Eight years
later was published her first volume of Plays on the Passions.
later was published her first volume of Plays on the Passions.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v03 - Bag to Ber
When in 1839 the long poem (Festus
appeared, its author was an unknown youth, who had hardly reached
his majority. Within a few months he was a celebrity.
That so
dignified and suggestive a performance should have come from so
young a poet was considered a marvel of precocity by the literary
world, both English and American.
The author of Festus) was born at
Basford, Nottinghamshire, England, April
22d, 1816. Educated at the public schools
of Nottingham, and at Glasgow University,
he studied law, and at nineteen entered
Lincoln's Inn. In 1840 he was admitted
to the bar. But his vocation in life
appears to have been metaphysical and
spiritual rather than legal.
His "Festus: a Poem,' containing fifty-
five episodes or successive scenes, - some
thirty-five thousand lines, — was begun in
his twentieth year. Three years later it
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
was in the hands of the English reading
public. Like Goethe's (Faustin pursuing the course of a human
soul through influences emanating from the Supreme Good and the
Supreme Evil; in having Heaven and the World as its scene; in its
inclusion of God and the Devil, the Archangels and Angels, the
Powers of Perdition, and withal many earthly types in its action,
it is by no means a mere imitation of the great German. Its plan is
wider. It incorporates even more impressive spiritual material than
Faust' offers. Not only is its mortal hero, Festus, conducted
through an amazing pilgrimage, spiritual and redeemed by divine
Love, but we have in the poem a conception of close association
with Christianity, profound ethical suggestions, a flood of theology
and philosophy, metaphysics and science, picturing Good and Evil,
love and hate, peace and war, the past, the present, and the future,
earth, heaven, and hell, heights and depths, dominions, principalities,
and powers, God and man, the whole of being and of not-being,— all
## p. 1244 (#34) ############################################
1
1
1
1 244
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
in an effort to unmask the last and greatest secrets of Infinity. And
more than all this, Festus' strives to portray the sufficiency of
Divine Love and of the Divine Atonement to dissipate, even to anni-
hilate, Evil. For even Lucifer and the hosts of darkness are restored
to purity and to peace among the Sons of God, the Children of
Light! The Love of God is set forth as limitless. We have before
us the birth of matter at the Almighty's fiat; and we close the work
with the salvation and ecstasy — described as decreed from the Begin-
ning — of whatever creature hath been given a spiritual existence,
and made a spiritual subject and agency. There is in the doctrine
of Festus? no such thing as the “Son of Perdition” who shall be
an ultimate castaway.
Few English poems have attracted more general notice from all
intelligent classes of readers than did Festus) on its advent. Ortho-
doxy was not a little aghast at its theologic suggestions. Criticism
of it as a literary production was hampered not a little by religious
sensitiveness. The London Literary Gazette said of it:–«It is an
extraordinary production, out-Heroding Kant in some of its phi-
losophy, and out-Goetheing Goethe in the introduction of the Three
Persons of the Trinity as interlocutors in its wild plot. Most objec-
tionable as it is on this account, it yet contains so many exquisite
passages of genuine poetry, that our admiration of the author's
genius overpowers the feeling of mortification at its being misap-
plied, and meddling with such dangerous topics. ” The advance of
liberal ideas within the churches has diminished such criticism, but
the work is still a stumbling-block to the less speculative of sec-
taries.
The poem is far too long, and its scope too vast for even
genius of much higher and riper gifts than Bailey's. It is turgid,
untechnical in verse, wordy, and involved. Had Bailey written at
fifty instead of at twenty, it might have shown a necessary balance
and felicity of style. But, with all these shortcomings, it is not to
be relegated to the library of things not worth the time to know, to
the list of bulky poetic failures. Its author blossomed and fruited
marvelously early; so early and with such unlooked-for fruit that the
unthinking world, which first received him with exaggerated honor,
presently assailed him with undue dispraise. (Festus' is not mere
solemn and verbose commonplace.
Here and there it has passages
of great force and even of high beauty. The author's whole heart
and brain were poured into it, and neither was
With all its ill-based daring and manifest crudities, it was such a
tour de force for a lad of twenty as the world seldom sees.
Its slug-
gish current bears along remarkable knowledge, great reflection, and
the imagination of a fertile as well as a precocious brain.
It is a
a
a
common
one.
## p. 1245 (#35) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1 245
stream which carries with it things new and old, and serves to stir
the mind of the onlooker with unwonted thoughts. Were it but one
fourth as long, it would still remain a favorite poem. Even now it
has passed through numerous editions, and been but lately repub-
lished in sumptuous form after fifty years of life; and in the cata-
logue of higher metaphysico-religious poetry it will long maintain
an honorable place. It is cited here among the books whose fame
rather than whose importance demand recognition.
FROM (FESTUS)
LIFE
F
ESTUS —
Men's callings all
Are mean and vain; their wishes more so: oft
The man is bettered by his part or place.
How slight a chance may raise or sink a soul!
Lucifer -- What men call accident is God's own part.
He lets ye work your will — it is his own:
But that ye mean not, know not, do not, he doth.
Festus — What is life worth without a heart to feel
The great and lovely harmonies which time
And nature change responsive, all writ out
By preconcertive hand which swells the strain
To divine fulness; feel the poetry,
The soothing rhythm of life's fore-ordered lay;
The sacredness of things ? — for all things are
Sacred so far, - the worst of them, as seen
By the eye of God, they in the aspect bide
Of holiness: nor shall outlaw sin be slain,
Though rebel banned, within the sceptre's length;
But privileged even for service. Oh! to stand
Soul-raptured, on some lofty mountain-thought,
And feel the spirit expand into a view
Millennial, life-exalting, of a day
When earth shall have all leisure for high ends
Of social culture; ends a liberal law
And common peace of nations, blent with charge
Divine, shall win for man, were joy indeed:
Nor greatly less, to know what might be now,
Worked will for good with power, for one brief hour.
But look at these, these individual souls:
How sadly men show out of joint with man!
There are millions never think a noble thought;
## p. 1246 (#36) ############################################
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PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
But with brute hate of brightness bay a mind
Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.
Throw but a false glare round them, and in shoals
They rush upon perdition: that's the race.
What charm is in this world-scene to such minds?
Blinded by dust ? What can they do in heaven,
A state of spiritual means and ends ?
Thus must I doubt — perpetually doubt.
Lucifer - Who never doubted never half believed.
Where doubt, there truth is —-'tis her shadow. I
Declare unto thee that the past is not.
I have looked over all life, yet never seen
The age that had been. Why then fear or dream
About the future? Nothing but what is, is;
Else God were not the Maker that he seems,
As constant in creating as in being.
Embrace the present. Let the future pass.
Plague not thyself about a future. That
Only which comes direct from God, his spirit,
Is deathless. Nature gravitates without
Effort; and so all mortal natures fall
Deathwards. All aspiration is a toil;
But inspiration cometh from above,
And is no labor. The earth's inborn strength
Could never lift her up to yon stars, whence
She fell; nor human soul, by native worth,
Claim heaven as birthright, more than man may call
Cloudland his home. The soul's inheritance,
Its birth-place, and its death-place, is of earth;
Until God maketh earth and soul anew;
The one like heaven, the other like himself.
So shall the new creation come at once;
Sin, the dead branch upon the tree of life
Shall be cut off forever; and all souls
Concluded in God's boundless amnesty.
Festus — Thou windest and unwindest faith at will.
What am I to believe ?
Lucifer -
Thou mayest believe
But that thou art forced to.
Festus —
Then I feel, perforce,
That instinct of immortal life in me,
Which prompts me to provide for it.
Lucifer --
Perhaps.
Festus — Man hath a knowledge of a time to come —
His most important knowledge: the weight lies
## p. 1247 (#37) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1 247
Nearest the short end; and the world depends
Upon what is to be.
I would deny
The present, if the future. Oh! there is
A life to come, or all's a dream.
Lucifer -
And all
May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds,
Clear, moving, full of speech and order; then
Why may not all this world be but a dream
Of God's? Fear not! Some morning God may waken.
Festus- I would it were. This life's a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men's. And yet men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for.
What but perdition will it be to most ?
Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood;
It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.
One generous feeling —one great thought —one deed
Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem
Than if each year might number a thousand days,
Spent as is this by nations of mankind.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most — feels the noblest — acts the best.
Life's but a means unto an end that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things — God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
Why will we live and not be glorious ?
We never can be deathless till we die.
It is the dead win battles. And the breath
Of those who through the world drive like a wedge,
Tearing earth's empires up, nears Death so close
It dims his well-worn scythe. But no! the brave
Die never. Being deathless, they but change
Their country's arms for more their country's heart.
Give then the dead their due: it is they who saved us.
The rapid and the deep - the fall, the gulph,
Have likenesses in feeling and in life.
And life, so varied, hath more loveliness
In one day than a creeping century
Of sameness. But youth loves and lives on change,
Till the soul sighs for sameness; which at last
## p. 1248 (#38) ############################################
1248
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Becomes variety, and takes its place.
Yet some will last to die out, thought by thought,
And power by power, and limb of mind by limb,
Like lamps upon a gay device of glass,
Till all of soul that's left be dry and dark;
Till even the burden of some ninety years
Hath crashed into them like a rock; shattered
Their system as if ninety suns had rushed
To ruin earth — or heaven had rained its stars;
Till they become like scrolls, unreadable,
Through dust and mold. Can they be cleaned and read ?
Do human spirits wax and wane like moons ?
Lucifer — The eye dims, and the heart gets old and slow;
The lithe limbs stiffen, and the sun-hued locks
Thin themselves off, or whitely wither; still,
Ages not spirit, even in one point,
Immeasurably small; from orb to orb,
Rising in radiance ever like the sun
Shining upon the thousand lands of earth.
THE PASSING-BELL
LARA
C
True prophet mayst thou be. But list: that sound
The passing-bell the spirit should solemnize;
For, while on its emancipate path, the soul
Still waves its upward wings, and we still hear
The warning sound, it is known, we well may pray.
Festus — But pray for whom ?
Clara -
It means not. Pray for all.
Pray for the good man's soul:
He is leaving earth for heaven,
And it soothes us to feel that the best
May be forgiven.
Festus — Pray for the sinful soul:
It fleëth, we know not where;
But wherever it be let us hope;
For God is there.
Clara — Pray for the rich man's soul:
Not all be unjust, nor vain;
The wise he consoled; and he saved
The poor from pain.
## p. 1249 (#39) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
I 249
Festus -- Pray for the poor man's soul:
The death of this life of ours
He hath shook from his feet; he is one
Of the heavenly powers.
Pray for the old man's soul:
He hath labored long; through life
It was battle or march. He hath ceased,
Serene, from strife.
Clara — Pray for the infant's soul:
With its spirit crown unsoiled,
He hath won, without war, a realm;
Gained all, nor toiled.
Festus - Pray for the struggling soul:
The mists of the straits of death
Clear off; in some bright star-isle
It anchoreth.
Pray for the soul assured:
Though it wrought in a gloomy mine,
Yet the gems it earned were its own,
That soul's divine.
Clara -- Pray for the simple soul:
For it loved, and therein was wise;
Though itself knew not, but with heaven
Confused the skies.
Festus - Pray for the sage's soul:
’Neath his welkin wide of mind
Lay the central thought of God,
Thought undefined.
Pray for the souls of all
To our God, that all may be
With forgiveness crowned, and joy
Eternally.
Clara - Hush! for the bell hath ceased;
And the spirit's fate is sealed;
To the angels known; to man
Best unrevealed.
II1–79
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1 250
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
THOUGHTS
- Well, farewell, Mr. Student. May you never
FRegret those hours which make the mind, if they
can
Unmake the body; for the sooner we
Are fit to be all mind, the better. Blessed
Is he whose heart is the home of the great dead,
And their great thoughts. Who mistake great
They seize upon the mind; arrest and search, [thoughts
And shake it; bow the tall soul as by wind;
Rush over it like a river over reeds,
Which quaver in the current; turn us cold,
And pale, and voiceless; leaving in the brain
A rocking and a ringing; glorious,
But momentary, madness might it last,
And close the soul with heaven as with a seal!
In lieu of all these things whose loss thou mournest,
If earnestly or not I know not, use
The great and good and true which ever live;
And are all common to pure eyes and true.
Upon the summit of each mountain-thought
Worship thou God, with heaven-uplifted head
And arms horizon-stretched; for deity is seen
From every elevation of the soul.
Study the light; attempt the high; seek out
The soul's bright path; and since the soul is fire,
Of heat intelligential, turn it aye
To the all-Fatherly source of light and life;
Piety purifies the soul to see
Visions, perpetually, of grace and power,
Which, to their sight who in ignorant sin abide,
Are now as e'er incognizable. Obey
Thy genius, for a minister it is
Unto the throne of Fate. Draw towards thy soul,
And centralize, the rays which are around
Of the divinity. Keep thy spirit pure
From worldly taint, by the repellent strength
Of virtue. Think on noble thoughts and deeds,
Ever. Count o'er the rosary of truth;
And practice precepts which are proven wise,
It matters not then what thou fearest. Walk
Boldly and wisely in that light thou hast;
There is a hand above will help thee on.
I am an omnist, and believe in all
Religions; fragments of one golden world
To be relit yet, and take its place in heaven,
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PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1251
Where is the whole, sole truth, in deity.
Meanwhile, his word, his law, writ soulwise here,
Study; its truths love; practice its behests -
They will be with thee when all else have gone.
Mind, body, passion all wear out; not faith
Nor truth. Keep thy heart cool, or rule its heat
To fixed ends; waste it not upon itself.
Not all the agony maybe of the damned
Fused in one pang, vies with that earthquake throb
Which wakens soul from life-waste, to let see
The world rolled by for aye, and we must wait
For our next chance the nigh eternity;
Whether it be in heaven, or elsewhere.
DREAMS
ESTUS
F
The dead of night: earth seems but seeming;
The soul seems but a something dreaming.
The bird is dreaming in its nest,
Of song, and sky, and loved one's breast;
The lap-dog dreams, as round he lies,
In moonshine, of his mistress's eyes;
The steed is dreaming, in his stall,
Of one long breathless leap and fall;
The hawk hath dreamed him thrice of wings
Wide as the skies he may not cleave;
But waking, feels them clipped, and clings
Mad to the perch 'twere mad to leave:
The child is dreaming of its toys;
The murderer, of calm home joys;
The weak are dreaming endless fears;
The proud of how their pride appears;
The poor enthusiast who dies,
Of his life-dreams the sacrifice,
Sees, as enthusiast only can,
The truth that made him more than man;
And hears once more, in visioned trance,
That voice commanding to advance,
Where wealth is gained - love, wisdom won,
Or deeds of danger dared and done.
The mother dreameth of her child;
The maid of him who hath beguiled;
The youth of her he loves too well;
The good of God; the ill of hell;
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PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Who live of death; of life who die;
The dead of immortality.
The earth is dreaming back her youth;
Hell never dreains, for woe is truth;
And heaven is dreaming o'er her prime,
Long ere the morning stars of time;
And dream of heaven alone can I,
My lovely one, when thou art nigh.
CHORUS OF THE SAVED
From the Conclusion
F
ATHER of goodness,
Son of love,
Spirit of comfort,
Be with us!
God who hast made us,
God who hast saved,
God who hast judged us,
Thee we praise.
Heaven our spirits,
Hallow our hearts;
Let us have God-light
Endlessly.
Ours is the wide world,
Heaven on heaven;
What have we done, Lord,
Worthy this?
Oh! we have loved thee;
That alone
Maketh our glory,
Duty, meed.
Oh! we have loved thee!
Love we will
Ever, and every
Soul of us.
God of the saved,
God of the tried,
God of the lost ones,
Be with all!
Let us be near thee
Ever and aye;
Oh! let us love thee
Infinite!
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1 253
JOANNA BAILLIE
(1762-1851)
J
JOANNA Baillie's early childhood was passed at Bothwell, Scot-
land, where she was born in 1762. Of this time she drew
a picture in her well-known birthday lines to her sister:-
Dear Agnes, gleamed with joy and dashed with tears,
O'er us have glided almost sixty years
Since we on Bothwell's bonny braes were seen,
By those whose eyes long closed in death have been:
Two tiny imps, who scarcely stooped to gather
The slender harebell, or the purple heather;
No taller than the foxglove's spiky stem,
That dew of morning studs with silvery gem.
Then every butterfly that crossed our view
With joyful shout was eted as it flew,
And moth and lady-bird and beetle bright
In sheeny gold were each a wondrous sight.
Then as we paddled barefoot, side by side,
Among the sunny shallows of the Clyde,
Minnows or spotted par with twinkling fin,
Swimming in mazy rings the pool within,
A thrill of gladness through our bosoms sent
Seen in the power of early wonderment. ”
JOANNA BAILLIE
When Joanna was six her father was appointed to the charge of
the kirk at Hamilton. Her early growth went on, not in books, but
in the fearlessness with which she ran upon the top of walls and
parapets of bridges and in all daring. «Look at Miss Jack,” said a
farmer, as she dashed by: “she sits her horse as if it were a bit of
herself. ” At eleven she could not read well. «'Twas thou,” she said
in lines to her sister —
(('Twas thou who woo'dst me first to look
Upon the page of printed book,
That thing by me abhorred, and with address
Didst win me from my thoughtless idleness,
When all too old become with bootless haste
In fitful sports the precious time to waste.
Thy love of tale and story was the stroke
At which my dormant fancy first awoke,
And ghosts and witches in my busy brain
Arose in sombre show, a motley train. ”
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1254
JOANNA BAILLIE
In 1776 Dr. James Baillie was made Professor of Divinity at Glas-
gow University. During the two years the family lived in the col-
lege atmosphere, Joanna first read Comus,' and, led by the delight
it awakened, the great epic of Milton. It was here that her vigor
and disputatious turn of mind “cast an awe” over her companions.
After her father's death she settled, in 1784, with her mother and
brother and sister in London.
She had made herself familiar with English literature, and above
all she had studied Shakespeare with enthusiasm. Circumscribed
now by the brick and mortar of London streets, in exchange for the
fair views and liberties of her native fruitlands, Joanna found her
first expression in a volume of Fugitive Verses, published in 1790.
The book caused so little comment that the words of but one friendly
hand are preserved: that the poems were “truly unsophisticated rep-
resentations of nature. ”
Joanna's walk was along calm and unhurried ways. She could
have had a considerable place in society and the world of “lions » if
she had cared. The wife of her uncle and name-father, the anato-
mist Dr. John Hunter, was no other than the famous Mrs. Anne
Hunter, a songwright of genius; her poem “The Son of Alknomook
Shall Never Complain' is one of the classics of English song, and
the best rendering of the Indian spirit ever condensed into so small
a space. She was also a woman of grace and dignity, a power in
London drawing-rooms, and Haydn set songs of hers to music. But
the reserved Joanna was tempted to no light triumphs.
Eight years
later was published her first volume of Plays on the Passions. ' It
contained (Basil,' a tragedy on love; (The Trial,' a comedy on the
same subject; and De Montfort,' a tragedy on hatred.
The thought of essaying dramatic composition had burst' upon the
author one summer afternoon as she sat sewing with her mother.
She had a high moral purpose in her plan of composition, she said
in her preface, that purpose being the ultimate utterance of the
drama. Plot and incident she set little value upon, and she rejected
the presentation of the most splendid event if it did not appertain
to the development of the passion. In other words, what is and was
commonly of secondary consideration in the swift passage of dra-
matic action became in her hands the stated and paramount object.
Feeling and passion are not precipitated by incident in her drama as
in real life. The play De Montfort' was presented at Drury Lane
Theatre in 1800; but in spite of every effort and the acting of John
Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, it had a run of but eleven nights.
In 1802 Miss Baillie published her second volume of Plays on the
Passions. It contained a comedy on hatred; Ethwald,' a tragedy
on ambition; and a comedy on ambition. Her adherence to her old
1
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JOANNA BAILLIE
I 255
plan brought upon her an attack from Jeffrey in the Edinburgh
Review. He claimed that the complexity of the moral nature of
man made Joanna's theory false and absurd, that a play was too nar-
row to show the complete growth of a passion, and that the end of
the drama is the entertainment of the audience. He asserted that
she imitated and plagiarized Shakespeare; while he admitted her
insight into human nature, her grasp of character, and her devotion
to her work.
About the time of the appearance of this volume, Joanna fixed
her residence with her mother and sister, among the lanes and fields
of Hampstead, where they continued throughout their lives. The
first volume of Miscellaneous Plays) came out in 1804. In the pref-
ace she stated that her opinions set forth in her first preface were
unchanged. But the plays had a freer construction. “Miss Baillie,”
wrote Jeffrey in his review, “cannot possibly write a tragedy, or an
act of a tragedy, without showing genius and exemplifying a more
dramatic conception and expression than any of her modern compet-
itors. ”
Constantine Palæologus,' which the volume contained, had
the liveliest commendation and popularity, and several times put
upon the stage with spectacular effect.
In the year of the publication of Joanna's Miscellaneous Plays,'
Sir Walter Scott came to London, and seeking an introduction
through a common friend, made the way for a lifelong friendship
between the two, He had just brought out “The Lay of the Last
Minstrel. ' Miss Baillie was already a famous writer, with fast friends
in Lucy Aikin, Mary Berry, Mrs. Siddons, and other workers in art
and literature; but the hearty commendation of her countryman,
which she is said to have come upon unexpectedly when reading
(Marmion' to a group of friends, she valued beyond other praise.
The legend is that she read through the passage firmly to the close,
and only lost self-control in her sympathy with the emotion of a
friend :-
(The wild harp that silent hung
By silver Avon's holy shore
Till twice one hundred years rolled o'er,
When she the bold enchantress came,
From the pale willow snatched the treasure,
With fearless hand and heart in flame,
And swept it with a kindred measure;
Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove
With Montfort's hate and Basil's love,
Awakening at the inspired strain,
Deemed their own Shakespeare lived again. ”
## p. 1256 (#46) ############################################
1256
JOANNA BAILLIE
a
were
con-
The year 1810 saw (The Family Legend, a play founded on
tragic history of the Campbell clan. Scott wrote a prologue and
brought out the play in the Edinburgh Theatre. « You have only
to imagine,” he told the author, "all that you could wish to give
success to a play, and your conceptions will still fall short of the
complete and decided triumph of "The Family Legend. ) »
The attacks which Jeffrey had made upon her verse
tinued when she published, in 1812, her third volume of Plays on
the Passions. His voice, however, did not diminish the admiration
for the character-drawing with which the book was greeted, or for
the lyric outbursts occurring now and then in the dramas.
Joanna's quiet Hampstead life was broken in 1813 by a genial
meeting in London with the ambitious Madame de Staël, and again
with the vivacious little Irish woman, Maria Edgeworth.
She was
keeping her promise of not writing more; but during a visit to Sir
Walter in 1820 her imagination was touched by Scotch tales, and she
published Metrical Legends' the following year. In this vast Abbots-
ford she finally consented to meet Jeffrey. The plucky little writer
and the unshrinking critic at once became friends, and thenceforward
Jeffrey never went to London without visiting her in Hampstead.
Her moral courage throughout life recalls the physical courage
which characterized her youth. She never concealed her religious
convictions, and in 1831 she published her ideas in A View of the
General Tenor of the New Testament Regarding the Nature and
Dignity of Jesus Christ. In 1836, having finally given up the long
hope of seeing her plays become popular upon the stage, she pre-
pared a complete edition of her dramas with the addition of three
plays never before made public, — (Romiero,' a tragedy, "The Alien-
ated Manor,' a comedy on jealousy, and Henriquez, a tragedy on
remorse. The Edinburgh Review immediately put forth a eulogistic
notice of the collected edition, and at last admitted that the reviewer
had changed his judgment, and esteemed the author as a dramatist
above Byron and Scott.
“May God support both you and me, and give us comfort and
consolation when it is most wanted,” wrote Miss Baillie to Mary
Berry in 1837. “As for myself, I do not wish to be one year
younger than I am; and have no desire, were it possible, to begin
life again, even under the most honorable circumstances. I have
great cause for humble thankfulness, and I am thankful. ”
In 1840 Jeffrey wrote:-“I have been twice out to Hampstead,
and found Joanna Baillie as fresh, natural, and amiable as ever, and
as little like a tragic muse. ” And again in 1842: _“She is marvelous
in health and spirit; not a bit deaf, blind, or torpid. ” About this
time she published her last book, a volume of Fugitive Verses. '
## p. 1257 (#47) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
1257
"A sweeter picture of old age was never seen,” wrote Harriet
Martineau. «Her figure was small, light, and active; her counte-
nance, in its expression of serenity, harmonized wonderfully with her
gay conversation and her cheerful voice. Her eyes were beautiful,
dark, bright, and penetrating, with the full innocent gaze of child-
hood. Her face was altogether comely, and her dress did justice
to it. She wore her own silvery hair and a mob cap, with its delicate
lace border fitting close around her face. She was well dressed, in
handsome dark silks, and her lace caps and collars looked always
new. No Quaker was ever neater, while she kept up with the times
in her dress as in her habit of mind, as far as became her years.
In her whole appearance there was always something for even the
passing stranger to admire, and never anything for the most familiar
friend to wish otherwise. ” She died, without suffering, in the full
possession of her faculties,” in her ninetieth year, 1851.
Her dramatic and poetical works are collected in one volume
(1843). Her Life, with selections from her songs, may be found in
(The Songstress of Scotland, by Sarah Tytler and J. L. Watson
(1871).
WOOD AND MARRIED AND A'
THE
HE bride she is winsome and bonny,
Her hair it is snooded sae sleek,
And faithfu' and kind is her Johnny,
Yet fast fa' the tears on her cheek.
New pearlins are cause of her sorrow,
New pearlins and plenishing too:
The bride that has a' to borrow
Has e'en right mickle ado.
Woo'd and married and a'!
Woo'd and married and a'!
Isna she very weel aff
To be woo'd and married at a'?
Her mither then hastily spak:-
«The lassie is glaikit wi' pride;
In my pouch I had never a plack
On the day when I was a bride.
E'en tak’ to your wheel and be clever,
And draw out your thread in the sun;
The gear that is gifted, it never
Will last like the gear that is won.
Woo'd and married and a'!
Wi' havins and tocher sae sma'!
## p. 1258 (#48) ############################################
1258
JOANNA BAILLIE
I think ye are very weel aff
To be woo'd and married at a'! »
“Toot, toot! " quo' her gray-headed faither,
«She's less o' a bride than a bairn;
She's ta'en like a cout frae the heather,
Wi’ sense and discretion to learn.
Half husband, I trow, and half daddy,
As humor inconstantly leans,
The chiel maun be patient and steady
That yokes wi’ a mate in her teens.
A kerchief sae douce and sae neat,
O'er her locks that the wind used to blaw!
I'm baith like to laugh and to greet
When I think o' her married at a'. »
Then out spak' the wily bridegroom,
Weel waled were his wordies I ween:
“I'm rich, though my coffer be toom,
Wi’ the blinks o' your bonny blue e'en.
I'm prouder o' thee by my side,
Though thy ruffles or ribbons be few,
Than if Kate o' the Croft were my bride,
Wi' purfles and pearlins enow.
Dear and dearest of ony!
Ye're woo'd and buiket and a'!
And do ye think scorn o’ your Johnny,
And grieve to be married at a'? »
She turn'd, and she blush'd, and she smil'd,
And she looket sae bashfully down;
The pride o' her heart was beguil'd,
And she played wi’ the sleeves o' her gown;
She twirlet the tag o’her lace,
And she nippet her bodice sae blue,
Syne blinket sae sweet in his face,
And aff like a maukin she flew.
Woo'd and married and a'!
Wi' Johnny to roose her and a'!
She thinks hersel' very weel aff
To be woo'd and married at a'!
## p. 1259 (#49) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
1259
IT WAS ON A MORN WHEN WE WERE THRANG
I
T WAS on a morn when we were thrang,
The kirn it croon'd, the cheese was making,
And bannocks on the girdle baking,
When ane at the door chapp't loud and lang.
Yet the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight,
Of a' this bauld din took sma' notice I ween;
For a chap at the door in braid daylight
Is no like a chap that's heard at e'en.
But the docksy auld laird of the Warlock glen,
Wha waited without, half blate, half cheery,
And langed for a sight o' his winsome deary,
Raised up the latch and cam' crousely ben.
His coat it was new, and his o'erlay was white,
His mittens and hose were cozie and bien;
But a wooer that comes in braid daylight
Is no like a wooer that comes at e'en.
He greeted the carline and lasses sae braw,
And his bare lyart pow sae smoothly he straikit,
And he looket about, like a body half glaikit,
On bonny sweet Nanny, the youngest of a'.
Ha, laird! ” quo' the carline, "and look ye that way?
Fye, let na' sic fancies bewilder you clean:
An elderlin man, in the noon o' the day,
Should be wiser than youngsters that come at e'en.
“Na, na," quo' the pawky auld wife, “I trow
You'll no fash your head wi' a youthfu' gilly,
As wild and as skeig as a muirland filly:
Black Madge is far better and fitter for you. "
He hem'd and he haw'd, and he drew in his mouth,
And he squeezed the blue bannet his twa hands between;
For a wooer that comes when the sun's i' the south
Is mair landward than wooers that come at e'en.
« Black Madge is sae carefu) – “What's that to me ? ”
“She's sober and eydent, has sense in her noodle;
She's douce and respeckit ” — “I carena a bodle:
Love winna be guided, and fancy's free. ”
Madge toss'd back her head wi' a saucy slight,
And Nanny, loud laughing, ran out to the green;
For a wooer that comes when the sun shines bright
Is no like wooer that comes at e'en.
## p. 1260 (#50) ############################################
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JOANNA BAILLIE
Then away flung the laird, and loud mutter'd he,
«A' the daughters of Eve, between Orkney and Tweed 0!
Black or fair, young or auld, dame or damsel or widow,
May gang in their pride to the de'il for me! »
But the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight,
Cared little for a' his stour banning, I ween;
For a wooer that comes in braid daylight
Is no like a wooer that comes at e'en.
FY, LET US A' TO THE WEDDING
(An Auld Sang, New Buskit)
F
Y, LET us a' to the wedding,
For they will be lilting there;
For Jock's to be married to Maggy,
The lass wi’ the gowden hair.
And there will be jibing and jeering,
And glancing of bonny dark een,
Loud laughing and smooth-gabbit speering
O’questions baith pawky and keen.
And there will be Bessy the beauty,
Wha raises her cockup sae hie,
And giggles at preachings and duty, -
Guid grant that she gang na' ajee!
And there will be auld Geordie Taunner,
Wha coft a young wife wi' his gowd;
She'll flaunt wi' a silk gown upon her,
But wow! he looks dowie and cow'd.
And brown Tibbey Fouler the Heiress
Will perk at the tap o' the ha',
Encircled wi' suitors, wha's care is
To catch up her gloves when they fa',-
Repeat a' her jokes as they're cleckit,
And haver and glower in her face,
When tocherless mays are negleckit, -
A crying and scandalous case.
And Mysie, wha's clavering aunty
Wud match her wi' Laurie the Laird,
And learns the young fule to be vaunty,
But neither to spin nor to caird.
## p. 1261 (#51) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
1261
And Andrew, wha's granny is yearning
To see him a clerical blade,
Was sent to the college for learning,
And cam' back a coof as he gaed.
And there will be auld Widow Martin,
That ca's hersel thritty and twa!
And thraw-gabbit Madge, wha for certain
Was jilted by Hab o' the Shaw.
And Elspy the sewster sae genty,
A pattern of havens and sense,
Will straik on her mittens sae dainty,
And crack wi' Mess John i' the spence.
And Angus, the seer o’ ferlies,
That sits on the stane at his door,
And tells about bogles, and mair lies
Than tongue ever utter'd before.
And there will be Bauldy the boaster
Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue;
Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster,
Wha quarrel wi' auld and wi' young:
And Hugh the town-writer, I'm thinking,
That trades in his lawerly skill,
Will egg on the fighting and drinking
To bring after-grist to his mill;
And Maggy — na, na! we'll be civil,
And let the wee bridie a-be;
A vilipend tongue is the devil,
And ne'er was encouraged by me.
Then fy, let us a' to the wedding,
For they will be lilting there
Frae mony a far-distant ha'ding,
The fun and the feasting to share.
For they will get sheep's head, and haggis,
And browst o' the barley-mow;
E’en he that comes latest, and lag is,
May feast upon dainties enow.
Veal florentines in the o'en baken,
Weel plenish'd wi' raisins and fat;
## p. 1262 (#52) ############################################
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JOANNA BAILLIE
Beef, mutton, and chuckies, a' taken
Het reeking frae spit and frae pat:
And glasses (I trow 'tis na' said ill),
To drink the young couple good luck,
Weel fill'd wi' a braw beechen ladle
Frae punch-bowl as big as Dumbuck.
And then will come dancing and daffing,
And reelin' and crossin' o' hans,
Till even auld Lucky is laughing,
As back by the aumry she stans.
Sic bobbing and flinging and whirling,
While fiddlers are making their din;
And pipers are droning and skirling
As loud as the roar o' the lin.
Then fy, let us a' to the wedding,
For they will be lilting there,
For Jock's to be married to Maggy,
The lass wi' the gowden hair.
THE WEARY PUND O'TOW
A
YOUNG gudewife is in my house,
And thrifty means to be,
But aye she's runnin' to the town
Some ferlie there to see.
The weary pund, the weary pund, the weary pund o' tow,
I soothly think, ere it be spun, I'll wear a lyart pow.
And when she sets her to her wheel
To draw her threads wi’ care,
In comes the chapman wi' his gear,
And she can spin nae mair.
The weary pund, etc.
And she, like ony merry may,
At fairs maun still be seen,
At kirkyard preachings near the tent,
At dances on the green.
The weary pund, etc.
Her dainty ear a fiddle charms,
A bagpipe's her delight,
## p. 1263 (#53) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
1 263
But for the crooning o' her wheel
She disna care a mite.
The weary pund, etc.
You spake, my Kate, of snaw-white webs,
Made o' your linkum twine,
But, ah! I fear our bonny burn
Will ne'er lave web o' thine.
The weary pund, etc.
Nay, smile again, my winsome mate;
Sic jeering means nae ill;
Should I gae sarkless to my grave,
I'll lo'e and bless thee still.
The weary pund, etc.
FROM DE MONTFORT): A TRAGEDY
ACT V - SCENE III
Moonlight. A wild path in a wood, shaded with trees. Enter De Mont-
fort, with a strong expression of disquiet, mixed with fear, upon his
face, looking behind him, and bending his ear to the ground, as if
he listened to something.
D
E MONTFORT — How hollow groans the earth beneath
my tread:
Is there an echo here? Methinks it sounds
As though some heavy footsteps followed me.
I will advance no farther.
Deep settled shadows rest across the path,
And thickly-tangled boughs o'erhang this spot.
O that a tenfold gloom did cover it,
That 'mid the murky darkness I might strike!
As in the wild confusion of a dream,
Things horrid, bloody, terrible do pass,
As though they passed not; nor impress the mind
With the fixed clearness of reality.
[An owl is heard screaming near him.
[Starting ] What sound is that?
[Listens, and the owl cries again.
It is the screech-owl's cry.
Foul bird of night! What spirit guides thee here?
## p. 1264 (#54) ############################################
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JOANNA BAILLIE
Art thou instinctive drawn to scenes of horror ?
I've heard of this.
[Pauses and listens.
How those fallen leaves so rustle on the path,
With whispering noise, as though the earth around me
Did utter secret things.
The distant river, too, bears to mine ear
A dismal wailing. O mysterious night!
Thou art not silent; many tongues hast thou.
A distant gathering blast sounds through the wood,
And dark clouds fleetly hasten o’er the sky;
Oh that a storm would rise, a raging storm;
Amidst the roar of warring elements
I'd lift my hand and strike! but this pale light,
The calm distinctness of each stilly thing,
Is terrible. - [Starting. ] Footsteps, and near me, too!
He comes! he comes! I'll watch him farther on
I cannot do it here.
[Exit.
Enter Rezenvelt, and continues his way slowly from the bottom of the
stage ; as he advances to the front, the owl screams, he stops and
listens, and the owl screams again.
Rezenvelt – Ha! does the night-bird greet me on my way?
How much his hooting is in harmony
With such a scene as this! I like it well.
Oft when a boy, at the still twilight hour,
I've leant my back against some knotted oak,
And loudly mimicked him, till to my call
He answer would return, and through the gloom
We friendly converse held.
Between me and the star-bespangled sky,
Those aged oaks their crossing branches wave,
And through them looks the pale and placid moon.
How like a crocodile, or winged snake,
Yon sailing cloud bears on its dusky length!
And now transformed by the passing wind,
Methinks it seems a flying Pegasus.
Ay, but a shapeless band of blacker hue
Comes swiftly after. -
A hollow murm'ring wind sounds through the trees;
I hear it from afar; this bodes a storm.
I must not linger here -
1
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JOANNA BAILLIE
1 265
[A bell heard at some distance. ] The convent bell.
'Tis distant still: it tells their hour of prayer.
It sends a solemn sound upon the breeze,
That, to a fearful, superstitious mind,
In such a scene,' would like a death-knell come.
[Exit.
TO MRS. SIDDONS
G
IFTED of heaven! who hast, in days gone by,
Moved every heart, delighted every eye;
While age and youth, of high and low degree,
In sympathy were joined, beholding thee,
As in the Drama's ever-changing scene
Thou heldst thy splendid state, our tragic queen!
No barriers there thy fair domains confined,
Thy sovereign sway was o'er the human mind;
And in the triumph of that witching hour,
Thy lofty bearing well became thy power.
The impassioned changes of thy beauteous face,
Thy stately form, and high imperial grace;
Thine arms impetuous tossed, thy robe's wide flow,
And the dark tempest gathered on thy brow;
What time thy flashing eye and lip of scorn
Down to the dust thy mimic foes have borne;
Remorseful musings, sunk to deep dejection,
The fixed and yearning looks of strong affection;
The active turmoil a wrought bosom rending,
When pity, love, and honor, are contending :-
They who beheld all this, right well, I ween,
A lovely, grand, and wondrous sight have seen.
Thy varied accents, rapid, fitful, slow,
Loud rage, and fear's snatched whisper, quick and low;
The burst of stifled love, the wail of grief,
And tones of high command, full, solemn, brief;
The change of voice, and emphasis that threw
Light on obscurity, and brought to view
Distinctions nice, when grave or comic mood,
Or mingled humors, terse and new, elude
Common perception, as earth's smallest things
To size and form the vesting hoar-frost brings,
That seemed as if some secret voice, to clear
The raveled meaning, whispered in thine ear,
111-80
## p. 1266 (#56) ############################################
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JOANNA BAILLIE
And thou hadst e'en with him communion kept,
Who hath so long in Stratford's chancel slept;
Whose lines, where nature's brightest traces shine,
Alone were worthy deemed of powers like thine;
They who have heard all this, have proved full well
Of soul-exciting sound the mightiest spell.
But though time's lengthened shadows o'er thee glide,
And pomp of regal state is cast aside,
Think not the glory of thy course is spent,
There's moonlight radiance to thy evening lent,
That to the mental world can never fade,
Till all who saw thee, in the grave are laid.
Thy graceful form still moves in nightly dreams,
And what thou wast, to the lulled sleeper seems;
While feverish fancy oft doth fondly trace
Within her curtained couch thy wondrous face.
Yea; and to many a wight, bereft and lone,
In musing hours, though all to thee unknown,
Soothing his earthly course of good and ill,
With all thy potent charm, thou actest still.
And now in crowded room or rich saloon,
Thy stately presence recognized, how soon
On thee the glance of many an eye is cast,
In grateful memory of pleasures past!
Pleased to behold thee, with becoming grace,
Take, as befits thee well, an honored place;
Where blest by many a heart, long mayst thou stand,
Among the virtuous matrons of our land!
A SCOTCH SONG
THE
HE gowan glitters on the sward,
The lavrock's in the sky,
And collie on my plaid keeps ward,
And time is passing by.
Oh no! sad and slow
And lengthened on the ground,
The shadow of our trysting bush
It wears so slowly round!
appeared, its author was an unknown youth, who had hardly reached
his majority. Within a few months he was a celebrity.
That so
dignified and suggestive a performance should have come from so
young a poet was considered a marvel of precocity by the literary
world, both English and American.
The author of Festus) was born at
Basford, Nottinghamshire, England, April
22d, 1816. Educated at the public schools
of Nottingham, and at Glasgow University,
he studied law, and at nineteen entered
Lincoln's Inn. In 1840 he was admitted
to the bar. But his vocation in life
appears to have been metaphysical and
spiritual rather than legal.
His "Festus: a Poem,' containing fifty-
five episodes or successive scenes, - some
thirty-five thousand lines, — was begun in
his twentieth year. Three years later it
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
was in the hands of the English reading
public. Like Goethe's (Faustin pursuing the course of a human
soul through influences emanating from the Supreme Good and the
Supreme Evil; in having Heaven and the World as its scene; in its
inclusion of God and the Devil, the Archangels and Angels, the
Powers of Perdition, and withal many earthly types in its action,
it is by no means a mere imitation of the great German. Its plan is
wider. It incorporates even more impressive spiritual material than
Faust' offers. Not only is its mortal hero, Festus, conducted
through an amazing pilgrimage, spiritual and redeemed by divine
Love, but we have in the poem a conception of close association
with Christianity, profound ethical suggestions, a flood of theology
and philosophy, metaphysics and science, picturing Good and Evil,
love and hate, peace and war, the past, the present, and the future,
earth, heaven, and hell, heights and depths, dominions, principalities,
and powers, God and man, the whole of being and of not-being,— all
## p. 1244 (#34) ############################################
1
1
1
1 244
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
in an effort to unmask the last and greatest secrets of Infinity. And
more than all this, Festus' strives to portray the sufficiency of
Divine Love and of the Divine Atonement to dissipate, even to anni-
hilate, Evil. For even Lucifer and the hosts of darkness are restored
to purity and to peace among the Sons of God, the Children of
Light! The Love of God is set forth as limitless. We have before
us the birth of matter at the Almighty's fiat; and we close the work
with the salvation and ecstasy — described as decreed from the Begin-
ning — of whatever creature hath been given a spiritual existence,
and made a spiritual subject and agency. There is in the doctrine
of Festus? no such thing as the “Son of Perdition” who shall be
an ultimate castaway.
Few English poems have attracted more general notice from all
intelligent classes of readers than did Festus) on its advent. Ortho-
doxy was not a little aghast at its theologic suggestions. Criticism
of it as a literary production was hampered not a little by religious
sensitiveness. The London Literary Gazette said of it:–«It is an
extraordinary production, out-Heroding Kant in some of its phi-
losophy, and out-Goetheing Goethe in the introduction of the Three
Persons of the Trinity as interlocutors in its wild plot. Most objec-
tionable as it is on this account, it yet contains so many exquisite
passages of genuine poetry, that our admiration of the author's
genius overpowers the feeling of mortification at its being misap-
plied, and meddling with such dangerous topics. ” The advance of
liberal ideas within the churches has diminished such criticism, but
the work is still a stumbling-block to the less speculative of sec-
taries.
The poem is far too long, and its scope too vast for even
genius of much higher and riper gifts than Bailey's. It is turgid,
untechnical in verse, wordy, and involved. Had Bailey written at
fifty instead of at twenty, it might have shown a necessary balance
and felicity of style. But, with all these shortcomings, it is not to
be relegated to the library of things not worth the time to know, to
the list of bulky poetic failures. Its author blossomed and fruited
marvelously early; so early and with such unlooked-for fruit that the
unthinking world, which first received him with exaggerated honor,
presently assailed him with undue dispraise. (Festus' is not mere
solemn and verbose commonplace.
Here and there it has passages
of great force and even of high beauty. The author's whole heart
and brain were poured into it, and neither was
With all its ill-based daring and manifest crudities, it was such a
tour de force for a lad of twenty as the world seldom sees.
Its slug-
gish current bears along remarkable knowledge, great reflection, and
the imagination of a fertile as well as a precocious brain.
It is a
a
a
common
one.
## p. 1245 (#35) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1 245
stream which carries with it things new and old, and serves to stir
the mind of the onlooker with unwonted thoughts. Were it but one
fourth as long, it would still remain a favorite poem. Even now it
has passed through numerous editions, and been but lately repub-
lished in sumptuous form after fifty years of life; and in the cata-
logue of higher metaphysico-religious poetry it will long maintain
an honorable place. It is cited here among the books whose fame
rather than whose importance demand recognition.
FROM (FESTUS)
LIFE
F
ESTUS —
Men's callings all
Are mean and vain; their wishes more so: oft
The man is bettered by his part or place.
How slight a chance may raise or sink a soul!
Lucifer -- What men call accident is God's own part.
He lets ye work your will — it is his own:
But that ye mean not, know not, do not, he doth.
Festus — What is life worth without a heart to feel
The great and lovely harmonies which time
And nature change responsive, all writ out
By preconcertive hand which swells the strain
To divine fulness; feel the poetry,
The soothing rhythm of life's fore-ordered lay;
The sacredness of things ? — for all things are
Sacred so far, - the worst of them, as seen
By the eye of God, they in the aspect bide
Of holiness: nor shall outlaw sin be slain,
Though rebel banned, within the sceptre's length;
But privileged even for service. Oh! to stand
Soul-raptured, on some lofty mountain-thought,
And feel the spirit expand into a view
Millennial, life-exalting, of a day
When earth shall have all leisure for high ends
Of social culture; ends a liberal law
And common peace of nations, blent with charge
Divine, shall win for man, were joy indeed:
Nor greatly less, to know what might be now,
Worked will for good with power, for one brief hour.
But look at these, these individual souls:
How sadly men show out of joint with man!
There are millions never think a noble thought;
## p. 1246 (#36) ############################################
1246
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
But with brute hate of brightness bay a mind
Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.
Throw but a false glare round them, and in shoals
They rush upon perdition: that's the race.
What charm is in this world-scene to such minds?
Blinded by dust ? What can they do in heaven,
A state of spiritual means and ends ?
Thus must I doubt — perpetually doubt.
Lucifer - Who never doubted never half believed.
Where doubt, there truth is —-'tis her shadow. I
Declare unto thee that the past is not.
I have looked over all life, yet never seen
The age that had been. Why then fear or dream
About the future? Nothing but what is, is;
Else God were not the Maker that he seems,
As constant in creating as in being.
Embrace the present. Let the future pass.
Plague not thyself about a future. That
Only which comes direct from God, his spirit,
Is deathless. Nature gravitates without
Effort; and so all mortal natures fall
Deathwards. All aspiration is a toil;
But inspiration cometh from above,
And is no labor. The earth's inborn strength
Could never lift her up to yon stars, whence
She fell; nor human soul, by native worth,
Claim heaven as birthright, more than man may call
Cloudland his home. The soul's inheritance,
Its birth-place, and its death-place, is of earth;
Until God maketh earth and soul anew;
The one like heaven, the other like himself.
So shall the new creation come at once;
Sin, the dead branch upon the tree of life
Shall be cut off forever; and all souls
Concluded in God's boundless amnesty.
Festus — Thou windest and unwindest faith at will.
What am I to believe ?
Lucifer -
Thou mayest believe
But that thou art forced to.
Festus —
Then I feel, perforce,
That instinct of immortal life in me,
Which prompts me to provide for it.
Lucifer --
Perhaps.
Festus — Man hath a knowledge of a time to come —
His most important knowledge: the weight lies
## p. 1247 (#37) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1 247
Nearest the short end; and the world depends
Upon what is to be.
I would deny
The present, if the future. Oh! there is
A life to come, or all's a dream.
Lucifer -
And all
May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds,
Clear, moving, full of speech and order; then
Why may not all this world be but a dream
Of God's? Fear not! Some morning God may waken.
Festus- I would it were. This life's a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men's. And yet men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for.
What but perdition will it be to most ?
Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood;
It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.
One generous feeling —one great thought —one deed
Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem
Than if each year might number a thousand days,
Spent as is this by nations of mankind.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most — feels the noblest — acts the best.
Life's but a means unto an end that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things — God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
Why will we live and not be glorious ?
We never can be deathless till we die.
It is the dead win battles. And the breath
Of those who through the world drive like a wedge,
Tearing earth's empires up, nears Death so close
It dims his well-worn scythe. But no! the brave
Die never. Being deathless, they but change
Their country's arms for more their country's heart.
Give then the dead their due: it is they who saved us.
The rapid and the deep - the fall, the gulph,
Have likenesses in feeling and in life.
And life, so varied, hath more loveliness
In one day than a creeping century
Of sameness. But youth loves and lives on change,
Till the soul sighs for sameness; which at last
## p. 1248 (#38) ############################################
1248
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Becomes variety, and takes its place.
Yet some will last to die out, thought by thought,
And power by power, and limb of mind by limb,
Like lamps upon a gay device of glass,
Till all of soul that's left be dry and dark;
Till even the burden of some ninety years
Hath crashed into them like a rock; shattered
Their system as if ninety suns had rushed
To ruin earth — or heaven had rained its stars;
Till they become like scrolls, unreadable,
Through dust and mold. Can they be cleaned and read ?
Do human spirits wax and wane like moons ?
Lucifer — The eye dims, and the heart gets old and slow;
The lithe limbs stiffen, and the sun-hued locks
Thin themselves off, or whitely wither; still,
Ages not spirit, even in one point,
Immeasurably small; from orb to orb,
Rising in radiance ever like the sun
Shining upon the thousand lands of earth.
THE PASSING-BELL
LARA
C
True prophet mayst thou be. But list: that sound
The passing-bell the spirit should solemnize;
For, while on its emancipate path, the soul
Still waves its upward wings, and we still hear
The warning sound, it is known, we well may pray.
Festus — But pray for whom ?
Clara -
It means not. Pray for all.
Pray for the good man's soul:
He is leaving earth for heaven,
And it soothes us to feel that the best
May be forgiven.
Festus — Pray for the sinful soul:
It fleëth, we know not where;
But wherever it be let us hope;
For God is there.
Clara — Pray for the rich man's soul:
Not all be unjust, nor vain;
The wise he consoled; and he saved
The poor from pain.
## p. 1249 (#39) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
I 249
Festus -- Pray for the poor man's soul:
The death of this life of ours
He hath shook from his feet; he is one
Of the heavenly powers.
Pray for the old man's soul:
He hath labored long; through life
It was battle or march. He hath ceased,
Serene, from strife.
Clara — Pray for the infant's soul:
With its spirit crown unsoiled,
He hath won, without war, a realm;
Gained all, nor toiled.
Festus - Pray for the struggling soul:
The mists of the straits of death
Clear off; in some bright star-isle
It anchoreth.
Pray for the soul assured:
Though it wrought in a gloomy mine,
Yet the gems it earned were its own,
That soul's divine.
Clara -- Pray for the simple soul:
For it loved, and therein was wise;
Though itself knew not, but with heaven
Confused the skies.
Festus - Pray for the sage's soul:
’Neath his welkin wide of mind
Lay the central thought of God,
Thought undefined.
Pray for the souls of all
To our God, that all may be
With forgiveness crowned, and joy
Eternally.
Clara - Hush! for the bell hath ceased;
And the spirit's fate is sealed;
To the angels known; to man
Best unrevealed.
II1–79
## p. 1250 (#40) ############################################
1 250
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
THOUGHTS
- Well, farewell, Mr. Student. May you never
FRegret those hours which make the mind, if they
can
Unmake the body; for the sooner we
Are fit to be all mind, the better. Blessed
Is he whose heart is the home of the great dead,
And their great thoughts. Who mistake great
They seize upon the mind; arrest and search, [thoughts
And shake it; bow the tall soul as by wind;
Rush over it like a river over reeds,
Which quaver in the current; turn us cold,
And pale, and voiceless; leaving in the brain
A rocking and a ringing; glorious,
But momentary, madness might it last,
And close the soul with heaven as with a seal!
In lieu of all these things whose loss thou mournest,
If earnestly or not I know not, use
The great and good and true which ever live;
And are all common to pure eyes and true.
Upon the summit of each mountain-thought
Worship thou God, with heaven-uplifted head
And arms horizon-stretched; for deity is seen
From every elevation of the soul.
Study the light; attempt the high; seek out
The soul's bright path; and since the soul is fire,
Of heat intelligential, turn it aye
To the all-Fatherly source of light and life;
Piety purifies the soul to see
Visions, perpetually, of grace and power,
Which, to their sight who in ignorant sin abide,
Are now as e'er incognizable. Obey
Thy genius, for a minister it is
Unto the throne of Fate. Draw towards thy soul,
And centralize, the rays which are around
Of the divinity. Keep thy spirit pure
From worldly taint, by the repellent strength
Of virtue. Think on noble thoughts and deeds,
Ever. Count o'er the rosary of truth;
And practice precepts which are proven wise,
It matters not then what thou fearest. Walk
Boldly and wisely in that light thou hast;
There is a hand above will help thee on.
I am an omnist, and believe in all
Religions; fragments of one golden world
To be relit yet, and take its place in heaven,
## p. 1251 (#41) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1251
Where is the whole, sole truth, in deity.
Meanwhile, his word, his law, writ soulwise here,
Study; its truths love; practice its behests -
They will be with thee when all else have gone.
Mind, body, passion all wear out; not faith
Nor truth. Keep thy heart cool, or rule its heat
To fixed ends; waste it not upon itself.
Not all the agony maybe of the damned
Fused in one pang, vies with that earthquake throb
Which wakens soul from life-waste, to let see
The world rolled by for aye, and we must wait
For our next chance the nigh eternity;
Whether it be in heaven, or elsewhere.
DREAMS
ESTUS
F
The dead of night: earth seems but seeming;
The soul seems but a something dreaming.
The bird is dreaming in its nest,
Of song, and sky, and loved one's breast;
The lap-dog dreams, as round he lies,
In moonshine, of his mistress's eyes;
The steed is dreaming, in his stall,
Of one long breathless leap and fall;
The hawk hath dreamed him thrice of wings
Wide as the skies he may not cleave;
But waking, feels them clipped, and clings
Mad to the perch 'twere mad to leave:
The child is dreaming of its toys;
The murderer, of calm home joys;
The weak are dreaming endless fears;
The proud of how their pride appears;
The poor enthusiast who dies,
Of his life-dreams the sacrifice,
Sees, as enthusiast only can,
The truth that made him more than man;
And hears once more, in visioned trance,
That voice commanding to advance,
Where wealth is gained - love, wisdom won,
Or deeds of danger dared and done.
The mother dreameth of her child;
The maid of him who hath beguiled;
The youth of her he loves too well;
The good of God; the ill of hell;
## p. 1252 (#42) ############################################
1 252
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Who live of death; of life who die;
The dead of immortality.
The earth is dreaming back her youth;
Hell never dreains, for woe is truth;
And heaven is dreaming o'er her prime,
Long ere the morning stars of time;
And dream of heaven alone can I,
My lovely one, when thou art nigh.
CHORUS OF THE SAVED
From the Conclusion
F
ATHER of goodness,
Son of love,
Spirit of comfort,
Be with us!
God who hast made us,
God who hast saved,
God who hast judged us,
Thee we praise.
Heaven our spirits,
Hallow our hearts;
Let us have God-light
Endlessly.
Ours is the wide world,
Heaven on heaven;
What have we done, Lord,
Worthy this?
Oh! we have loved thee;
That alone
Maketh our glory,
Duty, meed.
Oh! we have loved thee!
Love we will
Ever, and every
Soul of us.
God of the saved,
God of the tried,
God of the lost ones,
Be with all!
Let us be near thee
Ever and aye;
Oh! let us love thee
Infinite!
## p. 1253 (#43) ############################################
1 253
JOANNA BAILLIE
(1762-1851)
J
JOANNA Baillie's early childhood was passed at Bothwell, Scot-
land, where she was born in 1762. Of this time she drew
a picture in her well-known birthday lines to her sister:-
Dear Agnes, gleamed with joy and dashed with tears,
O'er us have glided almost sixty years
Since we on Bothwell's bonny braes were seen,
By those whose eyes long closed in death have been:
Two tiny imps, who scarcely stooped to gather
The slender harebell, or the purple heather;
No taller than the foxglove's spiky stem,
That dew of morning studs with silvery gem.
Then every butterfly that crossed our view
With joyful shout was eted as it flew,
And moth and lady-bird and beetle bright
In sheeny gold were each a wondrous sight.
Then as we paddled barefoot, side by side,
Among the sunny shallows of the Clyde,
Minnows or spotted par with twinkling fin,
Swimming in mazy rings the pool within,
A thrill of gladness through our bosoms sent
Seen in the power of early wonderment. ”
JOANNA BAILLIE
When Joanna was six her father was appointed to the charge of
the kirk at Hamilton. Her early growth went on, not in books, but
in the fearlessness with which she ran upon the top of walls and
parapets of bridges and in all daring. «Look at Miss Jack,” said a
farmer, as she dashed by: “she sits her horse as if it were a bit of
herself. ” At eleven she could not read well. «'Twas thou,” she said
in lines to her sister —
(('Twas thou who woo'dst me first to look
Upon the page of printed book,
That thing by me abhorred, and with address
Didst win me from my thoughtless idleness,
When all too old become with bootless haste
In fitful sports the precious time to waste.
Thy love of tale and story was the stroke
At which my dormant fancy first awoke,
And ghosts and witches in my busy brain
Arose in sombre show, a motley train. ”
## p. 1254 (#44) ############################################
1254
JOANNA BAILLIE
In 1776 Dr. James Baillie was made Professor of Divinity at Glas-
gow University. During the two years the family lived in the col-
lege atmosphere, Joanna first read Comus,' and, led by the delight
it awakened, the great epic of Milton. It was here that her vigor
and disputatious turn of mind “cast an awe” over her companions.
After her father's death she settled, in 1784, with her mother and
brother and sister in London.
She had made herself familiar with English literature, and above
all she had studied Shakespeare with enthusiasm. Circumscribed
now by the brick and mortar of London streets, in exchange for the
fair views and liberties of her native fruitlands, Joanna found her
first expression in a volume of Fugitive Verses, published in 1790.
The book caused so little comment that the words of but one friendly
hand are preserved: that the poems were “truly unsophisticated rep-
resentations of nature. ”
Joanna's walk was along calm and unhurried ways. She could
have had a considerable place in society and the world of “lions » if
she had cared. The wife of her uncle and name-father, the anato-
mist Dr. John Hunter, was no other than the famous Mrs. Anne
Hunter, a songwright of genius; her poem “The Son of Alknomook
Shall Never Complain' is one of the classics of English song, and
the best rendering of the Indian spirit ever condensed into so small
a space. She was also a woman of grace and dignity, a power in
London drawing-rooms, and Haydn set songs of hers to music. But
the reserved Joanna was tempted to no light triumphs.
Eight years
later was published her first volume of Plays on the Passions. ' It
contained (Basil,' a tragedy on love; (The Trial,' a comedy on the
same subject; and De Montfort,' a tragedy on hatred.
The thought of essaying dramatic composition had burst' upon the
author one summer afternoon as she sat sewing with her mother.
She had a high moral purpose in her plan of composition, she said
in her preface, that purpose being the ultimate utterance of the
drama. Plot and incident she set little value upon, and she rejected
the presentation of the most splendid event if it did not appertain
to the development of the passion. In other words, what is and was
commonly of secondary consideration in the swift passage of dra-
matic action became in her hands the stated and paramount object.
Feeling and passion are not precipitated by incident in her drama as
in real life. The play De Montfort' was presented at Drury Lane
Theatre in 1800; but in spite of every effort and the acting of John
Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, it had a run of but eleven nights.
In 1802 Miss Baillie published her second volume of Plays on the
Passions. It contained a comedy on hatred; Ethwald,' a tragedy
on ambition; and a comedy on ambition. Her adherence to her old
1
## p. 1255 (#45) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
I 255
plan brought upon her an attack from Jeffrey in the Edinburgh
Review. He claimed that the complexity of the moral nature of
man made Joanna's theory false and absurd, that a play was too nar-
row to show the complete growth of a passion, and that the end of
the drama is the entertainment of the audience. He asserted that
she imitated and plagiarized Shakespeare; while he admitted her
insight into human nature, her grasp of character, and her devotion
to her work.
About the time of the appearance of this volume, Joanna fixed
her residence with her mother and sister, among the lanes and fields
of Hampstead, where they continued throughout their lives. The
first volume of Miscellaneous Plays) came out in 1804. In the pref-
ace she stated that her opinions set forth in her first preface were
unchanged. But the plays had a freer construction. “Miss Baillie,”
wrote Jeffrey in his review, “cannot possibly write a tragedy, or an
act of a tragedy, without showing genius and exemplifying a more
dramatic conception and expression than any of her modern compet-
itors. ”
Constantine Palæologus,' which the volume contained, had
the liveliest commendation and popularity, and several times put
upon the stage with spectacular effect.
In the year of the publication of Joanna's Miscellaneous Plays,'
Sir Walter Scott came to London, and seeking an introduction
through a common friend, made the way for a lifelong friendship
between the two, He had just brought out “The Lay of the Last
Minstrel. ' Miss Baillie was already a famous writer, with fast friends
in Lucy Aikin, Mary Berry, Mrs. Siddons, and other workers in art
and literature; but the hearty commendation of her countryman,
which she is said to have come upon unexpectedly when reading
(Marmion' to a group of friends, she valued beyond other praise.
The legend is that she read through the passage firmly to the close,
and only lost self-control in her sympathy with the emotion of a
friend :-
(The wild harp that silent hung
By silver Avon's holy shore
Till twice one hundred years rolled o'er,
When she the bold enchantress came,
From the pale willow snatched the treasure,
With fearless hand and heart in flame,
And swept it with a kindred measure;
Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove
With Montfort's hate and Basil's love,
Awakening at the inspired strain,
Deemed their own Shakespeare lived again. ”
## p. 1256 (#46) ############################################
1256
JOANNA BAILLIE
a
were
con-
The year 1810 saw (The Family Legend, a play founded on
tragic history of the Campbell clan. Scott wrote a prologue and
brought out the play in the Edinburgh Theatre. « You have only
to imagine,” he told the author, "all that you could wish to give
success to a play, and your conceptions will still fall short of the
complete and decided triumph of "The Family Legend. ) »
The attacks which Jeffrey had made upon her verse
tinued when she published, in 1812, her third volume of Plays on
the Passions. His voice, however, did not diminish the admiration
for the character-drawing with which the book was greeted, or for
the lyric outbursts occurring now and then in the dramas.
Joanna's quiet Hampstead life was broken in 1813 by a genial
meeting in London with the ambitious Madame de Staël, and again
with the vivacious little Irish woman, Maria Edgeworth.
She was
keeping her promise of not writing more; but during a visit to Sir
Walter in 1820 her imagination was touched by Scotch tales, and she
published Metrical Legends' the following year. In this vast Abbots-
ford she finally consented to meet Jeffrey. The plucky little writer
and the unshrinking critic at once became friends, and thenceforward
Jeffrey never went to London without visiting her in Hampstead.
Her moral courage throughout life recalls the physical courage
which characterized her youth. She never concealed her religious
convictions, and in 1831 she published her ideas in A View of the
General Tenor of the New Testament Regarding the Nature and
Dignity of Jesus Christ. In 1836, having finally given up the long
hope of seeing her plays become popular upon the stage, she pre-
pared a complete edition of her dramas with the addition of three
plays never before made public, — (Romiero,' a tragedy, "The Alien-
ated Manor,' a comedy on jealousy, and Henriquez, a tragedy on
remorse. The Edinburgh Review immediately put forth a eulogistic
notice of the collected edition, and at last admitted that the reviewer
had changed his judgment, and esteemed the author as a dramatist
above Byron and Scott.
“May God support both you and me, and give us comfort and
consolation when it is most wanted,” wrote Miss Baillie to Mary
Berry in 1837. “As for myself, I do not wish to be one year
younger than I am; and have no desire, were it possible, to begin
life again, even under the most honorable circumstances. I have
great cause for humble thankfulness, and I am thankful. ”
In 1840 Jeffrey wrote:-“I have been twice out to Hampstead,
and found Joanna Baillie as fresh, natural, and amiable as ever, and
as little like a tragic muse. ” And again in 1842: _“She is marvelous
in health and spirit; not a bit deaf, blind, or torpid. ” About this
time she published her last book, a volume of Fugitive Verses. '
## p. 1257 (#47) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
1257
"A sweeter picture of old age was never seen,” wrote Harriet
Martineau. «Her figure was small, light, and active; her counte-
nance, in its expression of serenity, harmonized wonderfully with her
gay conversation and her cheerful voice. Her eyes were beautiful,
dark, bright, and penetrating, with the full innocent gaze of child-
hood. Her face was altogether comely, and her dress did justice
to it. She wore her own silvery hair and a mob cap, with its delicate
lace border fitting close around her face. She was well dressed, in
handsome dark silks, and her lace caps and collars looked always
new. No Quaker was ever neater, while she kept up with the times
in her dress as in her habit of mind, as far as became her years.
In her whole appearance there was always something for even the
passing stranger to admire, and never anything for the most familiar
friend to wish otherwise. ” She died, without suffering, in the full
possession of her faculties,” in her ninetieth year, 1851.
Her dramatic and poetical works are collected in one volume
(1843). Her Life, with selections from her songs, may be found in
(The Songstress of Scotland, by Sarah Tytler and J. L. Watson
(1871).
WOOD AND MARRIED AND A'
THE
HE bride she is winsome and bonny,
Her hair it is snooded sae sleek,
And faithfu' and kind is her Johnny,
Yet fast fa' the tears on her cheek.
New pearlins are cause of her sorrow,
New pearlins and plenishing too:
The bride that has a' to borrow
Has e'en right mickle ado.
Woo'd and married and a'!
Woo'd and married and a'!
Isna she very weel aff
To be woo'd and married at a'?
Her mither then hastily spak:-
«The lassie is glaikit wi' pride;
In my pouch I had never a plack
On the day when I was a bride.
E'en tak’ to your wheel and be clever,
And draw out your thread in the sun;
The gear that is gifted, it never
Will last like the gear that is won.
Woo'd and married and a'!
Wi' havins and tocher sae sma'!
## p. 1258 (#48) ############################################
1258
JOANNA BAILLIE
I think ye are very weel aff
To be woo'd and married at a'! »
“Toot, toot! " quo' her gray-headed faither,
«She's less o' a bride than a bairn;
She's ta'en like a cout frae the heather,
Wi’ sense and discretion to learn.
Half husband, I trow, and half daddy,
As humor inconstantly leans,
The chiel maun be patient and steady
That yokes wi’ a mate in her teens.
A kerchief sae douce and sae neat,
O'er her locks that the wind used to blaw!
I'm baith like to laugh and to greet
When I think o' her married at a'. »
Then out spak' the wily bridegroom,
Weel waled were his wordies I ween:
“I'm rich, though my coffer be toom,
Wi’ the blinks o' your bonny blue e'en.
I'm prouder o' thee by my side,
Though thy ruffles or ribbons be few,
Than if Kate o' the Croft were my bride,
Wi' purfles and pearlins enow.
Dear and dearest of ony!
Ye're woo'd and buiket and a'!
And do ye think scorn o’ your Johnny,
And grieve to be married at a'? »
She turn'd, and she blush'd, and she smil'd,
And she looket sae bashfully down;
The pride o' her heart was beguil'd,
And she played wi’ the sleeves o' her gown;
She twirlet the tag o’her lace,
And she nippet her bodice sae blue,
Syne blinket sae sweet in his face,
And aff like a maukin she flew.
Woo'd and married and a'!
Wi' Johnny to roose her and a'!
She thinks hersel' very weel aff
To be woo'd and married at a'!
## p. 1259 (#49) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
1259
IT WAS ON A MORN WHEN WE WERE THRANG
I
T WAS on a morn when we were thrang,
The kirn it croon'd, the cheese was making,
And bannocks on the girdle baking,
When ane at the door chapp't loud and lang.
Yet the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight,
Of a' this bauld din took sma' notice I ween;
For a chap at the door in braid daylight
Is no like a chap that's heard at e'en.
But the docksy auld laird of the Warlock glen,
Wha waited without, half blate, half cheery,
And langed for a sight o' his winsome deary,
Raised up the latch and cam' crousely ben.
His coat it was new, and his o'erlay was white,
His mittens and hose were cozie and bien;
But a wooer that comes in braid daylight
Is no like a wooer that comes at e'en.
He greeted the carline and lasses sae braw,
And his bare lyart pow sae smoothly he straikit,
And he looket about, like a body half glaikit,
On bonny sweet Nanny, the youngest of a'.
Ha, laird! ” quo' the carline, "and look ye that way?
Fye, let na' sic fancies bewilder you clean:
An elderlin man, in the noon o' the day,
Should be wiser than youngsters that come at e'en.
“Na, na," quo' the pawky auld wife, “I trow
You'll no fash your head wi' a youthfu' gilly,
As wild and as skeig as a muirland filly:
Black Madge is far better and fitter for you. "
He hem'd and he haw'd, and he drew in his mouth,
And he squeezed the blue bannet his twa hands between;
For a wooer that comes when the sun's i' the south
Is mair landward than wooers that come at e'en.
« Black Madge is sae carefu) – “What's that to me ? ”
“She's sober and eydent, has sense in her noodle;
She's douce and respeckit ” — “I carena a bodle:
Love winna be guided, and fancy's free. ”
Madge toss'd back her head wi' a saucy slight,
And Nanny, loud laughing, ran out to the green;
For a wooer that comes when the sun shines bright
Is no like wooer that comes at e'en.
## p. 1260 (#50) ############################################
1260
JOANNA BAILLIE
Then away flung the laird, and loud mutter'd he,
«A' the daughters of Eve, between Orkney and Tweed 0!
Black or fair, young or auld, dame or damsel or widow,
May gang in their pride to the de'il for me! »
But the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight,
Cared little for a' his stour banning, I ween;
For a wooer that comes in braid daylight
Is no like a wooer that comes at e'en.
FY, LET US A' TO THE WEDDING
(An Auld Sang, New Buskit)
F
Y, LET us a' to the wedding,
For they will be lilting there;
For Jock's to be married to Maggy,
The lass wi’ the gowden hair.
And there will be jibing and jeering,
And glancing of bonny dark een,
Loud laughing and smooth-gabbit speering
O’questions baith pawky and keen.
And there will be Bessy the beauty,
Wha raises her cockup sae hie,
And giggles at preachings and duty, -
Guid grant that she gang na' ajee!
And there will be auld Geordie Taunner,
Wha coft a young wife wi' his gowd;
She'll flaunt wi' a silk gown upon her,
But wow! he looks dowie and cow'd.
And brown Tibbey Fouler the Heiress
Will perk at the tap o' the ha',
Encircled wi' suitors, wha's care is
To catch up her gloves when they fa',-
Repeat a' her jokes as they're cleckit,
And haver and glower in her face,
When tocherless mays are negleckit, -
A crying and scandalous case.
And Mysie, wha's clavering aunty
Wud match her wi' Laurie the Laird,
And learns the young fule to be vaunty,
But neither to spin nor to caird.
## p. 1261 (#51) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
1261
And Andrew, wha's granny is yearning
To see him a clerical blade,
Was sent to the college for learning,
And cam' back a coof as he gaed.
And there will be auld Widow Martin,
That ca's hersel thritty and twa!
And thraw-gabbit Madge, wha for certain
Was jilted by Hab o' the Shaw.
And Elspy the sewster sae genty,
A pattern of havens and sense,
Will straik on her mittens sae dainty,
And crack wi' Mess John i' the spence.
And Angus, the seer o’ ferlies,
That sits on the stane at his door,
And tells about bogles, and mair lies
Than tongue ever utter'd before.
And there will be Bauldy the boaster
Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue;
Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster,
Wha quarrel wi' auld and wi' young:
And Hugh the town-writer, I'm thinking,
That trades in his lawerly skill,
Will egg on the fighting and drinking
To bring after-grist to his mill;
And Maggy — na, na! we'll be civil,
And let the wee bridie a-be;
A vilipend tongue is the devil,
And ne'er was encouraged by me.
Then fy, let us a' to the wedding,
For they will be lilting there
Frae mony a far-distant ha'ding,
The fun and the feasting to share.
For they will get sheep's head, and haggis,
And browst o' the barley-mow;
E’en he that comes latest, and lag is,
May feast upon dainties enow.
Veal florentines in the o'en baken,
Weel plenish'd wi' raisins and fat;
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Beef, mutton, and chuckies, a' taken
Het reeking frae spit and frae pat:
And glasses (I trow 'tis na' said ill),
To drink the young couple good luck,
Weel fill'd wi' a braw beechen ladle
Frae punch-bowl as big as Dumbuck.
And then will come dancing and daffing,
And reelin' and crossin' o' hans,
Till even auld Lucky is laughing,
As back by the aumry she stans.
Sic bobbing and flinging and whirling,
While fiddlers are making their din;
And pipers are droning and skirling
As loud as the roar o' the lin.
Then fy, let us a' to the wedding,
For they will be lilting there,
For Jock's to be married to Maggy,
The lass wi' the gowden hair.
THE WEARY PUND O'TOW
A
YOUNG gudewife is in my house,
And thrifty means to be,
But aye she's runnin' to the town
Some ferlie there to see.
The weary pund, the weary pund, the weary pund o' tow,
I soothly think, ere it be spun, I'll wear a lyart pow.
And when she sets her to her wheel
To draw her threads wi’ care,
In comes the chapman wi' his gear,
And she can spin nae mair.
The weary pund, etc.
And she, like ony merry may,
At fairs maun still be seen,
At kirkyard preachings near the tent,
At dances on the green.
The weary pund, etc.
Her dainty ear a fiddle charms,
A bagpipe's her delight,
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But for the crooning o' her wheel
She disna care a mite.
The weary pund, etc.
You spake, my Kate, of snaw-white webs,
Made o' your linkum twine,
But, ah! I fear our bonny burn
Will ne'er lave web o' thine.
The weary pund, etc.
Nay, smile again, my winsome mate;
Sic jeering means nae ill;
Should I gae sarkless to my grave,
I'll lo'e and bless thee still.
The weary pund, etc.
FROM DE MONTFORT): A TRAGEDY
ACT V - SCENE III
Moonlight. A wild path in a wood, shaded with trees. Enter De Mont-
fort, with a strong expression of disquiet, mixed with fear, upon his
face, looking behind him, and bending his ear to the ground, as if
he listened to something.
D
E MONTFORT — How hollow groans the earth beneath
my tread:
Is there an echo here? Methinks it sounds
As though some heavy footsteps followed me.
I will advance no farther.
Deep settled shadows rest across the path,
And thickly-tangled boughs o'erhang this spot.
O that a tenfold gloom did cover it,
That 'mid the murky darkness I might strike!
As in the wild confusion of a dream,
Things horrid, bloody, terrible do pass,
As though they passed not; nor impress the mind
With the fixed clearness of reality.
[An owl is heard screaming near him.
[Starting ] What sound is that?
[Listens, and the owl cries again.
It is the screech-owl's cry.
Foul bird of night! What spirit guides thee here?
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JOANNA BAILLIE
Art thou instinctive drawn to scenes of horror ?
I've heard of this.
[Pauses and listens.
How those fallen leaves so rustle on the path,
With whispering noise, as though the earth around me
Did utter secret things.
The distant river, too, bears to mine ear
A dismal wailing. O mysterious night!
Thou art not silent; many tongues hast thou.
A distant gathering blast sounds through the wood,
And dark clouds fleetly hasten o’er the sky;
Oh that a storm would rise, a raging storm;
Amidst the roar of warring elements
I'd lift my hand and strike! but this pale light,
The calm distinctness of each stilly thing,
Is terrible. - [Starting. ] Footsteps, and near me, too!
He comes! he comes! I'll watch him farther on
I cannot do it here.
[Exit.
Enter Rezenvelt, and continues his way slowly from the bottom of the
stage ; as he advances to the front, the owl screams, he stops and
listens, and the owl screams again.
Rezenvelt – Ha! does the night-bird greet me on my way?
How much his hooting is in harmony
With such a scene as this! I like it well.
Oft when a boy, at the still twilight hour,
I've leant my back against some knotted oak,
And loudly mimicked him, till to my call
He answer would return, and through the gloom
We friendly converse held.
Between me and the star-bespangled sky,
Those aged oaks their crossing branches wave,
And through them looks the pale and placid moon.
How like a crocodile, or winged snake,
Yon sailing cloud bears on its dusky length!
And now transformed by the passing wind,
Methinks it seems a flying Pegasus.
Ay, but a shapeless band of blacker hue
Comes swiftly after. -
A hollow murm'ring wind sounds through the trees;
I hear it from afar; this bodes a storm.
I must not linger here -
1
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[A bell heard at some distance. ] The convent bell.
'Tis distant still: it tells their hour of prayer.
It sends a solemn sound upon the breeze,
That, to a fearful, superstitious mind,
In such a scene,' would like a death-knell come.
[Exit.
TO MRS. SIDDONS
G
IFTED of heaven! who hast, in days gone by,
Moved every heart, delighted every eye;
While age and youth, of high and low degree,
In sympathy were joined, beholding thee,
As in the Drama's ever-changing scene
Thou heldst thy splendid state, our tragic queen!
No barriers there thy fair domains confined,
Thy sovereign sway was o'er the human mind;
And in the triumph of that witching hour,
Thy lofty bearing well became thy power.
The impassioned changes of thy beauteous face,
Thy stately form, and high imperial grace;
Thine arms impetuous tossed, thy robe's wide flow,
And the dark tempest gathered on thy brow;
What time thy flashing eye and lip of scorn
Down to the dust thy mimic foes have borne;
Remorseful musings, sunk to deep dejection,
The fixed and yearning looks of strong affection;
The active turmoil a wrought bosom rending,
When pity, love, and honor, are contending :-
They who beheld all this, right well, I ween,
A lovely, grand, and wondrous sight have seen.
Thy varied accents, rapid, fitful, slow,
Loud rage, and fear's snatched whisper, quick and low;
The burst of stifled love, the wail of grief,
And tones of high command, full, solemn, brief;
The change of voice, and emphasis that threw
Light on obscurity, and brought to view
Distinctions nice, when grave or comic mood,
Or mingled humors, terse and new, elude
Common perception, as earth's smallest things
To size and form the vesting hoar-frost brings,
That seemed as if some secret voice, to clear
The raveled meaning, whispered in thine ear,
111-80
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And thou hadst e'en with him communion kept,
Who hath so long in Stratford's chancel slept;
Whose lines, where nature's brightest traces shine,
Alone were worthy deemed of powers like thine;
They who have heard all this, have proved full well
Of soul-exciting sound the mightiest spell.
But though time's lengthened shadows o'er thee glide,
And pomp of regal state is cast aside,
Think not the glory of thy course is spent,
There's moonlight radiance to thy evening lent,
That to the mental world can never fade,
Till all who saw thee, in the grave are laid.
Thy graceful form still moves in nightly dreams,
And what thou wast, to the lulled sleeper seems;
While feverish fancy oft doth fondly trace
Within her curtained couch thy wondrous face.
Yea; and to many a wight, bereft and lone,
In musing hours, though all to thee unknown,
Soothing his earthly course of good and ill,
With all thy potent charm, thou actest still.
And now in crowded room or rich saloon,
Thy stately presence recognized, how soon
On thee the glance of many an eye is cast,
In grateful memory of pleasures past!
Pleased to behold thee, with becoming grace,
Take, as befits thee well, an honored place;
Where blest by many a heart, long mayst thou stand,
Among the virtuous matrons of our land!
A SCOTCH SONG
THE
HE gowan glitters on the sward,
The lavrock's in the sky,
And collie on my plaid keeps ward,
And time is passing by.
Oh no! sad and slow
And lengthened on the ground,
The shadow of our trysting bush
It wears so slowly round!
