Part 3

All these hath Oxford: all are dear, But dearer far the little town, The drifting surf, the wintry year, The college of the scarlet gown, St. Andrews by the Northern sea, That is a haunted town to me!

DESIDERIUM.

IN MEMORIAM S. F. A.

THE call of homing rooks, the shrill Song of some bird that watches late, The cries of children break the still Sad twilight by the churchyard gate.

And o’er your far-off tomb the grey Sad twilight broods, and from the trees The rooks call on their homeward way, And are you heedless quite of these?

The clustered rowan berries red And Autumn’s may, the clematis, They droop above your dreaming head, And these, and all things must you miss?

Ah, you that loved the twilight air, The dim lit hour of quiet best, At last, at last you have your share Of what life gave so seldom, rest!

Yes, rest beyond all dreaming deep, Or labour, nearer the Divine, And pure from fret, and smooth as sleep, And gentle as thy soul, is thine!

So let it be! But could I know That thou in this soft autumn eve, This hush of earth that pleased thee so, Hadst pleasure still, I might not grieve.

RHYMES A LA MODE.

BALLADE OF MIDDLE AGE.

OUR youth began with tears and sighs, With seeking what we could not find; Our verses all were threnodies, In elegiacs still we whined; Our ears were deaf, our eyes were blind, We sought and knew not what we sought. We marvel, now we look behind: Life’s more amusing than we thought!

Oh, foolish youth, untimely wise! Oh, phantoms of the sickly mind! What? not content with seas and skies, With rainy clouds and southern wind, With common cares and faces kind, With pains and joys each morning brought? Ah, old, and worn, and tired we find Life’s more amusing than we thought!

Though youth “turns spectre-thin and dies,” To mourn for youth we’re not inclined; We set our souls on salmon flies, We whistle where we once repined. Confound the woes of human-kind! By Heaven we’re “well deceived,” I wot; Who hum, contented or resigned, “Life’s more amusing than we thought!”

ENVOY.

O nate mecum, worn and lined Our faces show, but that is naught; Our hearts are young ’neath wrinkled rind: Life’s more amusing than we thought!

THE LAST CAST.

THE ANGLER’S APOLOGY.

JUST one cast more! how many a year Beside how many a pool and stream, Beneath the falling leaves and sere, I’ve sighed, reeled up, and dreamed my dream!

Dreamed of the sport since April first Her hands fulfilled of flowers and snow, Adown the pastoral valleys burst Where Ettrick and where Teviot flow.

Dreamed of the singing showers that break, And sting the lochs, or near or far, And rouse the trout, and stir “the take” From Urigil to Lochinvar.

Dreamed of the kind propitious sky O’er Ari Innes brooding grey; The sea trout, rushing at the fly, Breaks the black wave with sudden spray!

* * * * *

Brief are man’s days at best; perchance I waste my own, who have not seen The castled palaces of France Shine on the Loire in summer green.

And clear and fleet Eurotas still, You tell me, laves his reedy shore, And flows beneath his fabled hill Where Dian drave the chase of yore.

And “like a horse unbroken” yet The yellow stream with rush and foam, ’Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet, Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome!

I may not see them, but I doubt If seen I’d find them half so fair As ripples of the rising trout That feed beneath the elms of Yair.

Nay, Spring I’d meet by Tweed or Ail, And Summer by Loch Assynt’s deep, And Autumn in that lonely vale Where wedded Avons westward sweep,