Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Two Long Vacations: Grasmere

Arthur Gray Butler (1831–1909)

SEVEN we were, and two are gone:

Two! What are those remaining?

Ghosts of the Past, with cloud o’ercast,

Cloud that is always raining!

Ah me! Last year, when I came back,

Like faithful hound returning

For old sake’s sake to each loved track,

With heart and memory burning;

There was the knoll, there was the road,

There was our humble dwelling;

There o’er the Raise of Dunmail showed

The shoulder of Helvellyn;

And there the great heights black with cloud,

Whence flow’d the white stream under;

And glens with echoing torrent loud,

And cataracts’ distant thunder;

And seven men’s eyes looked dimly out

Beneath our old house rafter;

And seven men’s forms crept round about

With peals of ghostly laughter;

And sad yews dripp’d on the mossy stone;

And fuchsia and rose grew rank;

And the woodbine wept as the rain pour’d on;

And ferns spread over the bank;

And trees o’ergrown shut out the light

Of Easedale’s cascade falling;

And hearing, after-born of sight,

No longer heard it calling.

And no one cared: save only there

Where flowers make silence sweet,

By pilgrims worn, that rocky stair!

Look up! It is Wordsworth’s seat.

Where glass’d in those far-reaching eyes

He read all nature plain;

And saw more things in earth and skies

Than will ever be seen again.

There found he wealth, to others dearth,

And peace, from a world’s wild din;

And, would we know the soul of earth,

He bade us look within.

All else is changed. Yet rain may pour,

Weeds spread, and all grow rotten;

But something lives from days of yore,

Still fresh, still unforgotten:

The lamp of truth we lit in youth,

The dreams of life’s young morning:

In that dark hour I found their power

Still in the embers burning.

O vows, I cried, so oft denied,

And you resolves forsaken,

Befriend me still! A new-born will

Trusts in you newly taken.

But, how to live, O, tell me, friend,

In age still wisdom gaining?

The clouds descend; ah, bid them blend

With fires of youth remaining!