[DAUGHTER of Vice-Admiral George Davies; born at Poole, Dorsetshire, in 1840, and was married in 1863 to Mr. Thomas Webster, Fellow and Law Lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge. Among her works are Blanche Lisle, and Other Poems, 1860; Lilian Gray, 1864; Prometheus Bound, Dramatic Studies, 1866; A Woman Sold and Other Poems, 1867; Medea, 1868; The Auspicious Day, 1872; Yu Pe Ya's Lute, 1874; Disguises, 1879; A Book of Rhymes, 1881; In a Day, 1882. Her earlier poems were produced under the nom de plume of "Cecil Hume." She was a contributor for some years to the Examiner, from which many of her articles and reviews have been collected in the volume A Housewife's Opinions, 1879.]
WHAT! wilt thou throw thy stone of
Thou dare to scoff at him with scorn or blame?
He is a thousand times more great than thou:
Thou, with thy narrower mind and lower aim,
Wilt thou chide him and not be checked by shame?
He hath done evil - God forbid my sight
And though my trust in him is yet full strong
I may not hold him guiltless, ir. the dream
That wrong forgiven is no longer wrong,
Should falter where I gaze with loving And, looking on his error, fondly deem That he in that he erreth doth but seem.
[BORN August 18, 1841. Graduated from the University of Glasgow. His first work, Undertones, appeared in 1860 and was followed by Idyls and Legends of Inverburn in 1865, and London Poems in 1866. His later works are North Coast Poems, 1867; Napoleon Fallen, a Lyrical Drama, 1871; The Land of Lorne, 1871; The Drama of Kings, 1871. He has also written several tragedies and dramatic pieces which have been successful. In 1874 a collected edition of his poems was published in three volumes. A new volume of his poems entitled Ballads of Life, Love, and Humor, and a Selection from his various poems were issued in 1882. Mr. Buchanan has been for many years closely connected with the Contemporary Review, in which publication many of his poems and essays have first appeared.]
FROM "WHITE ROSE AND RED.
O so drowsy! In a daze
Sweating 'mid the golden haze,
With its smithy like an eye
Glaring bloodshot at the sky,
And its one white row of street,
Carpetted so green and sweet,
And the loungers smoking still
Over gate and window-sill;
Nothing coming, nothing going,
Locusts grating, one cock crowing,
Few things moving up or down,
All things drowsy - Drowsietown!
Thro' the fields with sleepy gleam,
Drowsy, drowsy steals the stream,
Touching with its azure arms
Upland fields and peaceful farms,
Gliding with a twilight tide
Where the dark elms shade its side;
Twining, pausing sweet and bright
Where the lilies sail so white;
Winding in its sedgy hair
Meadow-sweet and iris fair;
Humming as it hies along
Monotones of sleepy song;
Deep and dimpled, bright nut-brown,
Flowing into Drowsietown.
Far as eye can see, around,
Upland fields and farms are found,
Floating prosperous and fair
In the mellow misty air:
Apple-orchards, blossoms blowing
Up above, and clover growing
Red and scented round the knees
Of the old moss-silvered trees.
Hark! with drowsy deep refrain,
In the distance rolls a wain;
As its dull sound strikes the ear,
Other kindred sounds grow clear -
Drowsy all the soft breeze blowing,
Locusts grating, one cock crowing,
Cries like voices in a dream
Far away amid the gleam,
Then the wagons rumbling down
Thro' the lanes to Drowsietown.
Drowsy? Yea! - but idle? Nay!
Slowly, surely, night and day,
Humming low, well greased with oil,
Turns the wheel of human toil.
Here no grating gruesome cry
Of spasmodic industry;
No rude clamor, mad and mean,
Of a horrible machine!
Strong yet peaceful, surely roll'd,
Winds the wheel that whirls the gold.
Year by year the rich rare land
Yields its stores to human hand-
Year by year the stream makes fat
Every field and meadow-flat
Year by year the orchards fair
Gather glory from the air,
Redden, ripen, freshly fed,
Their bright balls of golden red.
Thus, most prosperous and strong,
Flows the stream of life along
Six slow days! wains come and go,
Wheat-fields ripen, squashes grow,
Cattle browse on hill and dale,
Milk foams sweetly in the pail,
Six days on the seventh day,
Toil's low murmur dies away
All is husht save drowsy din
Of the wagons rolling in,
Drawn amid the plenteous meads
By small fat and sleepy steeds.
Folk with faces fresh as fruit
Sit therein or trudge afoot,
Brightly drest for all to see,
In their seventh-day finery:
Farmers in their breeches tight,
Snowy cuffs, and buckles bright;
Ancient dames and matrons staid
In their silk and flower'd brocade,
Prim and tall, with soft brows knitted,
Silken aprons, and hands mitted;
Haggard women, dark of face,
Of the old lost Indian race;
Maidens happy-eyed and fair,
With bright ribbons in their hair,
Trip along, with eyes cast down,
Thro' the streets of Drowsietown.
Drowsy in the summer day
In the meeting-house sit they :
'Mid the high-back'd pews they doze,
Like bright garden-flowers in rows;
And old Parson Pendon, big
In his gown and silver'd wig,
Drones above in periods fine
Sermons like old flavor'd wine-
Crusted well with keeping long
In the darkness, and not strong
O! so drowsily he drones
In his rich and sleepy tones,
While the great door, swinging wide,
Shows the bright green street outside,
And the shadows as they pass
On the golden sunlit grass.
Then the mellow organ blows,
And the sleepy music flows,
And the folks their voices raise
In old unctuous hymns of praise,
Fit to reach some ancient god
Half asleep with drowsy nod.
Deep and lazy, clear and low,
Doth the oily organ grow!
Then with sudden golden cease
Comes a silence and a peace;
Then a murmur, all alive,
As of bees within a hive;
And they swarm with quiet feet
Out into the sunny street:
There, at hitching-post and gate
Do the steeds and wagons wait.
Drawn in groups, the gossips talk,
Shaking hands before they walk;
Maids and lovers steal away,
Smiling hand in hand, to stray
By the river, and to say
Drowsy love in the old way
Till the sleepy sun shines down
On the roofs of Drowsietown.
In the great marsh, far beyond Street and building, lies the Pond,
Gleaming like a silver shield
In the midst of wood and field;
There on sombre days you see
Anglers old in reverie,
Fishing feebly morn to night
For the pickerel so bright.
From the woods of beech and fir,
Dull blows of the woodcutter
Faintly sound; and haply, too,
Comes the cat-owl's wild "tuhoo"!
Drown'd by distance, dull and deep,
Like a dark sound heard in sleep;
And a cock may answer, down
In the depths of Drowsietown.
Such is Drowsietown - but nay!
Was, not is, my song should say -
Such was summer long ago
In this town so sleepy and slow.
Change has come: thro' wood and dale
Runs the demon of the rail,
And the Drowsietown of yore
Is not drowsy any more!
[EDUCATED at Oxford University. His first work was a prose translation of the Odyssey, in conjunction with S. H. Butcher, Fellow of University College, Oxford, a work that has been most favorably noticed by students of Homer. He has also made prose translations of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. His Baliades in Blue China, also his latest volume, Ballades and Verses Vain, have both been republished in this country. Among his recent works are a prose translation of the Iliad in connection with Ernest Myers and W. Leaf, The Library, in the Art at Home series, and a volume on mythology in preparation. He is also a contributor to the English periodicals, and several articles in Ward's English Poets bear his signature.]
THE hours are passing slow,
I hear their weary tread
Clang from the tower, and go
Back to their kinsfolk dead.
Sleep! death's twin brother dread!
Why dost thou scorn me so?
The wind's voice overhead
Long wakeful here I know,
And music from the steep
Where waters fall and flow.
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
All sounds that might bestow
Rest on the fever'd bed,
All slumb'rous sounds and low
Are mingled here and wed,
And bring no drowsihead.
Shy dreams flit to and fro
With shadowy hair dispread;
With wistful eyes that glow,
And silent robes that sweep.
Thou wilt not hear me; no?
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
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