N the highlands, in the country places,

IN

Where the old plain men have rosy faces, And the young fair maidens

Quiet eyes;

Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses

Her more lovely music

Broods and dies.

O to mount again where erst I haunted;

Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,

And the low green meadows

Bright with sward;

And when even dies, the million-tinted,

And the night has come, and planets glinted,
Lo! the valley hollow,

Lamp-bestarred.

O to dream, O to awake and wander

There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,

Quiet breath;

Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,

Only the mightier movement sounds and passes; Only winds and rivers,

Life and death.

H

XVII

WANDERING WILLIE

OME no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.

Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;
Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door-
Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.

Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,

The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.

Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moor-fowl, Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers;

WANDERING WILLIE

Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,
Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours;
Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood-

Fair shine the day on the house with open door; Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimneyBut I go forever and come again no more.

XVIII

TO DR. HAKE

(On receiving a copy of verses)

'N the beloved hour that ushers day,

In the pure dew, under the breaking grey, One bird, ere yet the woodland quires awake, With brief reveillé summons all the brake: Chirp, chirp, it goes; nor waits an answer long; And that small signal fills the grove with song.

Thus on my pipe I breathed a strain or two;
It scarce was music, but 'twas all I knew.
It was not music, for I lacked the art,
Yet what but frozen music filled my heart?
Chirp, chirp, I went, nor hoped a nobler strain;
But Heaven decreed I should not pipe in vain,
For, lo! not far from there, in secret dale,
All silent, sat an ancient nightingale.
My sparrow notes he heard; thereat awoke;
And with a tide of song his silence broke.

ΤΟ

I

KNEW thee strong and quiet like the hills;

I knew thee apt to pity, brave to endure:
In peace or war a Roman full equipt.

And just I knew thee, like the fabled kings
Who by the loud sea-shore gave judgment forth,
From dawn to eve, bearded and few of words.
What, what, was I to honour thee? A child,
A youth in ardour but a child in strength,
Who after virtue's golden chariot-wheels
Runs ever panting, nor attains the goal.
So thought I, and was sorrowful at heart.

Since then my steps have visited that flood
Along whose shore the numerous footfalls cease,
The voices and the tears of life expire.
Thither the prints go down, the hero's way
Trod large upon the sand, the trembling maid's:
Nimrod that wound his trumpet in the wood,
And the poor, dreaming child, hunter of flowers,
That here his hunting closes with the great:
So one and all go down, nor aught returns.

For thee, for us, the sacred river waits;

For me, the unworthy, thee, the perfect friend.