Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
The Mersey and the Irwell
By Bessie Rayner Parkes (18291925)
A
Unburdened to the sea;
In the blue air no smoky cloud
Hung over wood and lea,
Where the old church with the fretted tower
Had a hamlet round its knee.
The sheep fed on the track;
The grass grew quietly all the day,—
Only the rooks were black;
And the pedler frightened the lambs at play
With his knapsack on his back.
While Britons pitched the tent,
Where legionary helmets gleamed,
And Norman bows were bent,
An ancient shrine was once esteemed
Where pilgrims daily went.
Somewhat of this might know,—
Might see the weekly markets fill
And the people ebb and flow
Beneath St. Mary’s on the hill
A hundred years ago.
Is o’er the landscape drawn,
Through which the sunset hues look pale,
And gray the roseate dawn;
And the fair face of hill and dale
Is apt to seem forlorn.
Hides all that passed from view;
Vainly the prophet’s heart aspires,—
It hides the future too;
And the England of our slow-paced sires
Is thought upon by few.
How shall he live by gold?
The answer comes in a sudden moan
Of sickness, hunger, and cold;
And, lo! the seed of a new life sown
In the ruins of the old!
Wakes with a sudden start;
To right and left we hear it said,
“Nay; ’t is a noble heart,”
And the angels whisper overhead,
“There ’s a new shrine in the mart!”
Where Irk and Irwell flow,
If human love springs up anew,
And angels come and go,
What matters it that the skies were blue
A hundred years ago?