# Littell's Living Age/Volume 140/Issue 1808/A Farmhouse Dirge

From The Contemporary Review.
A FARMHOUSE DIRGE.
* I.
* Will you walk with me to the brow of the hill, to visit the farmer's wife,
* Whose daughter lies in the churchyard now, eased of the ache of life?
* Half a mile by the winding lane, another half to the top:
* There you may lean o'er the gate and rest; she will want me awhile to stop,
* Stop and talk of her girl that is gone and no more will wake or weep.
* Or to listen rather, for sorrow loves to babble its pain to sleep.
* II.
* How thick with acorns the ground is strewn, rent from their cups and brown!
* How the golden leaves of the windless elms come singly fluttering down!
* The bryony hangs in the thinning hedge, as russet as harvest corn,
* The straggling blackberries glisten jet, the haws are red on the thorn;
* The clematis smells no more but lifts its gossamer weight on high;
* If you only gazed on the year, you would think how beautiful 'tis to die.
* III.
* The stream scarce flows underneath the bridge; they have dropped the sluice of the mill;
* The roach bask deep in the pool above, and the water-wheel is still.
* The meal lies quiet on bin and floor; and here where the deep banks wind.
* The water-mosses nor sway nor bend, so nothing seems left behind.
* If the wheels of life would but sometimes stop, and the grinding awhile would cease,
* 'Twere so sweet to have, without dying quite, just a spell of autumn peace.
* IV.
* Cottages four, two new, two old, each with its clambering rose:
* Lath and plaster and weather tiles these, brick faced with stone are those.
* Two crouch low from the wind and the rain, and tell of the humbler days,
* Whilst the other pair stand up and stare with a self-asserting gaze;
* But I warrant you'd find the old as snug as the new did you lift the latch,
* For the human heart keeps no whit more warm under slate than beneath the thatch.
* V.
* Tenants of two of them work for me, punctual, sober, true;
* I often wish that I did as well the work I have got to do.
* Think not to pity their lowly lot, nor wish that their thoughts soared higher;
* The canker comes on the garden rose, and not on the wilding brier.
* Doubt and gloom are not theirs, and so they but work and love, they live
* Rich in the only valid boons that life can withhold or give.
* VI.
* Here is the railway bridge, and see how straight do the bright lines keep,
* With pheasant copses on either side, or pastures of quiet sheep.
* The big loud city lies far away, far too is the cliff-bound shore,
* But the trains that travel betwixt them seem as if burdened with their roar.
* Yet, quickly they pass, and leave no trace, not the echo e'en of their noise:
* Don't you think that silence and stillness are the sweetest of all our joys?
* VII.
* Lo! yonder the Farm, and these the ruts that the broad-wheeled wains have worn,
* As they bore up the hill the faggots sere, or the mellow shocks of corn.
* The hops are gathered, the twisted bines now brown on the brown clods lie.
* And nothing of all man sowed to reap is seen betwixt earth and sky.
* Year after year doth the harvest come, though at summer's and beauty's cost:
* One can only hope, when our lives grow bare, some reap what our hearts have lost.
* VIII.
* And this is the orchard, - small and rude, and uncared-for, but oh! in spring,
* How white is the slope with cherry bloom, and the nightingales sit and sing!
* You would think that the world had grown young once more, had forgotten death and fear,
* That the nearest thing unto woe on earth was the smile of an April tear;
* That goodness and gladness were twin, were one: The robin is chorister now:
* The russet fruit on the ground is piled, and the lichen cleaves to the bough.
* IX.
* Will you lean o'er the gate, whilst I go on? You can watch the farmyard life.
* The beeves, the farmer's hope, and the poults, that gladden his thrifty wife;
* Or, turning, look on the hazy weald, you will not be seen from here,
* Till your thoughts, like it, grow blurred and vague, and mingle the far and near.
* Grief is a flood, and not a spring, whatever in grief we say;
* And perhaps her woe, should she see me alone, will run more quickly away.
* 1.
* "I thought you would come this morning, ma'am. Yes, Edith at last has gone;
* To-morrow's a week, ay, just as the sun right into her window shone;
* Went with the night, the vicar says, where endeth never the day;
* But she's left a darkness behind her here I wish she had taken away.
* She is no longer with us, but we seem to be always with her.
* In the lonely bed where we laid her last, and can't get her to speak or stir.
* 2.
* "Yes, I'm at work; 'tis time I was. I should have begun before;
* But this is the room where she lay so still, ere they carried her past the door.
* I thought I never could let her go where it seems so lonely of nights;
* But now I am scrubbing and dusting down, and setting the place to rights.
* All I have kept are the flowers there, the last that stood by her bed.
* I suppose I must throw them away. She looked much fairer when she was dead
* 3.
* "Thank you, for thinking of her so much. Kind thought is the truest friend.
* I wish you had seen how pleased she was with the peaches you used to send.
* She tired of them too ere the end, so she did with all we tried;
* But she liked to look at them all the same, so we set them down by her side.
* Their bloom and the flush upon her cheek were alike, I used to say;
* Both were so smooth, and soft, and round, and both have faded away.
* 4.
* "I never could tell you how kind too were the ladies up at the hall;
* Every noon, or fair or wet, one of them used to call.
* Worry and work seems ours, but yours pleasant and easy days,
* And, when all goes smooth, the rich and poor have different lives and ways.
* Sorrow and death bring men more close, 'tis joy that puts us apart;
* 'Tis a comfort to think, though we're severed so, we're all of us one at heart.
* 5.
* "She never wished to be smart and rich, as so many in these days do.
* Nor cared to go in on market days to stare at the gay and new.
* She liked to remain at home and pluck the white violets down in the wood;
* She said to her sisters before she died, ' 'Tis so easy to be good.'
* She must have found it so, I think, and that was the reason why
* God deemed it needless to leave her here, so took her up to the sky.
* 6.
* "The vicar says that he knows she is there, and surely she ought to be;
* But though I repeat the words, 'tis hard to believe what one does not see.
* They did not want me to go to the grave, but I could not have kept away,
* And whatever I do I can only see a coffin and church-yard clay.
* Yes, I know it's wrong to keep lingering there, and wicked and weak to fret;
* And that's why I'm hard at work again, for it helps one to forget.
* 7.
* "The young ones don't seem to take to work as their mothers and fathers did.
* We never were asked if we liked or no, but had to obey when bid.
* There's Bessie won't swill the dairy now, nor Richard call home the cows,
* And all of them cry, 'How can you, mother?' when I carry the wash to the sows.
* Edith would help me to clean the pans, to burnish the grate and hobs;
* But she was so pretty I could not bear to set her on dirty jobs.
* 8.
* "I don't know how it'll be with them when sorrow and loss are theirs,
* For it isn't likely that they'll escape their pack of worries and cares.
* They say it's an age of progress this, and a sight of things improves,
* But sickness, and age, and bereavement seem to work in the same old grooves.
* Fine they may grow, and that, but Death as lief takes the moth as the grub.
* When their dear ones die, I suspect they'll wish they'd a floor of their own to scrub.
* 9.
* "Some day they'll have a home of their own, much grander than this, no doubt,
* But polish the porch as you will you can't keep doctors and coffins out.
* I've done very well with my fowls this year, but what are pullets and eggs,
* When the heart in vain at the door of the grave the return of the lost one begs?
* The rich have leisure to wail and weep, the poor haven't time to be sad:
* If the cream hadn't been so contrairy this week, I think grief would have driven me mad.
* 10.
* "How does my husband bear up, you ask? Well, thank you, ma'am, fairly well;
* For he too is busy just now, you see, with the wheat and the hops to sell:
* It's when the work of the day is done, and he comes indoors at night.
* While the twilight hangs round the window-panes before I bring in the light.
* And takes down his pipe, and says not a word, but watches the faggots roar
* And then I know he is thinking of her who will sit on his knee no more.
* 11.
* "Must you be going? It seems so short. But thank you for thinking to come;
* It does me good to talk of it all, and grief feels doubled when dumb.
* And the butter's not quite so good this week, if you please, ma'am, you must not mind.
* And I'll not forget to send the ducks and all the eggs we can find;
* I've scarcely had time to look round me yet, work gets into such arrears,
* With only one pair of hands, and those fast wiping away one's tears.
* 12.
* "You've got some flowers, yet, haven't you, ma'am? though they now must be going fast;
* We never have any to speak of here, and I placed on her coffin the last.
* Could you spare me a few for Sunday next? I should like to go all alone,
* And lay them down on the little mound where there isn't as yet a stone.
* Thank you kindly, I'm sure they'll do, and I promise to heed what you say;
* I'll only just go and lay them there, and then I will come away."
* X.
* Come, let us go. Yes, down the hill, and home by the winding lane.
* The low-lying fields are suffused with haze, as life is suffused with pain.
* The noon mists gain on the morning sun, so despondency gains on youth;
* We grope, and wrangle, and boast, but Death is the only certain truth.
* O love of life! what a foolish love! we should weary of life did it last.
* While it lingers, it is but a little thing; 'tis nothing at all when past.
* XI.
* The acorns thicker and thicker lie, the bryony limper grows.
* There are mildewing beads on the leafless brier where once smiled the sweet dog-rose.
* You may see the leaves of the primrose push through the litter of sodden ground;
* Their pale stars dream in the wintry womb, and the pimpernel sleepeth sound.
* They will awake; shall we awake? Are we more than imprisoned breath?
* When the heart grows weak, then hope grows strong, but stronger than hope is Death.
* October, 1878. Alfred Austin.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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