The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 Part 43

LXXI. SONNETS.

CHARLES HEAVYSEGE.--1816-1876.

I.

The day was lingering in the pale north-west, And night was hanging o'er my head,-- Night where a myriad stars were spread; While down in the east, where the light was least, Seem'd the home of the quiet dead.

And, as I gazed on the field sublime, To watch the bright, pulsating stars, Adown the deep where the angels sleep Came drawn the golden chime Of those great spheres that sound the years For the horologe of time.

Millenniums numberless they told, Millenniums a million-fold From the ancient hour of prime.

II.

The stars are glittering in the frosty sky, Frequent as pebbles on a broad sea-coast; And o'er the vault the cloud-like galaxy Has marshall'd its innumerable host.

Alive all heaven seems! with wondrous glow Tenfold refulgent every star appears, As if some wide, celestial gale did blow, And thrice illume the ever-kindled spheres.

Orbs, with glad orbs rejoicing, burning, beam, Ray-crown'd, with lambent l.u.s.tre in their zones, Till o'er the blue, bespangled s.p.a.ces seem Angels and great archangels on their thrones; A host divine, whose eyes are sparkling gems, And forms more bright than diamond diadems.

III.

Hush'd in a calm beyond mine utterance, See in the western sky the evening spread; Suspended in its pale, serene expanse, Like scatter'd flames, the glowing cloudlets red.

Clear are those clouds; and that pure sky's profound, Transparent as a lake of hyaline; Nor motion, nor the faintest breath of sound, Disturbs the steadfast beauty of the scene.

Far o'er the vault, the winnow'd welkin wide, From the bronzed east unto the whiten'd west, Moor'd, seem, in their sweet, tranquil, roseate pride, Those clouds the fabled islands of the blest;-- The lands where pious spirits breathe in joy, And love and worship all their hours employ.

LXXII. DOCTOR ARNOLD AT RUGBY.

ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY.--1815-1880.

With his usual and undoubting confidence in what he believed to be a general law of Providence, he based his whole management of the school on his early-formed and yearly-increasing conviction that what he had to look for, both intellectually and morally, was not performance but promise; that the very freedom and independence of school life, which in itself he thought so dangerous, might be made the best preparation for Christian manhood; and he did not hesitate to apply to his scholars the principle which seemed to him to have been adopted in the training of the childhood of the human race itself. He shrunk from pressing on the conscience of boys rules of action which he felt they were not yet able to bear, and from enforcing actions which, though right in themselves, would in boys be performed from wrong motives. Keenly as he felt the risk and fatal consequences of the failure of this trial, still it was his great, sometimes his only support to believe that "the character is braced amid such scenes to a greater beauty and firmness than it ever can attain without enduring and witnessing them. Our work here would be absolutely unendurable if we did not bear in mind that we should look forward as well as backward--if we did not remember that the victory of fallen man lies not in innocence but in tried virtue." "I hold fast," he said, "to the great truth, that 'blessed is he that overcometh;'" and he writes in 1837: "Of all the painful things connected with my employment, nothing is equal to the grief of seeing a boy come to school innocent and promising, and tracing the corruption of his character from the influence of the temptations around him, in the very place which ought to have strengthened and improved it. But in most cases those who come with a character of positive good are benefited; it is the neutral and indecisive characters which are apt to be decided for evil by schools, as they would be in fact by any other temptation."

But this very feeling led him with the greater eagerness to catch at every means by which the trial might be shortened or alleviated. "Can the change from childhood to manhood be hastened, without prematurely exhausting the faculties of body or mind?" was one of the chief questions on which his mind was constantly at work, and which in the judgment of some he was disposed to answer too readily in the affirmative. It was with the elder boys, of course, that he chiefly acted on this principle, but with all above the very young ones he trusted to it more or less. Firmly as he believed that _a_ time of trial was inevitable, he believed no less firmly that it might be pa.s.sed at public schools sooner than under other circ.u.mstances; and, in proportion as he disliked the a.s.sumption of a false manliness in boys, was his desire to cultivate in them true manliness, as the only step to something higher, and to dwell on earnest principle and moral thoughtfulness, as the great and distinguishing mark between good and evil. Hence his wish that as much as possible should be done _by_ the boys, and nothing _for_ them; hence arose his practice, in which his own delicacy of feeling and uprightness of purpose powerfully a.s.sisted him, of treating the boys as gentlemen and reasonable beings, of making them respect themselves by the mere respect he showed to them; of showing that he appealed and trusted to their own common sense and conscience.

Lying, for example, to the masters, he made a great moral offence: placing implicit confidence in a boy's a.s.sertion, and then, if a falsehood was discovered, punishing it severely,--in the upper part of the school, when persisted in, with expulsion. Even with the lower forms he never seemed to be on the watch for boys; and in the higher forms any attempt at further proof of an a.s.sertion was immediately checked: "If you say so, that is quite enough--_of course_ I believe your word;" and there grew up in consequence a general feeling that "it was a shame to tell Arnold a lie--he always believes one."

Perhaps the liveliest representation of this general spirit, as distinguished from its exemplification in particular parts of the discipline and instruction, would be formed by recalling his manner, as he appeared in the great school, where the boys used to meet when the whole school was a.s.sembled collectively, and not in its different forms or cla.s.ses. Then, whether on his usual entrance every morning to prayers before the first lesson, or on the more special emergencies which might require his presence, he seemed to stand before them, not merely as the head-master, but as the representative of the school. There he spoke to them as members together with himself of the same great inst.i.tution, whose character and reputation they had to sustain as well as he. He would dwell on the satisfaction he had in being head of a society, where n.o.ble and honorable feelings were encouraged, or on the disgrace which he felt in hearing of acts of disorder or violence, such as in the humbler ranks of life would render them amenable to the laws of their country; or again, on the trust which he placed in their honor as gentlemen, and the baseness of any instance in which it was abused. "Is this a Christian school?" he indignantly asked at the end of one of those addresses, in which he had spoken of an extensive display of bad feeling amongst the boys; and then added,--"I cannot remain here if all this is to be carried on by constraint and force; if I am to be here as a jailer, I will resign my office at once." And few scenes can be recorded more characteristic of him than on one of these occasions, when, in consequence of a disturbance, he had been obliged to send away several boys, and when in the midst of the general spirit of discontent which this excited, he stood in his place before the a.s.sembled school and said: "It is _not_ necessary that this should be a school of three hundred, or one hundred, or of fifty boys; but it _is_ necessary that it should be a school of Christian gentlemen."

LXXIII. ODE TO THE NORTH-EAST WIND.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.--1819-1875.

Welcome, wild North-easter!

Shame it is to see Odes to every zephyr; Ne'er a verse to thee.

Welcome, black North-easter!

O'er the German foam; O'er the Danish moorlands, From thy frozen home.

Tired we are of summer, Tired of gaudy glare, Showers soft and steaming, Hot and breathless air.

Tired of listless dreaming Through the lazy day: Jovial wind of winter Turns us out to play!

Sweep the golden reed-beds; Crisp the lazy d.y.k.e; Hunger into madness Every plunging pike.

Fill the lake with wild-fowl; Fill the marsh with snipe; While on dreary moorlands Lonely curlew pipe.

Through the black fir-forest Thunder harsh and dry, Shattering down the snow-flakes Off the curdled sky.

Hark! The brave North-easter!

Breast-high lies the scent, On by holt and headland, Over heath and bent.

Chime, ye dappled darlings, Through the sleet and snow.

Who can over-ride you?

Let the horses go!

Chime, ye dappled darlings, Down the roaring blast; You shall see a fox die Ere an hour be past.

Go! and rest to-morrow, Hunting in your dreams, While our skates are ringing O'er the frozen streams.

Let the luscious South-wind Breathe in lovers' sighs, While the lazy gallants Bask in ladies' eyes.

What does he but soften Heart alike and pen?

'Tis the hard grey weather Breeds hard English men.

What's the soft South-wester?

'Tis the ladies' breeze, Bringing home their true-loves Out of all the seas.

But the black North-easter, Through the snow-storm hurl'd, Drives our English hearts of oak Seaward round the world.

Come, as came our fathers, Heralded by thee, Conquering from the eastward, Lords by land and sea.

Come; and strong within us Stir the Vikings' blood, Bracing brain and sinew; Blow, thou wind of G.o.d!

LXXIV. FROM "THE MILL ON THE FLOSS."

GEORGE ELIOT.--1820-1880.

The next morning Maggie was trotting with her own fishing-rod in one hand and a handle of the basket in the other, stepping always, by a peculiar gift, in the muddiest places, and looking darkly radiant from under her beaver bonnet because Tom was good to her. She had told Tom, however, that she should like him to put the worms on the hook for her, although she accepted his word when he a.s.sured her that worms couldn't feel (it was Tom's private opinion that it didn't much matter if they did). He knew all about worms, and fish, and those things; and what birds were mischievous, and how padlocks opened, and which way the handles of the gates were to be lifted. Maggie thought this sort of knowledge was very wonderful--much more difficult than remembering what was in the books; and she was rather in awe of Tom's superiority, for he was the only person who called her knowledge "stuff," and did not feel surprised at her cleverness. Tom, indeed, was of opinion that Maggie was a silly little thing; all girls were silly; they couldn't throw a stone so as to hit anything, couldn't do anything with a pocket-knife, and were frightened at frogs. Still, he was very fond of his sister, and meant always to take care of her, make her his housekeeper, and punish her when she did wrong.

They were on their way to the Round Pool--that wonderful pool, which the floods had made a long while ago. No one knew how deep it was; and it was mysterious, too, that it should be almost a perfect round, framed in with willows and tall reeds, so that the water was only to be seen when you got close to the brink. The sight of the old favorite spot always heightened Tom's good-humor, and he spoke to Maggie in the most amiable whispers, as he opened the precious basket and prepared their tackle. He threw her line for her, and put the rod into her hand.

Maggie thought it probable that the small fish would come to her hook, and the large ones to Tom's. But she had forgotten all about the fish, and was looking dreamily at the gla.s.sy water, when Tom said, in a loud whisper, "Look! look, Maggie!" and came running to prevent her from s.n.a.t.c.hing her line away.

Maggie was frightened lest she had been doing something wrong, as usual, but presently Tom drew out her line and brought a large tench bouncing on the gra.s.s.

Tom was excited.

"O Magsie! you little duck! Empty the basket."

Maggie was not conscious of unusual merit, but it was enough that Tom called her Magsie, and was pleased with her. There was nothing to mar her delight in the whispers and the dreamy silences, when she listened to the light dipping sounds of the rising fish, and the gentle rustling, as if the willows, and the reeds, and the water had their happy whisperings also. Maggie thought it would make a very nice heaven to sit by the pool in that way, and never be scolded. She never knew she had a bite till Tom told her, but she liked fishing very much.

It was one of their happy mornings. They trotted along and sat down together, with no thought that life would ever change much for them: they would only get bigger and not go to school, and it would always be like the holidays; they would always live together and be fond of each other. And the mill with its booming--the great chestnut-tree under which they played at houses--their own little river, the Ripple, where the banks seemed like home, and Tom was always seeing the water-rats, while Maggie gathered the purple plumy tops of the reeds, which she forgot and dropped afterward--above all, the great Floss, along which they wandered with a sense of travel, to see the rushing spring-tide, the awful Eagre, come up like a hungry monster, or to see the Great Ash which had once wailed and groaned like a man--these things would always be just the same to them. Tom thought people were at a disadvantage who lived on any other spot of the globe; and Maggie, when she read about Christiana pa.s.sing "the river over which there is no bridge," always saw the Floss between the green pastures by the Great Ash.

Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in believing that the thoughts and loves of these first years would always make part of their lives. We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it--if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the gra.s.s--the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows--the same red-b.r.e.a.s.t.s that we used to call "G.o.d's birds," because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and _loved_ because it is known?

The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white star-flowers, and the blue-eyed speedwell, and the ground-ivy at my feet--what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid broad-petaled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate fibres within me as this home-scene? These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird-notes, this sky with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and gra.s.sy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows--such things as these are the mother tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle inextricable a.s.sociations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed gra.s.s to-day might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the gra.s.s in the far-off years, which still live in us, and transform our perception into love.