Poetry Archives

STRANGER.
          Old friend! why you seem bent on parish duty,
          Breaking the highway stones,—and ’tis a task
          Somewhat too hard methinks for age like yours.


OLD MAN.
          Why yes! for one with such a weight of years
          Upon his back. I’ve lived here, man and boy,
          In this same parish, near the age of man
          For I am hard upon threescore and ten.
          I can remember sixty years ago
          The beautifying of this mansion here
          When my late Lady’s father, the old Squire
          Came to the estate.


STRANGER.
                  Why then you have outlasted
          All his improvements, for you see they’re making
          Great alterations here.


OLD MAN.
                        Aye-great indeed!
          And if my poor old Lady could rise up—
          God rest her soul! ’twould grieve her to behold
          The wicked work is here.


STRANGER.
                       They’ve set about it
          In right good earnest. All the front is gone,
          Here’s to be turf they tell me, and a road
          Round to the door. There were some yew trees too
          Stood in the court.


OLD MAN.
                     Aye Master! fine old trees!
          My grandfather could just remember back
          When they were planted there. It was my task
          To keep them trimm’d, and ’twas a pleasure to me!
          All strait and smooth, and like a great green wall!
          My poor old Lady many a time would come
          And tell me where to shear, for she had played
          In childhood under them, and ’twas her pride
          To keep them in their beauty. Plague I say
          On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have
          A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs
          And your pert poplar trees;—I could as soon
          Have plough’d my father’s grave as cut them down!


STRANGER.
          But ’twill be lighter and more chearful now,
          A fine smooth turf, and with a gravel road
          Round for the carriage,—now it suits my taste.
          I like a shrubbery too, it looks so fresh,
          And then there’s some variety about it.
          In spring the lilac and the gueldres rose,
          And the laburnum with its golden flowers
          Waving in the wind. And when the autumn comes
          The bright red berries of the mountain ash,
          With firs enough in winter to look green,
          And show that something lives. Sure this is better
          Than a great hedge of yew that makes it look
          All the year round like winter, and for ever
          Dropping its poisonous leaves from the under boughs
          So dry and bare!


OLD MAN.
                 Ah! so the new Squire thinks
          And pretty work he makes of it! what ’tis
          To have a stranger come to an old house!


STRANGER.

          It seems you know him not?


OLD MAN.
                        No Sir, not I.
          They tell me he’s expected daily now,
          But in my Lady’s time he never came
          But once, for they were very distant kin.
          If he had played about here when a child
          In that fore court, and eat the yew-berries,
          And sat in the porch threading the jessamine flowers,
          That fell so thick, he had not had the heart
          To mar all thus.


STRANGER.
          Come—come! all a not wrong.
          Those old dark windows—


OLD MAN.
                      They’re demolish’d too—
          As if he could not see thro’ casement glass!
          The very red-breasts that so regular
          Came to my Lady for her morning crumbs,
          Won’t know the window now!


STRANGER.
                        Nay they were high
          And then so darken’d up with jessamine,
          Harbouring the vermine;—that was a fine tree
          However. Did it not grow in and line
          The porch?


OLD MAN.
              All over it: it did one good
          To pass within ten yards when ’twas in blossom.
          There was a sweet-briar too that grew beside.
          My Lady loved at evening to sit there
          And knit; and her old dog lay at her feet
          And slept in the sun; ’twas an old favourite dog
          She did not love him less that he was old
          And feeble, and he always had a place
          By the fire-side, and when he died at last
          She made me dig a grave in the garden for him.
          Ah I she was good to all! a woful day
          ’Twas for the poor when to her grave she went!


STRANGER.
          They lost a friend then?


OLD MAN.
          You’re a stranger here
          Or would not ask that question. Were they sick?
          She had rare cordial waters, and for herbs
          She could have taught the Doctors. Then at winter
          When weekly she distributed the bread
          In the poor old porch, to see her and to hear
          The blessings on her! and I warrant them
          They were a blessing to her when her wealth
          Had been no comfort else. At Christmas, Sir!
          It would have warm’d your heart if you had seen
          Her Christmas kitchen,—how the blazing fire
          Made her fine pewter shine, and holly boughs
          So chearful red,—and as for misseltoe,
          The finest bough that grew in the country round
          Was mark’d for Madam. Then her old ale went
          So bountiful about! a Christmas cask,
          And ’twas a noble one! God help me Sir!
          But I shall never see such days again.


STRANGER.
          Things may be better yet than you suppose
          And you should hope the best.


OLD MAN.
                       It don’t look well
          These alterations Sir! I’m an old man
          And love the good old fashions; we don’t find
          Old bounty in new houses. They’ve destroyed
          All that my Lady loved; her favourite walk
          Grubb’d up, and they do say that the great row
          Of elms behind the house, that meet a-top
          They must fall too. Well! well! I did not think
          To live to see all this, and ’tis perhaps
          A comfort I shan’t live to see it long.


STRANGER.
          But sure all changes are not needs for the worse
          My friend.


OLD MAN.
            May-hap they mayn’t Sir;—for all that
          I like what I’ve been us’d to. I remember
          All this from a child up, and now to lose it,
          ’Tis losing an old friend. There’s nothing left
          As ’twas;—I go abroad and only meet
          With men whose fathers I remember boys;
          The brook that used to run before my door
          That’s gone to the great pond; the trees I learnt
          To climb are down; and I see nothing now
          That tells me of old times, except the stones
          In the church-yard. You are young Sir and I hope
          Have many years in store,—but pray to God
          You mayn’t be left the last of all your friends.


STRANGER.
          Well! well! you’ve one friend more than you’re aware of.
          If the Squire’s taste don’t suit with your’s, I warrant
          That’s all you’ll quarrel with: walk in and taste
          His beer, old friend! and see if your old Lady
          E’er broached a better cask. You did not know me,
          But we’re acquainted now. ’Twould not be easy
          To make you like the outside; but within—
          That is not changed my friend! you’ll always find
          The same old bounty and old welcome there.