched from zone to zone ! 
 For lo ! their breasts were blazing arsenals ! 
 And O ! to them the music of the moan, 
 When sword and flame licked-up the flesh and bone ! 
 Their very glee was steeped in Hades' hue ! 
 And theirs were hearts that devils wouldn't own ! 
 The crimes that Pandemonium blush to view, 
 Lie rank upon their souls or history isn't true ! 
 
 Had they come here as Roman came before, 
 Who with the sabre sought a deathless name, 
 Then had we with a pitying sigh passed o'er 
 Their deeds of death and catalogues of shame ; 
 But theirs were breasts unkindled by a flame 
 Of higher feeling. Nay ! their gods were lust ! 
 The end of their existence and its aim. 
 Forever drew them, grovelling, to the dust. 
 And so their memories live to putrify and rust ! 
 
CAnto second. t1 
 
 They came, and^lo, this heaven blazed a hell ! 
 The prowling plunderers gloated in its glow ! 
 Craeh, stone by stone, the crackling cloister fell ! 
 Fear shrieked to fear, and woe loud wailed to woe ! 
 Thus was her long-loved home laid crumbling low, 
 And with that all the heaven of her heart ; 
 And, fear-pursued, she fled, a stricken doe, 
 As flees before the angry hound, the hart. 
 O'er far outstretching moor and forest's savage part ! 
 
 She fled, but hapless maid, where could she fly? 
 Or whither turn to find a place of rest? 
 Here lay the last sad vestige of her joy. 
 The life-dream dashed so rudely from her breast ! 
 Though other loves essayed to make her blest. 
 To 'wake and warm the dreams the Danes had dimm'd. 
 Here smouldered low the home she loved the best. 
 Her valley home, the home wherein she hymn'd 
 The God and all the good her maiden fancy Hmn'd ! 
 
7S THl! DERWENT VALLEf. 
 
 And crushed with life's too many woes she fell : 
 But no sage record points to where she lies,* 
 Nor on whose breast she gasped her last farewell, 
 Nor when, nor where she closed her languid eyes 
 On these her native meadows and bright skies : 
 As Moses mounted Pisgah's lofty height 
 And gave his being to the mysteries, 
 So Ebba, gazing on the land of light 
 Unepitaphed lay down to brook no farther flight. 
 
 As gleams th' electric meteor through the sky, 
 Diffusing silvery grandeur on its way, 
 Which for a moment dazzles mortal eye, 
 Then sinks into oblivion for aye. 
 Her bright existence glowed and waned away : 
 But oft as pondering o'er the page profound 
 That limns with varied light her fitful day. 
 The fancy comes that by some flowery mound, 
 Which skirts her dear old home she sleeps the centuries round. 
 
 • St. Ebba's burial place is unrecotded. 
 
CANTO SECOND. 79 
 
 ! thou hast seen strange things delightful Vale ! 
 And yet thou art as beautifully fair, 
 As when thy protomartyrs' dying wail 
 Went up to heaven through thine aroma'd air ! 
 Crimes on man's brow an awful aspect wear, 
 And flash a flame delirious from his eye ; 
 But I can see no traces here nor there 
 Of any crimes of thine! Thy songs are high, 
 Thy meadows are all bloom, all sheen thine azure sky ! 
 
 Behold thy wealth of health and beauty now ! 
 The farmer's laugh loud ringing o'er the lea. 
 The matron's smile, the maiden's glowing brow. 
 The busy tongues of innocence and glee. 
 The snowy head of reverend reverie. 
 And all the loves and graces life can give 
 Are breathing their sublime humility 
 Where pride, pomp, power, hate, lust, were wont to live. 
 And where they yelled : "revenge!" we sigh and say : "forgive!" 
 
80 THE DERWENT VALLKT. 
 
 Were not for us the flame yoke and the gall! 
 Swept one by one from being's busy stage, 
 The Roman, Saxon, Dane, no more appal, 
 Nor fear we now the Norman's maddening rage. 
 The wars are hushed that they were wont to wage; 
 The bale banditti and their gods are — gone ! 
 And as we strive to limn that gory age, 
 Or catch but half its aggregative groan. 
 How doubly dear becomes the glories of our own ! 
 
 But where, O, where are they who gave the good— 
 The guerdon of their immortality? 
 As silent as the waves of lethe's flood, 
 On these and far on other shores they lie : 
 And as we gaze into the depths of sky. 
 Beneath whose cope they trod their round of toil. 
 The heart goes forth in gratitude and joy; 
 For though there came to desecrate and spoil. 
 There came whose memories make this more than hallow'd soil 
 
CANTO SECOND. 81 
 
 The teeming harvests of their toils are ours; 
 The toilers, death through all the years inthrals; 
 Great Vinomora wheels in dusty showers; 
 Far scattered whirl the cloister's crumbled walls; 
 And ere the fate, relentless, that befalls, 
 All human works had left us but their site. 
 The trustful prayer that on the Highest calls, 
 Winged with the fervour of the anchorite, 
 Rose through their shattered domes in search of love and light. 
 
 And who could wish for more seclusive scene 
 To pay the heart's warm tribute of high praise? 
 How amply fit these wild arcades and green 
 To light and bid love's burning altar blaze! 
 How sweet the flow of unmolested days 
 That held him here safe-sheltered from the strife 
 And all the ills that crowd the checkered maze. 
 Or vex the seething sea of human Ufe, 
 Till with the wrecks of men its subtle waves are rife! 
 
82 THE DBEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 And as he quaffed the valley's wood-verged wave, 
 Or plucked the browning offering of the wood, 
 How would he bless the full-filled Hand that gave 
 The rich luxuriance of prolific good ! 
 Or as he bade the passions be subdued. 
 Or glowed imagination soared and sought 
 The far-inviting region of the cloud, 
 With what full force would come the burning thought 
 That God is all in all and vaunting man is — nought! 
 
 But once again the swift-encroaching night 
 Steals, lowering, o'er the hermit's home of bowers, 
 Black-mantles spangled mead and shaggy height 
 And darklings o'er this dear delight of ours : 
 Else had the muse sang through the coming hours. 
 The vow long-broken and the blazing arm,* 
 The joy-blest homes where calm content immures, 
 The untold wonder and the huge alarm 
 That, whilom, Hedley kowt bore round from farm to farm. 
 
 * Tradition says that there lived at Ebchester a man who made a 
 vow that he would leave nothing to his son on account of the latter 
 having offended him, and added the wish, if he did leave him anything 
 that his right arm might be burned off. The vow was broken ; the 
 old man died ; the wish was realized ! His arm took fire in the cofiBn 
 and was burned off I 
 
 t A rather mischievous ghost of the olden times that had its " head- 
 quarters " at Hedley, but came down to Ebchester occasionally to do a 
 little of its ghostly business. One might tell some funny stories about 
 
CANTO SECOND. 83 
 
 But we must part. Good-bye, my friend, good-bye ! 
 We linger, loath to leave such things benign; 
 But if to-morrow spread congenial sky. 
 As bright a bliss awaits thy heart and mine. 
 And so good night — supernal dreams be thine! 
 Thus feeds the heart on hope from day to day : 
 Another morn for us may never shiae, 
 And yet the petty plans of life we lay 
 As though its waning light would never burn away ! 
 
 this visionary creature, only this is not the place to relate them. Those 
 who would like to know more about it may oohsult Eichabdson's 
 Table Book. 
 
THE DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 CANTO THIRD. 
 
 BEDICATED TO LIZZIE. 
 
2>ebicat(on. 
 
 My better self, my best, my dearest life ! 
 The mirror into which I gaze and see 
 The settled calm to all my bosom strife, 
 Not what I am, but what I ought to be — 
 The man that swims in ideality! 
 'Tis much because thy fate is joined to mine. 
 And much because of thy great love to me. 
 And much because whate'er I have is thine, 
 And much because transcendent moments intertwine 
 
 Their memories, blest and radiant, with my theme, 
 That I would have thy name adorn my lay: 
 For Derwent saw the dawn of love's young dreaip 
 Break, bright and blushing, o'er thy budding May, 
 And glad me with its glow. 'Twas heaven to stray 
 Those mazy windings with thee, as thine eyes 
 Drank in the glory of the glad survey, 
 Or kindled with the eloquent surprise 
 That earth should be so fair, yet hold no paradise. 
 
88 DEDICATIOK. 
 
 Through Cut Throat Lane, or Chopwell's wealthy woods, 
 As parting day was fading from the hill; 
 Or through the wild and sylvan solitudes 
 That garment and environ Hedley Mill 
 With beauty that is peerless, 'twas to fill 
 High moments with a rapture that was real, 
 To have thy converse when the eve was still — 
 Bright hours from life's too busy moil to steal. 
 And rove transported through the realms of the ideal. 
 
 For then, and there, the visions born of joy, 
 That painted untried years so passing fair! 
 The love too deep to dream of earth-alloy ! 
 The. seraph fervour dreamt of only where 
 God smiles, approving, through the balmy air. 
 On heart-wed lovers in their summer bowers ! 
 The high and holy heart-communion there ! 
 And, as we couched among the ferns and flowers, 
 The bliss unbreathed that held us captive through the hours ! 
 
DEDICATION. 89 
 
 And though the fair-limn'd future that we dreamed 
 Has dawned, and is — ^mundane reality; 
 Though life is not so lovely as it seemed 
 Far-stretched before young love's too hopeful eye; 
 Have we not learned to bear it patiently, 
 And, from its fitful moments of repose 
 To snatch some fragments of abiding joy, 
 To even gather wisdom from its woes? 
 And what can man do more from life's dawn till its close? 
 
 Then let dame fortune curl her angry brows ! 
 Her minions may have woes as dark as we: 
 And whUe the veering valley of our vows 
 Invites the ruminating memory, 
 We shall not tune our hearts to dolour's key. 
 Arm linked in arm, and cheerful, urge we on; 
 Heart blent with heart we face futurity; 
 And weave we here our names with moments gone, 
 Till Time's sure touch shall blot these lines out one by one. 
 
Zbc Berwent IDaUei?. 
 
 CANTO THIRD. 
 
 How swiftly speeds the stealthy step of Time, 
 That bears us onward to the vast unknown ! 
 Throb ! throb ! the world's great heart beats out its rhyme. 
 Tick ! tick ! the glow of human life is gone ! 
 But now deluging Lune refulgent shone 
 The central light in night's huge chandelier; 
 And now august Apollo reigns alone, 
 And billowy light is flung from sphere to sphere. 
 And twangs the golden bow of sky's great charioteer ! 
 
 Now we are wandering through the world of dreams, 
 And now the world of stern reality; 
 Now comes respite tp toil and tyrant schemes, 
 And now we're plunged in all the cares that be. 
 And thus the moment-fed life-shuttles flee : 
 O! that the 'wefts were brigjiten'd with the deeds 
 That tell high stories to Eternity ! 
 For wheresoe'er life's little journey leads, 
 "fwere well to sow the heart with less of venal seeds, 
 
CANTO THIED. 91 
 
 For self knd mammon cleave the world atwain, 
 And lives are blasted ere they bloom a day; 
 And strength grips weakness till it writhes again, 
 Or cloven-hearted, weeps itself away ; 
 And brazen pomp, gay-ribbon'd, hies to pay 
 His heavy bills with human flesh and blood; 
 And gouty idleness and despot-sway. 
 Ride, grinding, o'er the groaning multitude, 
 And hardened guilt grows fat on labour's honest food ! 
 
 The very bishops fatten on their flock, 
 And who are deemed the delegates of heaven, 
 Who have the saints' elysium to unlock, 
 And see that mortals die not unforgiven, 
 Hoodwink the world: and when, misfortune-driven, 
 The hungry and the homeless cry for bread. 
 The Lazarus-portion is not even given. 
 But Bible-verse and dogma-creed instead : 
 And thus the fat saints thrive, and thus the poor are fed. 
 
92 
 
 THE DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Ay! "Feed my lambs," the last beloved behest 
 That cinctured Zion's consecrated brow, 
 Is, like a wornout bacchanalian jest. 
 Or lied away, or disregarded now ! 
 And though a thousand fervid lips avow 
 Their equal love to friend and foeman dire, 
 And sprinkle shrines with orisons enow. 
 The poor must club their pence to pay the " hire," 
 And lo ! the greed of gain puts out the pulpit fire. 
 
 Religion! fair religion! mourn with me, 
 The prostitutiou of thy name for clay ! 
 Shall great Baladan never bend the knee. 
 When sin sits down by sorrow's side to pray? 
 O ! rip the rags of rottenness away 
 That flaunt their filth where mercy's flags unfurled ! 
 And with the light whose darkness dims thy day. 
 Swift be their slander into Hades hurled. 
 Who pledge the pearl to buy the flesh pots of the world ! 
 
CANTO THIRD. 93 
 
 Of thine own household are thy foes most fell : 
 The scorner's laugh, the sceptic's withering sneer, 
 Are baby's toy, and idiot's bagatelle, 
 Which wise men are discarding year by year. 
 But, O, when Israel cries: "The Lord is here!" 
 And walks the earth as Mammon walked on high,* 
 The taunt is too abominably severe 
 To be connived at by society ! 
 O, thou art foully wronged, or life enacts a lie! 
 
 Great God ! If there be such a home as hell 
 Where devils damn'd lave blazing lava lake I 
 Where pain eternal and inexorable. 
 Excruciates ov/r kindred till they make 
 The deep and black-charred, flame-licked caverns shake. 
 Were it not hell, to dream of such a hell? 
 Were it believed the world's great heart would break ! 
 And yet the teachers who its tortures tell. 
 Are blithe as summer birds or elves in fairy dell ! 
 
 * Milton informs us that Mammon walked the heavens with his 
 eyes forever on the golden pavement. 
 
94 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 But this is not my theme. O rambles rare ! 
 O, copse and cove, and greenwood wide and wild! 
 The hearts who haunt you find congenial fare, 
 Ye homes, ye holy homes of nature's child! 
 My friend ! Come forth and have thy heart beguiled 
 From the enthrahnent of low things again ! 
 What hills more verdure-blest were ever piled. 
 Than these around this unimposing fane,* 
 That rears on Derwent's rim unsculptured walls and plain? 
 
 There sheltering, drooping yew and frailer flowers. 
 That claim the tender care of pious hands, 
 The talisman of dear and drifted hours. 
 The home of sainted memories — there it stands. 
 Shrine of the rustic hind and toiling bands 
 Of simple hearts and lowly! if a, tear 
 Well from its fountain as the soul expands 
 To compass old associations here, 
 'Tis warm as those that love sheds over beauty's bier ! 
 
 ' Wesleyan Chapel at Blaokhall Mill. 
 
CANTO THIRD. 95 
 
 But let us mark for one glad moment more, 
 The blending beam and bloom of nature's face : 
 High on this bank sweet-sloping to the shore, 
 And mantled by a verdure-tinted grace. 
 That pen may try, but try in vain, to trace. 
 The ravished eye of admiration sees, 
 Built, as if yearning for the wood's embrace, 
 A mean, brick row, half hid behind the trees, 
 That looks through foliage-rifts on these ascending leas ! 
 
 There, weary miners, black from "borde" and "lift," 
 And reeking from the round of routine dull. 
 Divulge the earnings, dangers of the "shift,'' 
 And give, as they the soothing cutty pull. 
 Their views on labour versus capital; 
 Or scan the future with prophetic ken, 
 Or from some honoured tome some passage cull. 
 To prove there is to dawn a future when 
 Their much-wronged claSs shall be esteemed like other men. 
 
96 THE DKEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 What, if they do, perhaps, too crudely mix 
 Sublimer themes with humble hamlet lore; 
 Or mingle self -with creeds and politics, 
 And vend th' approven -ware fi-om door to door! 
 Their lucky lords, though wiser, do no more. 
 'Tis not enough the pharisaical plea ! 
 And yet the prayer ascends from meanest floor — 
 Forbid ye gods, that ever I should see, 
 These dusky creatures elbow side by side with me! 
 
 O ! fools and blind and big with little pride, 
 To deem, because your brothers toil below, 
 That you have but to buffet and deride. 
 To bid your stature of importance grow ! 
 'Tis not for nought whoever serves them so : 
 The man that wrongs the meanest thing alive, 
 Shall stagger neath the retributive blow, 
 Which, soon or late, shall potently arrive : 
 To give us as we give the laws of life contrive, 
 
CANTO THIRD. 97 
 
 'Tis not because my heart has borne their woes, 
 Nor that I've shared the burden of their toil, 
 That I would or their vice or virtue glose. 
 Or hymn them through their stretch of thorny moil. 
 But they have hearts to hurt, and hopes to spoil, 
 And pride to blast and bosoms to degrade; 
 And life's deep springs too warmly burning boil. 
 For idiot mirth or ignominious trade. 
 Built upon woes too deep or to be sung or said ! 
 
 But, gaze around thee. Veering through the vale, 
 The bright, land-lessening Derwent frets her way. 
 As smoothe in flow as lovers' creamy tale, 
 And glad as is the glee of children's play. 
 But, O, what wilder pleasure to survey 
 Her big waves, tumbling wild with heavy rain, 
 Bound o'er embankment and obstructive stay. 
 Deluge these doors, and flood the Pear Tree Lane,* 
 And sheet large, yellow lakes o'er all this petty plain ! 
 
 * The Pear Tree is a name given to a farm situated on the north side 
 of the Derwent. and at the bottom part, or east end of the Blackhall 
 Mill Village. The lane leading from the farm opens on a ford. This 
 ford is generally shallow and very passable, but in rainy weather, it is 
 not only impassable, but the lane, itself, is sometimes flooded. When 
 the river is what the Blackball Mill people call "big," the houses built 
 on the rim of the river are often menaced with a watery invasion. I 
 have seen it at the door sills myself. Nobody who only sees it in dry 
 weather can have any idea of the height it sometimes arrives at. 
 
98 
 
 THE DEHWENT VALLEY. 
 
 How passing fair the leagues that Bxjlman* sung! 
 The minstrel lost to even local fame, 
 Who deftest chord from lute and violin iiung, 
 And thus enamoured breathed the inner flame. 
 He walked those wild arcades till they became 
 Things that he loved with the devoted love 
 We breathe around a child that bears our name : 
 The softest sighs that winnow summer grove, 
 Were musical to him as voices from above. 
 
 There, lone and lost among his native woods, 
 
 The home from which he first beheld the day; 
 
 And there .the depths of sylvan solitudes 
 
 That woke the fervour of his infant lay; 
 
 And there he winged the memoried years away 
 
 That men look back to when the heart is worn. 
 
 And fondly wish that life's remembered May, 
 
 Would ape the vernal month that decks the thorn. 
 
 And freshening o'er their hearts, with all its balm return. 
 
 * Joseph Bulman was bom at Ifewhouse, a small farm situated on 
 the left bank of the Derwent, and about a half-a-mile north west of 
 Blaokhall Mill, June 11th, 1833. He was a musician of considerable 
 ability, and a votary of ~the muse. He lived here until he was nineteen 
 years of age, when he left for Hexham Station, where he had got a 
 situation on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway. His father was farm 
 bailifE to E. Suetebs, Esq., and also rented a farm under the same 
 gentleman for a number of years. He left Hexham at the wish of the 
 Directors, and was put into the Audit Office, at Newcastle, and, 
 subsequently, into the Manager's Office. He was then invited to a 
 situation in the Union Bank, in Newcastle, and thence to their OflSee 
 
CANTO THIRC. 99 
 
 ! dreams of youth ! traaslucent dreams of youth ! 
 In life's dark canopy, the only stars ! 
 How well you hide from our young hearts the truth 
 That life leads on and on through wars to wars ! 
 'Tis only when we feel the battle-scars, 
 And we begin to falter at our post 
 That you grow lovely ! 0, he errs ! he errs ! 
 Who flies a flag too brightly glory-glost! 
 For, ah! what world-wealth won's worth half the heart-wealth 
 lost? 
 
 The world cries: "Glory!" when its heroes fall, 
 
 Nor questions what the bosom-conquests be: 
 
 Who wins most gold, most fame, or steeps in gall 
 
 Most worlds, is worshipped like a deity : 
 
 The outer glare is all the world can see. 
 
 But even they that bask in glory's blaze. 
 
 May find some cloud-spots in their destiny, 
 
 A.nd curse the lavish mock'ry of our praise, 
 
 As oft as the changed heart returns to youthful days! 
 
 at Sunderland, where he was soon incapacitated by Consumption. He 
 removed to Ryton for the sake of his health, and died there at the early 
 age of twenty-eight years, lamented by a large circle of friends. From 
 a small volume of poems published after his death, I have taken these 
 facts, and I should have quoted a specimen of his powers as a poet, but 
 space will not permit. His poetry, in some cases, shows signs of hurry 
 and imperfect execution, but, considering his progress in business, one 
 cannot be surprised at this. Some of his poems, such as " Why do the 
 breezes sigh ? " are not only well conceived but well executed and 
 exquisitely tender. 
 
100 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 For life's a losing battle: as we grow, 
 So closing round us grows the thickening war; 
 And we must deal stern forces blow for blow, 
 And cleave, bare-handed, many a blazing bar 
 That thwarts high-aiming purpose, till we mar 
 Ourselves in the mean struggle for earth-good, 
 And lower into the selfish things we are. 
 Ah! in that awful bosom-soUtude 
 When conscience cries : "Look back !" what hearts have writhed 
 and rued! 
 
 And what gain we by wrangling all our days? 
 A brief retirement from the babble roar, 
 A league of land, a breath of peevish praise, 
 A little gold, a grave, and all is o'er ! 
 Our youthful hearts demanded something more: 
 'Twas not their wish to sit in places high. 
 And bid a thousand parasites adore 
 The pomp of pride, the purse-supremacy — 
 The things, in after years, we measure statures by ! 
 
CANTO TSlfeD. 101 
 
 No ! all unworthy of our young heart's love, 
 Are these sham badges of the seeming great; 
 For then we lived sky-cleaving heights above 
 The mean dominion of the man's estate. 
 But, O, how natural to degenerate! 
 For when we feel the burden of our clay. 
 The years roll o'er us with tremendous weight, 
 And life's prospectives dressed in colours gay. 
 Grow dim, and yet more dim, as young dreams fade away. 
 
 Hence the supernal pleasure to retrace 
 The scenes that saw our infant years flow by; 
 The time-changed lineament of form and face, 
 The dawning, waning, of remembered joy. 
 And so to me whate'er invites the eye — 
 The forge, the farm, the Loop, the neighbouring rill. 
 Brings back the past all fresh and feelingly. 
 And Unks my heart and soul to Blackball Mill, 
 And these surrounding heights Broad Oak and Ash Tree Hill. 
 
102 
 
 THE DEBWENT VALLEY. 
 
 For here, ere those transcendent days were fled, 
 That caught their colour from the fresh heart's sheen, 
 How oft by ardent admiration led. 
 Have I, lone musing, trod these leagues of green ! 
 Where Chopwell Church stands crumbling lank and lean, 
 O'er pews whose only function is to fall, 
 Or Armon Side sits couched her hills between, 
 Or Milkwell Burn rears wood environed wall. 
 Or antique Cobbler's House looks down on old Black Hall.* 
 
 But we have still supernal things to note, 
 
 And we must bid our dreams a dear adieu. 
 
 To haunt the shaggy scenes of Derwent Cotet 
 
 Whose beauties wait to bless the hearts they woo. 
 
 Here, ash, oak, poplar, chestnut, greet the view; 
 
 There, all the beam and blow of bloom and buds; 
 
 Here, garden walks split plots of blossoms through; 
 
 And, hark ! the huge forge hammer thundering thuds, 
 
 And wakes, resounding loud, the echoes of the woods. 
 
 * All the places mentioned in this and the preceding stanzas are in 
 the immediate vicinity of Blaokhall Mill, the latter place being about 
 a mile below Ebohester, and about two miles above Lintz Green. The 
 surroundings of Blackball Mill are exceeding picturesque. Ash Tree 
 Hill commands a fine view of Pontop Pike on the south, and on the 
 east and west, the eye may follow the winding of the valley for many 
 a teeming mile, and sprinkled, as they are, with scattered cots, farms, 
 and villages, the pilgrim finds himself amply repaid for toiling to its 
 top. Blackball Mill, too, is associated with the German refugees. 
 
 ■)■ See page 103. 
 
CANTO THIRD. 103 
 
 Here splintered rocks, by long-spent forces torn 
 Prom native beds, conglomerated lie. 
 Rich with the stories of convulsions born 
 In some dim, prehistoric century; 
 There walls of woods ascending green and high. 
 Bend o'er the shaggy brow of precipice. 
 Till all the limitless expanse of sky 
 Is circumscribed to vault but only this 
 Sublime crag-based, wood-crowned, and water-floored abyss. 
 
 And see ! through this long cleft of riven rock, 
 
 The compressed waves in one deep volume glide 
 
 And carve, as if they strove man's art to mock, 
 
 Fantastic figures on the stony side. 
 
 Behold ! could art more fittingly provide 
 
 The almost perfect flower pots shapen here? 
 
 Or prop the sandy layer-joints, gaping wide, 
 
 With pillars so fantastically queer. 
 
 As these the wheeling waves are framing as they veerl* 
 
 * Following the course of the river from Blaokhall Mill you pass 
 Derwent Cote. Here you meet with a lovely piece of scenery, and, if 
 you follow the river from here to Lintz Ford, the beauty brightens as 
 you proceed. You will have many a scramble and tumble, but you will 
 not mind that ; and when you come to a certain point in your course, 
 called "Paradise," you will stop, sit down, and cry "delightful!" I 
 need not describe its exact whereabouts, for you will know it when you 
 come to it. What I have said about "figures," "pillars," "flowerpots," 
 is literally correct. But what is description ? I would advise all my 
 readers to go and see for themselves. 
 
104 
 
 THE DEKWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Thus, winding seaward down her shelvy bed, 
 Or filtering through the verging sedge and sand. 
 Or cleaving meads all clover-garmented, 
 Or hid away from vision's rapt command, 
 The Derwent runs her lovely course and grand. 
 But o'er the banks, and through the woods, away ! 
 The SuETEEs' home,* as genial as the land 
 That woos their juicied sickle, bids us stay. 
 And, with adoring hearts, exultingly survey. 
 
 Lo ! there it stands the mansion of the good, 
 That culture's rapt eye lingers to adore; 
 The home of worth, an altar in the wood. 
 The haU that holds within its open door. 
 The guardian angels of the neighbouring poor ! 
 How oft the needy heart and desolate 
 Has blessed the bounty of their generous store ! 
 How few, whatever colour be their fate. 
 Shall wander here and leave no blessing at their gate ! 
 
 * Hamsterley Hall, the seat of the Misses Surtees, on the south side 
 of the Derwent, about a mile from Lintz Green Station, and about 
 midway between Bumopfield and Ebohester. Surrounded by Hamsterley 
 Woods, and possessed of magnificent gardens and vineries, it enjoys a 
 seclusion as lovely as anything that nature and art can give. But what 
 endears it most of all to the people of the neighbourhood, are the 
 StJETEES themselves, who, unlike the generality of the great, stoop to 
 Mess instead of crush, and rule by love instead of fear. When 
 Mrs. SUETEBS died, some eight years ago. I rememljer, what a host of 
 poor, but earnest mourners she had. 
 
CANTO THIED. 105 
 
 Here, sheltered from the world's too vulgar glare, 
 The mind may burst the earth-bonds that controlled 
 Her finer workings, and on things that were, 
 And are, hold converse deep and manifold. 
 For here is built an Eden in the wold. 
 And air is stifled with the rich perfume; 
 And here the heaven-touched lips of genius told 
 The burthen of its beauty to illume 
 With better light, the years of long historic gloom. 
 
 And here, who spurred the fleet-hoofed steed apace. 
 When howling hound sniffed reynard in the breeze, 
 Spun line by line and clad with lettered grace 
 His split-side "Jorrock's Jaunts and Jollities." 
 While thought can thrill, or art has power to please, 
 Or love can warm the heart with hallow'd fire. 
 
 These walks, these woods, these farm enlivened leas 
 
 Their whilome haunts who lived to lift us higher 
 
 What grateful bard shall rove regardless of his lyre? 
 
106 THE DEEWBNT VALLEY. 
 
 Ye bowers of wild luxuriance summer-hued, 
 How sweet to wander neath your pensive shade; 
 To feel the weary, world-worn heart renewed, 
 With rich aroma from the breezy glade! 
 And, O, could pen depict as eye surveyed, 
 My humble line, how ample were thy thrall! 
 But yet not all the glories that pervade 
 The scenes on which the eyes of rapture fall. 
 May cheer the heart as cheers this hospitable Hall, 
 
 Heaven dower the home that nursed the truly great. 
 That shelters still the truly generous fair ! 
 Hale be their hearts to handle their estate. 
 Light be the burthen of their tithe of care ! 
 Or if they feel the common woes that wear 
 The heart with dark endurance, when they bleed, 
 Be Thy great aid forever lingering there. 
 As ample as their maximum of need, 
 Who quenched no smoking flax, nor broke one bruised reed 
 
CANTO THIRD. 107 
 
 But hail, again, ye wild and winding ways 
 Through tangled dene and hazel-roofed recess; 
 Ye bright and breezy meads and primrose braes 
 That, laughing, woo the zephyr's warm caress. 
 And spread your sheen the pilgrim's eye to bless ! 
 Where calm Steel Close in blest seclusion hides, 
 And fair Lintz Ford is lost in loveliness. 
 And yon dismantled Friar's fane* divides 
 Its walls 'tween storm and time sweet-beckoning beauty guides. 
 
 On, o'er the white road stretching through the wood. 
 And see, what teeming prospects greet the gaze ! 
 How sweet to bask in nature's sunny mood 
 When every water-ripple is ablaze 
 With the refulgence of meridian rays! 
 For then is hushed the ruffled world within, 
 And dawns the wisdom of superior ways: 
 How mean the man-world, with its busy din, 
 To this, begemmed with pink of rose and gold of whin ! 
 
 * This Gothic Chapel at Friarside, was a monastic dependency, and 
 one of the first religious institutions suppressed by Henbt VIII 
 
108 
 
 THE DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 'Tis only when, as now, we breathe apart 
 From fretted life, that we may truly scan 
 The huge dimensions of the human heart — 
 That world-embracing compass of a span 
 Where heaven and hell conjoined when life began, 
 And deity and devil wage the war 
 That makes the mystery of enigma man, 
 That wonder-world of harmony and jar 
 Born into being — how! And hurrying — how fart 
 
 Not he who takes the current with the crowd. 
 Nor he who, moth-like, lingers round the glare 
 Of artificial venture, is allowed 
 The glimpses of the heart of life laid bare : 
 By him alone who prays and ponders where 
 No footfall save his own imprints the sward, 
 The music-burdened voices of the air, 
 The low ethereal melodies are heard, 
 Sublimed with softer notes than carols of a bird. 
 
CANTO THIRD. 109 
 
 The temples of the solitudes are rife 
 With rich and rare communion. Bird and bee, 
 Field-flower and grass — symbolical of life — 
 May ask a thousand questions which, if we 
 Could answer, one might hope, in some degree, 
 That science, after flights and falls, may tear 
 The veil from ofi" the face of mystery. 
 And lay the life of man and nature bare 
 To all who haunt the mart of literary ware. 
 
 But as it is, and hemmed around by sense, 
 We only gaze and wonder; but that gaze 
 Rewards us with a happiness intense; 
 That wonder melts our spirits into praise. 
 And thus we tread the providential maze 
 Of mystery; but accustomed to the dark, 
 We feel the Father who has mapped our ways, 
 And guides us through the gloom. But see ! and hark ! 
 High over Gibside Woods how gayly sings the lark ! 
 
110 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 There, hill-supported, backed by oak and fir 
 The crowning pile sits gazing down the slope 
 That guides the gaze, enraptured, to the shore 
 And wanders through a thousand charms that ope 
 Their sylvan bosoms to the azure cope : 
 To mark the sweetness of its dreamy air, 
 'Twould seem that nought of disappointed hope 
 Or thorn of heart had ever rankled there. 
 And yet, what memories foul are blending with its fair! 
 
 The withering presence of a busy curse 
 Stands black between its beauty and the eye : 
 As when an April 'storm has spent its force, 
 But left its trace upon the cope of sky. 
 The lingering blight of one dark memory* 
 Blurs all these teeming glens. Strive as we may. 
 We cannot put the grisly phantom by : 
 And there it stands, a ghost we cannot lay. 
 And throws its sable self o'er all that we survey. 
 
 *The story of "Stoney Bowes," or, if you please, Andeew 
 Robinson Stonet Bowes, Esq., is, perhaps, too well known to need 
 repeating here. I might just say, however, for the sake of those who 
 may be unacquainted with the matter, that he was an " Irish fortune- 
 hxrnter ; " that he cozened the Countess of Strathmore into a marriage 
 with him, and thus became associated with Gibside ; that he used this 
 lady most diabolically in order to get her estate ; that he died in the 
 King's Bench Prison, London, on January 16th, 1810, and that 
 RiCHAEDSON says of him : " Bowes was a compound of baseness and 
 hypocrisy ; his acts (even in prison) were of the blackest die." 
 
CANTO THIED. Ill 
 
 'Tis not for us to rake up from the past 
 The mouldering page of ignominious deeds, 
 Nor add anathema to the curses vast 
 Heaped on the heart that knew such demon needs. 
 Enough, the breast he bled no longer bleeds; 
 The lives he blasted feel no more the blight; 
 But yet, howe'er superior wisdom pleads. 
 The wrong will stand between us and the light. 
 Demanding audience first of all these wonders bright. 
 
 But hush ! no more. As fleet as Derwent flows 
 Around the hills whose base her waters lave, 
 The tide that bore the barque of Stoney Bowes, 
 Bears ours as swiftly onward to the grave. 
 And we must learn the war-song of the brave, 
 And not the dirge of shattered lives self-wrecked. 
 If we would consecrate our powers to save 
 Our after-memory from the world's neglect. 
 Or give to future years the toil-fruit they expect. 
 
112 THE DEE WENT VALLEY. 
 
 And SO, engaging Gibside, we shall sheen, 
 Not what thy fortunes were, but what thou art, 
 Of all this wealth of charms the sylvan queen. 
 Bright in the picture gallery of the heart. 
 One more absorbing gaze and we depart : 
 This column based in wood-depths, and on high 
 With sculptured figure crowned, may well divert 
 From bootless pages man's adoring eye 
 To those that, breathing, burn with love of liberty. 
 
 Forever pointing skyward, there it stands, 
 Indicative of nature's boons the best; 
 A mute reminder of the hearts and hands 
 That bled to give us more than they possess'd. 
 And speaking to the passion in the breast 
 Which God implanted to preserve us men, 
 That lone cloud-cleaving column shall attest 
 To years untried, and change not yet in ken, 
 That one high heart, at least, enriched this leafy glen. 
 
CANTO THIED. 113 
 
 O! God-created, God-like lihertyl* 
 Her glorious worth whtit language may attest? 
 Nay ! how sublimely great her votaries be, 
 Shall ne'er be fitly symbolled or expressed 
 And See, who loves her most and serves her best 
 Has reared their homes who delve his busy mine,+ 
 Where, gazing stream-ward in their hours of rest. 
 That claims the kindling view in cloud and shine. 
 And bids them guard the right blood-purchased and divine. 
 
 For it is theirs, however mean their moil, 
 The priceless, God-given guerdon to defend : 
 And, O, were they like him for whom they toil ! — 
 Truth's sturdy champion. Freedom's chosen friend 
 Whom force of tyrant factions failed to bend! — 
 O, were their hearts aflame with half the zeal 
 With which he toiled and taught, and strove to mend 
 The blur and blight, how swiftly would they heal 
 The thousand ills that eat into their lowly weal! 
 
 * This is a Doric Column, erected by Geokgb Bowes, father of the 
 unhappy Countess of Strathmore. Its height is 140 feet, and it is 
 surmounted by a statue of "British Liberty," and was erected in com- 
 memoration of that gentleman's success at an election. 
 
 tThis mine, the property of Joseph Cowen, Esq., of Stella Hall, 
 and late M.P. for Newcastle, is on the north side of the river, and 
 nearly opposite the Monument. The niiners live in a row verging the 
 Newcastle Turnpike, and from their doors and windows they behold 
 the Column rising from the depths of the vale and overtopping the 
 woods. 
 
114 THE DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 For life's unfurrow'd miles the humblest brain 
 One grain of good, at least, may contribute. 
 Which, though it may not yield a blossom'd plain. 
 Will, here and there, sure flourish into fruit. 
 In Freedom's cause 'tis well to be devout. 
 For what a stretch of moral waste to weed ! 
 And man must bid the mental blossoms shoot, 
 Whate'er his outer want, or inner need. 
 If he would break his gyves and climb to noble deed. 
 
 'Tis not in accidental power or place 
 Or titled name, or circumstantial state. 
 To scatter partial blessing on our race : 
 The meanest man is master of his fate. 
 And no earth-power can sink or elevate. 
 But that with which the inner life is stirr'd — 
 The ideal man that's with us soon and late : 
 And if his soul with higher things accord. 
 The humblest servant may be greater than his lord, 
 
CANTO THIRD. 115 
 
 But farther scenes, and yet unscanned, await, 
 And we must yield to Beauty as she wooes, 
 And cull the joys of this sublime estate 
 As home-material for the silent muse. 
 Again the road divides a thousand hues 
 Again the bordering woods, aroma'd, fill 
 With blending balms the chalice of the dews; 
 Charm laughs on charm, and hill sweet smiles on hill, 
 Till Beauty bids us pause at old Winlaton MiU.* 
 
 And here the antique straggling hamlet sits 
 As musing on it loneliness. Around, 
 Save when a fluttering wood-bird o'er it flits. 
 All things are wrapt in dreaminess profound. 
 The well-worn mill has ceased its wonted sound, 
 And toil gives place to most unwelcome rest; 
 Old Enterprise has run his keel aground, 
 And thus deprived of all its ancient zest. 
 The languid village mourns the life it once possessed. 
 
 Winlaton Mill is an old-fashioned romantic little village, sitting 
 immediately on the verge of the Derwent. about twoand-a-ha'lf miles 
 below Gibside, and about half-a-mile above Swalwell Station. As you 
 gaze on it from the opposite bank it presents a most picturesque 
 appearance, and gives one the impression that everything about it is a 
 century or two behind hand. Over the hill from it, is Winlaton 
 Village, which owes its rise to Sir Ambrose Ceawlet, who started 
 ironworks there in 1691. The Mill, itself, used to be very busy but 
 within these recent years has been doing very little. ' 
 
116 THE DERWENT VALLEY. 
 
 But yet 'tis passing lovely to behold 
 The red roofs gleam above the white-washed walls, 
 Whence, rich with reminiscences of old, 
 The eye may drink delight where'er it falls. 
 And though no gothic domes, nor lordly halls 
 Absorb the pilgrim who may wander here. 
 The spell of its rusticity enthrals 
 With joy more hallow'd and more sweetly dear, 
 Than ought that centres round our citadels austere. 
 
 Thus lost amid the best of earth-delights 
 We push, enraptured, onward to the goal 
 Of our engaging rambles, while the night's 
 Fume-veil is wreathing gold-gilt clouds that roll 
 Around the blaze of sunset, like a soul 
 Blending a thousand heart-hues black and bright; 
 But ere we quit the vale from which we've stole 
 So much endearing joy, and ere the sight 
 Is baffled with the gloom, behold on left and right ! 
 
CANTO THIRD. 117 
 
 There lovely Axwell, isolation-blest, 
 
 And park-commanding, greets the kindling view; 
 
 And up the hUls with bloom and verdure dressed. 
 
 Behold green-girdled Whickham skirt the blue; 
 
 And here, the smithy fires of Swalwell Spew 
 
 There fume in sable columns, curling o'er 
 
 Her zigzag lanes and dingy. But adieu ! 
 
 Our goal is gained : We part upon the shore, 
 
 Where Shield* was wont to sing, where Blythe HuBSTt 
 learned his lore. 
 
 I would that you had had a better guide 
 In these your Derwent rambles, than the bard 
 Who, at the most, can only say he's tried 
 To fill the lovely journey with reward. 
 But as it is, since we have thus conferred 
 On themes so passing grand, and rolled the sight 
 O'er such a wealth of beauty, 'twill be hard 
 For busy life to banish all the bright 
 Of Derwent from your heart. Good night! my friend, good 
 night ! 
 
 * The author of a Ballad Opera called " Kosina," and, if tradition 
 speaks truly, the composer of the " Keel Eow." But whether this is 
 correct or not, I would not like to say, for some argue that the air is 
 Scotch. He died at Whickham. 
 
 tThe late Eev. Bltthb Hubst served his time as a blacksmith 
 here. His custom was — so I have learned from an old gentleman who 
 worked with him when a boy — to chalk his lessons for the day on the 
 iron plate above his smithy fire, so that-he might get on with the 
 double task of shaping iron and learning Greek at the same time. 
 
118 
 
 THE DEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Oh ! I have loved thee, Valley of wild flowers, 
 And with a love that time may fail to chUl ! 
 "The Choral Muses and the Eosy Hours"* 
 Await on those who wander by the rill, 
 And these shall be my bright companions still. 
 Yes! I will love thee! For the dear "gone by" 
 Beheld my sire his span of being fill 
 And sink unto thy bosom : there, too, lie 
 And mingle with thy dust the hearts for which I sigh. 
 
 Yes! I will love thee! Yonder mouldering now 
 In one lone tomb, and by their mouldering sire, 
 Are they who met me with the beaming brow, 
 The soft young eyes that breathed a hallow'd fire ; 
 And these shall live till life's last rays expire 
 In memory's golden cabinet ! these are chains 
 The soul may hug for ever and not tire 
 Of her sweet bondage ! Vale of teeming plains ! 
 My life's best love is thine for what thy dust contains! 
 
 * CAELTIiB, 
 
CANTO THIRD. 119 
 
 Oh ! ye departed ! o'er whose pillow'd head 
 The storms may howl in menace or refrain, 
 But dare not mar your consecrated bed, 
 Nor break the stillness of your calm domain ! 
 How do I yearn to greet you once again. 
 To strain you to my bosom as of yore. 
 Ere that deep placid sleep came o'er the brain 
 Which shall not brook an interruption more ! 
 But ye are gone, ye dead, and earth wUl not restore ! 
 
 Nor do I murmur at this hard decree. 
 For it was well that you should go to rest; 
 Nor would I bring you back again to me. 
 For broken is the galling yoke that pressed 
 Its iron through the soul, and you are blessed. 
 Beyond the touch of sorrow's melting throe, 
 And all the pain that frets the goaded breast ! 
 For what has life's delirious span to show 
 But iU begetting ill, and woe beclouding woe ? 
 
120 THE rtEEWENT VALLEY. 
 
 Then let me toil my round of life alone, 
 Nor weakly fear the world's inhuman war, 
 Till one kind hour shall call me to mine own, 
 And lay me down where my beloved ones are. 
 Though life be dark 'tis not without a star 
 Whose kindly radiance lights us to the goal 
 Where minds immortal feel no discords jar, 
 Where light, and life, and love pervade the whole, 
 And huma,n ills, no more rend soul apart from soul ! 
 
MINOR POEMS. 
 
 ' All are architects of Fate 
 
 Working in these -walls of Time, 
 
 Some with massive deeds and great, 
 
 Some with ornaments of rhyme. 
 
 ' Nothing useless is, or low ; 
 ' Each thing in its place is best ; 
 And what seems but idle show 
 Strengthens and supports the rest." 
 
 H. W. liONGFBLLOW 
 
Drifting Hwa^. 
 
 Drifting away like the weeds on a river 
 
 Borne in the whirl of its maddening play, 
 Soon to be lost in the mighty forever, 
 
 Mortals are passively drifting away. 
 Heirs of humanity, vexed by insanity, 
 
 Children of vanity, gloomy or gay. 
 Strong or dispirited, as they have merited 
 
 Natures inherited, drifting away. 
 Drifting away, ever drifting away. 
 
 Mortals are passively drifting away. 
 
 Drifting away like the ships to the ocean, 
 
 Bound for a distant and shadowy bay. 
 Weary of life and its ceaseless commotion. 
 
 Men in their glory are drifting away. 
 Over the shifting sand, farther from port and land, 
 
 Into the ocean's grand, billowy sway ; 
 But ere the water's crossed, 0, how their barque is tossed ! 
 
 What if their chart is lost ? — drifting away ! 
 Drifting away, ever drifting away. 
 
 Men in their glory are drifting away ! 
 
124 DRIFTING AWAY. 
 
 Drifting away from the truths they held dearest, 
 
 Lost in the gloom, unrelieved by a ray, 
 A.nd shorn of the hope which to them was the clearest, 
 
 Mystery questioners, drifting away. 
 Doubt and its sable train, brooding o'er heart and brain, 
 
 Wake the consuming pain nought can allay. 
 And while the spirit lies writhing in agonies, 
 
 Blood-weeping nature sighs — "Drifting away ! " 
 Drifting away, ever drifting away, 
 
 Mystery questioners, drifting away ! 
 
 Drifting away from the shrines of devotion 
 
 Where, with rapt hearts, they assembled to pray, 
 No more to be thrilled with a holy emotion. 
 
 Baffled and bleeding, they're drifting away ! 
 Where are the joys they knew ! Where the blessed moments 
 few? 
 
 Backward they turn the view, late in life's day. 
 And on the travelled plain see the high pleasures slain. 
 
 Ne'er to be theirs again !— drifting away ! 
 Drifting away, ever drifting away. 
 
 Baffled and bleeding, they're drifting away ! 
 
DEIFTING AWAY. 125 
 
 Drifting away from the high and the holy, 
 
 Down to the low, the illicit, and gay. 
 Borne on the currents of passion and folly, 
 
 Pleasure's light votaries, drifting away. 
 Fast fly their erring feet round where the -vices meet, 
 
 And where the sirens sweet sing to betray : 
 But on the fatal isle, how shall they rue the guile. 
 
 Curse the seductive smile ! — drifting away ! 
 Drifting away, ever drifting away, 
 
 Pleasure's light votaries, drifting away ! 
 
 0, Father, whose fiat creation extended. 
 
 And breathed into being inanimate clay. 
 By the arm of Thy might be our weakness defended. 
 
 Preserve us in mercy from drifting away ! 
 Ere the fell dart is cast into the heart at last, 
 
 And the deep smart is fast-centred for aye, 
 Spread Thy safe-sheltering wing over our suffering. 
 
 And to Thy bosom bring all that would stray ! 
 Drifting away, ever drifting away. 
 
 Preserve us in mercy from drifting away ! 
 
^be ©lb nDan'6 prai^er. 
 
 Deep in a wild and ferny-floor'd arcade, 
 
 One dreamy hour I hid myself away, 
 
 ^nd, lost where light on vernal beauty played. 
 
 Grave unto nature one delightful day. 
 
 An unbreathed burthen on my spirit lay, 
 
 For I had trod the mazy round of doubt — 
 
 That round of smoking hearts and spectres grey- 
 
 And reasoned in how hard to reason out ! 
 
 But even then despite the inner smart, 
 
 That green glen glassed its beauty in my heart. 
 
 How sweet to wander the aroma'd wood ! 
 
 What bliss to linger where the ringdoves hide ! 
 
 To wade the wild green depths of solitude, 
 
 With song to glad and beauty's glow to guide ! 
 
 Thus, while the woodlarks sung and soft winds sighed, 
 
 I mused and urged my verdure-mantled way : 
 
 And heaven was in that woodland wild and wide : 
 
 O, I was glad ! the blossom'd glen was gay : 
 
 When rose again that all-deforming doubt. 
 
 And rudely dashed the shimmering glory out ! 
 
THE OLD man's PRAYER. l27 
 
 O, then and there a night fell on my heart ; 
 A heart-blight fell on aspirations high : 
 And stabb'd again, as with a poisoned dart, 
 The damning thought that life is mockery ! 
 But now, a snow-tressed sage was standing by, 
 Who, with the wisdom native to his years, 
 Broke up the field of my philosophy. 
 And with a voice that wins while it endears, 
 Bade me in candid confidence disclose 
 These bosom-burning questions as they rose : — 
 
 Why am I born ? I did not wish to be : 
 
 My life demands the thanks I cannot pay : 
 
 Filled as it is with pain and misery 
 
 How gladly one might cast the boon away ! 
 
 But I am, born — and born to praise and pray : 
 
 To praise the hand that woke me to my woe ! 
 
 To pray that it may hold me in the way 
 
 That leads not to its arbitrary blow ! 
 
 " Give ! give ! " the overwhelming passions cry ; 
 
 Who framed them thunders : " Give not, or you die ! " 
 
128 THE OLD man's PEAYEB. 
 
 The old man raised his eyes and smiled, 
 
 Then stroked a snovy curl, ■ 
 And said : "I trod that path my child 
 
 And found it ' burning merl ! ' 
 These are not questions for the head, 
 
 Nor for the schoolman's art : 
 The secrets slumber with the dead 
 
 That trouble thy young heart. 
 
 'Tis madness pure in you or I, 
 
 As other years will show, 
 To search in ceaseless agony 
 
 For that we'll never know. 
 Believe not man was born in vain, 
 
 And mark you this, my boy, 
 There's more true schooling in his pain, 
 
 Than good in all his joy. 
 
 Seek not to know, but learn to trust, 
 
 And surely thou shalt prove 
 That He who called thee from the dust 
 
 Is worthy of thy love. 
 This said, he laid his tresses bare 
 
 And kneeling on the sod. 
 Low offered this remembered prayer 
 
 With fervent lips to God : 
 
THE OLD man's PRATER. 129 
 
 0, Thou beyond conception good, 
 
 Beyond all wisdom wise, 
 The Framer of my finitude. 
 
 The Builder of the skies ! 
 With Thee, as with a cloud. Great Mind, 
 
 My life is wrapt around ; 
 Go where I may, whate'er I find, 
 
 My God is always found ! 
 
 Though all the blazing worlds of space 
 
 Revolve at Thy command, 
 Thy love has made my dwelling place 
 
 The hollow of Thy hand. 
 Where'er I am, whate'er I be, 
 
 Howe'er I walk astray. 
 Thy mercy still environs me 
 
 With good from day to day. 
 
 Though all unworthy I have been. 
 
 And all too blind to know. 
 Thy love in all my weal is seen 
 
 Thy wisdom in my woe. 
 The darkest clouds that hue my day 
 
 Are lined with golden good. 
 And nought the grateful soul can say 
 
 Can laud Thee as it should. 
 
130 THE OLD man's PHAYEE. 
 
 How oft have I ignored Thy grace, 
 
 Or spurned the blessing given, 
 Or heart-rebellious turned my face 
 
 Impertinent to heaven ! 
 Though pleasant paths and pastures green 
 
 Thy hand for me designed, 
 My cold and fitful worship's been 
 
 As moody as the mind ! 
 
 How long, my God ! how long ! how long ! 
 
 Shall wasting weakness reign. 
 And bind the heaven-aspiring strong 
 
 With such a fleshly chain ? 
 0, break the thrall of selfish sense, 
 
 Thou mystic One in Three, 
 And bind with Thy Omnipotence 
 
 My sliding soul to Thee ! 
 
 The thousand things the thoughts confess 
 
 The world shall never hear, 
 The soul, assured, may pour and press 
 
 Into her Father's ear. 
 For, O, the ills of mortal state, 
 
 The fountains whence they flow. 
 The ocean-depths of love and hate, 
 
 My God can only know. 
 
THE OLD man's prayer. 131 
 
 Hence from the deeps of dark distress — 
 
 The guilty's sure abode ! 
 The soul cries out : Confess ! confess ! 
 
 But only unto God ! 
 And so however huge my pride, 
 
 However vile I be, 
 Thou good All-wise, I would not hide 
 
 One bosom-stain from Thee ! 
 
 Nay ! ere the guilty deed's forgot 
 
 That wrings the riven heart, 
 I lay my finger on the spot 
 
 That needs Thy healing art ! 
 Assured, though the as guilty's taunt 
 
 Would aggravate the blow, 
 That Thou wilt gratify my want. 
 
 And medicate my woe. 
 
 ! give me. Giver of my good, 
 
 And Pillar of my hope. 
 The strength by which may be subdued 
 
 The ills with which I cope : 
 The centred will that lays the strife 
 
 Of passion's lava tide ; 
 The heart that still aromas life 
 
 The more, the more 'tis tried ! 
 
132 THE OLD man's PEAYEE. 
 
 And lead me on where I may find 
 
 The wisdom long forgot, 
 That breathes the heaven of a mind 
 
 Contented with its lot ! 
 The book-born pride, the damning doubt. 
 
 That blur whate'er they scan. 
 Cast out, Almighty God, cast out, 
 ■ Ere they absorb the man ! 
 
 Take not away the rich man's store, 
 
 But teach his heart to feel 
 That all the ' wants that pinch the poor 
 
 Are woes that he can heal. 
 Improve the truth's triumphant speed 
 
 To universal ken. 
 And pass not by one human need ! — 
 
 Amen ! My God! Amen ! " 
 
 The old man rose, his eyes were wet, 
 
 But God was beaming there, 
 And warmed his throbbing brow with sweat 
 
 And sheened his snowy hair ! 
 The glory and the glow came back 
 
 To all I gazed upon. 
 For, lo, the ghastly doubt and black, 
 
 The damning doubt was gone ! 
 
THE OLD man's PBAYEE. 133 
 
 And gazing through the drifted years 
 
 With all their change and care, 
 I see to-night that old man's tears, 
 
 I hear that old man's prayer. 
 And ever since the memoried day 
 
 I met him in the glen, 
 In all my woe I've strived to say — 
 
 Amen ! My God ! Amen 1 
 
IRever sai? Die. 
 
 Never say die, though the worst may betide thee, 
 
 Nor bow down thy soul to the vulgar and mean ; 
 The future unfoldeth a beacon to guide thee 
 
 Through all the dark ways of this turbulent scene. 
 Obscure for a time it may flicker uncertain. 
 
 Till weakness may tempt thee to shake oS the clay ; 
 But watch and despair not, 'twill steal through the curtain. 
 
 And bless thee again witK its life-giving ray. 
 
 Never say die, though the world may disdain thee. 
 
 The wisest, the greatest, liave calumny borne ; 
 Nor let its base principles torture or chain thee, 
 
 For thou canst defy its abuse and its scorn. 
 Thy bosom may bleed in the sore tribulation, 
 
 As poniards of irony enter the soul ; 
 But short is the smart of the vain laceration, 
 
 Thy conscience, thy God, shall anoint and make whole. 
 
 Never say die, while a task is before thee. 
 
 But brave it, achieve it, and make thyself blest ; 
 
 For duty fulfilled is the noblest glory, 
 
 And labour accomplished the tranquUlest rest. 
 
NEVER SAY DIE. 135 
 
 Seek not for some soft flowery bed to recline on, 
 And bid thy companion go forth with his shield, 
 
 But buckle, I pray thee, that armour of thine on. 
 And bear off the laurels or die on the field. 
 
 Never say die, but bestir thee in earnest, 
 
 There lieth before thee a goal to be won. 
 And beaming around wheresoever thou turnest 
 
 Are smiles of aifection to welcome thee on. 
 But what if thou pass through the world disregarded ? 
 
 'Tis when we have done and our weapons laid by. 
 That all honest toil shall be justly rewarded — 
 
 O, never say die, brother, never say die ! 
 
fIDinnte: or a Blaster Xife, 
 
 You would like to hear the story of the little maid I knew 1 
 
 Well, 1 promise, though I cannot do the talk I used to do. 
 
 Feeble age and choking asthma make me careful how I speak, 
 
 Else my tale had dashed the colour from the most unfeeling 
 cheek. 
 
 Minnie, lovely, hapless Minnie ! I can never breathe her 
 name. 
 
 But the feelings are awakened that the years could never tame. 
 How whole-hearted would she gambol when her day school 
 task was done ! 
 
 And what soul was in her laughter when a holiday was won ! 
 
 'Twas delightful to behold her in those love-remembered days. 
 
 Lighting up the dear old homestead with her kindly angel ways ; 
 
 Flitting, as on downy pinion, o'er the meadows in the May, 
 
 As if chasing life's ecstatic spring in playfulness away. 
 
 Beaming eye and flaxen tresses, and a form of peerless grace, 
 
 And a heart whose depth of feeling mirror'd heaven in the face : 
 
 Pictures, painters love to pencil, breathing charms of poet's lore. 
 
 Gladdening wheresoe'er they linger, these were nature's gifts 
 to her. 
 
MINNIK : OR A BLASTED LIFE. 137 
 
 And her mother loved her dearly and her father prized his child ; 
 
 And with patient care they taught her : " Gentle Jesus, meek 
 and mild ; " 
 
 And with Bible story formed her for the pathway of the good, 
 
 Till their little brighteyed daughter ripened into womanhood. 
 
 But the path of life is tangled, and with hidden snares replete. 
 
 And the youthful heart and ardent hurries on the heedless feet ; 
 
 And we know not what the future, that, untrodden lies before 
 
 With its mingling shine and shadow, for our spirits has in store. 
 
 Nay ! we care not ; only give us the enjoyment of to-day. 
 
 And to-morrow, well, to-morrow, it may bring us what it may : 
 
 If the sky that spans the present only glad us with its beams. 
 
 None of age's heart-forebodings hue themselves in youthful 
 dreams. 
 
 This in passing. She grew older, she became exceeding fair. 
 
 She was lulled by adulation, was a suitor's lovely care. 
 
 We, the village boys that watched them wander down the 
 shady lane. 
 
 In our admiration deemed her — Minnie — Flower of the Plain, 
 
138 MINNIE : OR A BLASTED LIFE. 
 
 How we laughed when it was rumoured that her wedding day 
 was nigh ! 
 
 How we'd shower the rice around her ! What big presents we 
 would buy ! 
 
 How would boom our petty cannons ! How her native hazel 
 dells 
 
 Would re-echo with our voices when was pealed her wedding 
 
 bells ! 
 O the prospect was delightful ! So we teased her every day ; 
 
 And we told her she was "fibbing," if she coyly answered 
 " nay ! " 
 
 For had not the village gossips told us when the day would be 1 
 
 We were certain she'd be married very soon — and so was she ! 
 
 For had not her lover told her that her presence made his bliss 1 
 
 And that he could forfeit heaven for the heaven of her kiss 1 
 
 That he prized her fond affection more than monarch's gilded 
 throne ? 
 
 That he'd sooner die than hurt the heart he yearned to call his 
 own? 
 
 That his passion was eternal ? that his soul was in his word ? 
 
 Had he hot implored the promise that recording angels heard ! 
 
 Yes, he had ! and hapless Minnie — O, ye pitying powers 
 above ! — 
 
 Had bequeathed him all her being, all the wealth of all her 
 
 Jove! 
 
MINNIE : OB A BLASTED LIFE. 139 
 
 But, ye ghosts of love-vows broken ! and ye depths of human 
 art! 
 
 He played lover; he played traitor; he played havoc with her 
 heart ! 
 
 Plucked the tender beauty blossom, wore it in his breast a day, 
 
 Cast it to the world's bleak bosom for the winds to bear away ! 
 
 Worn of heart, and wronged, and blighted, where but now she 
 peerless shone, 
 
 In a sudden hour she vanished, in a moment she was gone ! 
 Gone to tell the winds her sorrow ; gone in strangers' homes to 
 dwell ; 
 
 Gone, " but where t " The gossips shook their heads and 
 answered, " cannot tell ! " 
 
 " Gone ! " was all the doleful tidings that inquiry could exact. 
 
 Till a paragraph, black-margined, carried round the saddening 
 fact : 
 
 " Yestereve, in city alley, frozen to the flinty ground. 
 
 Where the snow had drifted deepest, lo ! the missing maid was 
 
 found ! " 
 She had gone the round of folly that corrodes the prop of 
 
 ' pride. 
 And despairing, sought the alley where, unpitied, she had died. 
 Yes ! 'twas hers to tread the burning path of misery bdow. 
 And 'twas hers, at last, to fall beneath the burden of her woe. 
 
140 
 
 MINNIE : OR A BLASTED LIFE. 
 
 To that tale of shame her mother a delirious answer gave, 
 And swift went down her hoary locks with sorrow to the grave ; 
 And day by day her father grew more wrapt in mental gloom, 
 And followed soon his aged mate to shelter in the tomb ; 
 And Minnie sleeps in dreamless sleep — asleep as soft as long — 
 Whose sunny life was blasted by a single moral wrong ; 
 And — but we shall not mention now the doer of the deed : 
 The heart is sure to bleed at last that makes another bleed ! 
 
Zbe Smile tbat Beams at Ibome. 
 
 There lives a charm in all we see, 
 
 A spell in water's shimmering sheen ; 
 In every flower that decks the lea, 
 
 A presence and a power are seen. 
 But what were all the joys below 
 
 The azure of this ample dome. 
 Had human love not caused to glow 
 
 The smile that beams at home 1 
 
 In all the rounds of weary life 
 
 Here blooms an Eden for us all ; 
 A voice to cheer us in the strife, 
 
 An arm to lean on when we fall ; 
 An eye that breathes a changeless love, 
 
 A heart that always makes us room: 
 O, give to me where'er I rove, 
 
 The smile that beams at home ! 
 
 When toil bears down the aching frame, 
 
 Or fretful care corrodes the breast ; 
 When fevers set the brain on flame, 
 
 And evening brings no hour of rest ; 
 What sun illumes the murky night ? 
 
 What cheering presence gilds the gloom, 
 And throws around its lavish light ? 
 
 The smile that beams at home ! 
 
142 THE SMILE THAT BEAMS AT HOME. 
 
 When stern oppression's iron heel 
 
 Would crush the life from out the heart, 
 Wrest from the lip the scanty meal, 
 
 And nature faints beneath the smart ; 
 What soothing power may heal the wound, 
 
 Allay the bosom's rising foam. 
 And bid the deserts smile around ? 
 
 The smile that beams at home ! 
 
 When they in whom we learned to trust 
 
 In selfish coldness far remove, 
 And. view with rancour and disgust 
 
 The warmth of an eternal love; 
 What mortal charm may quell the throe 
 
 And bid the dove-eyed halcyon come 
 To spread her pinion o'er our woe 1 
 
 The smUe that beams at home ! 
 
 When far, in climes unfriendly we, 
 
 By fortune's freaks, are forced to fly. 
 Where all we meet, and hear, and see, 
 
 Grates on the heart, the ear, and eye ; 
 What light celestial shines afar 
 
 To guide our feet where'er we roam — 
 A centred joy, a polar star ? 
 
 The smile that beams at home ! 
 
THE SMILE THAT BEAMS AT HOME. 
 
 143 
 
 And when that holy smile is fled, 
 
 That soft, bright eye forever closed. 
 And laid within the quiet bed, 
 
 Where kindred hearts have long reposed : 
 Where is the light that passed away ? 
 
 See ! through the vistas of the tomb. 
 Still lingering on our darksome way 
 
 The smile that beams at home ! 
 
®ur ©uiet Ibours. 
 
 Our quiet hours have power at their command 
 To lift the thick, black veil of mystery, 
 And lead us to the borders of that sea 
 Whose silent waters lave our time-leased land : 
 Where we behold our loved ones as they stand 
 Smiling and radiant on the farther shore. 
 Watching our weary tugging at the oar, 
 And waving to us with immortal hand. 
 And as we gaze and ponder, lo, a band 
 Of holy singers its wrapt music flings 
 Around us, till we seem to understand 
 The import of our being, and that things 
 Beyond the grave are not all vain imaginings, 
 
Zbe CbiI^ren ot tbe Street 
 
 A dark night in cold December blew a tempest wild and loud, 
 As alone I hurried homeward through the city's surging crowd. 
 The gas-lights on the pavement flickered o'er the stony street 
 And the sloppy flags resounded with the urchins' dripping feet. 
 The cowering little creatures shivered in the bitter gale, 
 A.S they cried the evening papers and the wares they had for 
 
 sale; 
 And the tears they could not stifle came in gushes to the eye, 
 As their voices fell unheeded on the ears of passers by. 
 
 Now, the rain and sleet fell mingled ; now, the wind was up 
 alone, 
 
 And rushed through the long, dark archways with a kind of 
 demon groan ; 
 
 Now, the face of sky was opaque ; now the sable storm-clouds 
 spread ; 
 
 Now, they emptied, unrelenting, all their vengeance on the 
 head ! 
 
 Still those little ragged owners of the cold and shoeless feet, 
 
 Cowering, shivering, ghastly, dripping, cried their wares from 
 
 street to street : 
 O ! 'twas piteous to behold them in that bitter night and cold ! 
 
 But they'd bought their evening quantum, and that quantum 
 must be sold ! 
 
146 THE CHILDREN OP THE STREET. 
 
 There's a father in yon garret breathing stench of city slums, 
 Waiting for his squalid urchin, not to kiss him when he comes. 
 But to clutch the scanty earnings that have cost the child so 
 dear, 
 
 Not to buy a bun for Benny, but to guzzle them in beer ! 
 
 So averred the voice of rumour ; so I'd heard some time ago ; 
 
 But I deemed that human nature would not, could not, stoop 
 so low. 
 
 Till that night in cold December, which I still remember well, 
 
 Gave my heart a thrill of horror, and this saddening tale to tell : 
 
 Passing o'er the stony pavement to the margin of the flags. 
 
 Huddled in a filthy corner I espied a bunch of rags. 
 
 As I stooped to scan it closer, lo, the moon exposed a curl, 
 
 Toying with the open forehead of a hapless little girl ! 
 
 There she lay, benumbed and frozen, hidden from the gas-light's 
 
 glare. 
 With her dainty limbs half covered, dirty face, and matted 
 
 hair. 
 
 On her brow were sorrow-traces, and her eye had lost its beam, 
 
 And it seemed as though she startled in a wild and fevered 
 dream. 
 
THE CHILDREN OP TfiE STREET. 147 
 
 With a kindly word I woke her, for I could not see her lie 
 
 In that cold and filthy corner when the storm was raging high ; 
 
 For I knew before the morning could have warmed her flinty 
 bed, 
 
 Her young heart had been hushed into the deep silence of the 
 dead. 
 
 So with kindly word I woke her ; but she soared me with her 
 scream. 
 
 For she took me for the subject of her wild and fevered dream. 
 
 " O, my father, do not beat me t" was the little maiden's cry; 
 
 " I have not sold all my matches, 'cause the people wouldn't 
 buy! 
 
 " Till my limbs were worn and weary ; till I shook from head 
 to feet ; 
 
 Till my eyes were blind with sleet and rain I ran from street 
 to street. , 
 
 But the people would not buy them, and I thought there'd be 
 no harm, 
 
 If I crept into a corner to take shelter from the storm. 
 
 I am weary, I am weary, and my heart is like to break — 
 
 0, my father, do not beat me ! " Here she made my spirit ache : 
 
 For she threw a glance around her as she raised her tiny head. 
 
 And a burst of anguish stifled what she would have farther 
 said. 
 
148 THE CHILDREN OF THE STREET. 
 
 But between the sobs I gathered that her name was Mary 
 
 Ann; 
 
 That her father was a drunken, idle, scapegrace of a man ; 
 
 That her mother was not worthy of that dwarest mortal name, 
 
 And that both their lives were spotted with the burning brand 
 of shame. 
 
 That her dwelling was a garret, that no comfort lingered there ; 
 
 That delirious blows and curses often formed her cruel fare ; 
 
 That she shook with fear foreboding at the lovely name of 
 home, 
 
 " 'Cause she hadn't sold her matches " ere the " closing time " 
 had come ! 
 
 And that she would rather venture on the frozen flags to lie. 
 
 Than to meet the wicked menace of a cruel father's eye ! 
 
 I essayed to soothe her sorrow, and to make her lot more 
 bright. 
 
 Gave her what would buy her welcome to the garret for the 
 night. 
 
 Then I saw her to a passage, through which silently she stole, 
 
 And I turned around and left her with an arrow in my soul : 
 
 Ah ! methought, if one could picture, half the many woes they 
 meet, 
 
 The cold public would be kinder to the children of the street ! 
 
ILife as it is. 
 
 'Twas eve, the soft winds sighed among the corn 
 Whose yellow ripeness shook its bending stem; 
 
 And Luna laughed down on the valley-burn, 
 Till every wavelet sparkled like a gem : 
 
 And all was bliss and beauty : earth and sky 
 
 Spread their supernal grandeur on the eye. 
 
 And as I gazed upon that lavish bliss, 
 
 This burning thought came throbbing o'er the brain : 
 Alas ! that such an Eden- world as this. 
 
 Should nurse so much of self and yearning vain ! 
 O, had his heart been pure as this bright even. 
 Then man had been as God, and earth 'as heaven ! 
 
 Then, in my heart, I wept and bled with those 
 
 Whose names are spurn'd as common, vulgar, rude ; 
 
 Who seal their lips to hide a thousand woes ; 
 
 Whose cheeks are furrow 'd down with tears of blood ; 
 
 Whose dearest hopes are sapp'd for other's lust ; 
 
 Whose life is death, whose dwelling is the dust. 
 
150 LIFE AS IT IS. 
 
 There, pines the orphan, squalid and unfed ; 
 
 Here, writhes the baffled father in despair ; 
 There, widowed virtue, wails above her dead 
 
 With milkless bosom and dishevelled hair ; 
 And, lo, "my lord," half lost in pillow'd ease, 
 Sits like a laughing imp and scoffs at these ! 
 
 But this is fancy 1 No ! thou sophist, no ! 
 
 'Tis very life — things as they really are. 
 Hast thou not felt the heart consuming throe. 
 
 That gives existence all the pangs of war ? 
 Then bless thy dullness, or propitious birth. 
 For thine is not the fate of humble worth ! 
 
Morft! 
 
 In days remote, when hoary eld 
 
 First knew primeval man, 
 Firm in the path of duty held, 
 
 His fateful life began. 
 And ere his first day's sun was set. 
 
 Did heaven the mandate give : 
 " Prepare to live by toil and sweat — 
 
 By labour must thou live.'' 
 
 And pealing through the ages still, 
 
 More loudly than before. 
 That fiat floats from hill to hill, 
 
 And sounds from shore to shore. 
 Nay ! in the inmost life of man, 
 
 Is heard the stern decree : 
 So we must up and till the lawn ! 
 
 Or toil, or cease to be ! 
 
 But louder, lo ! the voice is heard. 
 
 And sterner still, but kind : 
 Till not alone the spreading sward ; 
 
 Till, too, the waste of mind ! 
 Deep in thy bosom's strange recess 
 
 Incessant, bravely toil. 
 That harvests of high blessedness, 
 
 May crown that finer soil. 
 
152 
 
 WORK. 
 
 Work that thy conscious soul may know 
 
 The mortal cost of crime ; 
 Nor let one seed of darkness grow 
 
 In such a sacred clime ! 
 Out with the blackening germs of death, 
 
 That rankle at the core ! 
 The thought unkind, the passion blind. 
 And all that still impedes the mind ; 
 
 For soul was made to soar ! 
 
 And work to make their sufferings less, 
 
 Whose stifled cry is pain ; 
 Whose lives are gall and bitterness, 
 
 Whose spirits drag the chain. 
 One sabre-flash of word or deed 
 
 Has changed a nation's thought, 
 A million groaning captives freed 
 
 To breathe as mortals ought. 
 
 Then work ! Not with thy hands alone. 
 
 But with thy voice and pen, 
 Help, help to pull the systems down 
 
 That dwarf ill-fated men ! 
 The shameful things ! O ! who shall dare 
 
 To carol lightly by, 
 What time's sure vengeance shall not spare, 
 
 And nature brands a lie 1 
 
WOEK. 153 
 
 Work ! But O ! let no tyrant's hand 
 
 Degrade thee to a tool ; 
 For thou art greater than his land, 
 
 And he may be a fool. 
 'Tis thine, as his, the tools to wield ; 
 
 And be they what they may, 
 Go out into the labour field. 
 
 And clear some weeds away. 
 
 'Tis small, indeed, that man can do. 
 
 Yet on the stubborn soil. 
 The delvers yet unborn may view. 
 
 The traces of thy toil ; 
 And thus the imprints of thy feet. 
 
 May cheer them on their way. 
 When they would faint beneath the heat 
 
 And burden of the day. 
 
 "Work ! Be thy hopes and life-goal high, 
 
 Thy labour freely given, 
 And toil as ever in the eye 
 
 Of all-beholding heaven. 
 Then whatsoe'er thy fate may be, 
 
 Come poverty or pain, 
 'Twill at the last be said of thee — 
 
 He has not lived in vain ! 
 
^be Ibarvcstcr. 
 
 Ere the world has discarded the spell of repose 
 
 Or the mist of the mom is away, 
 To the corn-laden acres the harvester goes, 
 
 And lays hold of the task of the day. 
 With a tool for his h?,nd, with a heart for his breast, 
 
 And with strength for his sinewy arm, 
 He is high over monarchs contented and blest. 
 As he gathers the wealth of the farm. 
 And the song is upborne, 
 As he rustles the corn — 
 The cold winter is near us again ; 
 
 But the world shall be fed 
 With its earth-given bread. 
 For the harvester garners the grain. 
 
 The loud laugh of the lass, and the jest of the swain. 
 
 And the reaper's glad, musical rounds, 
 And the snort of the horse, and the creak of the wain, 
 
 Have a soul in their magical sounds, 
 That unfolds the deep lore of the creed he believes, 
 
 Which is — Man, make the best of thy now ! 
 And he rolls up his sleeves, and he binds up the sheaves. 
 
 Till the sweat trickles down from his brow. 
 And the song is upborne 
 As he rustles the corn — 
 
THE HARVESTER. 155 
 
 The cold winter is near us again ; 
 
 But the world shall be fed 
 With its earth-given bread, 
 
 For the harvester garners the graia. 
 
 In the hue of the leaf as it wheels in the wind, 
 
 In the meadow's swift-lessenimg glow. 
 In the woodland the autumn has yellow'd and thinned. 
 
 He beholds the approach of the snow ; 
 And he knows the brief date of the labour he speeds, 
 
 And lets no flagging efibrt r^ard ; 
 But he reaps, and he rakes, and he loads, and he leads, 
 Till the last sheaf is stacked in the yard. 
 And the song is upborne 
 As he rustles the corn — 
 The cold winter is near us again ; 
 
 But the world shall be fed 
 "With its earth-given bread. 
 For the harvester garners the grain. 
 
 Then the glow of his heart when the harvest is done. 
 
 And the thrasher's dissonance is high ! 
 And the unruffled depth of the rest he has won, 
 
 When the storm is abroad in the sky ! 
 Let the sour heavens scowl, let the bitter winds howl, 
 
 They can give him but little concern I 
 
156 
 
 THE HAEVESTEE. 
 
 He has calm in his soul, he has milk in his bowl, 
 He has plenty of corn in the barn ! 
 And the song is upborne 
 As he rustles the corn — 
 The cold winter is with us again ; 
 
 But the world shall be fed 
 With its earth-given bread. 
 For the h|arvester's garnered the grain. 
 
^be ©ID ifrienbs anb the IHew. 
 
 (WEITTEH DUKING A VISIT TO BLACKHALL MILL.) 
 
 Here, gazing o'er the veering stream, 
 
 Whose banks I sought in other days, 
 To ponder o'er some darling theme, 
 
 Or spin my infant lays, 
 A vision of the vanished past 
 
 Sweet dawns upon the view, 
 And with its spell upon me cast, 
 I sit me down to muse at last, 
 
 Of old friends and the new 
 
 This clump of trees, that field of corn. 
 
 The emerald of yon wood-crowned hill, 
 From which I've watched the dewy morn 
 
 Her balmy censer fill ; 
 The shimmer of this river's sheen. 
 
 Yon cottage-shading yew. 
 All point me back to what I've been. 
 To what I've felt and what I've seen 
 
 With old friends and the new. 
 
 This old mill-dam, that ruined forge, 
 Yon little ancient white-washed farm. 
 
 Have all a silent tale to urge 
 That's not without its charm. 
 
158 THE OLD FRIENDS AND THE NEW. 
 
 This gust of wind that moans and sighs 
 The mopnlit valley through, 
 
 As viewless o'er the hills it hies 
 
 Awakens cherished memories 
 Of old friends and the n6w. 
 
 This humble shrine that skirts my way, 
 
 This deep and river-margined grove. 
 Where happy swains and maidens stray 
 
 To learn the lore of love ; 
 These woods that wave around Black Hall, 
 
 That bass-voiced owl's " hoo hoo," 
 This wheeling leaf's fantastic fall, 
 Speak volumes to my heart of all 
 
 The old friends and the new. 
 
 From all I see the enraptured sight 
 
 Imbibes the pleasures that abide. 
 And thrills me with a joy as bright 
 
 As this pellucid tide ; 
 While sombre shadows, here and there, 
 
 Like cloud-spots on the blue. 
 Are blending with the visions fair, 
 Beoalling all I've known of care 
 
 With old friends and the new. 
 
THE OLD FEIENDS AND THE NEW. 159 
 
 For what is man ? and what his years t 
 
 Fast-fleeting things that will not stay, 
 As much inured to smiles and tears 
 
 As birds to night and day ! 
 And sable hours of sorrow yet 
 
 My spirit may imbue ; 
 But never till life's sun is set 
 Shall this warm, throbbing heart forget 
 
 The old friends and the new. 
 
ffial))? fiDine. 
 
 'Tis a tiny piece of being only budding into bloom, 
 Flinging all the soul of heaven o'er the sombre and the gloom ; 
 And it sweetens all the bitter, and it bids the shadow shine, 
 Does this little cosy, rosy, posy, cherub bud of mine. 
 
 From the azure peep of morning till the sable streak of night, 
 
 'Tis imbued with tears and laughter, baby cares and young 
 delight ; 
 
 Nursing doll upon the carpet, thrilling with affection fine, 
 
 Is this kissing, cooing, wooing, rueing baby bud of mine. 
 
 Now, 'tis all endearing prattle ; now, 'tis all engaging glee ; 
 
 Now, it comes for healing kisses, first to ma and then to me ; 
 
 Now, 'tis lost in strange amazement ; now, 'tis beaming as 
 divine. 
 
 Is this fairy, funny, sunny, honey, human bud of mine. 
 
 'Tis a thing with eyes of azure, with a head of soft locks curled ; 
 
 'Tis a little bright enigma laughing o'er my wonder-world ; 
 
 O ! what mortal wealth could buy thee, or to other hands 
 consign ? 
 
 Not a thousand million biUion trillion, little baby mine 1 
 
IPour ain bit f ircsibe. 
 
 When the stormy winds o' winter loud an' keen around ye 
 
 blaw, 
 An' the flowerless earth is buried 'neath its fleecy coat o' snaw, 
 How the heart leaps up a' cheery wi' a thrill o' honest pride, 
 As you crook your frozen hunkers at your ain bit fireside. 
 
 Or when haggard, worn, an' weary wi' a lang an' toilsome day, 
 An' the spirit sighs for something its wild burning to allay; 
 The best, the. surest, sweetest balm that ever poor man tried, 
 Is found within the precincts of his ain bit fireside. 
 
 Or when wandering lone an' exiled frae the scenes ye loved to 
 
 tread. 
 Through a world as cold an' selfish as the clay that wraps the 
 
 dead; 
 How the bosom's inly bleedings and the tossing o' the tide 
 ■ Fill the heart with earnest yearnings for your ain bit fireside ! 
 
 Or to watch the wild commotion of the world's chaotic war, 
 Or to brave the hours of labour where the meaner vices are ; 
 Where the vulgar hurl their curses and the proud in heart 
 
 deride — 
 Is to wake the love that dies not for your ain bit fireside. 
 
162 
 
 YOUR AIN BIT FIRESIDE. 
 
 O ! there's grandeur on the mountain, an' there's beauty on the 
 sea ; 
 
 There's a spell in every fountain, an' a charm on ilka lea ; 
 But there 'ne'er was such a hallow'd charm in a' the world 
 
 beside. 
 As the quiet, cosy corner of your ain bit fireside. 
 
 For whatever be your fortune, or however keen your pain, 
 A loving heart is beating there in concert wi' your ain ; 
 An' the prattle o' the bairnie as it greets your welcome stride. 
 Is the soul reviving music of your ain bit fireside. 
 
^be ®Ib Cburcb^ari). 
 
 The days of long-ebb'd years come back, 
 
 The voices hushed and gone 
 That threw their music o'er my track 
 
 Awake their wonted tone ; 
 The mead, the lane unhymn'd by lyre. 
 
 The gush of young delight ; 
 The fun that fired the limbs it tired, ' 
 
 Are all with me to-night ; 
 But memory strikes a latent chord 
 That points me to the old churchyard. 
 
 For there, in soothing silence hushed. 
 
 The dreamless hearts repose. 
 Whence holy tides of feeling gushed 
 
 To balm my infant woes ; 
 And as the rising memories crowd 
 
 The breast's aroma'd urn, 
 I feel as I could weep aloud. 
 
 And cry for their return ! 
 "While deeply thrills the potent chord. 
 That points me to the old churchyard. 
 
164 THE OLD CHUECHYARD. 
 
 Though eyes as lucid in their hue 
 
 Have beamed athwart my way, 
 As brightly dark, as sweetly bltie 
 
 As ought of visual ray ; 
 Though hearts as genial in their glow 
 
 Have throbbed to answer mine ; 
 The eyes that gemmed the long ago. 
 
 The hearts for which I pine. 
 Are those that wake the pensive chord 
 That points me to the old churchyard. 
 
 And oft as old time dreams return. 
 
 Or fainting nature falls, 
 Or memory bids the bosom burn, 
 
 Or sorrow plumes her palls, 
 Reflection walks with brooding eye. 
 
 Around the sacred heap. 
 Where those in soothing silence lie 
 
 With whom I yearn to sleep. 
 For toilsome life what meet reward 
 To slumber in that old churchyard ! 
 
®ne bi2 ®ne. 
 
 Heart-hushed I gaze through drifted days 
 
 To childhood's fairy scene, 
 When life expressed its simple ways 
 
 In gambols on the green ; 
 When laughter lit the meadow track, 
 
 And echo caught the strain. 
 And threw the voice of gladness back 
 
 Full on the ear again. 
 The hope that buoy'd the spirit then, 
 
 Was bright as seraph's heaven, 
 And warm as that rare rapture when 
 
 The first love-kiss is given. 
 Thus, hope-equipped, we wander forth. 
 
 To find, as years roll on, 
 The chords that bind the heart to earth, 
 
 Are severed one by one. 
 
 The woodlands o'er whose covert mUes 
 
 My ardent boyhood strayed, 
 Prolong their variegated smiles 
 
 And woo me to their shade ; 
 The spreading lea, the purling burn, 
 
 Retain their native spell. 
 Nor shall I ever coldly turn 
 
 From what I've loved so well. 
 
166 ONE BY ONE. 
 
 But what was once a dream to me, 
 
 Unspotted by a care, 
 Was hued'by life's reality 
 
 With something of despair. 
 When his dear sight who blessed my birth. 
 
 No longer round me shone — 
 The chords that bind the heart to earth. 
 
 Are severed one by one ! 
 
 And now the spring's young smile is nigh 
 
 To light the leafy bowers. 
 To mingle balm with melody 
 
 And fill the world with flowers ; 
 And as long-absent lovers meet 
 
 With joy-Tjorn smUe and tear. 
 My bounding heart goes forth to greet 
 
 This virgin of the year : 
 But can she fully sate the mind 
 
 With all her balm and bloom, 
 When dolesome yesterday consigned 
 
 My sister to the tomb 1 
 Another gloom is on the hearth ! 
 
 Another life-light gone ! 
 The chords that bind the heart to earth, 
 
 Are severed one by one ! 
 
OXE BY ONE. 167 
 
 O, kind as mother nature is, 
 
 To me the years have shown, 
 A wildly restless heart is his 
 
 Who lives for her alone. 
 The mocking of the palls and shrouds ! 
 
 The taunting of the sigh ! 
 If, through the clefts of sorrow-clouds. 
 
 We scan no kinder sky ! 
 The woes by which the heart is bled. 
 
 Whatever else they mean, 
 Attest, at least, we daily tread 
 
 The verge of the unseen ; 
 And that our lives were little worth. 
 
 If bounded by this zone, 
 Since chords that bind the heart to earth. 
 
 Are severed one by one. 
 
 ^^mf-^i^^^^ 
 
3n flDemoriam. 
 
 " And sitting down they watched Him there." — St. Matthew xxvii., 36, 
 
 The late John W. Mtjir preached from these words at Blackhall 
 Mill, just before his sailing to Africa, where he died. I remember they 
 afforded him his evening subject ; the last sermon delivered by him I 
 had the pleasure of hearing. 
 
 " And sitting down they watched Him there : " 
 Who taught us from these words is clay ! 
 
 But, like a vision pure and fair, 
 Whose beauty will not pass away, 
 
 They breathe an ever-deepening tone. 
 
 And echo back a voice that's gone. 
 
 In beauty lay the Derwent Vale, 
 
 For autumn deck'd the teeming sward, 
 
 And borne upon the balmy gale, 
 
 The sound of Sabbath bells was heard. 
 
 As trembled through a modest fane. 
 
 The words we shall not hear again. 
 
 A " Voice, a Presence, and a Power," 
 That holy men were wont to feel, 
 
 Engaged that consecrated hour 
 
 In work that aimed at others' weal — 
 
 A mission high, supernal, rare — 
 
 " And sitting down they watched Him there." 
 
IN MEMOEIAM. 169 
 
 And had they known how briefly near 
 The hushing of the heart was he, 
 
 How had their bosoms bled to hear 
 The grandeur of his ministry ! 
 
 But with a cool and reckless air, 
 
 " And sitting down they watched Him there ! " 
 
 "And sitting down they watched Him there," 
 Their depth of burning guilt portray. 
 
 Who hung Messiah's form in air 
 Till ebb'd His mighty life away. 
 
 While rending skies and yawning earth, 
 
 Beheld the sainted dead come forth. 
 
 " And sitting down they watched Him there," 
 With stifled hearts and centred gaze. 
 
 And heard his fervent words of prayer. 
 His soul exult in bursts of praise ; 
 
 Till warming to the theme he loved. 
 
 Like one rapt heart his audience moved. 
 
 But words will not ring out for aye. 
 And darkness wrapt the holy shrine ; 
 
 And old men with their locks of grey. 
 And maidens with a mien benign, 
 
 In silence hastened from the spot. 
 
 Alike forgetting and forgot. 
 
170 IN MEMOEIAM. 
 
 And far away in dusky lands, remote 
 From all the charms he held supremely dear, 
 The preacher woke the high and holy thought 
 That draws the sting of superstitious fear. 
 By the same tale he told so lately here, 
 In savage natures, who were wont to kneel 
 To those frail gods that human hands may rear. 
 Or scatter to the winds with common zeal. 
 But which to mortal hearts are torturers too real. 
 
 And toiling there, in sable men's abodes, 
 
 He dealt out mercy with a liberal hand ; 
 
 Inciting to a massacre of gods, 
 
 But never breaking love's supreme command. 
 
 And while reverting to his native land 
 
 To cull examples for his dearest theme, 
 
 A feeling far too deep to understand, 
 
 Would cause the half unconscious tear to stream, 
 
 And call his absent friends around as in a dream. 
 
 " And sitting down they watched Him there," 
 Those dwellers in yon mental night — 
 
 The Kaffir with his curly hair. 
 
 And motley crowds of black and white — 
 
 Inspire the heart, evoke the tear, 
 
 And fire the soul as he did here, 
 
IN MEMOEIAM. 171 
 
 But all we love shall pass away, 
 
 And shadows cloud the brightest eyes ; 
 
 And mingling now with foreign clay, 
 The preacher's dust in silence lies : 
 
 Alas ! his words are heard no more. 
 
 In Derwent's Vale, on Afric's shore ! 
 
 . But still when autumn fills her horn. 
 
 As summer glories fade and die. 
 
 And bells salute the Sabbath morn, 
 
 With soul-enthralling melody 
 The hour recalls the season fair. 
 When sitting down we watched him there. 
 
 And should our hearts in silent anguish bleed, 
 Awakened thus to our untimely woe. 
 Then shall we follow whither he doth lead, 
 And drink a balm beyond the things below. 
 For human hearts must have somewhere to go, 
 . Some comforter must soothe their little cares. 
 Some friendly arm that deals no needless blow. 
 Must share the burden that the wretched bears, 
 And weed from out the breast the thorn that frets and tears. 
 
172 
 
 IN MEMORIAU. 
 
 And whither can we go but unto Thee, 
 
 Physician of the broken heart, for rest. 
 
 When, like the billows of a boiling sea, 
 
 Affictions roll across the weary breast ? 
 
 Our heads reclining on Thy gory vest, 
 
 May shelter when the roughest winds may blow. 
 
 As he whom Thou hast freed from toil and blest 
 
 With all the joys immortal spirits know, 
 
 Was wont to teach and do in this dark land below.- 
 
trill Summer Smiles again. 
 
 The angry north's relentless blast 
 
 Sweeps through the leafless trees ; 
 The downy snowflakes, falling fast, 
 
 Upon my garments freeze ; 
 The robin chirps beside my door, 
 
 The swallow's crossed the main, 
 And sleeping is the lovely flower, 
 
 Till summer smiles again. 
 
 The hawthorn bears no ripening bud, 
 
 The brier no opening rose ; 
 In icy shackles lies the flood, 
 
 The lawn no Verdure knows ; 
 The squirrel's ceased his gambols rare, 
 
 And quiet doth remain ; 
 And scanty is the cony's fare 
 
 TUl summer smiles again. 
 
 The thrush has hushed the melody 
 
 That charmed the flowery grove ; 
 No linnet sings upon the tree, 
 
 Beside his feathered love ; 
 AU nature wears a solemn hue, 
 
 Her beauties all are slain ; 
 But only to appear anew 
 
 When summer smiles again. 
 
174 
 
 TILL SUMMER SMILES AGAIN. 
 
 So, changing is the mortal dream 
 
 Of man's allotted years ; 
 Now bright with hope's celestial beam, 
 
 Now dim with sorrow's tears : 
 For, ah ! the Paradise is lost 
 
 Which he can ne'er attain 
 TUl feet are bled, and miles are crossed. 
 
 And summer smiles again. 
 
 
IPictor 1bUG0. 
 
 He is gone the best and dearest 
 Of the mortals who entrance ; 
 Who was held the first and nearest 
 To the sunny heart of France ! 
 And a life of genial light 
 Has been ushered into night, 
 That diffused, in kindly guidance 
 For humanity's advance. 
 
 He is gone, and lo ! the nation 
 
 That maligned him and exiled, 
 Pours the tears of lamentation 
 O'er the ashes of her child ! 
 
 Crying from her depth of grief — 
 " Noble lives are all too brief ! " 
 Lasting sorrow ! Love abiding ! 
 'Twas the meed for which he toiled ! 
 
 Closed the eyes of deep discerning ! 
 
 Hushed the heart that knew no crime ! 
 Stilled the lofty spirit's yearning 
 For the good that conquers time ! 
 But his words of burning glow. 
 Still abiding here below. 
 Shall exalt and charm and cheer us 
 With their soul-inspiring chime. 
 
176 
 
 VICTOH HUGO. 
 
 He is gone, the brave and earnest — 
 
 Balmy rest await his shade ! 
 " Dust thou art to dust returnest," 
 Shall above us all be said, 
 As the feeble and the great, 
 Falling, share the common fate. 
 But how few, few deaths shall make the gap 
 The death of Hugo made ! 
 
 
lDirtue'0 ^riumpb. 
 
 The moon, not yet full-orbed, is riding high, 
 A mounting glory, 'round which vapours grey 
 Are swiftly whirling their fantastic way. 
 And framing grostesque figures on the sky. 
 But now, her light was lost to mortal eye, 
 Obscured and hid behind a cloud-ridge black ; 
 But mounting upward in her glory-track, • 
 She mildly brushed the vain obstruction by. 
 And so, methinks, though virtue often lie 
 Heart-crushed and bleeding 'neath a weight of wrong, 
 'Tis not because she seeks a place to die. 
 But that by sufiering she may be made strong : 
 The bitter conflict first, and then the triumph-song ! 
 
"Ibome, Sweet Ibome.' 
 
 'Tis eve, the city seems but half astir, 
 
 Less frenzied rolls the stormy wave of strife ; 
 
 And, hark ! there comes to greet me at my door, 
 A strain of music like a breath of life : 
 
 Awoke, maybe, by one whose meed is alms, 
 
 But richly laden ynih. prolific balms. 
 
 'Tis not that jumble of chaotic sounds 
 
 Whose drone and grind have made you flee the streets ; 
 But that which echo's through the heart-profounds. 
 
 And bids the quick pulse tingle while it beats ; 
 That dear to man and maid, where'er they roam. 
 The heart and hope awakening " home, sweet home," 
 
 What though a wandering minstrel wakes the chord ? 
 
 What though he thus on public bounty calls 1 
 Ah ! who can tell what bosom-depths are stirred. 
 
 Where'er the beauty of its breathing falls 1 
 'Tis not confined to hall nor lordly dome. 
 This sweet and bosom-thrUling " home, sweet home," 
 
HOME, SWEET HOME. 179 
 
 But stealing through the -vrretched's dismal room, 
 It breathes a soothing salutation there, 
 
 Imparts a glory-halo to the gloom, 
 
 And sweetens half the pestilential air ; 
 
 And woe, oblivious of her bleeding core, 
 
 Sweet-smiling hails the angel-visitor. 
 
 And down the allies dark and filthy slums, 
 Where vulgar vice and sham refinement horde, 
 
 With blessing rich that music-message comes, 
 And thrOls again a long-forgotten chord ; 
 
 Inflames the heart with all its virgin glow, 
 
 And limns with vivid light the long ago. 
 
 Then borne on breeze's wing, the wandering strain. 
 Thrills potent through the exile's aching breast ; 
 
 While dying men forget the maddening pain, 
 And hear in that the welcome of the blest : 
 
 For what so dear to those who feel the foam 
 
 Of Jordan at their feet, as " home, sweet home ? " 
 
180 
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 
 
 O ! chainless charm ! O ! beamless beauty, cast 
 
 Impalpable upon the empty air ! 
 ! wordless speech, aglow with meaning vast, 
 
 And opulent with intonation rare ! 
 O fine ethereal honey-drops of soul 
 That flow so sweetly forth with liquid roU ! 
 
 Are human lives, like thy harmonious flow, 
 
 By myriad harp-strings touched by subtle hand i 
 
 Are all the loud shrill-wailing notes of woe. 
 But musie chords too deep to understand 1 
 
 0, pleasing hope that coming years shall see 
 
 Them blend in universal harmony ! 
 
fIDammon to bis IPotarlee. 
 
 'Tis high honour to address you 
 
 Men of wisdom, men of might ; 
 Honour high, indeed, to bless you, 
 
 With the good for which you fight. 
 This proclaims how much I prize you : 
 
 Then attend what I aver, 
 While I hasten to apprize you 
 
 Of the thoughts that in me are. 
 
 Mark the stretch of my dominions ! — 
 
 Petty lips in anger curled, 
 Offering me their sage opinions ! — 
 
 Me, the monarch of the world ! 
 Scoff at my superb provinces ! 
 
 Deem my sceptre sordid clay ! — 
 Men and monarchs, peers and princes 
 
 Pay their homage to my sway ! 
 
 Let the pious puppets clamour. 
 The indigent storm and rage. 
 
 And descant in faulty grammar 
 On this truly Midas-age ! 
 
 Gold is gold, and mortals love it : 
 Man or maid, whoever wins 
 
 Only just sufficient of it, 
 
 . Hides a multitude of sins ! 
 
182 MAMMON TO HIS VOTARIES. 
 
 Tush ! a fig for all your graces, 
 
 All tlie love of gushing hearts, 
 All the glow of lovely faces, 
 
 All the worth of mental parts, 
 All the lofty flights of science, 
 
 Every thought's poetic flash, 
 If they fail to form alliance 
 
 With the necessary cash ! 
 
 Gather guineas, then, and store them, 
 
 For the world despises rags : 
 Even if an angel bore them 
 
 Men would scorn him from the flags. 
 Talents ! honours ! virtues ! graces ! 
 
 Fleeting, unabiding things ! 
 Feeling in their lofty places 
 
 Every frown a patron flings ! 
 
 Who would woo them ? Who would prize them 
 
 Even though they peerless shone ? 
 Fie ! I hate them ! I despise them ! 
 
 Gold's the good to dote upon ! 
 Gold's the good, and if you'd gain it. 
 
 Give your trusty hearts to me : 
 You shall strain it, you shall drain it 
 
 From the dregs of misery ! 
 
Sonnet. 
 
 (SUGGESTED BY A VISIT TO BUKNS' MAUSOLEUM, DUMFEIES, 1886.) 
 
 Capricious world ! The minstrel and his lute 
 
 Were branded by the creatures of his time ; 
 
 And now that his great heart beats out no rhyme, 
 
 And now that his love-eloquence is mute, 
 
 The gracious sons of most ungrateful sires, 
 
 Thick-crowding the asylum of the dead, 
 
 Would even rouse the dreamer from his bed, 
 
 And give him back his passions and his fires ! 
 
 How ample is the palliative now — 
 
 "The light that lead astray was Kght from heaven ! " 
 
 His vices are forgotten and forgiven, 
 
 And millions o'er his slumbers sadly bow ! 
 
 0, Caledonia, was it not too hard. 
 
 To give so strange a fate to such a bard ? 
 
Sonnet. 
 
 (■WRITTEN AFTBE A VISIT TO BUENS' MONUMENT, GLASGOW, IN 1886.) 
 
 For shame, great Glasgow ! tear the tribute down, 
 
 And give its fragments to their native clay ; 
 
 Or take its show of shabbiness away. 
 
 Nor let it thus cry fie upon the town ; 
 
 What ! this the full expression of thy pride 
 
 In nature's own, and Scotland's monarch bard ? 
 
 Nay ! he is worthy more of thy regard. 
 
 Imperious mistress of the busy Clyde ! 
 
 'Twas meet to pillar Scott so proudly high ; 
 
 But, 0, to^piUar Burns so meanly low ! — ■ 
 
 The minstrel of such glory and such woe. 
 
 The common scorn of every passer by ! 
 
 O, build again, the pilgrim prays, and turns 
 
 Indignant from thy monument to Burns. 
 
IRew l^ear, 1886. 
 
 As the woes of the world on the wings of the past 
 
 From the land of the mortal are borne, 
 The unceasing life-shuttles day-weaving so fast, 
 
 Shall have soon woven in our last morn ; 
 And the hues of the woof, when the moments are spun. 
 
 Shall the tale to eternity bear, 
 How the shuttle was fed, and the weaving was done. 
 How we darkened with guilt, or gay-tinted with fun ; 
 And the wheat and the tare, and the sin and the snare, 
 And the tear and the prayer are eternally there. 
 
 While shuttles are feeding, and bosoms are bleeding, 
 And moments are speeding away with the year. 
 
 All the crimes of the hour when was broken the thread. 
 And the faults were wove into the weft ; 
 
 All the hopes of the heart, as the labour-day sped. 
 To improve the poor residue left. 
 
 Are the marks that escape not the taskmaster's eye ; 
 Are the marks that remain as they were : 
 
 And the sheen of the truth and the glare of the Ue, 
 
 Nay ! the unuttered thoughts are recorded on high ! 
 
 And the wear and the tear, and the foul and the fair. 
 
 And the toil and the care are eternally there. 
 
 While shuttles are flying, and mortals are dying. 
 And moments are nighing the end of the year. 
 
186 NEW YEAE, 1886. 
 
 Thus the morrowless night is approaching apace, 
 And the heart throbs away with the suns ; 
 
 And the fast-fading glow of the mind-mirror'd face, 
 Is the tale how the life-current runs : 
 
 But the bosom, enriched with the spoUs of the past. 
 Has a guest that no shadow may scare ; 
 
 For though sorrows and sins have been many and vast, 
 
 There's a hope that shall light up the gloom to the last, 
 
 And an energy rare, and a courage to dare, 
 
 That shall baffle despair, everlastingly there, 
 
 While shuttles are swinging, and glad bells are ringing. 
 And moments are winging away with the year. 
 
 Then a f uU-hearted " cheer " ! to the right, to the left ! 
 
 For attend the life-loom as we may. 
 There is always a fault to disfigure the weft, 
 
 As we'll find at the close of the day. 
 For we negative nature's imperative yes. 
 
 Her imperative negative dare ; 
 And we faint and we fall on the pathway we press : 
 But the God that created shall pardon and bless, 
 For the burden we bear, and the weakness we wear, 
 Shall insure us a share of His comforting care. 
 
 Then hail the glad singing while shuttles are swinging. 
 And moments are bringing a happy new year, 
 
Mbence? Mbitber? 
 
 Gazing out upon the ocean from my pillow on the sand, 
 Dreaming, through a lovely summer noon I lay, 
 
 And beheld the laughing sailor wave his farewell to the land 
 He was leaving for some country far away. 
 
 Far athwart the world of waters flew the bUlow-braving Jack, 
 
 As rejoicing in his destiny to roam ; 
 
 While among the harbour noises was the cheerful "welcome 
 back!" 
 
 To the tars who'd reached the haven of their home. 
 
 And anon I fell aguessing at the constant " come-and-go," 
 
 And the everlasting moaning of the main, 
 
 Till the deep evasive meaning of our destiny below, 
 
 Hued itself in sombre colours on the brain. 
 
 "Whence, whence 1 and whither, whither 1 
 
 Ships of ocean, birds of ether, 
 
 Sleep we in one death together ? 
 
 Come we from the self-same land ? 
 
 Is our earth-life but a seeming 1 
 
 Shall it know a brighter beaming ? 
 
 Thus I lingered guessing, dreaming. 
 
 Pillowed on the sand. 
 
188 WHENCE? WHITHER? 
 
 Then I scanned the heaving bosom of the seething sea of time, 
 And, as on this world-encircling pool of blue, 
 
 I beheld the like embarkings for an unfamiliar clime. 
 
 And the lite pathetic tokens of adieu ; 
 
 While above the moans of dying, and the breaking hearts of 
 kin, 
 
 Was the world's loud music-laughter borne about ; 
 
 For behold, a host as mighty flowing tides were drifting in. 
 
 As the host the ebbing tides were drifting out. 
 
 And again I fell aguessing at this constant " come-and-go," 
 
 And I wondered with a wonder that was awe, 
 
 TUl the daring fancy revelled in the glory and the glow, 
 
 Of the things no mortal vision ever saw. 
 
 Whence, whence ? and whither, whither ? 
 
 Has the human soul a father 1 
 
 Seems it not an orphan rather, 
 
 Lost in .an enigma-land. 
 
 Hoping, doubting, cursing, blessing. 
 
 Sinning, soaring, noing, yessing? 
 
 Thus I lingered dreaming, guessing. 
 
 Pillowed on the sand, 
 
 Then a gift fell on my vision and I saw or seemed to see — 
 
 0, I would that I could cogently relate ! 
 That the peopled world was but a great big noisy nursery. 
 
 Where ingenious baby prophets sit and prate ; 
 
WHENCE? WHITHER? 189 
 
 Where the wisdom of the wisest is impenetrable haze, 
 
 But a blending of divinity and dust ; 
 
 Where the strongest only stumble through the number of their 
 days, 
 
 And the only true philosophy is trust ; 
 
 Where we spout our speculations, and we cry our babble lore, 
 
 And we wrangle, and we riot, and we quote. 
 
 Though we cannot see a glimmer of a light along the shore 
 
 That is watered by the wave that bears our boat. 
 
 Whence, O whence ? and whither, whither ? 
 
 What is all the lore we gather ? 
 
 Man's a child, and God's a Father — 
 
 Trust the voyage to His hand ! 
 
 Thence the calm assurance borrow. 
 
 Though we sail the sea of sorrow, 
 
 We shall sight a brighter morrow 
 
 In some other land. 
 
OLooft aioft. 
 
 Look aloft, and urge ahead, men, 
 Is the stern command we hear ; 
 Weep no more for what is fled, men — 
 That's not worth a maiden's tear. 
 There are no 
 
 Decrees of fate, 
 To grind the low, 
 And pet the great ; 
 Bosom-beauty guerdon's duty, 
 
 As in peasant so in peer ; 
 Fate is but the thing we've made, men. 
 By our deeds from year to year. 
 
 Look aloft, and make your labour 
 
 Jubilant with soul and song, 
 As you plunge the pruning sabre 
 Deep into the heart of wrong. 
 For all the lore 
 
 That lies infest 
 Must yield before 
 The highest, best. 
 Even nations' oscillations 
 
 Shall be steadied by the strong : 
 Heaven is earth's propitious neighbour- 
 Look aloft, and urge along. 
 
LOOK ALOFT. 
 
 191 
 
 Look aloft ! a line of glory 
 
 Wanders o'er the hazy sky, 
 Which, aver the sages hoary, 
 Is our virtues limned on high : 
 And every ill 
 
 That mortal lays. 
 Makes broader still 
 The genial blaze. 
 Till light supernal brings eternal 
 
 Bliss to crown attainments high : 
 Man has told but half his story — 
 Add your little ere you die ! 
 
Mbo are tbe noUel 
 
 Pray, who are the noble, and where shall we find them 1 
 Can high-sounding titles true greatness create 1 
 
 Whate'er be the sphere to which heaven's assigned them, 
 The good and the wise are the noble and great. 
 
 The monarch whose aim is the weal of his nation. 
 The pure-hearted pauper to penury driven, 
 
 Regardless of rags, or monarchical station, 
 Command alike share of the favour of heaven. 
 
 Then why do we worship the money-proud minion. 
 And kiss his vain toe like a mind-fettered slave ? 
 
 For gold is mere gold, and opinion, opinion, 
 
 While a man is a man, were he poor as the grave. 
 
 Nobility's wise words, brave deeds, and bright honour. 
 To which man, not a man, is the righteous heir ; 
 
 And the life of the world is improved by the donor, 
 As all that are worthy lay claim to a share. 
 
 'Tis noble to breathe in impassioned orations 
 
 The truths that have dawned on the bard or the sage ; 
 
 And mean are state dogmas, lean creeds, and persuasions, 
 To the guiding of youth with the wisdom of age, 
 
WHO ARE THE NOBLE? 193 
 
 'Tis nbble to solace the needy and friendless, 
 I And all that are crush'd 'neath oppression or care, 
 To lay the black demon of agonies endless, 
 And light up the bosom of sable despair. 
 
 'Tis noble to carefully weed from the bosom 
 The smallest of vices that longer survives. 
 
 And plant there the virtues that open and blossom, 
 To shed their sweet influence over our lives. 
 
 And all may be noble, though never so lowly ; 
 
 Be true to the duties that round thee await. 
 And know that thy mission is noble and holy, 
 
 As his who is wielding the sceptre of state. 
 
'Mbo will 3figbt for jfreeboni?" 
 
 All the wise will " fight for freedom '' for they love the glorious 
 name 
 
 With a love that beameth brighter than the stars ; 
 
 With a deep and burning fervour that shall set the world 
 aflame, 
 
 And diffuse the light that shameth wordy wars. 
 Their sturdy strokes of thought erase the mind-retarding shams, 
 And the slavish fear that fetters fast the spirit that it damns 
 With vile and abject cringing to the mortal-made " I am's," 
 
 Who dedicate their pretty lives to ladies and cigars. 
 
 All the brave will "fight for freedom:" ay! whatever they 
 may be — 
 
 Whether toilers in the factory, in the mine, or in the field — 
 
 They will guard, as with a flaming sword, the boon of liberty : 
 
 Who touches that will find full soon some arrows in his 
 shield ! 
 
 Their potent words are those that live eternal as the mind. 
 That raise the heart to love the pure, the lofty, the refined, 
 That spread alike the truth that maketh brothers of mankind, 
 And that which robs the tyrants of the bloody thongs they 
 wield. 
 
WHO WILL FIGHT FOE FEEEDOM ! 
 
 195 
 
 All the good will " fight for freedom,'' for 'tis generous minds 
 that seek 
 
 To impel the car of progress to the boundaries of the world ; 
 
 To shelter from all forms of wrong the humble and the weak, 
 
 And pluck the evils from the state to which they have been 
 hurled. 
 
 Firm, breast to breast, these best of men press forward to the 
 fray. 
 
 As for the weal of human kind they give their lives away, 
 
 And when the cheering masses shout the triumph of the day, 
 
 Then, haply then, but not tiU then, their banners shall be 
 
 furled. 
 
jfreebom. 
 
 The potent, warm, eternal love 
 Of freedom in the heart of man, 
 
 Is kindled by the breath of Jove, 
 And wiU not brook despotic ban ; 
 
 Whoever dares to quench the flame 
 
 Is branded with inglorious name. 
 
 When CiBSAB sought to rule the world 
 With even more than mortal might, 
 
 The giant arm of Brutus hurled 
 The grasping despot into night ; 
 
 Consigned the soul that peerless shone 
 
 To murky Styx and Acheron. 
 
 When Gessler bound with gyves of brass 
 The Swiss at Albert's stern command. 
 
 There laid him low in woody pass 
 An arrow from a peasant hand ; 
 
 And mortals scorned the fool that fell. 
 
 And laurelled the immortal Tell. 
 
FREEDOM. 197 
 
 When Bonaparte's all-slakeless thirst 
 For lands that he could never own 
 
 Assigned him to a doom accurst 
 
 And made the fame of Wellington, 
 
 We guerdoned with a glory crown 
 
 The man that struck the tyrant down. 
 
 And now, if some too haughty Lord 
 Who plays upon the land we till, 
 
 Would bend our spirits by his word. 
 And mould and grind us by his will 
 
 What wonder if we spurn his yoke, 
 
 And deal him answer stroke for stroke 1 
 
 'Tis ours to go in triumph forth 
 From victories won to those afar. 
 
 And trample to the gory earth 
 Whoever tries our path to bar. 
 
 For freedom is a holy spell, 
 
 And noble hearts shall guard it well. 
 
H Ibome IRuIe Song. 
 
 Another Rome, Britannia shares 
 
 Unprecedented sway ; 
 High over all, the name she bears 
 
 Is beaming brightest, best ; 
 The Mistress of the Nations wears 
 
 A diadem to-day. 
 Embossed with aU the loves and prayers 
 
 And worship of the west. 
 And O, the love for fatherland 
 
 In patriotic me. 
 Has bid the burning breast expand 
 
 Till feeling's fount is full ; 
 But how I wish the days were dawned 
 
 When gladden'd we shall see 
 The friendly chat of Sandy, Pat, 
 
 And old John Bull ! 
 
 Here's to Paddy and his shamrock 
 
 And the land in which it grows ! 
 Here's to Sandy and his thistle ! 
 
 Here's to John Bull and his rose ! 
 They shall live in loved alliance yet 
 
 That time shall not annul. 
 And friendly chat will Sandy, Pat, 
 
 And old John Bull ! 
 
A HOME EULE SONG. 199 
 
 'Twill come, though clashing creeds oppose, 
 
 Though cancers of alloy 
 Eat out the very hearts of those 
 
 By whom the gyves are worn ; 
 'Twill come ! a subtle current flows 
 
 Where finer feelings lie. 
 By which, to succour Erin's woes, 
 
 The olive branch is borne. 
 Even now some virgin glories grace 
 
 The portals of the east, 
 And brighter streaks of sunlight chase 
 
 The leaden sky and dull ; 
 'Tis the dawning smile on freedom's face. 
 
 Rose-tinted, beauty-fleeced — 
 'Tis the coming chat of Sandy, Pat, 
 
 And old John Bull ! 
 
 From common foeman's dripping blade 
 
 They fall to common fate ; 
 Their blood and limbs long-blent, pervade 
 
 The fields of common fame ; 
 And those on whose great hearts are laid 
 
 The sorrows of a state, 
 Shall not for aye those hearts degrade 
 
 By^wrangling o'er a name. 
 
200 
 
 A HOMK EULE SONG. 
 
 For other woes and far more fell 
 
 Are looming in the air ; 
 And crash ! hope-shivering shot and shell 
 
 May break the blissful lull 
 That we have learned to love so well, 
 
 And warm into a prayer, 
 The friendly chat of Sandt, Pat, 
 
 And old John Bull. 
 
 The harp that once in Erin's praise 
 
 Remembered music woke, 
 Shall breathe again in dulcet lays 
 
 The fire 'twas wont to feel : 
 While Caledonia hymns her braes. 
 
 And Britain hymns her oak, 
 That harp shall swell the songs they raise 
 
 And laud the common weal. 
 And thus concerted harps and hearts 
 
 Dissension's banner furled — 
 The soothing years shall balm the smarts, 
 
 And brighter garlands cull ; 
 And when the foe with arms or arts 
 
 Would mar their little world, 
 They'll crush his hat will Sandy, Pat, 
 
 And old John Bull ! 
 
A HOME RULE SONG. 201 
 
 Here's to Paddy and his shamrock 
 
 And the land in which it grows ! 
 Here's to Sandy and his thistle ! 
 
 Here's to John Bull and his rose ! 
 They shall live in loved alliance yet 
 
 That time shall not annul, 
 And friendly chat wUl Sandy, Pat, 
 
 And old John Bull ! 
 
^be Castle tbat stands on tbe brow of 
 tbe SiDe. 
 
 As I pensively pause on the lofty High Level 
 
 To muse on the mighty achievements of mind, 
 The fancy flees backward to wander and revel 
 
 In ages receding and drifting behind. 
 Loud-screeching the swift-locomotive speeds o'er me, 
 
 Beneath me the boats paddle Tyne's busy tide, 
 While sombre and sullen is frowning before me 
 
 The Castle that stands on the brow of the Side. 
 The sombre old Castle, the sullen old Castle, 
 
 The Castle that stands on the brow of the Side. 
 
 And as dreaming I gaze through the ages receding. 
 
 How rough the steep pathway of progress appears ! 
 What framing, and moulding, and delving, and weeding. 
 
 The Castle has seen in the course of the years ! 
 Though the beauty-conceptions of grace-giving Grainger 
 
 May gladden whoe'er through the city may stride, 
 WiU be dearer, I deem, to the lore-loving stranger, 
 
 The Castle that stands on the brow of the Side, 
 The lofty old Castle, the noble old Castle, 
 
 The Castle that stands on the brow of the Side, 
 
THE CASTLE THAT STANDS ON THE BEOW OF THE SIDE. 203 
 
 For what stem-visaged men have beleaguered its doorway, 
 
 What virtue and vice have been hemmed in its halls, 
 What changes have come since red Eufus of Norway, 
 
 Gave fashion and form to its storm-beaten walls ! 
 And though cleaving the clouds as ambitious of heaven, 
 
 St. Nicholas ascends in the prime of his pride, 
 He disputes not the honour the ages have given 
 
 The Castle that stands on the brow of the Side. 
 The storm-beaten Castle, the time-honoured Castle, 
 
 The Castle that stands on the brow of the Side. 
 
 Though the crown of the Norman has waned and departed 
 
 To add to the spoils of the centuries past ; 
 Though the monarchs of men have its chambers deserted 
 
 For piles in the land more imposing and vast ; 
 On its soot-matted walls, as on temples of glory. 
 
 The eyes of the thoughtful enchanted abide ; 
 For it hues a rich page with a heart-thriUing story. 
 
 The Castle that stands on the brow of the Side. 
 The soot-matted Castle, the frowning old Castle, 
 
 The Castle that stands on the brow of the Side. 
 
H Ibijmn to tbe IRlgbt. 
 
 Majestic night, thy crown of stars, 
 
 Bright-beaming through the depths of air, 
 
 Enkindles no unholy wars. 
 
 Nor passes down from heir to heir. 
 
 As do the jewel-spangled things 
 
 That glitter on the brows of kings ! 
 
 To gaze upon thy dusky brow, 
 
 Spread wide as mortal eye can trace. 
 
 As fancy, lost in wonders now. 
 
 Skims the far ether-fields of space. 
 
 The vision bids the bosom swell 
 
 With thoughts too deep for words to tell. 
 
 For lo ! the orbs that gem thy skies, 
 And radiant o'er their courses move. 
 
 Are like a thousand earnest eyes 
 All gazing o'er us in their love. 
 
 And blending their resplendent rays 
 
 To light us through life's checkered maze. 
 
A HYMN TO THE NIGHT. 205 
 
 And when the moon in glory rides, 
 And bathes the ■world in mellow light, 
 
 And lover-haunted, valley tides 
 
 Flow gleaming in the effulgence bright, 
 
 A rapture to the heart is given 
 
 That makes us feel the earth a heaven. 
 
 But, 0, thy pageantry of wrath ! 
 
 When tempests rage and thunders roll. 
 And bolts of flame infest our path 
 
 And shake the chambers of the soul ; 
 The dread that such a moment brings 
 
 Avows thee fraught with awful things ! 
 
 But yet, methinks, thy shifting hues 
 Are pictures meet of poet's mind ; 
 
 Now, tender as thy balmy dews, 
 
 Now, pouring wrath on all mankind ! 
 
 And, musing thus, thy changeful mood. 
 
 Has peopled oft my solitude. 
 
Z\)C 2)awn of Xove. 
 
 Whilom in beauty-pencilled bower, 
 
 In autumn's gold and russet prime, 
 They lingered one transcendent hour. 
 Resplendent hour, 
 Of drifted time. 
 Above, th' unruffled sky was still ; 
 
 Around, the com was in the sheaves ; 
 And flickered o'er the haunted riU 
 The shadows of the falling leaves, 
 And bosom-stirred. 
 The dreamers heard 
 The burning word 
 That love believes. 
 
 The glory-crested moon was high. 
 
 And shone with such deluging light, 
 The eye could trace, now sitting by. 
 Now flitting by, 
 The birds of night. 
 The berried-bank, the odoured wood, 
 Ascending, kissed the lofty sheen ; 
 Then sloping stooped to verge the flood 
 That babbled by their couch of green. 
 
THE DAWN OF LOVE. 207 
 
 And lips confessed 
 The hearts were blest 
 That, bounding, guessed 
 What love could mean. 
 
 The beacon of a mystic power 
 
 Through Eden-scenes their fancies led, 
 And held them till the gladdening hour. 
 The maddening hour. 
 Deluding sped. 
 They rose, they left their bower of bliss. 
 
 To revel in the rapture rare, 
 Of softest word and warmest kiss — 
 For he was young and she was fair — 
 Or learn how rife 
 Are woes and strife. 
 And prove in life 
 What love can bear ! 
 
Mbocpcr see0 ber blesses ber. 
 
 There breathes to bless one heart alone 
 
 A form of peerless ■worth, 
 Whose spirit-sheen is scarcely known 
 
 Beyond her own glad hearth; 
 But there her life flows gushing forth 
 
 To gladden who caresses her, 
 And in that sphere of holy cheer 
 
 Whoever sees her blesses her. 
 
 Her quiet lot is pent between 
 
 The humble and' the high; 
 But there is in her lofty mien 
 
 And love-diffusing eye, 
 A soul-enthralling majesty, 
 
 And nothing mean possesses her — 
 And this her praise where'er she strays 
 
 Whoever sees her blesses her. 
 
 'Tis not because her teeming brain 
 
 Is rich with gathered lore ; 
 Nor that the smiling graces reign 
 
 In her, and only her ; 
 But for her love of passing o'er 
 
 The sorrow that distresses her, 
 To soothe the smarts of other hearts 
 
 Whoever sees her blesses her. 
 
SiQb on ^e Soft Zepb^rs. 
 
 Sigh on ye soft zephyrs 'mong Derwent's wild bowers, 
 And dance, ye bright eddies that whirl on her stream ; 
 
 Expand your gay petals, ye sweet-breathing flowers. 
 My soul is enthralled with a beautiful dream. 
 
 Ye point me to days when with purest devotion 
 
 A maid young and blooming I strained to my heart, 
 
 And felt the warm thrill of affection's emotion , 
 
 As from their deep fountains the tear-drops would start. 
 
 Exult, ye wild groves while the daisies are springing, 
 And Derwent's glad waters leap o'er the bright sand ; 
 
 For here, while the lark and the mavis were singing. 
 The bard and his Betsy have walked hand-in-hand. 
 
 When sailing in splendour the moon was diffusing 
 Her beams in profusion athwart the blue sky, 
 
 The depth of your shades was the place of our choosing 
 The haunt of our love and the shrine of our joy. 
 
 And there while the stars in their silence gazed o'er us, 
 And summer winds sighed 'mong the long, leafy boughs. 
 
 How fair was the future hope pictured before us ! 
 What fervour of feeling was breathe4 in our vows [ 
 
 And now, as I muse on the verge of thy river, 
 
 The joy is abiding the moments impart : 
 The Vale of the Derwent shall charm me for ever, 
 
 Her woods and her hills are the home of my heart. 
 
Cbopwell MOO&0. 
 
 Ye wild arcades, thick-mantled green, 
 
 As musing 'neath your shades I stray, 
 A glo-w, as from the inner sheen, 
 Bright-shimmering sunnies o'er the scene, 
 
 Whose beauty wakes my grateful lay. 
 And thrills the breast, with memories blest. 
 
 And bright as joy's effulgent ray, 
 Whose light benign shall burn and shine 
 
 When surging years have ebb'd away. 
 
 How charmed the morning's virgin blush, 
 
 That found me in your tangled maze. 
 When loud, the silver-throated thrush 
 Flung from the brightly blooming bush 
 
 His rapture breathing matin lays ; 
 While zephyr bore the balmy store 
 
 Prom clover mead and primrose braes, 
 And birds and flowers beguiled the hours, 
 ' Of silent thought and silent praise. 
 
 And glad the glow of sunset flash. 
 
 That crimsoned half the shadowy sky ; 
 Or star-crowned night's pathetic hush 
 That woke the finer passion-gush 
 
CHOPWELL WOODS. 211 
 
 And joyous spirit melody ; 
 For then I found your hallow^ed ground 
 
 The sacred haunt of musings high : 
 There seemed a mind in every wind 
 
 That soothing, sighing, rustled by. 
 
 And when the vapours of the mind 
 
 Arose to darken or depress ; 
 Or I had mourned too much to find 
 That mortals were not always kind, 
 
 Or friendship wore delusive dress ; 
 Your bahn and bloom dispelled the gloom 
 
 Of indefinable distress, 
 When nature smiled upon her child 
 
 In all her wealth of loveliness. 
 
 And now that time has schooled my heart 
 
 To frame its feelings into song. 
 And laugh away the petty smart 
 That petty evUs may impart. 
 
 As, calm or storm, I urge along ; 
 My latent love of mead and grove 
 
 Grows more and more intensely strong ; 
 Yet I attest I love you best 
 
 Of all the scenes I've roved among. 
 
212 
 
 CHOPWBLL WOODS. 
 
 Wild, shady miles of ferns and flo-wers, 
 
 O'er which the tiny cony scuds, 
 And where the happy pair embowers 
 To chat away the honied hours, 
 
 And. sniff the scent of sprouting buds ! 
 When death's dark night blots out the light 
 
 That radiant on my vision floods, 
 My latest sigh shall be — good-bye 
 
 To mother earth and Chopwell Woods ! 
 
Come, mij Betgi?. 
 
 Come, my Betsy, blue-eye sweetheart, 2ephyr murmurs softly 
 
 by. 
 
 And the moon's benign effulgence floods the glen, 
 
 And the stars are beaming brightly from their ebon thrones 
 on high, 
 
 As if smiling on the haUow'd loves of men. 
 
 To yon sylvan scenes I'll lead thee, where the violets sweetly 
 blow, 
 
 Where the woodbine hangs in tassels and perfume, 
 
 And above the blue forget-me-nots the virgin roses glow. 
 
 And the slopes surrounding laugh with vernal bloom. 
 
 There, secluded from intrusion, thou shalt nestle to my breast 
 While the moon deluges Derwent with its beams. 
 
 Like an angel in elysium with her pinions laid at rest, 
 Smiling in the holy transport of her dreams. 
 
 From the fountain of deep feeling we shall drink a holy joy, 
 
 Taste a rapture soul-exulting and divine ; 
 
 And I'll read thy love's deep meaning on the azure of thine 
 eye. 
 
 As I pour my bosom's fulness into thine. 
 
 For I love thee, dearest Betsy, thou art more than wealth to 
 " me — 
 
 Thou art life, and light, and sunshine to my day ; 
 
 Like a vision blest to guide and cheer me o'er life's troubled 
 sea. 
 
 Thy bright image rose and will not pass away. 
 
3Bets^ Bee. 
 
 How sweet to rove the violet grove 
 
 When horded woodbine scents the air, 
 And flies the thrush from bush to bush 
 
 Loud-pouring music everywhere ! 
 But sweeter when the eve is dun, 
 
 And sol has sank beneath the sea. 
 The craze of frenzied life to shun 
 
 And while the hours with Betsy Bee. 
 
 For then the earth unfolds her worth 
 
 And vies with Eden's spotless shore. 
 And bids us taste the pleasures chaste 
 
 That we ne'er dreamt she held before. 
 O ! life has stUl one draught of bliss, 
 
 From every foul ingredient free : 
 'Tis in the converse and the kiss, 
 
 And plighted faith of Betsy Bee. 
 
 Let fools adore the glittering store 
 
 And vain ambition pant for praise ; 
 Add to the shares of selfish heirs, 
 
 Whate'er their gloating sight surveys ; 
 But give to my extended arms 
 
 And yearning bosom fond and free, 
 In all her soul-enthralUng charms 
 
 The comely form of Betsy Bbb. 
 
Spring. 
 
 'Tis the sigh of the spring that I hear in the breeze, 
 
 'Tis the dawn of her smile on the sky ; 
 And the skirt of her robes on the woods and the leas 
 
 Are imprinting their spangle and dye. 
 And the beam of her brow, and the bloom of her cheek. 
 
 And the balm of her breath on the plain, 
 Like a hope in the heart of the weary and weak, 
 
 Are diffusing their grandeur again. 
 
 For she comes with a wreath evergreen on her brows, 
 
 To re-open the buds and the flowers ; 
 And a censer aroma'd she flings as she throws 
 
 Her ambrosial balm on the bowers. 
 And the life-giving touch of her sweet-huing hand 
 
 Is augmenting our quota of bliss ; 
 While the tints on the ocean, the sky, and the land. 
 
 Are the beauty-imprints of her kiss! 
 
 From the land of the myrrh, from the home of the vine. 
 
 From her own sunny seat in the south. 
 In her hand she comes bearing the corn and the wine. 
 
 And the songs of great joy in her mouth. 
 She has come, and the woods shall resound with her praise. 
 
 And the hills shall re-echo the strain, 
 And the burns, and the groves, and the vales, and the braes, 
 
 Shall be spangled with glory again. 
 
216 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 Then awake ! shackled heart from the thrall of thy woes 
 
 Throw the pall and the burthen away ; 
 There's a cordial for care in the bloom of the rose, 
 
 And a life in the wood choir's lay. 
 And however the tempests of trouble oppose, 
 
 There is always a hope on the wing, 
 As the bright-gleaming gems on the bosom of snows 
 
 But reflect the near glance of the spring. 
 
Mbo sball weep when 3 am Beab? 
 
 When the withered leaves shall rustle 
 
 O'er the mound that -wraps my clay ; 
 When my worn-out brain and muscle 
 
 Moulder in their last decay ; 
 When the snows all pure and pearly 
 
 Mantle o'er my pillow'd head ; 
 When the winds are high and surly 
 
 Who shall weep beside my bed ? 
 
 When the spring comes, all perfuming, 
 
 Laughing over lawn and lea ; 
 When the early flowers are blooming 
 
 Where the buried memories be ; 
 When the summer swathes with gladness 
 
 All that winter hues with gloom ; 
 Summer joy, or autumn sadness 
 
 Who shall weep beside my tomb ? 
 
 When my harp is hushed for ever, 
 
 When the muse's wearied wing 
 Waves no more in warm endeavour 
 
 O'er the frayed and broken string ; 
 When these rudely-woven numbers 
 
 Deep in dark oblivion lie. 
 Who shall breathe above my slumbers 
 
 Undissimulated sigh ? 
 
218 
 
 WHO SHALL WEEP WHEN I AM DEAD? 
 
 Budding spring, and blooming summer, 
 
 Autumn rich, and winter brave, 
 Shall, saluting death's new comer. 
 
 Bring their tributes to my grave ; 
 And when all the winds of heaven 
 
 Sigh above my dreamless bed, 
 ! ye odoured dews of even ! 
 
 Ye shall weep when I am dead. 
 
 Ifinis, 
 
 PRINTED BY J. M. OARR, OITY STKAM PRINTING WORKS, LOW FRI4R STRJiBT, NBWCJSTLB. 
 
1^ /txa^vvTo ^-*X'<-^*<-