For she was cramm'd with theories out of books, But that there rose a shout: the gates were closed At sunset and the crowd were swarming now, To take their leave, about the garden rails. So I and some went out to these: we climb'd The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw Trim hamlets; here and there a rustic tower 'Look there, a garden!' said my college friend The Tory member's elder son and there! God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled Some sense of duty, something of a faith, Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, The little boys begin to shoot and stab, A kingdom topples over with a shriek Like an old woman, and down rolls the world In mock heroics stranger than our own; No graver than a schoolboys' barring out; Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream As some of theirs-God bless the narrow seas ! I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.' 6 Have patience,' I replied,' ourselves are full Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, Yet in the go-cart. To learn its limbs Patience! give it time there is a hand that guides.' In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, Among six boys, head under head, and look'd No little lily-handed Baronet he, A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, A raiser of huge melons and of pine, A patron of some thirty charities, A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed The long line of the approaching rookery swerve More joyful than the city-roar that hails Premier or king! Why should not these great Sirs Give up their parks some dozen times a year To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried, I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, So much the gathering darkness charm'd: we sat But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, Perchance upon the future man: the walls Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, And gradually the powers of the night, That range above the region of the wind, Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. Last little Lilia, rising quietly, Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went. THE END. N |