Chapter XXII: Part VII (7)

"The Tuatha De Danaan--the divine Children of Danu which forgotten centuries ago invaded Ireland--can take all shapes, and those that are in the waters take often the shape of fish. A woman of Burren, in Galway, says, 'There are more of them in the sea than on the land ...,' and another Galway woman says, 'Surely those things are in the sea as well as on land. My father was out fishing one night off Tyrone. And something came beside the boat that had eyes shining like candles. And then a wave came in, and a storm rose all in a minute, and whatever was in the wave, the weight of it had like to sink the boat. And then they saw that it was a woman in the sea that had the shining eyes. So my father went to the priest, and he bid him always to take a drop of holy water and a pinch of salt out in the boat with him, and nothing could harm him.'"

W. B. YEATS

321. "ONE WITHOUT."

Was it the sound of a footfall I heard
On the cold flag stone?
Or the cry of a wandering far night bird,
On the sea-winds blown?
Was that a human shape that stood?
In the shadow below,
Or but the mist of the moonlit wood
As it hovered low?
Was it the voice of a child that called
From the hill side steep?
Or, O, but the wind as it softly lulled
The world to sleep?

ELIZABETH RAMAL

325. "BROOME, BROOME ON HILL."

The story is of how a bright lady comes to keep her tryst with a knight-at-arms in the golden broom of Hive Hill. She finds him under a charm, an enchantment, asleep; and having left her ring on his finger for proof of her coming, she steals away. Presently after he awakes--her presence gone. To leave a quiet and happy room vacant at night is sometimes to have this experience, as it were, _reversed_. There comes a feeling that you being gone, gentler visitants may enter and share its solitude--while its earthly occupant sleeps overhead, and one by one the stars sink to their setting.

326. "THE CHANGELING."

When larks gin sing
Away we fling,
And babes new-born steal as we go;
An elf instead
We leave in bed,
And wind out, laughing, Ho, ho, ho!

329. "MARIANA."

It is difficult to read this poem slowly and intently enough if one is to experience to the _full_ the living things and sights and sounds that by its words are charmed into the mind--the hushed solitude, the desolation. Take even, of all there is, but the "peering mouse" in the sixth stanza--his sharp nose sniffing the air beneath the small wooden arch of his dark-glimmering mousery, where miche and shriek and gambol his fellows behind the mouldering wainscot. Or stay for a moment looking down on the "marsh mosses" in the third stanza--of a green as lively as a fairy's mantle in the sunlight, gilding the waters of the blackened sluice. So piece by piece the words of the poem build up in the imagination this solitary house with its forsaken Mariana, whom Tennyson himself had seen in the dream conferred on him by another poet, Shakespeare, in _Measure for Measure_:

_Isabella._ Can this be so? did _Angelo_ so leave her?

_Duke._ Left her in her teares, and dried not one of them
with his comfort: swallowed his vowes whole,
pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in
few, bestowed on her her owne lamentation,
which she yet weares for his sake: and he, a
marble to her teares, is washed with them, but
relents not.

_Isabella._ What a merit were it in death to take this poore
maid from the world....

332. "YES TOR."

Turn your back on Okehampton and break out due South into the wilds of Dartmoor, and there, "summering" together "beneath the empty skies," lie titanic Yes Tor and High Willes, rearing their bare vast shapes 700 yards into the air.

333. "TO HEARE THE MANDRAKE GRONE." (stanza 2)

Of the dangerous plant Mandrake ("its root in something the shape and appearance of a man") is concocted Mandragora, one of the "drowsy syrups." "The leaves and fruit be also dangerous, for they cause deadly sleep, and peevish drowsiness." The fruit is "of the bigness of a reasonable pippin, and as yellow as gold when it is thoroughly ripe": fair without, ashes within. It is said that the mandrake's screams, when it is dragged out of the ground, will send the hearer mad. So the gatherer should first seal his ears, then tie the plant to a dog's tail and hike him on to haul it out of its haunt! "Avicenna the Arabian physician asserts that a Jew at Metz had a mandragore with a human head, and the legs and body of a cock, which lived five weeks, and was fed on lavender and earthworms, and, when dead, was preserved in spirits." Even up to the nineteenth century dreaders or wishers of witchcraft were wont to carry these monstrous little Erdmannikens in bosom or pocket for an amulet or charm.

The "Basilisk," old books maintain, is a fabulous beast whose icy glare freezes the gazer, and is mortal. Approach her then with a mirror; and courage be your guide!

"HEMLOCK, HENBANE, ADDERS-TONGUE." (line 10)

Hemlock is that tall, dim-spotted plant of a sad green colour, and of a scent "strong, heady and bad," which is "very cold and dangerous," especially when "digged in the dark."

Clammy henbane is woolly-leafed, with hollow dark-eyed flowers of a purple-veined dingy yellow. "It lusts to grow in rancid soil, To 'stil its deadly oil."

Moonwort is the meek-looking little flowering fern that has the power to break locks, and to make any horse that chances to tread upon it cast his shoes.

The livid-flowered, cherry like-fruited dwale, enoron, or nightshade is the most "daungerous" plant in England. While leopard's bane--though it bears a bright-yellow daisy-like flower, and witches are said to fear sun-colour--is venomous to animals.

I am uncertain of adder's tongue, for the fern of this name cures sore eyes; and cuckoo-pint which is also so called, is "a remedy for poison and the plague"!

Of these six insidious plants only one is openly mentioned by Shakespeare, and they appear to have few country names, unlike, for example, the purple orchis, "which has so many," says Nicholas Culpeper, "that they would fill a sheet of paper": long-purples, dead-men's fingers, crake-feet, giddy-gandy, neat-legs, geese and goslings, and gander-gooses, being a few choice specimens.

334. "THE RAVEN."

Underneath an old oak tree
There was of swine a huge company,
That grunted as they crunched the mast:
For that was ripe, and fell full fast.
Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high:
One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.
Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly:
He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!
Blacker was he than blackest jet,
Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet.

He picked up the acorn and buried it straight
By the side of a river both deep and great.
Where then did the Raven go?
He went high and low,
Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.
Many Autumns, many Springs
Travelled he with wandering wings:
Many Summers, many Winters--
I can't tell half his adventures.

At length he came back, and with him a She,
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree,
They built them a nest in the topmost bough,
And young ones they had, and were happy enow.
But soon came a Woodman in leathern guise,
His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes.
He'd an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke,
But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke,
At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak.
His young ones were killed; for they could not depart,
And their mother did die of a broken heart.

The boughs from the trunk the Woodman did sever;
And they floated it down on the course of the river.
They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip,
And with this tree and others they made a good ship.
The ship, it was launched; but in sight of the land
Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand.
It bulged on a rock, and the waves rush'd in fast:
Round and round flew the raven, and cawed to the blast.
He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls--
See! see! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls!
Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet,
And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet,
And he thanked him again and again for this treat:
They had taken his all, and REVENGE IT WAS SWEET!

S. T. COLERIDGE

"Seventeen or eighteen years ago," wrote Coleridge in 1817, "an artist of some celebrity was so pleased with this doggerel that he amused himself with the thought of making a Child's Picture Book of it; but he could not hit on a picture for the four lines beginning, 'Many Autumns, many Springs.' I suggested a _Round-about_ with four seats, and the four seasons, as children, with Time for the shew-man."

335. "A THOUSAND DARLING IMPS." (stanza 19)

"Aeriel spirits," says Robert Burton, "are such as keep quarter most part in the air, cause many tempests, thunder, and lightnings, tear oaks, fire steeples, houses, strike men and beasts, make it rain stones, ... wool, frogs, etc., counterfeit armies in the air, strange noises, swords, etc."

Nothing vexed Linnet Sara more than to be asked if there were any such darling imps or spectres or ghosts or blackamoors in Thrae. All such to her were nothing but idle fiddle-faddle. But Reginald Scot, who wrote _The Discoverie of Witchcraft_ (1584), had another kind of kitchen company when he was young.

"... Our mothers maide," he says, of his childhood, "so terrified us with ... bull beggers, spirits, witches, urchens, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, sylens, kit with the cansticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, giants, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, changlings, Incubus, Robin goodfellowe, the spoorne, the mare, the man in the oke, the hellwaine, the fierdrake, the puckle, Tom thombe, hob gobblin, Tom tumbler, boneles, and such other bugs, that we were afraid of our own shadowes: in so much as some never feare the divill, but in a dark night; ..."

There seems to be no mention here of the salamander--a creature at least as rarely seen by mortal eyes as the puckle or firedrake.

"When I was about five years old," says Benvenuto Cellini, "my father happened to be in a basement-chamber of our house, where they had been washing, and where a good fire of oak logs was still burning; he had a viol in his hand and was playing and singing alone beside the fire. The weather was very cold. Happening to look into the fire, he espied in the middle of the most burning flames a little creature like a lizard, which was sporting in the core of the intensest coals. Becoming aware of what the thing was, he had my sister and me called, and pointing it out to us children, gave me a great box on the ears, which caused me to cry with all my might. Then he pacified me by saying, 'My dear little boy, I am not striking you for anything that you have done, but only to make you remember that the lizard you see in the fire is a salamander, a creature which has never been seen before by any of whom we have credible information.' So saying he gave me some pieces of money, and kissed me."

"BELL AND WHIP AND HORSE'S TAIL" (stanza 22)

--such in old days was the Witch's vile punishment if she escaped drowning: to be whipped, tied to a horse's tail, and rung through the crowded streets.

"Agramie," I suppose, is agrimony, which, if worn by the wary, will enable the wearer to detect witches. Their eyes too will betray them, for _there_ you will find no tiny image of yourself reflected as in the eyes of the honest. And if you would be rid of their company, pluck a sprig of scarlet pimpernel, and repeat this charm:

Herbe pimpernell, I have thee found
Growing upon Christ Jesus' ground:
The same guift the Lord Jesus gave unto thee,
When he shed his blood on the tree,
Arise up, pimpernell, and goe with me.
And God blesse me,
And all that shall wear _thee_. AMEN.

"Say this fifteen dayes together, twice a day, morning earlye fasting, and in the evening full."

Indeed, at last, whatever the peril, a quiet heart and heaven's courage, are charm enough:

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: ...

GERALD MANLEY HOPKINS

336. "THE WATER KELPY" (stanza 8)

is a fiend that haunts in rivers and desolate waters. It is of horse-shape, and the sound of its neighings is a boding of death to the traveller.

"Thus did the evil creatures often press me hard, but, as was meet, I served them well with my war-sword; they had no joyous fill by eating me, wicked destroyers, sitting round their feast nigh the bottom of the sea; but in the morning, wounded by the sword, slain by the dagger, they lay up along the sea-strand, so that they could never more hinder seafarers on their course in the deep channel.

Light came from the east, the bright beacon of the Lord; the waves were stilled, and I could descry the sea-headlands, those wind-swept walls."

_Beowulf_, translated by C. B. TINKER

"'And what is the sea?' asked Will.

'The sea!' cried the miller. 'Lord help us all, it is the greatest thing God made! That is where all the water in the world runs down into a great salt lake. There it lies, as flat as my hand and as innocent-like as a child; but they do say when the wind blows it gets up into water-mountains bigger than any of ours, and swallows down great ships bigger than our mill, and makes such a roaring that you can hear it miles away upon the land. There are great fish in it five times bigger than a bull, and one old serpent as long as our river and as old as all the world, with whiskers like a man, and a crown of silver on her head.'"

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

341. "THE WANDERING SPECTRE."

"... The usewall Method for a curious Person to get a transient Sight of this otherwise invisible Crew of Subterraneans, ... is to put his left Foot under the Wizard's right Foot, and the Seer's Hand is put on the Inquirer's Head, who is to look over the Wizard's right Shoulder ... then will he see a Multitude of Wights, like furious hardie Men, flocking to him haistily from all Quarters, as thick as Atoms in the Air.... Thes thorow Fear strick him breathless and speechless."

So says "Mr. Robert Kirk, Minister at Aberfoill," in his _Secret Commonwealth_ of 1691.

Of these invisible wights the womenkind "are said to Spin very fine, to Dy, to Tossue, and Embroyder, but whether only curious Cob-webs, impalpable Rainbows ... I leave to conjecture."

343. "AND CLOOTIE'S WAUR NOR A WOMAN WAS."

(stanza 19)

A strip or patch of wild weedy uncropped ground (like the Sluggard's garden) that in England is called _No Man's Land_, the Scots country folk call _Clootie's Croft_ (or Clootie's little field). They hand it over by name, as it were, to the Fiend, hoping that he may rest content with its harvest of nettle and bramble and burr, and not range elsewhere. It is an old belief that if, like Christian, the wayfarer meets Apollyon straddling across his path, he may have to withstand him not only with sword and staff, but with his wits. Just so, too, in old times, sovereign princes would test strangers with dark questions and riddles. In this ballad the Fiend disguised as a knight comes wooing at a Widow's door, in the next he is abroad on the high road. Jennifer and the wee boy kept up their hearts, their wits about them, their eyes open, and "had the last word"; which, says Mr. Sidgwick, is a mighty powerful charm against evil spirits--as against Witches are the herbs vervain, dill, basil, hyssop, periwinkle and rue. Iron, too; the cross, and running water.

Here is another such encounter from _The White Wallet_--packed with poems new and old. You can almost hear the voices of the two speakers standing together in the quiet and dust of the morning road:

MEET-ON-THE-ROAD.

"Now, pray, where are you going, child?" said Meet-on-the-Road.
"To school, sir, to school, sir," said Child-as-It-Stood.

"What have you in your basket, child?" said Meet-on-the-Road.
"My dinner, sir, my dinner, sir," said Child-as-It-Stood.

"What have you for your dinner, child?" said Meet-on-the-Road.
"Some pudding, sir, some pudding, sir," said Child-as-It-Stood.

"Oh, then I pray, give me a share," said Meet-on-the-Road.
"I've little enough for myself, sir," said Child-as-It-Stood.

"What have you got that cloak on for?" said Meet-on-the-Road.
"To keep the wind and cold from me," said Child-as-It-Stood.

"I wish the wind would blow through you," said Meet-on-the-Road.
"Oh, what a wish! Oh, what a wish!" said Child-as-It-Stood.

"Pray what are those bells ringing for?" said Meet-on-the-Road.
"To ring bad spirits home again," said Child-as-It-Stood.

"Oh, then, I must be going, child!" said Meet-on-the-Road.
"So fare you well, so fare you well," said Child-as-It-Stood.

And here, for titbits and _bonnes bouches_, are Seven Ancient Riddles from _Popular Rhymes_--in case:

i.

The fiddler and his wife,
The piper and his mother,
Ate three half-cakes, three whole cakes,
And three quarters of another.

ii.

A house full, a yard full,
And ye can't catch a bowl full.

iii.

As I was going o'er London Bridge,
I heard something crack;
Not a man in all England
Can mend that!

iv.

I had a little sister,
They called her Pretty Peep;
She wades in the waters,
Deep, deep, deep!
She climbs up the mountains,
High, high, high;
My poor little sister,
She has but one eye.

v.

As I was going o'er yon moor of moss,
I met a man on a gray horse;
He whipp'd and he wail'd,
I ask'd him what he ail'd;
He said he was going to his father's funeral,
Who died seven years before he was born!

vi.

As I looked out o' my chamber window,
I heard something fall;
I sent my maid to pick it up,
But she couldn't pick it all.

vii.

Black within, and red without,
Four corners round about.

ANSWERS.

i. 1¾ cakes each; since, if Mr. Piper marries, his wife will be Mr. and Mrs. Fiddler's dear daughter-in-law. ii. Smoke; iii. Ice; iv. A Star; v. The poor soul in the coffin was by trade a dyer; vi. Snuff (!); vii. A Chimney (in Days of Yore).

344. "THE FAUSE KNICHT."

Such visitants, it would appear, have marvellous power even over faces or shapes in stone:

He's tied his steed to the kirk-stile,
Syne wrang-gaites round the kirk gaed he;
When the Mer-Man entered the kirk-door,
Away the sma' images turned their e'e....

Wrang-gaites must mean widdershins, left to right, West to East, the opposite to _deiseal_ (deshal)--to the right, Sunwards.

Here is another such visitor--one who considerately intrudes not all at once but little by little, bone by bone:

THE STRANGE VISITOR.

A wife was sitting at her reel ae night;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a pair o' braid braid soles, and sat down at the fireside;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a pair o' sma' legs, and sat down on the braid braid soles;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a pair o' muckle muckle knees, and sat down on the sma'
sma' legs;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a pair o' sma' sma' thees, and sat down on the muckle muckle
knees;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a pair o' muckle muckle hips, and sat down on the sma' sma'
thees;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a sma' sma' waist, and sat down on the muckle muckle hips;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a pair o' braid braid shouthers, and sat down on the sma'
sma' waist;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a pair o' sma' sma' arms, and sat down on the braid braid
shouthers;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a pair o' muckle muckle hands, and sat down on the sma' sma'
arms;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a sma' sma' neck, and sat down on the braid braid shouthers;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

In came a great big head, and sat down on the sma' sma' neck;
And aye she sat, and aye she reeled, and aye she wished for company.

"What way hae ye sic braid braid feet?" quo' the wife.
"Muckle ganging, muckle ganging."
"What way hae ye sic sma' sma' legs?"
"_Aih-h-h_!--late--and _wee-e-e_ moul."
"What way hae ye sic muckle muckle knees?"
"Muckle praying, muckle praying."
"What way hae ye sic sma' sma' thees?"
"_Aih-h-h_!--late--and _wee-e-e_ moul."
"What way hae ye sic big big hips?"
"Muckle sitting, muckle sitting."
"What way hae ye sic a sma' sma' waist?"
"_Aih-h-h_!--late--and _wee-e-e_ moul."
"What way hae ye sic braid braid shouthers?"
"Wi' carrying broom, wi' carrying broom."
"What way hae ye sic sma' sma' arms?"
"_Aih-h-h_!--late--and _wee-e-e_ moul."
"What way hae ye sic muckle muckle hands?"
"Threshing wi' an iron flail, threshing wi' an iron flail."
"What way hae ye sic a sma' sma' neck?"
"_Aih-h-h_!--late--and _wee-e-e_ moul."
"What way hae ye sic a muckle muckle head?"
"Muckle wit, muckle wit."
"What do you come for?"
"For YOU!"

345. "CHRISTABEL."

I have included only these few stanzas of this familiar magical poem because a book is but one book, and to print everything as lovely or almost as lovely would need many.

In reading it, as Coleridge explained, all that is necessary to ensure its lilt and cadence is to remember that every line, however few or many its words or syllables, has four accents, and that these fall in accord with the meaning of the lines as one reads them with clear eyes, attentive ear, and understanding. In his tale of Genevieve there is yet another false and lovely Fiend:

... But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,--

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight----

"A TOOTHLESS MASTIFF BITCH."

Here is a description of one _with_ teeth--a dog seldom seen now. It is taken from a German book on husbandry, translated by Barnaby Goodge, and is quoted in _Animal Lore_:

"First the mastie that keepeth the house: for this purpose you must provide you such a one, as hath a large and a mightie body, a great and a shrill voyce, that both with his barking he may discover, and with his sight dismay the theefe, yea, being not seene, with the horror of his voice put him to flight; his stature must neither be long nor short, but well set, his head great, his eyes sharpe, and fiery, ... his countenance like a lion, his brest great and shaghayrd, his shoulders broad, his legges bigge, his tayle short, his feet very great; his disposition must neither be too gentle, nor too curst, that he neither fawne upon a theefe, nor flee (fly) upon his friends; very waking, no gadder abroad, not lavish of his mouth, barking without cause. Neither maketh it any matter though he be not swift: for he is but to fight at home, and to give warning of the enemie." And his name is little Bingo!

347. "ONCE A FAIR AND STATELY PALACE."

The radiant palace of this poem is indeed far away--the other side of dream and night. Its monstrous word, _Porphyrogene_, means a prince, a child-Royal, one born in the chamber of some Eastern palace walled with rare porphyry.

350. "SWEET WHISPERS ARE HEARD BY THE TRAVELLER."

(stanza 6)

On a poet's lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
But feeds on the aërial kisses
Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses.
He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,
Nor heed nor see, what things they be;
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality!...

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

352. "MY A DILDIN."

This, 353, 355 and 356 are four more Singing-Game Rhymes, worn down into almost nonsensical jingle by multitudinous tongues in long long usage. (See No. 41, page 36).

And--since in my humble opinion it is not easy to get too much of this kind of good thing--here is another:

Bobby Shaft is gone to sea,
With silver buckles at his knee;
When he'll come home he'll marry me,
Pretty Bobby Shaft!

Bobby Shaft is fat and fair,
Combing down his yellow hair;
He's my love for evermair,
Pretty Bobby Shaft!

352. "WE ARE COME TO COURT."

King Edelbrode cam owre the sea,
_Fa la lilly_.
All for to marry a gay ladye,
_Fa la lilly_.

Her lilly hands, sae white and sma',
_Fa la lilly_.
Wi' gouden rings were buskit braw,
_Fa la lilly_....

And here is a Bride of Elizabeth's day whom I chanced on in that packed and inexhaustible book, _Shakespeare's England_. When "buskit braw," she must have been as lovely to see as a hawthorn in May or a wax candle in a silver shrine:

"The bride being attired in a gown of sheeps russet, and a kirtle of fine worsted, her head attired with a billiment of gold, and her hair as yellow as gold hanging down behind her, which was curiously combed and pleated, according to the manner in those days: she was led to church between two sweet boys, with bride-laces and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves.... Then was there a fair bride-cup of silver and gilt carried before her wherein was a goodly branch of rosemary, gilded very fair, hung about with silken ribands of all colours: next was there a noise of musicians, that played all the way before her: after her came all the chiefest maidens of the country, some bearing great bride-cakes, and some garlands of wheat, finely gilded, and so she passed to the Church."

As for the silken ribands they may have been of Drakes colour or Ladies blush or Gozelinge colour or Marigold or Isabel or Peas porridge tawny or Popingay blew or Lusty gallant, but they were certainly not Judas colour, Devil in the hedge, or Dead Spaniard.

355. "AND FEED HER WI' NEW MILK AND BREAD."

The Yellow-haired Laddie sat down on yon brae,
Cries--Milk the ewes, Lassie! let nane o' them gae!
And ay she milked, and ay she sang--
The Yellow-haired Laddie shall be my gudeman!
And ay she milked, and ay she sang--
The Yellow-haired Laddie shall be my gudeman!...

ALLAN RAMSAY

357. QUOTH JOHN TO JOAN.

This old song, which was set to music in the reign of Henry VIII., comes (like Dallyaunce of No. 35), out of a Morality Play, _Lusty Juventus_, the author of which is said to be one "R. Wever," whose body has now for many a century been slumbering on in its cocoon.

358. MILK-WHITE FINGERS, CHERRY NOSE.

This is the only poem I have ever seen in which the midmost feature of a pretty face is compared to a cherry. And yet a frosty morning must have given many a dainty nose that fair bright coral colour.

So too, Bob Cherry, in these lines _To His Lady_:

Black-heart were mine to love not thy
White-heart so sweet and tender;
Be kind, my dear, for--Summer by--
What fruits hath cold December?

359. "OR THE BEES THEIR CAREFUL KING."

In old times the "Governor" of a Bee Hive was sometimes referred to as the King and sometimes as the Queen. The choice depended in part on which kind of monarch was on the throne. There is an entrancing story of the middle ages, told by Mr. Tickner Edwardes in his book on the Honey Bee.

"A certaine simple woman, on finding that her bees were storing little honey for her and were perishing of "the murraine," stole one of the holy wafers from the priest, and for miraculous remedy concealed it in one of her hives. "Whereupon the Murraine ceased and the Honie abounded. The Woman, therefore lifting up the hive at the due time to take out the Honie, saw there (most strange to be seene) a Chappell built by the Bees, with an altar to it, the wals adorned by marvellous skill of architecture, with windowes conveniently set in their places: also a doore and a steeple with bells. And the Host being laid upon the altar, the Bees making a sweet noise, flew around it." Apart from "the singing masons building roofs of gold," the gluttonous drones, the sentries, wax-makers, bread-kneaders, nurses, etc., there are the Queen's Ladies-in-waiting. "For difference from the rest they beare for their crest a tuft or tossell, in some coloured yellow, in some murrey, in manner of a plume; whereof some turne downward like an Ostrich-feather, others stand upright like a Hern-top." But for truths even stranger than fantasy regarding bees and their kind, go to Henri Fabre.

360. "AND HERE, AND HERE."

As Flora slept and I lay waking,
I smiled to see a bird's mistaking,
For from a bough it down did skip
And for a cherry pecked her lip....

362. "MY HEART IS GLADDER THAN ALL THESE."

How many times do I love thee, dear?
Tell me how many thoughts there be
In the atmosphere
Of the new fall'n year,
Whose white and sable hours appear
The latest flake of eternity:
So times do I love thee, dear!

How many times do I love again?
Tell me how many beads there are
In a silver chain
Of evening rain
Unravelled from the tumbling main,
And threading the eye of a yellow star:
So many times do I love again!

THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES

363.

The word screen (line 4) means, I think, "Hide and shelter those smiles away that in their beauty seem to burn in the air": for all beauty resembles radiance in its influence on the mind. And this recalls to memory Southwell's poem, _The Burning Babe_, No. 256.

364. "A SONNET OF THE MOON."

The closer one looks at and examines a fine _sonnet_--its way of rhyming, its rise, poise, flight and fall, the ease and exactitude with which what is said in it fills its mould or form--the more, I was going to say, one should hesitate before attempting to write another. This particular sonnet (like No. 361), is of the English or Shakespearean kind, and is so lovely a thing that only a close attention would notice the carelessness of its rhymes. No. 342 is an example of the form which our sixteenth century poets borrowed from Italy. Comparison of them shows that, as with the old Chinese ginger jars, so in poetry: not only is the syrup delightful, but even the pot may be interesting.

Coleridge wrote few sonnets, and this is his explanation of the length one must be: "It is confined to fourteen lines, because as some particular number is necessary, and that particular number must be a small one, it may as well be fourteen as any other number. When no reason can be adduced against a thing, Custom is a sufficient reason for it."

When I read this last remark for the first time it was as if my mind had been startled into attention as one's body is when it collides with a stranger in the street. There is a wide wisdom in it. How many natural, human and delightful things there are in this world indeed for which Custom is a sufficient reason: Children, for instance, daisies in the grass, skylarks in the clouds, dreams in sleep, rhymes, gay clothes, friendship, laughter.

"THE PALE QUEEN."

There is the apparition of a lovely face in the Moon--proud and mute--to be discovered by careful eyes usually on the extreme right of the disc, her own eyes gazing towards the left.

368. "IT WAS IN AND ABOUT THE MARTINMAS TIME."

This old Scottish song was a favourite of Oliver Goldsmith's in his childhood. "The music of the finest singer," he said, "is dissonance to what I felt when our old dairy-maid sung me into tears with _Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-night_, or _The Cruelty of Barbara Allen_.

As with the Scottish ballads so with this last poem--it is the brevity and bareness with which the story is told and is not told that sets it apart. Without one express word to prove it so, we know that Sir John had always loved the proud Barbara even though he had spoken lightly of her, and that she too had always loved him, though she refuses the word that would have saved his life.

371. "I NEVER HAD BUT ONE TRUE LOVE, IN COLD GRAVE SHE WAS
LAIN."

Yet another tragic and sorrowful poem of which, to some fancies, there may be too many in this book already. Well, here is the story of the beautiful Princess Uillanita: She cared only for flowers white and colourless as dew in the first light of day, or as laundered linen blanching on a hedge of thorn. And she came one still evening, when she was in search of what she could not find, to a valley wherein a forest gloomed above a deep but placid river. Within the forest, refreshed by the mists of the river, grew none but flowers blue and dark and purple, and such was the young Princess's hatred of them that she covered her eyes with her hands, fled on, and so lost her way.

In the middle of the night and long after she had wept herself to sleep, the wailing of a nocturnal bird pierced into her dreams, and she woke to find one solitary star of the colourlessness of Vega shining alone in radiance in the space of sky betwixt the branches above her head. Its thin ray silvered down--spearlike in its straightness--and of a beam easily sufficing to irradiate a tiny clustering flower which stood scarcely visible in the moss at her hand's side, and was drenching the air with its fragrance. It was a flower utterly strange to her, whiter than hoarfrost, fairer than foam.

The enravished Princess gazed spellbound. "Why," whispered she to herself, in the quiet of the dark gigantic forest; "if I had not wept at the flowers of this sombre forest, if I had not lost my way, if I had not been moved in my sleep to awaken, I never should have seen this crystal thing; that is lovelier than I deemed Paradise itself could bring to bloom." And she kissed the thin-spun petals, and happily fell again asleep.

372. "A LAMENT."

Only two stanzas out of six, and these, maybe, a little difficult in the old Scots:

Depart, depart, depart!
Alas! I must depart
From her that has my heart
With heart full sore;
Against my will indeed
And can find no remede--
I wait the pains of death--
Can do no more....

Adieu mine own sweet thing,
My joy and comforting,
My mirth and solacing
Of earthly gloir:
Farewell, my lady bright,
And my remembrance right,
Farewell, and have good night--
I say no more.

380. TO HELEN.

Who "the wayworn wanderer" is, I am uncertain; but apart from its rare music, how long a journey awaits the imagination in this poem, and how closely inwoven is its thought. Yet it is said to have been written when Poe was in his early 'teens.

381. "THERE IS A LADY."

Mr. Nahum's picture for this poem was of a little winged boy at evening, his quiver of arrows on his back, his bow the perch of a nightingale, and himself lying fast asleep under a hawthorn bush in full flower--a narrow green sun-dappled river nearby, rosy clouds and birds in the air, and strange snow-peaked hills afar.

"TILL I DIE."

... Only our love hath no decay;
This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday;
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

JOHN DONNE

383. "IT IS NOT SO."

Silly boy 'tis ful Moon yet, thy night as day shines clearely.
Had thy youth but wit to feare, thou couldst not love so dearely.
Shortly wilt thou mourne when all thy pleasures are bereavèd;
Little knows he how to love that never was deceivèd....

Yet be just and constant still! Love may beget a wonder,
Not unlike a Summer's frost, or Winter's fatall thunder.
He that holds his Sweethart true, unto his day of dying,
Lives, of all that ever breathed, most worthy the envỳing.

THOMAS CAMPION

385.

In this poem, as in all Christina Rossetti's work, there is a rhythm and poise, a serpentining of music, so delicate that on clumsy lips it will vanish as rapidly as the bloom from a plum. Indeed, each stanza is like a branch (with its twigs) of a wild damson-tree, its wavering line broken and beautified with bud, flower and leaf. And certainly as fresh an air, and as clear a light, stirs and dwells in the poem as on the tree itself in April.

387.

This is from Part II., Act II., Scene i. of "Zapolya." Glycine sings unseen in a cavern--her voice comforting her lover wandering forlorn by night "in a savage wood."

389.

For I'll cut my green coat a foot above my knee,
And I'll clip my yellow locks an inch below mine ee.
_Hey, nonny, nonny, nonny._

I'll buy me a white cut, forth for to ride,
And I'll go seek him through the world that is so wide.
_Hey, nonny, nonny, nonny._

391. "CHIMBORAZO, COTOPAXI."

In medieval days it seems that a traveller here and there, happily supposing the world to be a floating island of indiscoverable dimensions, hung in the wilds of space, and not knowing that it was merely an "oblate spheroid," would journey clean round it and so come back, to his amazement, to the place from which he started. Here is such an experience from Sir John Mandeville, in his own words: "It was told that a certain worthy man departed some time from our Country for to go search the World.... He passed India and the Isles beyond it, where are more than 5000 Isles, and so long and for so many seasons he went by Sea and Land, and so environed the World, that he came at last to an Isle whereon he heard spoken his own language--a calling of oxen in the Plough--such Words in fact as men were wont to speak to Beasts in his own country. Whereof he greatly marvelled, knowing not how that might be." For there--as if it were a ghost or spectre--_there_ was the chimney of his own house smoking up into the clear morning air! And what did he do, maybe? He stared; he sighed; he grew pale; he shuddered: and--he turned back!

392. "HALLO MY FANCY."

For the first sight of this poem I most gratefully thank my friend Mr. Ivor Gurney, though no doubt it was in Mr. Nahum's Book somewhere, and I was too indolent at the time to copy it out. The poem was written by William Cleland while he was still at St. Andrews. All else I know of him is that he was born about 1661, and fell at Dunkeld in 1689. There is nothing in English to my knowledge that resembles it. _Erra Pater_ (stanza 4) was the name given to a busy astrologer and almanac-concocter, William Lilly, of the time. King Phalaris's monstrous bull was of brass: he perished in it.

By "the tapers" (stanza 2) is meant, I fancy, those phosphor-like fires that gather on the yard-arms of ships at sea when the air is electric with tempest. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's sailors were fearful at sight of this apparition, and of a monster, too, that appeared swimming in the waves beside their frigate, the _Squirrel_, a little before she and her riding lights disappeared for ever.

"... Men which all their life time had occupied the Sea, never saw more outragious Seas. We had also upon our maine yard, an apparition of a little fire by night, which seamen doe call Castor and Pollux. But we had onely one, which they take an evill signe of more tempest.... The same Monday night, about twelve of the clocke ... suddenly her lights were out ... and withall our watch cryed, _the Generall was cast away_, which was too true. For in that moment, the Frigat was devoured and swallowed up of the Sea ..."

As for Cupid (stanza 5), he is said to be the slyest archer that ever shot arrow--and a dangerous child either to entertain (as the poem proves that begins as follows):

Cupid abroade was 'lated in the night,
His wings were wet with ranging in the raine;
Harbour he sought, to mee hee took his flight,
To dry his plumes I heard the boy complaine.
I opte the doore and graunted his desire,
I rose my selfe, and made the wagge a fire....

or--as yet another poem shows--to take as a scholar:

I dreamt by me I saw fair Venus stand,
Holding young Cupid in her lovely hand,
And said, kind Shepherd, I a scholar bring
My little son, to learn of you to sing....

And last, the pelican (in stanza 7). She was supposed in old days to be "the lovingest bird that is," since at need she would pierce her breast with her bill to feed her young ones. The plaintive singing of the dying swan I have never heard, except in Tennyson's words:

The plain was grassy, wild and bare,
Wide, wild, and open to the air,
Which had built up everywhere
An under-roof of doleful gray.

With an inner voice the river ran,
Adown it floated a dying swan,
And loudly did lament.
It was the middle of the day.
Ever the weary wind went on,
And took the reed-tops as it went....
Some blue peaks in the distance rose,
And white against the cold-white sky,
Shone out their crowning snows.

One willow over the river wept,
And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;
Above in the wind was the swallow,
Chasing itself at its own wild will,
And far thro' the marish green and still
The tangled water-courses slept,
Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.

Hearke canst thou heare me? I will play the Swan,
And dye in Musicke: Willough, Willough, Willough....

_Othello_

393. "COLUMBUS'S DOOM-BURDENED CARAVELS." (line 13)

"... The next day, Thursday, October 11, 1492, was destined to be for ever memorable in the history of the world.... The people on the _Santa Maria_ saw some petrels and a green branch in the water; the _Pinta_ saw a reed and two small sticks carved with iron, and one or two other pieces of reeds and grasses that had been grown on shore, as well as a small board. Most wonderful of all, the people of the _Nina_ saw 'a little branch full of dog roses';.... The day drew to its close; and after nightfall, according to their custom, the crews of the ships repeated the _Salve Regina_. Afterwards the Admiral addressed the people and sailors of his ship, 'very merry and pleasant,'.... The moon was in its third quarter, and did not rise until eleven o'clock. The first part of the night was dark, and there was only a faint starlight into which the anxious eyes of the look-out men peered from the forecastles of the three ships. At ten o'clock Columbus was walking on the poop of his vessel, when he suddenly saw a light right ahead. The light seemed to rise and fall as though it were a candle or a lantern held in some one's hand and waved up and down. The Admiral called Pedro Gutierrez to him and asked him whether he saw anything; and he also saw the light. Then he sent for Rodrigo Sanchez and asked him if he saw the light; but he did not.... Dawn came at last, flooding the sky with lemon and saffron and scarlet and orange, until at last the pure gold of the sun glittered on the water. And when it rose it showed the sea-weary mariners an island lying in the blue sea ahead of them: the island of Guanahani; San Salvador....

_Christopher Columbus_, FILSON YOUNG

395. "TO SEA, TO SEA."

... To the ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye.
Up in the broad fields of the sky;
There I suck the liquid air
All amidst the gardens fair
Of Hesperus, and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree:
Along the crispèd shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring;
The Graces, and the rosy bosomed Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring;
There eternal Summer dwells,
And west winds, with musky wing,
About the cedared alleys fling
Nard and Cassia's balmy smells....
But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run,
Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend;
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.
Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free:
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.

JOHN MILTON

_Master._ Steersman, how stands the wind?

_Steersman._ Full north-north-east.

_Master._ What course?

_Steersman._ Full south-south-west.

_Master._ No worse, and blow so fair,
Then sink despair,
Come solace to the mind!
Ere night, we shall the haven find.

JOHN DOWLAND

"CAVED TRITONS' AZURE DAY" (line 12)

--Dark-fated Clarence in _King Richard III_. dreamt of that "azure day":

... As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the Hatches,
Me thought that Glouster stumbled, and in falling
Strooke me (that thought to stay him) over-board,
Into the tumbling billowes of the maine.
O Lord, methought what paine it was to drowne,
What dreadfull noise of water in mine eares,
What sightes of ugly death within mine eyes....
Methought I saw a thousand fearfull wrackes:
A thousand men that Fishes gnawed upon:
Wedges of Gold, great Anchors, heapes of Pearle,
Inestimable Stones, unvalewed Jewels,
All scattered in the bottome of the Sea.
Some lay in dead-men's Sculles; and in the holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
(As 'twere in scorne of eyes) reflecting Gemmes,
That wooed the slimy bottome of the deepe,
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattred by....

396. "JEWELS MORE RICH THAN ORMUS SHOWS."

(line 20)

Mr. Nahum's picture to this was of a man clothed in rags that must once have been rich and pompous. He sits, in the picture, gnawing his nails upon a heap of what appears to be precious stones and lumps of gold. All around him stretch the sands of the seashore, and there is a little harbour with a decayed quay, its river-mouth silted up with ooze and flotsam, so that nothing but a row-boat could find entrance there. An immense sun burns in the sky; and, though a thread of fresh water flows nearby, the man among the jewels seems to be tormented with thirst. For Ormus, or Hormuz, on its narrow island of wild-coloured rocks, date-palms, parrots and many birds, was once the rich mart and treasure-house between Persia and India--spices, pearls, ivory, gold, precious stones, and, in particular, the diamond, being its merchandise. In 1507 the Portuguese Conqueror Alfonso Albuquerque stole it from its dark princes. In 1622 Shah Abbas the Great razed it to the ground. To-day it is but a waste, inhabited by a few fishermen and diggers, its only commodities--that once were gems--salt and sulphur; while still in the height of its Summer blows Julot, Harmatan, Il Sirocco, the Flame-Wind, so deadly in its breath that the troops of an army of 1600 horsemen and 6000 foot, says Marco Polo, marching to punish the city for neglecting to pay tribute to the King of Kîrman, and camping overnight without its walls, were baked next noon as dry as pumice, and not a voice among them to tell the tale, though their bodily shape and colour seemed to appearance unchanged. To protect themselves against this Julot, the citizens of Ormus would build huts of sheltering osier-work over the water, and in the heat of the morning would stand immersed in its coolness up to the chin.

"APPLES" (line 23)

--these are pineapples, the "price" of the next line meaning excellence. "Ambergris" (line 28), is a rare and costly stuff which, as its name tells, resembles grey amber. It has a wondrously sweet smell, was once used in cooking, and is disgorged by the whale that supplies the world with the comforting ointment of childhood called Spermaceti.

In Shakespeare's day, Marvell's "remote Bermudas" were known as the "Isle of Divels"--because of the nocturnal yellings, cries and yelpings that were reported to haunt them. English sailors, wrecked and cast away on Great Bermuda in 1709, however, brought home in their boats of cedar-wood the news that this wild music was caused (at least in part) by descendants of the hogs that had been left there by the long-gone Spaniard, Juan Bermudez and his men! They told, too, that it was an island fair and commodious, of a gentle climate, and a sweet-smelling air; and Shakespeare almost certainly had its enchantments in mind when he wrote of Ariel, Caliban and Miranda. Was not Ariel in Prospero's more solitary days called up at midnight "to fetch dewe from the still-vext Bermoothes"?

To the Puritan voyagers of Andrew Marvell's poem the Islands were as welcome and angelic as the Hesperides. And no poet could better tell of them than he. For in Marvell's verse dwells a curious happiness, like sunshine on a pool of water-lilies. Yet he, too, like other dreamers, was a man of affairs, and of endless industry and zeal. He was thrice Member of Parliament for his birthplace, Kingston-on-Hull, and, with Milton, was one of Oliver Cromwell's Latin Secretaries. John Aubrey describes him as "of a middling stature, pretty strong sett, roundish face, cherry-cheek't, hazell eie, brown hair. He was in his conversation very modest, and of very few words. And though he loved wine, he would never drink heartilie in company, and was wont to say, that, _he would not play the good fellow in any man's company in whose hands he would not trust his life_.... He lies interred under the pewes in the south side of St. Giles' church-in-the-fields, under the window wherein is painted in glass a red lyon...." And there George Chapman, William Shirley, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury share his rest.

397. "THAT TALKATIVE BALD-HEADED SEAMAN CAME."

(line 23)

"... And now my name; which way shall lead to all
My miseries after, that their sounds may fall
Through your ears also, and shew (having fled
So much affliction) first, who rests his head
In your embraces, when, so far from home,
I knew not where t' obtain it resting room:
I am Ulysses Laertiades,
The fear of all the world...."

_The Odysseys_, GEORGE CHAPMAN

398.

The prose "argument" to the "Ancient Mariner," which is almost as rare a piece of reading as the Rime itself, has been omitted. But here is a fragment of it relating to the passage on pages 390-4: "...The Wedding-Guest feareth that a Spirit is talking to him; but the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his horrible penance. He despiseth the creatures of the calm, and envieth that _they_ should live, and so many lie dead. But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men. In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and every where the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.