Every Girl's Library Part 9

What thou art we know not; What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden, In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and gra.s.s which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves:

Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling gra.s.s, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpa.s.s:

Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine; I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt,-- A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee; Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught: Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever could come near.

Better than all measures Of delight and sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

ROBERT SOUTHEY

SOUTHEY, ROBERT, was born at Bristol, England, in August, 1774. He was educated at Westminster School and at Balliol College, Oxford.

After some years of wandering he took up his residence (1803) at Greta Hall, near Keswick, where he continued to live until his death in 1843. In 1813 he was made poet laureate. Although Southey wrote much prose, he is chiefly known as a poet, and his poems are innumerable. His little piece, _The Battle of Blenheim_, though one of the least pretentious of his works, has been very widely quoted, and is here given for the sake of younger readers.

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM

It was a summer's evening; Old Kaspar's work was done; And he before his cottage door, Was sitting in the sun; And near him sported on the green, His little grandchild, Wilhelmine:

She saw her brother, Peterkin, Roll something smooth and round, Which he, beside the rivulet, In playing there had found.

He came to ask what he had found, Which looked so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the lad, Who stood expecting by-- And then the old man shook his head, And, with a natural sigh, "'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory.

"I find them in the garden; There are many hereabout; And often, when I go to plough, The ploughshare turns them out; For many thousand men," said he, "Were slain in the great victory."

"Now tell us what it was about,"

Young Peterkin he cries; And little Wilhelmine looked up, With wonder-waiting eyes-- "Now tell us all about the war, And what they killed each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried, "Who put the French to rout; But what they killed each other for, I never could find out; But things like this, you know, must be In every famous victory.

"My father had a cottage then, Yon little stream hard by, They burnt his dwelling to the ground, And he was forced to fly; So with his wife and child he fled, And had not where to lay his head.

"They burnt the country all around, And wasted far and wide, And many a tender mother then And new-born infant died; But things like this, you know, must be, At every famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won, And our good Prince Eugene."

"But 'twas a very wicked thing,"

Said little Wilhelmine.

"Nay, nay, my little girl," said he, "It was a famous victory."

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS BALFOUR. An eminent poet, novelist, essayist, and miscellaneous writer; born in Edinburgh, November 13, 1850; died at Samoa, December 4, 1894. His father and grandfather were famous lighthouse engineers and he was at first intended for the family profession. But he soon gave up the idea and turned to law. After duly qualifying for this calling he was admitted to the bar, but his career as a lawyer was short. Soon he found his true calling in the craft of letters and rapidly found his way into the front rank of contemporary writers, by the beauty and perfection of his style, no less than by a most charming personality, which shone through all he wrote. Some experiences which supplied impulse and material were leisurely trips through Europe by canoe and on foot, a voyage across the Atlantic in an emigrant ship, and, following this, a journey across the American continent in an emigrant train.

Four masterpieces of English style followed these experiences--_Travels with a Donkey_, _An Inland Voyage_, _The Amateur Emigrant_ and _Across the Plains_. They are all models of graceful and perfect English. From his childhood, he had drunk deep at the richest wells of English, and from the first his writings showed a distinct individuality and a most subtle art. From early childhood his health was precarious, and having married an American lady (Mrs. Osborne), and sojourned in the Adirondack mountains a year or so in the hope of improving his health, he set sail with his wife and two stepchildren for an extended voyage in the tropical seas. After cruising about for some time, he finally settled in the island of Samoa, where he lived in great happiness and comparative health for five years. Here, among the simple natives who had grown to worship him, and who called him TUSITALA, which, in their language, meant "teller of tales," the greatest writer of his time, and one of the greatest of all time, died on the fourth of December, 1894, in the forty-fifth year of his age.

But his books live. And through them shines one of the most winning personalities that mankind has known. If ever a writer was loved, that writer is Stevenson. If ever there was a literary model for young writers to study and emulate, that model is Stevenson.

His work stands alone in literature as an ill.u.s.tration of what genius can do when reinforced by infinite pains. Money could not tempt him to write anything commonplace. He did not depend too much on his genius. He was a master of pathos but, like the true literary artist he was, he used it sparingly. There was something about his books which endeared their author to the world. This cannot be explained nor described. When you read _Treasure Island_ or _Kidnapped_, you are amazed that you can so love an author whom you have never seen. And when you read _Will o' the Mill_, which is given here, you will feel the same way. Many have not the taste and training to appreciate Stevenson's technique, and to understand and be able to explain why he was such a master. These things can be left to the critics. But one does not need to know much of architecture to appreciate the beauty of a cathedral. And the general run of readers find the greatness of Stevenson in his personal charm. They care but little for the tools he used, and only see the structure which he reared. And leaving aside the question of "style," is it not wonderful that a sick man, far off in some savage island of the south Pacific ocean, could make the whole world love him and feel a personal bereavement in his loss?

WILL O' THE MILL

THE PLAIN AND THE STARS

The Mill where Will lived with his adopted parents stood in a falling valley between pine-woods and great mountains. Above, hill after hill soared upwards until they soared out of the depth of the hardiest timber, and stood naked against the sky. Some way up, a long gray village lay like a seam or a rag of vapour on a wooded hillside; and when the wind was favourable, the sound of the church bells would drop down, thin and silvery, to Will. Below, the valley grew ever steeper and steeper, and at the same time widened out on either hand; and from an eminence beside the mill it was possible to see its whole length and away beyond it over a wide plain, where the river turned and shone, and moved on from city to city on its voyage towards the sea. It chanced that over this valley there lay a pa.s.s into a neighbouring kingdom; so that, quiet and rural as it was, the road that ran along beside the river was a high thoroughfare between two splendid and powerful societies. All through the summer, travelling-carriages came crawling up, or went plunging briskly downwards past the mill; and as it happened that the other side was very much easier of ascent, the path was not much frequented, except by people going in one direction; and of all the carriages that Will saw go by, five-sixths were plunging briskly downwards and only one-sixth crawling up. Much more was this the case with foot-pa.s.sengers. All the light-footed tourists, all the pedlars laden with strange wares, were tending downward like the river that accompanied their path. Nor was this all; for when Will was yet a child a disastrous war arose over a great part of the world. The newspapers were full of defeats and victories, the earth rang with cavalry hoofs, and often for days together and for miles around the coil of battle terrified good people from their labours in the field. Of all this, nothing was heard for a long time in the valley; but at last one of the commanders pushed an army over the pa.s.s by forced marches, and for three days horse and foot, cannon and tumbril, drum and standard, kept pouring downward past the mill. All day the child stood and watched them on their pa.s.sage--the rhythmical stride, the pale, unshaven faces tanned about the eyes, the discoloured regimentals and the tattered flags, filled him with a sense of weariness, pity, and wonder; and all night long, after he was in bed, he could hear the cannon pounding and the feet trampling, and the great armament sweeping onward and downward past the mill. No one in the valley ever heard the fate of the expedition, for they lay out of the way of gossip in those troublous times; but Will saw one thing plainly, that not a man returned. Whither had they all gone? Whither went all the tourists and pedlars with strange wares? whither all the brisk barouches with servants in the d.i.c.ky? whither the water of the stream, ever coursing downward and ever renewed from above? Even the wind blew oftener down the valley, and carried the dead leaves along with it in the fall. It seemed like a great conspiracy of things animate and inanimate; they all went downward, fleetly and gaily downward, and only he, it seemed, remained behind, like a stock upon the wayside. It sometimes made him glad when he noticed how the fishes kept their heads up stream. They, at least, stood faithfully by him, while all else were posting downward to the unknown world.

One evening he asked the miller where the river went.

"It goes down the valley," answered he, "and turns a power of mills--six score mills, they say, from here to Unterdeck--and is none the wearier after all. And then it goes out into the lowlands, and waters the great corn country, and runs through a sight of fine cities (so they say) where kings live all alone in great palaces, with a sentry walking up and down before the door. And it goes under bridges with stone men upon them, looking down and smiling so curious at the water, and living folks leaning their elbows on the wall and looking over too. And then it goes on and on, and down through marshes and sands, until at last it falls into the sea, where the ships are that bring parrots and tobacco from the Indies. Ay, it has a long trot before it as it goes singing over our weir, bless its heart!"

"And what is the sea?" asked Will.

"The sea!" cried the miller. "Lord help us all, it is the greatest thing G.o.d made. That is where all the water in the world runs down into a great salt lake. There it lies, as flat as my hand and as innocent-like as a child; but they do say when the wind blows it gets up into water-mountains bigger than any of ours, and swallows down great ships bigger than our mill, and makes such a roaring that you can hear it miles away upon the land. There are great fish in it five times bigger than a bull, and one old serpent as long as our river and as old as all the world, with whiskers like a man, and a crown of silver on her head."

Will thought he had never heard anything like this, and he kept on asking question after question about the world that lay away down the river, with all its perils and marvels, until the old miller became quite interested himself, and at last took him by the hand and led him to the hilltop that overlooks the valley and the plain. The sun was near setting, and hung low down in a cloudless sky. Everything was defined and glorified in golden light. Will had never seen so great an expanse of country in his life; he stood and gazed with all his eyes. He could see the cities, and the woods and fields, and the bright curves of the river, and far away to where the rim of the plain trenched along the shining heavens. An over-mastering emotion seized upon the boy, soul and body; his heart beat so thickly that he could not breathe; the scene swam before his eyes; the sun seemed to wheel round and round, and throw off, as it turned, strange shapes which disappeared with the rapidity of thought, and were succeeded by others. Will covered his face with his hands, and burst into a violent fit of tears; and the poor miller, sadly disappointed and perplexed, saw nothing better for it than to take him up in his arms and carry him home in silence.