Auld Lang Syne
THINGS GONE BY
“Once more, who would not be a boy?” – or girl? and revel in the delights – real or imaginary – of things gone by? What a halo is round them! Their pleasures were exquisite, and their very miseries have in remembrance, a piquancy of flavour that is almost agreeable. I suppose the habit of most of us who have attained a certain, or rather uncertain age, is to revel in the past, to endure the present, and to let the future look after itself.
Now this is all well enough for the sentimentalist, or for the poet who, like Bulwer, can write at thirty “on the departure of youth.” But to the philosopher – that is, of course, to each member of “Pen and Pencil” – another and more useful tone of mind and method of comparison should not be absent. Is not the present what was the future to the past, and may we not by comparing the existing with what has been, as also with what was the aspiration of the past, throw some light, borrowed though it be, on what will be the present to our descendants? Mr. Pecksniff observes: “It is a poor heart that never rejoices.” Let us manifest our wealth – of imagination, shall I say? – by endeavouring to realize how, through the falsehood and wickedness of the past, we have arrived at our own lofty and noble eminence.
When we read, in the blood-stained pages of history, of nations and continents plunged into warfare of the most horrible and heartrending description, at the call of national glory or dynastic ambition, how can we sufficiently rejoice at the soft accents of peace and happiness which none would now venture to interrupt over the length and breadth of happy Europe?
The age of falsehood and party spirit may be said to have passed away. Our newspapers tell nothing but truth, and the only difference perceptible in their mild criticisms of friend or foe, is that they betray a generous tendency to do more than justice to their enemies.
If we cannot say that pauperism is extinct, yet we can honestly affirm that, if we cannot destroy the accursed thing itself, yet we can, and do so deal with paupers that the weakest, at least, soon cease to be a burden on the rates. Science and humanity have shaken hands, and the soft persuasions of chemical compounds are employed to assist down any unhappy girl who should be betrayed into aspirations towards the chimney-pot. We all know that gluttony is one of the greatest evils in the world, and which of our hearts could be hard enough not to glow with rapture at the benevolent rule of a London Union, mentioned in to-day’s paper, of never giving their inmates anything to tax their digestive forces between 5 P.M. and 8 A.M.
Again, when we read in our “Spectators” or other venerable records of the follies of fashion of 150 years ago, or indeed of any other epoch we like to recur to – of hoops and paint, and patches – how may we rejoice at the greater wisdom of our ladies in these days, in recognizing how beautifully they blend the tasteful with the useful! Their crinoline, how Grecian in its elegance; their chignons, how intellectual in appearance; their bonnets, how well calculated to protect from rain and sun; their trains, how cleanly; their boot-heels, how well calculated to produce by natural means what the barbarian Chinese seek by coarser methods – to deform the foot, and thus, by limiting their power of walking, to leave them more time for high intellectual culture.
Of the improvement in our social morals it is needless to speak, and indeed I must decline to do so, if only that in drawing a comparison I should have to shock the ears of “Pen and Pencil” with some allusions to things gone by. I will but casually refer to two salient characteristics of the enormities of bygone times – to novels and to the theatre. Compare but for a moment the wild and almost licentious writings of a Walter Scott, an Edgeworth, or an Austen with the pure and unexaggerated novels of the present halcyon time. And for our theatres, if it be possible to imagine anything more chaste and elevating than the existing drama – anything more stimulating to all that is purest, more repressive of all that is vulgar and low in our ballets or pantomimes – why, I very much mistake the realities that lie before us.
Finally, in the religion of the country – there where one looks for the summing up and climax as it were of all the incidental advances we have glanced at, how glorious is the spectacle! The fopperies of ecclesiastical upholstery banished from the land; the hardness and cruelty of dogmatic intolerance heard no more; a noble life everywhere more honoured than an orthodox belief.
Surely we have reached the Promised Land – it overflows with charity, with peace, plenty, and concord; and the only regret left to us is the fear that in so good a world none of us can entertain the hope to leave it better than we found it!
THINGS GONE BY
Some years go by so comfortably calm, So like their fellows, that they all seem one;Each answering each, as verses in a psalm, We miss them not – until the psalm is done:Until, above the mild responsive strain, An alter’d note, a louder passage rolls,Whose diapason of delight or pain Ends once for all the sameness of our souls:Until some year, with passionate bold hand, Breaks up at length our languid liberty,And changes for us, in one brief command, Both all that was, and all that was to be.Thenceforth, the New Year never comes unheard; No noise of mirth, no lulling winter’s snowCan hush the footsteps which are bringing word Of things that make us other than we know.Thenceforth, we differ from our former selves; We have an insight new, a sharper senseOf being; how unlike those thoughtless elves Who wait no end, and watch no providence!We watch, we wait, with not a star in view: Content, if haply whilst we dwell aloneThe memory of something live and true Can keep our hearts from freezing into stone.NO;
OR, THE LITTLE GOOSE-GIRL.A Tale Of The First Of May, 2099
The little Goose-girl came singingAlong the fields, “Sweet May, oh! the long sweet day.” That was her song, Bringing about her, floating about In and out through the long fair tressesOf her hair; oh! a thousand thousand idlenesses,Spreading away on May’s breath everywhere “Idleness, sweet idleness.” But this was a time, Two thousand and ninety-nine, When, singing of idleness even in Spring, Or drinking wind-wine, Or looking up into the blue heaven Was counted a crime. A time, harsh, not sublime, One terrible sort of school- Hour all the year through,When everyone had to do something, and do it by rule. Why, even the babies could calculate Two and two at the least, mentally, without a slate, Each calling itself an aggregate Of molecules — It was always school – schools,All over the world as far as the sky could coverIt – dry land and sea. High Priests said, “Let matter be Z, Thoroughly calculated and tried To work our problems with, before all eyes —Anything beside that might prove a dangerous guide: X’s and Y’s, Unknown quantities, We hesitate not, at once to designate Fit only, now and for ever to be laid aside.” So, you see Everything was made as plain as could be,Not the ghost of a doubt even left to roam about free. Everybody’s concern Being just to learn, learn, learn, In one way – but only in one way.Where then did the little Goose-girl come from that day? I don’t know. Though Isn’t there hard by A place, tender and sunny, One can feel slid between Our seen and unseen,And whose shadows we trace on the Earth’s face Now and then dimly? – Well, sheWas as ignorant as she could ignorant be. The world wasn’t school to her Who came singing “Sweet Idleness, sweet Idleness” up to the very feet Of the Professors’ chairs,And of the thousand thousand pupils sitting round upon theirs; Who, up all sprang, At the sound of the words she sang With “No, no, no, no, no, There are no sweets in May, None in the weary day;What foolish thing is this, singing of idleness in spring?” “Oh! sunny spring,” Still sang the little Goose-girl. Wondering As she was passing —And suddenly stay’d for a moment baskingIn the broad light, with wide eyes askingWhat “nay” could mean to the soft warm day. And as she stay’d There stray’d out from herMay breaths, wandering all the school over. But now, the hard eyes move her And her lips quiver As the sweet notes shiver Between them and die. So her singing ceases, sheLooking up, crying, “Why is my May not sweet? Is the wide sky fair? Are the free winds fleet? Are the feet of the Spring not rare That tread flowers out of the soil? Oh! long hours, not for toil, But for wondering and singing.” “No, no, no, no,” These reply, “Silly fancies of flowers and skies, All these things we know. There is nothing to wonder at, sing, Love, or fear — Is not everything simple, and clear, And common, and near us, and weary? So, pass by idle dreaming —And you, if you would like to know Being from seeming, Come into the schools and study.”“Still to sing sometimes when I have the will, And be idle and ponder,”Said the Goose-girl, “and look up to heaven and wonder?” “What! Squander Truth’s time In dreams of the unknown sublime —No – ” Then “Ignorant always,” said she, “I must be,” And went on her way. “Sweet May, sad May” — Hanging her head — Till, “The mills of the gods grind slowly,” she said,“But they grind exceeding small,Let be, I will sit by the mills of the gods, and watch the slow atoms fall.” So, patient and still, through long patient hoursAs she laid her heart low in the hearts of the flowers, Through clouds and through shine, With smiles and with tears, Through long hours, through sweet years; Oh! years– for a hundred years was one School-hour in two thousand and ninety-nine. And see!Who are these that come creeping out from the schools? – Long ago, when idlenesses Out of her tresses, stray’d the school over, Some slept of the learners, some played. These crept out to wonder and sing, And look for her yonder, Away up the hills, Amongst the gods’ mills. And now “Is it this way?” they say, Bowing low, “Oh! wise, by the heaven in thine eyes Teach – we will learn from thee — Is it no, is it yes, Labour or Idleness?” She, Answering meekly: “This — Neither no, nor yes, But ‘come into God and see.’”Oh! the deeps we can feel; oh! the heights we must climb.Oh! slow gentle hours of the golden time — Here, the end of my rhyme.May, 1869.
EXILE
Night falls in the convict prison, — The eve of a summer day;Through the heated cells and galleries, The cooler nightwinds play.And slumber on folded pinions With oblivion brought relief;Stilling the weary tossings, — Smoothing the brow of grief.Through a dungeon’s narrow grating The slanting moonlight fellDown by a careworn prisoner, Asleep in his lonely cell.The hand which lay so nerveless Had grasp’d a sword ere now,And the lips now parch’d with fever Had utter’d a patriot’s vow.He stirr’d and the silence was broken, By the clanking of a chain,He sigh’d, but the sigh no longer, Show’d the spirit’s restless pain.For to him the dark walls faded, And the prisoner stood once moreBeneath the vine-wreath’d trellis, Beside his loved home’s door.And memory drew the faces So dear in earlier days,Of the sisters who were with him Joining in childish plays,And the mother whose lips first murmured The prayer which had made him brave,“Let his fate be what Thou wiliest, But not, oh! not a slave.”And the friends whose blood beat quickly At the wrongs of their native landAnd the vow they had vowed together, Grasping each other’s hand.He dreamt of the first resistance, Of the one who basely fled;And the guard’s o’erwhelming numbers And the hopes of life all dead.And then of the weary waiting, An exile on foreign ground;With stranger voices near him, And unknown faces round.Oh! ships o’er the gladsome waters, What news do you bring to-day?What tidings of home and kindred To the exile far away?And he dreamt of the glad returning To the well-loved native shore;When news had come – All are ready To dare the fight once more.Of the hearts that throbbed exulting, With hope of the coming strife,Of the sigh which fell unheeded To the thought of child and wife.And he dreamt of the day of contest, Of whistling shot and shell,When he bore his country’s banner, And had borne it high and well.“Rally for Freedom! Forward! Stand! for our cause is Right;Sooner be slain than defeated, Better is death than flight.”Ah! happy the first who perished, Who saw not the turning day,And the fallen flag, and the broken line, And the rout without hope or stay!And the prisoner groaned in his slumbers, But now, with a sudden glow,The glorious moonlight’s splendour Poured full on his humid brow.On its rays there floated to him The friends of his early youth,Who had borne their steadfast witness In the holy cause of Truth.“Welcome,” they said, “we await thee; Come, and receive thy meed,The crown of those who flinched not In our country’s greatest need.”Was it a dream, or delusion? Or vision? Who shall say?Its spell consoled the hours Of many a weary day.And months went slowly over, And the winter’s icy breathBlew chill through an empty dungeon: The convict was freed – by Death.EXILE
In exile, hopeless of relief, I pine, a hapless sailor,And this is how I came to grief, Upon an Arctic whaler.My exile is no land of palms, Of tropic groves and spices,But placed amid the savage charms Of polar snows and ices.It was a sad funereal coast, The billows moaned a dirge;The coast itself was lined with bays, The rocks were cloth’d with surge.And here by cruel fogs and fates Our ship was cast away —Where Davis found himself in straits, And Baffin turn’d to bay.And from my chilly watch aloft I saw the icebergs sailing,Where I sat weeping very oft, While all the crew were whaling.For one and all, both great and small, From veteran to lubber,From captain down to cabin boy, Were used to whale and blubber.Our ship misled by ill advice — Our skipper, half seas over,Upon this continent of ice Incontinently drove her.While I alone to land did drive, Among the spars and splinters,And since have kept myself alive, Through two long Arctic winters.It was a land most desolate, Where ice, and frost, and fog,Too truly did prognosticate, An utter want of prog.Another would have reeved a rope, And made himself a necklace;My wreck bereaved me of my hope, But did not leave me reckless.And since, on oil and fat I’ve kept My freezing blood in motion.(I think the “fatness” of the land Transcends the land of Goshen.)In vain, gaunt hunger to beguile, I try each strange device;Alas! my ribs grow thin the while, Amid the thick-ribb’d ice.In vain I pour the midnight oil, As eating cares increase;And make the study of my nights A history of Greece.Monarch of all that I survey, By right divine appointed;(If lubrication in and out Can make a Lord’s anointed).Though lord of both the fowl and brute My schemes to catch them work ill,And three she-walrii constitute My social Arctic circle;Three, did I say? there are but two, For she I chiefly fanciedHas been my stay the winter through, And now is turning rancid.The cruel frost has nipped me some; My mournful glances lingerUpon a solitary thumb, And half a middle finger.In toto I have lost my toes, Down to the latest joint:And there is little of my nose Above the freezing point.Upon this floe of ice my tears Are freezing as they flow;I lie between two sheets of ice, Upon a bed of snow.I have a hybernating feel, And with the Bear and Dormouse,Shall take it out in sleep until Something turns up to warm us:Until some Gulf-Stream vagaries Or astronomic cycles,Shall bring to these raw latitudes The climate of St. Michael’s.Or else some cataclysm rude With polar laws shall play tricks,And Nature in a melting mood Dissolve my icy matrix.Maybe, a hundred centuries hence, Pr’aps thousands (say the latter),Amid the war of elements And even the wreck of matter,When in the crush of worlds, our own Gets squeezed into a hexagon,The natives of this frozen zone May see me on my legs again.THE LITTLE FAIRY.
Tradition.
From Béranger
Once on a time, my children dear,A Fairy, called Urgande, lived here,Who though but as my finger tall,Was just as good as she was small;For of her wand one touch, they say,Could perfect happiness convey.O dear Urgande! O good Urgande!Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand!Eight butterflies, in harness, drewHer tiny car of sapphire blue,In which, as o’er the land she went,Her smile to earth fresh vigour lent;The grape grew sweeter on the vine,More golden did the cornfield shine.O dear Urgande! O good Urgande!Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand!The King a godson was of hers,And so she chose his Ministers —Just men who held the laws in sight,And whose accounts could face the light.The crook as shepherds did they keepTo scare the wolves and not the sheep.O dear Urgande! O good Urgande!Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand!To show what love she tow’rds him bore,She touched the crown her godson wore —A happy people met his eye,Who for his sake would freely die;Did foreign foes the realm invadeNot long they lived, or short they stayed.O dear Urgande! O good Urgande!Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand!The judges of this King so goodDecided always as they should:Not once throughout that pleasant reignDid Innocence unheard complain,Or guilt repentant vainly prayFor guidance in the better way.O dear Urgande! O good Urgande!Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand!Alas! my dear, I must allowThere’s no Urgande on earth just now.America is sore be-mobbed;Poor Asia’s conquered, crushed, and robbed;And though at home, of course, we findOur rulers all that’s nice and kind —Still – dear Urgande! O good Urgande!Do tell us where you’ve hid your wand!REGRET
IViolets in the Springtide gathered,To the child-heart prest,Treasured in the breastWith a tender wistful joy,In their fading, fragrant yet: — A tearful sweet regret Of the early time.IIGlowing, wayward crimson roses,Shedding perfume rareO’er the summer air,With a canker at the heartAnd a stem where thorns are set: — O bitter-sweet regret Of the golden prime!IIISnowflakes falling through the darkness,Hiding out of sightGraves of past delight,Till the folded whiteness mocksWatching faces, wan and wet: — O mournful-sweet regret Of the wintry time.REALITIES
I AM informed by “Pen and Pencil,” with a certain harsh inexorableness of tone, that something I must produce this evening, or – incur a sentence too dreadful to be contemplated, no less than that of ostracism (perhaps ostracism for incapacity should be spelt asstracism).
Well, what are the words? Realities and drifting. Very good; then I’ll take both, for the most characteristic element that I have noted of realities is that they are constantly drifting.
Wishing to start from an undoubted basis, I asked a friend, before sitting down to write, what exactly he understood by realities, and he replied, with the air of a philosopher, “whatever man, through the medium of his senses, can surely realize.” The conclusion I draw is, that there is some inextricable connection between realities and real lies. In which I am confirmed by Johnson, who traces the derivation of the word reality as from real.
Sir John Lubbock, in his “Origin of Civilization,” under the heading of “Savage Tendency to Deification,” states as a fact that “The king of the Koussa Kaffirs, having broken off a piece of a stranded anchor, died soon afterwards, upon which all the Kaffirs looked upon the anchor as alive, and saluted it respectfully whenever they passed near it.” At a glance it occurred to me, this is a reality well worthy of being brought under the notice of “Pen and Pencil.” Will it not furnish, thought I, material for their philosophers, and mirth for their humorists, and surely an excellent subject for their artists? But is it true? Ay, that must be my first discovery. Who shall hope to palm off doubtful realities upon “Pen and Pencil,” without deservedly drifting to disgrace?
Without indecent boasting, I believe I may assure this august assembly that I have probed this matter to its very root; the whole truth is in my hands, and shall be faithfully presented to this critical company. I shall be excused from detailing my method of examination; time would fail us were I to make the attempt; suffice it to say that I have brought all possible modes under contribution, and many more, and that not a single fact has been set down unless previously tested by a wild flight of imagination. Upon principle, too, I decline to say how I have arrived at the realities of the case, lest truth should suffer through disapproval of my process.
If I say that I have telegraphed direct, some wretched caviller may observe that he never heard of Kaffir wires. I may have conversed with the ghost of the wicked king of Koussa Kaffir through the medium of Mrs. Marshall, but some joker – how I do detest the race – might object to my plan of marshalling my facts. I may have “asked that solemn question” of the leg of my loo-table, which does not by any means “seem eternal,” something after the fashion of Ion. I may have caught the little toe of Mr. Home, as he was floating in mid-air, and so found my information, as honest debts should be paid, on the nail. I may have – but no more – I respectfully decline to communicate, to-night at least, aught but the ascertained realities.
It is true, then, that a stranded anchor was thrown on the shore of Koussa Kaffir; that it created widespread wonder and inquiry as to its whence, its wherefore, and its whither; that the king, being of an inquiring mind, often examined the anchor, pondered over its shape and its materials; that one day, testing this last with too much energy, one fluke was quite lopped off. His majesty was pleased with the result, although it did not seem to do much towards solving the difficult questions connected with the strange visitor; but it was afterwards generally reported that some of the wisest of the Kaffirs had shaken their heads three times, and had remarked that if anything should happen they should doubt whether it was not for something.
Something did happen. The king that night ate for his supper forty-four ostrich eggs, beside two kangaroos and a missionary. It was too much for even a Kaffir king; he was seized with nightmare, raved of the weight of the anchor on his chest, and died.
The effect produced upon Kaffir public opinion, and the Kaffir press, was startling and instantaneous. The king had broken the anchor; the king had died – had died because he broke the anchor; that was evident, nay was proved – proved by unerring figures, as thus: the king was fifty-five years old; had lived, that is to say, 20,075 days; to say, therefore, that he had not died this day because of his daring impiety was more than 20,000 to one against the doctrine of probabilities.
The anchor, therefore, was a power – was a devil to be feared – that is, a god to be worshipped; for in savage countries there is a wonderful likeness between the two. Thus was born a religion in Koussa Kaffir. Divine honours or dastard fears were lavished on the anchor; a priesthood sprang up who made their account in the Kaffir superstition. They were called anchorites. They were partly cheats, and partly dupes; but they made a livelihood between the two characters. They fixed the nature and the amount of the sacrifices to be offered, and the requirements of the anchor were in remarkable harmony with the wants of its priests. Natural causes, too, were happily blended with supernatural. The anchor was declared to be the great healer of diseases. For immense sums the ministering priests would give small filings to the diseased, and marvellous were the cures produced by oxides and by iron; never, in short, was there a more prosperous faith. The morals of the people, I grieve to say, did not improve in proportion to their faith. An anchor that is supposed to remit sins on sacerdotal intercession is probably not favourable to the higher morals in Koussa Kaffir.
