Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson Part 7

Here, by this brook, we parted; I to the East And he for Italy--too late--too late; One whom the strong sons of the world despise; For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share, And mellow metres more than cent for cent; 5 Nor could he understand how money breeds; Thought it a dead thing; yet himself could make The thing that is not as the thing that is.

O had he lived! In our schoolbooks we say, Of those that held their heads above the crowd, 10 They flourish'd then or then; but life in him Could scarce be said to flourish, only touch'd On such a time as goes before the leaf, When all the wood stands in a mist of green, And nothing perfect: yet the brook he loved, 15 For which, in branding summers of Bengal, Or ev'n the sweet half-English Neilgherry air I panted, seems; as I re-listen to it, Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy, To me that loved him; for 'O brook,' he says, 20 'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme, 'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replies:

I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, 25 To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges. 30

Till last by Philip's farm I flow To join the br.i.m.m.i.n.g river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever.

'Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out, 35 Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge, It has more ivy; there the river; and there Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet.

I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, 40 I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set 45 With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the br.i.m.m.i.n.g river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. 50

'But Philip chattered more than brook or bird; Old Philip; all about the fields you caught His weary daylong chirping, like the dry High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer gra.s.s.

I wind about, and in and out, 55 With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a l.u.s.ty trout, And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake Upon me, as I travel 60 With many a silvery waterbreak Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow To join the br.i.m.m.i.n.g river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever.

'O darling Katie Willows, his one child!

A maiden of our century, yet most meek; A daughter of our meadows, yet not coa.r.s.e; Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand; 70 Her eyes a bashful azure, and her hair In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the sh.e.l.l Divides threefold to show the fruit within.

Sweet Katie, once I did her a good turn, Her and her far-off cousin and betrothed, 75 James Willows, of one name and heart with her.

For here I came, twenty years back--the week Before I parted with poor Edmund; crost By that old bridge which, half in ruins then, Still makes a h.o.a.ry eyebrow for the gleam 80 Beyond it, where the waters marry--crost, Whistling a random bar of Bonny Doon, And push'd at Philip's garden-gate. The gate, Half-parted from a weak and scolding hinge, Stuck; and he clamour'd from a cas.e.m.e.nt, "Run" 85 To Katie somewhere in the walks below, "Run, Katie!" Katie never ran: she moved To meet me, winding under woodbine bowers, A little flutter'd, with her eyelids down, Fresh apple-blossom, blus.h.i.+ng for a boon. 90

'What was it? less of sentiment than sense Had Katie; not illiterate; nor of those Who dabbling in the fount of fictive tears, And nursed by mealy-mouth'd philanthropies, Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. 95 'She told me. She and James had quarrell'd. Why?

What cause of quarrel? None, she said, no cause; James had no cause: but when I prest the cause, I learnt that James had flickering jealousies Which anger'd her. Who anger'd James? I said. 100 But Katie s.n.a.t.c.h'd her eyes at once from mine, And sketching with her slender pointed foot Some figure like a wizard pentagram On garden gravel, let my query pa.s.s Unclaimed, in flus.h.i.+ng silence, till I ask'd 105 If James were coming. "Coming every day,"

She answer'd, "ever longing to explain, But evermore her father came across With some long-winded tale, and broke him short; And James departed vext with him and her." 110 How could I help her? "Would I--was it wrong?"

(Claspt hands and that pet.i.tionary grace Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she spoke) "O would I take her father for one hour, For one half-hour, and let him talk to me!" 115 And even while she spoke, I saw where James Made toward us, like a wader in the surf, Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow-sweet.

'O Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake!

For in I went, and call'd old Philip out 120 To show the farm: full willingly he rose: He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling lanes Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went, He praised his land, his horses, his machines; He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs; 125 He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens, His pigeons, who in session on their roofs Approved him, bowing at their own deserts: Then from the plaintive mother's teat he took Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each, 130 And naming those, his friends, for whom they were: Then crost the common into Darnley chase To show Sir Arthur's deer. In copse and fern Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail.

Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech, 135 He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said: "That was the four-year-old I sold the Squire."

And there he told a long long-winded tale Of how the Squire had seen the colt at gra.s.s, And how it was the thing his daughter wish'd, 140 And how he sent the bailiff to the farm To learn the price, and what the price he ask'd, And how the bailiff swore that he was mad, But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; He gave them line; and five days after that 145 He met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, Who then and there had offer'd something more, But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; He knew the man; the colt would fetch its price; He gave them line: and how by chance at last 150 (It might be May or April, he forgot, The last of April or the first of May) He found the bailiff riding by the farm, And, talking from the point, he drew him in, And there he mellow'd all his heart with ale, 155 Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand.

'Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, Poor fellow, could he help it? recommenced, And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle, Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, 160 Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, Tilt, not to die a listener, I arose, And with me Philip, talking still; and so We turn'd our foreheads from the falling sun, 165 And following our own shadows thrice as long As when they follow'd us from Philip's door, Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all thing's well.

I steal by lawns and gra.s.sy plots, 170 I slide by hazel covers; I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; 175 I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my s.h.i.+ngly bars; 180 I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow To join the br.i.m.m.i.n.g river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. 185

Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome Of Brunelleschi; sleeps in peace: and he, 190 Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb: I sc.r.a.ped the lichen from it: Katie walks By the long wash of Australasian seas Far off, and holds her head to other stars, 195 And breathes in April autumns. All are gone.'

So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a stile In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o'er the brook A tonsured head in middle age forlorn, 200 Mused and was mute. On a sudden a low breath Offender air made tremble in the hedge The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings; And he look'd up. There stood a maiden near, Waiting to pa.s.s. In much amaze he stared 205 On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the sh.e.l.l Divides threefold to show the fruit within: Then, wondering, ask'd her 'Are you from the farm?'

'Yes' answer'd she. 'Pray stay a little: pardon me; 210 What do they call you?' 'Katie.' 'That were strange.

What surname?' 'Willows.' 'No!' 'That is my name.'

'Indeed!' and here he look'd so self-perplext, That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes, 215 Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream; Then looking at her; 'Too happy, fresh and fair, Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom, To be the ghost of one who bore your name About these meadows, twenty years ago. 220

'Have you not heard?' said Katie, 'we came back.

We bought the farm we tenanted before.

Am I so like her? so they said on board.

Sir, if you knew her in her English days, My mother, as it seems you did, the days 225 That most she loves to talk of, come with me.

My brother James is in the harvest-field: But she--you will be welcome--O, come in!'

IN MEMORIAM

XXVII

I envy not in any moods The captive void of n.o.ble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes 5 His license in the field of time, Unfetter'd by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth 10 But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost 15 Than never to have lov'd at all.

LXIV

Dost thou look back on what hath been, As some divinely gifted man, Whose life in low estate began And on a simple village green;

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 5 And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And b.r.e.a.s.t.s the blows of circ.u.mstance, And grapples with his evil star;

Who makes by force his merit known And lives to clutch the golden keys, 10 To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne;

And moving up from high to higher, Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope The pillar of a people's hope, 15 The centre of a world's desire;

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, When all his active powers are still, A distant dearness in the hill, A secret sweetness in the stream, 20

The limit of his narrower fate, While yet beside its vocal springs He play'd at counsellors and kings, With one that was his earliest mate;

Who ploughs with pain his native lea 25 And reaps the labour of his hands, Or in the furrow musing stands; "Does my old friend remember me?"

Lx.x.xIII