In the church-yard, for awhile might turn away
From the fresh grave till grass should cover it ;
Nature would do that office soon ; and none
Who trod upon the senseless turf would think
Of what a world of woes lay buried there!
THE FUNERAL.
The coffin as I past across the lane
Came sudden on my view. It was not here,
A sight of every day, as in the streets
Of the great city, and we paus’d and ask’d
Who to the grave was going. It was one,
A village girl, they told us, who had borne
An eighteen months strange illness, and had pined
With such slow wasting that the hour of death
Came welcome to her. We pursued our way
To the house of mirth, and with that idle talk
That passes o’er the mind and is forgot,
We wore away the time. But it was eve
When homewardly I went, and in the air
Was that cool freshness, that discolouring shade
That makes the eye turn inward. Then I heard
Over the vale the heavy toll of death
Sound slow; it made me think upon the dead,
I questioned more and learnt her sorrowful tale.
She bore unhusbanded a mother’s name,
And he who should have cherished her, far off
Sail’d on the seas, self-exil’d from his home,
For he was poor. Left thus, a wretched one,
Scorn made a mock of her, and evil tongues
Were busy with her name. She had one ill
Heavier, neglect, forgetfulness from him
Whom she had loved so dearly. Once he wrote,
But only once that drop of comfort came
To mingle with her cup of wretchedness;
And when his parents had some tidings from him,
There was no mention of poor Hannah there,
Or ’twas the cold enquiry, bitterer
Than silence. So she pined and pined away
And for herself and baby toil’d and toil’d,
Nor did she, even on her death bed, rest
From labour, knitting with her outstretch’d arms
Till she sunk with very weakness. Her old mother
Omitted no kind office, and she work’d
Hard, and with hardest working barely earn’d
Enough to make life struggle and prolong
The pains of grief and sickness. Thus she lay
On the sick bed of poverty, so worn
With her long suffering and that painful thought
That at her heart lay rankling, and so weak,
That she could make no effort to express
Affection for her infant; and the child,
Whose lisping love perhaps had solaced her
With a strange infantine ingratitude
Shunn’d her as one indifferent. She was past
That anguish, for she felt her hour draw on,
And ’twas her only comfoft now to think
Upon the grave. “Poor girl!” her mother said,
“Thou hast suffered much!” “aye mother! there is none
“Can tell what I have suffered!” she replied,
“But I shall soon be where the weary rest.”
And she did rest her soon, for it pleased God
To take her to his mercy.
THE SAILOR’S MOTHER.
WOMAN.
Sir for the love of God some small relief
To a poor woman!
TRAVELLER.
Whither are you bound?
’Tis a late hour to travel o’er these downs,
No house for miles around us, and the way
Dreary and wild. The evening wind already
Makes one’s teeth chatter, and the very Sun,
Setting so pale behind those thin white clouds,
Looks cold. ‘Twill be a bitter night!
WOMAN.
Aye Sir
’Tis cutting keen! I smart at every breath,
Heaven knows how I shall reach my journey’s end,
For the way is long before me, and my feet,
God help me! sore with travelling. I would gladly,
If it pleased God, lie down at once and die.
TRAVELLER.
Nay nay cheer up! a little food and rest
Will comfort you; and then your journey’s end
Will make amends for all. You shake your head,
And weep. Is it some evil business then
That leads you from your home?
WOMAN.
Sir I am going
To see my son at Plymouth, sadly hurt
In the late action, and in the hospital
Dying, I fear me, now.
TRAVELLER.
Perhaps your fears
Make evil worse. Even if a limb be lost
There may be still enough for comfort left
An arm or leg shot off, there’s yet the heart
To keep life warm, and he may live to talk
With pleasure of the glorious fight that maim’d him,
Proud of his loss. Old England’s gratitude
Makes the maim’d sailor happy.
WOMAN.
’Tis not that —
An arm or leg — I could have borne with that.
’Twas not a ball, it was some cursed thing
That bursts and burns that hurt him. Something Sir
They do not use on board our English ships
It is so wicked!
TRAVELLER.
Rascals! a mean art
Of cruel cowardice, yet all in vain!
WOMAN.
Yes Sir! and they should show no mercy to them
For making use of such unchristian arms.
I had a letter from the hospital,
He got some friend to write it, and he tells me
That my poor boy has lost his precious eyes,
Burnt out. Alas! that I should ever live
To see this wretched day! — they tell me Sir
There is no cure for wounds like his. Indeed
’Tis a hard journey that I go upon
To such a dismal end!
TRAVELLER.
He yet may live.
But if the worst should chance, why you must bear
The will of heaven with patience. Were it not
Some comfort to reflect your son has fallen
Fighting his country’s cause? and for yourself
You will not in unpitied poverty
Be left to mourn his loss. Your grateful country
Amid the triumph of her victory
Remember those who paid its price of blood,
And with a noble charity relieves
The widow and the orphan.
WOMAN.
God reward them!
God bless them, it will help me in my age
But Sir! it will not pay me for my child!
TRAVELLER.
Was he your only child?
WOMAN.
My only one,
The stay and comfort of my widowhood,
A dear good boy! — when first he went to sea
I felt what it would come to, — something told me
I should be childless soon. But tell me Sir
If it be true that for a hurt like his
There is no cure? please God to spare his life
Tho’ he be blind, yet I should be so thankful!
I can remember there was a blind man
Lived in our village, one from his youth up
Quite dark, and yet he was a merry man,
And he had none to tend on him so well
As I would tend my boy!
TRAVELLER.
Of this be sure
His hurts are look’d to well, and the best help
The place affords, as rightly is his due,
Ever at hand. How happened it he left
you?
Was a seafaring life his early choice?
WOMAN.
No Sir! poor fellow — he was wise enough
To be content at home, and ’twas a home
As comfortable Sir I even tho’ I say it,
As any in the country. He was left
A little boy when his poor father died,
Just old enough to totter by himself
And call his mother’s name. We two were all,
And as we were not left quite destitute
We bore up well. In the summer time I worked
Sometimes a-field. Then I was famed for knitting,
And in long winter nights my spinning wheel
Seldom stood still. We had kind neighbours too
And never felt distress. So he grew up
A comely lad and wonderous well disposed;
I taught him well; there was not in the parish
A child who said his prayers more regular,
Or answered readier thro’ his catechism.
If I had foreseen this! but ’tis a blessing
We do’nt know what we’re born to!
TRAVELLER.
But how came it
He chose to be a Sailor?
WOMAN.
You shall hear Sir;
As he grew up he used to watch the birds
In the corn, child’s work you know, and easily done.
’Tis an idle sort of task, so he built up
A little hut of wicker-work and clay
Under the hedge, to shelter him in rain.
And then he took for very idleness
To making traps to catch the plunderers,
All sorts of cunning traps that boys can make —
Propping a stone to fall and shut them in,
Or crush them with its weight, or else a springe
Swung on a bough. He made them cleverly —
And I, poor foolish woman! I was pleased
To see the boy so handy. You may guess
What followed Sir from this unlucky skill.
He did what he should not when he was older:
I warn’d him oft enough; but he was caught
In wiring hares at last, and had his choice
The prison or the ship.
TRAVELLER.
The choice at least
Was kindly left him, and for broken laws
This was methinks no heavy punishment.
WOMAN.
So I was told Sir. And I tried to think so,
But ’twas a sad blow to me! I was used
To sleep at nights soundly and undisturb’d —
Now if the wind blew rough, it made me start
And think of my poor boy tossing about
Upon the roaring seas. And then I seem’d
To feel that it was hard to take him from me
For such a little fault. But he was wrong
Oh very wrong — a murrain on his traps!
See what they’ve brought him too!
TRAVELLER.
Well! well! take comfort
He will be taken care of if he lives;
And should you lose your child, this is a country
Where the brave sailor never leaves a parent
To weep for him in want.
WOMAN.
Sir I shall want
No succour long. In the common course of years
I soon must be at rest, and ’tis a comfort
When grief is hard upon me to reflect
It only leads me to that rest the sooner.
THE WITCH.
NATHANIEL.
Father! here father! I have found a horse-shoe!
Faith it was just in time, for t’other night
I laid two straws across at Margery’s door,
And afterwards I fear’d that she might do me
A mischief for’t. There was the Miller’s boy
Who set his dog at that black cat of hers,
I met him upon crutches, and he told me
’Twas all her evil eye.
FATHER.
’Tis rare good luck;
I would have gladly given a crown for one
If t’would have done as well. But where did’st find it?
NATHANIEL.
Down on the Common; I was going a-field
And neighbour Saunders pass’d me on his mare;
He had hardly said “good day,” before I saw
The shoe drop off; ’twas just upon my tongue
To call him back, — it makes no difference, does it.
Because I know whose ’twas?
FATHER.
Why no, it can’t.
The shoe’s the same you know, and you ‘did find’ it.
NATHANIEL.
That mare of his has got a plaguey road
To travel, father, and if he should lame her,
For she is but tender-footed, —
FATHER.
Aye, indeed —
I should not like to see her limping back
Poor beast! but charity begins at home,
And Nat, there’s our own horse in such a way
This morning!
NATHANIEL.
Why he ha’nt been rid again!
Last night I hung a pebble by the manger
With a hole thro’, and every body says
That ’tis a special charm against the hags.
FATHER.
It could not be a proper natural hole then,
Or ’twas not a right pebble, — for I found him
Smoking with sweat, quaking in every limb,
And panting so! God knows where he had been
When we were all asleep, thro’ bush and brake
Up-hill and down-hill all alike, full stretch
At such a deadly rate! —
NATHANIEL.
By land and water,
Over the sea perhaps! — I have heard tell
That ’tis some thousand miles, almost at the end
Of the world, where witches go to meet the Devil.
They used to ride on broomsticks, and to smear
Some ointment over them and then away
Out of the window! but ’tis worse than all
To worry the poor beasts so. Shame upon it
That in a Christian country they should let
Such creatures live!
FATHER.
And when there’s such plain proof!
I did but threaten her because she robb’d
Our hedge, and the next night there came a wind
That made me shake to hear it in my bed!
How came it that that storm unroofed my barn,
And only mine in the parish? look at her
And that’s enough; she has it in her face —
A pair of large dead eyes, rank in her head,
Just like a corpse, and purs’d with wrinkles round,
A nose and chin that scarce leave room between
For her lean fingers to squeeze in the snuff,
And when she speaks! I’d sooner hear a raven
Croak at my door! she sits there, nose and knees
Smoak-dried and shrivell’d over a starved fire,
With that black cat beside her, whose great eyes
Shine like old Beelzebub’s, and to be sure
It must be one of his imps! — aye, nail it hard.
NATHANIEL.
I wish old Margery heard the hammer go!
She’d curse the music.
FATHER.
Here’s the Curate coming,
He ought to rid the parish of such vermin;
In the old times they used to hunt them out
And hang them without mercy, but Lord bless us!
The world is grown so wicked!
CURATE.
Good day Farmer!
Nathaniel what art nailing to the threshold?
NATHANIEL.
A horse-shoe Sir, ’tis good to keep off witchcraft,
And we’re afraid
of Margery.
CURATE.
Poor old woman!
What can you fear from her?
FATHER.
What can we fear?
Who lamed the Miller’s boy? who rais’d the wind
That blew my old barn’s roof down? who d’ye think
Rides my poor horse a’nights? who mocks the hounds?
But let me catch her at that trick again,
And I’ve a silver bullet ready for her,
One that shall lame her, double how she will.
NATHANIEL.
What makes her sit there moping by herself,
With no soul near her but that great black cat?
And do but look at her!
CURATE.
Poor wretch! half blind
And crooked with her years, without a child
Or friend in her old age, ’tis hard indeed
To have her very miseries made her crimes!
I met her but last week in that hard frost
That made my young limbs ache, and when I ask’d
What brought her out in the snow, the poor old woman
Told me that she was forced to crawl abroad
And pick the hedges, just to keep herself
From perishing with cold, because no neighbour
Had pity on her age; and then she cried,
And said the children pelted her with snow-balls,
And wish’d that she were dead.
FATHER.
I wish she was!
She has plagued the parish long enough!
CURATE.
Shame farmer!
Is that the charity your bible teaches?
FATHER.
My bible does not teach me to love witches.
I know what’s charity; who pays his tithes
And poor-rates readier?
CURATE.
Who can better do it?
You’ve been a prudent and industrious man,
And God has blest your labour.
FATHER.
Why, thank God Sir,
I’ve had no reason to complain of fortune.
CURATE.
Complain! why you are wealthy. All the parish
Look up to you.
FATHER.
Perhaps Sir, I could tell
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 43