Where King Ida’s stately castle
Watches o’er the Northern sea,
Lies a little island-cluster
Where the surf breaks ceaselessly;
Dreaded by the storm-tost sailor,
Beautiful to you and me.
On those islands, where the light-house
Long hath stormy seas defied,
On those islands holy Cuthbert
Lived long years and meekly died;
From these islands too our Fathers
Came to preach the Crucified.
See, across the gloom of evening,
Shining like a planet bright,
Gladdening the watchful seamen,
Glows a clear and warning light;
Hear it tell a thrilling story
Of a gentle maiden’s might.
’Twas a wild September evening,
And the north-wind fiercely blew,
When the “Forfarshire” came drifting
With a weary, hopeless crew,
And upon the Longstone striking
With that warning light in view.
In the light-house dwelt a maiden,
Stranger she to doubt or fear,
Little marvel that for ever
All men hold Grace Darling dear!
When the bitter cry for life rose,
Help they dreamed not of was near.
“Father,” cried the dauntless maiden,
“Hear you not the drowning call?
Heed not though the seas be raging,
Launch our boat whate’er befal!”
Seated in that boat a maiden
And an old man, that was all.
To the rock through wind and tempest,
Through the raging ocean’s roar,
On that dread September morning
Pulled that man and maiden o’er,—
Stormy sea and danger round them,
Dying fellow-men before.
Sixty-three were in the steamer
When she struck the fatal land,
All the night the raging billows
Every hope of succour banned:
How could man avail to save them?
One by one felt Death’s stern hand.
But the nine who clung despairing
All that wild and woeful night,
Heard a cry of help come ringing
Through the air with morning light,—
Little marvel that the maiden
Seemed to them an angel bright.
Saved them all! The thrilling story
Ran through England far and wide:
Whilst Grace Darling’s fame and glory
Were proclaimed on every side,
She lived humbly in her light-house,
Humbly in her light-house died.
Come with me, my darling children,
We will wander where she lies,
Gaze upon her simple head-stone
Crumbling ’neath our angry skies;
But her memory lives for ever,
Such grand lesson never dies.
‘À tes pieds, my love, I lie,
And gaze into the far blue sky:
That sky so blue, so far away,
Where summer cloudlets idly play,
That sky, this world so far above,
Seems to me emblem of our love.’
‘Our love! and yet so far away:
And still, my dearest, still you stay
À mes pieds.’
‘Yes, and would tarry there alway
Through Summer’s shine and Winter’s grey:
My love, my life, my all I lay
A tes pieds.’
Through plains where sheep are cropping the grass,—
Their shepherds keeping watch over them,—
Joseph and Mary wearily pass
To David’s city of Bethlehem.
In travail sore was the virgin mild,
The crowded inn had no place for her,
She laid in manger her first-born child—
The Son of God and the carpenter,
Since that strange birth in that far-off land
Near nineteen centuries are gone:
To-day the world rings on every hand
In praise of Jesus, the carpenter’s son.
Hard was the scorn of his life to bear,
Harder to bear must be the praise:
All call him Lord, and all raise the prayer,
Yet no man doeth the things he says.
Has then that lone life been all in vain?
His teaching void? His death, too, sore?
Must Jesus be crucified again
Ere we learn the lesson the angels bore?
Ah, brother, sister, it lies with each
To live for his Lord through evil days—
Vain is our prayer and in vain we preach,
If we will not do what our Master says.
The sun’s bright rays burn fiercely in the cloudless sky―
Not the shadow of a breeze
As we plunge beneath the trees,
And up the bonnie burnie where the trouties lie.
The burden of great heat passes harmless by,
Drawn to flecks of golden gleam
Which dance gaily down the stream,
The wee bit bonnie burnie where the trouties lie.
Ah, must rare days of July so quickly fly?
Must clouds spread the gloaming o’er?
We shall, haply, never more
Scramble up yon bonnie burnie where the trouties lie.
Is it a place, or is it a play,
Houses made to be put away,
Breakwater, inns, to be taken down
When we have passed to another town?
Flowers bloom so gay in the break-neck street,
The sea lies so sheer beneath your feet;
The boats look so small in the tiny bay,—
It must be a dream, or a passing play.
Masses of leaves wherever you look,
Rich autumn colour in every nook,
Bluest of skies and emerald seas,
The very cliffs are bowers of trees;
Vines, grape-laden, climb up the wall,
Crimson creepers from chimnies fall,
Bright at night and brilliant at day,
It must be a dream or a passing play.
Yet each wee house has its tale of lives,
Working husbands and wearying wives,
Unconscious children whose woes are short,
Each little life with a future fraught.
And the gentle sea can be fierce and wild;
And cliffs reck little of wife or child:
Under each roof-tree lurk care and strife:
It is bright and bitter as human life.