Auld Lang Syne

Various

Auld Lang Syne Selections from the Papers of the «Pen and Pencil Club»

CRADLE

The human heart is cradle of deep love,Which growing and expanding from its birth,Ever finds space within that living cot;Howe’er remotely o’er this beauteous earthIts subtle influences may joy impart,Whilst nestling in the human heart.The human mind is cradle of high thought,Ever aspiring to extend its sphere,To penetrate those mysteries of lifePhilosophy has fail’d to render clear.Howe’er expansive, thought will ever findIts cradle in the human mind.The human soul is cradle of deep faith,Of aspirations, and of purpose strong,To kindle into life the seeds of truth —Eradicate the germs of vice and wrong.Howe’er these seeds develop and increase,Within man’s soul they’ll find their place.Three living cradles in one living form,Expanding ever from their early birth;High thought and sweet affection in ye dwell,And Faith which hallows all things on this earth.Each human being in himself may findThree living cradles – soul, heart, mind.

THE SOUND OF BELLS

O HAPPY bells that thrill the air   Of tranquil English summer-eves,   When stirless hang the aspen leaves,And Silence listens everywhere.And sinks and swells the tender chime,   Sad, as regret for buried fears,   Sweet, as repentant yearning tears —The fit voice of the holy time.O wond’rous voice!  O mystic sound!   We listen, and our thoughts aspire   Like spiritual flame, from fireThat idly smoulders on the ground.Forgotten longings have new birth   For better, purer, nobler life,   Lifted above the noisy strifeThat drowns the music of this earth.And human sorrow seems to be   A link unto diviner things,   The budding of the spirit’s wingsThat only thus can soar – and see.The twilight fades – the sweet bells cease,   The common world’s come back again,   But for a little space, its painAnd weariness are steep’d in peace.

MIRROR

I SEE myself reflected in thine eyes,The dainty mirrors set in golden frameOf eyelash, quiver with a sweet surprise,   And most ingenuous shame.Like Eve, who hid her from the dread commandDeep in the dewy blooms of paradise;So thy shy soul, love calling, fears to stand   Discover’d at thine eyes.Or, like a tender little fawn, which liesAsleep amid the fern, and waking, hearsSome careless footstep drawing near, and flies,   Yet knows not what she fears.So shrinks thy soul, but, dearest, shrink not so;Look thou into mine eyes as I in thine,So our reflected souls shall meet and grow,   And each with each combineIn something nobler; as when one has laidOpposite mirrors on a cottage wall;And lo! the never-ending colonnade,   The vast palatial hall.So our twin souls, by one sweet suicide,Shall fade into an essence more sublime;Living through death, and dying glorified,   Beyond the reach of time.

SHADOWS

Shadow gives to sunshine brightness,And it gives to joy its lightness;Shadow gives to honour meekness,And imparts its strength to weakness;Shadow deepens human kindness,Draws the veil from mental blindness;Shadow sweetens love’s own sweetness,And gives to life its deep intenseness;Shadow is earth’s sacredness,And the heaven’s loveliness;Shadow is day’s tenderness,And the night’s calm holiness;Shadow’s deepest night of darknessWill break in day’s eternal brightness.

SHADOWS

In the band of noble workers,   Seems no place for such as I —They have faith, where I have yearning,   They can speak where I but sigh,They can point the way distinctlyWhere for me the shadows lie.Lofty purpose, strong endeavour,   These are not ordain’d for me —Wayside flower might strive for ever,   Never could it grow a tree —Yet a child may laugh to gather,Or a sick man smile to see.So I too in God’s creation   Have my own peculiar part,He must have some purpose surely   For weak hand and timid heart,Transient joys for my diffusing,For my healing transient smart.Just to fling a moment’s brightness   Over dreary down-trod ways,Just to fan a better impulse   By a full and ready praise —Pitying where I may not succour,Loving where I cannot raise.

ORGAN-BOYS.

A LEGEND OF LONDON.

By Thomas Ingoldsby, Minor

In days – not old – a Demon lived,And a terrible Fiend was he,For he ground and he ground   All London around,A huge barrel-organ of hideous sound,            Incessantly!      From morning’s light      Till the deep midnight,In all sorts of streets and all sorts of squares.Up the cul-de-sacs– down the thoroughfares,Where Thames rolls his waters from Greenwich to Kew,Not a lane could you find that he didn’t go through.You heard him at all times when most unaware,In quiet back-parlours up five flights of stair;When you ate, when you drank, when you read morning prayer,Or sat dozing awhile in an easy armchair,Or read a new novel – or talk’d to a friend,Or endeavour’d to settle accounts without end,Or when grief (or champagne), caused an ache in your head,Or you promised yourself to lie latish in bed,      It was all the same      That Demon came,      Grind! grind!      Peace there was none,      Under the sun;That odious organ never had done.      Sick, sad, or sorry,      No end to the worry.      No sort of grief      Brought the slightest relief;You might send out to say you were dying or dead,The organ ground on as if nothing were said!      Grind! grind!      Till you lost your mind.No use to scold, or draw down the blind,The fiend only ground more loud and more fast,Till you had to give him a shilling at last.So that having tormented you madly that day,He would surely next morning come round the same way,And grind and grind – till in frenzy of pain,You should bribe him once more – just to come back again!Know ye, my friends, who this Fiend may be?Here is the key to the mystery —It is Tubal Cain! who – the Bible says —Invented organs in very old days,And for that dread crime, so atrocious and black,Was sentenced thenceforth to bear one on his back,A heavier fate (as was justly his due),Than befell his Papa when poor Abel he slew:For Cain, killing one man, was let off quite cheap —Tubal murdered us all– at least “murder’d our sleep.”

THE ORGAN-BOY

Great brown eyes,Thick plumes of hair,Old corduroysThe worse for wear.A button’d jacket,And peeping outAn ape’s grave poll,Or a guinea-pig’s snout.A sun-kiss’d faceAnd a dimpled mouth,With the white flashing teeth,And soft smile of the south.A young back bent,Not with age or care,But the load of poor music’Tis fated to bear.But a common-place pictureTo common-place eyes,Yet full of a charmWhich the thinker will prize.They were stern, cold rulers,Those Romans of old,Scorning art and lettersFor conquest and gold;Yet leavening mankind,In mind and tongue,With the laws that they madeAnd the songs that they sung.Sitting, rose-crown’d,With pleasure-choked breath,As the nude young limbs crimson’d,Then stiffen’d in death.Piling up monumentsGreater than praise,Thoughts and deeds that shall liveTo the latest of days.Adding province to province,And sea to sea,Till the idol fell downAnd the world rose up free.And this is the outcome,This vagabond childWith that statue-like faceAnd eyes soft and mild;This creature so humble,So gay, yet so meek,Whose sole strength is onlyThe strength of the weak.Of those long cruel agesOf lust and of guile,Nought left us to-dayBut an innocent smile.For the labour’d appealOf the orator’s art,A few foolish accentsThat reach to the heart.For those stern legions speedingO’er sea and o’er land,But a pitiful glanceAnd a suppliant hand.I could moralize stillBut the organ begins,And the tired ape swings downward,And capers and grins,And away flies romance.And yet, time after time,As I dwell on days spentIn a sunnier clime,Of blue lakes deep setIn the olive-clad mountains,Of gleaming white palacesGirt with cool fountains,Of minsters where everyCarved stone is a treasure,Of sweet music hovering’Twixt pain and ’twixt pleasure;Of chambers enrich’dOn all sides, overhead,With the deathless creationsOf hands that are dead;Of still cloisters holy,And twilight arcade,Where the lovers still saunterThro’ chequers of shade;Of tomb and of temple,Arena and column,’Mid to-day’s garish splendours,Sombre and solemn;Of the marvellous townWith the salt-flowing street,Where colour burns deepest,And music most sweet;Of her the great mother,Who centuries sate’Neath a black shadow blottingThe days she was great;Who was plunged in such shame —She, our source and our home —That a foul spectre onlyWas left us of Rome;She who, seeming to sleepThrough all ages to be,Was the priest’s, is mankind’s, —Was a slave, and is free!I turn with grave thoughtTo this child of the ages,And to all that is writIn Time’s hidden pages.Shall young Howards or Guelphs,In the days that shall come,Wander forth, seeking bread,Far from England and home?Shall they sail to new continents,English no more,Or turn – strange reverse —To the old classic shore?Shall fair locks and blue eyes,And the rose on the cheek,Find a language of pityThe tongue cannot speak —“Not English, but angels?”Shall this tale be toldOf Romans to beAs of Romans of old?Shall they too have monkeysAnd music?  Will anyTry their luck with an engineOr toy spinning-jenny?Shall we too be ledBy that mirage of ArtWhich saps the true strengthOf the national heart?The sensuous glamour,The dreamland of grace,Which rot the strong manhoodThey fail to replace;Which at once are the glory,The ruin, the shame,Of the beautiful landsAnd ripe souls whence they came?Oh, my England! oh, MotherOf Freemen! oh, sweet,Sad toiler majestic,With labour-worn feet!Brave worker, girt round,Inexpugnable, free,With tumultuous soundAnd salt spume of the sea,Fenced off from the clamourOf alien mankindBy the surf on the rock,And the shriek of the wind,Tho’ the hot Gaul shall envy,The cold German flout thee,Thy far children scorn thee,Still thou shalt be great,Still march on uncaring,Thy perils unsharing,Alone, and yet daringThy infinite fate.Yet ever rememberingThe precepts of goldThat were written in partFor the great ones of old —“Let other hands fashionThe marvels of art;To thee fate has givenA loftier part,To rule the wide peoples,To bind them to thee.”By the sole bond of loving,That bindeth the free,To hold thy own place,Neither lawless nor slave;Not driven by the despot,Nor trick’d by the knave.But these thoughts are too solemn.So play, my child, play,Never heeding the connoisseurOver the way,The last dances of course;Then with scant pause between,“Home, sweet Home,” the “Old Hundredth,”And “God Save the Queen.”See the poor children swarmFrom dark court and dull street,As the gay music quickensThe lightsome young feet.See them now whirl away,Now insidiously come,With a coy grace which conquersThe squalor of home.See the pallid cheeks flushingWith innocent pleasureAt the hurry and hasteOf the quick-footed measure.See the dull eyes now bright,And now happily dim,For some soft-dying cadenceOf love-song or hymn.Dear souls, little joyOf their young lives have they,So thro’ hymn-tune and song-tunePlay on, my child, play.For though dull pedants chatterOf musical taste,Talk of hindered researchesAnd hours run to waste;Though they tell us of thoughtsTo ennoble mankind,Which your poor measures chaseFrom the labouring mind;While your music rejoicesOne joyless young heart,Perish bookworms and books,Perish learning and art —Of my vagabond fanciesI’ll even take my fill.“Qualche cosa, signor?”Yes, my child, that I will.

STUMBLING-BLOCKS

Think when you blame the present age, my friends,This age has one redeeming point – it mends.With many monstrous ills we’re forced to cope;But we have life and movement, we have hope.Oh! this is much!  Thrice pitiable theyWhose lot is cast in ages of decay,Who watch a waning light, an ebbing tide,Decline of energy and fall of pride,Old glories disappearing unreplaced,Receding culture and encroaching waste,Art grown pedantic, manners waxing coarse,The good thing still succeeded by the worse.We see not what those latest Romans saw,When o’er Italian cities, Latin law,Greek beauty, swept the barbarizing tide,And all fair things in slow succession died.’Tis much that such defeat and blank despair,Whate’er our trials, ’tis not ours to bear,Much that the mass of foul abuse grows less,Much that the injured have sometimes redress,Wealth grows less haughty, misery less resigned,That policy grows just, religion kind,That all worst things towards some better tend,And long endurance nears at last its end;The ponderous cloud grows thin and pierced with bright,And its wild edge is fused in blinding light.   Yet disappointment still with hope appears,And with desires that strengthen, strengthen fears,’Tis the swift-sailing ship that dreads the rocks,The active foot must ’ware of stumbling-blocks.Alas! along the way towards social good,How many stones of dire offence lie strew’d.Whence frequent failure, many shrewd mishapsAnd dismal pause or helpless backward lapse.Such was the hard reverse that Milton mourn’d,An old man, when he saw the King returnedWith right divine, and that fantastic trainOf banished fopperies come back again.Thus France, too wildly clutching happiness.Stumbled perplexed, and paid in long distress,In carnage, where the bloody conduit runs,And one whole generation of her sonsDevoted to the Power of FratricideFor one great year, one eager onward stride.   From all these stumbling-blocks that strew the wayWhat wisest cautions may ensure us, say.Cling to the present good with steadfast grip,And for no fancied better let it slip,Whether thy fancy in the future liveOr yearn to make the buried past revive.The past is dead, – let the dead have his dues,Remembrance of historian and of Muse;But try no lawless magic on the urn,It shocks to see the brightest past return.Some good things linger when their date is fled,These honour as you do the hoary head,And treat them tenderly for what they were,But dream not to detain them always there.The living good the present moments bringTo this devote thyself and chiefly cling;And for the novel schemes that round thee rise,Watch them with hopeful and indulgent eyes,Treat them as children, love them, mark their ways,And blame their faults and dole out cautious praise,And give them space, yet limit them with rule,And hold them down and keep them long at school:Yet know in these is life most fresh and strong,And that to these at last shall all belong.   Be proved and present good thy safe-guard still,And thy one quarrel be with present ill.Learn by degrees a steady onward strideWith sleepless circumspection for thy guide.And since so thick the stumbling-blocks are placed,You are not safe but in renouncing haste;Permit not so your zeal to be repressed,But make the loss up by renouncing rest.

WITCHCRAFT

I SPOSE ’tis I – and yet, so strange   I feel, I doubt if I’m all right.Only since Tuesday last this change,   And this is Friday night.On Monday, life was very drear,   My missus was so cross,’Cos how I’d spilt a jug of beer —   She, who calls money dross.She thinks herself a very saint,   ‘Cos she reads prayers to us;But Sal the cook, and I, we ain’t   Imposed on by her fuss.’Tis not the prayers I think is bad,   But those who are so goodShould act as if they feelings had   Towards we – who are flesh and blood.But now if missus ’gins to scold   I do not care a straw,For Tom, on Tuesday morning, told   Me not to mind her jaw.I now can dance, and laugh, and sing,   Altho’ I work all day.Surely it is a funny thing,   I’m all at once so gay.All ’cos Tom’s in love with me,   And I’m sure he says what’s true.He says love’s a mystery   Which in Eden’s garden grew.I call love witchcraft, that I do;   It’s made me quite another;Instead of being Mary Roe,   I may be any other.Missus thinks I’m going mad,   I work with such good glee;’Tis only that my heart is glad   ’Cos Tom’s in love with me.I wish some man would missus love;   She might be kinder then.She says her ’fections are above,   ’Cos sinful are all men.If she but had the chance, I b’lieve,   She’d ’cept the first with glee,And would not any longer grieve   O’er man’s depravity.She’d be as different as I —   Oh, laws! what fun ’twould be;For missus is a very guy,   ’Twixt you and Tom and me.P’rhaps love would make her young once more,   And change her temper too,For certain, love has witchcraft’s power,   All things he likes, to do.Tom says so, and so ’tis true,   Tom never tells a lie;And what Tom bids I’ll always do,   Until at last I die.

CHIVALRY

Chivalry, ho yes, I have heerd of such a thing, but I don’t mind owning – not allus having a Tomson’s Dixonary aside o’ me – as I never rightly unnerstood the full meanin’ o’ the word until this very day, when the subjick was suggested and my opinion arxed, which, why should I deny, I had supposed it strictly limited to the man in Brass ninth o’ November Lord Mayor’s Show, as they says it is to be abolished in future times, and a great loss I’m sure to the rising generation, though apt to be mostly all mud and squeeging and more pains than profit to grownups, and likewise in Christmas pantomines and bur-lesks at theayters I have seen Alls of Chivalry most georgius to beeold with young ladies in uncountless troops coming out o’ shells and flowers and bells and stars as made the rime of infancy seem quite reesnable, though why slugs and snails only for the other sect is more than I can explain, and I don’t blush to own free and frank as I believed the time for it in reel life was past and gone these ages, though efforts made many a year back at the Eglintown Turnamount rung through the country, and well I remember seeing picters of queens o’ beauty and gentlemen done up in harmer and a hossback as looked when once they was hup it was more than they could do to save their lives to get down again without most competent assistance, and far from comfortable or easy I should say them mettal dresses was, as it stands to reesin, man being of a active character, was never intended by nature to go about with a shell outside of him like snails, which is both slow and useless, I should say, unless making your palings slimy and nibbling at your cabbage sprouts is useful acts, which much I doubt, though how I’ve got from Chivalry to snails is most surpriging, only the workings of the huming mind is so surpriging as no one never need be surpriged at nothing of the sort, – where was I, ho at harmer which, if you arx my opinion, I do consider such a ill-conwenience as there ought to be a deal to make up for it, and if you can’t have Chivalry without harmer I must say I think we’re better as we are, fur what with crinnerlin the world’s ardly big enough as it is, and if these coats of male was to come in, made of steel likewise, you couldn’t walk in London, excep in Portland Place, praps, and in quiet distrix like Islington and Upper Baker Street, while as for omnibuses, my belief is they’re only kep going as it is by the lightness and tightness of manly figgers and costoom, and if they took to harmer there’d be an end of twelve inside, much less of thirteen out, and pit seats would have to be enlarged, as also pews in church, and especially pulpits, likewise the Houses of Parliament and the Corts of Lor, and everythink would be deranged together fur no particklar good that I can see, but Mrs. Jones she ses it’s not the harmer, it’s not the outside man as needs a haltering in this year age of ourn, it’s not the costoom she ses, it’s the manners, she ses, which in ancient times was so much superior to any think we know on in the presint day, she ses, fur in them distant days there was galliant knights which wore a scarve or a ribbing of the lady as they preferred, and went about the world with long spears a defying all the other knights to say as that there lady of theirs wasn’t the most beautifulest of all living ladies, and fight they would with them spears, and sometimes got ard nox too, in spite of their harmer, but got up again a hossback mostly, and went off to other parts a doing the same thing, which, if that’s chivalry, why I arx you what on erth is the good of such goings on as that, but ho Mrs. Jones ses, that’s not all, she ses, and torx at me fur hours on end, she does, a trying to show me what a deal more obliginger and politer was the manners of them there knights to the manners of these year days, and how they was always a helping of the helpless, and a succouring the distressed, and how they thought it a honner and no trouble to put theirselves to all sorts of inconvenience to oblige one of our sect which, especially the unprotected female, was their joy and pride, never you mind how many bangboxes she might have, nor how pouring of rain, outside of the omnibuses of the period them knights would go immediate, and only count it a ordinary part of what they called their devour to the fare, which I will own I have met with quite contrairy condick from well drest pussons, as doubtless calls theirselves gentlemen, and after standing hours, I may say, in Regint Circus or corner of Tottenham Court Road, have been pushed from getting of my place inside by the very harms that in other times Mrs. Jones ses would have been lifted to my haid, but lor! I ses to her, though this may appen occasional, I ses, what can you expeck in London in the midst of millions of snobs as thinks only of theirselves, and has never learned any better, poor deers, which I’m sorry fur ’em, fur sure I am as the feelins is much more comfortabler of a reel and right down gentle man, which the word explains itself, don’t it, and we don’t want no knights in harmer while there’s men left, and proud I am to say I know a many such, and have met with kindness from a many more as I don’t know the names on, which if they’d had harmer on twice over couldn’t be more ready to lend their strength to the weak, and their elp to the elpless, and chivalry can’t mean no more than that, so let alone the harmer, we can’t have too much of it, I ses, and Mrs. Jones she ses so too, and we ses it not as wimming only but as humane beings as likes to see their feller creeturs a growing in good arts and appiness, not forgetting as wimming likewise has our duties, which is seldom done as well as one could wish, and so has no manner of rite to preech, which much I fear I’ve been a running on most unconscionable, and took up a deal too much of your time, but umbly arx your parding and won’t intrude no further.

CHILDHOOD’S CASTLES IN THE AIR

Gently, no pushing; there’s room to sit   All three without grumbling,One in front, two behind, well you fit,   And mamma to hold you from tumbling.   Rock, rock, old rocking chair,   You’ll last us a long time with care,      And still without balking         Of us four any one,      From rocking and talking —         That is what we call fun.Curtains drawn, and no candles lit,   Great red caves in the fire,This is the time for us four to sit   Rocking and talking all till we tire.   Rock, rock, old rocking chair,   How the fire-light glows up there,      Red on the white ceiling;   The shadows every one      Might be giants, reeling   On their great heads, for fun.Shall we call this a boat out at sea,   We, four sailors rowing?Can you fancy it well?  As for me   I feel the salt wind blowing.Up, up and down, lazy boat,On the top of a wave we float,   Down we go with a rush;      Far off I see a strand   Glimmer; our boat we’ll push      Ashore on Fairy-land.The fairy people come running   To meet us down on the sand,Each holding out toward us the very thing   We’ve long wished for, held in his hand.Up, up again; one wave moreHolds us back from the fairy shore;   Let’s pull all together,      Then with it, up we’ll climb,   To the always fine weather      That makes up fairy time.Come to us through the dark, children,   Hark! the fairy people call,But a step between us and you, children,   And in Fairy-land room for us all.Climb the main and you will beLanded safe in gay Fairie,   Sporting, feasting, both night and noon,      No pause in fairy pleasures;   Silver ships that sail to the moon,      Magic toys for treasures.Ah! the tide sweeps us out of our track,   The glimmer dies in the fire,There’s no climbing the wave that holds back   Just the things that we all most desire!Never mind, rock, rocking-chair;While there’s room for us four there,   To sit by fire-light swinging,      Till some one open the door,   Birds in their own nest singing      Ain’t happier than we four.

AUTUMN LEAVES