Noctes Ambrosianae. No. LXV. ΧΡΗ ΔΕΝ ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΩ ΚΥΛΙΚΩΝ ΠΕΡΙΝΙΣΣΟΜΕΝΑΩΝ ΑΚΩ ΔΕΗΤΙΛΛΟΝΤΑ ΚΑΘΗΜΕΝΟΝ ΟΙΝΟΠΟΤΑΖΕΙΝ. [This is a distich by wise old Phocylides, An ancient who wrote crabbed Greek in no silly days; Meaning," "TIS RIGHT FOR GOOD winebibbing people, NOT TO LET THE JUG PACE ROUND THE BOARD LIKE A CRIPPLE; An excellent rule of the hearty old cock'tis— And a very fit motto to put to our Noctes.] C. N. ap. Ambr. SCENE-Tent in the Fairy's Cleugh-NORTH and the REGISTRAR lying on the brae. (In attendance, AMBROSE and his Tail.) REGISTRAR. "The day is placid in its going,. Can there be a softer sound?" What, my dear North! Can't I waken you from your reverie even by a stanza of your own bard-Wordsworth? Hollo! are you asleep, you old somnolent sinner? (Shouting through the hollow of his hands into North's ear.) Nay, you must be dead. That posture grows every hour more alarming, and if this be not death, why then I pronounce it an admirable imitation. Laid out! Limb and body stiff and stark as a winter clod-mouth open-eyes ditto, and glazed like a window-pane in frost. How white his lips! And is there no breath? (Puts his pocket mirror to North's mouth.) Thank heaven it dims-he lives! North, I say again, you old somnolent sinner, "awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!" NORTH (motionlessly soliloquizing in a dream). Never in this well-wooded world, not even in the days of the Druids, could there have been such another Tree! It would be easier to suppose two Shakspeares. REGISTRAR. Sleeping or waking-always original. I must let the bald-headed bard enjoy a little while longer his delusion. (Pats North on the forehead.) What a pile! NORTH. Yet have I heard people say it is far from being a large Tree. A small one it cannot be with a house in its shadow. An unawakened house that looks as if it were dreaming! True, 'tis but a cottage-a Westmoreland cottage The buck is at the Lakes. REGISTRAR. NORTH. But then it has several roofs shelving away there in the lustre of loveliest lichens REGISTRAR. "And apt alliteration's artful aid." Yet methinks such affectations are beneath the dignity of his genius. Kit, you're a conceited callant. NORTH. Each roof with its own assortment of doves and pigeons pruning their plumage in the morning pleasance. REGISTRAR. Again? Poo-poo-on such prettinesses, North. NORTH. The sun is not only a great genius, but what is far better, a good Christian. REGISTRAR. That's not so much amiss by way of an obs. NORTH. Now is he rising to illuminate all nature; yet in his universal mission, so far from despising this our little humble dwelling, God bless his gracious countenance! he looks as if for it and for us he were bringing back the beautiful day from the sea. REGISTRAR. The habits and customs of our waking life we carry along with us into dream-land. The Unit calls himself Us. -we love thee beyond all other Trees-because thou art here! May we be buried below thee, and our coffin clasped by thy roots-"and curst be he who stirs our bones!" REGISTRAR. Again-our bones. Indeed there is little else of him now. The anatomie vivante would find it difficult to be much more of a skeleton were he a corpse. Yet he is a true Scotchman-for his bones are raw. Could it be -as tradition reports that he was once inclining to corpulency-"like two single gentlemen rolled into one!" All the fat has melted in the fire of his genius-gone "like snaw. aff a dyke”—and the dyke itself "a rickle o' stanes!" NORTH. Yet have we lived, all our lives, in the best silvan society-we have the entrée of the soirées of the Pines, the Elms, the Ashes, and the Oaks, the oldest and highest families in Britain. REGISTRAR. The old Tory! Aristocratical in his dwawms! NORTH. Nor have they disdained to receive us with open arms, when, after having been "absent long and distant far," we have found them again on our return to park or chase, as stately as ever among the groupes of deer! REGISTRAR. In Mar-Forest-with the Thane. NORTH. But with this one single Tree-this sole sweet Sycamore-are we in love. Yet so spiritual is our passion, that we care not even if it be unreturned! In the Platonics. REGISTRAR. NORTH. Self-sufficient for its own happiness is our almost life-long affection, pure as it is profound-no jealousy ever disturbs its assured repose. SHE may hold dalliance with all the airs and lights and shadows of heavenmay open her bosom to the thunder-glooms-take to her inmost heart, in its delirious madness the shivering storm. REGISTRAR. Who could have thought there was so much imagination left within those temples His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare!" NORTH. Oh! blessed is the calm that breathes over all emotions inspired by the beauty of lifeless things! Love creates delight that dies not till she dies; and then, indeed, dead seems all the earth. But wherever Love journeys-aye, be it through the Great Desert-before her feet "Beauty pitches her tents." And oh! how divine their slumber-of Love in the arms of Beauty-by the Palm-tree Well! REGISTRAR. What a pity the creature never wrote in verse! NORTH. Alas! not so with Love-when Love, a male spirit REGISTRAR. That's heterodox, old boy-seraphs are of no sex. NORTH. -is in love with the fairness of a Thing with life A Thing with life! REGISTRAR. NORTH. --how often is the imagination alarmed, as by the tolling of a bell in the air for some unknown funeral; and while it knows not why, the whole region, even but now bathed in day, grows night-like! and the heart is troubled. REGISTRAR. Aye-aye-my dear friend, I too have felt that, for, gay as I am, North, to the public eye, you know, Kit, that I have had my sorrows. NORTH. That virgin, Heaven may have decreed, shall be the wife of your dearest foe. O the cruel selfishness of Love's religion! That fear is worse than the thought even of her death! Rather than see her walking all in white, and with white roses in her hair, into the church, leaning on that arm, her fair face crimsoning with blushes at the altar, as if breathed from the shadow of a rosy cloud, Love would see her carried, all in white, with white roses in her hair then too, towards that hole in the churchyard-a hole into which distraction has crowded and heaped all that is most dismal on this side of hell-her pale face-though that he dares not dream of—yellowing within her coffin. REGISTRAR. Nay, that's too much-hang me if I can stand that—ne quid_nimis, North -and for having made me blubber, you shall have your face freshened, my lad, with the Wood-burn. (Runs down to the Wood-burn, fills his hat to the brim, and dashes the contents into the face of the Dormant.) NORTH (starting up in a splutter.) Whew! a water-spout! a water-spout. Sam! Sam! Sam! Where are you, First Samuel? NORTH. A mystery, Sam. Not a cloud in the sky-yet, look here— REGISTRAR. A mystery indeed! Never till this day beheld I the beau-ideal of a drowned rat. NORTH (musing.) There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Samuel. REGISTRAR. My philosophy! I make no pretensions to philosophy-but won't you walk into the Tent, and change yourself, sir. NORTH. A Scotticism, Sam, a palpable Scotticism. No-I will never change myself; but to the last be Christopher North. tricks; but was it kind-was it fair, to steal upon my slumbers so, and take Ah, Sam! I am up to your advantage of my sleeping innocence ? "I had a dream, yet 'twas not all a dream." I thought I was at Windermere, beneath the shadow of the sycamore, and that for me, and for me alone, "Jocund Morn Stood tiptoe on yon rosy mountain's head." REGISTRAR. And here we are in the Fairy's Cleugh, among the mountains of NORTH. Peebles-shire, Dumfries-shire, Lanarkshire, for here all three counties get inextricably entangled; yet in their pastoral peace they quarrel not for the dominion of this nook, central in the hill-heart, and haunted by the Silent People. REGISTRAR. You do not call us silent people! Why, you out-talk a spinning-jenny, and the mill-clapper stops in despair at the volubility of your speech. NORTH. Elves-Sam-Elves. Is it not the Fairy's Cleugh? REGISTRAR. And here have been "little feet that print the ground." But I took them for those of hares NORTH. These, Sam, are not worm-holes-nor did Mole the miner upheave these pretty little pyramids of primroses-for these, Sam, are all Fairy palaces-and yonder edifice that towers above the Lady-Fern-therein now sleeps let us speak low, and disturb her not-the Fairy Queen, waiting for the moonlight-and soon as the orb shews her rim rising from behind Birk-fell-away to the ring will she be gliding with all the ladies of her Court You cannot keep a secret, for you blab in your sleep. NORTH. Aye-both talk and walk. But I dreamed that I saw a Fairy's funeral, and that I was myself a fairy. And they asked me to sing her dirge, and then I sang-for sorrow in sleep, Sam, is sometimes sweeter than any joy-ineffably sweet-and thus comes back wavering into my memory the elegiac strain. Where shall our sister rest? THE FAIRY'S BURIAL. From her cold bosom ! Down droops her livid brow, Like a wan blossom! Not to those white lips cling Dull is the rainbow wing, Dim the bright tresses! Where down in yonder vale Here let the fern grass grow, And when the moonbeams shower, Light on the haunted hour Where thou art sleeping, Holding thee unforgot With our long weeping! AMBROSE (rushing out of the Tent). Mr Tickler, sirs, Mr Tickler! Yonder's his head and shoulders rising over the knoll-in continuation of his herald the rod. A most melancholy example of a truth I never believed before, that poetical and human sensibility are altogether distinct-nay, perhaps incompatible! North, forgive me (North grasps the Crutch); but you should be ashamed of yourself-nay, strike, but hear me ! Well-Themistocles. NORTH (smiling after a sort). REGISTRAR. You awaken out of a dream-dirge of Faery Land-where you, by force of strong imagination, were a female fairy, not a span long-mild as a musical violet, if one might suppose one, " by a mossy stone half-hidden to the eye," inspired with speech. NORTH. I feel the delicacy of the compliment. REGISTRAR. Then you feel something very different, sir, I assure you, from what I intended, and still intend, you shall feel; for your treatment of my friend Mr Ambrose was shocking. NORTH. I declare on my conscience, I never saw Ambrose ! REGISTRAR. What! aggravate your folly by falsehood! Then are you a lost manand NORTH. I thought it a stirk staggering in upon me at the close of a stanza that REGISTRAR. And why did you say "sir?" Nay-nay-that won't pass. From a female fairy, not a span long, "and even the gentlest of all gentle things," you suffer yourself to transform you into a Fury six feet high! and wantonly insult a man who would not hurt the feelings of a wasp. I hope I am not a wasp. NORTH (humbly). |