Theodore Watts-Dunton Part 5

I

Remember Gypsy Heather?

Remember Jasper's camping-place Where heath-bells meet the gra.s.sy dingle, And scents of meadow, wood and chase, Wild thyme and whin-flower seem to mingle?

Remember where, in Rington Furze, I kissed her and she asked me whether I 'thought my lips of teazel-burrs, That p.r.i.c.ked her jis like whin-bush spurs, Felt nice on a rinkenny moey {76} like hers?'- Gypsy Heather!

II

Remember Gypsy Heather?

Remember her whom nought could tame But love of me, the poacher-maiden Who showed me once my father's game With which her plump round arms were laden Who, when my glances spoke reproach, Said, "Things o' fur an' fin an' feather Like coneys, pheasants, perch an' loach, An' even the famous 'Rington roach,'

Wur born for Romany chies to poach!"- Gypsy Heather!

III

Remember Gypsy Heather?

Atolls and reefs, you change, you change To dells of England dewy and tender; You palm-trees in yon coral range Seem 'Rington Birches' sweet and slender Shading the ocean's fiery glare: We two are in the Dell together- My body is here, my soul is there With lords of trap and net and snare, The Children of the Open Air,- Gypsy Heather!

IV

Remember Gypsy Heather?

Its pungent breath is on the wind, Killing the scent of tropic water; I see her suitors swarthy skinned, Who pine in vain for Jasper's daughter.

The 'Scollard,' with his features tanned By sun and wind as brown as leather- His forehead scarred with Pa.s.sion's brand- Scowling at Sinfi tall and grand, Who sits with Pharaoh by her hand,- Gypsy Heather!

V

Remember Gypsy Heather?

Now Rhona sits beneath the tree That shades our tent, alone and weeping; And him, the 'Scollard,' him I see: From bush to bush I see him creeping- I see her mock him, see her run And free his pony from the tether, Who lays his ears in love and fun, And gallops with her in the sun Through lace the gossamers have spun,- Gypsy Heather!

VI

Remember Gypsy Heather?

She reaches 'Rington Birches'; now, Dismounting from the 'Scollard's' pony, She sits alone with heavy brow, Thinking, but not of hare or coney.

The hot sea holds each sight, each sound Of England's golden autumn weather: The Romanies now are sitting round The tea-cloth spread on gra.s.sy ground; Now Rhona dances heather-crowned,- Gypsy Heather!

VII

Remember Gypsy Heather?

She's thinking of this withered spray Through all the dance; her eyes are gleaming Darker than night, yet bright as day, While round her a gypsy shawl is streaming; I see the lips-the upper curled, A saucy rose-leaf, from the nether, Whence-while the floating shawl is twirled, As if a ruddy cloud were swirled- Her scornful laugh at him is hurled,- Gypsy Heather!

VIII

Remember Gypsy Heather?

In storm or calm, in sun or rain, There's magic, Rhona, in the writing Wound round these flowers whose purple stain Dims the dear scrawl of Love's inditing: Dear girl, this spray between the leaves (Now fading like a draggled feather With which the nesting song-bird weaves) Makes every wave the vessel cleaves Seem purple of heather as it heaves,- Gypsy Heather!

IX

Remember Gypsy Heather?

Oh, Rhona! sights and sounds of home Are everywhere; the skylark winging Through amber cloud-films till the dome Seems filled with love, our love, a-singing.

The sea-wind seems an English breeze Bearing the bleat of ewe and wether Over the heath from Rington Leas, Where, to the hymn of birds and bees, You taught me Romany 'neath the trees,- Gypsy Heather!

Another reason that makes it necessary for me to touch upon the inland part of East Anglia is that I have certain remarks to make upon what are called 'the Omarian poems of Mr. Watts-Dunton.' Although, as I have before hinted, St. Ives, being in Hunts, belongs topographically to the East Midlands, its sympathies are East Anglian. This perhaps is partly because it is the extreme east of Hunts, and partly because the mouth of the Ouse is at Lynn: to those whom Mr. Norris affectionately calls St.

Ivians and Hemingfordians, the seaside means Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Cromer, Hunstanton, and the towns on the Suffolk coast. The splendour of Norfolk ale may also partly account for it. This perhaps also explains why the famous East Anglian translator of Omar Khayyam would seem to have been known to a few Omarians on the banks of the Ouse and Cam as soon as the great discoverer of good things, Rossetti, pounced upon it in the penny box of a second-hand bookseller. Readers of Mr. Watts-Dunton's obituary notice of F. H. Groome in the 'Athenaeum' will recall these words:-

"It was not merely upon Romany subjects that Groome found points of sympathy at 'The Pines' during that first luncheon; there was that other subject before mentioned, Edward FitzGerald and Omar Khayyam.

We, a handful of Omarians of those antediluvian days, were perhaps all the more intense in our cult because we believed it to be esoteric. And here was a guest who had been brought into actual personal contact with the wonderful old 'Fitz.' As a child of eight he had seen him, talked with him, been patted on the head by him.

Groome's father, the Archdeacon of Suffolk, was one of FitzGerald's most intimate friends. This was at once a delightful and a powerful link between Frank Groome and those at the luncheon table; and when he heard, as he soon did, the toast to 'Omar Khayyam,' none drank that toast with more gusto than he. The fact is, as the Romanies say, true friendship, like true love, is apt to begin at first sight."

This is the poem alluded to: it is ent.i.tled, 'Toast to Omar Khayyam: An East Anglian echo-chorus inscribed to old Omarian Friends in memory of happy days by Ouse and Cam':-

CHORUS

In this red wine, where memory's eyes seem glowing, And days when wines were bright by Ouse and Cam, And Norfolk's foaming nectar glittered, showing What beard of gold John Barleycorn was growing, We drink to thee, right heir of Nature's knowing, Omar Khayyam!

I

Star-gazer, who canst read, when Night is strowing Her scriptured orbs on Time's wide oriflamme, Nature's proud blazon: 'Who shall bless or d.a.m.n?

Life, Death, and Doom are all of my bestowing!'

CHORUS: Omar Khayyam!

II

Poet, whose stream of balm and music, flowing Through Persian gardens, widened till it swam- A fragrant tide no bank of Time shall dam- Through Suffolk meads, where gorse and may were blowing,- CHORUS: Omar Khayyam!

III

Who blent thy song with sound of cattle lowing, And caw of rooks that perch on ewe and ram, And hymn of lark, and bleat of orphan lamb, And swish of scythe in Bredfield's dewy mowing?

CHORUS: Omar Khayyam!

IV

'Twas Fitz, 'Old Fitz,' whose knowledge, farther going Than lore of Omar, 'Wisdom's starry Cham,'

Made richer still thine opulent epigram: Sowed seed from seed of thine immortal sowing.- CHORUS: Omar Khayyam!

V

In this red wine, where Memory's eyes seem glowing, And days when wines were bright by Ouse and Cam, And Norfolk's foaming nectar glittered, showing What beard of gold John Barleycorn was growing, We drink to thee till, hark! the c.o.c.k is crowing!

Omar Khayyam!

It was many years after this-it was as a member of another Omar Khayyam Club of much greater celebrity than the little brotherhood of Ouse and Cam-not large enough to be called a club-that Mr. Watts-Dunton wrote the following well-known sonnet:-

PRAYER TO THE WINDS

On planting at the head of FitzGerald's grave two rose-trees whose ancestors had scattered their petals over the tomb of Omar Khayyam.

"My tomb shall be on a spot where the north wind may strow roses upon it."

OMAR KHAYYaM TO KWaJAH NIZAMI.

Hear us, ye winds! From where the north-wind strows Blossoms that crown 'the King of Wisdom's' tomb, The trees here planted bring remembered bloom, Dreaming in seed of Love's ancestral rose, To meadows where a braver north-wind blows O'er greener gra.s.s, o'er hedge-rose, may, and broom, And all that make East England's field-perfume Dearer than any fragrance Persia knows.