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(Excerpt)
IN the outskirts of the village, | |
| On the river’s winding shores, | |
| Stand the Occidental plane-trees, | |
| Stand the ancient sycamores. | |
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| One long century hath been numbered, | 5 |
| And another half-way told, | |
| Since the rustic Irish gleeman | |
| Broke for them the virgin mould. | |
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| Deftly set to Celtic music, | |
| At his violin’s sound they grew, | 10 |
| Through the moonlit eves of summer, | |
| Making Amphion’s fable true. | |
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| Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant! | |
| Pass in jerkin green along, | |
| With thy eyes brimful of laughter, | 15 |
| And thy mouth as full of song. | |
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| Pioneer of Erin’s outcasts, | |
| With his fiddle and his pack; | |
| Little dreamed the village Saxons | |
| Of the myriads at his back. | 20 |
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| How he wrought with spade and fiddle, | |
| Delved by day and sang by night, | |
| With a hand that never wearied, | |
| And a heart forever light,— | |
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| Still the gay tradition mingles | 25 |
| With a record grave and drear, | |
| Like the rolic air of Cluny, | |
| With the solemn march of Mear. * * * * * | |
| Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle, | |
| Singing through the ancient town, | 30 |
| Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant, | |
| Hath Tradition handed down. | |
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| Not a stone his grave discloses; | |
| But if yet his spirit walks, | |
| ’T is beneath the trees he planted, | 35 |
| And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks; | |
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| Green memorials of the gleeman! | |
| Linking still the river-shores, | |
| With their shadows cast by sunset, | |
| Stand Hugh Tallant’s sycamores! | 40 |
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| When the Father of his Country | |
| Through the north-land riding came, | |
| And the roofs were starred with banners, | |
| And the steeples rang acclaim,— | |
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| When each war-scarred Continental, | 45 |
| Leaving smithy, mill, and farm, | |
| Waved his rusted sword in welcome, | |
| And shot off his old king’s arm,— | |
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| Slowly passed that august Presence | |
| Down the thronged and shouting street; | 50 |
| Village girls as white as angels, | |
| Scattering flowers around his feet. | |
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| Midway, where the plane-tree’s shadow | |
| Deepest fell, his rein he drew: | |
| On his stately head, uncovered, | 55 |
| Cool and soft the west-wind blew. | |
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| And he stood up in his stirrups, | |
| Looking up and looking down | |
| On the hills of Gold and Silver | |
| Rimming round the little town,— | 60 |
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| On the river, full of sunshine, | |
| To the lap of greenest vales | |
| Winding down from wooded headlands, | |
| Willow-skirted, white with sails. | |
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| And he said, the landscape sweeping | 65 |
| Slowly with his ungloved hand, | |
| “I have seen no prospect fairer | |
| In this goodly Eastern land.” | |
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| Then the bugles of his escort | |
| Stirred to life the cavalcade; | 70 |
| And that head, so bare and stately, | |
| Vanished down the depths of shade. * * * * * | |
| All the pastoral lanes so grassy | |
| Now are Traffic’s dusty streets; | |
| From the village, grown a city, | 75 |
| Fast the rural grace retreats. | |
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| But, still green, and tall, and stately, | |
| On the river’s winding shores, | |
| Stand the Occidental plane-trees, | |
| Stand Hugh Tallant’s sycamores. | 80 |
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