THE ORGAN-BOY
Great brown eyes,
Thick plumes of hair,
Old corduroys
The worse for wear.
A buttond jacket,
And peeping out
An apes grave poll,
Or a guinea-pigs snout.
A sun-kissd face
And a dimpled mouth,
With the white flashing teeth,
And soft smile of the south.
A young back bent,
Not with age or care,
But the load of poor music
Tis fated to bear.
But a common-place picture
To common-place eyes,
Yet full of a charm
Which the thinker will prize.
They were stern, cold rulers,
Those Romans of old,
Scorning art and letters
For conquest and gold;
Yet leavening mankind,
In mind and tongue,
With the laws that they made
And the songs that they sung.
Sitting, rose-crownd,
With pleasure-choked breath,
As the nude young limbs crimsond,
Then stiffend in death.
Piling up monuments
Greater than praise,
Thoughts and deeds that shall live
To the latest of days.
Adding province to province,
And sea to sea,
Till the idol fell down
And the world rose up free.
And this is the outcome,
This vagabond child
With that statue-like face
And eyes soft and mild;
This creature so humble,
So gay, yet so meek,
Whose sole strength is only
The strength of the weak.
Of those long cruel ages
Of lust and of guile,
Nought left us to-day
But an innocent smile.
For the labourd appeal
Of the orators art,
A few foolish accents
That reach to the heart.
For those stern legions speeding
Oer sea and oer land,
But a pitiful glance
And a suppliant hand.
I could moralize still
But the organ begins,
And the tired ape swings downward,
And capers and grins,
And away flies romance.
And yet, time after time,
As I dwell on days spent
In a sunnier clime,
Of blue lakes deep set
In the olive-clad mountains,
Of gleaming white palaces
Girt with cool fountains,
Of minsters where every
Carved stone is a treasure,
Of sweet music hovering
Twixt pain and twixt pleasure;
Of chambers enrichd
On all sides, overhead,
With the deathless creations
Of hands that are dead;
Of still cloisters holy,
And twilight arcade,
Where the lovers still saunter
Thro chequers of shade;
Of tomb and of temple,
Arena and column,
Mid to-days garish splendours,
Sombre and solemn;
Of the marvellous town
With the salt-flowing street,
Where colour burns deepest,
And music most sweet;
Of her the great mother,
Who centuries sate
Neath a black shadow blotting
The days she was great;
Who was plunged in such shame
She, our source and our home
That a foul spectre only
Was left us of Rome;
She who, seeming to sleep
Through all ages to be,
Was the priests, is mankinds,
Was a slave, and is free!
I turn with grave thought
To this child of the ages,
And to all that is writ
In Times hidden pages.
Shall young Howards or Guelphs,
In the days that shall come,
Wander forth, seeking bread,
Far from England and home?
Shall they sail to new continents,
English no more,
Or turn strange reverse
To the old classic shore?
Shall fair locks and blue eyes,
And the rose on the cheek,
Find a language of pity
The tongue cannot speak
Not English, but angels?
Shall this tale be told
Of Romans to be
As of Romans of old?
Shall they too have monkeys
And music? Will any
Try their luck with an engine
Or toy spinning-jenny?
Shall we too be led
By that mirage of Art
Which saps the true strength
Of the national heart?
The sensuous glamour,
The dreamland of grace,
Which rot the strong manhood
They fail to replace;
Which at once are the glory,
The ruin, the shame,
Of the beautiful lands
And ripe souls whence they came?
Oh, my England! oh, Mother
Of Freemen! oh, sweet,
Sad toiler majestic,
With labour-worn feet!
Brave worker, girt round,
Inexpugnable, free,
With tumultuous sound
And salt spume of the sea,
Fenced off from the clamour
Of alien mankind
By the surf on the rock,
And the shriek of the wind,
Tho the hot Gaul shall envy,
The cold German flout thee,
Thy far children scorn thee,
Still thou shalt be great,
Still march on uncaring,
Thy perils unsharing,
Alone, and yet daring
Thy infinite fate.
Yet ever remembering
The precepts of gold
That were written in part
For the great ones of old
Let other hands fashion
The marvels of art;
To thee fate has given
A loftier part,
To rule the wide peoples,
To bind them to thee.
By the sole bond of loving,
That bindeth the free,
To hold thy own place,
Neither lawless nor slave;
Not driven by the despot,
Nor trickd by the knave.
But these thoughts are too solemn.
So play, my child, play,
Never heeding the connoisseur
Over the way,
The last dances of course;
Then with scant pause between,
Home, sweet Home, the Old Hundredth,
And God Save the Queen.
See the poor children swarm
From dark court and dull street,
As the gay music quickens
The lightsome young feet.
See them now whirl away,
Now insidiously come,
With a coy grace which conquers
The squalor of home.
See the pallid cheeks flushing
With innocent pleasure
At the hurry and haste
Of the quick-footed measure.
See the dull eyes now bright,
And now happily dim,
For some soft-dying cadence
Of love-song or hymn.
Dear souls, little joy
Of their young lives have they,
So thro hymn-tune and song-tune
Play on, my child, play.
For though dull pedants chatter
Of musical taste,
Talk of hindered researches
And hours run to waste;
Though they tell us of thoughts
To ennoble mankind,
Which your poor measures chase
From the labouring mind;
While your music rejoices
One joyless young heart,
Perish bookworms and books,
Perish learning and art
Of my vagabond fancies
Ill even take my fill.
Qualche cosa, signor?
Yes, my child, that I will.
STUMBLING-BLOCKS
Think when you blame the present age, my friends,
This age has one redeeming point it mends.
With many monstrous ills were forced to cope;
But we have life and movement, we have hope.
Oh! this is much! Thrice pitiable they
Whose lot is cast in ages of decay,
Who watch a waning light, an ebbing tide,
Decline of energy and fall of pride,
Old glories disappearing unreplaced,
Receding culture and encroaching waste,
Art grown pedantic, manners waxing coarse,
The good thing still succeeded by the worse.
We see not what those latest Romans saw,
When oer Italian cities, Latin law,
Greek beauty, swept the barbarizing tide,
And all fair things in slow succession died.
Tis much that such defeat and blank despair,
Whateer our trials, tis not ours to bear,
Much that the mass of foul abuse grows less,
Much that the injured have sometimes redress,
Wealth grows less haughty, misery less resigned,
That policy grows just, religion kind,
That all worst things towards some better tend,
And long endurance nears at last its end;
The ponderous cloud grows thin and pierced with bright,
And its wild edge is fused in blinding light.
Yet disappointment still with hope appears,
And with desires that strengthen, strengthen fears,
Tis the swift-sailing ship that dreads the rocks,
The active foot must ware of stumbling-blocks.
Alas! along the way towards social good,
How many stones of dire offence lie strewd.
Whence frequent failure, many shrewd mishaps
And dismal pause or helpless backward lapse.
Such was the hard reverse that Milton mournd,
An old man, when he saw the King returned
With right divine, and that fantastic train
Of banished fopperies come back again.
Thus France, too wildly clutching happiness.
Stumbled perplexed, and paid in long distress,
In carnage, where the bloody conduit runs,
And one whole generation of her sons
Devoted to the Power of Fratricide
For one great year, one eager onward stride.
From all these stumbling-blocks that strew the way
What wisest cautions may ensure us, say.
Cling to the present good with steadfast grip,
And for no fancied better let it slip,
Whether thy fancy in the future live
Or yearn to make the buried past revive.
The past is dead, let the dead have his dues,
Remembrance of historian and of Muse;
But try no lawless magic on the urn,
It shocks to see the brightest past return.
Some good things linger when their date is fled,
These honour as you do the hoary head,
And treat them tenderly for what they were,
But dream not to detain them always there.
The living good the present moments bring
To this devote thyself and chiefly cling;
And for the novel schemes that round thee rise,
Watch them with hopeful and indulgent eyes,
Treat them as children, love them, mark their ways,
And blame their faults and dole out cautious praise,
And give them space, yet limit them with rule,
And hold them down and keep them long at school:
Yet know in these is life most fresh and strong,
And that to these at last shall all belong.
Be proved and present good thy safe-guard still,
And thy one quarrel be with present ill.
Learn by degrees a steady onward stride
With sleepless circumspection for thy guide.
And since so thick the stumbling-blocks are placed,
You are not safe but in renouncing haste;
Permit not so your zeal to be repressed,
But make the loss up by renouncing rest.