C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Barclay of Ury
By John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
U
By the kirk and college green,
Rode the Laird of Ury;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
Pressed the mob in fury.
Jeered at him the serving-girl,
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carlin, late
Fed and clothed at Ury’s gate,
Cursed him as he passed her.
Up the streets of Aberdeen
Came he slowly riding;
And to all he saw and heard
Answering not with bitter word,
Turning not for chiding.
Bits and bridles sharply ringing,
Loose and free and froward;
Quoth the foremost, “Ride him down!
Push him! prick him! through the town
Drive the Quaker coward!”
Cried a sudden voice and loud,
“Barclay! ho! a Barclay!”
And the old man at his side
Saw a comrade, battle-tried,
Scarred and sunburned darkly,
Fronting to the troopers there,
Cried aloud, “God save us!
Call ye coward him who stood
Ankle-deep in Lützen’s blood,
With the brave Gustavus?”
Comrade mine,” said Ury’s lord;
“Put it up, I pray thee:
Passive to his holy will,
Trust I in my Master still,
Even though he slay me.
Proved on many a field of death,
Not by me are needed.”
Marveled much that henchman bold
That his laird, so stout of old,
Now so meekly pleaded.
With a slowly shaking head
And a look of pity:
“Ury’s honest lord reviled,
Mock of knave and sport of child,
In his own good city!
As we charged on Tilly’s line
And his Walloon lancers,
Smiting through their midst we’ll teach
Civil look and decent speech
To these boyish prancers!”
Like beginning, like the end,”
Quoth the Laird of Ury:
“Is the sinful servant more
Than his gracious Lord who bore
Bonds and stripes in Jewry?
I can bear, with patient frame,
All these vain ones offer:
While for them he suffereth long,
Shall I answer wrong with wrong,
Scoffing with the scoffer?
Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall,
With few friends to greet me,
Than when reeve and squire were seen,
Riding out from Aberdeen,
With bared heads to meet me;
Blessed me as I passed her door;
And the snooded daughter,
Through her casement glancing down,
Smiled on him who bore renown
From red fields of slaughter.
Hard the old friend’s falling off,
Hard to learn forgiving;
But the Lord his own rewards,
And his love with theirs accords,
Warm and fresh and living.
Faith beholds a feeble light
Up the blackness streaking;
Knowing God’s own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest
For the full day-breaking!”
Turning slow his horse’s head
Towards the Tolbooth prison,
Where, through iron grates, he heard
Poor disciples of the Word
Preach of Christ arisen!
Unto us the tale is told
Of thy day of trial:
Every age on him who strays
From its broad and beaten ways
Pours its sevenfold vial.
Angel comfortings can hear,
O’er the rabble’s laughter;
And while hatred’s fagots burn,
Glimpses through the smoke discern
Of the good hereafter:
Share of truth was vainly set
In the world’s wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed,
After hands from hill and mead
Reap the harvests yellow.
Must the moral pioneer
From the future borrow:
Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,
And on midnight’s sky of rain
Paint the golden morrow!