Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic. Douglas James
‘Golden Hand’!
In the same way that the velvety green of Hunts is seen in the verses I have already quoted, so the softer side of the inland scenery of East Anglia is described in the following lines, where also we find an exquisite use of the East Anglian fancy about the fairies and the foxglove bells.
At a waltz during certain Venetian revels after the liberation from the Austrian yoke, a forsaken lover stands and watches a lady whose child-love he had won in England: —
Has she forgotten for such halls as these
The domes the angels built in holy times,
When wings were ours in childhood’s flowery climes
To dance with butterflies and golden bees? —
Forgotten how the sunny-fingered breeze
Shook out those English harebells’ magic chimes
On that child-wedding morn, ’neath English limes,
’Mid wild-flowers tall enough to kiss her knees?
The love that childhood cradled – girlhood nursed —
Has she forgotten it for this dull play,
Where far-off pigmies seem to waltz and sway
Like dancers in a telescope reversed?
Or does not pallid Conscience come and say,
‘Who sells her glory of beauty stands accursed’?
But was it this that bought her – this poor splendour
That won her from her troth and wild-flower wreath
Who ‘cracked the foxglove bells’ on Grayland Heath,
Or played with playful winds that tried to bend her,
Or, tripping through the deer-park, tall and slender,
Answered the larks above, the crakes beneath,
Or mocked, with glitter of laughing lips and teeth,
When Love grew grave – to hide her soul’s surrender?
Mr. Sharp has dwelt upon the striking way in which the scenery and atmosphere are rendered in ‘Aylwin,’ but this, as I think, is even more clearly seen in the poems. And in none of these is it seen so vividly as in that exhilarating poem, ‘Gypsy Heather,’ published in the ‘Athenæum,’ and not yet garnered in a volume. This poem also shows his lyrical power, which never seems to be at its very best unless he is depicting Romany life and Romany passion. The metre of this poem is as original as that of ‘The Gypsy Haymaking Song,’ quoted in an earlier chapter. It has a swing like that of no other poem: —
‘If you breathe on a heather-spray and send it to your man it’ll show him the selfsame heather where it wur born.’ – Sinfi Lovell.
[Percy Aylwin, standing on the deck of the ‘Petrel,’ takes from his pocket a letter which, before he had set sail to return to the south seas, the Melbourne post had brought him – a letter from Rhona, staying then with the Boswells on a patch of heath much favoured by the Boswells, called ‘Gypsy Heather.’ He takes from the envelope a withered heather-spray, encircled by a little scroll of paper on which Rhona has written the words, ‘Remember Gypsy Heather.’]
Remember Gypsy Heather?
Remember Jasper’s camping-place
Where heath-bells meet the grassy dingle,
And scents of meadow, wood and chase,
Wild thyme and whin-flower seem to mingle?
Remember where, in Rington Furze,
I kissed her and she asked me whether
I ‘thought my lips of teazel-burrs,
That pricked her jis like whin-bush spurs,
Felt nice on a rinkenny moey 8 like hers?’ —
Gypsy Heather!
Remember Gypsy Heather?
Remember her whom nought could tame
But love of me, the poacher-maiden
Who showed me once my father’s game
With which her plump round arms were laden
Who, when my glances spoke reproach,
Said, “Things o’ fur an’ fin an’ feather
Like coneys, pheasants, perch an’ loach,
An’ even the famous ‘Rington roach,’
Wur born for Romany chies to poach!” —
Gypsy Heather!
Remember Gypsy Heather?
Atolls and reefs, you change, you change
To dells of England dewy and tender;
You palm-trees in yon coral range
Seem ‘Rington Birches’ sweet and slender
Shading the ocean’s fiery glare:
We two are in the Dell together —
My body is here, my soul is there
With lords of trap and net and snare,
The Children of the Open Air, —
Gypsy Heather!
Remember Gypsy Heather?
Its pungent breath is on the wind,
Killing the scent of tropic water;
I see her suitors swarthy skinned,
Who pine in vain for Jasper’s daughter.
The ‘Scollard,’ with his features tanned
By sun and wind as brown as leather —
His forehead scarred with Passion’s brand —
Scowling at Sinfi tall and grand,
Who sits with Pharaoh by her hand, —
Gypsy Heather!
Remember Gypsy Heather?
Now Rhona sits beneath the tree
That shades our tent, alone and weeping;
And him, the ‘Scollard,’ him I see:
From bush to bush I see him creeping —
I see her mock him, see her run
And free his pony from the tether,
Who lays his ears in love and fun,
And gallops with her in the sun
Through lace the gossamers have spun, —
Gypsy Heather!
Remember Gypsy Heather?
She reaches ‘Rington Birches’; now,
Dismounting from the ‘Scollard’s’ pony,
She sits alone with heavy brow,
Thinking, but not of hare or coney.
The hot sea holds each sight, each sound
Of England’s golden autumn weather:
The Romanies now are sitting round
The tea-cloth spread on grassy ground;
Now Rhona dances heather-crowned, —
Gypsy Heather!
Remember Gypsy Heather?
She’s thinking of this withered spray
Through all the dance; her eyes are gleaming
Darker
Pretty mouth.