Читать книгу Auld Lang Syne - Various - Страница 7

Great brown eyes,

Thick plumes of hair,

Old corduroys

The worse for wear.

A button’d jacket,

And peeping out

An ape’s grave poll,

Or a guinea-pig’s snout.

A sun-kiss’d face

And 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 picture

To common-place eyes,

Yet full of a charm

Which the thinker will prize.

They were stern, cold rulers,

Those Romans of old,

Scorning art and letters

For conquest and gold;

Yet leavening mankind,

In mind and tongue,

With the laws that they made

And 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 monuments

Greater than praise,

Thoughts and deeds that shall live

To the latest of days.

Adding province to province,

And sea to sea,

Till the idol fell down

And the world rose up free.

And this is the outcome,

This vagabond child

With that statue-like face

And eyes soft and mild;

This creature so humble,

So gay, yet so meek,

Whose sole strength is only

The strength of the weak.

Of those long cruel ages

Of lust and of guile,

Nought left us to-day

But an innocent smile.

For the labour’d appeal

Of the orator’s art,

A few foolish accents

That reach to the heart.

For those stern legions speeding

O’er sea and o’er land,

But a pitiful glance

And a suppliant hand.

I could moralize still

But 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 spent

In a sunnier clime,

Of blue lakes deep set

In the olive-clad mountains,

Of gleaming white palaces

Girt with cool fountains,

Of minsters where every

Carved stone is a treasure,

Of sweet music hovering

’Twixt pain and ’twixt pleasure;

Of chambers enrich’d

On all sides, overhead,

With the deathless creations

Of hands that are dead;

Of still cloisters holy,

And twilight arcade,

Where the lovers still saunter

Thro’ chequers of shade;

Of tomb and of temple,

Arena and column,

’Mid to-day’s garish splendours,

Sombre and solemn;

Of the marvellous town

With the salt-flowing street,

Where colour burns deepest,

And music most sweet;

Of her the great mother,

Who centuries sate

’Neath a black shadow blotting

The days she was great;

Who was plunged in such shame —

She, our source and our home —

That a foul spectre only

Was left us of Rome;

She who, seeming to sleep

Through all ages to be,

Was the priest’s, is mankind’s, —

Was a slave, and is free!

I turn with grave thought

To this child of the ages,

And to all that is writ

In 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 pity

The tongue cannot speak —

“Not English, but angels?”

Shall this tale be told

Of Romans to be

As of Romans of old?

Shall they too have monkeys

And music?  Will any

Try their luck with an engine

Or toy spinning-jenny?

Shall we too be led

By that mirage of Art

Which saps the true strength

Of the national heart?

The sensuous glamour,

The dreamland of grace,

Which rot the strong manhood

They fail to replace;

Which at once are the glory,

The ruin, the shame,

Of the beautiful lands

And ripe souls whence they came?

Oh, my England! oh, Mother

Of Freemen! oh, sweet,

Sad toiler majestic,

With labour-worn feet!

Brave worker, girt round,

Inexpugnable, free,

With tumultuous sound

And salt spume of the sea,

Fenced off from the clamour

Of alien mankind

By 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 daring

Thy infinite fate.

Yet ever remembering

The precepts of gold

That were written in part

For the great ones of old —

“Let other hands fashion

The marvels of art;

To thee fate has given

A 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 connoisseur

Over 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 swarm

From dark court and dull street,

As the gay music quickens

The lightsome young feet.

See them now whirl away,

Now insidiously come,

With a coy grace which conquers

The squalor of home.

See the pallid cheeks flushing

With innocent pleasure

At the hurry and haste

Of the quick-footed measure.

See the dull eyes now bright,

And now happily dim,

For some soft-dying cadence

Of love-song or hymn.

Dear souls, little joy

Of their young lives have they,

So thro’ hymn-tune and song-tune

Play on, my child, play.

For though dull pedants chatter

Of musical taste,

Talk of hindered researches

And hours run to waste;

Though they tell us of thoughts

To ennoble mankind,

Which your poor measures chase

From the labouring mind;

While your music rejoices

One joyless young heart,

Perish bookworms and books,

Perish learning and art —

Of my vagabond fancies

I’ll even take my fill.

“Qualche cosa, signor?”

Yes, my child, that I will.