"WHO WILL SAY THE WORLD IS DYING? WHO WILL SAY OUR PRIME IS PAST?-(CHARLES KINGSLEY)

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THE WRATH OF THE SEA IS AGAINST US."-KINGSLEY.

REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Reb. Charles Kingsley.

[CANON KINGSLEY is, emphatically, a many-sided writer. He has gained
a well-deserved and permanent reputation as an historian, a reviewer and
essayist, a preacher, a writer of fiction, a naturalist, and a poet. The
mere list of his works is abundant testimony to the variety of his gifts,
and all, in every page, exhibit his high and generous aspirations, his sym-
pathy with his fellows, his active manly charity, his contempt of the false
and unreal, his keen feeling for nature, his dramatic vigour, and power
of picturesque and animated expression. There is a healthy tone in all his
books, and their perusal acts like a tonic and restorative upon enfeebled
minds. In his hatred of namby-pambyism and dilletantism he sometimes
rushes to the opposite extreme; but, on the whole, we recognize in him a
man of true genius, of genuine earnestness, and wide and healthy sym-
pathies. As a poet, though his range is not very wide, the melodies of his
lyre breathe a true music, and often win their way to our heart of hearts
by their unaffected pathos.

Charles Kingsley was born at Holmes Vicarage, near Dartmoor, in
1819; was educated for the legal profession at King's College, London,
and Magdalene College, Cambridge; entered the Church, and received, first
the
curacy, and afterwards the rectory of Eversley; is Chaplain in Ordi-
nary to the Queen; and a Canon of St. Paul's. He at one time held the
Professorship of Modern History in Cambridge University.

His principal works are:-"The Saint's Tragedy," a poem (1848);
"Alton Locke," a tale of modern life (1850); "Yeast, a Problem," (1851);
"Phaethon or Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers” (1852); “Hypatia,
or New Friends with an Old Face," a philosophical and historical romance
(1853); "Alexandria and her Schools" (1854); "Westward Ho !" (1855);
"Glaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore" (1855): "Two Years Ago,” a
novel (1857); "Andromeda, and Other Poems" (1858); "Miscellanies"
(1859); "The Roman and the Teuton," a series of historical lectures (1864);
"Hereward, the Last of the English" (1866); "The Water of Life," and
other sermons (1867): "The Ancient Régime," historical lectures (1868);
"At Last" (1871); and various volumes of discourses.]

THE PROCESSION OF THE SEA-NYMPHS.

INWARD they came in their joy, and around them the
lamps of the sea-nymphs,

Myriad fiery globes, swam panting and heaving; and
rainbows

"THE THUNDERING WALLS OF THE SURGES."-KINGSLEY.

SPARKS FROM HEAVEN, WITHIN US LYING, FLASH, AND WILL FLASH, TILL THE LAST."-KINGSLEY.

"SO MANY A WIFE, FOR CRUEL MAN'S CARESSES, MUST INLY PINE AND PINE,-(KINGSLEY)

OH, GREEN IS THE COLOUR OF FAITH AND TRUTH,-(KINGSLEY)

THE PROCESSION OF THE SEA-NYMPHS.

245

Crimson and azure and emerald, were broken in star-showers;

lighting

Far through the wine-dark depths of the crystal, the gardens

of Nereus,

Coral and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the

ocean.

Onward they came in their joy, more white than the foam

which they scattered,

Laughing and singing and tossing and twining, while eager,
the Tritons

Blinded with kisses their eyes, unreproved, and above them in
worship

Hovered the terns, and the sea-gulls swept past them on silvery
pinions,

Echoing softly their laughter; around them the wantoning
dolphins

Sighed as they plunged, full of love; and the great sea-horses
which bore them

Curved up their crests in their pride to the delicate arms of the
maidens,

Pawing the spray into gems, till a fiery rain-fall, unharming,
Sparkled and gleamed on the limbs of the nymphs, and the
coils of the mermen.

Onward they went in their joy, bathed round with the fiery
coolness,

Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, immortal: but
others,

Pitiful, floated in silence apart; in their bosoms the sea-boys,
Slain by the wrath of the seas, swept down by the anger of
Nereus ;

Hapless, whom never again on strand or on quay shall their
mothers

Welcome with garlands and vows to the temple, but wearily

pining,

AND ROSE THE COLOUR OF LOVE AND YOUTH."-C. KINGSLEY.

YET OUTWARD BEAR A GALLANT FRONT TO THIS WORLD'S GAUDY GLARE."-C. KINGSLEY.

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"A WOMAN'S SOUL, MOST SOFT, YET STRONG.”—KINGSLEY.

REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Gaze over island and bay for the sails of the sunken; they
heedless

Sleep in soft bosoms for ever, and dream of the surge and the
sea-maids.

[From "Andromeda."]

"I CANNOT TELL WHAT YOU SAY, GREEN LEAVES, I CANNOT TELL WHAT YOU SAY,-(KINGSLEY)

SAPPHO.

HE lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
Above her glared the moon; beneath, the sea.
Upon the white horizon Athos' peak
Weltered in burning haze; all airs were dead;
The cicale slept among the tamarisk's hair;
The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far below
The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun;

The lazy sea-fowl dried their steaming wings;
The lazy swell crept whispering up the ledge,
And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest;
And Mother Earth watched by him as he slept,
And hushed her myriad children for awhile.
She lay among the myrtles on the cliff,

And sighed for sleep, for sleep that would not
hear,

But left her tossing still; for night and day
A mighty hunger yearned within her heart,
Till all her veins ran fever; and her cheek,
Her long, thin hands, and ivory-channelled feet,
Were wasted with the wasting of her soul.
Then peevishly she flung her on her face,
And hid her eyeballs from the blinding glare,
And fingered at the grass, and tried to cool

*The (Italian) grasshopper.

HELPFUL CARE, A MOTHER'S PERFECT SWAY. -KINGSLEY.

BUT I KNOW THAT THERE IS A SPIRIT IN YOU, AND A WORD IN YOU TO-DAY."-C. KINGSLEY.

WISDOM, SELF-SACRIFICE, DARING, AND LOVE, (C. KINGSLEY)

THE SANDS OF DEE.

Her crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward:
And then she raised her head, and upward cast
Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose liquid light
Gleamed out between deep folds of blue-black hair,
As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks
Of deep Parnassus, at the mournful moon.

Beside her lay her lyre. She snatched the shell,
And waked wild music from its silver strings;
Then tossed it sadly by.-"Ah, hush!" she cries,
"Dead offspring of the tortoise and the mine!
Why mock my discords with thy harmonies?
Although a thrice-Olympian lot be thine,
Only to echo back in every tone

The words of nobler natures than thine own."

[From "Andromeda, and Other Poems," Parker, edit. 1862.]

"WHILE A LIP GROWS RIPE FOR KISSING, WHILE A MOAN FROM MAN IS WRUNG,-(KINGSLEY)

THE SANDS OF DEE.

MARY, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home

Across the sands of Dee;"

The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eyes could see.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land:

And never home came she.

HASTE TO THE BATTLE-FIELD, STOOP FROM ABOVE."-KINGSLEY.

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KNOW, BY EVERY WANT AND BLESSING, THAT THE WORLD IS YOUNG."-CHARLES KINGSLEY.

248

TRUE HEARTS WILL LEAP UP AT THE TRUMPET OF GOD,

REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY.

"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair

A tress of golden hair,

A drowned maiden's hair,

Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair

Among the stakes on Dee."

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,*

The cruel hungry foam,+

To her grave beside the sea:

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home

Across the sands of Dee.

[From "Andromeda, and Other Poems," edit. 1862.]

"FALL WARM, FALL FAST, THOU MELLOW RAIN; THOU RAIN OF GOD, MAKE FAT THE LAND

M

..A FAREWELL.

|Y fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make Life, Death, and that vast For-ever
One grand, sweet song.

[From "Andromeda, and Other Poems," edit. 1862.]

* "With what an hungry life the ocean deep
Lappeth for ever the white-breasted sands!"

ALEXANDER SMITH.

These expressions are quoted by Ruskin in his "Modern Painters," vol. iii., part iv., as an instance of what he calls the pathetic fallacy in modern poetry. And yet, to any one who has seen the in-rush of the tide of a great estuary, the foam does, of a truth, seem hungry and cruel-in search of victims.

AND THOSE WHO CAN SUFFER, CAN DARE."-C. KINGSLEY.

THAT ROOTS, WHICH PARCH IN BURNING SAND, MAY BUD TO FLOWER AGAIN."-C. KINGSLEY.