Which, when his fleecy troops no more can gain
Their pasture on the mountains hoar with ice,
The German shepherd carves with curious knife,
Earning in easy toil the food of frugal life.
It was a group which Richter, had he viewed,
Might have deemed worthy of his perfect skill;
The keen impatience of the younger brood,
Their eager eyes and fingers never still;
The hope, the wonder, and the restless joy
Of those glad girls, and that vociferous boy!
The aged friend serene with quiet smile,
Who in their pleasure finds her own delight;
The mother’s heart-felt happiness the while;
The aunts, rejoicing in the joyful sight;
And he who in his gaiety of heart,
With glib and noisy tongue performed the showman’s part.
Scoff ye who will! but let me, gracious Heaven,
Preserve this boyish heart till life’s last day!
For so that inward light by Nature given
Shall still direct, and cheer me on my way,
And brightening as the shades of age descend,
Shine forth with heavenly radiance at the end.
This was the morning light vouchsafed, which led
My favoured footsteps to the Muses’ hill,
Whose arduous paths I have not ceased to tread,
From good to better persevering still;
And if but self-approved, to praise or blame
Indifferent, while I toil for lasting fame.
And O ye nymphs of Castaly divine!
Whom I have dutifully served so long,
Benignant to your votary now incline,
That I may win your ear with gentle song,
Such as, I ween, is ne’er disowned by you,..
A low prelusive strain, to nature true.
But when I reach at themes of loftier thought,
And tell of things surpassing earthly sense,
(Which by yourselves, O Muses, I am taught,)
Then aid me with your fuller influence,
And to the height of that great argument,
Support my spirit in her strong ascent!
So may I boldly round my temples bind
The laurel which my master Spenser wore;
And free in spirit as the mountain wind
That makes my symphony in this lone hour,
No perishable song of triumph raise,
But sing in worthy strains my Country’s praise.
Part the First. The Journey.
I.
FLANDERS.
Our world hath seen the work of war’s debate
Consummated in one momentous day
Twice in the course of time; and twice the fate
Of unborn ages hung upon the fray:
First at Plataea, in that aweful hour
When Greece united smote the Persian’s power.
For had the Persian triumphed, then the spring
Of knowledge from that living source had ceast;
All would have fallen before the barbarous King,
Art, Science, Freedom; the despotic East,
Setting her mark upon the race subdued,
Had stamp’d them in the mould of sensual servitude.
The second day was that when Martel broke
The Musselmen, delivering France opprest,
And in one mighty conflict, from the yoke
Of misbelieving Mecca saved the West;
Else had the Impostor’s law destroyed the ties
Of public weal and private charities.
Such was the danger when that Man of Blood
Burst from the iron Isle, and brought again,
Like Satan rising from the sulphurous flood,
His impious legions to the battle plain:
Such too was our deliverance when the field
Of Waterloo beheld his fortunes yield.
I, who with faith unshaken from the first,
Even when the Tyrant seemed to touch the skies,
Had looked to see the high-blown bubble burst,
And for a fall conspicuous as his rise,
Even in that faith had look’d not for defeat
So swift, so overwhelming, so compleat.
Me most of all men it behoved to raise
The strain of triumph for this foe subdued,
To give a voice to joy, and in my lays
Exalt a nation’s hymn of gratitude,
And blazon forth in song that day’s renown,..
For I was graced with England’s laurel crown.
And as I once had journey’d to behold
Far off, Ourique’s consecrated field,
Where Portugal the faithful and the bold
Assumed the symbols of her sacred shield,
More reason now that I should bend my way
The field of British glory to survey.
So forth I set upon this pilgrimage,
And took the partner of my life with me,
And one dear girl, just ripe enough of age
Retentively to see what I should see;
That thus with mutual recollections fraught,
We might bring home a store for after-thought.
We left our pleasant Land of Lakes, and went
Throughout whole England’s length, a weary way,
Even to the farthest shores of eastern Kent:
Embarking there upon an autumn day,
Toward Ostend we held our course all night,
And anchored by its quay at morning’s earliest light.
Small vestige there of that old siege appears,
And little of remembrance would be found,
When for the space of three long painful years
The persevering Spaniard girt it round,
And gallant youths of many a realm from far
Went students to that busy school of war.
Yet still those wars of obstinate defence
Their lessons offer to the soldier’s hand;
Large knowledge may the statesman draw from thence:
And still from underneath the drifted sand,
Sometimes the storm, or passing foot lays bare
Part of the harvest Death has gathered there.
Peace be within thy walls, thou famous town,
For thy brave bearing in those times of old;
May plenty thy industrious children crown,
And prosperous merchants day by day behold
Many a rich vessel from the injurious sea,
Enter the bosom of thy quiet quay.
Embarking there, we glided on between
Strait banks raised high above the level land,
With many a cheerful dwelling white and green
In goodly neighbourhood on either hand.
Huge-timbered bridges o’er the passage lay,
Which wheeled aside and gave us easy way.
Four horses, aided by the favouring breeze,
Drew our gay vessel, slow and sleek and large;
Crack goes the whip, the steersman at his ease
Directs the way, and steady went the barge.
Ere evening closed to Bruges thus we came,..
Fair city, worthy of her ancient fame.
The season of her splendour is gone by,
Yet every where its monuments remain;
Temples which rear their stately heads on high,
Canals that intersect the fertile plain,
Wide streets and squares, with many a court and hall
Spacious and undefaced, but ancient all.
Time hath not wronged her, nor hath Ruin sought
Rudely her splendid structures to destroy,
Save in those recent days with evil fraught,
When Mutability, in drunken joy
Triumphant, and from all restraint released,
Let loose the fierce and many-headed beast.
But for
the scars in that unhappy rage
Inflicted, firm she stands and undecay’d;
Like our first sires’, a beautiful old age
Is hers, in venerable years array’d;
And yet to her benignant stars may bring,
What fate denies to man,.. a second spring.
When I may read of tilts in days of old,
And tourneys graced by chieftains of renown,
Fair dames, grave citizens, and warriors bold,
If Fancy would pourtray some stately town,
Which for such pomp fit theatre should be,
Fair Bruges, I shall then remember thee.
Nor did thy landscape yield me less delight,
Seen from the deck as slow it glided by,
Or when beneath us, from thy Belfroy’s height,
Its boundless circle met the bending sky;
The waters smooth and straight, thy proper boast,
And lines of road-side trees in long perspective lost.
No happier landscape may on earth be seen,
Rich gardens all around and fruitful groves,
White dwellings trim relieved with lively green,
The pollard that the Flemish painter loves,
With aspins tall and poplars fair to view,
Casting o’er all the land a grey and willowy hue.
My lot hath lain in scenes sublime and rude,
Where still devoutly I have served and sought
The Power divine which dwells in solitude.
In boyhood was I wont, with rapture fraught,
Amid those rocks and woods to wander free,
Where Avon hastens to the Severn sea.
In Cintra also have I dwelt erewhile,
That earthly Eden, and have seen at eve
The sea-mists, gathering round its mountain pile,
Whelm with their billows all below, but leave
One pinnacle sole seen, whereon it stood
Like the Ark on Ararat, above the flood.
And now am I a Cumbrian mountaineer;
Their wintry garment of unsullied snow
The mountains have put on, the heavens are clear,
And yon dark lake spreads silently below;
Who sees them only in their summer hour
Sees but their beauties half, and knows not half their power.
Yet hath the Flemish scene a charm for me
That soothes and wins upon the willing heart;
Though all is level as the sleeping sea,
A natural beauty springs from perfect art,
And something more than pleasure fills the breast,
To see how well-directed toil is blest.
Two nights have past; the morning opens well,
Fair are the aspects of the favouring sky;
Soon yon sweet chimes the appointed hour will tell,
For here to music Time moves merrily:
Aboard! aboard! no more must we delay,..
Farewell, good people of the Fleur de Bled!
Beside the busy wharf the Trekschuit rides,
With painted plumes and tent-like awning gay;
Carts, barrows, coaches, hurry from all sides,
And passengers and porters throng the way,
Contending all at once in clamorous speech,
French, Flemish, English, each confusing each.
All disregardant of the Babel sound,
A swan kept oaring near with upraised eye,..
A beauteous pensioner, who daily found
The bounty of such casual company;
Nor left us till the bell said all was done,
And slowly we our watry way begun.
Europe can boast no richer, goodlier scene,
Than that through which our pleasant passage lay,
By fertile fields and fruitful gardens green,
The journey of a short autumnal day;
Sleek well-fed steeds our steady vessel drew,
The heavens were fair, and Mirth was of our crew.
Along the smooth canal’s unbending line,
Beguiling time with light discourse, we went,
Nor wanting savoury food nor generous wine.
Ashore too there was feast and merriment;
The jovial peasants at some village fair
Were dancing, drinking, smoking, gambling there.
Of these, or of the ancient towers of Ghent
Renowned, I must not tarry now to tell;
Of picture, or of church, or monument;
Nor how we mounted to that ponderous bell,
The Belfroy’s boast, which bears old Roland’s name,
Nor yields to Oxford Tom, or Tom of Lincoln’s fame.
Nor of that sisterhood whom to their rule
Of holy life no hasty vows restrain,
Who, meek disciples of the Christian school,
Watch by the bed of sickness and of pain:
Oh what a strength divine doth Faith impart
To inborn goodness in the female heart!
A gentle party from the shores of Kent
Thus far had been our comrades as befell;
Fortune had linked us first, and now Consent,..
For why should Choice divide whom Chance so well
Had joined, and they to view the famous ground,
Like us, were to the Field of Battle bound.
Farther as yet they looked not than that quest,..
The land was all before them where to choose.
So we consorted here as seemed best;
Who would such pleasant fellowship refuse
Of ladies fair and gentle comrades free?..
Certes we were a joyous company.
Yet lacked we not discourse for graver times,
Such as might suit sage auditors, I ween;
For some among us, in far distant climes
The cities and the ways of men had seen;
No unobservant travellers they, but well
Of what they there had learnt they knew to tell.
The one of frozen Moscovy could speak,
And well his willing listeners entertain
With tales of that inclement region bleak,
The pageantry and pomp of Catherine’s reign,
And that proud city, which with wise intent
The mighty founder raised, his own great monument.
And one had dwelt with Malabars and Moors,
Where fertile earth and genial heaven dispense
Profuse their bounty upon Indian shores;
Whate’er delights the eye, or charms the sense,
The vallies with perpetual fruitage blest,
The mountains with unfading foliage drest.
He those barbaric palaces had seen,
The work of Eastern potentates of old;
And in the Temples of the Rock had been,
Awe-struck their dread recesses to behold;
A gifted hand was his, which by its skill
Could to the eye pourtray such wondrous scenes at will.
A third, who from the Land of Lakes with me
Went out upon this pleasant pilgrimage,
Had sojourned long beyond the Atlantic sea;
Adventurous was his spirit as his age,
For he in far Brazil, through wood and waste,
Had travelled many a day, and there his heart was placed.
Wild region,.. happy if at night he found
The shelter of some rude Tapuya’s shed;
Else would he take his lodgement on the ground,
Or from the tree suspend his hardy bed;
And sometimes starting at the jaguar’s cries,
See through the murky night the prowler’s fiery eyes.
And sometimes over thirsty deserts drear,
And sometimes over flooded plains he went;..
A joy it was his fire-side tales to hear,
And he a comrade to my heart’s content:
For he of what I most desired could tell,
And l
oved the Portugals because he knew them well.
Here to the easy barge we bade adieu;
Land-travellers now along the well-paved way,
Where road-side trees still lengthening on the view,
Before us and behind unvarying lay:
Through lands well laboured to Alost we came,
Where whilome treachery stain’d the English name.
Then saw we Afflighem, by ruin rent,
Whose venerable fragments strew the land;
Grown wise too late, the multitude lament
The ravage of their own unhappy hand;
Its records in their frenzy torn and tost,
Its precious stores of learning wrecked and lost.
Whatever else we saw was chearful all,
The signs of steady labour well repaid;
The grapes were ripe on every cottage wall,
And merry peasants seated in the shade
Of garner, or within the open door,
From gathered hop-vines plucked the plenteous store.
Through Assche for water and for cakes renowned
We passed, pursuing still our way, though late;
And when the shades of night were closing round,
Brussels received us through her friendly gate,..
Proud city, fated many a change to see,
And now the seat of new-made monarchy.
II.
BRUSSELS.
Where might a gayer spectacle be found
Than Brussels offered on that festive night,
Her squares and palaces irradiate round
To welcome the imperial Moscovite,
Who now, the wrongs of Europe twice redressed,
Came there a welcome and a glorious guest?
Her mile-long avenue with lamps was hung,
Innumerous, which diffused a light like day;
Where through the line of splendour, old and young
Paraded all in festival array;
While fiery barges, plying to and fro,
Illumined as they moved the liquid glass below.
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 179