CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR4415.C2A77 
 
 W.V. her book and various verses, 
 
 3 1924 013 453 281 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013453281 
 
W. V. Her Book 
 
 And 
 
 Various Verses 
 
Copyright l8g6 '" the 
 United States of America 
 by Stone & Kimball 
 
CAD"^ 
 
 Her wa-^ of ^'■playing at botany " \p. 69 
 
W. V. By William 
 
 Her Book Canton 
 And 
 
 . jluthor of 
 
 V an OUS •• The Invidble Play- 
 
 _ _ mate," " A Lost Epic 
 
 Verses *"^ "t^" Poems" 
 
 fl^ith Two Blmtrat'umi hy C. E. Brack 
 
 London : Isbister ^ Co. Ltd. 
 
 15 55f l6 Tavistock Street Covent Garden 
 
 MDCCCXCVI 
 
Contents 
 
 W. V. Her Birthday 
 
 "Bage lO 
 
 Her Book 
 
 41 
 
 Tie Inquisition 
 
 43 
 
 The First Miracle 
 
 45 
 
 'By the Fireside I 
 
 47 
 
 'By the Fireside II 
 
 48 
 
 The Raider 
 
 49 
 
 Babsie-Bird 
 
 50 
 
 The Orchard of Stars 
 
 52 
 
vi Contents 
 
 Her Book 
 
 The Sweet Pea "Page S3 
 
 Brook-side Logic 54 
 
 Bubble-Blowing 5S 
 New Version of an Old Game 57 
 
 The Golden Swing-Boat 58 
 
 Another Newton's Apple 59 
 
 Naturula Naturans 60 
 
 Wings and Hands 61 
 
 Flowers Invisible 62 
 
 Making Pansies 63 
 
 Heart-ease 64 
 
 " Si j'avais un arpent " 65 
 
 Her Friend Littlejohn 67 
 
 Her 'Bedtime 93 
 
 Various Verses 
 
 East of Eden 107 
 
 Goodwin Sands 
 
 Vignettes 
 
 "5 
 
 Trafalgar u, 
 
 7"^^ Wanderer I 127 
 
 7"^* Wanderer II 128 
 
 y^* Scarecrow ijo 
 
Contents 
 
 vii 
 
 Vignettes 
 
 
 The Haunted Bridge 
 
 'Page 132 
 
 The Stone dge • 
 
 134 
 
 Sea Pictures I 
 
 136 
 
 Sea Pictures J I 
 
 138 
 
 Moonlight 
 
 140 
 
 Green Pastures 
 
 142 
 
 The Little Dipper 
 
 144 
 
 In the Hills 
 
 14s 
 
 Natures Magic 
 
 146 
 
 April Voices 
 
 147 
 
 Green Sky 
 
 '51 
 
 Sub Umbra Cruets 
 
 
 The Shepherd Beautiful 
 
 155 
 
 The Moss 
 
 159 
 
 A Carol 
 
 1 6a 
 
 When Snow Lies Deep 
 
 162 
 
 " Trees of Righteousness" 
 
 164 
 
 The Comrades 
 
 i6ff 
 
 " Crying Abba, Father " 
 
 i6s 
 
 This Grace Vouchsafe 
 
 174 
 
Her Birthday 
 
Her Birthda 
 
 WE are still on the rosy side of the 
 apple ; but this is the last Satur- 
 day in September, and we cannot expect 
 many more golden days between this 
 and the cry of the cuckoo. But what a 
 summer we have had, thanks to one of 
 W. V.'s ingenious suggestions ! She 
 came to us in April, when the world 
 
12 W. V. 
 
 is still a trifle bare and the wind some- 
 what too bleak for any one to get 
 comfortably lost in the Forest or cast up 
 on a coral reef; so we have made her 
 birthday a movable feast, and whenever 
 a fine free Saturday comes round we 
 devote it to thankfulness that she has 
 been born, and to the joy of our both 
 being alive together. 
 
 W. V. sleeps in an eastern room, and 
 accordingly the sun rises on that side of 
 the house. Under the eaves and just 
 above her window the martins have a 
 nest plastered against the wall, and their 
 chattering awakens her in the first fresh- 
 ness of the new morning. She watches 
 the black shadows of the birds fluttering 
 on the sunny blind, as, first one and then 
 another, they race up to the nest, and 
 vibrate in the air a moment before dart- 
 ing into it. When her interest has 
 begun to flag, she steals in to me in her 
 
Her Birthday 13 
 
 nightdress, and tugs gently at my beard 
 till I waken and sit up. Unhappily her 
 mother wakens too. "What, more 
 birthdays ! " she exclaims in a tone of 
 stern disapproval ; whereat W. V. and I 
 laugh, for evasion of domestic law is the 
 sweet marjoram of our salad. But it is 
 possible to coax even a Draconian parent 
 into assent, and oh ! 
 
 Flower of the may, 
 
 ■If mamsie will not say her nay, 
 
 W. wont care what any one may say ! 
 
 We first make a tour of the garden, 
 and it is delightful to observe W. V. 
 prying about with happy, eager eyes, to 
 detect whether nature has been making 
 any new thing during the dim, starry 
 hours when people are too sound asleep 
 to notice ; delightful to hear her little 
 screams of ecstacy when she has dis- 
 covered something she has not seen 
 
14 W. V. 
 
 before. It is singular how keenly she 
 notes every fresh object, and in what 
 quaint and pretty turns of phrase she 
 expresses her glee and wonderment. 
 "Oh, father, haven't the bushes got 
 their hands quite full of flowers ? " 
 "Aren't the buds the trees' little 
 girls?" 
 
 This morning the sun was blissfully 
 warm, and the air seemed alive with the 
 sparkle of the dew, which lay thick on 
 every blade and leaf. As we went 
 round the gravel walks we perceived 
 how completely all the earlier flowers 
 had vanished ; even the lovely sweet 
 peas were almost over. We have still, 
 however, the single dahlias, and mari- 
 golds, and nasturtiums, on whose level 
 leaves the dew stood shining like glo- 
 bules of quicksilver ; and the tall 
 Michaelmas daisies make quite a white- 
 topped thicket along the paling, while 
 
Her Birthday 15 
 
 the rowan-berries are burning in big 
 red bunches over the western hedge. 
 
 In the corner near the limes we came 
 upon a marvellous spectacle — a huge 
 old spider hanging out in his web in 
 the sun, like a grim old fisherman float- 
 ing in the midst of his nets at sea. A 
 hand's breadth ofF, young bees and new- 
 born flies were busy with the low peren- 
 nial sunflowers ; he watching them 
 motionlessly, with his gruesome shadow 
 silhouetted on a leaf hard by. In his 
 immediate neighbourhood the fine 
 threads of his web were invisible, but 
 a little distance away one could distin- 
 guish their concentric curves, grey on 
 green. Every now and then we heard 
 the snapping of a stalk overhead, and 
 a leaf pattered down from the limes. 
 Esrery now and then, too, slight surges 
 of breeze ran shivering through the 
 branches. Nothing distracted the in- 
 
i6 W. V. 
 
 tense vigilance of the crafty fisherman. 
 Scores of glimmering insects grazed the 
 deadly snare, but none touched it. It 
 must have been tantalising, but the 
 creature's sullen patience was invincible. 
 W. V. at last dropped a piece of leaf- 
 stalk on his web, out of curiosity. In 
 a twinkling he was at the spot, and th? 
 fragment was dislodged with a single 
 jerk. 
 
 This is one of the things in whick 
 she delights — the' quiet observation of 
 the ways of creatures. Nothing would 
 please her better, could she but dwarf 
 herself into an "aglet-baby," than to 
 climb into those filmy meshes and hare 
 a chat in the sunshine with the wily 
 ogre. She has no mistrust, she feels Ao 
 repulsion from anything that has life. 
 There is a warm place in her heart for 
 the cool, dry toad, and she loves the 
 horned snail, if not for his own sake, at 
 
Her Birthday 17 
 
 least for his " darling little house " and 
 the silver track he leaves on the gravel. 
 
 Of course she wanted a story about a 
 spider. I might have anticipated as 
 much. Well, there was King Robert 
 the Bruce, who was saved by a spider 
 from his enemies when they were seek- 
 ing his life. 
 
 " And if they had found him, would 
 they have sworded off his head ? Really, 
 father.'' Like Oliver Crumball did 
 Charles King's .'' " 
 
 Her grammar was defective, but her 
 surmises were beyond dispute ; they 
 would. Then there was the story of 
 Sir Samuel Brown, who took his idea 
 of a suspension bridge from a web which 
 hung — but W. V. wanted something 
 much more engrossing. 
 
 "Wasn't there never no awful big 
 spider that made webs in the Forest ? " 
 
 " And caught lions and bears .'' " 
 
i8 W. V. 
 
 She nodded approvingly. Oh, yes, 
 there was — once upon a time. 
 
 " And was there a little girl there ? " 
 There must have been for the story 
 to be worth telling ; but the breakfast 
 bell broke in on the opening chapter of 
 that little girl's incredible adventures. 
 
 After breakfast we followed the old 
 birthday custom, and "plunged" into 
 the depths of the Forest. Some per- 
 sons, I have heard, call our Forest the 
 " East Woods," and report that though 
 they are pleasant enough in summer, 
 they are rather meagre and limited in 
 area. Now, it is obvious that it would 
 be impossible to "plunge" into any- 
 thing less than a forest. Certainly, 
 when W. V. is with me I am conscious 
 of the Forest — the haunted, enchanted, 
 aboriginal Forest ; and I see with some- 
 thing of her illumined vision, the vision 
 
Her Birthday 19 
 
 of W, v., who can double for herself the 
 comfort of a fire on a chilly day by 
 running into the next room and return- 
 ing with the tidings, " It's very cold in 
 the woods ! " 
 
 If you are courageous enough to leave 
 the paths and hazard yourself among 
 the underwood and the litter of bygone 
 autumns, twenty paces will take you to 
 the small Gothic doors of the Oak-men ; 
 twenty more to the cavern of the Great 
 Bruin and the pollard tree on the top of 
 which the foxes live ; while yet another 
 twenty, and you are at the burrows of 
 the kindliest of all insects, the leaf- 
 cutter bees. Once — in parenthesis — 
 when a little maid was weeping because 
 she had lost her way at dusk in the 
 Forest mazes, it was a leaf-cutter bee 
 that tunnelled a striaight line through 
 the trees, so that the nearest road lamp, 
 miles away, twinkled right into the 
 
20 W. V. 
 
 Forest, and she was able to guide herself 
 home. Indeed, it will only take ten 
 minutes, if you do not dawdle, to get to 
 the dreadful webs of the Iron Spider, 
 and when you do reach that spot, the 
 wisest thing you can do is to follow the 
 example of the tiny flame-elf when a 
 match Is blown out — clap on your cap 
 of darkness and scuttle back to fairy- 
 land. 
 
 What magical memories have we two 
 of the green huddle and the dreamy 
 lawns of that ancient and illimitable 
 Forest ! We know the bosky dingles 
 where we shall find pappa- trees, on 
 whose lower branches a little girl may dis- 
 cover something to eat when she is good 
 enough to deserve it. We know where 
 certain green-clad foresters keep store of 
 fruits which are supposed, by those who 
 know no better, to grow only in orchards 
 by tropical seas. Of course every one is 
 
Her Birthday 21 
 
 aware that in the heart of the Forest 
 there is a granite fountain ; but only we 
 two have learned the secret that its water 
 is the Water of Heart's-ease, and that if 
 we continue to drink it we shall never 
 grow really old. We have still a great 
 deal of the Forest to explore ; we have 
 never reached the glade where the dog- 
 daisies have to be chained because they 
 grow so exceedingly wild ; nor have we 
 found the blue thicket — it is blue because 
 it is so distant — from which some of the 
 stars come up into the dusk when it 
 grows late ; but when W. V. has got 
 'her galloping-horse-bicycle we shall start 
 with the first sunshine some morning, 
 and give the whole day to the quest. 
 
 We lowly folk dine before most 
 people think of lunching, and so dinner 
 was ready when we arrived home. Now, 
 as decorum at table is one of the cardinal 
 
22 W. V. 
 
 virtues W. V. dines by proxy. It is her 
 charming young friend Gladys who gives 
 us the pleasure of her company. It is 
 strange how many things this bevvalder- 
 ing daughter of mine can do as Gladys, 
 which she cannot possibly accomplish as 
 W. V. W. V. is unruly, a chatterbox, 
 careless, or at least forgetful, of the ele- 
 gances of the social board ; whereas 
 Gladys is a model of manners, an angel 
 in a bib. W. V. cannot eat crusts, and 
 rebels against porridge at breakfast ; 
 Gladys idolises crusts, and as for porridge 
 — "lam surprised your little girl does not 
 like porridge. It is so good for her." 
 
 After dinner, as I lay smoking in the 
 garden lounge to-day, I fell a-thinking 
 of W. V. and Gladys, and the numerous 
 other little maids in whom this tricksy 
 sprite has been masquerading since she 
 came into the world five years ago. She 
 
Her Birthday 23 
 
 began the small comedy before she had 
 well learned to balance herself on her 
 feet. As she sat in the middle of the 
 carpet we would play at looking for the 
 baby — where has the baby gone ? have 
 you seen the baby ? — and, oddly enough, 
 she would take a part and pretend to 
 wonder, or perhaps actually did wonder, 
 what had become of herself, till at last 
 we would discover her on the floor — to 
 her own astonishment and irrepressible 
 delight. 
 
 Then, as she grew older, it was amus- 
 ing to observe how she would drive 
 away the naughty self, turn it literally 
 out of doors, and return as the "Smiling 
 Winifred." I presume she grew weary, 
 as human nature is apt to grow, of a 
 face which is wreathed in amaranthine 
 smiles ; so the Smiling Winifred van- 
 ished, and we were visited by various 
 sweet children with lovely names, of 
 
24 W. V. 
 
 whom Gladys is the latest and the most 
 indefatigable. I cannot help laughing 
 when I recall my three-year-old rebel 
 listening for a few moments to a scold- 
 ing, and when she considered that the 
 ends of justice had been served, exclaim- 
 ing, " I put my eyes down ! " — which 
 meant that so far as she was concerned 
 the episode was now definitively closed. 
 
 My day-dream was broken by W, V. 
 flying up to me with fern fronds 
 fastened to her shoulders for wings. 
 She fluttered round me, then flopped 
 into my lap, and put her arms about 
 my neck. " If I was a real swan, 
 father, I would cuddle your head with 
 my wings." 
 
 "Ah, well, you are a real duck, 
 Diddles, and that will do quite as well." 
 
 She was thinking of that tender Irish 
 legend of the Children of Lir, changed 
 
Her Birthday 25 
 
 into swans by their step-mother and 
 doomed to suffer heat and cold, tempest 
 and hunger, homelessness and sorrow, for 
 nine hundred years, till the sound of 
 the first Christian bell changed them 
 again — to frail, aged mortals. It was 
 always the sister, she knows, who solaced 
 and strengthened the brothers beside the 
 terrible sea of Moyle, sheltering them 
 under her wings and warming them 
 against her bosom. In such a case as 
 this an only child is at a disadvantage. 
 Even M'rao, her furry playmate, might 
 have served as a bewitched brother, but 
 after many months of somnolent for- 
 bearance M'rao ventured into the great 
 world beyond our limes, and returned 
 no more. 
 
 Flower of the quince, 
 
 Puss once kissed Babs, and ever since 
 
 She thinks he must be an enchanted prince. 
 
26 W. V. 
 
 In a moment she was ofF again, an 
 angel, flying about the garden and in 
 and out of the house in the perform- 
 ance of helpful offices for some one, 
 or, perchance, a fairy, for her heaven is 
 a vague and strangely-peopled region. 
 Long ago she told me that the moon 
 was " put up " by a black man — a say- 
 ing which puzzled me until I came to 
 understand that this negro divinity could 
 only have been the " divine Dark " of 
 the old Greek poet. Of course she says 
 her brief, simple prayers ; but how can 
 one convey to a child's mind any but 
 the most provisional and elemental con- 
 ceptions of the Invisible .'' Once I was 
 telling her the story of a wicked king, 
 who put his trust in a fort of stone on 
 a mountain peak, and scoffed at a 
 prophet God had sent to warn him. 
 " He wasn't very wise," said W. V., 
 ** for God and Jesus and the angels and 
 
Her Birthday 27 
 
 the fairies are cleverer'n we are ; they 
 have wings." The "cleverness" of God 
 has deeply impressed her. He can make 
 rain and see through walls. She noticed 
 some stone crosses in a sculptor's yard 
 some time ago, and remarked : " Jesus 
 was put on one of those ; " then, after 
 some reflection : " Who was it put Jesus 
 on the cross .'' Was it the church people, 
 father .'' " Well, when one comes to 
 think of it, it was precisely the church 
 people — " not these church people, dear, 
 but the church people of hundreds of 
 years ago, when Jesus was alive." She 
 had seen the world's tragedy in the 
 stained glass windows and had drawn 
 her own conclusion — the people who 
 crucified would be the most likely to 
 make a picture of the crucifixion ; 
 Christ's friends would want to forget 
 it and never to speak of it. 
 
 In the main she does not much 
 
28 W. V. 
 
 concern herself with theology or the 
 unseen. She lives in the senses. Once, 
 indeed, she began to communicate some 
 interesting reminiscences of what had 
 happened "before she came here," to 
 this planet ; but something interrupted 
 her, and she has not attempted any 
 further revelation. There is nothing 
 more puzzling in the world to her, I 
 fancy, than an echo. She has forgotten 
 that her own face in the mirror was 
 quite as bewildering. A high wind at 
 night is not a pleasant fellow to have 
 shaking your window and muttering 
 down your chimney ; but an intrepid 
 father with a yard of brown oak is 
 more than a match for him. Thunder 
 and lightning she regards as "great 
 friends ; they always come together." 
 She is more perceptive of their com- 
 panionship than of their air of menace 
 towards mankind. Darkness, unless it 
 
Her Birthday 29 
 
 be on the staircase, does not trouble 
 her : when we have said good-night 
 out goes the gas. But there seems to 
 be some quality or influence in the 
 darkness which makes her affectionate 
 and considerate. Once and again when 
 she has slept with me and wakened in 
 the dead of night she has been most 
 apologetic and self-abasing. She is so 
 sorry to disturb me, she knows she is a 
 bother, but would I give her a biscuit or 
 a drink of water ? 
 
 She has all along been a curious com- 
 bination of tenderness and savagery. In 
 a sudden fit of motherhood she will 
 bring me her dolly to kiss, and ten 
 minutes later I shall see it lying un- 
 dressed and abandoned in a corner of 
 the room. She is a Spartan parent, and 
 slight is the chance of her children being 
 spoiled either by sparing the rod or 
 lack of stern monition. It is not so 
 
30 W. V. 
 
 long ago that we heard a curious sound 
 of distress in the dining-room, and on 
 her mother hurrying downstairs to see 
 what was amiss, there was W. V. chas- 
 tising her recalcitrant babe — and doing 
 the weeping herself. This appeared to 
 be a good opportunity for pointing a 
 moral. It was clear now that she knew 
 what it was to be naughty and dis- 
 obedient, and if she punished these faults 
 so severely in her own children she must 
 expect me to deal with her manifold 
 and grievous offences in the same way. 
 She looked very much sobered and 
 concerned, but a few moments later she 
 brought me a stout oak walking-stick : 
 "Would that do, father?" She shows 
 deep commiseration for the poor and 
 old ; grey hairs and penury are sad bed- 
 fellows ; but for the poor who are not 
 old I fear she feels little sympathy. 
 Perhaps we, or the conditions of life. 
 
Her Birthday 31 
 
 are to blame for this limitation of feel- 
 ing, for when we spoke to her of certain 
 poor little girls with no mothers, she 
 rejoined : " Why don't you take them, 
 then ? " Our compassion which stopped 
 short of so simple a remedy must have 
 seemed suspiciously like a pretence. 
 
 To me one of the chief wonders of 
 childhood has been the manner in which 
 this young person has picked up words, 
 has learned to apply them, has coined 
 them for herself, and has managed to equip 
 herself with a stock of quotations. When 
 she was yet little more than two and a half 
 she applied of her own accord the name 
 Dapple-grey to her first wooden horse. 
 Then Dapple-grey was pressed into 
 guardianship of her sleeping dolls, with 
 this stimulative quotation : " Brave dog, 
 watching by the baby's bed." There was 
 some vacillation, I recollect, as to whether 
 it was a laburnum or a St. Bernard that 
 
32 W. V. 
 
 saved travellers in the snow, but that 
 was exceptional. The word "twins" 
 she adapted prettily enough. Trying 
 once in an emotional moment to put 
 her love for me into terms of gold 
 currency, she added : " And I love 
 mother just the same ; you two are 
 twins, you know." A little while after 
 the University boat-race she drew my 
 attention to a doll in a shop-window : 
 "Isn't it beautiful.? And look at its 
 Oxford eyes ! " To " fussle one," to 
 disturb one by making a fuss, seems at 
 once fresh and useful ; " sorefully " is 
 an acutely expressive adverb ; when you 
 have to pick your steps in wet weather 
 the road may be conveniently described 
 as " picky ; " don't put wild roses on 
 the cloth at dinner lest the maid should 
 " crumb " them away ; and when one 
 has a cold in the head how can one 
 describe the condition of one's nose 
 
Her Birthday 33 
 
 except as "hoarse"? "Lost in sad 
 thought," "Now I have something to 
 my heart's content," "Few tears are 
 my portion," are among the story-book 
 phrases which she has assimilated for 
 week-day use. When she was being 
 read to out of Kingsley's "Heroes," 
 she asked her mother to substitute " the 
 Ladies" for "the Gorgons." She did 
 not like the sound of the word ; " it 
 makes me," drawing her breath with a 
 sort of shiver through her teeth, " it 
 makes me pull myself together." Once 
 when she broke into a sudden laugh, 
 for sheer glee of living I suppose, 
 she explained : " I am just like a little 
 squirrel biting myself." Her use of the 
 word " live " is essential poetry ; the 
 spark "lives" inside the flint, the catkins 
 " live " in the Forest ; and she pointed 
 out to me the " lines " down a horse's 
 legs where the blood " lives." A sign- 
 
34 W. V. 
 
 board on a piece of waste land caused 
 her some perplexity. It was not " The 
 public are requested" this time, but 
 "Forbidden to shoot rubbish here." 
 Either big game or small deer she 
 could have understood ; but — " Who 
 wants to shoot rubbish, father ? " 
 
 Have I sailed out of the trades into 
 the doldrums in telling of this common- 
 place little body .? — for, after all, she is 
 merely the average, healthy, merry, 
 teasing, delightful mite who tries to 
 take the whole of life at once into her 
 two diminutive hands. Ah, well, I 
 want some record of these good, gay 
 days of our early companionship ; some- 
 thing that may still survive when this 
 right hand is dust ; a testimony that 
 there lived at least one man who was 
 joyously content with the small mercies 
 which came to him in the beaten way 
 
Her Birthday 35 
 
 of nature. For neither of us, little 
 woman, can these childish, hilarious 
 days last much longer now. Five arch, 
 happy faces look out at me from the 
 sections of an oblong frame ; all W. V.s, 
 but no two the same W. V. The sixth 
 must go into another frame. You must 
 say good-bye to the enchanted Forest, 
 little lass, and travel into strange lands ; 
 and the laws of infancy are harder 
 than the laws of old Wales. For these 
 ordained that when a person remained 
 in a far country under such conditions 
 that he could not freely revisit his own, 
 his title to the ancestral soil was not 
 extinguished till the ninth man ; the 
 ninth man could utter his "cry over 
 the abyss," and save his portion. But 
 when you have gone into the world 
 beyond, and can no more revisit the 
 Forest freely, no ear will ever listen to 
 your " cry over the abyss." 
 
36 W. V. 
 
 "When she had at last tired herself 
 with angelic visits and thrown aside her 
 fern wings, she returned to me and 
 wanted to know if I would play at 
 shop. No, I would not play at shop ; 
 I would be neither purchaser nor pro- 
 prietor, the lady she called " Cash " nor 
 the stately gentleman she called " Sign." 
 Would I be a king, then, and refuse my 
 daughter to her (she would be a prince) 
 unless she built a castle in a single 
 night ; " better'n't " she bring her box 
 of bricks and the dominoes ? No, like 
 Caesar, I put by the crown. She took 
 my refusals cheerfully. On the whole, she 
 is tractable in these matters. "Fathers," 
 she once told me, "know better than 
 little girls, don't they.?" "Oh, dear, 
 no ! how could they .'' Fathers have to 
 go into the city ; they don't go to 
 school like little girls." Doubtless there 
 was something in that, but she persisted, 
 
Her Birthday 37 
 
 "Well, even if little girls do go to 
 school, fathers are wiser and know 
 best." From which one father at least 
 may derive encouragement. Well, would 
 I blow soap-bubbles .'' 
 
 I think it was the flying thistledown 
 in June which first gave us the cue of 
 the soap-bubbles. What a delightful 
 game it is ; and there is a knack, too, 
 in blowing these spheres of fairy glass 
 and setting them off on their airy flight. 
 Till you have blown bubbles you have 
 no conception how full of waywardness 
 and freakish currents the air is. 
 
 Oh, you who are sad at heart, 
 or weary of thought, or irritable with 
 physical pain, coax, beg, borrow, or steal 
 a four- or five-year-old, and betake you 
 to blowing bubbles in the sunshine of 
 your recluse garden. Let the breeze be 
 just a little brisk to set your bubbles 
 drifting. Fill some of them with to- 
 
38 W. V. 
 
 bacco smoke, and with the wind's help 
 bombard the old fisherman in his web. 
 As the opaline globes break and the 
 smoke escapes in a white pufF along 
 the grass or among the leaves, you 
 shall think of historic battlefields, and 
 muse whether the greater game was not 
 quite as childish as this, and " sorefully " 
 less innocent. The smoke-charges are 
 only a diversion ; it is the crystal balls 
 which delight most. The colours of 
 all the gems in the world run molten 
 through their fragile films. And what 
 visions they contain for crystal-gazers ! 
 Among the gold and green, the rose 
 and blue, you see the dwarfed reflection 
 of your own trees and your own home 
 floating up into the sunshine. These 
 are your possessions, your surroundings 
 — so lovely, so fairylike in the bubble ; 
 in reality so prosaic and so inadequate 
 when one considers the rent and rates. 
 
Her Birthday 39 
 
 To W. V. the bubbles are like the 
 wine of the poet — " full of strange con- 
 tinents and new discoveries." 
 
 Flower of the sloe. 
 
 When chance annuls the worlds we blow. 
 
 Where does the soul of beauty in them go ? 
 
 " Tell me a story of a little girl who 
 lived in a bubble," she asked when she 
 had tired of creating fresh microcosms. 
 
 I lifted her on to my knee, and as she 
 settled herself comfortably she drew my 
 right arm across her breast and began to 
 nurse it. 
 
 " Well, once upon a time " 
 
Her Book 
 
The Inquisition 
 
 I WOKE at dead of night ; 
 The room was still as death ; 
 All in the dark I saw a sight 
 
 Which made me catch my breath. 
 
 Although she slumbered near. 
 The silence hung so deep 
 
 I leaned above her crib to hear 
 If it were death or sleep. 
 
44 W. V. 
 
 As low — all quick — I leant. 
 
 Two large eyes thrust me back ; 
 
 Dark eyes — too wise — which gazed intent ; 
 Blue eyes transformed to black. 
 
 Heavens ! how those steadfast eyes 
 
 Their eerie vigil kept ! 
 Was this some angel in disguise 
 
 Who searched us while we slept ; 
 
 Who winnow'd every sin, 
 
 Who tracked each slip and fall. 
 
 One of God's spies — not Babbykin, 
 Not Babbykin at all ? 
 
 Day came with golden air ; 
 
 She caught the beams and smiled ; 
 No masked inquisitor was there. 
 
 Only a babbling child ! 
 
The First Miracle 
 
 THE huge weeds bent to let her pass, 
 And sometimes she crept under ; 
 She plunged through gulfs of flowery grass. 
 She filled both hands with plunder. 
 
 The buttercups grew tall as she, 
 Taller the big dog-daisies ; 
 
 And so she lost herself, you see. 
 Deep in the jungle mazes. 
 
46 W. V. 
 
 A wasp twang'd by ; a horned snail 
 Leered from a great-leafed docken ; 
 
 She shut her eyes, she raised a wail 
 Deplorable, heart-broken. 
 
 "Mamma ! " Two arms, flashed out of space 
 
 Miraculously, caught her ; 
 Fond mouth was pressed to tearful face — 
 
 " What is it, little daughter ? " 
 
By the Fireside i 
 
 RED-BOSOMED Robin, in the hard white weather 
 She marks thee light upon the ice to rest ; 
 She sees the wintry glass glow with thy breast 
 And let thee warm thy feet at thine own feather. 
 
By the Fireside ii 
 
 IN the April sun at baby-house she plays. 
 Her rooms are traced with stones and bits of 
 bricks ; 
 For warmth she lays a hearth with little 
 sticks. 
 And one bright crocus makes a merry blaze ! 
 
The Raider 
 
 HER happy, wondering eyes had ne'er 
 Till now ranged summer meadows o'er : 
 She would keep stopping everywhere 
 To fill with flowers her pinafore. 
 
 But when she saw how, green and wide, 
 Field followed field, and each was gay 
 
 With endless flowers, she laughed — then sighed, 
 " No use ! " and threw her spoils away. 
 
Babsie-Bird 
 
 IN the orchard blithely waking. 
 Through the blossom, loud and clear. 
 Pipes the goldfinch, "Day is breaking; 
 
 Waken, Babsie ; May is here ! 
 Bloom is laughing ; lambs are leaping ; 
 
 Every new green leaflet sings ; 
 Five chipp'd eggs will soon be cheeping ; 
 God be praised for song and wings ! " 
 
Her Book 51 
 
 Warm and ruddy as an ember. 
 
 Lilting sweet from bush to stone, 
 On the moor in chill November 
 
 Flits the stone-chat all alone : 
 " Snow will soon drift up the heather ; 
 
 Days are short, nights cold and long ; 
 Meanwhile in this glinting weather 
 
 God be thanked for wings and song ! " 
 
 Round from Maytime to November 
 
 Babsie lilts upon the wing. 
 Far too happy to remember 
 
 Thanks or praise for anything ; 
 Save at bedtime, laughing sinner. 
 
 When she gaily lisps along, 
 For the wings and song within her — 
 
 " Thank you, God, for wings and song ! " 
 
The Orchard of Stars 
 
 AMID the orchard grass she'd stood 
 and watch'd with childish glee 
 The big bright burning apples shower'd 
 like star-falls from the tree : 
 
 So when the autumn meteors fell 
 
 she cried, with outspread gown, 
 ' Oh my, papa, look ! Isn't God 
 just shaking apples down ? " 
 
The Sweet Pea 
 
 OH, what has been born in the night 
 To bask in this blithe summer morn ? 
 She peers, in a dream of delight, 
 For something new-made or new-born. 
 
 Not spider-webs under the tree, 
 Not swifts in their cradle of mud. 
 
 But — '• Look, father. Sweet Mrs. Pea 
 Has two little babies in bud ! " 
 
Brook-side Logic 
 
 As the brook caught the blossoms she cast, 
 Such a wonder gazed out from her face ! 
 Why, the water was all running past, 
 
 Yet the brook never budged from its place. 
 
 Oh, the magic of what was so clear ! 
 
 I explained. And enlightened her ? Nay — 
 ■" Why but, father, I couldn't stay here 
 
 If I always was running away ! " 
 
Bubble-blowing 
 
 OUR plot is small, but sunny limes 
 Shut out all cares and troubles ; 
 And there my little girl at times 
 And I sit blowing bubbles. 
 
 The screaming swifts race to and fro, 
 
 Bees cross the ivied paling. 
 Draughts lift and set the globes we blow 
 
 In freakish currents sailing. 
 
56 W. V. 
 
 They glide, they dart, they soar, they break. 
 
 Oh, joyous little daughter. 
 What lovely coloured worlds we make. 
 
 What crystal flowers of water ! 
 
 One, green and rosy, slowly drops ; 
 
 One soars and shines a minute. 
 And carries to the lime-tree tops 
 
 Our home, reflected in it. 
 
 The gable, with cream rose in bloom. 
 She sees from roof to basement ; 
 
 " Oh, father, there's your little room ! " 
 She cries in glad amazement. 
 
 To her enchanted with the gleam. 
 The glamour and the glory. 
 
 The bubble home's a home of dream. 
 And I must tell its story ; 
 
 Tell what we did, and how we played. 
 Withdrawn from care and trouble — 
 
 A father and his merry maid. 
 Whose house was in a bubble ! 
 
New Version of an Old Game 
 
 THE Storm had left the rain-butt brimming ; 
 A dahlia leaned across the brink ; 
 Its mirrored self, beneath it swimming. 
 Lit the dark water, gold and pink. 
 
 Oh, rain, far fallen from heights of azure — 
 Pure rain, from heavens so cold and lone — 
 
 Dost thou not feel, and thrill with pleasure 
 To feel a flower's heart in thine own ? 
 
 Enjoy thy beauty, and bestow it. 
 
 Fair dahlia, fenced from harm, mishap ! 
 
 " See, Babs, this flower — and this below it." 
 She looked, and screamed in rapture — "Snap ! ' 
 
The Golden Swing-boat 
 
 ACROSS the low dim fields we caught 
 Faint music from a distant band — 
 So sweet i' the dusk one might have thought 
 It floated up from elfin-land. 
 
 Then, o'er the tree-tops' hazy blue 
 We saw the new moon, low i' the air : 
 
 " Look, Dad," she cried, " a shuggy-shue ! 
 Why this must be a fairies' fair ! " 
 
Another Newton's Apple 
 
 WE tried to show with lamp and ball 
 How simply day and night were "made ;" 
 How earth revolved, and how through all 
 One half was sunshine, one was shade. 
 
 One side, tho' turned and turned again, 
 
 Was always bright. She mused and frowned, 
 
 Then flashed — " It's just an apple, then, 
 'at's always rosy half way round ! " 
 
 Oh, boundless tree of ranging blue. 
 
 Star-fruited through thy heavenly leaves, 
 
 Be, if thou canst be, good unto 
 This apple-loving babe of Eve's. 
 
Naturula Naturans 
 
 BESIDE the water and the crumbs 
 She laid her little birds of clay, 
 For — "When some other sparrow comes 
 Perhaps they'll fly away." 
 
 Ah, golden dream, to clothe with wings 
 A heart of springing joy ; to know 
 
 Two lives i' the happy sum of things 
 To her their bliss will owe ! 
 
 Day dawned ; they had not taken flight. 
 The' playmates called from bush and tree. 
 
 She sighed : " I hardly thought they might. 
 Well, — God's more clever'n me ! " 
 
Wings and Hands 
 
 God's angels, dear, have six great wings 
 Of silver and of gold ; 
 Two round their heads, two round their hearts 
 Two round their feet they fold. 
 
 The angel of a man I know 
 Has just two hands — so small ! 
 
 But they're more strong than six gold wings 
 To keep him from a fall. 
 
Flowers Invisible 
 
 She'd watched the rose-trees, how they grew 
 With green hands full of flowers ; 
 Such flowers made their hands sweet, she knew, 
 But tenderness made ours. 
 
 So now, o'er fevered brow and eyes 
 
 Two small cold palms she closes. 
 " Thanks, darling ! " " Oh, mamma," she cries 
 
 "Are my hands full of roses ? " 
 
Making Pansies 
 
 "r-pHREE faces in a hood." 
 A Folk called the pansy so 
 Three hundred years ago. 
 Of course she understood ! 
 
 Then, perching on my knee. 
 
 She drew her mother's head 
 To her own and mine, and said 
 
 " That's mother, you, and me ! " 
 
 And so it comes about 
 
 We three, for gladness' sake. 
 Sometimes a pansy make 
 
 Before the gas goes out. 
 
Heart-ease 
 
 LAST June — how slight a thing to tell ! — 
 One straggling leaf beneath the limes 
 Against the sunset rose and fell. 
 
 Making a rhythm with coloured rhymes. 
 
 No other leaf in all the air 
 
 Seemed waking ; and my little maid 
 Watched with me, from the garden-chair. 
 
 Its rhythmic play of light and shade. 
 
 Now glassy gold, now greenish grey, 
 
 It dropped, it lifted. That was all. 
 
 Strange I should still feel glad to-day 
 
 To have seen that one leaf lift and fall. 
 
"Si j'avais un arpent" 
 
 O 
 
 H, had I but a plot of earth, on plain or vale 
 or hill, 
 
 With running water babbling through, in torrent, 
 spring, or rill. 
 
 I'd plant a tree, an olive or an oak or willow- 
 tree. 
 
 And build a roof of thatch, or tile, or reed, for 
 mine and me. 
 
 Upon my tree a nest of moss, or down, or wool, 
 
 should hold 
 A songster — finch or thrush or blackbird with its 
 
 bill of gold ; 
 
66 W. V. 
 
 Beneath my roof a child, with brown or blond or 
 
 chestnut hair. 
 Should find in hammock, cradle or crib a nest, 
 
 and slumber there. 
 
 I ask for but a little plot ; to measure my domain, 
 I'd say to Babs, my bairn of bliss, " Go, alder- 
 liefest wean, 
 
 " And stand against the rising sun ; your shadow 
 
 on the grass 
 Shall trace the limits of my world ; beyond I 
 
 shall not pass. 
 
 " The happiness one can't attain is dream and 
 glamour-shine ! " 
 
 These rhymes are Soulary's ; the thoughts are 
 Babs's thoughts and mine. 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 
 
 THE first time Littlejohn saw W. V, 
 — a year or so ago — she was sitting 
 on the edge of a big red flower-pot, into 
 which she had managed to pack herself. 
 A brilliant Japanese sunshade was tilted 
 over her shoulder, and close by stood a 
 large green watering-can. This was her 
 way of " playing at botany," but as the 
 
70 W. V. 
 
 old gardener could not be prevailed 
 upon to water her, there was not as 
 much fun in the game as there ought to 
 have been. 
 
 W. V. was accordingly consoling her- 
 self with telling " Mr. Sandy " — the re- 
 calcitrant gardener — the authentic and 
 incredible story of the little girl who 
 was "just 'scruciatingly good." 
 
 Later, on an idyllic afternoon among 
 the heather, Littlejohn heard all about 
 that excellent and too precipitate child, 
 who was so eager to oblige or obey that 
 she rushed off before she could be told 
 what to do ; and as this was the only 
 story W. V. knew which had obviously 
 a moral, W. V. made it a great point to 
 explain that "little girls ought not to 
 be too good ; if- — they — only — did — what 
 — they — were — told they would be good 
 enough." 
 
 W. V.'s mother had been taken seri- 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 71 
 
 ously ill a few weeks before, and as a 
 house of sickness is not the best place 
 for a small child, nor a small child the 
 most soothing presence in a patient's 
 room, W. V. had undertaken a marvel- 
 lous and what seemed an interminable 
 journey into the West Highlands. Her 
 host and hostess were delighted with her 
 and her odd sayings and quaint, fanciful 
 ways ; and she, in the plenitude of her 
 good-nature, extended a cheerful patron- 
 age to the grown-up people. Littlejohn 
 had no children of his own, and it was 
 a novel delight, full of charming sur- 
 prises, to have a sturdy, imperious, 
 sunny-hearted little body of four and a 
 half as his constant companion. The 
 child was pretty enough, but it was the 
 alert, excitable little soul of her which 
 peered and laughed out of her blue eyes 
 that took him captive. 
 
 Like most healthy children, W. V. 
 
72 W. V. 
 
 did not understand what sorrow, sick- 
 ness, or death meant. Indeed it is told 
 of her that she once exclaimed gleefully, 
 " Oh, see, here's a funeral ! Which is 
 the bride ? " The absence of her mother 
 did not weigh upon her. Once she 
 awoke at night and cried for her ; and 
 on one or two occasions, in a sentimen- 
 tal mood, she sighed " I should like to 
 see my father ! Don't you think we 
 could ' run over ' .? " The immediate 
 present, its fun and nonsense and grave 
 responsibilities, absorbed all her energies 
 and attention ; and what a divine dis- 
 pensation it is that we who never 
 forget can be forgotten so easily. 
 
 I fancy, from what I have heard, that 
 she must have regarded Littlejohn's 
 ignorance of the ways of children as one 
 of her responsibilities. It was really 
 very deplorable to find a great-statured, 
 ruddy-bearded fellow of two and thirty 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 73 
 
 so absolutely wanting in tact, so in- 
 capable of " pretending," so destitute of 
 the capacity of rhyming or of telling a 
 story. The way she took him in hand 
 was kindly yet resolute. It began with 
 her banging her head against isomething 
 and howling. " Don't cry, dear," Little- 
 john had entreated, with the crude 
 pathos of an amateur ; " come, don't 
 cry. 
 
 When W. V. had heard enough of 
 this she looked at him disapprovingly, 
 and said, "You shouldn't say that. 
 You should just laugh and say, * Come, 
 let me kiss that crystal tear away ! ' " 
 " Say it ! " she added after a pause. 
 This was Littlejohn's first lesson in the 
 dry art of consolation. 
 
 littlejohn as a lyric poet was a melan- 
 choly spectacle. 
 
 " Now, you say, ' Come, let us go,' " 
 W. V. would command. 
 
74 W. V. 
 
 " I don't know it, dear." 
 
 " I'll say half for you — 
 " Come, let us go where the people sell " 
 
 But Littlejohn hadn't the slightest 
 notion of what they sold. 
 
 "Bananas," W. V. prompted; "say 
 it." 
 
 " Bananas." 
 
 "And what.?" 
 
 " Oranges ? " Littlejohn hazarded. 
 
 " Pears ! " cried W. V. reproachfully ; 
 " say it ! " 
 
 « Pears." 
 
 " And " with pauses to give her 
 
 host chances of retrieving his honour ; 
 " pine — ap — pel ! — 
 
 ' Bananas and pears and pine-appM,' 
 
 of course. I don't think you can pub- 
 lish a poem." 
 
 "I don't think I can, dear," little- 
 john confessed after a roar of laughter. 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 75 
 
 "Pappa and I published that poem. 
 Pine-appel made me laugh at first. And 
 after that you say — 
 
 ' Away to the market ! and let us buy 
 A sparrow to make asparagus pie.' 
 
 Say it ! " 
 
 So in time Littlejohn found his 
 memory becoming rapidly stocked with 
 all sorts of nonsensical rhymes and ridi* 
 culous pronunciations. 
 
 Inability to rhyme, like inability to 
 reason, is a gift of nature, and one can 
 overlook it, but Littlejohn's sheer im- 
 becility in face of the demand for a 
 story was a sore trial to W. V. After 
 an impatient lesson or two, the way in 
 which he picked up a substitute for 
 imagination was really exceedingly 
 creditable. Having spent a day in the 
 " Forest " — W. V. could pack some of 
 her forests in a nutshell, and feel her- 
 
76 W. V. 
 
 self a woodlander of infinite verdure — 
 Littlejohn learned which trees were 
 " pappa-trees " ; how to knock and ask 
 if any one was in ; how to make the 
 dog inside bark if there was no one ; 
 how to get an answer in the affirmative 
 if he asked whether they could give his 
 little girl a biscuit, or a pear, or a plum ; 
 how to discover the fork in the branches 
 where the gift would be found, and how 
 to present it to W. V. with an air of in- 
 exhaustible surprise and delight. Every 
 Forest is full of " pappa-trees," as every 
 verderer knows ; the crux of the situa- 
 tion presents itself when the tenant of 
 the tree is cross, or the barking dog 
 intimates that he has gone "to the 
 City." 
 
 Now, about a mile from Cloan Den, 
 Littlejohn's house, there was a bit of the 
 real "old ancient" Caledonian Forest. 
 There was not much timber, it is true. 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 77 
 
 but still enough ; and occasionally one 
 came across a shattered shell of oak, 
 which might have been a pillar of 
 cloudy foliage in the days when woad 
 was the fashionable dress material. I 
 have reason to believe that W. V. in- 
 vested all that wild region with a rosy 
 atmosphere of romance for Littlejohn. 
 Every blade of grass and fringe of larch 
 was alive with wood-magic. She trotted 
 about with him holding his hand, or 
 swinging on before him with her broad 
 boyish shoulders thrown well back and 
 an air of unconscious proprietorship of 
 man and nature. 
 
 It was curious to note how her 
 father's stories had taken hold of her, 
 and Littlejohn, with some surprise at 
 himself and at the nature of things at 
 large, began to fancy he saw motive and 
 purpose in some of these fantastic nar- 
 ratives. The legend of the girl that 
 
78 W. V. 
 
 was "just 'scruciatingly good," had 
 evidently been intended to correct a 
 possible tendency towards priggishness. 
 The boy whose abnormal badness ex- 
 pressed itself in "I don't care " could 
 not have been so irredeemably wicked, 
 or he would never have succeeded in 
 locking the bear and tiger up in the tree 
 and leaving them there to dine ofF each 
 other. And all the stories about little 
 girls who got lost — there were several of 
 these — were evidently lessons against 
 fright and incentives to courage and 
 self-confidence. 
 
 W, V. quite believed that if a little 
 girl got bewildered in the underwood 
 the grass would whisper " This way, this 
 way ! " or some little furry creature 
 would look up at her with its sharp 
 beady eyes and tell her to follow. Even 
 though one were hungry and thirsty as 
 well as lost, there was nothing to be 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 79 
 
 afraid of, if there were only oaks in the 
 Forest. For when once on a time a 
 little girl — ^whose name, strangely 
 enough, was W. V. — got lost and began 
 to cry, did not the door of an oak-tree 
 open and a little, little, wee man all 
 dressed in green, with green boots and a 
 green feather in his cap, come out and 
 ask her to " step inside," and have some 
 fruit and milk? And didn't he say, 
 " When you get lost, don't keep going 
 this way and going that way and going 
 the other way, but keep straight on and 
 you are sure to come out at the other side ? 
 Only poor wild things in cages at the 
 Zoo keep going round and round." 
 
 And that is " truly and really," W. V. 
 would add, "because I saw them doing 
 it at the Zoo." 
 
 Even at the risk of being tedious, I 
 must finish the story, for it was one that 
 greatly delighted Littlejohn and haunted 
 
8o W. V. 
 
 him in a pleasant fashion. Well, when 
 this little girl who was lost had eaten the 
 fruit and drunk the milk, she asked the 
 wee green oak-man to go with her a 
 little way as it was growing dusk. And 
 he said he would. Then he whistled, 
 and close to, and then farther away, and 
 still farther and farther, other little oak- 
 men whistled in answer, till all 'the 
 Forest was full of the sound of whist- 
 ling. And the oak-man shouted, " Will 
 you help this little girl out .'' " and you 
 could hear "Yes, yes, yes, yes," far 
 away right and left, to the very end of 
 the Forest. And the oak-man walked a 
 few yards with her, and pointed ; and 
 she saw another oak and another oak- 
 man ; and so she went on from one to 
 another right through the Forest ; and 
 she said, " Thank you, Mr. Oak-man," 
 to each of them, and bent down and 
 gave each of them a kiss, and they all 
 
" Thank you, Mr. Oakman " 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 8i 
 
 laughed because they were pleased, and 
 when she got out she could still hear 
 them laughing quietly together. 
 
 Another story that pleased Littlejohn 
 hugely, and he liked W. V. to tell it as 
 he lay in a hollow among the heather 
 with his bonnet pulled down to the tip 
 of his nose, was about the lost little girl 
 who walked among the high grass — it 
 was quite up to her eyes — till she was 
 " tired to death." So she lay down, and 
 just as she was beginning to doze ofF 
 she heard a very soft voice humming 
 her to sleep, and she felt warm soft 
 arms snuggling her close to a warm 
 breast. And as she was wondering who 
 it could be that was so kind to her, the 
 soft voice whispered, " It is only mother, 
 dearie ; sleep-a-sleep, dearie ; only mother 
 cuddling her little girl." And when 
 she woke there was no one there, 
 and she had been lying in quite a 
 
82 W, V. 
 
 little grassy nest in the hollow of the 
 ground. 
 
 Littlejohn himself could hardly credit 
 the change which this voluble, piquant, 
 imperious young person had made not 
 only in the ways of the house, but in his 
 very being and in the material landscape 
 itself. One of the oddest and most in- 
 congruous things he ever did in his life 
 was to measure W. V. against a tree and 
 inscribe her initials (her father always 
 called her by her initials and she liked 
 that form of her name best), and his 
 own, and the date, above the score which 
 marked her height. 
 
 The late summer and the early 
 autumn passed delightfully in this 
 fashion. There was some talk at inter- 
 vals of W. V. being packed, labelled, 
 and despatched "with care" to her own 
 woods and oak-men in the most pleasant 
 suburb of the great metropolis, but it 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 83 
 
 never came to anything. Her father 
 was persuaded to spare her just a little 
 longer. The patter of the little feet, 
 the chatter of the voluble, cheery voice, 
 had grown well-nigh indispensable to 
 Littlejohn and his wife, for though I 
 have confined myself to Littlejohn's 
 side of the story, I would not have it 
 supposed that W. V.'s charm did not 
 radiate into other lives. 
 
 So the cold rain and the drifted leaf, 
 the first frost and the first snow came ; 
 and in their train come Christmas and 
 the Christmas-tree and the joyful vision 
 of Santa Claus. 
 
 Now to make a long story short, a 
 polite note had arrived at Cloan Den 
 asking for the pleasure of Miss W. V.'s 
 company at Bargeddie Mains — about a 
 mile and a half beyond the " old ancient " 
 Caledonian Forest — where a Christmas- 
 tree was to be despoiled of its fairy 
 
84 W. V. 
 
 fruitage. The Bargeddie boys would 
 drive over for Miss W. V. in the after- 
 noon, and "Uncle Big- John" would 
 perhaps come for the young lady in 
 the evening, unless indeed he would 
 change his mind and allow her to stay 
 all night. 
 
 Uncle Big-John, of course, did not 
 change his mind ; and about nine o'clock 
 he reached the Mains. It was a sharp 
 moonlight night, and the wide snowy 
 strath sweeping away up to the vast 
 snow-muffled Bens looked like a silvery 
 expanse of fairyland. So far as I can 
 gather it must have been well on the 
 early side of ten when Littlejohn and 
 W. V. (rejoicing in the spoils of the 
 Christmas-tree) bade the Bargeddie 
 people good-night and started home- 
 ward — the child warmly muffled, and 
 chattering and laughing hilariously as she 
 trotted along with her hand in his. 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 85 
 
 It has often since been a subject of 
 wonder that Littlejohn did not notice 
 the change of the weather, or that, 
 having noticed it, he did not return for 
 shelter to the Mains. But we are all 
 too easily wise after the event, and it is 
 to be remembered that the distance from 
 home was little over three miles, and 
 that Littlejohn was a perfect giant of a 
 man. 
 
 They could have hardly been more 
 than half a mile from Bargeddie when 
 the snow-storm began. The sparse big 
 flakes thickened, the wind rose bitterly 
 cold, and then, in a fierce smother of 
 darkness, the moonlight was blotted out. 
 For what follows the story depends 
 principally on the recollections of W. V., 
 and in a great measure on one's know- 
 ledge of Littlejohn's nature. 
 
 The biting cold and the violence of the 
 wind soon exhausted the small traveller. 
 
86 W. V. 
 
 Littlejohn took her in his arms, and 
 wrapped her in his plaid. For some 
 time they kept to the highroad, but the 
 bitter weather suggested the advisability 
 of taking a crow-line across the Forest. 
 
 " You're a jolly heavy lumpumpibus, 
 Infanta," Littlejohn said with a laugh ; 
 " I think we had better try a short cut 
 for once through the old oaks." 
 
 When they got into some slight cover 
 among the younger trees, Littlejohn 
 paused to recover his breath. It was 
 still blowing and snowing heavily. 
 
 " Now, W. v., I think it would be as 
 well if you knocked up some of your 
 little green oak-men, for the Lord be 
 good to me if I know where we are." 
 
 " Vou must knock," said W. V., « but 
 I don't think you will get any bananas." 
 
 W. V. says that Littlejohn did knock 
 and that the bark of the dog showed 
 that the oak-man was not at home ! 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 87 
 
 " I rather thought he would not be, 
 W. v.," said Littlejohn ; " they never 
 are at home except only to the little 
 people. We big ones have to take care 
 of ourselves." 
 
 " The oak-man said, 'Keep straight 
 on, and you're sure to come out at the 
 other side,'" W. V. reminded him. 
 
 " The oak-man spoke words of wis- 
 dom, Infanta," said Littlejohn. " Come 
 along, W. V." And he lifted the child 
 again in his arms. " Are you cold, my 
 dearie-girl .'' " 
 
 " No, only my face ; but I am so 
 sleepy." 
 
 " And so heavy, W. V. I didn't think 
 a little girl could be so heavy. Come 
 along, and let us try keeping straight 
 on. The other side must be some 
 where." 
 
 How long he trudged on with the 
 thild in his arms and the bewilder- 
 
88 W. V. 
 
 ing snow beating and clotting on them 
 both will never be known, W. V., 
 with a spread of his plaid over her 
 face, fell into a fitful slumber, from 
 which she was awakened by a fall and a 
 scramble. 
 
 " You poor helpless bairn," he groaned, 
 " have I hurt you ? " 
 
 W. V. was not hurt ; the snow-wreath 
 had been too deep for that. 
 
 "Well, you see, W. V., we came a 
 lamentable cropper that time," said 
 Littlejohn. "I think we must rest a 
 little, for I'm fagged out. You see, 
 W. v., there is no grass to whisper, 
 ' This way, this way ; ' and there are no 
 furry things to say, ' Follow me ; ' and 
 the oak-men are all asleep ; and — and, 
 God forgive me, I don't know what 
 to do ! " 
 
 " Are you crying. Uncle Big- John ? " 
 asked W. V. ; for " his voice sounded 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 89 
 
 just like as if he was crying," she ex- 
 plained afterwards. 
 
 " Crying ! no, my dear ; there's no 
 need to kiss the crystal tear away ! But, 
 you see, I'm tired, and it's jolly cold 
 and dark ; and, as Mother Earth is good 
 
 to little children " He paused to 
 
 see how he should be best able to make 
 her understand. " You remember how 
 that little girl that was lost went to 
 sleep in a hollow of the grass and heard 
 the Mother talking to her? Well, 
 you must just lie snug like that, you 
 see." 
 
 " But I'm not lost." 
 
 "Of course, you're not lost. Only 
 you must lie snug and sleep till it stops 
 snowing, and I'll sit beside you." 
 
 Littlejohn took oiF his plaid and his 
 thick tweed jacket. He wrapped the 
 child in the latter, and half covered her 
 with snow. With the plaid, propped 
 
90 W- V. 
 
 up with his stick, he made a sort of 
 tent to shelter her from the driving 
 flakes. He then lay down beside her 
 till she fell asleep. 
 
 " It's only mother, dearie ; mother 
 cuddling her little girl ; sleep-a-sleep." 
 
 Then he must have arisen shuddering 
 in his shirt-sleeves, and have lashed his 
 arms again and again about his body for 
 warmth. 
 
 In the hollow in which they were 
 found, the snow-wreath, with the excep- 
 tion of a narrow passage a few feet in 
 width where they had blundered in, was 
 impassably deep on all sides. All round 
 and round the hollow the snow was very 
 much trampled. 
 
 Worn out with fatigue and exposure, 
 the strong man had at last lain down 
 beside the child. His hand was under 
 his head. 
 
 In that desperate circular race against 
 
Her Friend Littlejohn 91 
 
 cold and death he must have been struck 
 by his own resemblance to the wild 
 creatures padding round and round in 
 their cages in the Zoo, and what irony 
 he must have felt in the counsel of the 
 wee green oak-man. Well, he had 
 followed the advice, had he not? 
 And, when he awoke, would he not 
 find that he had come out at the other 
 side ? 
 
 Hours afterwards, when at last Little- 
 john slowly drifted back to conscious- 
 ness, he lay staring for a moment or two 
 with a dazed bewildered brain. Then 
 into his eyes there flashed a look of 
 horror, and he struggled to pull himself 
 together. " My God, my God, where 
 is the Infant ^ " he groaned. 
 
 W. V. was hurried into the room, 
 obliviously radiant. With a huge sigh 
 Littlejohn sank back smiling, and held 
 
92 W. V. 
 
 out his hand to her. Whereupon W. V., 
 moving it gently aside, went up close to 
 him and spoke, half in inquiry half in 
 remonstrance, "You're not going to be 
 died, are you ? " 
 
Her Bed-Time 
 
Her Bed-Time 
 
 IN these winter evenings, thanks to 
 the Great Northern, and to Hes- 
 perus who brings ail things home, I 
 reach my doorstep about half an hour 
 before W. V.'s bed-time. A sturdy, 
 rosy, flaxen-haired little body opens to 
 my well-known knock, takes a kiss on 
 the tip of her nose, seizes my umbrella. 
 
96 W. V. 
 
 and makes a great show of assisting me 
 with my heavy overcoat. She leads me 
 into the dining-room, gets my slippers, 
 runs my bootlaces into Gordian knots 
 in her impetuous zeal, and announces 
 that she has "set" the tea. At table 
 she slips furtively on to my knee, and 
 we are both happy till a severe voice, 
 " Now, father ! " reminds us of the 
 reign of law in general, and of that law 
 in particular which enacts that it is 
 shocking in little girls to want every- 
 thing they see, and most reprehensible 
 in elderly people (I elderly !) to en- 
 courage them. 
 
 We are glad to escape to the armchair, 
 where, after I have lit my pipe and 
 W. V. has blown the elf of flame back to 
 fairyland, we conspire — not overtly in- 
 deed, but each in his deep mind — how 
 we shall baffle domestic tyranny and 
 evade, if but for a few brief minutes of 
 
Her Bed-Time 97 
 
 recorded time, the cubicular moment and 
 the inevitable hand of the bath-maiden. 
 
 The critical instant occurs about half- 
 way through my first pipe, and W. V.'s 
 devices for respite or escape are at once 
 innumerable and transparently ingenious. 
 I admit my connivance without a blush, 
 though I may perchance weakly observe : 
 " One sees so little of her, mother ; " for 
 how delightful it is when she sings or 
 recites — and no one would be so rude as 
 to interrupt a song or recitation — to 
 watch the little hands waving in " the 
 air so blue," the little fingers flickering 
 above her head in imitation of the 
 sparks at the forge, the little arms 
 nursing an imaginary weeping dolly, the 
 blue eyes lit up with excitement as they 
 gaze abroad from the cherry-tree into 
 the " foreign lands " beyond the garden 
 wall. 
 
 She has much to tell me about the 
 
98 W. V. 
 
 day's doings. Yes, she has been clay- 
 modelling. I have seen some of her 
 marvellous baskets of fruit and birds' 
 nests and ivy leaves ; but to-day she 
 has been doing what dear old Mother 
 Nature did in one of her happy moods 
 some millenniums ago — making a sea 
 with an island in it ; and around the 
 sea mount^ns, one a volcano with a 
 crater blazing with red crayon ; and a 
 river with a bridge across it ; quite a 
 boldly conceived and hospitable frag- 
 ment of a new planet. Of course Miss 
 Jessie helped her, but she would soon be 
 able, all by herself, to create a new 
 world in which there should be ever- 
 blossoming spring and a golden age and 
 fairies to make the impossible common- 
 place. W. V. does not put it in that 
 way, but those, I fancy, would be the 
 characteristics of a universe of her happy 
 and innocent contriving. 
 
Her Bed-Time 99 
 
 In her early art days W. V. was 
 distinctly Darwinian. Which was the 
 cow, and which the house, and which 
 the lady, was always a nice question. 
 One could differentiate with the aid of 
 a few strokes of natural selection, but 
 essentially they were all of the same 
 protoplasm. Her explanations of her 
 pictures afforded curious instances of 
 the easy magic with which a breath of 
 her little soul made all manner of dry 
 bones live. I reproached her once with 
 wasting paper which she had covered 
 with a whirling scribble. "Why, 
 father," she exclaimed with surprise, 
 "that's the north wind ! " Her latest 
 masterpiece is a drawing of a stone 
 idol ; but it is only exhibited on con- 
 dition that, when you see it, you must 
 " shake with fright." 
 
 At a Kindergarten one learns, of 
 course, many things besides clay-model- 
 
loo W. V. 
 
 ling, drawing and painting : poetry, for 
 instance, and singing, and natural 
 history ; drill and ball-playing and 
 dancing. And am I not curious — ^this 
 with a glance at the clock which is on 
 the stroke of seven — to hear the new 
 verse of her last French song ? Shall she 
 recite " Purr, purr ! " or " The Swing " ? 
 Or would it not be an agreeable change 
 to have her sing " Up into the Cherry 
 Tree," or " The Busy Blacksmith " ? 
 
 Any or all of these would be indeed 
 delectable, but parting is the same sweet 
 sorrow at the last as at the first. How- 
 ever, we shall have one song. And 
 after that a recitation by King Alfred ! 
 The king is the most diminutive of 
 china dolls dressed in green velvet. 
 She steadies him on the table by one leg, 
 and crouches down out of sight while 
 he goes through his performance. The 
 Fauntleroy hair and violet eyes are the 
 
Her Bed-Time loi 
 
 eyes and hair of King Alfred, but the 
 voice is the voice of W. V. 
 
 When she has recited and sung I 
 draw her between my knees and begin : 
 " There was once a very naughty little 
 girl, and her name was W. V." 
 " No, father, a good little girl." 
 "Well, there was a good little girl, 
 and her name was Gladys." 
 
 " No, father, a good little girl called 
 W. V." 
 
 " Well, a good little girl called W. V. ; 
 and she was ' quickly obedient ' ; and 
 when her father said she was to go to 
 bed, she said : ' Yes, father,' and she 
 yxstflew, and gave no trouble." 
 
 "And did her father come up and 
 kiss her ? " 
 
 " Why, of course, he did." 
 A few minutes later she is kneeling 
 on the bed with her head nestled in my 
 breast, repeating her evening prayer : 
 
102 W. V. 
 
 " Dear Father, whom I cannot sec. 
 Smile down from heaven on little me. 
 
 Let angels through the darkness spread 
 Their holy wings about my bed. 
 
 And keep me safe, because I am 
 The heavenly Shepherd's little lamb. 
 
 Dear God our Father, watch and keep 
 Father and mother while they sleep ; 
 
 "and bless Dennis, and Ronnie, and 
 Uncle John, and Auntie Bonnie, and 
 Phyllis (did Phyllis use to squint when 
 she was a baby ? Poor Phyllis !) ; and 
 Madame, and Lucille (she is only a tiny 
 little child ; a quarter past three years 
 or something like that) ; and Ivo and 
 Wilfrid (he has bronchitis very badly ; 
 he can't come out this winter ; aren't 
 you sorry for him? Really a dear little 
 boy)." 
 
 " Any one else ? " 
 
 "Auntie Edie and Grandma. {He 
 will have plenty to do, won't He ?)" 
 
Her Bed-Time 103 
 
 " And ' Teach me ' "—I suggest. 
 
 " Teach me to do what I am told, 
 And help me to be good as gold." 
 
 And a whisper comes from the pillow 
 as I tuck in the eider-down : 
 
 " Now He will be wondering whether 
 I am going to be a good girl." 
 
Various Verses 
 
East of Eden 
 
 FAR down upon the plain the large round 
 moon 
 Sank red in jungle mist ; but on the heights 
 The cold clear darkness burned with restless 
 
 stars : 
 And, restless as the stars, the grim old King 
 Paced with fierce choleric strides the monstrous 
 
 ridge 
 Of boulders piled to make the city wall. 
 Muttering his wrath within his cloudy beard, 
 
io8 East of Eden 
 
 He moved, and paused, and turned. The star- 
 light caught 
 The huge bent gold that ringed his giant head. 
 Gleamed on the jewel-fringed vast lion-fells 
 That clothed his stature, ran in dusky play 
 Along the ponderous bronze that armed his spear. 
 
 He fiercely scanned the East for signs of dawn ; 
 Then shook his clenched hand above his head. 
 And blazed with savage eyes and brow thrown 
 
 back 
 To front the awful Presence he addressed : 
 
 " Slay and make end ; or take some mortal form 
 That I may strive with Thee ! Art Thou so strong 
 And yet must smite me out of Thine Unseen ? 
 Long centuries have passed since Thou didst 
 
 place 
 Thy mark upon me, lest at any time 
 Men finding me should slay me. I have grown 
 Feeble and hoary with the toil of years — 
 An aged Palsy — now, alas, no more 
 That erst colossal adamant whereon 
 Thine hand engraved its vengeance. Be Thou just. 
 And answer when I charge Thee. Have I 
 
 blenched 
 
East of Eden 109 
 
 Before Thy fury ; have I bade Thee spare ; 
 Hath Thy long torture wrung one sob of pain. 
 One cry of supplication from my mouth ? 
 But Thou hast made Thyself unseen ; hast lain 
 In ambush to afflict me. Day and night 
 Thou hast been watchful. Thy vindictive eyes 
 Have known no slumber. Make Thyself a man 
 That I may seize Thee in my grips, and strive 
 But once on equal terras with Thee — but once. 
 Or send Thine angel with his sword of fire — 
 But no ; not him ! Come Thou, come Thou 
 
 Thyself ; 
 Come forth from Thine Invisible, and face 
 In mortal guise the mortal Thou hast plagued ! " 
 
 The race of giants, sunk in heavy sleep 
 Within the cirque of those cyclopean walls, 
 Heard as it were far thunder in^their dreams ; 
 But answer came, there none from cloud or star. 
 Then cried the aged King ; 
 
 " A curse consume 
 Thy blind night fevered with the glare of stars, 
 Wild voices, and the agony of dreams ! 
 Would it were day ! " 
 
 At last the gleam of dawn 
 Swept in a long grey shudder from the East, 
 
no East of Eden 
 
 Then reddened o'er the misty jungle tracts. 
 
 The guards about the massive city gates 
 
 Fell back with hurried whispers : " 'Tis the 
 
 King ! " 
 And forth, with great white beard and gold-girt 
 
 brows, 
 Huge spear, and jewelled fells, the giant strode 
 To slake his rage among the beasts of prey. 
 
 The fierce white splendour of a tropic noon ; 
 A sweltering waste of jungle, breathing flame ; 
 The sky one burning sapphire ! 
 
 By a spring 
 Within the shadow of a bluff of rock 
 The hoary giant rested. At his feet 
 The cool green mosses edged the crystal pool. 
 And flowers of blue and gold and rose-red lulled 
 The weary eye with colour. As he sat 
 There rose a clamour from the sea of canes ; 
 He heard a crash of boughs, a rush of feet ; 
 And, lo ! there bounded from the tangled growth 
 A panting tiger mad with pain and rage. 
 The beast sprang/toaring, but the giant towered 
 And pashed with one fell buffet bone and brain ; 
 Then staggered with a groan, for, keen and swift, 
 At that same instant from the jungle flew 
 
East of Eden 1 1 i 
 
 A shaft which to the feather pierced his frame. 
 Shrill cries of horror maddened round the bluff : 
 "Oh, Elohim, 'tis Cain the King, the King ! " 
 And weeping, tearing hair, and wringing hands. 
 About him raved his lawless giant brood. 
 
 But Cain spoke slowly with a ghastly smile : 
 " Peace, and give heed, for now I am but dead. 
 Let no man be to blame for this my death ; 
 Yea, swear a solemn oath that none shall harm 
 A hair of him who gives me my release. 
 Come hither, boy ! '' 
 
 And, weeping, Lamech went 
 And stood before the face of Cain ; and Cain, 
 Who pressed a hand against his rushing wound. 
 Reddened his grandson's brow and kissed his. 
 
 cheek : 
 " The blood of Cain alight on him who lifts 
 A hand against thy life. My spear, boys ! So. 
 Let no foot follow. Cain must die alone. 
 Let no man seek me till ye see in heaven 
 A sign, and know that Cain is dead." 
 
 He smiled. 
 And from the hollow of his hand let fall 
 
112 East of Eden 
 
 A crimson rain upon the crystal spring, 
 
 Which caught the blood in glassy ripple and whirl, 
 
 And reddened moss and boulder. 
 
 Swift of stride. 
 With gold-girt brow thrown back to front the 
 
 Unseen, 
 The hoary giant through the jungle waste 
 Plunged, muttering in his beard ; and onward 
 
 pressed 
 Through the deep tangle of the trackless growth 
 To reach some lair, where hidden and unheard 
 His savage soul in its last strife might cope 
 With God — perchance one moment visible. 
 
 A s'yeltering tract of jungle breathing flame ; 
 A fiery silence ; all the depth of heaven 
 One blinding sapphire ! 
 
 Watching by the cliff. 
 The giant brood stood waiting for the sign. 
 
 Behold 1 a speck, high in the blazing blue. 
 Hung black — a single speck above the waste ; 
 Hung poised an hour ; then dropped through 
 
 leagues of air. 
 Plumb as a stone ; and as it dropped they saw 
 
East of Eden 1 13 
 
 Through leagues of high blue air, to north and 
 
 south, 
 To cast and west, black specks that sprang from 
 
 space. 
 And then long sinuous lines of distant spots 
 Which flew converging — growing, as they flew, 
 To slanting streams and palpitating swarms ; 
 Which flew converging out of all the heavens, 
 And blackened, as they flew, the sapphire blaze. 
 And jarred the fiery hush with winnowing wings ; 
 Which flew converging on a single point 
 Deep in the jungle waste, and, as they swooped. 
 Paused in the last long slide with dangling claws. 
 Then dropped like stone. 
 
 Thus knew the giant brood 
 That Cain was dead. 
 
 Beside a swamp they found 
 Hoar hair, a litter of white colossal bones. 
 Ensanguined shreds of jewelled lion-fells. 
 The huge gold crown and ponderous spear of 
 
 Cain, 
 And, fixed between the ribs, the fatal shaft 
 Which Lamech shot unwitting ; but against 
 The life of Lamech no man lifted hand. 
 
Goodwin Sands 
 
 DID you ever read or hear 
 How the Aid— [God bless the Aid! 
 More earnest prayer than that was never 
 
 prayed.) 
 How the lifeboat, Aid of Ramsgate, saved 
 the London Fusilier? 
 
 With a hundred souls on board. 
 With a hundred and a score. 
 She was fast on Goodwin Sands. 
 
1 1 6 Goodwin Sands 
 
 (May the Lord 
 Have pity on all hands — 
 
 Crew and captain — when a ship's on Goodwin 
 Sands !) 
 
 In the smother and the roar 
 
 Of a very hell of waters — hard and fast — 
 
 She shook beneath the stroke 
 
 Of each billow as it broke, 
 
 And the clouds of spray were mingled with the 
 
 clouds of swirling smoke 
 As the blazing barrels bellowed in the blast ! 
 
 And the women and the little ones were frozen 
 dumb with fear ; 
 
 And the stropg men waited grimly for the last ; 
 
 When — as clocks were striking two in Ramsgate 
 town — 
 
 The little Aid came down, 
 
 The Aid, the plucky Aid — 
 
 The Aid flew down the gale 
 
 With the glimmer of the moon upon her sail ; 
 
 And the people thronged to leeward ; stared 
 and prayed — 
 
 Prayed and stared with tearless eye and breath- 
 less lip. 
 
Goodwin Sands 117 
 
 While the little boat drew near. 
 
 Ay, and then there rose a shout — 
 
 A clamour, half a sob and half a cheer — 
 
 As the boatmen flung the lifeboat anchor out. 
 
 And the gallant Aid sheered in beneath the ship, 
 
 Beneath the shadow of the London Fusilier! 
 
 " We can carry may be thirty at a trip." 
 
 (Hurrah for Ramsgate town !) 
 
 " ^ick, the women and the children!" 
 
 O'er the side 
 Two sailors, slung in bowlines, hung to help the 
 
 women down — 
 Poor women, shrinking back in their dismay 
 As they saw their ark of refuge, smothered up in 
 
 spray. 
 Ranging wildly this and that way in the racing 
 
 of the tide; 
 As they watched it rise and drop, with its crew 
 
 of stalwart men. 
 When a huge sea swung it upward to the bulwarks 
 
 of the ship, 
 And, sweeping by in thunder, sent it plunging 
 
 down again. 
 
1 1 8 Goodwin Sands 
 
 Still they shipped them — nine-and-twenty, (God 
 
 be blessed !) 
 When a man with glaring eyes 
 Rushed up frantic to the gangway with a cry 
 
 choked in his throat — 
 Thrust a bundle in a sailor's ready hands. 
 
 Honest Jack, he understands — 
 
 Why, a blanket for a woman in the boat ! 
 
 ''Catch it. Bill!" 
 
 And he flung it with a will ; 
 
 And the boatman turned and caught it, bless 
 
 him ! — caught it, tho' it slipped, 
 And, even as he caught it, heard an infant's 
 
 cries. 
 While a woman shrieked, and snatched it to her 
 
 breast — 
 "My baby!" 
 
 So the thirtieth passenger was shipped ! 
 
 Twice, and thrice, and yet again 
 
 Flew the lifeboat down the gale 
 
 With the moonlight on her sail^ 
 
 With the sunrise on her sail — 
 
 (God bless the lifeboat e/f/V and all her men!) 
 
Goodwin Sands 119 
 
 Brought her thirty at a trip 
 
 Thro' the hell of Goodwin waters as they raged 
 
 around the ship, 
 Saved each soul aboard the London Fusilier! 
 
 If you live to be a hundred, you will ne'er — 
 
 You will ne'er in all your life, 
 
 Until you die, my dear, 
 
 Be nearer to your death by land or sea ! 
 
 Was she there ? 
 
 Who ? — my wife ? 
 
 Why, the baby in the blanket — that was she ! 
 
Trafalgar 
 
 OTHE merry bells of Chester, ancient Chester 
 on the Dee ! 
 On that glittering autumn morning, 
 
 eighteen five. 
 Every Englishman was glad to be alive. 
 It was good to breathe this English air, to see 
 English earth, with autumn field and reddening 
 
 tree. 
 And to hear the bells of Chester, ancient Chester 
 on the Dee. 
 
122 Trafalgar 
 
 For like morning-stars together, sweet and shrill, 
 In a blithe recurrent cycle 
 Sang St. Peter and St. Michael, 
 John the Baptist and St. Mary on the Hill ; 
 And the quick exulting changes of their peal 
 Made the heavens above them laugh, and the 
 
 jubilant city reel. 
 In the streets the crowds were cheering. Like a 
 
 shout 
 From each spire the bickering bunting rollicked 
 
 out. 
 
 O that buoyant autumn morning, eighteen five, 
 
 Every Englishman rejoiced to be alive ; 
 
 And the heart of England throbbed from sea to 
 
 sea 
 As the joy-bells clashed in Chester, jovial Chester" 
 
 on the Dee, 
 
 Hark, in pauses of the revel — sole and slow — 
 Old St. Werburgh swung a heavy note of woe ! 
 Hark, between the jocund peals a single toll. 
 Stern and muffled, marked the passing of a soulj 
 English hearts were sad that day as sad could 
 be; 
 
Trafalgar 123 
 
 English eyes so filled with tears they scarce could 
 
 see ; 
 And all the joy was dashed with grief in ancient 
 
 Chester on the Dee ! 
 
 Loss and triumph — ^joy and sorrow ! Far away 
 Drave the great fight's wreckage down Trafalgar 
 
 Bay. 
 O that glorious autumn morning, eighteen five, 
 Every Englishman was proud to be alive! 
 For the power of France was broken on the sea — 
 But ten sail left of her thirty sail and three. 
 Yet sad were English men as sad could be, 
 For that, somewhere o'er the foreign wave, they 
 
 knew 
 Home to English ground and grass the dust of 
 
 Nelson drew. 
 
 Would to God that on that morning, eighteen 
 
 five, 
 England's greatest man of all had been alive. 
 If but to breathe this English air, to see 
 English earth, with autumn field and yellowing 
 
 tree. 
 And to hear the bells of Chester, joyful Chester 
 
 on the Dee ! 
 
Vignettes 
 
The Wanderer i 
 
 I MET a waif i* the hills at close of day. 
 He begged an alms; I thought to say him 
 nay. 
 What was he ? " Sir, a little dust," said he, 
 " Which life blows up and down, and death will 
 lay." 
 
 I gave — for love of beast and hill and tree, 
 And all the dust that has been and shall be. 
 
The Wanderer ii 
 
 HE knows no home ; he only knows 
 Hunger and cold and pain ; 
 The four winds are his bedfellows ; 
 His sleep is dashed with rain. 
 
 'Tis nought to him who fails, who thrives ; 
 
 He neither hopes nor fears ; 
 Some dim primeval impulse drives 
 
 His footsteps down the years. 
 
The Wanderer ii 129 
 
 He could not, if he would, forsake 
 Lone road and field and tree. 
 
 Yet, think ! it takes a God to make 
 E'en such a waif as he. 
 
 And once a maiden, asked for bread, 
 Saw, as she gave her dole. 
 
 No friendless vagrant, but, instead. 
 An indefeasible Soul. 
 
The Scarecrow 
 
 HAIL Goodman-gossip of the corn ! 
 When boughs are green and furrows 
 sprout 
 And blossom muffles every thorn, 
 
 Poor soul ! the farmer boards him out. 
 
 Men think, grim wight, his rags affright 
 The wingM thieves from root and ear ; 
 
 But on his hat pert sparrows light — 
 
 Crows have been friends too long to fear ! 
 
The Scarecrow 131 
 
 The schoolboy's sling he heedeth not ; 
 
 No rancour nerves those palsied hands ; 
 In shocking hat and ancient coat, 
 
 A crazed and patient wretch he stands. 
 
 Without a murmur in the wheat, 
 
 Till fields are shorn and harvest's won. 
 
 He suffers cold, he suffers heat. 
 
 From chilly stars and scorching sun. 
 
 Though men forget, he dreameth yet 
 How in the golden past he stood, 
 
 'Mid flowers and wine, a shape divine 
 Of marble or of carven wood ; 
 
 How, in the loveliness and peace 
 Of that blithe age and radiant clime. 
 
 He was a garden-god of Greece. 
 
 Oh, vanished world ! Oh, fleeting time 
 
 Gaunt simulacrum — ghost forlorn — 
 Grey exile from a splendid past — 
 
 Last god (in rags) of a creed outworn — 
 If pity'U help thee, mine thou hast ! 
 
The Haunted Bridge 
 
 WITH high-pitched arch, low parapet, 
 And narrow thoroughfare, it stands 
 As strong as when the mortar set 
 Beneath the Roman mason's hands. 
 
 An ancient ivy grips its walls, 
 
 Tall grasses tuft its coping-stones ; 
 
 Beneath, through citron shadow, falls 
 The stream in drowsy undertones. 
 
The Haunted Bridg'e 133 
 
 No road leads hence. The stonechat flits 
 Along green fallow grey with stone ; 
 
 But here a dark-eyed urchin sits, 
 
 To whom the Painted Men were known. 
 
 Hush ! do not move, but only look. 
 
 When sunny days are long and fine 
 This Roman truant baits a hook. 
 
 Drops o'er the keystone here a line. 
 
 And, dangling sandalled feet, looks down 
 To see the swift trout dart and gleam — 
 
 Or scarcely see them, hanging brown 
 
 With heads against the clear brown stream. 
 
The Stone Age 
 
 A O'erarched the paleolithic Age 
 And homesteads of a pigmy folk 
 Were clustered 'neath its foliage. 
 
 Secreted in that sylvan space, 
 To archaeologist unknown. 
 
 Stood, reared by some untutored race. 
 Strange rings and avenues of stone. 
 
The Stone Age 135 
 
 The little thorp deserted seemed ; 
 
 What prey had lured the tribe afar ? 
 One figure, lingering, sat and dreamed. 
 
 As lonely as the evening star. 
 
 Bright-haired, blue-eyed, with naked feet. 
 And young face lit with rosy blood. 
 
 She rocked her babe, and dreamed the sweet 
 Primeval dream of motherhood. 
 
 A wondrous babe, that once had grown 
 A branch among the branches green- 
 
 For nurslings of the Age of Stone 
 Are mainly bairns of wood, I ween. 
 
 A mother strangely young, and sage 
 Beyond the summers she had told, 
 
 For mothers of that ancient Age 
 Are usually five years old. 
 
 God bless thy heart maternal, bless 
 
 Thy bower of stone, thy sheltering tree, 
 
 Thou small prospective ancestress 
 Of generations yet to be ! 
 
Sea-Pictures i 
 
 BLITHE morning ; sun and sea ! Zone beyond 
 zone, 
 Blue frolic waves and gold clouds softly blown. 
 One half the globe a sapphire glass which swings 
 Doubling the sun. 
 
 No sail. No wink of wings. 
 No haze of land. 
 
Sea-Pictures i 137 
 
 Look ! who comes wafted here — 
 What lone yet all unfearful mariner ? 
 You cannot see him ? No ; he mocks the sight — 
 Mid such immensities so mere a mite. 
 
 Look close ! That tiniest speck of brownish red. 
 Perched on his single subtle spider-thread ! 
 
 Trust, little aeronaut, thy filmy sail. 
 
 Blow wind ! the reef and palm-tree shall not fail. 
 
Sea-Pictures ii 
 
 ENORMOUS sea ; immeasurable night ! 
 The shoreless waters, heaving spectral-white, 
 Vibrate with showers and chains of golden sparks. 
 
 The black boat leaves a track of flame. Beneath 
 Run trails of blazing emerald, where the sharks 
 Cross and re-cross. In many a starry wreath 
 Innumerable medusae shine and float. 
 
Sea-Pictures ii 139 
 
 Great luminaries, through the blue-green air, 
 Gleam on the face of one who slowly dies. 
 All through the night two cavernous glazed eyes 
 Look blankly upward in a rigid stare. 
 
 O Father in heaven, he cannot speak Thy name ; 
 Take pity for the sake of Christ, Thy son ! 
 
 There is no answer, none. No answer, none. 
 
 Crossing, re-crossing underneath the boat. 
 
 The lean sharks weave their web of emerald flame. 
 
Moonlight 
 
 SWEET moon, endreaming tower and tree, 
 Is thy pathetic radiance thrown 
 From ice-cold wealds and cirques of stone — 
 Hush'd moors where life has ceased to be ? 
 
 Did grass, long ages back, and flowers 
 Grow there ? Did living waters run ? 
 Did happy creatures bless the sun 
 And greet with joy this world of ours ? 
 
Moonlight 141 
 
 And, earlier yet, in one starred zone. 
 
 Did this bright planet sweep through space — 
 
 Glebe of our glebe, race of our race — 
 
 A part and parcel of our own ? 
 
 O moonlight silvering tower and tree ! 
 O part of my world torn away, 
 Part of my life, now lifeless clay, 
 My dead, shine too — shine down on me. 
 
Green Pastures 
 
 WHEN springing, meads are freshly dight, 
 And trees new-leafed throw scarce 
 shadow. 
 The green earth shows no fairer sight 
 
 Than soft-eyed kine and blowing meadow. 
 Too calm for care, too slow for mirth, 
 Amid the shower, amid the gleam, 
 The great mild mother-creatures seem 
 Half-waking forms o' the dreamy earth. 
 
Green Pastures 143 
 
 And down the pathway through the grass 
 To school the merry children pass, 
 Singing a rhyme in the April morns. 
 How — Therms red for the furrows, and white for 
 
 the daisies. 
 Brown eyes for the broo\s, for the trees crumpled 
 
 horns ! 
 
 When quivering leaves, and oes of light 
 
 Between the leaves, the deep sward dapple. 
 
 When may-boughs cream in curdling white. 
 And maids env^ the bloom o' the apple, 
 
 The great mild mother-creatures lie. 
 And grow, in absence of the sun. 
 One with the moon and stars, and one 
 
 With silvery cloud and darkest sky. 
 
 And down the pathway through the grass 
 To school the merry children pass. 
 Singing a rhyme in the morns of June, 
 How — Therms white for the cloudlets, and black for 
 the darkness. 
 And two polished horns for the sweet sickle moon. 
 
The Little Dipper 
 
 LITTLE Dipper, piping sweet 
 in the shrewd mid-winter weather ; 
 Nesting in the linn, where spray- 
 splashes nest and sprinkles feather ; 
 
 'Neath the fringes of the ice, 
 
 down the burn-side, blithely diving ; 
 Piping, piping with full throat, — 
 
 bite the frost or be snow driving ; 
 
 Life's white winter comes apace ; 
 
 oh, but gaily shall I bide it 
 If my bosom, like thy nest, 
 
 house a singing-bird inside it ! 
 
In the Hills 
 
 HIS hoar breath stings with rime the skater's 
 face. 
 Mirrored in jet, beneath his hissing feet, 
 The stars swarm past, and radiate, as they fleet, 
 The immemorial cold of cosmic space. 
 
Nature's Magic 
 
 GIVE her the wreckage of strife — 
 Tumulus, tumbled tower. 
 Each clod and each stone she'll make her own 
 With the grass and innocent flower. 
 
 Give her the Candlemas snow. 
 Smiling she'll take the gift, 
 
 And out of the flake a snowdrop make, 
 And a lambkin out of the drift. 
 
April Voices 
 
 THE birches of your London square 
 " Have leafed into an emerald haze " ? 
 Then come — ^you promised ; come and share 
 
 The fuller spring of our last April days. 
 The ash, who wastes whole golden weeks in 
 
 doubt. 
 The very ash is long since out ; 
 The apple-boughs are muffled — do but think ! — 
 With crowded bloom of maid's blush, white and 
 pink; 
 The whins are all ablaze ! 
 
 Picture the pigeons tumbling in bright air ! 
 Fancy the jet-eyed squirrel on the bough ! 
 
148 Vignettes 
 
 Leave the poor birches in your London square ; 
 The spring and we await you here, and now. 
 
 Beneath our old world thatch your pulse shall beat 
 To the large-leisured rhythm of woodland 
 
 ease ; 
 No feverish hurry haunts our otiose trees ; 
 
 Your slumber shall be sweet. 
 
 The little brown bird's nest. 
 The four blue eggs beneath the patient breast, 
 
 The lambkin's baby face, 
 
 The joy of liquid air 
 
 And azure space — 
 
 Are these not better than your dingy squarci 
 Your mazes of inhospitable stone, 
 Your crowds who cannot call their souls their 
 own. 
 
 Your Dance of Life-in-death ? 
 Come to the fields, where Toil draws wholesome 
 breath. 
 
 And Indigence still keeps her apron white. 
 
 Enough that you arrive too late to hear 
 The migrants in the night ! 
 
April Voices 149 
 
 When wild March winds have dropt, and all is 
 still, 
 
 A spirit-touch unseals the dreaming eyes ; 
 One starts, and, leaning from the window-sill. 
 Catches the liquid notes, heard fine and clear 
 
 In hushed dark skies. 
 
 How pleasant had it been to watch with you, 
 Day after day. 
 
 The fairy flowering of the hawthorn spray ! 
 Each thorn upon the stem 
 Protects one rose-tipped, green-and-golden gem ; 
 A bud, a thorn ! — 'tis thus the whole tree 
 
 through. 
 No, — ^where in tender shoots the branches end 
 There is no spear ! 
 
 But bud and bud and bud are crowded 
 here ; 
 
 'Tis Nature's cue 
 To lavish most what least she can defend. 
 
 Come to the woods and see 
 How in the warm wet sunny mist of morn 
 Green leaves, like thoughts in dreamful hours, 
 are born, 
 
 And in the mist birds pipe on every tree. 
 
150 Vignettes 
 
 Come, and the mossy boulder on the hill 
 Shall teach whatbeauty springs of sitting still. 
 The world's work ! Is the life not more than 
 
 meat ? 
 And is this shrill immitigable strife. 
 This agony of existence, life ? 
 
 The good earth calls with voices strangely sweet ; 
 Come to your mother earth — th' old English 
 earth. 
 The ruddy mother of a mighty race — 
 Dear ruddy earth, with early wheat 
 Pale green on plough ridge and with kindly grass 
 New sprung in fields that take no care ! 
 
 Come to the friends who love your eager 
 face ; 
 Come share our rustic peace, our frugal mirth ; 
 Come, and restrict for once your happy Muse 
 To the four hundred words we yokels use 
 For life and love and death — why all the lore 
 Of ancient Egypt hardly needed more ! 
 Will London miss her poet ? There, alas ! 
 
 No man is missed. Come make our roof 
 your own. 
 And leave the birches dreaming in your s(^uare 
 Of forests far beyond the maze of stone. 
 
Green Sky 
 
 GREY on the linden leaves ; 
 Green in the west ; 
 Under our gloaming eaves 
 Swifts in the nest ; 
 Over the mother a human roof ; 
 
 Over the fledglings a breast ! 
 
Sub Umbra Crucis 
 
The Shepherd Beautiful 
 
 OFT as I muse on Rome — and at her name 
 Out of the darkness, flushed with blood 
 and gold. 
 Smoulders and flashes on her seven-fold 
 height 
 The imperial, murderous, harlot Rome of old, 
 Rome of the lions, Rome of the awful light 
 Where " living torches " flame — 
 I thread in thought the Catacombs' blind maze. 
 Marvelling how men could then draw happy- 
 breath. 
 And cheer these sunless labyrinths of death 
 With one sweet dream of Christ told many ways. 
 
156 Sub Umbra Crucis 
 
 The Shepherd Beautiful ! O good and sweet, 
 
 O Shepherd ever lovely, ever young, 
 Was it because they gathered at Thy feet, 
 
 Because upon Thy pastoral pipe they hung. 
 That they were happy in those evil days. 
 
 That these grim crypts were arched with 
 heavenly blue, 
 And spaced in verdurous vistas lit with 
 streams ? 
 
 Ah, let me count the ways. 
 Fair Shepherd of the world, in which they 
 drew 
 Thee in that most divine of human dreams. 
 
 They limned Thee standing near the wattled 
 shed. 
 The strayed sheep on Thy shoulders, and the 
 flock 
 Bleating fond welcome. Seasons of the 
 year — 
 Spring gathering roses swung athwart the 
 rock. 
 Summer and Autumn, one with golden ear 
 And one wdth apple red. 
 And shrivel'd Winter burning in a heap 
 
The Shepherd Beautiful 157 
 
 Dead leaves — they pictured round Thee ; 
 
 for they said, 
 "All the year round" — and joyous tears 
 were shed — 
 'All the year round. Thou, Shepherd, lov'st 
 Thy sheep." 
 
 Sometimes they showed Thee piping in the 
 shade 
 Music so sweet each mouth was raised from 
 grass 
 And ceased to hunger. In some dewy glade 
 Where the cool waters ran as clear as glass. 
 To this or that one Thou would'st seem to say, 
 "Thou'st made me glad, be happy thou in 
 turn ! " 
 And sometimes Thou would'st sit in weari- 
 ness — 
 
 My Shepherd ! " qucerens me 
 Sedisti lassus " — while Thy dog would yearn. 
 Eyes fixed on Thee, aware of Thy distress. 
 
 So limned they Christ; and bold, yet not too 
 bold. 
 Smiled at the tyrant's torch, the lion's cry ; 
 
158 Sub Umbra Crucis 
 
 So nursed the child-like heart, the angelic 
 mind, 
 Goodwill to live, and fortitude to die. 
 
 And love for men, and hope for all mankind. 
 One Shepherd and one fold I 
 Such was their craving ; none should be forbid ; 
 All — all were Christ's ! And so they drew 
 
 once more 
 The Shepherd Beautiful. But now He bore 
 No lamb upon His shoulders — just a kid. 
 
The Moss 
 
 WHEN black despair beats down my wings. 
 And heavenly visions fade away — 
 Lord, let me bend to common things, 
 The tasks of every day ; 
 
 As, when th' aurora is denied 
 
 And blinding blizzards round him beat. 
 The Samoyad stoops, and takes for guide 
 
 The moss beneath his feet. 
 
A Carol 
 
 THIS gospel sang the angels bright : 
 Lord Jhestt shall be born this night ,■ 
 Born not in house nor yet in hall. 
 Wrapped not in purple nor in pall. 
 Rocked not in silver, neither gold; 
 This word the angels sang of old ; 
 Nor christened with white wine nor red ; 
 This word of old the angels said 
 Of Him which holdeth in His hand 
 The strong sea and green land. 
 
A Carol i6i 
 
 This thrice and four times happy night — 
 These tidings sang the angels bright — 
 Forlorn, hetwixen ear and horn, 
 A babe shall Jhesu Lord be born, 
 A weeping babe all in the cold ; — 
 This word the angels sang of old — 
 And wiips of hay shall be His bed ; 
 This word of old the angels said 
 Of Him which keepeth in His hand 
 The strong sea and green land. 
 
 O babe and Lord, Thou Jhesu bright, — 
 Let all and some now sing this night — 
 Betwixt our sorrow and our sin. 
 Be Thou new-born our hearts within; 
 New-born, dear babe and little King, — 
 So letten some and all men sing — 
 To wipe for us our tears away ! 
 This night so letten all men say 
 Of Him which spake, and lo ! they be- 
 The green land and strong sea. 
 
When Snow Lies Deep 
 
 WHEN frost has burned the hedges black, 
 And children cannot sleep for cold ; 
 When snow lies deep on the withered leaves. 
 And roofs are white from ridge to eaves ; 
 When bread is dear, and work is slack. 
 Take pity on the poor and old ! 
 
 The faggot and the loaf of bread 
 
 You could not miss would be their store. 
 
 Upon how little the old can live ! 
 
 Give like the poor — who freely give. 
 
 Remember, when the fire burns red 
 The wolf leaves sniffing at the door. 
 
When Snow Lies Deep 163 
 
 And you whose lives are left forlorn. 
 
 Whose sons, whose hopes, whose fires have 
 died, 
 Oh, you poor pitiful people^ old. 
 Remember this and be consoled — 
 That Christ the Comforter was born. 
 And still is born, in wintertide. 
 
"Trees of Righteousness" 
 
 CHAINED to the dungeon-wall she slept. 
 Rome, moonlit, revelled overhead. 
 She heard not. She had prayed and wep5, 
 Haggard with anguish, wild with dread. 
 
 She was too fair, too young to die ; 
 
 Life was too sweet, and home too dear ! 
 God touch'd her with His sleep : a sigh — 
 
 And she had ceased to weep or fear ! 
 
 She slept, and, sleeping, seemed awake 
 A fair Child held her virgin hand ; 
 
 They walk'd by an enchanted lake ; 
 They walk'd in a celestial land. 
 
"Trees of Righteousness" 165 
 
 One thing she saw, and one she heard. 
 
 There were a thousand red-rose trees ; 
 Each rose-red leaf sang like a bird. 
 
 "What trees, dear Child," she asked, "are 
 these ? " 
 
 "These," said the Child, "are called Love's 
 Bower ; 
 
 They fade not ; constantly they sing ; 
 Each flower appears more fire than flower. 
 
 Now, see the roots from which they spring ! " 
 
 She looked ; she saw, far down the night. 
 The earth, the city whence she came. 
 
 And Nero's gardens red with light — 
 The light of martyrs wrapped in flame. 
 
 She woke with Heaven still in her eyes. 
 
 Rome, moonlit, revelled overhead. 
 She feared no more the lions' cries ; 
 
 Flames were but flowers, and death was dead ! 
 
The Comrades 
 
 IN solitary rooms,' when dusk is falling, 
 I hear from fields beyond the haunted 
 
 mountains, 
 Beyond the unrepenetrable forests, — 
 I hear the voices of my comrades calling 
 Home ! home ! home 1 
 
 Strange ghostly voices, wrhen the dusk is falling, 
 Come from the ancient years ; and I re- 
 member 
 The schoolboy shout, from plain and wood 
 and river. 
 The signal-cry of scattered comrades, calling 
 " Home ! home ! home ! " 
 
The Comrades 167 
 
 And home we wended when the dusk was fall- 
 ing ; 
 The pledged companions, talking, laughing, 
 
 singing ; 
 Home through the grey French country, no 
 one missing. 
 And now I hear the old-time voices calling 
 Home ! home ! home ! 
 
 I pause and listen while the dusk is falling ; 
 
 My heart leaps back through all the long 
 
 estrangement 
 Of changing faith, lost hopes, paths disen- 
 chanted ; 
 And tears drop as I hear the voices calling 
 Home ! home ! home ! 
 
 I hear you while the dolorous dusk is falling ; 
 I sigh your names — -the living — the de- 
 parted ! 
 
 vanished comrades, is it yours the 
 poignant 
 Pathetic note among the voices calling 
 Home, home, home ? 
 
i68 The Comrades 
 
 Call, and still call me, for the dusk is falling. 
 Call for I fain, I fain would come, but 
 
 cannot. 
 Call, as the shepherd calls upon the moor- 
 land. 
 Though mute, with beating heart I hear your 
 calling. 
 
 Home ! home ! home ! 
 
Crying Abba, Father" 
 
 ABBA, in Thine eternal years 
 Bethink Thee of our fleeting day ; 
 We are but clay ; 
 Bear with our foolish joys, our foolish tears. 
 
 And all the wilfulness with which we pray ! 
 
 I have a little maid who, when she leaves 
 Her father and her father's threshold, grieves. 
 But being gone, and life all holiday. 
 Forgets my love and me straightway ; 
 
I/O Sub Umbra Crjucis 
 
 Yet, when I write, 
 
 Kisses my letters, dancing with delight. 
 Cries " Dearest father ! " and in all her glee 
 For one brief live-long hour remembers me. 
 Shall I in anger punish or reprove ? 
 Nay, this is natural ; she cannot guess 
 How one forgotten feels forgetfulness ; 
 And I am glad thinking of her glad face, 
 And send her little tokens of my love. 
 
 And Thou — wouldst Thou be wroth in such a 
 case ? 
 
 And crying Abba, I am fain 
 
 To think no human father's heart 
 Can be so tender as Thou art. 
 
 So quick to feel our love, to feel our pain. 
 
 When she is froward, querulous or wild. 
 Thou knowest, Abba, how in each offence 
 I stint not patience lest I wrong the child. 
 Mistaking for revolt defect of sense. 
 For wilfulness mere spriteliness of mind ; 
 Thou know'st how often, seeing, I am blind ; 
 How when I turn her face against the wall 
 
"Crying Abba, Father" 171 
 
 And leave her in disgrace, 
 
 And will not look at her or speak at all, 
 
 I long to speak and long to see her face ; 
 And how, when twice, for something grievous 
 
 done, 
 I could but smite, and though I lightly smote, 
 I felt my heart rise strangling in my throat ; 
 And when she wept I kissed the poor red hands. 
 
 All these things. Father, a father understands ; 
 And am not I Thy son ? 
 
 Abba, in Thine eternal years 
 
 Bethink Thee of our fleeting day ; 
 From all the rapture of our eyes and ears 
 
 How shall we tear ourselves away ? 
 
 At night my little one says nay. 
 With prayers implores, entreats with tears 
 
 For ten more flying minutes' play ; 
 
 How shall we tear ourselves away ? 
 
 Yet call, and I'll surrender 
 The flower of soul and sense. 
 
 Life's passion and its splendour, 
 In quick obedience. 
 
172 Sub Umbra Crucis 
 
 If not without the blameless human tears 
 
 By eyes which slowly glaze and darken shed. 
 
 Yet without questionings or fears 
 
 For those I leave behind when I am dead. 
 
 Thou, Abba, know'st how dear 
 
 My little child's poor playthings are to her ; 
 
 What love and joy 
 
 She has in every darling doll and precious toy ; 
 
 Yet when she stands between my knees 
 
 To kiss good-night, she does not sob in sorrow, 
 
 " Oh, father, do not break or injure these ! " 
 
 She knows that I shall fondly lay them by 
 
 For happiness to-morrow ; 
 
 So leaves them trustfully. 
 
 And shall not I ? 
 
 Whatever darkness gather 
 O'er coverlet or pall, 
 
 Since Thou art Abba, Father, 
 Why should I fear at all ? 
 
 Thou'st seen how closely, Abba, when at rest. 
 My child's head nestles to my breast ; 
 And how my arm her little form enfolds. 
 
"Crying Abba, Father" 173 
 
 Lest in the darkness she should feel alone ; 
 
 And how she holds 
 
 My hands, my hands, my two hands in her own ? 
 
 A little easeful sighing 
 
 And restful turning round. 
 And I too, on Thy love relying, 
 
 Shall slumber sound. 
 
CT' HIS grace vouchsafe me for the rhymes I write. 
 If any last, nor perish quick and quite. 
 Lord, let them he 
 My little images, to stand for me 
 When I may stand no longer in Thy sight : 
 
 Like those old statues of the King who said, 
 
 " Carve me in that which needs nor sleep nor bread 
 
 Let diorite pray, 
 A'iKing of stone, for this poor King of clay 
 Who wearies often and must soon be dead I " 
 
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. 
 London & Edinburgh, 
 
Br THE SjJME AUTHOR. 
 
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