and thee,
Till the sand thy feathers smirch
Fallen dying off thy perch!
Was it, as the Grecian sings,
Birds were born the first of things,
Before the sun, before the wind,
Before the gods, before mankind,
Airy, ante-mundane throng—
Witness their unworldly song!
Proof they give, too, primal powers,
Of a prescience more than ours—
Teach us, while they come and go,
When to sail, and when to sow.
Cuckoo calling from the hill,
Swallow skimming by the mill,
Swallows trooping in the sedge,
Starlings swirling from the hedge,
Mark the seasons, map our year,
As they show and disappear.
But, with all this travail sage
Brought from that anterior age,
Goes an unreversed decree
Whereby strange are they and we;
Making want of theirs, and plan,
Indiscernible by man.
No, away with tales like these
Stol’n from Aristophanes!57
Does it, if we miss your mind,
Prove us so remote in kind?
Birds! we but repeat on you
What amongst ourselves we do.
Somewhat more or somewhat less,
’Tis the same unskilfulness.
What you feel, escapes our ken—
Know we more our fellow men?
Human suffering at our side,
Ah, like yours is undescried!
Human longings, human fears,
Miss our eyes and miss our ears.
Little helping, wounding much,
Dull of heart, and hard of touch,
Brother man’s despairing sign
Who may trust us to divine?
Who assure us, sundering powers
Stand not ’twixt his soul and ours?
Poor Matthias! See, thy end
What a lesson doth it lend!
For that lesson thou shalt have,
Dead canary bird, a stave!
Telling how, one stormy day,
Stress of gale and showers of spray
Drove my daughter small and me
Inland from the rocks and sea.
Driv’n inshore, we follow down
Ancient streets of Hastings town—
Slowly thread them—when behold,
French canary-merchant old
Shepherding his flock of gold
In a low dim-lighted pen
Scann’d of tramps and fishermen!
There a bird, high-coloured, fat,
Proud of port, though something squat—
Pursy, play’d-out Philistine—
Dazzled Nelly’s youthful eyne.
But, far in, obscure, there stirr’d
On his perch a sprightlier bird,
Courteous-eyed, erect and slim;
And I whisper’d: “Fix on him!”
Home we brought him, young and fair,
Songs to trill in Surrey air.
Here Matthias sang his fill,
Saw the cedars of Pains Hill;
Here he pour’d his little soul,
Heard the murmur of the Mole.
Eight in number now the years
He hath pleased our eyes and ears;
Other favourites he hath known
Go, and now himself is gone.
—Fare thee well, companion dear!
Fare for ever well, nor fear,
Tiny though thou art, to stray
Down the uncompanion’d way!
We without thee, little friend,
Many years have not to spend;
What are left, will hardly be
Better than we spent with thee.
Kaiser Dead
April 6, 1887
What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news
Post-haste to Cobham calls the Muse,
From where in Farringford she brews
The ode sublime,
Or with Pen-bryn’s bold bard pursues
A rival rhyme.
Kai’s bracelet tail, Kai’s busy feet,
Were known to all the village-street.
“What, poor Kai dead?” say all I meet;
“A loss indeed!”
O for the croon pathetic, sweet,
Of Robin’s reed!58
Six years ago I brought him down,
A baby dog, from London town;
Round his small throat of black and brown
A ribbon blue,
And vouch’d by glorious renown
A dachshund true.
His mother, most majestic dame,
Of blood-unmix’d, from Potsdam came;
And Kaiser’s race we deem’d the same—
No lineage higher.
And so he bore the imperial name.
But ah, his sire!
Soon, soon the days conviction bring.
The collie hair, the collie swing,
The tail’s indomitable ring,
The eye’s unrest—
The case was clear; a mongrel thing
Kai stood confest.
But all those virtues, which commend
The humbler sort who serve and tend,
Were thine in store, thou faithful friend.
What sense, what cheer!
To us, declining tow’rds our end,
A mate how dear!
For Max, thy brother-dog, began
To flag, and feel his narrowing span.
And cold, besides, his blue blood ran,
Since, ’gainst the classes,
He heard, of late, the Grand Old Man
Incite the masses.
Yes, Max and we grew slow and sad;
But Kai, a tireless shepherd-lad,
Teeming with plans, alert, and glad
In work or play,
Like sunshine went and came, and bade
Live out the day!
Still, still I see the figure smart—
Trophy in mouth, agog to start,
Then, home return’d, once more depart;
Or prest together
Against thy mistress, loving heart,
In winter weather.
I see the tail, like bracelet twirl’d,
In moments of disgrace uncurl’d,
Then at a pardoning word re-furl’d,
A conquering sign;
Crying, “Come on, and range the world,
And never pine.”
Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone;
Thou hadst thine errands, off and on;
In joy thy last morn flew; anon,
A fit! All’s over;
And thou art gone where Geist hath gone,
And Toss, and Rover.
Poor Max, with downcast, reverent head,
Regards his brother’s form outspread;
Full well Max knows the friend is dead
Whose cordial talk,
And jokes in doggish language said,
Beguiled his walk.
And Glory, stretch’d at Burwood gate,
Thy passing by doth vainly wait;
And jealous Jock, thy only hate,
The chiel from Skye,
Lets from his shaggy Highland pate
Thy memory die.
Well, fetch his graven collar fine,
And rub the steel, and make it shine,
And leave it round thy neck to twine,
Kai, in thy grave.
There of thy master keep that sign,
And this plain stave.
Endnotes
-
“After Chephren, Mycerinus, son of Cheops, reigned over Egypt. He abhorred his father’s courses, and judged his subjects more justly than any of their kings had done.—To him there came an oracle from the city of Buto, to the effect, that he was to live but six years longer, and to die in the seventh year from that time.”
—Herodotus
↩
-
“Desire” (“Stagyrus” 1849). Stagirius was a young monk to whom St. Chrysostom addressed three books. ↩
-
Written in 1847. Printed by permission of Mr. Arthur Galton, to whom the Poem was given in 1886 for publication in The Hobby Horse. ↩
-
The “Dawn-Goddess” is Aurora, the “fair youth,” Orion; the “Argive Seer” is Tiresias, Zeus’s “tired son,” Hercules, and the “feebler wight,” Eurystheus. ↩
-
Orion, the Wild Huntsman of Greek legend, and in this capacity appearing in both earth and sky. ↩
-
Erytheia, the legendary region around the Pillars of Hercules, probably took its name from the redness of the west, under which the Greeks saw it. ↩
-
“Alcmena’s dreadful son”: Hercules. ↩
-
Those who have been long familiar with the English
