ABOUT AND ROUNDABOUT In Mr. Nahum's The Other Worlde, as I have said on page xxxii, there were many passages written about and roundabout the poems contained in it. Some of these I copied out. With others that I have added since, they appear in the following pages. If the reader prefers poems and poems only in such a collection as this, would he of his kindness and courtesy ignore everything else? Otherwise, will he please forgive any blunders he may discover? 1. "THIS IS THe Key." This jingle (like Nos. 15, 16 and others) is one of hundreds of nursery and dandling rhymes which I found in Mr. Nahum's book. Compared with more formal poems they are like wild flowers-pimpernel, eyebright, thyme, woodruff, and others even tinier, even quieter, but having their own private and complete little beauty if looked at closely. Who made them, how old they are, nobody knows. But when Noah's Ark stranded on the slopes of Mount Ararat, maybe a blossoming weed or two was nodding at the open third-storey window out of which over the waters of the flood the dove had followed the raven, and there, rejoicing in the sunshine and the green, sat Japheth's wife dandling little Magog on her lap, and crooning him some such lullaby. 3. On the one side is printed the old Scots, and on the other the best I can do to put it into the English of our own time. According to the dictionary the thistle-cock that cries shame on the sleepers still drowsing in their beds is the corn-bunting-a cousin of the yellow-hammer. He has a small harsh monotonous voice Whereas the nightingale might seem as if for the very purpose. to cry, "Nay, nay: it is in dreams you wander. Happy ones! Sleep on; sleep on." 4. "I PASSED BY HIS GARDEN." Whatever fate befell the Sluggard, I should like to have taken a walk in his garden, among those branching thistles, green thorns and briers. Maybe he sailed off at last to the Isle of Nightmare, or to the land where it is always afternoon, or was wrecked in Yawning Gap. He must, at any rate, have had an even heavier head than Dr. Watts supposed if he never so much as lifted it from his pillow to brood awhile on that still, verdurous scene. And the birds! Indeed, to lie, between sleep and wake, when daybreak is brightening of an April or a May morning, and so listen to the far-away singing of a thrush or to the whistling of a robin or a wren is to seem to be transported back into the garden of Eden. Dreamers, too, may call themselves travellers. Mr. Nahum's picture to this rhyme was of a man in rags looking into a small round mirror or looking-glass, but at what you couldn't see. 6. "THE MERCHANT BOWs" (line 7) -(as do the happy to the New Moon, for luck), for his merchandise is being wafted over the sea under the guidance of the Seaman's, or Ship, or Lode, or Pole Star. It shines in the constellation of the Little Bear, and "is the cheefe marke whereby mariners governe their course in saylings by nyghte." To find the "marke," look towards the north some cloudless night for the constellation of Seven Stars called the Plough or the Dipper or Charles's Wain (or Waggon), which "enclyneth his ravisshinge courses abouten the soverein heighte of the worlde" day and night throughout the year. Its hinder stars (Dubhe and Merak) are named "the pointers," because if you follow the line of them with the eye into the empty skies, the next brightish star it will alight on is the Seaman's Star. Close beside the second of the seven is a mere speck of a star. And that is called by country people Jack-by-the-middle-horse. On this same star looked Shakespeare-as did the 1st Carrier in his Henry IV.: "Heigh-ho, an't be not foure by the day, Ile be hanged. Charles' waine is over the near Chimney, and yet our horse not packt"; and as did his 2nd Gentleman in Othello: Montano. 1st Gentleman. 2nd Gentleman. What from the Cape can you discerne at Sea? Do but stand upon the Foaming Shore, The chidden Billow seemes to pelt the Clowds, The wind-shaked-Surge, with high and Seemes to cast water on the burning Beare, Faintly shimmering, too, in the northern heavens is that other numerous starry cluster, known the world over as Seven -to us as the Seven Sisters or the Pleiades. A strange seven; for only six stars are now clearly visible to the naked eye, one having vanished, it would seem, within human memory. where?-none can tell. They play in light as close together as dewdrops in a cobweb hung from thorn to thorn. Nearby, on winter's cold breast burns the most marvellous of the constellations the huntsman Orion, with his Rigel and Bellatrix and Betelgeuse; his dog Sirius at his heels. "Seek him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night. . ." 9. "LIKE A CHILD, HALF IN TENDERNESS AND MIRTH." At a first reading, perhaps, this line will not appear to flow so smoothly as the rest. But linger an instant on the word child, and you will have revealed to yourself one of Shelley's, and indeed one of every poet's loveliest devices with words-to let the music of his verse accord with its meaning, and at the same time to please and charm the ear with a slight variation from the regular beat and accent of the metre. So, too, in the middle lines of the next stanza. This variation, which is called rhythm, is the very proof of its writer's sincerity. For if the sound of his verse (or of his voice) rings false, he cannot have completely realised what he was writing or saying. When a man says what he means, he says it as if he meant it. The tune of what he says sounds right. When a man does not mean what he says, he finds it all but impossible to say it as if he did. The tune goes wrong. Just so with reading. So from a gay and tiny Compendious English Grammar of 1780 I have borrowed these four briet wholesome rules for reading: (1) ... Observe well the pauses, accents and emphases; and never stop but where the sense will admit of it. (2) Humour your voice a little, according to the subject. . . (3) Do not read too fast, lest [in lip or mind] you get a habit of stammering; adding or omitting words; and be sure that your understanding keep pace with your tongue. (4) In reading Verse, pronounce every word just as if it were prose, observing the stops with great exactness, and giving each word its proper accent; and if it be not harmonious, the Poet, and not the Reader, is to blame." Better, perhaps, be sure of your ear before you blame the poet. But in general, if these rules are followed, there can be little danger of reading like a parrot, or like a small boy in his first breeches at a Dame's school. To think while one reads; that is the main thing: so as not to be, as Sidney says,—just like a child that some fair book doth find, 13. "COMES DANCING FROM THE EAST." I found a story about this dancing in Mrs. Wright's Rustic Speech and Folklore. It is the story of a woman who lived in a district called Hockley, in the parish of Broseley. She said that she had heard of such "dancing" but did not believe it to be true, "till on Easter morning last, I got up early, and then I saw the sun dance, and dance, and dance, three times, and I called to my husband and said, 'Rowland, Rowland, get up and see the sun dance!' I used," she said, "not to believe it, but now I can never doubt more." The neighbours agreed with her that the sun did dance on Easter morning, and that some of them had seen it. "Seeing," goes the old proverb, "is believing❞—which is true no less of the "inward eye." I once tried to comfort a very little boy who was unhappy because there was a Bear under his bed. Candle in hand, I talked and talked, and proved that there wasn't a real bear for miles and miles around, not at any rate until we reached the Zoo, and thereblack, brown, sloth, spectacled, grizzly and polar alike—all of them, poor creatures, were cabined, cribbed and shut up in barred cages. He listened, tears still shining in his eyes, his small face sharp and clear. "Why certainly, certainly not," I ended, "there can't be a real bear for miles around!" He smiled as if pitying me. "Ah yes, Daddie," he answered with a die-away sob, "but you see, you's talking of real bears, and mine wasn't real." 14. "US IDLE WENCHES." It was a jolly bed in sooth, Of oak as strong as Babel. And there slept Kit and Sall and Ruth Ay-three in one-and there they dreamed, For marvellous regions strayed they in, But soon as ever sun shone sweet, And birds sang, Praise for rain, O— Leapt out of bed three pair of feet. |