The Stratford Jubilee."Went not thy spirit gladly with us then,Most genial Shakespeare!—wast thou not with usWho throng'd to honour thee and love thee thus,A few among thy subject fellow-men?Yea,—let me truly think it; for thy heart(Though now long since the free-made citizenOf brighter cities where we trust thou art)Was one, in its great whole and every part,With human sympathies: we seem to die,But verily live; we grow, improve, expand,When Death transplants us to that Happier Land;Therefore, sweet Shakespeare, came thy spirit nigh,Cordial with Man, and grateful to High HeavenFor all our love to thy dear memory given."
The Stratford Jubilee.
"Went not thy spirit gladly with us then,Most genial Shakespeare!—wast thou not with usWho throng'd to honour thee and love thee thus,A few among thy subject fellow-men?Yea,—let me truly think it; for thy heart(Though now long since the free-made citizenOf brighter cities where we trust thou art)Was one, in its great whole and every part,With human sympathies: we seem to die,But verily live; we grow, improve, expand,When Death transplants us to that Happier Land;Therefore, sweet Shakespeare, came thy spirit nigh,Cordial with Man, and grateful to High HeavenFor all our love to thy dear memory given."
The best of my unpublished MSS. of any size or consequence is perhaps my translation of Book Alpha of the Iliad, quite literal and in its original metre of hexameters: hitherto I have failed to find a publisher kind enough to lose by it; for there are already at least twelve English versions of Homer unread, perhaps unreadable. Still, some day I don't despair to gain an enterprising Sosius; for my literal and hexametrical translation is almost what Carthusians used to call "a crib," and perhaps some day the School Board or their organ, Mr. Joseph Hughes'sPractical Teacher, may adopt my version. Its origin and history is this: finding winter evenings in the country wearisome to my homeflock, I used to read to them profusely and discursively. Amongst other books, a literary daughter suggested Pope's Homer; which, as I read, after a little while, I found to be so very free and incorrect a translation (if my memory served me rightly) that I resolved to see what I could do by reading from the original Greek in its own (English) metre. I soon found it quite easy to be both terse and literal; and having rhythm only to care for without the tag of rhyme, I soon pleased my hearers and in some sort myself, reading "off the reel" directly from the Greek into the English.
This version is still unblotted by printer's ink: if any compositor pleases he is welcome to work on the copy; which I can supply gratis: only I do not promise to do more than I have done, Book Alpha. Life is too short for such literary playwork.
Here followeth a sample: quite literal: line for line, almost word for word: my translation renders Homer exactly. I choose the short bit where Thetis pleads with Jove for her irate son, because I am sure Tennyson must have had this passage in his mind when he drew his word-picture of Vivien with Merlin.
"But now at length the twelfth morn from the first had arrived; and returningCame to Olympus together the glorious band of immortals,Zeus the great king at their head. And Thetis, remembering the cravingsOf her own son, and his claims, uprose to the surface of ocean,And through the air flew swift to high heaven, ascending Olympus.There she found sitting alone on the loftiest peak of the mountainAll-seeing Zeus, son of Kronos, apart from the other celestials.So she sat closely beside him, embracing his knees with her left hand,While with her right she handled his beard, and tenderly stroked it,Whispering thus her prayer to Zeus, the great king, son of Kronos," &c. &c.
"But now at length the twelfth morn from the first had arrived; and returningCame to Olympus together the glorious band of immortals,Zeus the great king at their head. And Thetis, remembering the cravingsOf her own son, and his claims, uprose to the surface of ocean,And through the air flew swift to high heaven, ascending Olympus.There she found sitting alone on the loftiest peak of the mountainAll-seeing Zeus, son of Kronos, apart from the other celestials.So she sat closely beside him, embracing his knees with her left hand,While with her right she handled his beard, and tenderly stroked it,Whispering thus her prayer to Zeus, the great king, son of Kronos," &c. &c.
Let that suffice with acætera desunt.
I need not say that I have written innumerable other, translated pieces, from earliest days of school exercises to these present. There is scarcely a classic I have not so tampered with: and (though a poor modern linguist)I have touched—with dictionary and other help, a few bits of Petrarch, Dante, &c.; examples whereof may be seen in my "Modern Pyramid," as already mentioned.
My several publications in pamphlet shape may ask for a page or two,—the chief perhaps (and therefore I begin with it) being my "Hymn for All Nations" in thirty languages, issued at the time of the first great exhibition in 1851, due to a letter I wrote to the Bishop of London on November 22, 1850, urging such a universal psalm. Mr. Brettell, a printer, issued this curiosity of typography: for it has all the strange types which the Bible Society could lend; and several other, versions than the fifty published (some being duplicated) are in a great volume before me, unprinted because neither England, nor Germany, nor America could supply types for sundry out-of-the-way languages contributed by missionaries in the four quarters of the world. My hymn was "a simple psalm, so constructed as scarcely to exclude a truth, or to offend a prejudice; with special reference to the great event of this year, and yet so ordered that it can never be out of season." "This polyglot hymn at the lowest estimate is a philological curiosity: so many minds, with such diversity in similitude rendering literally into all the languages of the earth one plain psalm, a world-wide call to man to render thanks to God." Dr. Wesley and several others contributed the music, and the best scholars of all lands did the literature: the mere printing of so many languages was pronounced a marvel in its way; and I have a bookful of notices, of course laudatory, where itwas not possible to find fault with so small a piece of literature. It may be well to give the hymn admission here, as the booklet is excessively scarce.
The title goes—"A Hymn for all Nations," 1851, translated into thirty languages (upwards of fifty versions).
"GloriousGod! on Thee we call,Father, Friend, and Judge of all;Holy Saviour, heavenly King,Homage to Thy throne we bring!"In the wonders all aroundEver is Thy Spirit found,And of each good thing we seeAll the good is born of Thee!"Thine the beauteous skill that lurksEverywhere in Nature's works—Thine is Art, with all its worth,Thine each masterpiece on earth!"Yea,—and, foremost in the van,Springs from Thee the Mind of Man;On its light, for this is Thine,Shed abroad the love divine!"Lo, ourGod! Thy children hereFrom all realms are gathered near,Wisely gathered, gathering still,—For 'peace on earth, towards men goodwill!'"May we, with fraternal mind,Bless our brothers of mankind!May we, through redeeming love,Be the blest ofGodabove!"
"GloriousGod! on Thee we call,Father, Friend, and Judge of all;Holy Saviour, heavenly King,Homage to Thy throne we bring!
"In the wonders all aroundEver is Thy Spirit found,And of each good thing we seeAll the good is born of Thee!
"Thine the beauteous skill that lurksEverywhere in Nature's works—Thine is Art, with all its worth,Thine each masterpiece on earth!
"Yea,—and, foremost in the van,Springs from Thee the Mind of Man;On its light, for this is Thine,Shed abroad the love divine!
"Lo, ourGod! Thy children hereFrom all realms are gathered near,Wisely gathered, gathering still,—For 'peace on earth, towards men goodwill!'
"May we, with fraternal mind,Bless our brothers of mankind!May we, through redeeming love,Be the blest ofGodabove!"
Beside this, I give from memory a list of others of the pamphlet sort, perhaps imperfect:—
1. "The Desecrated Church," relating to ancient Albury,—whereof this matter is remarkable; I had protested against its demolition to Bishop Sumner, and used the expression in my letter that the man who was doing the wrong of changing the old church in his park for a new one elsewhere would "lay the foundation in his first-born and in his youngest son set up its gates" (Josh. vi. 26); and the two sons of the lord of the manor died in succession as seemingly was foretold.
2. "A Voice from the Cloister," whereof I have spoken before.
3. "A Prophetic Ode,"—happily hindered from proving true, only because the Rifle movement drove away those vultures, Louis Napoleon's hungry colonels, from our unprotected shores. There are also in the poem some curious thoughts about the Arctic Circle, its magnetic heat, and possible habitability; also others about thought-reading and the like; all this being long in advance of the age, for that ode was published by Bosworth in 1852. Also, I anticipated then as now—
"To fly as a bird in the airDespot man doth dare!His humbling cumbersome body at lengthLight as the lark upsprings,Buoyed by tamed explosive strengthAnd steel-ribbed albatross wings!"
"To fly as a bird in the airDespot man doth dare!His humbling cumbersome body at lengthLight as the lark upsprings,Buoyed by tamed explosive strengthAnd steel-ribbed albatross wings!"
With plenty of other curious matter. That ode is extinct, but will revive.
4. So also with "A Creed, &c.," which bears the imprint of Simpkin & Marshall, and the date 1870. Its chief peculiarities are summed up in the concluding lines:—
"So then, in brief, my creed is truly this;Conscience is our chief seed of woe or bliss;God who made all things is to all things Love,Balancing wrongs below by rights above;Evil seemed needful that the good be shown,And Good was swift that Evil to atone;While creatures, link'd together, each with each,Of one great Whole in changeful sequence teach,Life-presence everywhere sublimely vastAnd endless for the future as the past."
"So then, in brief, my creed is truly this;Conscience is our chief seed of woe or bliss;God who made all things is to all things Love,Balancing wrongs below by rights above;Evil seemed needful that the good be shown,And Good was swift that Evil to atone;While creatures, link'd together, each with each,Of one great Whole in changeful sequence teach,Life-presence everywhere sublimely vastAnd endless for the future as the past."
For I believe in some future life for the lower animals as well as for their unworthier lord; and in the immortality of all creation. Some other poems and hymns also are in this pamphlet.
5. My "Fifty Protestant Ballads," published, by Ridgeway, will be mentioned hereafter.
6. "Ten Letters on the Female Martyrs of the Reformation," published by the Protestant Mission.
7 and 8. "Hactenus" and "A Thousand Lines," most whereof are in my "Cithara" and Miscellaneous Poems.
9. A pamphlet about Canada, and its closer union to us by dint of imperialism and honours, dated several years before these have come to pass.
10. Sundry shorter pamphlets on Rhyme, Model Colonisation, Druidism, Household Servants, My Newspaper, Easter Island, False Schooling, &c. &c. Not to mention some serial letters long ago in theTimesabout the Coronation, Ireland, and divers other topics. Every author writes to theTimes.
11. As a matter of course I have written both with my name and without it (according to editorial rule) in many magazines and reviews, from theQuarterlyof Lockhart's time to theRockof this, not to count numerous reviews of bookspassim, besides innumerable fly-leaves, essayettes, sermonettes, &c. &c., in theRockand elsewhere.
12. I was editor for about two years of an extinct three-monthly, theAnglo-Saxon: in one of which I wrote nine articles, as the contributions received were inappropriate. I never worked harder in my life; but the magazine failed, the chief reason being that the monied man who kept it alive insisted upon acceptance when rejection was inevitable.
13. Some printed letters of mine on Grammar, issued in small pamphlet form at thePractical Teacheroffice; and sundry others unpublished, called "Talks about Science," still in MS.
14. "America Revisited," a lecture, in three numbers, ofGolden Hours.
15. Separate bundles of ballads in pamphlet form about Australia, New Zealand, Church Abuses, The War, &c. &c.
Besides possibly some other like booklets forgotten.
When I returned in the autumn of 1855 from my principal continental tour, wherein for three months I had conducted my whole family of eleven (servants inclusive) all through the usual route of French and Swiss travel,—I committed my journal to Hatchard, who forthwith published it; but not to any signal success,—for it was anonymous, which was a mistake: however, I did not care to make public by name all the daily details of my homeflock pilgrimage. The pretty little book with its fine print of the Pass of Gondo as a frontispiece, nevertheless made its way, and has been inserted in Mr. Gregory's list of guide-books as a convenience if not a necessity to travellers on the same roads, though in these days of little practical use: indeed, wherever we stopped, I contrived to exhaust, on the spot all that was to be seen or done, with the advantages of personal inspection, and therefore of graphic and true description. The book has been praised for its interest and includes divers accidents, happily surmounted, divers exploits in the milder form of Alpine climbing (as the Mauvais Pas, which I touch experimentally at the end of Life's Lessons, in "Proverbial Philosophy," Series IV.), divers grand sights, as the Great Exhibition,close to which we lived for some weeks in the Champs Élysées, and many pleasant incidents, as greetings with friends, old and new, and other usualmemorabilia. Among these let me mention the honest kindliness of Courier Pierre,—always called Pere by my children, with whom he was a great favourite—the more readily because he has long gone to "the bourne whence no traveller returns," so he needs no recommendation from his late employer. This, then, I say is memorable. At Lucerne, as my remittance from Herries failed to reach me, I seemed obliged to make a stop and to return; but Pierre objected, saying it was "great pity not to pass the Simplon and see Milan,—and, if Monsieur would permit him, he could lend whatever was needful, and could be paid again." Certainly I said this was very kind, and so I borrowed at his solicitation:—it was £100, as I find by the journal; our travel was costing us £40 a week. Well, to recount briefly, when, after having placed in ourrepertoireBellinzona, Como, Milan, &c. &c., I found myself at Geneva, and with remittances awaiting me, my first act was to place in Pierre's hands £105,—and when he counted the notes, he said, "Sare, there is one five-pound too many."—"Of course, my worthy Pierre, I hope you will accept that as interest."—"Non, Monsieur, pardon; I could not, I always bring money to help my families:"—and he would not. Now, if that was not a model courier, worthy to be commemorated thus,—well, I hope there are some others of his brethren on the office-books of Bury Street, St. James's, who are equally duteous and disinterested. "Some people are heroes to their valets; my worthy help is a hero to me:" so saith my journal. Here's another extract, after two slight earthquakes atBrieg, and Turtman (Turris Magna);—"Again a bad accident. One of our spirited wheelers got his hind leg over the pole in going down a hill: at once there was a chaos of fallen horses and entangled harness, and but for the screw machine drag locking both hind-wheels we must have been upset and smashed,—as it was, the scrambling and kicking at first was frightful; but Paterfamilias dragged the younger children out into the road, and other help was nigh at hand, and the providential calm that comes over fallen horses after their initiatory struggle was at hand too, and in due time matters were righted: that those two fiery stallions did not kick everything to pieces, and that all four steeds did not gallop us to destruction, was due, under Providence, to the skill and courage of our good Pierre and the patient Muscatelli."—Railways have since superseded all this peril, and cost, and care: and trains now gothroughthe Simplon, instead of "good horses, six to the heavy carriage, four to the light one," pulling us steadily and slowlyoverit: thus losing the splendid scenery climaxed by the Devil's Bridge: but let moderns be thankful. "Paterfamilias's Diary" has long been out of print, and its author is glad that he made at the time a full record of the happy past, and recommends its perusal to any one who can find a copy anywhere. My friend, the late Major Hely, who claimed an Irish peerage, was very fond of this "Diary," and thought it "the best book of travels he had ever read."
Guernsey is another of the spots where your author has lived and written, though neither long nor much. He comes, as is well known, of an ancient Sarnianfamily, as mentioned before. As to any writings of mine about insular matters while sojourning there occasionally, they are confined to some druidical verses about certain cromlechs, a few other poems, as one given below—"A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney,"—and in chief that in which I "Raised the Haro," which saved the most picturesque part of Castle Cornet from destruction by some artillery engineer. Here is the poem, supposing some may wish to see it: especially as it does not appear in my only extant volume of poems, Gall & Inglis. It occurs (I think solely) in Hall & Virtue's extinct edition of my Ballads and Poems, 1853, and is there headed "'The Clameur de Haro,' an old Norman appeal to the Sovereign, 1850":—
"Haro, Haro! à l'aide, mon Prince!A loyal people calls;Bring out Duke Rollo's Norman lanceTo stay destruction's fell advanceAgainst the Castle walls:Haro, Haro! à l'aide, ma Reine!Thy duteous children not in vainPlead for old Cornet yet again,To spare it, ere it falls!"What? shall Earl Rodolph's sturdy strength,After six hundred years, at lengthBe recklessly laid low?His grey machicolated towerTorn down within one outraged hourBy worse than Vandals' ruthless power?—Haro! à l'aide, Haro!"Nine years old Cornet for the throneAgainst rebellion stood alone—And honoured still shall stand,For heroism so sublime,A relic of the olden time,Renowned in Guernsey prose and rhyme,The glory of her land!"Ay,—let your science scheme and planWith better skill than so;Touch not this dear old barbican,Nor dare to lay it low!"On Vazon's ill-protected bayBuild and blow up, as best ye may,And do your worst to scare awaySome visionary foe,—But, if in brute and blundering powerYou tear down Rodolph's granite tower,Defeat and scorn and shame that hourShall whelm you like an arrowy shower—Haro! à l'aide, Haro!"
"Haro, Haro! à l'aide, mon Prince!A loyal people calls;Bring out Duke Rollo's Norman lanceTo stay destruction's fell advanceAgainst the Castle walls:Haro, Haro! à l'aide, ma Reine!Thy duteous children not in vainPlead for old Cornet yet again,To spare it, ere it falls!
"What? shall Earl Rodolph's sturdy strength,After six hundred years, at lengthBe recklessly laid low?His grey machicolated towerTorn down within one outraged hourBy worse than Vandals' ruthless power?—Haro! à l'aide, Haro!
"Nine years old Cornet for the throneAgainst rebellion stood alone—And honoured still shall stand,For heroism so sublime,A relic of the olden time,Renowned in Guernsey prose and rhyme,The glory of her land!
"Ay,—let your science scheme and planWith better skill than so;Touch not this dear old barbican,Nor dare to lay it low!
"On Vazon's ill-protected bayBuild and blow up, as best ye may,And do your worst to scare awaySome visionary foe,—But, if in brute and blundering powerYou tear down Rodolph's granite tower,Defeat and scorn and shame that hourShall whelm you like an arrowy shower—Haro! à l'aide, Haro!"
When my antiquarian cousin Ferdinand, the historian of "Sarnia" and our "Family Records," saw these lines, he positively made serious objection—while generally approving them—against my saying "six hundred years," whereas, according to him, it was only five hundred and ninety-three! he actually wanted me to alter it, or at all events insert "almost,"—so difficult is it to reconcile literal accuracy with poetical rhyme and rhythm. I seem to remember that he wrote to the local papers about this. However, it is some consolation to know that these heartfelt verses forced the War Office to spare Castle Cornet: the Norman appeal by Haro being a privilege of Channel-Islanders to bring their grievances direct to the Queen in council. As I have continually the honour "Monstrari digito prætereuntium" in therôleof a "Fidicen," I suppose that poetries in such a self-record as this are not positivebores—they can always be skipped if they are—so I will even give here a cheerful bit of rhyme which I jotted down at midnight on the deck of a yacht in a half-gale off Cherbourg, when going with a deputation from Guernsey to meet the French President in 1850:—
A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney.I."Sprinkled thick with shining studsStretches wide the tent of heaven,Blue, begemmed with golden buds,—Calm, and bright, and deep, and clear,Glory's hollow hemisphereArch'd above these frothing floodsRight and left asunder riven,As our cutter madly scuds,By the fitful breezes driven,When exultingly she sweepsLike a dolphin through the deeps,And from wave to wave she leapsRolling in this yeasty leaven,—Ragingly that never sleeps,Like the wicked unforgiven!II."Midnight, soft and fair above,Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,—All on high the smile of love,All below the frown of death:Waves that whirl in angry spiteWith a phosphorescent lightGleaming ghastly on the night,—Like the pallid sneer of Doom,So malicious, cold, and white,Luring to this watery tomb,Where in fury and in frightWinds and waves together fightHideously amid the gloom,—As our cutter gladly sends,Dipping deep her sheeted boomMadly to the boiling sea,Lighted in these furious floodsBy that blaze of brilliant studs,Glistening down like glory-budsOn the Race of Alderney!"
A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney.
I.
"Sprinkled thick with shining studsStretches wide the tent of heaven,Blue, begemmed with golden buds,—Calm, and bright, and deep, and clear,Glory's hollow hemisphereArch'd above these frothing floodsRight and left asunder riven,As our cutter madly scuds,By the fitful breezes driven,When exultingly she sweepsLike a dolphin through the deeps,And from wave to wave she leapsRolling in this yeasty leaven,—Ragingly that never sleeps,Like the wicked unforgiven!
II.
"Midnight, soft and fair above,Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,—All on high the smile of love,All below the frown of death:Waves that whirl in angry spiteWith a phosphorescent lightGleaming ghastly on the night,—Like the pallid sneer of Doom,So malicious, cold, and white,Luring to this watery tomb,Where in fury and in frightWinds and waves together fightHideously amid the gloom,—As our cutter gladly sends,Dipping deep her sheeted boomMadly to the boiling sea,Lighted in these furious floodsBy that blaze of brilliant studs,Glistening down like glory-budsOn the Race of Alderney!"
A few more words as to my Sarnian literaria. Victor Hugo, when resident in Guernsey, had greatly offended my cousin (the chief of our clan) by stealing for his hired abode the title of our ancestral mansion, Haute Ville House: and so, when I called on him, the equally offended Frenchman would not see me, though I was indulged with a sight of thebric-à-bracwherewith he had filled his residence, albeit deprived of access to its inmate. Hugo was not popular among the sixties at that time. Since then, Mr. Sullivan of Jersey published on his decease some splendid stanzas in French, which by request I versified in English: so that our spirits are now manifestlyen rapport.
I wrote also (as I am reminded) an ode on the consecration of St. Anne's, Alderney, when I accompanied the Bishop to the ceremony: and some memorable stanzas about the decent expediency of the Bailiff and Jurats being robed for official uniform, since ornamentally adopted; but before I wrote they wore mean and undistinguished "mufti."
I had also much to do on behalf of my friend Durham, the sculptor, in the matter of his bronze statue to Prince Albert,—advocating it both in prose and verse, and being instrumental in getting royal permission to take a duplicate of the great work now at South Kensington.My cousin the Bailiff, the late Sir Stafford Carey, dated his knighthood from the inauguration of the statue, now one of the chief ornaments of St. Peter's Port,—the other being the Victoria Tower, also a Sarnian exploit.
Under such a title as this, "My Life as an Author," that author being chiefly known for his poetry, though he has also written plenty of prose, it is (as I have indeed just said) not to be reasonably objected that the volume is spotted with small poems. Still, I must do it, if I wish to illustrate by verse, or other extracts from my writings (published or unprinted), certain places where the said author has had his temporaryhabitat: now one of these is the Isle of Man,—where I and mine made a long summer stay at Castle Mona. The chief literary productions of mine in that modern Trinacria, whose heraldic emblem, like that of ancient Sicily, is the Three legs of Three promontories, are some antiquarian pieces, principally one on the sepulchral mound of Orry the Dane:—
"In fifty keels and fiveRushed over the pirate swarm,Hornets out of the northern hive,Hawks on the wings of the storm;Blood upon talons and beak,Blood from their helms to their heels,Blood on the hand and blood on the cheek,—In five and fifty keels!"O fierce and terrible hordeThat shout about Orry the Dane,Clanging the shield and clashing the swordTo the roar of the storm-tost main!And hard on the shore they drivePloughing through shingle and sand,—And high and dry those fifty and fiveAre haul'd in line upon land."And ho! for the torch straightway,In honour of Odin and Thor,—And the blazing night is as bright as the dayAs a gift to the gods of war;For down to the melting sandAnd over each flaring mastThose fifty and five they have burnt as they standTo the tune of the surf and the blast!"A ruthless, desperate crowd,They trample the shingle at Lhane,And hungry for slaughter they clamour aloudFor the Viking, for Orry the Dane!And swift has he flown at the foe—For the clustering clans are here,—But light is the club and weak is the bowTo the Norseman sword and spear:"And—woe to the patriot Manx,The right overthrown by the wrong,—For the sword hews hard at the staggering ranks,And the spear drives deep and strong:And Orry the Dane stands proudKing of the bloodstained field,Lifted on high by the shouldering crowdOn the battered boss of his shield!"Yet, though such a man of blood,So terribly fierce and fell,King Orry the Dane had come hither for good,And governed the clans right well;Freedom and laws and right,He sowed the good seed all round—And built up high in the people's sightTheir famous Tynwald Mound;"And elders twenty and fourHe set for the House of Keys,And all was order from shore to shoreIn the fairest Isle of the Seas:Though he came a destroyer, I wistHe remained as a ruler to save,And yonder he sleeps in the roadside kistThey call King Orry's Grave."
"In fifty keels and fiveRushed over the pirate swarm,Hornets out of the northern hive,Hawks on the wings of the storm;Blood upon talons and beak,Blood from their helms to their heels,Blood on the hand and blood on the cheek,—In five and fifty keels!
"O fierce and terrible hordeThat shout about Orry the Dane,Clanging the shield and clashing the swordTo the roar of the storm-tost main!And hard on the shore they drivePloughing through shingle and sand,—And high and dry those fifty and fiveAre haul'd in line upon land.
"And ho! for the torch straightway,In honour of Odin and Thor,—And the blazing night is as bright as the dayAs a gift to the gods of war;For down to the melting sandAnd over each flaring mastThose fifty and five they have burnt as they standTo the tune of the surf and the blast!
"A ruthless, desperate crowd,They trample the shingle at Lhane,And hungry for slaughter they clamour aloudFor the Viking, for Orry the Dane!And swift has he flown at the foe—For the clustering clans are here,—But light is the club and weak is the bowTo the Norseman sword and spear:
"And—woe to the patriot Manx,The right overthrown by the wrong,—For the sword hews hard at the staggering ranks,And the spear drives deep and strong:And Orry the Dane stands proudKing of the bloodstained field,Lifted on high by the shouldering crowdOn the battered boss of his shield!
"Yet, though such a man of blood,So terribly fierce and fell,King Orry the Dane had come hither for good,And governed the clans right well;Freedom and laws and right,He sowed the good seed all round—And built up high in the people's sightTheir famous Tynwald Mound;
"And elders twenty and fourHe set for the House of Keys,And all was order from shore to shoreIn the fairest Isle of the Seas:Though he came a destroyer, I wistHe remained as a ruler to save,And yonder he sleeps in the roadside kistThey call King Orry's Grave."
It was at Castle Mona that I first met Walter Montgomery, who read these very lines to great effect at one of his Recitations, and thereafter produced at Manchester my play of "Alfred." He was, amongst other accomplishments, a capital horseman, and when he galloped over the sands on his white horse, he would jump benches with their sitters, calling out "Don't stir, we shall clear you!" It would have required no small coolness and courage to have abided his charge, and though I saw him do this once, I question if he was allowed to repeat the exploit.
In Douglas was also my artist-friend Corbould, visiting at the romantic place of his relatives the Wilsons, who had to show numerous paintings and relics of John Martin, with whom in old days I had pleasant acquaintance at Chelsea and elsewhere. I remember that on one occasion when I asked him which picture of his own he considered hischef-d'œuvreI was astonished at his reply, "Sardanapalus's death,—and therein his jewels." Martin's Chelsea garden had its walls frescoed by him to look like views and avenues,—certainly effective, but rather in the style of Grimaldi's garden made gay by artificial flowers and Aladdin's gems,à la modeCockayne. At Bishop's Court too we had a very friendly reception from Bishop Powys, and in fact everywhere as usual your confessor found a cordial author's welcome in Mona.
Sundry of my short lyrics have gained a great popularity: in particular "Never give up," whereof there are extant—or were—no fewer than eight musical settings. Of this ballad, three stanzas, I have a strange story to tell. When I went to Philadelphia, on my first American tour in 1851, I was taken everywhere to see everything; amongst others to Dr. Kirkland's vast institute for the insane: let me first state that he was not previously told of my coming visit. When I went over the various wards of the convalescents, I noticed that on each door was a printed placard with my "Never give up" upon it in full. Naturally I thought it was done so out of compliment. But on inquiry, Dr. Kirkland didn't know who the author was, and little suspected it was myself. He had seen the verses, anonymous, in a newspaper, and judging them a good moral dose of hopefulness even for the half insane, placed them on every door to excellent effect. When to his astonishment he found the unknown author before him, greatly pleased, he asked if I would allow the patients to thank me; of course I complied, and soon was surrounded by kneeling and weeping and kissing folks, grateful for the good hope my verses had helped them to. And twenty-five years after, in 1876, I, again without notice, visited Dr. Kirkland at the same place, scarcely expecting to find him still living, and certainly not thinking that I should see my old ballad on the doors. But, when the happy doctor, looking not an hour older, though it was a quarter of a century, took me round to see his convalescents, behold the same words greeted me in large print,—and probably are there still: the only change being that my name appears at foot. I gave them a two hours' reading in their handsome theatre, and I never had a more intensely attentive audience than those three hundred lunatics. The ballad runs thus,—if any wish to see it, as for the first time:—
"Never give up! it is wiser and betterAlways to hope than once to despair;Fling off the load of Doubt's heavy fetterAnd break the dark spell of tyrannical care:Never give up! or the burden may sink you,—Providence kindly has mingled the cup,And, in all trials or troubles, bethink youThe watchword of life must be Never give up!"Never give up! there are chances and changesHelping the hopeful a hundred to one,And through the chaos High Wisdom arrangesEver success, if you'll only hope on:Never give up! for the wisest is boldest,Knowing that Providence mingles the cup,And of all maxims the best as the oldestIs the true watchword of Never give up!"Never give up! though the grapeshot may rattleOr the full thunderbolt over you burst,Stand like a rock,—and the storm or the battleLittle shall harm you, though doing their worst:Never give up!—if Adversity presses,Providence wisely has mingled the cup,And the best counsel in all your distressesIs the stout watchword of Never give up!"
"Never give up! it is wiser and betterAlways to hope than once to despair;Fling off the load of Doubt's heavy fetterAnd break the dark spell of tyrannical care:Never give up! or the burden may sink you,—Providence kindly has mingled the cup,And, in all trials or troubles, bethink youThe watchword of life must be Never give up!
"Never give up! there are chances and changesHelping the hopeful a hundred to one,And through the chaos High Wisdom arrangesEver success, if you'll only hope on:Never give up! for the wisest is boldest,Knowing that Providence mingles the cup,And of all maxims the best as the oldestIs the true watchword of Never give up!
"Never give up! though the grapeshot may rattleOr the full thunderbolt over you burst,Stand like a rock,—and the storm or the battleLittle shall harm you, though doing their worst:Never give up!—if Adversity presses,Providence wisely has mingled the cup,And the best counsel in all your distressesIs the stout watchword of Never give up!"
I can quite feel what a moral tonic and spiritual stimulant these sentiments would be to many among the thousand patients under Dr. Kirkland's care.
I recollect also now, that once when I read at Weston-super-Mare, with Lord Cavan in the chair, a military man among the audience, on hearing me recite "Never give up," came forward and shook hands, showing me out of his pocket-book a soiled newspaper cutting of the poem without my name, saying that it had cheered him all through the Crimea, and that he had always wished to find out the author. Of course we coalesced right heartily. Some other such anecdotes might be added, but this is enough.
Year by year, for more than a dozen, I have given a harvest hymn to the jubilant agriculturists: they have usually attained the honour of a musical setting, and been sung all over the land in many churches. Perhaps the best of them is one for which Bishop Samuel Wilberforce wrote to "thank me cordially for a real Christian hymn with the true ring in it." There are, or were, many musical settings thereof, the best being one of a German composer.
"O Nation, Christian NationLift high the hymn of praise!The God of our salvationIs love in all His ways;He blesseth us, and feedethEvery creature of His hand,To succour him that needethAnd to gladden all the land."Rejoice, ye happy people,And peal the changing chimeFrom every belfried steepleIn symphony sublime:Let cottage and let palaceBe thankful and rejoice,And woods and hills and valleysRe-echo the glad voice!"From glen, and plain, and cityLet gracious incense rise;The Lord of life and pityHath heard His creatures' cries:And where in fierce oppressionStalk'd fever, fear, and dearth,He pours a triple blessingTo fill and fatten earth!"Gaze round in deep emotion;The rich and ripened grainIs like a golden oceanBecalm'd upon the plain;And we who late were weepers,Lest judgment should destroy,Now sing, because the reapersAre come again with joy!"O praise the Hand that giveth,And giveth evermore,To every soul that livethAbundance flowing o'er!For every soul He fillethWith manna from above,And over all distillethThe unction of His love."Then gather, Christians, gather,To praise with heart and voiceThe good Almighty FatherWho biddeth you rejoice:For He hath turned the sadnessOf His children into mirth,And we will sing with gladnessThe harvest-home of Earth."
"O Nation, Christian NationLift high the hymn of praise!The God of our salvationIs love in all His ways;He blesseth us, and feedethEvery creature of His hand,To succour him that needethAnd to gladden all the land.
"Rejoice, ye happy people,And peal the changing chimeFrom every belfried steepleIn symphony sublime:Let cottage and let palaceBe thankful and rejoice,And woods and hills and valleysRe-echo the glad voice!
"From glen, and plain, and cityLet gracious incense rise;The Lord of life and pityHath heard His creatures' cries:And where in fierce oppressionStalk'd fever, fear, and dearth,He pours a triple blessingTo fill and fatten earth!
"Gaze round in deep emotion;The rich and ripened grainIs like a golden oceanBecalm'd upon the plain;And we who late were weepers,Lest judgment should destroy,Now sing, because the reapersAre come again with joy!
"O praise the Hand that giveth,And giveth evermore,To every soul that livethAbundance flowing o'er!For every soul He fillethWith manna from above,And over all distillethThe unction of His love.
"Then gather, Christians, gather,To praise with heart and voiceThe good Almighty FatherWho biddeth you rejoice:For He hath turned the sadnessOf His children into mirth,And we will sing with gladnessThe harvest-home of Earth."
My "Song of Seventy," published more than forty years ago, has been exceedingly popular; and I here make this extract from an early archive-book respecting it:—"Dr. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, was so pleased with this said 'Song of Seventy' that he posted off to Hatchards' forthwith (after seeing it quoted anonymously in theAthenæum) to inquire the author's name." It was published in "One Thousand Lines." I composed it during a solitary walk near Hurstperpoint, Sussex, in 1845, near about when I wrote "Never give up."
Of my several ballads upon Gordon (I think there were nine of them) I will here enshrine one, printed in the newspapers of May 1884, and perhaps worthiest to be saved from evanescence:—
"If England had but spokenWith Wellesley's lion roar,Or flung out Nelson's tokenOf duty as of yore,We should not now, too late, too late,Be saddened day by day,Dreading to hear of Gordon's fate,The victim of delay."He felt in isolation'Civis Romanus sum,'And trusted his great nationRight sure that help would come:Could he have dreamt that British powerWhich placed him at his post,In peril's long-expected hourWould leave him to be lost?"He lives alone for others,—Himself he scorns to save,And ev'n with savage brothersWill share their bloody grave!Woe! woe to us! should England's glory,To our rulers' blame,Close gallant Gordon's wondrous story,England! in thy shame."
"If England had but spokenWith Wellesley's lion roar,Or flung out Nelson's tokenOf duty as of yore,We should not now, too late, too late,Be saddened day by day,Dreading to hear of Gordon's fate,The victim of delay.
"He felt in isolation'Civis Romanus sum,'And trusted his great nationRight sure that help would come:Could he have dreamt that British powerWhich placed him at his post,In peril's long-expected hourWould leave him to be lost?
"He lives alone for others,—Himself he scorns to save,And ev'n with savage brothersWill share their bloody grave!Woe! woe to us! should England's glory,To our rulers' blame,Close gallant Gordon's wondrous story,England! in thy shame."
This was half prophetic at the time, and we all have grieved for England's Christian hero ever since.
When Lord Shaftesbury's lamented death lately touched the national heart, I felt as others did and uttered this sentiment accordingly:—
The Good Earl."Grieve not for him, as those who mourn the dead;He lives! Ascended from that dying bed,Clad in an incense-cloud of human love,His happy spirit met the blest above;And as his feet entered the golden door,With him flew in loud blessings of the poor;While in a thrilling chorus from below—Millions of children, saved by him from woe,With their sweet voices joined the seraphimWho thronged in raptured haste to welcome him!"For God had given him grace, and place, and powerTo bless the destitute from hour to hour;And from a child to fourscore years and four,All knew and lov'd the Helper of the poor,O coal-pit woman-slave! O factory child!O famished beggar-boy with hunger wild!O rescued outcast, torn from sin and shame!Ye know your friend—by myriads bless his name!We need not utter it—The Good, The Great,These are his titles in that Blest Estate."
The Good Earl.
"Grieve not for him, as those who mourn the dead;He lives! Ascended from that dying bed,Clad in an incense-cloud of human love,His happy spirit met the blest above;And as his feet entered the golden door,With him flew in loud blessings of the poor;While in a thrilling chorus from below—Millions of children, saved by him from woe,With their sweet voices joined the seraphimWho thronged in raptured haste to welcome him!
"For God had given him grace, and place, and powerTo bless the destitute from hour to hour;And from a child to fourscore years and four,All knew and lov'd the Helper of the poor,O coal-pit woman-slave! O factory child!O famished beggar-boy with hunger wild!O rescued outcast, torn from sin and shame!Ye know your friend—by myriads bless his name!We need not utter it—The Good, The Great,These are his titles in that Blest Estate."
I was much touched and pleased with this little anecdote to the purpose. Speaking casually to a bright-looking boy of the Shoeblack Brigade about Lord Shaftesbury (the boy didn't know me from Adam), to find out how far he felt for his lost friend, with tears in his eyes he quoted to my astonishment part of the above, and told me that he and many of his mates knew it by heart, having seen it in some paper. I never said who wrote it (probably he wouldn't have believed me if I had) but left him happy with some pears.
Perhaps I may here add (and all this has been part of "My Life as an Author") a couple of stanzas I wrote, (but never have published till now) on another worthy specimen of humanity, mourned in death by our highest:—
In Memoriam J. B."Simple, pious, honest man,Child of heaven while son of earth,We would praise, for praise we can,Thy good service, thy great worth;Through long years of prosperous placeIn the sunshine of the Crown,With man's favour and God's graceHumbly, bravely, walked John Brown."Faithful to the Blameless Prince,Faithful to the Widowed Queen,Loved,—as oft before and sinceTruth and zeal have ever been,—His no pedigree of pride,His no name of old renown,Yet in honour lived and diedNature's nobleman, John Brown."
In Memoriam J. B.
"Simple, pious, honest man,Child of heaven while son of earth,We would praise, for praise we can,Thy good service, thy great worth;Through long years of prosperous placeIn the sunshine of the Crown,With man's favour and God's graceHumbly, bravely, walked John Brown.
"Faithful to the Blameless Prince,Faithful to the Widowed Queen,Loved,—as oft before and sinceTruth and zeal have ever been,—His no pedigree of pride,His no name of old renown,Yet in honour lived and diedNature's nobleman, John Brown."
Also, I will here give, as it appears nowhere else, a few lines to a dying brother, for the sake of recording his hopeful last three words:—